Dusclops (Analysis)

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Status: done (?)
QC approvals: 3/3 [ Delta 2777 || PK Gaming || Iconic ]​
GP approvals: 2/2 [ bugmaniacbob || jc104 ]

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[Overview]

<p>Dusclops, a potent wall in Hoenn, but forced into obscurity in Sinnoh thanks to its evolution Dusknoir, now has a chance for a comeback in Unova. The reason is the new item Eviolite, which boosts Dusclops's great base 130 defensive stats by 50%-in fact, it's one of the best users found so far. Its base 40 HP stat might look abysmal, but with Dusclops's Eviolite-boosted defenses, it's enough to take a lot of hits rather well. Dusclops's defensive capabilities are buffed even further by its great mono-Ghost typing, which gives it immunity to Normal-type and more important Fighting-type moves, and its stalling abilities are also impressive thanks to Pressure. Still don't mistake it for Dusknoir; in contrast, Dusclops's offenses are very poor, so it relies on Night Shade or Seismic Toss most of the time to deal reliable damage to the opponent's team.</p>

[SET]
name: Defensive
move 1: Pain Split
move 2: Will-O-Wisp
move 3: Night Shade
move 4: Ice Beam / Taunt
nature: Calm
item: Eviolite
evs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpD
ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>With the given EVs and the Eviolite boost, Dusclops hits defensive stats of 284 HP, 474 Defense, and 561 Special Defense, which is nothing to laugh at. Its sky-high defenses and low health make Pain Split a great recovery move, while Will-O-Wisp effectively doubles its overall physical Defense and cripples opposing physical attackers, which are more common in this metagame.</p>

<p>Night Shade is Dusclops's main attacking option, consistently dealing 100 HP of damage to everything, barring Normal-types. However, most common Normal-types, such as Blissey and Snorlax, have too much HP to be damaged significantly anyways. It's more important for Dusclops to hit the likes of Gengar, so Seismic Toss is the less favorable option.</p>

<p>In the last slot, Ice Beam is viable to hit anything that is 4x weak to it for more damage than Night Shade. Gliscor, Landorus, and Salamence are all 2HKOed comfortably, although Latios takes more from Night Shade, as does Dragonite when using Roost or with Multiscale active. Taunt shuts down Ferrothorn and Forretress completely, and also prevents the likes of Conkeldurr and Scizor from setting up. If using Taunt, it's recommended to run 31 Speed IVs. Generally, however, it is better to have 0 IVs, since Dusclops is one of the slowest Pokemon around anyway, and it helps to ensure that Dusclops is slower than anything but Ferrothorn, leaving Payback at 50 base power, and making Pain Split more effective.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>Dusclops's Ghost typing not only makes it an effective, defensively orientated Pokemon, but also lets it work as one of the best spinblockers in the 5th generation. Even without a resistance to Dragon, the given EVs give Dusclops the ability to survive 2 consecutive Draco Meteors from Choice Specs Latios at full health, even factoring in Stealth Rock damage. On the physical side, a +2 Bullet Punch from max Attack Scizor is just a 3HKO at best. Although the EVs are meant to let Dusclops take hits from both sides, the EVs can be adjusted to help deal with certain moves and threats.</p>

<p>Heal Bell and Aromatherapy are useful when supporting Dusclops, as it is rather vulnerable to Toxic. Wish is very helpful as well, and thanks to Dusclops's low base HP, will almost always recover most of its health.</p>

<p>In the last slot, Dusclops can use a lot of other things. Toxic can wear down other walls in conjunction with Night Shade. Confuse Ray might look unreliable at first glance, but it can give Dusclops some free turns. Disable stops the opponent from using its most powerful move against Dusclops, often rendering it useless. Torment works similarly but just buys a bit of time usually.</p>

[SET]
name: RestTalk
move 1: Rest
move 2: Sleep Talk
move 3: Night Shade
move 4: Will-O-Wisp / Toxic
nature: Calm
item: Eviolite
evs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpD
ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>There's not much that can actually 2HKO Dusclops, and there are not many more Pokemon that actually find a way around a SleepTalking variant. With little to no effort, Dusclops can easily take up to 2 attacks before waking up, and using Rest again. Without a set-up move, the opponent is most likely absolutely walled by this set, unless the opponent gets some lucky critical hits or uses some really, really powerful and super effective moves. Because of the new sleep mechanics, Rest has become almost useless to most Pokemon, but Dusclops still makes good use of it, giving it an alternative recovery move to Pain Split.</p>

