Pokémon Kabutops

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I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM

I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM

formerly Smog Frog
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I will eat your babies


anyways, i noticed this guy doesnt have a discussion thread yet. for a quick overview, kabutops is the single best sweeper there is on rain teams, being capable of just ripping through unprepared offense and defense teams. it can owe all this to its ability, swift swim, which grants it blazing speed. it goes from a mediocre base 80 speed to a blazing fast (equivalent of) 187 base speed. this combined with its great base 115 attack and excellent dual STAB, makes it a must on all successful rain offense teams. granted with all these pros, there are undoubtedly cons. first off, is while rock/water is a fan-fucking-tastic offensive typing, it just sucks shit defensively. weak to electric, grass, ground, fighting, and only resisting fire, poison, and ice, means it cant come in on much. its good 105 base defense is offset by its awful base 60 HP, and its special defense sits at an awful base 70. granted it does resist predominantly specially based types, it just keels over and dies to any decent powered special attack. another is that it has a slight case of 4mss: if it doesnt run low kick, it cant get by ferrothorn, and if it doesnt run aqua jet, it cant get by thundurus. you can run low kick over swords dance, but then you lose out on the chance for bringing the meta to its knees by sheer power. but dont let these flaws discourage you; give kabutops the chance to set up, and you can call it GG from there unless you have a bulky resist. you can even give it rapid spin to clear rocks from your side of the field.

so here is the standard set:


Kabutops @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance/Low Kick/Rapid Spin
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet/Low Kick
- Stone Edge

This here is the set you will find on almost all rain offense teams. Its sheer power and sweeping abilities can bring unprepared offense and defense teams to their knees in a blink of an eye. Swords Dance just lets it rip through unprepared offense teams like a machine gun, and it does the same to defense. Here are some calcs at +2:

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Kabutops Waterfall vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory in Rain: 292-344 (87.4 - 102.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Kabutops Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Venusaur: 266-316 (73 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Kabutops Waterfall vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo in Rain: 281-330 (86.9 - 102.1%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Kabutops Waterfall vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latias in Rain: 281-330 (93 - 109.2%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

so as you can see, this thing is STRONK. keep in mind these are the best physical walls or bulky resists, and none of them counter at +2. with a standard rain offense deo-s lead, it can rip teams to shreds. so how do you stop this set? the best answer is chesnaught. here is a calc of kabutops v chesnaught:

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Kabutops Waterfall vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught in Rain: 160-190 (42.1 - 50%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

it resists both STABs, and can KO back with a grass move. kabutops alone should make chesnaught a viable choice on stall teams. you can also use niche af stuff like toxicroak and gastrodon, but chesnaught is easily the best counter. ferrothorn is the next best stop, as it stops all variants not carrying low kick. either way, if you dont have a counter, you are not stopping kabutops from taking at least 1 pokemon.

so what are your thoughts? good teammates? thats open for discussion below. enjoy!
 
Well Kabutops isn't really worth it IMO, although it's one of the best swift swimmers around, the amount of weakness it stacks with common rain setters is insane, between him and politoad, you have a huge weakness to grass and electric , two common attacking types. Your better off using something like ludicolo or kingdra. Additionally rock is absolute bait for priorities, Mach and bullet punch vacuum wave and Aqua jet.

Kabutops is also known for its super fast swift swim rapid spin but this is outclassed by escadrill who is legal in ou now.

All in all, Kabutops is outclassed by other swift swimmers and escadrill
 
grass isnt a common attacking type, only breloom and mega venu use it

there isnt a better choice for a rain physical sweeper

rapid spin is secondary and not recommended on rain offense

secondary water type nullifies aqua jet and bullet punch weakness

who the fuck uses vacuum wave

base 105 defense somewhat alleviates the mach punch problem

kingdra is often used in conjunction with kabutops on rain offense, sometimes ludicolo too


did i just blow your mind?
 
First of all you need to bring in Kabutops quickly to make every turn of rain count, and when you do, moves aimed at politoad or tornodus deals massive amounts of damage to kabutops, and to bring it in safely and efficiently you might need to say some rain setters. Although most Mach Punchs can't OHKO life Orb recoil and SD adds up quickly and Mach Punch from breloom and Conkeldurr can quickly dispatch Kabutops. You said that people run politoad, kabutops and kingdra on the same team, that just plain idiotic since Kabutops can even get a guarantee OHKO with Adamant +2 life oRB low kick.
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Kabutops Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 338-400 (96 - 113.6%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
Additionally Kabutops should be running Jolly to outspeed scarf keldeo, terrakion and latios, suddenly your down to only a mear 25% chance to OHKO and he can Leech Seed or trave or OHKO in return with power whip, smart players wouldn't even stay in on you and switch to Aegislash or some thing.
And this is all implying that you get a swords dance boost, which is nil impossible since his defensive typing socks and although 110 Def is quite respectable one special attack wrecks it since it's 60/60 SDef socks.
I do admit that it is quite the late game cleaner once it's threats are removed.
 
