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Ninetales

Benlisted said:
The issue with grudge is that it only really hurts very low PP moves in many cases (unless you're running stall, which Sun abuse probably won't be). Also, imo you don't generally want to go out with a bang as you may need tales to restart the weather later on. The jewel may well be replaced with Specs, seeing as in my testing Tales often has to switch out rather than changing moves, and it would give the same boost to all its special moves.

Personally liking the Scarf set more than any other; fast WoW, revenging with Drought Boosted Overheat are excellent utility in my opinion.
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I think you're thinking of Spite; Grudge takes the move's PP down to zero no matter how much it had before. I agree that it's not a good idea to sack Ninetales unless you're 100% sure that Sun will stay up after that.
 
DDRMaster said:
I think you're thinking of Spite; Grudge takes the move's PP down to zero no matter how much it had before. I agree that it's not a good idea to sack Ninetales unless you're 100% sure that Sun will stay up after that.
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Ah yes, i am indeed. In that case it has more viability than I thought, especially if we end up able to see the opponent's team at the start of the battle (and therefore know when the opponent is out of autoweather). I think I still prefer WoW as a general utility move, however.
 
Ninetales @ Life Orb
Drought
Timid / Modest
252 Sp.Atk / 252 Spe / 4 sp.Def
Nasty Plot
Fire Blast / Flamethrower
Energy Ball / Solarbeam
Psycho Shock / Hidden Power Fighting/Ice/Ground

Ninetales is pretty threatening with weather advantage and a +2 boost under its belt. Psycho Shock, again, shows great potential as a way to break special walls trying to stop your sweep. However, Tyranitar and Politoed (and to an extent Hippowdon) threaten this set with their own weather and STAB attacks. Tyranitar especially ruins it, being immune to Psycho Shock. For this reason Hidden Power Fighting might be preferable if you're willing to give up your ability to break walls. With a +2 boost and Modest nature, HP Fighting delivers 84.2 - 99% damage to max HP/Sp.Def +Nature Tyranitar in Sandstorm, a OHKO with T-Spikes/Spikes support. (Edit: fixed my calculation. I knew it sounded too good to be true.) If you would rather not attempt to kill off Tyranitar, then another HP such as Hidden Power Ice or Ground may be applicable.
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I am using this set for my Sun team, and It's pretty good. I use Hypnosis over Psychoo Shock and Hidden Power just to stop annoying things like Scarf Shanderra from stopping my Sun Sweepers. The nice thing is that is a Hippowdon or Politoed tries to come in you can hit him with a +2 Energy Ball and get him out of the way.
 
The only Ninetails I'm interested in atm is bulky Ninetales with like a Calm nature and enough speed EVs for Breloom. I've always said the biggest problem with Sun teams (aside from the obligatory shitty Grass Pokemon) usually lied in Ninetails's relatively low survivability. It's weak to rocks, has poor defense, and the other weather setters beat it one-on-one without breaking a sweat. You can't do much about Politied, but running Sub/WoW can help you take down Tyranitar and Hippowdon (with the added bonus of not being Pursuit bait).

I'm actually running a set like that now on my main team, but I'll have to share the details later.
 
Even with Nasty Plot at its disposal, Ninetales is often to weak offensively to do any major damage. Recently, after watching a wifi battle, I saw a very interesting moveset that was kinda gimmicky, but quite effective in some ways. So here it is.

No Nasty Plot WHAT?
Ninetales@Leftovers
Ability: Drought
Nature: Timid
EVs: 252 Speed / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
- Overheat
- Power Swap
- Will-o-wisp
- Substitute/Protect

With this set, the aim is to Overheat most leads, Sub on the switch if there is one, and Power Swap it if it is a special sweeper to get rid of the lowered Special Attack stat, or burn it if it is a physical sweeper. Protect is slashed just for an alternative to losing HP from Substitute. Although its completely walled by Flash Fire Pokemon, it is quite an interesting set. Perhaps running a Hidden Power instead of Sub/Protect?
 
chanazn said:
Even with Nasty Plot at its disposal, Ninetales is often to weak offensively to do any major damage.
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It depends of how you play with it IMO.
One thing ot note is that, despite being the frailest weather inducer, it's also the only one that can try to go on a sweep (along with DDtar).
Yes, 81 base SpA is very low, but when you're firing off a 240 BP move (Fire Blast under the automatic Sun. Correct me if i'm wrong) coupled with Nasty Plot, it surprisingly hurts.

Base 100 is average, but it's acceptable. You can slap a Salac Berry and try to go on a sweep (too bad Endure is illegal with Drought. It could work if you get rid of priority users).