<p>Again, Night Shade is Dusclops's best offensive option, dealing consistent damage to almost everything. In the last slot, either of two status moves can be used. Will-O-Wisp shuts down any physical attacker, making it much harder to take out Dusclops from the physical side. Toxic takes care of anything bulkier, except Reuniclus, so that Dusclops can win most stallwars.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>With Rest at its disposal, Dusclops can get rid of one of its biggest weak points: being vulnerable to Toxic. Recovering back all health in one shot is something that the opponent doesn't expect either, as Pain Split is a more common way to get back some health. Not only that, but its ability Pressure comes into play in tandem with RestTalk as well, which makes it even harder to stop, as the opponent will run out of PP quite quickly.</p>

<p>When using Dusclops you will need to watch out for opponents with setup moves. A Pokemon with Swords Dance is no big deal when running Will-O-Wisp, but Nasty Plot and Calm Mind sweepers might turn out to be extremely dangerous. Reuniclus especially has an easy time setting up on any Dusclops, so it's recommended to bring a phazer or something that can actually beat it, like Scizor with Bug Bite. A secondary attacking move on Dusclops like Ice Beam or Shadow Ball can be used, but those moves generally do less damage than Night Shade if they're not 4x effective.</p>

[Other Options]

<p>Any Dusclops can run focused EV spreads, when you need something to sponge attacks from a particular side. 252 HP / 252 Def with a Bold nature and 252 HP / 252 SpD with a Calm nature are both viable.</p>

<p>Dusclops has quite a few options, though most of them are of limited use. Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch are its priority options, which might help, considering its low base Speed and the chance to revenge kill some Pokemon at low health. Other attacking options are Hex, Payback, Pursuit, Shadow Punch, and Counter. Dusclops also sports a nice number of support moves, including Trick Room, Curse, Imprison, Mean Look, and Gravity to name the most interesting ones. Gravity might work escpecially well, boosting Will-O-Wisp's accuracy to 100%, providing a somewhat accurate Dynamic Punch and allowing Earthquake to hit everything. If you want to hit Normal-types over Ghost-types, feel free to swap Night Shade for Seismic Toss.</p>

<p>Even though Dusclops's offensive stats are below average, it can still make good use of its movepool, which includes Earthquake and all the elemental punches on the physical side and Shadow Ball, Hex, Psychic, Dark Pulse, and Hidden Power alongside Calm Mind on the special side. Keep in mind that Dusknoir outclasses it in absolutely in terms of offense. Also, if you can't hit the opponent with a 4x effective move, Night Shade usually will do more damage.</p>

[Checks and Counters]

<p>Dusclops generally has problems dealing with anything running Taunt, because it relies on its status moves against most Pokemon. Dusclops is mostly used as set up fodder, so Taunt is needed to avoid finding yourself in that position. Passive damage also causes major problems; without Leftovers recovery, Dusclops finds itself in a really bad position, when it has to battle in sandstorm, or hail, or while Leech Seeded.</p>

<p>Pokemon with Base 100 HP and more can almost freely set up Substitute on Dusclops, as it cannot manage to beat these Substitutes within one attack. Even without Substitute, Reuniclus causes massive problems for Dusclops. High base HP, Magic Guard to nullify damage from Will-O-Wisp and Toxic, a reliable recovery move, and a set-up move in Calm Mind is everything that counters Dusclops in a single Pokemon.</p>

<p>Conkeldurr is problematic, because not only does it boast a great HP stat, but it can also freely switch into Will-O-Wisp or Toxic and abuse its Guts ability. After one Bulk Up and a Guts boost, 50 Base Power Payback is able to 2HKO Dusclops. Confuse Ray doesn't activate Guts though, so you can beat it if you're lucky. Additionally, both Mach Punch and Drain Punch won't do anything to Dusclops, thanks to its Ghost typing.</p>

<p>Dusclops's defensive capabilites are through the roof, but even for Dusclops, there's no way to stand up to the most powerful Dark- and Ghost-type attacks, when they get boosted by STAB and maybe Life Orb or Choice Specs. Prime examples are Gengar's Shadow Ball and Zoroark's Night Daze.</p>
 
Omg, good South Park reference.

