DP Nidoqueen

[umbarsc]

This has been my favorite UU lead to use, so I thought I'd write up a Peer Edit. I'm not sure if it really needs a Peer Edit, but I thought I'd post it all the same. I originally had this with Stealth Rocks, and decided to throw on Toxic Spikes almost as an afterthought (Toxic Spikes probably deserves its own set though, so maybe this should just be "Stealth Rock Lead")

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/nidoqueen

[SET]
name: Support Lead
move 1: Stealth Rock / Toxic Spikes
move 2: Taunt
move 3: Earth Power
move 4: Ice Beam
item: Lum Berry
ability: Poison Point
evs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 12 SpD / 44 Spe
nature: Bold

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>With Taunt and her respectable bulk, Nidoqueen can take on the majority of common UU leads to set up Stealth Rock or Toxic Spikes, depending on your team's needs. Taunt and Lum Berry beats most sleep leads, such as Venusaur and Persian. Ice Beam and Earth Power get super-effective coverage against Steelix, Venusaur, Electrode, and Ninetales, among other common leads. Most leads are incapable of OHKOing her with their standard sets, giving her ample time to set up Stealth Rocks or Toxic Spikes, Taunt to prevent their set-ups, or attack them outright.<p/>

<p>The 44 Speed EVs allow Nidoqueen to outspeed 4 Speed EV Venusaur. 200 Defense EVs ensures that Nidoqueen will never be 2HKOed by Primeape's Earthquake (assuming Adamant nature, 252 Attack EVs, holding a Choice Scarf), and the 12 Special Defense EVs ensure Nidoqueen will always avoid a 2HKO from Venusaur's Leaf Storm (assuming Timid Nature, 252 Special Attack EVs, holding a Choice Scarf).</p>

<p>How this is played and what move you choose for moveslot 1 depends largely on your team. If you're using this on a more offensively-leaned team, going with Stealth Rocks is the preferred option. If you're just setting up for your hard-hitters, Nidoqueen is basically played as a scout, Taunting things and attacking things until she goes down, in order to send in a threatening sweeper for free. This way, you can gain information about your opponent's team and can set up Stealth Rocks, which can give you the upper hand quickly and allow you to control the pace of the battle. However, if you're using a more balanced team, using Stealth Rocks may be preferable because Toxic Spikes is not a very accessible move in UU, unlike Stealth Rocks, which the top three most common UU Pokemon are capable of using. If this is being used on a balanced team, it's better to play conservatively so she has more opportunities to switch in later.</p>

 

[rkatzam]

I really don't see how Nidoqueen is capable of handling Swellow. It might survive the attack, but it's too slow and will get finished off easily later.

Ninetales can win vs this Nidoqueen. Earth Power only 2HKOs, while Ninetales can Nasty Plot the first turn and have a good chance to OHKO with Fire Blast or Flamethrower + Life Orb.

Aero can Taunt and set up rocks himself, or just 2HKO with EQ assuming he has Life Orb. It's mostly a question of prediction here, but Aero still has the upper hand thanks to his speed. Ice Beam will 2HKO him only about 50% of the time, unless he is carrying Life Orb after all. However, Aero might just be kicked out of UU very soon so I don't know if he's worth discussing.

 

[umbarsc]

The whole point is to set up Stealth Rocks, so Nidoqueen does its job against most of the leads with some prediction. However, you're right that Aerodactyl beats it, so this is a little outdated, which is why I'm not sure if it needs a Peer Edit.

 

[Lee]

Like I said on Shoddy, I really can't see the logic in running so many speed EVs to outrun Jolly Max Speed Aggron, who is not only freakishly rare but also has no business staying in on Nidoqueen.

I'd rather seem them in Def or SpA (maybe even SpD to help out against Ninetales).

 

[umbarsc]

I agree that they won't be too useful generally, but I like to think of it like this: with the EVs in Speed, occasionally it'll be game-changing, but with them in Defenses, it will very rarely make any significant difference. Of course, Aggron is "NU" so it could probably stand to have the speed lowered.

I think setting them to 76 for outspeeding Articuno would be a good idea so it can be Taunted to prevent SubRoost or similar tactics (Ice Beam is not a OHKO from most Articuno).

On another note, I always found Earth Power + Ice Beam preferrable, but should Earthquake + Stone Edge at least be mentioned?

 

[Caelum]

Do people even run maximum Speed Jolly Aggron (according to DJD's stats, 16.1% of Aggron run maximum Speed)? I agree defensive EVs should be emphasized if they are just basically for Aggron. I'll play around with the spread if that's alright with you Umb? I like the set though.

 

[cim]

Do people even, you know, use Aggron? I don't see why you'd worry about him at all especially with that STAB Earth Power scaring it off.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I agree, Speed EVs really aren't that good for anything other than playing the outspeed-other-Nidoqueens-by-1-point game. I would rather see those Spe EVs moved into SpAtk so that Nidoqueen's moves (which have amazing type coverage) can actually hurt something. 75 base SpAtk isn't very much. I would want to actually threaten the things I'm trying to counter. Maybe some more Defense, or even SpDef might be useful to take down Claydol or something. I don't know, it doesn't matter. The moral is that those Speed EVs need to go somewhere else.

 

[Havak]

<p>How this is played and what move you choose for moveslot 1 depends largely on your team. If you're using this on a more offensively-leaned team, going with Stealth Rocks is the preferred option. If you're just setting up for your hard-hitters, Nidoqueen is basically played as a scout, Taunting things and attacking things until she goes down, in order to send in a threatening sweeper for free. This way, you can gain information about your opponent's team and can set up Stealth Rocks, which can give you the upper hand quickly and allow you to control the pace of the battle. However, if you're using a more balanced team, using Stealth Rocks may be preferable because Toxic Spikes is not a very accessible move in UU, unlike Stealth Rocks, which the top three most common UU Pokemon are capable of using. If this is being used on a balanced team, it's better to play conservatively.</p>

"Preferred" and "Preferable" were spelled wrong.

I'm still not sure of Smogon's stance on the term "outspeed" or "outspeeding", I believe it should be "out-speed" or "out-speeding", but I guess they're fine.

I also agree on removing the majority of Speed EVs, unless you're out-speeding something more worthy than Jolly 252 Aggron, I don't see a point in them as with Taunt you're unlikely to go first anyway. But that doesn't really matter as against threats like Ninetales and Persian, you'll evade Hypnosis with your Lum Berry if it hits anyway, then Taunt them to prevent a second attempt. You're then free to set-up Stealth Rock or Toxic Spikes. Although, I'd like to see some mention of the merit about using both Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes on the same set, as Nidoqueen is one of the few who can set up both rather effectively.

Where you say "moveslot 1" I'm not sure if you should say "moveslot one", as I believe the stance is numbers 1-9 are spelled out as words unless referring to EVs, an IV, or a Stat. While 10-x are usually always spelled out as words.

Also, you only used 504 EVs instead of 508 (510).

 

[umbarsc]

Yeah, looking back I agree the Speed EVs are too excessive (they've only been useful for me twice). I think the EV spread should be:

252 HP / 200 Def / 44 SpA / 12 SpD / 40 Spe

This outspeeds 4 Spe Venusaur, allows it to always avoid a 2HKO from Adamant Primeape's Earthquake, and allows it to always avoid a 2HKO from Timid Venusaur's Leaf Storm.

 

[Caelum]

Thought? Use those EVs lol.

 

[the pugilist]

Bumping this to a certain extent as Aerodactly is now OU

 

[umbarsc]

This set is much more effective with Aerodactyl out of the picture.

Luckily, I only needed to change a very small bit to edit out Aerodactyl.

 

[the pugilist]

The current EV spread at the moment has too many EVs =/. I personally dumped the added speed since this Nidoqueen can deal with both Venusaurs damaging and non damaging attacks + the bulkieness is preferred to increase the chance SR is set up

 

[Havak]

Yeh, you have 40 (38) more EVs than you can use, so just remove the Speed EVs as Puggy said. If you can take two hits from Venusaur, you probably don't need to out-speed it when you can just set up your Stealth Rock or Toxic Spikes instead.

However, I'm starting to question Taunt on this set now, as without any notable Speed advantages, is it really all that useful? If you're going second a lot of the time, that Taunt is just going to force your opponent to attack so you can get your Stealth Rock down. But, the Lum Berry will allow you to avoid any status and set up Stealth Rock anyway, so you can just Stealth Rock without needing to Taunt IMO. You can't be Poisoned or Paralysed by Thunder Wave and Burn from Will-o-Wisp isn't hindering you as much since you're running a Special move-set. Obviously, being able to avoid Sleep status after the Taunt is good, but once you've set up Stealth Rock you're kind of done your job with this Nidoqueen set.

Now, with Toxic Spikes, I can see the merit as that's a two turn set-up; but for Stealth Rock I'd probably just not bother Taunting almost all the time. I understand that you may use it to prevent others setting up Stealth Rock or Spikes, or even Toxic Spikes (which you can rid of by just switching in anyway), but I feel this is very situational and your opponent will lay down their entry hazard a few turns later anyway.

Despite all this, though, I don't think there's really a much needed replacement for it. Maybe do what I said earlier though, and speak of Nidoqueen's ability to set up both hazards.

 

[umbarsc]

Yeah, when I calculated the remaining EVs, I forgot to take speed EVs into account.

I think I'll just remove the SpA EVs and go for 44 Spe. The SpA EVs don't do anything significant, they're just the result of EV leftover. Outspeeding 4 Spe Venusaur might not be significant usually, but I'd rather outspeed Venusaur than have a bunch of SpA EVs that don't turn any 3HKOs into 2HKOs. If you Taunt against said 4 Spe Venusaur, you may be able to preserve your Lum Berry for later, or perhaps you'll be able to get 3 attacks against it when you'd normally only get two, or perhaps it's a minimum Speed Specser or something crazy like that. I'd just feel much more comfortable with the speed advantage than without it.

@Havak

Taunt is definitely useful on this lead Nidoqueen, as most of what will you will be using it on will be slower than you. Don't think in OU terms; there are no speedy Pokemon like Azelf, Deoxys-S, and Aerodactyl (as of two days ago) setting up Stealth Rocks in UU. Think Steelix and Claydol.

Also, without Taunt I always found this to be a bit of a set-up fodder. Earth Power + Ice Beam gets pretty good coverage, but if you can't hit something super-effective and it's not extremely frail, it's not going to take a lot of damage coming from 186 SpA (and the 44 SpA EVs don't help in this regard either). I was using this on an offensive team, and usually I'd just sacrifice this, using it to keep Rocks off the field and scout the opponent's team, and Taunt was one of the most important moves in that regard because it would force them to attack Nidoqueen directly and block set-ups, making it very easy for my sweepers to revenge-kill.

 

[umbarsc]

Are there any more qualms with the set or comments?

 

[Invective]

Ice Beam and Earth Power gets (remove the "s") super-effective coverage against Steelix, Venusaur, Electrode, and Ninetales, among other common leads.

The word "gets" is used when referring to a singular statement while "Ice Beam and Earth Power" is plural. Otherwise it implies that both the moves get super effective damage on the listed pokes after.

 

[Imran]

<p>With Taunt and her respectable bulk, Nidoqueen can take on the majority of common UU leads to set up Stealth Rock or Toxic Spikes for the team, depending on it's (Repetition of "team seemed a little awkward) needs. Taunt and Lum Berry beats most sleep leads, such as Venusaur and Persian. Ice Beam and Earth Power gets super-effective coverage against Steelix, Venusaur, Electrode, and Ninetales, among other common leads. Most leads are incapable of OHKOing her with their standard sets, giving her ample time to set up Stealth Rocks or Toxic Spikes, Taunt to prevent their set-ups, or attack them outright.<p/>

That's all there I think.

 

[Havak]

Drop a line once all changes have been made, then I'll upload this.

 

[umbarsc]

I made the changes. Unless someone else has something to say, I think it's ready to be uploaded.

 

[Stellar]

I'll upload it.

1 PM EST

EDIT: Has bee cached. Can be moved to archive.

 

[Caelum]

^ friendly reminder ^_^