charizard8888
Catch The Wave
[OVERVIEW]
Archeops's great offensive typing coupled with a mammoth Attack stat and access to high-Base Power STAB and coverage moves like Head Smash and Outrage paves its way for being a fast powerful attacker. Its base 110 Speed stat lets it outspeed top-tier threats including Mega Charizard X, Mega Charizard Y, non-Choice Scarf Garchomp, Durant, Mega Pinsir, and Speed tie with Jumpluff, and Archeops's power can be further upgraded with Choice Band to OHKO bulky Pokemon like Dragonite, bulky Tapu Lele, and Meloetta. However, its typing leaves it weak to Water, Steel, Rock, Electric, and Ice, all of which are common attacking types, leaving it vulnerable to Mega Gyarados, Golem, Mega Metagross, Magnezone, and Choice Scarf users like Porygon-Z and Tapu Lele. Archeops is also highly reliant on Head Smash for KOing foes, which is unreliable due to its relatively low 80% accuracy and inflicts recoil that can activate Defeatist, costing Archeops its matchup against Chansey. Archeops is also very frail, so if it fails to KO the opposing Pokemon, it's most likely going to lose. This also makes it lose against faster Pokemon like Naganadel and Mega Lopunny as well as every Sturdy Pokemon like Golem, Donphan, Magnezone, and Sawk, all of which are very common.
[SET]
name: Choice Band
move 1: Head Smash
move 2: Fly
move 3: Outrage
move 4: Heat Wave / Earthquake
item: Choice Band
ability: Defeatist
nature: Jolly
evs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
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Head Smash, despite its relatively low accuracy, is a great Rock-type STAB move with a huge 150 Base Power that lets it OHKO Mega Charizard X, Mega Charizard Y, Dragonite through Multiscale, bulky Tapu Lele, and Meloetta. Fly is Archeops's Flying-type STAB move, which allows it to defeat the likes of Mega Heracross, Mega Venusaur, Kommo-o, and Keldeo. Outrage combined with Choice Band lets it OHKO non-Choice Scarf Garchomp and can also be used as a more reliable move to KO non-Choice Scarf Haxorus. Heat Wave KOes Kartana and non-Choice Scarf Genesect reliably. Alternatively, Earthquake can be used to OHKO non-Choice Scarf Terrakion, non-Choice Scarf Excadrill, and Nihilego with ease without relying on Head Smash and also provides Archeops with Rock / Ground coverage, which few Pokemon resist.
Set Details
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Maximum Attack investment with Choice Band lets Archeops hit as hard as possible, which is required to one-shot bulky Z-Move Tapu Lele, Dragonite through Multiscale, and Meloetta. Maximum Speed investment with a Jolly nature lets it outpace Mega Charizard X, Mega Charizard Y, non-Choice Scarf Garchomp, Mega Pinsir, Durant, and Speed tie with other base 110 Speed Pokemon like Jumpluff and Latios, which can discourage your opponent from sending these Pokemon. Unfortunately, Archeops must use Defeatist, which reduces its attacks to half their power when it has less than half of its maximum HP remaining, costing it its matchup against Chansey after Head Smash recoil.
Usage Tips
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Archeops is a powerful and fast but frail physical attacker, so it is better to send it against Pokemon that get outsped by and cannot wall it, such Mega Charizard X, Mega Charizard Y, Mega Pinsir, Mega Heracross, and Dragonite. Avoid sending it against faster threats like Greninja and Zeraora, physically defensive walls such as Mega Slowbro and Zygarde-C, and Sturdy Pokemon like Golem and Magnezone, as they would defeat it by tanking its hits and retaliating with their own. Archeops should mostly use Head Smash, as it's the hardest-hitting move it gets, unless the foe resists it and its other moves get super effective coverage. You should avoid using Fly if you predict the foe to be carrying Protect or Substitute, as they can take advantage of the extra turn and avoid taking any damage.
