DP Breloom .

[Bologo]

DP Breloom

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/breloom

I've been testing out a Priority sweeping Breloom for a little while, and it's been working quite well. I originally had it with Swords Dance over Bulk Up, using the standard EVs, but I found that with Swords Dance and the standard EVs, it was dying way too quickly anytime it faced something that Mach Punch couldn't kill. It also couldn't take a Special hit to save its life...even resisted hits did a shitload of damage to it. Bulk Up seems to be working a lot better to allow Breloom to actually live through several more hits than people would expect him to. I added the Swords Dance set anyway, since it actually is pretty good, though I personally prefer Bulk Up.

[SET]
name: Swords Dance Priority Sweeper
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Mach Punch
move 3: Seed Bomb / Stone Edge
move 4: Spore / Facade
item: Life Orb / Toxic Orb
ability: Poison Heal
nature: Adamant
evs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
<p> Breloom can use Swords Dance to raise his huge base 130 Attack even higher, but with less anxiety about his mediocre Speed thanks to Mach Punch's priority. The Bulk Up set may allow him Defense boosts as well, but the Swords Dance makes Breloom hit much harder, faster. Stone Edge allows better coverage if Breloom only has 2 attacks on the set, but Seed Bomb is the better option with 3 attacks thanks to STAB and better accuracy. Also remember that Swords Dance Breloom is very frail, and he cannot afford to miss, making Seed Bomb a superior choice on this set. It should be noted that Life Orb is the superior option to Toxic Orb if Breloom is using Swords Dance, as his Attack stat reaches a massive 1024 after 1 Swords Dance with Life Orb, dishing out several swift OHKOs with Mach Punch. Also note that if Breloom comes in on Toxic or Toxic Spikes and attacks with Life Orb, he will still recover 2.5% thanks to Poison Heal's extra recovery. Toxic Orb is still a good option though for the extra healing, and it allows Breloom to run Facade with a guarantee of doubled power, which is the most powerful attack on the set when he's wearing Toxic Orb. If Breloom is running Toxic Orb, Facade is the best option. However, if he is running Life Orb, then Spore is the better option since getting poisoned is no longer a guarantee. </p>

<p> The EV spread for the Swords Dancing Priority Sweeper makes it so that he's not totally screwed if he's slower than something, due to not having Defense boosts from Bulk Up. 208 Speed EVs allow Breloom to outspeed a 0 Speed EV Gliscor. This means he can put it to sleep, and 2HKO it with a boosted Seed Bomb or Stone Edge before it kills him with Aerial Ace. After Breloom has gotten rid of his biggest enemy in Gliscor, he stands a much better chance of sweeping. </p>

<p> Even before a Swords Dance, Facade has the ability to 2HKO anything that doesn't cram the majority of its EVs in HP and Defense. After a single Swords Dance, it can OHKO or 2HKO everything that doesn't sport a resistance, and even they come close, so only Ghosts are safe against Facade. Even the most defensive of Ghosts in OU - a 252 HP / 252 Def Dusknoir with a Defense raising nature is 2HKOed after a Swords Dance from Seed Bomb, so even Ghosts are not safe if Breloom has Seed Bomb. Keep in mind that this is only with Toxic Orb, which doesn't give an attack boost. With Life Orb, Mach Punch becomes a lot more deadly. For instance, it is able to OHKO a 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran after only a single Swords Dance. Another one, Infernape, which is a normally a huge pest to Breloom, is no longer a problem with Mach Punch and Life Orb, as even he has a possibility of being OHKOed, with a guarantee after Stealth Rock damage. </p>

[SET]
name: Bulk Up Priority Sweeper
move 1: Bulk Up
move 2: Mach Punch
move 3: Spore
move 4: Stone Edge / Seed Bomb
item: Toxic Orb
ability: Poison Heal
nature: Adamant
evs: 248 hp / 252 atk / 8 spe

