Welcome and first musing - SubDD Kingdra!

 Hello! Welcome to shrang's DPP Ubers musings!

This is a very niche interest group, based mainly on Smogon's DPP Ubers tier for competitive singles Pokemon.

Basically this is going to be some my more deep divings into the DPP Ubers metagame, discussion of some metagame trends but more ideas that come to mind when playing this tier and crackhead sets that may come up. This would mainly be about standard DPP Ubers but I may touch on Farceus from time to time, when I feel like it.

I'd normally post these in the DPP forum on Smogon but hardly anyone posts there and if I just used that thread to keep posting new stuff I'd probably get busted for spamming the thread.




First post ever will be about Dragon Dance Kingdra. As of today, it is the end of 2024. I'm not going to go into history much since I probably left about 10 years of history unturned when I stopped playing DPP when it was current gen and didn't get back to standard until 2022.

Regarding Kingdra, the early usage of it was mainly Dragon Dance mixed and other assorted mixed sets. In current metagame, it's mainly specially leaning mixed sets and pure special sets, usually with Life Orb but I favour Specs a lot too. The problem with the current metagame is that stall is very common and fat rain is also very common, so specially leaning Kingdra will either run into Blissey or combo of SpD Dialga +/- Kyogre, neither of these combos are kind to specially leaning Kingdra at all.

SubDD Kingdra has always been something that I've been fascinated by but has always lacked the punch to really make it big in Ubers. The attractions are pretty important - it's a Dragon Dancer that doesn't care about weak Cresselia and Lugia Ice Beams, and can take advantage of passive Bronzong and forcing it to Explode basically. This makes it pretty important, since against rain you can now pressure the Bronzong switch-ins and potentially deal some good damage vs Kyogre/Dialga or sweep if you chipped them enough, while vs Eclipse the only thing that really stops you is Groudon since Forry lacks attacks usually. Even against Skarmbliss, if you can keep the rain up, +1 rain boosted Waterfall hits Skarm hard enough that can probably keep up the offense and break through.

What really pushed me to really try this out seriously was watching Alexei B use his rain HO team on roomtours repeatedly. Normally if you saw his team and it had special Kingdra it would be pretty easy to wall but SubDD Kingdra lategame is surprisingly annoying to deal with.

I think Kingdra lacks other options for other DD sets. Classic mixed with Draco Meteor really can't break much, and I feel Draco is only there to stop you getting baited into Outrage a turn early. ChestoRest may be an option but Kingdra isn't bulky enough for that like it can work in OU.


Without further ado let's look at some OPTIONS, because YES, there are a few different ones!


Kingdra @ Lum Berry  

Ability: Swift Swim  

EVs: 120 HP / 196 Atk / 16 Def / 176 Spe  

Adamant Nature  

- Substitute  

- Dragon Dance  

- Outrage  

- Waterfall


So this is probably the easiest one to use because it needs the least support apart from Kyogre and potentially a Groudon breaker like a Bulk Up Dialga. The EVs allows your Substitute to survive a Forretress (and by extension Bronzong) Payback. Lum Berry lets you switch into Tspikes at least once, and can also let you take sleep from Darkrai at least once. 176 Spe lets you outspeed ScarfChomp without a DD in the rain.


The way to get the most out of this is some way of forcing damage onto Groudon, like Bulk Up Dialga, Spikes, SD Garchomp, etc. Once you've forced >50% onto Groudon, you can then DD up and really pressure the opponent. Find something like a Bronzong or Cresselia or slow Jirachi to set up a Sub and it's not too difficult to set up. Kingdra is not spoilt for choice for attacks unfortunately, Outrage and Waterfall are the only things you have.


Kingdra @ Leftovers  

Ability: Swift Swim  

EVs: 120 HP / 196 Atk / 16 Def / 176 Spe  

Adamant Nature  

- Substitute  

- Dragon Dance  

- Outrage  

- Waterfall / Toxic / Hidden Power Fire / other stupid options

  

This one lets you set up more Subs in exchange for needing Tspikes absorption. Leftovers let you last longer and take advantage of Zong and stuff more. Potentially, if you force damage on Groudon, this can even cause a lot of headaches for Eclipse because Forry doesn't use attacks. I haven't tried this yet, but I think you may even be able to use this off rain and make it a mono-attacker, although needs a bit more testing for this. On something like that, you can even run Toxic to pressure Groudon yourself. HP Fire lets you hit Skarm and Forry if it's sunny although make sure to fix the EV spread to account for the HP Fire speed drop.

For Tspikes absorption, thankfully for rain you have a really good one - Qwilfish. This does increase weaknesses but it's not like Qwilfish was living many neutral attacks anyway so it's too big a deal. In exchange, Qwil can set up Spikes for you or even explode on Groudon although most players won't let you do that last one. Another nice Tspikes absorber that I've been using is Roserade - can also set up Spikes and Aromatherapy you in case you've gotten Kingdra statused.

Other stupid options include stuff like Smokescreen, Disable, Protect to get more Leftovers chip heal, Yawn for setup opportunities.


Kingdra @ Liechi Berry  

Ability: Swift Swim  

EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe

Adamant Nature  

- Substitute  

- Dragon Dance  

- Outrage  

- Waterfall  


Last option is more offensive and you may not even need to DD. Kingdra is not the bulkiest thing around in Ubers so you may not find an opportunity to DD a lot of the time. If you're facing HO or something like that, sometimes all you need is that Atk boost, so Liechi works perfectly for that.

You can run bulk again to try and set up on Zong and co but really I think it's just easier to try and DD up on Zong and start attacking straight away with this set.

This set I haven't tested properly yet so take it with a grain of salt.


Anyway, hope you enjoyed the blog. I'll do these sporadically - once I find an idea talking about I'll post one if I have to write it.

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