THE BEST NINETALES BUILD GUIDE - POKEMON UNITE

MOVESET 1: Avalanche + Blizzard (BEST)

Items: Choice Specs /Curse Incense , Slick Spoon , Energy Amp  

• Choice Specs   is a bread and butter item for most burst mages, since it provides some extra burst damage and they tend to have high Sp. Atk stats for bigger procs. Ninetales is no different and actually has an exceptionally high Sp.Atk stat.
• Curse Incense : With Blizzard having such a large AoE and multiple ticks of damage, it’s very effective at applying Curse debuff in large groups if you want to go the utility route here.
• Slick Spoon is an incredible item overall for increasing your damage output through ignoring a sizable amount of Sp. Def. 
• Energy Amp turns the big burst damage of Snow Globe into something that’s reliably very powerful and goes absolutely nuclear with the freeze bonus. The extra little bit of CDR and faster Unite move charging is also very helpful.
• Wise Glasses is also a fine option in Energy Amp’s slot. It gives a nice improvement to your longer term combo damage, early secure game, and works well off Ninetales’ sky high special attack stat. However, Amp is generally preferred for the huge teamfight impact potential.    

Battle Item: Eject Button or Shedinja Doll

• Eject Button is the gold standard for squishy characters both offensive and defensive purposes. You can also use Eject Button while casting Snow Globe to help reposition the move, which can lead to some clutch dodges or catching more people in it. 
• Shedinja Doll   is a nice alternative to have for a squishy with relatively low cooldowns to help stall them out while dodging damage. Just be sure to play to your defenders more or that your Blizzard will actually be off cooldown when using this so you don’t get blown up the moment you get out of it. 

Emblems: 7 Black + 6 Green

• Standard CDR + Sp. Atk build for more damage and moves is perfect here.
   

MOVESET 2: Dazzling Gleam + Aurora Veil

Item: Muscle Band , Rapid Fire Scarf , Slick Spoon

• On this set, most of your damage output is dependent on auto attacks. This makes Muscle Band’s procs and attack speed increases very valuable for your damage output and laning power.
• If you manage your procs well, Rapid Fire Scarf being active during an Aurora Veil can start letting you really donsome damage.
• Slick Spoon is very good for increasing the damage of moves with low scaling, which happens to be pretty much everything in the Aurora Veil kit.

Battle Item: Eject Button or X Attack

• Eject Button repositioning power for an ADC type character that won’t be able to move much while autoing fast in Aurora Veil is very helpful for staying alive.
• X Attack turns your auto attack output up very hard, which helps remedy the issue of low damage output lategame while also making you way more threatening in earlygame fights. 

Emblems: 7 Red + 6 Green

• This is one of the sets that benefit from 7 Red while also getting some extra special attack.
  

MOVESET OVERVIEW AND GENERAL GAMEPLAN :

“Daily reminder that A9 gatekeeps half the roster.”

This is probably a true statement. The powerful pushback and lingering circle of Blizzard alongside Avalanche’s wall being able to make moving around clunky all with high damage and low cooldowns makes this moveset have excellent matchups against most frontliners and anything that would prefer to approach you directly. Couple that with a fantastic earlygame and you got yourself a great attacker for general use that excels at punishing melees and helping protect other backline carries.

During teamfights, you want to leverage your high damage output and CC to constantly lay down the hurt on enemy frontliners and divers. Despite your good CC, you still want to play to your own team’s frontliners to stay safe. At times, you may want to hold off on using your Blizzard to make sure to save it to protect a backliner from a surprise assassin flank. Look for a big Snow Globe to blow people up, especially while people are getting frozen in Blizzard’s lingering AoE.     

This is a hard build go to wrong with picking in the current day, although it will still struggle to longer range poke threats like Mew, Decidueye, Inteleon, Venusaur, and other things that could outrange it. As long as you have other means on your team for dealing with those though, you’ll be good to go. 

THE COMBO :

This moveset is very reliant on being able to combo its two moves together to tap into its good damage. Avalanche does a little damage and creates a wall that does some more damage and a freeze to anything still near it by the time it goes down. Blizzard is a big wave of damage and pushback where if it hits a wall (like Avalanche), it creates a lingering circle at the point of impact that continues to deal damage. This will end up as a lot of CC and damage that you’ll constantly have on demand as long as you keep your cooldowns synced up. 

