God dammit, Game Freak, stop making so many good bulky waters! Now I have three great options to pick between this gen. (Slowbro, Suicune and Tenta, in case you were wondering.)
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Tentacruel
- Thread starter Colonel M
- Start date
You said Tentacruel has a lack of offense? Well, he can somewhat fix that with Acid Bomb. Switch into something he will scare off, like a Fire type, use Acid Bomb to sharply lower the special defense of whatever will switch in, then hit their -2 Special Defense with Surf, Ice Beam or whatever.
^Acid bomb is still kind of bleh and waste of a useful move slot (Which tenta has a lot of options in now)...Really hes not really cut out for going too offensive there are other pokes for that.
Well deffinetly this is a huge boot for Tenta.Evil eye is just amazing and is Payback Tentacruel style =}..Rain dish is also nice as you really dont mind Burn/Para much anyway and with infinite rain it would be pretty annoying to take down.And boiling water would just be ballz for this guy as he can easily beat 90% special sweepers and when the physical ones have a risk of switching in as well...Yah...Great i see tenta be a much more solid competitor this gen.
Well deffinetly this is a huge boot for Tenta.Evil eye is just amazing and is Payback Tentacruel style =}..Rain dish is also nice as you really dont mind Burn/Para much anyway and with infinite rain it would be pretty annoying to take down.And boiling water would just be ballz for this guy as he can easily beat 90% special sweepers and when the physical ones have a risk of switching in as well...Yah...Great i see tenta be a much more solid competitor this gen.
I kind of mentioned it in an earlier post, and although it might be better off with Blastoise, as I thought about it more today, I really like the idea of this build...
Regenacruel
Bold
Black Sludge
252 HP/252 DEF
RAIN DISH
Aqua Ring
Protect/Rain Dance
Giga Drain
Boiling Water
My whole goal would be to pass this Tentacruel an ingrain. I know that is very hard now, especially with smeargle having it tough as it is. But IF possible, and you are able to set up accordingly, you can have a Tentacruel healing for 1/4th of his HP EVERY TURN. And best of all, he cant be Roared or Whilrwinded away.
I put raindance on there as a "oh shit" option, that is, if the enemy brings out sunny day or sandstorm and ruins your politoads drizzle. BUT, part of me feels that it almost is unnecessary, as youd still be getting 3/16ths health every turn. Heck, even missing ingrain would put you at 1/8th per turn. But protect is probably the better choice, seeing as you can heal anywhere from 1/4th to half your health in 2 turns with it (depending on how set up you are).
Giga Drain for extra drain tanking, and Boiling Water to induce burn for extra bulk. I don't know how efficient he would be but I feel like this set would be quite frustrating... It is possible to switch boiling water with toxic, just so one could actually have a reason to stall out the enemy.
A different move set would be to go with:
protect
substitute
aqua ring
surf/giga drain
with an ingrain pass, and then have toxic spikes set up for wearing the enemy down. Could be a pseudo stallrein wanna be build?
Although, I know, this is all theorymonning. I am doing the whole "IF I magically can set up and get an ingrain pass AND aqua ring up, AND have raindance going, Tentacruel will regen more than ever." It just seems like it really would be a fun set. Effective? Maybe for surpises... kind of gimmicky... either way, I wanna know, what everyone else thinks?
Any input?
Regenacruel
Bold
Black Sludge
252 HP/252 DEF
RAIN DISH
Aqua Ring
Protect/Rain Dance
Giga Drain
Boiling Water
My whole goal would be to pass this Tentacruel an ingrain. I know that is very hard now, especially with smeargle having it tough as it is. But IF possible, and you are able to set up accordingly, you can have a Tentacruel healing for 1/4th of his HP EVERY TURN. And best of all, he cant be Roared or Whilrwinded away.
I put raindance on there as a "oh shit" option, that is, if the enemy brings out sunny day or sandstorm and ruins your politoads drizzle. BUT, part of me feels that it almost is unnecessary, as youd still be getting 3/16ths health every turn. Heck, even missing ingrain would put you at 1/8th per turn. But protect is probably the better choice, seeing as you can heal anywhere from 1/4th to half your health in 2 turns with it (depending on how set up you are).
