Is Hone Claws a bad move?

[MM3000]

I ask this in regard to unreliable physical moves like Dragon Rush, Iron Tail, etc. or is it a better option to stick with Wide Lenses?

 

[Norzan]

It's only usefull on Pokemon with Hustle, wich gives 50% attack boost but physical moves lose 20% accuracy so Hone Claws helps fixing the accuracy and the 50% attack boost of Hone Claws combines with the 50% attack boost of Hustle. But usually most physical sweepers go with Swords Dance and in case of some pokemon Dragon Dance.

 

[slate]

there aren't many things to my knowledge that can take advantage of it; most pokemon are either too slow, too weak, get too few set-up opportunities to use it effectively, or receive a better set-up move. hone claws + dragon tail kyurem-b and hone claws durant are the only things that i think use it, and the latter seldom sees use anymore. i don't think it's necessarily a bad move, but it's not exactly a good one.

edit: it's basically worse than every other set-up move but it's not inherently bad

 

[SharKing]

Hone Claws was certainly an interesting idea, but in a metagame where you pretty much need to get as much out of every turn as you can get (or stop your opponent from doing so), the setup from Hone Claws is simply too slow for most potential users, particularly those with something like Swords Dance in their repertoire. Work Up suffers a similar fate.

 

[KageJason]

Though it isn't such a bad move if you have enough defense

 

[MM3000]

Thanks for your opinion. I conclude that maybe it's not such a good idea in practice with how I had it planned out, which was using a fast pokemon with unreliable moves, but have it fixed with Hone Claws; I actually did try out with a Charizard with Hone claws/Dragon Rush/Inferno/Earthquake, holding king's rock to have a better chance at making the foe flinch, With an EV Spread of atk 252, spd 252, and IIRC sp.atk for the rest, but I think it was too ambitious perhaps.

 

[Enzap]

The most effective use of Hone Claws I've found is on a Durant with Hustle. I'm not sure if it gives its attacks perfect accuracy when the Hustle drop is taken into account, but it definitely helps and boosts its attack further. Combine that with max Speed and you have a pretty lethal sweeper on your hand in just about any tier.

 

[Supreme Leader Palpitoad]

I used Hone Claws on my Braviary quite much in W2. Braviary used it well and I think it was a good setup move for him. I do not which pokemon you want to use though.

 

[Stratelier]

A +1 accuracy boost is worth +33%, which is more than the +10% provided by a Wide Lens (or the +20% from a Zoom Lens). It's also a useful counter against Double Teaming, because not only does it match their evasion boost it adds a +1 attack boost in the process.

 

[Migraine]

lol I used hone claws on my set-up ninjask, cs my friend made fun of durant. I trained a Hustle durant and gave my ninjask hone claws, 1 hitted 4 of his 6 pokemons and died due to life orb haha

 

[Pikmin1211]

Hone Claws is for anything that wants to set up but doesn't get SD or DD, basically.

 

[Derp-Derp2]

blaziken for high jump kick is quite nice if you really do not want to miss