Samurott Discussion

Smith

Smith

is a Team Rater Alumnus
I haven't seen much Pokemon-based discussion lately and I want to focus on a really potent threat that requires more creative counters.

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Samurot @ Life Orb / Leftovers
252 Atk / 252 Spe /4 HP
Adamant
-Swords Dance
-Aqua Jet
-Waterfall
-Megahorn

At first glance, Samurott is just another stupid water type, with good offenses and reasonable bulk. "Outstanding" isn't the word I'd use. One thing, and one thing only, however, distinguishes Samurott as a potent offensive threat- Megahorn. With Megahorn, Samurott can muscle through many of the Pokemon that ought to counter it, such as bulky grass types, Mesprit, and even Jynx with some prediction or some luck on your side. From there, you can use Samurott's other useful prospects, like Aqua Jet to pick off frailer sweepers. All in all, he's a very difficult Pokemon to "counter" in the classical sense, especially since everybody is throwing all the defensive EVs they can spare on a water Pokemon into spdef to stop the ubiquitous Gorebyss.

Things to discuss-
-How do you counter Samurott, or at least provide a defense against him on your team?
-What makes a good teammate for Samurott, and what are Pokemon that have these traits?
-Is Samurott most useful when paired up with smahers on a more hyper-offensive team, or as a part of a fwg core or the like on a more balanced or defensive team?
 
I will personally kill you if you ever refer to Samurott as "just another stupid Water-type" ever again. :)

I use Samurott on nearly all my teams, in both NU and RU. The sheer power after a Swords Dance is incredible, OHKOing even Tangela with Stealth Rock damage. Megahorn is a great coverage move, and is only walled by the likes of Altaria and a few others. In addition, the fact that Samurott will often end up in Torrent range while setting up makes its Aqua Jet quite powerful. Faster Pokemon such as Swellow and Choice Scarf users cannot revenge without priority, as a SD-boosted Aqua Jet can finish many weakened Pokemon off. In addition, when you opt for a slightly bulkier spread by investing in some HP EVs, some weak super effective attacks won't even OHKO.
 
Samurott is one of those mons that after a set up is pretty much guaranteed to kill at least one mon. Water / Bug is very good coverage, with pretty much no pokemon in NU able to avoid a neutral hit. To put it nicely, "hey Starmie I must be related to you, I have no safe switch-ins, too!"
 
^ there are safe switch ins, they just suck, like pokemon with water/flying typing, like Mantine.

Physically Bulky Amonguss might have a chance, resist stab and neutral to Megahorn
 
Frillish is one of the few actually decent mons that can counter him, with access to taunt and will o wisp as well as resisting his main attacks to completely shut him down.
 
Frillish is useful, but I think that Altaria gets the cake for best counter thanks to Cotton Guard. Alternatively Jumpluff could work for the same reasons!
 
although jumpluff is neutral to megahorn and has less defense than altaria. So Jumpluff isn't really that great of a check.
 
BUT it can outspeed and use Cotton Guard, or just mindlessly spam Substitute until you get a Megahorn miss and then get some leech seed going.
 
Couldn't Jumpluff just encore waterfall or Sword dance?

Unless your opponent predicts a Jumpluff switch and hits you with megahorn
 
Well;with aqua jet it becomes difficult to encore swords dance. But if you carry cotton guard and he unleashes megahorn on the switch, leech seed or cotton guard away.
 
I don't see a problem encoring Aqua jet.

I don't know how much damage a resisted +2 Aqua jet would do but it's better then a +2 Waterfall or Megahorn.
 
+2 Life Orb Samurott Aqua Jet vs. 252/0 Jumpluff- 29.7% - 34.7%
+2 Leftovers blah blah blah- 22.6% - 26.8%

With some defensive investment, the Lefties won't even break substitutes, and in any case you're probably recovering a good deal of health from Leech Seed and Leftovers, so you can usually wear out opposing Samurott.
 
You should slash lum berry as an option in the set as it can save you from a potentially crippling burn/toxic which will hinder your sweep.
Unaware quagsire will laugh at samurott, negating his stat boosts and setting up curses and recovering back HP. Leafeon can also stomach a +2 Aqua Jet and KO with leaf blade with some attack investment, as it outspeeds.
Luxray can Outspeed, if it runs max speed, and KO with wild charge, whilst cutting the attack of samurott via intimidate, but I havent seen a luxray yet xD.

