[SET]
name: Offensive
move 1: Dark Pulse
move 2: Sludge Bomb
move 3: Focus Blast
move 4: Ice Beam
item: Life Orb / Expert Belt / Heavy-Duty Boots
tera type: Poison / Fighting
ability: Bad Dreams
nature: Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Leveraging its high Speed, impressive power, and access to a wide range of coverage moves, Darkrai is able to thrive in OU as a powerful wallbreaker and disruption tool. Sludge Bomb complements Darkrai's STAB Dark Pulse by targeting Fairy-types like Clefable, Primarina, and Hatterene while also giving Darkrai powerful coverage into Ogerpon-W. Focus Blast enhances Darkrai's coverage further by targeting bulky Dark-types like Kingambit, Ting-Lu, and Roaring Moon, and Ice Beam lets Darkrai OHKO Gliscor and Landorus-T while being its strongest option against Great Tusk, Raging Bolt, and Dragonite. Darkrai's deep movepool can be explored to further customize its role on a team by trading out some of its coverage for utility. Knock Off can provide fantastic support by removing Heavy-Duty Boots from switch-ins like Clodsire and Blissey, while it is possible to delve deeper into Darkrai's utility movepool to give it even more potent options against defensive switch-ins, such as Will-O-Wisp to permanently neuter physical attackers and Taunt to shut down both recovery moves and status effects from Blissey and Clodsire. Finally, Sucker Punch is a niche option that is able to pick off weakened foes like Dragapult and Deoxys-S that would otherwise be able to revenge kill it; when using Sucker Punch, a spread of 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe with a Naive nature is optimal to minimize damage from common priority moves like Dragonite's Extreme Speed and Rillaboom's Grassy Glide, though a Hasty nature can be useful to take on Raging Bolt's Thunderclap. Life Orb is a fantastic option that bolsters Darkrai's power even further, giving it clean 2HKOs on offensive Gouging Fire and Corviknight after Stealth Rock along with OHKOs on max HP Great Tusk with Ice Beam and Ogerpon-W with Sludge Bomb after any entry hazard chip; with Life Orb, 29 HP IVs can be used to minimize recoil. Alternatively, Expert Belt takes advantage of Darkrai's excellent coverage without sacrificing its longevity, maintaining OHKOs on offensive Gholdengo and Enamorus; Heavy-Duty Boots improves Darkrai's longevity further, but the loss in power not only sacrifices the aforementioned benchmarks, it also leaves Darkrai unable to safely 2HKO Galarian Slowking. Tera Poison is a fantastic option both offensively and defensively on Darkrai. With Life Orb or Expert Belt, Tera Poison Sludge Bomb is able to OHKO Clefable, Hatterene, and Alolan Ninetales and 2HKO Assault Vest Primarina, and even without a boosting item, it can OHKO both Ogerpon-W and Rillaboom. In turn, Tera Poison flips Darkrai's Fighting- and Fairy-type weaknesses into resistances, allowing it to take hits from Iron Valiant, Zamazenta, and Choice Scarf Enamorus if necessary, as well as granting it a resistance to Rillaboom's Grassy Glide. Tera Fighting can instead be considered to increase the power of Darkrai's Focus Blast to monstrous levels at the expense of not granting much defensive value; Tera-boosted Focus Blast always secures an OHKO on Kyurem, allows Expert Belt Darkrai to 2HKO even Ting-Lu, and grants Life Orb Darkrai a roll in its favor to 2HKO Blissey.
