[Guide] [Competitive] Tracton

[crulla]

Hello everyone, my name is crulla and I will be your guide on using the "Crane Beast Pokemon","That sonova b**** in Sheldon's Gym",  properly known as Tracton.
Let's Steel our way into this (pun intended). I choose you,Tracton!!!




Tracton
Base Stat:
HP:85.
Attack:110.
Defense:70.
Special Attack:50.
Special Defense:80.
Speed:100.
Abilities:Speed Boost/Motor Drive/Analytic.
 
 OVERVIEW:

  Not much of a Special Attacker, but that Attack is decent. Shame it's 100 Speed is average. Well, it's typing is pretty good, being the few rare Steel type to (somewhat) survive a Nucleon Hyper Voice, and a great STAB combination doesn't hurt. Not learning EQ sucks, but being the only thing in the wide land of Tandor to learn Shift Gear does wonders to it's overrall usefulness. Furthermore, a wide arrangement of moves, including the Elemental Fangs, Drill Run, Stealth Rock, Knock Off, etc really helps its viability.
 
  Perhaps, it's greatest selling point lies in the ever helpful Speed Boost ability. If you don't remember, Speed Boost increses it's Speed every turn by 1.5 .It's ability turns it into a mediocre 'Mon to a terrifying speed demon that have the ability to revenge most things after a turn, which gives it a Speed stat of 492 and counting every turn afterwards, outspeeding (M-)Inflagetahs after 1(2) turn and both Archlleses after a mere turn. Coupled with 110 Attack stat, and you've gotten yourself a killing machine (pun intended again).
 
It's other Ability, Motor Drive, is situational at best. Can be used on Yatagaryu teams, but other than that, a big no-no. Analytic is good for increased damage, and is especially good because Tracton can force a ton of switches(ehehe...),  but if you don't use it as an attacker or have damage boosting moves then Speed Boost is better.
 
 SETS:

 Sword Dance
Tracton @ Life Orb
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spd/4 Sp.Def
Jolly/Amadant Nature
-Sword Dance/Protect
-Iron Head
-Dragon Claw/Outrage
-Drill Run/Elemental Fang/Knock Off

 This set is standard for Tracton. Maximzed Atk and Spd allows it to move and hit as fast as possible. Nature is your preferance: Jolly for the fastest possible, outspeeding all but M-Inflagetah in 1 turn, while Amadant helps it to hit as strong a truck crane(don't shoot me!). Item is ,again, your preference, although I prefer Life Orb.

 Sword Dance is quite mandatory and the core of this set, because that Atk boost is phenomenal, but Protect also works very well, due to it's disapoinment of a bulk. Iron Head and Dragon Claw is good STAB, although Outrage is also wonderful, because of the higher BP it offers, even if Confusion is quite worrying. The fourth move is on you, but I like Drill Run, because Ground is an amazing coverage type, Elemental Fang is to hit those pesky checks, and Knock Off is.. well, Knock Off. It's good.

Anti-Lead
Tracton @ Lefovers/Focus Sash
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 96 Atk/252 Spd/160 HP
Jolly Nature
-Stealth Rock
-Taunt
-Iron Head/Dragon Claw/Outrage
-Knock Off/Elemental Fangs/Drill Run/Super Fang
 Who knew Tracton can have such a good leading movepool? Leftovers is here because Tracton doesn't have healing, and Focus Sash is there to let Tracton suvive something and set up rocks, but anything else is fine though. 'Nuff said about Speed Boost. EVs and nature are like this so Tracton is super fast so it can Taunt the unsuspecting Lead and set rocks up.
 Stealth Rock is the main reason to use Tracton, alongside that delicious Spd and Taunt. Dragon Claw/Outrage/Iron Head are solid STABs. Super Fang and Knock Off can be used to great effect. Coverage is coverage.

