Articuno [QC 0/3]

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LeekSlap/ChewyDonuts

Articuno_XY.gif

SO MAJESTIC!

Overview
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- Best user of Freeze Dry
- Defog buff made it more viable
- Decent STAB combination
- Combines offense and defense
- Effective against many pokemon in UU
- Decent anti lead
- Horrible typing
- Weak to Stealth Rock
- Bad stat distribution
- Poor movepool
- Arctic harsh competition both offensively and defensively

Offensive SubRoost
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name: Offensive SubRoost
move 1: Freeze Dry
move 2: Hurricane
move 3: Substitute
move 4: Roost
ability: Pressure
item: Expert Belt / Leftovers
evs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe / 4 SpD
nature: Timid

Moves
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- Freeze Dry is a niche STAB that made Articuno more viable
- Hurricane is a very powerful STAB
- Substitute takes advantage of everything Articuno has going for it and makes it better : it limits damage to help with faster sweepers, takes advantage of its natural bulk to make the substitutes harder to take down, and lets Articuno PP stall.
- Roost is reliable recovery

Set Details
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- A combination of stall and offense.
- Pressure helps PP stall faster.
- EVs make it as offensive as possible.
- Expert Belt secures many useful 2HKOs while Leftovers heals easier.

Usage Tips
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- Articuno must be played very defensively and must Roost as much as possible.
- Substitute on predicted switches to limit damage and retaliate
- Freeze Dry is very good in UU, OHKOing pokemon like Kingdra and Quagsire, and is usually unexpected so use that to your advantage

Team Options
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- RAPID SPIN / DEFOG
- Water types like Quagsire and Gastrodon like how good Articuno is with grass types
- Pokemon that deal with steel types like Chandelure and Nidoking
- Stealth Rock helps Articuno secure many OHKOs
- VoltTurn is not a bad idea to pair Articuno with its desired opponent

Defensive
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name: Defensive
move 1: Toxic
move 2: Freeze Dry
move 3: Roost
move 4: U-Turn
ability: Pressure
item: Leftovers
evs: 248 HP / 44 SpA / 216 SpD
nature: Calm

Moves
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- Toxic wears down foes fast
- Freeze Dry makes Articuno an excellent check to bulky water types and grass types
- Roost is reliable recovery
- U-Turn is for a predicted switch into a cleric like Florges

Set Details
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- EVs maximize special bulk while being able to 2HKO Slowbro after Stealth Rock
- Leftovers lets Articuno survive longer
- Pressure and Toxic and is a very good combination for stalling things out

Usage Tips
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- Send in Articuno on special attackers that lack super effective attacks, are locked into a neutral attack, or even have one but it's non STAB to start stalling and doing its thing
- Only switch in when Stealth Rock is gone
- You don't necessarily need to kill the Stealth Rock setter before sending Articuno in because Articuno can deal with most

Team Options
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- RAPID SPIN / DEFOG
- Pokemon who struggle with water types and grass types that deal with clerics like Darmanitan and Cobalion
- Most ground types have nice synergy and also like Articuno dealing with grass types


Other Options
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- Assault Vest
- Ancient Power
- Hidden Power Ground


Checks & Counters
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- STEALTH ROCK
- Steel types like Aggron and Metagross.
- Sound attacks and Infiltrators like Noivern and Chandelure
- Clerics ruin everything the Tank set does
 
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Is articuno really that good? Sure it got freeze dry and the defog buff (also delete ice beam) but it is walled by mega aggron
252 SpA Life Orb Articuno Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mega Aggron: 78-94 (22.6 - 27.3%) -- 48.9% chance to 4HKO
Along with florges who i don't really need to show calcs for, umbreon whose on the same boat as florges I understand that this goes for every special attacker but with forretress in the tier spikestacking teams are more common and defog isn't uncounterable you can run defiant/competitive to put offensive pressure on your opponent so they don't defog (also 248 HP so that you can switch into rocks twice btw) therefore making articuno rather bad even with roost it is also wrecked by darmanitan victini rotom h and mega houdnoom even for defensive sets, Jirachi and metagross, some mew sets eg stallbreaker to stop you from subroosting and sd or nasty plot psyshock to hit you really hard and that's only a handful of it's checks and counters. TL;DR I do not find articuno viable and I would like to see some replays.
 
Ranger Mike said:
Is articuno really that good? Sure it got freeze dry and the defog buff (also delete ice beam) but it is walled by mega aggron
252 SpA Life Orb Articuno Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mega Aggron: 78-94 (22.6 - 27.3%) -- 48.9% chance to 4HKO
Along with florges who i don't really need to show calcs for, umbreon whose on the same boat as florges I understand that this goes for every special attacker but with forretress in the tier spikestacking teams are more common and defog isn't uncounterable you can run defiant/competitive to put offensive pressure on your opponent so they don't defog (also 248 HP so that you can switch into rocks twice btw) therefore making articuno rather bad even with roost it is also wrecked by darmanitan victini rotom h and mega houdnoom even for defensive sets, Jirachi and metagross, some mew sets eg stallbreaker to stop you from subroosting and sd or nasty plot psyshock to hit you really hard and that's only a handful of it's checks and counters. TL;DR I do not find articuno viable and I would like to see some replays.
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It's B- rank, so I assume it does have viability somewhat.
 
Overview
########

- Great stats.
- Decent STAB combination.
- Defog buff makes it more viable.
- Combines offense and defense.
- Horrible typing.
- Weak to Stealth Rock.
- Bad stat distribution.
- Arctic harsh competition both offensively and defensively.
Click to expand...

lol

Mention Tentacruel as a partner cause it can spin as well as setup Tspikes, they have good synergy cause tent takes on fire types while Articuno shits on any grass type, although both weak to electric but yeah you get what i mean .-.
 
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I'd probably make some defensive SubRooost Set with Toxic and Freeze-Dry the staple moves. U-turn can be cool on an offensive non-SubRoost set, as your main coverage moves are Hurricane and HP Ground. I would like to flesh my post out a bit more, but I'm on my phone ato the moment...not only that but my memory on my Articuno use is a little hazy, haha. Speaking of, I think it gets Haze? Can mention that somewhere too I guess. I'll try and expand on it a bit later.
 
CoolStoryBrobat said:
I'd probably make some defensive SubRooost Set with Toxic and Freeze-Dry the staple moves. U-turn can be cool on an offensive non-SubRoost set, as your main coverage moves are Hurricane and HP Ground. I would like to flesh my post out a bit more, but I'm on my phone ato the moment...not only that but my memory on my Articuno use is a little hazy, haha. Speaking of, I think it gets Haze? Can mention that somewhere too I guess. I'll try and expand on it a bit later.
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I actually didn't put the defensive set because it's really not that effective and the offensive set is better because it emphasizes on Freeze Dry, one of the few things it has over Kyurem. HP Ground is really hard to get ingame as you would have to soft reset a million times until you get a Timid Articuno with the right IVs and even then you are gonna lose the speed tie with Nidoking and doesn't do much to the steel types its supposed to hit. I forgot U-Turn and I added that in OO. It doesn't get Haze :(
 
LeekSlap/ChewyDonuts said:
I actually didn't put the defensive set because it's really not that effective and the offensive set is better because it emphasizes on Freeze Dry, one of the few things it has over Kyurem. HP Ground is really hard to get ingame as you would have to soft reset a million times until you get a Timid Articuno with the right IVs and even then you are gonna lose the speed tie with Nidoking and doesn't do much to the steel types its supposed to hit. I forgot U-Turn and I added that in OO. It doesn't get Haze :(
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Having to try really hard to get hp ground is a bullshit reason not to include it hp ice is on almost every electric type's analysis and do you have a fun time getting it insane hell no. Even with freeze dry as it's the only niche that Kyurem doesn't have, Kyurem can beat a majority of the bulky water a.) it resists scald and b.) it can sub roost very effective and doesn't fear a rock slide nearly as much as articuno. Going to echo making a defensive set. But put hp flying in set details also, I'll try out articuno again and tell my results in this post.
 
Ranger Mike said:
Having to try really hard to get hp ground is a bullshit reason not to include it hp ice is on almost every electric type's analysis and do you have a fun time getting it insane hell no. Even with freeze dry as it's the only niche that Kyurem doesn't have, Kyurem can beat a majority of the bulky water a.) it resists scald and b.) it can sub roost very effective and doesn't fear a rock slide nearly as much as articuno. Going to echo making a defensive set. But put hp flying in set details also, I'll try out articuno again and tell my results in this post.
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Didn't you read my other reasons for not including HP Ground? I know Kyurem is a beast. Hurricane is mainly fro neutral hits and straight up power that Freeze Dry lacks so having HP Flying just to have a STAB is wrong. I'll add the defensive set if one more person confirms its good.
 
LeekSlap/ChewyDonuts said:
Didn't you read my other reasons for not including HP Ground? I know Kyurem is a beast. Hurricane is mainly fro neutral hits and straight up power that Freeze Dry lacks so having HP Flying just to have a STAB is wrong. I'll add the defensive set if one more person confirms its good.
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On the higher ladder as far as I am concerned nidoqueen is used more then nidoking and anyways you check nidoking rather well, 252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoking Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Articuno: 190-224 (49.4 - 58.3%) -- 60.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery. Also i'd mention houndoom as a teamate so articuno can lure fire attacks then go into houndoom for a flash fire boost.
 
