Community POTW #63

[MetalCrow]

I just had a genius idea on the DD sets...what if you ran a focus sash and switched in on something that you could force out. From the switch is you're 1st DD, then a second DD in the face of your counter while you endure their attack with the sash...now you have a +2/+2 Rayquaza w/ 3 moveslots of destruction...Sure it requires some support, but after all, every set does...
On a similar note, does Air Lock negate the residual damage from sand and hail?

[briguin]

I just had a genius idea on the DD sets...what if you ran a focus sash and switched in on something that you could force out. From the switch is you're 1st DD, then a second DD in the face of your counter while you endure their attack with the sash...now you have a +2/+2 Rayquaza w/ 3 moveslots of destruction...Sure it requires some support, but after all, every set does...
On a similar note, does Air Lock negate the residual damage from sand and hail?

Yes. I believe Air lock does remove Sandstorm and Hail.

[battle171]

I really do think Air Lock is a bit of a double edge sword ability on Rayquaza. Sure, it's usefulness in shutting down weather like Kyogre's rain, Groudon's sun, T-tar's sand, and the rare hail is useful, but because it negates ALL weather effects, moves like V-Create and Surf don't get their boosts in sun and rain respectively and it doesn't make Rayquaza much of a team player in Doubles/Triples unless it's in a weatherless team. Still, it's really good in single battles as a D.Dancer/Mix Sweeper, regardless.

[Ilan]

I just had a genius idea on the DD sets...what if you ran a focus sash and switched in on something that you could force out. From the switch is you're 1st DD, then a second DD in the face of your counter while you endure their attack with the sash...now you have a +2/+2 Rayquaza w/ 3 moveslots of destruction...Sure it requires some support, but after all, every set does...
On a similar note, does Air Lock negate the residual damage from sand and hail?

this set must have extreame speed, a spinner on the team and a maybe a magnezone to check scizor.
I am not sure but does air lock temporaly locks weather? or for the rest of the match

[Meowmeow]

Alright, now that I'm on a computer, I will put a few more sets.

SpecsQuayza
Nature: Modest/Timid
EVs: 252 sp attack and speed, 4 HP
@: Choice Specs

Draco Meteor
Fire Blast/Overheat
Earth Power/Extremespeed
Dragon Pulse

A pretty basic Specs set. Earth Power is for Heatran while still hitting Dialga, Reshiram, Zekrom, Excadrill, and others. You could opt for Surf or Focus Blast instead. It may seem odd to pair Draco Meteor with Overheat, but the fact that you're locked by Choice Specs means you will be switching anyway.

How do you Dance without legs?
Nature: Adamant/Jolly/Lonely
EVs: 252 attack and speed, 4 HP/sp attack if you opt for Fire Blast
@: Life Orb

Dragon Dance/Swords Dance
Outrage
V-Create/Fire Blast
Extremespeed/Earthquake

A stat-boosting setup. Rayquayza has trouble pulling off stat boosts because of its issues switching in, but if you pull off one boost, things get fun fast. Dragon Dancers should not use V-Create as the speed boosts will be erased.

MixQuayza Dancing
Nature: Mild
EVs: 248 attack, 252 sp attack, 8 speed
@: Life Orb

Dragon Dance
Outrage
Overheat/Fire Blast
Earthquake/Earth Power/Extremespeed

Pretty straightforward, but that's what Rayquayza does best. Dragon Dance for boosts. Outrage is the STAB move to use because it is powerful (unlike Dragon Claw and Dragon Pulse) and does not drop your stats (like Draco Meteor). Overheat gets mentioned here again, but if Overheat is not Quayza's only special attack, use Fire Blast instead. V-Create should not be used because of the speed drops. The last slot depends on whether you need priority or a way to take down Heatran.

Other options:
Air Slash is another STAB move, but Outrage and Draco Meteor make Air Slash useless.
Quayza has access to a large number of extra coverage moves in Thunderbolt, Thunder, Surf, Ice Beam, Energy Ball, and Focus Blast on the special side, as well as Stone Edge, Waterfall, Crunch, Brick Break, and Aqua Tail on the physical side. However, with Focus Blast being the possible exception, all of these moves will deal less damage than Quayza's Outrage and Draco Meteor, as well as Fire Blast and Overheat.
I will give Thunder a second mention as a way to put Kyogre down. However, even with Kyogre around, Thunder will have 70 accuracy because of Rayquayza. You should do fine with Outrage or Draco Meteor anyway.
Flamethrower is the weaker and accurate Fire Blast. In the Uber tier, Flamethrower does very little, making Fire Blast and Overheat much better choices.

