Skarmory [QC 0/2]

[zapper22001]

[SET]
name: Physical Wall
move 1: Roost / Brave Bird
move 2: Stealth Rock / Iron Defense
move 3: Brave Bird / Body Press / Iron Head
move 4: Taunt / Whirlwind / Rock Tomb
item: Rocky Helmet / Weakness Policy / Red Card
ability: Sturdy
nature: Impish
evs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Skarmory is a solid physical wall with access to reliable recovery in Roost and great typing. A different suite of support moves distinguishes it from Corviknight, the other steel bird in the metagame.

* Skarmory's Sturdy ability allows it to reliably set up Stealth Rocks, which can break opposing Focus Sashes.

* An attacking move prevents Skarmory from being nullified by Taunt users. Brave Bird is Skarmory's most powerful STAB move, while Body Press leverages Skarmory's physical defense stat and pairs well with Iron Defense.

* Drill Peck is an alternative over Brave Bird in order to avoid recoil damage and preserve Sturdy. Iron Head hits Mimikyu hard and can give Defense boosts from Max Steelspike.

* Rock Tomb works well when using Skarmory as a lead and allows its teammates to take advantage of the opposing Speed drop.

* Sturdy is the ideal ability for Skarmory since it prevents Skarmory from being knocked out by OHKO moves, which are often used to break through stall cores. It can stall out some turns of an opposing Dynamax user in a pinch, though one must be wary of Cinderace's G-Max Fireball.

* Rocky Helmet provides valuable chip damage against physical attackers since Skarmory is usually hit by contact moves. Leftovers, Occa Berry and Sitrus Berry are other defensive items to consider on stall teams to adhere to the Item Clause.

* Weakness Policy and Red Card are additional item choices, which complement Skarmory's Sturdy ability; Weakness Policy ensures that Skarmory can fire off a powerful hit before it faints while Red Card can phaze set-up sweepers, however Red Card fails versus Dynamax.

[General Team Options]

* Skarmory is a passive Pokemon, which works best on stall teams. Teammates which can cover Skarmory's weaknesses as well as wall powerful special attackers are greatly appreciated. A check to Cinderace is also necessary since it is a physical attacker that Skarmory cannot wall. Skarmory can operate as a suicide lead to set up Stealth Rocks and aid a teammate in sweeping.

Special walls:

Ground-types:

Cinderace checks:

Sweepers:

[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[zapper22001, 45824]]
- Quality checked by: [[ ], [ ]]
- Grammar checked by: [[ ]]

 

[1_TrickPhony]

Looks solid.

Couple of nitpicks.

Taunt > Whirlwind for main slash on move 4. As a rocker, it brings that niche as a defensive wall, over the likes of hippo, which I think does rocks + phazing better.
I think that other items should be given a mention: its totally capable of using a plethora of items. Red card, lefties, weakness policy are just some of the few. What gets slashed vs mentioned up to you.
Team options you have it as only within defensive cores, but its also sometimes used as a suicide rocker lead. As a result, it should have sweepers who like rocks chip, like Cinderace/Togekiss.

 

[zapper22001]

Looks solid.

Couple of nitpicks.

Taunt > Whirlwind for main slash on move 4. As a rocker, it brings that niche as a defensive wall, over the likes of hippo, which I think does rocks + phazing better.
I think that other items should be given a mention: its totally capable of using a plethora of items. Red card, lefties, weakness policy are just some of the few. What gets slashed vs mentioned up to you.
Team options you have it as only within defensive cores, but its also sometimes used as a suicide rocker lead. As a result, it should have sweepers who like rocks chip, like Cinderace/Togekiss.

Thanks for the comments. I reworked the moveset to incorporate the suicide lead option, which was an oversight on my part. The abundance of slashes feels a little messy, so maybe it's better to have two sets. For items, I slashed Weakness Policy and Red Card and just mentioned the defensive items in the comments since it feels like Item Clause plays a larger role in terms of what items to run on stall.