Pokémon Scream Tail

[Tuthur]

Base Stats: 115 / 65 / 99 / 65 / 115 / 111
Ability: Protosynthesis
Notable Moves:
- Calm Mind
- Dazzling Gleam
- Disable
- Encore
- Light Screen
- Psychic
- Psyschok
- Reflect
- Stealth Rock
- Stored Power
- Thunder Wave
- Trick
- Wish

Complete movepool

Learned Moves:
Pound @ Lv. 1
Sing @ Lv. 1
Disable @ Lv. 1
Howl @ Lv. 7
Noble Roar @ Lv. 14
Bite @ Lv. 21
Body Slam @ Lv. 28
Rest @ Lv. 35
Play Rough @ Lv. 42
Hyper Voice @ Lv. 49
Psychic Fangs @ Lv. 56
Crunch @ Lv. 63
Wish @ Lv. 70
Gyro Ball @ Lv. 77
Perish Song @ Lv. 84
Boomburst @ Lv. 91
Reminder Moves:
Sunny Day
TM Moves:
Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Body Slam, Take Down, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Blizzard, Psybeam, Hyper Beam, Thunderbolt, Thunder Wave, Thunder, Dig, Psychic, Light Screen, Reflect, Metronome, Fire Blast, Amnesia, Rest, Substitute, Protect, Scary Face, Sandstorm, Endure, Sleep Talk, Baton Pass, Encore, Rain Dance, Sunny Day, Crunch, Facade, Helping Hand, Trick, Imprison, Hyper Voice, Fake Tears, Rock Tomb, Bulk Up, Calm Mind, Water Pulse, Fling, Drain Punch, Focus Blast, Giga Impact, Thunder Fang, Ice Fang, Fire Fang, Zen Headbutt, Trick Room, Stealth Rock, Grass Knot, Psyshock, Stored Power, Misty Terrain, Play Rough, Dazzling Gleam, Psychic Terrain, Psychic Fangs, Stomping Tantrum, Tera Blast, Snowscape

New Ability:
Protosynthesis - If Sunny Day is active or Booster Energy held, the highest stat is 1.5x.

Pros:
- Excellent bulk with decent defensive typing lets it check the likes of Iron Valiant, Roaring Moon and Garchomp.
- Wide support movepool including Stealth Rock and Wish.
- It has great Speed tier, outspeeding namely Iron Treads, Palafin, and Garchomp, letting it threaten them with Dazzling Gleam and setup reliably dual Screens.
- As some potential with setup sets with Calm Mind.

Cons:
- Low offense meaning it is weak, even after a Calm Mind boost, thus passive, especially since it doesn't have many options to cripple switch-ins.
- Its recovery, Wish, takes us two moveslots meaning it cannot fit as many support options as it wishes, leading to 4mss, and the turn spend with Protect can be abused due to Scream Tail's passivity.
- It is a Fairy-type that is weak to Ghost and doesn't resist Dark-type, meaning it cannot deal with the likes of Chien-Pao and Dragapult.
- Its ability seems niche outside teams based around sun.

Terastalize Potential
- Due to its defensive nature, Scream Tail doesn't look like a good user of terastalize, but rather as a support Pokemon which can create opportunities for the terastalize user.
- Fairy terastalyze seems like the best option for it, as it makes up for two of Scream Tail's biggest flaw; its Psychic-type hindering its Dark- and Ghost-matchups and its lack of raw power.
- Dark on the other hand lets it resist Ghost moves and makes it immune to Prankster, letting it circumvent some strategies to break it.

Potential Sets:
Wish Pass
Scream Tail @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Protect
- Dazzling Gleam
- Stealth Rock / Thunder Wave

This Scream Tail act as a fast wall, able to threaten slower attackers like Breloom and Hydreigon, and support its teammates with Wish and Stealth Rock. It has some potential in sun teams, activating Protosynthesis and supporting Torkoal with big Wish. Together they also form a decent hazard core, Scream Tail setting them up, while Torkoal can clean them with Rapid Spin.

Dual Screens
Scream Tail @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Dazzling Gleam / Encore
- Stealth Rock

This Scream Tail is meant to be used in Hyper Offense teams focusing on setup spam. It is the fastest Pokemon learning both dual Screens and Stealth Rock, while having the bulk to set them up multiple times through the game. It can run either Dazzling Gleam to threaten attackers or Encore to cripple Defog users. That said it faces heavy competition from Grimmsnarl which has access to Prankster and can run Parting Shot.

