Yeaaah you almost had an okay post and then this happened. Probably the silliest thing I’ve read in ages.
Anyways to keep on topic, those of you laddering for the Palafin what have you been electing to run on it?
Palafin-Hero @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Zero to Hero
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Jet Punch
- Close Combat
- Liquidation
- Encore
I like this just for the nice utility and breaking+speed control in one slot. Can’t actually comment on how practical it is overall since I’ve only played this set a little but it’s fun so far.
I've been running:
Palafin-Hero @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Zero to Hero
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 72 SpD / 60 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Jet Punch
- Bulk Up
- Taunt
on this team
https://pokepast.es/817bbf6754a998be. Cloak for alo and garg. Speed is for modest bolt. Honestly, I've kind of given up on this set because it feels really useless in a lot of matchups (any team with zama, tera molt/lando, needing to tera vs any team with oger/bolt etc). It doesn't really even comfortably beat bolt post tera which is concerning since it expends tera.
Palafin-Hero @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Zero to Hero
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 196 HP / 96 Atk / 216 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bulk Up
- Jet Punch
- Drain Punch
- Taunt
This has been the main set I've ran on it, and man, its disgusting. It feels like all of its usual 'checks' just don't work against it. The specific ev spread is to outspeed gliscor/kyurem, 96 attack to 2hit ko pon with +1 drain punch (tera fighting has a roll with just rocks damage to straight up ko pon in one hit) and the rest in HP. I faced a latias, and despite it resisting the move and me misplaying (I should have immediately taunted it), it still almost 1v1'd the latias. Covert cloak means you genuinelly do not care about pecharunt, alomomola and sinistcha (if you tera against the last one ofc). You do need to chip the ghosts a bit, but that's honestly not the hardest thing in the world.
I know people are going to say "its only been a couple of hours, we can't make a call" but it feels like even if they have waterpon+bolt+zamazenta, pala finds some way to bullshit through them. Also it feels so incredibly easy to get the turn to access hero form, by either leading it turn one or switching it in on something that can't really touch you/is setting up hazards. Against offense its probably a lot harder, but against bulkier teams it feels incredibly easy to get the transformation and win.
I've been having a vastly different experience in practice (i've spammed a lot of fin games albeit i did quite dramatically fall out of 1800s somehow so maybe it's different wherever you're at, if it's 1900s+ or whatever).
- You definitely don't beat sinistcha even with tera:
+6 96 Atk Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Sinistcha: 155-183 (44.7 - 52.8%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO
and you have 0 healing because it is immune to drain punch
- Alo is more of a really safe scout than a direct answer, cloak should be pretty obv anyway when u don't see lefties
- I also don't think you beat pech easily without them misplaying? Again, you're healing 0 while
+6 96 Atk Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Pecharunt: 274-324 (72.1 - 85.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Pecharunt Malignant Chain vs. 196 HP / 0 SpD Palafin-Hero: 109-129 (27.9 - 33%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
I'm also being generous in giving palafin +6 when realistically it never gets there
- zama's entire existence cooks this so bad, even taunting on the switch into it isn't enough
- i think this set has really low bs factor, none of the moves hax and it's quite slow to get going
On the other hand, I've been having more success with the traditional unga bunga band set:
Palafin-Hero @ Choice Band
Ability: Zero to Hero
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Wave Crash
- Flip Turn
- Jet Punch
- Close Combat
on this team
https://pokepast.es/1976498345f395be. If you tera you kind of break anything that isn't immune (pex is cleanly 2hkoed for example), but u also KO urself in the process while wasting tera so.... ??? Without tera it can still break vs a lot of offense but a lot of the stuff it gets locked into is pretty rough vs set-up and it still KOs itself.
Not saying it's bad by the way, it's an absolutely amazing cleaner and revenge killer, probably the best revenge killer in the tier - which is great, imo this is a healthy trait