Shuppet (Little Cup Analysis)

[Banryu]

This thread is up already, but it hasn't been updated in forever, and I'm posting my latest on it here for you guys to review. This thread will NOT need to be moved once it gets approved and stuff.

Also, if anyone could either provide me with some calcs or, better yet, with a damage calculator for this, that'd be great. I don't really know which ones are Smogon-approved and whatnot. (It'd also save me some testing since I don't have a lot of time or patience for that. =____=)

Any changes / suggestions / whatever are welcome, as Shuppet is really difficult to write an analysis for due to his crappy movepool.

[Overview]

• best Attack of any Little Cup Ghost, but terrible physical movepool
• decent supporting movepool, but poor bulk and speed
• Insomnia makes it a good Sleep counter
• best Ghost-type TR sweeper
• worst LC Ghost overall (low speed, low defenses, and lack of Ground immunity hurts it)

[SET]
name: Trick Room Sweeper
move 1: Shadow Ball
move 2: Thunderbolt / HP Fight
move 3: Sucker Punch
move 4: Trick Room
item: Oran Berry / Focus Sash
ability: Insomnia
nature: Quiet
evs: 8 HP / 236 Atk / 252 SpA / 12 SpDef
ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

• Reaches 17 in both offensive stats with the above spread (can also get 18/16, but Shuppet's Special movepool is better)
• HP Fight gets better coverage than Tbolt, but Shuppet with HP Fight unavoidably loses a point in Sp. Atk and Sp. Def, and furthermore has to choose between min speed and max-BP HP Fight
• Sucker Punch is the best option against Munchlax, who outspeeds Shuppet in TR, also beats Ghosts outside of TR
• Oran is the best item to make it easier for Shuppet to set up, but Focus Sash works if you stick it in the lead slot
• can be used in non-TR teams, similar to how Rain Dance Mantyke and TR Porygon can
• (I'll need to do some calcs to see if LO makes a significant difference in making KOs, and if so, HP IVs and EVs will be zeroed to account for that)

[SET]
name: Trick Lead
move 1: Trick
move 2: Sucker Punch
move 3: Destiny Bond
move 4: Thunder Wave
item: Choice Scarf
ability: Insomnia / Frisk
nature: Adamant
evs: 244 HP / 236 Spe / 12 SDef

[SET COMMENTS]

• Adamant with Scarf reaches 21 speed, Jolly gets 22 speed
• Trick disables SR leads and robs their Focus Sash
• Even on non-SR leads, many leads depend heavily on the use of multiple attacks, so this is a good strategy--Houndour, Meowth, Aipom, etc. are all ruined long-term by being locked into one move
• Sucker Punch is Shuppet's best mono-attacking option
• TWave lets Shuppet spread Paralysis and also makes DBond and Grudge easier to use
• Great switchin to Scarf Gastly's Hypnosis and Trick
• Frisk is viable on this set, since it can warn you of an enemy Scarfer that you don't want to Trick your scarf onto (especially helpful with Gastly)

[SET]
name: Status Support
move 1: Shadow Sneak / Sucker Punch
move 2: Thunder Wave
move 3: Will-O-Wisp / Confuse Ray
move 4: Destiny Bond / Confuse Ray
item: Oran Berry
ability: Insomnia
nature: Adamant
evs: 244 HP / 236 Def / 12 SDef

[SET COMMENTS]

• status-spreading Ghost (the only LC Ghost to get Wisp, TWave, and Confuse Ray all together)
• TWave and Wisp sometimes clash, so Confuse Ray + TWave for parahax is a possibility, or go for all three
• Sucker Punch does greater damage than Shadow Sneak and hits Munchlax, but isn't as reliable-- can be used with the right prediction and whatnot
• Impish gets 14 in Atk and Def both... is the defense preferable? Seems like it's too low to matter either way
• (Maybe it'd be better to go more offensive? *shrug*)

[Team Options]

• Gastly / Drifloon: If you want to run a double-Ghost strategy. Shuppet cripples Munchlax or KOs it with DBond, leaving your remaining Ghost free to sweep.
• Munchlax: immune to Ghost, threatens all of Shuppet's counters
• Houndour: checks or beats enemy Ghosts, can also beat Munchlax if running Crunch
• (need some more)

[Optional Changes]

• Natural Gift is Shuppet's only other option for getting a decent physical attack, but obv is only a one-off thing. Still, with Shuppet's horrible movepool, he may have to take what he can get.
• Grudge could be useful with a double-Ghost strategy to eliminate Munchy's Pursuit PP
• Shuppet gets both Pursuit and Imprison, allowing it to potentially counter one of its own biggest counters, Munchlax
• Snatch can be used to steal setup sweepers' boosts, but is dangerous because of how heavily it relies on prediction


[Counters]

<p>Houndour</p>

<p>Munchlax</p>

<p>Gastly & Drifloon (outside TR)</p>

<p>Stunky</p>

 

[Heysup]

.

