On Wiki Spoiler == General == *Abuser of Clamp, which is also the only reason why you should be using it. You should not expect to sweep either, especially with 75% accuracy. *A decent base 70 Speed that allows it to abuse Clamp to an extent. *The best defense stat in RBY, 180, sadly offset by its mediocre base 50 HP. However, it counters the likes of Snorlax and Tauros. *Weak to the rather common Thunderbolt, and susceptible to Psychic. *Explosion *"Shallow" movepool == Standard == Cloyster - Clamp - Blizzard / Ice Beam / Surf - Rest - Explosion *Clamp is used to trap things and prevent them from moving. Useful against Chansey, Golem, Rhydon, Exeggutor, and Snorlax, and paralyzed opponents. It is prone to missing though. If your opponent stays in, or switches, and the attack hits, it enables Cloyster to freely switch out next turn in a disadvantegous position. *Blizzard is a finisher to Pokémon like Snorlax and Exeggutor. Desperates, use Ice Beam if you are paranoid about PP or a miss (~90% is not far off). Surf is in a similar boat, though it won't hit Zapdos and Exeggutor for super effective damage. *Rest helps deal with the likes of Snorlax and Tauros better. It gives your opponent free turns, however. *Explosion is almost a guaranteed kill. Bar Gengar, the things that resist Explosion do not want to risk switching in on Clamp/Blizzard (Golem and Rhydon). Great for catching a switch in such as Starmie. == Other Options == *Double-Edge can be used over Rest. It gives you a nice finisher against opponents with high Specials; these include Starmie and Alakazam. Hyper Beam has 30 Base Power. However, in exchange for recoil, it offers a recharge turn. == Checks and Counters == *Pokémon that resist Clamp are great. Starmie is faster, can Recover off the damage, and can hit with Thunderbolt. Lapras resists it and can also hit with a Thunderbolt. *A paralysed Cloyster is a useless Cloyster, because it cannot Clamp effectively. Paralysis spreaders such as Alakazam can do this. *Zapdos and Jolteon can hit with a STAB move. Both are also faster. Beware of Blizzards with Zapdos. *Venusaur and Victreebel can hit with a STAB Razor Leaf which crits and KOs; similar boat to Zapdos. *Slowbro takes everything it has. Can paralyze to neuter it, or just attack.[/HIDE]
Hyper Beam is not really good on Cloyster. You tell me when you'd use it - versus Chansey? How do you expect to get Chansey in such a situation in the first place? I'd rather have Surf for a completely reliable attack or Double-Edge for some kind of physical damage without major drawbacks. If you want to kill Chansey with Cloyster, Explode. Cloyster does more than "take hits" from Tauros and Snorlax - it's a counter to them! Snorlax's Body Slam - 77-65 (25%-21%) Snorlax's Hyper Beam - 134-114 (44%-38%) Tauros's Body Slam - 72-61 (24%-20%) Tauros's Hyper Beam - 125-107 (41%-35%) Blizzard vs Tauros - 173-147 (49%-42%) Blizzard vs Snorlax - 180-153 (34%-29%) Clamp gives you a free switch even if your opponent doesn't switch, which is the best reason to use it, really. Don't expect to sweep. Move down HBeam to Other Options and replace it with Rest, which should be slashed with Surf/Ice Beam/Double-Edge (but Double-Edge could also fit in Other Options, really).
Well I'll be honest, I forgot Double-Edge existed for a moment there. 30 less base power is not bad, especially considering the things that will be finished off by it (Alakazam). As Tauros and Snorlax can just switch out, they can effectively damage Cloyster at least 3 times before KOing with Hyper Beam., thus why I didn't list them as "countered by". Added. Anyways, hopefully added what was said.
De-slash Ice Beam and Surf. The stuff you'll be bothering to fire off STABs against are more likely to die than to be frozen, so the power behind Blizzard is always preferred over Ice Beam (except for the odd mono-Ice Reflect Chansey). And Surf is just terrible, I mean it hits Jynx, but that's literally all it does. Not worth a moveslot. I guess IB, DE, and Hyper Beam can be slashed over Rest if they're to go anywhere, but to me Blizz/Clamp/Rest/Boom is the only real Cloyster set. I'd prefer to see those extra options discussed in OO than slashed in the set. Any Cloyster analysis should probably include Snorlax's name just as often as Cloyster's itself. Clamp provides opportunities for the big lug to come in for free (I see it as RBY's version of U-Turn), and Cloyster itself walls opposing Snorlax indefinitely thanks to Rest (unless they're an odd Amnesia set that doesn't use Ice Beam as its only Special move). Cloyster also walls Tauros, but it's shakier because all Tauros (as opposed to some Snorlax) have Hyper Beam, and instead of just praying for no timely para, Cloy is also praying for no crit. Hyper beam has 50 more base power than Double-Edge (you say 30). RBY DE is only Base 100. You mention it earlier in the analysis, but Gengar should get a mention as a Cloyster counter. Granted it's not the very best, as it takes neutral damage from Blizzard and if it's burned Sleep does little to keep Lax from capitalizing outside of sacrificing itself, but it's still really good. I don't know about a paralyzed Cloyster being a useless Cloyster. You're usually switching in on things you wall (i.e., the ubiquitous Snorlax) then Clamping whatever switches in for a free switch-out yourself, no Speed required. Not being para'd is handy for recovering from a whiff against or Exploding on a paralyzed Starmie or a Lapras or something, so a paralyzed Cloyster is definitely a far less scary Cloyster. Also I don't know how comfortable I'd be recommending people use Slowbro as a Cloyster counter. Yeah, it resists Clamp and limits the ability of Snorlax to capitalize, but Slowbro could lose a Speed tie and die to or at least be forced to Rest against Lax after taking a bunch of chip damage from Clamps. Not to mention that even if things do work out, you can kiss the possibility of an Amnesia sweep (the main point of using Slowbro) goodbye thanks to all that chip damage taken while not even paralyzing anything. Lapras, while slower than Cloyster, actually works as a check because it outpaces Snorlax and, as an instant threat (rather than a setup sweeper), it can do its job while taking that chip damage. (All of this doesn't have to go in the analysis, I'm just walking people through how I see it).
