Pokémon Avalugg

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Thing is that Avalugg and D-nite are SR weak and along with Swampert, the core gets destroyed by Terrakion, Keldeo, SF Landorus, Thundurus(-T), among others I'm assuming. Mono-ice is just so hard to build around.
-Swampert/Gastrodon should be able to handle Keldeo, Gastrodon perhaps a bit more due to Storm Drain and Recover. But since rain won't be as prevalent, Swampert could fare well against Keldeo too now.
-I don't reckon Landorus will get past Avalugg even with SF. The numbers have already shown that Avalugg can take some SERIOUS beatings on the physical side, even from SE attacks. Landorus has no STAB to threaten Avalugg with, hits physically, and is OHKO'd by Avalanche.
-Terrakion is trickier, but numbers posted above showed that Terrakion would only 3HKO Avalugg with Close Combat, while Avalugg would OHKO with EQ 50% of the time. Stone Edge got nerfed thanks to critical hit nerf this gen and is weaker and less accurate than CC without the critical, so Avalugg shouldn't have to worry about that either.
-With the Hidden Power nerf, I'm not so convinced that Thundurus-T will be as problematic for Dragonite as it would've been before. I'll run some numbers, but I think ExtremeSpeed Dragonite will be able to deal with the thunder genie.
Thundurus-T is a pain for any core, though. You'll get nowhere against it by being defensive - you just have to outspeed and outnuke it, usually. I'd have to think about this one, but at least I still have 3 other Pokemon to choose from. I suppose SapSipper Goodra could replace Dragonite, I don't think it would have much trouble against Thundurus-T. It's not as threatening as Dragonite (or is it?), but for a core, it was one of my other top choices to go with Avalugg and Swampert/Gastrodon.

But yeah, Ice is hard to build around. Possible, though, and hell of a lot of fun. Even if Avalugg is OU material, as others have said, he won't make it there due to people freaking out about building around an ice-type. That's fine, those people will be easy prey for the iceberg.
 
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Molk

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-I don't reckon Landorus will get past Avalugg even with SF. The numbers have already shown that Avalugg can take some SERIOUS beatings on the physical side, even from SE attacks. Landorus has no STAB to threaten Avalugg with, hits physically, and is OHKO'd by Avalanche.
Just wanted to point out that assuming SF means Sheer Force (if not just ignore me :x) Landorus should have absolutely no trouble getting past Avalugg. Most, if not all Sheer Force Landorus actually run special sets, which is actually what got Landorus-I banned in BW2 OU in the first place (set was Earth Power, Focus Blast, Hidden Power Ice, and U-turn or Rock Polish for reference). This means that Sheer Force Landorus should be able to easily OHKO Avalugg with either Sheer Force Boosted Earth Power or Focus Blast with no trouble at all, as Avalugg's special bulk is absolutely terrible, damage posted calcs below for proof.

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Avalugg: 746-879 (189.34 - 223.09%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Avalugg: 419-495 (106.34 - 125.63%) -- guaranteed OHKO

From there Landorus can KO Dragonite after Stealth Rock with Hidden Power Ice, and do serious damage to all but the most specially defensive of Swampert with Earth Power (which i've never seen used lol). Gastrodon has the potential to give lando some trouble though i guess since it can actually take an Earth Power or two and recover off the damage, but if it takes any prior damage at all besides Stealth Rock it will fall to two Earth Powers on switch in.
 
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Slowking is probably one of Avaluggs best partner thanks to:
  • Good type synergy
  • Its great special defence,
  • ability to get past steel types with flamethrower/fire blast
  • regenerator AND instant recovery in Slack Off
  • thunder wave or trick room
Its also the best counter to keldeo, or at least tied with jellicent for the title anyway
The cores still pretty weak to special electric type moves but its not like it's particularly difficult to deal with those; unless its thunderus of course, then there's a problem lol. Too bad Avalugg dont learn ice shard its a giant chunk of ice for crying out loud...
 
Just wanted to point out that assuming SF means Sheer Force (if not just ignore me :x) Landorus should have absolutely no trouble getting past Avalugg. Most, if not all Sheer Force Landorus actually run special sets, which is actually what got Landorus-I banned in BW2 OU in the first place (set was Earth Power, Focus Blast, Hidden Power Ice, and U-turn or Rock Polish for reference). This means that Sheer Force Landorus should be able to easily OHKO Avalugg with either Sheer Force Boosted Earth Power or Focus Blast with no trouble at all, as Avalugg's special bulk is absolutely terrible, damage posted calcs below for proof.

