Hydration
Here's a
really interesting Pokemon: its bulk is honestly pretty bad, but it's lightning fast, can Rest through almost anything if it has Rain support (Or it can set its own Rain), and its typing goes a long way to make up for the bad defenses. Its HP is OK, too. Has some potential as a bizarrely fast wall, one that can U-Turn out of trouble at that.
I'd stick to Regenerator and just be glad you resist Stealth Rock now. The main argument in favor of Hydration is to Rest right through Toxic, and I'm not convinced that's a strong argument.
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Pretty much the only possible reason to use Dewgong... and it's got a lot of competition. Access to Hydration is also slightly redundant with Toxic immunity, though that's not
huge.
One of the main arguments in favor of Hydration over Sap Sipper is the ability to ignore Burns, if running a Physically inclined Goodra. Overall Sap Sipper seems a stronger choice to me, but a Rain team with Hydration Goodra could be interesting.
There's a lot of competition for the utility, and Vaporeon in particular is almost flatly its superior as a Hydration abuser. Probably better to focus on Swift Swim if you want to run it in the Rain at all.
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Main problem is that horrible double weakness. If you can get around that, it could be a decent Hydration abuser.
Luvdisc is awful and has too much Hydration competition.
Your only Ability available. Overall Manaphy has a weaker performance in Rain than in Standard, lacking Focus Blast to maximize the utility of the Rain, and it doesn't even care about protection from Paralysis being granted by Hydration -it's already immune. Hard to argue for trying to fit Manaphy into a Rain team just to take advantage of Hydration, overall.
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Keen Eye and Big Pecks are pretty eh, so why not? The question is whether Swanna is worth running, which it might be -its typing is a lot harder to pick on, with an innate immunity to Paralysis and to two different attacking types, one of which is powerful and common.
With just the one weakness -and native immunity to Paralysis, at that- Vaporeon is arguably a lot more viable as a wall. Overall this is an easy choice in Ability, though -if you're not providing Rain support, just take Water Absorb. If you are, give serious consideration to Hydration.
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Your other options are Oblivious and Anticipation. Oblivious is, admittedly, actually decent...
Ice Body has the advantage that, in Type Cycle, none of its users are natively immune to Hail. It has the disadvantage that Hail has always been the weakest weather, and its setters aren't immune to it in Type Cycle. It's not like the effect is strong enough to be liable to justify setting it with an Ice Body Pokemon -too much 4MSS.
Honestly? Probably better off running Sturdy. Still, it could be OK in a Hail team.
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Not a good typing to try to do the patient wall thing. Worse, you're basically outperformed by Walrein at it anyway. If you're going to run Dewgong at all, Hydration (Or maybe Thick Fat) is the way to go.
It's this or Snow Cloak. Of the two, Ice Body is actually reliable, albeit less dramatic in its payoff. Glaceon does, in fact, have a lot more potential as a cleric or the like with its new typing, so it might even crop up.
It's this or Inner Focus, and if you're running Glalie, it's probably so it can be Mega Glalie, in which case I'd go for Ice Body just so there's a
chance of payoff. (Even just switching into a Hail and taking no damage from it is a payoff)
It's this or Weak Armor. Thing is? Weak Armor is probably better -help make up for its bad Speed tier, and its statline (And movepool) is oriented more toward fast attacker than wall. It might even have a niche, now that its typing is not so awful.
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Classic Stallrein. Thick Fat and Oblivious are your other options. Unfortunately, Walrein is
painfully vulnerable to
, and it's liable to be quite common. I'm not sure how viable it will be in a general sense.
Snow Cloak is only on a few Pokemon, and a 20% chance of dodging in Hail+immunity to Hail is pretty eh if Hail isn't permanent. I don't even feel like going through the full list, honestly.
Filter+
Solid Rock are arguably a lot more relevant.
Poor Mega Aggron. Filter at least makes its pain a bit more tolerable, but it still misses Toxic immunity, the zillion resistances, having a good typing at all... its offense is a bit better, but if that's what you care about, staying regular Aggron probably makes more sense.
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MIME. Not really that different from Standard, in terms of Filter's utility... beyond that it has more weaknesses... which isn't a good thing... oh, and now it's weak to Stealth Rock. Hooray.
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No double weaknesses!
... but weak to Stealth Rock. Eh, still overall an improvement.
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Also no double weaknesses, but weak to Stealth Rock. I think Lightning Rod is probably more useful, overall.
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A really
good typing, immune to grounded hazards, resistant to Stealth Rock, with no double weaknesses and indeed only two weaknesses at all, as well as immunity to Paralysis.
Yikes.
