[OVERVIEW]
Dragonair is a versatile support Pokemon in PU that carries a unique defensive typing, a wide array of coverage moves, powerful utility in Thunder Wave and Wrap, and the ever-present threat of AgiliWrap. While it's outclassed as a support Pokemon by Drowzee and Porygon and outclassed as a damage dealer by anything with a good STAB move, its sheer versatility allows it to surprise foes and force them to accept paralysis or chip damage on Pokemon they may have preferred to save for later. Dragonair's base 70 Speed notably puts it ahead of Seaking, allowing it to wear down Seaking with Wrap. This also enables it to check slower foes like Drowzee and Porygon as well as paralyzed foes, forcing paralysis onto the opposing team or forcing in Nidoqueen to scare out Dragonair, as other Ground-types are too slow to do so. Notably, Dragonair's Dragon typing allows it to resist Fire Blast, Surf, and Thunderbolt, making it an excellent pivot and a huge threat to Fire-types as well as Water-types that don't carry Blizzard, allowing it to check Rapidash, Arcanine, and often Staryu. Dragonair can carry super effective coverage for these foes in return, 3HKOing the Fire-types and 2HKOing Staryu; it can also paralyze them and potentially use Wrap to chip them down if it avoids paralysis itself.
Dragonair has several flaws that hold it back, including its relative frailty, middling Speed, and Ice weakness. It also has some difficulties with prediction, as using Thunder Wave as Nidoqueen comes in can be a disastrous loss of momentum. Nidoqueen outspeeds Dragonair and threatens it immensely, so Dragonair is usually forced out if it hasn't already set up Agility. Gastly also stonewalls Wrap and forces Dragonair to fight it with relatively weak special moves, but it's heavily threatened by Thunder Wave, which leaves it vulnerable to Earthquake users later in the game. Dragonair's typing provides no STAB, making its damage output poor against neutral targets such as Gastly and Porygon as well as rare foes like Pinsir and Machamp. Paralysis also holds Dragonair back significantly, limiting Wrap and forcing it to trade hits with stronger, bulkier foes; this makes it hard to fight fast Thunder Wave users like Staryu and even Abra. Finally, Dragonair is extremely limited in moveslots; it wants all of Agility, Thunder Wave, Wrap, and several coverage attacks, but it can only either fit all of the utility moves and a single attack, or it can fit two attacks at the cost of Agility or Thunder Wave.
[SET]
name: Support
move 1: Wrap
move 2: Agility
move 3: Thunder Wave / Thunderbolt
move 4: Surf / Blizzard
[SET COMMENTS]
Set Description
=========
Dragonair's moveset is incredibly diverse, but all Dragonair sets tend to focus on supporting its team via chip damage and paralysis. To this end, Dragonair nearly always runs Wrap, which helps to chip down foes, pivot teammates in safely, and forces paralyzed foes to switch out, preventing them from blocking Thunder Wave. Agility should be on most Dragonair sets, making all of its moves far more threatening; after Agility, it outspeeds the entire tier, allowing it to inflict a fearsome amount of chip damage with Wrap and win one-on-one against a variety of threatening foes even without Wrap, including Arcanine, Rapidash, and Fearow. This also partially insulates Dragonair against paralysis, allowing it to cancel the Speed drop and threaten foes with paralysis and super effective coverage. Dragonair usually runs Thunder Wave to spread status, allowing it to disable and use Wrap against faster foes without reliable ways to inflict paralysis, such as Rapidash, Arcanine, and Fearow. It may also choose to sacrifice itself in certain scenarios to paralyze a threat like Staryu or Agility Porygon, allowing teammates to more easily remove them. Agility synergizes surprisingly well with Thunder Wave, allowing Dragonair to present more of a threat and force in foes that would rather not take paralysis, like Gastly and Staryu, to try to slow them down with status. It also allows Dragonair to reapply the Speed drop from paralysis to foes with Agility. Surf is the attacking move of choice for Dragonair using Thunder Wave, as its combination of PP and coverage fits well with speed control and Wrap. Surf 3HKOes Arcanine, Rapidash, Magmar, and Nidoqueen; OHKOes Graveler; and deals decent damage to most targets. Anything that can handle Surf bar Gastly is unlikely to enjoy taking repeated Wrap hits. Thunderbolt can be substituted over Thunder Wave to improve Dragonair's coverage, 2HKOing Staryu, usually 2HKOing Fearow after Double-Edge recoil, and 3HKOing Seaking. Blizzard is an uncommon option that helps Dragonair do more damage to Nidoqueen and Fearow as well as covering for less common foes like opposing Dragonair and Vileplume, but this costs it super effective coverage against the highly threatening Fire-types and adds little compared to Surf or Thunderbolt.
