Competitive Guide: Nucleon

[Lord Windos]

Competitive Guide: Nucleon
Today, we are going to cover everyone’s favorite Nuclear type pokemon: Nucleon! Hope you all enjoy it~


Nucleon

Base Stats (From the Pokémon Uranium Wiki)

HP: 75            S.ATK: 115
    
ATK: 55          S.DEF: 115

DEF: 85          SPD: 90

If Slyveon can be equated to a cleric, then Nucleon is definitely a black mage. The stat spread of Nucleon show that it not only has the potential to be a powerful special sweep, but also being a pretty good Special Wall. This is deceiving, though, for chiefly one reason: Nucleon is, well, a Nuclear type. As such, it enjoys the ‘privilage’ of being weak to every type in the game, bar Poison and other Nuclear types. What this means is that if you try to wall with this ‘mon, expect its half-life to be pretty short. Its HP doesn’t help matter either in that regard as well. So what we are left with is a glass cannon, much like Harptera or Barand. What makes this pokemon go from niche to top-tier sweeper is its ability: Atomizate.

Atomizate is a truly awesome ability. Any normal type move you have on hand? Suddenly become the most powerful STAB in the game for the green demon! The only trouble it runs into with this ability is the distinct lack of Special Normal type moves in its pool. Beside Hyper Voice, it only has Swift and Hyper Beam in its Normal arsenal, and the rest are Physical. Given its lackluster ATK stat, it limits the potential of what it can do with its ability. Which might be good, since it would become a complete monster otherwise. Still, it has all the tools it needs to be a devastating threat when put to good use.

MOVESETS

Intense Radiation Therapy (S.ATK)

Hyper Voice
Quick Attack/Hidden Power(Fire/Ground)
Protect/Shadow Ball
Trick/Wish/Half-Life
Item: Choice Scarf/Choice Glasses/Focus Sash/Life Orb
Nature: Hasty or Mild
EV’s: 252 S.ATK, 252 SPD, 4 ATK

The defacto set you’ll see on any Nucleon, or some variant of it. Hyper Voice is its most power attack, and will melt just about anything that is not Steel (Maybe even them!) Quick attack is there to act as a finisher, if you both somehow survive each other’s attacks, and as its only priority move. Alternatively, you can run Hidden Power Fire to reduce Steel types to slag if they try to switch in, or Hidden Power Ground to take down Tracton. Protect is more to scout out what moves the enemy mon has, but can work in conjuction with Wish to heal yourself up in a pinch. Shadow Ball can be used instead, if you don't want to breed for either HP's and want a back up move. Speaking of that, Wish can be used as a way to help support you team, though it will probably cost its life in the process. Trick, on the other hand, can cripple or seriously hinder enemies, while Half -Life can be used against bulky walls or steel types to soften them up. Depending on your preference, the item and nature you run is up to you, but for items I suggest either the Scarf or Sash. The Scarf will keep you ahead of the game, while the Sash can keep you in the game when otherwise, so both are pretty useful items to consider.

IT’S GOING CRITICAL! (Suicide Set)

Hyper Beam
Explosion
Quick Attack/Hyper Voice
Wish/Protect
Items: Focus Sash
Nature: Hasty
EV’s : 252 SPD, 100 ATK, 156 S.ATK

Not an orthodox or efficient way to use Nucleon’s talents, but because of this, almost no one will expect this set. The idea is to use Nucleon as either a Suicide Lead or Revenge Killer, and rack up at least 1-2 KO’s with this mon. Hyper Beam is so perfectly suited for this purpose, as even without full investment in S.ATK EV’s, it will still one shot just about anything! Explosion is to use at your discretion, as it can be used either to take down/soften up special walls, or to use when you are hanging on a thread. Quick attack is there for priority sake, but Hyper Voice can be used in place. Protect and Wish are self-explanatory. Choice Scarf could be used in place of the Sash, but after using a H.B you’re a sitting duck, so keep that in mind. Not a great set to run, but it will sure rustle some jimmies if  nothing else!

