What is a good moveset for Iron Moth?

Question

If you have a good competitive moveset for Iron Moth, post an answer below and upvote the best ones.

Be sure to include full set details in your post, e.g. items, abilities, natures and EVs. Some explanation, including the intended game mode for your set, is also appreciated. Access the full list of guidelines here.

Iron Moth Pokedex & learnset for reference.

Answer 1

Gen 9 National Dex UU Booster Energy + Agility

Iron Moth @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Agility
- Fiery Dance
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball

Iron Moth doesn't get Quiver Dance, so here is a Booster Energy + Agility set. Modest Nature makes Iron Moth's highest stat Special Attack, allowing Booster Energy to give a boost to your Special Attack. Agility is used to raise Iron Moth's speed so it can outspeed faster Pokemon such as Choice Scarf Pokemon. Fiery Dance is used for Fire STAB that can potentially raise Iron Moth's Special Attack even higher. Sludge Wave is used for Poison STAB. Energy Ball provides coverage against Pokemon such as Dondozo, Garganacl, Swampert, Mega Gyarados, and Gastrodon. Tera Grass is used as the Tera Type since it gets rid of Iron Moth's Water, Rock, and Ground weaknesses, which Iron Moth appreciates because turning a 4x weakness to a resist is huge for it.

Comments

can I just use any booster energy?

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there's only one type of booster energy

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What choice scarfers are faster than a Quark Drive Speed Iron Moth that you need Agility for? Rather than wasting a turn setting up Agility wouldn't it be simply better to run Quark Drive Speed? Sure, it might not hit as hard but at least you don't have to find an opportunity to Agility + can fit another move

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You outspeed things like Sand Rush Excadrill (and not having to speedtie opposing Iron Moth) lol? I'll be honest, this set is rather outdated now tbh, as Agility Iron Moth was a thing waaay back then when Screens and Tera were legal in NDUU, which was at the time I posted this moveset. But yeah, Booster Energy: Speed is preferred nowadays, so I'll probably post that set soon. You can still use Agility on Iron Moth, but preferably in a meta that allows Tera and/or screens.

Answer 2

Gen 9 Monotype Choice Scarf (Poison/Fire)

Iron Moth @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Quark Drive
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fiery Dance
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball
- Dazzling Gleam

Choice Scarf allows Iron Moth to serve as a revenge killer in Gen 9 Monotype. Fiery Dance is used for Fire STAB that can raise your special attack. Sludge Wave is used for Poison STAB. Energy Ball provides coverage against Pokemon such as Gastrodon, Quagsire, Dondozo, Rotom-Wash, and Ting-Lu. Dazzling Gleam targets Dragon-types such as Dragapult, Garchomp, Dragonite, and Hydreigon.

Answer 3

Finally! A Volcarona with decent secondary typing!

Gen 9 OU
Iron Moth @ Booster Energy
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Fiery Dance/Flamethrower
- Sludge Wave
- Tera Blast
- Energy Ball/Dazzling Gleam

This thing hits everything for neutral damage, no matter what moves you do. I would recommend this only with a reliable Deffoger/Rapid Spinner, as it is prone to getting chipped down. The role of this is as a late game cleaner, as if the opponent is weak, it outspeeds and OHKOs without a problem. Watch out for AV and Offensive Garchomp. You can also use this to force Gholdengo and Breloom out. Feel free to destroy me in the comments

Comments

Iron moth can't learn sludge bomb.

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Huzzah! A volcarona of quality!

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Air Balloon Heatran after Home compatability:

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really specific here but ceruledge cant be hit by this thing without using up the tera

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Sludge wave neutral

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Sludge Wave is resisted as Ceruledge is a ghost-type. This still shouldn't be an issue because it's not a viable Pokemon in OU nor is it commonly used

Answer 4

Gen 9 OU singles strong, bulky, yet speedy set
Item: Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Fire (chose it because I couldn’t be bothered)
EVs: 253 Spe, 251 SpA, 6 SpD
Nature: Timid (lowers Atk, Spe)
- Flamethrower
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball
- Bug Buzz

Flamethrower and Sludge Wave are STAB. Energy ball is to handle Rock, Ground, and Water types. Bug Buzz is to handle Psychic types.

Comments

EVs should be maxed at 252 and be multiples of 4. I’d recommend Tera Flying for a Ground immunity.

Answer 5

Role: Fast Special Sweeper

Iron Moth @ Booster Energy/Life Orb
Ability: Quark Drive
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball
- Fiery Dance
- Morning Sun

This is a really simple yet effective sweeping set.
Sludge Wave is for stab, Energy Ball is for coverage against ground, water, and rock types, Fiery Dance is for stab and spatk boosts, and morning sun is for healing. I like to run booster energy on it, but if you have electric terrain support I suggest life orb or choice specs if you want to run more coverage like Discharge instead of Morning Sun. The tera grass is to turn your weaknesses to water, ground, and rock into resistances while also giving stab to Energy Ball and give you an immunity to powder moves like spore and rage powder. (I use this set for doubles btw)

Answer 6

Gen 9 AG Iron moth set

Ever since gen 9 Natdex was removed iron moth got a major promotion all the way up to OU after almost never being used and here is my set for it

Iron Moth @ Booster energy
EV's : 252 SpA, 4 Def, 252 Speed
Tera Type : Flying / Dragon
Ability : Quark Drive
Modest Nature
- Fiery Dance
- Agility
- Sludge Wave
- Psychic / Energy Ball

Booster Energy on Iron moth to activate Quark drive and due to my EV Spread and nature it's quark drive boosts it SpA to 519 (Approximately)

Fiery dance to raise his special attack even higher making it an even more serious threat to anything it doesn't get outsped by

agility if you can predict an opponent switching out giving yourself some speed control while having fiery dance boosts meaning there's less of a chance for anything to survive potentially allowing a sweep from him as most common Pokemon are weak to his movepool

Tera flying to remove the 4x weakness iron moth suffers from - Tera dragon also flips it weaknesses on their heads making it weak to fairy instead of 1/4x resist and weak to ice instead of 1/2x resist

Sludge wave to cover fairy removing his weakness to that and fiery dance already removing ice weakness and this just proves why iron moth got such a huge usage outside of natdex

me personally, would use psychic over energy ball for ditto iron moths and Clodsires which pose a huge threat should you have already used your tera on another mon which is great for him

So that's my iron moth set let me know what you think

Answer 7

National Dex UU Pivot Moth

Iron Moth @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fiery Dance
- Sludge Wave
- U-turn
- Morning Sun / Toxic Spikes / Energy Ball

This is the pivot set Iron Moth uses in NatDex UU. Pivot Iron Moth is really nice to use on Bulky Offense teams. Fiery Dance is used for the Fire STAB since it has a 50% chance to boost its Special Attack, making it a potent cleaner late game. Sludge Wave is a nice Poison STAB that pairs well with Fiery Dance, threatening Pokemon such as Clefable, Hydreigon, Hydrapple, and Rotom-Wash. U-turn is useful since it allows Iron Moth to switch out and deal chip damage to checks such as Mega Tyranitar and Ting-Lu, making progress against them. Morning Sun is used to give Iron Moth reliable HP recovery so it can stick aroung longer. Iron Moth has other options to use on the pivot set. Iron Moth's NatDex UU has those options slashed on the U-turn slot, but pivot Moth can't really drop U-turn, and Morning Sun is honestly the more droppable option for the set. Toxic Spikes allows Iron Moth to provide utility for its team by setting up a hazard that poisons grounded Pokemon switching in. Energy Ball can be used instead for coverage against Water- and Ground-types such as Hippowdon, Gastrodon, and Slowking. Heavy-Duty Boots is used to prevent Iron Moth from taking chip damage from hazards.

Answer 8

National Dex UU Booster Energy: Speed

Iron Moth @ Booster Energy
Ability: Quark Drive
EVs: 124 Def / 132 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fiery Dance
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball
- Substitute / Psychic / Morning Sun

The standard Booster Energy: Speed set Iron Moth uses in Gen 9 National Dex UU. This set is mainly seen on Hyper Offense teams, being used on Webs HO, the traditional rocks lead HO, and some Ting-Lu overload HO that aims to overwhelm Ting-Lu to open up for Iron Moth (or another teammate) to sweep late game. Fiery Dance is the Fire STAB for the set due to its 50% chance to boost Iron Moth's Special Attack, which gives Iron Moth snowballing potential in games provided its checks are weakened or knocked out. Sludge Wave works nicely with Fiery Dance, being able to provide Iron Moth with a stronger STAB move and coverage for Pokemon such as Clefable, Azumarill, Tapu Fini, Enamorus, Hydrapple, and Mega Gardevoir. Energy Ball allows Iron Moth to hit Water-, Rock-, and Ground-types such as Rotom-Wash, Ting-Lu, Hippowdon, Slowking, Iron Boulder, Gastrodon, and Tyranitar. The last move can be changed depending on what your team needs or what you want to use for the last slot. Substitute allows Iron Moth to take advantage of the switches it forces and Pokemon who can't do much to it such as Celesteela lacking Earthquake, Amoonguss, and Tangrowth lacking Earthquake. Psychic can be used to hit opposing Iron Moth and Mega Venusaur super effectively. Morning Sun can be used for HP recovery, which is useful to put Iron Moth out of range of priority moves being able to pick Iron Moth off. The given EV spread allows Iron Moth to always get a speed boost with Booster Energy (provided webs aren't on your side), with the remaining EVs being used in Defense to somewhat help against physical attacks.