Feraligatr (QC 1/3)

Expulso

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QC: TheCanadianWifier / -- / --
GP: -- / --

Overview
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+ Extremely powerful
+ Decently wide movepool
+ Great bulk, conpounded by the superb mono-Water typing
+ Strong priority
- Grass-types are common in NU
- Slow unboosted

Swords Dance
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name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Waterfall
move 3: Aqua Jet
move 4: Return / Ice Punch
item: Lum Berry / Mystic Water
evs: 184 HP / 252 Atk / 76 Spe
nature: Adamant

Moves
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- Swords Dance doubles Attack, augmeting Feraligatr's already great offensive prowess
- Waterfall has decent Base Power, is STAB, and has a handy flinch chance
- Aqua Jet is a very strong form of prioity; when boosted by Swords Dance and Torrent, it hits neutral targets harder than +0 Return
- Return provides great neutral coverage, hitting Grass, Water, and Dragon-type Pokemon all neutrally.
- However, Ice Punch hits the common Grass-types, as well as Dragon-types, super-effectively; at +2, an Ice Punch almost OHKOs Vileplume.
- Substitute let it absolutely demolish defensive teams; however, it doesn't do very well against the more prevalent offense.

Set Details
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- The EV spread allows Feraligatr to outspeed uninvested base 80s and max+ base 55s while still keeping good bulk as well as hitting extremely hard; more speed can be used if you deem the bulk unnecesary.
- Lum Berry lets it set up on common defensive Pokemon such as Seismitoad and Audino.
- Mystic Water gives a boost to Feraligatr's STABs and does not sacrifice any of its bulk like Life Orb would.

Usage Tips
========

- Set up on whatever your item allows you to; Lum Berry Feraligatr can set up on Audino, Avalugg and other weak defensive Pokemon, while both set up on targets weak to Water attacks, such as Rhydon.
- Sweep if its counters have been removed; otherwise, just wallbreak and wait, possibly double switching to a teammate.

Team Options
========

- Electivire is an excellent teammate, being able to lure in Grass-types and hit them with Flamethrower, KO water-types with its Electric STAB or HP Grass, and break past Dragalge with Earthquake.
- Magmortar and other fire-types are also appreciated; they carry coverage to KO Water-types and freely switch into Grass-types such as Vileplume and Tangela.
- With Sticky Web support, Samurott is a very good teammate, being able to lure in and defeat most of Gatr's counters with Ice Beam, Grass Knot, and Hidden Power Fire.
- As with most offensive Pokemon, hazard support is appreciated; a suicide lead like Accelgor, Crustle or Omastar is very useful, as well as a ghost-type to spinblock those hazards. With SR and a Spike, +2 Feraligatr OHKOs Vileplume 75% of the time with Ice Punch and OHKOs Lanturn 100% of the time with Return.

Dragon Dance
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name: Dragon Dance
move 1: Dragon Dance
move 2: Waterfall
move 3: Ice Punch
move 4: Earthquake
item: Life Orb
evs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
nature: Jolly

Moves
========

- Dragon Dance boosts both Attack and Speed one stage, helping Feraligatr get past offensive checks like Sceptile, Lilligant and Mesprit.
- Waterfall has decent Base Power, is STAB, and has a handy flinch chance
- Ice Punch provides excellent neutral coverage with Earthquake, hitting Grass and Dragon types extremely hard.
- Earthquake has great neutral coverage with Ice Punch, and hits Water-types neutrally as well as nailing Poison-types like Dragalge and Qwilfish.

Set Details
========

- The EV spread invests as much as possible into Attack and Speed; the power and speed are more necessary than bulk on this set.
- Life Orb gives it a lot of extra power, which is needed as Gatr only gets to +1 on this set.
- Lum Berry lets it set up on defensive Pokemon at the cost of power, a very high cost.
- The choice between natures comes down to speed vs. power; Jolly is usually better, letting it outspeed many more Scarfers, as well as Swellow.

Usage Tips
========

- Save DD Feraligatr for late-game, when the opponent's team is fairly weakened
ok doing this later

Team Options
========

- Electivire is an excellent teammate, being able to lure in Grass-types and hit them with Flamethrower, KO water-types with its Electric STAB or HP Grass, and break past Dragalge with Earthquake.
- Magmortar and other fire-types are also appreciated; they carry coverage to KO Water-types and freely switch into Grass-types such as Vileplume and Tangela.
- With Sticky Web support, Samurott is a very good teammate, being able to lure in and defeat most of Gatr's counters with Ice Beam, Grass Knot, and Hidden Power Fire.
- As with most offensive Pokemon, hazard support is appreciated; a suicide lead like Accelgor, Crustle or Omastar is very useful, as well as a ghost-type to spinblock those hazards.

Other Options
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- Superpower can lure in and allow Feraligatr to defeat Ferroseed; however, the Attack and Defense drops are not desirable.
- A Mixed Attacking set allows Feraligatr to beat some common switching such as Ferroseed and Seismitoad, but is weaker overall and serves that sole purpose, almost.
- Wacan and Rindo Berry grant Feraligatr a neutrality to Electric and Grass-type attacks, respectively, allowing Feraligatr to surprise some of its counters.

