NU Pokemon of the Week - Golurk

[Zebraiken*]

there's been an influx of effortless posts here, and deleting them right now would do no good because you guys wouldn't really understand why they were deleted and keep on continuing your bad habits. a few examples;

Originally Posted by Fat Hat

Dynamich Punch >:D

Originally Posted by Fat celever

No one ever uses this set;

Golurk@Expert belt
Trait: Iron fist
- Focus punch
- Substitute
- Shadow Punch
- Ice punch

I ask you, why not? It has great coverage, great power, and, yeah. Focus punch as a main attack, Ice punch for the birds, shadow punch for the ghosts.

Originally Posted by Fat DragonBorn

And ice has great coverage with fighting

i'm glad you guys have the desire to post about stuff, but you need to actually try when you do. you can't just post one-liners like Hat (does... does that even count as a one-liner?) or DragonBorn (btw, ground + ice is phenomenal coverage too and golurk gets STAB!). if you're posting a set, a) give all of the information about it and b) actually explain why it's better or more useful than the other set. if you're struggling to know what to post about it, ask yourself how it functions in battle, explain how you use it, explain what advantages it has over other sets, or even just what you've found it works well with. any of those things would contribute better to the discussion than throwing up a set, barely talking about it, and hoping everyone else responds.

[FLCL]

Golurk @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Gravity
- Earthquake
- DynamicPunch
- Shadow Punch

Gravity is an interesting move that allows Golurk to beat some Pokemon that it would normally have troubles with, such as Eelektross and Weezing. If you sense one of them coming in, you can set up and start firing off powerful Earthquakes with little risk. Gravity also boosts the accuracy of Iron Fist DynamicPunch to over eighty percent, making it a powerful and annoying attack for the opponent to face. The confusion can help you set up more turns of Gravity. Shadow Punch rounds off the coverage by hitting Pokemon such as Misdreavus and Musharna harder.

More EVs can be run on this set to outpace Pokemon such as Golem, Flareon, or Garbodor if one wants to. The item choice can also vary, since Colbur Berry, Earth Plate, Life Orb, or something else could probably work as well.

[LivingRhino]

Originally Posted by Fat FLCL

Golurk @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Gravity
- Earthquake
- DynamicPunch
- Shadow Punch

Gravity is an interesting move that allows Golurk to beat some Pokemon that it would normally have troubles with, such as Eelektross and Weezing. If you sense one of them coming in, you can set up and start firing off powerful Earthquakes with little risk. Gravity also boosts the accuracy of Iron Fist DynamicPunch to over eighty percent, making it a powerful and annoying attack for the opponent to face. The confusion can help you set up more turns of Gravity. Shadow Punch rounds off the coverage by hitting Pokemon such as Misdreavus and Musharna harder.

More EVs can be run on this set to outpace Pokemon such as Golem, Flareon, or Garbodor if one wants to. The item choice can also vary, since Colbur Berry, Earth Plate, Life Orb, or something else could probably work as well.

Is Gravity worth the sacrifice of a fourth move? I'm not quite sure I like this set, although it can hurt pokémon like Rotom, Weezing, Eelektross and such, but it isn't it kind of a high risk move? If I get gravity on my Eelektross, I'd just switch out instead of taking a hit.

I'd like to take this set for a spin, but my guess is that the Ice Punch would be fitting more than Gravity. This way, it can get some damage of any poke switching in, because the only poke I see a lot using levitate is Rotom-S or Rotom-F. Why should you use gravity rather than Ice Punch?

[Zebraiken*]

Originally Posted by Fat LivingRhino

Is Gravity worth the sacrifice of a fourth move? I'm not quite sure I like this set, although it can hurt pokémon like Rotom, Weezing, Eelektross and such, but it isn't it kind of a high risk move? If I get gravity on my Eelektross, I'd just switch out instead of taking a hit.

I'd like to take this set for a spin, but my guess is that the Ice Punch would be fitting more than Gravity. This way, it can get some damage of any poke switching in, because the only poke I see a lot using levitate is Rotom-S or Rotom-F. Why should you use gravity rather than Ice Punch?

