Slaking Ideas?

[SolarStar]

Welp, I know that the king of laziness is a "bad" pokemon on his own, but there has to be some kind of viable strategy to using him. Any ideas? Singles and doubles teammate ideas are appreciated!

 

[Matt_192]

For Singles, Slaking is a generally a Hit-and-Run Pokemon - it carries a Choice Band along with moves like Superpower, Hammer Arm and the like. Since Truant lets you switch, it gives you this kind of freedom.

For Doubles, Slaking is a lot more viable. A good partner is anything with Skill Swap, but for the purpose of this exercise, I will work with Reuniclus. First turn, Skill Swap the Slaking to give it Magic Guard (which also becomes beneficial to it, in that the Slaking could carry the Flame Orb. If you then carry Facade, that is extreme damage with no recoil. However, you are still crippled by the burn for your other moves). Reuniclus can then Skill Swap on the following turn to give an opposing Pokemon Truant. However, this strategy is a bit risky.

 

[Blaguard]

Generally speaking Slaking is a bad gimmick. If you're determined to use him in singles run a choice band with a set like Return, Hammer Arm, Earthquake, Night Slash/other filler move. Stay away from Giga Impact as it prevents switching.
In doubles it's better to use moves like Gastro Acid or Worry Seed, as with the Skill Swap strategy you're committed to using the move twice in a row or lose a move to truant, and let's be honest, you want your Reuniclus doing more important things instead of skill swapping once or twice and then dying. Though if you're determined to use the Magic Guard strategy, use a Toxic Orb. Why would you cut your attack in half when you can poison yourself and still take 0 damage. But with the presence of Spore and Dark Void (aka Amoongus and Smeargle), Worry Seed giving you insomnia is most likely the best option.
Above all else remember that Slaking is basically the poke-Hulk. SLAKING SMASH. That's all it does.

 

[Hazama]

In doubles I like to use a kecleon to skill swap protean onto slaking. It has proved very effective as it gets all the stab and no downside. After kecleon has truant you can skill swap it onto an opponents pokemon making them switch out.

 

[Martin]

A strategy u could use in RU and up is to have a Cofagrigus give the oppoent Mummy and then Pursuit trap the Mummified 'mon with Slaking. Its very situational and difficult to pull off tho.

 

[Zoroark]

I like running a revenge killing 'King with retaliate, superpower, and other big hitting moves. Choice Banded with max HP and Attack with some Defense EVs should work rather nicely. I've also been thinking about experimenting with Giga Impact, but I dunno

 

[Martin]

I like running a revenge killing 'King with retaliate, superpower, and other big hitting moves. Choice Banded with max HP and Attack with some Defense EVs should work rather nicely. I've also been thinking about experimenting with Giga Impact, but I dunno

The main issue with Giga Impact Slaking is that it is forced to stay in on the following turn. It should only ever be used when the extra power is completely necessary.