Battle strategy - Soak & Thunder?

Question

I was wondering about using Soak & an electric/ grass move. Most Pokemon that can learn Soak can't learn an electric/ grass move, and even if they can, it's not very effective. Besides, it wouldn't be STAB, and Solarbeam would be -50% in rain, so that leaves Thunder to be the most likely alternative.

I mean, you could always do something like this:

Lumineon
@ Big Root/ Damp Rock
Ability: Storm Drain
EV: 252 Speed, 252 HP, 6 Def
~ Aqua Ring
~ U-Turn
~ Soak
~ Rain Dance

so you set up Rain Dance, then soak, U-turn out, and then get a Pokemon with Thunder (w/ STAB).

Obviously, this might only be useful if the opponent doesn't switch out the Pokemon (therefore negating Soak), or only has 1 Pokemon left, and doesn't have a Lightning Rod or a x0 electric ability (if you go with Solarbeam, then Sap Sipper would negate that). And on top of all that, Lumineon doesn't have fantastic stats.

I was just trying to find a use for Soak, because it seems to be rather useless in competitive battle. Once a Pokemon is switched out, their type resets, and only when your opponent has 1 Pokemon left is that not a possibility, and even then you'd take so many turns setting it up, you might as well go Rain Dance > U-Turn > Thunder (if your opponent has no x0 ability or type). You could crow bar Mean Look or some trapping move into this, but if your opponent has U-Turn or Volt Switch, then your strategy is useless.

Is Soak only useful in game? Or has someone found it to be useful in competitive battling?

Answer 1

That strategy works out, but your opponent can easily decipher the strategy once you bring something with Thunder in.

Soak is pretty useful in Double battles.

>Imagine soaking shedinja. If his partner has lighteningrod, he would only have one weakness. ~DarkTyphlosion in here.

It can be used for eliminating weaknesses your Pokemon has, especially with Pokemon that have a myriad of weaknesses.

Other than that, Soak is rarely used at all.

Comments

Thanks! Also, I assume that in a triple battle, you could get two Pokemon with Sap Sipper and Lightning Rod respectively in a team with Shedinja, and with some careful manoeuvring, Shedinja could avoid both its weaknesses? Azumarill or Seaking would have to be either one of the accompanying Pokemon, in that case.

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Sap Sipper doesn't attract Grass moves. It only gets boosted when it hits that Pokemon.

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Oh I meant rotation battles, so if you had some prediction (esp. with Solarbeam), then Sap Sipper could take the grass hits.

Answer 2

Lanturn can learn soak as an egg move plus get stab from thunder. It can learn soak easiest through breeding with seaking. I use soak+thunderbokt with parafusion (thunder wave+confuse ray) works like a charm beat stevens metagross by itself and was 10 levels below