Water-Type Battle Royale – Lapras vs. Milotic!

Question

The Pokémon VGC International Challenge: April is fast approaching. I have two options: tweak my old team and use it again, or build a fabulous new one. I opted for the latter. The new team will center around the rather shocking choice of Choice Scarf Electivire (cymbal crash). His Ground weakness requires immediate protection, as well as Burn/Intimidate counters and Safeguard. Two Water-type Pokémon immediately presented themselves as prime candidates: Lapras and Milotic.

Lapras

>She was my first choice. She can run multiple sets, including Assault Vest, Sitrus Berry or Weakness Policy. Her movepool, while shallow, gets the job done. Lapras offers priority, Safeguard, speed control, Water Absorb, and the ability to fry Ground-types with Freeze Dry and Hydro Pump. As an added bonus, she gets such wonderful toys as Sheer Cold and Perish Song. Unfortunately, her Ice typing adds a nasty Fighting and Rock weakness. Lapras also does not have the ability to deter Intimidate the way Milotic can. However, she does a great job at disposing of the most common ones (Landorus, Salamence, Gyarados, and Arcanine).

Milotic

>Milotic is a condsideration over Lapras solely for her ability to block Intimidate. This keeps Electivire in the clear when coupled with Safeguard support. Her Water STAB can deal with Ground-type threats, while also offering Ice coverage and un-Taunt-able speed control. Unfortunately, she's not as threatening offensively as Lapras and does pretty much moot without the Competitive boost. She does have less weaknesses than Lapras, however.

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So which sea monster will benefit me more? Lapras can dispose of Electivire's threats early, while Milotic can dispell them entirely. Lapras has better offenses but worse typing, while Milotic has the possibility of being a deadweight. Advice appreciated!

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• I may be using Klefki for Safeguard goodstuffs, so don't use that as a deciding factor.

Comments

You overestimate Lapras… if Milotic does moot without Competitive boost then Lapras does nothing at all. Barely any higher offensive power (in fact lower to some extent) so I'm not sure of what you said. It's really down to whose got offensive better typing after that, since Lapras's bulk is neutralized by it's weaknesses. And Milo takes the lead there because it's role is to tank hits foremost, and secondarily be an Intimidate counter.

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I know that tiers may not be a deciding factor in your choices but hear me out.
There is a reason why Lapras is in PU and Milotic is in UU.
To be honest, Lapras isn't that amazing. Milotic seems to work better with Electivire.
To counter that statement "Lapras has better offenses", note that Milotic also has higher Sp. Atk stats and decent coverage.

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@Qwerty: Lapras has a fairly good offensive presence in VGC. It's lack of power is made up be its sheer coverage and ability. Freeze Dry alone nails Landorus, Salamence, Hyreigon, Thundurus, Ludicolo, Swampert, Milotic, Breloom, and Togekiss for supereffective damage. It gets priority and a great ability in Water Absorb. She has juuust enough bulk to pull off Weakness Policy, and that bulk becomes quite intimidating with Assault Vest. (I could make similar arguments for Milotic, but not in this context.) And I am not overestimating Lapras, I am comapring him to Milotic. The two are both bulky Waters who perform different roles. If you're really serious about this, you could say that Suicune is better than both of them.

@Steelix: This is VGC, not Smogon. Tiers do not hold back such wonderful Pokémon as Mega Gengar, Hydreigon, Arcanine and Lapras.

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That gastrodon wreckage upon your team tho

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Hence why I've since added Mega Venusaur.

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Lapras' Freeze Dry wrecks those threats just about as well as Milotic's Ice Beam does (sans Ludicolo and Swampert, and the latter isn't even that common anymore), the difference in power is kinda small. And well Lapras doesn't have a lot more coverage, just more against Water types which are nailed by Electivire and Venu.
The biggest reason for Milo here, besides this, is that people would entirely avoid bringing Intimidate at all because of it, and Electivire will have an easier time. Lapras may counter some of them, but they really just need to Intimidate and switch right out. Same for Suicune.

In Nessie's defense though, she does counter Gyarados and Gastrodon well (although Mega Gyarados will outspeed her, live a Wild Charge and KO Elect with EQ). Milo, on the other hand, counters Mawile and co better instead.

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Since posting this I've decided on Milotic (I still want to see what others think), due to her lack of Ice typing. I've also been seeing a lot more Swampert lately :\ But Venusaur handles that.

Answer 1

I prefer lapras due to 2 stabs, freeze-dry (handles swampert well and unexpectedly), and more Hp than milotic, and more def ( also not to low sp def compared to milotic). Lapras makes a good wall, being able to take many hits from either side, while milotic is more of a special tank.

The truth is, it depends on your needs: lapras and milotic can play different roles.

Lapras

Role 1: kingdra counter- a common strategy for kingdra is focus energy, scope lens, and sniper combo, which can be devestating, but with shell armor, that strategy will fall apart as kingdra can't get a critical hit on lapras. Now, I don't know much about VGC, so I don't know how common kingdra will be. Probably the least great out of these roles.

Role 2: switch in - if you decide on a Pokemon 4x weak to water, and you have him/ her out against a water type, you can switch to lapras to heal up some, which makes it a even better wall.

Role 3: rain team- this obviously won't work on your team, but I'll note this anyways. Any way to handle a wall is to use toxic, but with hydration, no more toxic on you, and you can use rest without any drawbacks.

MIlotic

Role 1: intimidate gaurd- competitive will boost your sp atk if milotic gets intimidated,which will probably be pretty common since VGC is doubles, I think.

Role 2: status taker- if milotic gets toxic, which probably she will, her defense will get boosted, which will handle that low defense.

As A Result:

milotic probably will fit your team better, due to intimidate gaurd.