Pokémon Excadrill

[hotcoldyay7]

Jolly allows it to outrun unscarfed Rotom-A all the time, which is reason enough for me. You could technically skimp on a few points and EV it specifically for Rotom, but speed tying with other Excadrill is actually relevant, so it's still a good idea t go max.

Thanks for the info! :)

On a small side note, which forme is rotom-a?

I've googled it and I'm still confused with this. I think it might be Rotom-F (ice), but how exactly is that harmful to excadrill in the metagame? I think I might be wrong on that assumption.

 

[Thorhammer]

Thanks for the info! :)

On a small side note, which forme is rotom-a?

I've googled it and I'm still confused with this. I think it might be Rotom-F (ice), but how exactly is that harmful to excadrill in the metagame? I think I might be wrong on that assumption.

"Rotom-A" refers to the five machine forms in general rather than any specific one. It's mainly a holdover from Gen 4, when they were all nearly identical, so the main thing people cared about was referring to some "Rotom Appliance".

Rotom-W and Rotom-H are the ones that really matter nowadays, especially Rotom-W, and both can really threaten a slower Excadrill.

 

[Thorhammer]

I've gotten into the habit of making sure I know the ability every time I see an Excadrill. Aside from my own, they're almost always Mold Breaker, even alongside something with Sand Stream.

Anyone who knows what they're doing will do the same. You can't expect to bluff "not Mold Breaker" when everyone will watch for it.

 

[MagnetBoy]

lol @ surprise mold breaker when it yells it in caps at you on the screen. funniest post ive read in a while

 

[CyclicCompound]

I still use the traditional SD + 3 attacks sweeping set with sandstorm support, but in all honesty, I think I'm going to do away with SD. If you can afford to put a smooth rock on either Tyranitar or Hippowdon (I've found Hippowdon works best), Excadrill will do wonders for your team. What I've found huge success with is giving Excadrill Air Balloon and only switching it in when you can abuse one of its immunities until the endgame. Even unboosted, it scares away so many Pokemon, and with luck, you'll still have the Air Balloon by the time your opponent's team is weak. Since Hippowdon's definitely not dying unless you deliberately sacrifice it, you'll most likely have a healthy sandstorm to give to Excadrill. At that point, I feel SD is just unnecessary if you play it like a endgame sweeper. Now that Politoed and Ninetales have gone running, most teams simply don't have a check to sandstorm Excadrill that late in the game.

 

[Jaroda]

Any opponent worth his marbles will see the "the foe's excadill breaks the mold" text. SO the surprise factor dissapears. Running such an unusual item might some throw off, but they will know you aren't sand rush.

I rescind the bluff of the ability when you send him out, I wasn't aware of that. But you still don't know his ability until I actually send him out, and the presence of sand has to make you question thanks to team preview. So the ability might not be surprising anymore, but the speed assuredly is. The surprise KOs can often clinch a game or get rid of an essential member for them. Not to mention it's good in its own right. How would you feel trying to revenge with your Greninja only to be out sped and OHKO with earthquake? Judging by the rage quits, not too good. Any way I won't claim that this set is the Excadrill tried and true definitive set. But is it an effective option that should be listed? Unequivocally.

 

[Dinosaurman]

You could say that about anything with a scarf lol and everyone these days expects mold breaker. Have you played with excadrill yet?

 

[HNA]

in addition to losing its resistances to Dark and Steel.

Dark and Ghost*

In my opinion, not running jolly is letting too much thing outspeed and OHKO you.

 

[Jaroda]

You could say that about anything with a scarf lol and everyone these days expects mold breaker. Have you played with excadrill yet?

I already stated many times I have. It's effective. It works. It's an option . whether you utilize it or not is at your discretion. What's more to debate?
And yes, scarf is useful on many things, it can be particularly useful on Excadrill, that's my point. Scarf benefits most those with average or greater speed, naturally high attacking stat, high BP moves, and specifically out speeds and damages current and particular threats.

 

[Tressed]

So, the old Sand Rush Swords Dance Excadrill is pretty much dead, as thanks to Sand Stream's new mechanics, Excadrill doesn't have the time to set up any more. However, it seems like CB Excadrill would still be quite useful with Tyranitar, since it isn't expected to stay in for long periods, barring cleaning. Thoughts?

