Heracross

[Aerrow]

#214 Heracross
  Typing: Bug / Fighting
  Ability 01: Swarm[INDENT]   When HP is below 1/3rd, Bug’s power increases to 1.5 times.
[/INDENT]Ability 02: Guts[INDENT]   Attack raises to 1.5 times when induced with a status (BURN, PARALYZE, 
SLEEP, POISON, FREEZE). BURN’s effect of lowering Attack is not applied.
[/INDENT]Ability 03: Overconfidence (Dream World)[INDENT]   Attack rises when you faint an opponent.
[/INDENT]Base Stats:
  HP: 80
  Atk: 125
  Def: 75
  SpA: 40
  SpD: 95
  Spe: 85
   
  Level-Up Moves:
  Lv1: Night Slash, 
  Lv1: Tackle,
  Lv1: Leer, 
  Lv1: Horn Attack, 
  Lv1: Endure,
  Lv7: Fury Attack, 
  Lv13: Aerial Ace, 
  Lv19: Brick Break, 
  Lv25: Counter, 
  Lv31: Take Down, 
  Lv37: Close Combat, 
  Lv43: Reversal, 
  Lv49: Feint, 
  Lv55: Megahorn
   
  Egg Moves:
  Harden
Bide
Flail
Revenge
Pursuit
Double-Edge
Seismic Toss
Focus Punch
Megahorn
  
Learnable TMs: , 
  TM06 - Toxic, 
  TM09 - Venom Shock, 
  TM10 - Hidden Power, 
  TM11 - Sunny Day, 
  TM15 - Hyper Beam, 
  TM17 - Protect, 
  TM18 - Rain Dance, 
  TM21 - Frustration,
  TM23 - Strike Down, 
  TM26 - Earthquake, 
  TM27 - Return, 
  TM28 - Dig, 
  TM31 - Brick Break, 
  TM32 - Double Team, 
  TM39 - Rock Tomb, 
  TM40 - Aerial Ace, 
  TM42 - Facade, 
  TM44 - Rest, 
  TM45 - Attract, 
  TM46 - Thief, 
  TM48 - Troll, 
  TM52 - Focus Blast, 
  TM54 - False Swipe, 
  TM56 - Fling, 
  TM65 - Shadow Claw, 
  TM67 - Get Even, 
  TM68 - Giga Impact,
  TM71 - Stone Edge, 
  TM75 - Swords Dance,
  TM76 - Bug Resistance,
  TM78 - Smooth Over, 
  TM80 - Rock Slide, 
  TM83 - Cheer Up, 
  TM87 - Swagger, 
  TM90 - Substitute, 
  TM94 - Rock Smash, 
  HM01 - Cut, 
  HM04 – Strength

Though Heracross was shunned and discarded by almost every Pokemon Battler out there due to their liking of Scizor or pretty much any physical attack more, Heracross is making a comeback this generation due to its new dream world ability, Overconfidence. Overconfidence is Earthquake Spiral; it raises the users attack when the user KOs an opposing Pokemon. With this newly found ability, Heracross doesn’t need o waste a valuable turn using swords dance in which he might be revenge killed; instead Heracross can simply spam STAB attacks, its attack being automatically raised every time it Kos something. Below is a set I though might be effective in conjunction with Heracross’ new ability.

Heracross @ Choice Scarf/ Life Orb
252 Atk/ 252 Spe/ 4 HP
Overconfidence Ability/ Jolly Nature
- Megahorn
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge/ Swords Dance
- Night Slash/ Swords Dance

The set here, is pretty self explanatory; since Heracross’ attack is going to be automatically raised with every KO, it makes sense to power up its average speed stat; but if you enjoy the ability to switch moves, a Life Orb can be used. The EVs are pretty standard; max attack and max speed for maximum offensive potential and a Jolly nature to reach max speed. The Moveset, as you can see, consists of Heracross’ powerful STABs (base 120 Megahorn + STAB, and base 120 Close Combat + STAB) and two filler moves - Stone Edge and Night Slash which provide decent coverage. Also, if you opt for a Life Orb for Heracross’ item, you can use Swords dance over Stone Edge or Night Slash to raise the Singlehorn Pokemon’s attack faster.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
​

That was my interpretation of how Heracross might become a better weeper in the generation5 metagame through the use of its new ability, Overconfidence, feel free to discuss what you think of Heracross and what might be its new role in the new competitive metagame.