Darkrai provides a huge amount of value to offense teams that appreciate its high Speed along with its ability to threaten Galarian Slowking, though even slower, more balanced teams can still find value in its ability to threaten a significant proportion of the tier and force switches to take advantage of entry hazards. Landorus-T is a strong partner that can not only set Stealth Rock but is also able to switch in on threats to Darkrai like Zamazenta and help to offset Darkrai's relative frailty by bringing it in safely with U-turn. Similarly, Gliscor makes a good pairing on bulkier structures with its ability to come in on both Zamazenta and Clodsire. As Darkrai typically makes its home on more offensive builds, partners that can handle Darkrai's checks without being momentum sinks are much appreciated; Assault Vest Primarina forms a great core with Darkrai, able to switch in on Iron Valiant and Volcarona and force them out. Primarina also appreciates Darkrai threatening Galarian Slowking. Offensively, special attackers like Volcarona, Iron Valiant, and Raging Bolt that can help to overload shared checks like Clodsire and Blissey make great partners. Darkrai doesn't only work with special overload, though; Dark-type spam teams benefit greatly from Darkrai pressuring and being able to deal heavy damage to threats like Clefable, Ting-Lu, and Primarina, allowing for threats like Roaring Moon and Weavile to later break through. In return, Roaring Moon, Weavile, and other Dark-type attackers like Kingambit are able to weaken Zamazenta for Darkrai while also being able to take advantage of Darkrai's more passive switch-ins like Clodsire and Blissey; Ogerpon-W is another powerful partner that can force damage onto Zamazenta and turn passive walls into setup fodder. Hisuian Samurott is another partner that benefits from this support in overloading shared checks while also setting up Spikes, which Darkrai appreciates greatly. Particularly when opting not to run Heavy-Duty Boots, Darkrai appreciates hazard removal to give it more turns on the field; Great Tusk is a natural pick that is also able to pressure Zamazenta and can invite in Iron Valiant to burn its Booster Energy. Another partner that can help Darkrai both defensively and offensively is Gholdengo, as Gholdengo can switch in on Fighting- and Fairy-type attacks from Iron Valiant, Zamazenta, and Clefable while Gholdengo in turn appreciates Darkrai's ability to weaken or eliminate opposing Dark-types like Ting-Lu, Kingambit, and Hisuian Samurott. Bulkier teams can opt to pair Galarian Slowking with Darkrai with its ability to pivot around Enamorus, Iron Valiant, and Zamazenta, and the Future Sight support it provides turns Darkrai into a devastating threat that Clodsire cannot switch into and Zamazenta cannot safely force out.
[SET CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/kd458.633798/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/dreadfury.408271/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/veti.612907/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/clouds.356215/
name: Offensive
move 1: Dark Pulse
move 2: Sludge Bomb
move 3: Focus Blast
move 4: Ice Beam
item: Life Orb / Expert Belt / Heavy-Duty Boots
tera type: Poison / Fighting
ability: Bad Dreams
nature: Timid
evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Leveraging its high Speed, impressive power, and access to a wide range of coverage moves, Darkrai is able to thrive in OU as a powerful wallbreaker and disruption tool. Sludge Bomb complements Darkrai's STAB Dark Pulse by targeting Fairy-types like Clefable, Primarina, and Hatterene while also giving Darkrai powerful coverage into Ogerpon-W. Focus Blast enhances Darkrai's coverage further by targeting bulky Dark-types like Kingambit, Ting-Lu, and Roaring Moon, and Ice Beam lets Darkrai OHKO Gliscor and Landorus-T while being its strongest option against Great Tusk, Raging Bolt, and Dragonite. Darkrai's deep movepool can be explored to further customize its role on a team by trading out some of its coverage for utility. Knock Off can provide fantastic support by removing Heavy-Duty Boots from switch-ins like Clodsire and Blissey, while it is possible to delve deeper into Darkrai's utility movepool to give it even more potent options against defensive switch-ins, such as Will-O-Wisp to permanently neuter physical attackers and Taunt to shut down both recovery moves and status effects from Blissey and Clodsire. Finally, Sucker Punch is a niche option that is able to pick off weakened foes like Dragapult and Deoxys-S that would otherwise be able to revenge kill it; when using Sucker Punch, a spread of 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe with a Naive nature is optimal to minimize damage from common priority moves like