Thundurus-T (QC 3/3)

jc104

jc104

Humblest person ever
is a Top Contributor Alumnus
A few days ago I believe Nachos said that he wanted to give this up. If you're reading this, Nachos, and I'm somehow mistaken or you've changed your mind, please just ask and you can have it back.



Proposed sets, in no particular order:


  • Nasty Plot
  • Scarf
  • Agility
  • Substitute?
  • Expert Belt?
  • Specs?
  • Mixed?
[OVERVIEW]

- Ridiculous Special attack
- Pretty good speed, tying with Landorus-I
- Thunders from this thing hurt
- Good coverage despite the total lack of flying STAB.
- Volt Absorb is actually extremely useful (more so than prankster was to thundurus-I) - stops volt switch, crucially.
- However, SR weakness is pretty crippling, and Speed though good is not usually enough to sweep without using agility.
- Coupled with fairly poor defenses, this leaves it vulnerable to revenge killing.
- Overall, very strong.


[SET]
name: Nasty Plot
move 1: Nasty Plot
move 2: Thunderbolt / Thunder
move 3: Hidden Power Ice
move 4: Focus Blast / Substitute
item: Life Orb / Lum Berry / Leftovers
nature: Timid
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

- Powerful wallbreaker with very few counters
- Tbolt for STAB or Thunder in rain - with thunder you'll go straight through Jirachi
- HP Ice will kill most Ground-types, Grass-types and Dragon-types.
- Focus Blast hits Tyranitar, Mamoswine, Ferrothorn, Blissey, Chansey, and electric types such as Jolteon and Magnezone. Gives a neutral hit on Gastrodon too.
- Substitute can be very useful (in conjunction with lefties) as it protects from Toxic and Leech seed. It can also be used to scout switchins, especially those to faster pokemon which can take one of Thundurus's attacking moves. Also prevents the opponent simply sacrificing a slower mon to thundurus to deal with it.

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

- Needs all the power and especially all the speed it can get
- Hence LO is the primary option. Lum is useful for taking Blissey toxics and jirachi body slams.
- 252 Def 252 Spe Timid with Sub - subs will survive jirachi body slams and ferrothorn gyro balls, allowing you to set up on them with impunity. You lose out on a lot of power though.
- Expert Belt, Grass Knot, Agility
- Support with politoed to give powerful thunder
- Include sweepers to take advantage of Thundurus's wallbreaking.
- Perhaps include a rapid spinner such as Starmie, Tentacruel or Forretress.


[SET]
name: Choice Scarf
move 1: Volt Switch
move 2: Thunderbolt / Thunder
move 3: Focus Blast
move 4: Hidden Power Ice
item: Choice Scarf
nature: Timid
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

- Revenge killer and momentum-grabber.
- Very good special attack and Speed enough to outrun the whole unboosted metagame and most boosted Pokemon as well.
- Notably outruns DD and Scarf Salamence and Haxorus, Scarf Jirachi, Scarf Genesect, and +1 Volcarona (though it can't do much). Ties with Scarf Landorus-I.
- Volt Switch gives it great momentum conserving ability, especially when SR is not up on your side, unless an immune pokemon gets in the way.
- It's a bit weak though so a more powerful option is listed in the second slot for revenge killing threats not weak to electric.
- Focus Blast and HP Ice hit every pokemon that resists Volt-Switch Thunderbolt and Thunder at least neutrally

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

- U-turn is great for conserving momentum when the opponent has immune pokemon. Will also deal good damage to Latios, latias, and especially Celebi.
- Superpower (naive nature), for its accuracy and to 2HKO Blissey and OHKO Tyranitar.
- Grass Knot for Gastrodon.
- HP Flying for STAB (lol) and to kill breloom/virizion
- Very obvious ev spread. Timid required to outrun +1 Mence, Haxorus, Genesect etc. Modest is not a good idea.
- Support with a rapid spinner as SR damage will really build up while Volt Switching. Hazards are also good, so consider something like Forretress.
- Politoed allows the use of a powerful Thunder.
- Consider supporting with other U-turners and Volt-switchers on a VoltTurn team - e.g Genesect (EB or CB probably), Scizor.

