[OVERVIEW]
Name: Specs
Move 1: Prismatic Laser
Move 2: Photon Geyser
Move 3: Heat Wave
Move 4: Signal Beam / Hyper Voice / Hidden Power Ice / Psyshock
Item: Choice Specs
Ability: Prism Armor
Nature: Modest
EVs: 240 HP / 236 SpA / 32 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
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Other Options
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**Dark types**: Dark-type Pokémon are immune to all damage from stall Necrozma, but must be careful of Signal Beam from Specs Necrozma. Pokémon like Gyarados-Mega completely wall Necrozma with Dragon Dance, while Tyranitar-Mega and Incineroar defeat Specs Necrozma.
**Taunt**: Taunt users like Mew and Gyarados-Mega immediately shut down stall Necrozma if they use in the first two-three turns against stall variants. With only a 60-BP Stored Power to use, Necrozma is unable to afflict reasonable damage, or restore health. However, Specs Necrozma gains a free turn of damage if Taunted.
**Steel types**: Like Dark types, Steel types like Magnezone, Magearna, and Jirachi also wall stall Necrozma, but to a lesser extent, since Necrozma can still boost its defenses and SpA and use a 380-BP Stored Power. However, Specs Necrozma can use coverage moves like Heat Wave to power through Scizor, Kartana, and Mawile-Mega.
**Strong STAB Attackers**: Both sets of Necrozma are susceptible to strong all-out attackers like Charizard-Mega-Y and Gardevoir-Mega, which outspeed and nuke with Blast Burn and Hyper Beam respectively.
[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[PartChandelure, 470225]]
- Quality checked by: [[<username1>, <userid1>], [<username2>, <userid2>], [<username3>, <userid3>]]
- Grammar checked by: [[<username1>, <userid1>], [<username2>, <userid2>]]
- Necrozma has good offensive stats that allow it to deal a respectable amount of damage to a large majority of the metagame - successfully knocking out common threats such as Charizard-Mega-X and Tapu Fini.
- It has has reasonable bulk, and its ability, Prism Armor, greatly increases its effectiveness as a wall. Even without its ability, Necrozma has the ability to tank Charizard-Mega-X's Outrage, Lopunny-Mega's Giga Impact, Garchomp's Z-Earthquake, and Zeraora's Charge-boosted Plasma Fists with little investment.
- With strong STAB options that allow it to deal major damage to neutral Pokémon, and a wide range of coverage moves, Necrozma has the capability to super-effectively hit a large portion of the metagame. However, Necrozma's utility as a sweeper is limited by the lack of stellar offensive stats, which causes it to be reliant on having the correct coverage moves in order to win certain matchups. It also has good status moves, which make it a viable stall Pokémon.
- With the proper investment, Necrozma is best run as a slow offensive set, or a slow defensive set. Fast sets are not as effective, due to the necessity of a Choice Scarf and large speed investment, reducing its offensive and defensive capabilities.
Name: Specs
Move 1: Prismatic Laser
Move 2: Photon Geyser
Move 3: Heat Wave
Move 4: Signal Beam / Hyper Voice / Hidden Power Ice / Psyshock
Item: Choice Specs
Ability: Prism Armor
Nature: Modest
EVs: 240 HP / 236 SpA / 32 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========
- Prismatic Laser is the main move of choice, easily OHKOing major threats in the metagame, such as Charizard-Mega-X, Kommo-o, and Tapu Fini. It also knocks out pretty much anything it hits super-effectively, as well as a vast majority of those it does not.
- Photon Geyser is helpful when Necrozma isn't able to OHKO an opponent. It also helps in breaking Substitutes that would otherwise force Necrozma to waste a turn recharging. Photon Geyser's secondary effect allows it to ignore enemy abilities, helping in matchups against most Sturdy Pokémon (Sawk, FEAR, Crustle, etc). It can be replaced to improve Necrozma's coverage, but leaves it vulnerable to Pokémon it cannot OHKO.
