Excadrill Analysis

[Seth Vilo]

Most feared sweeper, here we go. Things will rise and fall in popularity cause' of this guy. So here goes nothing.

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Type:

Abilities:

-Sand Throw – Doubles Speed in a sandstorm (like Swift Swim for deserts)

-Sand Power- Ground, Rock, and Steel moves do increased damage during a sandstorm (I don’t know the percent increase. I want to say it's 30%, but don't write home on it. I think it's on Smogon Research, but I'm not 100% sure.)


Stats
HP: 110
Atk: 135
Def: 60
SpA: 50
SpD: 65
Spe: 88

Weight: 40.4 kg <or> 89.1 lb
Low Kick and Grass knot hits for 60 BP

Typing info
Weaknesses:

Resistances: ; 0x 0x

Serebii link for your convenience, since I didn’t think there was a need to post his entire movepool.

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Pretty good so far, eh? Great resistances, freakin' amazing Attack, good ability in Sand Throw. And the cry is kinda cool, as is the sprite. He takes low damage from the weight-based moves, which may help him a bit.


Let’s go to highlights:

Good:

-Abilities – Sand Throw is the way to go. Doubling speed in the sand is too good to pass up. If you’re possessed to use Doryuuzu outside sandstorm, there is the Dream World ability I didn’t mention above (cause it’s not released yet): Mold Breaker. Hitting floaty junk with STAB Earthquake might be good

-Attack – My God this will tear you to shreds. It’s Attack is tied with Salamence and Metagross, and you know how dangerous they are. Doryuuzu also has Swords Dance, which the other two would LOVE – Salamence only has Dragon Dance, and Metagross has the measly 10% chance of a 1 stage boost in Meteor Mash. If you’re running Adamant, your Attack hits an obscene 810 after one turn of setup. Pair that with the Quake Slide combo and Sand Throw, and… do I even have to explain?

-Speed – Let me give you an example:
Ooooo!!! 88 base Speed!!! That’s just 302 with a +nature! I’m so scared!!!
Sand Stream whipped up a sandstorm!
Holy mackerel!! Since this guy is Jolly, his Speed is now 604! That’s enough to outrun max-speed, +natured Choice Scarf JOLTEON! Can you say “sweep”??

-Rapid Spin – This evolutionary family is the only one this generation given this move. It also is a highly offensive Rapid Spinner. You though Starmie was good? I’ll put it this way – no Ghost besides Giratina-O can switch into this thing safely. Nothing – I repeat NOTHING – is blocking your Rapid Spin.

-Typing – Yeah, Steelix was great. You know the drill (no pun intended) – come in on predicted Thunder Waves or Toxics, which he is immune to, and with little fear of Stealth Rock unless you have only 4% of your health left. Doryuuzu 4x resists Rock, something only Lucario and the aforementioned Steelix brag. He also resists the most popular priority move (of Generation IV) in Bullet Punch, as well as ExtremeSpeed and Quick Attack. You also get STAB on Earthquake, making it extremely deadly with 150 base power.

-Art – Heck yes. One of, if not THE coolest thing this generation. I also thought I’d mention that Doryuuzu is 4’3”. I find this hilarious for how powerful it is, don’t you?


Bad:

-Type – Good and bad. This typing leaves it weak to 2 popular priority moves in Aqua Jet and Mach Punch. Vacuum Punch too, but whatever to that…

-Defenses – This means that Doryuuzu has surpassed Lucario and Magnemite for the weakest Steel type defensively. Base 60 and 65 is sad, but the base 110 HP makes up for it quite a bit. Isn’t that right, Blissey? Even on resisted hits (like Bullet Punch), Doryuuzu will take loads of damage, even with the awesome HP.

-Poor Coverage – Outside the awesome QuakeSlide, there is little for Dory to do. QuakeSlide is awesome, yes, but things resist that combination. The exact list is below. We’ll get there.


Now I’m going to give the set that will scare you if you forget to pack something to stop it.

