Pokémon Darkrai

[AquiIo]

Darkrai

Stats: 70 HP / 90 ATK / 90 DEF / 135 SPA / 90 SPD / 125 SPE

Ability: Bad Dreams

Notable Moves:
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Tera Blast
- Taunt
- Hypnosis
- Hex
- Knock Off
- Will o’ Wisp

Pros:
Incredible Speed and Special Attack, massive movepool of setup, coverage, and utility, respectable bulk, decent typing.

Cons:
Weak to common mons like Iron Valiant and Great Tusk without Tera, somewhat tera reliant to get good setup opportunities, no recovery or pivot moves, slight 4mss on certain sets when considering all the moves it wants to run.

Tera Potential:

Tera Fairy lets it resist bug and fighting moves it would otherwise be weak to - notably u-turn, setting a sub on the pivot, or perhaps to live a cc from

or

- and setup in front of them. It also flips the script on both these mons and more, hitting fighters, and other dark types super effectively with tera blast, and neutrally hitting fairies, all of which resist dark pulse. In fact, dark/fairy coverage is unresisted in the ou tier, with the only mons you'd rarely see to resist both being weezing-galar, and... tinkaton? This is incredible.

Tera Ghost resists bug and is immune to fighting, as above, and grants stab to shadow ball. While sacrificing incredible coverage, this also grants outright immunity to fighting, letting you sub freely on

and

, and blocks rapid spin, making it a very good choice for webs builds.

Tera Poison resists everything dark is weak too, and hits fairies super effectively, while giving STAB to darkrai's sludge bomb.

And Tera Dark could work on specs and scarf sets to just give dark pulse extra firepower.

**Potential Sets:**
Darkrai @ Life Orb
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
- Tera Blast
- Dark Pulse

This set is a typical sub plot mon, taking advantage of darkrai’s serviceable bulk and excellent speed and offensive sets to set up in front of a slew of mons, especially with tera, and proceed to destroy them.

Darkrai @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Hypnosis
- Dark Pulse
- Knock Off
- Hex

This set uses Darkrai’s useful supportive movepool - knock off lets you make progress, and hypnosis not only puts the opponent to sleep but also does damage every turn, thanks to Darkrai’s ability.

Darkrai @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 16 Def / 252 SpA / 240 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sludge Bomb
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Thunder

Darkrai is an excellent scarfer, outspeeding the majority of the meta and hitting other fast mons back extremely hard. Speed investment outspeeds scarf Meowscarada, putting the rest in defense to take common priority moves better.

Some calcs:

Offensive:
252 SpA Darkrai Sludge Bomb vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Iron Valiant: 340-402 (117.6 - 139.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragapult: 338-402 (106.6 - 126.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fairy Darkrai Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 399-472 (117 - 138.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fairy Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 377-447 (119.6 - 141.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fairy Darkrai Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 580-686 (156.3 - 184.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fairy Darkrai Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Iron Valiant: 593-697 (205.1 - 241.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Psyshock vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Clodsire: 348-411 (75.1 - 88.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Blissey: 963-1133 (134.8 - 158.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO


Defensive:
252+ Atk Choice Band Rillaboom Grassy Glide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Darkrai in Grassy Terrain: 205-243 (72.9 - 86.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

252 Atk Great Tusk Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fairy Darkrai: 108-127 (38.4 - 45.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

4 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fairy Darkrai: 89-105 (31.6 - 37.3%) -- 85.4% chance to 3HKO

252 SpA Iron Valiant Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Fairy Darkrai: 160-189 (56.9 - 67.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Protean Meowscarada U-turn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fairy Darkrai: 55-66 (19.5 - 23.4%) -- possible 5HKO (doesn't break sub)

+2 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Darkrai: 211-249 (75 - 88.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[Overshoc]

Kinda shocked you didn't mention focus blast. Also in my opinion life orb+sub set isn't good, you are constantly chipping yourself and you even are committing it to tera.
If you were to ask me, a standard np/focus blast/sludge bomb/ dark pulse set is much better with hdb, you still hit everything in the tier and your tera type can be whatever you want. If you want to use tera, you can remove focus blast for tera blast fighting to destroy gambit.
Also, I wouldn't use the hypno hex set either, just seems wonky. Instead, you should have brought up specs that could be a fearless breaker. If you want to run hypnosis, you can just slot it in on hdb and use it+2a with a nasty plot. Just some of my thoughts while reading this! Oh also for Specs and Scarf alike, you should mention trick as a way to ruin passive walls like blissey. Finally, haze can be a niche option because of its speed, could be nice on like sub or something.