- Signal Beam is one of Necrozma's primary coverage moves, allowing it to hit Psychic and Dark types that aren't affected by Photon Geyser and Prismatic Laser. Signal Beam can OHKO Hoopa-Unbound if Necrozma survives the first hit, while netting a 2HKO on physically-defensive variants of Mew.
- Heat Wave allows Necrozma to hit Pokémon such as Celesteela, Kartana, Genesect, and Ferrothorn, and its secondary burn chance is capable of crippling physical attackers such as Mawile-Mega and Metagross-Mega.
- Hyper Voice is another move that can be run, but has limited use and reduces Necrozma's coverage. Hyper Voice's only advantage is against Substitute-spammers like Lopunny-Mega and Whimsicott.
- Psyshock allows Necrozma to get past specially-bulky Pokémon like Calm Mind Tapu Fini, Chansey, and Tapu Lele that otherwise wall Necrozma. However, this is recommended only if a teammate that can handle Dark-type Pokémon is run.
- Hidden Power Ice is another coverage move that Necrozma can run. Its primarily usage lies in the guaranteed KO of Pokémon 4x weak to Ice moves that otherwise force Substitute predictions, such as Garchomp, Landorus-Therian, and Zygarde.
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- The 232 HP EVs allow Necrozma to survive Fake Out + Giga Impact from Lopunny, Aerilate-boosted Giga Impact from Pinsir-Mega, and Fake Out into Z-Plasma Fists from Zeraora. However, Charge-boosted Z-Plasma Fists Zeraora can still knock it out.
- 32 EVs in SpD allow Necrozma to tank Choice Specs Hydro Cannon from Greninja and Z-Draco Meteor from Timid Naganadel, and 8 excess EVs are added here to maximize bulk (if Hyper Voice is run).
- Prism Armor is a good ability for Necrozma, allowing it to weather Dark Pulses from Greninja without much of a problem, and also allows Necrozma to survive a Bug Buzz from Choice Scarf Genesect.
- 236 EVs with a Modest nature allow Necrozma to 2HKO both common variants of Lopunny-Mega with Hyper Voice, and since Necrozma can tank a Giga Impact and Fake Out, it is almost assured a win against Giga Impact variants of Lopunny-Mega. 244 SpA EVs are not run, since 236 is the highest SpA that Modest Necrozma can run while being guaranteed to not bring Lopunny-Mega to 200-BP Flail range after using Substitute and being hit by a Hyper Voice.
- 236 SpA EVs are also sufficient to let Necrozma OHKO non-Calm Mind variants of Tapu Fini.
========
- Necrozma is best suited for matchups against Pokémon that do not have exceptionally strong STAB moves, or Sturdy-reliant Pokémon (Avalugg, Donphan, Golem, etc).
- Necrozma has good chances against almost anything that doesn’t outspeed and OHKO. Notable exceptions to this are Gyarados-Mega (which can survive a Signal Beam even in Mega form) and Firium Victini (which can tank an attack and KO with Inferno Overdrive into V-Create).
- Whenever Necrozma is up against a Lopunny-Mega, the best course of action is to use Hyper Voice. The only exception here is if the opposing Lopunny-Mega uses a non-recharge damaging move (High Jump Kick, Ice Punch, Return, etc) on the first turn. In this case, Photon Geyser should be used to OHKO Lopunny-Mega, otherwise Necrozma will be knocked out on the next turn. It should be noted that always using Photon Geyser allows Necrozma to beat most Lopunny-Mega, but is guaranteed a loss against SubFlail variants.
- Necrozma also has the capability to defeat Greninja, but must properly predict the set that Greninja is running. Against standard Choiced / Z Protean variants, Necrozma should Signal Beam (which can OHKO Dark and Water-Dark Greninja, and 2HKO most other commonly used types). Against the less-common SubTorrent Greninja, the correct option is to use Hyper Voice on the turn Greninja uses Substitute.
