[QC Ready 0/3] Gardevoir

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

This thing has been a fan fave since its debut, I suppose.

[Pros]

<ul>

<li>Great special attack, which is even better in Mega Forme</li>
<li>Neat special bulk is also pretty neat</li>
<li>Psychic / Fairy typing gives it a great resist and immunity</li>
<li>Fairy STAB is very good to have</li>
<li>Great movepool in both offensive and support options, so it can do a lot for the team</li>
<li>Decent Speed, and 100 is not shabby in Mega Forme</li>

[Cons]

<li>Despite good special bulk, its physical bulk is quite terrible</li>
<li>Has rather exploitable weaknesses to Steel and Ghost</li>
<li>Outsped by some things because while its Speed is decent, it's not outstanding</li>

[Set Recommendations]

[SET]
name: Offensive
move 1: Moonblast
move 2: Focus Blast
move 3: Shadow Ball / Psyshock / Thunderbolt
move 4: Substitute / Taunt / Calm Mind
ability: Trace
item: Leftovers / Life Orb / Gardevoirite
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
nature: Timid

• Great Special Attack and neat coverage make Gardevoir a very potent offensive threat
• Moonblast slays Dragons and in general is quite strong
• Focus Blast hits Steels rather hard
• Thunderbolt and Shadow Ball are coverage, T-bolt hits Talonflame while Shadow Ball is good insurance against Aegislash. Psyshock hits Blissey and Florges, which is helpful
• Sub allows it to scout the opponent and dodge status, especially against Klefki
• Taunt stops anything from defensive mons and makes Gardevoir a good stallbreaker
• CM is usable if you want to boost Gardevoir's power, especially with already great Special Attack and Special Defense

[SET]
name: Defensive
move 1: Will-O-Wisp
move 2: Wish
move 3: Moonblast
move 4: Protect
ability: Trace
item: Leftovers
evs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
nature: Calm

• Gardevoir comes with great special bulk and a neat set of resistances, so it's very capable of going defensive
• Decent set of support options as well, so it can support decently
• High Special Attack means it's not setup fodder
• Will-O-Wisp burns physical attackers hoping to prey on Gardevoir's poor physical defense
• Wish provides Gardevoir with a neat source of recovery
• Moonblast for a decent STAB move; preferably Moonblast for Dragons like Zygarde and Goodra
• Protect works well with Wish

[Checks and Counters]

• Scizor, always
• Gengar is decent against it
• Aegislash
• Scolipede
• Steels in general
• Physical attackers in general

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Got out of laziness and did some work on this, I suppose this is ready for QC.

 

[Cipher Admin Lovrina]

Where is the mention of Hyper Voice as a slash over Moon Blast on the Mega Gardevoir set? With Pixilate, Hyper Voice is a base 90 stab move that hits through Substitutes! Granted Moonblast has higher base power and power points and comes with a nice 30% chance of special attack reduction, but Hyper Voice makes the best use out of Pixilate.


EDIT:

Hyper Voice has 117 Base Power with Pixilate (it boosts the move's power by x1.3 AND changes type) and that's before STAB. It's not really a contest.

So with Hyper Voice, Mega Gardevoir gets a 117 base power move (not even factoring STAB) that hits through Substitute without any drawbacks or immunities with the exception of the highly situational and mostly useless Soundproof. I think it is the clear choice on the mega set.

 

[Swamp-Rocket]

Where is the mention of Hyper Voice as a slash over Moon Blast on the Mega Gardevoir set? With Pixilate, Hyper Voice is a base 90 stab move that hits through Substitutes! Granted Moonblast has higher base power and power points and comes with a nice 30% chance of special attack reduction, but Hyper Voice makes the best use out of Pixilate.


EDIT:

So with Hyper Voice, Mega Gardevoir gets a 117 base power move (not even factoring STAB) that hits through Substitute without any drawbacks or immunities with the exception of the highly situational and mostly useless Soundproof. I think it is the clear choice on the mega set.

Hyper Voice is exclusive to Gen V and therefore cannot be used at the moment.

EDIT: Heal Bell too

 

[GrislyBear]

On the offensive CM set are there merits to a modest nature over timid?

 

[Ckarasu]

Round can be used to hit through Subs, and Pixelate makes it a 80 BP move (not factoring STAB). The ability to hit through Subs gives it some advantage over Moonblast. It will have to do until we get Hyper Voice, and it's not too shabby.

 

[ginganinja]

UNless you can highlight specific examples as to where Thunderbolt is better, I would prolly prefer to run Shadow Ball, since Aegislash is THAT common, and you really want to hurt it as much as you can. Im open to be convinced either way, but it needs to be made clear in the analysis in what situation each move is better. Everything else looks fairly fine however.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I did that, ready for QC checks.

 

[Shrilakkigan]

Gardevoir really needs reflect support. Otherwise, she should not be taking on either Aegislash or Talonflame, who both have priority physical STAB moves. Even then, in my experience, she is 2HKO'd with Stealth Rock against an unboosted Shadow Sneak if she's at full health, before she can OHKO if it's in Blade Forme, and might 2HKO with Stealth Rock support if it's in shield form if she's not in Mega form, but will 2HKO if she is. Aegislash will OHKO with Rocks support if it has one boost, however. This is all assuming that Gardevoir has max Hp investments.

