Duo of the Week: Swellow – Crobat

1st Set

This is how it works: Crobat moves first and uses Toxic on Swellow. Now Swellow’s Facade has 140 Base Power cause of his poison status, 1. 5x by Guts, 1. 5x by STAB, 1. 5x by Choice band = 472. 5! Your Swellow will become a killer machine with that massive power, which approaches almost two explosions. Toxic swaps your health and if Swellow doesn’t be hit, you will have six turns to sweep until it faints by poison. Facade is going to be your main attack, the rest attacks are only if something bad happens and Crobat faint before use Toxic and if you decide to switch out your Swellow. The problem of Facade is that it doesn’t hit effectively rock, steel and ghost types of pokemons. For the ghosts let Crobat hit them with Bite and with 30% chance of flinching the opponent will be very helpful. Now for rock and steel pokemons, Crobat can Screech them to halve their defense stats. If any pokemons with Intimidate hit the arena, Crobat can use Haze to eliminate the stat changes. Also, another option for Crobat is Protect over Haze. With some prediction, Protect will save Crobat and let Swellow freely sweep on that turn.

2nd Set

Swellow begins with Protect while Crobat use Confuse Ray. At the end of the round Toxic Orb will be activated and Swellow will be free to sweep with Facade. Meanwhile, Crobat use Screech on the confusing pokemon. The absence of Choice Band made Facade’s power only 315 but gives Swellow more freedom to sweep with all of its attacks. Brave Bird’s power is doubled of Aerial Ace but with Poison status Swellow maybe KOed itself at the next turns by the recoil damage. So it doesn’t worth to do breeding chain for Brave Bird. With Steel Wing Swellow can face the rock types only by itself. It deals 210 amount of damage and with the aid of Crobat’s Screech reaches 420 for a secure OHKO.

3rd Set

For this strange set Crobat should confuse the opponent while Swellow uses Double Team in the first turn. Swellow’s Defenses are way below average so any super effective attacks will OHKO it. But with Focus Sash will leave it 1HP. Then use Endeavor to cut down the foe’s HP. You will have very small chances that your opponent miss, cause of 1st turn’s Double Team, but if it happened you can kill him with Crobat’s Quick Attack on the next round. Don’t forget to trap him with Crobat’s Mean Look on the second turn. Endeavor all the opponent’s team and finish it with Crobat. In Swellow’s moveset there is the Endure if Focus Sash can’t be activated cause of a weak hit. If any ghost appears switch Swellow immediately or use the Confuse Ray-Screech combo. Notice that Quick Attack is a breeding move for Crobat.

Counters

Ghost, rock and steel types of pokemons can absorb the powerful facades and cause many troubles to our flying friends. Aggron is the best counter, it divides facade’s power four times, can OHKO both Crobat and Swellow and if someone of them decide to switch out, Aggron can get a free focus punch. On the other hand, you will rarely meet any Aggron due to their 4x weakness against ground, and earthquake is the most common move on double battles. Steelix with its high defense is an excellent choice along with Dusknoir, Weezing, Skarmory, Golem, Rhyperior, and Bastiodon. Also, very good choice is Gengar with its ghost type and the fact that most of the times carry Thunderbolt. If you want to over speed the bird and the bat, Aerodactyl is ideal for this job. It has the same speed base stat of 130 with Crobat, its rock type and its movepool can OHKO them pretty easily. After Swellow has killed something, your foe can sent out pokemons which are fast like Electrode, Jolteon or Weavile with Ice Shard to counter attack you. Also, a Rotom due to its ghost-electric type can wall you. Swellow and Crobat will be fainted by any super effective move and rock slide and discharge can bring them down both at the same time. If you have some pokemons with Intimidate, use them to reduce Swellow’s Attack stat. Also, a Bronzong with Trick Room destroys the backbone of this team.

Opinion and Notes

This Duo can be counter very easily but none said that you will win a battle only by Swellow and Crobat. You have to use them to destroy the key members of your opponent’s team. They have low defenses and some time both Swellow and Crobat will be fainted. At this time you must be prepare to beat him with the rest of your team. Swellow is the best user of Facade and Crobat can support it very effectively. Use their high speed and devastating power of Facade to bring down pokemons that the rest team’s members can’t counter.

by JimLink and Aluado