Nidoking - Underated Sweeper.

This is a UU team, based around a very special sweeper - Nidoking. This team aims to take down all pokemon that hinder's Nidoking's sweep, as well as set up as many entry hazards as possible to let Nidoking OHKO all Pokemon with its moves.


Froslass @ Focus Sash
Snow Cloak
Jolly Nature(+Spe,-SAtk)
252 HP / 252 Spe / 4 Atk
-Taunt
-Spikes
-Thunder Wave
-Ice Shard

Froslass serves as the lead of my team, setting up the most important entry hazard : Spikes. Spikes serves as the main secondary damage of my team, taking away 25% of any Pokemon's HP that isn't Levitators or flying types.
Froslass taunts leads such as Nidoqueen and other Froslass. Of course, I need to win the Speed tie with other Froslass. Thunder Wave serves as the main crippling move of my team, crippling every pokemon faster than Nidoking. Nidoking needs paralysis support in order to sweep properly. Ice Shard takes down weakened pokemon or to deal some damage before Froslass serves its purpose and suicide. Froslass is very commonly seen nowadays, as it is very useful. Froslass's EVs allow it to Speed-tie with other base 110s, as well as having the ability to tank many hits from common leads.


Drapion @ Leftovers
Sniper
Careful Nature(+SDef,-SAtk)
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
-Toxic Spikes
-Whirlwind
-Taunt
-Night Slash

Drapion serves as my phazer, and my secondary Taunter. Drapion also sets up Toxic Spikes for the team as well as absorbs them. Drapion taunts pokemon that i know are setting up, such as, Claydol, since they set up Reflect / Light Screen. I also taunt Uxies, Mesprits and etcetera, if they are the DualScreen variants. Drapion is useful in many ways, since it is quite bulky and can take many hits. Drapion is my toxic absorber too, as well as Thunder Wave absorber.Drapion can counter Mismagius since most Mismagius nowadays have Shadow Ball + Hidden Power Fighting, both of which does very little damage to Drapion. Drapion can then counter it with Night Slash, which has a high critical hit ratio and when paired with Sniper, does alot of damage. Drapion has overall proved to be very useful and it almost everytime settles Mismagius. Drapion's EVs are very simple; maximizing its below-average Special Defense stats, as well as maximizing its HP to take hits better.


Hitmontop @ Leftovers
Technician
Impish Nature(+Def,-SAtk)
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
-Fake Out
-Rapid Spin
-Foresight
-Mach Punch

Hitmontop is the spinner of my choice. Hitmontop can easily spin away rocks, spikes and still survive. It is bulky enough and the reason why I chose it over other spinners such as Blastoise is because it has Foresight, which is very useful, since it allows Ghost-types such as Mismagius to get hit by all my moves. Without it, all my moves totally cannot touch ghost types. Hitmontop's moveset is basically the TechniTop set, with Mach Punch being its main attack. With Techinician and STAB, this move is capable of reaching 90 base Power, similar to a non-STABed Brick Break. Although Close Combat may be the better option , it drops Hitmontop's Defenses, which decreases its rate of longevity. Hitmontop also stalls for Leftovers recovery the first turn it is sent out, because of Fake Out. Fake Out has proved to be a very useful move and the combination of Fake Out + Mach Punch can easily kill weakened foes. Hitmontop's EVs are very simple, to be able to tank and take as many hits as possible.


Uxie @ Light Clay
Levitate
Relaxed Nature(+Def,-Spe)
0 Spe IVs
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
-Stealth Rock
-U-Turn
-Reflect
-Light Screen

Uxie is my main Rocker and DualScreen set up of my team. Dual Screens allow my two sweepers; Nidoking being the main one; and Tauros to switch-in without taking any hard hit. Uxie's main jobs are to set up Stealth Rock,Reflect,Light Screen and U-Turn to either Nidoking or Tauros. Tauros is the one I usually send out first, since I need it to take out Chansey ASAP for Nidoking to sweep with its special moves unhindered. Uxie also takes hits such as Psychic type moves that Nidoking hates as well as Ground type moves for Drapion and Nidoking. Uxie is bulky enough to take a +1 Attack from almost all pokemon, and set up the appropriate screens. Uxie was given a Relaxed Nature and 0 IV to allow Uxie's U-Turn to be the last one; and to give Tauros or Nidoking a chance to come in unhindered at full HP. Uxie's EVs, otherwise, are pretty straightforward.


