First, there was bulk Staraptor... Now its Bulkray!

RaikouLover

is a Contributor Alumnus
Everyone likes this little lioness pokemon. Unfortunately, he is doomed to UU because of poor speed, and limited options for his incredible attack. People let's give him another try! Think outside the box for a change. I now would like to introduce bulky Luxray!

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Luxray @ Leftovers / Chesto Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Bold
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Defense / 52 Special Attack
*Thunderbolt
*Thunderwave
*Hidden Power [Ice] / Light Screen / Roar / Rest / Protect
*Light Screen / Roar / Rest / Protect / Sleep Talk / Substitute / Toxic

Geez this thing has support move options out the wazoo!

Now to start, Luxray has incredible base stats, but people need to accept that he is never going to make it as a sweeper in OU. He lacks the speed, and physical movepool. As discussed with Electivire, Thunderbolt will always do more than Thunderpunch / Spark / Thunderfang do to higher base power. Luxray has a decent 95 base special attack to work with, so thunderbolt is by no means a bad option on him.

Now to discuss the moveset. The EVs give him 352 HP, his highest leftovers mark, and a whoping 282 defense paired with Intimidate. He also will have 239 special attack, which is not impressive, but will allow him to do some damage if he has to, and kill what an electric type is supposed to kill. Thunderwave is a must on Luxray as this thing is made to switch in and intimidate sweepers, and can cripple the opponents team with paralysis. For the other options... Take your pick! He can absorb status with resttalk, lead and use protect for scouting and gain lefties recovery, roar can help with SR and help you shuffle paralysis, Light Screen can help your team and cover the other base (gives him 388 Special Defense), and Toxic can really wear down something like Cresselia if you have trouble with it.

Hidden Power [Ice] seems like a gimmick on a special attack of 239, but will allow Luxray to counter Garchomp. What?????? An Electric type countering Garchomp? Yup... Lets see how luxray fairs against the heavy hitters of OU:

Damage Calcs Please:

DD Dragonite Outrage (Intimidate nullifying DD) 36.36-42.9%
DD Dragonite Outrage (Intimidate nullifying DD) w/ Life Orb 47.16-55.68%
DD Dragonite Earthquake (Intimidate nullifying DD) 40.63-47.73%
DD Dragonite Earthquake (Intimidate nullifying DD) w/ Life Orb 52.84-61.93

Bulky Gyarados Earthquake (Intimidate nullifyng DD) 35.51-41.76%
DD Gyarados Earthquake (Intimidate nullifying DD) w/ Life Orb 55.11-64.77

Choice Scarf Garchomp Outrage (Intimidate, -1 Attack) 26.14-30.97%

Choice Band Heracross Close Combat / Megahorn (Intimidate nullifying CB) 37.78-44.6%
Choice Scarf Heracross Close Combat / Megahorn (Intimidate, -1 Attack) 25.57-30.11%

Swords Dance Lucario Close Combat (Intimidate, +1 Attack) w/ Life Orb
59.94-70.45%

Choice Band Metagross Meteor Mash (No Intimidate) 32.95-38.92%

Swords Dance Scizor Quick Attack (Intimidate, +1 Attack) w/ Life Orb
15.34-18.18%
Swords Dance Scizor Brick Break (Intimidate, +1 Attack) w/ Life Orb
28.13-33.24%

Choice Band Tyranitar Crunch (Intimidate nullifying CB) 26.7-31.5%
Choice Band Tyranitar Stone-Edge (Intimidate nullifying CB) 33.24-39.2%
DD Tyranitar Earthquake (Intimidate nullifying DD) 40.63-47.73%

Choice Band Weavile Ice Punch (Intimidate nullifying CB) 21.31-25%
Swords Dance Weavile Ice Punch (Intimidate, +1 Attack) 28-33.24%

To put it simply this thing is bulky. Now, what to do with all that bulk... T-wave effectively screws quite a bit of these pokemon. DD Gyarados may try to pwn you with Earthquake, only to be OHKOed. Lucario's Close Combat hurts, but you can T-wave him on the revenge and make your team eat Extremespeeds instead of Close Combats, or you can just finish him off thanks to life orb recoil and defense drops. You may not want to activate Heracross' Guts, but T-wave kind of screws over the Scarf version.

