Tapu Koko Discussion

[dracometeo]

Set I make for Tapu Koko:

Physical(Double only)

Tapu Koko @ Life Orb / Assault Vest / Choice Band / Z-crystal
Ability: Electric Surge or Telepathy
Level: 50
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Wild Charge
- Brave Bird
- Thunder Wave / Taunt / Nature’s Madness [use with Z-crystal]
- Protect / U-turn

Special(Single and Double)

Tapu Koko @ Life Orb / Assault Vest / Choice Specs / Z-crystal
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 44 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Volt Switch / Thunderbolt / Discharge
- Dazzling Gleam
- Thunder Wave / Taunt / Grass Knot / Nature's Madness [use with Z-crystal]
- Protect / U-turn / Volt Switch

Mixed(Single and Double)

Tapu Koko @ Life Orb / Assault Vest / Choice Specs
Ability: Electric Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 44 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty/Naive Nature
- Volt Switch / Thunderbolt / Discharge
- Dazzling Gleam
- Brave Bird
- Protect / Volt Switch / Grass Knot

 

[Chopin Alkaninoff]

Since only I cared about Other Metagames (and there is no rule that forbid me from theorymoning about OMs), I'll post some sets for Other Metagames.

Almost Any Ability:

Tapu Koko @ Life Orb/Choice Band
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly/Hasty Nature
- Return
- Wild Charge
- U-turn
- Volt Switch / Grass Knot / Brave Bird / Hidden Power something

When you see a Fairy typing, 115 Atk and 130 Speed, it's kind of obvious that Pixilate is one of the most obvious choice, especially when it has NO Physical Fairy STAB. U-turn is a good pivot tool and the last move is coverage depending on what you want to hit. Electric + Fairy actually provides amazingly wide neutral coverage, so if you want STABs alone it'll work actually.

STABmons:

Tapu Koko @ Life Orb
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Bolt Strike
- Play Rough
- Fleur Cannon
- U-turn / Hidden Power Ice

STAB Bolt Strike with Life Orb and Electric terrain will hit amazingly HARD. It also has Fleur Cannon for nuking Physical Walls that possibly wall the Physical Attacks. For the last moveslot, U-turn is preferred, though if you find Landorus-T annoying, you can carry Hidden Power Ice. For Sketchmons, I urge you be mixed and carry V-create, Wild Charge, Dazzling Gleam and possibly U-turn.

 

[Siggu]

Its movepool goes all around the wrong places, kind of like fellow Electric-types Electivire and Dedenne.

Special Attacking sets are, therefore, practically a must. Electric Terrain-boosted Thunderbolt will hit quite hard in spite of 'just' base 95 Special Attack (and so will Volt Switch), and it's not lacking in special coverage.

Not bad, but certainly inferior to expectations.

 

[thelandlordsmm]

Don't let the 95 base Sp. Attack fool you...

252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 144 - 169 (42.2% - 49.5%)

252 SpA Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew in Electric Terrain: 178 - 211 (52.1% - 61.8%)

 

[Bombkirby]

Don't let the 95 base Sp. Attack fool you...

252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 144 - 169 (42.2% - 49.5%)

252 SpA Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew in Electric Terrain: 178 - 211 (52.1% - 61.8%)

Sadly his special move pool is shallow. I want to go mixed but you have to sacrifice EVs in useful areas to do so

 

[Jerdor]

With another Physical Electric type kinda getting the shaft. How has Volt Tackle not become wide spread yet? Plenty of other "Signature moves" have been given to other Pokemon, and Volt Tackle solves the dilemma of being a physical electric type.

 

[Ash Borer]

I feel like a fully special set is the way to go. There just isn't a physical movepool to speak of here outside of Wild charge, and Brave Bird, which probably still gets the 2HKO on grass types with 4 Atk EVs anyways. Sure Wild Charge hits harder, but powering up Dazzling Gleam, and Volt Switch, and avoiding recoil damage seems better to me. 95 SpA with a +1 boost from electric terrain seems plenty. Greninja was banned to Ubers, and his whole gimmick was getting +1 on everything from a measily 103 SpA, right?