Your main options are specially bulky, and physically defensive spin blocking. The physically defensive one is probably more useful. Any other sets, such as choice band, are outclassed by Dusknoir.
 
Remember when writing this that there's a line that is drawn between Dusclops and Dusknoir. Dusclops is all about defences relying on Pain Split, Burn, Poison, Seismic Toss and Night Shade to witter the foe's HP down. Dusknoir is about defences too however, it has a usable base 100 Attack that can help here and there also allowing it to make use of Trick Room better. Keep these in mind and you're on your way.

[SET]
name: Physically Defensive
move 1: Pain Split
move 2: Will-O-Wisp
move 3: Night Shade / Seismic Toss / Trick Room / Mean Look / Disable / Toxic
move 4: Night Shade / Seismic Toss / Trick Room / Mean Look / Disable / Toxic
nature: Bold / Relaxed
item: Evolite
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD

[SET]
name: Specially Defensive
move 1: Pain Split
move 2: Will-O-Wisp
move 3: Night Shade / Seismic Toss / Trick Room / Mean Look / Disable / Toxic
move 4: Night Shade / Seismic Toss / Trick Room / Mean Look / Disable / Toxic
nature: Calm / Sassy
item: Evolite
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD

Both are essentially the same and the last 2 moves is pretty much self explanatory. Seismic Toss and Night Shade are for offence. Disable, Toxic and Mean Look are to annoy your opponent. Dusclops can also use Trick Room and is good at it due to its low speed.

To be honest, I would make one set and in optional changes mention the different EV spreads but for the sake of the simulators, use the ones that I mentioned. I also find an EV spread of 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD interesting so I would at least give mention to it in optional changes and describe the downsides of no max HP.
 
Trick room might be worth is own set.

Disable should be nothing more then a mention on a set, no set should have it as a main option.

Toxic + Mean looks seems interesting, but I don't know if thats worth a set alone or a main option.
 
Please keep in mind that Dusclops has to beware of Trick and Toxic users as well, and that this needs to be emphasized. Teammates who benefit in the Toxic / Status area are Heal Bell / Aromatherapy users, such as Blissey. Trick users are quite questionable.

Also, for both Defensive sets, there are way too many slashes. Most of these options should be added in Additional Options, and the most useful ones as main slashes. I would keep this to a three slash maximum, as an inexperienced user of Dusclops might not really know what to expect.
 
On a basic view, I am thinking something like this:

[SET]
name: Physically Defensive
move 1: Rest / Pain Split
move 2: Seismic Toss / Night Shade
move 3: Will-O-Wisp
move 4: Toxic / Disable
nature: Bold
item: Evolite
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 SpD

[SET]
name: Specially Defensive
move 1: Rest / Pain Split
move 2: Seismic Toss / Night Shade
move 3: Will-O-Wisp
move 4: Toxic / Disable
nature: Calm
item: Evolite
EVs: 252 HP / 6 Def / 252 SpD

[SET]
name: Trick Room
move 1: Trick Room
move 2: Rest / Pain Split
move 3: Seismic Toss / Night Shade
move 4: Will-O-Wisp
nature: Relaxed
item: Evolite
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 SpD

-mention of specially defensive variant

OO:
-mean look
-shadow punch
-dystiny bond and memento
-calm mind
-taunt
 
[SET]
Defensive Double status
will-o-wisp
thunder wave
Seismic toss/curse
Pain split
Item:eviolite
Nature:impish
Evs:252 hp, 252 def, 4 spd
IVs:31hp and def
The purpose of this Dusclops is to either break an offensive opposition pokemon or to cripple a speedy pokemon that duskclops has trouble with.seismic toss is for the more offensive trainers as curse is for extra damage per turn against walls such as Bliss,Cress,Skarm and ferrothorn.pain split is a staple for dusclops becuse of its onlyway to instant recovery