As for Garchomp:

Bulky Luxray Hidden Power Ice vs. Garchomp: 64.43-75.91%

May seem kind of pathetic, but if you switch in on Garchomp's Outrage, you beat him, plain and simple. Your opponent will have to pray that Outrage doesnt last 3 turns...

So the strategy is... to use Luxray as a physical wall and stop mighty physical sweepers from running through your team. If you can catch them early, luxray can screw up their sweep.
 
The damage calcs surprised me a bit, but I must admit I forgot about Intimidate. The reason you never saw this before (and likely never will, either, as I'll enlighten) is because this is still 80/79/79 in defenses. The epitome of average. Combine it with pretty much no useful resistances (Flying and Steel are meh in themselves, and combined with an Earthquake weak they may as well be canceled) and having to use Rest to stay alive, and you have something that is already quite a bit in the negative.

Geez this thing has support move options out the wazoo!
Click to expand...

Not to be rude or blunt but...where? Besides the somewhat occasional Light Screen, Thunder Wave and Roar, all those other "support" moves are learned by everything that isn't Caterpie & co.

The huge list of pretty much 3HKOs on your calc list and the fact that Garchomp/Metagross Earthquake aren't listed is pretty evident that Luxray won't be switching into powerful hits more often than once or twice, and that it's sacrificing a lot of potential attacking power to do so.

So yeah, I'm pretty sceptical to say at least.
 
If you go impish, ice fang does as much to Garchomp as hidden power ice, and spark runs off 276 attack with a 30% chance of paralysis. Just a thought.
 
What hurts this the most is that unlike bulkyraptor, it doesn't have a good recovery move. Plus no good resistances to come in on. Not that bulkyraptor is really any good to begin with which is saying something about this.

The fact is anything with intimidate can be a decent physical tank if you give it max HP and DEF. That's not all there is to it though because you also have to consider recovery move and resistances as I said. There's also the fact about what happens if a physical attacker switches into you and intimidate doesn't activate.

Some of your calculations are also a bit dubious. I don't know whether you did them wrong or you had different EVs but I checked CB hera and CBtar, 2 of the big hitters and

CBtar Stone Edge (null CB): 44.32% - 51.99%
CBcross CC/Megahorn (null CB): 50.28% - 59.09%
 
Theres a good reason bulky Luxray doesn't work. Look at this list of moves.

-Slack Off
-Recover
-Roost
-Heal Order
-Wish
-Synthesis
-Morning Sun
-Moonlight

If a bulky Pokemon doesn't learn at least one of these moves than its likely to be destined to fail.
 
In UU, this is a perfectly viable option. I used a 204 HP EV spread, with the rest in Speed and Special Attack, and it survived a Primeape's Reversal with easily 20% left after Intimidate.

However, I'm not sure how viable it is in OU, but those calculations do look pretty impressive. However, they look a little TOO impressive. I'm not sure how it's only taking 37.78-44.6% from Heracross' Choice Band STAB attacks, when that's about how much bulky Gyarados takes WITH resistances.
 
What's the point? This is just another gimmick and waste of a team slot.

Slapping defense EVs onto anything with Intimidate and calling it a wall isn't any more viable than putting a choice band on Download Porygon-Z and calling it a revolutionary physical sweeper.

Anyways as stated, some of those calcs look wrong.
 
Blaziken_57
In UU, this is a perfectly viable option. I used a 204 HP EV spread, with the rest in Speed and Special Attack, and it survived a Primeape's Reversal with easily 20% left after Intimidate.
Click to expand...

How did it fare against Earthquakes?

Any experience of this set against Hitmonlee/Pinsir?
 
How did it fare against Earthquakes?
Click to expand...

Primeape's Reversal = 300BP
STAB EQ = 300BP
Non-stab EQ = 200BP

I can't see this set ever surviving two attacks from CBLee or Pinsir, and even if it did, it couldn't do shit all back, especially to the Hitmon.

Jolly 252 CB Hitmonlee Close Combat vs 204/252 Luxray AFTER INTIMIDATE: 48.86% - 57.39%

Bearing in mind that Hitmonlee has about the same attack as Heracross, those Heracross calculations don't seem to be as wrong as I had assumed.

