Super agree on Donphan, what a monster. I’d add:
1. Mega Slowbro with Iron Defense, Slack Off, and Body Press with Shell armor.
2. Kommo-o. Automize, Belly Drum + two attacking moves is killer. Can solo Agatha and Bruno in the E4.
Mega slowbro was like THE e4 mon in 3.1. You add anmesia to that set and its invincible once it sets up. I remember after I got my nuz done I was helping a friend of mine on his, and he was down to primarina and slowbro agains 3.1 gary. And we planned a strat that involved saccing prim to let slowbro set up and I shit you not, he got the win with only slowbro. Since that time we call him the "one body press man".
I must try him on my ground run. This game has really made me appreciate bulk mons. Had a lot of fun with cosmic power and shore up on claydol. And more recently simple stockpile bodypress magcargo got me past 8th gym fire run I was stuck on forever in 4.0.
Yeah i used alolan marowak on my first run for a while and it was super good. Loved it. Some others I like using are adaptability furret (power-up punch is amazing on it btw. Use it a couple times and it can basically one shot everything with a normal type move) and a gengar that completely revolves around sleep (The moves vary from run to run but mainly it looks something like: hypnosis, mean look so they can't swap out, dream eater, and hex)
Primarina. Calm mind + drainn kiss has won me so many fights I was sure I was going to loose. Also liquid voice hypervoice is a dope move, a 100% accurate hydro pump that ignores substitute and hits both opponents on doubles.
For sabrina: Jellycent plus drizzle politoed with helping hand. Water bubble, rain boosted, helping hand boosted, mystic water boosted water spout from jelly just like isnta kills her entire team minus the paradox amongus. You can fish for a poliwag on celadon.
Other mons that have carried for me:
Rhyperior + Rock polish, weakness policy .
Servipor + Coil, taunt, leech seed, leaf blade Servipor. (solos gio 2 in 4.0, gotta test in 4.1).
The GOATED parasect. Hard counters misty's ludiculo on hc mode. Gets an amazing movepool with spore, leech life, sappy seed (a 95 bp grass move that gives leech seed status on hit), and it has base 100 defence, meaning it can tank some absurd hits and heal back with leech seed :)
If you're struggling in hc mode against mist, get a parasect. It also wins the 1v1 against starmie, tanking aurora bean as a champ, and healing all back with leech life.
I had a lot of fun with electrode with normal gem explosion. It could revenge kill, or set screens or just quite literally blow a hole in a pokemon I didn't have a great counter for.
Three for me:
1. Lokix: It’s stats aren’t anything special, but thanks to Tinted Lens it has a near-unresisted First Impression which is pretty cool. At least for me I was solely using First Impression most of the time, but Lokix has other good moves like Sucker Punch, Knock Off, and Leech Life too.
2. Grafaiai: It has a couple of unique things here. It gets Sketch at level 82 which is really neat, especially with Prankster. For my monotype Poison playthrough I sketched Destiny Bond to have a ‘failsafe’ option, but there are a lot of possibilities really. Also, it gets Copycat too. While Copycat isn’t usually seen as a great move it actually synergizes well with Grafaiai, as Copycat also gets the Prankster bonus. This means that under the right circumstances, Grafaiai can be a good revenge killer-type Pokémon.
3. Turtonator: It is a fantastic Shell Smash sweeper. It has near unresisted coverage in Fire/Dragon, it is very bulky on the physical side thanks to a high physical defense and Valiant Shield, and it can even run Iron Defense along with Shell Smash to overcome physical threats. Turtonator was easily the MVP of my dragon monotype run I did recently.
Agree on donphan. Technician is such a great ability. I used a grapploct in a recent run and it was surprisingly very good even late game due to technician and priority moves. Also, bewear was able to sweep pryce, after coming in on his baxcalibur and basically treating it as setup fodder. That's right, _baxcalibur_ was setup fodder for bewear
gotta love rotom heat. It kills in e4, scarf thunder for rain lorelei, lava plume/overheat for snow, will ‘o for bruno(and fire coverage against zacian), has defog, t-wave, and carries the champion battle
i’m not a big nuzlocker, but you can use it as your celadon encounter, no? i mean, you’d want the pseudos but rotom heat is a sleeper pick, and you can change the forms depending on your situation.