 

[Porygon2Bandit]

Played around with Scream Tail earlier as a replacement cleric to Blissey (Similar to set 1 but changed SR out for an attack move). The bulk looks high but right now the amount of punishes from ghosts is too much to run a cleric set and Blissey is just really outclassing. My estimation is when we start to see a higher presence of the Donphan twins (and Fluttermane gone), Scream Tail might become more useful but Psychic/Fairy is probably the most miserable defensive combo a cleric could get other than some ice pairing.

Long term, I expect the speed to be a massive selling point, getting by slower taunt stall breakers to apply TWave and permanently dampen their ability to taunt break you out of recover. Right now, she's a bit too deadweight in the presence of Fluttermane and Chi-Yu, which Blissey can at least situationally switch into and disable.

The attack stats are just miserable, even for stall where you don't care. Lack of toxic access on all mons this gen might be the biggest hampening to Scream Tail there could be, because you can't just NOT run an attack.

 

[RareRedReaper]

Base Stats: 115 / 65 / 99 / 65 / 115 / 111
Ability: Protosynthesis
Notable Moves:
- Calm Mind
- Dazzling Gleam
- Disable
- Encore
- Light Screen
- Psychic
- Psyschok
- Reflect
- Stealth Rock
- Stored Power
- Thunder Wave
- Trick
- Wish

Complete movepool

Learned Moves:
Pound @ Lv. 1
Sing @ Lv. 1
Disable @ Lv. 1
Howl @ Lv. 7
Noble Roar @ Lv. 14
Bite @ Lv. 21
Body Slam @ Lv. 28
Rest @ Lv. 35
Play Rough @ Lv. 42
Hyper Voice @ Lv. 49
Psychic Fangs @ Lv. 56
Crunch @ Lv. 63
Wish @ Lv. 70
Gyro Ball @ Lv. 77
Perish Song @ Lv. 84
Boomburst @ Lv. 91
Reminder Moves:
Sunny Day
TM Moves:
Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Body Slam, Take Down, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Blizzard, Psybeam, Hyper Beam, Thunderbolt, Thunder Wave, Thunder, Dig, Psychic, Light Screen, Reflect, Metronome, Fire Blast, Amnesia, Rest, Substitute, Protect, Scary Face, Sandstorm, Endure, Sleep Talk, Baton Pass, Encore, Rain Dance, Sunny Day, Crunch, Facade, Helping Hand, Trick, Imprison, Hyper Voice, Fake Tears, Rock Tomb, Bulk Up, Calm Mind, Water Pulse, Fling, Drain Punch, Focus Blast, Giga Impact, Thunder Fang, Ice Fang, Fire Fang, Zen Headbutt, Trick Room, Stealth Rock, Grass Knot, Psyshock, Stored Power, Misty Terrain, Play Rough, Dazzling Gleam, Psychic Terrain, Psychic Fangs, Stomping Tantrum, Tera Blast, Snowscape

New Ability:
Protosynthesis - If Sunny Day is active or Booster Energy held, the highest stat is 1.5x.

Pros:
- Excellent bulk with decent defensive typing lets it check the likes of Iron Valiant, Roaring Moon and Garchomp.
- Wide support movepool including Stealth Rock and Wish.
- It has great Speed tier, outspeeding namely Iron Treads, Palafin, and Garchomp, letting it threaten them with Dazzling Gleam and setup reliably dual Screens.
- As some potential with setup sets with Calm Mind.

Cons:
- Low offense meaning it is weak, even after a Calm Mind boost, thus passive, especially since it doesn't have many options to cripple switch-ins.
- Its recovery, Wish, takes us two moveslots meaning it cannot fit as many support options as it wishes, leading to 4mss, and the turn spend with Protect can be abused due to Scream Tail's passivity.
- It is a Fairy-type that is weak to Ghost and doesn't resist Dark-type, meaning it cannot deal with the likes of Chien-Pao and Dragapult.
- Its ability seems niche outside teams based around sun.

Terastalize Potential
- Due to its defensive nature, Scream Tail doesn't look like a good user of terastalize, but rather as a support Pokemon which can create opportunities for the terastalize user.
- Fairy terastalyze seems like the best option for it, as it makes up for two of Scream Tail's biggest flaw; its Psychic-type hindering its Dark- and Ghost-matchups and its lack of raw power.
- Dark on the other hand lets it resist Ghost moves and makes it immune to Prankster, letting it circumvent some strategies to break it.

