Best Snorlax Nature and Moveset: Careful vs Adamant

Careful and Adamant Snorlax gain exactly the same 31 points at level 100, so the nature is the smaller half of this decision. The bigger half is the setup move. A Jolly, 252-Attack Great Tusk using Close Combat does 560–662 damage to an Adamant Belly Drum Snorlax whose whole health bar is 524, so it is a one-hit KO even from full HP. Let a Careful Snorlax click Curse once and the same Close Combat does 372–440, and Snorlax is still standing.

That gap is why Smogon’s SV Strategy Dex gives Snorlax a Careful Curse set in ZU, NU, PU and Monotype and no Belly Drum set in any tier, and why Belly Drum sits on only 8.9% of Gen 9 OU Snorlax. Below: the stat arithmetic, October 2026 ladder usage, a five-turn comparison of the two setup moves, the Close Combat and Thunderbolt calcs, and when Belly Drum is still worth running. Nothing here was play-tested. Every stat and damage figure is computed from the Gen 9 formulas and reproduced in Smogon’s damage calculator, with the assumptions printed next to the number; the usage figures are Smogon’s.

Quick start: the Snorlax build in six lines

Nature and EVs: Careful with 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD for the Curse-Rest build (the most-used Careful spread in October 2026 OU data). Adamant with 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD if you want the hardest hits and can live with 257 Special Defense.
Ability: Thick Fat, which halves Fire- and Ice-type damage and is the most-used ability on the OU ladder (55.0%).
Item: Leftovers, held by 59.0% of OU Snorlax.
Moves: Curse, Body Slam, Earthquake or Heat Crash, Rest.
Tera: Fairy if you need an answer to Fighting-type attackers; Smogon’s sample sets pick it. Tera Ghost also blanks Fighting, but Smogon notes a Ghost-type Snorlax then cannot run Curse to set up.
Belly Drum: only if the plan is to win in two turns, before the first Fighting-type move lands.

Verified on: Smogon’s Gen 9 usage data for October 2026, Smogon’s SV Strategy Dex and the Gen 9 damage formula. Usage numbers change with every monthly release.

Do Careful and Adamant change Snorlax’s stats by the same amount?

Yes. Snorlax’s base Attack and base Special Defense are both 110, so at level 100 with 252 EVs and 31 IVs a neutral nature leaves either stat at 319 and a boosting nature takes it to 350. Careful adds 31 Special Defense; Adamant adds 31 Attack. Both natures also cut Special Attack, which none of the moves in these builds use, so neither pays a real price. It is the same free −SpA trade that makes Careful viable on Swampert, except that Swampert’s lower Special Defense means Careful buys 27 points there against Adamant’s 31 (see our Swampert nature and moveset guide). On Snorlax the trade is dead even.

The real price is where the 252 EVs go. Moving them from Special Defense to Attack shifts 94 points of Attack and 93 points of Special Defense, almost one for one:

Level 100 stat	Careful	Adamant	Gap
HP	524	524	0
Attack	256	350	+94
Defense	167	166	−1
Sp. Def	350	257	−93
Speed	96	96	0

Careful is 252 HP / 0 Atk / 4 Def / 0 SpA / 252 SpD / 0 Spe; Adamant is 252 HP / 252 Atk / 0 Def / 0 SpA / 4 SpD / 0 Spe, the two most-used spreads of each nature on the October 2026 OU ladder. All stats use the standard Gen III+ formula with 31 IVs.

Bar chart of Snorlax level 100 stats for the Careful 252 HP 252 SpD spread and the Adamant 252 HP 252 Atk spread — Where the 252 EVs go: the Careful and Adamant spreads trade 94 Attack for 93 Special Defense.

That 94-point Attack gap is smaller than a single Curse. Curse raises Attack one stage, a ×1.5 multiplier, which takes the Careful build’s 256 Attack to 384, a gain of 128. Adamant’s entire 252-EV, nature-boosted investment buys 94 over the same Careful build. After two Curses the Careful Snorlax has 512 Attack, 46% more than an Adamant Snorlax that has not set up (350), and 334 Defense against Adamant’s 166. Stat stages work as multipliers: +1 is ×3/2, +2 is ×2, +4 is ×3 and +6 is ×4. Against that, the nature is a rounding error.

