Gen 4 Floatzel (NU Analysis)

[Honko]

https://www.smogon.com/dex/dp/pokemon/floatzel/

[OVERVIEW]

A speedy Pocket Monster.

[SET]
name: Taunt + Baton Pass Lead
move 1: Taunt
move 2: Baton Pass
move 3: Waterfall
move 4: Ice Punch / Low Kick / Bulk Up
item: Focus Sash
ability: Swift Swim
nature: Jolly
evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Good lead for offensive teams that disrupts most opposing leads and generates early momentum
* Taunt shuts down sleep, hazards, Trick Room
* Floatzel forces many opposing leads to switch out. Baton Pass on a predictable switch to scout your opponent's switch-in and bring in a counter.
* Ice Punch hits Shiftry, Cacturne, Jumpluff, and defensive Grass-type switch-ins
* Low Kick hits Shiftry, Cacturne, Sharpedo, Glalie, and Tauros
* Bulk Up to capitalize on a good lead matchup and pass to a teammate like Tauros or Medicham

[ADDITIONAL SET COMMENTS]

* Surf + Ice Beam is secretly better. Hits most SR users harder, including 2HKOs on Regirock, Nidoqueen, Pinsir, and also matches up much better against Tauros. Much worse matchup vs Jynx though.
* Use on an offensive team that can take advantage of Floatzel BPing out of its common switch-ins
* BP to Skuntank to trap Slowking
* BP to Charizard to donk fat Grassers and Poliwrath
* BP to a Grass or Electric to donk other fat Waters
* Checks Fire-types late-game if you don't let it die early

[SET]
name: Physical Attacker
move 1: Waterfall
move 2: Ice Punch
move 3: Crunch / Return
move 4: Aqua Jet / Return / Bulk Up
item: Choice Band / Life Orb
ability: Swift Swim
nature: Jolly / Adamant
evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Fast, kinda strong, kinda versatile. Good offensive Fire check and late-game cleaner.
* Crunch 2HKOes Slowking, which is a big perk of physical sets since it means you don't need Skuntank. Return is better against everything else though.
* Aqua Jet donks Scarf Fire-types and weakened other Scarfers and priority users
* Bulk Up for a better chance at cleaning if you can force a switch

[ADDITIONAL SET COMMENTS]

* Could use Taunt or BP in 4th slot, but it's hard to fit them on this set
* Jolly is nice to outspeed all non-Scarfers you're likely to encounter outside the lead slot, but the only common things you miss by dropping to Adamant are Tauros (who usually forces you out anyway), Manectric (who's probably Scarf), and opposing Floatzel
* Use as an offensive Fire check, kinda like a Tauros that's weaker, frailer, has priority, and isn't walled by Regirock, so not like Tauros at all I guess
* Hard-walled by Quagsire, Poliwrath if you lack Return, Slowking if you lack Crunch

[SET]
name: Special Attacker
move 1: Surf
move 2: Ice Beam
move 3: Hidden Power Grass
move 4: Baton Pass / Focus Blast
item: Choice Specs / Life Orb
ability: Swift Swim
nature: Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Technically a little bit stronger than physical because Surf's and Ice Beam's higher BP cancels out the lower attacking stat
* Has perfect coverage in 3 moves thanks to HP Grass, which donks physical set counters Quag and Poliwrath
* Less versatile/unpredictable than physical; no threat of Aqua Jet or Bulk Up
* No hope against Slowking other than to BP to Skuntank
* Focus Blast can 2HKO Cradily and Lickilicky

[ADDITIONAL SET COMMENTS]

* Could use Taunt in 4th slot
* Gotta go fast. Much better matchup vs Tauros than physical sets, so always use Timid to outspeed it.
* Use as an offensive Fire check
* If you have BP, bring Floatzel in early and use it to scout
* Hard-walled by Slowking, Politoed, Mantine

[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
================

* Mixed special attacker with Crunch. 124 Atk / 248 SpA / 136 Spe Hasty outspeeds base 100s and almost always 2HKOes standard Slowking and OHKOes offensive Gardevoir with Crunch after SR.
* In rain, Floatzel doesn't need any Speed investment at all to outspeed literally everything except Trace Gardevoir and fellow Floatzel. 76 Spe EVs is enough to outspeed non-Scarf Gardevoir and other base 80s after rain ends, allowing for either a mixed set or some bulk investment to take less damage from priority.
* Aqua Tail over Waterfall for extra power at the cost of accuracy and flinch chance. Don't do it.
* Brick Break over Low Kick to break screens. Nah.
* Toxic
* Substitute
* Pursuit
* Hidden Power Electric
* Rain Dance

Checks and Counters
================

* Fat Waters
* Fat Grassers
* Other fatties
* Scarf Anything
* Tauros

[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[Honko, 42413]]
- Quality checked by: [[], []]
- Grammar checked by: [[], []]

 

[Oglemi]

Rain Dance should be mentioned in AC of the 3rd set (and maybe 2nd). Being able to outspeed every scarfer and at worst tie manectric can be game-winning in a similar way to taunt getting that crucial shutdown

This is a mon I've rarely explored tho myself outside the lead slot so I don't have much to add rn, skelly looks good

 

[Bughouse]

I don't really agree that Return is "better vs everything else" on CB is the right way to frame it since you realistically WANT to only be clicking Waterfall with Band Floatzel or Jet if you need it to revenge a scarfer.
It really comes down to Crunch if your team dies to Slowking and Return if your team dies to Poliwrath. A set without Return gives Poliwrath a free sub when you're lock into any of its attacks. You need to be really careful about using Band Floatzel early game as a result unless you have a very solid Poliwrath counter like Vileplume.

