Pokémon: Zeraora Ability: Volt Absorb Team roles: fast attacker, pivot, wallbreaker, setup sweeper Pokémon evaluation:
A dark-skinned member of the humanoid paw-pad animal family. Lucario had found a new boyfriend.
My predictions about Marshadow a year ago seemed fairly reliable in hindsight, though apparently hardly anyone ran Pursuit, so I figured I would make Zeraora the final Pokémon in this thread. A base stat total of 600 and base 143 Speed should already guarantee this Pokémon a place in UU at minimum. The question was whether it could break the pure Electric-type curse and climb higher.
When I first saw its design and level-up movepool, I thought it would be Electric/Fighting. Instead, annoyingly enough, it turned out to be a pure Electric-type speedster, which limited its ceiling. See Mega Manectric and Xurkitree for reference. The difference was that Zeraora took its Speed even further, landing in another unoccupied speed tier: two points below Mega Beedrill, but faster than a whole bunch of Pokémon above base 130. With fairly good mixed offenses and relatively average bulk, its stats were very sensibly distributed for a fast mixed attacker, giving it tremendous flexibility. Life Orb was practically tailor-made for Pokémon like this.
Its bulk was not outstanding, but it was not frail either. Its HP and defensive stats were slightly better overall than Flygon's triple base 80s. In other words, maximum physical bulk investment would let it take some hits, but there was really no need for that on a fast, pure Electric-type Pokémon. Volt Absorb was relatively unremarkable as an Ability, but its interaction with the electrifying effect of Plasma Fists was more interesting. An extra Electric immunity was always welcome, too. I could see Zeraora becoming a specialist at pivoting into Tapu Koko.
Game Freak probably intended Zeraora to