Credit to PorkyMeansBusiness
If you tell me you don't like Arcanine, you're lying. And if you're not lying, you need to leave. Forever. Right now. Never come back. Ever.
Now that's out of the way we can move on. Arcanine is one of my favourite Pokemon, and can be a real pain to deal with thanks to it's disruptive abilty and learnset. Despite having a weakness to Ground and Rock Type moves which are pretty common, it has decent stats all around and can work as a good support Pokemon with access to Will-o-Wisp and Snarl or even as an all out attacker. It even has access to a recovery move in Morning Sun making it stay around for even longer.
Type: Fire
Base Stats: 90 HP / 110 Attack / 80 Defense / 100 Special Attack / 80 Special Defense / 95 Speed
Weaknesses: Ground (X2), Rock (X2), Water (X2)
Resistances: Bug (X0.5), Steel (X0.5), Fire (X0.5), Grass (X0.5), Ice (X0.5), Fairy (X0.5)
Immunities: None
Abilities: Intimidate - When a Pokémon with Intimidate enters the battle, it lowers the Attack stat of all adjacent opponents by one stage. Intimidate has no effect on Pokémon who are immune to Attack stat reductions, such as Pokémon with Clear Body, Hyper Cutter, or White Smoke. This Ability will not affect a target with a substitute. Intimidate also activates when a Pokémon gains the Ability, such as via Skill Swap or Mega Evolution.
Flash Fire - Flash Fire makes the Pokémon immune to Fire-type moves and will activate when hit by one. When activated, the power of the Pokémon's Fire-type moves is increased by 1.5×. While subsequent hits by Fire-type moves will not provide further increase in power, the Pokémon remains immune to their effects. Flash Fire will not activate if the Pokémon is protected from the Fire-type move.
Justified (Hidden Ability) - Justified will raise the user's Attack stat by one stage when hit by a Dark-type attack. Unlike similar Abilities, no immunity is granted. Justified will raise Attack one level for each hit of a multi-strike move like Beat Up.
Disruptor Set
Physically Defensive
Arcanine @ Safety Goggles / Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 36 SpA / 84 SpD / 60 Spe
Bold Nature
- Flamethrower / Fire Blast / Overheat
- Snarl
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect / Morning Sun
Like I mentioned earlier, Arcanine can be a very disruptive Pokemon, and the combination of Intimidate, Will-o-Wisp and Snarl can be increadibly annoying to deal with. The first thing this set is designed to do is outspeed Max Speed Adamant Bisharp by 1 point. Because Bisharp has the Defiant ability, it will be at +1 attack so outspeeding Bisharp is an important benchmark. The second benchmark was to survive a +1 Sucker Punch from Adamant Max Attack Life Orb Bisharp. It's all well and good that we outspeed it, but that's irrelevant if Bisharp OHKO's us with Sucker Punch. With the 36 SpA investment Arcanine can OHKO 4HP / 0 SpD Bisharp and Breloom with Flamethrower, but you can always run the more powerful Fire Blast or Overheat instead at the cost of Accuracy. We don't outspeed Jolly Max Speed Breloom nor do we OHKO Amoonguss, which is why Safety Goggles is an item choice. Lastly, this set is EV's to take hits from some of the formats strongest attackers such as Double Edge from Mega Kangaskhan and Earthquake from Landorus-T
Damage Calculations
Defensive
Specially Defensive (Wolfe's Set)
Arcanine @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 84 Def / 4 SpA / 100 SpD / 68 Spe
Calm Nature
- Protect
- Will-O-Wisp
- Snarl
- Overheat
You can find the team report for this set Here
Naitre's Sets (These have just been copy/pasted from the Metagame Megathread)
Arcanine @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Sassy
EVs: 248 HP + 112 DEF + 44 Sp. ATK + 104 Sp. DEF
- Snarl
- Flamethrower
- Protect
- Extreme Speed
+1 252+ Atk Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 248 HP / 112 Def Arcanine: 115-136 (58.6 - 69.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 248 HP / 112 Def Arcanine: 149-177 (76 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
44 SpA Arcanine Flamethrower vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Bisharp: 144-170 (102.1 - 120.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Arcanine @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Relaxed
EVs: 214 HP + 48 ATK + 248 DEF
- Morning Sun
- Flare Blitz or Flamethrower
- Will-o-Wisp
- Extreme Speed
Arcanine @ Binding Band
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Modest or Bold
EVs: 248 HP + 134 DEF + 128 Sp. DEF
