Community POTW #44

[WeatherEffectRain]

Granbull is an inferior ursaring

Hit it on the head. And Ursaring is bad. Granbull is pitiful. It has mountains of options, but it's BST and Normal-typing really let it down.

Although those are only two things, they DO weigh Granbull down to NU. If anything, it has a bit of luck to compensate with; It's speed is so poor that it works well in TR(Although Reuniclus and Conkeldurp still out-slow it) and can benefit from a huge movepool.

I'm not gonna post sets, the only ones competent have already been posted I assume.

[Aquadon]

When one looks at Granbull's Stats and Movepool, another Pokemon immediately comes to mind; Ursaring. Ursaring's got 10 more ATK and Speed, and 15 more SpA and SpD (not like it'd use the SpA anyways). The few things that could work on Granbull to set itself apart are things like Wild Charge, Thunder Wave, and the newly added Outrage. Unfortunately, that isn't enough for Granbull to step out of Ursaring's much superior power and movepool.

[wunderkind]

Hey guys, if you're using Quick Feet as an ability, you'll want status, which means you'll want Facade as a STAB, not Return (140>102).

Also, just curious, but Rage raises Attack each time the pokemon using it gets hit, right? If so, couldn't you combine that with Rattled and a Beat Up Whimsicott in Doubles to get a super Attack and Speed boost Granbull?

[WeatherEffectRain]

@Above: Granbull is too frail. The most it can do is... Be in Ursaring's shadow. Seriously. Ursaring does everything better, including stat-boost, bulkiness Etc.

But yeah. Everything else has been said Lol.

[Ishnura]

outrage
focus punch/close combat
earthquake/substitute
double edge/giga impact
nature: Brave
item: life orb/draagon gem
basically, if running life orb, this thing is limited usage. outrage is the best dragon counter, close combat is the alternative to the almost well known substitute focus punch combo, with earthquake as the replacement of substitute, and giga impact is the ultimate STAB move. of course, Double edge is less powerful, with that nasty recoil to think about, to, but if you dont wanna wait a turn to attack again, then sucks for giga impact.

[BanetteFan]

“BULK UP, BOY!”
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Adamant
1. Bulk Up
2. Return
3. Close Combat/Earthquake/Brick Break
4. Crunch/Payback
Bulk Up works well with Intimidate to boost your defense and it also gives you some extra power. Return is your best STAB move. The Fighting attacks are for coverage against Steel-types—Close Combat is the strongest but lowers your defenses, nullifying Bulk Up's defensive boost, but Brick Break can at least shatter screens. Earthquake has similar coverage, but Ferrothorn will be harder to get through and you'll be stuck against Skarmory and Bronzong. Both Crunch and Payback offers a way around Ghosts; Crunch comes with the higher initial base power but Payback is an interesting option because Granbull is slow and, with the defensive boost from Bulk Up, it can at least take physical hits better.

“RESCUE DOG”
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Impish/Careful
1. Thunder Wave
2. Heal Bell
3. Return
4. Earthquake/Crunch
“Support” isn't really the first thing one would think of when they think about Granbull, but it can do it and it may even serve as a surprise set considering most Granbull sets are about offense. Thunder Wave cripples fast things (like, say, Gengar or Mismagius coming in to block you if you don't have Crunch on you) and Heal Bell rids you and your team of unwanted status, if which Granbull itself especially hates. Return, again, is for STAB. You last attack depends on what you want to beat, unfortunately if you go with one over the other you'll be blocked by something else—Earthquake penetrates Steel-types but leaves you helpless against floating Ghosts, Crunch busts said Ghosts but then Steel-types can stand in your way. Alternatively, you can choose from some of Granbull's other support options.

“SEE GRANBULL RUN”
Ability: Quick Feet
Nature: Jolly
Item: Toxic Orb
1. Return
2. Close Combat
3. Crunch
4. Thunder Wave/Bulk Up
Ursaring really does this better, being to achieve higher Speed, stronger Attack power, more bulkiness, and a much better boosting attack in Swords Dance. . .but Granbull still has it so. . .Return is STAB, Close Combat and Crunch are for coverage. Thunder Wave stops things still faster than you even with Quick Feet support, Bulk Up makes you stronger.

