Can evs compensate for bad nature?

[zephorous]

I have a modest Suicune which isn't the worst thing in the world, but id prefer bold! Now I know most people run a bit of SpA investment in even bulky Suicune, do you think I'd be able to adjust the EV spreads to compensate for the nature? Such as no SpA investment and put it all in Def instead? I'd prefer not to try and get a new Suicune :P

Thanks!! :D

[Marcusube]

You can keep the modest nature Suicune and go max defense.

[GiMYz]

IMO Modest Suicune is the best option, since you need even less SpA investment to get some useful OHKOs with Ice Beam and you can put the rest of your EVs in bulk.

[Rogue]

I would go for bold. I'll do my best to explain this, so bare with me.

A bold nature Suicune at level 50 (assuming defense IV's are 31, and you have no EV's) will put it's defense at 148.
Now, if you wanted to get 148 defense without bold nature: You'd have to dump an even amount of 100 EV's into your defense. Now as you can already see, you're almost cutting your EV potential in half just by running modest. Not to mention this cuts down the EV's you have lest to put in important stats such as HP.

To maximize Suicune's power in VGC, you really want to focus on it's bulk. With access to things like Tailwind, Icy Wind, Snarl, or even less conventional things such as swagger: You really want it to be on the field for a while.

Granted, you /could/ make an offensive Suicune, but it's special attack and speed are so "meh" that there are better options out there.

If you were running a standard set of snarl, tailwind, icy wind, and ice beam: I think it'd be best to run Bold for a few reasons. 1 being: You will always 2HKO things like mega Salamence, Landorus, Garchomp, and /MOST/ Thundurus out there with no special attack investment while being Bold. If you were Modest, and didn't invest a lot into special attack: You'd still 2HKO bulky variants of these mons. Of course there are weird scenarios where Modest would be more in your favor. Like if they're running max HP/SPD with an assault vest.... But I don't think I need to touch on that.

TLDR; Suicune is best used as a bulky support and not an offensive attacker. There are better suited pokemon out there for offensive attacking that have a better move pool, while still having good bulk. Of course the decision is ultimately yours, but Bold is, and always will be an amazing nature for Suicune and will allow you to be more free with your EV's.

[GiMYz]

Statistically speaking, there's no doubt about what you are saying Rogue. A Bold nature (and Calm too in this case) benefits more from the +10% increase. The only way to capitalize the max amount of stats from a pokemon is to use a positive nature on the highest stat, but if everyone does it, everything becomes predictable. There would be no point in running a Calm Thundurus, a Bold Politoed, a Jolly Kang and so on, because we would just waste stat points.

I just wanted to say, in my opinion, that Suicune should offer Tailwind + Snarl support while always being able get easier kills on something you don't want for more than one turn on the field.

A Modest Suicune with 148 EVs in SpA is able to OHKO 4 HP LandT, Garchomp and M-Mence, while always 2HKO Bisharp. A Bold one would need 244 EVs to achieve the same goals. Is a Modest Suicune able to survive the strongest attacks? Yes, because we still can invest 252 EVs in HP and 108 EVs in Defence, still reaching high stats (in particular 207 HP and 149 Def).

I'm just using Suicune's natural bulk to achieve more goals than a Bold one. I don't want to have Suicune on the field forever because once you get a Tailwind and maybe a Snarl if its needed, if i need more offensive presence i switch it out, but i know that when LandT, Garchomp and so on enter the field, i have a solid option to counter them.

In addiction to this, you can always have Intimidate support to virtually increase your Defence, but SpA is something you have or you don't have.

[Rogue]

I'm confused here... The most used nature on Politoed is either Calm, Sassy, or Bold. Mostly Calm/Bold. And a lot of people run Jolly Mega Kang, it's arguably the most effective and almost every top player runs it to outspeed/speed tie other Kangs. Also, Calm Thundurus is also very common? I mean, even Cybertron runs Calm thundurus...So not sure what you mean there by saying they would be a waste?

Anywho, the entire meta is predictable, and there's nothing wrong with that. No one is running impish mega kang, bisharp, etc. They're running adamant. More than likely with a lot of speed and attack. Does that all the sudden make them bad? Not at all, they're the most used.

