What is the best special sweeper for single battles in the battle tree?
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○ (Glalie) @ LeftoversAbility: MoodyEVs: 172 HP / 140 SpA / 4 Sp. Def / 136 SpeTimid Nature- Substitute- Protect- Frost Breath- Taunt
For the time being, I’ve struck a deal that allows my team to escape death. My punishment from the Pokegods? Being forced to continually push an ice-covered boulder up the mountain (er, Tree). I’ve got it pretty good compared to Sisyphus though since Moody’s very nature means that each step backward is accompanied by two steps forward.
At the Leftovers number of 177 HP, a Glalie behind a Sub at full health has 16 turns of safe Sub/Protect stalling against a faster opponent that can break its substitute every turn. In those 16 turns, Glalie has the opportunity to transform into a wall with bulk that puts Mega Aggron’s or Cresselia’s to shame, a nuke with a Frost Breath that deals twice as much damage as a Glaceon Blizzard, a blinding speedster that outruns an Accelgor with Unburden activated, a cheap piece of crap that dodges multiple attacks, or something in between - all as it wastes the PP of the opponent’s strongest attack(s) against it. More often than not, the AI chooses an inaccurate super-effective attack when the 100% accurate STAB would have done the trick, neutralizes itself with recoil damage or stat drops, or provides Glalie a free substitute through use of a status move.
Glalie has enough Speed EVs to move before Scarf Tsareena at +1, which can give Glalie a few more chances to KO it from behind a Sub rather than forcing it to KO itself by High Jump Kicking into Protect. If you’re here reading about strategies for the Battle Tree, you don’t need to be told too many times about the usefulness of moving first and throwing up a Sub. The 4 EVs in Special Defense prevent a OHKO if Primarina-4 gets a max damage critical hit Sparkling Aria. I wanted Glalie’s Frost Breath to be able to 2HKO Mega Metagross at +5 and may have been willing to drop a little Speed to make that happen, but fortunately putting the remaining EVs in Special Attack accomplishes just that. This Glalie has 88 Attack, which corresponds to about a 26 IV; now that I think of it I could level it up and Hyper Train, but the main point there is that a situation where you need to do some damage with Struggle is significantly more likely than Glalie dealing with confusion in the first place, so 31 is preferable to 0 if you’re going for one with 6 IVs.
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