THE BEST DRAGONITE BUILD GUIDE - POKEMON UNITE

Items: Muscle Band , Razor Claw /Scope Lens , Resonant Guard 
– Muscle Band  is a very core item for almost all auto attack focused Pokemon for its extra attack speed and % remaining HP procs per auto.
– Razor Claw synergizes very well with this set due to Dragon Dance  boosting Dragonite’s attack stat and giving very frequent procs off a somewhat beefed up attack stat. Those procs especially hurt during the early Dragonair gank to really let you play to your strong early phase.
– Scope Lens is your alternative second damage slot in the place of Razor Claw. Dragonite crits can hurt, especially if it’s off a boosted auto. Mathematically speaking, this item performs a bit better in the lategame and also still synergizes well with Dragon Dance’s  attack boosting.
– Since Dragonite isn’t naturally squishy and doesn’t have to range to avoid all damage, Resonant Guard  becomes a great item for having more staying power during big fights and objective flip situations.
Battle Item: Full Heal
– Since Dragon Dance generally provides enough mobility and positioning power, Full Heal  is Dragonite’s gold standard option. Having that extra layer of safety against CC that can be critical for making sure you maintain your Dragon Dance stacks and get off Hyper Beam at all during important moments.
– X Attack  is an alternative option for players who trust their ability to play around CC well enough and want more damage. It’s a nice option for increasing your overall damage output via autos and makes your Hyper Beams hit noticeably harder for more consistent secures or just nuking the enemy team. The attack boost also works in tandem with Dragon Dance’s attack boost for more synergy.
– Eject Button  is a hard item to go wrong with in general. The snap repositioning is nice for making bigger getaways, dodges or gapcloses while still being able to pump out autos if you stay in range.
Emblems: 6 Brown  6 White  – Flat Atk Focus
– Get that nice combination of extra attack stat for Dragon Dance to work off while getting some extra bulk with this emblem build.

TL;DR: Fly around and spam autos on things, your autos lower the cd of DDance, so more autos means faster stacks, means better Beams.

About Draco Impact :
This is a bit of an unconventional Unite move for a carry Pokemon. While it does do pretty good damage and knockup in a wide area, the long startup and warning time makes it extremely telegraphed and difficult to hit on opponents that are actually aware of its existence. The easiest way to use this ult offensively is to just to use it as a big followup  to an ally’s CC engage or dropping on the enemy team after they’ve committed to fighting and aren’t as able to just walk away.

Offensive ults without a hard engage going on should be mindful of where the enemy team is going to run to based on where they see the giant warning circle appear. You can try to look at it as using it to force the enemy into uncomfortable positions or cutting off their escape with the threat of Draco Impact . Keep in mind that you’re often putting yourself deep into enemy lines attempting this though, which can be especially dangerous on Beamnite but have potential with Ragenite .

This ult  can also be used as an escape option or panic button for the shields and unstoppable when things get dicey and survival is a priority. You don’t always need to go away to max distance, but it is good to be able to do to really ensure a big escape or make a macro play at the same time. This is particularly prevalent for Beamnite’s  more backliner based playstyle and it being a priority target for enemy teams due to its rip and secure.

Macro play? Since you can travel REALLY far with this, you can use this as a means of quickly travelling across the map and violently dropping on whatever fight you’re going to help with. Mainly in some lategame situations that are stalemated or coming down to a scoring win condition, you can use this to leave a situation entirely and fast travel to an enemy goal to get a free score in. Just keep in mind that the longer distance you go, the more unite charge you lose. You’ll be left at 50% charge instead of 0% if you do a minimum distance ult.

If you’re trying to last second contest an objective with this, you are most likely not going to be able to actually get the last hit with the ult itself because of the long startup. Instead, just use it as a means of getting in position to steal with Hyper Beam . While the long startup of Draco Impact makes it so that you pretty much lose all your beam stacks by the time you land, you can just Dragon Dance  immediately after landing to at least have level 1 beam on deck. Maybe you’ll even be able to get another stack or two in.

