overview:
Archeops is a very strong damage dealer, capable of dealing lots of damage both physical and special, but the prehistoric bird does have its drawbacks.
the first thing is that Archeops is weak against stealth rock. this means that everytime that he switches in, he loses 25% of his max health. this basically means that after 2 switch-ins your ability will activate. speaking of which. his ability prevents him of good sweeping because the moment that his ability activates, his damage halves.
Nevertheless is Archeops a very dangerous pokemon, and should be taken care of with caution, or otherwise will he bring devastation among your team.
Abilities:
Defeatist: as said earlier, is this a very bad ability, it's comparable with truant and slow start, as those abilities makes the pokemon who have it more "balanced", because they would otherwise be too strong for the normal meta.
Physical set:
Ability: Defeatist
Nature: adamant/Jolly
Ev:s 4 hp/ 252att/252 speed
item:choice band/flying gem/choice scarf
Rock slide/stone edge
Earthquake
Outrage/dragon claw
Acrobatics/u-turn/pluck/heat wave
Rock slide is weaker than stone edge, but it has more accuracy, so this is your own choice. Earthquake to kill strong steels and such and because it's a strong attack. Outrage does more damage but locks you, dragon claw is weaker but a safer choice. for the last slot go for u-turn for switch-outs, pluck if u think that you can eat an opponent's berry, or acrobatics for the dmg, though if you're going to pick acrobatics, or go for heat wave for more coverage against scizor/ferrothorn or skarmory you might wanna pick another usable item over choice band.
The special Bird:
Ability: defeatist
Nature:modest/timid
Ev: 4 hp/ 252 sp att/ 252 speed
Moves:
Ancientpower
Dragon pulse/dragonbreath
earth power/focus blast
heat wave
the special set: ancientpower for stab, dragon pulse to kill the dragons of course, you could also go for the weaker version dragonbreath, as dragonbreath has a chance to paralyze which can cripple certain sweepers. 3rd slot for earth power, same reason as earthquake, but you could also go for focus blast, since it has around the same coverage, but it's less accurate. finally the 4th slot for heat wave, heat wave is there to take care of the pokemon like skarmory and ferrothorn.
other options:
Aqua tail: yes the rock bird learns aqua tail from a move tutor (how, we don't know), you could use this for certain targets, but it's not that great.
roost: recovery move, though you won't see it much since most attacks will 1hko or 0hko the bird anyway.
Head smash: use this one if you want to secure a kill on a certain hated enemy (like a rampaging gyarados for example), though you also should use this with care since it will then probably ko you as well
Return: 130 base move is never bad
hyper beam/giga impact: same use as head smash
Shadow claw: also for the same reason as aqua tail.
iron tail: see above.
Countering Archeops:
switching in to archeops isn't safe, as he can deal a lot of dmg, so that's not really wise to do, but revenge killing is actually pretty easy.
the first pokemon that comes to mind regarding revenge killing at least in OU is ofcourse Scizor. Priority kills archeops, aqua jet, bullet punch, probably even mach punch can easily 0hko it. this is sad as this will probably degrade Archeops into either UU or in the borderline since scizor is one of the most popular nowadays. Scarf pokemon like scarfchomp can also seriously injure the bird. otherwise you could look at pokemon like jolteon since it has higher speed than archeops, or pokemon who are able to survive a hit and then immediately strike back like suicune, swampert or ferrothorn, although ferrothorn has to watch out for heat wave.
overall Archeops is far from a weak pokemon, and although he does get drawn back by his very bad ability, he's still able to perform quite well as a glass canon.
