Kyurem (Analysis)

Status: Done; feel free to make suggestions.

http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-bw/646.shtml

Here is ugly face dragon. First of all thanks to Aerrow, who helped me with this write-up. Second, I relegated many of its alternative sets to Optional Changes because they didn’t seem to be effective, but feel free to post the contrary if you have positive experiences using these sets and think they deserve a section of their own.




[Overview]

• Amazing offensive stats on both ends of spectrum and access to two of the best STABs in the game make Kyurem a formidable attacker.
• Bears very good defenses and a respectable Speed.
• Terrible defensive typing, which not only grants it a small number of resistances and weaknesses to very common moves, but also to Stealth Rock. Added to that, it has no reliable recovery move, which limits its durability.
• Due to not having a consistent way of boosting its stats outside of Claw Sharpen and being weak to common priority moves, it is extremely hard for Kyurem to obtain a sweep by itself.

[SET]
name: Wallbreaker
move 1: Draco Meteor
move 2: Ice Beam
move 3: Focus Blast
move 4: Dragon Claw / Outrage
item: Life Orb
nature: Naive
evs: 40 Atk / 252 SpA / 216 Spe

Set Comments:

• Base 130 offensive stats on both ends coupled with base 95 Speed allow Kyurem to act as a great Mixed Attacker.
• Has flawless neutral coverage outside of Shedinja.
• 125 / 90 / 90 defenses make it easy to switch into resisted attacks.

Additional Comments:

• Draco Meteor and Ice Beam are STABs and its main attacks, coming out of 359 Special Attack and hitting pretty much anything but Steel-types and Blissey for high amounts of damage.
• Focus Blast rounds off this set’s coverage, being the most effective way of hitting Steel-types Kyurem possesses.
• Dragon Claw is used in order to hit Blissey and other Pokemon that are weaker on the physical side. It also gives Kyurem another possibility of hitting the foe without sharply lowering its own Special Attack.
• Outrage can be used over Dragon Claw if you desire to hit Blissey for more damage, but makes Kyurem extremely prone to being revenge killed by the likes of Scizor and Salamence.
• 216 Speed EVs and a Naïve nature are enough to outpace positive base 90 Pokemon. Maximum Special Attack is used due to most of Kyurem’s attacks coming out of that stat. The rest of the EVs are poured into Attack to boost Dragon Claw’s power.
• Frozen World is an interesting option and can be used over Ice Beam to ease prediction. However, it has a considerably lower base power than Ice Beam, imperfect accuracy and doesn’t give it an upper hand against many counters.

Teammates & Counters:

• Hard to wall because of its excellent coverage.
• Due to being vulnerable to all entry hazards, bearing a 2x weakness to Stealth Rock and having no reliable recovery move, Kyurem enjoys Rapid Spin support.
• Wish support is appreciated as well to enhance Kyurem’s longevity.
• It has problems with bulky Steel-types that take neutral damage from Focus Blast, such as Scizor, Jirachi, Bronzong and Metagross, making Magnezone a nifty partner.
• Blissey is very troublesome, as it’s never 2HKOed by Dragon Claw and Outrage can be easily circumvented.

[SET]
name: Frozen World Lead
move 1: Frozen World
move 2: Ice Beam
move 3: Focus Blast
move 4: Draco Meteor
item: Lum Berry / Life Orb
nature: Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe





Set Comments:

• Frozen World is a nifty move, and allows Kyurem to beat faster Focus Sash leads like Azelf and Aerodactyl.
• Kyurem’s respectable bulk allows it survive a fair share of hits, even super effective ones, and retaliate with high-powered moves.
• Base 130 Special Attack means its usefulness isn’t limited to the lead position, as it can wreck some serious havoc midgame.
• Can either beat or severely hurt common leads such as Heatran, Groudon, Giratina-O, Hippowdon and so on.

Additional Comments:

• Lum Berry is the preferred item, as it allows Kyurem to beat Roserade, Smeargle and Scarf Darkrai. However, Life Orb is a good alternative, as it guarantees an OHKO against Heatran leads and bolsters its wallbreaking capabilities midgame.
• A Timid nature and 252 Speed EVs are used in order to ensure that Kyurem will outspeed leads like Roserade and at worst tie with other base 95 Pokemon, such as Gliscor and enemy Kyurem.

Teammates & Counters:

• Kyurem has problems with leads like Jirachi, Metagross, Machamp, Bronzong and Deoxys-A if it's carrying Superpower.
• Pretty much all partners and counters to the Wallbreaker set apply to the Lead set as well. Spinners deserve yet another mention as Kyurem fares pretty bad against some common spiker leads such as Forretress.

