Dusknoir (Placeholder)

Adamant Zoroark

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[Overview]


  • Impressive bulk, even with no Eviolite access
  • 100 base Attack and 45 base Speed makes it a good candidate for Trick Room
  • Overshadowed by Dusclops due to Eviolite
  • Access to Leftovers; sand won't wear it down as easily
  • Still a solid choice for a support role
[SET]
name: Trick Room
move 1: Trick Room
move 2: Will-O-Wisp / Pain Split
move 3: Shadow Sneak / Shadow Punch
move 4: Helping Hand / Protect
item: Mental Herb / Lum Berry / Sitrus Berry
nature: Sassy
ability: Pressure
evs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

  • Trick Room can be easily set up with Dusknoir's great defenses
  • Will-O-Wisp to cripple your opponent's Pokemon; Pain Split for recoveery
  • Shadow Punch is preferred over Shadow Sneak for the power, and the priority Shadow Sneak gives is generally useless because of Trick Room; Shadow Sneak is still a good choice if you don't want Dusknoir to be dead weight outside of Trick Room
  • Helping Hand to support the attacker in Trick Room; Protect if you don't want Dusknoir taking your partner's Earthquakes, etc.
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

  • Item choice can be tough
  • Mental Herb to prevent Dusknoir from being taunt bait; Lum to prevent it from being status bait; Sitrus for recovery
  • Use of Mental Herb can allow Dusknoir to set up Trick Room easier than Dusclops can; Status will cripple it if Mental Herb is used
  • Leftovers can be used if you want continuous recovery and don't want to be shut down by Sandstorm; Sitrus Berry is better in most situations
  • Colbur Berry is a great item choice to help take Tyranitar's Crunch

[SET]
name: Offensive Trick Room
move 1: Shadow Punch / Shadow Sneak
move 2: Rock Slide
move 3: Ice Punch / Will-O-Wisp
move 4: Trick Room
item: Lum Berry / Sitrus Berry
nature: Brave
ability: Pressure
evs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

  • Utilizes Dusknoir's 100 base Attack for an offensive role
  • Shadow Punch > Shadow Sneak since Shadow Sneak's priority is useless in Trick Room
  • Rock Slide for a move to hit both opponents
  • Ice Punch hits the multitude of Pokemon weak to Ice in VGC; Will-O-Wisp for crippling physical attackers
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

  • Colbur Berry can once again be used if you fear Tyranitar
  • Mental Herb is an option if you want to ensure getting Trick Room up, however this is generally useless as Dusknoir will only have 1 or 2 non-attacking moves
  • Brick Break can be used to hit Tyranitar, but Trick Room will generally have Fighting-types to handle Tyranitar
[Other Options]

  • Dusknoir has access to Fire Punch, which has potential if it has sun support. Generally inferior to Ice Punch in most cases
  • ThunderPunch can be used to hit Politoed for super effective damage; ThunderPunch doesn't have much use otherwise so it shouldn't be considered
[Checks and Counters]

  • Tyranitar can threaten Dusknoir with STAB Crunch if Dusknoir does not have a Colbur Berry
  • Alakazam or anything with a powerful super effective attack can stop the Offensive Trick Room set before it can even get Trick Room up
  • Dusknoir without Lum Berry gets crippled by status
  • Trick Room Dusknoir without Mental Herb is crippled by Taunt
[Dream World]

<p>Dusknoir does not have a Dream World ability.</p>
 
I think maybe you should put Gravity in, as it can be quite effective if used properly, and with a good partner, spaming, Blizzards, Fire Blasts, Thunders and Hydro Pump out side of any specific weather is quite damaging. Although Dusknoir doesn't really have anything to use it well with, pokemon like Dragonite or Salamence, who have a plethora of Low-accuracy, high PP moves, but can't set up gravity themselves. Dusknoir is also one of the bulkiest pokemon to learn Gravity, and is debatable that it is only less bulky ten dusclops with Eviolite.

Also, although this is much less useful, and much ore gimmicky, in 3rd Gen, Dusknoir(well, it would be a duskull/dusclops) can learn Mimic from a move tutor, as well as helping hand from Pokemon XD. And while Helping Hand is pretty useful on it's own, it's difficulty getting may render it unusable. And Mimic, can be used on a partner's Recover/Moonlight/etc... and get an instant recovery move.