I have now completed my Quayza for POTW. Enjoy!

[Rayofquazar]

this set must have extreame speed, a spinner on the team and a maybe a magnezone to check scizor.
I am not sure but does air lock temporaly locks weather? or for the rest of the match

Yes, air lock only negates the weather effects when rayquaza is on the field. When rayquaza switches out or is KO the effects are restored! So no, rayquaza is not a team player except for things that are aiding it like spinners, or baton passers...

[Kraleck]

Fighting Rayquaza
Step 1 - Identify Quickly
Rayquaza's biggest asset is its offensive potential. Because of this, you know it can lay the smackdown on your Rare Candy...ahem...

It's tough to get out of taking a hit (or two) to I.D. a 'quaza. Worse yet, you take (in my calculations) three-to-four hits on average before you fully and accurately identify a 'quaza's tactics (Physical, Special, or Mixed). Even with an Attack- or Sp.Atk-lowering Nature, it isn't truly out of luck with those options from its huge bases. The sooner you can make the right decision, the sooner you can attempt to wall it.

Step 2 - Surviving a Hit
Yes, I said attempt to wall it. Without proper knowledge, you've sealed your fate. With improper setup, you've, similarly, sealed your fate. As soon as you can survive a hit, you have to pray 'quaza can only 3HKO you. What's worse, 'quaza can often pick off weak enough Pokemon with Extremespeed (short of Ghost Types, of course). Access to powerful Moves of every Type (except Poison, Bug, and Psychic without Hidden Power; yes it can get Fury Cutter, but I said powerful Moves) doesn't help your case, either.

It's potential coverage is universal, even without having STAB Moves. Bolt-Beam, Edge-Quake, and the Water-Dragon Move-Type Combos are all available to 'quaza. Dragon Dance on a Mixed Attacker makes things less in your favor. Air Slash, Rock Slide, and Waterfall can Flinch you and all are found in 'quaza's repertoire. Switching is near-mandatory, but, as Step 1 dictates, you must determine your enemy's 'quaza before it can gain ample ground against you.

Step 3 - Hope & Pray
Even if you can master Steps 1 and 2, you still need tons of luck with prediction, dishing out, but not taking, Critical Hits, and Speed advantages. If you can slam a solid hit into a 'quaza that just weakened its defenses with V-Create, mad props to you...but don't expect it to happen 100% of the time...

[Ilan]

Fighting Rayquaza
Step 1 - Identify Quickly
Rayquaza's biggest asset is its offensive potential. Because of this, you know it can lay the smackdown on your Rare Candy...ahem...

It's tough to get out of taking a hit (or two) to I.D. a 'quaza. Worse yet, you take (in my calculations) three-to-four hits on average before you fully and accurately identify a 'quaza's tactics (Physical, Special, or Mixed). Even with an Attack- or Sp.Atk-lowering Nature, it isn't truly out of luck with those options from its huge bases. The sooner you can make the right decision, the sooner you can attempt to wall it.

Step 2 - Surviving a Hit
Yes, I said attempt to wall it. Without proper knowledge, you've sealed your fate. With improper setup, you've, similarly, sealed your fate. As soon as you can survive a hit, you have to pray 'quaza can only 3HKO you. What's worse, 'quaza can often pick off weak enough Pokemon with Extremespeed (short of Ghost Types, of course). Access to powerful Moves of every Type (except Poison, Bug, and Psychic without Hidden Power; yes it can get Fury Cutter, but I said powerful Moves) doesn't help your case, either.

It's potential coverage is universal, even without having STAB Moves. Bolt-Beam, Edge-Quake, and the Water-Dragon Move-Type Combos are all available to 'quaza. Dragon Dance on a Mixed Attacker makes things less in your favor. Air Slash, Rock Slide, and Waterfall can Flinch you and all are found in 'quaza's repertoire. Switching is near-mandatory, but, as Step 1 dictates, you must determine your enemy's 'quaza before it can gain ample ground against you.

Step 3 - Hope & Pray
Even if you can master Steps 1 and 2, you still need tons of luck with prediction, dishing out, but not taking, Critical Hits, and Speed advantages. If you can slam a solid hit into a 'quaza that just weakened its defenses with V-Create, mad props to you...but don't expect it to happen 100% of the time...

How to beat a rayquaza with 3 simple steps:
1.shoot it with ice beam
2.shoot it with ice beam!
3.SHOOT IT WITH ICE BEAM!

note: Ice shard works too

sarcasem aside.. you don't have to wall it... and play safe you can just use something bulky that survives hits well like Lugia and use ice beam or paralyze it... end of the story.

