Project USUM UU Research Week v2 (On a break)

With this, Week 11 comes to an end. Congratulations to Mapplle for winning this week. Now, let's get to it.



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Roserade
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Roserade has been the most used Pokemon this week with 6 playes having test it. Twilight, Daiyaga, Estarossa, bukemon123 and Mapplle pointed out the fact that Roserade has a nice niche in Underused thanks to its movepool and its access to Spikes which allows it to be an interesting offensive threat which can provide support. Estarossa tried a lot of different sets and pointed out with bukemon123 and Mapplle that Roserade is a Pokemon rather hard to scout since it has some good options in its movepool like Leaf Storm, Sludge Bomb, Hidden Power Fire or even Dazzling Gleam which can OHKO Hydreigon and Kommo-o. Estarossa also pointed out that as long as Roserade is brought in safely on the field, it will most likely get some work done. However, while Lazadamn said that Roserade has enough bulk to hit a few hits, Twilight, Estarossa and Mapplle highlighted that fact that Roserade is really frail which means it can be revenge killed easily and it's quite easy to pursuit trap it. Mapplle also thought that Roserade has 4MSS in some of its sets where you have to choose between Synthesis, Spikes or another coverge option. Overall, players liked Roserade this week and especially the fact that it carves itself a pretty useful niche by being to pressure thanks to its speed, typing and stats, common threats such as Primarina, Kommo-o or Mega Altaria.



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Choice Band Bisharp
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While Bisharp is a cool Pokemon overall, Twilight, Daiyaga and Mapplle didn't appreciate the fact that Choice Band Bisharp is a rather difficult Pokemon to build around. Mapplle and Estarossa also pointed out the fact that Choice Band Bisharp is an iffy trapper and it's kinda hard to justify its use over Choice Scarf Krookodile and Choice Band Scizor. While Estarossa, Daiyaga and bukemon123 agreed with the fact that Choice Band Bisharp hits really hard they also pointed out with other players that this set has some flaws. Thus, Mapplle said that you can't outplay anymore your opponent since Bisharp is locked in a specific move. He also said that lacking SD may be annoying in some circumstances. Estarossa and bukemon123 also agreed on the fact that you have to choose between speed or bulk and bukemon123 highlighted the fact that even with max HP, Choice Band Bisharp struggles a lot to handle some special hits from threats such as Latias or Celebi. Mapplle concluded that this set is pretty MU reliant.



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Custap Berry Snorlax
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Last but not least, let's talk about Custap Berry Snorlax. This Pokemon didn’t get much love this week since only 2 players tried it. Twilight and Mapplle agreed on the fact that this set of Snorlax has 4MSS like Choice Band one. Twilight said that Curse + 3 attack and 4 attacks are for him the best sets and that Custap Berry Snorlax is a good surprise factor. However both of them agreed that the lack of recovery is pretty annoying and Mapplle said that he doesn't like the fact that Snorlax is easy to chip and that the fact is really slow means that it suffers from being compared with Bewear. Mapplle also said that that Snorlax is still able to sponge special hits which is useful and makes it pretty nasty vs offense.


That concludes our findings, good luck for Week 12!

Our picks for this week:​


venomoth.gif


Venomoth @ Filler Item
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: Filler spread
Filler Nature
-
-
-
-

lucario.gif


Lucario @ Filler Item
Ability: Filler Nature
EVs: 252 Atk rest is filler
Adamant/Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
-
-
-

scizor.gif


Scizor @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Filler Ability
EVs: Filler EVs
Filler Nature
-
-
-
-

Venomoth lives between two distinct worlds: Being banished from the RU universe for being too overpowered and struggling to find a niche in UU out of frailty and lack of power. However, the traits that have made its time in RU a distant memory still reside in it: The ability to Quiver Dance coupled with Tinted Lens Bug Buzz's, access to Sleep Powder and Disable, interesting resists to Fairy and Fighting, and even stallbreaker potential in the form of Roost sets makes us think that there may be some room to be explored in the paws of Venomoth.

It took some time for the metagame to fit Lucario as an established face in UU. After many attempts to be a big part of the meta, the set that has made Lucario a really interesting and worthy pick is the NP set, being able to find opportunities to setup and be very hard to wall. With this in mind, we believe that the SD set still may have some stuff going for it: Access to Extreme Speed, not having to rely on Focus Blast, and the surprise factor on those who expect a special set. With this, we wanna know the researches thoughts on it.

Scarf Scizor has seen a good amount of tour play lately and it seems to have its merits: strong fast U-turns, enhancement of Scizor's pivots capabilities as Pokemon such as Celebi have no time to setup, and the surprise factor of anyone that expects it to be one of the standard sets. With this, on this week the goal with Scarf Scizor is to see if it really has its merits on the opinions of our researchers and is indeed a solid choice or if it is just a set that relies on the surprise factor.

Sign up with a fresh USMRW12 alt, and post your results, as well as your own thoughts on the Pokemon in question. You are free to edit your signup post if your post count is a concern. For this week, the deadline will be Sunday, March 10rd, at 11:59 pm GMT+1. My co-host moutemoute or I will check everyone's ladder scores then and decide the winner. Good luck everyone and happy researching!
 
Usmrw12 estarossa

All 3 probably

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some Initial Thoughts after some games with both lucario and scizor:

While I like it for sure, steel + fighting is an irritating stab combination, and using physical means you won't break through unaware mons. It also has an annoying speed tier unlike infernape, being slower than stuff like hydreigon, nihilego, rotom-heat, and tying with moltres (which is only a roll to break with +2 fightinium unlike its nasty plot counterpart from full), which it would really appreciate being able to use it's stabs to kill after a SD.