FLCL and i actually had a conversation about this a little bit ago - generally, golurk is a difficult pokemon to experiment with. many of the basic sets are really all it has to work with; its movepool doesn't really let it expand beyond the usual iron fist, no guard + dynamicpunch, and cb sets, all of which are difficult to deviate from because they're all quite effective. gravity is just an attempt to do so, though i definitely agree with your main point. with the exception of weezing / eelektross (the latter of whom probably wouldn't want to switch in on golurk anyway), there's virtually nothing that you really need to hit with earthquake that you can't already hit with another coverage move. all birds can be hit with ice punch on the switch-in (if you're using gravity on the switch-in, why not just nail them in the first place?) and stuff like rotom-f can be hit with drain punch or the like. gravity might be more useful if it benefits the overall team or if you pair it up with stuff like a bunch of paralysis spreaders, but yea for the most part i don't think it's really worth using, when you could otherwise use its normal moves and just be more effective.

a few other interesting things i've thought about or talked about with other people: bulldoze is a neat idea in theory because golurk is quite slow, and bulldoze lets it do a chunk of damage while also forcing them to switch or get 2HKOed. the main problem with this (as FLCL pointed out to me) is that many of the things that will switch into golurk are either incredibly physically bulky, like tangela or alomomola, or are actually immune to ground-type moves in the first place. not many people will need to risk samurott or something by switching it directly into golurk, and if they do that then they're screwing up anyway. toxic is a good fourth move to slap on golurk, especially since i don't like using it as a SR setter (it has virtually no advantages over the other dominant SR setters like piloswine, golem, regirock, and has a significant number of flaws that keep it from performing as consistently as they do). most of golurk's primary switch-ins like tangela and alomomola are very vulnerable to toxic, barring weezing but no one uses that anyway. i've also wanted to experiment with a physically defensive golurk set, probably in combination with something like alomomola; this idea stems from doing some calcs and it having some eye-popping stuff, like not even being 3HKOed by cb sawk's earthquake (though ice punch does a chunk, you'd be using it with alom anyway so yea). it'd be interesting to try to work with, anyway.

[Wobble]

Disagree completely on Golurk as SR setter, it's both the most popular SR setter in the meta right now and one of the most effective.

It has great one on one matchups with almost every other setter bar Piloswine...including Regirock, Golem, Miltank and especially the odd Set/Spin Armaldos that are often seen and it's one of the few that isn't KO'd by Mold Breaker Sawk. And the fact that it just happens to be a spinblocker is just icing on the cake.


DynamicPunch SR Golurk, while reliant on a bit of luck, can effectively deny rocks as well as setting them and give you a huge advantage in the match, and it's certainly a mon I've used many of times. And it really doesn't have any weaknesses that the other setters don't have...mainly a weakness to grass sleep leads and strong water types.


However, it arguably has the best typing possible for a setter because not only is it effective as a straight lead, it's a great pivot to the two most powerful physically attacking types in the tier right now in Normal and Fighting. STAB Fighting destroys every other good SR setter while Golurk switches in and sets up for free.

The others do well against normals but almost all normal types carry a fighting move which can hurt them badly with solid prediction.


The only major weakness it has is being Taunt trapped by Skuntank who majorly fears and EQ which OHKOs it. Especially since the standard Skuntank isn't even Dread Plate and will miss KOing Golurk even with perfect prediction.

[The Quasar]

Originally Posted by Fat Zebraiken

[..] i've also wanted to experiment with a physically defensive golurk set, probably in combination with something like alomomola; this idea stems from doing some calcs and it having some eye-popping stuff, like not even being 3HKOed by cb sawk's earthquake (though ice punch does a chunk, you'd be using it with alom anyway so yea). it'd be interesting to try to work with, anyway.

Starting from Zebraiken's idea, along with Celever we tried to build a physical defensive gorluck set. We are not so sure about nature (I prefer Impish to increase Defense even more)

Any suggestion is appreciated about it.



Golurk @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Nature: Impish (+Def, -SAtk) or Adamant (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

I'm beginning to build on a team for testing.

[ZandgaiaX]

Originally Posted by Fat The Quasar

Starting from Zebraiken's idea, along with Celever we tried to build a physical defensive gorluck set. We are not so sure about nature (I prefer Impish to increase Defense even more)

Any suggestion is appreciated about it.



Golurk @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Nature: Impish (+Def, -SAtk) or Adamant (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

I'm beginning to build on a team for testing.

But what does it do? With that few Atk EV's, Golurk is far from threatening, the only things I can see Golurk tanking are Fighting Types and Certain Tanks, even the regular set: whilst taking more damage. Does a good job against the things this, I guess, is meant to counter.

Not to mention that there are a lot of water, ice and grass types around, with a build like this, I'm afraid Golurk just simply won't be useful at all. It's pretty much as others have pointed out already: all that Golurk can do is already known, it's not like Golurk can really pull new sets out of nowhere with it's typing and stats.

Whilst I wish you luck with testing, my theorymonning side tells me this just won't work: Resttalk is unreliable, without proper investment it's attacks just won't do, the normal types will enjoy beating on it after you rested. Even alomomola can deal 'decent' damage with waterfall.

