Community POTW #8

[Epicpip]

Yes, that Oath set is a fantastic partner for any other oath starter. The screens really boost Typhlosion and make Empoleon pretty much invincible (but screams BRICK BREAK).

 

[koa'kiyuri]

Not my idea and is a gimmicky set:

Serp-pressure band
Impish/ Careful (Take your pick.)
Ability: Perversity
Item: Pressure Band
EV: HP 252, Def 128, SpD, 128
-Wrap
-Leech Seed
-Toxic
-Substitute/ Protect

Just Trap opponent with Wrap, and hopefully set up. Wrap will prevent opponent from switching. Pressure Band increases Wrap damage. Perversity because Overgrow is useless on this set. Eat their Hp away with Seed and Toxic stall. Keep and eye out for Ghost, Steel, Grass, and Poison Types since were are completely walled by them. Also be wary of Magic Guard and Liquid Ooze. Have fun.

 

[Blue Harvest]

The only set you should ever use:

Smuglord @ Leftovers
Timid
252 Speed / 252 Special Attack / 4 HP
Perversity

Substitute
Leaf Storm
Hidden Power Fire
Leech Seed / Dragon Tail

This is THE Jaroda set. Set up a Substitute on a Choiced resisted move and spam Leaf Storm. Leech Seed allows you to beat and non Scarfed Dragon or Heatran but Dragon Tail will rack up Stealth Rocks damage against Salamence and save you against Shandera. Smuglord is extremely hard to switch into as most of his "counters" are at risk of a 2HKO or a ton of damage from Dragon Tail / Leech Seed.



Any set that runs Overgrow is a joke and I'm too lazy to write up full sets but try stuff like..


Coil / Dragon Tail / Leaf Blade / lol Rock Smash (filler)

Could be decent-ish at.. uhh.. maybe.. err... Oh come on, why would you pass up Leaf Storm with a FREE NASTY PLOT.


..More reasonable is a Dual-Screener that abuses Mean Look.

Mean Look / Light Screen / Reflect /.. Leaf Blade?



... Seriously Smuglord can barely scrap together enough good moves for the Leaf Storm set, if you aren't using that you are running a joke set. Reno make sure thats clear when you write the analyses..

 

[Serebii]

The only set you should ever use:

Smuglord @ Leftovers
Timid
252 Speed / 252 Special Attack / 4 HP
Perversity

Substitute
Leaf Storm
Hidden Power Fire
Leech Seed / Dragon Tail

This is THE Jaroda set. Set up a Substitute on a Choiced resisted move and spam Leaf Storm. Leech Seed allows you to beat and non Scarfed Dragon or Heatran but Dragon Tail will rack up Stealth Rocks damage against Salamence and save you against Shandera. Smuglord is extremely hard to switch into as most of his "counters" are at risk of a 2HKO or a ton of damage from Dragon Tail / Leech Seed.



Any set that runs Overgrow is a joke and I'm too lazy to write up full sets but try stuff like..


Coil / Dragon Tail / Leaf Blade / lol Rock Smash (filler)

Could be decent-ish at.. uhh.. maybe.. err... Oh come on, why would you pass up Leaf Storm with a FREE NASTY PLOT.


..More reasonable is a Dual-Screener that abuses Mean Look.

Mean Look / Light Screen / Reflect /.. Leaf Blade?



... Seriously Smuglord can barely scrap together enough good moves for the Leaf Storm set, if you aren't using that you are running a joke set. Reno make sure thats clear when you write the analyses..

But you also need to make sure that it's clear that at the moment there is no way of running a Pervesity Serperior. None whatsoever and it's unlikely we will any time soon. This is why we ask for Overgrow sets

 

[Blue Harvest]

As long as its made clear that Perversity > not running Jaroda > Overgrow. Just point that if its available Perversity Jaroda is the best option, and if its not Jaroda is outclassed by pretty much everything.

Hes just a worse Sceptile without Perversity.

