[Pokémon] Nucleon

Hi guys!

I was surprised at the lack of forum posts regarding competitive movesets for the new Pokemon, so i thought I'd post one of one of my favorites: Nucleon

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Nucleon is one of the most deadliest Pokemon if you used right. Being nuclear type and the ability Atomize (which converts normal type moves into nuclear type), it has literally super effective damage on every type (except for one resistance to steel). This is quite a big deal and let's hope that you're not dual typed because Nucleon can run through you with 4x effective damage.

Anyone remember Sylveon? Its pixilate ability made Sylveon one of the most fearsome Smogon and VGC pokemon because of its fairy boosted hyper voice which destroyed lives. Now let's look at Nucleon. Nucleon not only has 2-4x coverage on almost any Pokemon, but it has 115 special attack stat (keep in mind Sylveon's is 110) and a respectable 90 base speed to support it. Bottom line, if you're not a pure steel type, this is going to hurt.

The most common set is probably:

Nucleon @ Life Orb
252 Sp.Attk/252 Spd/4 SpDef

• Hyper Voice (need I explain more)
  
• Calm Mind/Nasty Plot (if you're in the position to set up)
  
• Conversion 2 (Maybe a fun move to use in case you want to give up STAB but want to stick around longer)
  
• Toxic (this is a free move that you can switch around)
  

Nucleon's beauty lies in the fact that it does not need set up, it only needs hyper voice to run through EVERYONE. If you set up nasty plot and calm mind, with that life orb boost and a possible super effective damage, nothing is living Nucleon's power. As long as Nucleon outspeeds, Nucleon will put a huge dent in someone's team.

I have not yet gotten it yet but I'm already planning my perfect team for it. Thanks their was somethings I didn't know yet and the idea of Life Orb is great.

Once the choice items are available I bet that Choice Scarf will be the most used. Or maybe a focus sash set. But yeah, Nucleon is quite the glass cannon!

Don't forget, Nucleon also gets Quick Attack, meaning it gets a +1 STAB move that's quad-effective on nearly everything.

That doesn't mean that it's completely invincible however. It's a glass cannon, so it will go down to any strong attack from a Pokemon that can survive a hit. Gararewl walls it (and almost all Nuclear-types for that matter) completely. The as-yet-unreleased Pokemon Hazma is immune to all Nuclear-type attacks, so it gets a free switch-in on Nucleon. And an Inflagetah can outspeed it and kill with Extremespeed or Flame Impact. For that matter, Archilles kills it with Extremespeed as well.

At the moment, Atomize doesn't give Nucleon any advantage against Ghost types, which are still immune to its Normal attacks. To counter this, I'd recommend Shadow Ball, which pretty much every form of Eevee learns. This also gives it an attack to use on other Nuclear types. It's a good backstop move for Pokemon like Nucleon and Jolteon whose typings are usually great but have one glaring weakness.

Actually atomize changes normal moves to nuclear so its no longer a normal type move so it still affects ghost types.

Polaris mentioned elsewhere on the forum that Atomize wasn't working properly.

Exactly.
It should, but attacks like Hyper Voice (from Nucleon) still fail against Pokemon like Linkite and Sableye in-game (just tested it again to be sure). This is probably a code issue; I don't think it's meant to happen that way.

Polaris is right, it's a problem that has to do with the order things happen in the insides of the battle system. Immunities are checked before abilities takes effect. I will fix this in future updates

S51-A Flash Cannon OHKOs it, and it's half Steel so Nuclear attacks aren't Super Effective

This isn't really that practical, but I'd like to point out that its type, special attack stat, and Atomize give Nucleon probably the deadliest Hyper Beam in Pokemon history. If you were ever looking for the perfect Pokemon to teach Hyper Beam to, this is it.

Return is a good deal on it too.

Hyper voice is better than return simply because it's a special attacker. I would also give it shadow ball for coverage over steel types, I do not know how much damage it does to a S51-A and I do not know how to calc it, because I do not think it has a better move to hit them with if you can't switch out for some reason.

I used the mystery gift Eevee from a while ago, and the mystery gift S51 for my calculations (they have perfect IVs where it matters). I also used a modest nature for Nucleon w/ Life Orb and 252 evs in Sp. Atk. and a timid nature for S51-A with only 4 evs in Sp. Def. Additionally, I couldn't find the stats for Mega S51-A, so this is calculated using the stats for S51-A.

Shadow Ball would be a guaranteed 2HKO against S51-A. Interestingly enough, Hyper Beam should actually be a guaranteed OHKO. Hyper Voice, on the other hand, would be a guaranteed 3HKO.

A crit Shadow Ball would be guaranteed OHKO.

I used Pokemon Showdown's damage calculator for this in case you were wondering. To take into account the lack of nuclear type and Atomize, I instead made Nucleon the flying type with Aerilate and then doubled the percentages given for the otherwise Normal type moves (since flying is 1/2 effective against Psychic/Steel and Nuclear would be 1x effective).