Leaf Guard is available to a small pool of Pokemon, and in all honestly Jumpluff and maybe Meganium are the only ones that seem like much of a Sun team Pokemon. Even so.
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With how crazy-fast Jumpluff is anyway, it's basically either Leaf Guard or Infiltrator. If you're running Jumpluff in a Sun team, I'd give Leaf Guard serious consideration -a lighting fast supporter that can't be Paralyzed is
good- but otherwise Infiltrator is probably the better choice. It's not like Mega Charizard Y is liable to be popular standalone, like it is in Standard.
It's either this or Chlorophyll, which is actually a kind of difficult decision, particularly if you're running Leafeon as a Physical attacker. Fast Leafeon has obvious advantages, but Leaf Guard Leafeon ignores Burn attempts.
Not sure why you'd run Leaf Guard, when Quiver Dance followed by Own Tempo Petal Dance is so much more viable in Type Cycle. The only strong argument in Leaf Guard's favor is immunity to Paralysis, really.
If you're running Sun Meganium, go ahead and take it. Otherwise? I'd probably stick with Overgrow -Giga Drain actually synergizes well with overgrow.
I'd honestly probably stick to Regenerator, even in Sun. (And in Sun I'd probably go for Chlorophyll first anyway) Regenerator is amazing.
Levitate covers weaknesses on Pokemon with less frequency, and is a lot more likely to be bypassed by Gravity in this meta anyway. Furthermore, the type it guards against is weaker and less widespread than in Standard, making it overall less appealing. Still, there's value to be found here.
Edgequake resistance! Ultimately, I suspect the only one that will tend to matter is Azelf -Uxie runs into the problem that Cresselia exists while Mesprit runs into the problem that Azelf and Uxie exist- but it's a nifty little quirk for them.
Some pretty obvious utility to the type/Ability combination, probably mostly held back by Carnivine itself. At least it's no longer redundant in its typing/Ability, and its STAB is a very powerful offensive type. Could be decent?
More edgequake resistance!... but Chimecho is Chimecho. :(
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The ultimate in edgequake resistance! Note that it's a Rapid Spinner, though, alas, it's weak to Stealth Rock, and it lacks recovery.
Edgequake wall. Honestly? Cresselia looks amazing in Type Cycle.
Weezing from another reality. Unlike Weezing, it has reliable recovery and access to Rapid Spin. It's also surprising fast! Main flaw is that its Defense is
awful. Might have some niche utility on some teams, though.
Not nearly as cool a synergy as in Standard, but still a really good defensive typing.
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Levitating Mega Lopunny?? Honestly, I think Flygon's main hope is to lean Special to abuse Boomburst -which isn't a half-bad approach, admittedly. What bearing does Levitate have on this? None!
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A solid situation. Gengar is amazing stuff.
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Well, if
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/
offense proves powerful and viable in Type Cycle Ubers for some reason, then it has a unique niche. Problem: Barring Hidden Power, that's not even a
possible trio.
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It's a floating Sawsbuck. On the plus side, it no longer has a double weakness. On the minus side: weak to Stealth Rock, two crappy attacking types as STABs, Ability is non-synergistic with typing...
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Again, three different immunities. Total block to
/
/
offense. Which... Mew
can run... more-or-less nothing else can pull off the combination, though.
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Oh. Yay. This is just...
bad. Standard Rotom-Fan at least has no double-weaknesses. And an OK BST. And a good movepool.
A floating
rather than a floating
isn't really much of a change, but then, there's the question of what kinds of coverage Pokemon tend to run, and who's highly viable. Could be decent.
Oh man look how happy it is
Not that anybody
uses them... but... uh, edgequake resistance, hooray?
Arguably a direct downgrade for Weezing's defensive ability, but its offense is dramatically improved, its Explosions are horrifying, being able to soak a Will O Wisp isn't the worst thing in the world (And ties nicely back into unblockable, potentially super effective Explosions), and even though it's vaguely stall-y it's not really a stallmon so the loss of Toxic immunity isn't so bad. And two weaknesses isn't
that much worse than one.
Lightning Rod is, unfortunately, still
primarily found on already-resistant-or-immune Pokemon. However, overall fewer Lightning-Rod-capable Pokemon find it redundant, so that's something.
Still redundant. And it doesn't even get Surf to remain a part of
Discharge Surf teams.
No longer redundant! In fact, since it's protecting it from
Scald, this represents a fairly big boost to Marowak's viability. Its STAB still has to deal with an immunity, but that's trivial to deal with -just toss on Frustration, and you just need coverage against
s. You can actually run Fury Cutter for that, funnily enough. Now you have perfect coverage, with room for Swords Dance!