Potential Sets:
Wish Pass
Scream Tail @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Protect
- Dazzling Gleam
- Stealth Rock / Thunder Wave

This Scream Tail act as a fast wall, able to threaten slower attackers like Breloom and Hydreigon, and support its teammates with Wish and Stealth Rock. It has some potential in sun teams, activating Protosynthesis and supporting Torkoal with big Wish. Together they also form a decent hazard core, Scream Tail setting them up, while Torkoal can clean them with Rapid Spin.

Dual Screens
Scream Tail @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Dazzling Gleam / Encore
- Stealth Rock

This Scream Tail is meant to be used in Hyper Offense teams focusing on setup spam. It is the fastest Pokemon learning both dual Screens and Stealth Rock, while having the bulk to set them up multiple times through the game. It can run either Dazzling Gleam to threaten attackers or Encore to cripple Defog users. That said it faces heavy competition from Grimmsnarl which has access to Prankster and can run Parting Shot.

Wouldnt you be able to get away with a trick room variant of Scream Tail to setup for a sweep with a gholdengo kingambit or even eruption torkoal?
-Trick Room
-Dazzling Gleam
-Stealth Rock
-Wish

 

[Turtlek]

I wonder if Noble Roar could have a niche just like Confide Blissey.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

One of the finest stored Power User- having to use Wish is a bit clunky though:
Wish
Stored Power
Calm Mind
Terrablast
#TerraSteel

I run Timid, Full HP, some speed some defense currently. Feels like Stored Power Cress

 

[GRs Cousin]

Scream Tail @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam / Stealth Rock
- Wish
- Encore
- Disable

Been having a lot of fun with this set that mitigates Scream Tail's passivity on a Bulky Offense team and teams that like to run hazard spam. It makes an attempt to role-compress the cleric power of Wish-Teleport from the previous gen with an Encore-Disable set to completely shut down most Pokemon that don't immediately threaten it.

Switch into a non-super effective attack and run the flowchart from there: If they'll switch, Wish up to pass to your own switch-in next turn or switch too. If you're not reading a switch, is the opponent Base 110 speed or lower using a status move or weak attack? Hit it with Encore to keep them doing their less-than-optimal move. Are they faster, or are they slower and their switch-in attack is less than ideal to deal with? Throw out Disable. Still not expecting a switch? Use the other half of Encore-Disable to completely shut them down where they'll be more or less forced to switch next turn, letting you default to also Wishing or switching. Either way, you just grabbed some wonderful momentum for your teammates.

 

[AstilCodex]

Cm Resto Chesto
Scream Tail @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Dazzling Gleam
- Flamethrower
- Rest

This Scream Tail set is meant to be a sweeper or mid-game breaker. Its actually very tough to break this thing after a few CM. Rest + Chesto allows it to inmediately heal back up and have access to a coverage move in Flamethrower rather than being stuck with only Gleam, making it less passive and a scary wincon. Tera Fairy gets rid of its psychic type which is in most scenenarios a con for checking mons like Chi-yu and Chien-Pao. Fairy/Fire is excellent coverage as always. Speed is for Garchomp, you can go max but I didn't feel the need to so I put rest in defense.

>>> Scream Tail Sweep <<<
In this replay I actually play poorly but managed to come back with a Scream Tail reverse sweep, also benefit from the opponent setting sun so I get a Speed boost and boost in Flamethrower, didn't even utilise the Rest + Chesto combo but it showed the potential of CM Fairy/Fire coverage in the meta ^^

 

[viol and bass]

Out of curiosity, why does nobody run Boomburst over other attacking moves? It outdamages Dazzling Gleam by quite a bit, and Boomburst / Flame is pretty good coverage. It's not even listed as a notable move in the OP which seems... strange to me.

 

[Joseph Gomes]

Should consider adding in OP that Scream Tail is Taunt bait, and it's extremely reliant on Calm Mind to increase its power. The lack of Toxic also hurts it's ability to damage switch-ins.

 

[Tuthur]

Out of curiosity, why does nobody run Boomburst over other attacking moves? It outdamages Dazzling Gleam by quite a bit, and Boomburst / Flame is pretty good coverage. It's not even listed as a notable move in the OP which seems... strange to me.

Boomburst is indeed slightly stronger than Dazzling Gleam on neutral foes, however a great part of the metagame resists Boomburst, including Ghost-types that are completely immune to it. This makes it hard imo to justify using it over STAB Dazzling Gleam which hits super effectively the Dragon-, Fighting-, and Dark-types that Scream Tail wants to check and has less resists and immunities than Boomburst. I didn't mention Flamethrower because Scream Tail has shitty offensive stats and even if it is super effective againt Steel-types, it is still piss weak and won't let Scream Tail break through them unless you have multiple Calm Mind boosts. Also I didn't think Scream Tail had enough moveslots to fit Flamethrower in, since Calm Mind already takes up one and you kinda want Wish + Protect or Rest + Sleep Talk imo.

