Dracozolt, The Fossil Pokémon. In ancient times, it was unbeatable thanks to its powerful lower body, but it went extinct anyway after it depleted all its plant-based food sources. The powerful muscles in its tail generate its electricity. Compared to its lower body, its upper half is entirely too small.

Overview

Jurassic Park has taught us not to play like God and leave nature the responsibility of creating life. However, in many of mankind's mistakes throughout history, one of them was Dracovish's existence and if that wasn't enough, they decided to create three more fossils like to share Dracovish's sufferment. Enter Dracozolt: one of the new Pokemon introduced in Gen 8. Dracozolt has decent stats, a solid typing and a fearsome ability in Hustle. What sets Dracozolt apart from other Electric types is access to Bolt Beak, which similarly to Fishious Rend, it doubles its power when Dracozolt moves first making it a fearsome STAB boosted base 185 Attack delivering the pain against anything that is not a Ground type. While Dracozolt's Speed is nothing to be proud of, it can effectively use Dynamax unlike Dracovish and use Max Airstream to increase its middling Speed and boost Bolt Beak further.

While Dracozolt is fun to use, and unlike Dracovish, it doesn't feel miserable about existing, Dracozolt has issues getting past bulky Ground types like Seismitoad and Hippowdon or checks that resists its dual STAB combination like Ferrothorn and Excadrill. Also, relying on Hustle's accuracy is not always the best thing to do. Don't be fooled by this abomination's cheery face, because in the hands of a competent player, it will definitely punch holes on an opponent's team as long as it is able to land its attacks.

Positives
A great dual STAB combination and a powerful STAB in Bolt Beak makes it a fearsome physical attacker with the necessary coverage options in Aerial Ace, Low Kick, Earthquake or Fire Fang.
Hustle's damage output allows Dracozolt to effectively stall-break past bulky Ground types that would otherwise wall it such as Hippowdon and Seismitoad while boosting Bolt Beak's power to ridiculous levels.
While its typing is good offensively, it also gives useful resistances to Water, Electric, Fire, Flying, Grass and Steel which gives Dracozolt good opportunities to switch into.
It's a great Dynamax abuser since Max Airstream increases its Speed giving more opportunities to double Bolt Beak's power, and the additional boosts from Max Quake increases its longevity. And of course, Dynamax itself patches up Hustle's accuracy issues since Max Moves can't miss.

Negatives
Because of its average Speed stat, Dracozolt relies on heavy Speed control in order to be successful and also relies a lot on Max Airstream to boost its Speed which somewhat makes it a very predictable Dynamax user. Even with a boost, Pokemon like Scarf Excadrill or Dragapult can easily revenge kill Dracozolt.
Hustle is a double-edged sword in that while it powers up Dracozolt, once Dynamax is out or it isn't using it, the drop of accuracy to 80% of norm on all of its moves can be costly on a match, especially if Dracozolt misses its attack against something it wants to take down.

Movesets

CHERRY BOMB

- Bolt Beak
- Dragon Claw / Outrage
- Low Kick / Earthquake / Fire Fang
- Aerial Ace
Item Attached: Life Orb / Choice Band
Ability: Hustle
EVs and Nature:
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant / Jolly Nature

Bolt Beak is Dracozolt's main STAB to bring the pain. If Dracozolt is faster than the opponent, Bolt Beak doubles in power and combined with Hustle/Life Orb's boost, it will easily dent anything that is not a Ground type. Dragon Claw is Dracozolt's safest secondary STAB and hits Ground types immune to Bolt Beak for great respectable damage against Pokemon like Seismitoad. However, due to the lower damage output, it is unable to get past Hippowdon. If Hippowdon is a target, you can use Outrage instead which will definitely 2HKO it on the switch, but comes at a very high price where it locks Dracozolt into the move making it prey for Fairy types while it can still miss on the process and fail to achieve its target. For coverage, Fire Fang allows Dracozolt to destroy Ferrothorn and Excadrill which are two common switch-ins due to their resistances to Dracozolt's STABs. Low Kick is an excellent middleground that hits Ferrothorn while hitting Tyranitar and Steelix for higher damage than any of its other moves. Earthquake hits Excadrill harder while still retaining coverage on Tyranitar but leaves Dracozolt unable to get past Ferrothorn. Finally on the last move, Aerial Ace is a never-missing attack that ignores Hustle's accuracy drop and it's perfect for a surefire kill against a weakened opponent.

DYNAMAX:
Dracozolt is a powerful Dynamax abuser due to the gained effects from its moves. While Max Lightning is weaker than Bolt Beak, it gains the advantage of setting Electric Terrain which further bolsters Bolt Beak's ridiculous damage output to stratospheric levels up to the point where it is even able to 2HKO Ferrothorn with Bolt Beak under electric terrain. Max Airstream is one of the most important Max moves it can use since it increases its Speed allowing it to exploit Bolt Beak's secondary effect more often once Dynamax runs out and outspeed threats such as Togekiss, Excadrill and others. Max Wyrmwind reduces the opponent's Attack which can be useful for Dracozolt to reduce the damage output from slower Ground types and survive its attacks. Max Quake benefits Dracozolt the most since it allows it to increase its Special Defense, making it harder to revenge kill by faster Fairy types like Togekiss or Gardevoir. If Low Kick is used, Max Knuckle will increase its Attack even further while breaking past Ferrothorn and Excadrill. In addition, Dracozolt makes a great user of Weakness Policy which can help push its wallbreaking potential even further.

EV and Item Description:
Max Attack and Speed is all what Dracozolt needs in order to succeed as a stall-breaker. The rest is dumped into Special Defense for a little bit of extra bulk.

Partners

Ferrothorn: Ferrothorn provides Spikes and Stealth Rock support which allows Dracozolt to obtain as many OHKOs as needed while being a great partner able to check Ground types like Hippowdon and Seismitoad.
Excadrill: Its ability to remove hazards and set up its own makes for a great partner since it is also able to check Fairy types like Togekiss.
Clefable: Thanks to Teleport, it can build momentum for Dracozolt allowing to switch safely while providing excellent Wish support.
Ribombee: Access to Sticky Web grants Dracozolt more opportunities to outspeed more foes exploiting Bolt Beak's increased power.
Galarian Darmanitan: Its ability to pressure Ground types like Hippowdon and non-Scarf Dragapult allows it to force switch-ins while bringing Dracozolt safely with U-turn.
Dragapult: Since both are dual dragon types with similar checks, both can pressure each other check's with Dragapult using a special set and pressure Pokemon like Clefable and Tyranitar.

Other Options

Substitute with Leftovers can effectively work since Dracozolt can easily force a lot of switch-ins. A spread of 252 HP / 88 Atk / 20 SpD / 148 Spe with Leftovers can be used to avoid weaker Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Rotom-W from breaking the Substitute with Power Whip or Hydro Pump. Assault Vest is also a great alternative to use since Dracozolt also has a decent defensive typing that allows it to check Pokemon like Zeraora and Toxtricity.

VGC & Double Battle Options

Dracozolt is not exactly one of the biggest metagame threats in Doubles, but between Hustle, Dynamax, and its unique typing, it manages to find a niche in the VGC metagame. Its most obvious draw is the powerful Bolt Beak, which grants an insane breaking tool as long as Dracozolt moves before the target. Unlike Dracovish, it also suffers less from having this powerful tool redirected since Lightning Rod is much less relevant in the current meta than Storm Drain. However, the combination of Hustle and Dynamax is what really makes Dracozolt shine, giving it an insanely powerful boost with less worry of missing due to Hustle's accuracy drop. Its offensive typing also covers a unique range of threats including Dragapult and Togekiss, while hitting most threats for at least neutral while backed up by its high power. However, Dracozolt is ultimately brought down by the fact that it's fairly reliant on the Dynamax role to shine and it really wants team support to bring out its potential, which limits the team compositions where it would fit. That being said, Dracozolt is more than capable of pulling its weight if you support it properly.