Tauros @ Choice Band
Intimidate
Jolly Nature(+Spe,-SAtk)
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
-Earthquake
-Return
-Stone Edge
-Pursuit

Tauros, the first and the last physical sweeper of the team. Tauros, with its massive 110 Speed, easily outspeeds most of the tier, tying with Froslass, and only outsped by Alakazam. Alakazam is easily countered by Drapion, so Froslass is left. Froslass is mainly leads, so Tauros can switch in and Pursuit it, on its way out, and kill it. Tauros is banded to deal as much damage as possible. Return is capable of OHKOing or 2HKOing the whole UU tier, and those that are not, are easily OHKOed by Earthquake or Stone Edge. Tauros loses to Will-o-Wisp Taunt Mismagius, who are quite popular nowadays. Tauros is quite bulky, and with the Dual Screens on, can be a pain to take down. Tauros's Pursuit are for 2 Reasons, One is to ensure switching Froslass do not come in and Spike again, and Two is to Pursuit any Choiced Stealth Rock from Scarfed Uxie or other pokemon, dealing severe damage. Tauros's EVs are otherwise very straightforward, max Spe / Atk for most damage.


Nidoking @ Life Orb
Rivalry
252 SAtk / 252 Spe / 4 Def
-Ice Beam
-Thunderbolt
-Earth Power
-Shadow Ball

Now we come to the final sweeper of the team.Nidoking, a very underrated sweeper. Nidoking, a sweeper that was popular in RBYGSC, but decreased tremendously in usage ever since the release of RSE. Nidoking, a pokemon with a GREAT movepool but was always forgotten since most pokemon outclasses it. Nidoking, a pokemon with a unique ability, that allows it to deal 25% MORE damage to Pokemon with the same gender! With all these advantages, Nidoking can easily become a threat to most UU pokemon. With the main female pokemon taken down, Chansey, Nidoqueen, etc, Nidoking always does 25% more damage to almost all the UU's , and can hit every other genderless pokemon such as Uxie for super-effective damage.Let me give you an example:

Nidoking uses Earth Power on Blastoise that is male. Nidoking's Earth Power's base power will be 90 x 1.5 ( STAB ) x 1.25 ( Technician ) x 1.3 ( Life Orb ) = ~220 Power. Furthermore, it is not SUPER EFFECTIVE. Nidoking can easily OHKO or 2HKO the whole tier with its moves. Nidoking's movepool is too great. Ice Beam and Thunderbolt provides me with the infamous BoltBeam combo, Earth Power is natural STAB , and Shadow Ball provides me with an answer to Mismagius. Simple and easy. EVs are of course standard sweeper EVs.
 
Oke some things, your team lacks special walls.
But first I want to adress'Uxie' You say it u-turns but yet you have a claydoll in place?
As far as I know claydol cant U-turn. As for its EV's I suggest changing it to 252sp.def because As I said You do lack the tanking part on sp.def seeing every1 ones defence EV's. I also see you have alot of Physical attacks besides the special attacks on Nidoking. So I would suggest changing Ice shard for Icebeam on froslass for a more powerfull attack seeing you Thunderwave stuff its already hardly outspeed? So using Iceshard seems abit useless to me.
 
1. your uxie looks like a claydol


Nidoking is best used as a wallbreaker, not a sweeper.

Why Nidoking isn't very good at being a sweeper:

1. 85 Base Speed isn't that fast in the Metagame.
2. Special Nidoking lacks priority attacks

It doesn't matter if Nidoking can OHKO or 2HKO everyone in the Metagame - it's too slow and not exactly bulky enough to survive hits and get a KO back. I would prefer using Physical Nidoking - off it's higher attack stat + you get Sucker Punch. EQ, Stone Edge, Megahorn all have higher base powers than the special moves so I guess Physical Nidoking really hits harder.

If you want Nidoking to sweep, use a Agility Passer, maybe over Hitmontop or Drapion. Lopunny is a good candidate, learning Encore, Agility, Substitute, Baton Pass... or Gligar... (Rock Polish and Taunt)
 
Hey, this is my first post on Smogon!

Is Nidoking Modest or Timid?