Or you can use LO/Specs too. You can use even use Lum Berry and 2HKO something like Blissey after 2 Nasty Plots. Yes, Sun Fire Blast is that powerful.



Anyway, one of the best traits about Ninetales is that you can just use it on a normal team without worries. Many teams are centered about weather, and Ninetales is the best "weather nullifier" IMO. SInce:

-Abomasnow sucks, and Hail hurts any poke that isn't freaking Ice typed (and Ice typing sucks so bad it hurts).
-Politoed often backfires, and without a team behind it if often doesn't do much.
-Sand is so used that using TTar or Hippowdon most of the time isn't going to matter.

So Ninetales is often on my team to nullify weather and being a good poke in general (like i said earlier, Sun boosted Fire Blast hurts. And Tales still has many annoying options for a tanking fox like Will-o-Wisp, Disable or Hypnosis .). Pulling off a sweep once or twice is cool too.
 
M BLADE said:
Anyway, one of the best traits about Ninetales is that you can just use it on a normal team without worries. Many teams are centered about weather, and Ninetales is the best "weather nullifier" IMO. SInce:

-Abomasnow sucks, and Hail hurts any poke that isn't freaking Ice typed (and Ice typing sucks so bad it hurts).
-Politoed often backfires, and without a team behind it if often doesn't do much.
-Sand is so used that using TTar or Hippowdon most of the time isn't going to matter.

So Ninetales is often on my team to nullify weather and being a good poke in general (like i said earlier, Sun boosted Fire Blast hurts. And Tales still has many annoying options for a tanking fox like Will-o-Wisp, Disable or Hypnosis .). Pulling off a sweep once or twice is cool too.
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In terms of "sweeping" ability, Tales is severely outclassed by most other Fires, which is probably the main reason people don't try it. I would say it's a pretty good revenger, able to come in on Doryuuzu and anything else Fire weak and threaten to OHKO due to bringing the Sun with it, which is one of its main uses outside a dedicated Sun team.

I would definitely say Sun is the best weather type to have in order to cancel out the others, given the rarity of chlorophyll pokes as opposed to rain and sand abusers, without the damage Hail incurs. You do ofc need to watch for the added Fire move strength, which can make opposing Dragons etc very deadly if you don't pack a balloon Heatran or something.

However Tales' frailty makes it a double-edged sword when picking it to do this job. SR completely destroys it for one thing, though it may be easier to pack spinners without having to include weather abusers.

moogleking said:
Its worth pointing out that you can OHKO TTar with HP Fighting and Specs.
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Assuming Sand as weather (which it realistically will be TTar vs Tales since no Tales would dare switch into TTar) these are some calcs, with a Modest 252 Specs Tales:

4/0 neutral nature TTar = 72.5% - 85.4%, not a possible OHKO even with rocks.
252/0 neutral nature TTar = 61.4% - 72.3%, not a possible OHKO without Sr and 3xSpikes.
and just for kicks the most specially defensive set on site:
252/216 positive nature TTar = 44.6% - 53.5%, which is just barely a possible 2HKO (with Lefties and no hazards).

Essentially, you're never going to be able to OHKO TTar with SpecsTales unless you've stacked hazrds, only deal a reasonable chunk to it.
 
Benlisted said:
In terms of "sweeping" ability, Tales is severely outclassed by most other Fires, which is probably the main reason people don't try it. I would say it's a pretty good revenger, able to come in on Doryuuzu and anything else Fire weak and threaten to OHKO due to bringing the Sun with it, which is one of its main uses outside a dedicated Sun team.
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Yes, it is outclassed.But Tales main use IMO (when used normally, without a team behind it) is still to nullify weather, which no other fire poke can do automatically (otherwise, say, Infernape would outclass NP Ninetales completely just like it did before. Hell, even Baokkie would outclass it).

Thanks to Drought Ninetales now can try to go on a sweep without being completely outclassed by the other fire buddies in my opinion.
 
Painsplit works as a nice recovery move if you go for a physical set with Flareblitz on, and Quick Attack (i know its not that powerful), to take out very low HP enemies.
 
M BLADE said:
Yes, it is outclassed.But Tales main use IMO (when used normally, without a team behind it) is still to nullify weather, which no other fire poke can do automatically (otherwise, say, Infernape would outclass NP Ninetales completely just like it did before. Hell, even Baokkie would outclass it).