Still redundant, and no Surf for you.
Once Surfing Pikachu is a thing again, Surf spam team! Prior to that? Well, being able to switch in on a Scald for a Special Attack boost isn't the worst thing in the world.
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Weirdly enough, Rhyperior can act as a participant in Surf-spam Doubles teams, giving and taking boosts for spamming Surf. Very weird. From a Singles perspective, it's covering a weakness, which is a big improvement over "totally useless" like in Standard. Main question is whether you want Lightning Rod or Solid Rock.
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The good news: Lightning Rod is no longer tortuously redundant with your typing. The bad news: your typing is awful. On the plus side, the combination of Scald and Earth Power is somewhat uncommon, with most Pokemon that have access to it preferring to run Physical anyway, so its utility as a Scald absorber is acceptable.
Poor Seaking. Lost its one niche -Discharge team fodder that isn't, itself, yet another
type. On the other hand, now it can toss out STAB Surfs to
trigger fellow Lightning Rods. So now they're just Surf teams. Huh.
No Surf, more's the pity. Probably better off with Sap Sipper, for immunity to Knock Off and so on.
Motor Drive is on only three Pokemon, and they're all resistant anyway. But let's go into more detail regardless.
Electivire has one very good reason to run Motor Drive anyway: Scald immunity! That, and its Speed tier can use the boost. But I cannot overstate the value of Scald immunity, particularly given how good Electivire's Physical movepool is.
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As if anybody is going to run Emolga...
Hi again. Similar reasons as with Lightning Rod, with the sub-point of "116 is already crazy fast".
Volt Absorb is rather redundant on
everything that gets it...
Slightly less redundant than in Standard, though still pretty redundant. On the other hand, Quick Feet is even
worse about being lame -being able to heal off a Scald is, again, nothing to scoff at. Jolteon itself has access to
coverage in the form of Signal Beam, and Hyper Voice gives it a way around a lot of
types huge pool of resistances, giving it overall more potential than in Standard... though unfortunately it's weak to Bullet Punch and Shadow Sneak.
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It's either this or Water Absorb. Honestly? I'd probably take Water Absorb. Lanturn can Heal Bell away Burns and doubly resists Scalds and so on, whereas Close Combat off of something like Guts Conkeldur can
hurt even resisted -especially since Lanturn has much worse Defense than Special Defense, so it really needs more help patching up its Physical durability. It has the incidental advantage of protecting it from Seismic Toss, neutering a lot of Chansey in the face of it, where they'd just Seismic Toss right through it if you're running Volt Absorb.
Meh. It's Minun.
Pickup instead? Hard to say, especially since people don't run Pachirisu in Standard OU.
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The redundancy with its typing is a strong argument for sticking with Incarnate, for Prankster or Defiant. Incarnate is faster, too. But, again, the ability to soak a Scald is legitimately amazing, and Thundurus-Therian has a unique combination here that might block a major threat.
Water Absorb
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I already talked about Cacturne with Sand Veil, but Water Absorb does have merit. It's kind of like Standard Storm Drain Cradily, only not really. Covering a neutrality is nice, anyway, especially one with powerful moves like Close Combat in it.
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Jellicent doesn't get anything huge out of Water Absorb, but it's covering a neutrality so it's perfectly nice. It no longer has the distinction of hard-walling Keldeo, but it's still not
fun for Keldeo to face, and two immunities, two weaknesses, assorted resistances is quite good.
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Covered this under Volt Absorb, but overall Water Absorb strikes me as more useful for protecting against powerful Physical moves, rather than trying to protect against the likes of Scald. Among other points, Water Absorb provides much better protection against Keldo than Volt Absorb does.
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Lapras covers a neutrality with it. Shell Armor and Hydration are your other options, and with that double Ground weakness I have doubts about Lapras pulling off a Rest+Hydration wall sort of thing. Might as well get in an immunity. Regardless, Electric/Poison is actually a neat typing in terms of letting you eat Paralysis and Toxic attempts.
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Mantine gets to cover up a neutrality with this, so that's cool, and, like Lanturn, it's got garbage Physical Defense while most competent
moves are Physical. It's not like Water Veil does you any good. Swift Swim
might be useful for it, maybe. but Water Absorb seems like a solid choice.
Maractus is outright covering a weakness with Water Absorb. Problem: Maractus is incredibly lame and has way too much competition among other, better plants. Also, arguably it should be using Storm Drain instead, anyway.
Main thing is: if you're running Politoed, its for Drizzle. Otherwise, it
could be cool. But seriously, Drizzle, for your Rain team.
