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NU Trickroom Guide (Discussion)

@ Sabinfrost

Guess we'll have to wait for Slowpoke to learn Aqua tail from a Move tutor for a more reliable water stab.

As for Trapinch, Sorry for ignoring him, I did not notice the nice base 100 Attack stat combined with Arena Trap.

He also has a nice movepool to take advantage of as well.

I can see a set of

- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Quick Attack
- Crunch / Substitute

The 1st 3 move slots are quite obvious, while Crunch is really only there to hit levitating Psychic and Ghost types ie Mespirit, Musharna and Misdreavus, although in all honesty, the last slot is more or less filler.

Although the big question with Trapinch is which item is best for it?

Evolite gives it a chance to take a hit in case rock slide misses. Life Orb gives is power and a chance to change his attacks but makes him more vulnerable to revenge killing by priority while Choice band hits as hard as he possibly can, considering the fact that he doesn't need to change moves if he's there just to trap stuff and eliminate them.
 
For his item, it honestly depends on what you're using him for.

Don't use Eviolite ever imo, the power from LO/CB is more valuable in TR than the extra bulk.

CB should only be used if you plan on making him a pure revenge killer, but if you want to make him another sweeper, LO is probably better.
 
kniteowl said:
Although the big question with Trapinch is which item is best for it?
Click to expand...

I'm going to agree and say not Eviolite, 45/45/45 isn't going to be taking anything particularly well, you'll already be Max HP/Max Attack as it's a Trick Room set and I don't see how having Eviolite will noticeably improve it's base 45/45 defenses. You'd also miss out on some crucial kills due to lack of power.

I'm going to say Choice Band is the obvious item, given you're mostly using it to trap and kill, the greatest chance of an OHKO seems like your best bet, given they can't switch out I'm not sure why you'd need the ability to switch up moves. I see him as a revenge killer/trapper, there are better options for sweeping in a trick room.

The only other item I'd really consider is a Focus Sash.
 
For Trapinchs item, I would certainly go for LO / CB, The bulk gain from Eviolite isn't substantial at all and Trapinch appreciates the power boost, and concerning the move-set, even Bug Bite is a viable option to nail Exeggutor harder.
 
I would personally enjoy a CB set more than anything else. Just got to watch out for what you switch into because anything that touches touches it is probably gonna kill it.
 
Has anyone else been using Absol in Trick Room? I swapped Zweilous for it a while ago and I was pretty impressed. Whilst it didn't get Dragon STAB, it got Superpower and had the ability to maintain offensive presence with Sucker Punch after TR ran out. I just ran a standard 252 HP / 252 Atk spread with a Brave nature, Swords Dance / Superpower / Night Slash / Sucker Punch, although I'm tempted to run Megahorn over Swords Dance to give Tangela a walloping instead.
 
my main concern with absol in trick room is just how naturally fast he is- for example, Golem "outspeeds" him even if you run brave and 0 ivs. If you're not using Superpower, Bastiodon and other rock types can wall him sin duda. You're going to have a hard time using him in this environment simply due to the abundance of naturally slow Pokemon.
 
I wrote up Cacturne. Last paragraph is less applicable to Trick Room.

Cacturne is blessed with sky high attacking stats on both sides of spectrum allowing it to easily go mixed. Unfortunately it's 115/115 attacking stats are held back by 55 speed. Luckily this makes it perfect for Trick Room.

Possessing an amazing movepool including strong STAB priority in Sucker Punch and Focus Punch for coverage. Unfortunately Focus Punch is not as useful under Trick Room as it requires another turn to set up a Substitute to ensure that the Focus Punch is uninterrupted. It also possesses Drain Punch as a more reliable physical Fighting attack. While Sucker Punch/Focus Punch is unresisted in NU other than Croagunk, Cacturne possesses excellent physical coverage at the price of it's moves failing to activate in certain circumstances.

Possessing both Nasty Plot and Swords Dance Cacturne is unpredictable and dangerous especially given a turn to set up. However if left with a sub at the end of Trick Room and Sucker Punch, Cacturne can easily run through teams.

Cacturne's special movepool is more reliable at the cost of a lower base power. Thankfully due to the high attacking stats this is often not a issue. On the special side Cacturne has Giga Drain, Focus Blast and Dark Pulse to round out it's movepool. Running a mixed Cacturne is good idea under Trick Room mixing Sucker Punch and the more reliable Special moves.

