Moltres @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots (Gen 8)
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 6 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Modest Nature
- Fire Blast
- Hurricane
- Roost
- Substitute /Defog / Scorching Sands
This is an offensive utility Moltres that intends to use its typing to support a team. The only thing it requires is for you to keep Stealth Rock off the field. This is nothing new, since you should always be prepared to do this for anything 4X weak to Rock. What I mean by using its typing to support a team is quite simple: Moltres has resistances to Fire, Bug, Grass, Steel, Fighting and Fairy and is very decent as a switch-in to them. Fire Blast and Hurricane are your STAB moves and have great coverage together; No matter what you do, the three moves that should never change are Fire Blast, Hurricane, and Roost. While Moltres has a good Special Attack and access to Flamethrower and Air Slash, without a Life Orb the damage output can easily be too low to really get things done, so they're not recommended. On the other hand, the value of Leftovers is that it eases Moltres' ability to switch in to attacks and greatly improves its longevity in general; Fire Blast and Hurricane give Moltres good attacking power without punishing it with recoil. With Roost keeping it healthy, its presence of the battlefield won't end anytime soon. Substitute is a bit of a tossup, but it's cool since it can used to play a few mind games with your opponent, on top of Protect Moltres from status. It can be quite entertaining to mess up your opponent when they use Volt Switch assuming you're going to switch out, and instead you use Substitute to stay in, and they're forced to switch-in a Pokemon that can't handle Moltres very well.
Well, like I said you should be prepared to have Defog or Rapid Spin ready before using any Moltres, not just this one. With Stealth Rock out of the picture, don't assume that a 4X weakness to Rock explicitly equates to a bad defensive Typing, because honestly, it doesn't (It's sort of like saying Heatran has an awful defensive Typing because its 4X weak to ground, yet I cannot remember the last time I faced an offensive Heatran).
Edit (Updated for Gen 8)
This Moltres set is excellent and is even more excellent thanks to Heavy-Duty Boots. Flame Body allows it to punish attacks such as U-turn simply by switching into them. Heavy-Duty Boots not only stops it from being affected by Stealth Rocks, but also makes it fairly efficient and clearing hazards with Defog. Scorching Sands is also cool because Ground Coverage is the only type of coverage it ever really needed. On top of that, it can optionally fish for a 30% burn chance against things that haven't already been burned, since Fire Blast has a paltry burn rate. Still very much a toss-up overall.
I also think I originally wrote this set before Flame Body was released. Flame Body is significantly better than Pressure because Moltres has a lot of physical attacks it can switch into. I am 100% confident that I thought the same way back when, too.
