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Community POTW #047

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Serebii

And, as if by magic, the webmaster appeared...
Staff member
Admin
Time for the next Pokémon and this week we have another Dragon!

noivern.png


It's Noivern!

https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-sm/715.shtml

Go nuts
 

BillyBobJoe

Well-Known Member
Noivern is a fast special attacker, without a doubt. However, there are of course others that can do that job better, like Mega Alakazam and Accelgor. However, it is still the 31st fastest Pokémon which is nothing to scoff at, 20th excluding Megas, 19th excluding Legendaries and 11th excluding both. For a general, VGC legal move set:
-Boomburst
-Dragon Pulse/Draco Meteor
-Air Slash/Hurricane
-Focus Blast/Steel Wing

Each of these moves are pretty self explanatory. Focus Blast and Steel Wing provide cover for its weaknesses. You can replace Steel Wing with Iron Tail outside of VGC.
 

GeeGee

Late to the party
Pros:
+ 123 speed makes it the fastest non-legendary, non-mega dragon in the game
+ 85/80/80 bulk combined with the resistances of a dragon/flying typing is decent
+ Good coverage moves including Draco Meteor, Hurricane, Flamethrower, Dark Pulse, Focus Blast, and even Psychic
+ Good support movepool including Tailwind, Super Fang, and taunt

Cons:
- 85/80/80 bulk isn't that impressive, and it's typing leaves it weak to common threats such as Tapu Koko, Tapu Lele and basically any Ice type
- It's abilities are situational and don't help Noivern in terms of either Bulk or Power
- 70 attack is basically unusable and 97 special attack leaves a lot to be desired
- Stealth rock weakness reduces it's effectiveness as a U-turn abuser
- It's pretty outclassed by almost any other Dragon type

Abilities
Frisk: Scouting to check for Z-crystals and Mega stones is always handy, as well as detecting any unusual item choices
Infiltrator:Bypassing Substitute, Screens and Aurora Veil allows Noivern to secure KOs on any weakened targets without fear of them surviving with a sliver of HP, but it's useless if your opponent isn't running any screens
Telepathy:This ability should be avoided for a few reasons:
A) Noivern isn't a great choice for doubles, and isn't even legal in VGC 2017
B) Telepathy has literally 0 use in singles
C) The only spread move you really need to worry about is Earthquake, and Noivern is already immune to it

Sets:
Scout
Ability: Infiltrator/Frisk
EV's: 4 HP, 252 SpA, 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Hold Item: Focus Sash
Moves:
-Draco Meteor
-U-turn
-Super fang/Taunt
-Flamethrower

Draco Meteor is Noivern's strongest stab and will dent anything that doesn't resist it. U-turn is for pivoting out of sticky situations and getting a teammate in. Super Fang can be used to soften up a tank or wall for an ally to clean up, and taunt can be used to shut down a sweeper or hazard setter before they get started. Flamethrower prevents Noivern from being useless against steel types.

Offensive
Ability: Infiltrator/Frisk
EV's: 4 HP, 252 SpA, 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Hold Item: Life orb/Dragonium-Z
Moves:
-Draco Meteor/Dragon Pulse
-Hurricane/Air Slash
-Flamethrower/Heat Wave/Focus Blast
-U-turn

Despite a low base special attack, Devastating Drake will still take a huge chunk out of anything that doesn't resist it. Draco Meteor and Hurricane offer the most power for its STAB moves, but their shaky accuracy can be a burden. You can opt for the more reliable Dragon pulse and Air slash, but the difference in power is extremely noticeable, and you will miss out on more KO's you would have secured with the stronger moves. Flamethrower gets through steels, but heat wave can be used for a little more power, since Noivern needs all the power it can get. Focus blast is stronger and hits steels, but shaky accuracy and an abundance of fairy types makes it risky. U-turn pivots out of danger and brings in an ally for free.
 
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Missingno. Master

Poison-type Trainer
Going Batty
Noivern@Life Orb
Timid nature
Infiltrator
252 Sp. Atk/252 Speed/4 HP
~Dragon Pulse
~Hurricane
~Flamethrower/Heat Wave
~Focus Blast/Boomburst

Noivern is all kinds of awesome. Dragon Pulse and Hurricane are your STAB moves. Flamethrower is coverage- and none too shabby when paired with Dragon Pulse, at that. In fact, there was a time when the only Pokémon that resisted Dragon Fire coverage was Heatran. In fact, to that end, final move is Focus Blast. But if you don't fear Heatran that much for whatever reason, feel free to swap it out for Boomburst, which is just raw power with no drawback.

Item powers up the attacks. Ability means you're not sweating Light Screen or Substitute.


Other options:
*Being a Dragon-type, Noivern can pack Draco Meteor.
*With many of Noivern's options having high power but low accuracy or else some other form of drawback, this might not be the worst idea for using a Z-Move. Boomburst can turn into the strongest Breakneck Blitz possible. Draco Meteor becomes Devastating Drake with no Sp. Atk drop. Focus Blast becomes the guaranteed to hit All-Out Pummeling, and Hurricane doesn't rely so much on rain to always hit if you use it for Supersonic Skystrike.
*Choice Specs- Noivern can use those well enough, just throwing that out there.
*If you want truly unresisted coverage at the cost of a Fire move, swap out Flamethrower for Shadow Ball. Ghost and Fighting is completely unresisted coverage.

Abilities:
*Frisk: Noivern, upon entering battle, broadcasts to both players what item its adversary holds. Useful Ability in and of itself, nice for when your opponent tries to bluff a choice item or something like that, but far from the best Noivern has to offer.
*Infiltrator: Noivern's attacks bypass the effects of Reflect, Light Screen, Aurora Veil, Safeguard, and Substitute. Always useful to have, and easily Noivern's best Ability. For single battles, anyway.
*Telepathy: Noivern's Hidden Ability. Noivern is immune to all attacks used by its allies. I don't really cover doubles so much, but it really is a useful Ability in douibles, lets you partner Noivern with something that uses moves like Explosion or Discharge- or indeed, Boomburst. Granted, Noivern already packs Earthquake immunity by virtue of its type, but the moves I mentioned, among others, are always nice to have an immunity to.

Partners:
If you're using Specs Noivern, you want a way to keep the Stealth Rocks clear, because there is going to be much switching going on. And of course, Noivern is a dedicated special attacker, so basically whatever answers you got to various special walls, this is what Noivern will want to be partnered with.

Counters:
Diancie resists one of Noivern's STABs and is immune to the other, and can strike back with powerful super effective STAB Moonblast/Diamond Storm/whatever else. Then you got the potential of Ice Beam Blissey to worry about, that could be a thing. And Tentacruel. And Mantine. It goes on.

Opinion:
Noivern is just awesome. Cool design, cool moves, even its cry is kinda cool. Would be my favorite Dragon-type were Dragalge not a thing.

Prediction for next week:
Gourgeist.
 

EKZ1505

Well-Known Member
Noivern is a fast special attacker, without a doubt. However, there are of course others that can do that job better, like Mega Alakazam and Accelgor. However, it is still the 31st fastest Pokémon which is nothing to scoff at, 20th excluding Megas, 19th excluding Legendaries and 11th excluding both. For a general, VGC legal move set:
-Boomburst
-Dragon Pulse/Draco Meteor
-Air Slash/Hurricane
-Focus Blast/Steel Wing

Each of these moves are pretty self explanatory. Focus Blast and Steel Wing provide cover for its weaknesses. You can replace Steel Wing with Iron Tail outside of VGC.

I don't think Noivern is VGC-legal this year, but even for next year's open format, a mixed set is terrible. It's typically best as a Tailwind user (and even then it's still greatly outclassed).
 

MetalSonic

Orderan' Defendan'
I was thinking about a set like this but isn't it simply better with choice specs?

It's the classic choice between overwhelmin wallbreaking capabilities and longevity vs. flexibility. Specs hits especially hard and especially fast given Noiverns speed, and doesnt cost it 10% of health, but LO allows you to change things up. It really depends on what your team needs most out of Noivern and what it can afford to do when deciding between Specs and LO. Though, i'd probably slash Draco Meteor alongside Dragon Pulse.
 

