Pokémon Alolan Raichu

[zferolie]

You also shouldn't use Surf in VGC unless you have Telepathy or Water Absorb (or some other water immunity Pokemon) as a teammate since you'll hurt your own team. Raichu-A probably has way better options in VGC than Surf.

Yeah probably not. just saying if someone was planning to they cannot yet.

i see it teaming well with someone like crogunk so the surfs heal via dry skin or someone like that

 

[Rehmlok]

If you have someone with the ability Synchronise, there is a bigger chance wild Pokémon will have the same Nature as the ability wielder. Maybe that can help you.

Oh man that's great, many thanks for replying and helping! Now to find one with Synchronise lol.

 

[PK Gaming]

Just run rain and Nasty Plot, it's what I'm doing currently (though I'm still avoiding Thunder, as I don't want to be caught high and dry at any point). I'd also recommend Psyshock by quite a large margin, as then you can 2HKO Chansey if you need to with a +2 boost. The main reason why I've now put Raichu on my team is that it gets through Marowak which people are inexplicably mad over (it's fine, but not to the extent it's being used in the tier currently) and it can get through Special Walls with Psyshock.

I think Electric Terrain and rain have a really nice overlap - but not from Thunder spam (at least on Raichu that can let you down, it is much better on Koko). It means you have two constant sources of doubling your speed that you can whip out when you please, and if your Pelliper faints or your Koko faints you always have options. It's pretty much a weather offence dream, and means that rain is still above and beyond the best weather out there.

Raichu rarely gets to pull off a Nasty Plot due to its frailty as is, and that goes double when it's on a limited timer. Psychic >>> Psyshock since it does way more damage to Electric-type immunes.

 

[Pixilate]

Raichu rarely gets to pull off a Nasty Plot due to its frailty as is, and that goes double when it's on a limited timer. Psychic >>> Psyshock since it does way more damage to Electric-type immunes.

Well, any logical player wouldn't nasty plot against any opponent with an offensive presence. Just nasty plot against something that would NEVER hurt you like Pyuk, Toxapex, etc... The main reason why people use Elec-Terrain Raichu is because it forces switches because of how powerful electric spam is right now. I do understand the logic of using psychic over psyshock due to how hard it hits electric immunes. But when chansey re-emerges from the darkness, it may be wise to run psyshock to stop it.

Also, obviously Raichu's frail and the life orb doesn't help, but you can literally say that about every life orb set-up sweeper. eg. Mimikyu, Garchomp, Excadrill, (formerly) Talonflame, Thundurus. Obviously Talonflame had great recovery, but it's defenses on the SD set essentially made it die to any unresisted hit. Also, although all these Pokemon do have slightly better defenses than Raichu, most of these Pokemon (if they're running a setup sweeping set), can't reliably take an unresisted hit.

 

[Pixilate]

Just a follow up :]
+2 252+ SpA Raichu-Alola Psyshock vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 306-361 (47.6 - 56.2%) -- 84.4% chance to 2HKO

+2 252+ SpA Raichu-Alola Focus Blast vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 238-280 (37 - 43.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO <--- don't use that

+2 252+ SpA Raichu-Alola Thunderbolt vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 199-235 (30.9 - 36.6%) -- 68% chance to 3HKO <--- nope

+2 252+ SpA Raichu-Alola Psychic vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 133-157 (20.7 - 24.4%) -- guaranteed 5HKO <--- also nope

Obviously this damage output isn't a guaranteed 2HKO, but you have to admit that this is pretty spectacular damage for a mere Raichu even though it's at +2.

 

[Pixilate]

+2 252+ SpA Raichu-Alola Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Marowak-Alola: 156-184 (48.1 - 56.7%) -- 36.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
vs.
+2 252+ SpA Raichu-Alola Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Marowak-Alola: 216-255 (66.6 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Here's the difference between Psyshock and Psychic on Marowak. I'm not sure which set is the most common/optimal one, so I tried seeing the effects of psyshock on a fully invested physically defensive Marowak, and psychic's damage on a fully invested specially defensive Marowak. Obviously psychic is going to be slightly stronger because it has 1) higher Base Power and 2) Marowak's base SpD is lower than its base Def, but the difference is pretty insignificant* for the sake of doing damage.
*This is absolutely not insignificant, but it doesn't end up mattering too much I think.

Can somebody post a list of the potential threats to Raichu so I can calc damage for all of them and we can try to come to a logical conclusion regarding this psychic vs. psyshock ordeal?