 

[Eeveeto]

Wide Lens need to be at least mentioned. 60 Accuracy Hypnosis sucks ass, 66 is actually almost 2/3 chances to hit. Best use for Hypnosis Darkrai is to lead with it vs the opposing HO Hazard setter and try to prevent the up. In fact, a set like this one, while meme, can really disrupt HO:


Darkrai @ Wide Lens
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Dark / Poison / Ghost / Fairy
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hypnosis
- Thunder Wave
- Will-O-Wisp
- Dark Pulse

 

[Talpr0ne]

Darkrai @ Life Orb / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Poison / Fighting / Stellar
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Focus Blast
- Sludge Bomb

This is the best Darkrai set, it has no coverage issues, works well with Tera but isn't a Tera hog unlike the Tera Fairy set, just cleaves through everything slower than it (so excellent in webs or screens), it just works with no frills and the only thing that can stop it is missing Focus Blast against Tusk. If you stray from this one and use other sets it's no wonder that you will end up thinking Darkrai is mid.

 

[Morkal]

Darkrai @ Life Orb
Ability: Bad Dreams
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Tera Blast

This has been the Darkrai set I've had the most consistent success with - I cannot stand Focus Blast, so I've found that Tera Blast Fighting has been wonderful here. Ice Beam has been much more useful for me than Sludge Bomb due to the glut of Dragons and Gliscor running around.

 

[Dreadfury]

Yeah, honestly, I think the only even remotely useful Darkrai set is NP+LO (and you have a lot of different variations of it since you can run Ice Beam, Focus, a Tera Blast, or Sludge Bomb pretty easily) and then Scarf is a distant second. I just don't see anything else being all that useful, especially any sort of Hypnosis trash.

That said, NP Darkrai feels wonderful to use right now. The meta's kinda nuts with the turtle running around all over the place, but a fast, specially-offensive Dark-type feels like a breath of fresh air right now and I think it's honestly super healthy for the tier long-term.

 

[Morkal]

Yeah, honestly, I think the only even remotely useful Darkrai set is NP+LO (and you have a lot of different variations of it since you can run Ice Beam, Focus, a Tera Blast, or Sludge Bomb pretty easily) and then Scarf is a distant second. I just don't see anything else being all that useful, especially any sort of Hypnosis trash.

That said, NP Darkrai feels wonderful to use right now. The meta's kinda nuts with the turtle running around all over the place, but a fast, specially-offensive Dark-type feels like a breath of fresh air right now and I think it's honestly super healthy for the tier long-term.

I agree wholeheartedly - NP Darkrai fits the metagame like a glove and all the other sets feel decidedly underwhelming (Scarf/Specs) to flat-out bad (Hypnosis). Probably one of the most solid, consistent, yet manageable mons I've used in a long time in OU.

 

[TCTphantom]

I decided to take a page out of Gen V Gengar’s book and mess with a few of its substitute sets from older gens. Sub Disable in particular felt really nice on balance as a disruptive force. It feels like people do not prep for it at all and it can bully some teams hard.

 

[Karxrida]

I decided to take a page out of Gen V Gengar’s book and mess with a few of its substitute sets from older gens. Sub Disable in particular felt really nice on balance as a disruptive force. It feels like people do not prep for it at all and it can bully some teams hard.

What damage moves are you running for this set? I've considered mono-attacker Sub Disable with NP, Taunt, or Wisp as my third non-damaging move, but it's probably super reliant on Tera to run Tera Blast for better coverage.

 

[CatsAreCute]

I haven't tried NP darkrai yet, but I've been playing around a little with a choice scarf Stellar Type Darkrai as a theoretical soft check/revenger (and a bit of brainrot). It's supposed to beat +1 Speed Tera'd pokemon and the fastest booster Iron Boulder. And also generally chip pokemon whenever it can.

Darkrai @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Trick/Sludge Bomb/Thunder
- Ice Beam
- Tera Blast

In the few games I tried using as a Stellar, it was ok. Had to always sack something first to bring it in and be forced to switch out after the atk drops. I think it's just really scarf ice beam being amazing right now with all the part dragons.

 

[NotDaProGamer]

eyyy this is the set being used for Lure That Threat eyyy
Darkrai @ Life Orb
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Focus Blast
- Sludge Bomb
...focus blast... it already has tera fighting man... just give it tera blast...
(if I meet anyone on ladder with focus miss darkrai and it sweeps I will be mad).