Dusclops can also use Shadow punch instead of seismic toss if your team has problems with ghosts.he can also mean look and will-o-wisp physical attackers.Aswell as all of this he can use all of the elemental punches to destroy anopher party members weakness
 
[SET]
Defensive Double status
will-o-wisp
thunder wave
Seismic toss/curse
Pain split
Item:eviolite
Nature:impish
Evs:252 hp, 252 def, 4 spd
IVs:31hp and def
The purpose of this Dusclops is to either break an offensive opposition pokemon or to cripple a speedy pokemon that duskclops has trouble with.seismic toss is for the more offensive trainers as curse is for extra damage per turn against walls such as Bliss,Cress,Skarm and ferrothorn.pain split is a staple for dusclops becuse of its onlyway to instant recovery

Dusclops can also use Shadow punch instead of seismic toss if your team has problems with ghosts.he can also mean look and will-o-wisp physical attackers.Aswell as all of this he can use all of the elemental punches to destroy anopher party members weakness

Almost all sets will be double status already, with will-O-wisp and toxic. I didn't know that it knew thunder wave though, it might deserve a mention, but usually toxic is better for stalling. Curse is decent aswell, some good players actually use it on ghosts, although I doubt its a move on a main set.
 
would an a spread of calm 252hp/252def be viable? i run it on deo-d so it has good mixed defenses and with evolite i believe dusclops has more defenses than deoxys so it might work?
 
[SET]
name: Trick Room
move 1: Trick Room
move 2: Pain Split
move 3: Night Shade
move 4: Will-O-Wisp
nature: Relaxed
item: Evolite
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 SpD

I made fixes to Wynaut's set, lol

Rest and Seismic Toss do not deserve slashes, in my opinion.

Rest is a poor option when TR is about maintaining momentum. Otherwise, Seismic Toss is vastly inferior to Night Shade. The only normal type in the tier is Blissey and you're not stalling it out either way. Conversely, there are far more ghosts in the tier. Also, a minor difference is that Night Shade makes no contact, meaning you can kill off weak ferrothron switches.
 
ResTalk still seems like one of the better options, as Dusclops can recover all of his health garunteed as well as still having a use while sleeping. It probably should be something along the lines of:

Dusclops @ Evolite
~ Rest
~ Sleep Talk
~ Seismic Toss
~ Will-O-Wisp
252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Naure: Careful

Rest and Sleep Talk are pretty obvious. Seismic Toss is much better than Night Shade, as Dusclops really shouldn't be staying in against most ghosts, and Normal types can't do anything to you, allowing you to attack them. The evs give Dusclops max SpD, as Will-O-Wisp is used to cripple physical attackers. Dusclops really appreciates HP recovery due to a lack of Leftovers, and Rest really is more reliable especially with the addition of Sleep Talk.
 
As a trick room set upper, it doesn't do much for momentum, it just set it up, like Porygon2. Think more about this though, Dusknoir might do the trick room set better.

Some could argue that Dusclops must switch on any ghost type that would to come in. Infact that was the consensus of the last thread for this, I think both are viable looking at it both ways.
 
I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of stall expert, just covering some basics.

Dusclops does get Taunt; WOW/Taunt does most of the job of shutting down walls with recovery, mooting Toxic in many cases.

It doesn't get Thunder Wave.

Shadow Sneak is not an OO. It does less damage than Night Shade except to very, very frail ghosts and psychics. It 3HKOs Gengar. Shadow Punch is comparably useless; only ghosts and psychics with less bulk than Chandelure take more damage from SPunch than Night Shade.
 
Man, I didn't even put up the skeleton and so many comments on that one already lol.. Apparently, people see the potential of Dusclops and know what it's capable of. Good thing I have quite some practice with him so I know for a fact what's good.
First 3 sets are tested to an extend for a while and work extremely well for what they're meant to do. While writing the skeleton I noticed Dusclops actually has access to Torment, dunno why I didn't know that 'til now, but I will definately test the 4th set the upcoming days; I already see this one causing a lot of ragequits.

Any further suggestions, now that you see what I'm about to write?
 
