id say ice punch hits the most stuff (mainly gliscor/lando-t, dragons) but all three have they're uses: fire punch can really catch an aegis lash off guard and potentially win you the match with surprise factor alone, but is kind of redundant with fighting stab. Thunder punch probably wouldn't hit much, except allow him to ohko intimidate gyarados? idk, id go for ice punch
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Pokémon Medicham
- Thread starter Ash Borer
- Start date
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I've been trying a variety of sets with this guy for a while and so far it seem to excel mostly as a late-game sweeper. A common set I use is something along these lines:
Medicham @ Medichamite
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 Hp
Jolly Nature
- Fire Punch / Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
- High Jump Kick
- Psycho Cut / Zen Headbutt
The speed boost is necessary as it allows M-Cham to comfortable outspeed a number of threats that could otherwise get a hit in first, such as Kyurem-B, Landorus and so on. You can bring M-Cham out whenever you want to revenge kill something it can outspeed, but it truly shines late-game, after weeding out some of its typical counters. Fire punch threatens aegislash and trevenant on the switch, while destroying unboosted scizor, ferrothorn and for hilarity points, expert belt Genesect (or scarfed ones after catching them with knock off). I generally swap Thunder and Fire punch whenever my team demands it. Ice punch is the obvious pesticide against Landorus(-T), Gliscor, Dragonite (SR support preferred) and Adamant Garchomp, but also works nicely against Togekiss. Psycho Cut checks mega venusaur (if it switches in on psycho cut, it is doomed), and that is mostly the reason why I run it (due to how common that thing is). However, it also does well to finish off weakened threats or catch a fairy on the switch. Zen Headbutt is an alternative, though I don't like the possibility of missing as the damage done by it in general doesn't really warrant the risk in my opinion. HJK needs no long explanation. It drops all but the most physically invested versions of Rotom-w/h among other things and in general just breaks a lot of stuff.
After cleaning up the majority of M-Cham counters on your opponent's team, M-Cham can come in and clean up. SR support is greatly appreciated, disarming the aforementioned Dragonite and stopping sashes. Talonflame also becomes less willing to switch in and if it does, you can comfortably swap to your counter while it attempts to roost or boost its stats (Rotom-w with volt switch works wonders). I've even successfully used a sticky web team, with either sash Galvantula or shuckle with knock off as lead. If you can stop your opponent from defogging your hazards, the rewritten speed tier during the match makes M-Cham an absolute monster and allows it to run Adamant effortlessly.
Medicham @ Medichamite
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 Hp
Jolly Nature
- Fire Punch / Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
- High Jump Kick
- Psycho Cut / Zen Headbutt
The speed boost is necessary as it allows M-Cham to comfortable outspeed a number of threats that could otherwise get a hit in first, such as Kyurem-B, Landorus and so on. You can bring M-Cham out whenever you want to revenge kill something it can outspeed, but it truly shines late-game, after weeding out some of its typical counters. Fire punch threatens aegislash and trevenant on the switch, while destroying unboosted scizor, ferrothorn and for hilarity points, expert belt Genesect (or scarfed ones after catching them with knock off). I generally swap Thunder and Fire punch whenever my team demands it. Ice punch is the obvious pesticide against Landorus(-T), Gliscor, Dragonite (SR support preferred) and Adamant Garchomp, but also works nicely against Togekiss. Psycho Cut checks mega venusaur (if it switches in on psycho cut, it is doomed), and that is mostly the reason why I run it (due to how common that thing is). However, it also does well to finish off weakened threats or catch a fairy on the switch. Zen Headbutt is an alternative, though I don't like the possibility of missing as the damage done by it in general doesn't really warrant the risk in my opinion. HJK needs no long explanation. It drops all but the most physically invested versions of Rotom-w/h among other things and in general just breaks a lot of stuff.