Extremespeed is the saving grace in my eyes over the nasty plot set however, as not only offers better coverage than vacuum wave, think latias / beedrill etc, but it has +2 priority not +1 so infernape isn't revenging it with vacuum wave, (nor toxicroak , or another heavily chipped np lucario).

Not sure I like this set very much so far. While it's been cool catching stuff like gengar, non-scarf hyd, latias, celebi etc off guard with it, if you were running a bulky set you wouldn't need to be so bothered about any of this anyway.

Imo, the biggest problem is that bulky scizor is in a position where it is so much better than offensive sets right now that sacrificing that bulk without gaining the raw power of SD LO / Band is very dangerous, as you rely on being able to catch stuff of guard with it (and needing chip to the point where a banded bp to the face would probably be better anyway for mons not listed above where you don't have supereffective moves for them, eg. nidoking, kommo-o etc). Makes more sense to just use bulky SD and get something else to deal with speed really, since you will still happily deal with these mons but have far more general use throughout the match, sponging hits all game from stuff, instead of having severely limited health and bulk.

Atm, I'm running it with cleric support in the hope to alleviate the no healing issue, but I've often ran into situations where I just wish it was bulky really.
 
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Fun week this, finally added in venomoth too. Not got any replays for one of the venomoth teams, but I will add in later if i get around to it. The set I haven't got any replays for is one I know very well however, so I felt i could still talk about it.

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Current Peak 1545:

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Scarf Scizor

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Scizor @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off / Pursuit (went for knock personally for the raw power due to weaker set)
- U-turn
- Superpower

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~Click for team importable.~​

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-871062423 - Outspeeds celebi (who probably had hp fire) and then forces terrakion to switch later knowing i'm scarf in a situation where superpower would kill anything. Unfortunately got pursuit trapped after but it did outstanding work. (I made some bad choices with kingdra but i thought they might predict a swap so stayed in lmao and didn't really need it anyway).

Sadly, and straight off the bat, scarf scizor has a few problems in my eyes. Numero uno is that you need a jolly nature to actually outspeed pokemon such as latias, gengar, starmie and infernape. On the other hand, being able to smack infernape with a superpower it really didn't expect is somthing cool that no scizor except quick attack is doing.

252 Atk Scizor Superpower vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Infernape: 173-204 (59 - 69.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

A lot of the outspeeds that you achieve however in my eyes are unecessary because they either fall into a category of things bulky scizors deal with, (latias, celebi, hydreigon that is either z or locked into something that aint fire blast, starmie, gengar, etc.) or into a category of things that you will just be clicking u-turn on because you can't kill them anyway with any of your moves and offering free turns to (infernape, nidoking, roserade, rotom-heat, volcanion, silvally, blastoise etc.), some of this is actually dangerous too because a banded set can severely hurt nidoking and roserade with bullet punch but trading natures and item has severely limited your damage output and put you in far more danger versus them.

However saying this, in a lot of matches it certainly put in a lot of work and was not bad at all. But if you want a scarfer that spends most of the game clicking u-turn, then why not just pick hydreigon, and run a better scizor set?

Tl-dr: Trades power for surprise factor against fast pokemon. the problem is a lot of these pokemon were threatened by other scizor sets anyway. If you could run 2 scizors in the same team, this would undoubtly be a top-class set, but bulky scizor will always put more work in as by far the best scizor set atm due to how amazing of a defensive pivot it is while always threatening the opponent with the ability to set up and sweep at any moment. Banded or SD LO will also put in more work most of the time, especially quick attack which also alleviates a lot of the problems with mons such as infernape and rotom-heat while also dealing with moltres at same time, while scarf scizor is just as screwed by moltres as any other non-quick attack sets, if not more so because it can't 2hko after rocks unlike banded. Banded scizor still has bullet punch after all, and scarf scizor can't afford to upgrade it to iron head without losing coverage because it still needs bullet punch for aerodactyl, beedrill, other scarfers and set up sweepers. One benefit it has is not being killed by magneton (provided you locked into u-turn or superpower anyway lmao), unless it's also scarf which only a bulky scizor could survive.

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Swords Dance Lucario


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Lucario @ Steelium Z / Fightinium Z / Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Extreme Speed
- Meteor Mash
- Swords Dance

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~Click for team importable.~
​
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-871007963 - Had to include it because that was insane match and lucario mopped it up beautifully.

In general, I think this set has four things going for it over nasty plot lucario. In this analysis, I will be focusing on how it compares to NP lucario more than anything, since that is already a viable set in tier.

  • Accuracy of moves: No focus miss means you aren't so insanely reliant on accuracy which can really work in your favour.
  • Extreme Speed: Unlike vacuum wave on nasty plot lucario, extreme speed has +2 priority and is stronger, allowing sd lucario not to get revenge killed by a healthy infernape, or a toxicroak. It also has a typing which means it can hit beedrill and latias neutrally unlike vacuum wave, making it far less scared of latias than np nape/lucario since it can hit latias hard especially with life orb, +2 252 Atk Life Orb Lucario Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latias: 221-260 (73.4 - 86.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.
  • Surprise Factor: Since most people will expect nasty plot, they may missplay, such as thinking latias is a safe option to deal with it, which can massively backfire on them.
  • Ability Usage: SD lucario takes far better usage of it's abilities, via justified. Lucario can use Justified in order to soak up knock offs when running z-move sets in order to better deal with physical walls. While steadfast is an interesting ability, the only real usage it and NP nape get out of it is if facing an ever rare scarf togekiss.
I've talked about the positives, but now I'll mention the negatives.