 

[Zentrius]

i dont see the point of the chansey calc since theres literally no reason for raichu to stay in on chansey. if you're using raichu you kind of, you know, need an actual answer to chansey. i mean u can break her with nasty plot but i dont think raichu is a good np user at all.

psychic is much better because it hits ground types like landorus-t hippo grachomp "marowak" etc for much more noticeable damage. like honestly i feel like the only reason you would ever run psyshock is for the blobs, and even then its not even a 2hko

 

[Pixilate]

I'll do some more research tomorrow, b/c I have stuff to do, but just to let y'all know, all those calcs up there were NP Raichu without a Life orb. Raichu's damage output can be bolstered by that.

K then:
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Raichu-Alola Psyshock vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 398-469 (61.9 - 73%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[Rosen]

Is it just me or is it incredibly difficult to justify using this thing in singles? It's cool and all, but half the time I'd rather just leave Koko on the field than switching to Raichu; bar certain steels, I can't think of many things that Raichu hits hard that Koko can't (Brave Bird, while a shittier option, is still an option for Venu/Amoon). Admittedly, this thing is fun as hell and I love using it, but outside of dedicating the rest of your team's build around it, I can't really think of many instances where I could justify using it. Just my two cents, hopefully somebody else knows something I don't.

 

[PShine]

Is it just me or is it incredibly difficult to justify using this thing in singles? It's cool and all, but half the time I'd rather just leave Koko on the field than switching to Raichu; bar certain steels, I can't think of many things that Raichu hits hard that Koko can't (Brave Bird, while a shittier option, is still an option for Venu/Amoon). Admittedly, this thing is fun as hell and I love using it, but outside of dedicating the rest of your team's build around it, I can't really think of many instances where I could justify using it. Just my two cents, hopefully somebody else knows something I don't.

Elec Spam. A-Raichu is arguably the best Elec Spammer right now, since it is pretty much Tailor made to help Koko(like, Psychic kills Poison types, Surf lures ground.). It is not a question of "why use it instead of Koko" it's a question of "why use it with Koko". Given that the best Elec Megas don't exist yet, A-Raichu doesn't have that much competition.

 

[Martin]

Is it just me or is it incredibly difficult to justify using this thing in singles? It's cool and all, but half the time I'd rather just leave Koko on the field than switching to Raichu; bar certain steels, I can't think of many things that Raichu hits hard that Koko can't (Brave Bird, while a shittier option, is still an option for Venu/Amoon). Admittedly, this thing is fun as hell and I love using it, but outside of dedicating the rest of your team's build around it, I can't really think of many instances where I could justify using it. Just my two cents, hopefully somebody else knows something I don't.

Typespam always has been (and always will be) super threatening. Furthermore, there is very little that Raichu doesn't threaten with it's coverage tbh. Like, between Thunder and it's utterly spectacular coverage it is just able to pull apart quite a large amount of the tier. The only real "dedication" that a team has to Raichu is Tapu+Pelipper, the latter of which supports other stuff beyond this and the former of which just has super good offensive synergy with Rai anyway provided you run U-turn>Volt Switch to catch Wak off-guard, and with Raichu being able to take on stuff like Alolan Wak and the Brave Bird targets without needing to sacrifice a moveslot for said move it frees up a slot for Grass Knot on Tapu, which is good for it's ability to nail the tiny handful of consistent of RaiKoko stops barring... uh, Shedinja I guess? What you have is the core+a standard semi/full rain BO team, which not only leaves a lot of room for experimentation while just being stupendously threatening with the central trio.

 

[yuukafu]

Tsareena with SpDef investment deals with it decently, although not if there's too many rain turns left due to lower Synthesis healing. Psychic does about 40% and Trop Kick does 80% to A-Raichu. I assume bulky grass with SpDef investment does the job.

 

[PShine]

Tsareena with SpDef investment deals with it decently, although not if there's too many rain turns left due to lower Synthesis healing. Psychic does about 40% and Trop Kick does 80% to A-Raichu. I assume bulky grass with SpDef investment does the job.

Why use Tsareena? But even then, A-Raichu's partners in crime would be an annoyance to say the least. Also, Gastrodon and bulky grass as while are always annoying.

 

[IcyMan28]

How exactly does Alolan Raichu learn Surf? Near I can tell there is no way to learn it in SM and transferred Pikachu evolve into Kantonese Raichu right?

 

[PShine]

How exactly does Alolan Raichu learn Surf? Near I can tell there is no way to learn it in SM and transferred Pikachu evolve into Kantonese Raichu right?