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Poliwrath, why you gotta be so bad so consistently? I kid, kinda. Poliwrath actually looks like it's got a lot of potential as a Rain 'mon, with Swift Swim and STAB rain-boosted moves like Focus Blast. (Also: I had
no idea Poliwrath's
Fighting movepool was so shit. Where's Close Combat, or Drain Punch, or something
good? Yeah, Focus Punch is totally a good idea with Swift Swim... at least now I understand why it's never been meta-relevant) But Water Absorb on it seems dubious.
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Just run Unaware, please. Or Seismitoad. Seismitoad is better in pretty much every way except a small loss to Physical bulk, as a Water Absorber.
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The Pokemon to look to if you're contemplating
insanity running Quagsire as Water Absorb. Just run this toad! It's even got a nifty type combination that's reasonably complimentary on the offense.
It's either this or Hydration for Vaporeon. Most Vaporeon are Water Absorb in Standard, where they
resist the type. Here? The decision should be easy, especially since
means
much more powerful and widespread moves in Type Cycle.
Storm Drain is really rare.
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Slow Storm Drain Special Aerodactyl. OK then. Covers a weakness, its typing is actually pretty solid... looks cool! Especially since this typing resists Stealth Rock, in Type Cycle.
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Not as uniquely amazing as in Standard, but I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the value.
Has Lumineon
ever been viable? Too much competition... still. At least Storm Drain is no longer outright redundant with its typing.
I still doubt running it at all is a great idea, but overall this seems like its best choice, out of its three Abilities, yes.
Rain Dish is only particularly worth commentary as normally Rain Dish Pokemon are all Rain-lovers for other reasons. Not so much in Type Cycle.
Note that Aura Sphere benefits from the Rain, so Blastoise is reasonably OK with the Rain. It's nothing amazing for it... even so, you might as well run Rain Dish where possible if you're running Mega Blastoise on the off-chance you switch it in while Rain is up and its injured.
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Vulnerable to
and resistant to
, not a great thing for a Rain Pokemon. Besides, Swift Swim has more payoff, especially since Ludicolo has a double weakness to
, so acting like it's liable to be a Rain stallmon is a stretch regardless.
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Given your alternative is Keen Eye, might as well go with Rain Dish if you're going to be running it at all. Probably not much of a Rain Pokemon, though.
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Like Ludicolo, it's weak to
while laughing at
, making it sub-optimal as a Rain Pokemon. Clear Body -or maybe even Liquid Ooze to punish Drain Punch and Giga Drain, both of which are super effective against Tentacruel- is probably better for Type Cycle Tentacruel.
Spin punishing!
Justified is cool for Spin-punishing, among other things. Its main flaw is that no Justified Pokemon resists
, making it difficult to get a Justified boost off of stuff like Extreme Speed without straight-up dying -Arcanine is outright vulnerable, in fact! One particularly interesting point is the possibility of multi-hit
moves being viable enough to get a +2-5 on a switch-in: Cloyster might actually run Spike Cannon, for instance, as a decent coverage move, at which point you can come in and get +5 Attack stages all at once with a good predict!
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Why can't you escape a double weakness, Virizion? Not very good at abusing Justified... though switching into a Hyper Voice or the like wouldn't be so bad, assuming Physical Virizion. (Or mixed)
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As cool as Keldeo is, if you're running it Physical to be a Spin punisher, you've got a problem.
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The overall Physically bulkiest Spin-punisher available, and it prefers to run Physical anyway, overall. Typing could be better, but it could be worse.
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One of your best options for Spin-punishing or the like, with a solid Defense, high Attack, a good Speed tier, and neutral to
. The double weakness to
is a problem thanks to Aqua Jet, though.
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A bit fragile to be taking advantage, but it
does have Extreme Speed, so a Cloyster you manage to switch in on without dying (+2 252 Atk Cloyster Spike Cannon (5 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Lucario: 240-285 (85.4 - 101.4%) -- approx. 6.3% chance to OHKO) then you've got this going. (+5 252 Atk Lucario Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Cloyster: 161-190 (66.8 - 78.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) Which... isn't great, admittedly... whatever, there's potential there, is my point. Maybe switch in on a Tail Slap or something.
Actively vulnerable to
type moves. :( Stick to Intimidate.
Again, a bit fragile to be taking advantage, but if you're running it as Mega Absol you might as well run Justified and keep your eyes peeled for an opportunity to switch in on a Rapid Spin or the like.
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Like Absol, you might as well run it if you're going Mega. Because why not? That double weakness to Sucker Punch sucks, though.
Rattled has a lot more potential, even considering that only Granbull, Dunsparce, and Sudowoodo have it out of fully evolved Pokemon. Given that
,
, and
mean very different things.