 

[mischievous_sableye]

special bulky serperior
leftovers/lightclay
overgrow
- calm mind/lightscreen
- mirror coat
-energy ball/grass knot
-wring out

the idea of this set is to set up a calm mind or lightscreen(if youre using lightscreen use lightclay as item), and then use mirror coat to suprise youre opponent. energy ball and grass knot are for stab, and wringout is just for more coverage since I hate using hidden power.

 

[TheAwesomeOne]

P Taker
-Toxic
-Protect
-Substitute
-Giga Drain
Item:Leftovers?
Nature:Timid
EV's:252 Att, 252 HP, 6 Spa
Ability:Overgrow/Perv
Switch into something that is scared of you. It should switch out, on that turn, Sub. Then Toxic, and Protect is basically for stalling for Toxic damage. Giga Drain is so your not Taunt bait, and so you can recover your HP.

 

[Epicpip]

Well of course no one would run anything but a Perversity set. The other sets (without the EVs) would help in the game, of course. I believe that this is one POTW that is more of an in-game pokemon, sees a lot more action there. In fact, it might make in-game OU and possibly in-game Ubers (along with Chandelure and the Dragons).

 

[GirlKirbyZombie]

I am here with yet another triple/double strategy that nobody would care to read!

For a perversity Serperior: Team up with a special sweeping Simisear that knows overheat, role play, hidden power, and grass knot/solar beam/focus blast.

For a non-perversity one: Serperior is a great wall! It can either team up with a water starter (Blastoise will be the best bet) and set up two walls in one turn or set up a swamp land with the oaths. Serperior can also be a Toxic-Leech seeder just like Venusaur except that it can be toxiced back. For a physical attacking one, have it team up with a Stealth rocker, spiker, and/or toxic spiker (How about a pumice stone Nidorina? She needs more love.). Then Serperior can use Dragon Tail (Let's all go to Dragon Land) and have the new pokemon get hurt!

If you read this and you want to critique it, quote me!

 

[Epicpip]

How about Skarmory, Fortress, or Nidoqueen? Better than Nidorina. No offense, I see you like Nidorina.

 

[ASB]

QUESTION: If you use something like Psych up on a Perversity pokemon with lowered stats, do you copy the lowered stats or the resulting raise in them? (Yes, I know that's a confusing question.)

 

[#TWERKTEAM]

You copy the stats. If Leaf Storm's effect got reversed because of Perversity then the pokemon you're copying still has +2, which is what Psych Up goes by.

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

As long as its made clear that Perversity > not running Jaroda > Overgrow. Just point that if its available Perversity Jaroda is the best option, and if its not Jaroda is outclassed by pretty much everything.

Hes just a worse Sceptile without Perversity.

I think that depends on how you use it. Sceptile has better offence, but Serperior has much better hit-taking capability, whereas Sceptile can take, well, magikarps tackle, and, well, Luvdiscs surf, and, that's about it. Okay, I'm exaggarating Sceptiles fragility here, but you get the picture. Without Perversity Serperior isn't useful as an offensive beast. It simply hasn't got the base stats for it, but it can do other things.


I like this grass type. Finally a fast grass type that can actually take hits (glares at Meganium, Torterra and Venusaur for being slow and Sceptile for being fragile). I've already seen a lot of seeders here, and a few calm minders, even defensive ones, but no combination of the two (except one on page 5 without Giga Drain) for uber walling capabilities:

ZOMG It's a Calm VAMPIRE Snake, it drinks my HP, it just won't die:
Serperior @ Leftovers / Big Root
Trait: Overgrow
Bold nature (+Defence, -Attack)
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Def, 4 SpDef
-Calm Mind
-Substitute
-Leech Seed
-Giga Drain

Giga drain gained a neat boost in the generation shift going to 75 base power, and with 10 PP at the base it also has the same PP as Energy ball, so it's similar in power and PP. In exchange for 5 base power you heal 50% of the damage (or 65% with Big Root). It won't destroy foes in single hits (except perhaps Swampert), but it is a good move and an important building block in your defensive castle. Subseed also heals and stops foes from bringing you down. Calm Mind is neat, haven't seen much grass types that get it (apart from part psychic types like Celebi, which suffer from loads of weaknesses). It boosts your special defence so you are tougher to bring down, and it boosts your special attack so you get stronger Giga Drains that heal more, so you get tougher to break down.