Mimic and Helping Hand are far more gimmicky, and due to the lengths that someone needs to go through to get them, I don't think they need to be mentioned. But I do feel however, that Gravity deserves a mention.

edit: Sorry, forgot I wasn't supposed to post in a placeholder topic, sorry.
 
Trick Room (the move) does NOT need to be in Other Options, it needs to be its own set. Dusclops is not an inferior Trick Room user, it has pros and cons just as Dusknoir does, which should be stressed throughout this analysis. Dusclops has amazing bulk with Eviolite, and less Speed than Dusknoir as well. Dusknoir, however, can utilize either a Sitrus Berry (which is generally better than Leftovers in doubles because Leftovers often takes too long to heal, but it's still an option) or a Mental Herb, both fantastic items that Dusclops loses out on. Not to mention Dusknoir can sweep (kinda-sorta-maybe-possibly) in its own Trick Room, with a respectable base 100 Attack, something Dusclops can't do. Dusknoir isn't really a viable Trick Room attacker only, its main strength lies in setting up TR and not being completely dead weight once it Will-o-wisps/Pain Splits everything. Because of this, you probably want to change the support set to a trick room setter (in addition to making it the first set in the analysis), which would look like this:

name: Trick Room Setter (set upper? idk)
move 1: Trick Room
move 2: Will-o-wisp / Pain Split
move 3: Shadow Sneak / Shadow Punch
move 4: Helping Hand / Protect
item: Sitrus Berry / Mental Herb / Leftovers
nature: Careful
ability: Pressure
evs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD (i guess this is a good EV spread)
ivs: 0 Spe

-Trick Room duh
-Will-o-wisp or Pain Split for support, Pain Split if no Sitrus Berry/Lefties, but WoW is great otherwise.
-STAB move so it's not complete Taunt bait, Punch has perfect accuracy and more power, Sneak has priority, take your pick
-Helping Hand is pretty amazing, only problem is getting a HH Dusknoir with good IVs, but if you can get one use it, HH is a really good move for boosting partners attacks and all that jazz. Protect is really only there as a common courtesy if anything else, Dusknoir has a lot to be doing and it has enough bulk that it usually doesn't need Protect, along the same lines as Cresselia/Dusclops

I will say more about the attacking set after I get back from reffing
 
way too many slashes on that set with the gems, it's really not necessary

what jrank said, also mention lum berry since dusknoir is massive burn bait
 
Sorry for the late reply! I've been busy with school, so I haven't had an opportunity to do any testing.

I'm definitely adding in the Trick Room set to replace my support set. I'm also doing revisions to the offensive set. I think Sassy would be better than Careful on the Trick Room set, though. Thanks!
 
Mental Herb and Lum should be before Sitrius. Dusknoir's advantage over Dusclops is that it can use Mental Herb or Lum.
 
Mental Herb and Lum should be before Sitrius. Dusknoir's advantage over Dusclops is that it can use Mental Herb or Lum.

Dusclops can't use Sitrus along with the other two items, so Dusknoir still gets an advantage with Sitrus Berry. With the advent of the Mental Herb overall Taunt usage has gone down, as such I think Sitrus will be more helpful in a wider range of situations than both a Mental Herb and a Lum Berry, but I'll leave it up to the QC members.

As for the Offensive Trick Room set, Mental Herb should definitely not be first (honestly, probably shouldn't even be slashed, a mention in AC is better), because with only Dusknoir will probably have additional Trick Room setters on its team if it's offensive, and with only one non-attacking move being Taunted isn't exactly crippling. For the moves, Dusknoir would rather have a STAB move than a weak Brick Break, the moves should probably look like:

Shadow Punch / Shadow Sneak
Rock Slide
Ice Punch / Brick Break
Trick Room / Pain Split

Brick Break really only hits Tyranitar, and (hopefully) most dedicated Trick Room teams (which Dusknoir will probably be used on) have a Fighting-type in some form (Hariyama, Scrafty, etc). Honestly Will-o-wisp is probably better than BB, as it can help cripple more than just one Pokemon.
 
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