A thread about Suicune

AyaImmortal

I figured I would make a thread regarding my favorate pokemon in DP right now. A pokemon who doesnt really get as much play(due to getting a good nature + IV's is hard to get for a one-of legend) So I thought of breaking down Suicune to using him to his max potential. I recall hearing that"calm cune" was one of the most use and feared pokemon back in netbattle days. With this being potentially true, I Would like to take the time to break that down even more in DP and see how far we can get to making suicune as great as he once was.

A little background information on Suicune

Type: Water
Weaknesses: Electric/Grass
Resistances: Fire/water/ice/Steel
Ability: Pressure
Prefered nature: Bold (Impish or calm could work imo)

Advantages:
*stalling pokemon
*great defenses
*Great ability to match his defenses

Disadvantages
*not much in the way of special attacking
*Stalling can be an advantage and disadvantage
*Has no instant recovery move outside of rest

Base Stats

Hp 100
Attack 75
defense 115
Special attack 90
Special defense 115
Speed 85
*the ones in bold are the ones that are the most important.

As we can see here suicune has decent stats all around. He could play the roll of calm mind sweeper(not suggested) or he could play the roll of a semi dual wall. It is understood he works best as a stalling pokemon. So lets see how many possible things we can come up with for him.

Suicune @ leftovers
Bold nature
252hp 252defense 6Spdef

Calm mind
Roar
Surf
Ice beam/Hidden power electric/

The standard Suicune set. Takes advantage of his very good defense and because has access to calm mind, He can also boost his special defense as well. Roar for hazing to get rid of those annoying stat upping pokemon. And ice beam to cover Dragons/ground/Rock/grass/etc. Hidden power electric to hit flyers and other bulky waters. Pretty much depends on what your team needs. But more than likely you will be using Ice beam for the sake of utility.

Suicune @ leftovers
Bold nature
252hp 252defense 6Spatk

Toxic
Protect
Surf
Ice beam

This is a bit of a different approach for suicune. Taking advantage of his massive defenses and ability to control the tables with the usage of toxic and protect. Also using the ability of Pressure to stall out his opponent until the poison takes Them down or forces them to switch. The downfall of this particular set is the usage of all the Steel types nowadays. Steel has so many great resistances and they all have a poison immunity. So that could hurt this set a great deal.

How to tackle suicune's shortcomings:

Noted that when suicune is hit with a status effect it hurts him a great deal. So lets think about ways to support him.

Wish passing
Heal bell or Aromatherapy

As stated above, Suicune does not have access to a move that recovers instantly outside of rest. So this hurts his changes of being able stay in the game too long. Wish passing can help in that aspect. Pokemon who have access to these moves are

Togekiss
All the eevee evolutions
Jirachi
Gardivoir
Clefable

I listed the most optimal pokemon that could use this ability. Wish passing to suicune could help him stay alive long enough and make a huge difference between winning and losing.

As far as aromatherapy/Healbell goes. There arent quite as many pokemon who learn these. But lets list a few that do

Meganium
Blissey(yeah yall saw this coming)
Roserade
Celebi
Articuno
Dragonite
Lapras
Miltank
Altaria

All of these pokemon learn healbell to help support suicune even more. In having these pokemon in junction with Wish passing makes suicune a threat to fear in the forthcoming metagame.
 
I hate this stupid bitch back in the olden days.

Suicune@Leftovers
Bold

Surf
Calm Mind
Sleep Talk
Rest

That's the only reason why I sometimes carry Sceptile in my team. Or Jolteon. Only what...Water Absorbers ruin this set, even Blissey gets Pressure stalled by it. Ugh, it Suicune just doesn't die.

But of course, that's old news, DP brough unwelcome changes to Suicune, and I love it.

I hate Suicune.
 
The reason why CMCune owned advance was its ability to boost its special defense while taking phjysical hits easily. Unfortunately taking physical CB Hits got that little bit more difficult with the advent of stuff like Close Combat and Brave Bird. Cune can now be 2HKOd by CBd non Focus Punch hits which are not named Heracross Megahorn.
 
Sadly, I dont like how suicune is written off so thus speak. If he was indeed that good maybe he can be just as good as before with the proper support. Or maybe im just being optimistic
 
I agree with Tinnacious. Suicune isnt the wall it once was, but its sweeping capabilities are pretty impressive..

I dont see a lot of teams that carry a counter to that Crocune.. The only thing I guess I do see are Gyarados, which of course have their Stealth Rock issues when it comes to countering thigs, and Vaporeons (and MrE with his Poliwrath).

Also watch out for Sleep Talk Roar cunes if you havent got a spinner..

Have a nice day.
 
At the PBR Gamestop Tournament the kid who beat me and won the tournament used his suicune to take out my team. In 3vs.3 he was left with only suicune and I had my whole team remaining. He used the:
Suicune w/leftovers
surf
sleeptalk
rest
calmmind

My team was not adequately prepared for bulky waters and I let him get in too many calm minds. He also had many lucky sleep talks turn out to be calm minds
 
Suicune is indeed a very powerful monster, and has a long time favorite of mine before I knew much about competitive battling. She may never be as powerful as she was in her golden days of the advanced generation, but I very much doubt that when all the dust settles she won't be considered OU in this generation, and possibly generations to come.

