Announcement NP ZU Stage 19: KILLSHOT - Clawitzer Suspect Test

Tuthur

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:sv/clawitzer:

Clawitzer has been at the center of discussions for a while, due to its wallbreaking capacities with its Mega Launcher Choice Specs boosted attacks; mainly Water Pulse, a STAB move, and Dragon Pulse, a move with little natural resists and that usually profits from Tera Dragon. The last two moves are usually Aura Sphere and Sludge Wave to target Steel- and Fairy-types respectively, but options like Dark Pulse and U-turn are possible too, the former having no immunities and great neutral coverage, while the latter lets it pivot and not commit to locking itself into an unfavorable move while retaining momentum.

Dragon Pulse is an extremely powerful move that can 2HKO almost anything slower and OHKO almost anything faster, with only Stealth Rock up. The only Pokemon ranked above C ranks on the Viability Rankings able to avoid the 2HKO from Dragon Pulse are Assault Vest Perrserker, Whimsicott, Specially Defensive Orthworm, Eviolite Magneton, and Careful Glastrier; beside Glastrier, they all are OHKOed by coverage moves, and all beside Whimsicott are 2HKOed by Tera Dragon Dragon Pulse. Also these Pokémon usually struggle to even win their 1v1 versus Clawitzer beside Whimsicott and Magneton, and can get tricked by Tera Dragon flipping its Electric and Grass weaknesses into resistances. While tera Fairy and tera Steel are an options on multiple Pokémon, they are usually not the preferred defensive typings for Tera as it exposes the users to other threats such as Venusaur, Toxicroak, and Charizard that you don't want your special check to get weak to. Clawitzer's Speed and bulk, while not amazing are all it needs to easily find opportunities against common walls such as Sableye, Sandaconda, Regirock, and Weezing. Clawitzer's moves also have no drawback, they are perfectly accurate non contact moves without negative secondary effect, meaning it can't be played around as easily as Basculin's Wave Crash or Alolan Exeggutor's Draco Meteor for instance.

All of Clawitzer's most common moves have immunities, among the best Pokémon in the tier such as Toxicroak, Whimsicott, Spiritomb, and Magneton. This means that even if Clawitzer's moves have no inherant drawback, they can still be taken advantage of in some situations. While Clawitzer is strong and not all that frail and slow, it doesn't stand a chance against faster attackers and can find itself be a liability against offensive teams, which are dominating the tier.

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:
  • Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in ZU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played ZU before the test, full stop.)
  • At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
  • Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact me, sleid, or a member of staff.
  • If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2920. For reference, the B-value for this suspect will be 4. The suspect test will go on for about 14 days, lasting until <t:1776564000:R>.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message me or anyone else on the ZU council. Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you. Happy posting and laddering!

Avoid posting one-liners or posts that do not contribute to any discussion. They will be deleted.
 
Mon definitely feels really strong, especially in a 1v1 scenario, but the speed feels like a huge hindrance. You definitely want specs for the damage, and so you're stuck choosing between an EV spread that maximizes bulk or one that lets you outspeed a few uninvested mons. The natural bulk (and the solid mono Water defensive typing) is really nice, but it feels like it's generally easy to 2HKO with 2 strong attacks from most offensive threats in the tier.

From my experience, it seems most effective as a one-time breaker rather than a continuous threat you can bring in over and over again. After some chip from rocks/damage from U-Turns from faster mons, it becomes fairly easy to revenge kill with most of the tier's wallbreakers (around 60% HP or so). If you try saving it for later, you are forced to sacrifice momentum when facing a revenge killer with volt switch/u-turn, of which there are plenty, or even risk giving free setup to mons that can take advantage of the move you've locked yourself into. And Clawitzer itself isn't that good at revenge killing due to its speed stat, so you primarily want to switch it in when facing a passive mon to exert pressure and abuse the fact that almost nothing switches into it safely.

While Tera Dragon is really strong, almost any mon with spdef investment/AV can still take at least 1 and get in some crucial chip that puts it into the aforementioned HP range. And with Tera being so important for most breakers in the tier, I've often found it a waste to use it on Clawitzer, which will in turn get at most 2 KOs (at least from my experience, both using and facing it). So definitely oppressive offenses, but feels manageable with smart positioning.
 
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