Discussion: Electivire

Dormin

Dormin

I would like everyone's opinion on him. In my experience, he has been very much subpar. It would be blasphemy to say he doesn't have great type coverage, and motor drive in theory is awesome--but I find these attributes to be "better on paper." The standard sweeper version is rather frail and, without the speed boost, he is not very useful. Plus, I find that, once he gets his motor drive boost he will never get it again. Inevitably he is going to be forced out by the likes of Hippowdon/Scarfchomp/any scarfer with a ground attack or power. After that, the advantage is gone, and he is dead weight. Extrapolating more off of the "any scarfer" comment, this metagame is overwhelming speed oriented, and random stuff wear scarfs to look cool.

Anyway, discuss!
 
This one has 2 views. The others have one.

So i'll comment here.


I thing Electivire sucks. He gets utterly walled by so many things. Even if you stick Flamethrower or HP Ice / Grass on him you won't get a sweep.
 
Yeah, lol, the connection was slow so I thought it wasn't posting hahah.

I concur wholeheartedly with you Blue Harvest--I find him useless *waits for electivire fan*
 
This guy went from hero to zero really quickly. Do you remember at one point no one in there right mind would T-Bolt Gyarados due to fear of the dreaded combo? Strictly stone edges. But the metagame evolved and suddenly Electivire wasn't feared, I've used it a few times provided only the Super effective set not the MixVire set which some people say is more effective.

It hits loads of things for super effective but hasn't got the power to back it up with no STAB on most of the moves.

Maybe the player is part of the problem when we switch Electivire into a electric attack we never want to switch it out simply because we know that speed boost won't come again, and without that speed boost Electivire doesn't look that good, even on paper.
 
There is a delete thread button...

Anyway, 'Vire IMO is a bit overrated. If it doesn't hit SE, it doesn't do enough damage most of the time to kill something.
 
It might have been better if they switched its atk and sp.atk around but Vire is utterly walled by Cresselia. I find that its quite weak and doesn't have enough power compared to the other sweepers. Not even its type coverage makes up for it.
 
AND we all get predictions wrong.......and with vire screw one up and he is fricking useless half the time, 2KOd because of lack of speed and the switch damage, or forced into a counter and set up on!
 
I am not so certain about this Pokemon. He has OU higher-tier material for the first few months or so, to then be down-graded in the Shoddy metagame to just above BL. There's 123 Base attack while he scores 13 of the 17 types super effective. The duo between him and Gyarados is great when there's an electric threat lurking by. I just don't think it's easy to get this to get Motordrive going, when he does, he can't sweep tanks because of his physical side not being able to penetrate Hippo and Swampert hard enough while they return with a OHKO. It's frustrating as there's potential, it can't get going.


As for the Life Orb Mixed set, I am damn fond of, but then it lets other Pokemon become a threat in a never ending cycle. There's nothing bad about him, infact, he actually gives teams weaknesses and people don't know it.


We'll have to see.
 
I'm by no means an expert on pokemon but I have had a lot of sucess with this

252spd/252atk/4hp
Expert Belt
Thunder Punch
Earthquake
Cross Chop
Ice Punch

Since my teams usually have a lightining weakness due to poor team design on my part. After a motor drive boost it just seems to wreck house except for Cross Chop missing on Ttar and blissey now and then

;/
 
lol that's ok Shogun. I find it ironic that that set is the standard, when it is probably the least useful of the ones listed there. Practically any Physical Wall says hi to that set :p
 
If he was perhaps a dual-type, he woulda been far more loved. I mean, I honestly though he was was Electric/ Fight til I evolved an Electabuzz of my own and was sad. :(

In any case, I find the Mix set more useful from personal experience.
 
His speed (with or without the boost) and mix sweeping capabilities can't be overlooked when you make a team for sure. I personally find the Flamethrower/HP:Ice/Cross Chop/Tbolt one to be the best as it can take many physical walls that swap in with 2 shots. Celebi's can take the physical Evire, but can't handle this special one, Hippowdon won't appreciate walking in on Fthrower/HP:Ice. Theres other examples but Im just saying he is generally better because the common special walls (Blissey, Snorlax, Heatrans) can't swap into this set to take the special hits with the threat of Cross Chop - but countless physical walls can swap into the physical set.

