Pok�mon of the Week

Drapion, The Ogre Scorp Pok�mon. Possessing a sturdy build, it takes pride in its strength, taking down foes without using toxins. It takes pride in its strength. Even though it can tear foes apart, it finishes them off with a powerful poison. It attacks people and Pok�mon that cross the desert. This has only furthered its bad reputation. Its body is encased in a sturdy shell. Its head rotates 180 degrees, eliminating blind spots. It has the power in its clawed arms to make scrap of a car. The tips of its claws release poison.

Drapion is a cool Pokemon. It's based off a Eurypterid, a horrifying 8 foot sea scorpion that terrorized ancient Earth about 400 million years ago. It also has some similarities to a Thelyphonida (Google it), which is potentially the most nightmarish thing to ever inhabit our planet. Drapion itself isn't as scary unless you're a Ghost or really hate Toxic Spikes. Despite all the claws and armor Drapion only has average stats. It has great physical defense but bad typing to take physical attacks. Its special defense is pathetic despite it having good typing against them. Speed is solid as is its attack, but neither stat really stands out from other offensive Pokemon. It isn't all bad though. Drapion has good typing for taking on Ghost and Psychic types along with a great support movepool. It even gets Battle Armor to help it tank those blows without fear of annoying critical hits.

Battle Armor: Opponent�s moves cannot critical hit. We've all been at the wrong end of a critical hit. Never fun. Not really the most useful ability, but its nice knowing no matter how bad your day has been going that random Stone Edge won't crit you.
Sniper: Power of critical-hit moves is tripled instead of doubled. This is cool, but generally speaking it's better to protect yourself from critical hits than depend on them. Battle Armor is still better.
Keen Eye: Opponent cannot lower this Pok�mon�s accuracy. Useless as no one uses Accuracy lowering attacks. The best you will get out of it is taking a Night Daze from Zoroark with no fear.

- Crunch
- Whirlwind / Knock Off
- Toxic Spikes
- Taunt
Item Attached: Black Sludge
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 248 HP / 244 SDef / 16 Spd
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)

Despite having looks that support a sweeper or physically armored set Drapion is more suited to a specially defensive tank role. Its typing allows it to laugh in the face of Ghost or Psychic types while taking neutral hits from the Fighting, Bug, and Fire coverage moves they often carry. Crunch is the only attack on this set, one which wrecks all common Ghost and Psychics Drapion will be facing. Whirlwind is cool to get rid of Swords Dancing Fighters that you can't hurt while racking up Stealth Rocks damage. Knock Off is also good as many Pokemon rely on their item to be useful. Toxic Spikes are the key to what makes this set great. Coating the enemies in poisonous spikes is a great way to end the match faster. Otherwise solid counters like Poliwrath are now helpless as the poison slowly saps their strength. Speaking of Toxic Spikes Drapion's grounded Poison typing absorbs Toxic Spikes, keeping your team safe from a similar fate. Taunt is good for blocking Will-O-Wisps from defensive ghosts and keeping Spikes from being thrown at you. 248 HP EVs takes a point less damage from Stealth Rocks (and Leech Seed, Burn, Sandstorm etc). 16 speed outruns Omastar and Crawdaunt so you can prevent their Shell Smash / Dragon Dance. The rest of the EVs go into Special Defense so Drapion can take more Shadow Balls and Focus Blasts.

- Swords Dance
- Taunt
- Crunch
- Earthquake
Item Attached: Black Sludge
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)

... get it... scmore pions... More puns? ... you try thinking up something better. Anyhow Drapion can take the bulky offensive route. Thanks to Taunt and good bulk and speed it can easily pull off several Swords Dances. Taunt stops Haze Qwilfish from doing anything besides a weak Waterfall. It blocks Whirlwind and Will-O-Wisp too. After a Swords Dance or two Crunch should be OHKOing anything that doesn't resist it. Earthquake rounds off the coverage by hitting Steel-types Super-Effective and hitting most things Crunch can't hurt for at least neutral damage. Like the first set this runs 248 HP EVs to take a point less damage from Stealth Rocks. 252 Speed tries to get Drapion moving as fast as it can to at worst speed tie with Uxie and Primeape. 8 leftover EVs were placed in defense to help take the occasional Steelix Earthquake.

- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Pursuit
- Poison Jab / Aqua Tail
Item Attached: Choice Band
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)

Drapion has good typing and defense so it has ample chances to switch in. Its speed and attack are also passable enough to do solid damage with Choice Banded hits. Crunch pairs with Earthquake to have superb neutral coverage. The two moves hit basically everything neutral or better except for Mandibuzz. The real key to the scorpion's Banded terror is Pursuit. When Uxie, Sceptile, and Dusknoir come face to face with the armor Pokemon they must either stay in and risk Crunch, or flee hoping you do not use Pursuit. The last slot is mainly to cover defensive Pokemon that can shrug off a neutral hit. Poison Jab 2HKOs Tangrowth and Mandibuzz after Stealth Rocks while Aqua Tail beats bulky ground types, Rhydon in particular.

- Crunch
- Acupressure
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Item Attached: Black Sludge / Mail
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 120 HP / 252 Atk / 136 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)

First off let me say that nine times out of ten you use this set it will faint without doing anything. The concept is that with Battle Armor your opponent can't Critical Hit you, meaning if at any point you accumulate enough boosts so that your opponent's entire team can do no more than about 37% per hit they will never be able to faint you. Be aware that Acupressure probably won't pick the right boosts fast enough so Cosmic Power, Amnesia, Iron Defense, or Stockpile Baton Pass support is helpful. Lunatone is a bad Pokemon, but has enough bulk to maybe Baton Pass (special move in Pokemon XD) a few Cosmic Power boosts. Drifblim has good defenses and Cosmic Power, as well as the ability to Baton Pass large Substitutes to help setup. Anyhow the idea is to Acupressure until you are +6 everything (including evasion). At +6 attack Crunch will hurt everything. Black Sludge is good for reducing the number of defense boosts Drapion needs to become immortal. Mail may look like a joke, but it can not be Tricked away meaning you will never be stuck with a Choice Scarf. Rest + Sleep Talk allows Drapion to continue boosting while it sleeps, until it eventually gathers enough power to rampage. Be aware that a few things do stop this. Perish Song and Roar pretty much makes this set useless. Be sure to destroy those Pokemon before attempting a setup. Super strong hits like Choice Specs Typhlosion or Rhydon will break this even with a few defense boosts, but at +2 defense few others will scratch your ancient armor.

- Night Slash
- Cross Poison
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance / Agility
Item Attached: Razor Claw
Ability: Sniper
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)

There is an old story passed down through the ages known as The Scorpion and the Frog. Look it up on Wikipedia for the full version. Basically the story is that a frog allows a scorpion to travel across a river on its back knowing that if the scorpion stings the frog though it will die, the scorpion will drown. Of course it stings the frog anyway and the story ends with both of them dead. The morale of the story is that all scorpions are jerks. Some creatures will simply do what is in their nature regardless of if it is good for them or not. In this case, it is the scorpion Drapion using a "critical hit abuse" set. It's pretty much pointless to use a set like this when Choice Band or Life Orb will do more damage in the long run. The first two moves have a higher chance of a critical hit while Earthquake can hit Steels and defensive Rocks. If you can Baton Pass a Focus Energy to this Drapion it will have a 50% chance of making a critical hit, which due to Sniper is so strong it can 2HKO Hippowdon. If you manage to Swords Dance your Critical Hits will have so much power that even Skarmory will fall in two blows. Agility is also usable as a well timed critical hit will do enough damage to wipe out anything that isn't particularly bulky. Seriously though, this set is only being listed because like Super Luck Honchkrow and Absol, it is simply in Drapion's nature. It isn't actually good for anything.

Not too much. Ice / Thunder / Fire Fang, Hone Claws, Flash, Confuse Ray, Leftovers, and Brick Break
The elemental fangs can be used but generally speaking they are so weak Crunch or Earthquake should do the job. Ice Fang can break Gligar though which is kind of cool. Get it... ice... cool...
Hone Claws deserves a mention just to say its useless. Besides Iron Tail, Pin Missile, and Rock Tomb which are also bad, none of Drapion's attacks have below 90% accuracy. Swords Dance gives a bigger boost with no real drawback.
Flash drops your opponent's accuracy down to 75% after a single hit. It could almost work on a defensive set, but Whirlwind is better in almost every way.
Confuse Ray, like Flash, can slow down your opponent. Its luck based though so it can very well do absolutely nothing.
Leftovers can be used over Black Sludge, but Black Sludge punishes your opponents from Tricking it off you. Some people don't like risking their own Black Sludge being Tricked back on another Pokemon, so you can use Leftovers if you like the safer option.
Brick Break has near perfect coverage with Crunch. It also breaks Light Screen and Reflect. It isn't very strong but its viable over Earthquake on any of the sets.

Basically nothing at all. Drapion gets Earthquake and Rock Slide but has neither the stats nor typing to use them well.

The Specially Defensive and Choice Band sets are great at breaking down Psychic and Ghosts, so strong Fighting types can take advantage of the holes the armor scorpion makes. Toxic Spikes helps wear down walls and many grounded Pokemon as well. Pokes that run Substitute + Calm Mind, Quiver Dance, or Bulk Up do very well with Toxic Spikes support as they can outlast their counters. Good examples are Poliwrath, Gallade, and Lilligant. The Swords Dancing offensive sets have a lot of trouble with Steelix who can take even boosted Earthquakes well enough. Strong Special attacks from Moltres or Sceptile are usually enough to take Steelix down for good. Defensive Acupressure sets really like being Baton Passed Defense boosts to help it off its feet. Lunatone and Drifblim can do this well enough. Reflect and Light Screen also help all the offensive sets by giving them some needed time to set up. There are no good partners for the critical hit abuse sets, because they are bad and you should feel bad for using it.

Unaware Quagsire easily beats all sets barring a lucky Sniper crit. It doesn't like Toxic Spikes though. Steelix can take basically anything Drapion can do, though its Earthquake won't OHKO while Drapion outruns and 2HKOs with Swords Danced Quakes. Sandslash also beats it most of the time and can Rapid Spin the Toxic Spikes. Rhydon has so much defense and attack that Earthquake will never 2HKO even after a Swords Dance while the rock monster's retaliation will devastate Drapion, usually OHKOing it. If you try to take Drapion down offensively a few things can outrun and destroy it. Aerodactyl, Galvantula, Archeops, Scolipede, and Manectric all usually can do enough damage to either KO Drapion, or leave it near death. None of them can safely switch in, but they should survive at least one hit (besides from the Choice Bander). Drapion isn't that tough so you should be able to beat it just by repeatedly hitting it. As long as you are careful of Toxic Spikes and aware that it can run Pursuit you should do fine against it.

Locations in Games

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald:
Not in game .

FireRed/LeafGreen:
Not in game

Colosseum/XD:
Not in game

Diamond/Pearl/Platinum:
Great Marsh.

HeartGold/SoulSilver:
Evolve Skorupi

Black/White:
Transfer from Generation IV
Trade from Black 2 & White 2

Black 2/White 2:
Evolve Skorupi