Nidoking

Ground

Nidoking's access to Sheer Force coupled with Life Orb makes it a great special wallbreaker. Its Poison typing helps tremendously against Grass and Fairy teams, notably enabling it to check Tapu Bulu and Mega Venusaur. Nidoking's wide movepool includes strong STAB moves in Earth Power and Sludge Wave and great coverage moves like Flamethrower and Ice Beam. Unfortunately, Nidoking's poor bulk means that it cannot switch in often and is easily revenge killed. While Nidoking can outspeed Pokemon like Xurkitree, Mega Altaria, and Mega Venusaur, it's still outsped by a vast majority of the metagame. It also faces competition from Landorus as a special wallbreaker due to its higher Speed, which lets it outspeed Mega Charizard Y, and Special Attack. However, using Nidoking instead of Landorus opens up the team to use Landorus-T, which is a powerful sweeper.

Poison

Nidoking is one of Poison's premier attacking options, sporting ridiculous coverage and power due to the combination of Sheer Force and Life Orb. It acts as a wallbreaker, especially in the matchup against Steel. Once Heatran's Air Balloon is gone, the combination of Earth Power and Flamethrower decimates Steel teams. Nidoking's access to BoltBeam coverage allows it to beat Flying on its own, although it usually forgoes Thunderbolt. Stealth Rock allows it to compress roles and be both a special attacker and entry hazard setter. Nidoking does have a few drawbacks, the first being that it has average defenses and as a result cannot take many hits; also, with the coverage it offers a team, it must be played carefully to preserve it. Nidoking's lackluster base 85 Speed makes it very susceptible to faster threats and therefore easily revenge killed.