 

[Arcticblast]

I know things have moved on from Assault Vest, but from what I've seen (albeit with a bad team), Assault Vest Excadrill is slightly underwhelming. It can tank some ridiculous hits on the special side (lol Rotom-W) but then you're making a trade off between power, speed, and bulk. With AV it's power is really underwhelming :\

 

[hotcoldyay7]

Megagar is definitely a great partner for this thing. Breloom wants to mach punch? Switch in and smash with sludge bomb. Lucario wants to close combat? Switch in and hit it with shadow ball, and im sure megagengar can take a bullet punch. Blissey stalling megagar without sub? Switch back out to excadrill to smash with earthquake and avoid the paralysis. gourgeist and trevenant also aren't going to like megagar's shadow balls. The possibilities with these two are awesome! :D

I feel gyarados could also help, since the two have great defensive synergy, and exca rids the field of rocks, which gyara hates. Gyara also has that nice intimidate to make things easier for exca and help take on lucario and megaluc, and exca can get rid of rotom for it, too.

 

[wdistance]

What is the Excadrill people are currently terrified of? Is the spinner or Sand Rush variant responsible for all the wrecked teams?

 

[Darknut07]

What is the Excadrill people are currently terrified of? Is the spinner or Sand Rush variant responsible for all the wrecked teams?

I don't think people are "terrified" of either. IMO spinner is better, because Sand is very easy to stall out this gen. No reason you can't do both, though I think Mold Breaker is better.

 

[GeneralMLD]

I may be out of the loop, but is Excadrill still Uber? If moved down to OU, what "nerfed" him enough to warrant the drop?

 

[Foo Fighter]

I may be out of the loop, but is Excadrill still Uber? If moved down to OU, what "nerfed" him enough to warrant the drop?

Well the entire metagame will be very different in general because of new pokemon and moves, but also more directly perma weather no longer exists so he isn't as potent as he used to be.

 

[Thorhammer]

I may be out of the loop, but is Excadrill still Uber? If moved down to OU, what "nerfed" him enough to warrant the drop?

With a new gen, many Pokemon are being given a second chance; aside from the BST 670+ Pokemon, the only auto-ubers are Deoxys, Deoxys-A, Darkrai, Shaymin-S, and Blaziken. Others are getting another chance because it's so different now.

In Excadrill's case in particular, the weather nerf pretty decisively takes away his past Uber status. It also potentially has similar but less blatant effects on Manaphy, Thundurus, Tornadus-T, and Landorus, but we'll have to wait a bit to see their official releases.

 

[CyclicCompound]

Sandstorm, though it is no longer permanent, can be pretty safely assumed to be up the majority of the match on a team with a Sand Streamer. Both Sand Streamers are extremely durable and can find a ton of opportunities to switch in, and both are also extremely decent Pokes on their own (unlike Ninetales and Politoed). So, for Sand Rush Excadrill, finding sandy times to switch in shouldn't be much of a problem. Yes, it's hard to set up a Swords Dance, and no, it probably won't be able to sweep a whole team in one go, but I've had massive success just using Excadrill in "spurts" and usually killing at least one Pokemon before having to switch out.

With that said, Mold Breaker is one of the best abilities Excadrill could possibly receive. It definitely shouldn't be discounted, and I think it has a lot of potential regardless of whether it's scarfed or banded or given lefties or anything.

EDIT: Now that I've tried it, Scarfed Mold Breaker Excadrill is amazing. It smashes up so many more pokes than you expect it to. I actually like it more than sandstorm-reliant variants now just because Mold Breaker makes it so flexible. As of right now, it's my favorite scarf user in the OU metagame.

 

[rachet67]

I have found scarf mold breaker excadrill more useful than scarfchomp simply because so many teams rely on pokes like rotom, gengar, or latios/latias to absorb earthquakes. This makes excadrill's job of sweeping significantly easier, even if there is no surprise factor. Scarfchomp's stabs are easily walled by many common threats this metagame (dragon- steel, Azuramill, Togekiss; Ground flying types, levitators, grass). Mold breaker excadrill has one less thing to worry about.

