What it does on the ladder
Ampharos appears on 0.05% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 214th of the 277 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Rising Voltage, on 97.5% of sets.
The item is usually Magnet at 95.2%.
The ability is split: Plus on 80.2% and Static on 19.8%.
Those are Smogon's published usage figures, not anything measured here, and they describe what
the ladder plays rather than what is strongest. The full set is in the panel above.
The Pokémon itself
Ampharos is number 181 in the National Dex, a Johto Pokémon, Electric
with a base stat total of 510 — 99th of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Sp. Atk at 115, 27th
in the format; its weakest is Speed at 55, 187th.
It can have Static and Plus.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 3-stage line: Mareep → Flaaffy → Ampharos.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Mareep and Flaaffy are not.
What gets through
As Electric, 1 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it. It
resists 3. The board above
has all of it. 7 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Bellibolt, Raichu, Jolteon, Pikachu, Luxray and others.
What threatens it
Smogon publishes no head-to-head checks-and-counters data for doubles formats, so this list is
computed, not measured: the most-played Regulation M-B Pokémon carrying a damaging
move of a type Ampharos takes extra damage from.
- Garchomp — Earthquake (Ground, ×2), on 85.1% of its sets
- Venusaur — Earth Power (Ground, ×2), on 71.1% of its sets
- Swampert-Mega — Earthquake (Ground, ×2), on 83.7% of its sets
- Excadrill — High Horsepower (Ground, ×2), on 80.5% of its sets
- Glimmora — Earth Power (Ground, ×2), on 97% of its sets
- Venusaur-Mega — Earth Power (Ground, ×2), on 92.5% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Ampharos reaches
117 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
75. Invested, it outruns 1 of the 20
most-used Pokémon in the regulation when they are invested too — which is the comparison that
decides who moves first.
It weighs 61.5 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 80 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Ampharos learns 104 moves in the Champions data.
55 of them do damage, across 13 of the eighteen
types, and 14 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Zap Cannon at 120 base power, though the biggest number in the pool is Focus Punch at 150.
It has no priority move, so it moves in Speed order every turn.
That pool is what the team builder reads from when you seat it, and the
damage calculator will take it as the attacker with
the form already chosen.