It's also kinda silly to show me things that you can OHKO, that only have 4 HP. Bisharp? Sure. But Bulky Lando, M-Mence, and even Garchomp (people even ran bulky chomp in 14) are very alive. Not to mention AV Lando is an actual threat, ontop of Lando/Chomp running a yache berry is another possibility. There's too many things that can get in the way and make your modest nature with investment useless because of their item/invested bulk. If Chomp/Lando had yache berry, BOTH sets would still 2HKO. If Lando had AV, BOTH sets would still 2HKO.

I also take offense to you saying that you using a modest nature Suicune "acheives more goals" than what everyone has been using. All of these national winners the past years who used Bold/Calm Suicune, were apparently doing it wrong by not running Modest.
It also confuses me how you say you don't want your pokemon to be on the field forever? So you want it to faint?

You can't always bring your intimidate user. Are you gonna bring it when they have Milotic and Bisharp on their team? Of course not.

I wouldn't have had to dug so deep into this if this was just a simple debate, but I don't want the person who made this thread that want's advice to get better just assume Modest Suicune is the best.

Bold/Calm Suicune has been relevant for years and always will be. I have no doubt that it works well on randoms on battle spot/PS, but I have always run Bold Suicune in tournaments and I've never wished it was Modest.

[tygaa2]

I don't feel that Bold natured Suicune is the hands down best nature to run. In my opinion both Bold & Modest nature are viable. In the beginning of January I used a Modest Suicune to win Justin's 64 player tournament [At the time Suicune was uncommon] My team at the time was having problems VS Heatran. In order to improve my teams matchup I ran a Suicune with enough Speed EV's to out speed Heatran and enough SPA EV's to always 2HKO it. Aaron's recent regional team with Suicune had very little problems with Heatran, making Bold the more beneficial nature for his team. There is no cookie cutter build for a Pokemon like Suicune. You should always personalize Natures and EV's according to your team needs, not to what everyone else is using.

Edit: The Modest Suicune still lives Mega Kang's Adamant Double Edge.

[Rogue]

Sure. Of course Modest isn't the worst pick, it's not terrible. However when both natures can have similar KO power, I don't see why you wouldn't run Bold. No offense, but there's a reason why everyone on Nugget Bridge uses Bold/Calm and not Modest. They aren't following everyone else, it's just a great nature for Suicune.

The person on this thread said they wanted a bold Suicune so they wanted it to be bulky. To answer their question, no the EV's would be wasted if you wanted to attempt to mimic it's bulk.

[tygaa2]

Modest and Bold Suicune don't have similar KO power.
To further explain an instance why you wouldn't run Bold, ill go back to the reference of a team having trouble VS Heatran.
For Scald to guarantee 2HKO the common VGC leftovers Heatran 52/0/0/252/0/204, Modest Suicuine requires 52 SPA EVs.
For Bold Suicune to guarantee a 2HKO with Scald VS the same Heatran it requires 124 SPA EVs.

I'm more than aware that Bold is a good nature for Suicune, but my point is that alone doesn't make it the best nature on every single team. Every team has different needs from each individual Pokemon and their Nature/EV's should be calculated to accomplish that. Also by saying "everyone on Nugget Bridge uses.." provides no additional verification of your point.

[Rogue]

I said this earlier, but if you wanted something with offensive power and similar bulk there are much better suited pokemon out there. Things with more power, and a way better offensive move set. Slowking/bro for example. Rotom wash even. Even Politoed has better SPA with decent bulk.

I didn't point out nugget bridge for the sole reason of "this is the majority" I pointed it out because those are full of high level players who are seasoned VGC players.

I think you might have taken some things out of context here, I understand that text can go anyway but I don't mean to come off like that.

I just disagree because there are better choices out there for offensive pressure and natural bulk, and in the long run I feel Bold will benefit you more. There are way better suited things to take out Heatran than a modest Suicune.

As I said before: "Of course the decision is ultimately yours, but Bold is, and always will be an amazing nature for Suicune and will allow you to be more free with your EV's."

The only reason why I replied to GMX as I did was because he said that I was "statistically" right, but Modest achieves more than Bold which contradicted what he said.

Edit: I've also had a bad day and as childish as it is, I let it get to me and I see that my words may have come off harsher than I meant them. I apologize.