[Zachmac]

Or make a sacrifice and revenge kill it. Maybe sac a weakened pokemon, I mean, you won't have to fear moxie or anything.

[Kraleck]

Rayquaza's 4x Ice weakness gives its user the option to readily identify Ice Beam users. Merely having Ice Beam and a Speed advantage is nothing unless you can survive getting into 'quaza (usually as a revenge K.O.) and punish the user for switching it out (usually rolled into the luck portion above). Rayquaza's allies are usually going to resist Ice Beam with Type (i.e. Heatran), a high Sp.Def stat (i.e. Blissey), or, Arceus help you, both (i.e. Kyogre).

[Zachmac]

Like many Ubers, the best you can really do to Rayqauza is check it, but it has no true counter.

Ice attacks check it though.

[Graffix]

Ok I couldn't think of an epic nickname but all I got right now is Rage-quaza for outrage abuse.

[Zachmac]

V-Destroy for choice band? Meh.

Dragon Dance....The Dancing Dragon, maybe? That's kind of catchy.

Edit: Ooh! What about a choice specs set? Probably inferior to it's physical/mixed sets, but I could see Draco Meteor/Fire Blast/Surf/Dragon Pulse.

The Dragon With Glasses maybe?

Okay, I suck at this. I find The Dancing Dragon to be good, but not really funny.

[MetalCrow]

I think that if you threw V-create on a DD/SD set, you could call it "A true fire dragon"

[Vandslaux]

On DD/SD, Fire Blast/Overheat>V-Create.

[MetalCrow]

On DD/SD, Fire Blast/Overheat>V-Create.

That's fairly obvious, but imma just trying to contribute a name...

I has concocted my super awesome gimmicky-ish set for lols:

Focus-Booster
-----------------------
Rayquaza @ Focus Sash
(+Attack/-Def Nature) + 252Attack/252Speed
-Dragon Dance/SD
-Dragon Claw
-Fire Blast
-Extremespeed

The goal here is to hit around 870 attack @ awesome speed after the boosting that I described in an earlier post

[KYOGRE-D]

Obvious set thats been posted, but whatever
Raquaza@Focus Sash/Life Orb/Leftovers
Timid/Adamant
252 speed evs, 252 atk, 4 hp
-Dragon Dance
-Outrage
-V-Create
-Extremespeed/Waterfall/Earthquake

Obvious set here. DD as much as you can, preferably to +2 at least, then wreak havoc with essentially base 180 power attacks with a +2 boost. Seriously, insane. With this much attack, adn the fact that only Heatran resists Dragon/Fire, you have a few options. Waterfall is to hit it when it has Air balloon, EQ is just awesome and is 4 times super effective, and Extremespeed is to pick off everything after its been weakened, a bit like extreme killer arceus.

Item: Focus Sash if you're going to grab 2 boosts hopefully - 1 from a switch, 1 from the sash, and air lock blocks sandstorm. LO to be ridiculously strong, and lefties to preserve hp for a switch in you could have to set up again.

Counters: To this set, Lugia is pretty good, with reflect/roost/recover/toxic, better if it had multiscale in its arsenal atm tho. ScarfOgre can kill it before a boost, as can Palkia. Jirachi can be mentioned in rain, as its paraflinch or parafuse respectively are both good options to shut Quaza down, and it only has to be wary of EQ. However, V-Create will still do loads, not sure if it 0HKOs. Mamoswine has a huge attack stat, and STAB Ice Shard, which is awesome. Weavile is weaker and frailer, but can also work. Also, anything with great defenses/focus sash and WoW can shut it down.

Partners: Pity about air Lock, otherwise it could abuse sun, but... Ice-resists, like kyogre, are good. Kyogre is also a threat in its own. Terrakion is great, defeating reveng-killing Extremekiller arceuses and ice-types. A spiker would also be appreciated, as well as a spinner (for SR). Maybe forretress?

[Zachmac]

Just for something unique....I'll put in the specsquaza set I mentioned earlier.

Rayquaza @ Choice Specs
252 sp.att/252 speed
Timid/Modest
-Draco Meteor
-Fire Blast
-Earth Power
-Dragon Pulse/Surf

[Vandslaux]

Why has nobody posted the good old wallbreaker set?

Rayquaza @ Life Orb
Hasty
Air Lock
234 Atk/20 SpAtk/252 Speed
Outrage
V-Create
Earth Power
ExtremeSpeed

Earth Power only really hits Heatran and Reshiram though, and possibly Dialga if he isn't Scarf and OHKOes you with DM>