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Lightningrod
- Thread starter Colonel M
- Start date
You ust have forgotten the awesome might of lightning rod Seaking, Zapdos has never been and never will be a problem, it has horrible typing and stab, the only thing worse is Salemence...
Yay! Now Pikachu can actually switch in before it faints!
Lightningrod is probably the only thing Zapdos can claim that Voltolos can't do better. Besides Subroost, but I question its effectiveness in Gen V.
The real question is if Zapdos can legally recieve both Lightningrod and Heat Wave through a special DW move. If so, it will probably regain its reputation as a powerful tank, particularly countering steels.
I was about to say, I find Zapdos is actually severely hampered coveragewise by running Lightningrod. If you run Roost and Thunderbolt, which are givens, that gives you only two moves to really work with. If we assume the choices so far are Substitute/Toxic/Hidden Power or something similar, that's not a whole lot that he can do against certain threats.
Personally, I think Zapdos does just fine without LightningRod because it already has that 125 base Special Attack to work off of, and Pressure is just dandy in some stalling instances. I can see why you guys would like LightningRod; a Special Attack boost would be nice in the case of Hidden Power Electric Bulky Water types.
If I advocated the use of Lightningrod, Zapdos with Roost + Hidden Power + Coverage moves would be just dandy, though lack of Heat Wave hurts.
If I advocated the use of Lightningrod, Zapdos with Roost + Hidden Power + Coverage moves would be just dandy, though lack of Heat Wave hurts.
A toxic/roost/free fall/thunderbolt is actually solid. You get walled by steel/ground but against alot of things it destroys.
Has Seaking had much mention yet? I think Lightningrod is fantastic for Seaking, since it essentially puts him in the same class as the Water-Ground hybrids in only having one weakness, and only a regular x2 weakness at that, whereas he even benefits from taking Electric attacks now. If only you didn't have to choose between that and Swift Swim... but even if you just give him like a Scarf or something, he could still cause his fair share of havoc on Rain teams. He just needs something to hit Burungeru, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have much in that department.... >.>
Water Veil's always nice to switch into Boiling Water with little fear. Lightning Rod seems like it'd best benefit him on mixed sets, but Swift Swim is better for those (not saying mixed sets are good, but yeah).
Lightning Rod seems like it'll help Pikachu/Raichu in the lower tiers, since they used to have literally nothing to switch into. Now they have random Thunderbolts and Thunder Waves.
Zapdos can abuse it... but then it can't use Heat Wave :/. Thunderbolt / Roost / Substitute / Hidden Power Ice seems reasonably, though. Just give it some Toxic Spikes support. Grass, Fighting, Flying, Bug, and Steel resists, along with Ground and Electric immunities are all very nice.
What pokes would you hit with heatwave that aren't ohko'd by +1 LO hp ice?
Zapdos is a BEAST with lightning rod, being only weak to 2 types and resistant to both priority, making agilitydos an incredible sweeper.
zapdos@LO
252spa/252spe modest
agility
roost
thunder/tbolt (depends if there's rain)
hp ice
Absolutely decimates teams. I cannot tell you how many 6 poke sweeps zapdos has gotten, or how many times I was losing badly to then have zapdos come in and turn it around. He outspeeds every scarfer and has decent enough defenses to roost out of weak hp ice.
+1LO zapdos does 44-53% to wishbliss.
Of course the main problem is there aren't that many electric attacks these days, but that's ok.
Also for those who say voltolos is strictly better that's completely false. Zapdos has better defenses, recovery, and a speed boosting move which are all important depending on what you want to do.
Zapdos is a BEAST with lightning rod, being only weak to 2 types and resistant to both priority, making agilitydos an incredible sweeper.
zapdos@LO
252spa/252spe modest
agility
roost
thunder/tbolt (depends if there's rain)
hp ice
Absolutely decimates teams. I cannot tell you how many 6 poke sweeps zapdos has gotten, or how many times I was losing badly to then have zapdos come in and turn it around. He outspeeds every scarfer and has decent enough defenses to roost out of weak hp ice.
+1LO zapdos does 44-53% to wishbliss.
Of course the main problem is there aren't that many electric attacks these days, but that's ok.
Also for those who say voltolos is strictly better that's completely false. Zapdos has better defenses, recovery, and a speed boosting move which are all important depending on what you want to do.
That's not necessarily true since Raichu can always switch into a defensive pokemon and encore them into useless repeating a move or switch into an offensive pokemon using substitute or a boosting move. Lightning Rod encore is going be ridiculously awesome though!