 

[jacksoras]

People are sleeping on tapu Koko after seeing it's move pool and sp.atk, this thing is gonna be really good.

It's special attack might be lacklustre, but in electric terrain it's more than made up of.

Taunt / u-turn / roost or grass knot / thunderbolt with electric plate is a super promising set.

This has a super spammable stab, fast taunt and u-turn to grab lots of momentum. Roost also takes advantage of its good resists and passable defence to provide some good utility. U-turn > volt switch as tapu has good attack and can u-turn on ground types as to prevent loosing momentum.

This thing will be an ou staple there is just too much going for it.

 

[xlxlxlxl]

+1 252 Atk Life Orb Dedenne Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Venusaur: 153-182 (81.8 - 97.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That is Mega Venusaur's best shot at Tapu Koko, since offensive variants actually get OHKOed by Brave Bird! Yeah Im cheating a bit since this is after Work Up, but the idea of destroying Mega Venusaur sounds rad imo!

You forgot to remove the +1. It's still a guaranteed 2HKO on any variant, but it's not to guarantee an OHKO on offensive variants.

 

[Ba'al]

A real shame with its stats. Had it been specially oriented it could set up Rain, compounded with its ability and speed to fire off lightning fast Thunder nukes. Not that it cant do that now, but then its Thunders are... less than great.

 

[AccidentalGreed]

Yea I don't understand why people are dissing on its Special Attack. It's not like Starmie or Deoxys-S had anything super special outside of their stellar coverage and in OU they do darned well with just 95-100 SpA without a reliable boosting ability or rainy conditions. Phys STAB + Terrain Wild Charge is cool too but its just so eeeeeggggggh

So from what I'm looking at it has a ton of potential, the most glaring traits being its auto Terrain ability, typing, and humongous Speed. Essentially, Mega Manectric / Jolteon / Raikou hybrid except bulkier (compared to Jolt and Kou at least) and with decent alternative STAB and frees up the Mega slot. The obvious is obvious: Slap a Life Orb on it, give it Thunderbolt, Dazzling Gleam, Grass Knot, and your choice of Calm Mind, Volt Switch, Roost, and/or Hidden Power Ice/Fire. You can nuke shit super hard with Thunder if you're feeling Torn-T tier risky but of course you don't wanna do that. Potentially looking at a set w/ Calm Mind | Roost | Volt Switch | Dazzling Gleam / Hidden Power Ice, but of course this depends on how much Koko's gonna stay in until the Terrain wears off.

Not as overbearing as Tapu Lele, but with time I think this guy will become one of the new top threats in standard play, especially with how much you can optimize.

 

[Swagodile]

Tapu Koko with Electric Terrain actually hits a little bit harder than Mewtwo

252 SpA Life Orb Mewtwo Psychic vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 110-133 (17.1 - 20.7%) -- possible 5HKO

252 SpA Life Orb Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey in Electric Terrain: 121-142 (18.8 - 22.1%) -- possible 5HKO

People are just looking at the base 95 Special Attack and underestimating this thing. They're forgetting to factor in the boost from Electric Terrain.

 

[Riah]

VGC wise, I feel like this would be a great support mon like Thundurus or Crobat.

Tapu Koko @ Terrain Extender/Sitrus Berry
Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP/148 Def/80 Sp.Def/28 Spe

- Taunt
- Roost
- Nature's Madness/Thunder Wave
- Thunder/Thunderbolt

Overall fairly bulky set like Thundurus was in VGC. Speed EVs are to speed creep +natured base 85 speed pokemon, although you can just dump more into Sp.Def. It doesn't really need any Sp.Atk investment IMO since Nature's Madness + Electric terrain give it enough power as is.