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Avalugg: 746-879 (189.34 - 223.09%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Avalugg: 419-495 (106.34 - 125.63%) -- guaranteed OHKO

From there Landorus can KO Dragonite after Stealth Rock with Hidden Power Ice, and do serious damage to all but the most specially defensive of Swampert with Earth Power (which i've never seen used lol). Gastrodon has the potential to give lando some trouble though i guess since it can actually take an Earth Power or two and recover off the damage, but if it takes any prior damage at all besides Stealth Rock it will fall to two Earth Powers on switch in.
That certainly does sound scary. Since that set isn't listed on the site, I imagine this is a case of a set that worked really well in OU being terrible in Ubers post-ban, thus not being listed, but coming back now that Landorus is coming back to OU?

Goodra replacing Dragonite in the core is sounding like a better and better idea, I think. Then again, the only reason I had Dragonite there was to be Ice bait for an Avalugg switch in, he's not really part of the "defensive core", he was there for offense. What this shows is that Avalugg-Swamper/Gastrodon wouldn't be a good enough core even though Water/Ground resists 3/4 of Avalugg's weakness and is neutral to the 4th - but this is just because the Pokemon with that typing just aren't bulky enough, sadly.

Perhaps an Avalugg-Tentacruel core to try out MirrorCoat with Tentacruel RS support. If that fails, then Avalugg(w/RS)-Jellicent. Toss in an Elec absorber like Zapdos, who is also Ice-weak (if LightningRod Zapdos is ever released...) and that might round things off nicely.
 
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Molk

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That certainly does sound scary. Since that set isn't listed on the site, I imagine this is a case of a set that worked really well in OU being terrible in Ubers post-ban, thus not being listed, but coming back now that Landorus is coming back to OU?

Goodra replacing Dragonite in the core is sounding like a better and better idea, I think.
The reason that the special set is no longer listed onsite is because Landorus-I's BW2 OU Analysis was deleted after its banning, where the set was listed as the first set iirc. Taking a look at the moveset stats for the month that Landorus was banned show that Landorus-I's special sets were significantly more common than its physical ones (Earth Power had nearly 70% usage compared to Earthquake having 31%). As you imagined, Landorus-I's physical sets were better when it ended up in ubers, but now that its allowed in x/y OU again, the special sets are once again better. Heres a link to the moveset stats for reference, ctrl+f landorus-i and hit the spacebar until it scrolls down to its section in the moveset stats.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/5849778/

Anyways lets not get off topic :x
 
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I understand Assault vest avalugg is not viable, but is it really necessary to delete ALL post there was on the last page ?
There were some interesting discussions going on (about defensive cores with blissey or one of the defensive fairies) but they're all gone now, and there weren't about assault vest.
 

alexwolf

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I understand Assault vest avalugg is not viable, but is it really necessary to delete ALL post there was on the last page ?
There were some interesting discussions going on (about defensive cores with blissey or one of the defensive fairies) but they're all gone now, and there weren't about assault vest.
If by interesting discussion you mean the posts that were saying ''Blissey + Avalugg or Sylveon + Avalugg is good'', then no, this is not interesting discussion. All those posts do is to give the excuse to people to post more lazy posts saying stuff such as ''agreed'' or ''great combo''. Saying that a Pokemon with bad special bulk should be partnered with Pokemon with high special bulk is like saying that Fire-types don't like Stealth Rock, in other words something every competent player knows, not to mention that this combo has been mentioned many times already. Either mention some teammates that haven't been mentioned before (with proper reasoning of course) or if you want to talk about the already mentioned teammates go into details as to what exact sets you are using and provide some further info that haven't been presented about those cores, such as to what Pokemon do they lose, what further teammates they like, etc.
 
Ok so we've done a lot of tests for Avalugg on the physical side of things, now I'm curious as to how it holds up with special defenses like that.

For starters, yes its special defense is abyssmal, but it does still have a very decent HP stat. If wet paper bag Floatzel can survive physical hits after a bulk up thanks to its base 85 hp, then surely Avalugg may be able to EV to survive certain things, allowing it to run another ability (such as Ice Body on a hail team) instead of Sturdy.
It's other abilities are well worth looking to honestly. Own Tempo is fantastic against Pokemons like Klefki, they allow you to grab a free +2 attack and the poor thing can't do much against you. Foul Play is only gonna scratch, Thunder Wave is a minor problem (still more chance to act than deal damage with Focus Miss) and well.

Let's face it, Sturdy is really only there for special hits, Avalugg can hardly get OHKO'd by anything physical, except if his opponent is at +4 or something and attacks with a super strong attack with STAB.

+4 Aegislash Sacred Sword can't ohko, neither can Breloom's crit Focus Punch.

And even then, Sturdy fails if you're not at full health (which is often enough thanks to entry hazards and sandstorm as well as prior damage). And then you need to be able to OHKO back the thing that attacks you, otherwise you'll just have wasted the Iceberg. If Hail Teams are still a thing in gen 6, I'd expect Avaluggs to roll with Ice Body, better than Sturdy imo.
 
A benefit of Sturdy though is that it allows Avalugg to OKO lots of things it normally wouldn't be able to stay in on if you keep hazards off the field. Mixed dragon sets for example, it can safely revenge kill if it has Sturdy, as well as physically frail special sweepers. Sturdy can also be refreshed if you have a competant wish passer on your team, as a slow wish passer like Umbreon or Vaporeon can baton Avalugg into a physical attacker and give it a chance to Recover back up to full.
 
Indeed, it is useful against special using Pokemons if you really need to kill them. Unboosted physical mons are powerless against the behemoth though.

Just for fun :

252+ Atk Rampardos Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 296-350 (75.12 - 88.83%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
problem with ice body is not onlu building a team around hail, but also keeping it going. Forcing Avalugg to waste a valuable move slot on hail would be pretty bad. Own Tempo can be useful, but think most Klefki users will lead with it in order to cripple an opponent, and I don't think anyone will lead with Avalugg, considering it can't set up anything and will instead be used to spin hazards away.

Another topic I'd like to talk about, why is everyone favoring Impish for its nature? Wouldn't relaxed be better so it can access a powerful Gyro Ball, even against other slow pokemon? I've been considering giving it low speed IV as well.
 
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problem with ice body is not onlu building a team around hail, but also keeping it going. Forcing Avalugg to waste a valuable move slot on hail would be pretty bad. Own Tempo can be useful, but think most Klefki users will lead with it in order to cripple an opponent, and I don't think anyone will lead with Avalugg, considering it can't set up anything and will instead be used to spin hazards away.

Another topic I'd like to talk about, why is everyone favoring Impish for its nature? Wouldn't relaxed be better so it can access a powerful Gyro Ball, even against other slow pokemon? I've been considering giving it low speed IV as well.
Even if you're not using Hail you could use Ice Body. Unless you like using the custap berry recover after mirror coating a special attacker or something. Other than that Sturdy isn't too great on him, since like said it won't be OHKO'd by physical attackers anytime soon unless you let them setup real hard. And he shouldn't stay in on really strong/super effective special attackers anyway.

Your opponent could have Hail and / or you yourself could use a Hail team (there's Abomasnow, you don't need to sacrifice a move on Avalugg just to set up Hail).

And yes, if you use Gyro Ball or Trick Room (or want to have something really slow against opposing Trick Rooms) you could go for Relaxed (otherwise it wouldn't matter). There are a few Pokemon slower than Avalugg so not having a speed hindering nature could help him against them (Ferrothorn, Escavalier and Gigalith are slower for example, though Ferrothorn might run a -speed nature itself for a stronger Gyro Ball).
 
I just think sturdy is a better precaution against the occasional surprising mixed set, and those ARE a thing, especially with so many Lucarios running around this gen. And then there's things like Garchomp and Salamence who typically run Fire blast to deal with Skarmory anyway. Hail teams are preeeeety uncommon, so just having Ice body around in case your opponent happens to have hail is not covering many bases. If you're running a dedicated Hail team, then yeah sure...hail + leftovers could make it an absolute butt for any physical attacker to have to deal with. The only ice-type special attackers who won't be taking chip damage from switching around to try to check your physical bulk would be Froslass, Glaceon, Jinx, Vanilluxe and Cryogonal, Regice, Articuno and special attacker Dewgong...(and maybe Kuerem I guess)
 
I think that own tempo is the nicer option, personally. Even with Sturdy, Avalugg can't really go toe to toe with many special attackers, and I imagine the immunity to taunt would be really valuable for something that relies so heavily on recover.
 
I think that own tempo is the nicer option, personally. Even with Sturdy, Avalugg can't really go toe to toe with many special attackers, and I imagine the immunity to taunt would be really valuable for something that relies so heavily on recover.
You're thinking of Oblivious. Own Tempo prevents confusion.
 
Whoops, right you are, my bad. On a (hopefully) more accurate note, I've been wondering how viable a Toxic set is? When so many Pokemon fail to get the 2HKO, is spamming Recover and Protect while whittling down an opponent with toxic and potentially hail damage viable, or is it just turning Avalugg into setup bait?
 
Whoops, right you are, my bad. On a (hopefully) more accurate note, I've been wondering how viable a Toxic set is? When so many Pokemon fail to get the 2HKO, is spamming Recover and Protect while whittling down an opponent with toxic and potentially hail damage viable, or is it just turning Avalugg into setup bait?
I've used Toxic on it but I wouldn't use protect... you definitely need Roar or else he'll always be setup bait. The problem is that Avalanche doesn't double in power if they don't attack you so it'll be really weak. So unless you run attacking EVs/a +atk nature (which you probably wouldn't on such a set) it should have Roar.
Avalanche, Toxic, Roar, Recover... I've used Rapid Spin instead of Roar for a while, but he always gets set up on so he definitely needs that. :/ And obviously that set sucks against Steels (I guess you could use EQ instead of Avalanche...).
 
I want to preface this post by saying a few things: this is my first gen in competitive pokemon, as well as my first post (and I only got to page 4 on this thread ^^')

All that in mind, this is what I'm toying with:
Avalugg @ Leftovers
Ability: Ice Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Recover
- Hail
- Toxic

It's hard to set up (which means it's bad) but once I got it set up there was no breaking it (sans stupid decisions, like leaving it in vs something with a special attack).
Any feed back? I think dropping hail for avalanche would be better but I don't have another way to use ice body (on my team, anyway). I probably wouldn't run it game 1 if I were super-serious, or if I didn't have their ENTIRE team scouted some how, cause I'm sure any mixed attacker would destroy it (some one mentioned fire blast garchomp), but I'm telling ya, it's a cute rig.
Edit: I'm sure there are pokemon that do what ever it is this is doing (physical stall+spin?) better.
 
Hail isn't worth its moveslot, I feel. Spending a turn to heal a bit when you already have Recover, and its Attack stat is certainly high enough to want to run a coverage move to deal with Toxic-immune, such as Earthquake. You're going to be forced out by special attacks often in most situations, and so Hail will often go to waste. May as well have something that can keep you threatening against a wider variety of opponents, especially if it accomplishes more for you in the meantime.
 
And I totally agree with you. I wish there was an easier way to use Ice Body because I think sturdy is the wrong way to go. If sturdy saves me then I made a mistake I shouldn't be making, or I was forced into a bad play and shouldn't be using this pokemon in the first place but I guess in terms of survivability it's better than ice body haha.
I'm going to keep tinkering with it though, thanks for the feedback Reflex!
 
Forgive me if I do something wrong or say something stupid for this is my first post on smogon and I'm a competitive amateur. Anyways I use Avalugg with avalanche, recover, curse and earthquake. I also have sturdy on it as well as a weakness policy to help avalanche since its so slow and it's ice type. I have impish nature and (sorry I might have forgot the EVs) I believe I have max defense and ATK, but it could have also been max HP and DEF. Which ever works better. Sorry for being such a amateur at posting. T-T
 
Don't worry about qualifying your posts with apologies; I promise we'll all live whether or not your post is fantastic or cringe-worthy. :p

I think that this Avalugg set is more like a (rather far-reaching, specific) win condition, in that he's either incredibly good at dealing with what's out or he's death fodder. I think that set's as good as it gets in terms of Cursing for a late-game sweep if you can clear the table of special-based 'Mons, as Ice/Ground coverage is pretty sweet.

That said, if you're in a position where you're able to stack multiple Curses, your Attack will be patched up, so unless a +1 Avalanche/Earthquake will KO specific, important things, you may as well invest elsewhere. While the returns for investing in Defense could seem weak, it could at least help you power through some non-STAB super-effective stuff to get Curse going at first.

I, personally, am interested in what utility this thing could have on a hazards-heavy stall team. Roar for disruption could snowball if what is coming in can't dent you. STAB Avalanche hits some of the new Defoggers reasonably hard, even if it's just Base 60 (obviously in terms of the lower tiers here). Gyro Ball may also be a decent option, given that this thing is slow as dirt. I could see Mirror Coat getting its time in the sun with Max HP/Max SpDef, too, as Roar also discourages opponents' setup. Nothing all that game-changing, but I'm liking the potential niche this fellow might carve out for himself.
 
Guess I better make one that's Impish. I'm a little worried he won't be doing enough damage without an adamant nature or attack investment though which is currently what I'm using (especially against those that can sword dance). I had the same dillema with Mega Aggron, but Avalugg has recover which I guess makes the defense nature more useful. Another thing to worry about beside special attacks is toxic and burn, which both makes him a sitting duck that can just stall for time. Might try him out as a phazer/spinner with recover after setting up hazards.

Edit: for some reason thought his attack was base 95. I guess 117 is pretty good without investment.
 
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