 

[supermarth64]

The problem with Overconfidence is the turn you KO something, the opponent will switch in something that resists your Choiced move. Without a Scarf, Heracross is too slow to outspeed many of the faster Pokemon that now exist, so either way, you're being forced out, wasting your +1 Atk.

I would probably still use Guts just because it doesn't go away once you get statused.

 

[snowcone]

Has to LO. With the fire candle you can't risk choiced fighting attacks. Perhaps give it fist plate/spam close combat a few times (perhaps against opponents that it won't kill) to give the impression of choiced to lure in the fire candle then kill with night slash. Hera has 5 more speed so should be able to kill, and a +1attack night slash should take down the candle.

A lot of people seem to be getting excited about burning water so guts may see much much more use. And the problem with overconfidence is once you switch you have to start again, would have to be a pure late game hera. Whereas guts can absorb status for your team time and time again.

EDIT: don't see it really be strong enough to sword dance, with less stealth rocks (in theory with the aiming mark and defog, doing what I believe them to do. Feel free to correct me) more flying and fire types can switch in. This in mind keeping stone edge and night slash might be required.

 

[SMZ]

Overconfidence seems situations and guts seems superior to the reasons supermath64 mentioned. Heracross will still has its uses though, and if it remains in UU, it's gonna be a force there.

 

[cim]

Though Heracross was shunned and discarded by almost every Pokemon Battler out there due to their liking of Scizor or pretty much any physical attack more, Heracross is making a comeback this generation due to its new dream world ability, Overconfidence.

This isn't really a good description of why Heracross fell out of favor. The numerous factors generally dealt with the nuances of his stat total. His 85 Speed was an inch too slow, his Attack was high but an inch too low, and his Defenses were juuuust too shallow to be effective in OU. He was infuriatingly close to a perfect response to Rotom-A, but his low HP ultimately doomed him there too. He was competing for a team slot with other Pokemon that could do what he couldn't better in exchange for attacking with a little less force, which with SR was still enough to be offensive.

That out of the way, Overconfidence isn't all it's chalked up to be, but at the same time it's a potential asset for Heracross. While he misses out on Overconfidence's best use, which is to use a gimmicky attack like HP Ice to kill your main counter and get the Attack boost to beat everything else, Heracross can still give it a try when packing power people don't expect. He just needs a little help doing so.

Scarf Heracross can open up a Megahorn sweep potentially using Overconfidence and a Choice Scarf. Revenge kill anything with it and you have a Choice Band Megahorn from 400+ Speed to deal with. With adequate preparation using traps and lures for Bug resists this could be a very simple way to punch holes in teams. I would say 9 times out of 10, Guts is better, but with preparation either with Speed passing or whatever Overconfidence can come into play.

tldr kill bug resists, scarf heracross sweep

 

[Surskit]

Overconfidence won't be useful on heracross because it's outclassed in that respect by the dark alligator guy. I feel sorry for heracross, the fire candle makes it just that much harder for the little bug. :(
BUT it could make an excellent lure for the fire candle! :D

 

[bubbly]

On the other hand if you could Baton Pass some speed to it...
Problem is it can't take down stuff like Bulky Gyara unless it picks up a couple of KO's first.

I'd probably stick with Guts, not like I'd personally use Heracross anyway:( Sorry cross.

 

[sharkz]

I'd still personally stick with Guts, since Guts is pretty much almost one of the only things that allows Heracross to diffrentiate itself from other sweepers, since it allows him to actually switch in to status. Burn drop immunity is something that pretty much every physical sweeper would kill to have, and since Heracross has access to it, IMO it would be a bit of a shame to waste it, since so few sweeepers actually have access to it. Overconfidence is also reliant on the fact that Heracross actually kills something, and with that speed, it needs to predict perfectly to actually get a kill, especially since so many things resist it's moves, and can revenge it. The choice sets also face a similar problem, and what's worse is that you can't switch moves, meaning it can easily become set up fodder =(

 

[Shimrit As]

Has to LO. With the fire candle you can't risk choiced fighting attacks.

Agreed. Shanderaa's immunity to fighting and 4x resistance to bug means you can't get away with spamming your STAB moves freely on a choice set. Apart from that, its base speed isn't really cutting it with so many new Gen 5 Pokemon getting 90+ and 100+, and Heracross isn't the bulkiest guy around so that would limit its usefulness.

 

[Sirfunchalot]

Heracross @ Swimming Goggles
Nature: Adamant/Jolly
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk 252 Spe 6 HP
Moves:
- Megahorn
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge / Night Slash
- Sleep Talk

Could a set like this work? Swimming goggles gets you a guts boost an accuracy boost and a speed boost. The random attacking is kind of a huge turn off, but with 2 120 power stab moves coming off of something with essentially choice banded attack is kinda cool.