Nope! They evolve into Alolan Raichu! It is pretty much the reason A-Rai gets so many moveset options.

 

[Jojobobo]

Raichu rarely gets to pull off a Nasty Plot due to its frailty as is, and that goes double when it's on a limited timer. Psychic >>> Psyshock since it does way more damage to Electric-type immunes.

Surf already hits most electric immunes super effectively (A-Marowak and ground types). The entire point of running coverage is to get through things that your STABs will struggle with, and even though Psychic hits those electric immunes harder you're better using a little prediction to make some holes with your coverage.

You're right, Nasty Plot is a hard move to pull off against offense, but against stall where you'll actually need it it's pretty easy to pull off and makes Raichu entirely self-sustaining against a stall team - really breaking them up and making them much more manageable. Most of the time you won't actually need it, but I don't see an additional coverage move (TBolt, Psyshock and Surf covers a lot of bases) as hugely important anyway so why not run NP? I mean running extra coverage move isn't a bad idea, but I don't think Nasty Plot is a bad idea to get through stall either. They both serve different roles depending on what you want on the team, the former a better cleaning and the latter a better wall-breaker.

For the "on a timer" thing, Raichu is pretty fast so I don't think it's much of an issue. As I've mentioned, Nasty Plot isn't what you'll be wanting to use against offence anyway, there you will just rely on the superior speed and hard hits to get what you want to do done.

I think it's a bit short-sighted to rule it out as a valid set.

 

[Edu]

A bunch of gen 6 Pikachu events from Japan had it. Just make sure not to evolve before transfer.

But evolving a non Alolan will not evolve to a non aloloan evolution???

 

[Ashrynn]

Surf already hits most electric immunes super effectively (A-Marowak and ground types). The entire point of running coverage is to get through things that your STABs will struggle with, and even though Psychic hits those electric immunes harder you're better using a little prediction to make some holes with your coverage.

You're right, Nasty Plot is a hard move to pull off against offense, but against stall where you'll actually need it it's pretty easy to pull off and makes Raichu entirely self-sustaining against a stall team - really breaking them up and making them much more manageable. Most of the time you won't actually need it, but I don't see an additional coverage move (TBolt, Psyshock and Surf covers a lot of bases) as hugely important anyway so why not run NP? I mean running extra coverage move isn't a bad idea, but I don't think Nasty Plot is a bad idea to get through stall either. They both serve different roles depending on what you want on the team, the former a better cleaning and the latter a better wall-breaker.

For the "on a timer" thing, Raichu is pretty fast so I don't think it's much of an issue. As I've mentioned, Nasty Plot isn't what you'll be wanting to use against offence anyway, there you will just rely on the superior speed and hard hits to get what you want to do done.

I think it's a bit short-sighted to rule it out as a valid set.

I've been running A-Raichu and, while I'm not the most experience player, I can definitely say that A-Raichu just has too many issues to set-up on it's own with Nasty Plot. 60/50/80 Def is not hard to get past for any team. I agree it's a huge surprise factor for Raichu and if done successfully could net a sweep, but there are just way too many things that would need to go in your favor + pretty spot on prediction to boot. The NP set is specific for Koko teams meaning you have 5 turns for ET, the first of which ticks when you do your switch meaning there are only 4-turns in which to use A-Raichu. A-Marowak is the best Koko counter and isn't getting OHKO'd by any move that Raichu has(even Surf is a 2HKO). But then let's look at a rain team where you will more than likely see A-Raichu being used. You now need rain down, koko needs to have gone out and then you can use your Raichu. But - Only if you've dealt with Raichu's counters already or he's wasted. As well as dealing with any priority as 50 Def won't take much. You need to do a lot of things to get Raichu out in an optimal environment already and then you want to burn a turn on set-up with NP? Unless I'm missing something huge(and I do understand priority is rare, but it still exists) I think that's why people have an issue with the NP set. It's a lot of set-up to lock yourself into a 1-1 most of the time.

I'm actually using A-Raichu for it's Z-Crystal and have it set it's own terrain. Which I know is pretty frowned upon, but the point is that any type of set-up leaves Raichu open and vulnerable. The only reason I even have the ability to do that regularly is because I use A-Ninetales with AV allowing me to leave Raichu in against mons that should be able to OHKO/2HKO. And to be completely fair there are a lot of pokemon in the meta that can quickly OHKO/2HKO Raichu.

