Serperior @ Life Orb
Contrary / Timid
252 SpA / 252 Spe / 6 HP
Leaf Storm
Giga Drain
Dragon Pulse
HP Fire / HP Ground
it’s moveset sucks dick, leaf storm is the move you must use with it. it doesn’t have enough PP to be a reliable set up move so serperior isn’t going to be doing much switching. HP is dependent on the team, giga drain to stay healthy, and dragon pulse is there because it’s the only other attacking option you have. it hits dragons though. a resisted leaf storm does more damage than HP fighting does to most targets. you’re attacking with one of the worst attack types in the game, you can’t go for neutral coverage on non-stab moves that often, especially when they aren’t the strongest options and are pretty easily switched into.
sub sets need too much help, dragon tail is worthless on something so fast and not super bulky
(I have to agree that movepool is pretty damn vital, especially if you’re stuck with one of the worse attacking types as your STAB like Serperior is.)
So everyone has different thoughts it, I see. That’s good actually, even though, yeah, it’s move options suck unfortunately, which is why I was ripping on it earlier when Contrary Serperior first got mentioned in here. It’s still better than Meganium at least, but not by much really. Shame it’s not faster than Greninja at least, though I suppose that doesn’t anymore (ha) and fucking Gale Wings obviates that much speed on any Grass Pokemon not named Whimsicott anyway.
Man, the starters of Generation V seem to be among the many crappy things about it, though at least Emboar is amusing and shares a good typing. It would have been nice if it was Fire/Dark or something though rather than just inferior to both Blaziken and Infernape, but we can’t expect Gamefreak to give us nice things.
Anyway, for the record, the Life Orb set that Mood posted is what I’ve been seeing in replays, but I’d personally probably use what locoghoul suggested: Subseed with HP Fire and Leaf Storm. Shrug.
There’s more pkmn than you think that get by on one setup or a subpar movepool.
Sylveon
Manetric
Rotom forms
Zapdos
Skarmory
Magnezone
Heracross
Chansey (yes she has a big movepool BUT…how much of it is REALLY viable to run?)
and these are just pkmn from stndard play…not going to list the rest since I stand by my point. Just because a pkmn may have a limited movepool doesn’t mean they cannot be a threat in some form. All the above are viable because they have the other 2 points down with a shallow but just enough to use movepool.
Zapdos is fine as well. You dont see offensive ones because thundurus-i outclasses it
The rotom forms are more limited by the metagamr than anything but dont have that bad of a movepool
Manectric is an electric type with fire attacks, that automatically gives him a good movepool
Sylveon needs 1 more attack but yea, its movepool is limited
Skarmory has a good movepool…just doesnt need anything else
Magnezone…does have a shitty movepool.
Just because its not a big movepool doesnt mean its a bad movepool. The only thing bad about keldeo’s movepool is that it doesnt learn ice beam (thank god). Its a good movepool with limited options. It doesnt need anything else
Serperior has a bad movepool because its secondary options do not help it all that much. It also doesnt have good stats to back it up and a mediocre typing. Its got a really dumb ability and thats it
Contrary counters Sticky Web and increases your SAtk by two stages for every Leaf Storm, so base 75 SAtk doesn’t matter in many scenarios.
From these last two pages , it’s clear that everyone has a hypothesis on the value of this snake, but no one has done the experimentation to see what really works. It’s a potential partner for Fire types especially Talonflame as it hard counters Rotom-W. Sure, it could paralyze you, but that’s why Substitute isn’t a bad option to have so you can avoid status and set up with Leaf Storms.
113 Speed is nice. Talonflame won’t care about it but it also doesn’t care about Blaziken, Venusaur, Volcarona, etc. I guess those Pokemon aren’t very good then.
The movepool could use stronger coverage, yet there are still a lot of support options to think about. Paralyze ground types like Landorus with Glare, Leech Seed, Dual Screens, Dragon Tail, Taunt walls like Ferrothorn , etc.
People have swept teams late game with this thing with maybe one turn setting up. Instead of talking about it more, I’d rather resume breeding my Snivys for HP fire and rock and training them for battles. I already have HP ice. We won’t know the real power of Contrary Serperior just by talking about it.
Yet you still can’t win Po and your comment is completely wrong there are lots of sets in OU. The only thing that serperior can press is leaf storm nothing else is threatening.
