Project Research Week: SM PU Edition - Week 16 (Poliwrath and Ludicolo)

What would you like to see for next research week?

  • Challenge Week (read rules if you don't know what I mean by this)

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • Regular Week

    Votes: 2 40.0%

  • Total voters
    5
  • Poll closed .
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Congratulations to SergioRules for being the winner of this week's PU Research Week! The next two mons that will be researched are Komala and Poliwrath.

Note: Please make sure to follow through if you decide to research a mon, been having issues with this lately. Second Note: Please inform other people about this thread, I feel that our user base has been a little low as of late.

With that said, good luck to you all!
 
(Forgot to give brief summary of mons being researched) Komala is great at role-compression, rolling a wish passer, pivot, hazard remover, and status absorber all into one mon, making it great for balance and Stall teams alike. Poliwrath is a great tank with a decent special attack stat and a great ability to boot.
 
Poliwrath seems terrible imo(or maybe due to a gimmic set I'm running), komala on the otherhand is really handy to break walls along with a band.
Still testing.
 
RW7 Force Majeure. I'm newish to this meta so this is a fun proj. I want to document this really well.

Poliwrath


Abilities: Damp, Swift Swim, Water Absorb

HP: 90
Attack: 95
Defense: 95
Sp Attack: 70
Sp Defense: 90
Speed: 70

EDIT 11/2: FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

OFFENSIVE POLIWRATH: Poliwrath can theoretically be used on rain offense as a swift swim mon; for this portion of the testing I'll be using something along these lines:

Poliwrath @ Fightinium Z / Waterium Z
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Ice Beam / Vacuum Wave

Brief explanation: 252+ is necessary. Poliwrath isn't powerful and absolutely needs the power. Max speed is not set in stone because it's beneficial to adjust speed creep for your Swift Swimmers if you're not worried about opposing SS mons. Hydro is necessary for power. Focus Blast is the selling point of Poliwrath over other rain mons. It's my inclination to run either Fight-Z or Water-Z for two reasons: 1) Bad accuracy of STABs and 2) Wallbreaking potential. Fight-Z seems the best to possibly break Type:Null and other bulky normal crap (Munchlax) while retaining great neutral power. I run Hidden Power Grass to hit Gastrodon. The last slot could be almost anything tbh. Ice Beam hits tangela and Altaria.

It's hard to find something that Poliwrath offers over Ludicolo because even though Poliwrath is bulkier than Ludicolo and has a cool offensive typing they're both offense mons that aren't EV'd to take hits. Being able to switch in on Skuntank EZPZ is nice but all rain mons other than Ludicolo switch in on skunk relatively easily. Poliwrath's Rock resist comes in really handy but other than that I have a really difficult time wanting to use this over Ludicolo (Z-Fight Ludicolo is a cool thing btw).

DEFENSIVE POLIWRATH

Certain meta trends (carracosta, NU stole offensive grasses, hazard stack, toxic spikes) really help defensive Poliwrath; others don't (mesprit on every team, oricorio + flying types in general). That being said: it's an absolute pain to deal with for an unprepared opponent because it forces a ridiculous amount of pivoting. I've used the RestTalk set in the past so I'm starting out with that. Pair it with a defiant mon, some bulky stuff and hazard stack and it's quite fun to use.

Poliwrath @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Scald
- Circle Throw
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Maximum defense investment makes Poliwrath quite bulky. Scald fishes for burns and Circle Throw is not only a good phazing move but also is one of Poliwrath's more powerful consistent physical Fighting-Type STABs (seriously GF why). Rest and Sleep Talk are Poliwrath's only means of recovery. Sleep Talk calling Circle Throw is nice because you might priority phaze slow mons lacking recovery like Ferroseed, exeggutor(s), and the throng of uninvested base 50-60 mons: Piloswine, Eelektross, Cacturne, Aggron, Mawile, Regis, Torterra, others. Don't count on it, though. You can run more Speed investment to creep other defensive threats but so far this isn't working out too well; the big bump is at 220 and that requires so much investment that it severely dents Poliwrath's bulk. This set also suffers from being unable to do much damage without hazard stack and is completely helpless against Sableye (much like most Fighting-Types). It's also complete Oricorio-Sensu bait.

This set requires heavy hazard stacking and anti-hazard removal measures + multiple types of chip damage which makes it difficult to build with, restricting it to balance builds. Ferroseed and Tangela are excellent partners so far; Ferroseed has obvious defensive typing synergy, Leech Seed to force switches, and most importantly Spikes. Tangela brings Sleep Powder, incredible physical bulk, and ease of pivoting. These and other Eviolite defensive mons also really appreciate Poliwrath's Dark resistance/Knock Off resilience. Pawniard seems like a really good natural partner to severely punish Skuntank and Swanna. Toxic Spikes are nice, too.