Cresselia is the end all counter to Evire, but it isn't that hard to have another pokemon on your team that can take cresselia easily. Sub/Magnet Rise/Tbolt/HP:ice Magnezone sets up on every cresselia easily and can dish out damage(Psychic/Ice Beam/HP:Elec are all resisted by it, and he can magnet rise before HP:Ground). Magnezone packs a punch to teams that don't carry blissey and is really annoying after a magnet rise (he also has the misconception that you can only bring him on on steel types or the surprise is ruined!! he IS useful as a steel trapper but people don't think much more outside the box for other uses of him or ways he can swap in). There also is CBTar - which swaps into Ice Beams/TBolts easily and gives the threat of pursuit/crunch to Cresselia. Houndoom walks in on Psychic/Ice Beam easily and can set up Nasty Plot or go for a CB Pursuit as well. There are other examples but you get the point.

Swampert is easily dealt with too if you don't go HP: Grass. Nineteen out of twenty swamperts will fire an equake aimlessly and there are TONS of pokemon that swap into an equake easily and can set up in swamperts face. You can even swap in breloom into swampert equakes easily and you can start setting him up to sleep swampert/whatever they swap in and then let Evire loose again later in the match when he doesn't care about a sleeping swampert.

I think people look at him and think he needs the speed boost to get going - and when he gets the speed boost they are reluctant to pull him out. Being smart with him is key. You don't need gyarados to set him up (See: TWave blissey - very overlooked way to get EVire in) and you don't need a speed boost to cause damage. Knowing when to pull the plug on him and swap him out is usually where people have a downfall - too many ignorant people keep him in after he has his boost. Maybe you just got the boost, predict wrong and Tbolt a hippowdon swap in. You can dent it with HP:ice and take a death when he equakes, or swap out and set up on hippowdon as they won't take the risk of not equaking because they could get 2HKO by special versions.
 
I've been using him for a while and he's been a little underwhelming. His coverage is excellent but you pretty much have to predict perfectly, and if you're out-predicted it might be over. The Expert Belt SE set is pretty good, but definitely has weaknesses. You can't kill even a Donphan with Ice Punch on the switch, and everything that's x4 weak to one of your moves isn't going to be silly enough to stay in on it. So you're basically hoping that you can somehow convince him to switch IN a guy who's x4 weak, assuming that you will switch away from his counter.

Even pokemon that are weak to his attacks are not often 1HKOed by them. Again, x4 weakness is nice but anything less is not a guarantee unless its with T Punch. I've been thinking about replacing him, especially since I've moved away from BP, but his coverage is very useful. His one major redeeming quality, I suppose.

Overall, powerful but a little lacking without a boost of some kind (besides Motor Drive).

Edit: I'm mainly talking about the Physical Expert Belt set, as that's the one I've been using. I haven't tried the mixed sweeper one, it may well fill the problems i've been talking about.

-JM
 
Yeah, the lack of a set-up move is rather discouraging. Btw, Meditate is NOT good enough. Think how awesome it would have been had he gotten Swords Dance or Nasty Plot. Switch into electric attack--set-up--gg
:pimp:
 
Meh, the only use I have for it is as a Baton Pass recipient since it can hit from both sides of the spectrum with very strong attacks. If it does get all the boosts, it's GG for sure.
 
I don't get why people seem to be jumping on the "Electivire sucks now" bandwagon. I wouldn't call myself the "Evire fan" the thread creator's been waiting for, but I'll try to argue for him.

Cresselia walls a lot more than Electivire, does that make those Pokemon bad? Of course not. If Cresselia didn't wall mixed sweepers such as Electivire, she wouldn't be used nearly as much as she is. ;\ GyaraVire is also a lot easier to pull off than people think. People aren't going to use only Rock moves against Gyarados (because most Rock moves are physical) because they think that you might pull out an Electivire, people won't hesitate to grab the chance to use their Vaporeon's Hidden Power that they worked so hard to breed (or... possibly just selected IVs on a sim, or traded for). So with some simple Electric weak Pokemon, and beginner's prediction, Electivire can become faster than he normally is. Obviously, the problem with that is convenience, so your opponent's Garchomp can kill your Heatran, but you can't revenge kill it with Electivire, since the speed boost is readily available. This isn't such a "breaking" quality, and people are much to one-dimensional when they think about Evire. And it's not like Electivire has trouble finding something to switch in on, Blissey's on about 1/3 of teams, right? What else can it do?