OTHER INTERESTING OPTIONS—
1. Fire Fang—could hit Ferrothorn and Forretress harder but otherwise is too weak to have any real use.
2. Thunder Fang—hits Gyarados harder, but is otherwise in the same boat as Fire Fang.
3. Wild Charge is similar to Thunder Fang but doesn't really offer any crucial coverage other than for frying Gyarados and maybe Skarmory.
4. Stone Edge—is a power attack, but Granbull can't do much with it.
5. Work Up—could be use on a mixed set with Flamethrower or Fire Blast (used namely for getting past Steel-types).
6. Outrage—hits Dragons the hardest and is powerful, but the confusion can be really frustrating.
7. Taunt—can stop stat-uppers, walls, and status, but Heal Bell is a better support move and Granbull's usually too slow to be a good Taunter anyway.
8. Reflect—combine this with Intimidate to make Granbull (and the team) crazy sturdy.
9. Charm—same as Reflect, except it doesn't offer team support.
10. Snarl—Intimidate curtails physical attackers, Snarl special ones.
11. A Sub-Punch (Substitute + Focus Punch) can be tried, but other things do it better.
12. Super Fang—a good move that makes physical walls that you would stand little chance against (like Skarm and Thorn) easier to break through.
13. Superpower—could be good a choice set, but otherwise stay away from it.

[halodeoxys]

Glish, Granbull. Never liked it, never understood why most are female. Still can do something in RU, pairs up nicely with Trick Room Reuniclus, since Granbull is nearly as slow as a snail(Gastrodon, lol) and Reuniclus is a Psychic king to take care of Fighting types. So that there is something for your partners section.
Here is my personal Granbull, named,
GRRRRRRRRANBULL.(I ran out of ideas here)
Granbull@Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate(you want every little defense you can get, especially on a set with Close Combat and with all the tough Fightings around now)
Adamant Nature
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Payback/Crunch
-Close Combat/Stone Edge
EV: 252 Atck 252 SpDef 4 Def

Outrage is ideal when we are talking about Choice Banders, Earthquake is "awesome, yadda yadda yadda", Payback is to take care of Ghosts which Psychics and Granbull both have problems with dealing with, as well since you are going to go later a lot when you aren't using Trick Room, While Crunch works WITH Trick Room, and while Close Combat is awesome to kill Dark types which also present an issue to Granbull's Psychic allies, Stone Edge has no nasty recoil with some coverage, yet not as much power as Close Combat. Run Stone Edge with Trick Room and Close Combat without, so that you likely won't have to deal with the CC recoil hurting you if you switch out after you move later on CC.

Please Critique me as I am still a bit new to this all.

[Dancing Togekiss]

ability: intimidate
moves:
metronome/earthquake
close combat
outrage
ice fang/fire fang

this pokemon has an amazing attack stat so focusing on its attack as a sweeper is a must. no point in trying to raise its terrible speed because it wont do much so you might as well use intimadate to reduce your oponents attack.

[menametlg]

Abilities:
Intimidate- lowers the opponent's attack by 1. Good for this bulldog's terrible defense.
Quick Feet- With toxic orb and facade, wasn't quick feet will do a lot of damage? Good ability but, sadly, waste on Granbull.
Rattled- Again, speed will raise once hit by bug, ghost and dark moves. Good but waste on Granbull.


@Left-over
Intimidate
Brave (252 Atk, 152 HP, 104 Def)
-Ice Fang/Ice Punch/Brick Break
-Crunch/Payback
-Bulk Up
-Headbutt

Ice Fangs and Ice Punch are reliable attack that doesn't have immunity. Good one! Brick break, on the other hand, bring down Heatran and that Steel/Dark (forgot the name), who will try to resist both your STAB and Ice Punch/Fangs. Crunch hurts ghost type and may also flinch the opponent, if you go first, while Payback double the power once go last. A little stronger than Crunch but won't work without Trick Room. Bulk Up will make you stronger and bulkier. Good since Granbull will take hit first before attacking. IT's a waste that he cannot learn Counter. Headbutt is a good STAB move.

Status + Offensive
@LeftOver
Relaxed (252 Def/100 HP/152 Atk)
-Toxic
-Roar
-Taunt/Brick Break
-Headbutt

Poison them before roaring them. Simple! Taunt taunts the opponent before they taunt you while brick break shut Steel who will resist you stab and toxic. Headbutt is your Stab

Other options:
Life Orb- Do more damage
Charm- Lowers the opponent attack by 2. Good coverage with Intimidate
Choice Band- Will do lot of damage.
Fling- If your running with Gimmick Set [Quick Feet + Toxic Orb + Facade], it will be good. But you have toxic anyway.
Iron Ball- Terrible Speed and Fling make it useful.

Partners
Trick Room team. Elgyem, Confagrigus, SlowBro, Dusknior, Reuniclus. Just choose.

Countering.
If you can force him on 1-on-1 battle, it won't be a big treat. Lucario and Cobalion can do lot of damage as they resist Brick Break and Ice Fangs/Punch

[Vandslaux]

Hit it on the head. And Ursaring is bad. Granbull is pitiful. It has mountains of options, but it's BST and Normal-typing really let it down.

Although those are only two things, they DO weigh Granbull down to NU. If anything, it has a bit of luck to compensate with; It's speed is so poor that it works well in TR(Although Reuniclus and Conkeldurp still out-slow it) and can benefit from a huge movepool.

