Overview
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An insane 120 / 120 / 130 bulk makes Cresselia one of the bulkiest Pokemon in the entire metagame. Cresselia's ability, Levitate, is very useful to deal with common Earthquakes and helps her partner use it freely. With her bulk and movepool, Cresselia is one of the best support Pokemon; she can also easily set up Trick Room. Despite Cresselia's huge bulk, she is not impossible to take down. Powerful super effective STAB moves, such as Shadow Ball from Aegislash and Knock Off from Bisharp, deals lots of damage to her. Some Mega Evolutions, such as Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Salamence, and Mega Mawile, have enough power to hurt Cresselia badly. Though Cresselia has a decent offensive movepool, she has mediocre offenses, and decline in popularity of Fighting-type Pokemon hurt Psychic-type offensively, meaning that Taunt can shut her down easily.
Trick Room
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name: Trick Room
move 1: Trick Room
move 2: Psychic / Psyshock
move 3: Ice Beam
move 4: Helping Hand / Safeguard / Sunny Day
ability: Levitate
item: Mental Herb / Sitrus Berry
evs: 236 HP / 204 Def / 68 SpD
nature: Relaxed
Moves
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Trick Room allows slow Pokemon such as Mega Camerupt and Mega Mawile to sweep. Psychic or Psyshock is Cresselia's STAB move; Psychic hits harder overall, but Psyshock hits Pokemon with low Defense, such as Sylveon and Milotic, harder. Ice Beam hits Landorus-T and Mega Salamence hard. Helping Hand allows Cresselia to power up her partner's moves. Safeguard blocks some annoying status moves, such as Swagger, Spore, and Thunder Wave, which can waste important turns of Trick Room. Sunny Day shuts down opposing rain and is helpful if Cresselia's partner is Mega Camerupt, boosting power of its Fire-type moves deadly levels.
Set Details
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236 HP and 204 Defense EVs allow Cresselia to survive two of Mega Mawile's Play Roughs, while the remaining 68 Special Defense EVs increase her special bulk. Mental Herb is used to block Taunt, which is often used to stop her setting Trick Room. Sitrus Berry increases Cresselia's longevity, increasing her chance to get a Trick Room up.
Usage Tips
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Cresselia should be used mainly as Trick Room setter. After Trick Room is up, use either Safeguard to block status moves, Helping Hand to boost her partner's moves, or her STAB move and Ice Beam to attack foes. Cresselia is bulky enough to potentially set up Trick Room multiple times. Mental Herb blocks Taunt once, so don't be too afraid of it if you need to get Trick Room up.
Team Options
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All Pokemon that enjoy Trick Room support are good partners for Cresselia. Powerful Trick Room Mega Evolutions, such as Mega Mawile, Mega Camerupt, and Mega Abomasnow, are some examples. Amoonguss works well in Trick Room, with the ability to outspeed almost everything and put foes to sleep. Slow and bulky Fake Out users such as Scrafty and Hariyama increase the chance for Cresselia to get Trick Room up. Landorus-T can use Intimidate to weaken a physical attacks aimed at Cresselia and then U-turn into a Trick Room sweeper.
Support
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name: Support
move 1: Icy Wind / Thunder Wave
move 2: Psychic / Psyshock
move 3: Moonlight / Ice Beam
move 4: Helping Hand / Safeguard / Moonlight
ability: Levitate
item: Rocky Helmet / Sitrus Berry / Leftovers
evs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
nature: Bold
Moves
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Icy Wind slows down both opposing Pokemon, deals an okay amount of damage, and can't be shut down by Taunt. Thunder Wave targets only one Pokemon, but it won't activate Defiant or Competitive. Psychic is the primary STAB option, hitting decently hard against targets that are weak to it. Psyshock is weaker than Psychic, but it targets Defense instead of Special Defense such as Milotic, Mega Charizard Y, and Sylveon. Moonlight gives Cresselia a recovery move. Ice Beam is a great coverage move, because despite Cresselia's weak Special Attack stat, Ice is a great offensive typing and hits many common Pokemon such as Mega Salamence, Landorus-T, and Garchomp 4x super effectively. Ice Beam should be used only if you don't run Icy Wind, however. Helping Hand allows Cresselia to boost her partner's power and pick up surprising KOs. Safeguard can block Spore, Thunder Wave, and Will-O-Wisp. Moonlight can also be used in this slot if you want to use both Ice Beam and Moonlight. Sunny Day can be used if rain teams give you problems, and it boosts the power of Fire-types, such as Heatran.