  • Weaker Physical Attack: This one goes without saying, but lucario has less base power in it's physical side, which while somewhat offset by having a 100% accurate fighting move, means it's damage cap is lower (especially with z-move).
  • Physical Walls: There are a lot more physical walls that can go around annoying SD lucario, especially gligar and slowbro, as highlighted by the calcs below. On the other hand special walls are easily beat down by it's special attacks on the NP set. +4 252 Atk Lucario Corkscrew Crash (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 156+ Def Eviolite Gligar: 382-451 (114.3 - 135%) -- guaranteed OHKO and +6 252 Atk Lucario Corkscrew Crash (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 342-402 (86.8 - 102%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery. This is especially a problem against stall teams since it allows unaware mons to shut you down unlike NP.
  • Close Combat and Intimidate: This is the final problem really. Close combat can become irritating as it allows the aforementioned walls to be able to ohko you if you've already used it once, while beforehand they wouldn't have been able to, and therefore if gligar swapped in on your SD you coulda SD'd again and then z'd. It also makes you more susceptible to stuff like scizor's BP which even though you resist, lucario isn't exactly bulky. Intimidate is also a problem unlike NP set which has no equivalent as it can severely dent your set up, and make it much harder for you to actually be able to kill a scarf krook that comes in since it'll severely weaken your extreme speed, while a +2 vacuum wave would just kill.
Tl-dr: Has it's benefits and negatives over NP Lucario, especially on the latias department, however it is more easily walled. It is more easily revenge killed by certain mons like krook, but stops other mons like infernape from revenge killing it. More consistent fighting move is great however. I feel that NP lucario slightly edges it out though as long as it has a way of getting rid of latias and chandelure, via a pursuit trapper.

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Mothy Moth


Going to be looking at a few venomoth sets this week, as there at least 3 I would like to talk about. Will rank the 3 sets here, from best to worst in my opinion.
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1st
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- Bit left field here given I didn't even know of this set until research week, but it's actually turned out to be my favourite. It's immediate power means it can threaten offensive and defensive archetypes, and because it has access to both u-turn and toxic spikes due to only needing 2 slots for it's stabs, it is far from fodder to teams carrying blissey too, and can try to avoid being pursuit trapped too by u-turning on swaps into aero. It is a great mix of powerful wallbreaker and utility mon mixed into one, due to it's ability allowing it. Reminds me a lot of scarf protean greninja in a way.

2nd
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(StallBreaker) - This set is my favourite of the 2 quiver dance sets personally, as it can take advantage of defensive teams easily, and set up far more reliably on them, eg. setting up on a gligar which would otherwise just 2hko you with earthquake, and disabling hazes. Immunity to toxic is also brilliant for a stallbreaker, meaning it can only be worn down through actual attacks, which can just be disabled, meaning thunder wave is the only real status move you are scared of. While it lacks a poison STAB, it still has all the same power with it's bug STAB as the sweeper set, and all the related ohkos it can score with it's tinted lens powered z-move.

3rd
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(Sweeper) - Unfortunately my least favourite set after this week even though it was my favourite b4hand. While it is the most deadly set, it's shared weakness to priority with the other sets coupled with the inability to reliably deal with stall unlike the stallbreaker set just makes this set less reliable in my eyes. While this set gains poison stab (and grass if you dont want to rely on sleep powder too), a lot of fairy mons could be set up on by the stallbreaker set anyway except for togekiss, since their fairy stabs won't hurt veno much. Sleep powder is also nice foor setting up, but its accuracy is shaky, and sleep clause means it can't be used to anywhere near the same effect as roost + disable can on stallbreaker, as that can stop every single attempt to deal with it with weak attacks. This set also has no recovery unless running giga drain, meaning those weak attacks from mons such as blissey can just chip it down and kill it with ease.
​

  • Specs
Venomoth @ Choice Specs
Ability: Tinted Lens
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Bug Buzz
- Sludge Bomb
- U-turn
- Toxic Spikes

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Click for team importable.​

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-872001405 - hits aero super hard on swap in, it's bug buzz is incredibly threatening against this whole team as it is essentially unresisted due to tinted lens.

This set might sound mediocre at first, but tinted lens makes it incredibly dangerous vs any non-stall teams. Due to a pretty decent speed tier, it can outspeed a lot of mons in uu without a quiver dance boost, so specs allows it to hit as if it has boosted once all the time without needing to set up, allowing it to put in a lot of immediate work.

Due to tinted lens, it also allows it to only really need 2 coverage moves on it's set, possibly 3 if you would like giga drain for some recovery / swampert. On this set I decided to just run it's STABs, put u-turn on so you can swap if you expect hard counters or pursuit trappers, and add toxic spikes as a 4th for when you feel it's beneficial to actually put them up.

Tl-Dr : Power and hard to resist, decent speed tier, tinted lens allows utility and momentum to be run on set too. Being choice locked with tinted lens is far less damaging than normal too.