[Overview]

• best Attack of any Little Cup Ghost, but terrible physical movepool
• decent supporting movepool, but poor bulk and speed
• Insomnia makes it a good Sleep counter
• arguably the best Trick Room Ghost, but the worst LC Ghost-type overall (lack of Ground immunity really hurts it defensively)

Gastly makes an arguably better Ghost-type Trick Room set up Pokemon with Explosion and Hypnosis. I'd say "Ghost-type Trick Room sweeper" rather than "Trick Room Ghost-type"

[SET]
name: Trick Room Sweeper
move 1: Shadow Ball
move 2: Thunderbolt
move 3: Sucker Punch
move 4: Trick Room / Shadow Sneak / Return
item: Oran Berry / Focus Sash
ability: Insomnia
nature: Quiet
evs: 8 HP / 236 Atk / 252 SpA / 12 SpDef
ivs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

• Reaches 17 in both offensive stats with the above spread (can also get 18/16, but Shuppet's Special movepool is better)
• Shadow Ball + Thunderbolt for good special coverage; HP Fighting isn't a good option because it forces Shuppet to have 1 less SpA than it can have with Tbolt due to its stats
• Sucker Punch is the best option against Munchlax, who outspeeds Shuppet in TR
• Shadow Sneak or Return can be used in place of TR if enough team members can set up TR already; Shadow Sneak is STAB priority, but Sucker Punch is generally better, and Return offers the strongest physical hit that Shuppet has access to.
• Oran is the best item to make it easier for Shuppet to set up,
• (I'll need to do some calcs to see if LO makes a significant difference in making KOs, and if so, HP IVs and EVs will be zeroed to account for that)

Trick Room needs to be stapled in the last slot. There is really no other reason to use Shuppet if not to set up TR + sweep. There are better pure sweepers in TR.

And I'm a firm believer that Hidden Power Fighting is superior to Thunderbolt. I think it should be slashed before Thunderbolt. You simply get better super effective coverage.

[SET]
name: Support
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Sucker Punch
move 3: Thunder Wave / Will-O-Wisp
move 4: Destiny Bond / Grudge / Pain Split / Confuse Ray
item: Oran Berry
ability: Insomnia
nature: Adamant / Impish
evs: 244 HP / 236 Def / 12 SDef

[SET COMMENTS]

• Shuppet is fragile, so Sub helps it use moves like DBond and Grudge easier while also helping Sucker Punch (still more powerful than STABed SS) Sub also helps it beat Paras and stuff
• TWave is possibly the better status for Shuppet, as it helps Shuppet's crap speed; a more offensive set can be run with TWave as well (Wisp and TWave can be run on the same set, alternatively)
• Pain Split is good with Substitite because of the Shoddy Oran berry glitch; lower your HP with Sub and get it back with PS
• Grudge could be useful with a double-Ghost strategy to eliminate Munchy's Pursuit PP or some crap like that
• Confuse Ray + TWave

I don't see this set working...it's frail as hell even compared to Drifloon. In any event, Duskull outclasses this many times over. If you had a general utility set such as Shadow Sneak / Thunderbolt / Will-O-Wisp / Destiny Bond or something, that would probably fair much better (but I'd have to test it).

[SET]
name: Trick Lead
move 1: Trick
move 2: Sucker Punch
move 3: Destiny Bond / Grudge
move 4: Thunder Wave
item: Oran Berry
ability: Insomnia
nature: Adamant / Jolly
evs: 244 HP / 236 Spe / 12 SDef

[SET COMMENTS]

• Adamant with Scarf reaches 21 speed, Jolly gets 22 speed
• Trick disables SR leads and robs their Focus Sash
• Sucker Punch is Shuppet's best mono-attacking option
• TWave lets Shuppet spread Paralysis and also makes DBond and Grudge easier to use

This set is actually viable....but did you mean to have its item as "Oran Berry"? I think you meant Chocie Scarf.

[Team Options]

• Bronzor: sets up DS + TR
• Porygon: sets up TR, immune to Ghost
•

This isn't the place for set-specific team options. List things that "generally" work well with Shuppet. For example, using Shuppet with Destiny Bond to take out Munchlax then sweep with Gastly. Or for example, using Munchlax to switch into Pokemon such as Houndour that threaten Shuppet.