[SET]
name: Agility
move 1: Agility
move 2: Thunderbolt / Thunder
move 3: Hidden Power Ice
move 4: Focus Blast / Grass Knot
item: Life Orb
nature: Timid / Modest
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

- Can use Agility to increase its speed to absurd levels for a late game sweep - it outruns everything (no-one say floatzel in the rain....).
- Otherwise it just plays like a Thundurus-T - keep firing off powerful attacks
- Especially appreciates rain thunder as no way to boost power. Thunderbolt is ok though.
- HP Ice kills Dragons, grasses and grounds.
- Focus Blast hits Tyranitar, Mamoswine, Jolteon, Ferrothorn, and Magnezone, while GK hits Gastrodon, Hippowdon, Mamoswine again, and tyranitar somewhat.

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

- Spread here is designed to give necessary speed prior to boosting (afterwards the speed is unnecessary). In many matches you won't have the opportunity to use agility and this extra speed is extremely handy to give the jump on Genesect, Salamence, Jirachi etc and to Speed tie with Landorus-I.
- Modest is a decent option though - use 188 Evs in speed to outrun timid venusaur in sun and jolly stoutland in sand after a boost.
- Superpower for its accuracy and ability to hit Tyranitar and Blissey harder.
- You really need to soften up the opponent's team if thundurus is to sweep without a special attack boost. Hazards are a great way to do this - ferrothorn, deoxys-d, forretress etc.
- Powerful wallbreakers are also handy, especially any that can lure in Gastrodon, Blissey, and Chansey. Gothitelle can also remove or Trick troublesome walls.

[SET]
name: Expert Belt
move 1: Thunderbolt / Thunder
move 2: Hidden Power Ice
move 3: Grass Knot / Focus Blast
move 4: Volt Switch
item: Expert Belt
nature: Timid
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

- Expert belt is a useful item - Thundurus T can bluff a choice item, before taking advantage of its great coverage and power.
- Even excluding the choice item bluffing, it's still useful because Thundurus-T takes a lot of damage from hazards already, doesn't appreciate the recoil when volt-turning, and has good super-effective coverage.
- Volt Switch is great for grabbing momentum and bluffing scarf
- It's a bit weak though, so a more powerful move is very helpful. Thunder is for rain obviously.
- HP Ice is the best coverage move
- GK is preferred to Focus Blast here because the ability to lure in Gastrodon is invaluable to many teams - the move also nails Hippowdon (a weather starter!) and a decent enough hit on Tyranitar (almost a 2HKO)
- Focus Blast is great for Magnezone, Jolteon and Ferrothorn. However, Mag takes a ton from thunder and jolt from HP Ice, and you can just VS out of Mag and Ferro.

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

- Life Orb
- Superpower
- Obvious spread.
- Support with rain, stuff that appreciates gastrodon being removed (most water-types in rain)

[Other Options]

- Choice Specs: faces competition from Jolteon + little reason to use over Life Orb
- Double Booster
- Substitute + 3 Attacks.
- Thunder Wave, Discharge
- Taunt

[Checks and Counters]


  • Gastrodon and other water/grounds with SpD spreads can take everything but Grass Knot
  • Latios and Latias take quite a lot from HP Ice but can outrun Thundurus-T and hit it with draco meteor / dragon pulse.
  • Jolteon takes a huge amount from Focus Blast, but it doesn't OHKO, and Jolteon can OHKO back with Choice Specs Hidden Power Ice after SR (or with some LO recoil).
  • Blissey and Chansey can take out everything except NP with ease. Against non-lum NP they might be able to win through Toxic stalling, especially if focus blast misses.
  • Chople Berry Tyranitar can take anything but an NP Focus Blast (or two focus blasts).
  • Specially Defensive Hippowdon can take anything but two LO HP Ices or an NP HP Ice.
  • Specially defensive Jirachi can take everything except LO NP Thunder, and paralyse with Body Slam (watch out for Lum berry)
  • Ninetales is a great switchin to any Thundurus-T relying on Thunder - it also has decent special defense.
  • Mamoswine - watch out for focus blast on the switch, and you'll need SR to OHKO with ice shard.
  • Terrakion in sand
  • Large number of potential revenge killers if Thundurus is not using agility.
 