[SET COMMENTS]
<p> This set aims to compensate for two vital things about Breloom that may hinder his ability to sweep - his mediocre Speed, and below average Defense. This is achieved by using Mach Punch for priority, and Bulk Up to raise his bad Defense while raising his obscene Attack score as well, thus setting him up to sweep the opponent's team. Stone Edge is there to complement Mach Punch for great coverage, resisted by few. However, it is an option to use Seed Bomb for double STAB. Beware, Grass/Fighting has terrible offensive coverage, but Seed Bomb's 100% accuracy and power after STAB can go some way to compensate for this. Spore, which is a necessity on almost most Brelooms out there, can easily allow him to set up in his opponent's face, making it easy for Breloom to punish the slower walls that may hinder his sweep. Toxic Orb with Poison Heal gives Breloom a big plus over other Bulk Uppers, as the extra recovery goes some way to help his bad HP stat, allowing him to take better advantage of his Bulk Ups. </p>

<p> Simple as the EVs are, they are quite effective in allowing Breloom to set up and sweep. 8 Speed EVs allow Breloom to outspeed the standard Skarmory, which otherwise, would easily kill him before he can land a Spore. Max Attack with an Adamant nature gives Breloom that extra oomph that he needs to rip the opponent's team apart, with all of the leftover EVs placed into HP to help the Defense boosts work to their best ability. It may seem odd to have a Bulk Up user that has no EVs in Special Defense to compensate for it not getting a boost. The reason is that Breloom already resists 3 types that consist of mainly Special Attacks - Water, Grass, and Electric, allowing him to take reduced damage from them. The 3 Special Attacking types that hit him super-effectively are normally used by Pokemon that Breloom has no business facing anyway, as most of them often deal fatal damage on his sad Special Defense stat unless he maxes it out, which is not an option for a sweeper. </p>


Alright, this is my first peer edit in a long time, so nitpick this shit. Is there anything else I should add to this moveset's analysis? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Added Swords Dance set and split up SD and Bulk Up set. Make some final nitpicks.

 

[matty]

Saw you playing this earilier. Looked like a good set to me.

I might suggest running Substitute somewhere and try and play him like a CM sweeper would in a way. Maybe Substitute goes as a 2nd option next to Spore? (though giving up guranteed sleep is hard to pass up). Leech seed would also help to get a ton of bulk ups in. 24% recovered every turn would be ridiculous and couple that with Bulk Up, could be dangerous. Again, the set is already crammed and dropping any move could be difficult, but these are two options to think about.

 

[Articanus]

Back in the early days of DP, my friend used a Spore, sub, SD, Seed Bomb set that worked to a great degree of success. However, Salamence wasn't as popular as it is now, so it probably wouldn't work as well.

I would use 240 HP EVs, as then you hit a magic HP Number with Toxic Orb Recovery. You could add the +1 if u felt like it

 

[Great Sage]

Even with your explanation of why you chose Bulk Up over Swords Dance, I still think Swords Dance is better. Maybe you could enhance Breloom's performance with Swords Dance by using Life Orb as an option over Toxic Orb. It lets a Swords Dance Mach Punch OHKO Scarf Heatran, and with Stealth Rock support, OHKO Infernape. As you said, Breloom is also bad at taking special hits, making Bulk Up's Defense boost somewhat less worth it. If you choose to include Life Orb, you can still mention Poison Heal as an ability choice; sometimes Breloom can switch into Toxic or Toxic Spikes.

 

[Bologo]

Even with your explanation of why you chose Bulk Up over Swords Dance, I still think Swords Dance is better. Maybe you could enhance Breloom's performance with Swords Dance by using Life Orb as an option over Toxic Orb. It lets a Swords Dance Mach Punch OHKO Scarf Heatran, and with Stealth Rock support, OHKO Infernape. As you said, Breloom is also bad at taking special hits, making Bulk Up's Defense boost somewhat less worth it. If you choose to include Life Orb, you can still mention Poison Heal as an ability choice; sometimes Breloom can switch into Toxic or Toxic Spikes.

Well, I liked Swords Dance too, and Life Orb + Poison Heal does sound pretty sweet. The thing that kept on giving me huge problems were things like Mamoswine and Lucario. I even had near max speed on the Swords Dancer, but even though I could OHKO them with Mach Punch, they'd kill me with their priority moves.

I liked Bulk Up much more, because then he wouldn't be totally screwed by priority moves, and he was able to take advantage of having pretty much no Physical weaknesses besides the 4x to Flying, making him much harder to kill especially with Toxic Orb.

Another problem with Swords Dance is that if there's not Toxic Spikes up, or he doesn't get to switch in on a Toxic, it tends to be extremely hard to keep him alive, especially with Life Orb damage.

Hmm, well I could put Swords Dance as an option over Bulk Up, but my testing showed it as inferior, though admittedly I didn't try it with Life Orb, so I'll consider it. I'm going to wait for more people to weigh in on that issue though with their testing.

 

[Phuquoph]

I used a similar set to this with:

move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Mach Punch
move 3: Seed Bomb
move 4: Spore
item: Life Orb
ability: Poison Heal
nature: Adamant
evs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe

It seems my experiences are the total opposite of yours. I found Bulk Up to be a bit weak really. Swords Dance plus Life Orb makes a massive difference as to what you can kill straight off the bat. I didn't get much use out of Stone Edge either. Zapdos usually Pressure stalled me, and I had to run from Salamence and Moltres, since they're faster. It's nice for wearing them down on the switch, but I found Seed Bomb more effective for sweeping. Great for taking out Grounds and Waters, obviously. Seems like you could lose to something like MixPert without it.

Heatran: Scarf and Specs versions are easily OHKOed, defensive ones require Stealth Rock to guarantee the kill.
Infernape: Likely OHKO after Stealth Rock.

Those two are really important since Bulk Up doesn't help you at all.

Garchomp: Mach Punch does about 60% and Seed Bomb OHKOs. You can survive a Fire Fang from the SD/Yache sets, even after Life Orb kicks in.
Gyarados: Almost a guaranteed OHKO even after Intimidate on the more offensive sets. Possible OHKO on bulky set with Stealth Rock.
Cresselia: 2HKO with Seed Bomb, and you easily survive a weak Ice Beam (but rarely survive Psychic, and Life Orb usually finishes you off anyway).
Gliscor: 2HKO with Seed Bomb (does around 70%). So you win if it doesn't have Aerial Ace.

Lucario can't OHKO with ExtremeSpeed unless it has a Swords Dance, meaning you switched into it, not the other way around. In that scenario, Bulk Up doesn't help (then again, nor does Swords Dance). Also, you can EV Breloom to survive a CB Ice Shard from Mamoswine. I think your spread might even survive one.

 

[Invective]

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/breloom


[SET COMMENTS]
<p> This set aims to compensate for two vital things about Breloom that may hinder his ability to sweep - his mediocre Speed, and below average Defense. This is achieved by using Mach Punch for priority, and Bulk Up to raise his bad Defense while raising his obscene Attack score as well, thus setting him up to sweep the opponents team. Stone Edge is there to complement Mach Punch for great coverage, resisted by few. Spore, which is a necessity on almost every Breloom out there, can easily allow him to set up in his opponent's face, making it easy for Breloom to punish the slower walls that may hinder his sweep. Toxic Orb with Poison Heal gives Breloom a big plus over other Bulk Uppers, as the extra recovery goes some way to help his bad HP stat, allowing him to take better advantage of his Bulk Ups. Note that Breloom can use this set with Swords Dance instead of Bulk Up, however, it leaves him quite vunerable to anything that resists Mach Punch due to the lack of Defense boosts. </p>


Alright, this is my first peer edit in a long time, so nitpick this shit. Is there anything else I should add to this moveset's analysis? Thanks in advance.

Only three things. Mispelled "complement" when telling why to use Stone Edge, instead spelling it "compliment"; and the second to last sentence sounded weird with "much better" at the end. Feel free to use my rewording with "better" in the middle of the sentence, it's just that your wording seemed a tad forced.

thus setting him up to sweep the opponent's team

And this one, I'm not completely sure about, but I'm pretty sure that you don't need the apostrophe in "opponent's".

 

[Bologo]

Phuquoph - I tried Seed Bomb in Stone Edge's place as well, but it seemed to me that it had terrible coverage, since Grass/Fighting is resisted by an extremely long list. I suppose I could put it as an option over Stone Edge as a more powerful and reliable option at the cost of coverage.

When I said that Lucario usually screwed me up with Extremespeed, I meant that it was in the middle of my sweep, but yeah, it definitely can't OHKO with my spread.

I'll give Swords Dance a mention alongside Bulk Up since they both have their perks.