Checks & Counters
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**Water-types**: Water-types like Poliwrath, Qwilfish, Seismitoad and Ludicolo take little damage from Waterfall and Ice Punch, and usually can tank Return.
**Grass-types**: Grass-types such as Vileplume, Tangela and Ferroseed resist Feraligatr's STAB attacks and hit back with their super effective STABs, but are usually maimed by Ice Punch; if the opponent has a Feraligatr, make sure to keep your Grass-types healthy, as they will be unable to check Gatr at less than near max HP.
**Physical Walls**: General physical walls, such as Seismitoad and Tangela (gimme better examples), can tank Feraligatr's attacks fairly well.
**Fast Offensive Pokemon**: Strong and fast offensive threats, like Mesprit, Sceptile, Lilligant and Rotom, can usually survive an Aqua Jet but are hit hard by a +1 Ice Punch or Waterfall from the DD set.
**Dragon-types**: While rare, Dragon-types such as Dragalge and Altaria can comfortably tank Feraligatr's Water-type attacks, but are hit very hard by Ice Punch.
**Status**: Status, such as burn, paralysis and sleep, can severely cripple Feraligatr; however, it usually runs a Lum Berry to cure this once.
 
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As for sd ev spread, feraligatr only needs 20 speed evs to outspeed uninvested altaria, 60 evs is the recommended spread so that you outspeed volbeat/illumise and ajet before they can lock you into sd (i run 80 personally to speed creep everyone), the only other suggested ev spread is 140 speed to hit hit uxie twice before it can twave u twice ending gatrs sweep, and defensive leafeon (gatrs number 1 non gimmick answer) at least once with ice punch.

Edit: 60 also outspeeds defensive qwilfish and can sd before it can taunt.
 
Expulso

  • change the spread to 192 HP / 252 Atk / 64 Spe, and mention 144 HP / 252 Atk / 112 Spe (to outspeed Max Speed Base 65s) and 64 HP / 252 Atk / 192 Spe (to outspeed Max Speed base 70s) in Set Details.
  • Remove Life Orb from the SD set: Mystic Water is superior.
  • Feraligatr can beat Vileplume with Swords Dance + Ice Punch, or beat frailer Grass-types if it hits them with Ice Punch as they switch on it. Make sure to show that they are mainly Checks.
  • Feraligatr isn't easy to revenge kill as +2 Aqua Jet HURTS (It can easily OHKO Scarf Primeape, Rotom (every form), and more with just a bit of prior damage).
  • Remove Double Dance and Defensive sets from Other Options. Instead, mention Superpower to lure Ferroseed, Substitute (for Swords Dance set) to set up on walls more easily by giving away a coverage move, and a Mixed Attacker set (to lure Seismitoad and Physical walls in general, it is OO worthy).
  • You should fix the Checks and Counters imo.
Do this and I will check later
 
Mention Samurott in Team Options, between Ice Beam, Grass Knot and HP Fire (not necessary, but deserves a mention) it can beat most things that stop Feraligatr - Vileplume, Seismitoad, Ferroseed, Tangela etc.
 
A few quick things:
  • Minor, but I'd use just a little more Speed than SG's set. 72 Spe beats out maximum base 55s and sacrifices like zero bulk.
  • Remove the mention of Sub + LO on SD and replace with Mystic Water (use Mystic Water > LO on the full set too!)
  • Gatr can't set up on Toad even with Lum. It often carries Toxic and even a few turns of Toxic damage makes Gatr much easier to RK.
  • Jolly should be the main slash on DD imo, outspeeding Swellow is pretty important and since this is a cleaner + LO is the main item the loss of power shouldn't matter too much.
  • Rest + Block + Dragon Dance + Waterfall >>>>>>>>>> Sleep Talk.
 
Type resist berries like Wacan and Rindo are pretty cool to beat "standard" offensive checks like Sceptile and Earthquake is about as powerful as return on neutrals and has the benefit of beating qwilfish.
I'd mention gourgeist formed in the grass types part of c&c
 
Echoing what galbia said, I know most people run rindo or wacan know as no one tries to burn a gatr anyway just out of fear of giving it a free turn if it had lum.
definitely deserving of a mention in the OO and in the set description for the SD set.
Also, as others have said, remove Lifeorb from the first set and use Mystic Water as it's just better
 
Swords Dance:
- Mystic Water works well with Torrent, giving Feraligatr a potential 1.5x boost to its Water-type attacks.
Cut this. That's not the way the math works, and it's not really relevant anyways. Just say something like "Mystic Water gives a boost to Feraligatr's STABs and does not sacrifice any of its bulk like Life Orb would."

Under Set Details, make sure to note the alternate EV spreads Soulgazer mentioned in his post.