OTHER MOVES/ITEMS

Expert Belt: If you don’t want to deal with either Life Orb or a Choice Item, this can still be useful. Makes it useless for Trick sets, though.

Façade: If you can predict it, switching into a status move and using this will hurt. It is more likely you will suffer more than them, so...

Endeavor: Might have a place on the suicide set, but why use that when you could use Explosion or another Hyper Beam?

Return: An alternative to Quick Attack, if the low power is not to your liking.

Nasty Plot, Double Team, Calm Mind, or Swagger: If you can predict a switch, then you can set up, then you can turn the team into slag! Since you are fragile as glass, however, these moves will be useless if you shatter before you make the sale, so to speak.

Partners:

Anything that can either slow down or take down speedier targets is always a good thing for Nucleon. Yatagaryu and Tracton love having Nucleon for clearing outing Earthquake users and Walls in general, while it appreciates them killing things like Mega Inflagetahs and Harptera. Harptera and M. Inflagetahs also make for a great trio in an attack team, as them cover each other from their respective threats. Status users like Dramsama and Dunsereph are also good partners, as well as Laissure for its hazards.

Counters to Nucleon

As a Nuclear type, any and everything but poison and other nuclear types are super effective against it. With its low HP and DEF stats, anything can kill it quick if they are quicker than it. Revenge killing is probably the safest method of dealing with it. Both Inflagetahs will OHKO it when they come out on the field, and Yat. Itself will slay it quickly, even with its high S.Def. If it doesn’t, though, it will have to suffer a quadruple effect Hyper-Voice to the face! Remember not to switch in with them, though, as Nucleon will just clear them out ASAP. Tracton might be the best counter to it, though. Nucleon moves only do neutral damage to it, and it will out speed it eventually if it is left on the field too long. All it takes, then, is it to OHKO it and the rest of your team.
Anything that can paralyze it is also a threat, as its speed is the only thing keeping it alive. Special Walls are tricky to deal with, as while its possible for you to overpower them, they could just as easily turn the tables on you instead. Mega Syrentide or a Brainoar, while Duel types, have more than enough S.DEF to tank at least a hit if trained right, and retaliate in kind. Area hazards are horrid as well, since Stealth Rock and Spikes will practically kill before it can even begin to fight. Finally, Torment would shut down Choice sets, forcing them to switch out to survive.

Final Analysis

Nucleon is a Top-Tier threat that cannot be taken lightly. Boasting great speed, attack, and the ability Atomizate, it can sweep teams under the rug if they can’t muster a counter. That said, anything that can counter it will do so with extreme prejudice. Faster pokemon like Inflagetah or Mega Archilles will make irradiated toast out of the eevelution, and anything that can wall it longer than a turn will have a prime opportunity OHKO it. Status, Torment, and area hazards undermine Nucleon role greatly as well. It is also important to remember than beside Hyper Beam and Hyper Voice, you have no STAB to take advantage of its unique abilities, making it predictable as heck. It is still a threat, no matter how much slice it, as it will end you team if steps are not taken. As it can be said anywhere in competitive, it is all about using you pokemon wisely, and knowing just when to act.

Next Time: Beliaddon. What can this demon from hell do?

[tarutaru]

Great guide!
Countering Nucleon is the first thing you must consider when thinking a competetive team, and it's even worthy to make a own thread about it. But since this thread seems to handle counters to, let me talk about it here.

One thing to note, it can learn Shadow Ball when it's Eevee. It can be used to ruin few of the pinpoint counters explained later, Hazma and Geigeroach.

Now, counters.
First, I should explain there are two ways to counter a threatening Pokemon: To switch, or not to switch.
If you choose to switch, then you need a Pokemon which can be switched in against them. It should be able to endure several hits, if not, be able to OHKO them.
It's better to have many of these Pokemon in your team, but single can do the job.

If you choose not to switch, then you have to pack plenty of Pokemons which can beat the threat. You don't need to switch, but you should have many of these countering Pokemon, as you have nothing to switch in against the threat, the Pokemon facing the threat probably get beaten if it can't beat the threat itself.

After that long explanation, what I want to say is that you have to distinguish the counters in these two groups.
For example, as the counter you wrote in the fist post, Inflagetah and Yatagaryu can't be switched in. Atomizate Hyper Voice OHKO them. Neither a Pokemon with high SPDef can, if they hit double weaknesses from Nuclear.
Tracton have chance of enduring one hit, speed boosted to overspeed it and OHKO Nucleon so it can be switched in. But I bet it can only take single hit, which is unreliable to be the only counter in the whole team.

So, these are the counter I can think of, devided in two groups.

Counters that CAN be switched in:

Pokemon with Lead Skin:
That is, Hazma and Geigeroach that I mentioned above. They are immune to Nuclear attacks, and basically take nothing except for Shadow Ball.
Hazma can use Expunge to finish Nucleons, and Geigeroach can use his Bug attacks.

Gararewl:
Only non-Nuclear Pokemon that has resistance to Nuclear attacks. But it's base SPDef is not so high, so if you want it to be switched several times, then you should consider investing EVs in SPDef.
Also Shadow Ball hits neutrally against it, so that's another case where high SPDef come handy.

Paraboom(Soundproof):
If it's ability is Soundproof, then it can disable Hyper Voice, which Nucleon mainly use. It's also immune to Shadow Ball! But since it's not immune to Nuclear, it take hits from Quick Attack and Hyper Beam, or even Explosion and Return. But I think immunity to Hyper Voice is usually enough.

Nucleon:
Yeah it's sounds dumb, but Nucleon itself is resistant to Nuclear too, and it can use Shadow Ball to attack the opposing Nucleon. Don't rely on it, but if you have to, then there's a choice to switch it in.

Pokemon with steel type AND high SPDef:
Except for Gararewel, no steel types can resist Nuclear and take neutral hits from them, so it should have high SPDef too. Metalynx and Lanthan with EVs in SPDef can stand a chance of enduring them a few, but only a few.
As I mentioned above, Tracton can resist one hit, use Protect to Speed Boost if you want, and attack Nucleon.
They are not so reliable, so you better think them as a counter you can't switch in, even though I grouped them as counter you can switch.


Counters that CAN'T be switched in:

Pokemon with strong priority moves:
Inflagetah is the best choice, but Harptera with Gale Wings can also do the job. Nucleons must flee against them, and that makes Nucleons difficult to move freely. And that's the basic concept of counters without switching.

Pokemon with Focus Sash:
Endure one hit with Focus Sash, and revenge kill them. Simple.
But of course you can't switch in, and beware the Stealth Rock. It ruins the Sash and can ruin your whole team!
I think Nucleons usually pair with Stealth Rock users to counter the Sash, so don't rely on these as a counter.

Pokemon with high base Speed than Nucleon, AND have Choice Scarf:
You'd better think that opposing Nucleon has Choice Scarf until you really know what it has. So Pokemon like Yatagaryu, without Choice Scarf or Focus Sash, usually get outsped by Choice Scarf Nucleon and get OHKO'ed.
There are many Pokemon that has higher base Speed than Nucleon, so I bet you have plenty of choices to pick from: That is, unless you choose to give Nucleon a Choice Scarf too!(Helding same items should be banned by rules)

Team that can change Speed:
Chlorophyll with Sun, Swift Swim with Rain, Sand Rush with Sandstorm, Pokemon with these abilities AND weather conditions can outspeed Choice Scarf Nucleon. Also Trick Room has a chance too, as most Nucleon has their EVs fully invested in Speed, and has nature to boost Speed.
But make sure you can actually start the weather/Trick Room. If Nucleon was sended as a lead and beats your weather/Trick Room starter, then your whole team would probably be  beaten.
Whimsicott with Prankster and Mega-Electruxo can safely start the weather, or make sure that your weather/Trick Room starter can handle a hit from Nucleon. Or just rely on Focus Sash, it works well on the lead.