Giga Drain for extra drain tanking, and Boiling Water to induce burn for extra bulk. I don't know how efficient he would be but I feel like this set would be quite frustrating... It is possible to switch boiling water with toxic, just so one could actually have a reason to stall out the enemy.
A different move set would be to go with:
protect
substitute
aqua ring
surf/giga drain
with an ingrain pass, and then have toxic spikes set up for wearing the enemy down. Could be a pseudo stallrein wanna be build?
Although, I know, this is all theorymonning. I am doing the whole "IF I magically can set up and get an ingrain pass AND aqua ring up, AND have raindance going, Tentacruel will regen more than ever." It just seems like it really would be a fun set. Effective? Maybe for surpises... kind of gimmicky... either way, I wanna know, what everyone else thinks?
Any input?
He wasn't talking about Buru outclassing Tenta, his post was in response to a guy who was questioning why anyone would use evil eye when the popular ghosts got either levitate (and thus poison spike immunity) or are weak to water (shandera). He was pointing out that Buru was resistant (or immune) to water, did not levitate, and was extreemly popular. Of course I don't like evil eye anyway but still you're not taking his quote in context.
Evil Eye isn't threatening Burunkeru anytime soon, honestly even assuming you got it statused. What do we think Tenta is doing to a 100/105 defenses ghost off 80 s.atk without STAB, 100 power is nice but Buru can simply stall for time with reliable recovery and its Cursed Body trait. Thats assuming you even land a status on it.
You're going to damn well decide to switch again (losing a turn) or stay and be crippled, you can easily bring in another special based team member to scare the debuffed opponent off. Eitherway it gives you a huge advantage, you've not only done damage but left something behind for your incoming switch.
The point of Acid Bomb isn't to purely sweep but support as well, quite frankly when you switch in and take that Acid Bomb and are sitting there with -2 s.def you better think twice.
You're going to damn well decide to switch again (losing a turn) or stay and be crippled, you can easily bring in another special based team member to scare the debuffed opponent off. Eitherway it gives you a huge advantage, you've not only done damage but left something behind for your incoming switch.
I have been using Tentacruel for Toxic Spikes support on a team that abuses Bulk Up Roopushin, Butterfly Dance Urugamosu and Vuljina. The moveset was Surf / Slime Wave / Toxic Spikes / Rapid Spin.
Personally I feel Tentacruel works well in this metagame since it can switch easily into stuff like Nattorei, Burungeru, Vaporeon etc to set-up my Toxic Spikes and/or spin away my opponent's hazards. It's typing, light weight and immense special bulk makes it very effective at what it does. On top of its supporting role it walls threats like Blaziken and Ludicolo quite nicely as well.
Liquid Ooze is IMO the best ability for it since Leech Seed Nattorei/Erufunn and Drain Punch are all very common nowadays - much more common than Politoed anyhow. Disrupting the opponent's strategy and forcing them out just translates to more opportunities for getting hazards up or an extra turn to get Rapid Spin off.
Slime Wave is also an excellent addition to its movepool since it can actually do something back to the Grass and Water types it walls, while doing a decent chunk to the Sazandora and Gyarados I'm sometimes forced to switch into.
Personally I feel Tentacruel works well in this metagame since it can switch easily into stuff like Nattorei, Burungeru, Vaporeon etc to set-up my Toxic Spikes and/or spin away my opponent's hazards. It's typing, light weight and immense special bulk makes it very effective at what it does. On top of its supporting role it walls threats like Blaziken and Ludicolo quite nicely as well.
Liquid Ooze is IMO the best ability for it since Leech Seed Nattorei/Erufunn and Drain Punch are all very common nowadays - much more common than Politoed anyhow. Disrupting the opponent's strategy and forcing them out just translates to more opportunities for getting hazards up or an extra turn to get Rapid Spin off.
Slime Wave is also an excellent addition to its movepool since it can actually do something back to the Grass and Water types it walls, while doing a decent chunk to the Sazandora and Gyarados I'm sometimes forced to switch into.
So, I am running a tentacruel in my team right now too. And it is working wonders.
My move set is: toxic spikes/rapid spin/acid bomb/surf
acid bomb has saved my ass so many times. i hit a zapdos with it on the switch, survived a thunderbolt, and one shot him with surf. SO GOOD. Switching into an acid bomb has got to be a scary thing.