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Dancing Dory
Doryuuzu @ Life Orb/Leftovers
Ability: Sand Throw
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly (+Spe, -SpA), Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)
-Swords Dance
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide
-Rapid Spin / Return / X-Scissor

Simple set, but deadly.

Swords Dance up when you switch in to double your already awesome Attack, putting you at 738 or 810 Attack, depending on your nature. Proceed to sweep with your awesome coverage and support move of choice.

For the last option, it depends on your team and what you want our little mole to do. Rapid Spin is obvious, but if your team isn’t that troubled by hazards, you can easily drop it for one of the other options listed. There is little outside those two moves, though. Return does substantial damage to many counters that resist the QuakeSlide combo, like Breloom and Birijiron. Bronzong, however, still resists all three, and X-Scissor easily dispatches him and Celebi.

Other EV spreads are possible, but not necessarily recommended. One such spread is 20 HP / 252 Atk / 236 Spe, Adamant (+Atk, -SpA). This allows Dory to outrun +1 +natured base 115’s (Dory hits 542 Speed) in a sandstorm. Sincce it’s been theorized Scarf Azelf is a good counter to this thing, it’s good to outrun. You can’t sacrifice that much for bulk with this guy because of that Speed race. Generally, you’ll want to go with max +natured Speed, since Doryuuzu in a way counters himself. You may as well leave it up to a coin toss.

The last option is to have a completely different item that new this generation: Balloon. Since most Dory counters will be firing back Earthquakes, being immune to one Earthquake could save you. Just keep in mind that if Dory is hit by any attack beforehand, the Balloon will pop, leaving you itemless.


Choice Scarf Thanks to steel dragons


Doryuuzu w/ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Power
Jolly nature
EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spe, 4 Def
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-Metal Claw
-Brick Break/X-Scizzor/Shadow Claw/Rapid Spin

"With Jolly and max speed, it gets a speed stat of 453, which isn't bad at all. The speed stat can be lowered to only outspeed certain threats, but I just used max speed for now. Anyway, with sand power (assuming the 30% increase in power) and stab, earthquake becomes a 195 base power attack, Stone Edge becomes a base 130 power attack, and Metal Claw even becomes an interesting option, becoming a 107.25 base power attack. Doryuuzu doesn't get many other good options here, sadly. Brick Break is probably the best option here, but you would probably want to use the other attacks over Brick Break anyway. You could even use rapid spin here if your team really needed rapid spin support, especially since these other attacks wouldn't likely be used much anyway."

-steel dragons

EDIT - **By Eevee's request, I'll add this disclaimer**
Basically, there is only one thing that this Doryuuzu does that makes it different than a Scarf Randorosu, and that's the ability to revenge kill another Doryuuzu if you're running Sand Throw instead of Power, and if they don't have a Balloon. Surprise factor as well, I guess. Other than that, Randorosu outclasses Scarf Dory in almost every other way.

I'll look this over and may post a bit more about it when I don't have bazoozles of homework.

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So that’s the feared sweeper of Gen V. As Mig said “Metagame over-centralization at its best.” Because of this, I’m going to include a section I normally don’t – Counters and Checks.


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Counters and Checks

Let’s go over what resists QuakeSlide: Breloom, Bronzong, Birijion, Claydol, Flygon, and Torterra. Of these, Bronzong, Flygon, and Claydol are only resisting this because of their abilities, meaning that if Gravity happens to be in effect, they’re in trouble. Birijion is the best “counter” to Dory, since it resists its main moves, and can easily survive an X-Scissor and retaliate with Close Combat or Sacred Sword for the KO. Bronzing is a good bet as well if Dory runs Return, an can Earthquake to the kill. Another check is Hippowdon, who can survive a boosted Earthquake if at good health, and fire back its own Earthquake.

Priority is the best way to take down this beast. Roopushin is going to become popular because of Doryuuzu, being able to almost guarantee a KO with Choice Banded Mach Punch. If I recall it correctly, the guarantee is off by about 1%. There is also Aqua Jet from Waters like Azumarril. Finally, as said before, even resisted priority will still hurt, especially if boosted like Scizor’s Bullet Punch or Dragonite’s boosted Extremespeed.