[Team Options]

• Rapid Spin support is great to increase Kyurem’s longevity. Doryuuzu excels at that job due to his resistances to Steel-, Rock- and Dragon-type attacks.
• Wish Support is appreciated because Kyurem has no reliable recovery move. Vaporeon is a very good partner as it tends to call out Electric- and Grass-types, which give Kyurem many opportunities to come in.
• Magnezone deals with Scizor, Jirachi, Bronzong and to an extent, Metagross, all of which can take a hit and cause Kyurem problems.
• Entry hazards support is appreciated due to the amount of switches Kyurem causes.

[Optional Changes]

• Hidden Power Fire can be used to hit Scizor, Shubarugo and Forretress harder, but the former is 2HKOed by Focus Blast and will Bullet Punch you, while the latter is faster, thus having to be hit as it switches in. Against other Steel-types that take neutral damage from Focus Blast, the difference in damage isn’t really noticeable.
• Claw Sharpen sounds appealing when paired with the many inaccurate moves Kyurem possesses and its base 130 Attack, but most of the said moves run off its Special Attack stat, which means more often than not it’ll be better off just attacking right off the bat. Added to that, Pokemon like Onokorusu tend to do that better with superior movepool, Attack, typing and speed.
• Running Choice Specs on the Wallbreaker set over Life Orb allows Kyurem to hit its switch-ins harder and doesn’t take away its HP; comes at the price of switching out more often and being more succeptible to entry hazards.

[Counters]

• Limited amount of counters due to its sky-high offensive stats and great coverage.
• Blissey can take on all of its special moves, is never 2HKOed by Dragon Claw and can stall Outrage with a combination of Wish and Protect, but has to watch out for the occasional Claw Sharpen.
• Bulky Steel-types that take neutral damage from Focus Blast such as Jirachi, Bronzong, Shubarugo and specially defensive Scizor are solid answers, but cannot constantly switch in. The latter two also have to watch out for Hidden Power Fire.
• Kyurem cannot boost its own Speed and is weak to a fair amount of priority moves, which means the likes Salamence and Roopushin can effectively check it, despite not being abe to switch in on many of its attacks.

[Dream World]

• It has no alternative abilities.

Didn't Kyuremu get a move that was basically Icy Wind on steroids? If so, it could allow the making of a decent anti-Lead set that plays similarly to Giratina-O and Rayquaza.

Yeah, it was called "Frozen World" or something like that. I've been using it and it's pretty good at the moment. The set I'm using is just:

Kyuremu @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 SpA/4 SpD/252 Spe
Nature: Modest
-Frozen World
-Draco Meteor
-Focus Blast
-Ice Beam

Bumping this guy no notify people I have implemented shrang's lead to the OP with some changes.

Kyurem has problems with leads like Jirachi, Metagross, Machamp, Bronzong and every Deoxys form.

Click to expand...

Deoxys-S will be beaten by Frozen World + Ice Beam/DM. (It only gets one layer of hazards.)

Deoxys-A can only win if it has Superpower IIRC.

I've just checked Serebii and the Kyurem's thread in uncharted territory, and while one says it lowers Speed (which would mean -1), the other says it sharply lowers it (-2). I was not sure what to do then and just went with serebii; but I have removed it. Will fix Deoxys-A information as well, I kinda assumed Superpower was standart (mainly because it's a main option on the 4th gen set).

This analysis really needs to list a Choice Scarf set. Its 95 base Speed is disappointing in this metagame full of troll speed tiers, and that helps make up for it. It already has 130 base in both attacking stats, so it would benefit greatly from CS. Scarf also removes the need for Frozen World on the set, clearing up room for random things like Outrage, Focus Blast or even HP Fire.

I've been using Draco Meteor/Dragon Pulse/Ice Beam/Focus Blast to a lot of success in BW so far. I would have posted more normally but I feel like a Choice Scarf set is self-explanatory.

The main problem I have with Choice Scarf is that with SR, Spikes, TSpikes and Sandstorm I really don't see how this guy is switching in too often; especially when you think of his counterparts like Sazandora.

I have used it extensively, there are plenty of places to bring it in because of its incredible 125/90/90 defenses. Entry hazards aren't nearly as common as they were in DP. I can give you logs to show you how effective it can be if you want, its Ice Beam by itself has cleaned up many a match for me.

It is just really surprising to me that the analysis of a 130 base SpAtk Dragon-type doesn't even mention the words "Choice Scarf". I don't know how you can say that you're worried about residual damage and then have Life Orb on both of your movesets.