The thing is, Suicune does what it does very well, and if a Pokemon ever comes along and does what Suicune does significantly better without any relevant drawbacks, it will be almost certainly too powerful for non-Uber play. And so Suicune can sit quite comfortably knowing that she will remain a powerful and useful standard for a long time to come. Sure Cresselia can tank better (for the most part) but her offensive options are laughable and she can't phase. She is the bulkiest of the bulky waters; the tankiest of the tanky sweepers. But Suicune has always taken a certain amount of patience and planning to be used to her fullest capacity. Suicune did, and does, work best with solid Spikes support which often came in the form of Skarmory - with 3 layers of spikes on the field Suicune is a fearsome thing indeed. Against other bulky waters she could simply shuffle them away with Roar, easily taking any attacks they threw at her. Really only Matine threw a wrench in this plan. But, c'mon, it's Mantine. However, even when set up, Suicune could take her time to smite her enemies, and occasionally in my games she would simply win by stalling with rest and pressure.

Now, in this new more-offensive-than-ever generation, Suicune herself has changed very little. The best sets for her are most likely the old standards. But like it has been said so many times, everything else has changed. Grass and Lightning can come in physical forms and more and more powerful attack options threaten her sturdy defenses. But some of these outside changes can work to her advantage, with the addition of Stealth Rock (and Toxic Spikes to a lesser extent) her shuffling strategy gets new tools. Poor, poor Mantine. New goodies to baton pass. New Pokemon to pair her with. The lack of new rapid-spinners doesn't hurt either.

So wordy story short: I don't think Suicune is going anywhere. She may not be the dominating force she was in the previous generation, but she still has near-godly stat distribution and the right tools to get the job done.
 
The thing about Suicune is that it is very mundane and doesn't have anything super special. Swampert has Rock resist and Stealth Rock, Milotic has instant recover, Starmie has instant recovery and Thunderbolt, and Slowbro has Fighting resist and instant recovery. Suicune just has very high defenses and not much else.
 
Great Sage said:
The thing about Suicune is that it is very mundane and doesn't have anything super special. Swampert has Rock resist and Stealth Rock, Milotic has instant recover, Starmie has instant recovery and Thunderbolt, and Slowbro has Fighting resist and instant recovery. Suicune just has very high defenses and not much else.
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That's not necessarily true. I mean, last generation, with even two Calm Minds up, it can pretty much shrugs off any hit. Suicune's uniqueness lies in it's extreme durability. But of course I'm still stuck in the past.

IMO, this gen, in fair play, Suicune is outclassed by fellow OU waters due to their instant usefulness. If only this thing got Recover or something. That would've been beastie eh.
 
Grass and Lightning can come in physical forms and more and more powerful attack options threaten her sturdy defenses.
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Honestly, physical grass attacks aren't that big of a threat. Only two pokemon I can think of carry them - tangrowth and torterra, neither of which like ice beam, and both are slower. As for physical electric attacks, there's thunderpunch... and thunder fang... and... actually that's it. No one uses raichu. Electivire and metagross are the two main threats for suicune, of those that get tpunch, and both are fairly common.

So essentially only two new pokemon really became a problem because of the physical/special split. The real problem is just that there are so many high BP moves that are so easily accessible on pokes with high attacking stats. It makes being a wall much harder.
 
Tinnacious said:
That's not necessarily true. I mean, last generation, with even two Calm Minds up, it can pretty much shrugs off any hit. Suicune's uniqueness lies in it's extreme durability. But of course I'm still stuck in the past.

IMO, this gen, in fair play, Suicune is outclassed by fellow OU waters due to their instant usefulness. If only this thing got Recover or something. That would've been beastie eh.
Click to expand...
Call me crazy but I would still use Rest most of the time. I prefer the pseudo status protection that Rest grants. Suicune hates to be statused, even the life loss of burn can be annoying. Even more annoying is having to switch out to a cleric to cure such status, losing any Calm Minds you have. Once Suicune comes in she sort of likes to stay there for a while. (Of course you could play a more hit and run-ish Suicune, but there are so many better Pokemon for that.)

On the topic of Suicune being mundane, I can't really disagree. Suicune has very few good move options, you can deviate from the standard but most of the time you are just better off with the standard(s). Suicune does have the one ace up her sleeve: Roar. She is also perhaps better built for phasing than any other bulky water, with her balanced defenses and calm mind. The real beauty of Suicune though is her legendary stats, of course. Simple, straightforward, effective.