It's too frail to set up easily... The losen hability, Prankster, benefited it with a +1 priority Thunder Wave. A physical hit can take it out quickly, things like Jolly Scarf Terrakion will be a nightmare... It needs support to deal with faster foes. He will have a hard time with Chansey and Blissey, if not carries Hammer Arm (and it losts 10 points Attack basic stat when changing in this form).

Maybe the new hability will be useful in a rain team, that also benefits T-Thundurus with a reliable STAB attack in Thunder. I don't see it as a good user of Substitute, though. I see Agility set as a good one.

I don't see the point to use Specs in any set. Maybe replacing it for Expert Belt, but the moveset has a good coverage, soooo...
 
Incarnate Thundurus is currently banned, so there is little point thinking about Prankster. I believe that Volt Absorb is by far the more useful ability bearing in mind Thundurus's movepool anyway.

As for the +2 set, I can see it working, though I have yet to try it. If I were to do it I would probably just combine the NP and Agility sets as I really think having 3 different boosting sets is unnecessary.
 
What's the reason for the lack of a Specs set?

This is the hardest hitting Special attacker in the OU metagame, with a movepool perfectly suited to Choice Specs, as it can hit everything for neutral damage, and can use Volt Turn effectively. A Rapid Spinner is obviously recommended, but the sheer firepower when using Thunder in the Rain can't be isnored imo. Grass Knot, Focus Blast, resistances and a huge power increase set it apart from Jolteon. Dunno why this isn't a set (I've not used it much, but it was extremely fun on a Rain team).
 
I find band and specs sets annoying when a large proportion of Pokemon are immune to the lone STAB move. But I suppose since Magnezone has a specs set so can Thundurus-T.

edit: I'm also thinking U-turn might be worth considering on the scarf set. Thoughts?

edit2: I always loved Lum berry on incarnate Thundurus, but since Thundurus-T is immune to Thunder and Thunder Wave I'm not sure it's the best choice. With a Life Orb you can OHKO the Jirachi with +2 Thunder, which is pretty significant.
 
Timid@Lum berry ( Toxic / Twave from Chans-Blissey and Body slam/twave from Jirachi, the Life orb is a nice option too ) does 55.6% - 65.7% on 0/252 bold blissey at +2 with Focus blast, it's a clean 2HKO with SRs up ( idk for chansey ) so it's not really a problem, the +2 set can do damage to both defensive and offensive team, the only real problem is the coverage.

The choice specs isn't really worth it : You need a spinner, and the Electric type is not really hard to switch on.

Edit : Magnezone doesn't have any boosting move ( and chargebeam is far from threatening ), he is 0,5 to SR and he needs a good amount of power to kill steel mons, they are really different.

U-turn is kinda fun if the opponent go to an electric immunity, you can / it.
 
Talking about Scarf and U-Turn, why not to try a mixed set? Something like U-Turn/Hammer Arm/Thunder or Thunderbolt/HP Ice... It can be a surprise. Just keeping in mind that it's not going to stay a lot :/

EDIT: Thinking on Whimsicott as an opposing foe... Stun Spore can be a huge mess if used @~@
 
There should probably be a Sub NP set, or even a substitute slash on the NP set. Sub NP is one of the best Stall Breaking movesets in the game, and also keeps Rain Offence at bay. It at least deserves an OO mention, if not a full set.
 
SuperChillarmy said:
There should probably be a Sub NP set, or even a substitute slash on the NP set. Sub NP is one of the best Stall Breaking movesets in the game, and also keeps Rain Offence at bay. It at least deserves an OO mention, if not a full set.
Click to expand...

It is already there slashed with Focus Blast.


