Nihilego Discussion

AccidentalGreed

Sweet and bitter as chocolate.
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What is wrong with those stats?...besides the physical ones are all above 100
Aside from Speed that probably could be better but good enough for Garchomp (...whatever it might do besides use Dazzling Gleam or lay hazards in a lead vs lead scenario) the stats are actually pretty good and the paper Defense honestly isn't anything new in the magical realm of fast but frail attackers. See: Weavile, Alakazam, and Breloom. It's kind of like Bizarro Diancie if it were allowed to have better Special Attack and Speed without the need to mega evolve.

That said, I don't see this thing succeeding highly in old gen terms since it has some awkward defensive typing that's weak to common types (Water's water, Steel's gaining now that # of Fairies are increasing, Psychic is kind of so so but threatening nontheless, and everyone and their mom carries Earthquake). It's too bad it can't deal effectively with Steels either without using HP Fire, and even then it has a mostly terrible matchup against Heatran variants with Earth Power. So I'm thinking:

Nihilego @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe or 80 Def / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
nature: Timid
- Power Gem
- Sludge Wave / Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power Fire / Thunderbolt
- Stealth Rock / Toxic Spikes / Grass Knot / Thunderbolt

Basically your average offensive Rock setter/attacker, though it performs terribly 1v1 against a majority of ORAS leads so it's more advised as a first-to-second quarter (1/4 - 2/4 of the battle) setter. If you don't wanna deal with that shit, then go for a fourth attack.

80 Def / 176 HP / 252 Spe with a Timid nature makes Nihilego's Special Attack lower than its Speed, giving it a Speed boost instead of an SpA boost when Beast Boost activates while still outrunning Garchomp (even w/ imperfect IV). Even with wackass coverage, that's pretty big against fast offensive teams. If you wanna break through stally/bulkier teams with SpA boosts though feel free to max SpA out or go big with Modest.
 
Looks like a Cryogonal with more HP and better Special Atk statwise. It's unique typing and fantastic special bulk allows it to easily check Charizard Y, Sylveon, Special Thundurus, Mega Pidgeot among other Pokes. That piss poor Phys def is a big problem. Extremely weak to priority moves sans Vacuum Wave. SR and T-Spikes are very nice utility moves.

Being x4 weak to ground really isn't a massive problem. I know I'm being stupid considering that being x4 weak to ground is terrible. Even if Nihilego wasn't weak to EQ. It's going to take chunks of damage from EQ among other physical hits. Earth Power however, can prove problematic.
 
I personally like the flavor connotations of Nihilego's Rock/Poison typing. The Ultra Beasts are depicted as weird eldritch monsters that just don't make sense. This Rock/Poison typing for a jellyfish conveys that very well (along with Celesteela inexplicably learning a bunch of Grass-type moves).
 
80 Def / 176 HP / 252 Spe with a Timid nature makes Nihilego's Special Attack lower than its Speed, giving it a Speed boost instead of an SpA boost when Beast Boost activates while still outrunning Garchomp (even w/ imperfect IV).
In Sun and Moon, imperfect IVs for Hidden Powers no longer matter with Hyper Training. Hyper Training increases your stats to a place where it would have been if it had perfect IVs, but still keep the IV for Hidden Powers. So, you still get full speed Nihilego and Latios even when they carry Hidden Power!
 
I personally like the flavor connotations of Nihilego's Rock/Poison typing. The Ultra Beasts are depicted as weird eldritch monsters that just don't make sense. This Rock/Poison typing for a jellyfish conveys that very well (along with Celesteela inexplicably learning a bunch of Grass-type moves).
Celesteela is a rocket ship. Her typing makes more sense.
Also we've seen worse movepool slipups, like pokemon with no hands or tails learning double slap/tail whip.
 

Pikachu315111

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Rock/Poison? I guess cause it's glass and a jellyfish? Name sounds like one of an eldritch abomination, though that's not shared amoung the other Ultra Beasts.

