Honedge

[Delver]

Honedge

45 HP / 80 Attack / 100 Defense / 35 Special Attack / 37 Special Defense / 28 Speed
Abilities: No Gaurd
Resists: Normal, Grass, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Flying, Psychic, Bug, rock, Dragon, Steel, Fairy
Weakness: Fire, Ground, Ghost, Dark
​

Move List Key: STAB Viable Not TM Exclusive

Move List

One wonderful thing I'd like to mention is that Honedge is a Boy or Girl sword, which means it will get egg moves and can easily access its higher level moves, keeping it from being a colossal disappointment everyone's looking at you golett
Lvl
-- | Tackle
-- | Swords Dance
05 | Fury Cutter
08 | Metal Sound
13 | Pursuit
18 | Autotomize
20 | Shadow Sneak
22 | Aerial Ace
29 | Slash
32 | Iron Defense
35 | Night Slash
39 | Power trick
42 | Iron Head
47 | Sacred Sword

TM
08 | Toxic
10 | Hidden Power
17 | Protect
18 | Rain Dance
21 | Frustration
27 | Return
31 | Brick Break
32 | Double Team
33 | Reflect
40 | Aerial Ace
42 | Facade
44 | Rest
45 | Attract
54 | False Swipe
65 | Shadow Claw
67 | Retaliate
74 | Gyro Ball
75 | Swords Dance
80 | Rock Slide
87 | Swagger
88 | Sleep Talk
90 | Substitute
91 | Flash Cannon
94 | Rock Smash
100 | Confide
HM01 | Cut

My Initial Reaction // Synopsis of Honedge

So Honedge is the pokeworld's first Ghost/Steel type and I think its safe to say the majority of us are super excited for it and its big brothers. At first glance, its obvious that its strengths lie on the physical side of the spectrum, with an impressive base 80 Attack and base 100 Defense (Note these are probably still approximate, data got from serebii's site) and a respectable base 60 HP. It's lacking on the special side pretty severely, and is so slow, anything faster than seedot will outspeed it naturally (the only previously competitive mon it outspeed was foongus). It backs up its stats with a strong physical move pool, which will be discussed in a bit, and a plethora of boosting moves - including the tried and true Swords dance and the (what i find to be) gimmicky and hilarious power trick.

Honedge's Physical move pool boasts such gems as the newly buffed Shadow sneak, which is a powerful STAB boosted priority move that transcends his shitty speed stat and only misses Dark- and Normal- types. Alternatively, Shadow claw is available if power over speed is your thing. Additionally its pool contains Sacred sword which has really good coverage along side its Ghost stab, as well as 2 of the best Steel type attacks in the game, Iron Head and Gyro Ball. Both are viable, and depends solely on what kind of boosting moves you'd want to run. And boy do you have choices. With Autotomize AND Swords Dance to back up the near perfect coverage of Sneak / Sword you can have a very flexible sweeper for your end games.

I also highlighted some stuff that people might not agree with so i want to touch on those now, to start Fury Cutter. It recently got a buff with Gen 6, with its starting base power at 4x what it used to be (making it start at base 40 and double till 160). It may still seem stupid to use it, as its still a very weak attack until the third strike with it, but it, along side Rock Slide, are the only moves that can realistically take advantage of its otherwise only-a-negative ability in No Guard. Everything else in its pool has 100 or -- accuracy and No Guard will only come in during evasion / accuracy play. So bar the odd acupressure set, You'll rarely see No Guard do much besides force him to eat hydro pumps.