I don't know how you can write about Kyuremu and not mention the phrase "Repetitive STABs".

What makes the other 5th gen legendary dragons so nuts is that their STABs compliment each other for awesome coverage. Dragon and Ice add virtually nothing to each other's coverage. "Amazing offensive stats on both ends of spectrum and access to two of the best STABs in the game" seems over-blown, especially when Ice is not really what I would consider one of the best STABs in the game-- it's one of the best "secondary attack types" in the game.

Traditionally, Ice attacks have best been used on non-ice pokemon. Kyuremu is great because of its BST, and is viewed as "more tame" than other potential ubers because of its crappy typing.

@jrrrr: The thing about residual damage is because a Scarf set, obviously, will need to switch in and out much more oftenly than a set holding Life Orb, which means he's going to be worn down pretty fast; and other scarfers tend to switch in making use of their resistances, exactly what Kyurem doesn't have plenty of. Also, with the introduction of many great spikers, another options for Ghosts and so on I don't see how entry hazards are rare; Doryuzuu might hinder that strategy a lot, but it's still quite expressive. I do, however, recognize Ice and Dragon are great STABs for a scarfer as there aren't many safe switch-ins for them, so if you think it has merits I might as well add it, as so far no one opposed to a Choice set and I see no reason to veto or make this discussion longer.

@Chou Toshio: You do realize I never said they attained amazing coverage together, right? Never have I claimed they were awesome when complementing each other because Ice is resisted by Steel, which happens to be the only type that resists Dragon as well. My point was that the two of them, by themselves, have great coverage, and when attacking the likelihood of the words "not very effective" appearing is way lower. You can't really say Ice-types aren't used because it's a terrible offensive move and primary STAB to have; what you are doing is making it clear that, defensively, Ice sucks; not offensively.

My point was that you didn't talk about the flaws related to dragon/ice coverage (that they are not complimentary STABs) which should be mentioned.

Also, as to whether Ice is a good STAB or not-- if there's anything 4th gen should have taught us about fantastic attacking types, it is that when you have STAB, great base stats and great base power for the attacks, what matters is not super effective hits, but NEUTRAL COVERAGE.

This is what makes Dragon the best STAB and Water the second best.

Ice is resisted by Steel and Water, the two best/most common types in the game outside Dragon. It is also resisted by fire, which means Heatran, the #1 of 4th Gen OU, shrugs Ice off like nothing. To me, whether or not Ice is a good primary STAB is seriously contestable. Ice is a nice STAB the way rock is a nice STAB. They are definitely fantastic offensively, but no where near on the same level as Dragon or Water, which is why I'd avoid calling it "one of the best STABs in the game."

Ice is a fantastic overall offensive type, but as a primary attacking type it is not amongst the best. It is most powerful when being fired off to fill in coverage for STAB Electric, Fighting, Water, etc.

^It's worth noting that Ice Beam does more damage to everything that resists Dragon Pulse except Heatran and Empoleon (which you have Focus Blast for). If you plan on staying in for more than one turn, Ice Beam is the move of choice. Especially since most of the common Steels are neutral to Ice and not Dragon. Nattorei, Skarmory and Doryuuzu are all hurt severely by Ice Beam while with a Dragon move they come in for free.

Anything that Ice Beam and Dragon Pulse both hit neutrally is hit harder by Ice Beam, and you get a Freeze chance to boot. Everything that is weak to Dragon is hit harder by Ice Beam, except Kyu itself and lol Kingdra. The SR weakness means you may find yourself in a situation where multiple switches are impossible, so spamming Draco Meteor may not be the best option. The only thing you have to worry about is the odd Water-type, which is why spamming Draco Meteor is probably the way to go early in the match. But later on in the match when it's taken damage, Ice Beam is what you want to do. BW isn't about neutrality like DPP was, and his STABs don't overlap nearly as much as you'd think. It's all about timing with Kyu, it is a fairly difficult pokemon to use but it pays off a lot. Not many things can switch into Ice Beam, and it's even scarier when Draco Meteor and Focus Blast are your backup moves. The Dragon moves are good only for bulky Waters. Even Fire-types that come in to resist Ice Beam are hit hard by Stealth Rock and may even be 2HKOd by Ice Beam.

I use it with a Choice Specs equipped.

Modest Kyurem @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Draco Meteor
Ice Beam
Focus Blast
Hidden Power [Fire] or [Ground]

Its Draco Meteor is astonishing. It OHKOs A LOT of top threats in the Dream World tier on Pokemon Online. Its other attacks are extremely powerful as well.