http://wiki.pokemon-online.eu/wiki/Cloyster/1st_Gen_OU This is done. Make any changes directly to the wiki.
I said Thunder-type and wrote Snorlax as countered by it 2 times in a row. I'm tired ~.~ Just make the changes ;-;
In regards to slashes: Explosion Blizzard and Clamp are untouchable and the best options for the last (because it should be last) slot are Rest and Hyper Beam. Rest is for looping Snorlaxes forever; it could get problematic once your opponents start capitalizing on it, but until then, it's as good as it gets. To clarify, in this context capitalizing usually means making a switch into the predicted rest because otherwise Tauros, Golem and Rhydon have no way around Cloy (all 3HKO on average, although Tauros is only a 4HKO without a crit and assuming last turn Hyper Beam), and most other stuff bar maybe slowbro/zapdos/jolteon is wallable (think egg, zam, starm, chansey, maybe lapras). Hyper Beam is better that Double-Edge because you are only using it to finish off clamped opponents in its ko range. This is like HB vs DE Dnite, DE is safer when both KO, but HB gets that extra power that requires 1-2 less clamps vs Chansey, paralysed Starm/Zam and stuff. Ice Beam and Surf shouldn't really appear anywhere. Supersonic may honestly be better... I'd actually call Slowbro a pretty good Cloy counter actually. It doesn't hit for SE, but all you really need to do is para Cloy. Once Slowbro gets the para it wont take much time (and health) to get a couple Amnesia boosts to 2hko it bar some insane bad luck. Plus, a paralyzed Cloyster means its clamp poses hardly any threat. Maybe remove Victreebel from counters. It's a speed tie and both 2HKO each other so it's just a 50/50 matchup pretty much. Consequently, I'd remove Venusaur too becasue it's a worse Victreebel basically... Zam is a better Cloy counter than you make it seem, because when not para'd it can recover loop clamps and blizzard like starm does, albeit it can't switch into clamp as much if you don't let it recover. Chansey is a great counter too, it's a 25% chance of paralyzing cloy each turn and it will take many clamps before dying. Plus can 2hko cloy with tbolt afterwards. These should be number 2/3 counters imo. Neither of these like Explosion though. At least Starmie can take it when at 100%. And you could consider talking about playing around clamp's pp in the counters section as well, since clamp only has 16 pp after all. Like this (taken from smogon's dnite analysis made by Jorgen): Well, I didn't see this until I wrote this whole thing... so oh well. And I'm to lazy to edit the wiki... EDIT: I didn't even realize the on wiki tags. Damn
Sorry for the huge bump, but I just wanna point out that in the wrap meta cloyster isn't that good of a counter to tauros and lax. In that meta cloyster is everywhere, so they're likely to run thunderbolt, especially tauros. That kinda hinders the viability of using rest.
http://stats.pokemon-online.eu/RBY OU/128.html 1170 Tauros uses run the standard set (as a non-lead). All Thunderbolt/Thunder variations together doesn't even cut the 200 battle mark.
Although PO allows wrap, it isn't really a true wrap meta yet, as most people don't play with wrap. What I'm saying is that in the future, when wrap starts to become accepted and seeps into the meta, closyer will become a lot more popular. Also, aren't you the RBY OU gym leader? If you are how do I challenge you?
If most people HAVE to play with Wrap for it to become a Wrap meta, I think you'll never see that day unless you go to "Wrappers Unite" or something. Not everyone uses Wrap even if they think it should be legal. The challenging season ended in January lol.
Alot of the players on the ladder are new to RBY, so many of them are just pasting sets from sites like Smogon, whose standard sets and articles don't really accommodate wrap that much. There is also still an anti-wrap aura around the place, in some cases people may complain if you use wrap in an unrated battle. I think though that if you had a tourney of good players (not just 2K10ers, but people from Smogon and maybe communities from Europe I don't know about) where wrap was legal, you'd probably see wrap and cloyster enough to justify thunderbolt on tauros. I mean, tournaments are what matters most in competitive RBY (if anything matters at all in a dead videogame simulator). The ladder isn't really a reflection of high-level play, everyone knows being ranked high on the ladder doesn't mean you're good. So what I'm saying is, a lot of good players would use wrap in tournaments, and a lot of those would cloyster. So in that scenario (ie. high level play with wrap allowed) I think thunderbolt on tauros would be a good option, which limits cloyster's potential to wall him.
So play on Smogon, in Smogon tournaments, and count - how many instances of Dragonite/GolDon do you see, how many instances of Cloyster/Gyarados? I saw two Dragonites and two Cloysters in my nine battles this SPL. I didn't count GolDon, but it was a number above zero (maybe three?). I didn't see any Pokémon warranting TBolt Tauros bar Cloyster twice - and nor did I see anyone using TBolt Tauros either.