A speedy, Special focused Pokemon also with high HP.

Got the STABS (notably Power Gem and Sludge Wave), Thunderbolt/Thunder, Psyshock/Psychic, and Dazzling Gleam. For utilities it gets Toxic Spikes, Mirror Coat, Venom Drench, Stealth Rock, Wonder Room, dual screens, and Thunder Wave.

Being fast and having Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock alone makes it viable. Everything else is icing on the cake, though Beast Power means it'll probably be tough to take out on the Special Defense side if it gets going (though you might be able to manipulate it so Special Attack is increased instead).
 
SO I'm guessing because no one has said anything about clear smog means its a bad move huh? I would have thought it would be nice for damage plus haze.

Hard to say if this should be a pure attacker or double hazard setter plus attacker.
 
I'm liking this set for it defensively.

Nihilego @ Black Sludge / Shuca Berry
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Def / 12 SpD
Bold/Calm Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Acid Spray
- Power Gem
- Hidden Power Fire / Thunder Wave

Calm Nature provides more overall bulk, but Bold avoids the 2HKO from Mega Pinsir Close Combat (though I'm guessing it will probably be running Earthquake a lot if Aegislash is unbanned at the start of the gen...). Acid Spray is needed to get past Mega Sableye, as Power Gem will 2HKO a -2 SpD Mega Sableye. HP Fire for Ferro and Scizor of course. Nihilego thankfully has enough Sp. Atk for it to get a lot of the 2HKOs it needs without investment and its speed tier is also rather decent.
 
Well, I think this pal has an interesting potential. It paired with Harsh Sunlight (maybe Mega Charizard Y to set, there are more options using Sunny Day move) to gain some defense against water moves and equipped with an Air Balloon (for ground moves - before been hit), can be a serious threatening.

This set mentioned earlier by AccidentalGreed, with some tweaks, would be something difficult to stop in single battles:
Nihilego @ Air Baloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe or 80 Def / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
- Power Gem
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power Fire
- Grass Knot

Probably only steel priority moves would make him to have a bad day (Scizor says hello here), but I'm quite sure Charizard would take care this with pleasure.
 
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Now that we're getting a better idea of what the metagame might look like I'm liking the idea of scarfed Poison or Steel types, to beat the inevitably popular Tapu Lele + Pheromosa core. Scarf Nihilego seems like a pretty decent set in spite of some of the issues it has as an offensive pokemon Of course this is similar to Scarf Gengar which is better in a lot of ways, namely much better coverage and an ability to switch in on Pheromosa easier. Nihilego has Beast Boost though, which is a great ability for a scarfer and lets it clean games up, so those two will definitely compete for a team slot. Also while Ghost and Poison has better neutral coverage together, nothing's immune to Rock, letting Nihilego use strong Power Gems to hurt anything that switches in, especially when boosted with Beast Boost.

Of course when non-Alolan Dugtrio is legal that's another reason to use Gengar over Nihilego. And once the metagame slows down the idea of using Scarf on things like this will get kinda absurd. Until then I'll enjoy using this thing. I think it's one of the coolest Ultra Beasts.
 
High HP, Special Defense and Speed, horrid Attack and Defense.
A typical Rock-type affair, amirite?

This monster is a combination of many things I have hoped to see for ages. A special-oriented, speedy Rock type would have been plenty, but it even has that rad Rock/Poison typing and a relevance to the main story. Awesome.
 
scarf and offensive rocks seem really cool but i'm also feeling a specs set

Nihilego @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sludge Bomb
- Power Gem
- Hidden Power Fire/Hidden Power Ground
- Grass Knot

hpfire/ground depends on whether u want to hit ferro+sciz or heatran, but fire seems better the majority of the time. grass knot handles bulky grounds/waters. though neither of those are moves u really want to be choiced into in the first place
seems like it would benefit a lot from something that can handle/remove steels so it can mindlessly spam sludge bomb. also seems incredibly hard to switch into after a beast boost
 

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