By the way, could you please tell me about your spread? My spread is meant to optimize Bulk Up's efficiency, but I couldn't come up with a good spread for Swords Dance, and I was thinking that I might as well have a paragraph dedicated to a good Swords Dance spread since I couldn't think of a good one when I was using that set (it was the first p-sweeping Loom that I used too). Thanks. :]

kusaninja - Fixed, although I'm pretty sure "opponent's" is supposed to have the apostrophe.

Thanks for the advice so far guys.

 

[Phuquoph]

Speed EVs are to outrun Gliscor, I put the rest in HP. You could run max Speed, but I can't think of anything that really makes it worthwhile. Base 100s with no Speed I suppose, but Celebi, Salamence, Zapdos, etc. rarely run 0 Speed EVs. And you would lose against them either way, mostly. Slightly better defensive abilities never hurt, even if the EV investment is only very minor.

If you're using Toxic Orb, I would say Facade is a better option than Stone Edge. Even before a boost you can at least 2HKO everything you want Stone Edge for if you have Stealth Rock support. I haven't tried it yet, but SD/Mach Punch/Seed Bomb/Facade with Toxic Orb sounds decent.

 

[Bologo]

Speed EVs are to outrun Gliscor, I put the rest in HP. You could run max Speed, but I can't think of anything that really makes it worthwhile. Base 100s with no Speed I suppose, but Celebi, Salamence, Zapdos, etc. rarely run 0 Speed EVs. And you would lose against them either way, mostly. Slightly better defensive abilities never hurt, even if the EV investment is only very minor.

If you're using Toxic Orb, I would say Facade is a better option than Stone Edge. Even before a boost you can at least 2HKO everything you want Stone Edge for if you have Stealth Rock support. I haven't tried it yet, but SD/Mach Punch/Seed Bomb/Facade with Toxic Orb sounds decent.

Alright, thanks for the EV explanation, I'll edit that in as an alternate spread later.

About using Facade with Toxic Orb, that's actually a really good idea, but the only problem is that it's completely walled by Ghosts if it doesn't run Stone Edge, and I'm not sure if it's a good idea to put it over Spore. Spore is essential on every Breloom set IMO, since that's the main thing that makes it so easy for Breloom to set up. I'll throw in Facade as an option if some more people post about some good results with Facade over Stone Edge or even Spore, because this idea never occurred to me, but it is quite cool nonetheless, and I'm just a bit skeptical about losing Spore, or being totally walled by Ghosts.

 

[Phuquoph]

I tried out SD/Mach Punch/Seed Bomb/Facade with Toxic Orb last night and it does work quite well. You don't get walled by Ghosts, as you can see by these calcs.

vs. Max HP / Max Def, Bold Spiritomb 64.47% - 76.32% (83.88% - 99.01%)
vs. Max HP / Max Def, Impish Dusknoir 57.14% - 67.35% (73.81% - 87.07%)
vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gengar 82.76% - 97.7% (108.05% - 127.2%)

That's Seed Bomb after a Swords Dance, with and without Life Orb (for sets with Life Orb and Spore over Toxic Orb and Facade).

As for needing Stone Edge for Flying-types and such (Facade before a Swords Dance, unless stated otherwise).

vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Salamence factoring in 40.79% - 48.04%
vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragonite 54.18% - 64.09%
vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heracross 105.98% - 124.92%
vs. 104 / 0 Def Heracross 97.55% - 114.98%
vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ninjask 101.95% - 120.2%
vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Staraptor factoring in 48.23% - 56.91%
vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Yanmega 60.7% - 71.57%
vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Moltres 57.01% - 67.29%
vs. 248 HP / 148 Def, Bold Moltres 37.08% - 43.86%
vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Charizard 69.36% - 81.82%
vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Togekiss 46.79% - 55.35%
vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Togekiss after a Swords Dance 93.58% - 110.16%

No Life Orb means you miss a few OHKOs with Mach Punch, but Stealth Rock helps with that. I wouldn't try to sweep with this before you have Stealth Rock up anyway, it makes a massive difference. The Spore / Life Orb set is still good, so I'll be adding that alongside Facade / Toxic Orb.

I'm almost certainly adding a Swords Dance set, but I'm not convinced about Bulk Up yet. The low SpD makes it hard to tank effectively. If it does go in, it will be a separate set from the SD one. I'll do some more testing, so if anyone else wants to try it out too, that would be a big help.

