Proposal: Druddigon in OU: Why you should all try it (Check post #38)

[ddrox13]

Nothing personal here, but the point of the article isn't "Drudd is better than all other dragons", it should be "In certain situations, Drudd may be the best Dragon Type for your OU team" and then explain what Drudd does, what those situations are (team is weak to Fairies), and what other Dragons to consider for the role if your team doesn't need Fairy coverage. Don't waste the entire set description with comparisons to other dragons, but be prepared to explain about what situations it is better in than more common dragons.

Those calcs are VERY useful for comparisons, good job there.

 

[wolf]

My main concern with Druddigon is that Garchomp is overall more useful. Druddigon seems situational and flat out useless in more team match-ups. Granted, the ability to OHKO Fairies is nice, but Life Orb Garchomp gets a clean 2HKO on all OU Fairies except for defensive Mega Altaria. Garchomp has more reliable STAB moves, better typing (helpful for switching in), better stats, and offers better momentum (forces out Pokemon better due to its Speed which gives it more opportunities to capitalize on that). Druddigon's lack of a 4x weakness to Ice is great and all, but LO recoil, entry hazards, and damage racked up from being slow puts a damper on that big time.

It may look decent on paper, but I'm not convinced that it can be consistently more effective than Garchomp in practice. A big part of competitive Pokemon is about improving your team's match-up vs other common teams, and Garchomp seems to accomplish that much better.

 

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

My main concern with Druddigon is that Garchomp is overall more useful. Druddigon seems situational and flat out useless in more team match-ups. Granted, the ability to OHKO Fairies is nice, but Life Orb Garchomp gets a clean 2HKO on all OU Fairies except for defensive Mega Altaria. Garchomp has more reliable STAB moves, better typing (helpful for switching in), better stats, and offers better momentum (forces out Pokemon better due to its Speed which gives it more opportunities to capitalize on that). Druddigon's lack of a 4x weakness to Ice is great and all, but LO recoil, entry hazards, and damage racked up from being slow puts a damper on that big time.

It may look decent on paper, but I'm not convinced that it can be consistently more effective than Garchomp in practice. A big part of competitive Pokemon is about improving your team's match-up vs other common teams, and Garchomp seems to accomplish that much better.

Chomp is able to 2HKO, but not outright OHKO stuff like Clefable and Azumarill, unlike Drud. This helps its match-up against the two fairies, and thus not get out-predicted by a double switch. The fact that Clef also has recovery means Chomp can't reliably get past it. Defensive Mega Altaria is also getting quite rare.

You also say that Garchomp has more reliable STAB moves, but Dragon Claw isn't really that strong and Earthquake is actually weaker than Druddigon's Gunk Shot. Granted, it has 100% acc and a better offensive typing (though with the prevalence of Torn-T, Gliscor, Lando-T, Skarm, Lati@s and even Gengar it isn't as good as on paper), but it isn't that much better. Though I admit Chomp can increase his power via Swords Dance.

Garchomp's typing may be somewhat better, but that 4x weakness to Ice bites it in the ass when facing HP Ice electric-types or shit like idk HP Ice Lando-T or Ice Beam Tyranitar (as rare as they are, they have been built specifically for TankChomp and Lando-T). Also Druddigon doesn't really care about LO recoil as its main attack will be Gunk Shot.

Nothing personal here, but the point of the article isn't "Drudd is better than all other dragons", it should be "In certain situations, Drudd may be the best Dragon Type for your OU team" and then explain what Drudd does, what those situations are (team is weak to Fairies), and what other Dragons to consider for the role if your team doesn't need Fairy coverage. Don't waste the entire set description with comparisons to other dragons, but be prepared to explain about what situations it is better in than more common dragons.

Those calcs are VERY useful for comparisons, good job there.

I never said Druddigon is better than any other dragon. The main point of using such a Pokemon is listing its advantages over its competition.

 

[wolf]

My point is that Garchomp is an overall better Pokemon in most scenarios. While Druddigon's ability to OHKO the aforementioned Fairies is impressive despite its accuracy, the player can also use Garchomp along with a team that can apply lots of pressure on Fairies. Arguably, they'd have more success doing that. In any case, I'm still open to being convinced by some good replays.

 

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

My point is that Garchomp is an overall better Pokemon in most scenarios. While Druddigon's ability to OHKO the aforementioned Fairies is impressive despite its accuracy, the player can also use Garchomp along with a team that can apply lots of pressure on Fairies. Arguably, they'd have more success doing that. In any case, I'm still open to being convinced by some good replays.

I already gave replays.

Honestly, on the ladder it's way easier to just lure fairies in with Drud, and OHKO them via Gunk Shot. In tourney battles, the fact that Gunk Shot prevents fairies from switching in gives Druddigon momentum, since it can predict Ferrothorn (or any other steel) and OHKO it via Fire Punch. While Chomp's team can apply pressure, against more defensively-inclined teams it has to force a lot of predictions where the opponent has the momentum, it struggles with 4MSS, etc. Drud can take on Fairy + Steel cores fairly easily with Gunk Shot and Fire Punch. If they are paired with a dragon-type, it's mostly Latios or Latias on offensive teams, which Drud can take out with Sucker Punch. Defensive Dragon-types aren't that common anyway except for like TankChomp (DDD Altaria is not really that good I'm afraid).

I'm planning to write Druddigon's specially defensive set pretty soon, so stay tuned!