The surging spasm of zeraora-Smogon OU analysis

Greetings readers !

Table of contents

General overview

Frequently used set

Weaknesses

Competitive history

Reason for its rise

conclusion

General overview

Base stats

As you all can see , as Zeraora is a Mythical pokemon , it has a base total of 600 , which is overall pretty solid . Its got pretty solid attack and special attack stats which are 112 and 102 respectively , respecteble bulk and a blistering speed of 143 ! That actually makes it the fastest unboosted/unscarfed pokemon in the whole OU tier aside from regieleki .

Ability

Its ability is Volt absorb , which is not too shabby in the grand scheme of things . It does also help zaraora find more safer switch-ins into battle .

Type defenses

Zeraora is a pure electric type , and hence has only one weakness [ ground ] and two handy resistences in flying and steel . thanks to its volt absorb ability mentioned above , it also gains an immunity to electric .

Frequently used moves

Frequently used set on OU

Zeraora @ Heavy-Duty Boots

Ability: Volt Absorb

EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe

Jolly Nature / Naive nature

- Plasma Fists

- Play rough / Grass knot

- Knock Off

- Close Combat

Here we have a standard offensive Zeraora set  which is equipped with the items Heavy-duty boots , to entirely negate the residual damage of caused by entry hazards like stealth rocks and spikes . The EV spread I have on it is a standard offensive EV spread of maximum attack and maximum speed [ furthur boosted by Jolly or Naive nature ].The moves I have on here are Plasma fists , Knock off , Close combat and a choice between play-rough and grass knot . Now the choice between two natures Jolly and Naive can be determined whether you run grass knot or play rough . Run jolly if you want to have play-rough on your moveset , and run Naive if you have grass knot in your moveset . Plasma fist is Zeraora's signiture move , and is an overall excellent move for its solidly high power of 100 , perfect accuracy , an astounding power point count of 24 and no real draw-backs . It hits a large part of the metagame hard , and those which resist it may crumble to the coverage [ besides landorous-T ]. Knock off is an alternate move that can be spammed a lot too [ especially if the opponent has a plasma-fists sponge ] , as it helps in removal of detrimental items such as leftovers and rocky helmet on walls , and choice scarf on dangerous revenge killers [ most notably landorous-T ]. Close combat is excellent fighting coverage that helps deal with pesky steel types like ferrothorn , kartana , excadrill and the newly risen magnezone . Lastly we have a choice between grass knot and play-rough . Play rough is here for the various dragon types of the tier like garchomp , hydreigon and dragonite [ a bit weakened ] to hit them hard . Grass knot is here exclusively to hit Hippowdown and swampert , the reason I dedicated a whole team slot to the move is because with the removal of these suffocating pokemon , zeraora is again free to spam its plasma fists to really dish out a good deal of damage .

Overall , Zeraora is just another hard hitting pokemon that has a blistering speed , and can actually also be used as a physical wall breaker [ when equipped with a choice band or life orb ] as it matches up well against most of the physical walls of the tier .

Weaknesses

Now as we know , everything has its own weakness and Zeraora is no different . Most notable

of which is its bad match-up with the omni-presant  landorous-T  who completely walls Zeraora due to Intimidate and its ground typing . Landorous-T can always switch into Zeraora no matter what the set it is , as Zeraora just has no move that can severely sting landorous-T [ aside from Toxic ]. The only thing you can really do is knock off its item and from there on slowly dwindle it down with risidual damage like stealth rocks and knock-off . Another such pokemon that Zeraora struggles to breakthrough is Hippowdown , who similarly shrugs off Zeraora's physical moves with ease and packs recovery on top of that in the form of slack off . Though if Zeraora decides to run Grass-knot , then it can certainly sting Hippowdown really hard . In fact , with 4 special attack EVs and a Naive nature , Grass not on the switch to Hippowdown is a guaranteed 2 hit KO , and considering the fact the removal of Hippowdown could be propitious for one's team and disasterous for the opposition [ especially if its a sand team ] , this may be a positive trade . Another omnipresant pokemon that checks Zeraora really well is Rillaboom , though it can't switch into Zeraora as easily as the Afformentioned , Rillaboom still threatend severe damage on Zeraora with Grassy Glide and picks off the weakened ones . Hence its always better to be on the look out for Rillaboom . Other forms of priority like Banded Urshifu aqua-jet , Banded Dragonite extreme speeds and Sucker punch from the newly risen Bisharp also threaten to pray on Zeraora's  midiocre defenses .

Despite all these weaknesses , I do still feel that Zeraora is going to have a big presance in the metagame for its Versitility with options like wall-breaking , revenge killing , late game sweeping and its ability to pressurize many common pokemon .

Competetive history

Generation-7 [ USUM ]

Zeraora was introduced in the 7th generation of pokemon , and started of its journey in the UU tier of smogon . The reason it was'nt used in OU was due to the immense power-creep filled USUM OU tier has it had many monsterously powerfull pokemon and various mega evolutions who zeraora just could not competete against .

Zeraora is a potent offensive threat in UU by virtue of its decent mixed offenses, outstanding Speed, and access to a powerful physical Electric-type move in Plasma Fists. Thanks to its aforementioned Speed, it can outrun and threaten some of the tier's fastest threats, including Mega-Manectric, Latias, Gengar, and Starmie. Its vast coverage movepool allows it to hit several conventional Electric-type checks like Hydreigon and Hippowdown with moves like Close Combat and Grass Knot, making it a solid mixed wallbreaker. It can also attempt to sweep with Bulk Up thanks to its ability to power through several bulkier threats with either Gigavolt Havoc or Breakneck Blitz, as well as its Speed allowing it to limit the number of Pokemon capable of revenge killing it. Unfortunately, Zeraora's pitiful defenses and weak typing limit its opportunities to come into play on its own and prevent it from reliably checking Pokemon that other Electric-types can often handle well, such as Scizor and Togekiss. Its lack of immediate power causes it to rely on Life Orb for damage output on some sets, damaging its longevity in the process. This also makes Zeraora more prediction reliant in order to adequately punish its switch-ins. Zeraora struggles to fit all of its desired coverage moves on its setup sets, meaning that they will always fail to hit at least one key target hard. Because of these downsides, Zeraora faces competition from other Electric-types like Rotom-H and Mega Manectric, which can more reliably fulfill their roles due to being less hard pressed to fit coverage on their sets and having better defensive utility.

Reasons for its rise

So those who are familiar with the latest tier changes , they would know that Zeraora moved up from the UU tier to the OU tier . This for the most part is due to the landscape the the OU metagame , specifically the most used physical walls of the tier .  As far as type match ups go , Zeraora matches up well against majority of the tiers physical walls  like Slowbro , Corviknight , Mandibuzz , Toxapex , Ferrothorn [ with blaze kick or banded close combat ] and the newly risen Skarmory . Not to mention that its got a blisstring speed tier , even out-pacing Dragapult  who is an elite pokemon of the tier , and getting a jump on it without needing a choice scarf does truly give us an idea of its significance . This speed tier also enables zeraora to function in many different ways , from a revenge killer , to a wall breaker  all the way to a late game set-up sweeper with bulk up . Due to such immense versitility , Zeraora has been seeing quite the rise in its usage and

viability .

Conclusion

Thank you guys for sticking with this for all this time , and please do let me know on your opinions on Zeraora . Also please do feel free to let me know if I missed something and let me know your on how I can improve my content .

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