What does the October 2026 ladder actually run?

Careful and Adamant are almost level on the ladder, and Belly Drum is rare. Smogon’s October 2026 Gen 9 OU data (9,148 Snorlax appearances) lists Adamant 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD as the single most common spread at 14.9%, but the two Adamant spreads it lists add to 20.5% against 19.9% for the four Careful spreads it lists. The other 59.6% of Snorlax sits in spreads the listing does not break out.

Spread	Gen 9 OU	Nat. Dex
Adamant 252/252/0/0/4/0	14.9%	23.1%
Careful 252/0/4/0/252/0	7.3%	2.9%
Careful 252/4/0/0/252/0	7.0%	11.3%
Adamant 252/252/4/0/0/0	5.6%	2.8%
Careful 152/8/96/0/252/0	3.1%	not listed
Careful 12/0/244/0/252/0	2.6%	not listed

Spreads read HP/Atk/Def/SpA/SpD/Spe, and “Nat. Dex” is National Dex. These are the six spreads Smogon lists for OU. “Not listed” means the spread is outside the six Smogon lists for National Dex.

The moves are clearer than the natures. Curse is on 47.0% of OU Snorlax and Belly Drum on 8.9%, about five Curse sets for every Drum set; in National Dex it is 39.3% against 8.2%. The data does not link natures to moves, so “Adamant means Belly Drum” is not something the ladder supports: because Belly Drum is on 8.9% of Snorlax and Adamant 252/252 alone is 14.9%, at least four in ten of those Adamant sets carry no Belly Drum at all.

Smogon’s SV Strategy Dex files Snorlax under ZU and writes it up around Curse; its ZU overview calls Snorlax “a dominant force in ZU with its Curse sets.” The sample sets are Careful Curse in ZU, NU, PU and Monotype. The only Adamant set is a Specially Defensive one with Sleep Talk and no setup move. No tier has a Belly Drum set; the Draft-format write-up calls Curse “a staple on Snorlax” and lists Belly Drum under Niche Moves as a way to become “a fierce late-game cleaner at the cost of its HP.”

Curse or Belly Drum: what each build looks like after five turns

Belly Drum wins every race nobody interrupts, and Curse holds up better when the race gets interrupted. Belly Drum reaches 1,400 Attack on turn 1, a number Curse never reaches (six Curses cap the Careful build at 1,024), and it KOs the Gliscor below on turn 2. Careful Curse needs five turns for the same KO. In exchange, Curse never spends HP and adds Defense every turn.

The mechanics: for a non-Ghost user, Curse raises Attack and Defense one stage each and lowers Speed one stage, up to +6. Belly Drum takes half of max HP (rounded down) and sets Attack straight to +6; it fails if HP is too low to pay the cost or Attack is already +6, so you get one use. Rest refills HP and cures status, but Snorlax cannot move for the 2 turns after the turn it uses Rest. Stat changes last until the Pokémon leaves the field, unless a move like Haze wipes them.

Both builds below are level 100 and the opponent does nothing, so the tables show only what setup buys. The target is a Careful 244 HP / 36 Def Gliscor (the top Gliscor spread, 14.1% of Gliscor): 352 HP, 295 Defense, neutral to Body Slam, no Tera, no Protect. Damage is Body Slam as a share of its HP; Close Combat is the Great Tusk calc explained in the next section, as a share of Snorlax’s 524 HP.

Careful Curse, clicking Curse every turn:

After turn	Atk / Def	Close Combat takes	Body Slam deals
1 (+1)	384 / 250	71–84%	34–40%
2 (+2)	512 / 334	53–63%	45–53%
3 (+3)	640 / 417	43–51%	56–66%
4 (+4)	768 / 501	35–42%	67–80%
5 (+5)	896 / 584	31–37%	79–93%

Adamant Belly Drum, Drum on turn 1:

After turn	Atk / Def	Close Combat takes	Body Slam deals
1 (+6)	1,400 / 166	107–126%, KO	123–145%, KO
2 to 5	1,400 / 166	KO at any HP	KO

Belly Drum leaves Snorlax on 262 of 524 HP, and Close Combat’s minimum roll (560) is higher than the full bar, so Rest does not fix it. A guaranteed Gliscor KO takes two turns with Belly Drum (Drum, Body Slam) and five with Careful Curse (three Curses, two Body Slams, since two Body Slams at +3 do at least 396 damage against Gliscor’s 352 HP).

Table comparing Snorlax after five turns of Curse with Snorlax after Belly Drum: Attack, Defense, Close Combat damage and Body Slam damage — Five turns of setup at Level 100: Belly Drum hits harder and sooner, but only Curse survives a Close Combat.

Shell Smash on Blastoise is the same bargain, bulk spent for damage; our Blastoise nature and moveset guide shows how that trade looks in usage data.

Which build survives Close Combat and Thunderbolt?

Careful Curse survives a Close Combat after one Curse, Adamant Belly Drum does not at any HP (unless it Terastallizes to a Fighting-resistant type such as Ghost or Fairy first), and Careful’s one real edge over Adamant is special bulk: four Thunderbolts survived against three. Here is the calc, all at level 100:

Snorlax	Close Combat	Thunderbolt
Careful, no Curse	558–656 (106–125%), KO	109–129 (21–25%)
Careful, 1 Curse	372–440 (71–84%)	109–129 (21–25%)
Careful, 2 Curses	278–330 (53–63%)	109–129 (21–25%)
Adamant, no Curse or Belly Drum	560–662 (107–126%), KO	147–174 (28–33%)

Belly Drum does not touch Defense or Special Defense, so the Adamant row is also the Belly Drum row. The attackers are Smogon’s most-used spreads: a Jolly 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe Great Tusk (20.1% of Great Tusk) with Close Combat, and a Timid 252 SpA Thundurus-Therian (44.2% of Thundurus-Therian) with Thunderbolt. Neither holds an item, Terastallizes or has Protosynthesis active. Close Combat is on 40.2% of Great Tusk sets, and Great Tusk is on Snorlax’s own list of OU checks, KOing it 35.7% of the time in the data. A Choice Specs Thundurus-Therian, which is 19.7% of that Pokémon, would hit harder than the Thunderbolt column.

The Close Combat gap comes from Curse, not the nature: Careful’s Defense is 167 and Adamant’s is 166, and an Adamant Snorlax that has used Curse once survives it just as well. What the nature changes is the Thunderbolt column. Careful survives four Thunderbolts from full HP (the worst case is 4 × 129 = 516 against 524 HP) and dies to a fifth. Adamant survives three (3 × 174 = 522) and dies to the fourth. Leftovers and Rest would stretch both numbers.

Great Tusk’s most common move, Headlong Rush (84.0% of sets), is neutral on Snorlax and takes 53–63% from either build before any Curse; one Curse cuts it to about 35–42%. After one Curse the Careful Snorlax is left with 84 to 152 HP from a Close Combat, so a second hit finishes it, which is why Rest comes next.

Which Tera type answers Close Combat?

Tera Fairy and Tera Ghost both answer it, though Ghost comes with a catch for Curse builds. Terastallizing replaces Snorlax’s defensive type with its Tera type. Ghost is immune to Fighting (it is the only type immune to two types, Normal and Fighting), but Smogon’s Draft write-up warns that Tera Ghost Snorlax “cannot run Curse to set up.” Smogon’s sample sets pick Fairy because it “turns its Fighting weakness into a resistance.” On the OU ladder, Snorlax’s Tera types are Normal 38.1%, Ghost 28.4% and Fairy 14.3%, so about 43% of OU Snorlax carry a Tera type that blanks or halves Close Combat.

Tera Normal, the most common choice, does nothing about Fighting: a Normal-type Snorlax still takes double damage. So a Snorlax that Teras to Ghost or Fairy has paid its Tera for the Fighting problem, and one that Teras to Normal has not. The Careful Curse build gets its Close Combat protection from Curse itself, with Fairy as the backup. The Belly Drum build can only get it from the Tera slot, and Ghost fits it because it never uses Curse.

What goes in the four move slots?

Setup slot, Curse (47.0%) or Belly Drum (8.9%). Curse is what the Careful build is built around. How Curse differs for Ghost-types, which pay half their HP instead, is in our Curse explainer.
Body Slam (63.4%). It is STAB, and Smogon notes the paralysis chance it puts on switch-ins like Poliwrath and Passimian.
Earthquake (44.0%), Heat Crash (27.1%) or Crunch (19.4%). Normal moves cannot hit Ghost-types. Smogon’s ZU write-up picks Heat Crash because it hits Ghosts like Rotom, Froslass and Sableye as well as Tera Steel users, and says Crunch hits Ghosts harder but is “usually noticeably weaker” than Heat Crash.
Rest (50.0%) and Sleep Talk (17.4%). Rest is a full heal for 2 helpless turns. Smogon says Sleep Talk over Curse makes Snorlax a more consistent special wall “at the cost of its late-game potential.”

The Belly Drum build we tested on paper is Belly Drum, Body Slam, Earthquake, Rest. Smogon has no Belly Drum sample set, so that list is ours, built from the most-used moves. Smogon’s Draft write-up names Sitrus and Iapapa Berry, with Gluttony, as the way to stay healthy after Belly Drum. Gluttony (8.4% of OU Snorlax) fires pinch berries like Iapapa at 50% HP instead of 25%, which is exactly where Belly Drum leaves Snorlax. Sitrus is held by 4.7% of OU Snorlax and Iapapa by 2.1%.

Which Snorlax build should you run?

Can your team handle Fighting-types and Fighting coverage without Snorlax? If not, run Careful Curse and let the Defense stages do the work.
Will Snorlax face special attackers like Thundurus-Therian? If yes, Careful: 21–25% per Thunderbolt against 28–33%.
Is the plan to win in two turns, before the first Fighting move, with Tera held for Ghost or Fairy? Then Adamant Belly Drum.
Otherwise, Careful Curse.

Player type	Run this	Why
New ladder player	Careful Curse-Rest	Curse costs no HP; you learn when to Rest.
Casual, wants no setup	Smogon’s Specially Defensive set	Adamant, Body Slam, coverage, Rest, Sleep Talk.
Hardcore optimiser	Adamant Curse, after calcing your threats	94 more Attack, 93 less Special Defense.
Hyper-offense builder	Adamant Belly Drum	Only with Fighting cover and Tera held back.

The most-used nature is not always the right one for your role. Our Golem nature and moveset guide makes the same point for a Pokémon whose top nature tells you less than its job does.

Does this apply to Pokémon Champions?

No. Champions uses Stat Points instead of EVs (see our Stat Points explainer), and its Snorlax is a different Pokémon. In Smogon’s October 2026 Champions OU data (2,607 appearances) the top spread is Jolly 0/0/32/0/2/32 at 24.2%, and the leading moves are Body Slam (66.8%), Encore (47.6%), Crunch (46.3%) and Counter (45.0%). Curse is on 22.7% and Belly Drum on 6.3%. Belly Drum’s best showing in these files is Champions VGC doubles, at 23.5% of 28,071 Snorlax appearances.

Frequently asked questions

Is Adamant or Careful better for Snorlax?

Careful, if Snorlax is a Curse build. The extra Attack Adamant adds (94 points) is worth less than one Curse stage (128 points on the Careful build), while Careful takes 7–9 percentage points off every Thunderbolt-class hit: 21–25% of Snorlax’s HP against 28–33%. Pick Adamant only if Snorlax’s job is to hit rather than to take hits, and you have counted the special attackers you will meet.

Is Belly Drum worth running on Snorlax?

Only as a two-turn plan. It reaches 1,400 Attack, but it leaves Defense at 166 and HP at 262 of 524, and a Jolly Great Tusk’s Close Combat KOs it at any HP unless it Terastallizes to Ghost or Fairy. It is on 8.9% of OU Snorlax and 23.5% in Champions VGC, which suggests its home is doubles with Protect, not singles.

Can Belly Drum Snorlax use Rest to fix the HP?

Yes, and it keeps the +6: Rest does not reset stat changes (leaving the field or a move like Haze does). But Snorlax can’t move for the 2 turns after Rest, and its Defense is still 166. The Close Combat calc above already assumes full HP and still KOs, so Rest fixes the HP cost and leaves the Fighting problem.

Sources

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.