Dragonite's Extreme Speed and Rillaboom's Grassy Glide, though a Hasty nature can be useful to take on Raging Bolt's Thunderclap. Life Orb is a fantastic option that bolsters Darkrai's power even further, giving it clean 2HKOs on offensive Gouging Fire and Corviknight after Stealth Rock along with OHKOs on max HP Great Tusk with Ice Beam and Ogerpon-W with Sludge Bomb after any entry hazard chip; with Life Orb, 29 HP IVs can be used to minimize recoil. Alternatively, Expert Belt takes advantage of Darkrai's excellent coverage without sacrificing its longevity, maintaining OHKOs on offensive Gholdengo and Enamorus; Heavy-Duty Boots improves Darkrai's longevity further, but the loss in power not only sacrifices the aforementioned benchmarks, it also leaves Darkrai unable to safely 2HKO Galarian Slowking. Tera Poison is a fantastic option both offensively and defensively on Darkrai. With Life Orb or Expert Belt, Tera Poison Sludge Bomb is able to OHKO Clefable, Hatterene, and Alolan Ninetales and 2HKO Assault Vest Primarina, and even without a boosting item, it can OHKO both Ogerpon-W and Rillaboom. In turn, Tera Poison flips Darkrai's Fighting- and Fairy-type weaknesses into resistances, allowing it to take hits from Iron Valiant, Zamazenta, and Choice Scarf Enamorus if necessary, as well as granting it a resistance to Rillaboom's Grassy Glide. Tera Fighting can instead be considered to increase the power of Darkrai's Focus Blast to monstrous levels at the expense of not granting much defensive value; Tera-boosted Focus Blast always secures an OHKO on Kyurem, allows Expert Belt Darkrai to 2HKO even Ting-Lu, and grants Life Orb Darkrai a roll in its favor to 2HKO Blissey.
Darkrai provides a huge amount of value to offense teams that appreciate its high Speed along with its ability to threaten Galarian Slowking, though even slower, more balanced teams can still find value in its ability to threaten a significant proportion of the tier and force switches to take advantage of entry hazards. Landorus-T is a strong partner that can not only set Stealth Rock but is also able to switch in on threats to Darkrai like Zamazenta and help to offset Darkrai's relative frailty by bringing it in safely with U-turn. Similarly, Gliscor makes a good pairing on bulkier structures with its ability to come in on both Zamazenta and Clodsire. As Darkrai typically makes its home on more offensive builds, partners that can handle Darkrai's checks without being momentum sinks are much appreciated; Assault Vest Primarina forms a great core with Darkrai, able to switch in on Iron Valiant and Volcarona and force them out. Primarina also appreciates Darkrai threatening Galarian Slowking. Offensively, special attackers like Volcarona, Iron Valiant, and Raging Bolt that can help to overload shared checks like Clodsire and Blissey make great partners. Darkrai doesn't only work with special overload, though; Dark-type spam teams benefit greatly from Darkrai pressuring and being able to deal heavy damage to threats like Clefable, Ting-Lu, and Primarina, allowing for threats like Roaring Moon and Weavile to later break through. In return, Roaring Moon, Weavile, and other Dark-type attackers like Kingambit are able to weaken Zamazenta for Darkrai while also being able to take advantage of Darkrai's more passive switch-ins like Clodsire and Blissey; Ogerpon-W is another powerful partner that can force damage onto Zamazenta and turn passive walls into setup fodder. Hisuian Samurott is another partner that benefits from this support in overloading shared checks while also setting up Spikes, which Darkrai appreciates greatly. Particularly when opting not to run Heavy-Duty Boots, Darkrai appreciates hazard removal to give it more turns on the field; Great Tusk is a natural pick that is also able to pressure Zamazenta and can invite in Iron Valiant to burn its Booster Energy. Another partner that can help Darkrai both defensively and offensively is Gholdengo, as Gholdengo can switch in on Fighting- and Fairy-type attacks from Iron Valiant, Zamazenta, and Clefable while Gholdengo in turn appreciates Darkrai's ability to weaken or eliminate opposing Dark-types like Ting-Lu, Kingambit, and Hisuian Samurott. Bulkier teams can opt to pair Galarian Slowking with Darkrai with its ability to pivot around Enamorus, Iron Valiant, and Zamazenta, and the Future Sight support it provides turns Darkrai into a devastating threat that Clodsire cannot switch into and Zamazenta cannot safely force out.
[SET CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/kd458.633798/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/dreadfury.408271/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/veti.612907/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/clouds.356215/
Last edited:
