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Hippopotas; Bringin' the storm!
Topic Started: Jul 26 2008, 04:16 AM (1,124 Views)
Seven Deadly Sins
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KD24 banned Tangela

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Code:
 

Base Stats: Min- Min Max Max+
HP : - 68 -- xx--23 - 26--xx
Atk: - 72 -- 11--13 - 16--17
Def: - 78 -- 12--14 - 17--18
SpA: - 38 -- 9---10 - 13--14
SpD: - 42 -- 9---10 - 13--14
Spe: - 32 -- 8---9 -- 12--13


Set 1: Sand Lead

  • Stealth Rock
  • Earthquake
  • Rock Slide
  • Crunch

Item: Lum Berry
Nature: Impish
EVs: 212 HP/100 Atk/132 Def/20 SpD/20 Spe

Comments:
Let's face it, Hippopotas isn't the wall that Hippowdon is in standard play. That said, he's the only way to start perma-sand in Little Cup, so you're stuck with him. This isn't to say that he's bad, he's actually pretty tops for starting Sand. This lead is meant to make the ground angry at your opponent. From turn 1, Sandstorm is up. After that, you can do one of many things. In the majority of cases, just lay Stealth Rock. Meowth hits with Fake Out for about 20%, and Lum will prevent the Hypnosis. Against Taunters, start attacking. EQ will OHKO Voltorb, Rock Slide will OHKO Murkrow, and Crunch will OHKO Gastly. After that, the ball's in your court. If you suspect the opponent is running a weather team, keep Hippo around to cancel the weather later. Otherwise, sacrifice him for your next poke to come out.

Other Options

Like its big brother, there's really only one set it can run. However, there are some other options. Slack Off and Stockpile can work okay in tandem if you can get either of them to work, but there's almost no chance of that happening. Body Slam is okay for Paralysis support. HP Ice is always viable to kill Gligar, who walls this set silly otherwise, but it's a gimmicky option.

Curse is viable on Hippo's big brother, but very rarely is useful on LC pokes other than Munchlax. If you save it until the end of a battle, where the opponent no longer has any pokes that hit on the special side, it MIGHT be useful, but very rarely will a cursing variant be effective.

EVs

Hippopotas is blessed with some great base stats for EVing. 2 and 8 are excellent, requiring 20 and 52 points respectively for their first stat up. As such, Hippopotas gets a strange but effective EV spread. The standard spread for leading, 212 HP/100 Attack/132 Defense/20 Special Defense/20 Speed gives very effective physical walling to beat leads such as Murkrow and Meowth. On the special side, it can take a special hit such as Dark Pulse or Shadow Ball and still survive handily to drop SR. The 20 points in Speed gives a small boost that can let it outrun a couple things that run low speed such as Cacnea and Lickitung. Sets running HP Ice have a slightly modified spread of 212 HP/100 Attack/132 Defense/52 SpA/20 SpD @ Relaxed. With that, HP Ice will deal enough damage to Gligar to easily disable it.

Opinion

Hippopotas does three things well: It takes physical hits, it drops SR, and it sets up sand. Those three things combine to make it a very effective lead for doing what it has to. However, it's just too much of a niche pokemon to find much use on most teams, as it ruins Focus Sash on most every Poke that would run it, limiting its user's options rather severely. However, if you're not packing a whole lot of Focus Sashes, Hippo is good for disabling your opponent's own sashes and walling physical attacks, as well as disabling an opponent's weather.

Counters

Hippo doesn't have much special defense or speed, so fast special attackers packing a SE move will shut it down. This includes Abra and Gastly with Energy Ball, Water-types packing STAB, etc. Bronzor walls every set handily, but unless it's running a special set, it won't be able to shut it down. Gligar walls any set without HP Ice as well.
Edited by Seven Deadly Sins, Jul 30 2008, 08:34 AM.
Kannon
 
SDS, Ice resists Water. Ground doesn't resist Rock.
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Chris
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Abrasive Dick

His big brother can run more than one set (Choice Band is really cool), it's just that no one's bothered to update the analysis. It claims that the only reason to run Hippo is to be a Tyranitar counter...

68/78 Defenses aren't terrible, he's still a bit of a wall kinda like Koffing. A good counter to Geodude and Rhyhorn.
Edited by Chris, Jul 27 2008, 04:29 PM.
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tennisace0227
 
Glad that's out of the way, how's the grammer?

Cooper
 
I cannot edit titles. I cannot do anything. Mod me.
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Seven Deadly Sins
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Of course he's not a bad wall, he's actually quite good for just that purpose with great defenses and a Rock resist. The only problem is that there are a lot of strong special attackers running around with Super-Effective moves, and stuff like Bronzor and Koffing are more useful multi-purpose counters (especially Koffing, which can come in on EQ and WoW them). I don't think that Hippopotas is a better enough wall to make anything other than a great sand lead, and the set that I described covers pretty much all of his major capabilities.

I'll flesh out the Other Options a little bit more with all the stuff that Hippowdon can do that Hippopotas is unable to, such as Curse.
Kannon
 
SDS, Ice resists Water. Ground doesn't resist Rock.
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Dixie
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Back. Will see in the next week or so how much I can contribute.

perhaps a generic choiced-wall set?
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Jonny Evans - Legend.
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tennisace
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old school like Aztecs but new in other aspects

Why can't Hippopotas Curse? Seems viable to me.
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Seven Deadly Sins
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You curse as they bring in Abra/Gastly and oneshot you with Energy Ball. Plain and simple. Unlike Munchlax, Hippopotas doesn't have incredible special walling capabilities that just need a little defense boost. As such, Curse is basically a "kill me with anything special" sign. And damned if there aren't a lot of threats that hit that weaker defense SE.
Kannon
 
SDS, Ice resists Water. Ground doesn't resist Rock.
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tennisace
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old school like Aztecs but new in other aspects

Seven Deadly Sins
Jul 28 2008, 03:09 AM
You curse as they bring in Abra/Gastly and oneshot you with Energy Ball. Plain and simple. Unlike Munchlax, Hippopotas doesn't have incredible special walling capabilities that just need a little defense boost. As such, Curse is basically a "kill me with anything special" sign. And damned if there aren't a lot of threats that hit that weaker defense SE.
Good point, but I still think it's worth another set.
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Seven Deadly Sins
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It's way too ineffective to be anything but a gimmick, and as such, it's being relegated to Other Options.
Kannon
 
SDS, Ice resists Water. Ground doesn't resist Rock.
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Fishin

Quote:
 
The standard spread for leading, 212 HP/100 Attack/132 Defense/20 SpA/20 Spe gives very effective physical walling to beat leads such as Murkrow and Meowth.

Should be SpD, not SpA.

It could also be mentioned that since Snover will almost always be running speed, in a Snover vs Hippopotas situation you'll almost always end up with the weather on your side since Hippopotas will nearly always be slower. Looks pretty good aside from that.
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Seven Deadly Sins
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Right, thanks. I'll fix that up.
Kannon
 
SDS, Ice resists Water. Ground doesn't resist Rock.
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eric the espeon
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Needs the CB set Dixie suggested.
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kd24
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TOP SCORE

For kicks, HP Fire is pretty cool since it can actually do something against bronzor (35-40% damage) as well as take out snover leads.

i tried water pulse, it was pretty useless but the confusion did help at times and hitting gligar super effective was cool.

CB needs a set (possibly with HP Fire ;D)

Curse is questionable, iw ould like to see its usefulness first.
Want to talk Yu-Gi-Oh? Join channel #YuGiOh. But be sure to join #littlecup, #cap, #oven, and #vader first!
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Seven Deadly Sins
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Does Curse work on Munchlax, which doesn't die horribly to special attacks? I'm not moving it out of Other Options.

CB Set will go up in a day or two.
Kannon
 
SDS, Ice resists Water. Ground doesn't resist Rock.
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eric the espeon
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please add choice set, also Oran should be on the first set as an option.
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