Sorry for long long rubbish with bad grammar(I'm Japanese and not so good at English),
but I hope it helps in countering this beast.
I'm not fan of Tier-Rule-Thingy, and don't want Pokemon except Urayne(which is the only "true Legendary" now) being banned in serious battles.
It IS possible to counter Nucleon.
Thank you.

[Matt]

Nucleon is by far the best Pokemon in Uranium and should be banned from any competitive format - Urayne is not even as close to as good as this thing is, as it doesn't have any spammable strong Nuclear STAB, physical or special. Nucleon is beyond anything we've ever seen - way more influential than Mega Rayquaza, the most powerful actual Pokemon.

First of all, there's almost no reason to not run Choice Scarf with Hyper Voice, Quick Attack, Shadow Ball, and Trick. As tarutaru pointed out, almost everything dies in one hit and only a couple Pokemon in the entire game can even switch into Nucleon. Choice Scarf allows you to get free kills so much more easily, as Nucleon isn't terribly fast, but the point is that often times, you send Nucleon in versus almost anything and something dies. A Pokemon with this capability is far too powerful for any competitive metagame, and solidifies Nucleon as undoubtedly the most broken, metagame defining Pokemon.

Just because you can switch into something doesn't mean something isn't broken. Assault Vest Ludicolo switches into and beats Kyogre, but Kyogre is still obviously broken. Sure, there are things like Soundproof Paraboom and Geigeroach that take no damage from Hyper Voice, but think about what's happening. Nucleon is such a centralizing threat that teams are forced to run the worse ability on Paraboom just to deal with it and/or teams are forced to run Geigeroach, an honestly mediocre Pokemon, just to deal with Nucleon. There are a couple other things that can switch in, like Mega Metalynx, but it's still taking a heavy hit and then Nucleon just switches out.

Again, you can list a couple of things that can switch into Nucleon, but the point is that Nucleon is such a dominant force that you, as the player, are forced to use all of these mediocre Pokemon just to deal with it. And they don't even beat it because the Nucleon player just switches out. Even if you avoid the 2HKO this time, you've taken the hit, Nucleon switches out, and then next time it comes in you're weakened and can no longer switch into it.

The only surefire way of dealing with Nucleon is to have it so at least 4 (preferably 5 or 6) of your 6 Pokemon can outspeed/outprioritize and OHKO Nucleon. That way you don't have to switch into it, because you can't without making your team terrible by using those mediocre mons (and the Nucleon can just predict and deal a heavy hit to your "counter" anyway). So the only team you can use that doesn't give Nucleon a free kill every time it comes in is a team with a bunch of priority users and/or faster Choice Scarfers. Sure, a team like this would beat Nucleon but again, think about what's happened. Nucleon is such a stupidly broken Pokemon that you're forced to use this one very specific archetype of team in order to deal with it. This is not healthy for a competitive metagame because Nucleon eliminates the possibility of any real diversity - teams that either do not follow a very specific archetype or teams that do not carry around multiple mediocre Pokemon that are used specifically to handle Nucleon instantly lose. And no, switching in another Nuclear Pokemon is not an answer, because what if the Nucleon predicts that and uses Shadow Ball? Your method of dealing with Nucleon only works if you guess correctly, and even then the Nucleon can just switch out and come back in later.

The only other option is to Pursuit trap it, but that also causes 50/50s. Let's say you have Pursuit Harptera vs Nucleon. You can kill it with Acrobatics thanks to Gale Wings, but you can also predict it to switch out and kill it with Pursuit. However, this is a 50/50. What if the Nucleon predicts you to use Pursuit and stays in? It then outspeeds you because it's Scarfed and you died without doing any damage to it. You could try running a faster Scarfer with Pursuit, but there doesn't exist a Pokemon which is faster than Nucleon and OHKOs it with Pursuit even if Nucleon stays in. Because of this, it's still the same 50/50. If Nucleon stays in, you hit it with Pursuit, it lives (even though it's super effective, it's only 40 base power and Nucleon isn't that frail), and then you die.

