What is a good moveset for Nidoking?
If you have a good competitive moveset for Nidoking,post an answer below and upvote the best ones. Movesets for any of its pre-evolutions can also be shared on this thread.
Be sure to includefull set details in your post, e.g. items, abilities, natures and EVs. Some detail, including the intended game mode for your set, is also appreciated.Access the full list of guidelines here.
Nidoking Pokédex and learnsetfor reference.
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Gen V
Nidoking (M) @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpeTimid Nature- Earth Power- Ice Beam- Thunderbolt- Flamethrower
Just an incredible sweeper. Sheer Force and Life Orb (which has no recoil) make Nidoking do a ton of damage. You’ll also be hitting pretty much every foe for neutral or super-effective damage. This thing tears through Pokemon in UU.
Nidoking (M) @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpeJolly Nature / Adamant Nature- Earthquake / Bulldoze- Thunder Punch / Rock Slide- Ice Punch / Fire Punch- Poison Jab
Nidoking@ Life OrbAbility:Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpeModest Nature / Timid Nature- Substitute- Earth Power- Sludge Wave- Ice Beam
I’ve been using this set for a while now and it hasn’t failed to make an impact in battle yet. I actually preferModestnature toTimidjust because his Special Attack Isn’t great and needs all the boosts it can get. I feel as if he can exploit his Special Attacking move pool better than his Psychical Attacking moves.
This works best when you can switch in on a Pokemon vulnerable toNidokingor manage to get a free switch and then set up aSubnow you’re guaranteed a free hit on something and if you’re runningTimidmaybe two free hits.Nidokingalso benefits a lot fromSticky Websupport but he manages without it as well.
DualSTABEarth Power + Sludge Wavealso exploitSheer Force. You could runThunderboltbut I preferIce Beamjust to hitFlying DragonsandGliscor. All of his moves are boosted 30% bySheer Forceand on top of that another 30% fromLife Orb. However you will want to keep in mindNidokingis a ‘glass cannon’ so don’t try switching him in on an attack even if it’s neutral as he’ll take big damage and won’t be able toSub. He prefers free switch ins.
Role: Mixed King
Nidoking (M) @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 144 Atk / 108 SpA / 252 SpeMild Nature- Earthquake- Sucker Punch- Sludge Wave- Hidden Power [Grass]
Okay, With the Ev’s in that manner, he has equal Attacking Stats.
Sheer Force Boosts Sludge Wave into Pretty monstrous Power to anything that Nidoking is Hitting Neutral Damage on.
Earthquake Takes out Poison and Steel Which he Can’t use Sludge Wave on.
Sucker Punch is a Form of Priority used to hit Psychics before they can hit him.
And hidden power Grass takes out Water types and Other Grounds. Plus Rock types like Rhyperior with insane Defense, that Earthquake wouldn’t do great agaisn’t.
Gen III
Nidoking (M) @ LeftoversAbility: Poison PointEVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 56 Def / 72 SpDBrave Nature- Substitute- Focus Punch- Earthquake- Shadow Ball
Why not a sub puncher?Same coverage as The Queen, only he isn’t choiced, and doesn’t have Poison STAB. Big deal.
He’s got the bulk for Substitute, and from there you can Sub punch, and if he someone doesn’t break your sub, or heck. Tries to set up. You’ve got a good 2 or 3 kills on your hands.
Earthquake is STAB, and Shadow Ball is coverage against Gengar mainly, but others aswell.
Double/Triple Battle
Nidoking (M) @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 100 Atk / 156 SpA / 252 SpeNaive Nature- Sludge Wave- Rock Slide- Earthquake- Blizzard
Same moveset as Nidoqueen, but with different EVs, nature, and item due to being faster and having better offensive stats. Nidoqueen was amazing, Nidoking is even more amazing. Earthquake and Rock Slide as always are amazing in multi-battles, with Earthquake getting STAB and Rock Slide Sheer Force. Blizzard hits multiple Pokemon and is boosted by Sheer Force. Sludge Wave gets STAB, hits multiple Pokemon, and is boosted by Sheer Force. An incredible mixed sweeper and one of the best Pokemon for a multi-battle.
GRAVITY!!!
