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Pokémon Rillaboom
- Thread starter astralydia
- Start date
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oo-rah!
A set i've been having success with in OU is what i'm calling the "Lum Lead" set. With knock off being severily limited this generation and the rise of Galarian Corsola, this set serves as a severe check to many annoying defensive walls.
"Lum Lead" Rillaboom
Overgrow
Item: Lum Berry
Jolly
Attack/ Speed 252, 4 spdef
Drum Beating/ Wood Hammer
Knock Off
U-turn
Superpower/Earthquake
The idea of this set is to play around the fact that most players will assume you are a Band or Scarf set. With Dracovish running around, Grass types have never seen this much usage since gen 1, as such, only a handful of leads in OU carry U-turn ( Darm) or have a move strong agaisnt grass ( Rotom-H). Essentially, if they don't have the mentioned two, you are pretty much free to lead with this depending on the remaining mons. With a Jolly Nature, Excadrill has a slim chance of being OHKO'd with EQ and guarneteed if using superpower. The Lum Berry comes in against Corsola. As mentioned before, you want to play like you have a scarf. Since excadrill can't reliably 2hko you without taking severe damage or fainting, the lum berry will preserve your offensive power against a Corsola's will-o-wisp so you can get a surprise knock off.
Why Jolly over Adamant? This comes down to your choice of STAB Drum beating vs Wood Hammer. If you opt for Hammer, you'll deal more damage, but an interesting interaction occurs with Drum Beating Jolly. Should your opponent be running Dragapult and be expecting a Superpower, if played right and you expect it, Drum Beating will lower Dragpult's speed on the switch. JUST low enough to snag a ko next turn with Knock off.
Superpower over EQ is purely preferential depending on if you want to Hit Toxapex or Ferrothorn harder. The goal of this set is to ensure that your opponents walls and pivots are crippled. Speed drop here, item loss there, that sort of thing. It can net strong KO's but doesn't need to. If it gets status'd it can shake it off once and still do what it needs to do. But most importantly, it's just fast enough to outspeed Band Dracovish and just slow enough to bluff scarf against Timid Rotom and naturally faster scarfers.
"Lum Lead" Rillaboom
Overgrow
Item: Lum Berry
Jolly
Attack/ Speed 252, 4 spdef
Drum Beating/ Wood Hammer
Knock Off
U-turn
Superpower/Earthquake
The idea of this set is to play around the fact that most players will assume you are a Band or Scarf set. With Dracovish running around, Grass types have never seen this much usage since gen 1, as such, only a handful of leads in OU carry U-turn ( Darm) or have a move strong agaisnt grass ( Rotom-H). Essentially, if they don't have the mentioned two, you are pretty much free to lead with this depending on the remaining mons. With a Jolly Nature, Excadrill has a slim chance of being OHKO'd with EQ and guarneteed if using superpower. The Lum Berry comes in against Corsola. As mentioned before, you want to play like you have a scarf. Since excadrill can't reliably 2hko you without taking severe damage or fainting, the lum berry will preserve your offensive power against a Corsola's will-o-wisp so you can get a surprise knock off.
Why Jolly over Adamant? This comes down to your choice of STAB Drum beating vs Wood Hammer. If you opt for Hammer, you'll deal more damage, but an interesting interaction occurs with Drum Beating Jolly. Should your opponent be running Dragapult and be expecting a Superpower, if played right and you expect it, Drum Beating will lower Dragpult's speed on the switch. JUST low enough to snag a ko next turn with Knock off.
Superpower over EQ is purely preferential depending on if you want to Hit Toxapex or Ferrothorn harder. The goal of this set is to ensure that your opponents walls and pivots are crippled. Speed drop here, item loss there, that sort of thing. It can net strong KO's but doesn't need to. If it gets status'd it can shake it off once and still do what it needs to do. But most importantly, it's just fast enough to outspeed Band Dracovish and just slow enough to bluff scarf against Timid Rotom and naturally faster scarfers.
Until we know precisely what Bulu gets out of the new generation's selection of TMs (I.E. whether or not it gets Close Combat and especially Play Rough) it's pretty difficult to judge how viable Rillaboom will or will not be once its Hidden Ability is released. Rilla gets Knock Off and U-Turn, which are two phenomenal moves that on their own give it some niches over Bulu as it currently exists.
Rillaboom also notably has 10 more speed, which is pretty valuable especially once Grassy Surge comes out. Yes, it's less bulky (about 2% physically and 7% specially) but it's almost as strong offensively (base 125 vs base 130 Attack), and Drum Beating is a really good move (guaranteed Speed drops are always good pretty much).
To add on to you, Bulu has a niche in VGC as it can set up screens, while Rillaboom has access to speed control and can Pivot ( as stated). Fairy is a great type but as of now on Bulu it's only worth a dragon immunity. What will ultimatly set these two apart is their roles on teams and what they specfically use the Terrain for.
And for those looking here for VGC advise, as of now it is unconfirmed if other Legendaries can Dynamax outside of Urshifu, so it could be possible Rillabooms Dmax/Gmax form will outclass Bulu on everything bar setting screens. (although this is pure speculation)
I wanted to leave a comment to say Play Rough Tapu Bulu is one of the most overhyped theorymons ever. Despite the Grassy Terrain nerf his Wood Hammer is immensely strong, 2HKOing every offensive Dragon with Band, actually OHKOing Latios after Stealth Rock. If you want to tank it you have to use far beefier resists(mostly Steel types but also some Poison, Fire and Grass types), possibly *4 resists like Corviknight (although some bulky *2 resists like Melmetal work). Considering Hammer, Superpower and Stone Edge are effectively mandatory, Horn Leech tends to be more useful than Play Rough on a Band set since Bulu wants a safer option that still hits very hard and greatly extends its durability, while other sets like SD, AV, even fringe stuff like Subseed are very strapped for moveslots and don't really have space to fit Play Rough in. I am not saying it will be a completely useless option, however it will take far, far more than that to make choiced and offensive SD sets more attractive over U-turn and Knock Off (two moves that have like a million useful applications) and the higher speed that allows Rillaboom to comfortably outspeed Heatran.
All legendaries other than Zacian, Zamazenta and Eternatus can Dynamax, this has already been tested with the ones that are hidden in the current version of the game like Mewtwo. It's worth noting that Rillaboom's G-Max move will allow it to avoid redudancy with Grassy Surge, although we don't know its effect yet. Even then, Max Overgrowth can be useful to come on top in terrain wars so Rillaboom can still retain that option too.
Honestly, both of them have their advantages. Rilla has Knock Off, U-Turn, Fake Out, Ground coverage, higher Speed, and no 4x weaknesses, but Bulu has Horn Leech, Synthesis, Rock coverage, higher Attack and bulk, and Dark, Fighting and Dragon resistances/immunities. On paper, it seems to me that Rilla will be better at offensive roles (choiced, offensive SD, AoA) and Bulu will be better at defensive roles (SpDef SD, Bulk Up, AV), but of course, it depends on how the meta shapes up.
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