Ghost
45/100/135/65/135/45 (525 BST)
Pressure / Frisk (HA)
Notable moves:
- Brick Break
- Curse
- Destiny Bond
- Disable
- Earthquake
- Facade
- Fire Punch
- Haze
- Ice Punch
- Memento
- Night Shade
- Pain Split
- Poltergeist
- Rock Slide
- Shadow Sneak
- Taunt
- Thunder Punch
- Trick
- Trick Room
- Will-O-Wisp
- Has Poltergeist again, so it's not reliant on Shadow Punch for STAB like it was for four generations
- Serviceable coverage, even if it lacks high-power options
- Actually has a pretty good support movepool, with options like Taunt, Haze, Will-O-Wisp and more
- Has pretty good 135/135 defenses
- It can try to spinblock Knock Off-less Great Tusk I guess?
- Poltergeist has poor synergy with Knock Off, meaning it's limited on what team combinations it will be effective on. Not to mention, the disposable Booster Energy is a common item in OU.
- 100 Attack is only okay, and its lack of high-power coverage moves means that Poltergeist will be its only move that deals big damage
- Its impressive defenses are held back by a bad 45 HP
- Mono-Ghost just isn't that great of a defensive typing in this day and age, with Dark being a common offensive type with dangerous Pokémon like Kingambit, Hisuian Samurott, Meowscarada, and Greninja easily defeating it on top of faster ghosts like Gholdengo and Dragapult. Plus, Knock Off vulnerability.
- 45 Speed is slow, falling short of important threats like Kingambit.
- Its only decent setup option requires Tera to even work.
- Fighting boosts the power of Brick Break, giving Dusknoir really good STAB coverage, while giving it a resistance to Knock Off.
- Other Dark-resistant Teras like Fairy and Dark itself (which also resists Ghost) are also options.
- Ghost boosts the power of its Shadow Sneak, and Ground likewise for Earthquake
Curse Sweeper (Dusknoir) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Curse
- Poltergeist / Shadow Sneak
- Tera Blast / Brick Break
- Pain Split
Here's something that Dusknoir can now do that it couldn't before: it can shed its Ghost type with Tera so it can actually set up with Curse. Brick Break can annoy the Veil Teams that are popular as of late, but since you're gonna have to Tera anyway you're probably better off with Tera Blast, which has extra power and lack of contact. Dusknoir's low HP can actually help it when healing with Pain Split. Of course, this set is still pretty gimmicky since it requires Tera to even function, but it's a cool option I guess.
Attacker (Dusknoir) @ Life Orb / Choice Band
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Ghost / Ground / Fighting
EVs: 214 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Poltergeist
- Earthquake
- Shadow Sneak
- Will-O-Wisp / Taunt / Brick Break
A more classic set that will likely be more consistent than the last one. It can add Will-O-
Wisp or Taunt to throw in some "role compression" I guess. But since this is basically what Dusknoir was stuck with last generation, I don't see it making a big splash.
Before I wrap this up, I would like to briefly go over Dusclops, its preevolution that historically has had about the same amount of viability as Dusknoir. Pros: With eviolite, it's bulkier than Dusknoir. Cons: It has a much worse attack stat and is extremely passive, especially since it lost Toxic. Plus, Knock Off.
In short, it's pretty much guaranteed that Dusknoir is spending another generation headed straight to ZU, as it didn't really gain anything to help it and the meta has not improved for it in the slightest. Still, it has one fun new set that it couldn't use before that should be good for a couple of YouTube videos, I guess.
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