The lead taunt set can also have some fun with other moves. You also secretly don't really need Focus Sash lol since few leads can OHKO Floatzel. The 115 speed tier is also kinda irrelevant in the lead slot and you can drop some speed to invest elsewhere, though staying faster than 100s is a must and faster than Tauros can also be useful depending on the team. Bulkier sets with Leftovers can also work. I've seen sets that have a TON of defensive investment. I've used a whack set with Mystic Water, plus Toxic to punish Poliwrath and Slowking, rather than baton passing out.

I think I'm the only person to make a particularly serious and successful full RD team recently so I'm gonna have to comment on that. On Rain Dance teams while you /can/ drop a ton of speed, I don't really see the point. You'd be putting the excess into bulk on a mon with LO... this is always questionable. However, I would however say generally speaking you can and should go Adamant over Jolly. You still outrun the 100s by a point out of rain, and the extra power does add up in rain, especially when using Aqua Tail.

252+ Atk Life Orb Floatzel Aqua Tail vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sandslash in Rain: 366-432 (103.3 - 122%)
252+ Atk Life Orb Floatzel Waterfall vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sandslash in Rain: 324-384 (91.5 - 108.4%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Floatzel Aqua Tail vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sandslash in Rain: 332-392 (93.7 - 110.7%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Floatzel Waterfall vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sandslash in Rain: 296-350 (83.6 - 98.8%)

That's a 20% raw damage increase (~25% percentage-wise) to go Aqua Tail + Adamant over Waterfall + Jolly.

I've used LO physical with Rain Dance. It's not very good. Floatzel pretty badly wants 4 attacks (ie both Return and Crunch) as mentioned above. On a RD team, the rain should come from elsewhere so Floatzel has the necessary attacks to hit everything.

 

[Honko]

I don't really agree that Return is "better vs everything else" on CB is the right way to frame it since you realistically WANT to only be clicking Waterfall with Band Floatzel or Jet if you need it to revenge a scarfer.
It really comes down to Crunch if your team dies to Slowking and Return if your team dies to Poliwrath. A set without Return gives Poliwrath a free sub when you're lock into any of its attacks. You need to be really careful about using Band Floatzel early game as a result unless you have a very solid Poliwrath counter like Vileplume.

I'll rephrase that to make it clearer Poliwrath is the main problem if you don't have Return. The main point I intended to make is that Crunch is only necessary for Slowking. Return is a much nicer move to be locked into otherwise since a lot of Waters and Grasses resist Crunch, and even the ones that don't will still take significantly more from Return.

The lead taunt set can also have some fun with other moves. You also secretly don't really need Focus Sash lol since few leads can OHKO Floatzel. The 115 speed tier is also kinda irrelevant in the lead slot and you can drop some speed to invest elsewhere, though staying faster than 100s is a must and faster than Tauros can also be useful depending on the team. Bulkier sets with Leftovers can also work. I've seen sets that have a TON of defensive investment. I've used a whack set with Mystic Water, plus Toxic to punish Poliwrath and Slowking, rather than baton passing out.

Do you think I should change the move+item slashes or just mention these options in AC?

I think the 115 tier is actually pretty worthwhile for the lead. I've seen a few fast sleep leads like Jumpluff and Rapidash in the past couple years (I think they were Heysup teams) that it's nice to be able to outspeed instead of risking getting slept, even if they're rare. Tying with Persian is also good since afaik it's still the most common Sunny Day lead, and as you mentioned outspeeding Tauros is occasionally useful. None of that is critical stuff, but I'm skeptical that the extra power from Adamant or extra 120 EVs of bulk from dropping to outspeed 100s will be more useful for a Floatzel without a boosting item. It's still gonna hit like a chump.

I've seen super bulky Floatzels too but I assumed they were from people lazily copying the spreads from the UU analysis, which focuses almost entirely on optimizing Floatzel for rain or as a dedicated Bulk Up passer since it's not really a viable Pokemon in that tier. Do you think a fat spread deserves a spot in this analysis, and if so what spread would you recommend?

I think I'm the only person to make a particularly serious and successful full RD team recently so I'm gonna have to comment on that. On Rain Dance teams while you /can/ drop a ton of speed, I don't really see the point. You'd be putting the excess into bulk on a mon with LO... this is always questionable. However, I would however say generally speaking you can and should go Adamant over Jolly. You still outrun the 100s by a point out of rain, and the extra power does add up in rain, especially when using Aqua Tail.

Agree, I'll add something about how Floatzel's one of the only good Rain sweepers and how it should always be Adamant (or Modest) on those teams.

 

[Bughouse]

I'd just put Toxic and bulkier options for the Taunt set into AC. Yes the bulkier sets is probably people lazily copying the UU sets, but fat BU pass is able to do it sometimes 2 or even 3 times in a match. Speedier, frailer sets can't necessarily pull that off.

Heck if you're concerned about the 115 sleep leads you can go with Lum Berry on the lead set (also mention in AC?). Neither Rapidash nor Jumpluff is OHKOing Floatzel and you're hitting them back with Waterfall or Ice Punch. TBH I find those sleep leads terrible but whatever.