Snake Problems

Arbok - Impish
Black Sludge
152 HP, 100 SpD, 192 Atk, 66 Spe ?
Stockpile
Switcheroo/Gunk Shot/Poison Jab ?
Earthquake/Gunk Shot/Poison Jab ?
Seed Bomb

This is my Arbok for my new doubles team, and im just havin so much trouble :-/ first off, im not disclosing the partner for it until later or if completely needed but it will be helping with arboks defenses. next, i am not sure how the EV's should be. i want this arbok to be a tank with decent attacking capabilities and speed. its a lot to ask for and i dont know how to balance it out. as for the moves, i'd love to make use of its new HGSS move switcheroo but it takes up my 3rd attack slot. it would also give him to stop walls that rely on leftovers and it mixes it up their items. if i do end up keeping switcheroo, im leaning on keeping EQ and Seed Bomb because their type coverage is better together but the lack of stab is annoying, and EQ could potentially hurt my other partners.

Please comment, for this is a difficult set for me to make my mind up with. i guess the only extra info i can give is that the rest of my team is very offensive other than arboks partner, but that shouldnt matter too much.

Stockpile with no recovery = no-no. Think about this: Arbok with Rest, Stockpile, and the Shed Skin ability. You can set up Stockpiles, Rest on low HP, and hope to get a lucky wake up with Shed Skin. If you decide to use this, I would run Stockpile / Rest / Poison Jab / EQ as your moveset, as Poison + Ground actually has decent coverage.

Other than that, I really don't see any eye-popping mistakes. Nice set.

I have to agree with arandomboy; give it rest, gunk shot, EQ and stockpile. Also if you decide to use gunk shot name it ****... that's not perverted at all, right? lol (BTW that was not my idea; I saw a UU battle on shoddy with an arbok with the same nickname a few minutes ago and its still fresh in my mind)

EDIT: Aww it was starred out xD

thats the set im avoiding for now, since the purpose of that type of arbok is different. i guess ill just say it; the partner will be a pokemon with the ability simple, therefore stockpile will be better than normal. and intimidate will lower the opponents attack even more. if it does not work out well i am going to make a shed skin one eventually, but not yet. the full point isnt for arbok to last forever, but to make use of the extra defense long enough to cover the simple pokemon while it gets its stats up. therefore even 1 turn of sleep would make my strategy all the harder to pull off.

o and not every stockpile pokemon needs instant recovery... those are meant to be walls, this is a tank

saxman1324 wrote:

thats the set im avoiding for now, since the purpose of that type of arbok is different. i guess ill just say it; the partner will be a pokemon with the ability simple, therefore stockpile will be better than normal. and intimidate will lower the opponents attack even more. if it does not work out well i am going to make a shed skin one eventually, but not yet. the full point isnt for arbok to last forever, but to make use of the extra defense long enough to cover the simple pokemon while it gets its stats up. therefore even 1 turn of sleep would make my strategy all the harder to pull off.

o and not every stockpile pokemon needs instant recovery... those are meant to be walls, this is a tank

That won't work... simple applies only to bidoof/barel and numel... not to their partner

IE they will hit your arbok for 66% damage but will hit your simple poke for 50%... if I understand simple correctly

Or vice versa if the simple poke has 2, say, cosmic powers under its belt it gets 33% damage done to it. However if arbok has 2 stockpiles it will be hit for 50% damage.

Least I think that's how simple works...

Gastrotress wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

thats the set im avoiding for now, since the purpose of that type of arbok is different. i guess ill just say it; the partner will be a pokemon with the ability simple, therefore stockpile will be better than normal. and intimidate will lower the opponents attack even more. if it does not work out well i am going to make a shed skin one eventually, but not yet. the full point isnt for arbok to last forever, but to make use of the extra defense long enough to cover the simple pokemon while it gets its stats up. therefore even 1 turn of sleep would make my strategy all the harder to pull off.

o and not every stockpile pokemon needs instant recovery... those are meant to be walls, this is a tank

That won't work... simple applies only to bidoof/barel and numel... not to their partner

IE they will hit your arbok for 66% damage but will hit your simple poke for 50%... if I understand simple correctly

Or vice versa if the simple poke has 2, say, cosmic powers under its belt it gets 33% damage done to it. However if arbok has 2 stockpiles it will be hit for 50% damage.

Least I think that's how simple works...

actually no, simple affects every pokemon on the field, at least that is what ive found

saxman1324 wrote:

Gastrotress wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

thats the set im avoiding for now, since the purpose of that type of arbok is different. i guess ill just say it; the partner will be a pokemon with the ability simple, therefore stockpile will be better than normal. and intimidate will lower the opponents attack even more. if it does not work out well i am going to make a shed skin one eventually, but not yet. the full point isnt for arbok to last forever, but to make use of the extra defense long enough to cover the simple pokemon while it gets its stats up. therefore even 1 turn of sleep would make my strategy all the harder to pull off.

o and not every stockpile pokemon needs instant recovery... those are meant to be walls, this is a tank

That won't work... simple applies only to bidoof/barel and numel... not to their partner

IE they will hit your arbok for 66% damage but will hit your simple poke for 50%... if I understand simple correctly

Or vice versa if the simple poke has 2, say, cosmic powers under its belt it gets 33% damage done to it. However if arbok has 2 stockpiles it will be hit for 50% damage.

Least I think that's how simple works...

actually no, simple affects every pokemon on the field. ive tested it on multiple occasions

It does? I've never heard about that. Are you sure?

And, if it affects all Pokemon on the field, this could be bad if your opponent uses stat-upping moves.

CaseyR wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

Gastrotress wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

thats the set im avoiding for now, since the purpose of that type of arbok is different. i guess ill just say it; the partner will be a pokemon with the ability simple, therefore stockpile will be better than normal. and intimidate will lower the opponents attack even more. if it does not work out well i am going to make a shed skin one eventually, but not yet. the full point isnt for arbok to last forever, but to make use of the extra defense long enough to cover the simple pokemon while it gets its stats up. therefore even 1 turn of sleep would make my strategy all the harder to pull off.

o and not every stockpile pokemon needs instant recovery... those are meant to be walls, this is a tank

That won't work... simple applies only to bidoof/barel and numel... not to their partner

IE they will hit your arbok for 66% damage but will hit your simple poke for 50%... if I understand simple correctly

Or vice versa if the simple poke has 2, say, cosmic powers under its belt it gets 33% damage done to it. However if arbok has 2 stockpiles it will be hit for 50% damage.

Least I think that's how simple works...

actually no, simple affects every pokemon on the field

It does? I've never heard about that. Are you sure?

And, if it affects all Pokemon on the field, this could be bad if your opponent uses stat-upping moves.

in all my battles it seems to appear that way... ive had an nfe team where my sunkern was able to sweep after 1 SD with a bidoof partner. ive had a shiftry have SpA of huge proportions since he used Nasty Plot 3 times. perhaps im wrong and these pokemon are just naturally strong, but in my experience i have no other explanation

saxman1324 wrote:

CaseyR wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

Gastrotress wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

thats the set im avoiding for now, since the purpose of that type of arbok is different. i guess ill just say it; the partner will be a pokemon with the ability simple, therefore stockpile will be better than normal. and intimidate will lower the opponents attack even more. if it does not work out well i am going to make a shed skin one eventually, but not yet. the full point isnt for arbok to last forever, but to make use of the extra defense long enough to cover the simple pokemon while it gets its stats up. therefore even 1 turn of sleep would make my strategy all the harder to pull off.

o and not every stockpile pokemon needs instant recovery... those are meant to be walls, this is a tank

That won't work... simple applies only to bidoof/barel and numel... not to their partner

IE they will hit your arbok for 66% damage but will hit your simple poke for 50%... if I understand simple correctly

Or vice versa if the simple poke has 2, say, cosmic powers under its belt it gets 33% damage done to it. However if arbok has 2 stockpiles it will be hit for 50% damage.

Least I think that's how simple works...

actually no, simple affects every pokemon on the field

It does? I've never heard about that. Are you sure?

And, if it affects all Pokemon on the field, this could be bad if your opponent uses stat-upping moves.

in all my battles it seems to appear that way... ive had an nfe team where my sunkern was able to sweep after 1 SD with a bidoof partner. ive had a shiftry have SpA of huge proportions since he used Nasty Plot 3 times. perhaps im wrong and these pokemon are just naturally strong, but in my experience i have no other explanation

that must be it
because i know from experience that it only affects the poke with simple

Darkravenn12 wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

CaseyR wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

Gastrotress wrote:

saxman1324 wrote:

thats the set im avoiding for now, since the purpose of that type of arbok is different. i guess ill just say it; the partner will be a pokemon with the ability simple, therefore stockpile will be better than normal. and intimidate will lower the opponents attack even more. if it does not work out well i am going to make a shed skin one eventually, but not yet. the full point isnt for arbok to last forever, but to make use of the extra defense long enough to cover the simple pokemon while it gets its stats up. therefore even 1 turn of sleep would make my strategy all the harder to pull off.

o and not every stockpile pokemon needs instant recovery... those are meant to be walls, this is a tank

That won't work... simple applies only to bidoof/barel and numel... not to their partner

IE they will hit your arbok for 66% damage but will hit your simple poke for 50%... if I understand simple correctly

Or vice versa if the simple poke has 2, say, cosmic powers under its belt it gets 33% damage done to it. However if arbok has 2 stockpiles it will be hit for 50% damage.

Least I think that's how simple works...

actually no, simple affects every pokemon on the field

It does? I've never heard about that. Are you sure?

And, if it affects all Pokemon on the field, this could be bad if your opponent uses stat-upping moves.

in all my battles it seems to appear that way... ive had an nfe team where my sunkern was able to sweep after 1 SD with a bidoof partner. ive had a shiftry have SpA of huge proportions since he used Nasty Plot 3 times. perhaps im wrong and these pokemon are just naturally strong, but in my experience i have no other explanation

that must be it
because i know from experience that it only affects the poke with simple

if that is true, then i am very surprised but im still going to be skeptical about it. lets stop getting off topic though, overall, tankbuster arbok, good idea or not?

Bad idea, arbok is just a bad pokemon

The Average Battler wrote:

Bad idea, arbok is just a bad pokemon

care to explain at all?

The Average Battler wrote:

Bad idea, arbok is just a bad pokemon

actually
it can be a pretty good defense wall
as quoted from smogon: "With these EVs and Intimidate, Arbok actually takes physical hits better than Weezing (albeit with a Ground type weakness)."
anyway. back on topic
i think it might work
maybe give it toxic, eq, stockpile, and gunk shot/seed bomb

saxman1324 wrote:

The Average Battler wrote:

Bad idea, arbok is just a bad pokemon

care to explain at all?

It's stats are awefull and it's move pool isnt great at all. Cradily could do this and not be forced out by roar.

Simple only effects the user: http://www.smogon.com/dp/abilities/simple