OU [2/2 QC] [1/1 GP] Pivot Sandy Shocks

Notater

Notater

[SET]
name: Offensive Pivot
move 1: Volt Switch
move 2: Earth Power
move 3: Tera Blast
move 4: Stealth Rock / Spikes / Thunderbolt
item: Heavy-Duty Boots / Expert Belt
tera type: Fairy
ability: Protosynthesis
nature: Modest / Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Sandy Shocks can work as an excellent pivot on offensive teams, leveraging its high Speed and Special Attack to confound switch-ins with Volt Switch, which significantly chips even most Electric-resistant foes like Dragapult and Breloom and allows for a powerful teammate like Baxcalibur or Meowscarada to be brought in safely. Tera Fairy Tera Blast also provides Sandy Shocks with incredible coverage alongside its STAB moves, threatening Pokemon such as defensive Garchomp, Hydreigon, and Dragapult that are otherwise mostly satisfactory switch-ins and that threaten Sandy Shocks out in turn. In particular, Great Tusk goes from an adequate check to being cleanly OHKOed by Tera Blast assuming it is safe to stay in. Tera Fairy also lets Sandy Shocks resist Kingambit's Sucker Punch. Stealth Rock and Spikes both provide invaluable entry hazard support for Sandy Shocks and its teammates to wear down counters, while Thunderbolt is a solid option to maintain an Electric-type STAB move without being forced to switch out, especially when it can immediately threaten a KO late-game on chipped targets like Slowking and Rotom-W. With 252 Speed EVs, even a Modest Sandy Shocks still crucially outpaces all variants of Great Tusk, Gholdengo, and Rotom-W; a Timid nature can be run instead to also outpace Hydreigon and Volcarona at the cost of some power. When it comes to the item slot, Heavy-Duty Boots is perhaps the most straightforward item for Sandy Shocks, as being a pivot, Sandy Shocks gaining an immunity to hazards allows it to come in and wreak havoc many more times per game. However, Expert Belt provides a much-appreciated power boost, especially when going Modest for extra damage, since Sandy Shocks's Electric + Ground + Fairy coverage hits nearly the entire metagame super effectively. In particular, it guarantees that Earth Power will always 2HKO Clodsire and guarantees the OHKO on bulky Kingambit.

Sandy Shocks shines on momentum-based bulky offense teams, so other Pokemon that can maintain momentum such as Choice item Dragapult, Meowscarada, Slowking, Rotom-W, and Scizor, as well as Eject Button users like offensive Great Tusk are good teammates. Entry hazard support from Pokemon like Meowscarada, Garchomp, and Great Tusk is also excellent, since the hazard chip will stack with the numerous switches forced by Sandy Shocks. Additional Stealth Rock users in particular are appreciated because they free Sandy Shocks's fourth moveslot up to run Spikers or Thunderbolt more freely. Meowscarada is an excellent choice with several of its sets, as its Knock Off removes the Heavy-Duty Boots that Sandy Shocks's switch-ins rely on to not get worn down by hazards, it can set hazards itself, its U-turn forms the potent VoltTurn combination with Sandy Shocks, and its Flower Trick is extremely threatening to the Ground-types like Great Tusk and Ting-Lu that can tank Sandy Shocks's Volt Switch assault. If not running Heavy-Duty Boots, Sandy Shocks can be worn down itself by Spikes, minimizing its effectiveness, and so hazard removers like Great Tusk and Corviknight form prurient teammates. Sandy Shocks's relative frailty and weakness-laden typing means that faster Pokemon like Meowscarada, Garchomp, Dragapult, Cinderace, and Walking Wake, as well as Choice Scarf users such as specific variants of Rotom-W and Gholdengo, can immediately force Sandy Shocks out, lest its meager bulk cause it to be unceremoniously OHKOed. Strong priority moves like Kingambit's Sucker Punch and Azumarill's Aqua Jet present similar issues. As such, additional, more defensive pivots such as the aforementioned Corviknight and Rotom-W serve double duty, as they can act as a buffer against these threats without completely ceding momentum. Baxcalibur has an excellent matchup against Grass- and Ground-types like Amoonguss and Ting-Lu that Sandy Shocks can struggle with, and it benefits from Sandy Shocks threatening out its answers like Corviknight and Dondozo; as such, it makes for a particularly good teammate.
 
