RU Spotlight: Druddigon

History

Since the speculation period of BW, Druddigon was never exactly a fan favorite. With everyone ogling over the powerhouses that are Haxorus and Hydreigon, the question of the hour was "what does this even do?". The first non-evolving, non-legendary Dragon and the best Game Freak could come up with was a slow, flightless dragon drawn by someone that missed the class on drawing curved lines? Lame. Naturally, Druddigon saw very little usage in the early stages of competitive play, and was haphazardly tossed into the RU tier upon its inception.

However, even in RU, Druddigon was hardly getting any love. Outside of the chance Trick Room team, Druddigon was all but absent in RU, even to the point where it experienced a brief stint in the early BW NU tier. But at the dawn of BW2, things began to brighten up for our favorite delinquent dragon. BW2 move tutors granted Druddigon some useful gems of moves, including the coveted Stealth Rock, and it began to turn some heads. However, there was something more to this than just a few new toys for Druddigon to play with. With the changes BW2 brought, RU players began to reassess the tier, and as it turned out, the metagame was actually beginning to favor Druddigon. Its useful traits which were earlier dismissed were now clear as day, and a lot of the tier shifts and current team building trends all seemed to favor Druddigon's unique attributes. Slowly but surely, Druddigon's usage began to rise, and as it stands, Druddigon is one of the best and most used Pokémon in the RU metagame. Druddigon's is a true zero-to-hero story, that's for sure.

Druddigon's Qualities

As stated prior, Druddigon's resume is rather impressive. 120 Attack drops Druddigon in amongst some of the most powerful physical attackers in the tier, which is no joke considering its repertoire of high-powered STAB moves and coverage options. While its Speed stat is nothing to write home about, Druddigon's respectable 77 / 90 / 90 defenses and useful resistances allow it to sponge hits moderately well and hit back hard. Speaking of taking hits, Druddigon possesses the nifty ability Rough Skin, a great tool for passively wearing down Pokémon like Entei and Emboar, punishing greedy U-turn and Rapid Spin users, and more. While not as immediately impressive, Sheer Force shouldn't be overlooked either, as with it Druddigon can quite literally burn through problem Pokémon such as Steelix and Tangrowth with boosted Flamethrowers.

However, one of Druddigon's most useful characteristics is one that I've only just hinted at until this point: mono-Dragon typing. While all its other characteristics are certainly helpful, Druddigon's typing is really what makes it as useful as it is. You may think I'm overselling this, but I assure you this simply can't be understated. In a tier where (for lack of a better phrase) everyone and their mother is building a team whose primary synergetic backbone is a FWG core, any Pokémon that can switch into any given member of such a core and declare "I'm going to use Outrage, fodder something" is a relevant threat in my book. Ok, I'll admit this is somewhat of an exaggeration, but considering the limited pool of viable Steel-types in the tier, this can very often be the case, especially in the cases of more aggressive sets such as Choice Band and Mixed. While Druddigon is no Slowking, it still manages to remain a powerful, resilient, and even versatile Pokémon, establishing itself as the premier Dragon-type of RU.

Playing with Druddigon

While I won't go so far as to say that you can just slap Druddigon on a team and expect good results, it is fairly easy to find space for Druddigon on a variety of teams. With the exception of Trick Room teams (which could technically be grouped into the category of bulky offense), Druddigon finds its place largely in bulky offense or balanced teams, where his good bulk and high offensive presence can be utilized to the fullest. The most common set, the Stealth Rock variant, offers teams a bulky tank that is capable of setting Stealth Rock multiple times in a game if need be while providing a loose check to a variety of Pokémon, including Entei, Sceptile, and Slowking. Druddigon can also invest more heftily in Special Defense, reinforcing its ability to take on various Water-, Fire-, Grass-, and Electric-types and allowing it to effectively spread paralysis with the always irritating Glare.

However, if you can find room for an alternative Stealth Rock user, Choice Band Druddigon is definitely worth looking into, turning the free turns it so often finds into huge hits coming off what is essentially 558 Attack. Between Outrage and Earthquake, very little is safe switching into Druddigon, meaning it can even run utility moves such as Sleep Talk or Sucker Punch to make it even more difficult to play around.