As you can see, there are only 2 ways to win vs Nucleon. Build an insanely offensive team that must have several of the same Pokemon in it that can outprioritize/outspeed and kill Nucleon, use a Pokemon with Pursuit that can normally kill Nucleon and win a 50/50, or use multiple mediocre Pokemon whose sole purposes are to deal with Nucleon and win a bunch of 50/50s in order to prevent your opponent from removing Stealth Rock. Nucleon is beyond any Pokemon we have ever seen, and no healthy competitive singles format can exist with it not banned.

[Lord Windos]

When I did this guide for little old nucly, I didn't expect such detailed discussion of it! Warms my heart to see that my guides are bringing out discussion about it and the meta!

I see both of your points, though. While I love this nuclear pokemon, I have to agree that at this state of the game, it is a wee bit too powerful. As I pointed out earlier, this thing is a glass cannon, but the problem is that it is so overwhelmingly strong that it practically defines the current comp. scene by whether or not its present. There are not enough hard counters or check to really do anything to it without doing what Matt said, which is a real killer for creativity and variety in the fledgy game.

It need to be put in its own category and have more rules surround its use, because I don't believe in outright banning the guy, as that can just as easily ruin thousand of other planned teams that relay on this mon as a lead or core. I love the pokemon, and I don't want it to vanish from the metagame, but it really does need some regulation...

[Taralyn]

Hidden Power Fire smokes most of its Steel counters, with Ground as a decent substitute if Tracton scares you more than Metalynx. It's too good an option not to have listed in either set, even with breeding for Hidden Power being a pain. I pretty much swear by it for my Nucleon.

[Lord Windos]

Hidden Power Fire smokes most of its Steel counters, with Ground as a decent substitute if Tracton scares you more than Metalynx. It's too good an option not to have listed in either set, even with breeding for Hidden Power being a pain. I pretty much swear by it for my Nucleon.

Duly noted! I'll be adding that to the moveset, along with the aforementioned shadow ball. Again, thanks for the critisim, everyone!

[Wolf93]

HP Fire hits only Gararewl effectivly and Orchynx (not Mega). Any other steel Pokeon has a secondary type, so Nuclear moves hit neutral and Hyper voice is still stronger. 60 * 2 = 120; 90 * 1.5 = 135 (+30% ?). But for specific problems with these still a good Option.
Same could go for HP dark to hit Paraboom.

[Spiritmon]

I would like to ask something. I making a team to fight in the competitive, and i was thinking about make a Navighast to the competitive. My question if is legible to to use, and if is yes, what Nature and moves i should add to him?

[Lord Windos]

While I haven't really thought much about the Little Salior, from first glance, they are... sorta. It has pretty decent stats besides its HP and basic defenses, but even those are not terrible. 3 out of 5 of its weakness are uncommon in the current meta game, and the other two can always be countered with other supporting team member. The problem is that it has a base speed of 90, letting it be outspeed by a great number of the power threats that are currently allowed. That, and I heard they have kinda weak base stats for a upper tier evo.

On the other hand, it has access to two Priority STABS (One via leveling, and another by breeding), its immune to Ground types attacks, the biggest and most threatening damage type in the game, can be a suprisely decent S.Attacker (With plenty of moves to support that style of play), and has plenty of access to status and stat boosting moves, via TM, Tutor, or breeding. It be easy to set it up as a Phys, Special, or even mix attacker, and can be an especially good Revenge killer, with access to Pursuit and Priority STABS.

You just have to plan for it carefully in you team, and expect that a faster threat can take it out. Then again, most of the faster meta game is expecting to be expelled to Ubers upon the consolidation of a truly active Comp scene, so it might have less problems than expected.

[Spiritmon]

When you say priority moves, you talking about Mach Punch and Shadow Sneak right? Also we cant forget Physical moves very strong depending in the strategy: Ice Punch, Fire Punch, Thunder Punch, and other great moves, like gunk shot. And other good moves to KO 1 or 2 pokemon from the enemy team, with a good aplicate Bone Rush and Destiny Bond to finish the job. Man, we really need a guide to Navighast, but with the online battles bug a lot, it makes dificult to make one