  • Quiver Dance Sweeper

Venomoth @ Buginium Z
Ability: Tinted Lens
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder / Giga Drain
- Bug Buzz

If i don't edit replays and a team into this by end of day, apologies but I didn't have time to actually do many games wiht this, but ive used it plenty of times before to know enough to talk about it. at the moment haven't played enough games to bother adding my team in really since no replays for it yet anyway.

This set is in my opinion the most unreliable of the 3 sets, but at the same time by far the most deadly. Sleep powder offers an unreliable but strong set up opportunity, while giga drain offers better coverage for some 4x grass weak mons and recovery if wanted.

The power is undeniable, ohkoing mega aggron at +1 with it's z move, empoleon at +2 with z-move etc. However, it is incredibly weak to priority and choice scarf users, since it needs to be at +2 to outspeed scarf hydreigon, krook, latias (the latter 2 being able to ohko even at +1 with earthquake and psychic), and choice band crawdaunt and scizor can both ohko with their priority too (and offensive LO scizor too).

It also can be quite hard to set up with, since it needs to be brought in safely, and would rather not take chip damage.

Tl-dr: Strong and powerful, can be deadly if given chance to set up and if sleep powder connects can screw over the enemies counters to it. Unfortauntely, it's very weak to priority and revenge killing and finds difficulty setting up however.


  • Quiver Dance StallBreaker
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Venomoth @ Buginium Z
Ability: Tinted Lens
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Disable
- Quiver Dance
- Bug Buzz

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Click for team importable.​

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-874113760 - Sets up on with ease on team as what it thinks is it's decent answer (gligar 2hko'ing with eq) is stopped by disable, so it literally can't stop it once it's given me opportunity to get to +2 and outspeed scarf krook (which would have been the best play really but I guess he was scared of me predicting it wtih a bug buzz).

This set is an interesting set compared to the sweeper set, while it lacks poison stab for togekiss / sylveon / florges etc, only togekiss can actually hurt it out of these 3, it makes up for it for it's ability to stall break.

The essence of the set is to disable the weak attacks from things that are trying to wall it, eg. seismic toss's, earthquake from gligar, haze from tentacruel etc, and then proceed to heal up and boost up even more, until it can sweep. It can also disable on oppposing set up sweepers, but should be careful as it's too frail to eat the hits after normally, so should probably just immediately swap after unless its safe to quiver up on (eg. suicune).

This set is therefore great in a balance/stall matchup, however it has a much harder time doing stuff than the other 2 sets in an offence matchup due to no poison stab.

Tl-dr: Trades Poison STAB for ability to stall break. Great stallbreaker due to tinted lens being able to break things such as m-aggron with +1 z-bug buzz, and disable preventing pokemon like blissey / gligar from attempting to out last it and kill it, or to stop hazers from being able to repeatedly haze, eg. disabling tentacruel after it hazes, then immediately quivering again. Much more reliable at setting up than the previous set when given the opportunity.

Since venomoth is immune to toxic, this also means the only way for a stall team to kill this set is to actually kill it with attacks, which need to strong enough to ohko or they'll just be disabled and recovered from after.
 

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I'll start pretty early too considering i got a lot of work this week and a lot of tourneys.

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Venomoth @ Buginium Z
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 24 HP / 252 SpA / 232 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Bug Buzz
- Sludge Bomb
- Quiver Dance
- Sleep Powder


Steelix-Mega @ Steelixite
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Fire Fang


Florges @ Leftovers
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Protect


Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 108 Def / 148 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Haze
- Rapid Spin
- Sludge Bomb


Hydreigon @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Taunt
- Draco Meteor
- Roost


Infernape @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- U-turn
- Stone Edge


I've been already using Venomoth in tourneys and it turned pretty well. Venomoth carves itself a pretty cool niche as a wallbreaker or cleaner in UU thanks to several things, mostly Quiver Dance and Tinted Lense. While it carves itself a good niche, it defo needs a lot of coverage to shine. Considering its poor bulk, you can get RKed pretty easily by both prios and scarfed. I've truly enjoyed it, it's defo a Pokémon that deserves more attention. Also building around it wasn't that hard considering it can break itself most defensiv mons. While we can think it's only a sweeper, it also helps his mates break their common checks like Empoleon, Tentacruel, Rotom (for Scizor for exemple). Like all weeks I'll compress my experience in a list :

Pros :
  • Awesome ability, making it hard to switch in unless you got a huge SpDef sponge
  • Strong STABs paired with its ability
  • Cool movepool that really helps setting up easily (Roost / Sub / Sleep Powder)
  • Both sweeping and wallbreaking potential
Convs :
  • Pretty easy to RK, specially for Scizor
  • Hard to setup on most Pokémon (most of the time I could only setup on switches or Sleep Powder)
  • Low Speed even at +1 (at least it can outspeed Maero)
  • SpAtk is a bit low (enough to kill offensiv checks but lacks power for defensiv checks)
Replays :
Venomoth cleaning
Entire 6-0 even thought oppo choked


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Martine (Mamoswine) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Shard

Lucie (Lucario) (F) @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Justified
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Swords Dance
- High Jump Kick
- Meteor Mash

Clémentine (Klefki) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 20 Def / 216 SpD / 20 Spe
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Thunder Wave
- Magnet Rise
- Play Rough

Tante Suzie (Starmie) @ Life Orb
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Rapid Spin
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam

Sharon (Sharpedo-Mega) (F) @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Protect
- Ice Fang
- Earthquake

Hypolite (Hydreigon) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- U-turn
- Fire Blast
- Draco Meteor