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Hey Notater, just to let you know, the analysis format we’re using right now isn’t the same as the past gens one you’re using. Our format is two paragraphs - one describing the set and a second describing teammates. You can read more about the format in this thread and have a look at other analyses in the forum. Sections like Checks and Counters aren’t needed, and a separate paragraph for EVs and items isn’t either; you can merge that into the set paragraph. We’d also appreciate it if you followed the set on-site too.
 
Ok; I will try to condense this down. Sorry about the format being wrong; it's been a long time since I last wrote an analysis.
 
1/2
[SET]
name: Offensive Pivot
move 1: Volt Switch
move 2: Earth Power
move 3: Tera Blast
move 4: Stealth Rock / Spikes / Thunderbolt
item: Heavy-Duty Boots / Expert Belt / Air Balloon
tera type: Fairy
ability: Protosynthesis
nature: Modest / Timid
evs: 252 spatk / 4 spdef / 252 speed 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

paragraph 1:
Sandy Shocks can work as an excellent pivot on offensive teams, leveraging its high Speed and Special attack to confound switch-ins with Volt Switch, which significantly chips even most resists and allows for a powerful teammate to be brought in safely. (this sentence is pretty vague without examples - make sure to add what resists it can significantly dent / what teammates it can benefit) Tera Blast Fairy also provides Sandy Shocks with incredible coverage alongside its STABs, threatening Pokemon such as defensive Garchomp or Dragapult that are otherwise mostly satisfactory switch-ins and that threaten Sandy Shocks out in turn. (mention great tusk here - it's one of the best tera blast targets because youre faster and just ohko when they think its safe to stay in) Spikes and Stealth Rock (mention stealth rock first because its slashed first) both provide invaluable hazard support for Sandy Shocks itself and its teammates to wear down counters lacking Heavy-Duty Boots, while Thunderbolt is a solid option to maintain an Electric threat without being forced to switch out, especially when it can immediately threaten a KO late-game. (might be worth giving some targets here too) With 252 Speed EVs even a Modest Sandy Shocks still crucially outpaces the speed tier of 300 (dw about speed tiers too much, just say what it outspeeds because tusk is your only example here thats actually 300), letting Sandy Shocks outspeed metagame titans like Great Tusk, Gholdengo, and Rotom-Wash, even if they have Speed-boosting natures: a Timid nature can be run instead to also outpace all Hydreigon and Volcarona at the cost of some power. When it comes to the item slot, Heavy-Duty Boots is perhaps the most straightforward item for Sandy Shocks, as being a pivot, Sandy Shocks gaining an immunity to hazards allows it to come in and wreak havoc many more times per game. However, Expert Belt provides a much-appreciated power boost, especially when going Modest for extra damage, since Sandy Shocks's Electric + Ground + Fairy coverage hits nearly the entire metagame super-effectively. (ebelt guarantees the 2hko on clod which is big so mention that) Air Balloon is also an intriguing option, as it provides a temporary immunity to the chief entry hazard to threaten Sandy Shocks, that being Spikes, while also allowing for Sandy Shocks to potentially come in on Pokemon such as Great Tusk and Garchomp that normally counter its antics, though even the slightest chip will pop Air Balloon, necessitating it to be played more carefully to reap its full rewards. Leftovers can also be run, and they behave similarly to Heavy-Duty Boots in that they increase Sandy Shocks's longevity, especially when using Thunderbolt, as Sandy Shocks is then more likely to stay in for multiple turns at a time and thus outheal Stealth Rock damage. However, without hazard removal support, such as Rapid Spin or Defog, it is likely that Heavy-Duty Boots' immediate nullification of Spikes damage will prove more useful than Leftovers' passive healing. (these aren't super worthwhile - balloon is really niche and leftovers is less worth on a pivot because really all you'll do is recover hazards chip that boots prevents)

