In-battle formes
Strategies
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Overview
Zapdos is the premier Electric-type Pokemon of RBY Ubers, featuring impressive base stats and a versatile movepool. Its great bulk makes it especially good at spreading paralysis against common leads and threats like Tauros, Mew, and Mewtwo. Its good critical hit rate and good STAB options are also valuable in order to threaten important Pokemon like Mew, Chansey, Exeggutor, Slowbro, and Starmie. However, in a metagame filled with strong attackers, Zapdos find trouble switching in safely, as it is sensitive to Ice-type attacks, which are extremely common, and it lacks recovery. It has little to no chance to beat Ground-types, like Rhydon, Golem, and Sandslash; thus, it absolutely needs its teammates to patch this weakness.
Mixed Attacker
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Set Description
Thunderbolt and Drill Peck are Zapdos's best STAB options, and they are difficult to switch into thanks to Zapdos's high Speed, granting it a good critical hit rate. In particular, Zapdos easily 2HKO Water-types like Slowbro and Starmie, and has a chance to OHKO Cloyster with Thunderbolt. It has a 54.5% chance to 2HKO non-Reflect Chansey with one critical hit Drill Peck and a solid chance to KO Exeggutor with a critical hit after slight chip damage. It also has a possible 3HKO against Mew and Snorlax, which becomes guaranteed if it critically hits one Thunderbolt. Thunder Wave is an excellent tool to hobble most threats, and lets Zapdos spam its STAB moves even more. Paralysis also provides excellent support to teammates such as Mew, Tauros, and Snorlax. Agility suppresses the Speed drop from paralysis and lets Zapdos outrun the entire metagame, including Mewtwo and Alakazam. Against a paralyzed threat like Mew and Mewtwo, Agility also reapplies paralysis's Speed drop, helping slow teammates like paralyzed Snorlax to menace them. Hyper Beam can be used instead to beat Chansey and Jynx that would like to force Zapdos out; Chansey is left in KO range of Hyper Beam after a critical hit Drill Peck, and Zapdos has a 88.89% chance to KO Jynx with Drill Peck followed by Hyper Beam.
Zapdos is usually seen as a mid- to late-game wallbreaker thanks to its ability to spread paralysis against staples like Tauros, Chansey, and Mewtwo. Its high critical hit rate and high offensive stats also make Zapdos very good at pressuring paralyzed foes; for example, spreading paralysis with Thunder Wave on predicted switch-ins is especially useful against Chansey, as it is one of the most common switch-ins to Zapdos, but critical hits, full paralysis chances, and low damage output from Chansey grant Zapdos far more chances to win the duel. Moreover, typical status absorbers like Starmie and Chansey cannot handle Zapdos very well; thanks to its sheer power and STAB moves, it can take advantage of them as well as Rest users such as Slowbro. This is essential because Zapdos has no way to recover its HP, so each hit it takes is permanent. The pressure Zapdos puts on the enemy team thanks to its high damage output and ability to spread paralysis can force fairly predictable switch-ins like Rhydon, Golem, Snorlax, or a paralyzed Pokemon, which can be punished by teammates like Mewtwo, Exeggutor, Mew, and Tauros. Paralyzing Mewtwo with Thunder Wave can also be a strategy to break it when Zapdos is paired with physical wallbreakers like Mew, Rhydon, Snorlax, and Stomp Tauros. Gengar is a notable teammate, as it synergizes well with Zapdos; as a lead, Gengar can switch into Zapdos to scout moves from Tauros. Zapdos can then proceed to threaten it with Thunderbolt or Thunder Wave. As a pair, they can also wall most Reflect + Swords Dance variants of Mew, as Gengar and Zapdos are respectively immune to Normal- and Ground-type attacks. With their respective immunities, Gengar and Zapdos can even play around Earthquake + Body Slam Mew to some degree, forcing it to predict correctly and threatening it with a status, whether it be Zapdos's paralysis or Gengar's sleep. Earthquake + Explosion Mew is hindered to an even more extreme degree, as it forces Mew to switch out or to try to trade with Explosion, allowing more space for powerful sweepers like Mewtwo and Mew.