It's a lot bulkier than I'd thought, but you'll have to go ResTalk to get any more than 3 turns out of it.
 
*Hidden Power [Ice] / Light Screen / Roar / Rest / Protect
*Light Screen / Roar / Rest / Protect / Sleep Talk / Substitute / Toxic

WAY too many options, buddy.
 
Lots of options aren't a bad thing. Mew and Arceus are Uber thanks to their huge movepools. Well, that and their great base stats, but I'm trying to make a point so shut up.

Anyways, it's already been pointed that Luxray's defenses coupled with a meh defensive type won't be overcome just by Intimidating an opponent. Have a look at an excerpt from Staraptor's strategy dex:

Intimidate makes him a good choice as a lead and helps when sending him out later, just don't get too over zealous when switching into physical attacks, his defenses are still poor.

Intimidate does not a physical wall make, especially with Metagross on the prowl. It should be pointed out that 'Gross usually runs Earthquake, which will slaughter Lux eleven ways from Tuesday.
 
Don't know about the calcs now... every site is giving different answers. I've tested it in battle though... the thing is bulky as hell. If it cant stand up to an attack you can still intimiwhore them to death. But the point is, he does a good job of crippling the heavy hitters, particularly the Dragon Dancers.

I've tested him, he makes a very good lead, being able to shut down Gyarados, Weavile, and anything else fast.

How the hell does a Dragonite EQ do less damage than one from Gyarados? I'm assuming you used the same natures and attack Ev's.
Click to expand...

DD Gyarados runs adamant and max attack, which is higher than jolly dragonite.
 
Lots of options aren't a bad thing.
Click to expand...

Indeed, it isn't bad if a Pokemon has a lot of options. It is bad if you list all of them when trying to promote *your* *new* moveset. Especially when said "huge list of options" is learned by everything under the sun.
 
Can't wait for a new inovative set of Bulky Tauros and Bulky Arbok and Bulky Arcanine and Bulky Stantler and Bulky [insert something with Intimidate here].
 
Forsety said:
Theres a good reason bulky Luxray doesn't work. Look at this list of moves.

-Slack Off
-Recover
-Roost
-Heal Order
-Wish
-Synthesis
-Morning Sun
-Moonlight

If a bulky Pokemon doesn't learn at least one of these moves than its likely to be destined to fail.
Click to expand...

So Gyarados fails?
 
Sorry, I'm not sold.

Which is sad, because my newest team really needs a bulky electric that could counter Gyrados and Garchomp. Haven't found a good option yet.
 
Introducing my own new invention: BulkyTauros

Tauros @ Leftovers / Chesto Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Defense / 6 Attack
*Return
*Pursuit
*Toxic/Sleep Talk
*Rest

This thing is seriously bulky after intimidating as it switches in. Then it's a matter of toxistalling or owning it up with rest talk off a pretty decent attack stat. Try to switch out? I don't think so. Pursuit it into oblivion.

Damage Calcs:

ScarfChomp Outrage after Intimidate: 30.79% - 36.16%

Switch in, take a hit, take another hit and rest. By then it should be hitting itself in confusion.

CBtar Stone Edge after Intimidate: 39.27% - 46.05%

Tauros is faster than this anyway so switch in, take a hit and rest. It should miss a few times so Tauros can PP stall it out of stone edge.

CBcross Close Combat after Intimidate: 89.27% - 104.80%

Wow good chance at surviving CB close combat. Now you cannot deny the ownage that is bulky tauros.

I could do more calcs but I can't be bothered. You should see by now the leetness of bulky tauros anyway.

Also introducing bulky Arbok while I'm at it. The set is pretty much the same. Take your pick of 3 moves and rest. But listen, it's the new heracross counter. Stuff gliscor, this thing takes a maximum of 33.02% - 38.89% from Adamant CB heracross stone edge. Easily rests it off, and strikes back with whatever moves it happens to have. But unlike gliscor, it does more than just counter heracross. Because of intimidate, it can come in on so many more things like weavile without fear of being pwnd by a 4x weakness.

[/sarcasm]
 
It would be great if gamefreak came out with an intimidate ability that cut special attack. With captivate, you'd see a ton of specially?? (lol) bulky pokemon.
 
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