After cleaning up the majority of M-Cham counters on your opponent's team, M-Cham can come in and clean up. SR support is greatly appreciated, disarming the aforementioned Dragonite and stopping sashes. Talonflame also becomes less willing to switch in and if it does, you can comfortably swap to your counter while it attempts to roost or boost its stats (Rotom-w with volt switch works wonders). I've even successfully used a sticky web team, with either sash Galvantula or shuckle with knock off as lead. If you can stop your opponent from defogging your hazards, the rewritten speed tier during the match makes M-Cham an absolute monster and allows it to run Adamant effortlessly.
You make a lot of valid arguments, and it's true that coverage sets have a lot of perks over FO+BP. My initial claim was that this priority set is a good set for Medicham, and is equally viable to some of the most common sets. I should have highlighted, however, that this set functions very differently from other sets, allowing Medicham to effectively revenge kill at the cost of the ability to beat some other threats.
To answer your last question, here's a replay that briefly showcases the current team I'm using with the priority Medicham set. Spiritomb is probably going to be replaced with a fire/water/ground resist because the team desperately needs one. In this particular replay Medicham doesn't end up doing a whole lot, but adamant Fake Out actually saves my team from being swept by a +2 mega pinsir.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-81757707
Forretress is also kinda uncommon, but is the only hazard setter/spinner that can slow-switch to medicham or something else. The team really doesn't offer a whole lot of support for medicham besides hazards, but he still functions well regardless. I suppose its also worth mentioning that I like trying a lot of stupid and non-standard shit on my teams...like balloon spiritomb lol
Saved team from BD azumarill:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-80859739
Saved team from +2 zard X:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-81549672
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I strongly dislike how nobody has mentioned plain old Recover. I mean, sure, Drain Punch is better usually, but this frees up this slot for High Jump Kick, and it doesn't even have that much to worry about after missing. I mean, never keep it on Ghost-types, but still. Recover is such a forgotten move on this thing, and I'd love if it was more recognized.
So, to those of you interested in using Medicham, Treecko posted a pretty neat core for UU, that I think could work really well in OU (Bisharp moved up anyway lol.)
Medicham lures in its counters/things that can wall it if it doesn't have the right coverage move, then Baton Passes on the switch to immediately Pursuit trap it. Nearly everything that can check Medicham is weak to Dark/Pursuit (Aegislash, bulky Psychics like Slowbro) or Steel (things like Clefable.) In OU I'd still use Ice Punch over Bullet Punch, for Gliscor and Lando-T. You'll also want something with fairy coverage for Sableye, however you can't trap it like you can Aegislash and others.
Dread Plate Pursuit doesn't quite OHKO Aegislash, but it takes out so much of its health that it's pretty much out of commission. Bisharp also discourages the use of Sticky Web, which seriously hurts Medicham.
So I've been trying out this cool new offensive core that wrecks, uh, pretty much everything tbh, and I'm kind of hoping Bisharp doesn't move up to UU whenever Antar gets around to posting stats today because I don't want to stop using it. The core is really simple and easy to understand too!
Medicham @ Medichamite
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Zen Headbutt
- Baton Pass
- Bullet Punch
Bisharp @ Dread Plate
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Pursuit
- Sucker Punch
So basically what I'm running is Baton Pass Mega Medicham, which can lure in its own checks and Baton Pass out of them, with Bisharp to kill off Slowbro and other Psychic-types, Cofagrigus, and Doublade in order to open up holes in the opposing team for Mega Medicham to clean up later on. It works really well, and very few people honestly expect Pursuit on Bisharp anymore because it already wants to run Knock Off, Iron Head, Sucker Punch, Low Kick, Substitute, and Swords Dance as it is. All I had to forfeit on Mega Medicham was Ice Punch or shitty Fake Out in order to slate Baton Pass, so it was honestly really easy to do. I've also got Baton Pass hazard Scolipede, which can pass some boosts around the team and works especially well with Mega Medicham's Baton Pass and can even pass Speed to Bisharp on incoming Defog. There's really not a single Pokemon that can take on both Mega Medicham and Bisharp barring maybe Sableye, but it's OU right now anyways. :)
Anyways, I'm mostly posting this to share this cool core and to tell people to stop using Fake Out + Bullet Punch Mega Medicham. It really needs all the moveslots it can get as it is because it wants to run a Fighting STAB, Psychic STAB, Fake Out, Bullet Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch to hit Slowbro, and Fire Punch to hit Doublade, but when you run Fake Out + Bullet Punch, you miss out on all that important coverage and make yourself really easy to wall.