Big chonky dragon. 3-stage boosted Beam  is still possibly the highest raw secure ranges in the game or close to it. There’s been more competition these days for secure machines that can do that specific job more reliably, but Dragonite still stands out because of it being a very well rounded Pokemon in general that can also rip objectives on its own.

While Beam secures are a big reason to play Dragonite, this Pokemon has a lot of other merits that are also very good reasons for picking it. ADCs as an archetype tend to balance out their high and consistent auto attack DPS with vulnerable earlygames and squishy statlines. Dragonite still has a good amount of the strengths that ADCs have while not having any of the weaknesses. Especially after the recent buffs, Dragonite can very effectively play to a teamfight win condition if it wants to.

The Dragonair phase is very good because of its strong level 5 gank. It’s just generally strong for that point of the game and the frequent Razor Claw procs from Dragon Dances at that point of the match are extra noticeable then. Good auto attack pressure on enemies, Dragonbreath  can be a nice bit of burst damage or secure on the birds, and the yellow stunning auto attack can be very clutch for keeping some of the crazier ganks in the game in check.

The general gameflow of dashing around with Dragon Dance  and auto attacks continues once you get to Dragonite at level 8, which should be just about guaranteed if you’re jungling and not completely starved from having a bad start. Dragon Dance away to kite. Dragon Dance to the side to maintain the same spacing. Dragon Dance to chase. Dragon Dance to dodge. You are going to be pressing that button a lot.

Once you hit level 8, you get your iconic Hyper Beam . While this move is mainly seen as an objective flipping tool, it’s still a great combat tool once you get a few Dragon Dance stacks. After all, it’s huge burst damage made even larger with the % max HP bonus that can pierce through frontliners to deal some big collateral damage to everyone behind and around your Beam’s target. Once you get to max stacks or see a low HP target trying to run away, feel free to rip that beam and X Attack  if you run it.

Despite the sure hit aiming of Hyper Beam , it can still miss. People at the very edge of the range can walk away out of it by the time it fires if they’re fast enough or easily dash away. Moving towards them while your beam is winding up can help a bit with this at times, but you generally don’t want to be targeting things with beam at that range unless you got them tagged with a red buff slow or see some other factor that ensures they won’t be able to get away. Beam can also be dodged with dashes on reaction if they know the timing of when it comes out. Against these targets, try to wait out their dashes before firing the beam.
Important Dragon Dance Science :
Dragon Dance  and managing your stacks well is key to success with this set. Dragon Dance not only makes your Hyper Beam  stronger for every stack you get with bigger damage formulas and % max HP bonuses, it also boosts your attack stat and attack speed for higher overall damage and better mobility. You can have up to three stacks and you still have to keep maintaining them once you get all of them going.

Landing an auto attack reduces the cooldown of Dragon Dance  by 1 second, so with the duration of its buff in mind, you need to auto at least 2 times to reduce the cooldown of Dragon Dance enough to be able to maintain your stacks. However, 3 auto attacks pretty much lets you be able to immediately Dragon Dance again. Keep this in mind as you flip objectives and teamfight.

Keep a watch the Dragon Dance buff icon  on the bottom edge or corner of your screen to track the duration and the amount of stacks you have. Depending on when you get your Dragon Dance’s cooldown finished, you can have a window of time where you don’t have to immediately Dragon Dance off cooldown to maintain your stacks in case you want to hold onto your dash for a little longer. This is also important to see and get a sense of for using Hyper Beam  effectively. If the Dragon Dance stacks time out while Hyper Beam is winding up and hasn’t fired yet, you will get the really pathetic level 0 beam that doesn’t really do much.

You’ll be a much more effective fighter and objective flipper with good Dragon Dance management. This’ll lead nicely to the next part..

Tips for Flipping Objectives as Dragonite:
By flipping, I mean when you have to rip and secure an objective while the enemy team is trying to stop or outsecure you. This is still going to be a major calling card for this character for many teams and there’s some Beamnite specific quirks you need to play around to ensure success. If you haven’t read the above section on Dragon Dance and not already familiar with the move, read it. You’ll probably see some things here that might be applicable to other characters too.

– Dragonite CANNOT hit Rayquaza with auto attacks from behind the wall on the top side of center. You can Dragon Dance through this wall and you can target Hyper Beam on it from behind it, but you CANNOT rip it from behind the wall. This is a huge limitation you have to plan your positioning and teamfight around if you intend to flip Rayquaza.
– Hyper Beam  has a long startup animation. A LOT can happen in that moment and it’s very possible that the objective gets hard ripped and bursted to death under your nose before your beam even comes out. If there’s a lot going on, you’re gonna have to do some prediction and adjust when you beam accordingly instead of just using it the moment it gets into its upper burst ranges.
– You don’t have to only hit the objective. There are situations where you should look to hitting the enemy instead past just doing damage to make them go away. Your limited auto attack range makes it so that you won’t always be able to hit the objective and you need to maintain your Dragon Dance  stacks somehow. There are also times where you’ll be low on Dragon Dance stacks, but hitting the objective to build them will knock it down to too low HP where enemies can now outsecure you by the time you get a sufficiently leveled beam.
– Once the startup animation of Hyper Beam starts, it will come out no matter what even if you die or get CC’d during that. However, you still want to avoid CCs as much as you can and rip Full Heal  when you’re about to Beam to make sure you don’t get hit by some unfortunate stun that destroys your timing or stacks right when you’re about to use beam.
– You ideally want to be securing with a max (3 Dragon Dance stacks) stacked Hyper Beam for the biggest burst range, but lower level beams  can be serviced in a pinch and stage 2 beam especially are still pretty solid secures. Just as long as it’s not 0 stack beam. Just keep in mind that it’s a good bit lower range than max beam, but max beam is pretty damn big.
– Learn your ranges for different beam levels. Keep in mind that Rayquaza’s HP is much higher and has a visually larger HP bar, so secure ranges between the Regis and Rayquaza will look different. If you decide to feel them out in a solo game or practice mode, keep in mind that objective HP is based on how much time is left in the match. Because of that, you can’t immediately spawn Rayquaza at the start of a practice mode session or be way overleveled for an early objective and get an accurate visualization of the range.

Items: Rapid Fire Scarf , Weakness Policy , Resonant Guard
– There’s currently lot of moving parts and math to be done to what the best build may be for this moveset. This is the current recommendation, but I’ll be laying out other potential options here.
– Slot 1: Your attack speed item goes here. Rapid Fire Scarf  is generally better for getting out more auto attacks once you reach level 8. The higher attack speed bonus stat lets you reach more thresholds than Muscle Band would and while you’ll lose some value on your rapid fire activations from casting Extreme Speed and Outrage, those also help. Muscle Band  on the other hand gives you much better fighting before level 8 and the procs are still a nice addition to your damage output later on, although not as good as attacking faster with RFS.
– Slot 2: Your second damage item goes here. Weakness Policy is the most consistent option for getting consistent improvement to your Outrage slaps and their 150% scaling. Razor Claw  is nice for more bursty approaches where you can get procs from starting fights with Extreme Speed and after Outrage stomps. Scope Lens  is also a potentially good increase to your overall DPS can be something for people who want to cheese their enemies with massive Outrage crits. If running RFS, Muscle Band  could also go here if you need to shore up your weak earlygame a bit while still having the benefits of RFS.
– Slot 3: This is a bulky brawler, so Resonant Guard  is very important for making sure you last long enough in a fight to do what you need to do.
Battle Item: Full Heal
– Not much contest here. This is almost needed for you be able to keep brawling people out through CC.
– If you really don’t want to run this or you think you’re not going to be up against much CC, Eject Button  is probably your next best bet for its use as an extra gap closer or an actual disengage tool.
Emblems: 6+6 – Flat HP Focus
– Because you’re going to be in the thick of it more, you’ll be wanting to lean towards a more flat HP oriented set for an extra bit of survival.

Despite having much more comparable or flat out better damage output than its closest competitor Garchomp  after the recent buffs, this is still a vastly inferior choice. Dratini is at best a passable laner in a metagame crawling with strong earlygames and Extreme Speed  as its level 5 spike is pretty pathetic other than sometimes being able to punish overzealous or weak enemies with the stun. This more or less locks it into the jungle slot where there’s many other good options who provide much more including the excellent Dragon Dance + Hyper Beam set on the very same character. In the lategame, Garchomp also is more specialized towards getting big engages for its teammates with the displacement and longer stun of its trademark Dragon Combo while Ragenite is more specialized at locking down single targets.

Ragenite  is a high commitment and high damage brawler that can pepper in constant CCs via yellow stunning boosted autos and Extreme Speeds . Once it’s in, it can be pretty tough to deal with if you’re not prepared with CC or the like, but there’s pretty much no way out other than Draco Impact  or Eject Button  once you’re in. Pick good spots and if possible, try to play off your teammate’s engages to ensure your rampage. You can also try to use the stunning talents of Extreme Speed  and play a more defensive playstyle where you catch out enemy divers with it to protect your squishier characters.

TL;DR: Slap people with chunky Outrage autos to reduce the cooldowns of both your moves so you can keep E-Speeding and refreshing Outrage.

Comfey  and Blissey  are probably the ideal healers for pocketting this set because of their kits being ideal for facilitating this kind of all in playstyle.

There’s a surprisingly amount of optimization you can do with this set though. Extreme Speed refreshes the cooldown of the 2.5 second long 30% damage reduction effect of your Multiscale  passive on use. This overall lets you survive a lot longer, which is nice for this brawler playstyle. If you don’t need Extreme Speed’s talents at any given moment while smacking someone around, you can opt to hold onto your Extreme Speed and use it when you’re about to enter a more dangerous porition of the fight.

Knowing more about how Dragonite’s boosted autos work and keeping track of which one you have on deck is also more rewarding to know how to do on Outrage. Dragonite’s boosted autos cycle between a blue water one that heals 5% max HP, a yellow electric one that stuns, and a red fire one that does 10% remaining HP damage. Since autos while in Outrage  are all boosted, you’ll go through this cycle much more quickly. The stomp portion of Outrage  when you cast it has a bonus effect that matches the last variant of boosted auto you used, so sometimes you can opt to do your Outrage stomp after a specific auto to get 2 stuns, 2 5% max HP heals heals, or 2 10% remaining HP bonus damages at a more predictable and convenient time.

About Dragon Dance + Outrage :
This set is.. in a weird spot. Dragon Dance manages to solve a lot of problems with Outrage’s need to full commit by letting Dragonite play the ranged game effectively until it’s time to outrage, replace the awful 5 spike with something good, have a disengage option and still keep some sticking power while in Outrage. In a sense, Dragon Dance is good for.. not having to use Outrage, so why not just play Hyper Beam by then?

At the same time though, it’s also doesn’t work with Outrage as well in other aspects. Dragon Dance doesn’t refresh multiscale passive like Extreme Speed does, which hurts your overall bulk . Dragon Dance provides some defensive utility it provides as a possible disengage tool that’s rendered less effective by the fact that you’d be using it from melee auto range instead of ranged auto range and being able to cycle through your boosted auto’s stuns and heals a bit faster. Extreme Speed also provides better sticking power once you’re actually in because of the stuns and sure hits.

Make what you will of that.

Favourable Matchup:

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

Unfavourable Matchup:

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