At first glance, you would think that the best way to achieve this is to Avalanche first, then Blizzard your targets into them. While this is still functional, it’s actually generally not optimal either unless you really think you had to put out the Avalanche first for the utility of the wall properties to prevent someone from walking up or away.

Due to Blizzard having some travel time and Avalanche coming up near instantly, the best way to do the combo is to actually Blizzard first, then quickly put down an Avalanche to where the Blizzard is pushing them to. If you do it fast enough, you’ll still be able to get Blizzard’s wall hit and circle while being able to tap into its much more immediate CC and damage immediately for a faster and safer combo overall.

Snow Warning’s main function as a passive is that it fills 1/4th of a snowflake mark on an enemy per boosted auto, hit of Blizzard (including the ticks of the circle), and hit of Avalanche . When all 4 parts are filled, the enemy is frozen. This means that on top of the CC already present on the your moves, this is even more CC on top of that.

Now factor in Snow Globe , which is a very high burst on large AoE that still comes out even if you die while casting it, making it pretty straightforward to use. Very importantly though, does drastically increased damage if it hits enemies while frozen.

Because of the long startup of Snow Globe , it can be a bit tricky to consistently land it, but usually the best time to go for the freeze bonus is while you got someone in the lingering circle of Blizzard . The many ticks happening during quickly put on many Snow Warning marks, making it more likely that they’ll get frozen during your startup. If doing your combo on somebody that has no Snow Warning marks already on them, you can also get the freeze bonus fairly consistently if you start mashing Snow Globe after your 2nd move. 

While Avalanche is also always desired for maximizing damage and flexibility, you can still get off good damage with just Blizzard if you have a natural wall nearby to push people into and still get the circle.

Moveset Overview and General Gameflow: 

Due to not having particularly good damage, you won’t be playing Aurora Veil as any sort of carry attacker in the traditional sense, but if you’re going to play it you may as well know how to play it to its strengths. 

The greater focus on rip damage, spammable freezes + stuns through the barrage of boosted autos and Dazzling Gleam , and damage reduction properties of Aurora Veil makes this a back to midline build that’s more specialized towards utility that can still pumping out some damage. Rather than a big damage pumper, Aurora Veil Ninetales is a controlling attacker, by using freezes from autos and stuns from Gleam she offers more disruption and movement restriction to allow her heavy hitting friends to end their lives. She can certainly fend for herself with the stuns. damage, and Veil’s damage reduction, but you definitely aren’t at all independent and still squishy overall. 

Focus on taking a safe position behind your frontline, putting down Aurora Veil , then start ripping the free boosted autos it gives you and throwing in some Dazzling Gleams to keep people in striking range or get a timely stun. Because of A9’s immobility after the little dash that comes with Veil and how fast it’s attacking, you pretty much aren’t going to be moving much or at all if you want to keep pumping out autos nonstop to maximize damage. If you’re diligent about tracking your Rapid Fire Scarf procs so you can have it up during Aurora Veil, then you can really start doing some damage. 

When safe to do so, definitely also consider positioning your Aurora Veil in a spot where your teammates can still benefit from its effects. Just don’t get baited into grouping everyone up too hard for the enemy team to blow everyone up with one big move.

Dazzling Gleam doesn’t contribute much damage, but is a pretty good on demand AoE stun to have. You can use it to help keep people in range for your Veil autos, stop someone from getting too close, or using it as a CC chain after a freeze from Snow Warning mark wears off. In this moveset, only boosted autos and Snow Warning’s falling snow attack contributes to Snow Warning’s marks. 

Your laning also changes a bit on this set. Because of your items, you trade a some securing power in exchange for significantly better auto attack pressure on enemies to fight them off farm or kill them. Dazzling Gleam is also probably a stronger level 4 spike than Avalanche as well, since it’s an on demand stun to help you fight harder and stun people while contested farm is starting to get low.

Favourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined NINETALES is strong against. NINETALES will generally be able to shut down these opponents playstyle's or have the advantage in a one on one fight.

FALINKS

METAGROSS

SCIZOR

ZOROARK

BUZZWOLE

Unfavourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined NINETALES is weak against. These Pokémon will have the upper hand in a fight or be able to exploit NINETALES's weaknesses.

CERULEDGE

MIRAIDON

VENUSAUR

INTELEON

GARDEVOIR