Since it doesn’t apply now, it’s not a good counter, but it will be in a while. If you can take away sandstorm, Doryuuzu becomes a Swords Dance Heracross. Not threatening, right? Base 88 Speed is outrun by a bunch. Ninetails and Politoed both bring weather, Lickilicky and Altaria have Cloud Nine but can’t do much against Dory, and at this point the weather0bringing legends are legal on PO (only the 680+ legends are banned at this point)(This also means the wall that is Groudon is a great counter). Take away sand, and Dory isn’t scary at all.

Other counter I manages to forget the first time:

Flying/Ground Genie, and by extension Gliscor. They can come in on Dory and tank the weaker Rock Slides (Sorry! No Stone Edge here!) Each can fire back with their own Earthquakes. Be wary of the rare Balloon varieties.

Skarmory also is awesome to come into Dory, but he can't do that much back. Yes, he can Whirlwind out Dory and take away his Dance(s), but that's only a temporary solution to the issue.

Another thing unavailable, but will see much use when it exists, is Ditto. Our little pimp-friend got an ability through the Dream World called Eccentric. Instead of wasting a turn to use Transform, Dotti transforms into the opposing Pokemon instantly, copying all stats (and their boosts at the time) except HP. Scarf Ditto will be one of the best revenge-killers out there, and can handle non-Balloon Doryuuzu without breaking a sweat.

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That’s Doryuuzu. He’ll be mentioned many more times in further analyses (if that’s the plural form). Enjoy him before the campaign begins to ban him!

[Mig]

Metagame over-centralization at its best

[Seth Vilo]

Done and posted! Enjoy!

[Tony32]

I used this thing on PO, it's pretty damn nice. I used it with a sandstorm team, it hit's very hard, it's a good pokemon to pair up with Urgamosu as well.

[Dimes]

The Ground/Flying Legendary is also a nice counter.

Not to mention Skarmory.

This thing and Sand Strength Ground/Flying Legend pretty much gave Sandstorm an incredible boost.

[steel dragons]

Hey, couldn't you include a scarf set in here? If Heatran could use a scarf set, then this thing, with more speed than Heatran, many resistances, and sand power, could certainly pose a threat. I'm thinking something like this:

Doryuuzu w/ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Power
Jolly nature
EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spe, 4 Def
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-Metal Claw
-Brick Break/X-Scizzor/Shadow Claw/Rapid Spin

With Jolly and max speed, it gets a speed stat of 453, which isn't bad at all. The speed stat can be lowered to only outspeed certain threats, but I just used max speed for now. Anyway, with sand power (assuming the 30% increase in power) and stab, earthquake becomes a 195 base power attack, Stone Edge becomes a base 130 power attack, and Metal Claw even becomes an interesting option, becoming a 107.25 base power attack. Doryuuzu doesn't get many other good options here, sadly. Brick Break is probably the best option here, but you would probably want to use the other attacks over Brick Break anyway. You could even use rapid spin here if your team really needed rapid spin support, especially since these other attacks wouldn't likely be used much anyway.

Overall, I think that choice scarfed Doryuuzu could become a great threat to many pokemon, and should be listed as a possible moveset here.

[Seth Vilo]

Consider it done, steel dragons.

[steel dragons]

Cool, thanks Seth.

EDIT: Wait a sec, sand strength only works in a sandstorm...this makes the scarf set less effective. Any thoughts on this?

[DDwhiscash]

dory still has good attack nonetheless sure it dosn't get the sand power kick to it but keep in mind it'll still hit hella hard

[DDwhiscash]

Hey Wait Dory's Banned
Adamant @ Choice ban
Sand Throw
174 hp/252 atk/ 84 speed
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Return
Shadow Claw
174 hp puts dory at 404 hp which gives it good enough bulk to switch in to things such as neutral hits if needs be. The Choice ban boosts dory's already insane attack stat to an all time high of 607 attack. Return is Dory's best friend against the stuff that resist Quake Slide and KO them at the switch in but don't think for a second i forgot about ghosts types Shadow claw can quickly reap a huge whole into them and send them to there spooky grave.