Aegislash (QC 0/2)

[Theorymon]

[SET]
name: Mixed Attacker
move 1: Shadow Ball
move 2: Shadow Sneak
move 3: Close Combat
move 4: Iron Head / Flash Cannon / Steel Beam
item: Focus Sash
ability: Stance Change
nature: Rash
evs: 204 Atk / 252 SpA / 52 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* This Aegislash uses its impressive mixed offenses and the reliable survival Focus Sash gurantees to become an immediate early game threat.

* Very little resists Shadow Ball and Shadow Sneak, making them primary offensive options, while Close Combat covers the Dark-types that give resist them.

* Iron Head does more damage to more physically frail Fairy-types than the other options, but Flash Cannon has more power for Aegislash that invest in Speed. Steel Beam may sound odd with Focus Sash, but it deals a massive amount of damage while having the potential to sacrifice Aegislash at an convinent time.

EV Spreads
========

* 204 Atk / 252 SpA / 52 Spe Rash: this EV spread outspeeds Umbreon, while maximizing its mixed attacking potential.

* 36 Atk / 252 SpA / 220 Spe Rash: this EV spread outspeeds bulky Rotom formes, at the cost of physical attack.

* 252 Atk / 36 SpA / 220 Spe Naughty: this is used for a more physically based Aegislash that still needs to outspeed bulky Rotom formes.

[SET]
name: The Crumbler (Bulky Attacker)
move 1: Shadow Ball
move 2: Shadow Sneak
move 3: King's Shield
move 4: Close Combat / Sacred Sword / Flash Cannon
item: Weakness Policy / Leftovers
ability: Stance Change
nature: Quiet
evs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpA
Ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* This Aegislash focuses on using its shield forme to become an impressively powerful bulky attacker.

* Despite almost no Attack investment, Shadow Sneak is still very useful for picking off weakened threats.

* King's Shield is very important for restoring Aegislash's bulk with the forme change.

* Close Combat is Aegislash's most powerful option against Dark-types, but Sacred Sword is a reasonable alternative for not reducing its bulk. Flash Cannon is a harder way to hit fairies than Shadow Ball.

* Weakness Policy takes advantage of Aegislash's impressive bulk, letting it punish super effective attacks. Leftovers meanwhile, works well with King's Shield.

* 0 Speed IVs with a Quiet nature is suggested, since the slower Aegislash wins in mirror matches, and boosts against Pokemon such as Tyranitar can be useful.

[General Team Options]

Aegislash benefits from good checks to Dark-types, since they're common switch-ins to it. Resistances to Ghost-, Dark-, and Ground-type attacks are also useful.

Dark-type resistances:

Ghost-type resistances:

Fire-type resistances:

Ground-type resistances:

 

[Theorymon]

Alright so to be clear: I'm consdering adding Swords Dance back to Aegislash, but I want some more input from QC before I do that, because I legit have not seen them at ALL in cart laddering. In fact, Aegislash hasn't been that common on cart in general, my guess being that Dynamax stuff can bust through shield forme. Still, it certainly isn't bad or anything, so its not like I'm gonna dump on Aegislash here either lol.

Main reason Im considering adding Swords Dance back is because if you speed creep Tyranitar, +2 Close Combat actually blasts Dynamax Tyranitar, which honestly sounds sorta killer, even if I really havent seen Tyranitar often on the bulkier teams that seem to infest master ball tier atm.

 

[Ika Ika Musume]

Id still probably mention Swords Dance, think it is probably valid enough to put in a set, especially when it comes to physical. Sometimes you can also see random stuff like Head Smash and Steel Beam on Aegislash (ive actually seen a specs aegislash just taking advantage of how stupidly hard it hits)

 

[marilli]

Focus Sash is by far the most popular set on the ladder. Also I really dislike 0 speed Quiet type of sets now that moving first actually wins you the Aegislash mirrors now. There's very little inbetween Quiet and Modest / Adamant / Naughty Aegislash and the mirror is the most significant factor. You definitely want to be non-minimum speed.

