[Almost Any Ability] Skarmory [QC: 0/3]

grurk

grurk

[OVERVIEW]
  • Gale wings counter at the start of the meta, along with most of the pokemon that ir normally counters
  • Priority Defog on gale wings extremely useful for hyper offensive and other teams.
  • Hits equally hard to Talonflame with better bulk and typing.
  • Needs Swords Dance to deal much damage.
[SET]
name: Offensive Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Brave Bird
move 3: Roost
move 4: Defog/Taunt/Stealth Rock/ Spikes
item: Sharp Beak/ Shed Shell/ Leftovers
ability: Gale wings
nature: Adamant
evs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========

  • One of the few Gale Wings users with the ability to boost its offenses.
  • Can easily set up to +2.
  • Brave Bird hits as hard as Talonflame
  • Priority recovery allows for more offensive plays
  • Defog is useful if you don't have something reliable already, this the most reliable defog you can get. Stealth rock and Spikes are not Recommended on due to magic bouncers that switch into Skarmory, this can be overcome by running mold breaker. If you do So change the set accordingly.
  • Defog beats fast hazards setter, such as deoxys speed. Taunt can be useful to beat something you think may be hazing you, but Magic Bounce can go on Pretty much any pokemon so scouting is useful.
  • Whirlwind can be useful but does not help offensively.

Set Details
========

  • A range of EV spreads are viable
  • 252 Atk is roughly Talonflame's attack.
  • There is an important speed tier in base 70 +1 priority, and the main reason is because of prankster spore breloom who often run fairly high speed, this makes speed creep very important, Breloom sets tend to vary a lot in their evs and speed creep, although max attack and bulk is most common you might want to run some speed creep, around 12 is optimal. Mainly you should switch out into a magic bouncer/grass type.
  • a defensive spread is still viable, priority recovery and defog is the main reason for this. You may want to change the moves the round if you do decide to go for a spread like this, but a swords dance set is still viable like with Gliscor in standard Ou it can stop being a passive mon and turn into a potential threat for the opponent.
  • Often Skarmory's item will be different.
  • Leftovers can provide some very crucial passive healing.
  • Sky plate can net a lot more kos on some pokemon.
  • Shed shell is useful with the amount of magnet pull going around, such as heatran, (infernape is also common but Brave bird ohkos) who are fairly common and are difficult to play around if skarmory is important to the team. If he is then you should probably be running shed shell, this is especially helpful if Skarmory is the basis for your team and you built around it.
Usage Tips
========

  • Ability to have priority roost and defog allows for less careful play.
  • Be careful of certain mons that skarm does not counter anymore, such as heracross who can ohko if you're not running defensive evs, due to your change in EVs and their change in ability.
  • Knowing how much damage things will do to you is a bit weird at first as things will do a lot more damage than normal and so will you, using a damage calculator is advised for your first few games with this set.
Team Options
========

  • Considering that this Skarmory set can be offensive and defensive it can have a variety of team mates
  • A standard Chansey-Skarmory Core handles most of the of the meta pretty well.
  • Hazards setters with mold breaker, such as either of the deoxys, are very useful for Skarmory as they can help him get a lot more Kos and potential sweep frailer teams with some prior damage.
  • Other teamates include steel trappers such as heatran and infernape. Although if you choose one of the two you will be vulnerable to either heatran or Skarmory. Heatran can't beat levitate heatran and infernape doesn't always beat skarmory, whether it's gale wings or flash fire. Heatran does not beat flash fire Either.


[SET]
name: Defensive Skarmory
move 1: Roost
move 2: Defog
move 3: Whirlwind
move 4: Brave Bird/ Counter/ Taunt
item: Leftovers/Rocky Helmet/ Shed Shell
ability: Intimidate/ Flash Fire/ Unaware/ Prankster/ Magic Bounce
nature: Impish
evs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8Spe/Atk

[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========

  • Roost is obligatory recovery necessary to Keep Skarmory alive as it will take several strong neutral hits throughout the battles, boosted by useful abilities such as tough claw, or adaptability.
  • Defog is useful for obvious reason, you can change this for taunt if you already have a reliable defogger/spinner.
  • Whirlwind is for hazards damage and stopping set up of any description.
  • The last move slot is mainly to stop being taunt bait and not very passive.

Set Details
========

  • Skarmory has 3 main items.
  • Leftovers can offer some pretty crucial healing.
  • Rocky helmet is for some extra chip damage on attacker that make contact.
  • There is quite a lot of steel trappers in Almost any ability and are harder to identify and play around. Shed shell is used for this reason and is recommended if Skarmory is very important on your team.
  • Like many pokemon in almost any ability, skarmory can run a massive amount of abilities.
  • The first listed is intimidate. Intimidate allows for Skarmory to switch in on a lot more physical threats that get boosts from various abilities.
  • Flash fire allows many threats that a team can be weak to, such as entei and heatran, it also allows you to play around victini better.
  • Unaware allows you to deal with a lot of physical set up sweepers and beat it with either counter, brave bird, or whirlwind.
  • Prankster can be used here due to the amount of status moves skarmory carries.
  • Magic bounce is on this set sheerly because magic bounce is viable on any defensive pokemon if your team needs it.