 

[Manaphy]

Heracross seems situational; on one hand, you have a gigantic attack stat with overconfidence, on the other hand, it's really slow and you can't really scarf it due to Shanderra ruining your fun.

I can see Heracross becoming UU again this Gen. With a little more speed it could wreck everything.

 

[Random Pizzaman]

Using a Choiced Heracross is a huge liability to your team with Shanderaa running around- it's immune to fighting and 4x resistant to bug, so it'll love to come in and kill you easily. Sub+3 attacks seems the best now, or maybe Swords Dance. Stick with Guts.

 

[Redjar]

Using a Choiced Heracross is a huge liability to your team with Shanderaa running around- it's immune to fighting and 4x resistant to bug, so it'll love to come in and kill you easily. Sub+3 attacks seems the best now, or maybe Swords Dance. Stick with Guts.

Yeah, Shandy is why I removed my scarfed OC Cross. Guts/Life orb works better IMO

 

[SlyShady]

Guts seems to be better. Warubiaru, Gyara, and Mence can use Overconfidence much better than Heracross. Heracross... Well... Should stick to Guts abuse. If you can pass it a speed boost or 2 though from Ninjask or Blaziken, Overconfidence could be very scary. Or with Paralysis support from something like Togekiss, Nattorei, or Jaroda. Basically anything that would remedy it's speed.

 

[lmitchell0012]

Overconfidence is still a great ability, but heracross can't use it effectively on his own. He'll need the support of a baton passer, such as ninjask, in order to truly use this ability well.

 

[Flareon]

Overconfidence kind of describes heracross IMO :)

But in all seriousness, guts will probably be superior

 

[LordVanitas]

He's Like a unstoppable bulldozer.
Heracross @ Choice Scarf
Nature: Adamant/Jolly
Ability: Encourage.
EVs: 252 Atk 252 Spe 6 HP

- Close Combat
- Mega Horn
- Stone Edge
- Night Slash

 

[Niched]

All these fighting types just begging for choice sets... all these shandara just begging for choiced fighting...

Too slow to use overconfidence without a scarf, too burn bait to use overconfidence with it, too frail to use guts without a scarf, too fighting type to use guts with a scarf.

Ghost even reisists but, so shadera could theoretically sit there and calm mind or nitro charge a few times against your megahorn. If you don't want to lose to shandera, you a locked into non stab moves of earthquake and Stone edge. And earthquake still loses to baloon shandera.

 

[Jiggy]

As the number of fast Pokemon keeps growing, I think even middling Speed like 85 will become increasingly viable in a Trick Room setting. With no need for Speed EVs, Heracross can just pump its HP and use nice type synergy with a lot of the most standout Trick Room users due to resistances to Dark (Dusclops, Dusknoir, Rankurusu, Slowbro), Fighting (Porygon2), Grass (Slowbro), and Bug (Rankurusu, Slowbro). Something like this:


Heracross @ Flame Orb / Leftovers
Nature: Brave
Ability: Guts / Overconfidence
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Attack / 6 Special Defense
IVs: 0 Speed

Megahorn
Close Combat
Stone Edge / Fling
Night Slash / Substitute


Overconfidence only without Flame Orb, of course, and Fling only with it. It's great against lots of Pokemon that would tend to switch in on Heracross, like Gyarados without Rest, Dragonite, Salamence, Gliscor, Dusclops/Dusknoir, Burungeru, Zapdos, or the new genies. Or even Gengar, for that matter, who ends up losing over half its health after a super-effective Fling and burn damage, not assuming Stealth Rock. It's slashed with Stone Edge instead of Night Slash since the primary targets of Stone Edge tend to hate being burned anyway.

Toxic Orb is an alternative since Heracross loses health more slowly the first two turns, but I do like the way that Flame Orb buys more time with its Attack drop and will trash a Poison Heal Gliscor who hasn't previously been in. Wish support helps out either way, and a lot of the great Wish users attract attacks that Heracross resists or doesn't care about. Might even consider shifting some or all of the HP EVs to Defense since resisting Fighting and Ground is pretty big.

Setting up Substitute might be a bit of a waste of turns inside Trick Room except when something was just KOed and Heracross doesn't have to waste the switch-in turn, but it's there as a possibility since it could be worthwhile when Trick Room isn't up.

 

[Jaroda]

I really wish I could justify using my third favorite pokemon but I just can't. With too mediocre a speed stat it almost mandates scarf, which is suicide in Dream World. Sure, you could predict in the beginning and use a choice Night Slash to get Shandera on the switch but that's still risky. I almost recommend using Guts and Bulk Up instead but Roopushin does it SO much better being significantly more bulky as well as having Mach Punch. Scarf Heracross can revenge Shandera with Night Slash or Pursuit however, so maybe it's not totally out of luck. And I'm actually not positive if it'll kill Shandera with Pursuit if it doesn't switch out however. Someone want to run the calcs?

 

[breh]

You know Scarf Heracross might not be that bad actually. I personally don't like pokes with scarf unless they're T-tar (who has tremendous simultaenous bulk and power), but Heracross really should work fine with its unresisted bug attack.

Also just FYI, nobody uses shanderaa in the higher rankings actually.

Overconfidence looks like a nice buff; it might face guts comptetition though.

 

[masterful]

The problem with the set you are proposing is that you are using a movethat there are immunities against; Desukan, Burungeru, and Gengar are immune to close Combat, and many others 4x resist your other moves, like Heatran and Lucario, who also 4x resists Stone Edge, and can set up on you somewhat. and with a LO, it is too easily outsped and revenged, and even CS Heracross isn't that fast

 

[NeoSeth]

I effing LOVE Heracross. He hits SO hard, especially with an SD Guts set. In this generation though, more than ever it seems hard for him to fit in. What exactly does he do? Sweeping is hard for him without CS or a ton of Para support, and Shandera can trap and OHKO him easily. I really hope he can be successful this generation, but I'm going to have to wait to test sets on him.

 

[breh]

The problem with the set you are proposing is that you are using a movethat there are immunities against; Desukan, Burungeru, and Gengar are immune to close Combat, and many others 4x resist your other moves, like Heatran and Lucario, who also 4x resists Stone Edge, and can set up on you somewhat. and with a LO, it is too easily outsped and revenged, and even CS Heracross isn't that fast

Hmm.... so you're saying that because Macargo 4x resists Heatran's Fire Blast, Heatran is terrible?

Again, common threats. Not ones you seldom see. Only Burngeru (who is adittedly a counter) and Heatran (does not like CC and outsped) are common of those you listed (a few lukes though).

 

[wyndamn]

Frankly i think this set its optimal for guts heracross but not for the overconfidence one, because like supermarth64 said;

The problem with Overconfidence is the turn you KO something, the opponent will switch in something that resists your Choiced move. Without a Scarf, Heracross is too slow to outspeed many of the faster Pokemon that now exist, so either way, you're being forced out, wasting your +1 Atk.

So following that idea Overconfidence Heracross should always be better running Sub-Sets rather than scarf ones and this is because heracross its mainly played as scarfed (as its his speediest and best set) and we can take advantage of that knowledge by switching in heracross to scare the opponent after something has died (thinking its scarfed) and get a free substitute and repeat until you get the salac berry speed boost and then you can start abusing Overconfidence.

The only Problems i see with this until now are of course pokemon with priority moves, Mischievious Heart, Anxiety, Trick, Taunt, encore, Hail, Sandstorm and other similar moves or abilities which can lower the success of this strategy, aswell as the ever present prediction; in case your opponent doesnt switch out when he/she sees heracross.

This set will play sort of like the 3rd gen Reversal Heracross did but due to its new ability is now upgraded. here´s the set i think most people will be running if they ever choose to use an overconfidence Heracross.

Heracross/Salac Berry
Overconfidence/Jolly
Evs 4 HP/252 Atk /252 spe

Megahorn/ Night Slash
Stone Edge/ Rock Slide
Close Combat/Reversal
Substitute/Endure


The purpose of this set as i said before its to come in after something has died and scare the opponent off (thinking its a scarfed heracross) then you get a substitute as he switches and keep repeting the substitute until you reach the salac berry boost, after the salac boost heracross reaches a speed of 442 which its enough to sweep with.

I was also thinking that if needed you could even lower his Def and Spd ivs in order to ensure the opponent breaks your substitute right away, but if you prefer to give it a lil more bulk then try 120 hp/252 atk/136 spe(264) this speed after the berry boost reaches a stat of 396 outpacing aerodactyl and Friends and will also need to change substitute for endure so you can use it when youre about to die and abuse Overconfidence better. Of course this can only be acomplished after removing the said threats from your opponent´s team before trying to sweep with him.

I also think heracross will fall into UU again and this will make him work better there.