Old Gens GSC Nidoking

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

Nidoking (M)
Ability: None
- Thief
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Thunder / Fire Blast

Nidoking is one of the most dangerous mixed sweepers and most common leads in GSC. Thanks to its solid Speed tier, decent stats overall, Electric and Toxic immunity, strong STAB attack in Earthquake, and access to the excellent "BoltBeam" coverage of an Ice- and Electric-type attack, Nidoking has made itself a very common pick for offensively oriented teams. Lovely Kiss is the old standard choice for the remaining slot, which is still as good as ever, but in recent years it has gotten strong competition from Thief, which aims to remove Leftovers from Sleep Talk users that check Nidoking and, coupled with Spikes support, drastically reduces their durability. Thunder is generally preferred over Thunderbolt, as the latter lacks the power to potentially 3HKO Vaporeon and Suicune or 2HKO Starmie and has a lower paralysis chance. Fire Blast is an alternative over Thunder to threaten Heracross, which otherwise is one of the hardest counters to Nidoking, 2HKO Exeggutor or Steelix, and punish an opponent who is greedy enough to stay in with their Forretress, but this comes at the expense of being able to effectively pressure Water-types.

 

[Jorgen]

Explaining why one should use Thunder instead of the more reliable Thunderbolt might be nice for newer players: namely, the probable Suicune & Vaporeon 3HKOs and the Starmie 2HKO. If you have the space to go deeper, the paralysis chance and nice damage ranges against Skarmory and Cloyster are also noteworthy.

Apart from that, the second sentence seems too long, but that sounds like a GP team problem to me.

QC 1/1.

 

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

I added:
"Thunder is generally preferred over Thunderbolt, as the latter lacks the power to potentially 3HKO Vaporeon and Suicune or 2HKO Starmie, which is additionally supported by the higher paralysis chance of Thunder."
I don't think the damage ranges against Cloyster and Skarmory need to be mentioned, as they are less likely to be the deciding factor for choosing which electric attack you want to use; and the upsides and downsides of each in those two matchups are pretty even I'd say.

Ready for GP check
Edit: after talking with Jorgen on discord, I changed the order of sentences and put the one from above right before the Fire Blast mention.

 

[Lumari]

GP 1/1 trimmed down a few sentences to keep this under the char limit

check

Nidoking (M)
Ability: None
- Thief
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Thunder / Fire Blast

Nidoking is one of the most dangerous mixed sweepers in GSC and also one of the and most common leads in GSC. Thanks to its solid Speed tier, decent stats overall, Electric and Toxic immunity, a strong STAB attack in Earthquake, (AC) and access to the well known excellent "BoltBeam" combination coverage of an Ice- (AH) and Electric-type (AH) attack which ensures to hit all pokemon for at least neutral, many even for super effective damage, Nidoking has made itself a very common pick for offensively oriented teams. Lovely Kiss is the old standard choice for the remaining slot, (AC) which is still as good as ever, but in the recent years it got has gotten strong competition from Thief, (AC) which aims to remove Leftovers from Sleep Talk users that check Nidoking and, (AC) coupled with Spikes support, drastically reduces their durability. Thunder is generally preferred over Thunderbolt, as the latter lacks the power to potentially 3HKO Vaporeon and Suicune or 2HKO Starmie, which is additionally supported by the higher and has a lower paralysis chance of Thunder. Fire Blast is an alternative over Thunder to threaten Heracross, (AC) which otherwise is one of the hardest counters for it to Nidoking, 2HKO Exeggutor or Steelix, (AC) and punish an opponent who is greedy enough to stay in with their Forretress, but this comes at the dispense expense of being able to strongly effectively pressure Water-types. (AH)

 

[FriendOfMrGolem120]

GP 1/1 trimmed down a few sentences to keep this under the char limit

Implemented everything

 

[Eisenherz]