All Out Attacker:
Tracton @ Choice Band/Assult Vest(when it's here)/Choice Scarf
Ability: Speed Boost/Analytic
EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spd/4 Sp.Def or 248 Hp/252 Atk/8 Sp.Def
Jolly/Amadant Nature
-Drill Run
-Iron Head
-Dragon Claw/Outrage
-Elemental Fang/Knock Off

 This set focuses on power and coverage, being able to hit a wide range of things rather than set up and OHKO things and get killed if not careful. Choice Band and Amadant can be used for Tractons that run Speed Boost, because that extra power is crucial. If using Analytic, however, a Choice Scarf along with Jolly is needed to ouspeed everything relevant unboosted that isn't M-Inflagetah when staying in. Yes, that sounds kinda counter-intutiative, but hear me this: Analytic boosts are not worth Tracton dying,due to the subpar Defenses. However, if you are making Tracton more of a Pivot and/or set-up/switch punisher, then a Choice Band and fairly bulky EVs are required, but I wouldn't recommend it. If running Speed Boost, then Atk and Spd should be maximized.
 Iron Head and Dragon Claw/Outrage is a must because they are the most reliable STAB you can find, although Outrage users must beware of Confusion, as it can really ruin your day. Drill Run is also a must, because Ground coverage is mandatory on everything that gets it. The fouth moveslot is your choice: the Elemental Fangs offer great coverage options, while Knock Off removes the item of the foe, effectively crippling it.
 
Sub-Blaze
Tracton @ Lefovers
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk/8 Sp.Def/248 HP
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Substiute
- Iron Head/Dragon Claw/Outrage
- Toxic/Sword Dance

Thanks tarutaru and Cactaclyptic for helping me.
Remember Blaziken in Ubers? Now in Tandor, with a new look: Tracton. The Crane Beast Pokemon has the best thing that Blazikens have: Speed Boost, coupled with better speed and bulk. Leftovers is here to help Tracton recover lost health after Substituting. EVs like that and Amadant really helps it, as it needs to hit like a truck and have relatively good HP to get a strong Subs on the field.
 Protect and Substitute is pretty self-explainatory and Iron Head/Dragon Claw is always good due to it being solid STAB, if not a bit weak. Toxic is quite good, proven by Blaziken and Gliscor when coupled with Protect and Substitute. Outrage is an increase in BP if you need to, but not as good as the aformentioned moves. If you have Toxic Spikes support-which is always better than wasting a moveslot on on it-then go for Sword Dance, sine boosted Atk is almost always a good thing.

OTHER OPINIONS:
 X-Scissors: It's coverage.. I guess? Hits Grass-types and...that's it. Not worth it if you aren't desperate.
 Shadow Claw: Exactly like X-Scissors.
 Aerial Ace: Again, X-Scissors, but somewhat better due to the Fighting weakness, but still, no.
CHECKS AND COUNTERS:
 Fast/Bulky Ground-Types: Can ahinnilate Tracton in a blink of an eye with Earth Power/Earthquake. Must be beware of Ice Fang.
 Fast Fighting-Types: Can ahinnilate Tracton in a blink of an eye with Close Combat/Aura Sphere/Hi Jump Kick/etc.
 Bulky Water-types: Survives anything Tracton can do and whittle it down with Super Effective moves. Must be wary of Thunder Fang.
 Steel-types: Survives anything Tracton can do and whittle it down with Super Effective moves. Must be wary of Drill Run and Fire Fang.
Inflagetah: Can take down Tracton given it's sufficently weakend. Must be wary of Drill Run.
TEAM OPINIONS:
 Grass types with Flying/Fairy/Psychic coverage can be extremely helpful, with Coatlith and Whimsicott comes to mind. Something that appriciates the removal of Fairies , and removes the pesky Grounds,Steels,Fightings are good partners, like Dunseprah with EQ or Flamethrower.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Have a good day!

All helps are apricciated!
-----------------------------------------------------------------NOTE----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the bad rep this get, I will lock down this thread ( or at least try to). I'm sorry this is such a bad analysis and I will improve my skills on writing these and make other analysis on Pokemons that is not too noticable(or bad) when 1.0.4 comes out. I will not delete it because I want to put this as a example on how bad it can get.
@poweroftibarn, remove this thread from the compedium please. And if anyone wants their shot to analyze this Pokemon, do it.

[Dragonstrike]

Well, I was going to say something about checking the analysis compendium first, but I was surprised to find out nobody had taken Tracton yet! I'll leave a reminder here anyways though to check the analysis compendium first though before writing these, and tell poweroftibarn that you're going to do an analysis on that pokemon so he can keep the list updated. If you want to do an analysis on a mon that's already been taken, ask the person who has it on their list if you can before you start as well.

Now, concerning the analysis itself, I have a few comments:

-Sitrus berry is good only for super fast paced environments, and only on semi-bulky mons that aim to do some damage and avoid getting killed in a crucial moment. For bulkier varieties, leftovers is far better because of its long term healing. Tracton's bulk is rather average for the most part though, so support moves would mostly be used on Doubles set or as an anti-lead, rather than as a wall.

