DPPt/HGSS Ninjask

[sgtspontaneous]

I spent a little bit looking at all the Ubers, and found with the exception of Palkia, you can get a super effective hit with Ice, Bug, Electric, and Fighting.

Gallade w/
Ice Punch
X-Scissor
Thunderpunch
Close Combat

Ninjask Baton Passing Speed and attack boosts could wreck the uber tier, but I want to know opinions on 4 moves that Ninjask can use to definitely stay alive to BP. Namely, preventing KO, Taunt, etc.

Protect - 1st turn, get a free speed boost. Is this enough to outrun Deoxys-E? If not, how do I prevent Deoxys-E's taunt?

Substitute - A buffer of course, or could be passed on, after some speed boosts, I would want one or two sword dances to pass to Gallade.

Swords Dance - Duh, to get Gallade's attack stat up like crazy and get a super effective hit on nearly everything in uber.

and Baton Pass, what problems would I run into with this set? If I get taunted, I'm finished.

Assume I'm holding a focus sash with Jolly Nature and 252 ev's with 31 iv's. The only thing that can outspeed me is Deoxys-E or a Choiced's Ninjask. Thoughts? Add Smeargle in there too?

 

[Gary Walsh]

Hmm, like you said, Taunt really runs this particular set over. I think you've over saturated the set with too many support options to the point where Ninjask itself becomes somewhat of a deadweight, because remember not only are you susceptible to Taunt, you're prime setup bait as well -- definitely not a good thing when you have contenders like Groudon and Garchomp running around that'll make you pay big time in the mid-game, when they can OHKO walls like Lugia with ease after a single Attack boost (not to mention the plethora of non-Ubers that get access to boosting moves, whether or not they have general usage as leads). But you have the right idea with Ninjask's support options. You might want to try breaking down your set into one of these two:

@ Liechi Berry/Leftovers
EV's: 226 ATK/108 DFN/176 SPD
Jolly nature
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- X-Scissor
- Baton Pass

You'll have to sacrifice one of your scouting options, but the gains you get from X-Scissor are well worth it. For one thing it provides an instant check on Deoxys and Darkrai, where you'd be able to take on Deoxys-A one-on-one if it decided to stay in (Extremespeed actually doesn't KO if you run that listed EV spread), which would ultimately make the match 6-5 and leaves you with a few Speed boosts already. The only problem I would see is that Deoxys-S would still be able to set up Stealth Rock on the first turn regardless of whether or not you ran X-Scissor, which would render Ninjask finished to a large extent if for some reason you needed it as an asset during the late game (if you had to pick off another Psychic or Dark sweeper, for example). And, I didn't list it because I'm assuming Gallade is the sole BP recipient, but you could swap out Swords Dance for Protect if you were focused on accommodating both physical/special ends, because it guarantees at least one Speed boost somewhere along the line, and lets Ninjask not only scout, but outrun a number of Scarfed threats by having that single boost. The Liechi Berry would probably work nicely for Gallade's purposes, giving it enough sting on the non-STAB moves to make them useful for neutral attacks (remember that while the large coverage looks enticing , a neutral Close Combat is still going to be more powerful than a 2x super effective Ice Punch/X-Scissor/T-Punch when you factor in STAB -- in fact I'd even go so far as to recommend you didn't use Thunderpunch at all, since Gyarados is seldom used in Ubers. If you gave Gallade an Expert Belt, T-Punch would have a lot of value for countering Kyogre and Manaphy, but the Speed boosts make Life Orb a foolproof option 99% of the time). Leftovers is more for if you think you’re going to be in for the long haul or if you’re looking for more opportunities to pass a sub (though Ninjask subs are kind of frail to begin with, you wouldn’t have to worry about slipping Gallade in for the sweep).

Another option, which I’ve used on my Platinum team (recreated on Shoddy for the simulator metagame too) to great success is to get rid of Substitute altogether for more of a risk/reward oriented setup:

-Swords Dance
-Protect
-X-Scissor
-Baton Pass

For this set, you can dump all the EV's into ATK and SPD -- I run a Focus Sash, because in a metagame that is relatively devoid of Sandstorm/Hail thanks to Kyogre/Groudon/Rayquaza, you can pretty much ensure a Swords Dance boost gets in, so long as there’s no priority around. The main problem of course is boosting opponents (like the aforementioned Groudon/Garchomp/etc.) that can run all over you if you predict unsuccessfully and Protect during a boost, as well as the potential free switch-in by this same token. It takes a bit more -- I wouldn’t necessarily say skill, but intuition to use effectively, by nature of the fact that you have to improvise based on your particular opponent (I know a lot of times if I’m going up against a Scizor I’ll just abandon the plan and switch out altogether...), unlike the more “cookbook-esque” style of play the Sub set has -- but if you play it right, the benefits (for Attack boosts in particular) become much more helpful for Gallade, the end result.

Hope this helps ... Really the only other move I've put up for consideration is X-Scissor, but hopefully a full blown semi-analysis can't hurt... too much. I didn't realize how much I wrote, haha ...