Sample Sets

Dubstep (Double Dance)
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Autotomize
move 3: Shadow Sneak
move 4: Sacred Sword // Iron Head
ability: No Guard
item: Berry Juice
nature: Adamant +Atk, -SpD
evs: 76 Hp / 196 Atk / 196 Def

Firstly, I wanna just say that obviously those EV's are jank, but i don't want to give an actual set number until the base stats are hard confirmed, because of how much a difference 1-2 points makes in LC compared to higher teirs (murkrow can get 19 speed with 188 investment compared to staryu's 236, with only a 6 point stat difference). Suffice to say you will want to max your attack, and put as much into your bulk as you can, as addition speed investment will proably prove fruitless. The idea is to come in late and either swords dance or Autotomize depending on what you're fighting, using the great coverage of sacred sword / shadow sneak to clean up an opponents weakened team. Getting both dances off is probably deadly but not how the set should be played, as its often more dangerous than necessary to do so.

Honedge Dance (get it? Cause its a sword?)
move 1: Swords Dance
move 2: Iron Head
move 3: Sacred Sword
move 4: Shadow Sneak
ability: No guard
item: Berry Juice
nature: Adamant +Atk, - SpD
evs: 76 Hp / 196 Atk / 196 Def

As far as EV's, the same applies here for everything, including jankiness. You want max attack because the set is designed to sweep. This set trades flexability for more coverage, using Sword and Sneak provide great coverage to go along side a powerful +2 Iron Head. Priority from sneak helps finish off weakened pokemon.

So yeah. Lets discuss the coolest pokemon of gen 6
As a quick aside, if any one can confirm that the Stats given are correct (or, conversely, are wrong) please let me know and I will update them. I'll get actual Ev's for the sample sets once showdown and I are on the same page with it or blara yells at me.

 

[leingodf8]

Pretty sure Iron head will always be preferable to gyro ball in lc. Honedge's minimum speed is 6, which means it needs to hit a 19 speed pokemon just to do the same amount of damage as iron head, and everything slower takes less. Also not sure on how the ev's should go, I'll maybe run some calcs but putting some into SpD or hp might be more preferable to just maxing defense

Aside from that I'm torn for honedge. On one hand, it has the potential to wreck lots of face with that double dance set, on the other, with knock offs huge buff its low speed might be too detrimental for it. I can't say for sure right now, i really hope it will be good though.

 

[Delver]

Pretty sure Iron head will always be preferable to gyro ball in lc. Honedge's minimum speed is 6, which means it needs to hit a 19 speed pokemon just to do the same amount of damage as iron head, and everything slower takes less. Also not sure on how the ev's should go, I'll maybe run some calcs but putting some into SpD or hp might be more preferable to just maxing defense

Aside from that I'm torn for honedge. On one hand, it has the potential to wreck lots of face with that double dance set, on the other, with knock offs huge buff its low speed might be too detrimental for it. I can't say for sure right now, i really hope it will be good though.

<--embarassed cause i actually used that argument in a discussion bout ferroseed a while back. You're right in that Iron Head will almost always be better 'cept for some rather specific and opponent-reliant times. As far as the EV's go, I really disagree with any points in spD. Max HP maybe, but SpD investment wont help it too much should it lose its eviolite; 37 is just to low to warrant it, imo. Since it takes SE damage from Knock off, which removes its defense boosts, Personally I'd say put as much as you can into defense and attack and dump the remaining in HP (as i did!) I'll edit the idea into the OP if more people agree with you though (as all other ideas; will probably leave the 2nd sample set there with Iron head over Ball to see what other people think about it.



Something I want to investigate, more so than discuss, is eviolite's interaction with Power Trick. If it works the way i want to, you should be able to turn your base 80 attack into base 100(+1) and your defense 80(+1). I think im stretching things, but I really want that to work cause i want power trick to not be a gimmick.

 

[Heysup]

Just saying, lowering Speed is really good to be able to set up on Fighting-types spamming Payback at you and lets you absolutely destroy fast switch-ins, Yanma's Speed Boost gives you even more power. Also Berry Juice > Eviolite for both sets.

