Groudon

[Golden Aether]

There's a possibility that the buffed weather could further boost/deboost Fire/Water attacks. A "Primal Drought/Drizzle" making Water/Fire attacks only 1/4 damage wouldn't be surprising considering Groudon's new typing. Maybe a buffed Sun could make Reshiram relevant again. Granted, buffed Rain would be bad, but at least the Kyogre would likely not be scarfed (you can see a key stone-like item on their HP bars, which suggests Primal forms work like Mega).

 

[Talpr0ne]

For some reason, to me, primal devolution seems like a change that is like deoxys form change( probably have to go to some place, sit through a boring cutscene, then get a primal kyogre/groudon/<insert other two mons here>). It's mainly because your bringing a pokemon back to its ancient stage, which doesn't seem like something that could be accomplished in battle. However, the red orb/blue orb may be given as a hold item, which acts like a griseous orb. Groudon pays a heavy price for getting an immunity to burns, and resistances to whatever. Being 4x weak to water in a metagame which could possibly have perma-rain is very damaging to it's viability. Also, ho-oh tends to run earthquake on offensive sets, which could easily rip through groudon. I don't know how it will be able to counter xerneas. A +2 moonblast 1hkos it, which means that a plus 2 moonblast will continue to 2hko it, even with the resistance. And that's not taking into account that earth power could easily be a move tutor move for xerneas. Opposing blaziken can take advantage of it's perma sun, and since blaziken learns earthquake, it really doesn't look good.

You are really underselling Fire, Fairy and Bug resistances, as well as Grass and Ice neutrality. With this typing you become a golden special wall(obviously assuming a 252/252+ spread) which checks a pretty good amount of things, ranging from Xerneas, to Mega Gengar, from Ytwo to Electric Arceus, and any CM/support Arceus not named Waterceus really. And then there are Ho-oh, Blaziken, Dialga w/o Earth Power(a move no Dialga carries nowadays) and more... While Ground-Fire is an above-average defensive typing, is also a stellar offensive typing, with only 23 mons resisting the combo, only two of which are good in ubers(Rayquaza and Ho-oh, both easily nailed by Stone Edge). Being immune to BOTH burn and Thunder Wave is also a godsend for any physical setup sweeper, not to mention that Drought or whatever it has boost the power of one of your STABs.


Also let's face it, Xerneas will never have Earth Power because with that move it will only be left with two shacky checks(Ho-oh and Scizor)

 

[Alert to Sounds]

Talpr0ne I really like your point about Burn/TWave immunity. I predict we see a resurgence of the DD set (which is currently uncommon) to take advantage of this. The impeccable STAB coverage is really icing on the cake.

 

[IcyMan28]

Also let's face it, Xerneas will never have Earth Power because with that move it will only be left with two shacky checks(Ho-oh and Scizor)

Lets not jump to conclusions. We don't know what tutors will be available or what pokemon can learn them; Earth power is perfectly reasonable for Xerneas.

Otherwise, I completely agree with your post regarding Groudon. A lot of people forget that after steel, fire has the most resistances of any type, it's just held back by stealth rock. Thankfully, Groudon's Ground typing mitigates that.

With regular Groudon being sufficient as a pure Ground-type wall, I'm personally more excited to see what offensive options this brings to the table.

 

[Aquaslash]

I feel like Groudon is gonna be immune to water. It cant be an epic battle if he gets curbstomped by a 4x weakness

 

[Golden Aether]

The new trailer released just now more or less confirms Groudon's new attack to be Ground-type. The fact that they are pillars makes me think it might also hit airborne targets, but time will tell if that is the truth.

Just hoping it's not another Sky Attack clone...

 

[IcyMan28]

It's ground type for sure, you can hear the "it's super effective" sound effect when Blaziken gets hit.

Maybe it can hit flying types? Or perhaps it also has a chance of burn.

 

[kingmidas]

Could be zygarde's supposedly new thousand arrows move, hits all mons through immunities to ground

 

[Talpr0ne]

Could be zygarde's supposedly new thousand arrows move, hits all mons through immunities to ground

nah we've seen the animation of 1000 Arrows throught hacking and is different.