Would the Deep Sea Scale or Deep Sea Tooth be better on a Clamperl in an Emerald Nuzlocke?

Question

I had an encounter in the Underwater sections of Hoenn and found a Clamperl. However, I'm wondering if Deep Sea Scale or Deep Sea Tooth is better on it. I currently only have the final Archie fight, the Juan fight, the Wally fight, the Elite 4 and champ, and Steven left for major battles. I'm not allowing trade evolution either, so no Huntail / Gorebyss for me. If I need to include more info on my team, Pokemon left, etc, I can do that. I'm not sure if this kind of question is allowed either, so it can be closed if it isn't

Comments

From a simpler standpoint, Deep Sea Tooth because playthroughs have much more of an emphasis on offense.

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This is a nuzlocke though and I'm not sure if I should focus on bulk or damage

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The problem with deep sea scale is that it's useless when the opponent uses physical attacks.

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True, but Clamperl gets Iron Defense and has decent Physical bulk

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I came up with a possible strategy with the Deep Sea Scale: Rest, Toxic, Iron Defense, and Filler (Surf or Ice Beam?) could make Clamperl into a unit against some Pokemon and you can't get crit because of Shell Armor. However, even with the Deep Sea Scale, I'm not sure if it has enough bulk to survive long enough to Toxic stall.

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I think this will depend on the rest of your team.

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I have a Vibrava, Grumpig, Gyarados, Tentacool, the Clamperl that I listed, and Sableye

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I would try to get another encounter so you don't have to use three water types

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If you already have a Gyarados and a Tentacool, a Clamperl really won't help you.

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The Tentacool is really under-leveled (it's level 13) and my Clamperl is level 34 (and I've been EV training it)

Answer 1

First, Clamperl is one of the worst water Pokemon in Emerald because it comes late and needs trading to evolve. One thing you can do, given that your Tentacool is level 13, is finding a higher level Tentacool or Wingull or using a super rod to fish for a Sharpedo. All 3 of these Pokemon have much better stats compared to Clamperl.

If you absolutely must use Clamperl for whatever reason, the better item is usually deep sea tooth. Let's assume the average late-game opponent has 80 base stats, 80 base power STAB moves, and no type advantage or disadvantage against Clamperl. To do damage calculations with this theoretical Pokemon, I put a ghost dark type Glalie with shadow ball and crunch in the damage calculator.

Deep sea scale calculations:

0 Atk Glalie Shadow Ball vs. 84 HP / 84 Def Clamperl: 43-51 (38 - 45.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
84 SpA Clamperl Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Glalie: 53-63 (34.1 - 40.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Deep sea tooth calculations:

0 SpA Glalie Crunch vs. 84 HP / 84 SpD Clamperl: 59-70 (52.2 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
84 SpA Deep Sea Tooth Clamperl Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Glalie: 105-124 (67.7 - 80%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

source
According to these calculations, the deep sea tooth allows Clamperl to do a lot more damage while taking only a little more damage from the Glalie.

Comments

I already beat my nuzlocke and I couldn't get Sharpedo or Wingull since they already died. This is a nuzlocke, so I can't just go catch another Tentacool (I EXP Shared it up and it did OK in the E4). Anyways, thanks