Milotic: Which recovery move?

[Astarin]

I've got my ol' Ruby-version Milotic traded into my Pearl game now, and I see that Milotic has a new option for a recovery move. Currently, I've got:

-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Recover
-Mirror Coat

Standard, boring, I know. But it works. Anyway, I'm just wondering, which is a better recovery move, Recover or Aqua Ring? I know the champion used this exact set, but with Aqua Ring, and it was rather irritating. Anyone here used the move?

[Mega Horny]

Aqua Ring can't exactly save you in a pinch, but it may be a good choice to activate early on because of Milotic's speed. To utilize recover on a Milotic, you'd have to be able to predict your opponents moves pretty well.

Recover has served me better than Aqua Ring in battles, personally.

[Phoenixsong]

It's a matter of preference, really. Under normal circumstances I prefer Recover. When combined with Leftovers, however, Aqua Ring heals a nice chunk of HP every turn; I'm considering that option for a Vaporeon I'm training right now.

As a third option for Milotic, though, you can use Rest and Sleep Talk. That would remove Mirror Coat, which you seem to want, but Rest heals Milotic 100% AND forcibly activates Marvel Scale, increasing its Defense by rather a lot. A sleeping Milotic is pretty damn hard to kill.

[Astarin]

Oooh! I hadn't considered that Rest activates Marvel Scale. Interesting, but because I went through the effort of breeding Mirror Coat, I think I'll stick with Recover or Aqua Ring for now.

Still can't decide between the two though... Aqua Ring + Leftovers is actually precisely the combination I was thinking about. *sigh* Still no closer.

[Negrek]

Don't use aqua ring. It's only ever going to help you against things that will be dealing less than 19% damage to you per turn, which is all you're going to be recovering with it + leftovers.

[Phoenixsong]

Eh, yeah, that's true... or if you're using Substitute. That's more or less it, actually. Eh. Never mind. Recover.

(I should really stop talking... >>)

[Negrek]

Oh, no, of course there would be ways to make aqua ring a more viable move than recover; on the standard milotic build like we're talking here, though, it's very inferior.

[Astarin]

*nods* The back-and-forth has been informative. I think I get what you're saying. Yeah, it makes sense to go with Recover here, since it's more of a sweeper moveset. I'm not really looking to drag the fight out with this Milotic, but if I was (and used Substitute or Protect or anything else, really), Aqua Ring + Leftovers would be better.

Now, if only the rest of my team got an analysis of this depth...