Archstaraptor

Team Builder / RMT
Telepathy:This ability should be avoided for a few reasons:
A) Noivern isn't a great choice for doubles, and isn't even legal in VGC 2017
B) Telepathy has literally 0 use in singles
C) The only spread move you really need to worry about is Earthquake, and Noivern is already immune to it

I agree with all else you say, but just wanted to briefly touch on Telepathy for doubles.
You say in Point C) that the only useful spread move you would want to avoid is Earthquake. But telepathy has nothing to do with the opposition's spread attacks, it's about Noivern's ally's.
For example, you could freely utilise Discharge or Lava plume - both of which are used sparingly when not alongside electric/fire-immune partners.Despite this low usage,they greatly assist Noivern when fighting water types and steel types respectively, with the added bonus of accompanying status. Avoiding Sludge Wave from an ally is also really useful for answering common fairies without the hassle of protecting every time you would want to use it.And of course there's explosion/ self destruct of varying types.

Being able to attack alongside other useful spread attacks without fear of damage or status is far better than otherwise ( being forced to protect Noivern would leave your partner vulnerable to double targeting).So despite Noivern lacking in offense, as you say, the combination of its attack and ally's free spread damage has potential to be quite an offensive force.
 

GeeGee

Late to the party
You make some fair points, and I did consider mentioning moves like discharge when writing my post, and when I mentioned Earthquake I am fully aware how telepathy works, and was referring to an ally pokemon's earthquake.
With regards to your statements about an ally's spread damage alongside Noiverns is fair, but there are a few things I would like to mention:
-You would never use sludge wave in doubles, when sludge bomb is available to use instead without the side effect of hitting allies.
-Most Pokemon that would see in VGC that learn Lava plume (so pretty much just Torkoal), also learn Heat wave, as well as Eruption, which are stronger spread moves that don't damage ally pokemon.
-The only pokemon that would carry Discharge in VGC is Tapu koko, and only to avoid Alola-Marowaks lightningrod.
So, the only reliable spread move used in VGC is Earthquake, and that's only because theres very limited single-target replacements for it, which is also why so many earthquake abusers like Garchomp and Krookodile hold Groundium-Z, to get that single-target ground-type attack.

While I respect your opinion and understand what you're saying, I stand by my statement of avoiding telepathy. If you want to use a dragon-type in doubles, you may as well use Salamence or Garchomp.
 

EKZ1505

Well-Known Member
You make some fair points, and I did consider mentioning moves like discharge when writing my post, and when I mentioned Earthquake I am fully aware how telepathy works, and was referring to an ally pokemon's earthquake.
With regards to your statements about an ally's spread damage alongside Noiverns is fair, but there are a few things I would like to mention:
-You would never use sludge wave in doubles, when sludge bomb is available to use instead without the side effect of hitting allies.
-Most Pokemon that would see in VGC that learn Lava plume (so pretty much just Torkoal), also learn Heat wave, as well as Eruption, which are stronger spread moves that don't damage ally pokemon.
-The only pokemon that would carry Discharge in VGC is Tapu koko, and only to avoid Alola-Marowaks lightningrod.
So, the only reliable spread move used in VGC is Earthquake, and that's only because theres very limited single-target replacements for it, which is also why so many earthquake abusers like Garchomp and Krookodile hold Groundium-Z, to get that single-target ground-type attack.

While I respect your opinion and understand what you're saying, I stand by my statement of avoiding telepathy. If you want to use a dragon-type in doubles, you may as well use Salamence or Garchomp.

Uh Discharge is very common on Xurkitree and Magnezone this year, and even though it is a little less common than those two, Vikavolt has used it too. A few others occasionally run it as well, but those 3 definitely run it enough that you can't say Koko is the only one (and not only to avoid A-Marowak either). But since Noivern is not legal until 2018 anyway, then you already have to look at more Pokemon like Zapdos, Thundurus-T, Mega Manetric, and Rotom as well.

Additionally, I would not say you "never" see Sludge Wave in doubles. It is less common than Sludge Bomb of course, but does see some usage (as does Lava Plume and especially Surf in certain strategies).
 

Azulart

Shiny Hunter
I agree with all else you say, but just wanted to briefly touch on Telepathy for doubles.
You say in Point C) that the only useful spread move you would want to avoid is Earthquake. But telepathy has nothing to do with the opposition's spread attacks, it's about Noivern's ally's.
For example, you could freely utilise Discharge or Lava plume - both of which are used sparingly when not alongside electric/fire-immune partners.Despite this low usage,they greatly assist Noivern when fighting water types and steel types respectively, with the added bonus of accompanying status. Avoiding Sludge Wave from an ally is also really useful for answering common fairies without the hassle of protecting every time you would want to use it.And of course there's explosion/ self destruct of varying types.