Zapdos can also be used as lead. Its Speed lets it outrun Jynx, while Thunder Wave and its STAB combination lets it threaten most common leads, including Chansey, Tauros, and Alakazam. It's important to notice that Drill Peck can never OHKO Jynx even with a critical hit, and that Gengar is a faster lead, meaning Zapdos can be put to sleep easily by these two threats via Lovely Kiss and Hypnosis, respectively. Hyper Beam is a good option for this set, as Drill Peck + Hyper Beam has a strong chance to KO Jynx, and a critical hit Drill Peck + Hyper Beam will always KO Chansey—both Jynx and Chansey are likely to stay in on Zapdos to put it to sleep.
Other Options
Reflect could be used to better deal with Mew, but Zapdos has no room to use it without sacrificing important moves like Thunder Wave or Agility. Moreover, a paralyzed Mew is put under pressure by Zapdos, and it will want to switch out anyway unless it is already set up at +6. Carving a similar niche, Light Screen can buy time against special attackers like Chansey, Slowbro and a paralyzed Mewtwo. Rest could be a good idea to recover some HP, but similarly to Reflect and Light Screen, it's at the cost of a crucial move, and Zapdos will have little to no room to wake up, as it can't switch in against most attackers. A sleeping Zapdos is also a free opportunity for Mewtwo and Mew to switch in and set up, making it setup fodder for the most important sweepers of the tier. Thunder could be used, because its higher Base Power lets Zapdos KO Tauros after a Thunderbolt, and Thunder can KO Mewtwo with two consecutive critical hits. However, it's a very unreliable strategy due to Thunder's low accuracy. Flash is an option that annoys a lot of paralyzed threat, such as Mewtwo, Mew, and Chansey, and comes in handy once there's only one remaining Pokemon. However, its low accuracy and the lack of room on Zapdos's moveset makes it an unreliable choice.
Checks and Counters
Ground-types: Zapdos has no way to deal with Rhydon and Golem. Both can use Zapdos to either set up a Substitute or use Body Slam on the switch and try to paralyze it. While it's way more uncommon and it does not resist Drill Peck, Sandslash can also be an issue, as it can freely switch in on Zapdos's Electric-type moves and poses a threat if Zapdos is paralyzed.
Faster Pokemon: Not only is Zapdos unable to 3HKO Mewtwo even with a critical hit, but Mewtwo can also use Zapdos as setup fodder with Amnesia and threaten it with Psychic and Ice Beam. Zapdos is also very sensitive to Pokemon like Alakazam, Gengar, Jolteon, and Tauros, which can all threaten it severely with either paralysis or sleep. Mewtwo should take care however, as it cannot paralyze Zapdos with Thunderbolt, and once it is itself paralyzed, physical wallbreakers like Mew, Tauros, Snorlax, and Rhydon can take advantage of its reduced Speed to put it under pressure with Explosion, Self-Destruct, or Stomp. Paralysis also hinders Zapdos severely if it doesn't have Agility, as slower Pokemon like Exeggutor, Slowbro, and Chansey can threaten it far more easily.
Ice-type Attacks: While they can't switch in on Zapdos's STAB moves, Jynx and Cloyster both 2HKO Zapdos with STAB Blizzard and prevent it from switching in. However, they are both likely to use Rest once they have been weakened, so Zapdos can use this opportunity to switch in safely. Zapdos also fears Ice Beam from threats it is supposed to deal with, such as Chansey, Mewtwo, and Slowbro, which all deal massive damage to it.
Chansey: Chansey can shrug off a lot of Zapdos's attacks thanks to its high Special Defense and Soft-Boiled and can cripple it with paralysis or sleep. However, it cannot infinitely switch into Zapdos's attacks due to Drill Peck's high damage output and critical hit chance.
