QC approvals: 3/3 [ PK Gaming || ginganinja || Colonel M ]
GP approvals: 2/2 [ Oglemi || sirndpt ]
[Overview]
<p>Golurk is unique in many ways; it is the only Pokemon that has the Ghost / Ground dual typing, which gives it unique key resistances. With its respectable base 124 Attack stat—which is high for a Ghost-type—decent defenses, and a nice number of new toys courtesy of BW2—including Stealth Rock and all of the elemental punches—it found a very interesting niche in the OU metagame. The ability to lay hazards while acting as a spinblocker is useful, even though Golurk struggles with two common spinners, namely Starmie and Tentacruel. Still, Golurk makes makes up for this by being immune to sandstorm and the rare ability to reliably counter Terrakion—something only few Pokemon can do.</p>
<p>Despite the release of No Guard, Golurk can't take as much advantage of it as Machamp can, which makes Iron Fist clearly the better option for it. The list of downsides for Golurk is sadly quite long; with five common weaknesses, Golurk will have a hard time against many Pokemon. Water, Ice, and Grass attacks severely hurt it and are seen on literally every team. Due to its Ghost typing, it also can't deal well with Dark and Ghost attacks, most notably Pursuit. Furthermore, Golurk's base 55 Speed is just horrible, making its only setup move—Rock Polish—an obviously bad choice with which to attempt a sweep. Instead, Golurk should focus on its supportive movepool and defensive capabilities to make full use of its potential.</p>
[SET]
name: Support
move 1: Stealth Rock
move 2: Earthquake
move 3: Ice Punch
move 4: Fire Punch / Shadow Punch
item: Leftovers
ability: Iron Fist
nature: Impish
evs: 252 HP / 80 Atk / 176 Def
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>With this set, Golurk best fulfills its unique niche to set up Stealth Rock while blocking Rapid Spin at the same time. Earthquake is its most powerful attack, and severely dents everything weak to it. An Iron Fist-boosted Ice Punch is an invaluable new option for Golurk that makes Gliscor way easier to handle, and also grants near perfect coverage along with Earthquake. In the last slot, Golurk can choose between Fire Punch and Shadow Punch, which both gain a power boost from Iron Fist. While Fire Punch opens up a way for Golurk to break through walls and tanks such as Forretress, Ferrothorn, Scizor, and even Skarmory to some extent, Shadow Punch is still an option, as it is Golurk's best way to handle Starmie, Gengar, and Alakazam, all of which are OHKOed by it, and also 3HKOes Reuniclus.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>Golurk's unique typing gives it three immunities in Normal, Fighting, and Electric attacks, and resistances to Rock, Bug, and Poison attacks. This gives Golurk a number of potential switch-ins, such as into a Choice locked Volt Switch, gaining time to set up Stealth Rock as fast as possible. The biggest selling point of Golurk's typing is that it is a solid Terrakion counter. Being immune to Close Combat and resistant to Stone Edge, it only fears the rarely seen Earthquake. With the given EVs, Golurk can survive Adamant Terrakion's Life Orb+2 Stone Edge comfortably, and possesses enough power to OHKO Terrakion with Earthquake.</p>
<p>This set can sponge many neutral hits. Most significantly, Life Orb Tornadus-T and +1 Salamence cannot OHKO with Hurricane and Outrage respectively. Even Jirachi struggles against Golurk as it can't paralyze Golurk at all, while Ice Punch, its only usable damaging move, deals 32.46% - 38.21%. Golurk can also sponge common priority attacks in OU, namely Mach Punch and ExtremeSpeed, that are aimed at its teammates, and Ice Punch variants are somewhat able to handle Dragonite. Breloom and Conkeldurr however, can simply pick their next effective move and hit Golurk hard with Bullet Seed and Payback or Ice Punch, respectively. Golurk can even take an Ice Shard from Adamant Life Orb Mamoswine but definitely not two.</p>
<p>A more offensive EV spread of 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe can be combined with an Adamant nature to hit way harder. This spread gives Golurk the jump on uninvested Scizor, which it can check well by simply OHKOing with Fire Punch. However, an Adamant Life Orb +2 Bullet Punch has a 56% chance to OHKO this offensive Golurk, but not the defensive one. Because of its crappy base Speed, there's absolutely no point in investing any more into this stat, so the rest should go into HP to make Golurk as bulky as possible.</p>
<p>Bulky Water-types are a sheer nightmare for Golurk, as it has nothing to handle them with, and thus needs proper team support to bypass these problems. Both Rotom-W and Rotom-C are ideal partners for this job, as they can patch up two of Golurk's weaknesses while sporting powerful STAB moves in Volt Switch, Discharge, Thunderbolt, and Leaf Storm for the latter, which deal well with most Water-types. Gastrodon's Storm Drain and Jellicent's Water Absorb abilities will give your team a handy Water-type immunity; they also have access to Toxic to stall out extremely bulky Water-types. Gastrodon even stops most opposing Rotom-W cold as it is immune to most of the attacking moves Rotom-W tend to carry. Vaporeon too has access to two great abilities that help out against most Water-types, while rain teams will have problems taking on Hydration variants. With both Toxic and Wish at its disposal, Vaporeon makes a great supporter to Golurk. Grass-types, such as Breloom, Celebi, and Virizion, also help against most Water-types thanks to their STAB moves. Jirachi is yet another good partner for Golurk; a Calm Mind set with Thunderbolt and Psyshock can handle threats such as Tentacruel and Calm Mind Keldeo.</p>
