>>40133606Looking at Cloyster's niche now, it's easy to see why an offensively-based buff would be the first thing in mind. However, I think it's important to look at it's old niches too, to see what it's done well in the past and potentially build off of that.
Cloyster used to have an amazing niche in Ubers, of all places, back in generation 4, as a hazard lead that could spin vs. Deoxys and tank immense physical hits in the process. Even with 50 Base HP, 180 defense is no joke. To expand on this niche would be to make Cloyster yet another bulky water type, but I feel that it has something to offer the OU metagame even in this over saturated department.
For starters, it's a sin that it doesn't get Scald. I get that it's an Ice type, but that alone isn't good enough justification to me. Give this mon Scald. Immediate buff right there. Scald is an incredibly spammable move that can even catch resisted switch-ins with that 30% burn chance and cripple physical mons even further into the territory of being unable to scratch Cloyster's hard shell.
Next up, we need to do something about that HP stat if Cloyster is going to have a bulky or defensive niche in the meta. Though it's fine alongside that massive defense, power creep since Cloyster's hay-day has rendered it pretty underwhelming. I feel that sacrificing Cloyster's offensive niche in favour of this defensive one makes sense, so trading in it's base 50 HP for it's base 70 Speed is a fair tradeoff in my opinion. Pair this with Recover and this mon becomes pretty hard to wear down.
