Haruno
Skadi :)
[OVERVIEW]
- Strong pokemon despite mediocre looking base 50 attack, due to huge power. Huge power doubles azumarill's attack from 218 fully invested to 436 which makes it go from piss weak to reasonably powerful.
- Probably the best user of belly drum in the tier due to excellent defensive typing in water/fairy and pretty solid 100/80/80 defenses which gives it plenty of opportunities to set up.
- Slow mon which forces azu to overly rely on aqua jet after a belly drum which is far less reliable now due to tapu lele negating its priority and forcing you to take hits before attacking.
- By virtue of being a physical attacker, hates intimidate pre BD and hates burns. Also has compromised hp due to belly drum.
name: Belly drum sweeper
move 1: Aqua Jet
move 2: Knock Off / Play Rough
move 3: Belly Drum
move 4: Protect
item: Sitrus Berry / Normalium Z
ability: Huge Power
nature: Adamant
evs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
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- Aqua Jet is primary stab allowing you to pick off on weakened mons that would otherwise outspeed you and helps fix azumarill's lackluster speed to some extent.
- Knock Off is used to allow azumarill to hit pokemon that resist Aqua Jet. More reliable than play rough because knock off gives better coverage despite not being stab and the extra power gotten from play rough is usually unnecessary after a boost, makes azumarill really weak without a boost however.
- Play Rough is used over knock off if you prefer azumarill hitting harder before a play rough boost, largely redundant otherwise since running it makes you more vulnerable to bulky pokemon that resist aqua jet such as amoongus, volcanion, etc.
- Belly Drum gives azumarill +12 attack and maxing it out at quadrupled attack power, comes at the cost of half its hp however which is somewhat remedied by sitrus berry since it makes the cost of belly drum go from 50% hp to 25% hp. Helps make late game cleaning relatively simple.
- Belly Drum Z is used over Sitrus in case you need to use azumarill earlier in a game since it brings you back to full hp before halving it for the attack boost. Although there are benefits to Belly Drum Z, it comes at the cost of azumarill having less hp at 50% instead of 75% with sitrus in addition to using up your Z move.
- Protect is essential since it lets you stall out field effects such as sun, psychic terrain, tailwind, etc. It also lets azumarill play mindgames with your opponent since at +6 attack it becomes a very common target for your opponent's attacks.
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- Sitrus Berry is to minimize the cost of using Belly Drum which in tandem means Azumarill has more time to sweep after a boost.
- Normalium Z is used if you need to use azumarill to check pokemon early on since it gives you max hp upon before your hp is halved from belly drum but gives you less bulk overall when sweeping with azumarill.
- Adamant maxes out your attack while reducing your unimportant special attack.
- Max Attack it gives azumarill the most offensive presence.
- Max HP investment is to give azumarill the best overall bulk.
- 4 Def is just extra ev's to help azumarill's bulk. Mostly irrelevant however.
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- Due to Azumarill being an all or nothing pokemon with belly drum, it is best saved for late game when your opponent's pokemon are sufficiently weakened so you can successfully sweep their team with the bunny. Also you don't want to use it that much beforehand or it'll be too weakened to use belly drum (not a problem if you're using belly drum Z)
- It should only use belly drum when the biggest threats to it are removed, most notably tapu lele which makes Aqua Jet mostly useless.
- Using Fake out or redirection will make azumarill have a much easier time setting up by incapacitating one of your opponent's pokemon and due to azumarill's good defensive typing and solid bulk, most pokemon are unable to do enough damage to stop a belly drum if azumarill has full hp.
- Protect is very useful to help keep azumarill free from harm because the threat of belly drum forces your opponent to often target it.
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- Tapu Bulu is a solid partner alongside azumarill by removing psychic terrain for grassy terrain which gives azumarill more hp, but more importantly allowing aqua jet to be spammable. It also greatly benefits from azumarill removing fire types that would otherwise wall it, in addition to helping azumarill remove troublesome water types that would otherwise check azumarill.
- Tapu Koko is also a solid partner alongside azumarill by removing psychic terrain and threatening the water types that azumarill can't break easily and it also appreciates ground types being removed by azumarill.
- Redirectors such as Jirachi makes setting up a belly drum much easier and allowing a sweep due to making your opponent target the redirector instead of their main target azumarill.
- Fake out users such as kangaskhan also make setting up belly drum easier since it makes azumarill only have to worry about one of the opponent's pokemon while setting up, has a shared weakness in psychic terrain however since fake out fails on grounded targets in Psychic terrain.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
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- Life Orb is usable but it's nowhere near as threatening as belly drum and also compromises azumarill's otherwise outstanding bulk due to requiring 10% hp to attack. Makes azumarill a more immediate threat however.
Checks and Counters
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**Tapu Lele**: Sets up psychic terrain upon switching in which makes azumarill have a much harder time sweeping due to mostly nullifying your main attacking move in aqua jet and also makes fake out borderline unusable which makes setting up even harder for the bunny.
**Mega Charizard Y**: Sets up sun upon switching in after mega evolving which halves the power of aqua jet which azumarill desperately needs to inflict damage without getting damaged itself. Also does large amounts of damage with solarbeam, uninvested in bulk zard Y are ohko'd by +6 aqua jet in sun and aren't protected by psychic terrain so it's good to keep that in mind.
**Grass-Type Pokemon**: Grass Types tend to be reasonably bulky such as amoonguss or tapu bulu and resist your primary stab while inflicting heavy damage if not outright ohko'ing azumarill in return.
**Intimidate and Burns**: Intimidate users are annoying to azumarill pre belly drum boost since -1 azumarill isn't really threatening anything, intimidators in general lose utility after a belly drum boost since azumarill heavily threatens most intimidators with aqua jet and going from 4x attack to 3.5x attack isn't as big as going from 1x attack to 0.67x attack. Burns halve your attack outright which azumarill hates.
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