Lucario's usage kinda fell off since several monthes considering meta changed, specially with Doublade and Gligar raises. I've taken an old HO that i build for a tour where i had NP Lucario and changed it for SD. It worked pretty well considering i just need to click click and click to win like in DPP. SD Lucario actually worked better on this team than NP Lucario. So yeah building has been pretty easy and testing was fun too, Lucario sweeped most of the games (if not all of them since i focused on it sweeping). Tbf, i don't see anything to add on Lucario, unlike other Mons we tested which were kind of unplayed, Lucario is still strong. But well :

Pros :
  • Strong STABs in the current meta, specially the Fight STAB with Steel coverage
  • Speed is cool enough to outspeed most defensiv checks (Rotom-H / Tentacruel / tie with Moltres / Gligar) so Lucario can adapt itself pretty easily to the current meta (minus hitting Gligar)
  • Unlike its NP brother, SD ESpeed can sweep way easier, specially on the likes of Latias, Infernape, Starmie, Celebi...
  • Better STABs than its NP brother, specially the shacky accuracy Focus Blast got
Convs :
  • Compared to NP, SD Lucario struggles a bit more to break stall, specially our muddy buddy
  • Compared to NP, SD Lucario will get more troubles to sweep against Manectric, Krookodile
I can't find more convs at this point to be honest. Considering the current meta, I think the SD set is a bit better. I had better results with SD than NP overall.

Replay :
Sweeping + nuking Moltres with Z Fight
SD sweeping while NP couldn't have sweep


163719

​
I'll go pretty fast on Scizor, my apologies for this but it's pretty late and i've had a busy as hell week. I'll directly go to the pros and convs.

Pros :
  • Cool surprise potential
  • Speed is pretty decent for its use (catching off Celebi / Latias / Lucario / Hydreigon which are usually up to deal with Zor but gets lured by its speed and U-turn)

Convs :
  • You're hitting like the children i teach to (and they're 3 years old)
  • Your STABs are pretty low damage (you can even miss the KO on Tias with U-Turn like da hell Edward)
  • You're kinda losing Zor's purpose in most teams and the huge threat it represents (a huge sweeper potential / a strong check to most threats that can heal)
  • I feel like it was better back in time when we had Serperior, now it kinda lost its interest (i dont feel like it's worth using it to lure Celebi / Latias / Hydreigon even tho they represent a huge threat). As i tested it, it was frustrating to use it that way and i often found myself like "well cya Zor you're useless in this mu too"
  • Like i said just before, it's mu reliant. If you got nothing to lure in your opponent team you're simply useless as you're not that much of a threat
Scizor making use of its scarf properly (killing Megneton / Celebi)
 
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fuck it's already friday

Laddered way more than I wanted this time, and did around 60 games, most of them with Venomoth. I'm currently at 1531 ELO with around 70% GXE. I mainly played Venomoth, and tried SD Luke and Scarf Zor a bit as well. I won't talk about Luke and Scizor though, either 'cause I feel like I haven't played enough with it to have a fixed opinion on it (SD Luke), or I simply failed to understand the point of the set (Zor).
Small edit : I actually found some use for Scarf Zor, but I'm too lazy to make a complete section about it, so I'll just throw my 2 cents in the final tl;dr.

Venomoth
164202



It was definitely worth using. Not an excellent 'mon or a meta-breaking underrated threat or anything of the sort, but it definitely didn't let me down and did what I expected : taking advantage of small mistakes from my opponent to find setup opportunities and break its team in half.

To get the negatives out of the way, Venomoth has a really poor typing in this meta giving it tons of annoying weaknesses to Fire, Rock, Psychic and Flying and only two really notable resistances aka Fairy and Fighting. This coupled with its garbage 70/60/75 bulk means Venomoth struggles to switch into a lot of 'mons and can die pretty easily if you let it take hits (CB Zor OHKOs with Bullet Punch, Hippowdon 2HKOs with EQ, Empoleon deals at worst 40% with Scald ... ). Its power unboosted is also really subpar due to having STABs with average power (Bug Buzz and Sludge Bomb) and its base 90 SpA, making it reliant on getting boosts (either through Quiver Dance or by holding Choice Specs) to deal actual damage.

Anyway, the main reason it worked so well is obviously the combination of STAB Bug Buzz and Tinted Lens, allowing it to hit almost everything for neutral damage, with the only actual resistances being Lucario, Cobalion, Infernape, Moltres, Togekiss, Klefki and Crobat. This combined with an acceptable base 90SpA and 90 Speed, and the broken move Quiver Dance make Venomoth an interesting breaker in the metagame, able to break almost all teams thanks to +1 Savage Spin-Out killing anything but the sturdiest special walls (Blissey), while outspeed most of the metagame, making revenge killing it surprisingly hard if it gets 2 Quiver Dances (even 1 is enough to limit your revenge killers to priority users and physical scarfers. Also scarf Tias).

