Base Stats: 100 / 050 / 050 / 086 / 096 / 070 (BST: 452)
Abilities: Insomnia / Keen Eye / Tinted Lens (HA)
Notable Moves:
- Nasty Plot
- Hurricane
- Hyper Voice
- Tera Blast
- Roost
- Heat Wave
- Air Slash
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Shadow Ball
- Defog
- Hypnosis
- Calm Mind
- Agility
- Stored Power
Pros:
- tinted lens allows for its stab hurricane to hit resists quite hard, limiting the number of mons that can switch in on it
- ground immunity is always valuable to switch in on common moves like earthquake; ghost immunity can be useful too
- nasty plot further bolsters its damage output to surprisingly potent capability
- part normal type actually means that it gets stab on tera blast without using tera, providing more flexibility
- access to reliable recovery in roost, as well as defog for hazard control
Cons:
- besides a ground immunity, noctowl doesnt have much of a defensive profile, with particularly low physical bulk
- mediocre speed stat of only base 70, limiting how often it can throw out moves in battle
- base 86 special attack is still fairly low even despite high powered stab in hurricane and tinted lens ignoring resists; needs a np boost to be powerful
- weakness to rocks essentially forces it to use boots to stay healthy, which comes at the cost of power
- ur main flying stab options are hurricane which misses and makes this mon inconsistent, or air slash which is weak especially on a mon with not high special attack
Tera Potential:
noctowl is often a wallbreaker and tera is a good way to bolster ur wallbreaking capability or dismantle a key threat in a pinch
- tera ground turns noctowls electric weakness into an immunity which can be useful in a pinch to either set up or hit the foe super effectively with a tera blast. also gives immunity to twave
- tera flying can be used to simply power up ur hurricane and enhance ur wallbreaking potential
- defensive teras are generally going to be useful to patch up noctowls weaknesses and allow it more opportunities to wallbreak
Set Potential:
Noctowl @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Tinted Lens
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Hurricane
- Tera Blast
- Roost
this will probably be noctowls go-to set for this generation, which is similar what it ran last gen. the idea is to set up with np and spam ur stab moves to dent the opposing team as much as possible. noctowl still gets stab on tera blast before using tera so it can actually work nicely as a secondary stab. ground actually complements flying decently and also gives noctowl immunity to electric and twave. if u wish to run tera flying, u could prob replace tera blast with hyper voice for more power or for some odd coverage or utility move, or just keep tera blast if ur that scared of missing hurricane. specs sets could be option for more immediate wallbreaking power, with smth like hurricane/hypervoice/terablast/defog.
frankly, ur not gonna see noctowl seriously in ou, but the option of tera actually makes this mon seem quite interesting in tiers like pu. noctowl was actually banned during the very early stages of pu last generation and with tera at its disposal, it could potentially return to be a solid wallbreaker in the lowest tiers. however, relying on hurricane can only get u so far, especially with pretty mediocre stats, so whos to say.
