I know Cloyster has great physical bulk, but I still feel like its base 75 Speed is too high not to invest in on the Choice Band set. But yeah, Cloyster is definitely getting some improvements and I'm excited to test the Shell Break set in particular.
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Cloyster
- Thread starter DDRMaster
- Start date
I do remember being frustrated about cloyster, having one of the coolest abilities in the game, but there only existing 1 decent multi-hit move. I remembered looking at icicle spear and really wishing it was more powerful.
What do you guys say, naughty with hydro pump or adamant with shell blade? I generally dislike moves without perfect accuracy, but being a mixed attacker would be cool.
At this stage swimming goggles seem to be a hoax, but you can still hope.
What do you guys say, naughty with hydro pump or adamant with shell blade? I generally dislike moves without perfect accuracy, but being a mixed attacker would be cool.
At this stage swimming goggles seem to be a hoax, but you can still hope.
Agree. Shell Break sets should run Surf or Hydro Pump over Shell Blade and a Naughty rather than Adamant nature.
Agreed, the raw power of both being better than the chance to lower defence - you don't need to lower its defence if it's been OHKO'd!
I thought icicle spear only had like... 15 BP. Did it get an upgrade?
Icicle Spear and Rock Blast are now 25 BP.
Yeah. 25 BP now.
Well, I guess if you want to have Hydro Pump over Shell Blade, that's a good compromise. For that, the best EV spread IMO would probably be 252 Atk / 36 SpA / 220 Spe with a Naughty nature. That would at the very least let you outspeed +Speed Scarf base 90s, while giving you just enough power to OHKO stuff like Metagross, Scizor, and Magnezone.
Surf is an option, but it requires you to drop your Speed quite a bit to get the same KOs.
Surf is an option, but it requires you to drop your Speed quite a bit to get the same KOs.
As much as I love Cloyster, I don't beleive he'll end up in OU, even with such fantastic buffs.
With the reduction in the availability of Stealth Rock, (People will be wanting Dream World abilities too much to trade up from D/P), two things happen to Cloyster:
1. More flying types for him to destroy
2. Rapid Spin isn't so vital.
Unfortunately, the boost in the viability of several flying types also influences potentially better Ice types, like Mamoswine and Weavile, both of which don't require a boost to reach good levels of attack and speed, and can run Choice Sets better.
Nonetheless, a +2 Attack Cloyster will easily have a more powerful Ice Shard than either of the above and will also have access to the most powerful Physical Ice attack (I beleive there may be a better attack than Icicle Spear, but is a signiture move of a legendary).
Cloyster's downfall also comes in the form of poor type coverage.
His strongest attacks are Rock and Ice, which together don't offer much, bar completely breaking flying types, and he must also sacrifice a move slot for his new boost, meaning he cant carry all of his utility such as Rapid Spin and Explosion in addition to his offensive abilities.
Cloyster also gets completely broken by Priority.
Lucario, Infernape and Breloom, 3 extremely dangerous offensive threats, all have super effective Priority moves which are far more danagerous after cloyster lowers his own defense, not to mention that two of those resist Cloyster's own Priority attack, should he run it.
Although I see cloyster being used occaisionally for a "Surprise! Your annoying Zapdos is about to die!" or maybe to destroy an Ononokusu with Ice Shard while rapid spinning (Even thogh Mamoswine and Weavile do it better, they just don't have Rapid Spin) I don't think he'll enter mainstream OU.
Worst case scenario is that this guy gets trapped in BL for being able to get off a boost abusing his monstrous defense too easily in UU and then sweeping with Icicle Spear.
With the reduction in the availability of Stealth Rock, (People will be wanting Dream World abilities too much to trade up from D/P), two things happen to Cloyster:
1. More flying types for him to destroy
2. Rapid Spin isn't so vital.
Unfortunately, the boost in the viability of several flying types also influences potentially better Ice types, like Mamoswine and Weavile, both of which don't require a boost to reach good levels of attack and speed, and can run Choice Sets better.
