A Drapion Strategy

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SharKing

SharKing

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I was thinking of this strategy for the Ogre Scorp Pokemon.

Adamant
Scope Lens
Sniper

Cross Poison
Night Slash
Earthquake
Pursuit

The main strategy revolves around critical hits. Cross Poison and Night Slash already have a good chance of getting critical hits, but Scope Lens magnifies it. Sniper adds to their power. Earthquake is in the list for type-trumping, and countering Cross Poison defenses. If you sense that your opponent will switch (like if they have Alakazam out), Pursuit does damage identical to Crunch.

Tell me what you think. Oh, and some nickname pitching would be nice, too. I'm struggling.
 
Aestivate said:
...Does Drapion even have the speed to pull this off?
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You don't need speed to land a critical hit, and it has the defenses to survive attacks, and its pretty sad that 95 base speed is considered low now, yet I never see anyone going "is Lucario even fast enough for this?"

Its not like its anything new that no one else has thought of. Its just a weaker version of Swords Dance Drapion with Pursuit to hit things like Celebi if you switch into it.

You don't even have an EV spread, if you actually had one that wasn't a commonly used one and had an arguement as to why that would work, then fine. EV spreads are half the strategy in competitive battling.

I had a cresselia with unusually high SAtk EVs that surprised my opponent when they switched in Steelix (though the EVs were for Salamence and Infernape), and defensive brelooms. I could have had the same moveset with different EVs, and trust me, the effects would be very different.
 
Its base Speed is a startling 95 (at least for a big, grounded, scorpion-like Pokemon), and it often gets a Ninjask boost. Besides, it also has defensive power.
 
Its EV spread is 252 ATK, 252 HP, 6 Speed.
 
SharKing said:
Its base Speed is a startling 95 (at least for a big, grounded, scorpion-like Pokemon), and it often gets a Ninjask boost. Besides, it also has defensive power.
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Not everyone will want to use this with a Ninjask, and if that's part of your strategy, maybe you should mention it--then again, it wouldn't be a Drapion strategy anymore.

SharKing said:
Its EV spread is 252 ATK, 252 HP, 6 Speed.
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Any particular reason you aren't trying to outspeed anything anymore? Since your selling us the HP, care to provide us with damage calculations so we know why you bothered with it?
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...OK, how's this? 252 ATK, 108 HP, 150 DEF.
 
Stop double posting. Edit your last post if you want to make changes.

Are you running calcs for these? You either need Speed to get the jump on some slower threats or bulk so you can hit them. You can't recover, so Speed seems to be the way to go. The sweeper sets on Smogon are recommended to have a Jolly nature with max Attack and Speed.
 
The Ninjask boost often solves the Speed problem. Yes, I use Ninjask. Since Drapion can take a hit, it switches in comfortably.
 
I used something like this, only I did it in UU and BPd Focus Energy from Scyther. It really helps a lot. Like, a LOT. Also, Cross Poison in addition to Night Slash didn't give me much more coverage. You might be better off with something like Ice Fang for Salamence here, though I was working in UU and haven't looked at the type coverage of this thing in OU.

You might want to try giving your Ninjask a Lansat Berry and substituting down.
 
Cheesus Is Lord said:
I used something like this, only I did it in UU and BPd Focus Energy from Scyther. It really helps a lot. Like, a LOT. Also, Cross Poison in addition to Night Slash didn't give me much more coverage. You might be better off with something like Ice Fang for Salamence here, though I was working in UU and haven't looked at the type coverage of this thing in OU.

You might want to try giving your Ninjask a Lansat Berry and substituting down.
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First of all, I have no idea what the Furret a Lansat Berry is. Second, Cross Poison and Night Slash get the STAB bonus, and a 25% chance of Sniper-enforced critical hits with the Scope Lens. Last, why'd ya bring up Salamence?
 
A Lansat Berry raises the critical hit ratio when HP is below 1/3.

He brought up Salamence because it's such a big threat in the game, and Ice Fang would take it out. I'm not sure, but a critical hit Night Slash or Cross Poison might OHKO it anyway-- if it's a critical hit.
 
SharKing said:
First of all, I have no idea what the Furret a Lansat Berry is. Second, Cross Poison and Night Slash get the STAB bonus, and a 25% chance of Sniper-enforced critical hits with the Scope Lens. Last, why'd ya bring up Salamence?
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Because it has Intimidate and can kill you.
 
I have a Salamence, which I named "Tsumegon," so I know how it works. Besides, a Sniper-enforced STAB-fed critical hit can easily slay the Dragon-type.
 
SharKing said:
I have a Salamence, which I named "Tsumegon," so I know how it works. Besides, a Sniper-enforced STAB-fed critical hit can easily slay the Dragon-type.
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That assumes you get a critical hit. Yes, you can up the odds of that all you want, but getting a critical hit ultimately comes down to luck. And relying on luck is a VERY high-risk, high-return strategy. At the very least, a backup in case your luck doesn't hold would be a good idea.
 
And Salamence's Intimidate is going to hinder it.

I highly recommend Ice Fang.
 
Intimidate's Attack drop does not hinder critical hits. Remember: When a Pokemon gets a critical hit, any Attack drops on the attacker and any Defense boosts on the target are ignored. Besides, I find Ice Fang questionable.
 
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