TheMew said:

I use it with a Choice Specs equipped.

Modest Kyurem @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Draco Meteor
Ice Beam
Focus Blast
Hidden Power [Fire] or [Ground]

Its Draco Meteor is astonishing. It OHKOs A LOT of top threats in the Dream World tier on Pokemon Online. Its other attacks are extremely powerful as well.

Click to expand...

Choice Specs is plausible for QC, in my opinion, on Kyuremu, since it has a unique Ice / Dragon typing and it's not immediately screwed by certain bulky Pokemon. Just one thing that irks me one Kyuremu in general though: What DOESN'T Kyuremu do that some of the other Dragons like Latios can do at a similar, and possibly better, pace? The problem is its niche in the battlefield with Ice STAB and 95 Speed. I just can't seem to place Kyuremu is the ranks of Draco Meteor-abusing Pokemon.

Stealth Rock weakness can be easily alleviated with the use of Rapid Spin, which Salamence also appreciates with just about any set.

jrrrrrrr said:

^It's worth noting that Ice Beam does more damage to everything that resists Dragon Pulse except Heatran and Empoleon (which you have Focus Blast for). If you plan on staying in for more than one turn, Ice Beam is the move of choice. Especially since most of the common Steels are neutral to Ice and not Dragon. Nattorei, Skarmory and Doryuuzu are all hurt severely by Ice Beam while with a Dragon move they come in for free.

Click to expand...

Taking this into account, shouldn't abomosnow make a mention in "Team options"? Not sure how viable, would need solid counters for kyrogue and groudon (Ludicolo?) but having a mix attacker with 100% accurate STAB blizzard and outrage would be pretty deadly. Makes it even harder for the above to switch in.

Also the 30% freeze rate could potentially stop a counter in its tracks allowing you a free switch.

I'd give HP fire for kyurem on the lead set as forry is a huge problem and focus blast won't be enough to 2HKO it without a life orb and even then, the crap accuracy and the fact that it may not necessarily KO it anyway calls for HP fire which can be used after frozen world to stop custap sturdy from working..

To be honest, I don't see much use for Kyurem in Ubers. The Frozen World lead set won't work well, because Deoxys-S and Choice Scarf Darkrai still outrun it after a Frozen World, and offensive sets struggle to differentiate themselves from the faster and more versatile Palkia. Kyurem can take on Lugia better than Palkia can, and I expect to approve some kind of token Uber set, but this is really such a depressing Pokemon.

How? Doesn't frozen world -2 speed?

calze6 said:

How? Doesn't frozen world -2 speed?

Click to expand...

Nope, just one stage. It's essentially a buffed Icy Wind.

calze6 said:

How? Doesn't frozen world -2 speed?

Click to expand...

No, unfortunately, it is -1. Anyway, I have been mucking around with Kyurem and Choice Specs and you can hurt a lot of things just spamming Blizzard (In Hail of course). With a Dragon-infested metagame, Blizzard hurts a lot of them, while Steel-types are easily chased away by Reshiram and Ho-oh. This could be worth a mention or even a set.

According to this, it was decided that Kyurem shouldn't receive an Uber analysis. As such, it'd be wise to remove any mentions of Kyogre, Giratina-O, and Groudon. Anyway, the Choice Scarf idea mentioned by jrrrrrrr looks interesting, so I'll hop on PO and give it a shot whenever I get a chance. The other sets look good and get my approval. I'll get back to you on the Choice Scarf set and decide on whether or not to approve it.

QC APPROVED (1/2)

I'm moving this thread to the OU sub-forum. I plan to try both Choice Scarf and Specs out, and then post my results in this topic. The rest of the OP looks good to me, and I would like to know, Bluewind, if you're still willing to write this up.

QC APPROVED (2/2)

Yeah, I'll be writing this guy up. I've also tested the Scarf set and found it pretty good despite some flaws, so I'm willing to include that as well.

I really think that HP Fire deserves a slash. It hits the following eight 'OU' steel types harder than Focus Blast does: Forretress, Scizor, Skarmory, Metagross, Jirachi, Bronzong, Natorrei, Genosekt. Focus Blasts hits these six: Empoleon, Lucario, Magnezone, Heatran, Doryuzu, Cobalon. HP Fire hits more steels harder. Yea, yea its usually just a 20 BP difference, but there's also a 30 Acc difference, which really makes a difference. Focus Blast should still be slashed in I think, because of Heatran, but if you have a bulky water or something waiting, Tran shouldn't be too big a deal.