The best partners are the kind that can sponge electric and grass attacks thrown at samurott. Camerupt can do this and can set up stealth rock to aid samurotts sweep. Running swellow alongside isnt a bad idea, since you can U Turn on the generic rock type coming in to wall you and nab a free swords dance boost as they switch out. Swellow also doesn't care about weezing as it isn't bothered by WoWisp, but could be in trouble if it gets caught by a thunderbolt.
 
CrazyBacon said:
Luxray can Outspeed, if it runs max speed, and KO with wild charge, whilst cutting the attack of samurott via intimidate, but I havent seen a luxray yet xD.
Click to expand...

That's because we're waiting for guts to be released. Samurott works great with Camerupt support but you have to be wary of mons running coverage moves that can check Camerupt, too (aka, HP water eelektross and some other mons of the like).
 
I've used Guts Luxray and its not exactly good. Guts boosted Wild Charge is awesome but his shitty coverage moves don't help at all.
 
I've been running a bulky SD Samurott spread with max HP and no Spe. Base 70 is just too slow to try and outspeed anything so its better to augment his naturally good (but not great) bulk.

I run SD/ Waterfall/ Megahorn/ Aqua Jet with Sea Incense. I know Sea Incense is technically a "bad" item but using LO seems counter productive to investing in bulk and doing so allows Samurott to get into, and stay in, Torrent range much easier. Torrent+SD+ Sea Incense= nuclear powered Waterfalls and Aqua Jets.

Very underrated 'mon. Its movepool is excellent as well, both on the special and physical side.
 
After talking to HotNCold, I used Sub/Swords Dance/Waterfall/Megahorn Samurott with paralysis support for a little while and it worked pretty well. It's decently bulky so it's not like it was ~easy~ to break the subs and it also hammered attempted revenge kills by faster Grass-types like Leafeon and Serperior with Megahorn (provided it hit, of course). It could also Substitute up on obvious Thunder Waves coming from Regirock which was really nice. I wish it had enough HP to make 101 subs to block Seismic Toss etc, but it's still not bad.
 
A combo I really like on paper (cough cough euphemism for "I haven't tested this") is Leafeon + Samurott. Everyone bitches about grass typing, since it lures out birds and magmortars and the like, but it really works to his benefit here. If you can pass +2 and a sub or +4 to a Samurott, things are going to start dying reaaally quickly. Since the only things likely to switch into a Leafeon are Weezing, birds and Magmortar, Samurott is a good recipient since it can actually barrel through most of these guys with some attack boosts and a life orb. The other thing is that Samurott, unlike most physical sweepers (Leafeon included) can actually beat Tangela by virtue of Megahorn. It's definitely something to try imo.
 
If you're BPing Swords Dance to Samurott, it can then be worth tossing Ice Beam on it, as it has a good Sp.Atk set and nails Tangela with more assurance and also the birds.
 
As Smith pointed out about that awesome combo between Samurott and a Grass type although it is a bit flawed, I've been using Cacturne + Samurott. They give each other superb synergy, and Cacturne can support Samurott with Spikes. From my experience, Spikes definitely helped out Samurott a lot more when it comes to koing a mon. It's really up to you if you want to run Encore on Cacturne. Its ability, Water Absorb is a matter of preference. Personally, I run Water Absorb because I dislike switching Cacturne into Scald from Quagsire and watch Cacturne get burned. Besides, I can never find the time to actually use Encore.
 
My main team also features Cacturne + Samurott and I have to profess that it's pretty good too. I wasn't too concerned with synergy, but spikes + Samurott is just a really deadly combination. There are obviously a few issues, since it still can't break down most physical walls and/or grass types, but spikes help in limiting Tangela from Regeneration abusing, so it's definitely worth considering.
 
Samurott is a very good pokemon, but I find that he really needs a lot of partners to be used to his full potential. He needs a Ground-type or Motor Drive/Volt Absorb/etc. to absorb electric attacks, and he needs another pokemon to absorb Grass-type attacks since the pokemon used to tank Electric-type attacks can't also handle powerful Grass moves. Give him that support and he's good, sure, but without BOTH defensive partners he really suffers.
 
Well I think that applies to any Pokemon really. Samurott is good with support, but I think he's also a good mon to just randomly slap on teams to add offensive power, priority, etc. That said, obviously any water type needs something to take electric and grass attacks, just like steel types need something to take fire, fighting and ground attacks, and dragons need something for ice and dragon attacks. This is why defensive synergy is important.
 
On another topic, is replacing Waterfall with Razor Shell feasible? There's a very small loss of power and accuracy (5 base power and 5% accuracy), but there's a 50% chance of a Defense drop, which helps softens targets even on predicted switchins.
 
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