What is a good moveset for Dragonite?

Question

Share your best competitive movesets for Dragonite on this thread! Movesets for Mega Dragonite can also be posted here, as well as for Dratini and Dragonair.

Check the submission guidelines before posting! Only competitive movesets with all relevant details (item, nature, exact EVs, ability, moves) and a solid explanation will be accepted.

Dragonite Pokédex and learnset for reference.

Answer 1

Dragonite (M) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Def / 156 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
- Iron Head / Steel Wing
- Dragon Claw
This Dragonite can utilize all its bulky strength. Dragon Dance is a perfect couple with Multiscale as it boosts up its strength while the ability reduces the damage. Roost makes sure Multiscale can be used again over and over - Opponent's worst nightmare. For Steel Wing and Dragon Claw, they are 2 physical attacks that will sweep out Dragonite's weaknesses (Ice, Rock, Dragon and Fairy). With the boosted power from dragon dance, they are more dangerous than ever!
Also, the held item - Weakness Policy is extremely helpful for Dragonite to boost its power, as it would raise both attack and special attack, combining with Dragon Dance, your opponent has no way home.

Comments

Not bad, but I reccomend replacing Steel Wing with Dual Wing Beat (Stab), Earthquake (better Coverage) or Iron Head (better steel move, but only in SwSh). Outrage could be considered over Dragon Claw, but I personally prefer the latter. It is also better to invest more EVs into its Speed and Attack over bulk. Finally use a Adamant or Jolly nature instead of Impish and replace leftovers with Heavy Duty Boots (if it is a SwSh set).

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Thanks, I will take note of your suggestion and update my answer.

Answer 2

Defensive Clerk Dragonite

Dragonite @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Ice Beam
- Earthquake
- Roost
- Defog / Heal Bell

Defensive Dragonite can serve as an effective counter to many powerful Pokemon, and fits best on balance and bulky offense teams. Dragonite can check or counter Urshifu, Heatran, Kartana, Rillaboom, and others with it's great defensive typing, ability, and moves. Earthquake is for Heatran and is useful as an all-around damaging moves, while Ice Beam puts chip on Flying types like Landorus-T and Zapdos. Roost and Heavy-Duty boots are a necessity for Dragonite to function, as they keep it at full health for Multiscale to activate. Utilizing Defog, Dragonite can be a team's hazard control, but if a team doesn't need one Heal Bell is great for supporting teammates that hate status.

Answer 3

National Dex UU Defensive Dragon Dance

Dragonite @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Atk / 184 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dual Wingbeat
- Heal Bell
- Roost

A Defensive Dragon Dance set. This set utilizes Dragonite's moves, 91/95/100 bulk, and Ability Multiscale to use Dragon Dance multiple times. Dragon Dance boosts your attack and speed, which allows you to clean late game. Dual Wingbeat is used as the STAB move and is able to hit twice. Heal Bell cures Dragonite of status conditions such as burns, poisoning, and paralysis, as well as curing your teammates of status conditions. Roost provides Dragonite with HP recovery, and if you reach 100% HP, Multiscale will be able to lessen the amount of damage taken.
184 Speed EVs allow Dragonite to outspeed Azelf and Zygarde-10%. 252 HP EVs helps with bulk. The leftover 72 EVs are dumped into the attack stat. This set gets walled by Steel- and Rock-types, so Pokemon who can break past them such as Zygarde-10% and Nidoking pair well with this set.

Answer 4

Dragonite @ Life Orb
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Hurricane
- Thunder
- Dragon Pulse
- Flamethrower / Rain Dance

I previously made a Pelipper set you can use that set to set up Tailwind and switch to Dragonite. Hurricane and Thunder to take advantage of the rain, Dragon Pulse is stab, Flamethrower is coverage and Rain Dance is to set up rain again or if you don't want to use Pelipper.

Answer 5

Dragonite (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 Def
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Dual Wingbeat
- Dragon Claw
- Dragon Dance
- Roost

Dual Wingbeat is STAB and increases the power. Dragon Claw is more powerful and its power will go to more than 100. Dragon Dance will increase the Attack and Speed. Roost will heal Dragonite instead of using its Leftovers to heal.

Answer 6

Gen 9 SV OU
Dragonite @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 120 HP / 252 Atk / 136 SpA
Adamant Nature
- Hurricane
- Extreme Speed
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
the set is a normal e speed killer set but with hurricane this move is here specifically for Great Tusk, due its ability to tank this mons hits well and hit back with ice spinner. 136 Spa Evs makes it so even the adamant nature spa drop makes its spa in a range where it can OHKO non-Assault Vest tusks dump the rest into hp to help with multiscale and dragon dance boosts speed anyways.

Answer 7

Dragonite @ Choice Specs or Wise Glasses
Ability: Inner Focus/Multiscale
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Modest/Bold
- Rain Dance
- Hurricane
- Thunder
- Surf/Hydro Pump

Special attack Dragonite is unexpected, many people expect Dragonite to be a physical attacker so they prepare Pokemon with the best defense to fight Dragonite. But, Not many Pokemon with high Defense also balance with high Sp.defense, so this is my water Dragonite build.
Rain Dance to boost Hurricane (stab), Thunder, and Surf. As we know Thunder and Hurricane will become fully accurate attacks in the rain, and Surf also gains power in the rain.

Comments

before this gets downvoted change rain dance or specs

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I used pretty much the same set a while back. Though I had a weakness policy and I made Dragonite a mixed sweeper. He was quite hilarious with Kyogre.

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is there a reason why inner focus is an option?

Answer 8

Gen 9 Hyper Offense? Hell yeah. Time to kick some ass.

Dragonite @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 168 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
- Ice Spinner

The Heavy-Duty Boots are a way to evade hazards. This might seem pointless as this beast is already Flying type, but knock knock, it is Stealth Rock, and it's here to take 25% of your HP.
The Tera Typing doesn't really matter, but Normal fits best in order to drive away the Ice types. This comes with a drawback of gaining a previously-resisted weakness of Fighting, but hey ho.
No Dragonite set is complete without Dragon Dance, and this is where you have to slightly get greedy: the best way to utilise this WMD of a Pokemon is to use Dragon Dance twice. If it ends up working out then congratulations, you're gonna sweep everyone with...
Extreme Speed, a priority move which can take advantage of the boosted attack stat, and
Earthquake, a nice powerful fallback that can finish the job that ES wasn't able to.
I admit, this is a controversial choice to not include any Dragon type moves, but trust the process.

Comments

What are the EVs achieving? If this is a HO set then you don't need Roost and should instead opt for coverage like Ice Spinner because you can't touch Pokemon like Landorus-T and Sinistcha. Also, this set is totally incapable of bypassing Air Balloon Gholdengo which is a pretty common set in OU. (assumed this to be OU because there's nothing mentioning the format, even if it were something like Nat Dex, Air Balloon Gholdengo is common there)

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Now that I think of it, Ice Spinner feels much more suited. I've changed it accordingly, thanks for the feedback.
As for the EVs, it just works out. It's a good balance.

Answer 9

Well I decided to do one of these. So who better to start off with then dragonite? Ok here it is

Dragonite @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Multiscale
Tera Type: dragon/normal/fighting/ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Speed
Adamant Nature
- Substitute/ice spinner/roost
- Dragon Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Outrage/tera blast

Ok I ran this on reg g and it was great. So basically weakness policy for obvious reasons with multi scale up you become powerful fast. For Tera you could run dragon to spam outrage and keep most your weakness to activate the policy. Normal to spam extreme speed. Fighting is a bit of a weird one. I put it as an option because you can Tera blast ice types a very dangerous threat guys like iron bundle and baxcalibur. Also you still have a lot of weaknesses with fighting meaning people will easily be able to activate your weakness policy. Ok I run the classic sweeper Evs and adamant nature. Sub is for avoiding damage obviously. But you could run ice spinner if you’re struggling with terrain. Also roost if you want to heal. DD is awesome for a set with extreme speed and easy to set up behind a sub. Outrage to absolutely destroy opponents and terra blast for some variety if you change your Tera type to something besides dragon.

I forgot to mention you could also run Tera ghost so you won’t easily be stalled by gholdengo

Ok so this is my first time if this set stinks please let me know!

Comments

Weakness Policy does not activate if the holder is hit by a super effective move while behind a Substitute.

Answer 10

Dragonite @ Leftovers
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Def / 156 SpD
Impish Nature
- Iron Tail
- Breaking Swipe
- Giga Impact / Brutal Swing
- Agility

Start with Agility and proceed to sweep. Iron Tail covers Ice, Rock, and Fairy. Breaking Swipe is powerful STAB with the added bonus of lowering your opponents' Attack. Giga Impact and Brutal Swing are last resort moves; I recommend that you only use them if you have absolutely no other choice.

Comments

This move set is really terrible. Iron Tail has horrible accuracy. Breaking Swipe has bad power. Brutal Swing is weak, and Giga Impact is a horrible move. The nature and EVs do not seem to make it a sweeper

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Breaking Swipe is not a powerful STAB. There's literally no reason for using it at all over Dragon Claw, Dual Chop, or Outrage. Iron Tail is much worse than Iron Head, Superpower, Earthquake, and Fire Punch. Brutal Swing is a really random and overall terrible choice, Giga Impact is an atrocious move that gives the opponent a free turn to set up, switch, or KO you, and worsens your overall matchup vs steel types. Also that is a very bad EV spread for an offensive Dragonite. Why run Leftovers and Impish over Weakness Policy/Heavy-Duty Boots and Jolly, and why run Agility over Dragon Dance?

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wait hold up. LMAO how can you have 252 HP EVs, and then have 4 HP EVs in the last slot again?

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Where is the generation? Breaking Swipe sucks while Dragon Tail and Outrage is better. Iron Tail is inaccurate and is worst than Earthquake, Fire Punch, and Superpower. Brutal Swing is not that good and isn't STAB which only does 60 weak damage. Giga Impact doesn't let you switch, set, and can KO you. Where is flying STAB like using Dual Wingbeat? Why Agility when Dragon Dance is better. Why Leftovers/Impish over Weakness Policy/Heavy-Duty boots and Jolly nature. Not a good sweeper.