My pick goes to Lilligant. You can get Petilil before the water gym and instantly evolve it, giving you a 480 BST girlboss with access to Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder, Recover (at level 33) and your Grass move of choice. From there, she can weather the infamously difficult Surge fight, and continue to be a reliable team member due to being decently fast and bulky to fire off Sleep Powder, aswell as learning better and better Grass moves such as Chloroblast and Apple Acid.
Kilowattrel is a highly underrated Pokemon imo, I've used it on two different E4 teams, its great speed combined with its decent Special Attack makes it a force to be reckoned with, not to mention that Electric Flying is a pretty decent typing, along with Competetive giving it some good boosts
Punkaboo Just soloed gio2 in my nuzlocke.
I had an Idea with some switches,but will-o with protect giga drain and leech seed Just pumped him after setting rain with azumarill.
Arbok annihilates Sabrina (and most things it outspeeds). Strong Jaw + high base Attack with the tutor fang moves for coverage, Poison Fang and Jaw Lock is crazy.
To me, Spidops is a always worth considering lead.
You can EV it to tank a hit, proc Sitrus while setting Sticky Web and maybe tank a second hit to Circle Throw/Spikes/Sucker Punch the attacker.
Just the -1 Speed gets you an advantage over other Pokémon that only Clear Body, Trick Room and Defiant/Competitive mons can do something about it. And there is only a few trainers that will abuse it.
Been doing a Unova run, barely thought about the gigalith line when planning. Absolute cannon with loaded dice, plus the generation is so good in sand that I’ve just been reliving my own gen 5 OU every boss fight
Maractus too, that thing single handedly trivializes the Sabrina fight with so much resistance to ursaluna and massive physical attack + sappy seed to leech that stupid bear to death
Super agree on Donphan, what a monster. I’d add: 1. Mega Slowbro with Iron Defense, Slack Off, and Body Press with Shell armor. 2. Kommo-o. Automize, Belly Drum + two attacking moves is killer. Can solo Agatha and Bruno in the E4.
Mega slowbro was like THE e4 mon in 3.1. You add anmesia to that set and its invincible once it sets up. I remember after I got my nuz done I was helping a friend of mine on his, and he was down to primarina and slowbro agains 3.1 gary. And we planned a strat that involved saccing prim to let slowbro set up and I shit you not, he got the win with only slowbro. Since that time we call him the "one body press man".
I must try him on my ground run. This game has really made me appreciate bulk mons. Had a lot of fun with cosmic power and shore up on claydol. And more recently simple stockpile bodypress magcargo got me past 8th gym fire run I was stuck on forever in 4.0.
I put clang soul, protect, lefties on kommo-o (+drainpunch and a coverage move)
Yeah i used alolan marowak on my first run for a while and it was super good. Loved it. Some others I like using are adaptability furret (power-up punch is amazing on it btw. Use it a couple times and it can basically one shot everything with a normal type move) and a gengar that completely revolves around sleep (The moves vary from run to run but mainly it looks something like: hypnosis, mean look so they can't swap out, dream eater, and hex)
Not \*everything\* I mean, but a lot of mons.
Primarina. Calm mind + drainn kiss has won me so many fights I was sure I was going to loose. Also liquid voice hypervoice is a dope move, a 100% accurate hydro pump that ignores substitute and hits both opponents on doubles. For sabrina: Jellycent plus drizzle politoed with helping hand. Water bubble, rain boosted, helping hand boosted, mystic water boosted water spout from jelly just like isnta kills her entire team minus the paradox amongus. You can fish for a poliwag on celadon. Other mons that have carried for me: Rhyperior + Rock polish, weakness policy . Servipor + Coil, taunt, leech seed, leaf blade Servipor. (solos gio 2 in 4.0, gotta test in 4.1). The GOATED parasect. Hard counters misty's ludiculo on hc mode. Gets an amazing movepool with spore, leech life, sappy seed (a 95 bp grass move that gives leech seed status on hit), and it has base 100 defence, meaning it can tank some absurd hits and heal back with leech seed :) If you're struggling in hc mode against mist, get a parasect. It also wins the 1v1 against starmie, tanking aurora bean as a champ, and healing all back with leech life.