Binary Volt

- Bolt Beak
- Dragon Claw
- Aerial Ace
- Protect
Item Attached: Life Orb / Weakness Policy
Ability: Hustle
EVs and Nature:
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Speed
Adamant Nature

Dracozolt's set is fairly straightforward with only a few worthwhile alternatives, the most obvious of which is the inclusion of Bolt Beak for a very powerful Electric-type STAB. Dragon Claw provides a secondary STAB so that Dracozolt isn't completely stopped by Ground-types, and it provides a powerful Max Move option with Max Wyrmwind to hit Pokemon such as Dragapult. Aerial Ace may look awkward due to its low base power, but Dracozolt is blessed with the option to utilize Max Airstream while Dynamaxed to boost its Speed further, a rare option among non-Flying types. Protect provides useful defensive utility as always, and as a Pokemon that often Dynamaxes itself, it's very useful to have a supporting move to have the Max Guard option for further defensive counterplay.

Dracozolt's base Attack is fairly underwhelming, so Adamant nature is ideal to take full advantage of its Attack stat which scales well with Hustle's boosts. Hustle may have a nasty accuracy drawback but the Attack boost more than makes up for it since Dynamax moves never miss, which eliminates any drawbacks of the ability for the duration of Dynamax. Life Orb is ideal to give Dracozolt a consistent damage boost at the cost of its durability, but Weakness Policy is also valid since it will often Dynamax and thus have no trouble living one super-effective hit in most cases. Dracozolt does have a useful defensive typing to utilize, but Dracozolt really needs all the help it can get for its offense so maximum Attack and Speed investment is difficult to pass up, especially if you need to use Bolt Beak after Dynamax ends.

Other Options & Team Ideas

- Earthquake provides the very useful Max Quake while Dynamaxed, giving Dracozolt very helpful Special Defense boosts. This is extremely useful for hitting Excadrill, which otherwise gives Dracozolt a lot of trouble. High Horsepower is also an option that offers the same BP for Max Quake while being a single-target move.
- Fire Fang also hits Excadrill and provides an option for hitting Ferrothorn as well, at the cost of lower BP than what Earthquake would provide for Max Quake. The sun set by Max Flare is also less immediately useful to Dracozolt, but can still provide useful weather control in a pinch.
- Dracozolt really wants Tailwind support to capitalize on its powerful offense, which makes Pokemon such as Whimsicott and Togekiss some very strong teammates. Togekiss can also redirect Ground-type moves other than Earthquake, which makes Dracozolt's job easier.
- Excadrill is a major problem for Dracozolt if not running Earthquake or Fire Fang, so teammates such as Milotic, Primarina, and Conkeldurr are helpful to keeping Excadrill in check. An Excadrill of your own can also prove useful, though this is not something you want to rely on for your Excadrill check.
- Incineroar is a good teammate to deal with Ferrothorn, which reduces the need for Fire Fang on Dracozolt further. Fake Out and Parting Shot support is also especially useful for enabling any Pokemon that wants to utilize Dynamax, and Dracozolt is no different here.

Countering Dracozolt

Hippowdon is Dracozolt's best counter since thanks to its immense bulk it can even avoid the 2HKO from a banded +252 Dragon Claw and restore its health with Slack Off or kill it with Earthquake. It only fears Outrage which will definitely 2HKO, but it has to land first to achieve this.

Excadrill is an excellent Pokemon capable of switching into either Dragon Claw or Bolt Beak and revenge kill Dracozolt with a STAB Earthquake. However, it must be careful of switching into Fire Fang, Low Kick or even Earthquake.

Faster Pokemon like Dragapult, Mimikyu and Kyurem are capable of revenge killing Dracozolt and can dispatch it with their powerful STABs. However, it's worth mentioning that if Dracozolt had defensive boosts obtained from Dynamax effects, it becomes harder to do so.

Animé Appearences

Dracozolt has yet to make an appearance # -English Episode Name- -Jp. Episode Name- Pics 1139 A Pinch of This, a Pinch of That! Galar Fossils! Stick 'em Together!! Pics