- Fire Spin
- Will-o-Wisp
- Protect
- Morning Sun
Arcanine @ Choice Band or Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 110 HP + 152 ATK + 248 SPE
- Wild Charge or Close Combat
- Extreme Speed
- Flare Blitz
- Morning Sun or Crunch
152+ Atk Choice Band Arcanine Crunch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latios: 146-174 (93.5 - 111.5%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
152+ Atk Choice Band Arcanine Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latias: 136-160 (87.7 - 103.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
152+ Atk Choice Band Arcanine Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 368-436 (260.9 - 309.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
152+ Atk Choice Band Arcanine Flare Blitz vs. 244 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 195-229 (97 - 113.9%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
152+ Atk Choice Band Arcanine Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Garchomp: 96-113 (52.4 - 61.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 152+ Atk Choice Band Arcanine Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 60 Def Hitmontop: 90-106 (57.3 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
152+ Atk Choice Band Arcanine Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 128 Def Cresselia: 106-126 (46.6 - 55.5%) -- 68.8% chance to 2HKO
152+ Atk Choice Band Arcanine Flare Blitz vs. 212 HP / 128 Def Thundurus: 156-184 (86.1 - 101.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
Potential Teammates include, but aren't limited to;
- Mega Venusaur - Aready increadibly bulky, but with help from Arcanine it becomes almost impossible to take down. Marcusube has posted an awesome build here. Go check it out!
- Bulky Water Types such as Milotic, Suicune Rotom-W and Gastrodon - All are great partners for Arcanine. Milotic and Suicune can provide speed control with Icy Wind and Tailwind respectively, meaning Arcanine can get off a W-o-W or Snarl before the opponent attacks. Rotom-W can switch in to an anticipated Earthquake and Gastrodon can hit Landorus-T and opposing Fire Types such as Heatran for super Effective Damage. They all also cover Arcanine's Water Weakness and can hit back a lot of the things that threaten it with Water or Ice type attacks. Animekid7 and PKPatriot56 have both done a Gastrodon write up Here and Here.
Rogue has also done a Milotic write up Here
- Strong Attackers like Mega Kangaskhan - Mega Kangaskhan is already annoying, but using Arcanine's support moves makes it even worse to play against. Black117 has done an increadible write on Mega Kangaskhan Here!
Threats include, but aren't limited to;
- Earthquakes and Rock Slides from Landorus-T and Terrakion
- Rain Teams / Bulky water Types
- Strong attackers like Mega Kangaskhan and Specs Hyderigon
Other Notable Moves
- Safeguard - Prevents the user and its allies from being inflicted with non-volatile status conditions and confusion for five turns, except self-inflicted conditions (including held items). Existing status conditions are not cured by Safeguard and have their effects as normal. It will prevent a Pokémon from being inflicted with Yawn, but will not prevent it from falling asleep due to its effect if it is already active.
- Bulldoze - A form of speed control. Hits Everyone on the field that isn't flying type ir has the ability levitate, and reduces speed by -1
- Swagger - So...does every Pokemon in the game get this? Seriously, everytime I look at a Pokemon's moveset I see Swagger. Someone at Game Freak must be the Devil's relative or something. Anyway, Swagger Raises the Attack of the target by 2 stages and confuses them (Can be a decent combo using Safeguard and then Swaggering your own teammate)
- Heat Wave - A Fire type attack that has spread damage
- Helping Hand - Increases the power of an allies move by 50%. Has +5 priority
Other Notable Items
- Choice Scarf - Raises the speed of the holder X1.5, but at the cost of locking yourself into one move until you switch out
- Rocky Helmet - Deal damage to any foe that uses a contact move on Arcanine
- Weakness Policy - (If you really want to be that guy ) Raises the Attack and SpA of the holder by +2 after getting hit by a super effective attack
- Assault Vest - Raises the SpDefense of the holder by X1.5, but you are unable to use any status moves only attcking moves.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to adjust anything to your own liking :]
Before I go, I'll leave you with this
credit to TsaoShin