UMBREON STRATEGY IN COMPETITIVE POKÉMON

Eeveelutions are not very common in Competitive Pokémon , despite being the favorite Pokémon of many fans. However, Umbreon is a great Pokémon for your competitive teams, both in Singles and Doubles. Today we bring you the Umbreon Strategy, the Dark-type evolution.

This great Pokémon performs especially well as a support and defensive pivot for our team. It is not an easy Pokémon to use, its offensive power is limited and it must know what to use and when. But that is what we are for; We are going to see all its characteristics , strengths, weaknesses and the best way to incorporate it into your team.

Everybody ready? So let’s go there.

? UMBREON STATS

His stats add up to a total of 525. Nothing impressive really, but his distribution is very efficient to fulfill his function of hard support.

• Health: 95.
• Attack: 65.
• Defense: 110.
• Special Attack: 60.
• Special Defense: 130.
• Speed: 65.

This is a Pokemon with great defensive stats . His 95 Health is fine, but his two defenses are very good. His offensive stats are poor, we will see in moves that he will not use damage moves. Finally; its speed is medium/low, although not low enough to be a great Pokémon in Trick Space , so it won’t be a stat we boost.

TYPE, RESISTANCES AND WEAKNESSES

Umbreon is a Dark Type , which gives it the following weaknesses and resistances:

• It is immune to Psychic and Prankster Moves, below I explain better.
• It is resistant to Ghost and Sinister.
• It is weak to Fight, Bug and Fairy.

Immunity to Psychic is always good, but Psychic is not a very common or very dangerous type. However, its immunity to Pokemon moves with Joker is very very strong. If a Grimmsnarl or Sableye uses a move against us, like Taunt, we will be immune to it.

Its resistances to Ghost and Dark are few and not very decisive, although they can help for those Mimikyu or Hydreigon .

Let’s take a look at its weaknesses:

• Fairy : This is the most important weakness to watch out for. It is the best type and we have no answers in our Pokémon for these. Better to avoid them; especially Togekiss and Mimikyu .
• Fighting : A very inconvenient weakness due to the large number of Pokémon of this type and especially the Coverage Fighting moves. To take into account Lucario and Conkeldurr.
• Bug : It is the least annoying weakness, because we are facing the worst type of the game. But Pokémon like Scizor or Flygon  can be a threat.

UMBREON’S ABILITIES

Umbreon has two very useful abilities that we will use depending on its function and the format in which we use it. Let’s see them in detail:

SYNCHRONY

Very great ability that will make it so that if our Pokémon suffers Burn, Poisoning or Paralysis, it will transmit it to the rival . Very decisive in Singles, where the presence of status movements such as Toxic are widely used.

INNER FOCUS (HIDDEN ABILITY)

This ability prevents our Pokémon from being affected by Intimidate and becoming intimidated . This disables moves as powerful as Surprise (very common and decisive in VGC).

IVS, EVS AND NATURE

The function of our Umbreon will be to endure a lot and help our team with cures and disablers such as Mofa or Yawn. So it will be important that we enhance their survival:

• EV’s : As for their EV’s, we will seek to maximize their durability, so we will increase Health and Defense to the maximum, the rest to Special Defense.
• Nature : An Agitated (+Defense, –Attack) or Cautious (+Special Defense, -Attack) Nature are the best options. In case we use Trick Space, options like Placid (+Defense, -Speed) or Rude (+Sp Defense, -Speed) are good alternatives.

RECOMMENDED ITEMS

These are the most recommended items for Umbreon:

• Leftovers: The Pokémon recovers 1/16 of its total Health Points at the end of the turn. In strategies to lengthen the game (Stall) it can be very useful.
• Guaya Berry : This berry will recover 50% of the total PS when the Pokémon has 25% of PS or less left.
• Goggles : The equipped Pokemon will be immune to damage from Hail ( Alolan Ninetales ) and Sandstorm ( Hippowdon ), as well as dust-based moves (especially important Spore and Rage Dust).

BEST MOVES FOR UMBREON

These are the best moves for Umbreon:

• Foul Play : STAB Dark, Physical, 95 power and 100% accuracy. This move’s damage is calculated based on the opposing Pokémon’s Attack stat, making it a great move against Physical Sweepers, as well as being very effective against Ghost and Psychic. Pokémon that boost Attack can go down with a neutral hit, making it very useful against Garchomp or Rhyperior.
• Moonlight : Status Move, Fairy Type. Heals the Pokemon for an amount depending on the Weather:
  • In Clear: Heals 50% of max HP.
  • In Rain , Hail or Sand Storm: Will heal 25% of HP.
  • In Scorching Sun: Will recover 2/3 of HP.
• Taunt : Dark, Status, 100% Accuracy. It makes the enemy Pokémon can only use combat moves, eliminating other supports or walls (walls). Pokémon that want to place Trick Space won’t be able to.
• Yawn : Puts the opposing Pokémon to sleep on the first turn and puts it to sleep at the end of the next. We can use this movement repeatedly forcing several changes in the rival. It’s a great option against Pokemon that want to stay in play for multiple turns like Blaziken .
• Wish : The Pokémon uses the first turn to make a wish and at the end of the next it recovers half of the HP to the Pokémon that is in its place. Very useful to heal our damaged companions.
• Howl : STAB Dark, Special, 55 power and 95% accuracy. This move will lower the opponent’s Special Attack by one level and in doubles it will hit both opponents. It is our answer against special (offensive) sweepers, although the damage is not very high.
• Reinforcement: It is a +5 priority movement that increases the power of the chosen partner’s movements by 50%, so we will only use it in doubles.
• Toxic : Status move with 90% accuracy that severely poisons the target.

UMBREON STRATEGIES

Umbreon is very tough and has great moves to help out your other Pokemon, whether it’s switching in for that hard hit that will hold up like a king, reflecting that negative status, or reducing the threat posed by the opponent.

Let’s see how you can get the most out of this great support.

UMBREON DARK AMBULANCE – SINGLES

• IVs: Perfect.
• EVs: 252 Health. 252 Defense. 4 in Special Defense.
• Nature: Cautious.
• Object: Remains.
• Ability: Synchro.
• Movements:
  • Dirty game.
  • Desire.
  • Yawn.
  • Mock/Toxic.

As you can see, we maximized the defensive capabilities of our Eeveelution. The goal of this set is to disable opposing Pokémon that are very uncomfortable for us; either by limiting his movements, doing surprise damage to him, or forcing his switch.

Thanks to Synchrony we can place our Umbreon when they want to poison us with  Toxapex or burn us with Volcarona .

With Mofa we can destroy other supports, prevent the use of Trick Space and Sword Dance / Dragon Dance.

Yawn forces awkward changes for the opponent, giving us room to use Wish and heal our damaged Pokémon. And for those Pokémon that have a lot of Attack damage we will use Foul Play to do a lot of damage to them.

Toxic is a great move in singles and will help us against walls. Remember that if we poison a rival we will no longer be able to put them to sleep, so Yawn will not be useful.

UMBREON – VGC DOUBLES

• IVs: Perfect.
• EVs: 252 Health. 156 in Defense. 100 in Special Defense.
• Nature: Serious.
• Object: Protective Glasses.
• Ability: Inner Focus.
• Movements:
  • Dirty game.
  • Moonlight.
  • Taunt/Reinforcement.
  • Howl.

In doubles there are fewer switches, so using Wish isn’t as effective and we opted for Moonlight to heal Umbreon without waiting for a turn.

Taunt is our move to disable other supports and with the Goggles item we will avoid Venusaur ‘s Sleeping Pills and Amoonguss Spore , but if we pair our Pokémon with a sweeper, or if we already have another Pokémon with Taunt, Reinforcement is a great option that will surprise more than one opponent with massive damage.

Lastly, I recommend Scream for those pesky special attackers, as well as hitting both Pokémon while avoiding moves like Decoy and dealing STAB damage.

HOW TO DEFEAT UMBREON AND COUNTERS

As we have seen, Umbreon is a very tough Pokémon with a good variety of moves to adapt to. Let’s see how we can play against him:

• Ignore Umbreon : Eevee’s sinister evolution doesn’t have the ability to win games on its own, so focusing on taking out the other threats is often the best option. Physical Pokémon that are not very threatened by Umbreon, such as Tyranitar or Bisharp, will allow us to win the game without focusing on it. Primarina or Gardevoir are very good options for the special, while Azumarill and Tapu Koko are very consistent physical options.
• Fairy-type : It is very difficult to take down Umbreon in one hit, but if we are looking to deal damage, at least make it very effective. A Special Attacker suffers less against the sinister Pokémon, since Foul Play is not a threat, but we must be careful with Scream (especially in double VGC where it is very common).
• Mofa : If we manage to use Mofa on Umbreon, he will lose his entire arsenal of status moves for 3 turns and we have already seen that his offensive capacity is very limited. Remember that we must use Taunt with a Pokémon that does not have the ability Prankster; for example the almighty Incineroar .
• Fighting Type : Even with Fighting being very effective damage, it is the least consistent weakness against Umbreon thanks to its better Defense stat and Foul Play.