paragraph 2: Sandy Shocks shines on momentum-based bulky offense teams, so other Pokemon that can maintain momentum such as Choiced Dragapult, Meowscarada, Slowking, Rotom-Wash, Scizor, and Eject Button users like Hatterene and Amoonguss are good teammates. Hazard support from Pokemon like Spikes Meowscarada, Garchomp, and Stealth Rock Great Tusk is also excellent since the hazard chip will stack with the numerous switches forced by Sandy Shocks. (these mons can also mean that socks doesnt need to run rocks and can run spikes or tbolt more freely) Meowscarada in particular is an excellent choice with several of its sets, as its Knock Off removes the Heavy-Duty Boots that Sandy Shocks's switch-ins rely on to not get further worn down by hazards, it can set hazards itself, its U-Turn forms the potent VoltTurn combination with Sandy Shocks, and its Flower Trick is extremely threatening to the Ground-types like Great Tusk and Ting-Lu that can tank Sandy Shocks's Volt Switch assault. If not running Heavy-Duty Boots, Sandy Shocks can be worn down itself by Spikes, minimizing its effectiveness, and so hazard removers like Great Tusk and Cyclizar form prurient teammates. Sandy Shocks's relative frailty and weakness-laden typing means that faster Pokemon like Choice Scarfers, Meowscarada, Garchomp, Dragapult, Cinderace, and Walking Wake can immediately force Sandy Shocks out, lest its meager bulk cause it to be unceremoniously OHKOed. Strong priority moves like Kingambit's Sucker Punch and Azumarill's Aqua Jet present similar issues. As such, additional, more defensive pivots such as the aforementioned Eject Button Amoonguss and Rotom-Wash serve double duty as they can act as a buffer against these threats without completely ceding momentum. Since Sandy Shocks can struggle to adequately damage many Grass-types like Wo-Chien (nobody uses that) and extremely specially bulky Pokemon like Blissey, strong physical threats like Baxcalibur that can take advantage of the free switch-in opportunities from Volt Switch both highly benefit from Sandy Shocks's presence as a teammate and support its own prowess by punishing these switch-ins.
 
in progress implementing; should be finished soon; last week was pretty rough but this week is much freer

thats fine, just be cautious and try to get it done asap because home could drop anytime and i wouldnt want your writing to not make it onsite -autumn
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Notater said:
in progress implementing; should be finished soon; last week was pretty rough but this week is much freer

thats fine, just be cautious and try to get it done asap because home could drop anytime and i wouldnt want your writing to not make it onsite -autumn
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how’s this going now?
 
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[SET]
name: Offensive Pivot
move 1: Volt Switch
move 2: Earth Power
move 3: Tera Blast
move 4: Stealth Rock / Spikes / Thunderbolt
item: Heavy-Duty Boots / Expert Belt
tera type: Fairy
ability: Protosynthesis
nature: Modest / Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Sandy Shocks can work as an excellent pivot on offensive teams, leveraging its high Speed and Special attack to confound switch-ins with Volt Switch, which significantly chips even most resists like Dragapult or Breloom and allows for a powerful teammate, like Baxcalibur or your own Breloom, to be brought in safely.Tera Blast Fairy also provides Sandy Shocks with incredible coverage alongside its STABs, threatening Pokemon such as defensive Garchomp, Hydreigon or Dragapult that are otherwise mostly satisfactory switch-ins and that threaten Sandy Shocks out in turn. In particular, Great Tusk goes from an adequate check to being cleanly OHKOed when they think it is safe to stay in, and Sandy Shocks outspeeding all variants of Great Tusk mean that it needs not take a single point of damage to do so. fluff Stealth Rock and Spikes both provide invaluable hazard support for Sandy Shocks itself and its teammates to wear down counters lacking Heavy-Duty Boots fluff, while Thunderbolt is a solid option to maintain an Electric threat without being forced to switch out, especially when it can immediately threaten a KO late-game on chipped targets like Slowking or Rotom-Wash. With 252 Speed EVs even a Modest Sandy Shocks still crucially outpaces all variants of Great Tusk, Gholdengo, and Rotom-Wash; a Timid nature can be run instead to also outpace all Hydreigon and Volcarona at the cost of some power. When it comes to the item slot, Heavy-Duty Boots is perhaps the most straightforward item for Sandy Shocks, as being a pivot, Sandy Shocks gaining an immunity to hazards allows it to come in and wreak havoc many more times per game. However, Expert Belt provides a much-appreciated power boost, especially when going Modest for extra damage, since Sandy Shocks's Electric + Ground + Fairy coverage hits nearly the entire metagame super-effectively. In particular, it guarantees that Earth Power will always 2HKO Clodsire and guarantees the OHKO on Bulky Kingambit with Earth Power. Also maybe worth mentioning Tera Fairy, lets you resist Sucker from Gambit.