Cherub Agent said:
What's the reason for the lack of a Specs set?

This is the hardest hitting Special attacker in the OU metagame, with a movepool perfectly suited to Choice Specs, as it can hit everything for neutral damage, and can use Volt Turn effectively. A Rapid Spinner is obviously recommended, but the sheer firepower when using Thunder in the Rain can't be isnored imo. Grass Knot, Focus Blast, resistances and a huge power increase set it apart from Jolteon. Dunno why this isn't a set (I've not used it much, but it was extremely fun on a Rain team).
Click to expand...

In my play with Specs Thunderus, I always found kicking myself for not using LO. Magnezone uses Specs to retain its bulk/KO Ferrothorn in the rain reliably while Jolteon uses it to clean up late game with its high speed. Thunderus doesn't need to do either of theses things. The jaw-dropping power is cool, but I really missed the ability to switch moves to get the most out of its coverage in exchange for that 20% drop. IMO firing off LO Thunders wasn't something for the opponent's team to scoff at either :p but those powerful Thunders were a lot more threatening when they could have the ability to mess an Electric-resist on the next turn. Having to skirt around stuff like Mamoswine (which increased in popularity), Gliscor, and (lol) Electivire was really aggravating too. IMO we should have something like an "offensive" set that abuses Thunderus' excellent coverage instead of CSpecs. LO means you can spam your awesomely powerful Thunder STAB much more freely.

name: "Offensive"
move 1: Thunderbolt / Thunder
move 2: Hidden Power Ice
move 3: Focus Blast / Grass Knot
move 4: Grass Knot / Volt Switch
item: Life Orb / Expert Belt
nature: Timid
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

Yeah I know the Ebelt set is on there but the inclusion of Grass Knot>Volt Switch emphasizes this set trying to get as many targets as possible, including Gastrodon. Has a lot more merit than Choice Specs IMO.
 
On Agility Thundurus-T, a spread of 68 HP / 252 SpA / 188 Spe Modest allows you to outspeed positive base 80s, meaning that Timid Venusaur in the Sun can't revenge you after a boost. There's really no need to run max Speed on it unless you want to bluff a set without Agility, in which case max/max Timid is probably better.

Just my two cents.
 
@Arcticblast:

My thought with regard to the Speed evs was all for when you lacked a boost. It's not that you're "bluffing not having Agility", it's just that you often don't find the time to actually set up agility, and merely want to fire off powerful attacks. I'd certainly be open to a modest nature since the set certainly appreciates power, but I doubt that the slight increase in bulk is likely to make a huge difference.

I also quite like the look of "offensive" since I don't actually find myself using the boosting moves all that often, and having volt switch or the ability to take out Gastrodon might prove a lot more useful.
 
in my mind, the choice specs set is not worth a mention. not only have i never seen a choice specs thundurus-t in my over 1500 battles since b/w2 released, i have also never even considered using a specs set for one simple reason: it is far outclassed by jolteon. while thundurus-t does, admittedly, have a better satk stat, that's no reason at all for it to use specs. jolteon shares a relatively similar lack of bulk with thundurus-t, and an extremely similar movepool, but what really puts it above and beyond specs thun-t is its base speed of 130. compare that to thundurus-t's relatively disappointing base speed of 101, and it's clear to me who the better specs user is.

next, on the nasty plot set, you need to slash in lum berry > leftovers, because it lets thundurus-t avoid toxic from the pink blobs, which can make the difference between dying with +2 while the blobs stall it out or sweeping with +4 while the blobs cower in fear. leftovers is pretty useless, i've never found a need for it on such an offensive pokemon.

also, the expert belt set needs to go. just like the specs set, a) i've never seen one in over 1500 bw2 battles, and b) it's not worth an entire set. maybe, maybe slash it in on the nasty plot set, but other than that, it definitely is not worth our time.

in addition, on the nasty plot set, there needs to be substitute slashed in there somewhere. this also eliminates the need for a substitute set - again, just like specs and ebelt, i've never seen a sub set without nasty plot. instead of making two whole different sets, just slash in substitute on the hp ice/focus blast/grass knot moveslot.

finally, this brings us to set ordering. the most common and most effective set is undoubtedly nasty plot; that should go first. second ought to be the choice scarf set, as it's a very common sight on rain offense teams and also quite effective, sporting the same base speed of landorus, another ideal choice scarfer. agility will be the third and final set, being the least used of the trio, and also more of a gimmick than the other two sets.

please take these thoughts into careful consideration. thank you for your time.
 