Medicham lures in its counters/things that can wall it if it doesn't have the right coverage move, then Baton Passes on the switch to immediately Pursuit trap it. Nearly everything that can check Medicham is weak to Dark/Pursuit (Aegislash, bulky Psychics like Slowbro) or Steel (things like Clefable.) In OU I'd still use Ice Punch over Bullet Punch, for Gliscor and Lando-T. You'll also want something with fairy coverage for Sableye, however you can't trap it like you can Aegislash and others.
Dread Plate Pursuit doesn't quite OHKO Aegislash, but it takes out so much of its health that it's pretty much out of commission. Bisharp also discourages the use of Sticky Web, which seriously hurts Medicham.
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The main issue with Recover on Medicham is that it doesn't do damage, and Drain Punch does. No, really, that's it. Why spend a turn not doing damage when you could be doing damage?
Whoever made Mega Mawile's stats did. Hell, they said it wasn't high enough.
It can't be stopped by Ghosts coming in and isn't affected by burn. You can just burn -> recover -> heal bell user.
252+ = ~250 Base Stat Equivalent.
252 = ~220 Base Stat Equivalent.
Besides, Mega Mawile has more attack anyways.
Thinking about it, Mega-Medicham would make one hell of a Baton Pass recipient. You thought 598 Attack was scary? Try 1196, and outspeeding everything ever.
yes that is scary, but mega medicham lacks the bulk to take a hit after receiving the boost, unless you invest in defenses and/or hp.
on another subject, I've been playing around with teammates for medicham and here are a dew good teammates:
the skarmbliss core: basically this core covers medicham's every weakness with blissey absorbing ghost and special attacks with little to no problem as well as providing aromatherapy support to help against burns. Skarmory resists physical fairy and flying type opponents and can absorb most physical attacks in general without a problem, but needs to watch out for talonflame, which brings me to the final teammate: tyranitar.
tyranitar basically hard counters all talonflame variants and threatens them in a big way as well as resisting ghost and flying type moves and can kill a weakened aeigislash with no problem using earthquake.
on another subject, I've been playing around with teammates for medicham and here are a dew good teammates:
the skarmbliss core: basically this core covers medicham's every weakness with blissey absorbing ghost and special attacks with little to no problem as well as providing aromatherapy support to help against burns. Skarmory resists physical fairy and flying type opponents and can absorb most physical attacks in general without a problem, but needs to watch out for talonflame, which brings me to the final teammate: tyranitar.
tyranitar basically hard counters all talonflame variants and threatens them in a big way as well as resisting ghost and flying type moves and can kill a weakened aeigislash with no problem using earthquake.
It doesn't take a choice banded U-Turn all that well and falls easily to the common/popular double bird as Staraptor takes it out and then some.
I find it hard to justify running M-Medicham in OU, sure it hits hard but it can't spam HJK before taking out ghosts first, it has major problems getting around Talonflame, Staraptor, M-Pinsir, Reuniclus, Cofagrigus, Gourgeist and most notably Aegislash.
It really lacks the dark coverage that other fighting types like Conkeldurr, Mienshao and Machamp do get whereas the psychic stab is fairly weak and doesn't hit much besides M-Venusaur.
Bullet Punch is just weak without stab (and technician/adaptability) even coming from M-Medicham's ridiculous attack stat.
I'm not really sure what set to run:
HJK
Ice Punch
Psycho Cut/Zen Headbutt
Thunder Punch
Seems like it has the best coverage, disregarding Aegislash completely as you can't touch it anyway.
Edit: On second thought it seems Fire Punch hits very little other than Aegislash, Scizor and Forretress the former pretty much walls you anyway and the latter 2 are 2hko'd by HJK or even Drain Punch + HJK.
HJK is a must.
Ice Punch is a must for dealing with Gliscor, Landorus and Dragonite.
Then Poison Jab hits fairies other than M-Mawile and Klefki who are both hit hard by HJK (essentially that leaves just Azumarill and Togekiss the latter of which is already covered by Ice Punch and both would be covered by Thunder Punch.
Thunder Punch hits Azumarill, Slowbro, Tentacruel, Jellicent, Victini, Gyarados and Talonflame but other than that not really anything that isn't covered by HJK/Ice Punch already.
Zen Headbutt/Psycho Cut hit Tentacruel and M-Venusaur and also hit Talonflame/Gyarados fairly hard but that's about it.
Bullet Punch is incredibly weak, a resisted HJK hits harder than a SE Bullet Punch.
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banded talonflame cant really threaten tyranitar even with u turn becuase you can simply switch to skarmory as well as the fact that talon will probably be locked into flare blitz or brave bird trying to take out medicham.
there is also the fact that talonflame requires free switches as mega medicham's attacks all 2HKO besides an unboosted drain punch
there is also the fact that talonflame requires free switches as mega medicham's attacks all 2HKO besides an unboosted drain punch
You do realize that Talonflame outspeeds and OHKOs Medicham right? Not saying its a good idea to switch into it but if rocks arent up it can do so. You will have to predict, Skarmory won't like a Flare Blitz, TTar won't like a U-Turn and Medicham won't like taking a hit period.
Fire Punch vs. Thunder Punch was a dilemma, either hitting Aegislash hard before switching out or getting walled by Slowbro, but now I'm thinking Baton Pass is the best set, combined with anything to handle its common counters (Bisharp, and, uh, actually that's pretty much it. He's just too perfect.) I used it a bunch last night, works great as both a pivot and a wall breaker. Really, if you're going to use it, that's the way to go. And Bisharp is really good, why the shit was it ever UU.
Really, the only problem with using Mega Medicham is that you can't use the other megas, like Mawile, Pinsir, Charizard, or Lucario (until it gets banned.) The opportunity cost sucks but hey, I find it fun to use.
At very least Medicham is frail and has crap typing. Look at Mawile which has strong priority, excellent typing and bulk.
Slowbro:
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 150-176 (38 - 44.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery
Slowbro is NOT pursuit trapped lol.
Edit: I realise this damage is doubled but Regenerator almost entirely covers this.
Gyarados:
-1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Gyarados: 154-183 (46.3 - 55.1%) -- 12.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Only safely 2HKO'd with SR or Adamant nature or with ZH:
-1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Zen Headbutt vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Gyarados: 177-208 (53.3 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
But yeah I realized that despite the shitty coverage provided by Psychic, it being stab still means it's your best bet against most things that resist Fighting and arent Psychic types themselves or Aegislash.
Aegislash can be mindgamed with Psycho Cut/Drain Punch only (and Fire Punch of course) as they wont take an attack drop from King's Shield, Medicham can live a max Atk +nature Shadow Sneak unless it's Life Orb'd or Banded (lol!)
252+ Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Medicham: 242-283 (92.7 - 108.4%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
Baton Pass doesn't really help you other than giving a bit more insight in your opponents response, if you predict their move correctly a double swap leads to the same result.
I might have underestimated this thing cause I keep facing shitty BP or Fake Out sets, but it does seem rather slow (especially pre-mevo) and is more of a wallbreaker than anything else, and yes Bisharp is a monster and as of now banned from UU if I'm not mistaken, it was UU because Defiant was much worse last gen cause no one used Defog, Dark was resisted by steel and as such Dark+Steel didn't give nearly as good coverage as it does now and Knock Off was a weak move and is it's main attacking move this gen (together with sucker punch).