My move set is: toxic spikes/rapid spin/acid bomb/surf
acid bomb has saved my ass so many times. i hit a zapdos with it on the switch, survived a thunderbolt, and one shot him with surf. SO GOOD. Switching into an acid bomb has got to be a scary thing.
I never thought about evil eye on tentacruel but damn its actually gonna be pretty nice. Anything that counters it such as swampert gets poisoned just from switching in which doubles evil eye's power. Sure a lot of ghosts have levitate but those ghosts are more often then not sweepers which are pretty frail and being special attackers cant hit tentacruel to hard except for rotom. The best spin blocking ghosts are dusknoir, desukan, water/ghost and spiritomb and they all get hit by toxic spikes which will in turn make for a powerful evil eye.
Don't see why people think burungeru can counter tenta. Buru just screams easy set up of 2 layers of toxic spikes for good ol' tenta here. And once buru gets toxiced, it shouldn't be too hard for tenta to win the stall war, even without the recovery provided to buru. Toxic damage + evil eye will rack up a lot quicker than buru 's shadow ball and potential burn could ever do. Besides, if it comes in while hes setting up toxic spikes, you can just switch to something that can force him out, so that he'll be toxiced when he comes back in.
Also, tenta has the option of knocking off buru's lefties, making him even easier to stall out
Honestly, on my Rain teams Tentacruel has been fantastic. I can't imagine playing without him. Liquid Ooze is also now a legitimate ability with all the Nattorei that switch into me. I've been running a bulky set with some SpA EVs and a Modest nature to hit things harder. It resists Fighting and Bug, two very good resistances in this metagame. I love it.
Tenta on a sunny day team seems interesting
Does Super Effective boosted Evil Eye do more damage to Buruk-jelly than a STAB boosted Venom Shock from Tentacruel?
If it does, than there's no reason -imo- to consider Venom Shock because of Steels in general.
But If Venom Shock does more damage... we have a problem. Namely, do we use the weaker Evil Eye to avoid giving Steels (who could care less about T. Spikes) a free switch in? Or do we use the more powerful Venom Shock which hits everything that's NOT a Steel types for more damage?
If it does, than there's no reason -imo- to consider Venom Shock because of Steels in general.
But If Venom Shock does more damage... we have a problem. Namely, do we use the weaker Evil Eye to avoid giving Steels (who could care less about T. Spikes) a free switch in? Or do we use the more powerful Venom Shock which hits everything that's NOT a Steel types for more damage?
The notion of Tentacruel "walling" or even countering Blaziken, for that matter, is extremely faulty. You guys clearly have no grasp of what Blaziken is capable of.
Jolly LO Blaziken's HJK hits 252/120 Tentacruel (the 4th gen standard) for 86% - 101.4% after a single Swords Dance. Adamant Blaziken hits the same Tentacruel for 94.5% - 111.3%.
Tentacruel is a great Pokemon this gen, and Rain Dish is actually quite "noteworthy". Tentacruel makes a great addition to a rain team as a defensive pivot, and absorbs tspikes which rain sweepers absolutely despise. Tspikes of your own also ease the pressure on your own sweepers quite a bit.
EDIT:
Ghost resists Poison, so Venom Shock's effective power against a poisoned Burungeru is 97.5 and Evil Eye's is 200. Also Steel Pokemon take negligible damage from Evil Eye so they get a free switch-in anyway.
Though your main point stands, I'd expect that ThunderPunch will be a lot rarer this generation, being incompatible with Speed Boost and whatnot.
Oh thanks for pointing that out. My mistake.
What EV spread?
Liquid Ooze seems like it's now the best ability for Tentacruel... even though it hasn't technically changed, it got a nice indirect boost in the form of Giga Drain + Drain Punch getting more powerful, and therefore more common, and Liquid Ooze Tentacruel (with any bulky EV spread) would be a fantastic counter to Drain Punching Roopushin and Zuruzukin, among others. It also totally screws Leech Seeders, especially the Mischeivously-Hearted Erufuun.
Uh, I wasn't wondering. I don't think anyone was.
I am pretty sure, Tentacruel can utilize rest.
Tentacreul looks quite usable this generation. Even as much as the last.