For cartridge players, you don't absolutely need the TM for either Substitute or Calm Mind, you can breed Calm Mind onto the snake from Stantler, Infernape, Lucario, Mienshao or of course Smeargle, whilst for Substitute you can breed from Kecleon, although for the combination you need Smeargle.

Leftovers heals even more and is a pretty obvious option, but Big Root is a great alternative, and likely even better, increasing the healing power of Leech Seed and Giga drain by 30%, certainly worth considering.

Overgrow is also neat on this set. Usually offense boosting natures like that aren't useful on walls that just heal heal heal, but if your foe (somehow) manages to get your hitpoints low, your Giga Drain gains 50% power and heals much more so you get back up and running.

Ideally you'd want to run this set with Paralysis support. Serperior gets Glare, which is better than the Stun Spore most grass types get, but there is simply no space on the moveset for it (or you turn it into a defensive parashuffler by dropping calm mind and relying on subseed to cause switches, which also has potential with slow hard-hitters like Heatran or Metagross) Without speed investments it'll be outran by a lot of pokémon from lower speed tiers (like Salamence or Gyarados) that do have speed investments, so paralysing much with some parashuffler to slow things down helps out since you want to be fast when subseeding to ease prediction and also to take the most out of Overgrow Giga Drain.

EV's and Nature
Max Def, Max hitpoints to maximize physical bulk whilst Calm Mind helps out on special bulk, although it's viable to drop some bulk (preferably from HP since leech seed and giga drain don't calculate on your own hitpoints so you don't lose out on the healing/damage difference) to gain speed for better subseeding.

So 252 defence, 4 HP, 252 Speed is also a good EV spread, outrunning Base 112s on neutral natures, although very painfully losing to base 100s with speed boosting natures.

With Timid and the speedy EV spread, it also outruns base 128s with neutral natures and base 112s (and thus base 100s) with speed boosting natures, although just losing to base 130s with neutral natures. You could drop the speed EV's a bit on Timid slightly but not much. Something like:

Timid, 252 defence, 228 speed, 28 hitpoints, outruns base 110s with speed boosting natures and outruns everything up to base 125 with neutral speed natures.


flaws
The weakness of this set lies in that it only has grass offence. Opposing grass types with neutral or super effective moves are immune to leech seed, take much less damage from Giga Drain, and can severely destroy it's staying power. Venusaur or Tropius for example have Super effective STAB moves, enough bulk to easily take boosted Giga Drains with their resistances, even on overgrow, and are immune to leech seed. Ferrothorn takes nothing from Leech Seed or Giga Drain, and can set up easily, although it can't really directly threaten Serperior since it gets stalled out of Gyro Ball PP too easily because of substitute, and could encourage the snake to set up more Calm Minds. Liquid Ooze also destroys this set if you switch it in on Giga Drain, especially when it hurts the most when Overgrow is active, since then Serperiors hitpoints are lowest whilst liquid ooze will damage the most. It also needs time to become strong. After several calm minds it becomes incredibly tough to take down, but if you don't give it that time it is easier to take down. Toxic also deserves a mention. No matter how much it heals each turn, eventually Toxic deals so much damage it's entire HP bar goes down in a single turn. It doesn't get around toxic, or it has to switch to an aromatherapist or heal beller and forcefully lose it's calm minds. Hard hitters that can break substitutes can also destroy it although they often can't switch in. Cloyster for example heavily fears it's grass offence, especially special side, but Serperior has every reason to fear Skill-link Icicle spear.


Partners. Parashufflers are good, as mentioned before. Something to destroy Grass types is also good. Salamence has fire moves and destroys grasses. Heatran destroys grass types and also resists all of Serperiors weaknesses. Aqua ring passers are also fun for even more healing force. I'm not sure if Big Root also boosts Aqua ring if it gets passed from another pokémon though, would be extra useful if it does.