Because no move deals more damage to it other than awkward Hidden Power types that Xerkitree learns.
The point is moot anyways: Marowak and Xerkitree are worlds apart in power, Marowak will never be viable in a tier that Xerkitree is in.
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Xurkitree Discussion
- Thread starter Nexus
- Start date
The point is moot anyways: Marowak and Xerkitree are worlds apart in power, Marowak will never be viable in a tier that Xerkitree is in.
Agreeing with some of the people in here like Ultimario and co who say Scarf will dominate at first (though LO / Specs would also do damn well), then transition to Tail Glow to overwhelm stall. Having just the right coverage moves feels disgusting, too.
Also love how, flavor-wise, it got Power Whip.
I am not really looking foward to the constant mind games I prob have to play any time there is a scarf xurkitree and buffed dugtrio on either team T-T
Surprised no one has named Keldeo as a key partner to this thing on offense. Effortlessly cleans up everything above bar Dugtrio and has the added utility of beating out Chansey/Blissey, which beats non-Tail Glow sets one on one. In return, Xurkitree beats out Tornadus-T, M-Pinsir, every relevant bulky water (yes, including Toxapex.) Would partner both up with either Zam or Latias on more balanced builds to handle opposing Keldeo & M-Venu (Keldeo beats out relevant Darks.)
I guess Electric-types decided they needed more dakka. I don't care if its other stats are subpar, make it so that even its Thundershock would make Special Walls tremble!
Do I really need to say it has STAB? It has so much STAB its only other Special moves are Signal Beam, Energy Ball (which you can't really complain about on an Electric-type) and Dazzling Gleam. Utilities give it Tail Glow (MORE POWER!), Ingrain (wait, what? I know its name is a pun on "circuitry" though since it does have "tree" in it was it mean to be a Grass-type at one point?), Eerie Impulse, Hypnosis, Electric Terrain, Ion Deluge, Calm Mind, dual screens, Volt Switch, and Thunder Wave.
Not bad for Christmas lights :P. If anything Speed holds it back unless it has a Scarf, and even then other Scarf users may outspeed it.
Do I really need to say it has STAB? It has so much STAB its only other Special moves are Signal Beam, Energy Ball (which you can't really complain about on an Electric-type) and Dazzling Gleam. Utilities give it Tail Glow (MORE POWER!), Ingrain (wait, what? I know its name is a pun on "circuitry" though since it does have "tree" in it was it mean to be a Grass-type at one point?), Eerie Impulse, Hypnosis, Electric Terrain, Ion Deluge, Calm Mind, dual screens, Volt Switch, and Thunder Wave.
Not bad for Christmas lights :P. If anything Speed holds it back unless it has a Scarf, and even then other Scarf users may outspeed it.
83 speed is enough for what you want to do, and it makes a great cleaner if he ever gets one kill.
83 Speed really isn't enough for what you want to do. It mostly only outspeeds stall Pokemon and more things outspeed it than things that outspeed it, so against HO you're screwed. And it would take a lot of effort to attempt to kill everything except for the few things that are slower than it to save it for late-game when some other Pokemon could be doing a better job as a late-game cleaner. Xurkitree will be over-reliant on Speed control, whether that be Speed Pass, Sticky Web, etc.
This thing is basically forced to run some kind of combination of Thunderbolt, Energy Ball, Dazzling Gleam, Signal Beam, Volt Switch, Tail Glow, and Hidden Power. That's not too bad.
After a Tail Glow, it can even 2HKO Chansey and Venusaur with Thunderbolt (With Modest + Life Orb). However, it gets revenge killed pretty easily if you run that... so maybe a scarf set would be beneficial, but then it can't get through defensive teams. No matter what set this thing runs, it has weaknesses, but until you know if it's going to go for Scarf or Tail Glow, it might be difficult to handle.
Still, I'm sure some more well-versed players will find a way.
After a Tail Glow, it can even 2HKO Chansey and Venusaur with Thunderbolt (With Modest + Life Orb). However, it gets revenge killed pretty easily if you run that... so maybe a scarf set would be beneficial, but then it can't get through defensive teams. No matter what set this thing runs, it has weaknesses, but until you know if it's going to go for Scarf or Tail Glow, it might be difficult to handle.
Still, I'm sure some more well-versed players will find a way.
It's not really that difficult to handle though. In fact one of the answers got a +20 attack buff and is already in OU. As long as rocks aren't up, Dugtrio can just switch in and kill Xurkitree with no fear if it's not holding a shed shell, and if that's your opponent's stallbreaker it's well worth the price of a Dugtrio. If you can get in on tail glow/thunderbolt and kill it while retaining Dugtrio's sash that's practically a won game for many stall teams. It only dies if it switches into rocks+a non-electric attack or if it switches into a scarf variant that isn't locked into an electric move. I suppose there's also a third scenario where it loses if it gets its sash triggered switching into a Xurkitree with an air balloon.
Landorus T, Gliscor, Garchomp and Excadrill can all outspeed (granted, standard Excadrill and Gliscor may not run enough speed to outpace max speed Xurk) and threaten OHKO. They have a fairly easy time switching into electric attacks or tail glows. Mono STAB and the fact that it needs thunderbolt to secure most of its vaunted 2HKOs makes those pretty easy to predict. Sure, if you play the prediction game well and smack them with a neutral attack or HP ice it'll cause some nice chip damage, but being forced out on a pokemon with middling bulk is super annoying because it can be hard to get it switched back in without taking significant damage or without sacking something. It's not to say that Xurkitree is bad, but I do think it will be very manageable unless and until Dugtrio gets banned.