 

[Typhlito]

what do you mean the coolest pokemon in gen 6? That spot (and this tier) is sole property of goomy >.> Anyway, its too bad it doesnt get any moves to abuse its no guard ability so that ability is going to be working against it. Dont really see anything else it can run that wasnt mentioned except maybe a banded set. It has a pretty neat atk stat and the immediate power boost is nice. Life orb is also there.

 

[Arcticblast]

Admittedly, No Guard could have a use on Honedge running Oran Berry (or Berry Juice if that's unbanned) - it can come in on a resisted inaccurate attack and ensure it gets hit to use up the item. Of course that's really, really minor, but might as well look on the bright side.

Also ito, your signature is puking rainbows and misusing doge. Please change it or I will be forced to rant about how ugly it is some more.

 

[Typhlito]

sigh.... noone can truely understand an artists work. Even though really just shows that I like dogs (in a wierd animation full of rainbows and doge haha) but I would rather not take it off since it did take me a bit of time to put together.

anywho, maybe it can run a gimicky defensive swagger set since it has a really good defense stat with swagger/iron head/sacred sword/ and protect

 

[Delver]

"gimmicky" is probably too nice a word for that swagger set. Honedge lacks the speed to really do anything effective with status. I'm also not entirely sure why you'd *want* your berry to be eaten ASAP (unless it was a boost berry - and even then). I'm pretty sure the best we're going to be able to do with No Guard is never have to worry about rock slide missing (though finding room for it on sets would be hard, imo) and making a stupid fury cutter set, since it will never miss.

 

[Level 51]

Also Berry Juice > Eviolite for both sets.

Eviolite allows you to survive Shadow Ball from Misdreavus if you invest 220 EVs into SDef, meaning that you can beat it 1-on-1.

 

[Heysup]

Eviolite allows you to survive Shadow Ball from Misdreavus if you invest 220 EVs into SDef, meaning that you can beat it 1-on-1.

1. I'm not sure if there's a legit calculator out but using Honkalculator with custom stats I have Misdreavus still being able to KO Honedge without SR.

2. Misdreavus can actually just burn you and win anyway.

That's a good idea for a situational use of Honedge (I definitely wouldn't call it a gimmick), but there are Pokemon that are better at setting up (or countering) Misdreavus that do not need to rely on taking 0 previous damage, Misdreavus not knowing that you're using Eviolite (due to WoW), and basically sacrificing yourself in the process. Berry Juice allows you to take more hits and especially since Honedge has insane physical bulk it makes it easier to set up and more importantly makes it harder to revenge kill once you are set up. Knock off is going to happen versus Fighting-types too, I would prefer some physical defense EVs to set up on those.

 

[ThickGlasses]

I just tried a banded one on a hail team and my Honedge and Snubbull core wrecked.

 

[prem]

berry juice is the best item on basically all the sets unless you want to run a band which i would never do personally, but thats cause of my life orb fetish lol. there not really much reason to use eviolite unless the pokemon has recovery of its own or needs it to take specific hits that are important to the metagame. honedge will have way better longevity with berry juice if you play it properly and will definately have a much better sweep

 

[Swan Songs]

The damage rolls for life orb and band are fairly similar from what I know. Also Honedge has a lot of troubles getting through Gligar that's on almost every team.

 

[Delver]

updating op sets to have Berry juice instead of eviolites, cause I agree; just forgot that was unbanned. Also updated the EV's to more accurately represent what i wanted with them. Heysup I am interested in what you think the spread should be with a more defensive investment like you were saying before (about lowering speed)

 

[Heysup]

I lowered Speed mostly because I thought Scyther was going to be unbanned. I guess it still has its uses vs Unburden Swirlix....

The spread I use now is 196 Atk / 60 SDef / 196 Def / 56 Spd with Iron Head.