The other bulky waters, and other bulky Pokemon in general, all serve as better counters to certain, respective, OU Pokemon. The allure of playing a more specific and immediate counter is perfectly understandable. Suicune isn't going to fit on just any team. If fact, one needs to almost build a team around having Suicune on it. But (yes, there is always a but) there is a lot to be said for overall well-roundedness. Suicune doesn't counter any standard metagame targets overly well, but nor does she fall so easily to many standards. Suicune is perhaps best viewed as more of a sweeper disguised as a bulky water. You could build her to counter a specific threat or group of similar threats, but there is always some other Pokemon that does the job better. Suicune is all about versitility and reliability no matter what you are facing (except you, Electivire, the only thing Suicune truely fears).

Again, Suicune is best played as a threat rather than a counter-threat. Same as advanced. Same as always until something drastic happens to her move pool. Just maybe, she isn't threatening enough, but I think she'll do just fine. Give her time.
 
All of the lesser ubers are mundane in movesets.

I mean, Raikou is a great Pokemon, but it absolutely RELIES on HP Grass/Ice to do anything.

Extrasensory = LOL
Thunderbolt = Standard

When things like Kecleon can BoltBeam without Hidden Power, you find yourself asking why these Legendary Pokemon couldn't learn a lots of useful attacks from TMs.

The lesser ubers are screwed over just by moveset alone. Even standard catchable Pokemon like Tyranitar outclass them in usefulness.

Lesser Ubers = Great Stats + Crap Movepool + Sometimes Crap Typing

(The Regis were supposed to be walls, yet they ALL fail to Fighting attacks. Moltres and Articuno are screwed over by 4x Rock weakness. Mono-Psychic is an okay type. Azelf, Mesprit, and Cresselia did well with this typing and Levitate this generation.)

Can't get any clearer than that.
 
Raikou also gets Shadow Ball if you're desperate.

I'm liking Substitute/Calm Mind/Surf/Ice Beam. While Suicune makes an almost shitty wall now that resistances and instant recovery are much more important than high stats overall, it seems very few people are actually prepared for a somewhat sturdy Water sweeping their team if it isn't Gyarados. Floatzel exploits this nicely but Suicune can also do a lot of good for your team with 101 HP Substitutes. I know Lexay liked this set a lot in Advance except he used Hydro Pump (because he likes to bitch about missing). If they have Gyarados or Blissey as their counter they can shake it.
 
Yeah infact he does learn tail wind. I cant see it being too useful however. It is a good move but i dont see myself using it. Especially not on suicune
 
Tail Wind gives your team a 50% speed boost for a meager 3 turns so it isn't all that helpful. You can't really sweep with it even with a powerhouse like Heracross. Chances are your opponent will just switch around between resistances to run it out, or worse, switches in Gliscor and is done with it.
 
That reminds me, why doesn't Suicune just use the Tail Wind boost for itself? Calm Mind a few times, Tail Wind, and do what you can with Surf and Ice Beam.
 
Something like: rest/talk/cm/surf with max HP, lots of Def, and 222 speed is still viable I think. I have seen very few electrics who weren't electivire who, unlike zapdos in RS, doesn't have the SpDef EVs to take surfs on the switch and then deal with cm cune. After their electric is gone you would think cune has an easy time with everything else. I haven't tested it but I am pretty sure a CM Surf will 2hko CBtar and OHKO Rhyperior. Choice scarfers and specs monsters before you get set up are obviously a big problem in this plan and cune just doesn't seem to have the time to wear them down on switches in this metagame. It is still a huge threat imo (albeit not as big as it was in rs).

EDIT: Oh yeah, if you plan to use Suicune and sweep with it you can't keep it as a defense against metagross, tar, and friends, they are just too strong and cune needs all the HP it can get when it starts CMing for it's sweep.
 
the best way to deal with it is roar it (with swampert if possible) and then if it comes back in attack before it gets to many cms
 
GB_Packers_Ftw said:
the best way to deal with it is roar it (with swampert if possible) and then if it comes back in attack before it gets to many cms
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Except swampert isnt gonna like eating boosted surfs I would say use vaporeon if anything to roar who knows you might get some free hp out of it
 
Mekkah said:
Raikou also gets Shadow Ball if you're desperate.

I'm liking Substitute/Calm Mind/Surf/Ice Beam. While Suicune makes an almost shitty wall now that resistances and instant recovery are much more important than high stats overall, it seems very few people are actually prepared for a somewhat sturdy Water sweeping their team if it isn't Gyarados. Floatzel exploits this nicely but Suicune can also do a lot of good for your team with 101 HP Substitutes. I know Lexay liked this set a lot in Advance except he used Hydro Pump (because he likes to bitch about missing). If they have Gyarados or Blissey as their counter they can shake it.
Click to expand...

Wow, I'm really liking that set. It's like a water type Raikou.

And maybe, Surf can be replaced with HP Electrix for the sexy Boltbeam. Lolz, losing STAB is bad though.
 
As far as aromatherapy/Healbell goes. There arent quite as many pokemon who learn these. But lets list a few that do

Meganium
Blissey(yeah yall saw this coming)
Roserade
Celebi
Articuno
Dragonite
Lapras
Altaria

All of these pokemon learn healbell to help support suicune even more. In having these pokemon in junction with Wish passing makes suicune a threat to fear in the forthcoming metagame.
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You forgot Miltank.
 
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