Base Stats: 115/65/99/65/115/111
Ability: Protosynthesis
Notable moves: Encore, Wish, Stealth Rock, Sunny Day/Rain Dance/Sandstorm/Snowscape, Reflect, Light Screen, Imprison, Trick, Baton Pass, Trick Room, Thunder Wave, Dazzling Gleam/Play Rough, Amnesia, Perish Song
Overview: Scream Tail is one of the new Paradox Pokémon. So far, it hasn't proven iteself to be as broken as some of its peers, but nonetheless is still an extremely solid Pokémon overall. With 115 HP, 99 DEF and 115 SP DEF, it can take a lot more hits than its cute appearance may show, even moreso when you take into account its amazing typing in Psychic/Fairy, with only three types (those being Steel, Poison and Ghost) being able to hit it for super-effective damage. While it does face competition in the tier with Hatterene and Gardevoir it has a lot of qualities neither of those two has. Starting with its speed, it being 111 allow it to be faster than some threats with minimal investment, allowing Scream Tail to do some goofy stuff.
Qualities:
- Good typing in Fairy/Psychic, specially with fairies being rarer in gen 9 than in the previous generation;
- Very decent bulk: 115/99/115;
- Good speed allowing it to surpass some threats with minimal speed investment;
- Vast support movepool;
- Encore allows it to ruin some setup sweepers (including some Espathra sets);
- Access to Wish;
- Can set Stealth Rock and Dual Screens if needed;
Shortcomings:
- While it can tank, it can't fight back even when carrying Dazzling Gleam since its special attack is lackluster at only 65;
- It basically has no ability since Protosynthesis it isn't worth it using a Booster Energy for it nor do we have access to Drought in UU;
- Altough it has a vast movepool, it obviously has only 4 slots and it struggles to fit everything it needs in those slots;
- Its weaknesses are somewhat common in the tier, specially in its current state with Gengar running;
- No access to recovery outside of Wish;
- Man I wish it had Taunt.
Sample Sets:
Scream Tail @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
EVs: 252 HP / 88 SpD / 168 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Wish
- Protect / Thunder Wave
- Encore
Ability: Protosynthesis
EVs: 252 HP / 88 SpD / 168 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Wish
- Protect / Thunder Wave
- Encore
Basic set for encore, you can trap setup sweepers quite easily with it, specially against Bisharp and some Espathra sets. Only issue I had when using this set was outspeeding Sinistea before Shell Smash and getting outsped after, which means you're probably dead, but you can run Thunder Wave to counter that, giving up Protect for it. My personal favorite set for now, definitely can use some improvements, I don't even remember what treshold I was trying to pass with 168 speed, maybe it could go higher or lower depending on what you need. Keep in mind that even if Scream Tail is max speed, it won't outspeed a +1 Espathra even at its lowest speed EV investment with a neutral nature (321 vs. 322), so you'll need a +Speed nature if you want to get over this treshold for some reason.
Scream Tail @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
EVs: 248 HP / 76 SpD / 184 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Stealth Rock
- Wish
- Protect
Ability: Protosynthesis
EVs: 248 HP / 76 SpD / 184 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Stealth Rock
- Wish
- Protect
Basic set for Stealth Rock, honestly it worked better than it should considering its only function is setting stealth rock, walling and wishing. Definitely not its best set.
With all that being said, I hope we can have a good discussion about Scream Tail and improve the post above, this is one of my first attempts at doing something like this and the community will be of great value to extract all of the potential of this pink goofball.
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