DP Jirachi

[Syberia]

Looking through the analysis, I can't help but notice that the EVs of the old set are seriously outdated. Bold with 244 speed and no special attack may have worked wonders in D/P's infancy, but in today's metagame it can't even 2HKO your standard Calm Blissey after 6 Calm Minds.

I stole a lot of this from the current Sub/CM Jirachi analysis, because it still applies.

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

[SET]
name: Sub/CM Sweeper
move 1: Calm Mind
move 2: Substitute
move 3: Psychic
move 4: Thunderbolt / Hidden Power Fighting / Grass Knot
item: Leftovers
nature: Timid
EVs: 252 HP / 80 SpA / 176 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Jirachi belongs to a small group of special attackers who can defeat Blissey 1-on-1. The idea is simple: with maximum HP, Jirachi's Substitutes will never be broken by a single Seismic Toss, and after a Calm Mind, they will withstand attacks from most special-based walls as well, allowing Jirachi to boost its offense with more Calm Minds.</p>

<p>Psychic provides reliable STAB and a 20% chance of dropping your foe's Special Defense to further aid Jirachi's ability to sweep, and is non-negotiable on all sets. The final slot provides extra type coverage, based on what you anticipate having the most problems with. Thunderbolt is your best bet for a secondary attack, providing good neutral damage against most foes. When combined with Psychic, it is only resisted by Celebi and Magnezone in OU. It can also help against Gyarados in a pinch, but won't hit any of this set's specific counters particularly hard.</p>

<p>Hidden Power Fighting will take care of Tyranitar and Weavile easily enough, as well as dent Heatran if you can predict it. Grass Knot can work if the rest of your team doesn't have another way to deal with Ground-types such as Swampert, Hippowdon, or Mamoswine, and will still take care of Tyranitar, but Grass + Psychic otherwise offers only lackluster coverage. Hidden Power Ground will hit Metagross the hardest out of anything Jirachi can use, and will OHKO Heatran if it comes in on a Calm Mind, provided it is not scarfed. You should keep in mind, though, that without Thunderbolt, Skarmory will be able to come in with little risk to itself and Whirlwind you away before you get up too many Calm Minds.</p>

<p>The EVs on this set allow Jirachi to reach 404 HP so that a Seismic Toss cannot break its Substitute, and 308 Speed to get ahead of speed-boosting pokemon with 90 base Speed, such as Lucario and Roserade. You can use Substitute while the former lowers its own defenses with Close Combat, opening it up to an OHKO with Psychic, or while the latter attempts to use Sleep Powder, netting youtself a free turn to use Calm Mind. Just remember that if you're running Hidden Power Fighting, you'll need an additional 4 EVs in Speed to reach 308, which can be taken from Special Attack.</p>

<p>If you would like a slower, but more bulky Jirachi, you may use a Bold nature with 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 Spe, or you may even drop the Speed down to 244 (32 EVs) to edge out Jolly Tyranitar by a single point, and split the difference between Defense and Special Attack as you see fit.</p>

 

[Jimbo]

Great set, I LOVE Sub/CM Jirachi, and I definitely felt Bold didn't work well. In my quick read through of this edit I didn't see any nitpicks. May read through more in depth later though.

I definitely think Psychic/Tbolt was the most useful, though it did suck when your sweep was ruined by a Tyranitar :( You could mention something about how this set is generally better than Wish/CM (imo) because of its status blocking abilities and having an easier time with Blissey.

 

[Invective]

<p>The EVs on this set allow Jirachi to reach 404 HP so that a Seismic Toss cannot break its Substitute, and 300 Speed to get ahead of neutral-nature base 100 pokemon such as Salamence. If you would like a slightly faster Jirachi, you can use 176 EVs in Speed to beat out speed-boosting Lucario and Roserade, at the expense of Special Attack.</p>

All i could find.

 

[cim]

Uh, here's a vote in favor of 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 Spd; Bold. Why? Psychic's 20% chance of a Special fall, plus making Substitute as bulky as possible. Without Defense investment, many more neutral physical attacks will break your Substitute. I think the priority should be ease of set-up against the many teams without Blissey (even less of which are Calm), not ability to cleanly 2HKO, because again Psychic's special fall chance will happen.

Substitute is the reason why I don't see much need for Speed. 270 Speed for Heracross? With one Calm Mind, you OHKO, plus you should have a Sub up at all times, so why does it matter too much when you can buff defenses? 300 Speed? Same thing.

The choice between Thunderbolt and Hidden Power Fighting (or even Hidden Power Bug) is basically solely dependent on how popular Spiritomb and Cresselia are, really. HP Fighting is oh so useful for Tyranitar, while HP Bug still scratches Tyranitar a little and lets Jirachi more efficiently set up on Cresselia.

To be honest, Grass Knot isn't a good idea at all. Swampert, Hippowdon, and Mamoswine all don't have spectacular Special Defense and will hate Calm Minded Psychics, plus Grass Knot will leave you entirely helpless against Steel types.

Flash Cannon isn't the worst move in the entire world on this set. it hits Tyranitar almost as hard as HP Fighting and has a decent amount of neutral coverage, although Steels will wall you.

 

[Astamatitos]

Since you are already implementing a lot on speed i'd suggest you to use 308 Speed on Jirachi. With 308 speed you allow your Jirachi to always outspeed Jolly Lucario & KO after a special defense drop from Close Combat. This means you can use substitute as it uses Close Combat on you the first time and then proceed to killing it with Psychic the next turn. Seeing as Jirachi resists extremespeed, bullet punch and it doesn't mind a non boosted Crunch 308 speed makes you a great backup counter if you already lost your main counter to luke.