 

[PK Gaming]

Surf already hits most electric immunes super effectively (A-Marowak and ground types). The entire point of running coverage is to get through things that your STABs will struggle with, and even though Psychic hits those electric immunes harder you're better using a little prediction to make some holes with your coverage.

You're right, Nasty Plot is a hard move to pull off against offense, but against stall where you'll actually need it it's pretty easy to pull off and makes Raichu entirely self-sustaining against a stall team - really breaking them up and making them much more manageable. Most of the time you won't actually need it, but I don't see an additional coverage move (TBolt, Psyshock and Surf covers a lot of bases) as hugely important anyway so why not run NP? I mean running extra coverage move isn't a bad idea, but I don't think Nasty Plot is a bad idea to get through stall either. They both serve different roles depending on what you want on the team, the former a better cleaning and the latter a better wall-breaker.

For the "on a timer" thing, Raichu is pretty fast so I don't think it's much of an issue. As I've mentioned, Nasty Plot isn't what you'll be wanting to use against offence anyway, there you will just rely on the superior speed and hard hits to get what you want to do done.

I think it's a bit short-sighted to rule it out as a valid set.

Tbolt, Psychic and Surf do not cover all of the bases, though. You absolutely need Focus Blast to immediately punch through Ferrothorn and Tyranitar for Raichu's teammates, and Thunder / Psychic and Surf are obviously non-negotiable. Nasty Plot's usefulness is limited; it can do well against stall, but it's dead weight against non-stall teams (which currently make up the majority of the metagame.)

 

[Pixilate]

Ashrynn you don't need a "spot-on" prediction in order to set-up a nasty plot. Nasty plotting on a switch is literally the BEST way to use nasty plot and the way people learn to use NP. Nobody just sets up a nasty plot just because you need the damage. You have to plan things out in advance and scout to see on which pokemon it is safe to nasty plot on. Raichu requires no setup on offensive teams since you'll just outspeed and kill everything due to the relatively not-defensive nature of offensive teams. On defensive teams, you setup on pretty much everything that doesn't use ground coverage. on balance teams, just scout out their team and determine which Pokemon Raichu can force out.

Like, I literally never see somebody just SD/NP in front of some random Pokemon, they predict a protect on something like Sylveon or they predict a switch on Toxapex.

 

[Ashrynn]

I don't know Pixilate. I guess I just see it as a ton of risk and set up(because it isn't just hitting NP on Rai) for not that great of a reward. You basically wind up with an extremely fast, powerful SP.Atkr that is weak to priority. I'm not saying that it is impossible to use, just that it seems like a bad choice for it.

That said, I am using one outside of a Koko team fairly well so whose to actually say. If you're having success with it there is no reason not to keep using it. I really do question just how effective it'd be given how poor A-Rai's defenses are.

 

[Pixilate]

If you're assuming that there is a NP sweeper that can counter priority, you are sorely mistaken. There is literally no NP sweeper in existence that runs priority to counter other priority. Because it doesn't exist. The only special priority moves are Water shuriken, and vacuum wave. One of these moves is a move exclusive to two Pokemon. The other is exclusive to five Pokemon outside of PokeTransfer.

Regardless, Chu doesn't care that its defenses are crap. Do we see Weavile crying about the fact that its defenses suck? no. Do we see Thundurus-I crying about how its defenses suck? also no. Raichu may have slightly worse defenses than Thundurus-I (if Thundurus' defense can even be called better than average), but that thing isn't living any attacks either. Raichu in fact, might be even better than Thundurus-I because Prankster doesn't work on dark types anymore and under Electric terrain, Raichu is faster and stronger with Modest nature.

 

[Jojobobo]

Tbolt, Psychic and Surf do not cover all of the bases, though. You absolutely need Focus Blast to immediately punch through Ferrothorn and Tyranitar for Raichu's teammates, and Thunder / Psychic and Surf are obviously non-negotiable. Nasty Plot's usefulness is limited; it can do well against stall, but it's dead weight against non-stall teams (which currently make up the majority of the metagame.)

Of course they don't cover all bases, that's why you have a whole team to support your Raichu - and while they don't cover all bases, the blind spots are pretty minimal. Besides, a LO Electric Terrain TBolt still does well against an uninvested TTar (which I think is most of them currently, they tend to be running offence):

252+ SpA Life Orb Raichu-Alola Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar: 169-200 (49.5 - 58.6%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO

I think I would rather run something with an appropriate fighting move for TTar and Ferrothorn rather than take such a risk on Focus Blast. I appreciate stall is less popular now due to the raging whirlwind of offence we've got going on currently, but it won't always be the case and I think being able to get through walls on both sides of the spectrum definitely gives you an easier time of things that packing a shaky coverage move.