Landorus T, Gliscor, Garchomp and Excadrill can all outspeed (granted, standard Excadrill and Gliscor may not run enough speed to outpace max speed Xurk) and threaten OHKO. They have a fairly easy time switching into electric attacks or tail glows. Mono STAB and the fact that it needs thunderbolt to secure most of its vaunted 2HKOs makes those pretty easy to predict. Sure, if you play the prediction game well and smack them with a neutral attack or HP ice it'll cause some nice chip damage, but being forced out on a pokemon with middling bulk is super annoying because it can be hard to get it switched back in without taking significant damage or without sacking something. It's not to say that Xurkitree is bad, but I do think it will be very manageable unless and until Dugtrio gets banned.
Which makes SubSalac quite interesting IMO. Sub is gonna be decent on its own, as a way to beat Duggy who's sash is broken and to punish players that predict a switch into a Thunderbolt.
It's defenses and Speed mean Tail Glow is only viable against stall teams.
Using Hoopa-U as a precedent, I have strong suspicions that Xurkitree will be banned at some point, since there's basically no way to run a proper balance team against it. It's going to depend on how long it takes us to stabilize the meta, as I'm assuming we're going to have some previously banned threats running around again from the onset, atop the new ones we can't properly gauge yet. If we start off with things like Pheromosa, Mega Mawile, Aegislash, Landorus, Genesect, etc., then we aren't really going to have any time to worry about a sleeper threat like Xurkitree.
If you wish to use Xurtitree as a cleaner, I think that Choice Scarf is a given (even if being slower than ScarfDrill and Scarf Landorus-T is a pretty bad) : revenge kills, gets momentum with VoltSwitch and has good coverage with Electric / Ice (HP Ice) / Grass.
Otherwise I completely agree.
Barring Dugtrio trapping (which is shaky) and Shedinja (which is niche), what on stall can handle this thing?
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Full stall teams are going to have trouble with this boi for sure. Unboosted, quite a few things can wall it but with a tail glow under its belt there's very few things that can take a hit let alone two that I can find.
Gliscor can take an unboosted energy ball if the set doesn't have hidden power ice and then one shot with earthquake, but full speed evs and hp ice will outspeed and take out the standard gliscor sets.
Full stall teams are going to have trouble with this boi for sure. Unboosted, quite a few things can wall it but with a tail glow under its belt there's very few things that can take a hit let alone two that I can find.
A tail glow set pretty much destroys everything under it's speed tier so I wouldnt say its an unviable option at all. The scarf set has no real way of dealing with Ferrothorn or Venusaur besides volt switch but otherwise looks very strong. It's typing is pretty bad though.
I suppose it could run hp fire for ferro but it needs HP Ice imo. A plus 3 thunderbolt can 2hko a Ferro though lol.
I suppose it could run hp fire for ferro but it needs HP Ice imo. A plus 3 thunderbolt can 2hko a Ferro though lol.
All this talk makes me think that Tapu Bulu would make a great partner for Xurkitree. Bulu can tank most of Xurk's counters with ease while making him less vulnerable to the weaker ground attacks + boosting his Energy Ball thanks to Grassy Terrain.
I thought about the Hoopa-U analogy a lot too, but Hoopa had mixed attacking stats, could run CB, Specs, LO and had an awful lot of coverage. Xurkitree has none of that. You can either run TG stallbreaker, which offense/balance shits on, or Specs/Scarf which doesn't nearly have as much coverage. Just because it has a similar SAtk doesn't mean they're not worlds apart.
Similarly people have compared this to the other tail glow abuser, Manaphy. But of course, Manaphy has a more reliable neutral STAB (that also threatens burn on potential switch ins), much better bulk, and significantly better speed. It doesn't hit those crazy spA numbers after one turn but it's also harder to force out.
I suspect that if it gets banned, it'll be banned for the scarf set and not because of tail glow. The subsalac option that was brought up is also interesting, I usually discount subsalac outright after gen 3 since scarfs and better priority distribution made it much easier to revenge those pokemon, but against a team which doesn't have a scarfer or much strong priority (ie stall teams) beast boost nicely compliments the salac. It does have one big issue though, you have to carry HP fire to get through Ferrothorn. None of its other coverage moves do a thing to it, it needs to be +3 before it can even 2HKO the main OU set with thunderbolt and if you're down to a sub and 25% HP, it will absolutely beat you. It's also another good way to deal with scarf sets, particularly ones that carry HP ice or ground over fire.
I suspect that if it gets banned, it'll be banned for the scarf set and not because of tail glow. The subsalac option that was brought up is also interesting, I usually discount subsalac outright after gen 3 since scarfs and better priority distribution made it much easier to revenge those pokemon, but against a team which doesn't have a scarfer or much strong priority (ie stall teams) beast boost nicely compliments the salac. It does have one big issue though, you have to carry HP fire to get through Ferrothorn. None of its other coverage moves do a thing to it, it needs to be +3 before it can even 2HKO the main OU set with thunderbolt and if you're down to a sub and 25% HP, it will absolutely beat you. It's also another good way to deal with scarf sets, particularly ones that carry HP ice or ground over fire.
The problem with running Scarf is that you miss out on Tail Glow, and Xurkitree would rather keep Tail Glow in order for it to have no switch-ins.