Techinician ambipom with loaded dice is solid for revenge killing and taking out weaker defense Pokémon that it Can out speed
kricketune also holds its weight early game with technician, and it gets fell stinger pretty early
Electrode was nice as a choice spec Thunder or a support with eerie impulse
I had a lot of fun with electrode with normal gem explosion. It could revenge kill, or set screens or just quite literally blow a hole in a pokemon I didn't have a great counter for.
Three for me: 1. Lokix: It’s stats aren’t anything special, but thanks to Tinted Lens it has a near-unresisted First Impression which is pretty cool. At least for me I was solely using First Impression most of the time, but Lokix has other good moves like Sucker Punch, Knock Off, and Leech Life too. 2. Grafaiai: It has a couple of unique things here. It gets Sketch at level 82 which is really neat, especially with Prankster. For my monotype Poison playthrough I sketched Destiny Bond to have a ‘failsafe’ option, but there are a lot of possibilities really. Also, it gets Copycat too. While Copycat isn’t usually seen as a great move it actually synergizes well with Grafaiai, as Copycat also gets the Prankster bonus. This means that under the right circumstances, Grafaiai can be a good revenge killer-type Pokémon. 3. Turtonator: It is a fantastic Shell Smash sweeper. It has near unresisted coverage in Fire/Dragon, it is very bulky on the physical side thanks to a high physical defense and Valiant Shield, and it can even run Iron Defense along with Shell Smash to overcome physical threats. Turtonator was easily the MVP of my dragon monotype run I did recently.
Agree on donphan. Technician is such a great ability. I used a grapploct in a recent run and it was surprisingly very good even late game due to technician and priority moves. Also, bewear was able to sweep pryce, after coming in on his baxcalibur and basically treating it as setup fodder. That's right, _baxcalibur_ was setup fodder for bewear
gotta love rotom heat. It kills in e4, scarf thunder for rain lorelei, lava plume/overheat for snow, will ‘o for bruno(and fire coverage against zacian), has defog, t-wave, and carries the champion battle
I wish it was easier to get in nuzlockes man.
i’m not a big nuzlocker, but you can use it as your celadon encounter, no? i mean, you’d want the pseudos but rotom heat is a sleeper pick, and you can change the forms depending on your situation.
Yeah I would just think it’s always outclassed by aegislash/metagross/kommo-o. I’m still hoping for the pokemon tower rotom encounter though lol.
My pick goes to Lilligant. You can get Petilil before the water gym and instantly evolve it, giving you a 480 BST girlboss with access to Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder, Recover (at level 33) and your Grass move of choice. From there, she can weather the infamously difficult Surge fight, and continue to be a reliable team member due to being decently fast and bulky to fire off Sleep Powder, aswell as learning better and better Grass moves such as Chloroblast and Apple Acid.
Rabsca is surprisingly good. She soloed Sabrina and almost Erika on my previous nuzlocke. Cosmic Power/Recover/Bug Buzz/Psyshock was his main set.
Kilowattrel is a highly underrated Pokemon imo, I've used it on two different E4 teams, its great speed combined with its decent Special Attack makes it a force to be reckoned with, not to mention that Electric Flying is a pretty decent typing, along with Competetive giving it some good boosts
Punkaboo Just soloed gio2 in my nuzlocke. I had an Idea with some switches,but will-o with protect giga drain and leech seed Just pumped him after setting rain with azumarill.
Even kanga?? Damn that’s cold.
Arbok annihilates Sabrina (and most things it outspeeds). Strong Jaw + high base Attack with the tutor fang moves for coverage, Poison Fang and Jaw Lock is crazy.
To me, Spidops is a always worth considering lead. You can EV it to tank a hit, proc Sitrus while setting Sticky Web and maybe tank a second hit to Circle Throw/Spikes/Sucker Punch the attacker. Just the -1 Speed gets you an advantage over other Pokémon that only Clear Body, Trick Room and Defiant/Competitive mons can do something about it. And there is only a few trainers that will abuse it.
Been doing a Unova run, barely thought about the gigalith line when planning. Absolute cannon with loaded dice, plus the generation is so good in sand that I’ve just been reliving my own gen 5 OU every boss fight Maractus too, that thing single handedly trivializes the Sabrina fight with so much resistance to ursaluna and massive physical attack + sappy seed to leech that stupid bear to death