LOStreamer said:
First of all you need to bring in Kabutops quickly to make every turn of rain count, and when you do, moves aimed at politoad or tornodus deals massive amounts of damage to kabutops, and to bring it in safely and efficiently you might need to say some rain setters. Although most Mach Punchs can't OHKO life Orb recoil and SD adds up quickly and Mach Punch from breloom and Conkeldurr can quickly dispatch Kabutops. You said that people run politoad, kabutops and kingdra on the same team, that just plain idiotic since Kabutops can even get a guarantee OHKO with Adamant +2 life oRB low kick.
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Kabutops Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 338-400 (96 - 113.6%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
Additionally Kabutops should be running Jolly to outspeed scarf keldeo, terrakion and latios, suddenly your down to only a mear 25% chance to OHKO and he can Leech Seed or trave or OHKO in return with power whip, smart players wouldn't even stay in on you and switch to Aegislash or some thing.
And this is all implying that you get a swords dance boost, which is nil impossible since his defensive typing socks and although 110 Def is quite respectable one special attack wrecks it since it's 60/60 SDef socks.
I do admit that it is quite the late game cleaner once it's threats are removed.
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Actually, a core of kabutops/kingdra/deopxys-s/politoed is very common on rain teams.

I agree, kabutops is hard to get in and set up, and is prone to resdiual damage

The scarfers you mentioned are not very common this generation. I have never seen any of them, but then again, I have only ever reached 1750 in the ladder.

If ferothorn has any residual damage, it is dead from low kick

So, while kabutops does have 4MSS and is hard to get in and set up, it is bar none the best physcial sweeper for rain teams.

Have you actually ever used a rain team?
 
LOStreamer said:
Well Kabutops isn't really worth it IMO, although it's one of the best swift swimmers around, the amount of weakness it stacks with common rain setters is insane, between him and politoad, you have a huge weakness to grass and electric , two common attacking types. Your better off using something like ludicolo or kingdra. Additionally rock is absolute bait for priorities, Mach and bullet punch vacuum wave and Aqua jet.

Kabutops is also known for its super fast swift swim rapid spin but this is outclassed by escadrill who is legal in ou now.

All in all, Kabutops is outclassed by other swift swimmers and escadrill
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u wot.

It's bad defensively (though it can't be RKed by Talonflame) but it is massively powerful in rain. It doesn't need a boost to be devastating, but it helps.

Every other good Swift Swimmer is specially orientated. Kingdra can go physical, it's okay, but not that good. They all share a common counter/check in special walls like Chansey. Kabutops is *the* best physical swift swimmer, and it faces competition from basically nothing and is used on just about every HO Rain team for good reason.

It also has Aqua Jet, which is really important.

LOStreamer said:
You said that people run politoad, kabutops and kingdra on the same team, that just plain idiotic since Kabutops can even get a guarantee OHKO with Adamant +2 life oRB low kick.
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Kabutops Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 338-400 (96 - 113.6%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
Click to expand...

252/252+ Ferrothorn is a shit spread, and all you're saying here is that even at 100% full health without having taken ANY damage, including hazards, it's probably going to get KOed anyway.

Additionally Kabutops should be running Jolly to outspeed scarf keldeo, terrakion and latios
Click to expand...

None of those are relevant enough to warrant using Jolly.

suddenly your down to only a mear 25% chance to OHKO and he can Leech Seed or trave or OHKO in return with power whip, smart players wouldn't even stay in on you and switch to Aegislash or some thing.
Click to expand...

Low Kick isn't even standard on Kabutops.

And this is all implying that you get a swords dance boost, which is nil impossible since his defensive typing socks and although 110 Def is quite respectable one special attack wrecks it since it's 60/60 SDef socks.
Click to expand...

It can set-up on Talonflame. It can scare out stuff like Chansey. That's good enough.
 
Mega Swamp won't have Swords Dance or any way of boosting its ATK regardless, though its typing and bulk will probably make it a lot easier to use (this reminds me of Crawdaunt v. Azumarril-- bulk and good defensive typing v. raw offensive power and offensive typing).

Also:
60 HP / 105 DEF
Extreme Speed: Resist
Brave Bird: Resist
Aerolate Quick Attack: Resist
Aqua Jet: Neutral
Sucker Punch: Neutral
Shadow Sneak: Neutral
Bullet Punch: Neutral
Mach Punch: Weak

Is hardly a bad report card when it comes to priority (it's arguably better than Excadrill, who is identical except for being weak to Aqua Jet and resisting Bullet Punch).

Factoring in the rain boost to its Water STAB, it's actually pretty similar to Excadrill in overall power/bulk/speed. The biggest difference between the two is Mega Tyranitar >>>>>>>>> Politoad
 
the best ever said:
i like kabutops, use meowstic as a partner because prankster and damp rock and rain dance, deoxys could work, politoad i guess
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stealth rock makes deo-S sooooo much better.

I use rain offense almost exclusively this gen, and can attest to Kabutops' incredible sweeping potential. Also, I prefer Aqua Jet > Low Kick since it has come in handy SO many times that I would never even considering dedicating a moveslot for just for one threat. Striking Talonflame before it picks off my ~30% Kabutops, KOing Thundurus before it can paralyze you, and picking off faster things in general. Other teammates can handle Ferrothorn.

Another cool thing to try would be Bronzong-- Rain Dance / Stealth Rock / Explosion / Filler holding a Damp Rock. It gains momentum more easily in comparison to Deoxys, but loses out on speed + Taunt. It's purely theorizing, since I have yet to test it. :)
 
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