@ the guy who was suggesting HP rock on everything
HP rock sucks. volcarona isn't even that common. sure, you should worry about it, but goddamn HP Rock celebi? throw u turn on that thing and volcarona can eat your shit. earth power renders it useless w/ sr down. and don't we have a gyarados...?
chill about countering specific threats.
my nom:
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 160 SDef / 96 Spd
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Iron Head
- U-turn
- Wish
- Stealth Rock
I've used this set a lot and it's really good. Pass Wishes to Gyarados and Haxorus; Gyarados in particular becomes really hard to beat if it can get another 60% of his health back to sweep again. It sets up SR, eats Dragon attacks and Hurricanes for breakfast, and can use U-turn to pass Wishes safely and keep momentum (like U-turning out of a Heatran straight to Haxorus / Gyarados).
Ah yes, that'd be me you're referring to. A few things.
1) it was two Pokemon. You're overracting a bit.
2) They were only suggested in conjunction with Scizor, which greatly amplifies out weakness to Volcarona. Volcarona isn't the sort of mon where one check will do, because once that check gets weakened it can just come in for a clean sweep. And what if the Volcarona carries HP Rock (or Electric, don't ask me why but I have run into a guy that used it), as a fair number do? Then Gyarados is fucked.
3) HP Rock is very comparable to HP Ice, (or in Azelf's case, Ice Punch) in terms of coverage gained, and the important bit is that it DOES get Volcarona. At this point in team building we're looking to fill in the last few niches we have left to fill, and we needed a) an answer to threats we haven't checked yet, inlcuding Volcarona b) a setter of Stealth Rock. Combined with Scizor, these two fill that niche quite well.
4) HP Rock on those two Psychic types does something else; it allows them to function as a lure. Since usually Volcarona has a field day with those two, it won't suspect a thing as it comes in. This makes them far more reliable at eliminating Volcarona as a threat than Gyarados simply because the opponent is likely to play carefully around Gyarados, since they know Volcarona can sweep our team without it. This gives us the edge we need against one of the most potent threats in the metagame.
5) Volcarona appeared on 7.47% of teams last month. A third of those ran Hidden Power (though how many were Rock vs. Ground the stats don't say). I don't know about you, but I'd rather not lose ~4% of our games because we only have one check to one of the most dangerous set up sweepers in the game. It's not like the Pokemon I suggested can't do anything else either; they function very well as checks to a number of other dangerous Pokemon such as Terrakion as well.
And now to bash your set. Sorry but I don't think you've been paying much attention to this topic because then you'd know we're running a HYPER OFFENSE TEAM. The highly defensive Jirachi you posted is just ASKING to be set up upon by something like Volcarona, Haxorus, Salamence or others, which is something out team REALLY cannot afford.
I think that set would perform just fine on a more balanced or bulky offense team, but on this Hyper Offense team? It just doesn't fit. I like the Scarf/expert Belt Jirachi people have posted much better for this team, as it isn't set up bait for much of anything (well Scarf could be. I like Expert Belt better myself).