 

[Bologo]

Alright, so should I separate the sets in this peer edit then? Trust me, Bulk Up is a really good set too. Provided that you don't let Breloom face off against opponents that have attacks that it's weak to on the special side (they're not hard to spot), it's quite hard to kill. Remember that Flying is pretty much the only mainly physical weakness it has, which means that most physical attacks hit it neutral, meaning it can use the Defense boosts quite handily. That plus Poison Heal recovery make it hard to kill, and it doesn't get humongous amounts of health stripped off by faster priority moves after 1 or 2 Bulk Ups, which are the main things to try and protect p-sweeper Breloom from, since he's not the fastest Priority Sweeper out there.

It's much like the Bulk Up Floatzel who also has the terrible Special Defense, but few special weakness, and good special resistances. Breloom has common resistances to three very common attacking types in OU - Water, Grass and Electric, and those are mostly special, so the lower special defense slightly compensates for that.

I'll separate the SD and Bulk Up sets though. I suppose I'll name the Bulk Up set "Bulky Priority Sweeper", and the SD set "All-Out Priority Sweeper", since this analysis is getting pretty cluttered. I'll probably get it done by the end of the day, and then we'll get it uploaded on the SCMS (after fixes of course!). I'm convinced about Facade now, so that will be going on the SD set.

 

[Phuquoph]

Yeah, you can split them up in here. Most of what you have about Swords Dance is good so that can be reworded slightly to make up the Set Comments. No need to bother with damage calcs, but you could mention stuff that it beats "Mach Punch OHKOs A, B and C, Facade 2HKOs X, Y and Z". Emphasize Seed Bomb because Breloom really can't afford to miss, especially without Bulk Up.

[SET]
name: Swords Dance
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Mach Punch
move 3: Seed Bomb / Stone Edge
move 4: Spore / Facade
item: Life Orb / Toxic Orb
ability: Poison Heal
nature: Adamant
evs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe

 

[Bologo]

Alrighty, I decided to finish it today. I split up the two sets and made them two separate sets. Make some nitpicks and such. I'll add this to the SCMS at the end of the day. I proofread as best I could, but I probably missed something. We also probably have to take Facade out of the "Other Options" section of the analysis since it's in a set now.

What order should Breloom's sets be in his analysis anyway after I add these two?

 

[Raikizen]

Also note that if Breloom comes in on Toxic or Toxic Spikes and attacks with Life Orb, he will still recover 2.5% thanks to Poison Heal's extra recovery.

Nit pick I shall. Though I could really only find this one. Should say 12.5% correct? Otherwise everything else has really been discussed.

I enjoy breloom on my team and can say I've had success with both sets. The SD set enjoys so much more attack power. The number of teams that are not prepared for Brelooms massive attack stat after a SD are high. The Bulk Up variant for me has been really sturdy. Rarely have I had to switch out after getting 2 Bulk Ups out.

 

[Bologo]

Nit pick I shall. Though I could really only find this one. Should say 12.5% correct? Otherwise everything else has really been discussed.

I enjoy breloom on my team and can say I've had success with both sets. The SD set enjoys so much more attack power. The number of teams that are not prepared for Brelooms massive attack stat after a SD are high. The Bulk Up variant for me has been really sturdy. Rarely have I had to switch out after getting 2 Bulk Ups out.

Life Orb recoil is 10%. Poison Heal gives back 12.5%. Therefore the excess healing is 2.5%.

 

[Raikizen]

Ah, pardon me. I didn't realize you were factoring LO into it. Well, nevermind then. Good job on everything else.

 

[Phuquoph]

What order should Breloom's sets be in his analysis anyway after I add these two?

Anywhere after the SubSeed set, since that is still (arguably) Breloom's best set.

 

[Bologo]

Wait, should I put the EV explanations that I put for these sets in the EV section, or should I just keep them in their respective set analysis? I'd most likely condense them quite a bit if I put them in the EV section, but I'm not sure where I'm supposed to put them. :(

I'm going to add this to the SCMS once I know where I'm supposed to put the EV explanations.

 

[Phuquoph]

You can leave the EV explanations in with the set comments, as they are specific to each set.

 

[Bologo]

Added to SCMS and awaiting a cache. Any other revisions can be made there for now.

 

[Blue Kirby]

This post is for jrrrrrrr's and Aldaron's purposes...

Delete this one; already on the site.