Though Ninetales is an average Pokemon in many respects, its access to the Drought ability gives it an important role in OU play. Drought is what allows Ninetales to support its entire team with perpetual sun and somewhat patch up its previously lackluster offense and its rather poor defensive typing. Ninetales will take a starring role on any team wishing to exploit the sunlight, and is even quite useful on less weather-centered teams for its ability to remove the more ubiquitous sand and rain from the battlefield.</p>

[SET]
name: Specially Defensive
move 1: Flamethrower
move 2: Will-O-Wisp / Toxic
move 3: Substitute
move 4: Hidden Power Fighting / Hypnosis / Protect
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Drought
Nature: Timid
evs: 252 HP / 92 SpD / 164 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>This set sacrifices Ninetales's offensive capabilities to improve efforts to keep it alive. Ninetales's poor defensive typing leaves it weak to both parts of the EdgeQuake combination, making efforts at significant physical defensiveness shaky indeed, but with Will-O-Wisp support Ninetales can at least take neutral physical hits fairly well. Ninetales fares much better on the special side, with its Water weakness negated by Drought and its lack of vulnerabilities to other common special attacking types.</p>

<p>Flamethrower still has decent power under the sun with no investment, and the given Speed EVs allow Ninetales to reliably revenge kill Excadrill. Will-O-Wisp lets Ninetales harass the many bulky Fire resists that switch into it and allows it to punish Tyranitar for starting a sandstorm and forcing Ninetales out. Substitute eases prediction for Ninetales, letting it burn Tyranitar or others safely as its Substitute is broken. Substitute also allows Ninetales to deal with Balloon Heatran more safely, managing a 3HKO with Hidden Power Fighting after Stealth Rock. Hidden Power Fighting also gives Ninetales an attack to damage Tyranitar with in an emergency, but it is usually only suitable for finishing off an already-weakened one.</p>

<p>One may choose to use Hypnosis to shut down the many Pokemon that would otherwise wall Ninetales, but its high miss rate and the status conflict with Will-O-Wisp makes it a dubious option. Protect is another option on this set in the fourth slot to facilitate stalling with Substitutes and accumulating burn damage on the enemy while healing Ninetales with Leftovers. Beware that Protect is dangerous to use when a weather inducer has switched into Ninetales, because if they switch out on Protect, Ninetales may be left facing a weather sweeper with its sweeping weather up. With Protect and Will-O-Wisp Ninetales is completely unable to touch Fire-types, meaning Flash Fire users are free to switch in to set up or try to catch boosts. Ninetales can use Toxic with Protect instead and only be entirely walled by Heatran, but it will have more trouble with physical attackers, especially Tyranitar, if it chooses this option.</p>