Cramorant
Type: Flying / Water
Stats: 70 HP / 85 Atk / 55 Def / 85 SpA / 95 SpD / 85 Spe (475 BST)
Ability: Gulp Missile
Relevant Moves:
Agility
Air Slash
Amnesia
Brave Bird
Chilling Water
Defog
Dive
Hurricane
Hydro Pump
Ice Beam
Icy Wind
Liquidation
Roost
Surf
Pros:
- Gulp Missile is an extremely powerful Ability, especially when loaded with a Pikachu. The power of paralyzing the opponent 100% of the time, just by having them attack you, is immense. Cramorant's access to Roost and decent Speed may grant it the longevity necessary to load multiple Gulp Missiles per battle.
- A surprise Terastallization may allow Cramorant to sneak in even more Gulp Missiles, turning the tide of battle significantly.
- Cramorant's typing gives it a decent matchup against threats like Great Tusk and Heatran, and has fantastic synergy with Tera Ground.
- Cramorant has rare access to Defog, giving it potential to stand out as a hazard removal option.
- Cramorant's physical bulk is quite poor, making it hard to switch into many Pokemon you'd expect it to without near-maximum investment. Even then, it may still be 2HKOd by decently strong neutral attacks.
- Cramorant's offensive stats aren't anything amazing either, making its presence largely reliant on Gulp Missile. This also means it struggles to break through Gholdengo, a damning trait for a Defog user.
- Cramorant is reliant on Heavy-Duty Boots, which are likely to be knocked off when switching in versus Great Tusk.
- Gulp Missile, while strong, can be worked around with residual damage sources such as Toxic.
- Cramorant has competition as a Water/Flying Defog user in Swanna, who boasts better physical bulk and Knock Off to leave some sort of mark on Gholdengo. Additionally, Pelipper exists as a Water/Flying Pokemon that, other than lacking Defog, is almost wholly superior and offers far more to a team.
- Ground is far and away the best Tera type for Cramorant defensively, being a good defensive typing in its own right, providing a Stealth Rock resistance, and vitally turning its weaknesses into resistances and immunities.
- Water is an option for offensive Cramorant sets, as those aim to be spamming Surf as much as possible in order to load Gulp Missile.
time to CRAM some sets in haha get it aha
Defensive
Cramorant @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Gulp Missile
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 232 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Hurricane
- Defog / Ice Beam / Amnesia
- Roost
Fairly self-explanatory. Defog can be dropped if you have a Great Tusk or something, letting you run Ice Beam to do solid damage to Garchomp, or Amnesia to stick around and be annoying with lots of Gulp Missiles against certain teams. Speed EVs outspeed 0 Speed Great Tusk, the rest goes into maximizing physical bulk without giving Cramorant an HP number divisible by 4.
Offensive
Cramorant @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Choice Specs / Mystic Water
Ability: Gulp Missile
Tera Type: Water / Ground
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Hydro Pump / Roost
- Hurricane / Roost
- Defog
This set is more capable of bypassing Gholdengo in order to Defog, at the expense of most of its switchin opportunities. Cramorant just barely outspeeds Gholdengo, and can potentially 2HKO with Hydro Pump, or Surf into Tera Water Hydro Pump, while avoiding a 2HKO from unboosted Shadow Ball (and punishing Shadow Ball with 25% damage). Otherwise, just a fairly predictable offensive set. Mystic Water enables Surf + Hydro Pump to KO Gholdengo without using Tera, while Choice Specs lets you Just Click Surf.
Overall Thoughts?
Tera is great for Cramorant, whichever way you look at it, and the lower tiers surely won't complain about getting a solid hazard remover that's strong into Ground-types. This thing obviously won't end up anywhere near OU but Gulp Missile is crazy enough to get some stuff done, especially with this Gen being more offensively inclined than SwSh.
