The first thing you'll notice when looking at Archeops's Pokedex page is its massive base 140 Attack stat. You'll also see a good base Special Attack stat and a great base 110 Speed. But why is it in RU, this is too good to be true. The next thing you'll notice is probably Archeops's ability, Defeatist, which halves its Attack and Special Attack if its HP drops below 50%. Archeops's defenses are extremely frail, and being a Flying-type, it also has a Stealth Rock weakness, making it much easier to halve its offenses. This is an extreme turnoff, and is the sole reason why Archeops is rarely seen in competitive play. However, in BW2, Archeops gained Roost. With Roost, Archeops can recover the damage it takes and negate the effects of Defeatist. This will allow Archeops to spam its powerful attacks (Acrobatics, Stone Edge, Earthquake) for longer periods of time. Archeops doesn't have many counters, so it will surely do damage to the opponent's team. Archeops is a powerful Pokemon that will no doubt be doing major damage to your opponent's team now that it has something to combat its own Defeatist ability.
- Acrobatics
- Agility
- AncientPower
- Aqua Tail
- Crunch
- Dragon Tail
- Earth Power
- Earthquake
- Focus Blast
- Head Smash
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power
- Hone Claws
- Knock Off
- Roar
- Rock Slide
- Roost
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Tailwind
- Taunt
- U-turn
Set(s):
Archeops (M) @ Flying Gem
Trait: Defeatist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly / Naive Nature
- Acrobatics
- Earthquake / Earth Power
- U-turn / Stone Edge
- Roost
A STAB Flying Gem-boosted Acrobatics coming off of a base 140 Attack is nothing to laugh at. Archeops will demolish almost anything with this move, except for Rock- and Steel-types. It can then use Earthquake to remove those Rock- and Steel-types, so the only reliable counters are Steelix and Rhydon. It can even use Earth Power to take advantage of the low Special Defense of Steelix and Rhydon. Archeops can then U-turn out to a specific counter to these Pokemon and come in later. Because Archeops is going to be scaring a lot of things out with its mammoth Attack stat, this gives it the opportunity to Roost off the damage taken from Stealth Rock. Stone Edge is also really powerful, and is a great STAB move provided that it hits. You can also use a Rock Gem to power up Stone Edge, if needed.
Despite hitting extremely hard, Archeops does have a few counters even if they aren't that common. These include the aforementioned Steelix and Rhydon, Qwilfish, Ferroseed, and Sandslash. However, none of these Pokemon have reliable recovery, and with hazards up on the enemy's field, Archeops will quickly wear them down. This leaves priority users such as Feraligatr and Spiritomb and Choice Scarf users such as Manectric and Rotom-C to deal with Archeops, but they all have trouble switching in. This makes it easy for Archeops to wear down the opposing team, possibly leading to a sweep from a teammate.
In my opinion, with Roost, Archeops is 10 times better than it was before. With a high Speed, Archeops can definitely sweep once Steelix / Rhydon are removed. It does, however, fear priority, but that can be worked around. If you have any other suggestions or opinions about this Archeops set, please post them! What if it used a Life Orb instead of a Flying Gem? Are the Choice sets good? Discuss!
In addition to a physical set, Archeops can potentially run a special set due to its great base 112 Special Attack. It also has moves such as Earth Power, Focus Blast, and Heat Wave at its disposal. I haven't tested this out yet, so I'll leave it to you guys to discuss its potential! Archeops has a ton of other options, so hopefully someone will find a better set than the one above!