[Other Options]
<p>Golurk sports a good number of alternative moves. Hammer Arm gets an Iron Fist boost and deals with Blissey, Chansey, and Rotom-W, which Golurk's other moves can't touch at all. Drain Punch also gets an Iron Fist boost; however, it is significantly weaker than Hammer Arm. Nonetheless, it provides HP recovery as well. Toxic cripples bulky Water-types, rendering them useless in the long run.</p>
<p>A Choice Band is Golurk's only way to pump its Attack stat and gives it a nice power boost; however, Golurk is too slow to take advantage of it. Rock Polish is its only real setup move, but Golurk's base Speed is so pathetic that it barely outspeeds all non-Choice Scarf Pokemon in OU, which makes it easy for the opponent to eliminate it with their Choice Scarf user.</p>
<p>A SubPunch set with Iron Fist can be used to get some free attacks off, but it generally lacks the Speed and coverage to pull off a sweep. Golurk's Dream World ability No Guard can grant perfectly accurate DynamicPunches and Stone Edges. However, there's not much more at Golurk's disposal that profits from it, and despite the fact that DynamicPunch is a great move when accurate, Golurk should leave this job to Machamp, who gets STAB on it and doesn't mind that much about opposing moves that get perfect accuracy, such as Hydro Pump.</p>
<p>ThunderPunch helps Golurk better deal with Water-types but isn't as good coverage-wise as the other elemental punches are. Rock Slide can be used over Stone Edge, trading power for accuracy. Bulldoze and Low Sweep can help Golurk bypass its Speed issues, but it only really helps against switch-ins and only if they are already quite slow. Low Kick is another usable Fighting-type move for coverage, but unlike Hammer Arm, doesn't reveive an Iron Fist boost. Magic Coat can surprise many opponents by reflecting back entry hazards and status moves, such as Toxic and Spore. Gravity is an option that gives (a potentially Iron Fist-boosted) DynamicPunch usable accuracy and allows Earthquake to hit everything, most notably Rotom-W, but Golurk's Speed issues are again an obstacle using this move successfully.</p>
[Checks and Counters]
<p>Even though Golurk's unique typing gives it nice resistances and immunities, it sadly got a lot of weaknesses too. Water-types are the main problem, and to make matters worse, they are extremely common. They don't mind taking Fire Punch and Ice Punch at all; Starmie and Tentacruel specifically can come into almost any move and force Golurk out with their STAB moves. Rotom-W and Gyarados don't even take any damage from Earthquake which makes them extremely hard for Golurk to handle. Grass-types, such as Virizion, Venusaur, and Breloom can come in on Stealth Rock or Earthquake easily and hit real hard with their appropriate STAB moves. Breloom even beats Substitute sets easily thanks to Bullet Seed. However, Grass-types need to be careful against Fire Punch and Ice Punch. Ice-types such as Mamoswine, Kyurem, Abomasnow, and Weavile will be hurt by Stealth Rock but they are all faster than Golurk, and thus have an easy time KOing it with any of their STAB moves. Mamoswine and Kyurem can both even handle Fire Punch thanks to their ability and secondary typing, respectively.</p>
<p>Pokemon that are part Flying-type or have the ability Levitate will come in easily on Earthquake. Gengar can take any move bar Shadow Punch, while Shadow Ball will OHKO Golurk easily. Hydreigon has to watch out for Ice Punch and Hammer Arm but else has no problems switching into Golurk and OHKOing with Draco Meteor. Latias, Latios, and all Therians and Incarnate formes of Landorus, Thundurus, and Tornadus have to watch out for Ice Punch. Unboosted Latias can't even manage to OHKO with Draco Meteor, whereas Life Orb Latios can OHKO with both Draco Meteor and Surf. The genies all safely 2HKO Golurk with an appropriate move. However, Landorus-T has slightly more problems. A Naive Life Orb Landorus's Earthquake does 48.69 - 57.32%, which has a 46% chance to 2HKO, factoring in Leftovers, while Golurk easily 2HKOes with Ice Punch, even factoring in Intimidate.</p>
<p>Offensive powerhouses also deal with Golurk with ease. Offensive Trick Room Pokemon such as Reuniclus can come in, set up, and start sweeping. All Ninetales, Volcarona, and Air Balloon Heatran will outspeed Golurk with ease and have a high chance to OHKO with their STAB Fire-type moves. Choice Band Haxorus and Dragonite don't have any problems either. It might sound absurd, but apart from Terrakion, Jirachi, and in some way also Mienshao, pretty much anything in OU at least makes a decent check to Golurk.</p>