DPP Tentacruel

[Imran]

Re-Write of the Choice Specs set. There's no doubt that it was in need of it. I was sceptical of the set at first, but the surprise element and the respectable Speed convinced me in the end that it was an analysis worthy set:

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

[SET]
name: Choice Specs
move 1: Surf / Hydro Pump
move 2: Ice Beam
move 3: Sludge Bomb
move 4: Giga Drain / Hidden Power Grass / Hidden Power Electric
item: Choice Specs
ability: Liquid Ooze
nature: Timid
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>With the Choice Specs, Tentacruel’s Special Attack stat reaches a respectable 388. Its natural bulk on the Special side allows it to switch in relatively easily. While many view Tentacruel as a supporting Pokemon, its relatively high base Speed can surprise opponents and can grab some useful KOes. Your choice of Surf or Hydro Pump depends on whether you prefer the power of Hydro Pump, or the accuracy of Surf, this is very much a taste decision. Ice Beam will allow you to hit Dragons hard, which can prove useful considering that you will be faster than a Dragonite, and will at worst Speed tie with any Flygon or Salamence who haven’t boosted their Speed via Dragon Dance or Choice Scarf. Note that Dragonite may also choose to boost its Speed. Sludge Bomb is a STAB option that will hit a lot of Pokemon for neutral damage, most notably Gyarados; offensive versions will be 2HKOed outright. Rapid Spin is an option that can be used over Sludge Bomb whilst scouting for Tentacruel's counters.</p>

<p>Giga Drain and Hidden Power Grass are predominantly there for Swampert, as neither will hit pure Water-types much harder than Sludge Bomb. Giga Drain will do 336 HP on average to the Standard MixPert, recovering over half of Tentacruel's health, but will fail to OHKO a full health MixPert. On the other hand, Hidden Power Grass will OHKO the mud fish 80% of the time with Stealth Rock up, but will deny Tentacruel the opportunity to leech half of that health back. If hitting Gyarados is a priority for you, Hidden Power Electric will OHKO even the bulkier versions after Stealth Rock.</p>

<p>The EVs are fairly self-explanatory; maximize Special Attack to hit as hard as possible, and maximize Speed to ensure at worst a Speed tie with other positive base 100 Speed Pokemon. Liquid Ooze is the preferred Ability here as it is unlikely that Tentacruel will receive any problematic stat drops, which would warrant the use of Clear Body, when running this set. Although it doesn't pack as much power as other Choice Specs Pokemon, this Tentacruel has the element of surprise; few expect Tentacruel to carry Sludge Bomb, Hidden Power, and Ice Beam all on one set. Even fewer expect it to have such high Speed. Use this element of surprise to your advantage. You could potentially use a Choice Scarf over Choice Specs on this set, which will allow you to revenge kill more of the OU metagame (most notably Gyarados and Salamence with one Dragon Dance), but the power loss is undesirable outside of those specific situations.</p>

 

[Janenmori]

Perhaps Rapid Spin could be an option over Sludge Bomb due to the "switchy" nature of this set. Grass types are already hit by Ice Beam, and its a free switchin for steels.

...will at worst tie Speed with any Flygon or Salamence who haven’t boosted their Speed via Choice Scarf or Dragon Dance, respectively.

 

[darkie]

I definitely think Rapid Spin deserves a mention but not the main set. Keep Rapid Spin in set comments.

 

[stormtrooper]

hp grass is an option instead of giga drain

 

[kd24]

personally i would just put toxic spikes on the last slot and call it a day. it supports the whole team and is a nice scouting move early game (you bring in tentacruel, toxic spikes, and see what their tentacruel counter is). i cant imagine why you would be using this against gyarados or swampert anyway, both can ohko you with eq and you shouldnt be trying to use a move specialized for them anyway. too many switch-ins / counters to waste your tentas surprise attack on.

edit: correct me if im wrong but doesnt giga drain / hp grass both fail to ohko swampert? might as well keep giga drain for the healing (but toxic spikes is definitely the best option imo)

 

[Imran]

I will add Rapid Spin into Set Comments, I think that Sludge Bomb is preferable because when it hits neutrally, the STAB is a nice option. I will also remove mentions of Giga Drain for Hidden Power Grass, I can only think of very situational times at which Giga Drain would be superior, thanks for those guys!