Switch into... Blissey's Thunderwave, gain a +1 Special Attack Boost, Encore Thunder Wave to gain another boost and Nasty Plot on the switch. Of course this works best on Raichu due to his higher speed and usable bulk. (Pikachu usually wants a Sub)
Zapdos is amazing with it, so bulky and he can deliver mixed attacks such as Heat Wave, Thunderbolt, Hidden Power(Grass, Ice). And after the boost with Lighting Rod...Oh Boy!!!
I don't get why people are all worried about losing Heat Wave to counter steels. Electric is neutral against steel, how many steel types resist electric?
Steelix is NU and Zapdos isn't this centralising, Magnezone now sees his both STABs being useless against Zapdos, Dialga is uber and Natorei is the only problematic one as it will spike/SR freely (but anyway how often someone will prevent Natty to do that?), however Zapdos although not being able to kill also doesn't get killed by it as it has resistance to both grass and steel.
And losing Heat Wave means a free slot that can be filled by Metal Sound for example that is a pseudo-boost.
The ground, grass, dragon and electric resistances of electric are handled well by HP Ice (almost flawlessly).
Steelix is NU and Zapdos isn't this centralising, Magnezone now sees his both STABs being useless against Zapdos, Dialga is uber and Natorei is the only problematic one as it will spike/SR freely (but anyway how often someone will prevent Natty to do that?), however Zapdos although not being able to kill also doesn't get killed by it as it has resistance to both grass and steel.
And losing Heat Wave means a free slot that can be filled by Metal Sound for example that is a pseudo-boost.
The ground, grass, dragon and electric resistances of electric are handled well by HP Ice (almost flawlessly).
Metal Sound is incompatible with Lightningrod, as it is an XD-exclusive move.
I've been running LightningRod Zapdos on a rain team. The lack of Heat Wave does hurt but I've adopted HP Fighting.
HP Fighting does a nice chunk to Nattorei, and if I have a Sub up he can't do anything back to me. HP Fighting is also very useful for killing weather changers. Most TTar will be 2hko'd unless they have a crazy amount of Special Defense and they can't do much back if you have a Sub. Abomasnow doesn't like taking HP Fighting to the face and Zapdos can survive an Ice Shard rather comfortably. Politoed of course has to watch out for Thunder. Hippo and Ninetales are more problematic however, but I suppose you could wear them down with Roost and HP Fighting.
HP Fighting does a nice chunk to Nattorei, and if I have a Sub up he can't do anything back to me. HP Fighting is also very useful for killing weather changers. Most TTar will be 2hko'd unless they have a crazy amount of Special Defense and they can't do much back if you have a Sub. Abomasnow doesn't like taking HP Fighting to the face and Zapdos can survive an Ice Shard rather comfortably. Politoed of course has to watch out for Thunder. Hippo and Ninetales are more problematic however, but I suppose you could wear them down with Roost and HP Fighting.
How about all those fun steel-types? The ones that RESIST hp ice.
As for bliss,
That's nice. How much does it do to evo-stone Chansey who is both bulkier and more common than its fluffy assed evolution
Zapdos is an excellent counter to the majority of steels, resisting their STABs and hitting them with a strong neutral Thunderbolt. Evolution Stone Chansey has comparable special bulk to Blissey when one considers that it foregoes leftovers, its physical bulk is where it shines. Also don't be so unnecessarily agressive, you sound like a child.
Lightningrod is a bit of a double edged sword isn't it? Essentially it boils down to an immunity to a common attacking type that comes with a free +1 boost, or a useful coverage move in Heat Wave.
Personally I prefer Lightningrod for its defensive utility, as Zapdos can now fully counter Magnezone, Jolteon and Voltolos as well as profit from Volt Change abuse. Heat Wave only really gave it coverage against various Grass types anyway, which can be remedied by HP Ice (to a degree) with the added bonus of hitting Dragons.
Doruzuyuu
HP Fighting may be better on Lightningrod Zapdos than HP Ice or any other attack type, if only because of Porygon2. Trace P2 switches into Zapdos with impunity - Electric attacks are soaked with Lightningrod, and none of Zapdos's other attacks can do anything to it. It can hit back with super effective Ice Beams too, although Roost keeps that from being too much of a problem.
Hahaha, Hell yes. Ash's Pikachu is from Dream World.
Test pending: Can Dream World Pikachu hit Ryhdon with Electric moves?