When running only one attack, this set often works as an anti-lead to the common Arcanine, threatening to paralyze it and use Wrap to force it out as well as threatening Agility should Arcanine try to pivot to Nidoqueen to block Thunder Wave. In this role, Dragonair is a sacrificial Pokemon looking to spread paralysis and chip damage, particularly to Gastly, to allow teammates to follow up against neutered foes. Surf helps Dragonair to fight common leads like Arcanine and Nidoqueen, and Dragonair happily trades Thunder Wave with Staryu and Porygon should they attempt to stop it. Once it paralyzes these foes, they become fodder for slower attackers that would otherwise struggle, such as Nidoqueen and Seaking. Agility helps to force Gastly to block Wrap, allowing Dragonair to paralyze it and either take sleep, or, with a 47% chance, dodge Hypnosis and use Wrap to pivot out while denying sleep. In this role, Dragonair benefits heavily from teaming up with Nidoqueen, which OHKOes Gastly and 2HKOes Staryu but struggles against them due to their superior Speed and super effective moves. It is also effective at enabling allies like Agility Porygon, Seaking, and Scyther by paralyzing and wearing down foes that would otherwise give them trouble.
Dragonair run outside of the lead more commonly have two attacks for coverage, most often forgoing Thunder Wave to act as a scary Agility sweeper that can soften up entire teams for its allies or even win outright. In this role, Dragonair seeks to set up against a foe without a consistent way to paralyze it—such as a Fire-type, non-Blizzard Seaking, or even Nidoqueen— and use Wrap to wear foes down. The biggest benefit of expanded coverage is that Dragonair can punish the use of chipped Pokemon to tank Wrap; on a Wrap miss, it can punish with an attack, which is especially deadly against frail foes like Fearow and Staryu. In this role, Dragonair works well with allied sweepers and cleaners that need slight damage to enable them. For example, Scyther comes just shy of OHKOing a number of foes at +2, and a few hits from Wrap easily make up the difference. Similarly, moderate chip damage helps enable allies like Rapidash and Fearow to clean through entire teams. However, this Dragonair lacks Thunder Wave and therefore makes for a poor enabler for slower allies like Nidoqueen that might appreciate paralysis more than chip damage.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============
Agility can be dropped to fit an additional coverage move, but this sacrifices a lot of potential chip damage and utility, so it should not be done lightly. Hyper Beam has a small chance to OHKO Abra and deals high damage to Staryu and Drowzee, but Thunderbolt already covers Staryu, and none of these three take Wrap hits well. This also leaves Dragonair even more helpless against Gastly and risks a recharge turn if used recklessly. Fire Blast 2HKOes Pinsir, but this is too niche of a matchup to cover over others, and both Thunderbolt and Blizzard already cover Scyther, a more relevant threat.
Checks and Counters
===================
**Gastly**: Gastly outspeeds Dragonair, takes no damage from Wrap, and takes little damage from Dragonair's attacks, allowing it to interrupt Dragonair with Hypnosis. However, Dragonair is often content with landing Thunder Wave on it to make it fodder for teammates like Nidoqueen, and it can use Wrap to pivot out and bring in allies that handle Gastly better, making it risky for Gastly to stay in and blockade Wrap. Dragonair lacking Thunder Wave is utterly helpless, however, and relies on teammates to bait out and remove Gastly first.
**Paralysis**: Paralysis severely hampers Dragonair, making Wrap horribly inconsistent and limiting it to setting up Agility and scoring some chip damage. This is not completely horrible in matchups where Dragonair has super effective coverage, but when it doesn't, it contributes very little damage before falling.
**Burn**: A burn heavily limits Dragonair by making Wrap a losing proposition, forcing it to simply look for paralysis and chip damage from its special attacks before it falls.
**Nidoqueen**: The near-omnipresent Nidoqueen outspeeds and 2HKOes Dragonair while being immune to Thunder Wave; even Blizzard, Dragonair's strongest option against Nidoqueen, rarely 2HKOes it. Dragonair can potentially set up Agility against it, but Blizzard leaves it in range of many attacks should it miss one Wrap.
**Blizzard Users**: Staryu rarely runs Blizzard, but it threatens paralysis to stop any Agility plays and can then 2HKO Dragonair if packing Blizzard. Seaking and the rare Omanyte can also punish Wrap misses with Blizzard for massive damage.
**Fast Physical Attackers**: Fearow, Scyther, and the rare Pinsir outspeed and can 2HKO Dragonair, making setup costly, as one Wrap miss ends Dragonair's rampage. Pinsir is also not weak to any of Dragonair's common moves.
[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sabelette.583793/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/gastlies.540559/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/gangsta-spongebob.535530/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/autumn.384270/
Dragonair is a versatile support Pokemon in PU that carries a unique defensive typing, a wide array of coverage moves, powerful utility in Thunder Wave and Wrap, and the ever-present threat of AgiliWrap. While it's outclassed as a support Pokemon by Drowzee and Porygon and outclassed as a damage dealer by anything with a good STAB move, its sheer versatility allows it to surprise foes and force them to accept paralysis or chip damage on Pokemon they may have preferred to save for later. Dragonair's base 70 Speed notably puts it ahead of Seaking, allowing it to wear down Seaking with Wrap. This also enables it to check slower foes like Drowzee and Porygon as well as paralyzed foes, forcing paralysis onto the opposing team or forcing in Nidoqueen to scare out Dragonair, as other Ground-types are too slow to do so. Notably, Dragonair's Dragon typing allows it to resist Fire Blast, Surf, and Thunderbolt, making it an excellent pivot and a huge threat to Fire-types as well as Water-types that don't carry Blizzard, allowing it to check Rapidash, Arcanine, and often Staryu. Dragonair can carry super effective coverage for these foes in return, 3HKOing the Fire-types and 2HKOing Staryu; it can also paralyze them and potentially use Wrap to chip them down if it avoids paralysis itself.
Dragonair has several flaws that hold it back, including its relative frailty, middling Speed, and Ice weakness. It also has some difficulties with prediction, as using Thunder Wave as Nidoqueen comes in can be a disastrous loss of momentum. Nidoqueen outspeeds Dragonair and threatens it immensely, so Dragonair is usually forced out if it hasn't already set up Agility. Gastly also stonewalls Wrap and forces Dragonair to fight it with relatively weak special moves, but it's heavily threatened by Thunder Wave, which leaves it vulnerable to Earthquake users later in the game. Dragonair's typing provides no STAB, making its damage output poor against neutral targets such as Gastly and Porygon as well as rare foes like Pinsir and Machamp. Paralysis also holds Dragonair back significantly, limiting Wrap and forcing it to trade hits with stronger, bulkier foes; this makes it hard to fight fast Thunder Wave users like Staryu and even Abra. Finally, Dragonair is extremely limited in moveslots; it wants all of Agility, Thunder Wave, Wrap, and several coverage attacks, but it can only either fit all of the utility moves and a single attack, or it can fit two attacks at the cost of Agility or Thunder Wave.
[SET]
name: Support
move 1: Wrap
move 2: Agility
move 3: Thunder Wave / Thunderbolt
move 4: Surf / Blizzard
[SET COMMENTS]
Set Description
=========
Dragonair's moveset is incredibly diverse, but all Dragonair sets tend to focus on supporting its team via chip damage and paralysis. To this end, Dragonair nearly always runs Wrap, which helps to chip down foes, pivot teammates in safely, and forces paralyzed foes to switch out, preventing them from blocking Thunder Wave. Agility should be on most Dragonair sets, making all of its moves far more threatening; after Agility, it outspeeds the entire tier, allowing it to inflict a fearsome amount of chip damage with Wrap and win one-on-one against a variety of threatening foes even without Wrap, including Arcanine, Rapidash, and Fearow. This also partially insulates Dragonair against paralysis, allowing it to cancel the Speed drop and threaten foes with paralysis and super effective coverage. Dragonair usually runs Thunder Wave to spread status, allowing it to disable and use Wrap against faster foes without reliable ways to inflict paralysis, such as Rapidash, Arcanine, and Fearow. It may also choose to sacrifice itself in certain scenarios to paralyze a threat like Staryu or Agility Porygon, allowing teammates to more easily remove them. Agility synergizes surprisingly well with Thunder Wave, allowing Dragonair to present more of a threat and force in foes that would rather not take paralysis, like Gastly and Staryu, to try to slow them down with status. It also allows Dragonair to reapply the Speed drop from paralysis to foes with Agility. Surf is the attacking move of choice for Dragonair using Thunder Wave, as its combination of PP and coverage fits well with speed control and Wrap. Surf 3HKOes Arcanine, Rapidash, Magmar, and Nidoqueen; OHKOes Graveler; and deals decent damage to most targets. Anything that can handle Surf bar Gastly is unlikely to enjoy taking repeated Wrap hits. Thunderbolt can be substituted over Thunder Wave to improve Dragonair's coverage, 2HKOing Staryu, usually 2HKOing Fearow after Double-Edge recoil, and 3HKOing Seaking. Blizzard is an uncommon option that helps Dragonair do more damage to Nidoqueen and Fearow as well as covering for less common foes like opposing Dragonair and Vileplume, but this costs it super effective coverage against the highly threatening Fire-types and adds little compared to Surf or Thunderbolt.