KD, if you expect a switch you would probably simply Surf anyway. If you use Toxic Spikes, odds on you will only get one layer up, if you intend to use this set aggressivly (which is what it is meant for.) I fail to see how having the coverage against Swampert or Gyarados is a bad thing should the need arise. Especially when replacing it with a move that would essentially turn it into a crippled supporter set. The reason you use it against them is because you are faster, for Gyarados it's more situational and will involve a predicted Waterfall / double switch, but for Swampert you could easily switch in on SR or Surf or Ice Beam etc...

I'm also a bit iffy about changing the "respectivly" bit, simply because Salamence _could_ use the Choice Scarf itself, it is a set on the analysis after all, I shall leave it as it is for now.

 

[cim]

Giga Drain is better than HP Grass; the base power almost never matters and a set with no healing would appreciate it, considering Tentacruel is probably the best Bulky Water switch-in anyway.

 

[Syberia]

Clear Body in the description should be capitalized.

 

[Imran]

Thanks Syberia, fixed that.

@ Chris, generally I find that power is more useful than the pitiful amount of HP that will be gained from anything but Swampert (Hidden Power Grass also hits bulky Waters harder than Sludge Bomb does), I was interested in your proposal however so I did some damage calculations and found:

Giga Drain vs. 240 HP / 0 SpD Swampert: 77.8-91.8% (0% chance to OHKO)
Hidden Power Grass vs. 240 HP / 0 SpD Swampert: 89.8-106.7% (79.5% chance to OHKO with Stealth Rock, 33.3% chance to OHKO without)

This is enough for me to want to keep Hidden Power Grass. Swampert can of course OHKO back with Earthquake, and I feel the extra damage against CursePert will also be useful.

 

[Caelum]

I actually agree with Chris and feel Giga Drain is the superior option. Hidden Power Grass, when super effective, only have 5 stronger base power than a neutral Sludge Bomb. Given that Grass isn't a particular good offensive type (particularly when without STAB and such low base power) it's difficult to make the argument that it is a "coverage" move much like Hydro Pump on Choice Specs Salamence or Dragon Pulse on Choice Heatran; so the slot is largely "just for Swampert." Now that we have established the Grass move is "just for Swampert" let's talk about him.

I can still make a strong case for Giga Drain. On average, Giga Drain is doing 336 HP in damage to the Swampert you described. Thus, on average, Tentacruel will be receiving 168 HP in return (336 x 0.5 = 168) which is actually over 55% of Tentacruel's total HP. That's more that just a negligable amount of recovery.

Now, let's remember you are faster than Swampert and will always 2HKO, if Swampert switches in; it's as good as dead. A less than 30% health Swampert isn't particularly useful even if it switches out on the second Giga Drain. Now, if you just killed something and you are locked on Hidden Power Grass / Giga Drain Swampert isn't going to switch in period so you don't need to OHKO it then. You need to deal with it on the switch-in and both moves do that. Either way, you give something a "free" switch-in when you are in a Choice-locked Grass move whether you kill it or not so it doesn't particularly matter. The cases are similar enough in what they accomplish that I can make the argument that the small recovery could be potentially useful.

I'd honestly prefer the recovery option. Both are viable however.

 

[Imran]

I see your point, although I don't like the idea of not being able to OHKO, I'd rather have a Tentacruel with lower health that is still alive. I guess it depends really on how often that Standard Swampert is going to be at full health. Of course I think we must take the line that the user predicts well, so if a switch is "obvious" then they will play the appropriate move, Surf most likely.

I'll put them both in and explain the merits of both, that way whoever uses the set can make their own descision, which seems fair enough. Thanks for all of your input.

