Competitive Pokemon History - Kyogre Quiz

Answer: Drizzle

In the third generation, Drizzle automatically summons permanent rain whenever Kyogre enters the field of play. This meant that allied Swift Swimmers, such as Kingdra or Ludicolo, were Uber-viable strictly because of the existence and prominence of Kyogre. Additionally, threats weak to Fire, such as Metagross and Jirachi, appreciated Kyogre's rain effectively removing this deficiency, giving the ability defensive utility as well.

Answer: 90

Kyogre's great bulk and excellent defensive typing certainly allowed it to take a hit first if need be, to retaliate with something extremely strong. Still, as Kyogre lacked reliable recovery, and was often needed to stick around for the long haul so that it could maintain the rain its allied so dearly needed, being slow and usually needing to take a hit first was quite common and thus, required careful play from its trainer.

Answer: Rayquaza

Rayquaza's Air Lock ability negates the effects of any weather while it is on the field. For as long as Rayquaza remains on the battlefield, nothing that Kyogre, Groudon or Tyranitar do will allow their weather based abilities to do anything remotely meaningful. To be clear, the game will report that their respective weathers are active, even if Rayquaza is on the field.

However, the presence of Rayquaza means that these weathers are mere aesthetics with no actual effect while it is on the field.

This means that before Swift Swim Ludicolo and/or Kingdra are ready to do their thing, facilitating Rayquaza's defeat for Kyogre based teams is a priority, as it would otherwise be able to come in, negate their Swift Swim due to rain being nullified, and easily revenge kill them before they could get far.

Answer: Palkia

Groudon would get demolished, rain or shine. Thus, it was only worthwhile to bring Groudon in on a free switch to temper Water Spout's power a bit by putting up sun, then immediately switching into something which resisted Water and could take the hit better.

Even the master of special walls, Blissey, could only spam Softboiled and hold on for dear life, praying that it could PP stall Water Spout enough for a teammate to come in and revenge kill Kyogre after Blissey was taken down. If Kyogre is hit by a damaging status, like Burn or Poison, Blissey will eventually win, but a completely healthy Kyogre will use this move with the aforementioned conditions to 2HKO Blissey 100% of the time.

Meanwhile, Palkia's solid Special Defense and, more importantly, 4x resistance to Water enabled it to narrowly avoid the 3HKO from full health from a Water Spout under the aforementioned conditions. After Stealth Rock, though, Palkia would always get 3HKOed. If one desired Palkia to be able to switch in to this attack, they had to keep Palkia healthy, and make sure to keep entry hazards on the opponent's field, so that Kyogre could not be at full HP again to best abuse Water Spout with.

Answer: It enabled Kyogre to override their weathers if it was slower and one of them and Kyogre came onto the field at the same time

If Kyogre and either Groudon or Tyranitar come onto the field at the exact same time, the slower of the two will have their weather take effect. Hypothetically, if Kyogre is faster than Groudon, its Drizzle ability will activate first, causing rain to go up.

Then, Groudon's Drought ability will promptly activate, allowing it to override Drizzle and put up the sun. Thus, it is therefore usually optimal to make one's Kyogre as slow as possible. Its base 90 Speed means it isn't outspeeding most Uber offensive threats anyway, giving Kyogre users an additional reason to invest more in its bulk and power.

Answer: Baitogre

Baitogre was a mixed offensive set consisting of Waterfall/Surf/Thunder Wave/ the user's choice of Thunder and Ice Beam. The item of choice was usually Sea Incense, to boost the power of Kyogre's Water moves without reducing its HP. This allowed it to bluff a Choiced Item, to have a better time 'baiting' in its usual checks. Waterfall would easily 2HKO Blissey. Unlike Water Spout, Waterfall's damage was consistent and not based on anything like Kyogre's HP, so Blissey would now always lose to this set, rather than have the smallest of chances of victory against Water Spout sets. Palkia would be thwarted by Thunder Wave on the switch, combined with repeated Ice Beams or Thunders as a follow up. Similarly, the Eon twins would just about always be beaten by Thunder Wave + repeated assaults with super effective Ice Beams.

Answer: Specially Defensive

Kyogre in general could check Darkrai, but actually being in position to 'check' Darkrai was hard, as Darkrai would usually be off the field, or have already boosted with Nasty Plot and thus, escape Kyogre or defeat it in the one-on-one. Kyogre's Specially Defensive set rectifies this problem, letting Kyogre now switch in to Darkrai, and either defeat it with a couple of strong Scalds, or Roar it out to remove any Nasty Plots Darkrai may have obtained. Kyogre can then use Rest + Sleep Talk to heal off the damage, and switch in on Darkrai again later if need be. Notably, Kyogre can even switch in and win if Darkrai puts it to sleep with Dark Void, since Sleep Talk will allow Kyogre to continue to act anyway.

Answer: Primordial Sea

Primordial Sea was Kyogre's new way of putting up permanent rain, after Drizzle got nerfed in the sixth generation. Sadly, rain would go away whenever Primal Kyogre switched out, meaning it couldn't pass the effects to teammates which could benefit from it. On the flip side, Primordial Sea could not be overriden by Sand Stream or Drought, causing these abilities to fail if Tyranitar or base Groudon switch into Primal Kyogre. Of course, Primal Groudon's Desolate Land ability can override Primordial Sea with sun, making it so that the two would continue to struggle with one another for dominance of the skies for another generation.

Answer: Did a gargantuan amount of damage

Simply put, this was Primal Kyogre's fire-and-forget nuking option. It was tremendously strong bolstered by its massive Base 180 Special Attack and rain, making it difficult to switch in to. If Primal Kyogre could boost with Calm Mind, it would gain power reminiscent of its old gen 4 Water Spout days, only without the strict need to keep Primal Kyogre's HP high to be effective.

Answer: Physically offensive wallbreaker

With a set of Liquidation/Earthquake/Ice Beam/Thunder, Primal Kyogre turned into an amazing wallbreaker. It was extremely hard to defeat this set without losing at least one Pokemon in the process, meaning that this set was lethally efficient at breaking down a wall to support its team. Primal Kyogre's new Base 150 Attack made this set more threatening than it would initially seem. Liquidation was a great main STAB move, Earthquake hit Primal Groudon for a clean 2HKO after Stealth Rock, Ice Beam took out Mega Salamence, Rayquaza, and the rare Grass type, while Thunder handled bulky Water types and Lugia.

It was also somewhat comparable to its old Baitogre set from the fourth generation; if a player has their Primal Kyogre start off with Ice Beam or Thunder (when these moves are reasonable to use), it could give off the impression that it is a mainly specially offensive Primal Kyogre, which could bait in special walls like Blissey and Chansey, only to watch them get shredded by Liquidation.