I see a few problems with this team:

1. You run Careful and 252 Def EVs on Drapion. Since he is more defensive than specially defensive, it would make more sense to run Impish (Def+ SpA-) and invest some of those EVs in SpD instead. The 10% increase will do more for the higher stat, naturally, whereas EVs have the same effect on both. The reasoning for this is the same as the reasoning behind running Calm on Blissey instead of Bold.

2. Adamant Banded Aqua Jet Azumarill has an 81% chance to OHKO Nidoking. If you want to sweep with this guy, he's going to need some bulk. Giving him counter moves for his weaknesses doesn't cover them.

3. You seem to rely on singular counters to Nidoking's trouble types. For example, Drapion is your only counter to Psychic. The problem with this is that Drapion also serves the role of toxic spiker, phazer, and taunter. I feel like you're stretching its use too thin. If he is taken out by an unexpected HP ground or earthquake, Alakazam or Slowbro will have no trouble taking down your remaining pokemon.

4. You lack a stat boosted or scarfed offense. I feel that your pokemon, especially Tauros and Nidoking, are fatally weak to scarfed or fast offense. For example, the popular scarfed Hitmonlee set would appear to tear apart a good number of your pokemon. Given that he cannot be paralyzed, you lack a sufficient counter for him. I recommend either running Scarf on Tauros or switching out Hitmontop for Scarfed Hitmonlee (giving Claydol rapid spin).

Thanks for reading.
 
Nidoking doesn't learn technician... and earth power isnt powered up by technician.

Also, once Drapion is out of the game, Alakazam can sweep your whole team. You need a special wall.
 
I don't know how much the toxic spikes are doing for you, especially since you will be needing paralysis for Nidoking to achieve any sort of sweep. If a fast pokemon is poisoned instead, you've got trouble. I don't see any sort of stall aspect of this team, so I don't see the point of having the toxic spikes. You may have them poisoned, but if they've set up anyway, you can't even paralyze them to stop a sweep.

Also, as far as Taurus goes, you have to worry about a lot more pokemon than just Froslass and Mismagius. Ambipom, anything scarfed, anything with priority (and UU is just full of priority) will give you lots of trouble, and your idea of setting up screens for your choice bander, to me, doesn't hold water. That means you're using two turns on a pokemon without any sort of recovery (not even leftovers) to set up for 6 turns of screens for a pokemon with one attack. What if you get locked into an attack that isn't effective? You've lost three turns of screens losing that attack, switching out, and then switching back in?

Nidoking with Rivalry is setting yourself up to lose to Cresselia, sorry. All Cresselia's are female, and you're not going to scratch it. I don't know how to fix this team while keeping your theme of Nidoking sweep + toxic spikes + spikes + ClaydolUxie + CBTaurusbehindscreens.
 
Honestly rivalry isn't a good ability and plus even with a 25% boost u won't even 2HKO chansey. Plus if someone uses a gligar or gliscor u r screwed for status because thunder wave won't work and they bypass ur spikes and while u may OHKO gligar, gliscor will survive ice shard and will pummel u with STAB earthquake or a super effective night slash. Plus if u want a UU sweeper then u should use a hail team so u could keep abominsnow as a lead and use frosslas as blizzard sweeper with thunderbolt as a coverage move
 
It's exactly this kind of weird shit that make me always make all my gender'd pokemon females. I never have a single male pokemon on any of my teams. And if I were to face you, it'd be perfect.

Attract is another reason why some people just take a little bit of time to make all their Pokemon female. If this team were awesome and Nidoking stopped being underrated, then boom every Pokemon in the world is female.

Change you Uxie picture, it's a Claydol.

And the descriptions are of a generic amateur team builder. What I mean is you mentioned almost nothing about synergy and strategy. No one needs to read about what the set is, either they've seen it, they've used it, or they've seen the Smogon analysis.
For example, after reading your first 2 sentences of Froslass, I decided to just scan the rest cause those 2 sentences meant absolutely nothing and gave me no information.

As mentioned above, I don't see what Toxic Spikes + Thunder Wave does for you. If Alakazam gets poisoned, then what?

And I don't want to be offensive, but your Drapion EV spread is stupid.
With an Impish nature, you can achieve the EXACT SAME stats without even using all of the EVs. I'm not gonna figure out that spread now, just pointing it out.
 

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