Being able to attack alongside other useful spread attacks without fear of damage or status is far better than otherwise ( being forced to protect Noivern would leave your partner vulnerable to double targeting).So despite Noivern lacking in offense, as you say, the combination of its attack and ally's free spread damage has potential to be quite an offensive force.

Agreed mate !

Telepathy should not be ignored at all. Noivern is sadly pretty outclassed by other pokemons like someone here mentioned before.
What makes Noivern stand out from these mons that outclass him is Telepathy. This gives him an unique 'ninche' option in doubles when you have spread damage tactics
(take helping hand in my head). I personally think he fits best on Doubles Rain teams as a support Hurricane spammer, this allows teamates to freely use boosted Surfs while Noivern can spam Hurricane or provide Tailwind.

If we take a look at his other abillity's its Frisk and Infiltrator (Infiltrator should be ignored for doubles, due the offensive natures of doubles. Protect is usually used instead of substitute.) Frisk has some good utillity usage but I would say its very sitautional.. Everything in a whole, noivern's abillity options are pretty average and kinda bad (since he relies on sitautions). Frisk offers maybe 1 effective turn in doubles where if you are lucky you can scout out an unexpected Choice Scarf user.. Telepathy is more consistent in a way that you can always take advantage of it with the right allies.
 

Archstaraptor

Team Builder / RMT
With regards to your statements about an ally's spread damage alongside Noiverns is fair, but there are a few things I would like to mention:
-You would never use sludge wave in doubles, when sludge bomb is available to use instead without the side effect of hitting allies.
-Most Pokemon that would see in VGC that learn Lava plume (so pretty much just Torkoal), also learn Heat wave, as well as Eruption, which are stronger spread moves that don't damage ally pokemon.
-The only pokemon that would carry Discharge in VGC is Tapu koko, and only to avoid Alola-Marowaks lightningrod.
So, the only reliable spread move used in VGC is Earthquake, and that's only because theres very limited single-target replacements for it, which is also why so many earthquake abusers like Garchomp and Krookodile hold Groundium-Z, to get that single-target ground-type attack.

While I respect your opinion and understand what you're saying, I stand by my statement of avoiding telepathy. If you want to use a dragon-type in doubles, you may as well use Salamence or Garchomp.

You'd rarely use EQ for EQ itself in doubles, you said it yourself. You're saying EQ is the only reliable spread move because there is no single target equivalent,and that is more of a testament to Z-Earthquake's viability (which is not weakened by Grassy terrain and/or the ubiquity of intimidate Arcanine and bulky teams).

But you highlight a good point about spread moves as a whole: using Z-crystals helps to alleviate the pressure of damaging allies after a protect, or when a switch is not a wise choice.And I'd argue that, in conjunction with more legal telepathy mons next year will make these moves more attractive to all team archetypes ,and not just trick room (Oranguru was our only Telepath this VGC season).

Concerning Lava Plume - the strength of an attack isn't the only notable factor. It is more accurate than heatwave,and more consistent than eruption on Torkoal outside trick room or without AfterYou support,and burns opponents quite reliably ( disposing of physical threats to allies).Lava Pluming a Firium Flashfire Chandelure, as opposed to flamethrower allows KOs like this become not just possible, but more convenient:
252+ SpA FF Chandelure Inferno Overdrive (195 BP) vs.
244 HP / 164+ SpD Arcanine in Sun: (102.5 - 120.9%)
28 HP / 52 SpD Assault Vest Garchomp in Sun: (85 - 100%)
Whilst the second KO isn't feasible by itself unless on switchin, it can be made feasible through both damage and a burn from lava plume.
These calcs illustrate my point: spread moves that affect allies can be deadly effective with the right allies. And one such ally could feasibly be Noivern.

It should also be noted that Noivern's speed is reason enough to use it over garchomp or Salamence, and that steel wing and iron tail mixed sets mentioned above would lure Ninetales-A very well ( the other two cannot hope to deal with it safely without a scarf,which is normally unsafe in this format).

In short, there's been a lot of assumptions made based on the VGC metagame as is, and what place Noivern has,or will have.
I'd be interested to see where telepathy goes this season, and as it stands, I believe Noivern has enough good qualities to make it a notable doubles partner.
 
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