I said I might do Grassy Terrain Scept too, so wynaut?
General overview of Pokémon
Sceptile is actually a really cool 'mon to use. I've used it on grass-spam with Serperior as a bit of fun, and I've used it on offense as a standalone 'mon as well. Between its high speed and the brutal power of Leaf Storm, it is able to put a variety of Pokémon under immense pressure--with it getting a kill most times when it comes in versus offense.
When you look at Mega Sceptile, it is mostly overshadowed Serperior, who has Contrary and doesn't take up a mega slot. However, it has a number of things going for it over Serp that justify its use on a number of teams. First of all, the obvious change is its typing; compared to Serperior, it gains weaknesses to fairy and dragon as well as doubling its ice weakness (not that Serperior is taking on Weavile any time soon with its speed tier) in exchange for doubling its resistances to water and grass and removing its Fire-type weakness (allowing it to stomach weak Fire-type moves if it needs to) and giving it STAB on Dragon Pulse. In addition, its speed tier allows it to outpace a number of things which Serperior is outpaced by, being anything between 113 and 145 base speed and isn't called Talonflame/Weavile (which both OHKO it with priority). When considered alongside Lightningrod, this allows it to be an important asset to offensive teams, with it discouraging the opponent from spamming Volt Switch and allowing it to beat Manectric 1v1 without any boosts (252 SpA Mega Sceptile Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Manectric: 277-327 (98.5 - 116.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock). It also speed ties with Mega Beedrill, which is a big bonus. Finally, its coverage is superior to that of Serperior, with it having access to both Focus Blast and Earthquake, allowing it to beat non-Magnet Rise Kelfki, Heatran, Ferrothorn etc. all in one set--especially with Lightningrod providing a Thunder Wave immunity and preventing it from being crippled by Klefki.
What I used
I used two sets in this period. The first is a standard 4-attacks set that I'm gonna c/p straight from its analysis page 'cause I cba to type it out.
Sceptile @ Sceptilite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Dragon Pulse
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power Fire / Focus Blast
I also decided to experiment with a set that wasn't its standard 4-attacks or sub+3 attacks variant. This is because I was kinda bored and also because I had seen it in the creative/underrated sets thread for UU as well as (I think) the OU metagame discussion thread. The set I used was as follows:
Sceptile @ Sceptilite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
-
Grassy Terrain
- Leaf Storm
- Giga Drain
- Focus Blast / Hidden Power [Fire]
Grassy Terrain is a very interesting move. Like all of the terrains, it only affects grounded Pokémon, and its effect is as follows (widely useful traits in bold):
- Increases the damage dealt by Grass-type moves by 50% (e.g. if Giga Drain would normally deal 100 damage, it will now deal 150)
- Halves the power of Earthquake, Bulldoze and Magnitude
- Heals all Pokémon on the field by 6.25% at the end of every turn
- Changes Nature Power to Energy Ball
- Gives Secret Power a sleep rate
- Causes Camouflage to turn its user into the Grass-type
- Activates Grass Pelt
It is easily the best of the three terrains, as unlike Misty Terrain (which rather pointlessly halves the power of Dragon-type moves and acts as a glorified Safeguard) and Electric Terrain (which boosts Electric-type moves but has the mostly-useless effect of preventing sleep but no other status) its benefits are
similtaniously immediately abusable by its user (in this case Sceptile, which can easily spam Giga Drain and becomes desceptively hard to take down between Giga Drain's healing and Grassy Terrain's recovery) and easy for teammates to take advantage of (allows Ground-weak Pokémon to play more recklessly or just makes the primary STAB of opposing Ground-types depressingly weak; provides added recovery and can help things avoid borderline-2HKOs which they wouldn't otherwise avoid or which can make weather chip damage less annoying).
This turns Sceptile into a
very scary wallbreaker for a lot of things to take on, as under Grassy Terrain's effects Sceptile has an effecive Choice Specs boost behind its Giga Drain and Leaf Storm, making them very easy to spam and allowing it to tear through things quickly. It is easy to set up given just how much Sceptile forces switches against, and it is able to catch Heatran and Ferrothorn or Scizor, Skarmory and Ferrothorn for heavy damage with Focus Blast or HP Fire, respecively. This means that it can wallbreak effectively, and then you consider the sheer amount of longevity that a boosted Giga Drain provides (especially given how spammable it is) and the added recovery provided by Grassy Terrian. I had a very easy time pulling apart unprepared teams with it. Also yeah this thing's Leaf Storms just hit like a nuke after a boost from Grassy Terrain; it's actually insane.
Pros:
- High speed and power make Sceptile very threatening to a lot of teams
- Lightningrod provides lots of opportunities to switch in and to steal momentum off of Volt Switch user
- Deceptively hard to take down due to the sheer amount of healing its doing
- Nukes stuff
- Easy to bring in on common Pokémon like Rotom-W and easy to get set up
Cons
- Susceptibility to Talonflame and Weavile hurts its otherwise-spectacular offense matchup
- Grassy Terrain means that Earthquake is off of the table, giving it a hard time versus steels which are weak to Quake but not Focus Blast as well as versus Poison-types
- Can't fit much coverage in with two Grass-type STABs if running Grassy Terrain
- Takes up mega slot and is as such hard to justify over Serperior
Good teammates
Magnezone traps and eliminates steels that beat its choice of coverage. In particular, Occa+Mirror Coat Magnezone gets props on HP Fire Scept teams for its ability to beat Heatran 1v1. Ground-weak 'mons like Tyranitar benefit heavily from the reduction in power to EQ when Grassy Terrain is up, allowing for them to situationally benefit from its presence. In return, Rock-types are able to take out Talonflame consistently. Fire- and Water-types which appreciate Grass-type coverage are always useful. In particular Keldeo gets a mention for its ability to counter Weavile and stop it Ice Sharding my face, and SEdge Heatran also gets a special mention for its ability to counter Talonflame. Serperior can go all grass spam with it and benefits from the Grassy Terrain boosts making its already-scary Leaf Storms that much deadlier. There are more too but I'm a lazy shitbag and its 11:30 at the time I'm writing this paragraph, so *sticks out tongue imatturely*. Last one I'll say is general offense mons 'cause offense is the best playstyle for Sceptile.
Verdict
Is the set as good as the standard Mega Scept? Its hard to say, although I'm leaning towards no. However, it was highly consistent at what it does (maybe even moreso than the 4-attacks set, even if it has to choose what to straight-up lose to) and all in all it was a lot of fun to use. As a whole, Mega Sceptile was rather middling (I played with both Grassy Terrain and 4-attacks for experimental purposes) due to natural limitations such as teammate restriction (this thing would love to be paired with another mega, but alas it can't) and the limitations of its typing and overall bulk. The meta isn't particularly in its favor right now, but at the same time I'd be lying if I said it was out of its favor. All in all, this thing is worth trying out.