 

[MagicMaster87]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this yet, so perhaps it was intentional, but you have "Rapid Spin is an option that can be used over Sludge Bomb whilst scouting for Tentacruel's counters." at the end of both the first and second paragraphs.

 

[RovoK]

No offense here; I'm not sure I'm 100% correct but actually I think that using Rapid Spin to scout is a pretty moot idea, unless you expect Tentacruel to serve both as a spinner and a choice sweeper, which I believe is still moot. I could picture myself running this Tentacruel, Rapid Spin to scout, out comes the enemy counter--or rather pokemon that want to take advantage of the usually deemed "supporter" Tentacruel, say Metagross and Jirachi and the lot. That would mean that I'm giving the opponent a free turn of set-up, wouldn't it? Could the moveset contain both Giga Drain and an HP of another type for the sake of type coverage?

 

[Imran]

I do see your point, however, a mispredict will generally give your opponant a free turn anyway. So, if you predict a Metagross ot Jirachi coming in, your best bet is to switch to a counter, or Surf. Sludge Bomb is definately the best attacking option in there, because when viewed as a STAB move, it hits quite hard, assuming that you use it well.

Rapid Spin is an OK option as I mentioned before, that's why I put it in set comments. There is very little / no more coverage left in Tentacruel's special movepoolm, so I struggle to see what you would put there. That is why I am going to leave Sludge Bomb as the main option in there, and then leave Rapid Spin in set comments, where I feel it belongs.

 

[SithLord]

Its natural bulk on the special side allows it to switch in relatively easily, and it also possesses a relatively high base Speed, which many overlook when they view Tentacruel as a supporting Pokemon, this can grab some useful KOes.

A bit of a run on sentence...I suggest changing this to

Its natural bulk on the Special side allows it to switch in relatively easily. While many view Tentacruel as a supporting Pokemon, its relatively high base Speed can surprise opponents and can grab some useful KOes.

Also...

Although it doesn’t pack as much power as other Choice Specs Pokemon, this Tentacruel has the element of surprise on its side, many people don’t expect Tentacruel to carry Sludge Bomb, Hidden Power and Ice Beam all on one set, nor do they expect it to use its Speed stat to the full, use these to your advantage.

This is also a run on sentence...I propose changing this to

Although it doesn't pack as much power as other Choice Specs Pokemon, this Tentacruel has the element of surprise. Few expect Tentacruel to carry Sludge Bomb, Hidden Power, and Ice Beam all on one set; even fewer expect it to use its Speed stat to the full. Use this element of surprise to your advantage.

 

[diinbong]

If you're going to change those, make it:

Although it doesn't pack as much power as other Choice Specs Pokemon, this Tentacruel has the element of surprise; few expect Tentacruel to carry Sludge Bomb, Hidden Power, and Ice Beam all on one set. Even fewer expect it to have such high Speed. Use this element of surprise to your advantage.

But honestly what I posted to say was that I once used a Scarf Tenta as a Lead (ok, honestly it probably wasn't great) with Toxic Spikes. I could choose whether to attack or setup the Spikes and then bring him in later to revenge Gyara and Salamence.

So in conclusion, I agree with KD that TS should have a mention, however, just in Set Comments and when using Choice Scarf. Poeple never expect you to do that and by the time they catch on it's too late and you've set up 2 layers.

So, eh...I think that there should be a section explaining the differences of the sets. As an example, the Scarf set would rather have HP Electric to revenge Gyara while the Specs HP Grass, as one is looking to counter while the other to sweep. Similarily, support moves like TS and Rapid Spin would rather be on Scarf, as you're supporting the team rather than being the center of it. Does that make any sense?

 

[Imran]

I see what you mean diinbong, but I sort of feel this set has enough going on as it is, the way you are describing it a half "support scarf" set probably would deserve it's own analysis. This is definately playing a lot diffferently to the set you are describing. I'll talk to you and we'll test the set out, and then write it up separately, should we wish to.

and thanks for the grammar edits everyone =)