Competitive Pokemon History - Sceptile Quiz

Answer: Substitute + Leech Seed stalling set

Sceptile was far faster than Celebi, wasn't anywhere near as heavily threatened by Tyranitar (though it didn't exactly brush T-Tar aside), and had slightly higher Special Attack with which to deal better damage once behind a Substitute. With a speedy, bulky EV spread, Sceptile could become an annoying SubSeed staller, capable of royally pissing in the cheerios of stall teams everywhere as they tried to kill it.

Answer: Leaf Blade

Neither Solar Blade nor Leaf Storm existed in the third generation, while Solar Beam was a terrible Grass type move to use without extremely specific support that was generally never worth providing in standard play. Leaf Blade was far, far stronger than either Giga Drain or Hidden Power Grass, and it also had a nifty added crit rate as a side effect. Sceptile's fairly unique access to it, only shared by the unviable Shiftry and impotent user of the move Smeargle, caused it to hit a lot harder than the average Grass type, letting it fare very well against bulky Water and Ground types in the process.

Answer: UnderUsed's banned list

The existence of Celebi and, to a lesser extent, Meganium and Venusaur stole a lot of thunder away from Sceptile. Ultimately, its SubSeed set was definitely a respectable set, but it didn't really hammer down a particularly specific niche that was all too useful to the average team. Sceptile's bulk was lacking, meaning it had trouble actually switching in to the stall teams it attempted to abuse with this set. Leaf Blade made its offenses quite decent against stuff which didn't resist it. Unfortunately, the top echelon of the standard play was filled with Pokemon who resisted this move. Salamence, Metagross, Skarmory, Jirachi, Zapdos and Celebi are some examples. Ultimately, it isn't so much that Sceptile was a poor pick, nor was it outclassed per se, it just didn't really have too much of a hardlined niche that made the average player go out of their way to seek it out. Thus, it did not receive enough usage to be natively a member of standard play. Given that the conditions of UU were such where the top echelon consisted almost strictly of Pokemon weak to Grass, and the Pokemon beneath the top echelon were truly a far cry inferior to the top tier threats, it's not hard to see why Sceptile got banned from UU.

It's not entirely accurate to say that it was in Pokemon Purgatory, but it also was far from a tier staple.

Answer: Yes

Sceptile's higher base Speed was not enough of an advantage to make it worth using over Venusaur the vast majority of the time. This was quite unfortunate, because Sceptile happened to have a very wide movepool, giving it numerous options it could have used to be a varied threat that could competently be specially offensive, physically offensive, an asset as a team's lead, or a SubSeeder.

Unfortunately, Venusaur also had a massive movepool, and it could do all of that too. Venusaur was far bulkier, and its Poison typing could even allow it to absorb Toxic Spikes, giving it helpful utility.

However, the straw that breaks the camel's back here is Venusaur's access to Sleep Powder, but one interesting move it has that Sceptile does not, meaning there was just about never any real reason to use Sceptile in UU. To be fair, as a stand-alone Pokemon, Sceptile was definitely not bad.

The fact that it was generally outclassed by the king of the tier, however, hindered its viability very, very badly.

Answer: Overgrow

Overgrow grants a boost to the user's Grass type moves whenever they reach 25% of their HP or less. This ability is actually better on Sceptile than it is on Meganium, Torterra, or soon-to-be released Grass type starters Chesnaught and Decidueye. Its high Speed, usable offenses and great Grass movepool meant that if it ever got the Overgrow boost, it would start hitting really hard.

This idea is held back by Sceptile's poor bulk to some extent, but its SubSeed set can pretty sufficiently overcome that if it can get a free switch in.

Answer: Unburden

Unburden grants a 2x boost to Sceptile's Speed whenever it consumes its item. If one were using a Substitute based set with a pinch berry, usually a Petaya Berry, Sceptile could grab both a 2x boost to its Speed and its Special Attack if played carefully. Sceptile's already sky-high Speed did make Unburden somewhat unnecessary, but it did ensure that Choice Scarf users would no longer be able to outspeed and revenge kill it, so that's good for something.

Answer: Dragon

The Dragon typing was ultimately not super, super helpful, and tended to come with more cons than pros. The generation which introduced the Fairy typing heavily bogged down Dragons as a whole, meaning Mega Sceptile did not get to first enjoy the five generations prior of Dragon being the best offensive typing in the game, bar generation one. On the other hand, no longer being weak to Fire and being even more resilient to Water were nice bonuses.

Unfortunately, being weak 4x weak to Ice now meant a Water type's stray Ice Beam would easily OHKO Mega Sceptile, preventing it from totally oppressing them.

Answer: Lightningrod

Lightningrod not only gives Mega Sceptile an immunity to Electric type attacks (barring those used by Pokemon with the Mold Breaker ability), but also enables it to obtain a +1 to its Special Attack whenever it is targeted by an Electric type move. While obtaining new immunities is never a bad thing, this ability, like Mega Sceptile's new typing, also came at a rather awkward time for it. Had it been able to remain strictly a Grass type, Mega Sceptile could've switched in to Electric types to try and activate its ability, to get the boost, a lot more easily. Sadly, just about every Electric type worth having equips Hidden Power Ice by default, to fight Grass, Ground and Dragon types who resist Electric. If the Electric type's trainer predicts an incoming Mega Sceptile switch-in, the intuitive Hidden Power Ice would destroy it, rather than dent it but not KO it, thanks to its extra weakness to Ice when obtaining the new Dragon typing. That said, the only time Lightningrod would ever conceivably be activated is when making a risky play to switch in on an Electric type move, since Mega Sceptile's typing-based 4x resistance to Electric wouldn't make the average player think to try to KO it with Electric type moves in the first place.

Answer: Fairy types in general

For the most part, Fairy types were pretty bulky, while Mega Sceptile was definitely not. Its Base 145 Special Attack is pretty nice, but it has nothing with which to reliably boost that with, and it can't wield a Life Orb or Choice Specs, making it out to be rather average in practice. Even more unfortunate is the fact that numerous other Fairies had sub-typings which gave them resistances to Grass, like Whimsicott, Klefki, Togekiss and Mega Altaria. This means they can pretty comfortably switch in most of the time and hit Mega Sceptile's newlyfound weakness to Fairy pretty hard in response. Additionally, Whimsicott is one of few Pokemon who can actually naturally outspeed Sceptile, before it has Mega Evolved anyway. Klefki's Prankster ability would let it move first when trying to use a status based move, while Togekiss and Mega Altaria definitely didn't need to move first in order to win, being very bulky and resistant to just about anything Mega Sceptile could throw at them.

Thus, Mega Sceptile needed reliable answers to Fairy types on its team if it wanted to meaningfully contribute to the battle.

Answer: Offensive teambuilds

Offensive teams just about never had any Pokemon capable of outspeeding the blazingly fast Mega Sceptile, who had an amazing Base 145 Speed. While its Base 145 Special Attack failed to do a single thing at all to Blissey, it was high enough where it could reliably revenge kill offensive threats which did not resist Grass or Dragon. Thus, Mega Sceptile could quite reliably cut off a sweeping threat, or a threat in general, due to its ability to move first the vast majority of the time and hit the threat in question respectably hard.