When running only one attack, this set often works as an anti-lead to the common Arcanine, threatening to paralyze it and use Wrap to force it out as well as threatening Agility should Arcanine try to pivot to Nidoqueen to block Thunder Wave. In this role, Dragonair is a sacrificial Pokemon looking to spread paralysis and chip damage, particularly to Gastly, to allow teammates to follow up against neutered foes. Surf helps Dragonair to fight common leads like Arcanine and Nidoqueen, and Dragonair happily trades Thunder Wave with Staryu and Porygon should they attempt to stop it. Once it paralyzes these foes, they become fodder for slower attackers that would otherwise struggle, such as Nidoqueen and Seaking. Agility helps to force Gastly to block Wrap, allowing Dragonair to paralyze it and either take sleep, or, with a 47% chance, dodge Hypnosis and use Wrap to pivot out while denying sleep. In this role, Dragonair benefits heavily from teaming up with Nidoqueen, which OHKOes Gastly and 2HKOes Staryu but struggles against them due to their superior Speed and super effective moves. It is also effective at enabling allies like Agility Porygon, Seaking, and Scyther by paralyzing and wearing down foes that would otherwise give them trouble.
Dragonair run outside of the lead more commonly have two attacks for coverage, most often forgoing Thunder Wave to act as a scary Agility sweeper that can soften up entire teams for its allies or even win outright. In this role, Dragonair seeks to set up against a foe without a consistent way to paralyze it—such as a Fire-type, non-Blizzard Seaking, or even Nidoqueen— and use Wrap to wear foes down. The biggest benefit of expanded coverage is that Dragonair can punish the use of chipped Pokemon to tank Wrap; on a Wrap miss, it can punish with an attack, which is especially deadly against frail foes like Fearow and Staryu. In this role, Dragonair works well with allied sweepers and cleaners that need slight damage to enable them. For example, Scyther comes just shy of OHKOing a number of foes at +2, and a few hits from Wrap easily make up the difference. Similarly, moderate chip damage helps enable allies like Rapidash and Fearow to clean through entire teams. However, this Dragonair lacks Thunder Wave and therefore makes for a poor enabler for slower allies like Nidoqueen that might appreciate paralysis more than chip damage.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============
Agility can be dropped to fit an additional coverage move, but this sacrifices a lot of potential chip damage and utility, so it should not be done lightly. Hyper Beam has a small chance to OHKO Abra and deals high damage to Staryu and Drowzee, but Thunderbolt already covers Staryu, and none of these three take Wrap hits well. This also leaves Dragonair even more helpless against Gastly and risks a recharge turn if used recklessly. Fire Blast 2HKOes Pinsir, but this is too niche of a matchup to cover over others, and both Thunderbolt and Blizzard already cover Scyther, a more relevant threat.
Checks and Counters
===================
**Gastly**: Gastly outspeeds Dragonair, takes no damage from Wrap, and takes little damage from Dragonair's attacks, allowing it to interrupt Dragonair with Hypnosis. However, Dragonair is often content with landing Thunder Wave on it to make it fodder for teammates like Nidoqueen, and it can use Wrap to pivot out and bring in allies that handle Gastly better, making it risky for Gastly to stay in and blockade Wrap. Dragonair lacking Thunder Wave is utterly helpless, however, and relies on teammates to bait out and remove Gastly first.
**Paralysis**: Paralysis severely hampers Dragonair, making Wrap horribly inconsistent and limiting it to setting up Agility and scoring some chip damage. This is not completely horrible in matchups where Dragonair has super effective coverage, but when it doesn't, it contributes very little damage before falling.
**Burn**: A burn heavily limits Dragonair by making Wrap a losing proposition, forcing it to simply look for paralysis and chip damage from its special attacks before it falls.
**Nidoqueen**: The near-omnipresent Nidoqueen outspeeds and 2HKOes Dragonair while being immune to Thunder Wave; even Blizzard, Dragonair's strongest option against Nidoqueen, rarely 2HKOes it. Dragonair can potentially set up Agility against it, but Blizzard leaves it in range of many attacks should it miss one Wrap.
**Blizzard Users**: Staryu rarely runs Blizzard, but it threatens paralysis to stop any Agility plays and can then 2HKO Dragonair if packing Blizzard. Seaking and the rare Omanyte can also punish Wrap misses with Blizzard for massive damage.
**Fast Physical Attackers**: Fearow, Scyther, and the rare Pinsir outspeed and can 2HKO Dragonair, making setup costly, as one Wrap miss ends Dragonair's rampage. Pinsir is also not weak to any of Dragonair's common moves.
[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/sabelette.583793/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/gastlies.540559/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/gangsta-spongebob.535530/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/autumn.384270/
Last edited:
