Sets
“Critical Hit!”
- Item Held
- Scope Lens
- Ability
- Sniper
- Nature
- Jolly
- Effort Points
- 252 Attack – 188 Speed – 70 HP
- Night Slash
- Brick Break / Earthquake
- Fire Fang / Thunder Fang / Ice Fang / Knock Off
- Swords Dance
With Swords Dance, Scope Lens, Night Slash’s high critical hit ratio and the fantastic Sniper ability, this Ogre Scorp Pokémon can deal some serious damage. Night Slash will be the move that you’ll be using the most, the other moves are here for type coverage. Brick Break and Earthquake are here for Steel-types, depending on what you want to hit. Brick Break OHKOs Tyranitar and Weavile too, while Earthquake hits Metagross and Jirachi harder and also OHKOs Magnezone and Heatran. In the third slot, there’s a wide variety of moves to choose, depending again on what you want to hit. Use Fire Fang if you chose Brick Break before for hitting those Steel-types that Brick Break can’t. Thunder Fang for Gyarados and Ice Fang for Dragon-types, mainly Salamence and Garchomp. Thunder Fang will also do some damage to those bulky Water-types that may come in and try to wall Drapion. Knock Off is also a viable choice, getting rid of Skarmory’s Shed Shell and trapping it with Magnezone is always great. 188 Speed EPs with Jolly Nature will outspeed SpecsMence and other Pokémon with base 100 Speed without a +Speed Nature like Celebi, Jirachi and Modest Zapdos, assuming max IVs. If not, take some EPs from HP, enough for reaching 300 Speed.
“No Entry, Poisonous Area”
- Item Held
- Leftovers
- Ability
- Battle Armor
- Nature
- Impish
- Effort Points
- 252 HP – 252 Defense – 6 Attack
- Toxic Spikes
- Screech
- Pursuit
- Fire Fang / Brick Break / Earthquake / Knock Off
This set can work wonders if you manage to pull it off correctly. Send Drapion in on something it doesn’t fear and start by laying two layers of Toxic Spikes. Then use Screech. Your opponent will most probably switch out expecting a powerful Night Slash and that’s when you can use your STABed Pursuit. Not only it will destroy the Pokémon that switched out, but also the incoming one will be crippled by Toxic Spikes. Since Heracross will switch often to take advantage of Toxic Spikes and activate Guts, Fire Fang is probably the best choice in this set. Brick Break and Earthquake can be used for the reasons mentioned in the set above. Knock Off could be possibly used in this set in order to make Poison damage harder to deal with by sending Leftovers away.
CB-Scorp
- Item Held
- Choice Band
- Ability
- Sniper
- Nature
- Jolly
- Effort Points
- 252 Attack – 188 Speed – 70 HP
- Night Slash
- Fire Fang
- Brick Break / Earthquake
- Thunder Fang / Ice Fang / Cross Poison
A really plain Choice Bander set here. Just try to predict what is going to come in, attack appropriately and just pray to God that its a critical hit. For the last moveslot, Thunder Fang and Ice Fang cover specific threats but Cross Poison can be used because, firstly, it gets STAB, secondly, it has a high critical hit ratio and finally it can poison the foe.
Other Possible Options
Agility and Acupressure would be awesome if Drapion could Baton Pass the boosts but unfortunately, it can’t. Roar/Whirlwind or could be used in the Toxic Spikes set but the other moves do the job better. Rest is Drapion’s only way of self healing so it could be used in a set along with Sleep Talk. Rock Slide, X-Scissor and Aerial Ace are Drapion’s other offensive options but the moves listed in the sets are far better.
Counters
Skarmory isn’t the best counter for Drapion as it is for most Physical Sweepers. Critical hits from Fire Fang can be lethal and it also hates having its held item removed by Knock Off. Metagross can absorb some non Swords Danced hits and hit back with Earthquake. Rhyperior can do it too, even more effectively.
Bulky Water-types can do something as long as they have a self-healing move, but they all fear critical hits. Swampert’s Earthquake is also quite good.
Gyarados and Garchomp can actually come in and OHKO the offensive sets with Earthquake. Gyarados can also hit the defensive set too since it avoids Toxic Spikes. The problem is that they hate critical hits too and there’s always the fear of Thunder Fang and Ice Fang. Finally, Dugtrio can come in after something got KOed and kill a slightly weakened Drapion.
Opinion & Notes
Drapion is a really strange Pokémon with not so great stats but I wouldn’t say it is average or easily countered. The main reason that makes this Pokémon usable is its awesome ability, Sniper, which along with high critical hit ratio moves, like Night Slash, can hurt a lot. Yes, you’ll sure need Lady Luck by your side but with Scope Lens, chances are that a critical hit will be there in time. Its typing leaves it with just one weakness (Ground) but only two resistances (Dark and Poison) which doesn’t help its defensive capabilities. Its immunity to Psychic is also notable as it makes an excellent switch in on a Choice Specs Alakazam/Azelf locked to Psychic. Anyway, Drapion is a quite good Pokémon and I suggest that you consider all of its options rather than just choosing the most obvious ones.