 

[Jaroda]

Excadrill also has a naturally higher attack stat than Garchomp, and can ironically afford to run Adamant with a scarf because one of the huge points of using Scarfchomp was to outrun +1 100s. These days however that speed tier is practically barren if you look. Virtually nothing is being used between 90 and 108 speed tiers. Also also, Zygarde has the same stabs and access to DDance or Coil, and Haxorus has much much higher attack, DDance as well as Mold Breaker for EQ! Scarfchomp is outclassed three ways from Sunday... whatever that means. Bulky chomp and wallbreaking sets seem the way to go. Seriously, Mold Breaker is so good on Excadrill and Haxorus it makes them extremely anti-meta.

I'm glad I'm seeing support for the scarf set. But I'd still like to hear testimonies and possibly some calcs for the Assault Vest set.

 

[rachet67]

I wouldn't say that scarfchomp is entirely outclassed, by any other poke, including excadrill. Although scarf excardrill has many advantages over garchomp, there are reasons to use garchomp instead. Unlike, scarf excadrill, scarfchomp can out speed scarf genesect (and KO with fire fang) and +1 volcorona (KO with stone edge). It has considerable more bulk and better typing than haxorus (which cannot learn stone edge and is slower than volcorona). While scarfchomp's life is a lot harder than it was last gen, its still a decent choice, for example if your team is very volcorona weak. Scarf excadrill is simply another option that I personally think is more viable when you don't need one of the few things that only garchomp offers.

 

[Jaroda]

No that's fair enough. It does have it's uses I just think they aren't as prominent as before. And pure Dragon is not really worse than Dragon/Ground, being only 2x weak to Ice and still resisting Water, Grass and Electric. Haxorus has a supreme niche currently in this meta with it's immense power and Mold Breaker EQ, so it's essentially walled by less than Garchomp, although Fire Blast is certainly to Garchomp's benefit.

 

[McGrrr]

To weigh in on the Choice Scarf debate; you should always use Jolly. One key reason is to beat commonly used Pokemon when Sticky Web is up (or to Rapid Spin in a pinch).

I think Scarf Excadrill is superior to Garchomp, and it's not even close. Mold Breaker Earthquakes are simply so spammable late game. STAB Iron Head is actually pretty useful too. With a Scarf, Excadrill threatens everything in the top 10, or at least hits them with a neutral STAB Earthquake.

| 1 | Rotom-Wash | 22.34893% | 339392 | 18.302% | 288964 | 19.878% |
| 2 | Talonflame | 18.75958% | 307261 | 16.569% | 238573 | 16.411% |
| 3 | Aegislash | 16.46025% | 282688 | 15.244% | 216178 | 14.871% |
| 4 | Gengar | 16.18620% | 290511 | 15.666% | 217417 | 14.956% |
| 5 | Greninja | 14.66916% | 258976 | 13.965% | 202828 | 13.952% |
| 6 | Kangaskhan | 13.73987% | 226989 | 12.241% | 184206 | 12.671% |
| 7 | Scizor | 13.65020% | 234870 | 12.665% | 180461 | 12.414% |
| 8 | Genesect | 12.51772% | 181825 | 9.805% | 153829 | 10.582% |
| 9 | Heatran | 12.04492% | 184186 | 9.932% | 152089 | 10.462% |
| 10 | Excadrill | 11.89214% | 195431 | 10.539% | 142337 | 9.791% |

 

[farranpoison]

I wonder, is it any useful to use Sand Force or Sand Rush with a Tyranitar on the team? I'm currently running Jolly Mold Breaker, but I don't know if I'd be better served with any of the other two abilities. He's acting as a spinner, and with Sand Stream's nerf I'm not sure if I need to go to anything besides Mold Breaker.

Edit: Also, what seems to be a better item on Jolly Mold Breaker spinner Excadrill, Air Balloon or Scarf? Currently running it with a team of Ttar/Tyrantrum/Scizor/Gastrodon/Talonflame. It looks like a Sandstorm team but it seriously isn't, it just happened to work out that way lol.

 

[FurryGah]

Air Balloon protects from Sticky Web and Spikes. Excadrill is already immune to Toxic Spikes thanks to its Steel typing. On that note, its typing makes it a fantastic spinner thanks to 4x resisting Stealth Rock. No other spinner in OU can boast that, at least not that I know of.