Another good thing it has going for it is, Tinted Lens means Bug Buzz is the only offensive move it really needs. Yeah, Sludge Bomb is definitely interesting to get a secondary STAB and hit some of the 2x bug resists like Togekiss and Moltres , but both can be handled by the rest of the team or put in range of +1 Savage Spin-Out/ standard Bug Buzz. That lets Venomoth use its 3 other slots for ... Well, whatever it wants. I mainly used Quiver dance sets 'cause I think this is what makes Venomoth worth using, but Specs also has merits thanks to the immediate power and ability to reliably use both U-turn and Toxic Spikes without dropping important coverage (who needs coverage when you have Tinted Lens anyway). As for the Quiver Dance sets, there has been two variants I've used : 2 Atks+Sleep Powder and Roost + Disable mono-attacker. Both have their merits, so I'll cover them separately.

the Vibrant (Venomoth) @ Buginium Z
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder

Not a big fan of it because, like I said, Sludge Bomb felt like a waste of a slot most of the time, but hitting Moltres and Togekiss is still useful. The big thing of this set, though, is Sleep powder allowing you to cripple your checks and give you free setup opportunities against some 'mons that can kill you if you try to setup on it without putting them to sleep, such as Scizor, Volcanion, Nidoking, Rotom-Heat, Crawdaunt or Clanger. As such, I'd say this set has a better MU against more offensively-inclined teams since they usually rely on priority or preventing Venomoth from setting up to deal with it.

tl;dr An okay set held back by the fact that Sludge Bomb is a bad secondary STAB to go with Tinted Lens Bug Buzz since it doesn't cover most of the 2x resists. Sleep Powder lets you grab free turns relatively easily and provides support to your team.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-871440487 - Venomoth actually 6-0s. I got pretty lucky with Sleep turns and Bullet Punch roll, so there's that.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-871059001 - Venomoth somehow finds a setup opportunity on Beedrill-Mega, and my opponent goes for rocks with Nihilego fsr (although Venomoth wasn't in range of anything bar Power Gem/Z-Thunder), and proceed to clean from there. Sleep Powder allowed Venomoth to bypass the Sucker Punch mindgame with Bisharp.

the Vibrant (Venomoth) @ Buginium Z
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Disable
- Roost

This was my preferred QD set. It trades the QD+Sleep Powder set's better offense MU for the ability to screw over any mono-attacking 'mon that wants to wall it to oblivion, such as Blissey, Gligar, Non-Whirlwind Hippowdon, Suicune, Alomomola or non-Roar Empoleon (also it prevents Amoonguss from clearing your boosts. Well, it can do it once, but it won't be able to do it twice before you have enough boosts to kill it). Sure, Savage spin-Out blasts most of them away, but being able to setup more Quiver Dances is actually invaluable to let Venomoth outspeed common Choice Scarf users like Krookodile, Infernape, Hydreigon, Latias or Terrakion (which all outspeed +1 Venomoth). Disable also allows Venomoth to win the 1v1 against Blissey if you manage to disable its Soft-Boiled, meaning this set can act as a stallbreaker of sorts with some support to handle Quagsire and potential Steel-types, since you often have to choose the 'mon against which you want to use Savage Spin-Out.

tl;dr this set aims towards grabbing several boosts against defensive answers, letting it reach a point where revenge killing it without priority is impossible. Pretty awkward to use, but it definitely worked and had some surprise effect going for it.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-872707456 - Venomoth manages to find a setup opportunity on Swampert and cleans from there by disabling Swampert's Earthquake. Opponent forfeited once I killed Volcanion, but there was nothing it could do at that point except hope for tons of paras.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-872108221 - Venomoth OHKO's Aggron with Savage Spin-Out then proceeds to turn Blissey into setup fodder with Disable. Once again my opponent forfeited, but if I managed to disable its Soft-Boiled it would've been forced to switch and sac other 'mons (also Altaria won at that point, but I really wanted to flex with Venomoth).
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-872438484 - Venomoth creates a free turn on Gligar by disabling its Earthquake, letting it heal up to avoid being in range of Lucario's Extreme Speed.


Click the sprites for the importable​
tl;dr

- Venomoth is pretty good. It struggles to find opportunities to come in, but when it comes in your opponent is in for a rough time. Tinted Lens Bug Buzz is simply way too good for Venomoth to not have a niche. 8/10
- Scarf Scizor is okay to grab some surprise kills on a handful of 'mons (non-scarf Hydreigon, Starmie, Z-Thunder/HP Fire Latias, Lucario), but its lack of both power (as it lacks a power-boosting item and Swords Dance, being forced to run Bullet Punch as your steel-type STAB 'cause you're still too slow) and bulk make it underwhelming when any of these 'mons are not here, and the other Scizor sets simply feel more consistent overall. Also even with scarf it's still outsped by a few 'mons. 4/10

P.S : Idk where to put that, but I had some spare time today and copied each week's summary there, in case it's ever needed.
 
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I've tried all 3 this week because I'm surprisingly not busy earlier in the week. Overall thoughts would be:

- Venomoth was a "good enough" cleaner. It has bad typing, worse bulk, and subpar power unboosted, but like any other set up sweeper, it will wreck house if you get rid of Blissey and other 4x Bug resist (not sure if Lucario is one cause +1 Savage Spin-out will murder Lucario. The Venomoth set I used was the mono bug + sleep powder set, and being very reliant on sleep powder is really unreliable. I do think Venomoth has a niche in UU, but it's very unreliable that there should be a lot more effective set up cleaners. 3/5

Venomoth @ Buginium Z
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Sleep Powder
- Bug Buzz
- Substitute

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Roar

Aerodactyl-Mega @ Aerodactylite
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Aerial Ace
- Stone Edge
- Hone Claws
- Aqua Tail

Krookodile @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit

Chandelure @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 156 HP / 100 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Substitute
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 120 HP / 252 Atk / 136 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Knock Off