It's new ability Storm Drain requires it to sacrifice many of it's more useful moves and should generally not be used. It costs Cacturne Drain Punch, Focus Punch, Giga Drain and Dark Pulse. While the additional immunity is useful and offers an additional way to boost Cacturne's Special Attack the cost to the movepool is high and generally not worth using. It's poor defensive stats (70/60/60) make it unlikely to survive many hits, even being 2HKO'd by weak resisted attacks however few Pokemon can survive an assault from Cacturne.

Cacturne rarely survives for long and is a poor Sub Seeder due to low speed and weak defenses. Despite this it can run Drain Punch/Giga Drain/Leech Seed/Substitute in an attempt to extend it's hit points. It also possesses Spikes for a support set.


I used to use Parasect in Trick Room. Wasn't terrible because of how slow it was and it got Spore which let you normally get up another Trick Room. Swords Dance/X-Scissor/Seed Bomb/Spore.
 
Cacturne' Dream World Ability is Water Absorb NOT Storm Drain

The Cacturne I'm testing is a mixed set with Sucker punch/Low Kick/ Hidden Power - Ice / Seed Bomb or Energy Ball

This is possibly Cacturne's best Set with the ability Water Absorb, Hidden Power Ice is there to take down Altaria.

I think your Paragraph should focus more on Cacturne's advantages in trick room, instead of pointing out things like Focus Punch, which can used but doesn't really benefit from trick room, since Low Kick / Drain punch is the superior option.

Personally I think Special and Mixed Sets are the best sets for Cacturne, if you want to run a physical set, Absol is generally the better Pokemon to use unless you despise it's middling speed.

You should also focus more on Cacturne's beneficial Support moves in trick room such as Destiny Bond and Switcheroo if your running a choiced set, even Spikes work in trick room, especially on lead sets to act as a bluff. Deceiving your opponent into thinking, this Cacturne isn't a sweeping Cacturne but more of a team supporter Setting up hazards then they get smacked, just make sure you're also carrying Misdreavus to block rapid spin, spikes also aid in sweeps against Bulky walls like Licky Licky and such

As for Parasect, it just doesn't have the power to be a good trick room sweeper, Spore isn't a good enough reason to warrant using it, if you want a Pokemon that can put something to sleep and doing lots of damage, Exeggcutor does the job, it's not 100% sleep but it does more as an overall package, but if you still want to use Parasect it's up to you.
 
Ah brain fart there. I knew the ability absorbed water attacks and just thought it was storm drain.

It is more of a general overview of Cacturne than a trick room specific analysis. I guess most of the Rock / Steels down in NU are heavy so Low Kick is fairly strong.

I think Cacturne's more unique attributes in trick room are it's ability to go mixed and the fact that it has strong priority to continue a sweep out of trick room and finally it's Grass STAB allows it to smash through rocks and bulky waters. This is making think that Swellow would go well it. Swellow is

I can't imagine using him without Substitute. It eases prediction and forces mind games.

It lacks synergy with Exeggutor sharing many of same weaknesses. It also suffers from a bug weakness most Trick Room set uppers have.

Only Eelktross, Octillery, Emboar and Camerupt has a similar ability to go mixed but none of them possess a powerful priority.

Absol has better speed, attack and defensive typing than Cacturne. Cacturne is faster (slower) under trick room though and has a second STAB to help it with bulky waters and the ability to go mixed.

Cacturne's a flawed Pokemon and those flaws are fairly glaring however it is exceptionally deadly with proper support.

Parasect was more fun than a serious attempt.
 
Well this is a Trick Room thread, if you want a general Analysis, just check out Smogon's Pokedex.

I just assume players come here for Trick Room Relevant information.

I do agree Cacturne has it's flaws and it has it's niche as a Mixed Sweeper with it's Exclusive move in Sucker punch.

Substitute is a good move on Cacturne but it loses out on coverage or secondary stab, since Altaria is relatively common enough to warrant the use of HP-ice.

As for Exeggcutor I was Comparing it to Parasect, Whether I would use Exeggcutor on the same team as Cacturne would also depend on a lot of other factors but generally they wouldn't be both on the same team as there is quite a lot of options for other team mates.
 
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