Nidoking (M) @ Life Orb / Choice ScarfAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpeTimid Nature / Modest Nature- Blizzard- Fire Blast- Thunder- Earth Power
Nidoking frickin' loves Gravity support. 100% accurate Blizzard, Thunder, and Fire Blast. Earth Power that hits levitators and Flyings? Hell yeah, Nidoking is simply the best Pokemon to use in Gravity. It evens trumps Regice. Just put it on a team with a Regi, Cressalia, Chansey, you know, the bulky guys that can keep on using it when it runs out. Use Modest with Scarf, Timid with Orb btw.
Nidoking @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpeJolly Nature- Posion Jab- Fire Punch- Thunder Punch- Ice Punch
This moveset is good, is powered by Sheer Force and by Life Orb. A lot of people will train in SpA for some reason I don’t know why is only good on ATK. So yeah this is the moveset.
Nidoking @ Choice ScarfAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpeAdamant Nature- Poison Jab- Earthquake- Rock Slide- Ice Punch / Fire Punch
Ok, So this is an interesting Choice scarf set. I used it on my Mono-poison team, though, like most Nidoking, it can fit anywhere. Poison Jab is the Sheer Force boosted STAB. Although not Sheer force boosted, Earthquake is, well, EQ. And a STAB one at that. Rock Slide hits a few types, Flying- being notable. Finally, Fire Punch hits Skarmory and Ferrothorn hard, while Ice punch nails Dragon-types and Gliscor for the super effective hit. Works wells with a Baton Passed Swords Dance.
Standard Nidoking with a bit of a twist.
Nidoking @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 SpeNaive Nature- Earth Power- Flamethrower- Thunderbolt-Sucker Punch
Now, Sucker Punch off of Nidoking’s high Attack allows for a lot of revenge kills that the opponent wouldn’t suspect. Picture they’ve got a weakened Crobat and you have Nidoking in. You’ve already established you’re not Scarf, and he’s about to go for the kill with Brave Bird when WHAM. A Sucker Punch to the face.
Gen 6 UU/OU Wallbreaker
Nidoking is my all-time favorite Pokemon in the entire franchise. I can’t play through Fire Red / Leaf Green without it. With it being such a great addition to my playthrough teams I had always assumed it had to be amazing competitively. Sadly, Nidoking isn’t given the arsenal to keep up with many top tier threats like Mega Metagross, Landorus-T, etc. That being said, in the right hands, it can be an extremely big threat in hundreds of situations when played correctly. It is often a very prediction reliant Pokemon so it works well with those who have a fair amount of competitive experience. I’ve been using Nidoking competitively ever since I started the competitive scene and I believe this set to be the most effective for Generation 6. I’ve found that it works somewhat similarly in some of the newer titles, but with a shifting meta game the results may vary.
Nidoking (M) @ Life Orb / LeftoversAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpeAdamant Nature / Jolly Nature- Earthquake- Poison Jab- Ice Punch- Sucker Punch / Fire Punch / Thunder Punch / Substitute
This is a physical Nidoking moveset that utilizes the buff to the Attack stat that it received from Generation 6 onward. Most commonly, you will see people use a special Nidoking set due to the fact that its special movepool takes advantage of its ability Sheer Force better than most of it’s physical movepool. Since this is the more common variant for this Pokemon I have found that, at times, using a physical set may catch an opponent off guard. A special wall with frail physical defense does NOT want to switch into a Poison Jab. With that little explanation out of the way, let’s go over the moveset.
Earthquake
Unfortunately, Nidoking lacks a great physical ground-type move that gets a boost from Sheer Force. This is part of the reason people opt for special Nidoking who uses a boosted Earth Power. Despite that, Earthquake sits at a base power of 100 which is still fair enough to punch some holes into the other team. More often than not, you’ll be using Poison Jab as your go-to stab option either way. Earthquake scares off common threats such as Heatran, Magnezone, and it even threatens Metagross if it hasn’t Mega Evolved yet.
Poison Jab
As mentioned before, this is your go-to stab move. Poison Jab is nearly guaranteed to drop off a target that is weak to poison, and put a sizable dent into neutral targets. This move is a terror for Clefable. Only once or twice have I seen a fully invested physically defensive Clefable live from a Poison Jab; even at full HP! Jab also causes problems for Breloom if it hasn’t put up a substitute yet.