- Speaking of effective cleaners, SD Lucario is a great mon. It's got great power, an okay coverage with Ice Punch, and it's decently fast. Problem is it's quite hard to setup since Lucario is frail af (sword dancing means skipping leg days I suppose). I really enjoyed Lucario. It can clean teams up from mid game due to the high power of its moves. Bopping faster frail stuff with Espeed is also nice. 4/5

Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Extreme Speed
- Ice Punch

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Superpower

Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 236 Def / 24 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Toxic

Manectric-Mega @ Manectite
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Signal Beam

Rotom-Heat @ Iapapa Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Overheat
- Will-O-Wisp
- Defog

Reuniclus @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball

- Scarf Scizor though, is probably not the most effective set Scizor should be using. The only thing going for this set is the surprise factor, since it isn't actually that fast and Scizor kinda misses the power it should've had with other sets (bulky at least have sword dance). Not a fan of this set tbh. 2/5.

Scizor @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
- Superpower

Kommo-o @ Life Orb
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 80 Atk / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Clanging Scales
- Close Combat
- Flamethrower

Muk-Alola @ Assault Vest
Ability: Poison Touch
EVs: 240 HP / 188 Atk / 68 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Pursuit
- Poison Jab
- Fire Punch

Crobat @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Defog
- U-turn
- Cross Poison

Seismitoad @ Expert Belt
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 200 HP / 56 Def / 180 SpA / 72 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Scald
- Earth Power
- Sludge Wave

Manectric-Mega @ Manectite
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Flamethrower

Overall, a really fun week. My write ups are getting worse because I seem to find less and less time on my laptop so this is done on mobile. Looking forward to the next research subject!
 
I shamelessly use Moutemoute HO team this week
lucario.gif

Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Bullet Punch
- Extreme Speed
At the start of the week, I wanted to check this set to see whether it's just a bootleg LO Scizor version. What surprised me is that Moute actually uses Luke alongside with Scizor as late-game sweepers, while I initially saw Luke and Scizor as competitors for the sweeper slot. This indeed works on his HO team as priority abuse accommodates for the common Fire weakness. When Luke is paired with Scizor, the duo can swap roles depending on MU and cover each other's checks.

SD Luke can perform well as a wallbreaker or cleaner due to a great physical movepool, Ice Punch, Meteor Mash or even Bullet Punch to bop SD Luke's common checks such as Gengar, Terrakion, Aerodactyl,... Luke takes advantage of aggresive double on Fairy-type, setting up and breaking common walls such as Alo, Hippo, Aggron at +2.

IMO SD Luke's slightly better than the special set because its dangerous coverage may bring unpredictability and E.Speed means Dog>Ape.

Conclusion
SD Luke has its own niche as being a physical wallbreaker/cleaner. Individually, it might be overshadowed by Scizor, who performed excellent at the same roles but when Luke and Scizor are used together, they are a threatening duo.
Rate: 4.5/5
 
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And the winner of this week is Daiyaga, congratulations. With this being said, here are the summaries of this week's researches:

Scarf Scizor​

Scarf Scizor has been tested on this week by Estarossa, Lazadamn, Daiyaga and Mapplle. The first two point out how slow it kinda is and how they usually would rather be using another Scizor set. Estarossa and Daiyaga say it's a burden to have to go Jolly, which gives up on a lot of power. They also say that although Scarf Scizor can check some Pokemon like Celebi, by not being a strong set like CB it misses out on helping to check Pokemon like Nidoking. Surprising Magneton and killing it is something that this set has going for it. Overall, it was mostly considered only a good surprise factor mon.

Venomoth
​
Venomoth was researched by many this week. It was pointed out by Mapplle how its bulk and SpA are poor, relying a lot on Tinted Lens and Quiver Dance/Choice Specs boosts to be truly effective. Daiyaga also say that its typing isn't the most helpful considering the number of weaknesses that are given to it and the only resistances that usually come into play are Fairy and Fighting. He and Lazadamn point out that quad Bug resists such as Lucario and Klefki are annoying as they basically can stop Venomoth from doing what it's supposed to do. The researchers enjoyed its stallbreaker capabilities, with mostly Roost and Disable sets being run and being able to punch some fat teams. Estarossa mainly liked the Specs set, being able to annoy offensive teams more easily, okay Speed and utility with Toxic Spikes and U-turn.

SD Lucario
​
SD Lucario has received some love this week. Estarossa pointed out it's nice to have a Fighting STAB with no chance of missing, different from Focus Blast. bukemon123 mentions how it has some competition as an SD cleaner with Scizor, but running it alongside Scizor grants you a very interesting duo. Most people tried Extreme Speed, as it's a good way of cleaning, as pointed out by Mapplle, while Lazadamn enjoyed running Ice Punch for Gligar, making it harder to be walled. Another point brought up was how SD Lucario, out of the lack of Vacuum Wave, the drops from CC, and Intimidate being a thing can get revenge killed more easily. The surprise factor was nice as most people expect a Special set. A major downside was how ineffective it is versus stall compared to its Special counterpart. In the end, they agree that it has a niche and good things going for it.

houndoom-mega.png

Houndoom-Mega @ Houndoominite
Ability: Solar Power
EVs: Filler
Filler Nature
- Filler
- Filler
- Filler
- Filler

latias.png

Latias (F) @ Psychium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psychic / Psyshock
-
-

gligar.png

Gligar @ Eviolite
Ability: Immunity
EVs: Filler
Filler Nature
- Curse
- Earthquake
- Filler
- Filler

Mega Houndoom is a Pokemon which kinda struggle in the current metagame. Even if it has great offensive stats and a good bulk overall, it's not the best Mega-Evolution in the tier. While its typing may be interesting and its movepool allows it to pressure bulky archetypes thanks to Nasty Plot or Taunt, Mega Houndoom faces 4MSS since it has to choose between coverage or the ability to stallbreak. On the other hand, while it can check Scizor, its weakness to Stealth Rock may be annoying in the long run. Last but not least, Mega Houndoom is pretty weak to common threats such as Choice Scarf Krookodile, Terrakion or Mega Aerodactyl.

