Grass Knot, Surf, or Focus Blast for Alolan Raichu in AG?

Question

I'm kind of deciding which one will be better
Grass Knot: Covers Ground, but depends on opponents weight. And doesn't work on dynamax Pokemon
Surf: Covers Ground, has a more fixed power, but makes me struggle against Gastrodon, and the like.
Focus Blast: Covers Dark, High Power, but good chance to miss
Of course there are more coverage moves out there, but these are the most used.

Here's my set at the moment. I used this set, in Monotype Gen 8, Gen 8 AG, Doubles, NatDex AG,and others I don't remember

Alolan Raichu @ Electric Seed
Surge Surfer
Timid Nature
EVs 252 Sp. Atk / 4 Sp. Def / 252 Speed
Rising Voltage
Psyshock/Expanding Force
Grass Knot/Surf
Nasty Plot

Here. Hope I gave enough detail. And hopefully doesn't duplicate a question

Comments

why would you use Alolan Raichu in Gen 8 AG and Nat Dex AG?

---

You'll probably get a better answer if you ask here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ask-a-simple-question-get-a-simple-answer-monotype-edition.3656239/

---

Not completely sure but I think this should go here instead: https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/rmt/54731/rate-my-pokemon-moveset-advice?show=54731#q54731

Also, out of all of the formats you mentioned, Raichu is really only viable in Monotype. It's not even on the viability rankings for any of the others.

---

You can answer this question without rating the specific moveset, so I think this is allowed. I'll leave the flags here so the moderators can see it.

---

This is fine from a rules perspective, but I agree it's a bad question for the reasons others have mentioned.
In future, it would be wise to research first, so the premise of your question (using Raichu in AG, using the same set in many formats, etc.) isn't so flawed.

---

In Monotype (the only place Raichu is viable in) you should generally be running Life Orb with Focus Blast and Grass Knot because it doesn't have the bulk to set up and you don't want to waste Electric Terrain turns.

Answer 1

When you play Doubles OU, you should use Mew or Zeraora instead of Raichu.
source
When you play AG or National Pokedex AG, you should use shadow Calyrex instead of Raichu.
source
source
Raichu has a significant niche only in Monotype, so the rest of this answer is about Monotype.

Focus Blast is great against Dark- and Steel-types like Tyranitar and Excadrill. Grass Knot is great against Ground-types in Gastrodon, Hippowdon, and Seismitoad.

source
So focus blast is overall slightly better than grass knot, and both are a lot better than surf. Which one is better for you and your team depends on which opponents threaten your team the most.

Answer 2

Grass Knot is definitely a no. It tends to be weaker than it needs to be, and would be a second Water coverage. Rising Voltage is better than Grass Knot, and is STAB.

Surf only covers types you don't at the moment, Fire, Ground, and Rock. It has a Base Power of 90, which is nothing to sneeze at, but definitely isn't comparable to Focus Blast's Power. Surf obviously does have the negative of hitting your ally in Doubles.

Focus Blast is a hard hitter and a hard misser. It's accuracy is t e r r I b l e, and you only have 8 PP to go with it. In exchange, it's really powerful, and one of very few Special Fighting moves. It helps many Special Attackers get good Normal/Dark type coverage, (Alakazam and Gengar come to mind,) but tends to fall short to Aura Sphere, with better accuracy and more PP, just with a lower Base Power.

---

With it's poor accuracy, Focus Blast just falls too short for me. It could work on Doubles paired with a Machamp, (which might actually work pretty well,) but it's negatives catch up to it's positives. If you ran Life Orb instead of Electric Seed, Grass Knot/Surf would work. In that case you would probably change Rising Voltage to Thunderbolt, and you would end up with ~120 Base Power for both TBolt and Surf.

If you don't want to change from Electric Seed to Life Orb, then I would definitely go with Surf. Good Base Power, coverage against a lot of types, and good PP are not all things that Grass Knot and Focus Blast can claim to have.

Hope I could help!

Comments

Gastrodon and Seismitoad are both common ground Pokemon that are immune to surf, and the other ground Pokemon are usually so heavy that they also take more damage from grass knot. Most electric teams also don't need non-STAB water coverage moves when they have a wash Rotom with hydro pump.

---

I based a lot of my answer on Monotype, because Raichu is kind of bad otherwise.

---

My comment is also based on Monotype. Why do you think surf is good when Gastrodon and Seismitoad are common opponents and wash Rotom is a common teammate in Monotype?

---

Oh wait NVM I thought monotype was both teams use the same type, sorry. Still, Focus Blast is not responsible enough for me, but against a water type team, yes of course you'd use grass Knot