Nonetheless, a +2 Attack Cloyster will easily have a more powerful Ice Shard than either of the above and will also have access to the most powerful Physical Ice attack (I beleive there may be a better attack than Icicle Spear, but is a signiture move of a legendary).
Cloyster's downfall also comes in the form of poor type coverage.
His strongest attacks are Rock and Ice, which together don't offer much, bar completely breaking flying types, and he must also sacrifice a move slot for his new boost, meaning he cant carry all of his utility such as Rapid Spin and Explosion in addition to his offensive abilities.
Cloyster also gets completely broken by Priority.
Lucario, Infernape and Breloom, 3 extremely dangerous offensive threats, all have super effective Priority moves which are far more danagerous after cloyster lowers his own defense, not to mention that two of those resist Cloyster's own Priority attack, should he run it.
Although I see cloyster being used occaisionally for a "Surprise! Your annoying Zapdos is about to die!" or maybe to destroy an Ononokusu with Ice Shard while rapid spinning (Even thogh Mamoswine and Weavile do it better, they just don't have Rapid Spin) I don't think he'll enter mainstream OU.
Worst case scenario is that this guy gets trapped in BL for being able to get off a boost abusing his monstrous defense too easily in UU and then sweeping with Icicle Spear.
There are a couple of things wrong with this. First of all, Ice and Rock go very well together. Just by themselves, they hit 7 types super-effectively, which is amazing for only 2 moves. Also, I'm not particularly sure what you mean by poor type coverage. Ice/Rock/Water is resisted by a grand total of 3 pokemon, and those 3 pokemon still take massive damage from boosted Icicle Spears. In addition, he's not going to be using Rapid Spin on his boosting set, meaning that Shell Break won't be taking up a moveslot on those particular utility sets, so that won't be an issue.
Lastly, Lucario has no super effective priority on Cloyster. The best he can do is LO Extremespeed, which only does 41.5% - 49% to a 0/0 -1 Cloyster.
If Breloom wants to use Mach Punch, he's going to either do 54.8% - 64.7% with Mach Punch to a 0/0 -1 Cloyster by using Poison Heal, or use Technician to OHKO, but ultimately take away a lot of his utility basically only to use Mach Punch and maybe Bullet Seed. Infernape admittedly will be a bit of a problem, and I mentioned that, though it's also fairly obvious that none of these priority users can switch in after a boost, not even Lucario, so they'll only be coming in on revenge-kills, which is still bad.
EDIT: My bad, I totally forgot Lucario has Vaccum Wave. -.-
Vacuum Wave. Vacuum wave by itself is a huge threat to Cloyster. With no boosting item, 252 Lucario OHKOs 0/0 Cloyster with it no sweat. With Life Orb, 0 Lucario OHKOs 0/0 Cloyster. As for -1 0/0 Cloyster, well, 0- Lucario OHKOs without a boosting item. Cloyster's special defense is that bad.
Also, Shell Break is pretty impressive, but Cloyster still has to take a turn to set up. If you know Cloyster will get a free Shell Break when you switch out, you're more likely to stay in and try to kill Cloyster, which shouldn't be too hard when it has 4 weaknesses to popular types and its only resistances are Water and Ice.
Set up shouldn't be too hard here, just set up on a weak pursuit ur something, the physical bulk is high, even without EV-investment.
And type-coverage, Cloyster hits nearly everything for at least neutral damage and OHKOs most of the bulkiest things out there.
Vacuum Wave is a problem, but that doesn't hinder anyone from setting up with Lucario, for example.
And type-coverage, Cloyster hits nearly everything for at least neutral damage and OHKOs most of the bulkiest things out there.
Vacuum Wave is a problem, but that doesn't hinder anyone from setting up with Lucario, for example.
That depends on which Registeel you mean, but looking at the analysis, it looks like Registeel doesn't invest much in physical defense, and moreso in Special Defense.