Psychium Z is an uncommon item on Latias. However it may be a interesting option to nuke some bulky Pokemon. Even if Psychium Z doesn't have the sheer power of Dragonium Z, it allows Latias to run either Psychic or Psyshock and to not care about any drawback, unlike Draco Meteor.

Gligar carves itself a pretty solid place in Underused thanks to its typing and great bulk which allow it to handle common threats such as Choice Band Scizor, Choice Band Terrakion, Choice Scarf Krookodile or Cobalion. However, Gligar can be overpowered by some setup Sweepers such as Swords Dance + Roost Scizor, Swords Dance Terrakion or Dragon Dance Mega Altaria. Curse is a nice option which allows Gligar to handle more easily those kind of threats.

Sign up with a fresh USMRW13 alt, and post your results, as well as your own thoughts on the Pokemon in question. You are free to edit your signup post if your post count is a concern. For this week, the deadline will be Sunday, March 17th, at 11:59 pm GMT+2. Cake or Moutemoute are gonna check everyone's ladder scores then and decide the winner as I'm dropping as a host. Good luck everyone and happy researching
Click to expand...
 
USMRW13 Dana
I'll try at least Houndoom, might try the others as well.

Btw, two things I forgot to mention about Venomoth. Not too big of a deal but I'll keep thinking about it if I don't write it down.
- 24 EVs in Defense is enough for Venomoth to always survive CB Scizor's Bullet Punch from full, and I haven't found any notable OHKOs/2HKOs you'd miss by sacrificing those 20 EVs in SpA. Considering how that 1HP can sometimes be enough to grab one (or several) kills, there isn't any reason to not run those investments on QD sets.
- Metronome is actually a decent item on the QD Disable set that helps breaking Blissey + Quagsire. I still think that Buginium Z is better overall because of its sheer power and not needing several turns to start doing damage, but it's still worth mentioning.
 
Posting early as I don't have time to ladder. I got dumped with 3 assignments this week, so excuse the short post. I did actually try all three, but I am not going to to talk about Curse Gligar. The one game I set-up alongside SD Scizor I get crit turn 2, so if I made my post on it I'd probably just call the set bad. I only played 23 games to just hit 1400 and went 20-3.


<Click Sprites for Importable>
​
Same team I used for the MegaDoom teambuilding competition. I decided to slap on a Psychium-Z Latias set over Electrium-Z to try it out, but my set is kinda wack tbh. Webs are just so much fun lmao. No team description as you can check that out in the other thread so I'll just get into it.

houndoom-mega.png

Houndoom @ Houndoominite
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Fire Blast
- Dark Pulse
- Taunt
MegaDoom is kinda meh, right now. It was able to put in a decent amount of work in the games I played with it, but it just can't deal with common trends like Hydreigon, Primarina etc. all being so popular. It also sucks that it is slower than a lot of other threats and scarf Krook is everywhere which doesn't help it. It is cool that it is faster than Latias and Gengar, which gives it a nice edge. Personally i think webs + MegaDoom work amazingly well together, as it limits the threats that can revenge it by a lot. On this team I was using a standard NP set with Taunt to keep hazards up and annoy Blissey. After a NP it hits like a truck against anything that can't resist both its dual stabs, a lot of the bulky SpD Pokemon are fairy types which don't appreciate a boosted Fire Blast. Short summary on it as I couldn't test all the sets I wanted to, but yeah I don't think the Pokemon is bad by anymeans. The meta just isn't in its favour and I don't think I would have had as much success with it without webs tbh.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-874545670 - MegaDoom OHKOs Shark and Krook after a boost

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-874548091 - MegaDoom sweeps and breaks through Blissey

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-875451140 - Houndoom basically sweeps thanks to webs
latias.png

Latias @ Psychium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Energy Ball
- Hidden Power [Fire]
My Latias set is wack, but it still did its job. I chose Energy Ball because Reuniculus does it, so I just did the same thing. Only issue is you are walled by Hydra LuL. I mean it came in handy once vs Krookodile, though I could have just nuked it with a Draco if I had it. Though, the downside of losing stats on a CM set without Dragonium-Z just didn't seem appealing. Psychium-Z is basically just a weaker Dragonium-Z imo, like it didn't hit anything notably harder that I would value using it over the standard set. I guess it lets you use Psychic on this set for the higher dmg output, which also helps with roles against Phys Def Amoonguss. Though you trade this for pressuring Blissey, and you would need +3 to kill a Blissey with Psychic into Psychium-Z. It seems very situational and would only be needed if you value not getting a Draco Meteor stat drop. At the end of the day it is still Latias, so it will put in work though I wouldn't consider it much better than Elec-Z or Drag-Z.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-875449371 - I got lucky with Lati but w/e

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-875450048 - Psychium-Z Latias nukes Volcanion and kills Scizor
 
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