Resttalk just won't do in comparison to things like Alomomola, Vileplume, Cradily, Leafeon and Lickilicky. All of them have far better recovery options, including wish and recover. Better support options in the form of status, and can do fairly well with only one attack. Golurk simply can't compete with any defensive set against these behemoths.

[celever]

Originally Posted by Fat ZandgaiaX

But what does it do? With that few Atk EV's, Golurk is far from threatening, the only things I can see Golurk tanking are Fighting Types and Certain Tanks, even the regular set: whilst taking more damage. Does a good job against the things this, I guess, is meant to counter.

Not to mention that there are a lot of water, ice and grass types around, with a build like this, I'm afraid Golurk just simply won't be useful at all. It's pretty much as others have pointed out already: all that Golurk can do is already known, it's not like Golurk can really pull new sets out of nowhere with it's typing and stats.

Whilst I wish you luck with testing, my theorymonning side tells me this just won't work: Resttalk is unreliable, without proper investment it's attacks just won't do, the normal types will enjoy beating on it after you rested. Even alomomola can deal 'decent' damage with waterfall.

Resttalk just won't do in comparison to things like Alomomola, Vileplume, Lileep, Leafeon and Lickilicky. All of them have far better recovery options, including wish and recover. Better support options in the form of status, and can do fairly well with only one attack. Golurk simply can't compete with any defensive set against these behemoths.

I'm not going to say it is incredible, but the reason I wanted adamant nature in the first place was to get the attack higher. It is physically defensive, and as such is meant to switch into the physical attackers and hit them back with and earthquake or ice punch. Because of this, another idea I had was him holding the rocky helmet.

Well have team mates that counter the aforementioned types, such as a mantine that can switch in on the attacks that threaten golurk.

I don't like theorymon, besides blatantly obvious things, like smog is no good, it always seems to get things wrong since in all theorymon the player has to play like a noob and not predict switches at all.

Also you said lileep instead of cradily... just no. It has to be said though, 3 of the pokemon listed are grass type, so if you need a better mix of types on your team then you may use the golurk instead.

[ZandgaiaX]

Originally Posted by Fat celever

I'm not going to say it is incredible, but the reason I wanted adamant nature in the first place was to get the attack higher. It is physically defensive, and as such is meant to switch into the physical attackers and hit them back with and earthquake or ice punch. Because of this, another idea I had was him holding the rocky helmet.

Well have team mates that counter the aforementioned types, such as a mantine that can switch in on the attacks that threaten golurk.

I don't like theorymon, besides blatantly obvious things, like smog is no good, it always seems to get things wrong since in all theorymon the player has to play like a noob and not predict switches at all.

Also you said lileep instead of cradily... just no. It has to be said though, 3 of the pokemon listed are grass type, so if you need a better mix of types on your team then you may use the golurk instead.

Rocky Helmet is meeeh, it can work I guess. But I don't think it will be a that great a help.

Saying that 'X pokémon can switch in to protect Y pokémon that threaten it' is unfortunately not a good argument there lad. That's pure bad theorymon there, SR, what actually attacks and certain other things that one can't just ignore are there to consider, also Mantine can only resttalk for recovery too.

You're being superficial about theorymon as well, theorymon is supposed to be combined with practice. And seeing as it was admitted that the set is still worked on, I feel no need yet to try it out myself. It's far from expecting the opponent to be bad or not predict switches at all, it's about seeing what could happen.

Cradily is what I meant, let a guy make mistakes >: (. I'm not saying that those are all to be on the same team, I'm saying that they do a far better job at tanking than Golurk will be, just as much that Golurk does a better job at attacking with strong attacks.

[Zebraiken*]

Since the idea was brought up by me, let me address your concerns with a bit more tact. Golurk has an otherwise unseen typing and excellent resistances and immunities, which naturally lead it to being able to deal with a variety of Pokemon well (to name some: Tauros, Zangoose, Arbok, Armaldo, Braviary, most other Ground-types, Gurdurr, Metang, Pinsir, Regirock, Sawk, most Poison-types... and these are just off the top of my head). Obviously, it doesn't do the job perfectly and you can't just slap it on any old team and watch it work wonders (if it did, it probably wouldn't be a set that we're testing right now!). It doesn't have to be threatening offensively. That's not the point of the set.

Not to mention that there are a lot of water, ice and grass types around, with a build like this, I'm afraid Golurk just simply won't be useful at all. It's pretty much as others have pointed out already: all that Golurk can do is already known, it's not like Golurk can really pull new sets out of nowhere with it's typing and stats.

While I did say the latter bit, it's not good practice to restrict yourself to only entertaining a few ideas, especially if the possibilities (like the ones I mentioned) are out there. You also need to understand that it's not like a physically defensive Golurk is going to be walling the entire metagame... proven sets like physically defensive Alomomola have trouble with Grass- and Water-types too. Why does it make Golurk any worse because it can't deal with certain threats in the metagame? I will agree, though, that RestTalk is pretty shitty recovery, and we can probably move away from it and work on the possibilities of other moves. I think that a lot of experimentation can be done with that ~set~ to figure out what to do with it. Something like DynamicPunch might be worth consideration, forcing switches and hitting most Normal-types for super effective damage (presumably with Spikes up, since this will likely be on a stallish/bulky team). Other plausible ideas include Toxic, Curse (for last mons, maybe? it'd beat Duosion which is a pain in the ass for stall teams), Iron Defense, Drain Punch for recovery (even if it's slight), or Safeguard, even. It's also got stuff like Protect for Leftovers recovery, which would probably work quite well with things like Wish from other Pokemon or Leech Seed, etc.

I imagine Golurk would work really well in combination with Alomomola and SDef Ludicolo (or maybe even Roselia), which together check basically every threat in the metagame barring something obnoxious like SubCM Gardevoir or Musharna in general (maybe it should just run that core with Skuntank?) as well as something like CB Torterra or Sawsbuck (Tangela or Vileplume is a possibility, too). You're trying too hard to compare it to existing Pokemon and their functions; this set by nature is very different from the likes of Lickilicky, Vileplume, and whatever else you mentioned.

I also didn't know that there's bad and good theorymon, either. Of course you don't expect the average opponent to be atrocious, but you don't expect Golurk to handle the whole metagame on its own, no?

[ium]

Originally Posted by Fat Wobble

Disagree completely on Golurk as SR setter, it's both the most popular SR setter in the meta right now and one of the most effective.

It has great one on one matchups with almost every other setter bar Piloswine...including Regirock, Golem, Miltank and especially the odd Set/Spin Armaldos that are often seen and it's one of the few that isn't KO'd by Mold Breaker Sawk. And the fact that it just happens to be a spinblocker is just icing on the cake.

while golurk in and of itself isn't a bad stealth rock setter for reasons you listed, it doesn't really offer too much to the team as a whole, especially with synergy. i find that when i run golurk, it is a bit restrictive in terms of teambuilding, because it forces me to think twice about what i'm going to use as a check to, for example, flying-types that would more than often be redundant to use with golurk. why can't i just use a rock-type that can do both things? we can argue that golurk does have quite a useful typing to check other things aforementioned, but it's not really the most reliable at it—i suppose how useful it is ultimately depends your team's structure. however, i usually find myself having an easier time fitting some other pokemon as my stealth rock setter, and handling the others things that golurk does check by relegating that role to a more reliable pokemon.

[Wobble]

As far as the synergy problems regarding not being a rock type setter, it's really in the same boat as Piloswine there..except it definitely has better typing all around. Brave Bird spam isn't as popular as it once was and as long as you are checking Braviary you are fine.

I see a lot more Bulk Up these days which actually deals with the typical setter a lot better than Golurk who can and will disrupt your setup with confusion hax.

And lastly there is always the option of bulky electrics.

It's again, really a matter of anti-metagaming Sawk which is arguably the most dominant mon in the tier.

[The Quasar]

In the light of advice that we you have shown up to this point, i want to try with

Golurk @ Leftovers
Trait: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Nature: Impish (+Def, -SAtk) or Adamant (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- DynamicPunch
- Toxic

I would start with it and find other teammates in addition to Alomomola and SDef Ludicolo (rightly suggested, IMHO).

[Annoyer]

@zeb That defensive Golurk set seems really cool. I remember a couple of weeks ago I was thinking about a physically defensive Golurk, but never got around to it. :(

Anyways, Golurk is a really cool mon in the meta. In the beginning of its venture into NU, CB was the most common, but over the course of some weeks, practically the most common set was Stealth Rock + 3 Attacks. Now, I've come back to using CB, and it's really a monster. Not many teams have a safe switch-in to Golurk and its typing allows it to switch-in on many things such as choiced Sawk or Regirock. Some other items I've been trying have been Rindo Berry (mainly for Sawsbuck and Exeggutor) and Kasib Berry to KO Haunter on the SR set. I've tried the Gravity set FLCL listed before, but it doesn't really provide too many benefits. Golurk is a unique mon that has been fitting onto a lot of my teams lately, but I wish there were some more creative options to it.

EDIT: A CB/Gravity Golurk + CB Torterra core sounds really cool since they hit extremely hard and Torterra can break through Alomomola for Golurk. If Gravity is active when Torterra is on the field, Torterra can just plow through most of its checks with EQ. Only thing that can take the core on is Tangela, but teammates can help and Toxic should be used as a 4th move slot on Torterra to cripple said Tangela.

[FLCL]

chieliee will be taking over this