The Merits of Ganlon Berry Heracross

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Ganlon Berry Heracross:
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Guts @ Ganlon Berry
EV: 252 Atk, 252 Spe, 6 HP
Close Combat
Megahorn
Stone Edge
Natural Gift


It is known that this specific Heracross is a guaranteed OHKO on a max 252 HP/252 Def spread Impish Gliscor with Natural Gift if Guts is activated. This is very useful to counter it, but hinders Heracross' ability to deal damage/outspeed other pokemon. Because Ganlon Berry makes a base 80 Physical Ice attack, it can be a suprise and can allow Heracross to roam free and sweep later once Gliscor, if a team has one, is gone.

My question to you, the Smogonites, is if this set is worth OHKO'ing Gliscor, or if it is better to just kill gliscor with another pokemon later and use a better item on Heracross?
 
That set is certainly interesting, and an OHKO on something like Gliscor is always great. Not to mention it will hurt Salamence quite a bit. A damage calc against Salamence (after Intimidate) would be useful.

Most people would prefer Swords Dance/Facade over Natural Gift/Stone Edge though. Maybe if you just put SD over SE, so you could ohko Gliscor without relying on Guts and then continue to sweep?
 
I've actually read about this in a RMT.

Even though people try to counter Heracross by putting Gliscor in their teams, I don't really think it's worth it to actually use Heracross with HP Ice or what you are saying Natural Gift.

As you stated you need Guts activated, but it might hurt you in the long run as it seems unreliable and many teams don't carry Pokemon that use status. Gliscor isn't very hard to counter as long as you can predict well or have powerful sweepers in your team.

The items Flame Orb and Choice Band/Scarf are better for it because they can help Heracross. Flame Orb activates Heracross ability, Guts, boosting your attack sky high but also giving it a kind of immunity against other status. Choice Band and Choice Scarf help it outspeed threats like Weavile and other things or boost it's attack and help to defeat common walls such as Forretress and Skarmory.

Although this set is quite interesting it can offer a surprise to many opponents.
 
I don't thinkt he set is really viable. I would rather just kill Gliscor off with something else and use a better Hera set.

Has anyoen tested the Facade Dance Hera given in the analysis. I mean it must be tested if it is in there so why not just use that.
 
I'm liking this Natural Gift and yeah I could see this being viable. However like you have pointed out you miss the hard or fastness of the sets which hinders it. I would replace Stone Edge with Swords Dance definitely to try and some power on it.

and if anyone has some of guide or something that explains how Natural Gift works that would be cool because Im sure there are more combos that Im missing.
 
I agree with Warthog you should put Swords Dance to help it's attack and not only that defeat Heracross. I can't believe I forgot he learns Swords Dance. >.>

Heracross @ Ganlon Berry
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 6 HP
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
- Close Combat
- Megahorn / Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
- Natural Gift

If you use Stone Edge you can hit every Pokemon at least neutral if you use Megahorn you get good STAB but miss on hitting Froslass, Shedinja, and Tentacruel but after you use Natural Gift you're type coverage goes down but Close Combat/Stone Edge still offers good type coverage.

I still do like this set. ^^

@ Warthog - Here's what Natural Gift can do with other Berries.
 
http://www.smogon.com/dp/moves/natural_gift

I'd pretty much always use Smogon's dex over Serebii's. I think on this issue they are the same information, except I much prefer Smogon's layout and the order in which the berries are listed. On a lot of things, they give the same information, except on just about as many things, Smogon gives more accurate, more in-depth descriptions.
 
oh okay, not as good as I thought it was because the berry disappears when you use Natural Gift but still cool.
 
Obi said:
I'd pretty much always use Smogon's dex over Serebii's. I think on this issue they are the same information, except I much prefer Smogon's layout and the order in which the berries are listed. On a lot of things, they give the same information, except on just about as many things, Smogon gives more accurate, more in-depth descriptions.
Click to expand...
(On the topic of the MoveDex, I think it needs to have the Physical/Special split for each move. Also, for Natural Gift, the information would look a lot better as a table, if that is possible.)

Regarding Natural Gift Ice/Close Combat/Megahorn/Swords Dance, wouldn't BulkyGyara/Weezing merely replace Gliscor as the new Pokemon you'd be unable to break? I can see the surprise value of Natural Gift, but if you mispredict at all, you'll lose the attack for the rest of the match. That would be a good trade-off if you could lose your move and take out Gliscor for the rest of the match, but I guess I wouldn't trust my prediction skills to rely on a one-chance move. At least this seems a lot more promising than the HP Ice Hera threads that keep popping up.
 
Something I saw mentioned in the HP Ice Heracross by either Obi or Phu was that if you're looking at giving up a moveslot just to have a chance beat one specific counter, then that counters job is done whether it's on your opponents team or not. You're limiting your movepool just to take on one thing. So in answer to the OP question, it'd be better to kill Gliscor with somethnig else IMO.

of course it's very pokemon-specific.
 