Set Details
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A Bold nature, 252 HP EVs, and 172 Defense EVs allow Cresselia to survive two of Adamant Mega Kangaskhan's Returns. 84 Special Defense EVs increase Cresselia's special bulk. EVs can be optimized in many ways; 52 Speed EVs allow Cresselia to outspeed positive natured base 100s after Icy Wind, and 212 Special Attack EVs allow her to OHKO 4 HP Landorus-T. Sitrus Berry increases Cresselia's longevity. Leftovers recovers more HP in the long run than Sitrus Berry does, though. With Leftovers, 100 Defense EVs are enough to let Cresselia to survive two Returns from Adamant Mega Kangaskhan. Rocky Helmet works well with Cresselia's bulk and allows her to annoy physical attackers, especially Mega Kangaskhan.
Usage Tips
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Cresselia should be used to support her team. Using her is simple: first she should use a speed control move, and then she should either attack with her Psychic-type STAB move and Ice Beam, support with Helping Handm or heal herself with Moonlight. Cresselia works well during any stage of battle, and she is easy to switch in due to her massive bulk. While Cresselia can tank hits well, try to avoid powerful super effective attacks such as Bisharp's Knock Off.
Team Options
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Any Pokemon that enjoys speed control is a good partner for Cresselia, such as Bisharp, Mega Kangaskhan, Breloom, Hydreigon, and Sylveon. Landorus-T and Garchomp work well with Cresselia, as they can use Earthquake safely, and Cresselia can even boost their Earthquakes with Helping Hand. Mega Charizard Y is a good partner for Cresselia; it enjoys her ability to provide speed control, KOes many Pokemon that threaten her, such as Aegislash and Bisharp, and enjoys Helping Hand, while she can beat Pokemon that threaten Charizard, such as Salamence and Landorus-T, and Moonlight heals her even more in sun. Other Fire-types, such as Heatran, Volcarona, and Talonflame, can beat Steel-types, which wall Cresselia. Heatran also enjoys speed control.
Other Options
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With Calm Mind, Cresselia becomes really threatening; she gains offensive pressure and becomes virtually invulnerable against special attacks, even super effective ones. Moonblast allows Cresselia to hit Dark-types, such as Scrafty and Hydreigon, but it is otherwise pretty weak. Skill Swap allows Cresselia to swap abilities with her target. For example, it can take some dangerous abilities away from Pokemon, such as Mega Kangaskhan and Sylveon or steal Intimidate and use it against foes. Expert Belt allows Cresselia to play more offensively, giving her enough power to use either Hidden Power Ground or Fire to hit Steel-types. Hidden Power Fighting is, however, no longer legal. With Expert Belt, Cresselia doesn't need any Special Attack investment to OHKO 4 HP Landorus-T. Swagger can be helpful to shut down foes with its confusion chance, and it works well with Thunder Wave. Rain Dance can be used if Cresselia is used on a rain team. Light Screen or Reflect can be used to increase Cresselia and her partner's bulk for five turns. Cresselia can, of course, use Protect, as it is a great move on anything in VGC. However, most of the time, Cresselia prefers to have a support or coverage move instead. Lastly, Chesto Berry + Rest can be used for one-time full healing. However, they take up Cresselia's item and one moveslot, so Moonlight is generally the better option, unless Cresselia is used on a non-sun weather team and recovery is necessary.
Checks & Counters
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**Dark-types**: Dark-types are a pain for Cresselia. Most of them don't care about Cresselia's attacks, as they are immune to Psychic, and can hit her hard with their Dark-type STAB moves. Bisharp is especially problematic due to its raw power, Knock Off, Steel typing, and the fact that it gets a Defiant boost from Icy Wind.
**Ghost-types**: While not as troublesome as Dark-types, Ghost-types still have powerful STAB moves to hit Cresselia hard. Gengar has Taunt, which can shut Cresselia down, and Aegislash can use Cresselia as setup bait with Substitute, as it really doesn't care about anything Cresselia uses.
**Taunt**: Taunt users, such as Thundurus and Gengar, can simply prevent Cresselia from using her support moves, bar Icy Wind, which can easily make her dead weight.
**Steel-types**: Steel-types can cause problems for Cresselia, as they typically resist Cresselia's moves.
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