In-battle formes
Evolutions
- Ekans
- Arbok
Strategies
- en
Overview
Access to Glare and Wrap combined with its solid base 80 Speed gives Arbok the smallest of niches in PU. It can outspeed and Wrap metagame staples like Nidoqueen and Porygon. Against faster foes, Arbok can use Glare to paralyze them and continue using Wrap. However, this is where Arbok's positive traits end. Its terrible Poison typing gives it no notable resistances, weaknesses to common Ground- and Psychic-type attacks, and no useful STAB moves. Combined with its mediocre bulk and Attack, this leaves Arbok struggling to dish out damage while taking significant damage from most threats in return. Arbok's Speed isn't that great either, as common foes like Rapidash, Arcanine, and Fearow outpace it—teams typically have no shortage of Pokemon that outspeed Arbok. If Arbok finds itself on the receiving end of paralysis, it's practically dead weight to it's team. Arbok is also very unreliable—Wrap is only as accurate as Fire Blast, while Glare is even worse at 74.6%. Even if it can get in against a slower threat, Arbok may just miss twice and get KOed without accomplishing anything. Thus, despite its useful tools, players should generally avoid using Arbok.
Wrap
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Set Description
The combination of Wrap and Glare is Arbok's primary draw, as the former immobilizes slower foes, letting it pivot around them or chip them down, while the latter lets it spread paralysis, making more foes vulnerable to its Wrap. While spammable, these moves have low accuracy, and Wrap may give sleeping targets free turns to wake. Earthquake hits Gastly and Rock-types for super effective damage and serves as coverage against top threats like Nidoqueen and Rapidash. Hyper Beam is Arbok's strongest attack against targets that are not weak to Earthquake, serving as a decently powerful finisher against foes like Pinsir and Machamp.
Since Arbok is useless when paralyzed, its worst matchups are against faster Thunder Wave users, namely Abra and Staryu. Abra also 2HKOes Arbok with Psychic and is rarely OHKOed by Arbok's Hyper Beam. Drowzee is an excellent partner for its ability to check these threats and has the added benefit of spreading paralysis of its own. Arbok isn't completely helpless against faster threats, as it can try to tank a hit and retaliate with paralysis, but it still often loses due to Glare's low accuracy and the possibility of critical hits or secondary effects like burn. It's also easily overwhelmed by multiple faster opponents. Fearow, Rapidash, and Arcanine all give Arbok a good deal of trouble, so Omanyte is an essential partner for its ability to check all of them. These same fast wallbreakers help Arbok against Pinsir, which outspeeds and does huge damage to it. Other paralysis spreaders like Dragonair and the aforementioned Drowzee also work well in hamstringing these faster threats for Arbok. Using Arbok with multiple Thunder Wave users has the added benefit of making it easier for powerful wallbreakers like Nidoqueen and Fearow to break past their checks.
Other Options
Mega Drain can be used as coverage against Graveler, but it only has a 40.7% chance to 2HKO. Body Slam may seem like a means to attack while inflicting paralysis, but Arbok always prefers Glare's higher paralysis odds or Hyper Beam's damage. Rock Slide may seem like good coverage against Fearow and Pinsir, but Arbok always prefers to use Glare or Wrap against them, and Hyper Beam does similar amounts of damage to them.
Checks and Counters
Paralysis: Once paralyzed, Arbok is completely useless, as it can no longer outspeed and Wrap unparalyzed foes, and the chance of full paralysis means it can't reliably use Wrap against paralyzed targets. While Arbok outspeeds every viable Thunder Wave user besides Abra and Staryu, it still risks being paralyzed if Wrap misses or if it switches into Thunder Wave users.
Faster Attackers: Fearow and Pinsir outspeed Arbok; the former has high odds to KO it with Double-Edge + Hyper Beam, while the latter has a 26.3% chance to 2HKO with Slash. Rapidash and Arcanine also outspeed Arbok and have a 32.1% chance to 2HKO it with Fire Blast, which is accompanied by a 30% burn chance and a high critical hit rate. All of these threats must be wary of Glare, but Arbok's low damage output gives them the opportunity to KO it if it misses Wrap once or twice.
Ground-types: While Nidoqueen, Sandslash, and Graveler are outsped by Arbok, Earthquake 2HKOes it. Arbok is likely to miss Wrap before it can get them into KO range due to their physical bulk and Arbok's poor damage output.
Credits
- Written by Gangsta Spongebob
- Quality checked by Sabelette and phoopes
- Grammar checked by Sabelette
