03-18-2017, 01:59 AM
I guess I should probably weigh in here, shouldn't I?
So. Synchronoise. It's a 120-power psychic move that only hurts pokemon that share a type with the user. Eevees can learn it as an egg move, so long as it at some point came from a male parent Ratsy/Raffiti who has Sketched it from an Astronite (or an eevee that's already acquired the move that way in the past). It's tricky to get, especially with Sketch working as it currently does, but it's not impossible.
That said, I'm not actually sure what, if anything, having this available does for Nucleon. It's an important coverage option to consider (especially on Expert Belt and other non-choiced sets) for countering other Nuclears, but it also has some limitations. Firstly, as a psychic move it's still not going to hit anything that's Nuclear/Dark (I don't know if Baariette or Tanscure are going to be worth concerning ourselves with, but I certainly can't completely rule them out). Secondly, if the opponent is expecting it they can just switch out and force you to waste your turn, since so many things are immune to it; that will lose you a lot of momentum. Still, when the other options for hitting other nuclears are Hidden Power (60), and Shadow Ball (80), it looks very attractive despite those caveats.
I'm also wondering how Hidden Power factors into this discussion. I think Fighting ends up being the best choice, to attempt to cover the steel weakness (really, just Gararewl; doesn't the maths end up that a neutral Hyper Voice is still as strong or stronger than a 2x Hidden Power, after taking Atomizate and STAB into account? though I'm not 100% sure whether this would change with Expert Belt, I don't know where that fits into the calculation), and to hit 4x against the Nuclear/Dark mons. Which leaves the question of whether we still want Shadow Ball for anything, as I think the only thing it's still better at hitting is S51-A. And unfortunately this set still has no way of dealing with Soundproof Paraboom (well, the normal form; nuclear form will die to Synchronoise since, despite having noise in the name, it apparently doesn't count as a sound move), since its Normal typing makes it immune to Shadow Ball and its Psychic typing makes it resist HP Fighting. I found myself wondering if it would be worth running something like Swift, just to be able to hit Paraboom with something if it becomes common enough to expect. Or maybe it's still worth using the fourth move slot on Quick Attack despite Nucleon's horrid physical attack stat.
Phantom raised an interesting point in the first thread I mentioned this: that Synchronoise is really good on Geiger Sense Nucleon, since that's already pretty much specialising in taking out other Nuclears and Synchronoise is how it's going to hit them the hardest. That said... I find myself wondering, now, if it'd be worth running Baton Pass on such a set too. Switch in GS!Nucleon against a nuclear type, get the boost and take it down with Synchronoise, then Baton Pass the boost to another team member and try to sweep from there. (Hey, you've got to do something with the boost Geiger Sense gives you if you're going to forego Atomizate!) That said, I think I might've read something about Baton Pass not working correctly in current version, which might leave this in theoryland for now...
So. Synchronoise. It's a 120-power psychic move that only hurts pokemon that share a type with the user. Eevees can learn it as an egg move, so long as it at some point came from a male parent Ratsy/Raffiti who has Sketched it from an Astronite (or an eevee that's already acquired the move that way in the past). It's tricky to get, especially with Sketch working as it currently does, but it's not impossible.
That said, I'm not actually sure what, if anything, having this available does for Nucleon. It's an important coverage option to consider (especially on Expert Belt and other non-choiced sets) for countering other Nuclears, but it also has some limitations. Firstly, as a psychic move it's still not going to hit anything that's Nuclear/Dark (I don't know if Baariette or Tanscure are going to be worth concerning ourselves with, but I certainly can't completely rule them out). Secondly, if the opponent is expecting it they can just switch out and force you to waste your turn, since so many things are immune to it; that will lose you a lot of momentum. Still, when the other options for hitting other nuclears are Hidden Power (60), and Shadow Ball (80), it looks very attractive despite those caveats.
I'm also wondering how Hidden Power factors into this discussion. I think Fighting ends up being the best choice, to attempt to cover the steel weakness (really, just Gararewl; doesn't the maths end up that a neutral Hyper Voice is still as strong or stronger than a 2x Hidden Power, after taking Atomizate and STAB into account? though I'm not 100% sure whether this would change with Expert Belt, I don't know where that fits into the calculation), and to hit 4x against the Nuclear/Dark mons. Which leaves the question of whether we still want Shadow Ball for anything, as I think the only thing it's still better at hitting is S51-A. And unfortunately this set still has no way of dealing with Soundproof Paraboom (well, the normal form; nuclear form will die to Synchronoise since, despite having noise in the name, it apparently doesn't count as a sound move), since its Normal typing makes it immune to Shadow Ball and its Psychic typing makes it resist HP Fighting. I found myself wondering if it would be worth running something like Swift, just to be able to hit Paraboom with something if it becomes common enough to expect. Or maybe it's still worth using the fourth move slot on Quick Attack despite Nucleon's horrid physical attack stat.
Phantom raised an interesting point in the first thread I mentioned this: that Synchronoise is really good on Geiger Sense Nucleon, since that's already pretty much specialising in taking out other Nuclears and Synchronoise is how it's going to hit them the hardest. That said... I find myself wondering, now, if it'd be worth running Baton Pass on such a set too. Switch in GS!Nucleon against a nuclear type, get the boost and take it down with Synchronoise, then Baton Pass the boost to another team member and try to sweep from there. (Hey, you've got to do something with the boost Geiger Sense gives you if you're going to forego Atomizate!) That said, I think I might've read something about Baton Pass not working correctly in current version, which might leave this in theoryland for now...