I'm in 100% agreement with Lavos.

We talked about Thundurus-T on IRC, and these are the changes we'd like to see. Oh and Grass Knot should get a mention on the scarf set in AC.
 
Shouldn't Superpower be mentioned in the Scarf set? I for one think it's better than Focus Blast since the latter's already not boosted by its Choice item; I know that Focus Blast is much more powerful (when it hits) except against Tyranitar and the pink blobs, while it doesn't have the drawback of lowering your stats, but you're only using it against those three mostly... It may be worthy of a slash in some other sets like Agility and Expert Belt, too (since they rely much less on prediction for it to work).

Also, I agree with you that U-Turn may deserve a slash on the Scarf set, since it doesn't give a free switch to opposing Thundurus-T and Jolteon if the opponent predicted you'd Volt Switch. It's much weaker though, so I don't know if it would warrant a first slash, but Thundurus already has a STAB move to wreck things. We all know how powerful STAB U-Turns and Volt Switches are as opposed to unSTABed ones, so I'm actually doubting it...

If they do warrant a slash, a Naive nature should be mentioned with them (as with Tornadus-T, Landorus, etc) to not lower its Attack stat and give an Attack boost to Genesect, though of course that's already common knowledge
 
OK I think I mostly agree with Lavos Spawn too. I should make it clear though that what you have seen has NO impact on what is good at all. I'm just throwing ideas out there. I'm well aware that there are only really three tried-and-trusted Thundurus sets.


  • Leftovers was purely intended to go with Sub. I don't really think Sub + LO is a good idea and neither is Sub + Lum. So how about LO / Lum / Lefties?
  • I'm more than happy to remove specs.
  • Expert Belt is a difficult one. I've been playing on PO mostly, I'll admit, but Scarf has been very common, and Expert Belt worked fine in testing. It's good for Volt-turn if you can keep SR away.
  • I think agility is better than scarf but I'm not too concerned with set order atm. I said that stuff was in no particular order.
 
Expert belt on Thundurus just isn't impressive. Even if it succesfully pulls of a bluff, its not going on that much of an impact in a given match (any more than say NP or Scarf).

Which is completely different from say Genesect or Landorus who can literally win games by successfully pulling off a bluff (Landorus can kill Gliscor / Genesect can kill opposing Genesect). Finally, neither of these Pokemon are SR weak, and can switch into battle multiple times.

It's AC material at best.

---

I'm partial to Agility, but I admit that Scarf is more consistent (and more common than Agility) and I don't have a problem with placing it at #2.
 
jc104 said:
OK I think I mostly agree with Lavos Spawn too. I should make it clear though that what you have seen has NO impact on what is good at all. I'm just throwing ideas out there. I'm well aware that there are only really three tried-and-trusted Thundurus sets.
Click to expand...

i'm not saying that the level of usage any particular set has automatically determines how good it is. my point is, if i haven't seen a single specs thundurus-t in 1500 ou battles, there's probably a good reason for that.

on the topic of expert belt, i'll call back to my critique of the specs set; once again, jolteon just flat out does it better. 25 more base speed is nothing to sneeze at. ebelt thundurus-t is ohko'd by freaking mienshao; jolteon outspeeds and kills it in one shot. they both have awful defenses and volt absorb as an ability, the only real difference being their speed as far as an expert belt set goes.

i know it gets tedious, but i'm going to keep stressing that scarf should be the #2 set over agility until i see it in print, because 1) it's used more, and 2) it's not a gimmick, while you could make a pretty good argument that agility at least approaches being a gimmick.

again, thanks for your time, i appreciate it.
 