I'm not gonna post sets, the only ones competent have already been posted I assume.

Actually, Conkelderp Speed-ties with it. That's how horrible Granbull's Speed is.

[Kraleck]

Hit it on the head. And Ursaring is bad. Granbull is pitiful. It has mountains of options, but it's BST and Normal-typing really let it down.

Although those are only two things, they DO weigh Granbull down to NU. If anything, it has a bit of luck to compensate with; It's speed is so poor that it works well in TR(Although Reuniclus and Conkeldurp still out-slow it) and can benefit from a huge movepool.

I'm not gonna post sets, the only ones competent have already been posted I assume.

"Mountains of options" seems to be all many Normal Type Pokemon with pitiful stats have. Look at Smeargle, Audino, and Spinda - tons of options, but all 3 are pretty "meh..." in practice. That's the boat Granbull finds itself in. Aside from a huge Attack stat and slightly-above average* HP, here's what Gran' has in stats: Nottamucho.

1. It Speed-ties Conkeldurr - a Pokemon with better everything-except-Sp.Atk (both Pokemon have negligible Special game, anyway).
2. Ursaring ties your HP AND Defense and has better everything-else.
3. Attack is tied with 17 Pokemon and outclassed by 50 others (including all alternate forms except Arceus's). Two of the "outclass category" members aren't fully Evolved, too.
4. There are 2 Priority Moves that are Super Effective on Gran' and both can be used quite well without STAB in most cases - Vacuum Wave and Mach Punch.

The latter is often deadlier due to STAB, decent Attack, and (possibly) Iron Fist or Technician behind it. Hitmonchan and 'top are deadly with Mach Punch (as will be DW Conk' if you feel suicidal), and Vacuum Wave Lucario and Infernape are threatening to levels Gran' wishes it could reach. You won't see many of these because of issues 1 through 3.

Your Abilities don't help much, either:
-Intimidate is very blockable (Hyper Cutter, Clear Body, White Smoke), easily reversed (Defiant and Contrary are an issue), or ignored entirely (opponent is actually a Special Attacker, has Foul Play, or Unaware Ability).
-Quick Feet makes your already-unusable Speed average under a Status Effect (which is likely going to be Burns to reduce your Attack if you're unlucky).
-Rattled has only 2 types available for use due to your Type-Immunity to Ghost. Even then, you'll need far more than Speed buffs to outrun many of your opponents.

Speaking of Foul Play, this Move is a huge advantage for Pokemon with low(or simply lower) Attack stat and Special users. Except for Honchkrow (not advantageous to use) and Krookodile (barely advantageous to note), the Pokemon that get this Move can use Gran's superior Attack (Attack-down Nature Smeargle has incredible potential, in-particular).

With only Base 75 Defense and Base 90 HP, Gran'll be hurting from a Base 95 Power, Base 120 Attack, STAB (barring Meowth, Persian, Smeargle, Seedot, or non-Dark-Type Kecleon) Foul Play. Except for Seedot and Stall Sableye, you don't have a chance to outrun this Move without Trick Room on a buff-free encounter.

* I call 85 "average" for HP and 90 "average" for non-HP stats. I figure 70 as the base for "low" and 100 as the base for "high" with HP (85 is halfway between). Same with 80 and 100 for non-HP (90 is, again, halfway). Your numbers for finding the "average" point may vary.

[Serpentine]

Smellingsalt Combo
Adamant +Atk/-SpAtk, Jolly +Spd/-SpAtk
252 Atk, 252 Spd, 4 HP
Intimidate

Thunder Wave
Smellingsalt
Earthquake/Super Fang/Outrage
Earthquake/Super Fang/Outrage

Thunder Wave keeps the opponent nice and slow while you can deliver an assault of super powerful moves. Earthquake which has a base power of 100 and coveres Electrics that aren't affected by Thunder Wave with a few exceptions, Super Fang which halves the HP of the opponent and Outrage which has a base power of 120 and hits for two or three turns, but confuses you. Then there's Smellingsalt which gets STAB and its power is doubled if the opponent is paralyzed.

Other Options
Payback-Due to Granbull's slow speed, it can use Payback well.
Bulldoze-It'll lower the opponent's speed as well as hurt them a little making Granbull more and more of a threat.
Scary Face-Halves the opponent's speed
Return-STAB and can do a lot of damage
Retaliate-STAB and can do some serious damage

[The Intersect]

I think even i will have a little fun with this one i'll make 2 sets in one, depending on if you have 4th gen support for ability go for either intimidate or quick feet (hence why i'll have 2+ item choices)

Grand-bull
Ability: Intimidate/quick feet
Item: Quick claw/Toxic orb/Expert belt
Nature and ev's Jolly/Adamant, 252 Atk, 252 Speed, 6 HP
Moveset
Facade/return
Wild Charge/Earthquake
Ice Punch/Ice fang/Crunch
Superpower/Outrage/Brick break/Crunch

Im not going to go over so many moves pick the right ones for you and the comination of coverage you desire

[Zachmac]

I personally wouldn't suggest outrage, since it doesn't get it STABed. IMO, outrage is a dragon-only move, since the ones who get it STABed won't mind being trapped in it as much. Also, with that speed, I think you'd prefer swapping out when fighting a fast/strong foe.