-Expanding on the previous point, the second set could use a bit of a revamp for the EVs and item both so Tracton functions more like an anti-lead, rather than just a mediocre lead.

-You mention Fire and Thunder Fang in the Checks and Counters, but don't mention them in the Other Moves section nor the actual sets. Thief also has no reason to be mentioned at all.

-Analytic triggers as long as Tracton moves after the opponent makes theirs. This doesn't just mean it gets attacked. The ability also triggers when the enemy switches. That's the whole reason you even see Analytic Starmie in the main series. You can bet that Traton will force a ton of switches, particularly after it has used Shift Gear or Swords Dance.

-If using Speed Boost as your ability, you don't need to use Shift Gear, since your speed will go up naturally anyways. Instead, run Swords Dance to get your attack up faster. +1 speed and +2 attack is far scarier than +3 speed and +1 attack when you'll outspeed most everything with just +1 speed anyways.

-Choiced or Assault Vested Tracton deserves a mention as well, due to its abilities, stats, and movepool supporting the playstyles really well.

-Inflagetah should be mentioned as the sole enemy that Tracton can't outspeed. Inflagetah destroys most Tracton after they've been weakened sufficiently

Other than that, good analysis. Tracton's fairly straightforward, so there's no reason to expect this to be a long analysis.

[crulla]

Well, I was going to say something about checking the analysis compendium first, but I was surprised to find out nobody had taken Tracton yet!  I'll leave a reminder here anyways though to check the analysis compendium first though before writing these, and tell poweroftibarn that you're going to do an analysis on that pokemon so he can keep the list updated.  If you want to do an analysis on a mon that's already been taken, ask the person who has it on their list if you can before you start as well.

Now, concerning the analysis itself, I have a few comments:

-Sitrus berry is good only for super fast paced environments, and only on semi-bulky mons that aim to do some damage and avoid getting killed in a crucial moment.  For bulkier varieties, leftovers is far better because of its long term healing.  Tracton's bulk is rather average for the most part though, so support moves would mostly be used on Doubles set or as an anti-lead, rather than as a wall.

-Expanding on the previous point, the second set could use a bit of a revamp for the EVs and item both so Tracton functions more like an anti-lead, rather than just a mediocre lead.

-You mention Fire and Thunder Fang in the Checks and Counters, but don't mention them in the Other Moves section nor the actual sets.  Thief also has no reason to be mentioned at all.

-Analytic triggers as long as Tracton moves after the opponent makes theirs.  This doesn't just mean it gets attacked.  The ability also triggers when the enemy switches.  That's the whole reason you even see Analytic Starmie in the main series.  You can bet that Traton will force a ton of switches, particularly after it has used Shift Gear or Swords Dance.

-If using Speed Boost as your ability, you don't need to use Shift Gear, since your speed will go up naturally anyways.  Instead, run Swords Dance to get your attack up faster.  +1 speed and +2 attack is far scarier than +3 speed and +1 attack when you'll outspeed most everything with just +1 speed anyways.

-Choiced or Assault Vested Tracton deserves a mention as well, due to its abilities, stats, and movepool supporting the playstyles really well.

-Inflagetah should be mentioned as the sole enemy that Tracton can't outspeed.  Inflagetah destroys most Tracton after they've been weakened sufficiently

Other than that, good analysis.  Tracton's fairly straightforward, so there's no reason to expect this to be a long analysis.

Yeah, I forgot. Thanks anyway.
- Sitrus Berry was kinda desperate on my point there, I couldn't think of an item that really compliments it.
- It gets Sword Dance? Welp, time to teach mine. The wiki didn't mention it though...
- I use a Choice Banded set and I was thinking to put it there but can't due to time limits (it was 11 PM).
- It can outspeeds normal Inflagehtah after a Protect (492 vs 438). And M-Inflagetah is just broken.
- The Elemental Fangs and the EVs are a bad on my part. Is there any way I can improve those and the item for the 2nd set?
- Well, my points still stand. Tracton is a big threat to a lot of teams so they can try to remove it. And if not running Speed Boost it will be running Shift Gear, which defeats the point of running Analytic in the first place. If not, say hello to being outspeed by ~80% of its threats, which, again, ruins the point of using Tracton in the first place.
Overrall, thanks.