I've been running A-Raichu and, while I'm not the most experience player, I can definitely say that A-Raichu just has too many issues to set-up on it's own with Nasty Plot. 60/50/80 Def is not hard to get past for any team. I agree it's a huge surprise factor for Raichu and if done successfully could net a sweep, but there are just way too many things that would need to go in your favor + pretty spot on prediction to boot. The NP set is specific for Koko teams meaning you have 5 turns for ET, the first of which ticks when you do your switch meaning there are only 4-turns in which to use A-Raichu. A-Marowak is the best Koko counter and isn't getting OHKO'd by any move that Raichu has(even Surf is a 2HKO). But then let's look at a rain team where you will more than likely see A-Raichu being used. You now need rain down, koko needs to have gone out and then you can use your Raichu. But - Only if you've dealt with Raichu's counters already or he's wasted. As well as dealing with any priority as 50 Def won't take much. You need to do a lot of things to get Raichu out in an optimal environment already and then you want to burn a turn on set-up with NP? Unless I'm missing something huge(and I do understand priority is rare, but it still exists) I think that's why people have an issue with the NP set. It's a lot of set-up to lock yourself into a 1-1 most of the time.

I'm actually using A-Raichu for it's Z-Crystal and have it set it's own terrain. Which I know is pretty frowned upon, but the point is that any type of set-up leaves Raichu open and vulnerable. The only reason I even have the ability to do that regularly is because I use A-Ninetales with AV allowing me to leave Raichu in against mons that should be able to OHKO/2HKO. And to be completely fair there are a lot of pokemon in the meta that can quickly OHKO/2HKO Raichu.

Well I've also run NP, and have found situations to set it up, so go figure. You don't need to set it up every game as I mentioned, that's not really the idea of the set, it just means you can wall-break when you need to. It's very easy to force a lot of switches with this thing as well, so a Nasty Plot can be produced fairly easily - and then you can't really wall it easily and the speed is extremely good. As I've said before, Raichu is already fast - so I don't really care about burning through a turn of something that makes it even faster (the electric STAB hitting harder being a null argument as NP makes it hit harder than it ordinarily would anyway).

But I get it, people love the crazy offence sets. They certainly are the easiest sets to run, so I can see why.

 

[PK Gaming]

Of course they don't cover all bases, that's why you have a whole team to support your Raichu - and while they don't cover all bases, the blind spots are pretty minimal. Besides, a LO Electric Terrain TBolt still does well against an uninvested TTar (which I think is most of them currently, they tend to be running offence):

252+ SpA Life Orb Raichu-Alola Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar: 169-200 (49.5 - 58.6%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO

I think I would rather run something with an appropriate fighting move for TTar and Ferrothorn rather than take such a risk on Focus Blast. I appreciate stall is less popular now due to the raging whirlwind of offence we've got going on currently, but it won't always be the case and I think being able to get through walls on both sides of the spectrum definitely gives you an easier time of things that packing a shaky coverage move.

You're looking at it the wrong way. Raichu's primary function is to support its teammates. In the early game, it's supposed to lure out and weaken Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Ground types so that Koko and Rain sweepers have an easier time cleaning up. In the lategame, if Raichu is still alive, it's pretty much going to pick off weakened Pokemon. It's not going to have the time to set up Nasty Plot.

Tbolt 2HKOing Tar is quite frankly, unacceptable and nowhere near as important as OHKOing it. Tyranitar cancels Rain so OHKOing (or heavily damaging it) is extremely, extremely, extremely crucial.

 

[Pixilate]

You're looking at it the wrong way. Raichu's primary function is to support its teammates. In the early game, it's supposed to lure out and weaken Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Ground types so that Koko and Rain sweepers have an easier time cleaning up. In the lategame, if Raichu is still alive, it's pretty much going to pick off weakened Pokemon. It's not going to have the time to set up Nasty Plot.

Tbolt 2HKOing Tar is quite frankly, unacceptable and nowhere near as important as OHKOing it. Tyranitar cancels Rain so OHKOing (or heavily damaging it) is extremely, extremely, extremely crucial.

Just so I got this right: Doesn't Ttar commonly run Assault Vest for Latis? In this case, t-bolt is definitely not a 2HKO. If we're talking about scarf here: I don't think I know one neutral special hit on Ttar that can OHKO it and outspeed it on top of that.