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What's with the bad Breloom sets?

Wings Don't Cry

Maybe she's born with it
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  • So recently I've played a lot of OU battles where my opponents have been running Brelooms with Poison Heal, Substitute, Drain Punch and Rock Slide. So what exactly does this weird set do because it dies to everything and is out sped by the entire tier?
     

    ddrox13

    Anti-Nonsense
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  • SubPunch Breloom has been a thing since Gen 4 and is personally my favorite Breloom set, as Breloom can force switches due to the threat of Spore or Technician Mach Punch and get a free Spore on the switch-in. Spore generally forces another switch, during which time you can push Substitute, then allowing you to get a Focus Punch of with little resistance bar Hyper Voice. And Focus Punch does a crapton of damage. Rock Slide seems to be the new thing (I have yet to test this myself), as setting up a Substitute on Talonflame, who LOVES to switch into Breloom, means you are free to net the OHKO on Talon at the low cost of losing your Sub. Poison Heal and Toxic Orb help deal with the Substitute damage. Obviously it needs a HUGE amount of team support, as it basically needs Rocks to be up, all as well as Fighting-resists and Grass types to be dead.

    Relevant calcs:
    252 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 650-768 (101.2 - 119.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
    252 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 223-264 (75 - 88.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
    252 Atk Breloom Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y: 404-476 (136 - 160.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
    252 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Excadrill: 738-870 (204.4 - 240.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
    252 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 330-390 (93.7 - 110.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
    252 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 468-552 (121.2 - 143%) -- guaranteed OHKO
    252 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Keldeo: 267-315 (82.6 - 97.5%) -- 25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
    252+ Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Keldeo: 292-345 (90.4 - 106.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
    252 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 226-267 (93.7 - 110.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
    -1 252+ Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Manectric: 214-253 (76.1 - 90%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
    252 Atk Breloom Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Talonflame: 432-512 (145.4 - 172.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
    252 Atk Breloom Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Thundurus: 220-260 (73.5 - 86.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
    And everything else that is weak to Fighting in OU dies as well. Most of those were Jolly, the M-Mane and second Keld calcs were Adamant. I didn't include any 2HKOes either, because that is basically everything that doesn't resist Fighting and run a good amount of bulk (even Mega Gallade is a 2HKO).
     

    ddrox13

    Anti-Nonsense
    1,650
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  • I can't read, sorry. Oh well, SubPunch is amazing. Drain Punch is a great move on something that is either fast or bulky
     
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  • Presumably Drain Punch and Substitute are there to aid with longevity, if it is able to switch into a decent position. Poison Heal also does this. It could be quite efficient if it were brought in later on or substituted in. Generally speaking, the overall point seems fairly clear in a way - it begins with Poison Heal and goes on from there to other moves which either take advantage of this, like Substitute, or complement it like Drain Punch. Rock Slide, as noted, might be in part due to flying types and so on. Generally speaking, Drain Punch is likely assuming that it's used against opponents who are Rock type or otherwise weak to fighting attacks, where it will be more effective, and if it gives passive damage or they switch out then it does have a useful healing effect. Obviously, it isn't mostly designed for giving significant neutral damage, but it does help keep certain opposing types weak over the course of a battle, and has a decent chance of surviving common general attacks like Earthquake. Since Breloom is in part used due to its being a useful Pokémon for type coverage and ruling out several attacks against it as well as being effective against several prominent types, that people try to keep it going over the course of a battle needn't be that surprising.

    Whether or not it's maladjusted to Breloom itself, the moveset itself does have some sense, it just might not be applied to the right Pokémon.
     
    3,419
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  • They're running drain punch not Focus Punch even when they're behind a sub.

    Breloom's a Pokemon with a lot of utility, with Poison Heal, Technician, Mach Punch, SubPunch, DrainSubSeed all being viable options. Obviously it's not surprising that people are going to test and see which sets are the best for the current metagame. Sounds like Drain Punch/Sub/Rock Slide could be a decently OK way to deal with popular sets at the moment like Talon and Specs Volcanion if it's been weakened and SR is up, Both are very popular Pokemon in the most recent ORAS meta, so people might just be trying to adapt to new shifts and patterns in the competitive scene. Also, Technician variants have run a set that looks like Spore/Bullet Seed/Mach Punch/Rock Tomb instead of SD or Sub or Leech Seed, so Rock Slide is the logical Poison Heal option.
     
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