Well, let's forget about Motor Drive for a sec, since everyone now thinks it's some kind of terrible ability, give it a Jolly nature (because base 95 speed isn't that bad...), and just throw a Choice Band on it. =\ The extra power might surprise some people hoping to wall it with their Donphan, or something, and instead, they're hit with a well predicted, super effective Ice Punch from a Band, and Electivire simply switches out afterwards. Once he gets a chance to come back in, Donphan has been removed as a counter, as I doubt he can take three max attack CB'd Ice Punches. Impish 252/252 Donphan takes 39.58% - 46.61% from Jolly CB'd 252 Attack Electivire. Maybe you could Scarf it? The type coverage is great, and often what a revenge killer needs for specific threats, right? Yes, the analysis doesn't recommend any Choice sets, since "Electivire needs the freedom", but maybe that's what your opponent thinks? Maybe the analysis is as outdated as the hype itself? And Meditate might not be the greatest, but it's a form of boosting attack, meaning that he can't be put into a stalemate. Cresselia doesn't exactly pack a lot of punch, right?

Sure, Electivire has some problems, and I'm not denying that, but he isn't at all "useless" like the OP claims in his second post in the thread. =\
 
I like to use him, but I always Speed-pass to him first, usually from Ninjask. Then I can at least scout to see if I have an electric attack coming my way. I've had alot of success with Nasty Plot passes from Togekiss as well. He's fun, but he can't really sweep without a speed boost. I love when people bring in Scizor or Forretress to wall him though, then eat a Flamethrower.
 
I think a lot of 'vire's ineffectiveness comes from how it's used on teams: Mostly way too early. We've all seen the lead Gyarados instant switch to Electivire. 'vire is a great clean-up hitter, but he's not the sweeper a lot of people tried to make him.
 
life orb mix vire really is nice late game. I tried it out on shoddy, and he fares well.

aside from that he is far to easy to counter, based on the standard sets.
 
Electrivire doesn't suck, but he isn't a force to be feared either. The best counter to electrivire is something that it can't hit Super Effective, since due to the low base power of Electrivire's moves, his hits at neutral aren't particularly powerful.
It does have excellent type coverage however, and Motor Drive is broken as fuck. Electrivire is an automatic counter to all electric types because of it, and it gets faster when hit with thunder wave, making him a good switch in to Blissey.
I find that Electrivire lets me down due to lack of strength when not hitting super effective, and that he is slow when not getting motor drive boosts. He also lacks defensive power, making him rather fragile as well. Overall, he is good, but not as scary as say Garchomp or Salamence.
 
People think Electrivire is overrated because they either expect too much of it or use it incorrectly. Electrivire is an incredibly versatile pokemon that deserves to be feared. It is partially the reason that Sing has become more popular on Blissey- Thunder wave is a free switch in.

Base 123 attack is nothing to scoff at. The low move power makes hitting super-effective a requirement, and that's where people predict and Electrivire is beaten. It really needs to be saved for late game, where their prediction of your normally predictable moveset is less important.

And "random" choice scarfers? Most of the time it's not too hard to tell when a random pokemon is equipped with choice scarf. They are usually pokemon that sit at 270+ or over base 100 that are fragile and enjoy the extra power granted by a positive nature in the attacking stat. This includes: Gengar, Garchomp, Azelf, Salamence, Heatran, Aerodactyl, Weavile, and a few others.

Want an easy solution? Try putting choice scarf on Electrivire. He is in the ideal speed range already, and no one expects it. I once used a MixVire as a lead- the extensive type coverage is very helpful. Besides, when you get the Motor Drive boost, it usually prompts a switch to a Scarfed pokemon, who you will beat anyway. Just watch out for Hippowodon and Swampert- neither of them are countered even with HP Grass.

Conclusion: Electrivire isn't bad, he was just overhyped to begin with. If he is used properly it is still a force to be feared.
 
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