Starmie
VS
Lapras
Starmie
Starmie's stats:
HP: 60
ATK: 75
DEF: 85
Special ATK: 100
Special DEF: 85
Speed: 110
Starmie's role: Special Sweeper.
Lapras
Lapras's stats:
HP: 130
ATK: 85
DEF: 80
Special ATK: 85
Special DEF: 95
Speed: 60
Lapras's role: Special Staller
1: The Comparison
- Starmie's HP is 60, it's by far weaker than Lapras's 130 HP.
- Starmie's Attack is 75, it's slightly weaker than Lapras's 85.
- Starmie's Defense is 85, this is a little bit higher than Lapras, who has 80.
- Starmie's Special Attack is 100, this is stronger than Lapras's 85.
- Starmie's Special Defense is 85, this is just a bit weaker than Lapras's 95.
- Starmie's best stat lies in its great speed, 110, which is certainly higher than Lapras's poor 60.
2: The Deduction
Starmie is a special sweeper, this is known. It serves multiple roles, as being the special sweeper, Rapid Spinner and so on. It has decent defensive, but a bad HP stat, and enough attack to do some baby damage with Rapid Spin, which has the ability to clean the field. It has a very good speed with a nice special attack, making it able to use a specs set. Starmie has a great potential overall, and I used to love it, but not much today.
Lapras is certainly not the best Pokemon to run your imposed set, I could see it using a ResTalk set. It can annoy with Toxic and heal with Hydration, in a rain team, by using Rest. This makes it dangerous. When you see a Lapras, you are scared that this one has a different set than what you expect. This implies that Lapras can pull a use, on its own, to help your team with a supporter role.
3: The Verdict
A competitive use of one of both is hard to choose, I would even get both if possible. If not, then I would analyse the team, and see some points: Have it got a SR weakness, it is stopped by Ferrothorn, do it lacks a Specially Defensive Pokemon ?
Starmie can fill many roles, and from them, Rapid Spin. Lapras has a lesser extent of use but can still spam Ice Shard on Dragons.
I would see sets:
@ Focus Sash:
Trait: Natural Cure
EV: 252 Speed / 252 Special Attack / 4 HP
Mild Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald / Surf / Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam / Blizzard
- Psychic / Thunderbolt
Rapid Spin will clean up your team from Leech Seed, Stealth Rock, Spikes and Toxic Spikes, so even if it deals baby damage, it's essential to Starmie, except if your team is super anti-SR.
The Water move could be Scald, for dealing burn, Surf, for decent power, or Hydro Pump for extra power and lesser extent (Accuracy / PP). The Ice move is coverage, but 90 % of the time, it will be the former, I named Ice Beam. Finally, Psychic gets STAB, while Thunderbolt provides 2 things:
- The Coverage
- The Bolt-Beam combo
Lapras, while not common competitively, can pull off his status and become a wall in any rain team with its hidden ability, I name Hydration. I could really see it pulling off this set:
@ Leftovers:
Trait: Hydration
EV: 252 HP / 200 DEF / 60 Sp.Def
Careful nature
- Rest
- Ice Shard
- Confuse Ray
- Bulldoze
This set is very rare, but I see in it a lot of potential, the first being to annoy any opponent. Rest is a proof ; whenever your HP goes down, have Drizzletoad in your team, just Rest and Hydration will wake you up, ending up in massive efforts from your opponent to OHKO, but failure, and then frustration. Ice Shard is kinda a priority with STAB, so I believe it may stop or try to stop Scarfchomp to harness your team's potential. Confuse ray can be very annoying, especially against a setup Pokemon, like Scrafty, who sets up both Bulk Up and Dragon Dance. Finally, my strange last choice, Bulldoze can be an exceptional coverage providing Lapras to outspeed some Pokemon, thus having time to Rest or to confuse them.
4: The choice
It completely depends on your team. Comment this answer by posting your members, then I may edit this answer to answer this criteria.
Hope I helped !
