Politoed [QC: 1/3]

[DarkSlay]

I make it rain. Fo' Drizzle my nizzle.

Overview
########

• Drizzle nerf hits Politoed hard, meaning it can no longer establish permanent Rain.
• Still, Drizzle sets up rain without taking up a turn, making it an effective weather starter.
• Only Pokemon sans Kyogre to have Drizzle, and Drizzle + Swift Swim is no longer banned.
  
• Water STAB gains an automatic power boost just by switching in Politoed.
• Has a unique set of support moves, including Perish Song, Refresh and Encore.
• Stats across the board are pretty average or mediocre.
• Not a great offensive movepool.
• Now competes with Rain Dance users like Bronzong and Zapdos on offensive Rain teams, who can set up Rain and provide momentum

Rain Support
########
name: Rain Support
move 1: Scald
move 2: Protect / Ice Beam
move 3: Perish Song / Encore
move 4: Toxic
ability: Drizzle
item: Damp Rock / Leftovers
nature: Bold
evs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD

Moves
========

• Scald is optimal, taking advantage of Drizzle while spreading Burn status.
• Protect can scout opposing Pokemon and can rack up Leftovers recovery.
• Protect + Perish Song is an effective combo, hindering opposing sweepers and forcing switches.
• Ice Beam matches well with Scald, nailing Pokemon like Dragonite who try and set up on Politoed.
• Refresh prevents status from harming Politoed, most importantly removing residual damage caused by Toxic and Will-O-Wisp.
  
• Encore can lock opposing Pokemon into boosting or support moves.
• Toxic cripples opposing bulky Waters and plays well with Protect.
• An alternative set using Rest + Sleep Talk can be used as a form of recovery for Politoed, as well as having the ability to continually provide status support for teams.

Set Details
========

• Maximizing defensive output is important, as Politoed can cripple many Physical threats with Scald.
• Max investment in HP and Defense alongside a Bold nature gives Politoed surprisingly good Physical defensive capabilities.
• Choice of item is very important, with each having its positives and negatives.
• In Generation 6, Damp Rock extends the time Drizzle-based Rain is on the field.
• Damp Rock provides extended Rain support for Politoed's teammates, but removes its only form of recovery.
• Leftovers gives Politoed some survivability and can rack up healing with Protect, but limits the usefulness of Drizzle in the long run.

Usage Tips
========

• Main role is to establish and re-establish Rain throughout the match while crippling opponents with support.
  
• With the new Gen VI mechanics, keep an eye on the Rain counter, as Drizzle can only be re-established after Rain has stopped.
• Scald is an easy move to throw out, as even resists tend to not like Scald's 30% Burn chance.
• Perish Song and Encore should be used in situations where Politoed wants to force a switch or prevent a sweep from occurring.
• Keep track of Politoed's health - very crucial when you're trying to preserve Rain support throughout the match.

Team Options
========

• Swift Swim Pokemon love Drizzle support. This includes threats like Kingdra, Omastar and Ludicolo.
• Manaphy is an excellent abuser of Politoed's Drizzle, taking advantage of boosted Surfs and Rest + Hydration.
  
• Fire-weak Steels (Scizor, Ferrothorn, Forretress, MegaAggron, Jirachi, etc.) love Rain support, halving the damage caused by Fire attacks.
• Thundurus-T and Jolteon can absorb incoming Electric attacks and fire off 100% accurate Thunders.
• Removal of hazards is key in keeping Politoed alive throughout the match, so Spin support is greatly appreciated.

Offensive
########
name: Offensive
move 1: Hydro Pump
move 2: Ice Beam
move 3: Psychic
move 4: Focus Blast / Scald
ability: Drizzle
item: Choice Specs / Damp Rock
nature: Modest
evs: 168 HP / 252 SpA / 84 Spe

Moves
========

• Rain-boosted Hydro Pumps are very, very strong.
  
• Ice Beam provides coverage on bulky Grass- and Dragon-types.
• Psychic can 2HKO Mega Venusaur, which is outstanding, and is is used for coverage against usual Rain checks such as Toxicroak and Tentacruel.
  
• Focus Blast nails Ferrothorn, a usual check, as well as Abomasnow.
• Scald gives Politoed a more accurate STAB Water option while adding a 30% Burn chance against opposing checks.
• Perish Song is an option as a last resort phazing move, but otherwise Politoed really appreciates the extra coverage or reliability of a fourth attacking move.

Set Details
========

• A Modest nature and max investment in SpA ensures that Politoed hits as hard as possible.
• 84 Speed lets it out-pace zero investment Base 80's, notably Mega Venusaur which can be 2HKO'd.
  