Okay, after getting to my computer and doing a bit of digging backwards, I have two things: One, it DOES get Haze, I knew I wasn't crazy. And two, I believe an Articuno set such as this was the one I had been using for a brief minute:

Articuno @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 44 SAtk / 216 SDef
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Freeze-Dry
- Toxic
- U-turn / Haze / Heal Bell / Substitute? / Protect? / Whatever tf you want

EVs are for a guaranteed 2HKO on Slowbro with Freeze-Dry after Stealth Rock. From my experience in using this, it was essentially your anti-bulky water Pokemon first, special tank second. Despite the 4x Stealth Rock weakness and sub-par defensive typing, it was able to survive its way through a number of matches. Sadly it didn't do too much else aside from Toxic stalling, and Umbreon/Florges undid everything it tried to do very quickly. So if you were to add teammates for it, get Pokemon who struggle with most bulky waters in general yet are able to threaten the clerics that make it hard for Articuno to stall out. Stuff such as Cobalion, Mienshao, Darmanitan, Victini, etc. Can work with it, but you have to be wary of tacking on weaknesses, as Articuno's typing is pretty hard to match stuff up with, unless they're Ground-types. In fact, yeah. Most Ground-types pair decently with Articuno since they also hate bulky waters, and are able to check most Electric, Fire, and Rock-types in one.

Provided you keep it healthy enough in the match, it's also able to stand up to special attackers not packing an SE move, like Hydreigon lacking or locked into a move other than Fire Blast, Celebi, Mega Blastoise, Nidoking/Queen without Fire Blast (Thunderbolt is still only a 3HKO), Noivern (Specs Flamethrower is still a 3HKO lolol), Roserade, so on, and so forth. Mainly Water-types and Grass-types are put in check by this. A few Pokemon who have to rely on non-STAB special coverage to hit it super effectively might still have trouble taking Articuno down. If it's healthy, of course. For that reason, I didn't list Defog in the set I posted. However you kinda NEED to make a mention of Defog in this analysis if you're going to say the Defog buff helped it this generation.

You tagged me for my Articuno knowledge, I think that's about everything I got
 
CoolStoryBrobat said:
Okay, after getting to my computer and doing a bit of digging backwards, I have two things: One, it DOES get Haze, I knew I wasn't crazy. And two, I believe an Articuno set such as this was the one I had been using for a brief minute:

Articuno @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 44 SAtk / 216 SDef
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Freeze-Dry
- Toxic
- U-turn / Haze / Heal Bell / Substitute? / Protect? / Whatever tf you want

EVs are for a guaranteed 2HKO on Slowbro with Freeze-Dry after Stealth Rock. From my experience in using this, it was essentially your anti-bulky water Pokemon first, special tank second. Despite the 4x Stealth Rock weakness and sub-par defensive typing, it was able to survive its way through a number of matches. Sadly it didn't do too much else aside from Toxic stalling, and Umbreon/Florges undid everything it tried to do very quickly. So if you were to add teammates for it, get Pokemon who struggle with most bulky waters in general yet are able to threaten the clerics that make it hard for Articuno to stall out. Stuff such as Cobalion, Mienshao, Darmanitan, Victini, etc. Can work with it, but you have to be wary of tacking on weaknesses, as Articuno's typing is pretty hard to match stuff up with, unless they're Ground-types. In fact, yeah. Most Ground-types pair decently with Articuno since they also hate bulky waters, and are able to check most Electric, Fire, and Rock-types in one.

Provided you keep it healthy enough in the match, it's also able to stand up to special attackers not packing an SE move, like Hydreigon lacking or locked into a move other than Fire Blast, Celebi, Mega Blastoise, Nidoking/Queen without Fire Blast (Thunderbolt is still only a 3HKO), Noivern (Specs Flamethrower is still a 3HKO lolol), Roserade, so on, and so forth. Mainly Water-types and Grass-types are put in check by this. A few Pokemon who have to rely on non-STAB special coverage to hit it super effectively might still have trouble taking Articuno down. If it's healthy, of course. For that reason, I didn't list Defog in the set I posted. However you kinda NEED to make a mention of Defog in this analysis if you're going to say the Defog buff helped it this generation.

You tagged me for my Articuno knowledge, I think that's about everything I got
Click to expand...
DONE AND DONE! Bring in the QC checks! I think I did a stellar job on this particular analysis :)
 
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