- Prismatic Laser is the default move against less specially bulky Pokémon, since a 150 BP STAB move hits extremely hard. However, if Necrozma fails to OHKO with Prismatic Laser, it is forced to lose a turn to recharge. Enemies that use Substitute, like Landorus-Therian and Garchomp, take advantage of this, so only use Prismatic Laser if the opponent does not use Substitute and will be knocked out. If Necrozma is up against Pokémon with critical weaknesses to the Ice type, Necrozma can use Hidden Power Ice to avoid playing guessing games.
- Against bulkier opponents, coverage comes into play - Necrozma fares well in situations where it can deal super-effective damage to an opponent. However, against enemies like Gyarados-Mega and Victini, coverage is not enough, so beware of them.
- Necrozma is also well-equipped to handle many fast nukes, such as Zeraora, Pinsir-Mega, and Lopunny. However, it can still be knocked out by stronger nukes, like Charizard-Mega-Y and Gardevoir-Mega.
========
- Landorus-Therian is a useful teammate; it handles Gyarados-Mega, Chansey, Aegislash, and many other common checks to Necrozma. In return, Necrozma takes care of special threats to Landorus-Therian; notably handling Greninja and Timid Naganadel.
- Charizard-Mega-X is also appreciated, since it covers many of the specially-bulky Pokémon that wall Necrozma, like Chansey and Meloetta. Necrozma, meanwhile, can defeat Pokémon like Mega-Altaria, Donphan, Mega-Venusaur and Greninja, which usually trouble Charizard-Mega-X.
- Pokémon like Gyarados-Mega also prove good teammates due to its wallbreaking capabilities (defeating Sableye-Mega, Slowbro-Mega, Aggron, etc), while appreciating Necrozma's assistance against Pokémon like Tapu Fini and Venusaur-Mega. Meanwhile, teammates like Dragonite prove helpful against threats such as Magnezone, Heatran, and Aegislash.
- Bulk Up Zeraora also proves a good teammate by covering Steel and Dark types like Magnezone and Gyarados-Mega, along with beating speed traps such as Smeargle. In return, Necrozma defeats Pokémon like Donphan, Altaria-Mega, Charizard-Mega-X, and Kommo-o that trouble it.
Other Options
=============
- Leppa Berry sets can also be run for PP stalling. They are largely inferior to Berry sets, though, primarily due to not countering anything not already countered by the Berry sets except Jumpluff.
- Psychium-Z sets also exist, but lack the coverage of the standard Choice Specs sets, and are therefore not as widely used, despite hitting harder.
- A third option is the Choice Band set, but Necrozma lacks the physical movepool to make proper use of it. In such sets, Photon Geyser, X-Scissor, Shadow Claw, Night Slash, and Outrage are the moves generally run.
===================
**Dark types**: Dark-type Pokémon are immune to all damage from stall Necrozma, but must be careful of Signal Beam from Specs Necrozma. Pokémon like Gyarados-Mega completely wall Necrozma with Dragon Dance, while Tyranitar-Mega and Incineroar defeat Specs Necrozma.
**Taunt**: Taunt users like Mew and Gyarados-Mega immediately shut down stall Necrozma if they use in the first two-three turns against stall variants. With only a 60-BP Stored Power to use, Necrozma is unable to afflict reasonable damage, or restore health. However, Specs Necrozma gains a free turn of damage if Taunted.
**Steel types**: Like Dark types, Steel types like Magnezone, Magearna, and Jirachi also wall stall Necrozma, but to a lesser extent, since Necrozma can still boost its defenses and SpA and use a 380-BP Stored Power. However, Specs Necrozma can use coverage moves like Heat Wave to power through Scizor, Kartana, and Mawile-Mega.
**Strong STAB Attackers**: Both sets of Necrozma are susceptible to strong all-out attackers like Charizard-Mega-Y and Gardevoir-Mega, which outspeed and nuke with Blast Burn and Hyper Beam respectively.
[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[PartChandelure, 470225]]
- Quality checked by: [[<username1>, <userid1>], [<username2>, <userid2>], [<username3>, <userid3>]]
- Grammar checked by: [[<username1>, <userid1>], [<username2>, <userid2>]]
Last edited:
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