[PhilosophicalPsychologica]

Hrm, well for starters, Granbull is the lead on my Metronome team, because Intimidate is an instant plus.

Other than that, Granbull has an impressive Attack stat, but it doesn't have the Speed to compare to Tauros; rather, it's like a more physically defensive version of Bouffalant...with more Attack than either bovine.

Honestly, Granbull did not get any improvements over the Generation, compared to Emerald's or Platinum's Move Tutors aplenty.
I suppose you can slot Wild Charge over any previous usages of Thunderpunch...?

Granbull has a very strong Retaliate, actually. Only Arceus and Staraptor share the same power Granbull's Retaliate has, and only Slaking, Braviary, and Ursaring top out. But that being said, Granbull is the slowest of the six, making a lot of this moot.

I suppose Granbull has...Work Up to captitalize on mixed potential, but honestly, if not playing Granbull as tank (physical wall with passable special bulk and can threaten Physical hits), you completely focus on Physical attacking attributes.

That being said, in short, you use Granbull as a straight-out attacker or a wall with really good offensive options.

Rattled is an Ability Granbull shouldn't be bothered with unless you have a high intention of getting hit by Bugs or Darks, and the Speed boost isn't much of a payoff. And if that's the case, you got other problems.

[Ilan]

outrage
focus punch/close combat
earthquake/substitute
double edge/giga impact
nature: Brave
item: life orb/draagon gem
basically, if running life orb, this thing is limited usage. outrage is the best dragon counter, close combat is the alternative to the almost well known substitute focus punch combo, with earthquake as the replacement of substitute, and giga impact is the ultimate STAB move. of course, Double edge is less powerful, with that nasty recoil to think about, to, but if you dont wanna wait a turn to attack again, then sucks for giga impact.

giga impact= the ultimate FAIL move, NEVER use it.
seriously why use outrage, when you have return with more power?

Seriously this pokemon just get outclassed by everything even emboar is better than this pokemon and he is NU too so granbull is bad EVEN in NU.
just don't use it competitively it's made for 1 or 2 anime episodes... if it doesn't get an evolution some day it will be always in the botom list of the NU, Ursaring is better in every aspect as for intimidate... you got lots of pokemons captabke of it even arbok..

[Kraleck]

giga impact= the ultimate FAIL move, NEVER use it.
seriously why use outrage, when you have return with more power?

Seriously this pokemon just get outclassed by everything even emboar is better than this pokemon and he is NU too so granbull is bad EVEN in NU.
just don't use it competitively it's made for 1 or 2 anime episodes... if it doesn't get an evolution some day it will be always in the botom list of the NU, Ursaring is better in every aspect as for intimidate... you got lots of pokemons captabke of it even arbok..

Yeah. Look at Lickitung - terrible Pokemon until it got to be Lickilicky. Gran' is just an afterthought of something potentially cool. So much potential...sadly wasted.

The bright side is that you have access to Trick-Room-team support, I guess...again, not much in Gran's favor except the fact you can throw people off if you're serious about using it at all...maybe...

[Blue Harvest]

Guys, its only an inferior Ursaring if you make it one. Granbull has Intimidate, which gives him about as much bulk as Groudon or Metagross. It also gets Super Fang, Heal Bell, Thunder Wave and a ton of offensive options to compliment it.

Ursaring is clearly better at raw offense but Granbull is by far better at defensive support.

[Ilan]

Guys, its only an inferior Ursaring if you make it one. Granbull has Intimidate, which gives him about as much bulk as Groudon or Metagross. It also gets Super Fang, Heal Bell, Thunder Wave and a ton of offensive options to compliment it.

Ursaring is clearly better at raw offense but Granbull is by far better at defensive support.

defensive? and waste his 120 attack? why not just use audino that have better defensive stats? same tier- better use.

he is totally outclassed in any aspect just like emboar, like I said till it don't get an evolution (which his stats are built to have one) he won't be any good... too bad it didn't get guts...

[Assassin9399]

defensive? and waste his 120 attack? why not just use audino that have better defensive stats? same tier- better use.

he is totally outclassed in any aspect just like emboar, like I said till it don't get an evolution (which his stats are built to have one) he won't be any good... too bad it didn't get guts...

Last time I checked Audino didn't have Intimidate. Or Super Fang. Audino is probably better, but BH just tried to show that Granbull has other options.