- Set up on whatever your item allows you to; Lum Berry Feraligatr can set up on Seismitoad, Audino and other weak defensive Pokemon, while both set up on targets weak to Water attacks, such as Rhydon.
You still need to cut Seismitoad from here.

- As with most offensive Pokemon, hazard support is appreciated; a suicide lead like Accelgor, Crustle or Omastar is very useful, as well as a ghost-type to spinblock those hazards.
You should only mention hazard support if there are specific KO's that a Pokemon gets with hazard support. Find a few useful ones and include a brief mention of them here.

Dragon Dance:
Jolly should be the only nature for DD. You don't have priority, which means you can't afford not to outspeed as much as possible, and you usually only need one boost to clean late-game in terms of power because the opponent's team should be plenty weakened by then.

Drop the Lum Berry slash and just keep the mention of it in Set Details. It's ok I guess, but Life Orb is way more necessary.

Don't even mention Aqua Jet here because it's bad.

Woaaah ok. Don't just copy/paste Usage Tips and Team Options for two totally different sets. Yes, they both try to clean, but they do it in very different ways and play completely differently. You wouldn't just slash Dragon Dance with Swords Dance on the same set for this very reason. The way you set up with DD Feraligatr most of the time is just bringing it in when you know you can sweep at +1 and you can live a hit while you do it with enough HP left to live a few rounds of LO recoil. You can only really bring it out late game because +1 Jolly LO Gatr is both less strong and less bulky than +2 SD non-LO Gatr, and you really need things weakened in order to keep you from taking more unnecessary damage. You also have to identify Scarf/priority mons that might deter a sweep, which is another thing that is a lot less of a concern for SD.

As for Team Options, cut Samurott from here because double Water is already pretty sketchy outside of rain teams, and you don't need Webs support for DD gatr. Keep the hazards mention, but again, make sure you come up with good examples of KOs that +1 LO gatr gets with them. Dragalge and Vileplume are not nearly as problematic for this set, so those shouldn't be mentioned here. Instead, you can mention things that can lure in Ferroseed and bulky Water-types, which are the best answers for this set.

Other Options:
- Superpower can lure in and allow Feraligatr to defeat Ferroseed; however, the Attack and Defense drops are not desirable.
Cut the second half and instead say that dedicating a moveslot to luring in one Pokemon is inefficient and that you should only do this if your team really needs it. As an example, I'd probably use SD Superpower gatr on a team with BD Slurpuff.

Checks and Counters:
Just cut out the Physical Wall part. Your examples are all already mentioned, and it's honestly way too vague anyways.
Get rid of the Rotom mention. It takes like 75-ish% from +2 Aqua Jet, and it dies to +1 Waterfall. The others are fine.
 
avalugg is probably the only pokemon that falls under "physical wall that beats feraligatr but is not a grass or water type"

jynx is a check to SD sets, esp if theyve been weakened slightly.
 
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Considering you listed pretty much all types that resist Water, you can probably combine them into a section called "Bulky Water Resists".
 
You should probably mention that water types mostra of the time are setup fodder if they don't have (p)hazing capabilities or can't taunt/status
 
i would change fast offensive pokemon to fast offensive pokemon that can tank aqua jet since you don't want people trying to revenge kill with something with mismagius or rotom only to die to a torrent boosted aqua jet.

take ludicolo out of c&c, it cannot tank return.
 
Defensive Leafeon deserves a big mention in C&C. It outspeeds SD Gatr and easily takes +2 Ice Punch from it, and 2HKOes with Leaf Blade. It also does a lot of damage to DD LO Gatr, and even make use of Gatr's LO to Synthesis stall and wear it down for a OHKO.

Offensive Leafeon also checks SD Gatr incredibly well.

Edit: Expulso 76 Speed EVs only speedties Adamant Torterra; just bump it up to 80 (and drop HP accordingly).
 
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Overview
  • Tbh Gatr isn't ~that~ strong (at least before a boost) so I would remove that point. I'd actually mention instead that it kind of needs setup to sweep which can be bad if it's running low on health.
SD
  • Minor nitpick but your EV spread is Speed creeping by one point so it should be 184 HP / 252 Atk / 72 Spe
  • Comparing AJet to Return is random and kind of pointless. Just explain how it allows Gatr to function against offense.
  • Again, Gatr can't set up on Seismitoad as it often carries Toxic and a boosted Return only 3HKOes. Audino doesn't usually carry status moves so I'd replace them with something like Uxie or w/e
  • In SD mention some other EV spreads: 112 Spe beats max Pawniard, 192 Spe beats max 70s, 252 ties other Gatr, etc.
  • In UT I'd make some sort of mention of getting down to Torrent range as Gatr is by far its scariest then. If it can set up on attacks that can bring it down to Torrent it makes it that much harder to check.
DD
  • Jolly does not help it against Scarfers except like Modest Mesprit so I would remove that
  • Usage Tips and Team Options need a ton of work (see Treecko's post)
Checks and Counters
  • Like Treecko and Zeb said remove physical walls and Rotom, and add Jynx
 
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