Last and certainly not least, Druddigon can utilize its Sheer Force ability to serve as a stellar lure for Pokémon like Tangrowth and Steelix, drawing them in and punishing them with boosted Flamethrowers. While it loses the utility of the other sets, whether it is from the loss of Rough Skin, Sleep Talk, or another attribute, the ability to lure in such Pokémon can be crucial to teams that struggle with them, especially considering how difficult and costly it is to wear them down over time.

Playing Against Druddigon

Since Druddigon is capable of running four distinct sets, a bit of scouting is necessary in order to properly respond to it. The best way to do this is usually to verify its item. If Druddigon is carrying Leftovers, while being more difficult to wear down than other variants, it is significantly less threatening from an offensive outlook, meaning that generally bulky Pokémon such as Poliwrath and Tangrowth can combat Druddigon comfortably. Bulky Steel-types like Steelix and Escavalier also do well against Leftovers variants, though the latter should be on their toes in the case of the rare Fire Punch. However, switching into Choice Band and Mixed Druddigon isn't quite as simple. Choice Band Druddigon doesn't have any strict counters barring Steelix, since it is capable of KOing every other Pokémon in the tier in one or two hits, though as with any other powerful attacker, it isn't nearly as simple as just that. Druddigon's low Speed is its Achilles' heel in this case, as a hard-hitting Pokémon can very capably revenge kill after enough prior damage, which in itself can prevent Druddigon from locking itself into Outrage. Though the Mixed set is capable of overcoming many of the aforementioned checks and counters, it is perhaps even more reluctant to lock itself into Outrage for fear of revealing its set (since no other common set runs Life Orb), meaning that bulky Water-types usually have a golden opportunity to switch into it and either force it to switch out, lock into Outrage, or pressurize it with the prospect of a Scald burn.

However, there are some universal methods of handling Druddigon. Perhaps the most acclaimed one is by capitalizing on its own flexibility. Though Druddigon can capably check a variety of Pokémon, it can't do so numerous times or with multiple Pokémon on a single team. By this merit, Druddigon can be overloaded by constant offensive pressure if the user constantly switches it in, more so with the support of entry hazards. Rhydon and Alomomola are a couple of the few Pokémon that can switch in against almost any variation of Druddigon safely, almost never being 2HKOed by any of its common attacks and in return either 2HKOing the dragon or wearing it down with Toxic damage, respectively. Lastly, hail teams really put Druddigon on thin ice (clearly I should be writing a comedy article, I'm hilarious), commonly employing powerful Blizzards that are capable of eliminating it in a single frosty blast.

Fitting Druddigon on Your Team

Unless I've been horribly butchering the intended tone of this article, it should be pretty evident that Druddigon can function on a variety of teams, and do so well. However, as one great man said (I think it was Johnny Depp or something), "Ask not what your Druddigon can do, but what you can do for your Druddigon", there are certainly methods of optimizing Druddigon's performance. Minimizing chip damage is the biggest favor you can do for a Druddigon, as it loathes getting worn down over time as it always does. Rapid Spin support from either Kabutops or Cryogonal helps Druddigon avoid being gradually whittled down by entry hazard damage, and Wish support from Alomomola can keep Druddigon going for days as long it remains wary of status. With hail being gradually acknowledged by the RU playerbase as the dangerous archetype it is, having a fallback for powerful Ice-type attacks grows steadily more important. While the previously mentioned Cryogonal is fairly adept for this task (I wouldn't be relying on Kabutops to be taking Blizzards, and neither should you!), Slowking and Escavalier both offer solid partners for assisting Druddigon as well, with the former even providing Trick Room support for Druddigon to go to work with. Moreover, pairing Druddigon with a powerful physical attacker such as Gallade or Entei that is capable of combating Steel-types never hurts, and between them very few physical walls can continually buffer their combined assault.

Get Out There!

Druddigon is one of the coolest Pokémon in the current metagame out there (zero bias, pinky promise), there's no excuse not to use him, so what are you waiting for? Seriously, I don't get it. Are you reading the rest of this paragraph? Because trust me when I say there isn't anything left of value here, it's just mindless babble, spurred on by the assumption that something more should be said when in fact there should not. There, are you happy? You just wasted a good 15 seconds of what could have been Druddigon playtime, hats off to you.

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