The EV spreads need some work. 252/4 def/252 spD and an Impish nature is inefficient. The nature gives you a 10% boost, which means you get more stat points by boosting the bigger stat. Your spread gives you 326 defense and 359 special defense. Switching to 120 defense EVs and 136 spD evs with a spD+ nature gives you the same 326 defense but your special defense is now 363. Just make sure your nature is boosting your biggest stat and it will be fine.
 
Shouldn't you just pick between Night Shade and Seismic Toss right now? I'm in favor of Night Shade, personally because Normal-types aren't very common in the metagame as it is, and it's not like you'd be doing much to Chansey + Blissey + Snorlax with Seismic Toss when you can status/Pain Split them!
 
I've found a spread of Calm/Careful/Sassy with 252hp/80def/176sp.def hits a free point in sp.def. The reverse for physical defense works in the same way (176def/80sp.def with Bold etc). Dusclops will (and should be) burning stuff, so I think a +sp.def nature and 252hp/80def/176sp.def would provide the best overall bulk, imo.

With the above, you get 284/316/374,
With 252/120/136 and +sp.def, you get 284/326/363
So you get -10def for +11sp.def
I'm not really sure how much difference one point makes though.
 
I checked the usage stats and I must say that the amout of Normal types aren't all too high and those who are in the top 20 (just... Blissey) has too many HP to let Seismic Toss the viable attacking option. Night Shade can hit common appearing Gengar though (and pretty hard as well), so I changed them to main option and moved Seismic Toss to OO.
Thanks to frogoholic101 for his EV spread, it looks pretty solid and is able to do what I was looking for (surviving 2 Specs Meteor from Latios factoring in Stealth Rock damage).

... changes done =3
 
Ice beam is actually pretty useful for Dusclops, SD+Taunt Gliscor is usually a bitch for a stall team to face but it cant do much to Dusclops. You also hit Chomp, Landorus, and Dragon/Flying types hard.
 
Ice beam is actually pretty useful for Dusclops, SD+Taunt Gliscor is usually a bitch for a stall team to face but it cant do much to Dusclops. You also hit Chomp, Landorus, and Dragon/Flying types hard.

Problem is that it is coming off 156 sp.atk if uninvested. Ice Punch is avaiable, but dusknoir is better suited than dusclops in the offense department.
 
Ice beam is actually pretty useful for Dusclops, SD+Taunt Gliscor is usually a bitch for a stall team to face but it cant do much to Dusclops. You also hit Chomp, Landorus, and Dragon/Flying types hard.
Problem is that it is coming off 156 sp.atk if uninvested. Ice Punch is avaiable, but dusknoir is better suited than dusclops in the offense department.

The simple reason, that Dusclops has mere average base 70 Attack and pitiful base 60 Special Attack makes 'regular' attacking moves almost useless as Seismic Toss and Night Shade will hit most things for more damage. Also, coming up with the use of a certain attacking move like Ice Beam, you're pretty much forced to use a second attacking move in order to get coverage; in this case something to hit Ferrothorn and Scizor as hard as possible cuz IB would do shit to them.
I got told to aviod mixing up the pros and cons of Dusclops and Dusknoir, so this anaylsis will obviously end up being purely defensive oriented, as that's the only thing, that sets it apart from Dusknoir. I could mention the use of Calm Mind in OO though, as it's another way to boost its ridiculous defense.
 
Conkeldurr's Standard set has an 85 Speed stat. Uninvested Dusclops with Neutral-Nature has a 86 Speed stat.
1. Give it 29 Speed IVs instead of 0 for every sets (bar Trick Room)
in order to keep as much speed as possible and reducing Conkeldurr's Payback at the same time (84 Speed stat).

2. Change the natures from Careful to Calm and 0 Attack IVs for other Dusclops's Confuse Ray or moves that relate to Dusclops's Attack stat (Foul Play?). Dusclops doesn't even use its Attack stat, might as well make the sets extra-prepared for those situations.

3. Change the HP EVs from 252 to 248. You gain an extra Spikes-3 damage (71 instead of 70) when using 252 HP EVs.

These changes are really situational, but the point of those analyses is to show the most optimal sets for each Pokemon.
 
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