Sandy Shocks shines on momentum-based bulky offense teams, so other Pokemon that can maintain momentum such as Choiced Dragapult, Meowscarada, Slowking, Rotom-Wash, Scizor, and Eject Button users like Hatterene and Amoonguss are good teammates Eject button Hatt is almost exclusively seen on Sun which doesnt have space for Shocks and Eject button Amoonguss is rare rn Instead I'd mention Eject Pack offensive Tusk. Hazard support from Pokemon like Spikes Meowscarada, Garchomp, and Stealth Rock Great Tusk is also excellent since the hazard chip will stack with the numerous switches forced by Sandy Shocks. Additional Stealth Rock users in particular appreciated because they free Sandy Shocks's fourth moveslot up to run Spikers or Thunderbolt more freely. Meowscarada in particular is an excellent choice with several of its sets, as its Knock Off removes the Heavy-Duty Boots that Sandy Shocks's switch-ins rely on to not get further worn down by hazards, it can set hazards itself, its U-Turn forms the potent VoltTurn combination with Sandy Shocks, and its Flower Trick is extremely threatening to the Ground-types like Great Tusk and Ting-Lu that can tank Sandy Shocks's Volt Switch assault. If not running Heavy-Duty Boots, Sandy Shocks can be worn down itself by Spikes, minimizing its effectiveness, and so hazard removers like Great Tusk and Corviknight Cyclizar form prurient teammates Cycli is not commonly used. Sandy Shocks's relative frailty and weakness-laden typing means that faster Pokemon like Choice Scarfers, Meowscarada, Garchomp, Dragapult, Cinderace, and Walking Wake can immediately force Sandy Shocks out, lest its meager bulk cause it to be unceremoniously OHKOed. Strong priority moves like Kingambit's Sucker Punch and Azumarill's Aqua Jet present similar issues. As such, additional, more defensive pivots such as the aforementioned Eject Button Amoonguss Corviknight and Rotom-Wash serve double duty as they can act as a buffer against these threats without completely ceding momentum. Since Sandy Shocks can struggle to adequately damage many Grass-types like Amoonguss and Ting-Lu extremely specially bulky Pokemon like Blissey, strong physical threats like Baxcalibur that can take advantage of the free switch-in opportunities from Volt Switch both highly benefit from Sandy Shocks's presence as a teammate and support its own prowess by punishing these switch-ins. I would rephrase this to mention Baxcaliburs generally strong matchup against Grass and Ground-types, in return Shocks deals with stuff like Corv / Dozo which Bax finds problematic

Enjoyed the flavorful writing :) QC 2/2
 
hey Notater are you going to be able to implement this in 48 hours? if not, a mod can do it since home is now confirmed to drop on the 24th and i wouldn’t want to lose your writing
 
you can delete this if this is stupid, but didn't that just tag the user with the name "GP Team"? Or is there a macro or something so it actually tags the GP team
 
Notater said:
you can delete this if this is stupid, but didn't that just tag the user with the name "GP Team"? Or is there a macro or something so it actually tags the GP team
Click to expand...
the user is the GP team bot, so tagging it adds analyses to the queue

1/1 GP Team done
home is dropping on the 30th so if you can't implement the check this weekend then a mod can do it
[SET]
name: Offensive Pivot
move 1: Volt Switch
move 2: Earth Power
move 3: Tera Blast
move 4: Stealth Rock / Spikes / Thunderbolt
item: Heavy-Duty Boots / Expert Belt
tera type: Fairy
ability: Protosynthesis
nature: Modest / Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

Sandy Shocks can work as an excellent pivot on offensive teams, leveraging its high Speed and Special Attack attack to confound switch-ins with Volt Switch, which significantly chips even most resists like Dragapult or Breloom Electric-resistant foes like Dragapult and Breloom and allows for a powerful teammate (RC) like Baxcalibur or your own Breloom (RC) to be brought in safely. (imo breloom isn't really relevant enough to be mentioned twice in the same sentence so i'd say cha nging the example for the second part would be better and help the prose flow better too) Tera Fairy Tera Blast Fairy also provides Sandy Shocks with incredible coverage alongside its STAB moves, threatening Pokemon such as defensive Garchomp, Hydreigon, (AC) and or Dragapult that are otherwise mostly satisfactory switch-ins and that threaten Sandy Shocks out in turn. (period) In particular, Great Tusk goes from an adequate check to being cleanly OHKOed by Tera Blast assuming it is safe to stay in. Tera Fairy also lets Sandy Shocks while it lets you resist Kingambit's Sucker Punch. In particular, Great Tusk goes from an adequate check to being cleanly OHKOed when they think it is safe to stay in. (reordered bc youre talking above the move tera blast first then the typing after) Stealth Rock and Spikes both provide invaluable entry hazard support for Sandy Shocks itself and its teammates to wear down counters, while Thunderbolt is a solid option to maintain an Electric-type STAB move threat without being forced to switch out, especially when it can immediately threaten a KO late-game on chipped targets like Slowking or and Rotom-Wash. With 252 Speed EVs, (AC) even a Modest Sandy Shocks still crucially outpaces all variants of Great Tusk, Gholdengo, and Rotom-Wash; a Timid nature can be run instead to also outpace all Hydreigon and Volcarona at the cost of some power. When it comes to the item slot, Heavy-Duty Boots is perhaps the most straightforward item for Sandy Shocks, as being a pivot, Sandy Shocks gaining an immunity to hazards allows it to come in and wreak havoc many more times per game. However, Expert Belt provides a much-appreciated power boost, especially when going Modest for extra damage, since Sandy Shocks's Electric + Ground + Fairy coverage hits nearly the entire metagame super (remove hyphen) effectively. In particular, it guarantees that Earth Power will always 2HKO Clodsire and guarantees the OHKO on Bulky bulky Kingambit with Earth Power.

Sandy Shocks shines on momentum-based bulky offense teams, so other Pokemon that can maintain momentum such as Choiced Choice item Dragapult, Meowscarada, Slowking, Rotom-Wash, and Scizor, and as well as Eject Button users like offensive Great Tusk are good teammates. Entry hazard support from Pokemon like Spikes Meowscarada, Garchomp, and Stealth Rock Great Tusk (you can probably just list the examples without specifying the hazards because specifying for 2/3 breaks up the prose but garchomp can run both, so removing all is probably the cleanest way) is also excellent, (AC) since the hazard chip will stack with the numerous switches forced by Sandy Shocks. Additional Stealth Rock users in particular are appreciated because they free Sandy Shocks's fourth moveslot up to run Spikers or Thunderbolt more freely. Meowscarada in particular (to remove repetition with the last point and to separate this one as more than just hazards) is an excellent choice with several of its sets, as its Knock Off removes the Heavy-Duty Boots that Sandy Shocks's switch-ins rely on to not get further (not really clear what further is referring to here. i'd also suggest "to avoid" instead of "to not get" for concision but thats up to you) worn down by hazards, it can set hazards itself, its U-Turn U-turn forms the potent VoltTurn combination with Sandy Shocks, and its Flower Trick is extremely threatening to the Ground-types like Great Tusk and Ting-Lu that can tank Sandy Shocks's Volt Switch assault. If not running Heavy-Duty Boots, Sandy Shocks can be worn down itself by Spikes, minimizing its effectiveness, and so hazard removers like Great Tusk and Corviknight form prurient teammates. Sandy Shocks's relative frailty and weakness-laden typing means that faster Pokemon like Choice Scarfers, Meowscarada, Garchomp, Dragapult, Cinderace, and Walking Wake, (AC) as well as Choice Scarf users, (AC) (such as?) can immediately force Sandy Shocks out, lest its meager bulk cause it to be unceremoniously OHKOed. Strong priority moves like Kingambit's Sucker Punch and Azumarill's Aqua Jet present similar issues. As such, additional, more defensive pivots such as the aforementioned Corviknight and Rotom-Wash serve double duty, (AC) as they can act as a buffer against these threats without completely ceding momentum. Baxcalibur has an excellent matchup against Grass- and Ground-types like Amoonguss and Ting-Lu that Sandy Shocks can struggle with, while and it benefits from Sandy Shocks threatening out its answers like Corviknight and Dondozo; as such, (AC) it makes for a particularly good teammate.
 
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