 

[fatty]

the only reasons i can think of that eviolite is preferred is when trying to set up on weaker special attacks (which honedge shouldn't be doing too often anyways), and allowing it to tank a gligar eq in specific situations that would allow it to break past it (again, not always ideal and is almost a waste of honedge). so, with that said, yes i think it is pretty common knowledge by now that berry juice is the preferred item.

as for the spread, i've been using a similar spread to heysup, with just 156 ev's moved from def to to hp. i was mainly thinking in terms of helping out it's measly spd in dire situations, but i have to actually do a significant amount of calcs to ensure which spread is better.

originally i had talked about on irc how honedge really wasn't pulling its weight and was fairly underwhelming, but i have come to the conclusion that i was simply playing it wrong. once i took the time to get a good feel for what exactly i should be switching in / setting up on, or when i should be attempting to sweep, honedge proved to be an incredibly valuable asset to the team. it really does excel at even playing well midgame to set itself up for a lategame sweep. it can use it's solid resistances and sweeping potential to be valuable throughout the match, soaking hits or punching holes when needed, with berry juice essentially giving it a second life to pick up where it left off and become a cleaner in the process. needless to say, honedge is really shaping up to be an xy lc staple.

 

[The Quasar]

I still don't understand because its abilty is the only one and manifestly useless (except Rock Slide). I could lead one to think that serebi moveset could be incomplete.

 

[superkirbyman]

How about fury cutter on honedge. with no guard it will always hit

 

[Merritt]

How about fury cutter on honedge. with no guard it will always hit

Unfortunately, fury cutter is almost unpardonably weak with the first two hits, and bug isn't really a good attacking type in lc. Also, it requires three turns to justify its use over any other move, and at that point your opponent will have probably caught on.

 

[Wobbyble]

Even after Gligar's ban I feel Honedge is still remarkably un-remarkable. It can force some switches and counter Meditite, but it lacks the speed for Swords Dance and the power for Automatize, as well as the bulk and coverage for double dance. Without boosting, it has no power, no wall-breaking potential, no utility, nothing really. With all the Knock Off around and the nerf to steel typing, it has trouble setting up on much of anything and I think it's extremely overused as overhyped.

 

[Shaymin :D]

Wobbyble, I fail to see how Honedge has bad coverage when Shadow Claw + Sacred Sword is perfect coverage. Also, idk, but I haven't seen Knock Off much outside of Foo, Timburr, and Pawn. Yet again, they are all pretty popular.

 

[GlassGlaceon]

other notable knock off users that beat honedge usually: offensive archen, support tirt, pawn, tim, and foo. vullaby, corphish, krabby, offensive karrablast

shaymin, by that i think he means it fails to KO relevant threats with double dance because you gotta give up some other important thing

ghost+fighting-any defensive fire type wins, foongus can put it to sleep and switch out to a threat

Ghost+rock-pawniard demolishes your face which is a no-no

fighting+steel- once again walled by larvesta and other defensive fires

i think you see my point. Honedge needs 3 of it's four moveslots for attacking moves, and i think autotomize is his best set, being able to pull off mind games against pawniard w/ shadow sneak bypassing sucker punch, a fast dbond if you decide to run that, and some pretty decent coverage hitting everything relevant for neutral damage hinedge isn't bad, and i feel wobbles is being a little too harsh on it, but no, he does not deserve the hype

 

[Wobbyble]

"Perfect coverage" means you hit everything neutrally at least, it does not mean you hit a lot of things significant things super effectively.
Stabbed Acrobatics and Earthquake were good sweeping moves, stabbed 70 base power Ghost move and unstabbed Fighting move do not make good sweeping moves. Even if you throw in Iron Head it's still underwhelming.

It's a pretty good switch in to things like Spritzee and Meditite, which is nice, but that's about it. It is of no threat to any well prepared team without boosting, and can't even sweep when boosted. I'd fear +1 speed Meditite more than +2/+2 Honedge.

 

[GlassGlaceon]

but then that means you were wrong because it has perfect coverage...i know what it means, i thought you misused it

 

[Ranger Mike]

Can a double dancer set be used with automize sd shadow claw and sacred sword?