Usage Tips
========

  • Skarmory that doesn't run prankster needs to remain pretty healthy for most matches, especially ones where the opponent has a fast physical attacker like a gale wings user. Set up mons like mega altaria and scizor are fairly prominent and you need to have a counter for them.
  • One of skarmory's main jobs is to get rid of hazards so be sure to keep it healthy for this too. If you run prankster this is less of an issue.
  • Remember not to use hazards as they will get bounced back by magic bounce fairly consistently

Team Options
========

  • Like regular skarmory, skarmory in aaa can be placed on both balanced and stall teams. One very good team mate is chansey, as always forming a very formidable core that most teams find hard to break through.
  • Bring in switch ins to victini and other electric and fire types such as garchomp, or flash fire ferrorthorn.




[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============

  • If you're scared of magic bounce, running mold breaker is a good option, it also allows you layer hazards.
  • iron head can be used on the gale wings set if you're afraid of rock, steel or ice types such as tyranitar, florges and kyurem.
  • Remember that delta stream is not a particularly good ability as it keeps most of Skarmory's weaknesses, except those that it willl take a lot from and are special, such as electric types. It's main niche is getting rid of weather.
  • Primordial say can be used to get rid of weather which isn't that good that good, but it loses flash fires advantage of the opponent not knowing what ability you have and possibly gaining a turn when they use a fire move on you. Primordial sea also allows water types to have boosted attacks.

Checks and Counters
===================
  • Special Attacks: It doesn't take much for a special attacker to do a lot of damage to skarmory. A neutral special attack from special attackers whom commonly use sheer force will bring your health down heavily, more then you can heal. Pokemon like zapdos, genesect and gengar will 2hko you with ease and beat you at a roost stall.
  • Strong Bulky Attackers: While Skarmory has a strong priority move it will often not be enough to bring down some bulkier pokemon at +2 or even +4. If this pokemon can hit you super effectively you will die. Strong fire types such as entei or victini can survive from +2 and ohko you. having a reliable switch in to these pokemon is important, something like rotom with regenerator would do the trick. Defensive skarmory can handle them well depending on its ability.
  • Flying Resists: Skarmory doesn't hit hard enough to kill flying resists in one hit. The only exception to this is passive pokemon like opposing skarmory and regirock who you can set up on, but Skarmory could be a swords dance set too and you might end up getting into a roost pp stall so be careful. Other pokemon that Skarmory can't beat due to typing are zapdos, rotom-w/h. Flying res ist hit defenensive skarmory at neutrally most of the time, and skarmory gets walled by them.
  • Magic Bounce: Defensive skarm is completely stalled by magic bounce +recovery. Once you have scouted for the magic bounce you should try doubling for offensive momentum, and if not your opponent gets a turn with that mon.
 
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grurk - Good work man! However, this has to be in bullet form. Please edit accordingly before advancing with this analysis.

Also, the title should be [AAA] Skarmory [QC: 0/3].
 
QC Rejected 3/2?(took some time making this so idk why this should go to waste)

I know you've been playing AAA for a while now, and you have sufficient knowledge of the metagame, but after discussing this the other QC members, we decided it would be best to reassign.

However, don't let this reject discourage you. If you decide to try another analysis, here are some points you can improve on to make sure it doesn't get rejected:
  1. Don't compare metagames. Remember, some people reading this will have no idea what gliscor in OU is like, or Skarmory in OU is like.
  2. Don't talk about the current/old AAA metagame. While this is sort of helpful, do note that the old metagame is irrelevant, and the current metagame is subject to changes, and all it does is make the analysis harder for beginners to read.
  3. Just because you've used one set that the pokemon tends to run doesn't mean you should do the analysis. Unfortunately we cannot split the job between 2 people, so it's all or nothing. Even if you write a brilliant first set, the next set may end up being raw enough to warrant a rejection.
  4. Stay consistent. This is more minor but still important. For example, in the 1st set, you put Sharp Beak under the actual set, but then described the effect of Sky Plate under set details. Sure, it's the same thing, but the reader might not know that and get confused.
  5. Finally, when you're talking about one set, try to avoid talking about the other sets or comparing them. So uh when you talk about offensive skarmory, basically don't talk about the defensive set. Instead, include gale wings as another option for the defensive set.
EDIT: also apparently reasoning shouldn't be posted but the creator of the thread was fine with it and one of the ppl who runs OM QC told me to keep it so yeah
 
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