Nidoking deserves more credit!

Pokemon GO
#1

I see Gamepress wiki still gives Nidoking a poor rating due to its best fast move being legacy Fury Cutter. There’s only one problem with that…it’s not true. Double Kick has since been added and it’s a major upgrade for the King.

Both moves get 4 EPT (a necessity given Nidoking’s low bulk), but DK has significantly higher damage output, plus Fighting is more useful than Bug as an offensive type.

The difference is good enough that if you have a Nidoking with Fury Cutter, you might want to TM it since you probably won’t need it anymore…ever.

Compared to Fury Cutter, Double Kick pairs more effectively with Sand Tomb due to its better damage output. Fighting and Ground also overlap somewhat on offense, due to Rock and Steel being weak to each. The DK+ST combo works great against “Steel tanks” like Bastiodon, and to a lesser extent Dark and Normal-types. It also offers decent counter-coverage against Ice.

For its secondary charged move, you can go with either Earth Power (for additional Ground oomph), Megahorn (for counter-coverage against Psychic and additional power against Dark), or even Sludge Wave (more expensive, but hits very hard with STAB, and provides coverage against fliers and fairies).

Nidoking is still something of a glass cannon, but it’s a lot less glassy than (say) Gengar. Between the addition of Double Kick to Nidoking and Poison Fang getting nerfed, it’s possible the King may be as good as the Queen now, if not better.

Nidoqueen is still definitely better against Fairy-types, but Nidoking is far better against Steels, so which one you should choose depends on the purpose you need it for.

2 Likes
#2

Thanks for sharing, but I do not think it has any use since double kick does virtually no damage and with all the fliers around it does not make sense - imo. It works vs steel, yes and it might be a good niche spice, but I would not power one up and 2nd move it (and the 2nd move you’ll need).
I thought that it might make more sense in UL, but even there, rather not. In both leagues it loses against way too much of the current meta.

#3

Last season it was pretty great; I’m with @stativision that the WA buff (totally unnecessary in my mind) made fighting-type and ground-type damage is a bit less useful. That said, Nidoking with Double-Kick is pretty great! I run double nukes since the damage from Double-Kick isn’t consistent enough IMHO to to benefit from debuffs. As for Fury Cutter, I could see it (or Bug Bite) getting a damage buff in the near future so keeping a legacy Nidoking might have some payoff.

#4

You mean sludge wave/earth power? That’s at least surprising people. With double ground it gets walled a lot.

#5

Nope, Megahorn+Earthpower. Megahorn has higher DPE than Sludgewave IIRC and fulfills the anti-dark role a bit better while still countering psychics and grass. Megahorn is also the cheapest move it has barring Sand Tomb. Sludgewave is only good for countering fairy which, as @MLGreen said, is better handled by Nidoqueen or other PJ users.

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#6

DPE is a bit higher for SW with STAB (in the end it doesn’t matter though). Megahorn idk. Wouldn’t chose it since see above, it gets walled a lot, but depends on the team of course. But you’re right about the high energy moves, that’s the problem with Nidoking.
Nidoqueen with stone edge is a nice thing though ;)

#7

122/65=1.87
110/55=2
Megahorn>Sludgewave w/STAB

The energy cost for Megahorn vs Earthpower is negligible and given that Double Kick is a 3-turn move, it almost never makes a difference (i.e. both usually come ready at the same time). Given how prevalent flyers are now, not as safe a bet. Last season definitely saw more tanks and dark-types so the double-nuke strat worked quite well.

#8

Isn’t it 132 damage? 110 plus 20 percent due to stab? Or is something wrong with the pvpoke data

#9

Sorry, you’re right its a 20% increase. So basically the same DPE but Megahorn is quicker (which in PvP makes a pretty huge difference especially in lower leagues or with glassier 'mon).

#10

Seems it does not matter much anyway, very similar match diagrams.

But another fast move might make sense - of course it is the 1-1 shield situation with mostly a successful bait, but your two nukes seem to have better synergy with poison jab. This combo fails to a lot of the meta though.

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#11

Yep, down to personal preference and team comp. As with any baiting move on PvPoke, lot of conflated wins running Sand Tomb. The more accurate win rate is less than that since the bait will only work ~1/2 the time. Interesting that Fury Cutter has the higher win rate than Double-kick…wonder why?

#12

Might be the faster/more flexible charging? You’ll need one round less charging e.g. EP with FC

#13

Could be. And since follow-up/longer battles don’t factor into the rankings, getting to a second or third chargemove often doesn’t matter (where the duration difference equals out). I still stand by my Nidoking setup. :wink: