Donphan: The best rapid spinner?

Wow, that is a lot of damage. The main problem is he has a lot of inferiority compared to other CB users, like Rhyperior (who also has Ground STAB), Tyranitar, Metagross and Scizor.

However, Donphan has Ice Shard, and the CB set has the element of surprise.

With Assurance. If Donphan is the SR user of the team, he would generally be setting up SR as the ghost swaps in (SR > spinning SR off, as SR can't be blocked, but Spin can), making Assurance's 100 base power appear very unlikely to be used.
 
I'm not impressed by CB Donphan calcs at all. Besides the Salamence one, all of them require you to predict nearly perfectly, and still you are looking at 2-3HKOs.
 
Lol, no way this would work. It just wastes a move slot, and Donphan still gets completely raped by the likes of Rotom, Dusknoir (WoW), Gengar, and even Mismagius.
 
Donphan does have something to separate it from the other OU spinners, but it's not Odor Sleuth. It's Roar. It can be hard to find a good phazer that will fit in with the rest of your team and rapid spinners nowadays are essential, so a pokemon that can fulfil both of these roles fairly effectively must be good.
EDIT: The thing is, there is another spinner that gets Roar: Blastoise. Blastoise gets higher special defence, has only two weaknesses and is faster, whereas Donphan has higher physical defence and a good attack stat. Therefore, depending on the team's situation, even Blastoise may work better than Donphan.
 
Mekkah said:
I'm not impressed by CB Donphan calcs at all. Besides the Salamence one, all of them require you to predict nearly perfectly, and still you are looking at 2-3HKOs.
Click to expand...
That, unfortunately, is the biggest drawback with this set. But still, I wouldn't recommend Donphan over any of the othre three Spinners.
 
A 252 Hlth, 252 Def, 4 Att Impish Donphan, after using Knock Off on a Adamant Dugtrio, does more damage with Rapid Spin to Dugtrio than what he does back with Earthquake. Rapid Spin does 27.83-33.02%, whilst Dugtrio's Earthquake does 21.88-25.78%. This doesn't factor Donphan's Leftovers. Dugtrio gets beaten just by Knock Off and Rapid Spin. It is hilarious.
 
This question should have been put in Simple Question Simple Answer Thread.

Q: Is Donphan the best rapid spinner?
A: No

With Rotom-W running around, well basically all Rotoms spinning is not even worth the effort unless you have a way to get rid of Gengar/Rotom early game.
 
Didn't even read the first post. Don't want to for one reason...I like the title alot and I want to run with that.

I've recently been testing a Choice Band Donphan with Earthquake, Assurance, Ice Shard and Rapin Spin on a team built to set up Spikes / Stealth Rock. Yea, it has an issue with Bronzong / Skarmory but man is Assurance on the switch to fat Rotom useful.
 
No, donphan is pretty bad
IMO, this is how all spinners rank(at ability to spin,survive and do something to the switch in)
Starmie
Tentacruel
Forry
Hitmontop
Claydol
Sandslash
Donphan
Kabutops
Omastar
Cloyster
Armaldo
Torkoal
Blastoise
Hitmonchan/lee
Delibird(lol?)
This is considering the OU metagame, and doesnt nessesarily represtent at how good they can be at other things(which is why the likes of Sandslash is above Donphan)
 
Random Pizzaman said:
No, donphan is pretty bad
IMO, this is how all spinners rank (at ability to spin,survive and do something to the switch in)
Starmie
Tentacruel
Forry
Hitmontop
Claydol
Sandslash
Donphan
Kabutops
Omastar
Cloyster
Armaldo
Torkoal
Blastoise
Hitmonchan/lee
Delibird(lol?)

This is considering the OU metagame, and doesnt nessesarily represtent at how good they can be at other things(which is why the likes of Sandslash is above Donphan)
Click to expand...

Donphan is definitely the worse of the 4 OU spinners, but this is too cruel.

How does Sandslash > Donphan? Night Slash isn't enough for Rotom, and Knock Off can be just as good. Plus Sandslash lacks Donphan's buff and Att. (without SD, which isn't the purpose of a spinner).

Donphan > Hitmontop, because Himontop still doesn't have a way of hitting ghosts well without Foresight, and Pursuit doesn't do enough damage unless the Ghost swaps out (and the Ghost swaps in).

I will agree with Claydol > Donphan, thanks to leviate making it immune to Spikes and Tspikes, and Shadow Ball. However, Claydol sucks at everything else.

Here's my list:

Starmie
Forry (higher than Tentacruel thanks to better bulk, and the ability to set up all entry hazards - very few of the top OU pokemon are hit by Tspikes)
Tentacruel
Claydol
Donphan
Hitmontop
Torkoal (despite being SR weal, he can actually deal with the OU ghosts)
Sandslash
Blastoise
Omastar
Hitmonchan
Cloyster (horrible SpDef and weak to Rock and Fighting, ruins the point of being a physical wall)
Armaldo
Kabutops
Hitmonlee
Smeargle
Delibird
 
Aldaron said:
Didn't even read the first post. Don't want to for one reason...I like the title alot and I want to run with that.
Click to expand...

Personally, I'm eager to read anything serious written by panamaxis-the man on top of the OU leader board.

Darknessmalice, forry doesn't resist stealth rock. Steel/bug is neutral.

I've hardly run starmie very much. When I did I wasn't all that fond of it; perhaps I should give it another chance with, most particularly, a better ev spread. The ability to actually inflict some damage onto rotoms is very appealing.

The primary reason for any complaints against forretress I have is how poor it is at dealing enough damage to scare away most ou threats.
A moveset such as:
Forretress@leftovers
Rapid spin
Spikes/Stealth rock
Gyro ball/earthquake
Explosion/rest
Does not leave very many options. I'm not fond of blowing up a rapid spinner, especially one on a team that hates stealth rock.
It simply can't cover much with it's physical attacks, meaning it can't do anything against a large variety of physical threats.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top