Should consider adding in OP that Scream Tail is Taunt bait, and it's extremely reliant on Calm Mind to increase its power. The lack of Toxic also hurts it's ability to damage switch-ins.

- Low offense meaning it is weak, even after a Calm Mind boost, thus passive, especially since it doesn't have many options to cripple switch-ins.

This is already in the OP. Taunt may not be mentionned but it is implicit as it's stated that Scream Tail is extremely weak and passive.

 

[Joseph Gomes]

Well I mentioned Taunt mostly for newer players who would know what to watch out for, as it would shut down this mon entirely.

 

[flamewizzy21]

If you're going for any tera type, I assume Normal Tera would be best to boost Boomburst, while baiting/neutralizing incoming ghost hits.
No idea what to do about Scream Tail being super passive. Perish Song or Encore are probably the main threat to pokemon trying to use it as setup bait. Sing is way too inconsistent.

A big plus for Scream Tail is speed, so it can drop screens before getting hit, Taunt before a status move goes off, Wish before biting the bullet, or encore before an opponent can change their move. Cleric is probably not the best role for her, because you wouldn't really be using her speed.

I really see Scream Tail as more RU/NU material. An OU set for Scream Tail just doesn't make sense to me. In a lower tier, Boomburst resistance (from ghost/steels) and ghost weakness should be less problematic. An overall lower power level will also help her tremendously. We'll see where the cards fall, but it's probably best to make a set for this in a lower tier.

 

[ViableFries]

<-- love him

Scream Tail @ Eject Button
Ability: Protosynthesis
EVs: 252 HP / 84 SpD / 172 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dazzling Gleam
- Encore
- Wish
- Protect / Thunder Wave

The Set

Eject Button is a silly tech I got inspired to try out after I saw a similar set be tried out on Toxapex. The main idea is that, with Encore, Scream Tail becomes a real headache for anything trying to setup Swords Dance / Nasty Plot (etc.), Rocks / Spikes, or use Defog as you always threaten to give your team a free switch. Eject Button then makes the situation lose/lose for your opponents, making it so that, if they attack you, you switch out and get to let in a threat of your own anyways

I like investing in some SpDef just because I don't find maxed speed to be particularly useful. Notably, 252 speed doesn't let you get the jump on anything that's super important which 172 doesn't (in this case, outspeeding Modest Chi-Yu ban it when and Volcarona), so unless you're running Timid, I think going any higher than 172 Speed is a bit of a waste (even 172 may be too high).

The Bad

This set is very very reliant on predictions unfortunately, and sometimes it'll struggle to find itself to be very useful since it doesn't cover a lot of important setup. For example, you can't really check Dragonite at all unless you choose to use Thunder Wave to cripple it. And sure, you can switch into a Gholdengo Nasty Plot / Will-O and you'd be pretty happy with that, but both of its STABs will shred through you. It's a weird mon and, while I think Eject Button is a cool tech, it's probably not consistent.

 

[flamewizzy21]

Thinking about Scream Tail more, I am not sure she is most conducive to a fixed moveset. She has a wide variety of utility moves. This is her strength. She brings Encore, Wish, screens, any weather, psychic/misty terrain, trick room, Disable, Thunder wave, and Stealth Rock. I think the point of giving her Baton Pass was for momentum/pivot purposes, but that's banned.

Point being, she is a swiss army knife that lets her support a wide variety of teams. Her main weakness is her low offensive stats, and I think using her for offense is just a bad idea. Even with Boomburst and Dazzling Gleam, she needs way too much boosting to pose an offensive threat. Encore/Disable are the main ways she can do her job without being setup bait. As for what she actually does, I'd focus on screens, although stealth rock might be useful.

To McGrrrr's point, I think she will be much better in sun, especially focusing on giving her EVs to increase speed.

 

[STEELDRAGON]

Been running Scream Tail on a Sun Team and it's doing really well. You can customize it to outspeed pretty much anything or be even bulkier. I think it really maximizes its potential setting up a Reflect or Light Screen to help out your set up sweepers and is the best user of Perish Song in the game at this point. PS is a really underrated move and can help tremendously against a problem threat that isn't Gholdengo. Offensively it's lacking but it's defensive qualities far out weigh that.