I'm sorry, I love Gardevoir, but she should not be going against physical foes unless you know she can outspeed and OHKO one, or you know she can outspeed and survive to 2HKO. I have found that Iron Defense passing Scolipede seems to work well with her, but I haven't worked out the kinks yet, and he has some survival issues himself.

I'm also sorry, but I'm relatively new here, and although I know the calculations, I don't really know the format for describing damage.

 

[Shroomisaur]

Are the first two sets really viable? I ask this because Gardevoir was my favorite Pokemon in NU last gen, but it was never seen in OU. I don't see how an added secondary typing is suddenly going to make it viable in OU this gen, especially with so many new threats and priority everywhere.

The first set, offensive calm mind, seems entirely outclassed by MegaGardevoir. 80 Speed isn't winning any prizes, and it will shorten its already limited survivability with LO recoil. It also has less SpD, so I don't see the point at all.

The second set is specially defensive support, but with no defense investment it's incredibly vulnerable to any physical attack and too slow to land a WoW before it gets KO'd. Most other fairies like Sylveon or Florges do a better job of Wish passing, not to mention Gardevoir's wishes aren't very big with 65 base HP. I guess Trace and WoW make it somewhat unique, but I'm not sure if it warrants use for that.

A Choice Scarf set was my favorite last gen, as it could be a great revenge killer for Excadrill and the like. Unfortunately it's lacking a key move (Trick) until Pokebank arrives.

The Mega Gardevoir set you have listed is probably it's best (and only) bet in OU (although I've still yet to see a single one of them on the ladder).

 

[theqwertyosc]

Is will-o-wisp viable on the calm mind set? seems like it would be helpful to be able to stay in against some physical attackers, or cripple aegislash and usual counters. Shadow ball + Moonblast still maintains good neutral coverage, but focus blast probably also helps out against a lot of pokemon that gardevoir would otherwise struggle with. What do you guys think?

 

[Shiruba]

Perhaps mention Psyshock where you mention Psychic/replace it entirely? It still gets STAB on that, and acting like you're mixed is pretty cool, especially against the pink blobs. Does Psychic get any notable KOs over Psyshock?

 

[GallAlex]

I was wondering if Echoed voice was a good move in order to make useful her Mevo ability

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

For reference, I changed the format of this as per SDS's new analysis format changes, and this is still ready for QC.

 

[AccidentalGreed]

Oh hey! I was gonna post here, but for some reason I lost the draft. Was wondering if you were still working on this, but good to know you are.

Anyhow. Gardevoir.

First of all, I'd like to change up the Calm Mind set a little. Because Gardevoir is still useful even without a Calm Mind boost, it can afford to use a move option other than Calm Mind. For this reason, I propose the set be renamed "Offensive" and the set to look like this:

[SET]
name: Offensive
move 1: Moonblast
move 2: Focus Blast
move 3: Shadow Ball / Psyshock / Thunderbolt
move 4: Substitute / Taunt / Calm Mind
ability: Trace
item: Leftovers / Life Orb / Gardevoirite
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
nature: Timid

The changes to the set are:

• Addition of Psyshock: allows Gardevoir to beat special walls and Poison-types, including Blissey, Florges, the occasional Tentacruel, etc. A more consistent and helpful tool than Shadow Ball (Aegislash KOes you anyway iirc) and Thunderbolt (it's still useful for Water- and Flying-types, but doesn't offer coverage against too many important targets)
• Addition of Substitute: Gardevoir can afford to use Substitute + Three attacks, as it forces out many threats and can use the opportunity to scout out what the opponent is doing. It also prevents status, which is really, REALLY helpful if you've traced Klefki's Prankster, allowing you to outrun and deal massive damage to the other team behind a Substitute. Should be noted that with 0 Atk IV, Klefki fails to break Gardevoir's Substitute with Foul Play.
• Taunt achieves similarly to Substitute, except it prevents recovery and status for defensive/setup Pokemon, allowing Gardevoir to simply bash them in.
• Calm Mind slashed last: I didn't really find any opportunities to set up Calm Mind as I tested both Mega and normal Gardevoir; however, it's still useful for the reasons you described above.

---

Defensive set looks okay. I'd like to know why Psychic is even being considered on the set, though.

---

I'd also like people viewing this to consider the following set:

[SET]
name: Dual Screens
move 1: Reflect
move 2: Light Screen
move 3: Memento
move 4: Moonblast / Taunt
ability: Trace
item: Light Clay
evs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
nature: Timid

Gardevoir is currently the only Pokemon besides Gallade who has access to both dual screens and Memento. It pretty much does the same thing other pokemon using this strategy does; it unexpectedly uses screens, and attacks or uses Memento depending on the situation. It's one of the best Pokemon for hyper offensive teams, and I think it'd be a shame if it weren't added, since, again, Gardevoir is the only available Pokemon with this combination.

You may also consider trying out a Choice Scarf set, as I've spoken with a few people on irc about it and they've responded with positive results.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Sorry for the wait, I implemented all that.