In that case, a +2 LO Icicle Spear does 45.3% - 53.6% to a 252/0 Registeel, and +2 LO Shell Blade does 54.4% - 64.3%. While it's not a OHKO, it's a pretty solid 2HKO, even with Icicle Spear, which is pretty impressive considering that Registeel resists the move. It can 2HKO 252 HP/216 SpD Careful Registeel with +2 LO 36 SpA EV Hydro Pump, doing 46.4% - 54.7% but is a bad choice to hit Registeel with since it's inaccurate.
Standard Tank from smogon is 252/4/252 Careful, Icicle Spear does 45.05% minimum and Shell Blade does 54.4% minimum, so it is almost always a 2HKO if it switches on Icicle Spear.
36 SpA Hydro Pump does 45.33% minimum, so it should stick to Shell Blade.
Edit: Ninja'd XD
36 SpA Hydro Pump does 45.33% minimum, so it should stick to Shell Blade.
Edit: Ninja'd XD
Both of these have less physical bulk than Registeel and invest more on attack than defenses, even 252/0 Metagross is 2HKO'd (min 51.1%) by Icicle spear alone =D
Even with 36 SpA Hydro pump this Metagross has like 50%~ chance of surviving the OHKO.
Even with 36 SpA Hydro pump this Metagross has like 50%~ chance of surviving the OHKO.
They're also both much more relevant than Registeel. You don't want to let Metagross live any longer than you have to.
Meaning Cloyster loses its boosts and takes another hit of SR damage. Meanwhile, unless the Vacuum Waver is Specs'd (a bad idea with Shaderaa around), Shanderaa has to take an attack from said Vacuum Waver. Lucario has both Shadow Ball and Dark Pulse and, assuming Timid, 252 satk, and LO, 4/0 Shanderaa takes 87% minimum from both.
How do you see him against Bulky Waters?
Vaporeon, for example, comes in on the Water Type attack you attempt to use to hit a Steel type for Neutral damage, gets a boost and stalls for an annoyingly long time.
The standard Wish vaporeon only takes a maximum of 41% from a rock blast with life orb, he can then Wish off the damage.
A +2 attack Rock Blast deals 82% to standard vaporeon, who wish/protects or roars him away.
Burunkeru also seems like the bane of Cloyster.
If he carries Water Absorb, he comes in for a free heal on a water attack. If he carries Cursed Body, he can disable rock blast and take the Innefective Ice or Water attacks, although i'm not sure of whether or not Cursed Body activates 100% of the time, it probably doesn't.
Forcing a switch on a boosted Cloyster is going to end up being commonplace.
Vaporeon, for example, comes in on the Water Type attack you attempt to use to hit a Steel type for Neutral damage, gets a boost and stalls for an annoyingly long time.
The standard Wish vaporeon only takes a maximum of 41% from a rock blast with life orb, he can then Wish off the damage.
A +2 attack Rock Blast deals 82% to standard vaporeon, who wish/protects or roars him away.
Burunkeru also seems like the bane of Cloyster.
If he carries Water Absorb, he comes in for a free heal on a water attack. If he carries Cursed Body, he can disable rock blast and take the Innefective Ice or Water attacks, although i'm not sure of whether or not Cursed Body activates 100% of the time, it probably doesn't.
Forcing a switch on a boosted Cloyster is going to end up being commonplace.
Vaporeon is a problem though, yeah. Unless it's weakened, Cloyster will lose the 1 on 1 (if it carries HP electric, in case of surf / ib, Cloyster will win).
Taking SR in concern, Cloyster is able to OHKO a offensive Cune with Rock Blast; Crocune loses 'cause of it's only attack-move being surf, swampert gets OHKOd.
Read somewhere that Cursed Body has a 33.3 % chance to work, but that's not confirmed yet, I think - but it's sure that it doesn't work all the time.
Taking SR in concern, Cloyster is able to OHKO a offensive Cune with Rock Blast; Crocune loses 'cause of it's only attack-move being surf, swampert gets OHKOd.
Read somewhere that Cursed Body has a 33.3 % chance to work, but that's not confirmed yet, I think - but it's sure that it doesn't work all the time.