It wasn't by me. I'm of the opinion that if they have a Pokemon on their team that can counter your Pokemon 100%, you are playing with 5 Pokemon until you can stop that Pokemon somehow. :toast:

Also the Natural Gift page is supposed to be slightly better than it is right now, but I'm encountering a technical difficulty preventing me from making a very quick fix.
 
I think the best use of this would be as a "lure" to get rid of Gliscor to open up a sweep for your SDLucario etc later in the game. It's pretty much a given that if the opponent has a Gliscor, he will happily switch him into Heracross until the cows come home so this set is arguably the most effective way of ridding yourself of Gliscor. Unfortunately, I don't think it will allow Heracross himself to sweep as a Hera without an item is like a face without a smile.
 
I think what you need to do to actually make this effective is give Heracross a Jolly nature and just come into a status not named sleep or paralyzed. guts activates and you should still be able to ohko gliscor and salamence. and even if guts is not active swords dance would win. reason I say jolly is because you can now beat 270 speed mence and 281 speed gliscor which is very common. you also beat most pokemon like lucario now anyway which is extremely helpful.
 
Anti said:
Something I saw mentioned in the HP Ice Heracross by either Obi or Phu was that if you're looking at giving up a moveslot just to have a chance beat one specific counter, then that counters job is done whether it's on your opponents team or not. You're limiting your movepool just to take on one thing. So in answer to the OP question, it'd be better to kill Gliscor with somethnig else IMO.

of course it's very pokemon-specific.
Click to expand...

I posted the thread about HP Ice Heracross (as well as SD/Facade Burn Orb Heracross), and I still don't understand the logic. What are you losing? Night Slash? I guess if you're giving up a slot for Night Slash Dusknoir has done its job. Pursuit? Tyranitar is a much more viable Pursuiter. Is the minor loss in attack even debatable when you now have the ability to freely use it, unlike a standard CBCross would, if they had Gliscor? It would be different if it was so gimmicky that it would be worthless if they lacked Gliscor, but it's a minor loss in attack, and arguably even harder to counter because of the Life Orb which makes it harder to find a switch-in.
 
It could be annoying it has an Adamant nature and I think Heracross shouldn't be the only physical sweeper in the team. A Heracross with Guts activited (assuming it's not Para) will die because of the burn/poison. This with the very common Stealth Rock hinders Heracross' ability to sweep. An Adamant nature doesn't help Heracross' sweep either (the lack of speed).

So I can't really see this Heracross sweep teams, but with another Physical sweeper like Lucario of Choice Band Tyranitar, this could be very effective. The lack of a Choice Band could also surprise opponent that don't have a Gliscor. I think this Heracross won't be game-breaking but could be a great support in a team.
 
This could be quite a good lure pokemon for something like Lucario to come in and sweep. Only problem is that you are giving up a Choice Item and a Moveslot, which severely limits Heracross's potential to still do stuff afterwards.
 
wow this could be getting at somthing... i mean think of the possibilities of eliminating gliscor 100% of the time. lucario's best counter down. sweeps galore baby.
 
Lee said:
I think the best use of this would be as a "lure" to get rid of Gliscor to open up a sweep for your SDLucario etc later in the game. It's pretty much a given that if the opponent has a Gliscor, he will happily switch him into Heracross until the cows come home so this set is arguably the most effective way of ridding yourself of Gliscor. Unfortunately, I don't think it will allow Heracross himself to sweep as a Hera without an item is like a face without a smile.
Click to expand...

I believe it would be better off the other way around as Hidden Power Ice from Lucario is a 100% kill. I'm not sure if Heracross can even OHKO gliscor with a physical Ice 80 BP. It would be a lot easier if Lucario was the lure and Heracross was the sweeper. Of course I used Lucario as a lure for my offensive team quite well, it easily removes one of the top defensive walls and can 1-2HKO other defensive walls with an SD CC.

Also, I was wondering if anybody would run the calc on the Natural Gift Ice from Heracross(without an SD using the set from the OP) against standard Gliscor.
 
If it were a OHKO without Guts it might be worth it, but definitely not if it requires Guts activated. That's way too unpredictable a scenario to use a moveslot and a one-time item. HP Ice or Flame Orb+SD+Facade are much better 'gimmicks' to get Gliscor out of the way.
 
Also, I was wondering if anybody would run the calc on the Natural Gift Ice from Heracross(without an SD using the set from the OP) against standard Gliscor.
Click to expand...

adamant
232 - 276 (65.54% - 77.97%)

jolly
212 - 252 (59.89% - 71.19%)

Doesn't KO without guts activated either way. Even with guts/jolly it doesn't have a very good chance of ohko-ing.
 
You could do that, or better yet you could throw Facade on the Choice Band set, absorb a status, and bam 2HKO time on Gliscor, Weezing, AND Nidoqueen. Or you could use Flame Orb Hera (seriously why did people use Life Orb on SDHera over Flame Orb? Slightly less recoil?). I like the other two better, since it's not a one-shot.

When I first saw this thread I thought it was advocating the activation of said pinch berry.
 
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