Edit: Minor tweak to speed + Sp.Def

Any thoughts?

 

[6ft Torbjorn]

>Physically oriented Electric-type
>Still stuck with Wild Charge at best

Although with a free effective +1 on Electric STAB by switching in I suppose 95 is acceptable. Still has the same lackluster coverage, although those Flying attacks give it some use for that high Attack stat. It's also fast enough to challenge Darkrai in Ubers, but with the Dark Void nerf that's not going to have the same potency as in the past; nor does Tapu Koko want to switch in on an attack.

I guess roost is a thing, so Wild Charge recoil isn't as severe as it would otherwise be (Plus you're coming off the back of 130 base speed).
*looks again at coverage* oh...

 

[Halcyon.]

Pretty sure this thing will either be super duper good or broken as shit. It gets a Super Fang clone that can hit everything and they has deceptively strong electric attacks with its terrain up. Volt Switch | Dazzling Gleam | Nature's Madness | Hidden Power Ice/Thunderbolt Could be an awesome set that could allow your other Pokemon to break through whatever they normally wouldn't want to face. Ferrothorn and Excadrill "wall" this, but also take 50% upon their first switch-in if they get hit with Nature's Madness. Could see this pairing well with Latios in particular.

Can't see this thing being bad, just looking at how strong LO/Specs Thunderbolt/Volt Switch are under Electric Terrain.

 

[Bombkirby]

Honestly would be fine with a physical set. Nature's Madness followed by boosted wild charge will take care of most problems. Or U-Turn out if the matchup is unfavorable.

Sadly no fairy physical moves to use but Brave Bird is alright especially with Roost for healing the damage you take from it

 

[Swagodile]

What does Brave Bird hit that a boosted Electric attack doesn't?

 

[MrTharne]

What does Brave Bird hit that a boosted Electric attack doesn't?

Ground types.

 

[Swagodile]

Ground types.

You could just run Grass Knot for them since most of the relevant Ground-types have low Sp. Def and are on the heavy side.

 

[Rechi]

What does Brave Bird hit that a boosted Electric attack doesn't?

Bulky grass types. It 2HKOs Amoonguss and Mega Venusaur even without any investment.

 

[Mr. Goodra]

Is HP Ice really going to be the HP of choice on this thing? Dazzling Gleam is already a solid option to hit dragons and should do respectable damage to Lando and friends since grounds are primarily physically defensive, so I think this would be better off running HP Fire since Ferro walls it hard. Given that Ferropex is looking to be a scary core, this would be a mon that could potentially handle both.

 

[Punchshroom]

So this thing has 130 Speed, has boosted Electric STAB + "sleep immunity", has Calm Mind, has "Super Fang", and has Roost? Damn Raikou has never rolled so hard in its grave.

 

[viol and bass]

I don't understand why everybody's extolling Nature's Madness. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't like nothing run Super Fang? Because it's... sort of bad? Koko is an offensive mon, and Nature's Madness is only helpful if you wouldn't otherwise 2HKO them with your other moves. If you can 2HKO them with your other moves, then just run those and don't waste a moveslot on Nature's Madness. If you can't, doesn't that mean Koko is a somewhat lackluster offensive mon?

 

[Siggu]

I don't understand why everybody's extolling Nature's Madness. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't like nothing run Super Fang? Because it's... sort of bad? Koko is an offensive mon, and Nature's Madness is only helpful if you wouldn't otherwise 2HKO them with your other moves. If you can 2HKO them with your other moves, then just run those and don't waste a moveslot on Nature's Madness. If you can't, doesn't that mean Koko is a somewhat lackluster offensive mon?

AFAIK the problem with Super Fang is that its users don't really find room to use it, either because they are too weak or (e.g. Chesnaught) they can't sacrifice another move.

 

[Swagodile]

Yeah, most Super Fang users suffer from 4MSS. Not the case with Tapu Koko.