Thanks to Drought Ninetales now can try to go on a sweep without being completely outclassed by the other fire buddies in my opinion.
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The main issue I see with using Tales alone to cancel the other weathers is that it takes up a team slot. Which in pretty much any other situation, would be better taken by another fire type (excluding Drought). This is exacerbated by the fact that there are a lot of common things which love to come into Fire moves and setup on you or get a free hit - TTar or Heatran, for instance, which eliminates the other benefit of Tales - boosted very powerful Fire moves.

It simply lacks the power behind its other moves to sweep effectively, and its coverage leaves much to be desired anyway. Not only this, but its only reasonable speed and poor Def means virtually any designated revenger can revenge it.

Imo if you desperately want something to alter the weather, something like Cress with Sunny Day is best. The niche Tales has over this is the insta-sun setup, meaning it can revenge Doryuuzu etc, but this isn't a fantastic one, and certainly not a unique one either. For instance, Nape with Priority can do this while filling the fragile fast Fire type niche. I suppose I'm saying that it can work, but in general it'd be better to consider other alternatives.
 
whats hard in using sun is tails fragility which sometime suck, Typing and gounded, and must elying on something like hypnomiss (the infamous misstales anyone ?) which many people ragequit after missing (it has 60 acc for eff sake)
But for the abuser that use chloro i cant ask more. Saur is slow but i just love his general utility as annoyer and sweeper.
My favorite goes to Jumpluff. Many say Eru is better but Pluff has big selling point.
He has sleep powder, and flying typing. While eru resist Ground, Pluff flying typing has giv me big difference in many match (hello stupid Dory) such as when im unable to make sub after Eq'ed while pluff can encore the EQ and subseed.
 
JSND said:
While eru resist Ground, Pluff flying typing has giv me big difference in many match (hello stupid Dory) such as when im unable to make sub after Eq'ed while pluff can encore the EQ and subseed.
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Dory outspeeds in the sand, and beating it out of sand isn't anything special. But that's not really relevant to this thread.
 
JSND said:
whats hard in using sun is tails fragility which sometime suck, Typing and gounded, and must elying on something like hypnomiss (the infamous misstales anyone ?) which many people ragequit after missing (it has 60 acc for eff sake)
But for the abuser that use chloro i cant ask more. Saur is slow but i just love his general utility as annoyer and sweeper.
My favorite goes to Jumpluff. Many say Eru is better but Pluff has big selling point.
He has sleep powder, and flying typing. While eru resist Ground, Pluff flying typing has giv me big difference in many match (hello stupid Dory) such as when im unable to make sub after Eq'ed while pluff can encore the EQ and subseed.
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Try using Balloon Tales. It not only adds a valuable Ground immunity to your team, it means that it can switch into just about all Hippowdon without fear to reset weather.

Jumpluff is pretty awesome but is simply incredibly frail, and at times this and Sleep powder's accuracy lets him down.
 
i dont consider something that can take STAB overheat from negative no EV base 90 SpA to be frail thanks. Also baloon tales still has to face rock attacks and baloon CAN break
 
Wow the ability Drought has really made me start leaning towards a ninetails for my party
I personally would go... Solarbeam/flamethrower/psycho shock and hypnosis for all those pesky pokes that resist your moveset... now to decide arcanine, houndoom or ninetails XD
 
moogleking said:
Its worth pointing out that you can OHKO TTar with HP Fighting and Specs.
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Complete BULLSHIT

65.5% - 77.2% to scarftar AKA the MOST FRAGILE TTAR SPREAD without -SpD nature AND specific Hidden Power in every game. EVER.

Also i must say ninetales is worst as weather nulifier. Stick with abomasnow. At least abomasnow can beat politoed and hippo on occansion unlike Ninetales who among weather summoner only win to aboma. Ninetales rely on miss o wisp and hypnomiss to win against both Ttar and Hippo since Ttar is so bulky and hippo is 2HKO by energy ball with specs timid 252.

BTW dont sue solarbeam. Too risky to be used seriously. Unless its exxegutor with sunny day which is quite viable.
 
Yeah please never use Solarbeam on Tales - you either run the risk of a TTar, Hippo, Aboma, or Toed switching into it, locking you in and surviving the blow to OHKO you, or you effectively lose a moveslot until you have eliminated this pokemon from the game, which could be better used by some other move.

And Specs Tales will never OHKO TTar. NP needs +2 to be able to OHKO even no SpDef TTar in Sand, so +1 will fail every time.
 
People seems to forget that Ttar have like 150-is base SpD. Scarf Tar with careful nature and some HP investment survive Aura Sphere from All out mewtwo after all.
 
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