Age old Question: Coverage, or Stab?

[Guest Relinquished]

Also, have you ever used successfully a pokemon without a single Stab move?

[roboticgamers]

I had a good time with a chansey with serene grace, flamethrower, thunderbolt, ice beam (brick breack), and softboiled in pokemon platinum i believe.

She served as the tank of the team plus support with the serene grace ability.

[Wolfox]

WHile status moves aren't needed, balance is everything. 1 or 2 stab moves (one if single type two if dual type. one of each type) and coverage/set up is usually the way to go. an example is gallade: CC, psycho cut (I prefer Psycho Cut, deal with it), sd, sneak. two stab moves, coverage in sneak and set up in SD. good balance. another example is Gardevoir. when mega: hyper voice (fairy) psychic/psyshock (depends on preverence), focus miss (sadly it's needed) and filler. something like shadow balle, will-o, sub, calm mind. again, mainly stab and some coverage.

[FairFamily]

Balance is key but I do deviate from it if the teams needs it. 

 

For instance my gastrodon in reborn didn't have a single stab move. Infestation, clear smog, stockpile and recover made for an incredible wall.

 

[Ojama Yellow]

in nine out of ten cases, having at least one stab move is preferred, but sometimes the mon just doesnt need them (usually walls or tanks like chansey and porygon2) or doesnt run them to better perform a role in the team.

[Commander]

 

This is a too overly simplistic question for something that is not a simple topic. How would you categorize Wobuffet who isn't even able to be considered either. Wobuffet isn't actually that bad of a mon and a cheese overlord for those who invest in it. Not the best cheese mon, but a rather solid one though. But here's the issue:

 

Stab is a surefire 1.5x boost while Super effective moves hit for x2. There's always going to be a situation where one outclasses the other and one where both would be useless and support moves would much rather be used. It really grinds down to case based scenarios and individual moves over one broad answer. Though most situations Stab is more important due to its consistency, but supper effective moves do more damage when the situation arises...which pretty much is saying you should focus on a team emphasizing super effective stabs instead of separating them since being able to hit x3 damage is super useful.

[Autumn Zephyr]

It really does depend on the pokemon. Mono-Typed pokemon are pretty much forced to go for coverage since only having a single STAB option means that they're easily walled otherwise (though pokemon like wobuffet and pyukumuku serve as exceptions to that rule). Similarly, Ghost/Dark pokemon are usually better off leaving one of their STAB's untapped, since both Types have the exact same SE spread and are both resisted by Dark (bonus points: prior to Gen. 6, they were both resisted by Steel as well). 

 

On the other hand, Fighting/Ice Typed pokemon would be foolish not to go Dual STAB, since the pair hits every single Type for at least neutral damage, with half of them getting thwacked for SE. And since most (if not all) of the specific Type combinations that manage to resist it are part Ghost or Psychic, these pokemon only need to pack a Ghost or Dark Type move of their own to perfect their coverage, with the last moveslot being free for whatever it wants. Honestly, if crabominable had been built as a glass cannon rather than a tank, it would be a genuinely terrifying pokemon to face off against.

 

Generally, though, I tend to run either all STABs+ a single coverage move and a status move, or all STABs+ full coverage options on my pokemon, so that they don't get completely screwed over if the team member that does have that Type as STAB goes down. I've found that it's a fairly helpful approach.

[Norm]

The obvious answer would be both. There are few times when it is optimal to have two STAB moves on a pokemon. Unless the two moves have vastly different effects, it's easier to just spam one move (e.x. Flamethrower and Heatwave would almost never be seen together) If it were between the two, Stab is usually going to be more important, as the 1.5x boost to attacks can be the end-all be-all of a matchup. Though, how good the stab is depends almost entirely on the type. Ghost, and Dark, are generally considered very good STAB types because few types resist them and Few pokemon within those types can soak up the damage. On the other hand, Bug is a pretty bad Type to be locked into Offensively, being Walled by some of the most dominant types out there. There are exceptions where a Pokemon chooses Coverage over STAB in competitive solely to beat common threats *coughLandoruscough*, but those are mostly Pokemon with more support heavy roles like Cresselia or Blissey.

 

On the topic of coverage, it is usually used to cover for Pokemon resisting your STAB moves over variety. Like Iron Head on Garchomp sounds good on paper, but an SE Iron Head is only doing 10 less base damage than STAB EQ. This goes for other moves as well. If you aren't doing a substantial amount more with SE damage compared to Stab, it might not be worth it to invest in, especially if you can raise your damage output.

 

Status moves are usually up to your own discretion as there are a lot to choose from. Obviously some are better than others, but there are a variety to choose from depending on the build. There's stat-boosts for sweepers, status for tanks, healing for support, and so on and so forth. 

 

In the end, lacking in any of these areas isn't going to be enough to do a Pokemon in, as there are other things that can make them good. Gengar in Gens 1-3 was always a threat, and he almost never used STAB, on the flipside, I could count the number of good coverage options Serperior has one one hand, but it's still a very solid Pokemon.