[Optional Changes]

• Shuppet gets both Pursuit and Imprison, allowing it to potentially counter one of its own biggest counters, Munchlax
• Snatch can be used to steal setup sweepers' boosts, but is dangerous because of how heavily it relies on prediction
• Natural Gift is Shuppet's only other option for getting a decent physical attack, but obv is only a one-off thing. Still, with Shuppet's horrible movepool, he may have to take what he can get.

Sounds fine.

[Counters]

<p>Houndour</p>

<p>Munchlax</p>

<p>Gastly & Drifloon (outside TR)</p>

<p>Stunky</p>

Again, good.

Will approve after the support set is adjusted to something better, and the tr sweeper is fixed.

 

[Banryu]

Overview: Okay, fine. :0 I'll specify the sweeper thing...

TR Sweeper set: I deliberately left HP Fight out here, for the reason that it's impossible to have both max Special Attack and Fighting-type HP on Shuppet. :\ Is sacrificing that power worth the extra coverage? I wasn't sure... but I guess I can list in there (suppose I should have mentioned it in OO if I wasn't going to put it on the set).

Support set: Yeah, this is the one I was least sure about. :0 I'll want some further feedback on it too... SS (or Sucker Punch, since it hits harder even with STAB on SS, which Lax is immune to)/Wisp/TWave/Dbond sounds good I suppose.

Scarf set: Yeah, I forgot to change the item, sorry. :0 This one is pretty good, IMO... I used it for a while back in the Berry Juice testing and post-testing periods. The biggest problem I had with it was that after using Trick, Shuppet is too slow to use Dbond before fainting most of the time (but then, I never ran TWave either).

I was also toying with the notion of a Trick + Trick Room set, but it takes too long to set up (Trick -> TR -> DBond, but Shuppet almost certainly dies before getting to use DBond a lot of the time) and as you said, Gastly is better at setting it up.


-EDIT- Fixed all that stuff and moved the Trick set above the support set, as I think it works better. :0 Also, I just realized that I misread your suggestion about the Support set... the one I have currently is still up for debate, IMO. Also added Grudge into OO, since DBond is pretty much better and Grudge felt like it was cluttering crap up.

Also, I thought about how it might be to have a TWave status-spreading set similar to the TR one, but wih TWave instead of TR... Really, I think if you're gonna use Shuppet, you gotta go with TWave... Duskull does Wisp better, right? Plus shuppet gets Confuse Ray for parafusion.

-EDIT AGAIN- Forgot about the counters part, so I fixed that. Weird... a lot of Shuppet's counters would also make good teammates for him. :0 So what are some good Munchlax counters?

 

[Banryu]

.....all right, first of all, sorry for the double-post... but no one else has posted in here so I thought I'd bump this up. If no one else has anything to add, I guess I'll start transferring the information over to the pre-existing thread?

I wanted to also elaborate on the downsides of using HP Fight over Tbolt on TR Shuppet...
Not only does Shuppet lose its max Special Attack, (17, which is better than even Drifloon can get) it also loses its extra point in Special Defense. Because of the pattern of Shuppet's base stats (namely, special attack ending in 3, which requires 252 EVs to max out), it can't use the EVing trick of adding 4 EVs to compensate for the HP stat loss. Not only that, Shuppet also has to choose between having minimum speed and 64-BP HP Fight, or being outrun by Bronzor and tying with Paras, Duskull, and Aron before RP with a full-power HP Fight. Either way, it's a pretty high price to pay for a little extra coverage, which is why I had Thunderbolt as the main option on that set. But I figure as long as I explain the liabilities, I guess I can slash it onto the set as well.

 

[Heysup]

Alright, so I'm going to test two sets: Status support and SubSneak. I mean, Missy's SubSneak was at least one of its best sets so I'm sure it has potential with Shuppet.

 

[Banryu]

With Shuppet's Attack stat, I wouldn't be surprised. And that would be hugely appreciated, since I don't have a lot of free time for Shoddying or chatting on IRC at the moment. Dx

When I get the chance, I'm just gonna write up the TR and Trick sets and stick them in the main analysis.... I can always add other sets later.

I just wanna point out... one thing I'm noticing about Shuppet that's pretty cool is that his different sets require almost completely different counters. For instance, Croagunk will beat TR Shuppet, but is ruined by Trick Shuppet. I know this is true for a lot of things, but it tends to apply less to Ghosts (...except maybe Gastly) than other Pokemon, which I think is kind of cool.