Other than that 308 speed allows you to outspeed all Roserades and either OHKO with Psychic or set up on the ones that lack HP Fire with substitute and then proceeding to Calm Mind.

 

[jujuomi]

You could also add that in OU the only pokemon that are resistant to both thunderbolt + psychic, are Magnezone, Magneton(yes it is OU), and celebi.

 

[Syberia]

Since you are already implementing a lot on speed i'd suggest you to use 308 Speed on Jirachi. With 308 speed you allow your Jirachi to always outspeed Jolly Lucario & KO after a special defense drop from Close Combat. This means you can use substitute as it uses Close Combat on you the first time and then proceed to killing it with Psychic the next turn. Seeing as Jirachi resists extremespeed, bullet punch and it doesn't mind a non boosted Crunch 308 speed makes you a great backup counter if you already lost your main counter to luke.

Other than that 308 speed allows you to outspeed all Roserades and either OHKO with Psychic or set up on the ones that lack HP Fire with substitute and then proceeding to Calm Mind.

This is already mentioned in the last paragraph of the set.

You could also add that in OU the only pokemon that are resistant to both thunderbolt + psychic, are Magnezone, Magneton(yes it is OU), and celebi.

Done. Magneton is NFE, and thus does not technically have a tier, so I'll leave it out for now.

 

[RaikouLover]

EVs for Sub Calm Mind Jirachi need to be as follows:

252 HP / 176 Spe / 80 SpA

You get your 101 HP Subs, you get 308 speed to outspeed virtually all Salamences and Roserades and Lucarios, so you can beat it 1 on 1 always as a back up counter as mentioned earlier. The 80 Special attack EVs help you against Blisseys that use a little more special defense, and give you some more kick of you only get in a Calm Mind or two... they help.

Thunderbolt is the best option for 2nd attack also. Grass Knot is kind of fail, and HP Fighting doesn't hit Skarmory hard enough...

 

[Syberia]

Alright, I'll change the primary Speed EVs to 176. Thunderbolt already is the main secondary attack, but I'll emphasize it a bit more.

 

[RaikouLover]

Minor nitpick, but the moves should be in order of importance... So I think you rearrange them into Calm Mind-Substitute-Psychic-Thunderbolt.

 

[Syberia]

I've always been used to putting damaging moves first, but is that the "standard Smogon format?"

Edited the description with your suggestions in mind.

 

[Bam]

I would also give Water Pulse a mention, as Psychic/Water has decent type coverage and Serene Grace boosts its chance of confusing the opponent up to 40%, something that can help greatly if you decide to scout your opponent's switch in rather than sub first and lose HP.

 

[Syberia]

It "might" be useful for confusion hax, but 60 base power and neutral vs. a lot of things really shouldn't be used for sweeping, which is the goal of this set with a few CMs under its belt.

 

[cim]

Can we at least keep the bulky EVs in the set comments? I think there is a fair case for them, really, mostly because of Psychic's chance for a Special fallplus more Substitute durability.

 

[RaikouLover]

Believe it or not Chris is Me, I don't think the defensive EVs will ever matter. Since they will only help against physical attacks, the only physical attacks people ever use on Jirachi are Close Combat (will break any sub regardless) and Earthquake (thats a no brainer). The things that won't be breaking your sub are the things you will be setting up on. Ground types, Tyranitar, Metagross and Heatran are pretty much guarenteed switch-ins on this Jirachi and all of them are going to be breaking your sub regardless.

 

[cim]

I've used Calm Mind Jirachi more than any other set, and I've found a lot of times when I needed or appreciated the extra physical survivability. Random neutral physical attacks have a lot of trouble breaking a Bold Substitute, and very few Earthquakes can actually KO even a slightly weakened Jirachi with 220 Defense EVs. Not no mention that STAB Earthquakers in general don't like Calm Minded Psychics being thrown at them. It's not a bad EV spread, plus unlike on Suicune the whole "not actually 2HKOing Blissey" thing isn't even an issue because of Serene Grace special falls.

 

[Syberia]

And I've found a lot of times that the extra speed has saved my ass, at times when your typical Bold set would have to switch out, a Timid set can either potentially finish off a slower opponent, or set up a Substitute to avoid a potentially crippling status move.

 

[gorm]

i really like this set> bulky (even for mamo/luke/subroost zapdos alone) but i also like taking like 30%from bronzong eq which can really help. i think the bold vs deserve mention, you could tone them down a little bit though

 

[cim]

I'm not at all saying that a speedy set is unviable, I just think that there is a considerable case to be made for the Bold EVs, so they should be thrown in the Comments or something.

 

[Syberia]

Well, yes. I can agree with that.

 

[Great Sage]

Minor nitpick, but the moves should be in order of importance... So I think you rearrange them into Calm Mind-Substitute-Psychic-Thunderbolt.

It doesn't matter that much. Basically the only guideline (unwritten, I might add) about move order is to put moves with many slashes towards the bottom so it doesn't look top-heavy.

 

[Syberia]

Updated with a reference to the old Bold set, with a suggestion of going even slower if you'd like more defense or power.

 

[Mailman]

i don't know if its the best option but HP ground might be reasonable. it still hits steel types and hits heatran and metagross super effectively

 

[cim]

It's listed in the analysis. I don't think it's a "set option" as Thunderbolt / HP fighting is probably better. HP Ground leaves you completely and entirely powerless against Bronzong, whom otherwise might not win against Jirachi, especially 252 / 220 Jirachi.

 

[Syberia]

Even Bronzong with 0 attack EVs breaks your Substitute 98% of the time, so you won't be beating it 1 on 1, especially with no Sp. Atk EVs, unless it switches in on you after you've gotten a couple Calm Minds.