• The rest of the EV's are placed in HP to promote overall bulk.
• Choice Specs is very powerful, allowing Politoed to devastate most Pokemon with Hydro Pump in the rain plus cleanly KO checks with coverage moves.
• Damp Rock allows it to be more of a team player, adding three extra turns for Rain while still applying offensive pressure to teams. It doesn't lock you into one move, but does miss out on some 2HKO's on some resists.

Usage Tips
========

• Drizzle and its mono-Water typing give it plenty of switch-in opportunities, such as against Fire, Water and Steel attacks.
• Hydro Pump will always be Politoed's go-to move. The other three coverage moves are fairly situational, but important in eliminating checks like MegaVenusaur.
• Specs does set up Drizzle for the team, so it does provide some sort of team utility for Rain teams. Just keep in mind that it's only for five turns.
  
• Best used on offensive Rain teams, as it provides pressure at the cost of longevity.

Team Options
========

• Swift Swim users always appreciate Rain and this set's penchant of punching holes in normal Rain checks.
  
• Hurricane abusers like Tornadus-T and Noivern appreciate Rain support and don't need much time to set up, if at all.
  
• Keldeo is a great partner for Offensive Politoed, crashing through normal checks like Ferrothorn and Chansey.
• Thundurus-T can apply offensive pressure while also absorbing incoming Electric attacks.

Other Options
########

• Choice Scarf
• ChestoRest
• RestTalk
• Surf
  
• Haze
• Refresh
  
• Hidden Power Grass

Checks & Counters
########

• Ferrothorn
• Jellicent (Water-immune abilities)
  
• Lati@s
• Celebi
• Keldeo
  
• Electric attacks (Thundurus[-T], Rotom-W, Zapdos, Jolteon)
  
• Opposing weather starters
• Low Base stats = pretty weak defensively.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

Even though it's a different metagame, there are a few points from the Politoed preview that still apply. First, Scald was decided to be superior to Surf in general. The loss of 10 BP is more than made up for by the potential to punish otherwise solid switch-ins with potential burns. Surf still deserves a mention, however, since that extra 12.5% power can turn a few 3HKOs into 2HKOs and 2HKOs into OHKOs from time to time. Also, RestTalk really needs to be considered on the bulky set. Since the sleep mechanics have been reverted back to what they were before BW, RestTalk is significantly more reliable than it was last generation. It's also Politoed's only form of healing if you're running Damp Rock, which is important since it needs to be alive as long as possible.

I also feel the slashing on the first set needs to be changed (i.e. drop Hypnosis and Refresh to Set Details, stuff like that), but I'll leave that to QC since it's a more complicated issue.

 

[DarkSlay]

The RestTalk point has been noted and will be implemented. I will also let QC decide on the slashes.

For the Scald/Surf point, are you talking about Surf on the Specs set, or just a general mention of the Surf vs Scald question in general? In the Gen V analysis, Surf is the primary non-Hydro Pump selection on the Specs set with zero mention of Scald whatsoever. If it's decided that Scald is superior, that's fine, just making sure. If it's the latter, I'll put something in both sets highlighting the decision to be made.

EDIT: With these points, I'll open this up to QC for comments. I'd specifically like some feedback on the viability of a Scarf set, as it appears it lost some of its utility in the switch from Gen V to Gen VI.

EDIT2: Okay, implemented. Thanks!

 

[Agent Gibbs]

Yeah, I'm referring to Scald > Surf on the Specs set, so either slashing it before Surf or just replacing Surf with Scald and moving Surf to Set Details. I brought it up in Politoed's preview thread a few days ago, and Gary2346 agreed that it should be the primary option, but you could wait and see what the QC consensus is.

 

[PK Gaming]

Believe it or not, Politoed isn't even the best choice for an offensive rain team, as it's forced to make a hard switch into a rain sweeper (whereas Zapdos, Bronzong, etc can do the same with Rain Rock and safely bring in the rain sweeper with Volt Switch, Explosion, etc). You should state that Politoed is a better choice on balanced & stall teams that rely on rain in some way.

I think Choice Specs might be better than the defensive set, but i'm not sure.

 

[alexwolf]

Just jumping in to say that i have had a lot of success with a bulky offense rain team with defensive Damp Rock Politoed. If you are not using Damp Rock Rain Dance setters, Damp Rock defensive Toed is the way to go imo.

 

[DarkSlay]

Posting to say that I'm still working on this, but have been busy due to Christmas + family. I'll update this very, very soon.

 

[Colonel M]

With Scarf mention it can be used as an emergency stop to boosting sweepers (barring Speed of course) with Encore or even Perish Song.

I think Hypnosis is kind of a shitty option - Toxic just feels more reliable due to its superior accuracy and it can still cripple many switch-ins pretty hard (Ferrothorn is a rare case but it hates Scald's burn rate). And mention that Haze is a nigh-guaranteed stop to Baton Pass teams (Encore more or less delays the situation and Perish Song can be stopped by Mr. Mime).

The analysis looks fine.

QC 1/3

 

[Blast]

Dunno how *set worthy* it is but I've found offensive Damp Rock Toed to be one of the best sets out there, at least in my opinion. Rain-boosted Hydro still hits really hard and the extra support you can provide for teammates is fantastic. It's a cool offensive pivot for teams who enjoy extra rain turns but don't like getting their momentum sucked and a pretty good general balance between Toed's supportive and offensive capabilities. Definitely at least deserves OO imo.

Would probably look something like Hydro / Ice Beam / Psychic|Focus Blast / Scald|Surf|Perish Song or something along those lines.

 

[DarkSlay]

Dat Blast: After talking with QC on #xyqc, I'm going to combine the Specs set with an Offensive Damp Rock set and label it "Offensive". While there's key differences between the two items when it comes to damage and Rain itself, the two sets do play very similarly to one another in terms of what the set is trying to threaten and KO, as well as the basic functions of using it in battle. I am also using a spread of 172 HP / 252 SpA / 84 Spe to out-speed Mega Venusaur and the like, which seems pretty important for an Offensive set (that's one of the big reasons to use it). Let me know if that's around what you're looking for, or if you strongly support completely separate sets for Specs and Offensive.

I also moved Surf to OO completely, since I'm not sold on its utility anymore compared to Scald on individual sets (although the difference in power is at least enough for a general mention). Also, Hypnosis has been removed.

 

[Blast]

Sounds good but you might want to point out that many of your calcs in the Moves section (such as vs. Rotom-W + Hydreigon + MVenusaur) are only sealed with Specs. Also the spread in the OP only uses 168 HP, not 172.

 

[alexwolf]

I don't like Lefties getting a slash on the main set. Unlike Specs Politoed, which actually offers respectable wallbreaking power to a team, defensive Politoed is used solely to provide rain. Having 4 turns at best to take advantage of the rain (usually 3, as you will usually bring Politoed in against something, not after something dies) is very limiting and doesn't really let rain sweepers do what they are supposed to, not to mention that it makes your plays extremely predictable and telegraphed, as you either bring in your rain sweepers immediately, so the opponent knows that they should apply a lot of offensive pressure, throw status around, or go to their rain checks, or you don't go to your rain sweepers, in which case, it's your loss and you must find an opportunity to bring Politoed once again. I don't know, it may just be me, but whenever i am using a rain offense or even rain bulky offense team, i have never used Lefties on Politoed. It just makes your plays so predictable and the team very inflexible and hard to use.

For those reasons, i would prefer Lefties to be mentioned either in set details, or preferably, in OO. After all, if you want recovery, just go with RestTalk + Scald + Toxic / Perish Song.

 

[MilkyWay]

I've used a lot of different rain teams already this gen and i have to say that as for a defensive Damp Rock set, this set is far superior to the first set listed.

Politoed @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Toxic
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Politoed is actually a pretty decent physical wall with max investment, allowing it to be a bulky pivot which is key to setting up rain throughout the match. RestTalk provides it with reliable recovery since it misses its leftovers. Ive also found that Politoed doesnt really mind being asleep too much since its main job is to switch in, take a hit, and switch out to something else. I chose Toxic over Perish Song because after I send Politoed in, my opponents tend to switch in to a water resist who doesnt get crippled by a burn (Goodra, Lati@s, Rotom-W, etc). Therefore, I immediately Toxic, hit them on the switch, and gradually wear down pokemon such as the ones above who give many common rain sweepers trouble.

 

[Unowninator]

• Still, Drizzle sets up rain without taking up a turn, making it an effective weather starter.

Doesn't it take a turn to send Politoed in? And another turn to withdraw Politoed?

 

[Jukain]

make damp rock the main slash on offensive and slash rain dance (it's for tar/hippo) second in the last slot.

Doesn't it take a turn to send Politoed in? And another turn to withdraw Politoed?

Yes, but it doesn't take a turn to use the move. Politoed can switch in and switch right back out, thus doing so with less cost. It can also squeeze in turns late-game on a sac, which manual setters can't do.

 

[Colonel M]

DarkSlay

I need an update on this ASAP because we're working on the dex. You have 24 hours to respond with an update on this analysis. If you do not reply or are handing the analysis off, Rohail would like to work on it.

 

[Fuzznip]

This is being reassigned. Rohail, let me know if you don't want to work on this. I'm giving you the reservation.