Tested a set of Sub/Thunder/Hp Ice/Nasty Plot @ Salac berry and it exceded my expectations....+2 thunder does like 90% to Tyranitar and Jirachi, so with a layer of spikes they're gonners. Obviously this set should be used in rain. It has a couple of hard counters (Gastrodon, Mamoswine mainly) but once they're eliminated it reeks havoc.
 
I personally like Specs on both Thundurus-T and -I, but it's probably OO material due to its weakness to SR, and it just seems mediocre to all its other sets. If you do want to use Specs, I would recommend that you test it with HP Flying so you have a secondary STAB to work off, and is actually surprisingly powerful even with its crappy 70 Base Power (just ask Zapdos). You even do 40.34% - 47.73% to 252/168 Ferrothorn, which isn't half bad at all.

On the topic of HP Flying, you could probably mention it in AC of Scarf as well, it does let you do stuff like revenge kill bulkier variants of Breloom, Toxicroak, Virizion (relatively rare), as well as do a bucketload to Celebi. Basically all the shit that can give rain teams problems (the sort of thing I run Rain Volc for). Don't know if it warrants a slash, since you are losing to opposing Thundurus-T now, but it can be pretty useful when you need it to be.

Lastly, in terms of the Agility set, I'd still put Timid as the main slash. As nice as it is to have more power, don't forget how much crap Thundurus-T outspeeds with its base 101 Speed. Yes, I know that you're faster than pretty much everything apart from Swift Swim Floatzel after an Agility, but it makes you less useful when you can't get that boost, which can be surprisingly common. Without a Timid nature, you're losing to some very big threats, such as +ve Salamence, Volcarona, Genesect and the rare +ve Haxorus and Hydreigon. You also lose the speed-tie against Landorus-I, which can get pretty damn important.

In terms of all the sets, I do think Scarf should probably be #2, maybe even #1. It's the set that is the most versatile and can fit onto pretty much every team. Not really digging Expert Belt, Sub, and Mixed, but I'll see after some testing, I suppose.
 
I also agree with everything that Lavos has suggested - Scarf Thundurus-T does a great job at checking many mons, including Scarf Moxie Mence.

shrang's right - Agility Thundurus wants Timid; the last thing it wants is getting fucked over by SubCM Jirachi.

I definitely support Doughboy's suggestion for an all-out offense set. Superpower should be slashed with Focus Blast (instead of Grass Knot) for it to efficiently remove TTar and Blisseys; no need for a separate mixed set. It does not even need significant Atk EVs to OHKO TTar and 2HKO Blissey / Chansey iirc. Slash Naive Nature.

Expert Belt would also be fitting as an alternative item on the all-out offensive set. I mean Thundurus-T has insane coverage. Thundurus-T's colossal SpA combined with exceptional coverage makes it a far superior Expert Belt user than Jolteon (the latter is better off with CSpecs or Life Orb to compensate for its iffy 110 SpA and limited coverage). If this Thundurus-T is packing Volt Switch, it can easily bluff as Scarf set.
 
Nasty plot is really hard to use, In my experience it is easier to just attack and get a kill. I think NP should be slashed with volt switch on the all out offensive set
 
Asterat said:
Nasty plot is really hard to use, In my experience it is easier to just attack and get a kill. I think NP should be slashed with volt switch on the all out offensive set
Click to expand...

nasty plot thundurus-t is too powerful to ignore, it's also one of the best stallbreaking sweepers in the game, next to cm keldeo and cm reuniclus.

thanks for taking my suggestions jc, appreciate it!
 
While I would agree that I don't necessarily use NP every game, the NP set still warrants a different item some of the time, doesn't need Grass Knot, and plays somewhat differently. They should be seperate sets.

When I've been talking about Expert Belt, that was the all-out-offensive set. To me Expert Belt made the most sense in terms of which item to use. Perhaps I gave the set the wrong name, but I really think the set is decent, so I'm going to put it back in.
 
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