 

[1_TrickPhony]

Focus Sash is by far the most popular set on the ladder. Also I really dislike 0 speed Quiet type of sets now that moving first actually wins you the Aegislash mirrors now. There's very little inbetween Quiet and Modest / Adamant / Naughty Aegislash and the mirror is the most significant factor. You definitely want to be non-minimum speed.

Agree here on all fronts with Marilli’s analysis, its really common for revenge killing boosted togekiss and dragapult, doing it very consistently. It should be the main mention. Ive also never popped a Weakness Policy in my 500+ PS games or 100+ cart games.

 

[marilli]

Again I will clarify my post about Speed which was probably not understood correctly because you implemented a change since then but it's still Quiet - the set wants to be faster than Tyranitar. You WILL die to Max Darkness Tyranitar through any defensive investments. You want to be not Quiet, but Mild or Naughty or even Timid / Naive / Hasty. If you must be slow I can accept an Aegislash that just outspeeds min speed Tyranitar and say heavy creep is recommended. If you want to keep a Quiet spread for whatever other items, you should split the sets into Fast Sash and Slow Life Orb / Weakness Policy.

 

[Theorymon]

Again I will clarify my post about Speed which was probably not understood correctly because you implemented a change since then but it's still Quiet - the set wants to be faster than Tyranitar. You WILL die to Max Darkness Tyranitar through any defensive investments. You want to be not Quiet, but Mild or Naughty or even Timid / Naive / Hasty. If you must be slow I can accept an Aegislash that just outspeeds min speed Tyranitar and say heavy creep is recommended. If you want to keep a Quiet spread for whatever other items, you should split the sets into Fast Sash and Slow Life Orb / Weakness Policy.

heh as you now know on Discord, I actually stopped editing midway because I was deciding on how to split the Aegislash sets. Thats why stuff was really strange :P.

The set has been changed a lot, and I think it's probably best we just stick with the sash set for the preview, since the usual LO / Weakness Policy stuff has pretty much vanished, and Aegislash in general is in a really awkward spot this gen, so it seems like the sash set is what it's been sticking too lately.

The EVs are to outspeed Umbreon and bulkier TTar, and I mention a faster spread for bulky Rotoms. Not sure about this yet, but I might go into why King's Shield hasn't really been common (basically, Aegislash is all about hitting stuff hard than dying now lol).

 

[Psynergy]

Mostly just going to bump this set since Aegislash is relatively important and I think Sash Aegislash is still really good and annoying to deal with. However, I think we should consider adding other traditional Aegislash sets since I've seen those out and about recently. I'm thinking Weakness Policy and a generic Leftovers set are worth adding, I feel WP is better but I saw a fair bit of generic offensive Aegislash with Leftovers, in fact I've even seen some go really bulky on Aegislash since you can use it to stall out some Dynamax Pokemon that lack options to effectively break Aegislash.

The current Sash set we have still looks good to me though.

 

[1_TrickPhony]

Its a bit late, but since this is in QC I think Specs is also worth a mention, does an absurd amount with Steel Beam and is impossible for many teams to switch into cleanly. Also think current sash looks good.

 

[marilli]

I don't think Specs / Band deserve full sets. If OO existed it would fit in there but it's not there so there goes that. Focus Sash and WP sets deserve priority. Add full sets for Specs / Band if need arises.

 

[Theorymon]

I updated this for the new format! A controverisal change I made is adding Steel Beam for the sash set. I'll remove it if the rest of QC feels differently since its weird to have that on a sash set, but I liked it for sacking Aegislash at nice times.

Also, the teammates are mostly type based stuff. They aren't always the same in each section because of some implied stuff (for example, I don't mention Hydreigon in ghost resists because Mimikyu and Dragapult still blast it). but if you guys want more specfic teammates, let me know!

Otherwise, this is ready for QC again!

 

[1_TrickPhony]

I updated this for the new format! A controverisal change I made is adding Steel Beam for the sash set. I'll remove it if the rest of QC feels differently since its weird to have that on a sash set, but I liked it for sacking Aegislash at nice times.

Also, the teammates are mostly type based stuff. They aren't always the same in each section because of some implied stuff (for example, I don't mention Hydreigon in ghost resists because Mimikyu and Dragapult still blast it). but if you guys want more specfic teammates, let me know!

Otherwise, this is ready for QC again!

Steel beam is fine as a last slash, ive seen it a few times myself, and its solid against things like curse lax who dont get hit hard enough by close combat after a boost.

Include Toxapex as a teammate under fire type resists.

WP definitely needs some EV spread mentions. Even outside of having different special spreads, There is physical WP, which should also have SD slashed.

 

[Psynergy]

I think Steel Beam is fine on the Sash set, I've seen it once or twice and while it clashes with the Focus Sash the power is justifiable. Can also be a neat way to force yourself off the field safely for situations like preventing Gyarados from having a free boost against you before it comes in.

Don't think we should slash Swords Dance into the existing WP set but it might be worth a mention in the set comments, we can split Leftovers and WP into their own sets if we want but unsure if we need to. Having a bulkier spread for WP is very valid and something I have used as well, the one I've used is Relaxed 252 HP / 92 Def / 164 SpD which has a high chance of surviving Choice Band Phantom Force from Dragapult. Also has a favorable roll to live stuff like Earthquake from Jolly LO Excadrill and unboosted Max Darkness from Hydreigon, but both still have about an 18% chance to OHKO it. Might just be a generic bulky as possible spread so unsure if we should use this one, but yeah I think it's worth mentioning EV spread alternatives for WP sets.

QC 1/2

 

[1_TrickPhony]

I have a bit of a problem as far as teammates go for Aegislash. You mention different type resists, but half the reason to use Aegislash is because it can cleanly beat Pokemon that are super effective against it specifically, with the two main sets that it uses.

Obvious examples to demonstrate:
Aegi (sash) vs Ttar/Excadrill: Outspeed into close combat, or survive with sash into close combat, if they survive you have shadow sneak.
Aegi (WP) vs Ttar/Excadrill: Slow gets super effectively hit into close combat. if they survive you have shadow sneak.
There are dozens more that work this way, but these are amongst the more notable.

I can agree with Ghost type resists/immunities, because Mimikyu is a problem and having a free switch can be helpful to take it down, and can be good to stall dynamax, which aegislash can have trouble breaking. The other types of teammates should be bulky offense teammates, and mons that can use Aegislash defensively (such as dragon teammates, or fairy teammates).

Even if I agree with a most of the teammates you have, the groupings need to be changed to reflect how Aegislash usually works.

 

[marilli]

* 0 Speed IVs with a Quiet nature is suggested, since the slower Aegislash wins in mirror matches

I seriously doubt this claim. Especially in WP Aegis, the faster one can KS and be in position to exploit the opposing Shield forme.
You can keep the farce going, or switch out in the King's Shield - and if they Dynamax into the KS they lose for sure but for the other way around you still do a ton of damage onto them.

So, the faster one is not disadvantaged at all, especially if you know you are going to be faster than opposing WP Aegislash.

For this reason I'm very uncomfortable recommending 0 IV when it means you will be speed tying with a ton of Aegislash making this matchup far more awkward than it should.

Otherwise, QC 1/2. Chat with me on this on discord if you want to justify your opinion.

 

[cant say]

I honestly think sash is the only set worth putting up on site and should just do so ASAP. other sets have niche usage and are probably just team specific stuff. weakness policy is okay but is pretty high value and “wasted” on aegislash on a lot of teams. can we maybe just upload sash and argue about other sets another time?

if so 2/2 assuming psynergy’s check still stands (the OP says 0/2...)