Team Options
========
Archeops gets outsped by some hard-hitters like Choice Specs Greninja, Naganadel, Mega Lopunny, and Choice Scarf users like Garchomp, which can OHKO it. Fast Pokemon like Choice Scarf Porygon-Z can defeat all of these threats; in turn, Archeops can check Dragonite, Meloetta, bulky Mega Heracross, and Primarina, which are able to defeat Porygon-Z. Specially offensive Pokemon like bulky Mega Charizard Y offer support against Mega Gyarados, Greninja, and Mega Slowbro, which threaten Archeops, while Archeops can deal with Pokemon like Mega Charizard X, Dragonite, and Mega Pinsir, which threaten Mega Charizard Y. Similarly, physically bulky Mega Charizard X checks Steel-types like Mega Metagross and Magearna and Mega Lopunny, Magnezone, and Sawk reliably, which can all defeat Archeops, while Archeops helps Mega Charizard X in return by checking bulky Z-Move Tapu Lele, Dragonite, Meloetta, and Primarina. Sturdy Pokemon heavily counter Archeops, so bulky Mega Heracross is a great teammate for Archeops, as it can single-handedly take out most of Archeops's checks including most Sturdy Pokemon like Golem and Sawk, faster threats like Mega Lucario, Greninja, Mega Lopunny, and Choice Scarf Garchomp, and most of the Water-type Pokemon such as Mega Gyarados and Mega Swampert. Archeops in turn helps Mega Heracross by scaring off Mega Charizard X, Mega Charizard Y, Dragonite, Mega Pinsir, and Mega Medicham, which threaten Mega Heracross.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
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Switcheroo can be used over Heat Wave to shut down defensive Pokemon like Chansey and Dusclops and KO them. The same moves mentioned in the Choice Band set along with Hidden Power Ice can be used with Choice Scarf with a Naughty nature allowing Archeops to get past faster threats like Naganadel, Landorus-T, Zeraora, Mega Lopunny, and Choice Scarf Porygon-Z while still defeating Mega Charizard X, Mega Charizard Y, and Dragonite with no bulk investment through Multiscale. However, without Choice Band, it can no longer defeat the likes of Psychium Z Tapu Lele, physically bulky Primarina, and Charm + Synthesis Mega Venusaur. Flynium Z with Sky Attack provides it a devastating 200-Base Power Supersonic Skystrike while Rockium Z + Head Smash becomes a powerful 200 Base Power Continental Crush with perfect accuracy; however, using Z-Crystals over Choice Band reduces the power of its other moves and leaves it devoid of coverage moves, which results in losing of some of the Pokemon which the Choice Band set can defeat. Moreover, Choice Band-boosted Head Smash hits harder than Continental Crush, always OHKOing HP-invested Dragonite through Multiscale while the latter depends on a roll to do so. As Rock Slide has better accuracy than Head Smash, it can be used as a more reliable Rock-type STAB move against Pokemon that can be KOed with it like Mega Pinsir and Victini. However, it should be noted that it doesn't give any additional advantages other than the 30% flinch chance, which can be useful for defeating Pokemon like Crustle and Avalugg that cannot be OHKOed by any of its other moves.
Checks and Counters
===================
**Steel-types**: Steel-type Pokemon like Mega Metagross, Mega Aggron, Aegislash, Magearna, and Mega Mawile are commonly used in the 1v1 metagame, resist both of Archeops's STAB moves, and are bulky enough to tank an Earthquake and retaliate with their super effective Steel-type moves. However, Kartana can be defeated with Heat Wave, and Durant also gets OHKOed by Head Smash.
**Faster Attackers**: Greninja, Zeraora, Mega Lopunny, and Choice Scarf users like Garchomp, Tapu Lele, Victini, and Genesect outpace Archeops and are able to take it out with their attacks. However, all of these Pokemon except for Garchomp can be defeated by Choice Scarf variants.
**Sturdy Pokemon**: Sturdy Pokemon like Golem, Donphan, Sawk, and Magnezone are able to take one hit and OHKO Archeops back with their powerful moves.
**Bulky Pokemon**: Bulky Pokemon like Zygarde-C and Mega Slowbro can easily take Archeops's attacks and defeat it using their respective STAB moves.
**Water-types**: Archeops loses to most Water-type Pokemon such as Mega Gyarados, Greninja, Mega Slowbro, and Mega Swampert. Greninja outspeeds and OHKOes it, while the others are able to take a hit from it and OHKO it with their super effective Water-type STAB moves. However, the Choice Band set has a great chance of defeating defeat Primarina, Tapu Fini, and Mega Blastoise.
[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[charizard8888, 333554]]
- Quality checked by: [[MaceMaster, 302951], [dom, 280380], [TDA, 276708]]
- Grammar checked by: [[Electrolyte, 148071], [The Dutch Plumberjack, 232216]]
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