|
073- Tentacruel- Water/Poison
Common Roles: mixed sweeper, mirror coater, anti-tank
Classifications: UU
Why?: EV system messed it over and back
Signature Move: wrap
Overshadowed By: milotic
Important Stats:
-base attack 70
-base sp.atk 80
-base sp.def 120
-base speed 100
Common items: leftovers, lum berry, salac berry, chesto berry
Moves:
-Hydro Pump/Surf/Ice beam/Blizzard/Giga Drain
Not the best special attack in the world, so you may have to consider hydro/blizzard instead of hte usual surf/ice beam.
-Sludge bomb/return
And that's all for the physical sweeping department
-swords dance
The only reason why Tentacruel is even used, and with physical moves instead of special. Swords dance up, and tank slightly with the good sp.def, and hopefully kick in salac to start sweeping.
-toxic/wrap/protect
Against tankers, these moves aren't too bad actually... and Tentacruel also got toxic immunity so it can stay alive for awhile as an anti-tanker. Wrap can also trap the opponent. Add on protect if you want the extra protection.
-rest
The only way to restore hp... quite preferable if you're going to try out Tentacruel as an anti-tank.
-barrier
A good way to boost defense, so Tentacruel can survive a little bit of both.
-mirror coat
High sp.def gives you the ability to survive plenty of things. Note that Tentacruel has a pretty good chance at surviving thunderbolt/thunderpunch as long as it's not STAB or not boosted by calm mind.
-substitute/endure
always one of the best way to activate a berry
-confuse ray
adds more protection to the annoyer/anti-tanker Tentacruel set
Strategy:
Tentacruel got the huge nerf-stick when it loses its all-round stats. However, it's not impossible to use. Lead off with your standard support moves such as barrier and swords dance, or your status move like toxic. If you see a tank, use wrap immediately so you can trap it (note that baton passers can still baton pass.) Attack afterward with everything you have, ranging from special to physical.
If you got swords dance, then you have to try to predict the damages that the opponent is capable of dealing so you can pull off as much swords dance as you can until you are weakened down to red to activate salac. Usually though, Tentacruel got no chance to do anything more than 1 dance.
Tentacruel absolutely dooms Sceptile and Ludicolo! Send it out to mess them over using their own leech seed. You maybe losing hp, but they're also suffering from leech seed. Tentacruel's type gives you good resistance against the standard Sceptile with either Leaf Blade or HP Ice/Fire, and Ludicolo's grass/ice attacks (beware that both of them will get thunderpunch if you're playing with emerald though.) However, both of these Pokemon don't have a very high sp.atk, so you can mirror coat whatever's coming.
Against a tanker, you will want to try to trap it with wrap, then throw a toxic on it so it'll slowly die off. Tankers will usually attack with seismic toss/night shade, so you can predict the damage and know what to do in advance. Milotic will just refresh, so don't try too hard on the toxic. Wrap Milotic, and start mirror coating in hopes of rebounding a surf attack. When Milotic's hp start dropping, it'll recover, so that's the time to try toxic, or swords dance if you have it. Against Weezing, it's best to just unleash your sp.atk against it (will o wisp will take away a lot of your attack power, and you don't have that much to start with), and hopefully destroy it before it explodes. Skarm is just simple for Tentacruel if you got sp.atk, but otherwise it's best to run. For Blissey, wrap, toxic, and stall. It can't heal off toxic unless it uses aromatherapy. Trap it with wrap so it can't heal with natural cure, and continously trap it down like that. If you got physical attacks, watch out for possible counter. However, a nice thing about BLissey is that unless it's a rare serene grace Blissey, it will only be on the offense with seismic toss, so time your wrap and sword dances that way.
Anti-tank Tentacruels are highly effective at tanking out tanks, but can't do junk against anything that doesn't tank. It's too specialized for its own good. In my opinion though, anti-tank Tentacruels are the most fun to play ^^
Friends:
Something to take care of evil earthquakers, and there's too many of them... Though Tentacruel is an excellent anti-tanker, its downfall to why it's not a good anti-tanker is that it can't self heal. Consider having Pokemon with wish or baton passes to assist it.
Enemies:
-physical sweeper
Low defense, and poison weakness means weak to earthquake, and almost every physical sweeper can learn earthquake.
-Raikou/Zapdos/SE attack users
Though Tentacruel has a good sp.def, it's not good enough against Pokemon who got STAB special attack along with a high sp.atk.
Sample Moveset:
Tentacruel- [sp.def + / atk -] @ leftovers
EV: hp, sp.def
-hydro pump
-confuse ray/mirror coat
-wrap
-toxic
|