Yeah, damage is doubled, meaning identical damage to Sucker Punch. I prefer Dread Plate, so:
252+ Atk Dread Plate Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 228-270 (57.8 - 68.5%)
After this, Slowbro will have 31.5% to 42.2% of its health left, and then 64.5% to 75.2% after Regenerator (probably more with leftovers.) Medicham's HJK will do 30.2 to 35.7%, so it's probably not going to 2HKO after Pursuit; but if Stealth Rocks are up, it has a pretty decent chance to. At any rate, you can just do it again and send in Bisharp. You don't have to immediately get rid of Slowbro, just wear it down to the point where it can't safely switch in anymore, and a strong Dark attacker is perfect for that.
But most importantly, it's really effective on Aegislash, who is far more prominent than Slowbro. Pursuit takes out a huge chunk of its health (72.8 - 85.8%) and it doesn't have Regenerator, nor a source of healing. And if you use Life Orb over Dread Plate, Aegislash can't switch into Psycho Cut at all, and Slowbro will have a much harder time switching into HJK.
The only problem to this is that they might not switch out, and Bisharp might get KOed by Sacred Sword or take unnecessary damage from Scald, or even get burned. But Bisharp is faster than both of them, so Knock Off is always the safest option. You could also just drop Pursuit and use a subdance set, which isn't necessarily to get rid of Medicham's counters, but instead use them as free set-up.
Baton Pass is better than predicting a switch for the same reason Volt-Switch and U-Turn are really good moves: they mean you don't get screwed if you predict wrong. It's just safer, and since Bisharp handles Medicham's counters so well, you don't really need those coverage moves.
Not necessarily. None of those megas fit into Mega-Medicham's niche.
Mega Mawile has a major speed issue, getting outsped by Blissey means you have to worry about random Flamethrower Blisseys who will revenge kill you. Being forced to Sucker-punch vs a Cleric is a bad situation. Mega Mawile is "walled by tech": Gliscor and Trevenant who are faster, and can rely on Substitute / Protect or Substitute / Harvest shenanigans to aggrivate that 10% miss chance. (And they both capitalize on it with either Earthquake or Will o Wisp)
Pinsir, Charizard, and even Mega Lucario are all significantly weaker than Mega Medicham. Physical Lucario fails 1v1 against Slowbro (lol Flamethrower) for example, while Mega-Medicham wins single handedly with Thunderpunch. The classic Skarmory walls Mega Pinsir usually, while Mega Medicham facerolls with HJK doing some 70% dmg. Slowbro, Heatran, and Hippowdon similarly give Mega Charizard X an issue, but Mega-Medicham 2HKOs the whole lot of them.
"Stopping" Mega Medicham is different than stopping almost every other Mega. And as long as this fact remains true, Mega Medicham's niche is well defined. He is for teams that otherwise have issues with wallbreakers and stall-tactics. He's a medium-speed wallbreaker. You can't stop Mega-Medicham by "tech", he's too fast for Sub/Protect Gliscor and Sub/Harvest Trevenant. You can't stop him with walls, he just hits too damn hard.
If you were to baton pass Bisharp a stat drop (say from Landorus-T's intimidate or defog or something), would that activate Defiant? Because if so, that's another great reason to use it.
No, it doesn't. Passing an intimidate's attack drop is also a possible drawback, but that's what special attackers are for. Something with BoltBeam can hit all the relevant intimidators for 4x damage.
Mawile (pre-mevo) and M-Manectric have intimidate and aren't exactly irrelevant.
Bisharp sounds like it would work well with M-Medicham but Sacred Sword from Aegislash is a real issue, I don't think it would take a Flamethrower/Fire Blast from Slowbro all that well either or the potential scald burn or T-wave could mess it up and Staraptor could surprise you with Close Combat on the switch.
Mega Cham is amazing, probably my favorite mega. Where it really thrives is on slow volt-turn teams which get it in safely, because there is basically nothing that switches in on HJK more then once. Get up rocks, do your volturn shenanigans with rotom/scizor/landorus etc then clean with talonflame/deoxys. The thing is a monster with proper team support and generally very underprepared for. Run Hjk/fire punch/ice punch/psycho cut and watch the world burn lol
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-88834075 how to medicham sweep like a boss
That late game sweep though XD. It looked so natural in the OU tier
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