Ice Punch
This is a very important move for Nidoking mainly due to the threat of Landorus-T, Garchomp and Gliscor. The way you decide to use Ice Punch will vary based on the sets being used, so if possible you may want to try and figure that out first with a few switches. All of these threats, most commonly Lando-T, feel very comfortable switching into Poison Jab due to the fact that they take absolutely pitiful amounts of damage from it. While this may seem like a weakness at first, you can exploit this over confidence with Ice Punch. Even after an Intimidate drop, Ice Punch(Life Orb)will commonly OHKO all before mentioned threats with the exception of Lando-T and Gliscor if they are max HP/Def. Without the drop from Intimidate, both are OHKO’d. How to prevent the drop will be mentioned later.
- Sucker Punch- Fire Punch- Thunder Punch- Substitute
Your last move slot has a lot of room for preference. I believe Ice Punch is not interchangeable due to the important threats it can check. The other punches, however, can be selected to fit the needs of the rest of your team. Sucker Punch is very useful for handling fast psychic-types such as Alakazam, Latias and Latios, Mega Metagross, Azelf, etc. It’s also great for finishing off other quick low health threats. Fire Punch has quite a bit of use in OU as well. It deals massive damage to Ferrothorn, Scizor, and although it may not deal huge heaps of damage to Skarmory, it’s a decent move to deal a bit of damage and put some pressure on it. Thunder Punch has slightly less use than some of the other options, but still has it’s occasional uses. It can put some decent sized dents into bulky water types and may catch flying-types neutral to Ice Punch off guard. Examples of this may include Talonflame, Skarmory, and Gyarados. Lastly, we have Substitute. As mentioned before, there is an option you may use to avoid the drop from Intimidate users such as Landorus-T. Substitute! This may take a bit of prediction to use properly as Landorus could switch in as you go for a Substitute and give you a drop anyway, but I can say it’s worked well for me a number of times. However, if you can’t escape intimidate, no worries! Congratulations! You have protection from Substitute now! You may not OHKO your intended target but you’ll still be unleashing a heavy load of damage onto them if they decide to stay. Substitute works very well for those without a great sense of prediction since it gives you a bit of a safety net if you make the wrong move. This is also where(Leftovers)comes into play. While you can use Leftovers without Substitute, I highly recommend using it exclusively with this move included. You’ll be losing a fair amount of HP every time you set up a Substitute so Leftovers is almost a must. You may be sacrificing a bit of damage output, but I promise that it’s worth it.
Conclusion
As it has been mentioned multiple times already, Nidoking is a very prediction reliant Pokemon. Whether you use an Adamant nature or a Jolly nature is up to you. Adamant is usually my go-to since you’re not out speeding too many important threats with a Jolly nature. No need to give up power if you don’t need to! When in the hands of an experienced player it can become a monstrous threat. Give this set a try and practice your prediction making as you use it. In the end, you may find that Nidoking has become one of your new favorite Pokemon just as he is mine! Overall, Nidoking is an incredibly fun Pokemon to use and I think you’ll enjoy experimenting with him. Hope this helps everyone!
Gen 8 BDSP OU
This set is for the BDSP OU format on Pokemon Showdown.
Nidoking @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 SpeTimid Nature- Earth Power- Sludge Wave- Ice Beam- Focus Punch
Nidoking is a very strong wallbreaker with sheer force and life orb. It is reccomended to use it with webs support, as one of the best ways to beat is outspeed and ko it, and webs puts a wrench into that. Smeargle is one of the best mons for this purpose, as it also learns Spore, Nuzzle and Stealth Rock. It fits best on webs hyper offense teams. Moves boosted by sheer force cause no life orb recoil.
Earth Power and Sludge Wave are strong stab moves. Ice Beam hits dragons like Garchomp and Dragonite very hard. DragMag is a common strategy in BDSP OU at present. Focus Punch is this set’s main innovation. It hits mons like Blissey and Chansey very hard. If you catch Blissey on the switch with it, it allows other special sweepers like Mew and Alakazam to run wild.
4 Atk Life Orb Nidoking Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 517-611 (72.4 - 85.5%) – guaranteed 2HKO
Checks and counters
Nidoking @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpeJolly Nature-Earthquake-Ice Punch-Thunder Punch-Fire Punch/Sucker Punch
EarthquakeisSTAB.IceandThunder PunchareBoltBeam coverage.Fire Punchis coverage whileSucker Punchis priority. This set withoutSucker Punchis the physical version of the special based Nidoking I use. This guy is just awesome.
This is absolutely the best special set for Nidoking out there. I use it as a lead on my team because it covers so many types.
Nidoking @ Choice ScarfAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpeModest Nature- Earth Power- Ice Beam- Fire Blast- Thunderbolt
STAB, coverage, coverage, and more coverage!
Yes, I know special Nidoking is better than physical. And that Sheer Force Nidoking outclasses every other Nidoking. But here’s a set that goes with the latter on both.
Nidoking @ Lum BerryAbility: Poison PointEVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpeJolly Nature- Hone Claws- Focus Energy- Stone Edge- Drill Run
This set takes a sort of Double Dance approach. Hone Claws boosts attack and accuracy, as both attacks tend to miss. Focus Energy makes it so that you will get a crit every time with those moves. Sticky Web support is vital, as Nidoking is quite slow.
Nidoking @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer forceEVS: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpeAdamant Nature / Jolly Nature- Megahorn- Thunder Punch- Earthquake- Poison Jab / Venoshock
Megahorn for those pesky Psychic-typesThunder Punch for most typesEarthquake: Do I have to explain this onePoison Jab / Venoshock for if your running a Poison Point Nidoking Venoshock gets a boost
Hope this set helps you.
For a Nidoking with NO weakness this is the way to go.
Nidoking @ King’s RockAbility: Poison PointEVs: 128 HP / 200 Atk / 180 SpeBrave Nature- Iron Tail- Megahorn- Ice Punch- Thunder Punch
Iron Tail - Ice-type weaknessMegahorn - Psychic-type weaknessIce Punch - Ground-type weaknessThunder Punch - Water-type weakness
Nidoking (M) @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 SpeNaive Nature- Thunderbolt- Superpower- Shadow Claw- Sludge Wave
This is my Nidoking set:
Beast (Nidoking) @ Life OrbAbility: Sheer ForceShiny: YesEVs: 8 HP / 248 Atk / 252 SpeAdamant Nature- Earthquake- Thunderbolt- Ice Beam- Sludge Bomb
I know it may be a really common set, but I wanted to use this one because of Life Orb so he would have some extra HP so it can use a move an extra turn before it gets knocked out even though it’s pretty sturdy. Good attacker and all out attacker set. Would recommend this set for Life Orb so you have that extra HP.
Nidoking @ Life Orb / Choice BandAbility: Sheer ForceEVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 SpeAdamant Nature- Earthquake- Poison Jab- Ice Punch- Megahorn / Superpower / Rock Slide
Earthquake - Reliable STAB, hits 5 types super effectivelyPoison Jab - Reliable STAB as wellIce Punch - Hits annoying Flying-types that are immune to your earthquakeMegahorn / Superpower / Rock Slide - Megahorn and Superpower hit Dark-types, while Rock Slide hits Moltres for 4x super effective damage.
Earthquake hits a lot of things for super effective damage, such as Mega Aggron, Bisharp, Darmanitan, and pretty much everything that’s a Poison-, Steel-, Fire-, Rock-, and Electric-types.
Poison Jab is just reliable STAB, hits Amoongus and Celebi for neutral damage (Earthquake might be a more reliable option, especially on Amoongus).
Ice Punch hits Mega Pigeot and Kommo-o, and hits Amoongus, but again Earthquake is probably better.Megahorn, high base power, and hits Alolan Muk, but again Earthquake is better, also hits Mega Sharpedo, don’t know why you’d keep Nidoking in against a Mega Sharpedo though.
Superpower another option instead of Megahorn, 100% accurate, but lowers your Attack and Defense after using it, hits against the same Pokémon as Megahorn, but also hits Mamoswine, but Earthquake is better.
Lastly, an alternate option for Megahorn or Superpower, and personally my favorite, Rock Slide, KOes Moltres.
-RainbowSheep
Hope this helped :D