Ultimately this set suffers from extreme inconsistency with its reliance on Sleep Talk rolls as well as its low attacking power. However, if supported with Spikes and Stealth Rock and with Ghosts and Electric-Types removed it can significantly disrupt opp's team. It also faces some competition from Throh and ig Kangaskhan (scrappy circle throw what) but Poliwrath's typing is so much better defensively.

I find myself wanting to make a defensive set with sub + circle throw + toxic + scald sometimes but I haven't explored this possibility.

There are a couple of other dumb/niche things that I'll try for kicks (SS Z-Splash, Belly Drum, SubPunch).

I'll update w/ replays & other stuff later.
 
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Congrats to Force Majeure for being the winner of this week! The next two mons that are being researched are Kecleon and Zangoose! Description of mons will be up tomorrow, due to my tight schedule. (Math sucks)
 

SergioRules

||blimp||
is a Community Contributor
(also never knew shiny's tongue was blue)
Kecleon @ Assault Vest
Ability: Protean
EVs: 248 HP / 176 Atk / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Shadow Sneak
- Sucker Punch

Say what you want about Kecleon but it's actually really useful on ladder. Granted, I didn't get too high on my week 8 alt, but it's surprised me even then. I tried to make a team using both Zang and Kec and it actually didn't disappoint. AV Kecleon can tank an insane array of special attacks and Protean even allows it to play around Fighting types with Shadow Sneak, and Psychic types with Sucker Punch. Honestly, playing with this mon made me want to use it even more.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-658594062 Shows Kecleon playing around Black Hole Eclipse from skunk and Hyper Voice from Drampa
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-658634954 Again shows general tankiness and playing with priority
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-658636995 Being able to take out two pokemon immediately and tanking a ton from the third
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-658661517 More tankiness and playing around with Sucker Punch
 
Yeah agreed with SergioRules as kecleon is really tanky with vest. It can tank a multitude of hits but for some reason mine will always get status evertime i bring in(mostly burned or frozen) resorting it into a simple wall.
Zangoose on the otherhand, well its really strong with toxic boost. Get a protect of and its really scary, honestly it reminded me of the throh set i did but without trickroom and with actual movepool. Unfortunately its not bulky, but i don't care as long is it break stuff.
And that was the reason why i prefered zangoose over kecleon from earlyon.
 
(Description of mons) Lurantis fills the niche of a defog user while also having access to the coveted contrary+leaf storm combo. Swoobat has the coveted ability simple, which, in combination with calm mind and stored power, can turn it into a deadly sweeper.
 
Well builded a trick room team(again) and to say lurantis was useful is false. It is terrible in this scenario due to its really shallow movepool. I've tried physical 4 atk set, it works kind of. The most succesful however was grassium z solar blade.it can definitly get a kill if the hit is neutral and with prior damage it is guaranteed.
I know lurantis was mentioned as a niche defogger and i haven't tried that possibility yet, but to me it is inferior to the offensive varient aforementioned.

Also it kind of works as a wall with synthesis i guess. Definitly can get some surprise endurance out of it.
 
So i went into this thinking lurantis is just a worse defogger than other more notable users (and in a way it is) but it does have that niche of having recovery and not being weak to rocks.

Now with the released of ultra s&m lurantis finally has some moves going for it and doesn't have to run its special set that get hard walled or get set up on by sap sipper mons.

With what deceton said about lurantis trick room not being useful im going to have to disagree.

Lurantis @ Normalium Z
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Leaf Storm
- Hyper Beam
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Defog
This is probably it only good set in trick room. There's not much that can take a leaf storm into boosted blitz. It also has a kool niche in tr by being slower than carbink and limit it to either rocks or a room so if opposing carbink uses trick room first then you have a lurantis at +4 with 4 turns of tr left.

As a support defogger it is actually not too bad surprisingly. Like I said before it has a form of recovery and is not pressured by rocks but can also take hits. It can run toxic or now knock off (yay) to punish its switchins like sap Sippers, bulky poison types and some grass types that think they can set up on it. Being a grass type it can pressure about half of the stealth rockers in PU and in turn threaten the team with its boosts. However it will always be weak to those mons with sap sipper or bulky poisons and assault festers and with only 7pp it cannot spam leaf storm.

I have yet to experiment with its new physical moveset. Maybe a sp.def variant with superpower, knock and leaf blade.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-659642160 featuring trick room (did get a little lucky)

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-660539044 support defog

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pu-660693564 support lurantis putting in a little work
 
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