Dunsparce resists the latter two, but its vulnerable to the former. Probably better off with Serene Grace-based ParaFlinching anyway.
Sudowoodo is resistant to the first one, and
includes things like Rapid Spin, making Rattled a form of Spin-punishing, albeit one that's only questionably viable.
Granbull is just sort of left in the lurch, in spite of normally being the most viable of the three. Probably better off sticking to Intimidate.
Even though all three (fully evolved) users of Rattled are painfully slow, there's still some potential for payoff by switching into a multi-hit move. Unfortunately, there are no
or
multi-hit moves, only
... even so, the possibility of switching in on something like Tail Slap and getting +5 to Speed has the potential to actually be relevant.
Solar Power was never in a great place. Arguably its worse off, but I'd argue Solar Power is almost never taken advantage of in Standard anyway.
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Charizard has no
moves to really fully abuse Solar Power with, though it does get Solar Beam. Honestly? People will probably only run Charizard for Mega Charizard X anyway. Regular Charizard's STABs are
horrible as a combination...
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Heliolisk has no
moves, but that's never stopped it in Standard. It's a useful type combination to ally with Sun, anyway.
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Mega Houndoom
does still have a
move -Sludge Bomb. It even compliments nicely with its primary STAB of Dark Pulse, while Solar Beam can be used as coverage against
types and to a lesser extent
types.
Sunflora has a
move -Sludge Bomb, just like Mega Houndoom. Main flaw with this idea is that it really ought to be running Chlorophyll if it's going to try the Sun route.
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Tropius has no
move. Unlikely to be viable, even with no double weaknesses to drag it down.
Thick Fat is in an odd place.
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For starters, Thick Fat is basically uselessly awful for Mega Venusaur. Hooray for triple resistance to
and double resistance to
? Really, Mega Venusaur is likely to be just plain
awful in Type Cycle...
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Azumarill's typing actually appreciates the protection, though really, why aren't you running Huge Power? Or Sap Sipper, if you're a stallmon, for protection from Knock Off et al.
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Dewgong and Walrein's typing has bigger concerns, and they would much rather have Levitate. Alas.
Grumpig's typing appreciates Thick Fat, actually, and it doesn't have anything better to run, really.
Hariyama's typing considers it redundant, and really you'd probably rather run Guts or Sheer Force anyway.
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Mamoswine's typing doesn't really care either way. Probably its best choice overall, just because Snow Cloak is narrow and unreliable and Oblivious isn't a great fit to Mamoswine's preferred roles. A bit unfortunate that Mamoswine is weak to Stealth Rock, though.
Miltank is basically OK with it, probably. As is Purugly and Snorlax, I guess, though they all have other things they could be doing.
Adaptability
Basculin's STAB now has to deal with type-based immunity. Ouch. Honestly? Probably stick with Mold Breaker. Or don't run it at all.
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Mega Beedrill running
/
offense is actually pretty terrifying. Walled by
and
, but it can correct the latter with Knock Off, and U-Turning out of major threats is a thing with it anyway. Now that it resists Stealth Rock, it can readily afford to do so repeatedly, even.
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Crawdaunt's STABs are mutually walled by
and
, which hurts it a lot. Metal Claw acts as coverage against both of these, but it's really weak, so much so you'd do almost as much damage with a neutral Frustration.
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Dragalge's
/
offense could be worse. Arguably it's an improvement over its Standard STABs, even.
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Mega Lucario's STABs are still pretty redundant... but with anti-
coverage, it's basically good to go. So, Dark Pulse or Crunch. Yikes. Technically, Dry Skin Parasect hard-walls it, but there's a question there as to whether Parasect is viable enough to care. Plus, Mega Lucario running Earthquake is doubly super effective against it, so it can't
remotely assume that it's safe to switch in on Mega Lucario.
Porygon-Z now has an unblockable STAB -no type immunities, no Ability immunities aside from Shedinja. Yikes.
type.
type. (eg Hyper Voice)
type. (eg Return)
type. (eg Explosion)
type moves when low on health. (eg Fire Blast)
types moves when low on health. (eg Waterfall)
type moves when low on health. (eg Giga Drain)
type moves when low on health. (eg Megahorn)
type moves. (eg Knock Off)
,
, and
moves during a Sandstorm. (eg Iron Head, Earthquake, and Stone Edge, respectively)
while Earthquake is
type moves, because items are excluded from this effect. Venusaur gets 50% more Special Defense when in a Sandstorm and is immune besides, while Golem is sad-faced and hurt by the sand. Moves that benefit from weather, unrelated to their type, still benefit -