[tarutaru]

Toxic is always your choice for attackers like this, it can be used to wear down walls. Also It works well with Protect which helps activating Speed Boost safely.

As it has Speed Boost, it can run a set similar to (probably) famous Protect-Sub Blaziken.
Do it like: Protect, Substitute, Toxic and Iron Head with Leftovers.
Or maybe like: Protect, Substitute, Iron Head and Drill Run with Leftovers, relying poisons to teammates with Toxic Spikes. Of course you can't keep Protect-Sub-ing forever as your HP will run out, but it can be used to wait your opponent to run out quicker than you. Blaziken paired with Toxic Spikes was strong, so I think it works with Tracton too.

[Cataclyptic]

Just a minor edit- for the sub blaze set, give a slash to Toxic with Iron head. Outrage is going to be your main move, and since fairies are so priminent and want to swicth in, Iron Head is perfect coverage. Toxic should be used for a more defensive set.

[Dragonstrike]

- It can outspeeds normal Inflagehtah after a Protect (492 vs 438). And M-Inflagetah is just broken.
- The Elemental Fangs and the EVs are a bad on my part. Is there any way I can improve those and the item for the 2nd set?
- Well, my points still stand. Tracton is a big threat to a lot of teams so they can try to remove it. And if not running Speed Boost it will be running Shift Gear, which defeats the point of running Analytic in the first place. If not, say hello to being outspeed by ~80% of its threats, which, again, ruins the point of using Tracton in the first place.
Overrall, thanks.

-As an anti-lead, Tracton would aim to outspeed other pokemon that would potentially be leading and keep them from setting up hazards.  Look at Aerodactyl in gen 4 as a good example.  It's fast enough to taunt the enemy lead and prevent the stealth rocks from going up, and then could set up rocks of its own.  The anti-lead role has become less prominent since gen 4 due to team preview, but it can still work if used properly.  Tracton also has no business using Roar on the set btw, since it shouldn't be aiming for a super bulky EV spread.  Removing Roar should also allow you to trim down on the number of slashes in the 3rd moveslot.

-The reason I brought up Inflagetah was due to the priority.  Yeah, Tracton can outspeed it and potentially kill it with Drill Run if Inflagetah tries to EQ it, but Flame Impact doesn't care about how fast the opponent is.  A physical Archilles could do the same to a lesser degree.  Hence the 'sufficiently weakened' in how Inflagetah would be handling Tracton.

-And once again, Tracton is a pokemon that forces switches.  So is Starmie.  It's the only reason that Analytic ever works for those two pokemon, and they use it well when played correctly.  On such fast pokemon, let's think of it as a less powerful version of Yungoos's Stakeout ability (2x damage when attacking on a turn the opponent switched, as opposed to Analytic's 30% increase when moving after the opponent has done something).  With the right coverage and predictions, a skilled player can eliminate Tracton's potential problems as they switch in, or 2tk a pokemon it wouldn't otherwise be able to.  As such, a set aiming to use Analytic, such as the All-Out Attacker set, would be beneficial to the guide's completeness.  Analytic Tracton would also have the option of Choice Scarf instead of Band.

The added sets are fairly interesting in and of themselves.  I'm curious to see the thought process behind the sub-blaze set when you get around to adding the analysis on it.  Keep up the good work!

[Lord Windos]

Its nice to see that the Comp. section of the forums are filling in quite nicely. Soon, all the guides for the good 'mon will be done, and then we will have threads detailing the playtestng of Pokémon, one the scene properly begins. Brings a tear to the eye, to see how far things have come~.

That aside finished, I think you did a good job with Tracton.... as a rough outline. More detail in sets is always a good thing, while being overly concise can be misleading or confusing. Also, it might be a good idea to work on guides in advance before publishing them, and then sending them off to others so that they can peer review them. They can catch silly mistake you would have left otherwise~!

[MonkeyLord83]

Is no one gonna talk about Potato's Trollton specially made to counter Yatagaryu in his last Tourney? =))))))))))))

[poweroftibarn]

Is no one gonna talk about Potato's Trollton specially made to counter Yatagaryu in his last Tourney? =))))))))))))

Motor Drive was already mentioned, and it's godawful lol

[Reeveelution]

Personally it is indeed nice to have more people coming in, but keep in mind that the next version uodate will bring back lots of new moves (such as more defog user, etc), the fact that some egg moves cant be achieved, and many more. We might wanna put out making showcases for the time being cause all the mons are having movepool revamps.