Attack Flandre

[Coylise]

^{Attack Flandre}

_Hustle
^{Physical moves do 50% more damage at the cost of 20% accuracy.}
Type
Dark

     Base        Min-  Min  Max  Max+
 HP  50          -     241  304  -
Atk  170         338   376  439  482
Def  75          167   186  249  273
Spe  95          203   226  289  317
SpA  105         221   246  309  339
SpD  65          149   166  229  251

Overview

According to the official touhou lore Flandre's ability is to destroy anything, and man does that show! With a monstrous attack stat of 170, AFlandre tears through her enemies with so much ease that even the toughest walls have a hard time holding their own against this beast. Despite having only dark as a STAB, hustle more than makes up it for by making her attack skyrocket to unreasonable heights. However, all this power comes with the price of dying to any super effective hit, and her ability is a double-edged sword that lowers her accuracy by 20%. These problems combined with her mediocre 95 base speed make it hard for Flan to actually hit her enemies, and as such she is tough to use properly. Still, her presence alone leaves the opponents trembling in fear of the destruction she can cause, and when used well, Attack Flandre can single handedly turn entire games on their heads.


Destroyer of Worlds
Attack Flandre @ special bloomers
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)/Jolly (+Spe, -SpA)
EV's: 252 Atk, 252 Spe, 4 HP
- Thrash
- Superpower
- Steel Wing
- Fire Punch / Thunder Punch

This set is the epitome of physical power, reaching the mindblowing 1084 attack! Nothing but the heaviest walls can withstand an unresisted thrash from this monster, and those that can tend to die on the second hit anyway because their speed generally isn't very high. As a result, usually only death fodder will switch into this. Notable exceptions are the ghost types, who can casually ignore the move by virtue of their dark immunity. Superpower tends to be the best alternative, however, there are a handful of situations where the other two moves come in handy. For instance, Steel Wing can OHKO Mima, who resists and survives Superpower, which could be a problem with AFlan's chance to miss. The same goes for other dark types, who resist both Thrash and Superpower. Fire Punch is there to allow for a 2HKO against physically bulky Dyuyuko, even if she heals herself through Giga Drain + leftovers. Thunder Punch can also be used to deal with the likes of AMurasa, since that will OHKO even a fully defensive build with spike support.

Attack Flandre likes having teammates capable of dealing with Ghost types when running this set. Also, because of her mediocre speed, paralysis support can greatly help Attack Flandre deal with fast sweepers who would otherwise outrun her for an easy kill.
(Examples will come soon)


Surprise Ghost Buster
Attack Flandre @ Mistress Outfit / Chinese Dress / Lum berry
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)/Jolly (+Spe, -SpA)
EV's: 252 Atk, 252 Spe, 4 HP
- Thrash
- Superpower
- Steel Wing
- Fire Punch / Thunder Punch

Without Special Bloomers Attack Flandre gains the freedom of moves in exchange for 361 attack, making her less threatening from a raw damage perspective, but giving her the opportunity to surprise ghosts who think she's locked into Thrash. The choice between punches comes down to which ghosts you want AFlan to be able to take out.
Despite being much weaker without the bloomers, AFlandre should still not be underestimated by any means. Her Thrash is still more than capable of handling anything below 100/100 defenses when they haven't invested in physical bulk.

The choice in items depends on whether you want to be better at beating slow, bulky stuff (damage items), or want to surprise fast status users like Mamizou or H. Sakuya. (Lum Berry)


Other options
Attack Flandre has the option of running a Jolly nature instead of Adamant- this means a bit less power, but allows you to outrun a large range of puppets, including Attack Sanae, Momiji, Satori, Yuyuko, Attack Ran, Attack Utsuho, Attack Reimu, Technical Byakuren, Mai, Kirisame, Nitori, Attack Nitori, Attack Komachi, and Futo. It also gets you speed ties against opposing Attack Tenshi, Elly, Helper Eirin, and Dark Alice. Most of these threats are not things you want to switch out of, so Jolly can make Attack Flandre much easier to abuse, but they're also threats that Attack Flandre very much does not want to miss against.
She can hold a Salac Berry, which enables her to outrun the entire un-boosted game, but she has no way to safely get into Salac range and is prone to priority once it goes off.
Blast Burn is always there if you feel the need to run something to specifically surprise physical walls weak to fire, but it's not recommended, since AFlan's special attack pales compared to her massive attack stat.
While Attack Flandre has a small list of support moves, none of these seem to have any real purpose compared to her sheer destructive ability. She gets STAB leech life to get some regeneration from killing blows, but using that sacrifices a fourth move-slot that's better used on coverage.
She can also use STAB knock-off, which can provide some utility for the non-bloomer set if you're unsure she can deal with a switch in, but there tends to be very little reason to not simply use Thrash instead, especially since the most common switch-ins (ghosts) are still immune to it anyway.
Lastly, AFlan can run detect if you want to play it safe against some puppets. That being said, she generally isn't really afraid of unboosted priority, so it's not really worth using over her coverage moves.

Checks and Counters

As previously mentioned, any ghost type can come in on a thrash without taking any damage, forcing the bloomers set to switch out or die. Steel/Ghosts like Youki and Speed Youmu can proceed to OHKO with draw the line, although both will fall if they switch into a Superpower.
Fast substitute users like Advent Reisen are another problem, as they can abuse AFlan's 20% missrate to set up their sub and kill her with the sub still standing.
Lastly, having spikes up will ruin AFlandre's day by making her very easy to revenge kill. Even though it's deceptively hard to OHKO her without a super effective hit at 100%, with just a little bit of damage she suddenly dies to many STAB neutral hits that she would otherwise just barely survive.
Physically bulky Yoshika is sturdy enough to not 2HKO'd by Thrash if AFlan lacks Special Bloomers or a Mistress outfit, and can spam Recover until she misses and has access to Will-o-wisp. This is far from reliable however, so don't switch her in unless you can be sure she's carrying Lum Berry.

[SG-Sanae]

Does switching the item really justify posting it as a different set? Also, if she can occasionally survive a hit with little health, Salac Berry might be a good item, as it brings her to 433 Speed, which is faster than anything with 147 Base Speed or less, even when Flandre is Adamant.

[Coylise]

Thanks for the feedback.

As similar as the sets seem to be, I wanted to give different commentary on them. I'm not completely done, I might add some extra stuff in there at some point. Team options will differentiate the two more once I get to that some more, since the sets have trouble with slightly different things.

As for the Salac idea, I hadn't noticed the possibility yet, since I hardly use pinch berries myself. It does sound like a plan that could work though. I could go and write a set on that, or you could do it yourself if you want.