- Pokémon: Aquilaurum (Aquila, "eagle" in Latin + Aurum, "gold" in Latin)
- Prompt: #14 - Counterpart to a previous submission
- Type: :fire::flying:
- Abilities: Steelworker, Justified, Drought (Hidden Ability)
- Stats: 78 HP/118 Atk/68 Def/118 SpA/88 SpD/118 Spe = 588
- Movepool: Acrobatics, Aerial Ace, Aeroblast, Agility, Air Slash, Assurance, Astral Barrage, Aura Sphere, Body Slam, Bounce, Brave Bird, Calm Mind, Dazzling Gleam, Defog, Double-Edge, Drill Peck, Dual Wingbeat, Energy Ball, Explosion, Fire Blast, Fire Lash/Flame Charge, Flamethrower, Flare Blitz, Flash Cannon, Fly, Focus Blast, Fury Attack, Future Sight, Heat Crash, Heat Wave, Helping Hand, Hurricane, Incinerate, Iron Head, Knock Off, Light Screen, Metal Burst, Metal Claw, Meteor Mash, Morning Sun, Nature Power, Overheat, Peck, Play Rough, Pluck, Power Gem, Protect, Psybeam, Psychic, Psychic Noise, Psyshock, Retaliate, Rest, Revenge, Roost, Sandstorm, Scald, Shadow Claw, Sirocco*, Sleep Talk, Smack Down, Smart Strike, Snatch, Solar Beam, Spite, Steam Eruption, Steel Wing, Stored Power, Sunny Day, Swords Dance, Tailwind, U-turn, Will-O-Wisp, Wing Attack, Zen Headbutt
*
Sirocco: Fire-type
Hurricane clone that burns instead of confusing the target; accuracy is 100% in harsh sunlight; wind move.
Competitive Info:
In contrast to the slow but resilient Tigargentum, Aquilaurum is a hyper-offensive lead/cleaner hybrid with terrifying speed and attacking stats counteracted by defenses like tissue paper and a potentially fatal Stealth Rock allergy. It's especially dangerous as a sun setter since it will not only be able to utterly devastate whatever it manages to hit with a single
Fire Blast, but also gets a powerful custom Fire-type STAB attack in the form of
Sirocco which synergizes well with harsh sunlight, to say nothing of an instantaneous
Solar Beam to wipe out Rock- and Water-types that would otherwise threaten it. Steel-type coverage with
Steelworker also checks Rock-types, but is more for broadening its range of super-effective hits than dealing with potential counters. That said, its lack of Ground-type moves was a completely intentional omission on my part - given how terrifying it otherwise is in harsh sunlight, I wanted it to buckle in the face of
something and given its access to Solar Beam, this left the Electric type as the only type it is both weak to and has no answers for. While it does learn
Roost, ditching the Flying type for even a single turn might not be the smartest idea for something weak to Earthquake, and ideally, it would be most useful on something with high defenses and HP that can afford to bring a stalling strategy into play. As it is, though, Aquilaurum is better off devoting its efforts to a strategy that can better take advantage of its absurd DPS for as long as it can before going down.
Flavor:
I don't have time for a super-verbose description right now, but this would be a counterpart to Tigargentum in that rather than the White Tiger, it's based on the Vermillion Bird, symbolic of summer, the south, the color red, and fire in Chinese cosmology. It'd probably not resemble Ho-oh so much as an eagle the size of a personal aircraft with red and purple feather colors like a tropical sunset, golden armor plating on its upper torso, feet, and head like a giant fantasy bird mount or something, and a majestic peacock-like tail/train with the feathers being akin to trails of flame along with a matching fiery plume rising from a metallic crown over its piercing, fiery eyes. It's also based on the Garuda of Hindu mythology, a giant divine bird that serves as the steed of Vishnu and opposes the great serpents called the Nagas - this is why it learns Steel- and Psychic-type moves since both are super-effective against Poison, along with the Fairy-type Dazzling Gleam and Play Rough which are strong against Dragon. It also learns Aura Sphere (and Focus Blast by extension) partly as additional anti-Rock coverage, but mostly because of its name - birb's gotta aura farm, yo. XD
Random Battle Moveset: KILL IT WITH FIRE
Aquilaurum @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Drought or Steelworker
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -SpA), Modest (+SpA, -Atk), Timid (+Spe, -Atk), or Jolly (+Spe, -SpA)
252 Atk/4 SpD/252 Spe or 252 SpA/4 SpD/252 Spe
- Calm Mind/Swords Dance/U-Turn
- Flamethrower/Fire Blast/Overheat/Sirocco/Flare Blitz/Fire Lash/Flame Charge
- Hurricane/Aeroblast/Brave Bird/Aerial Ace
- Solar Beam/Solar Blade/Flash Cannon/Iron Head/Smart Strike/Steel Wing/Defog/Light Screen/Will-O-Wisp
Pretty standard sweeper set, though
U-turn and a support move can be substituted for the first and last moveslots respectively for an offensive utility pivot set instead. Otherwise, it's setup, two STABs and a coverage move, nothing else to it.
Drought is useful for triggering sun right away so its Fire STAB can turn the battlefield into a smoking crater, but
Steelworker with Steel coverage can work just as well. This set can go either physical or special depending on the right EV investment and nature, but you can also try running a mix of both attack categories to shake things up, since physically bulky enemies who might be expecting to tank a
Flare Blitz or
Brave Bird for instance may be less prepared for
Flamethrower or
Aeroblast to the face. As for held items, give it
Heavy-Duty Boots or give it death by rocks - though if you don't think hazards would be a problem, you could also try swapping out the setup move for the coverage type you were missing for a kamikaze Choice item lead set.
. They don't actually try to look like fairies to be able hunt more effectively either, they appear to just do it for fun. Ironically, despite them being a trick-or-treater, Trick-or-Treat is actually bad synergy for them, since it adds a resistance to their poison typing (though this is intentional to make them even stupider). It would seem that their dream to become a fairy actually manifested into reality.
