Since Houndoom's primary type is dark, Revelation Dance is a 90 BP dark move, which is an upgrade from Dark Pulse (unless you really want the flinch chance)
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Metagame USUM Pure Hackmons
- Thread starter NToTheN
- Start date
Heya! It's SpamtonZZZSpamton here, here to make a announcement I may or may not be qualified to make! PH UU, a room tour format thingy, is probably playable if you ask nicely enough! The format is similar to standard Gen 7 PH, but with some bans to spice things up. First off, every Mon above B rank in the official PH VR is banned. So B+ is banned, A- is banned, ex. For the WG VR, everything above B+ rank is also banned. So everything in A-, A, you get the point. Now, for the second change, Species Clause! Finally, a form of PH with Species Clause, so that the meta has less of a chance to devolve into eternal spam teamstyles. The final change is less confirmed, but, if it is overall wanted it could be implemented. Banning Harvest. This is still up for debate, but I personalty think it would be a good idea. Harvest is a very noncompetitive ability even in normal PH, and in this format it could become even more degenerate. I think we should snip it in the bud before it can flower into a issue. But, that is my opinion. So, I guess that is it! Have fun with it, (or not)!
yeah cookin igYaaaaay I’m semi early to the creation of a new thread dropping a team now
https://pokepast.es/8e94b72bcd583808
I love zygarde complete with fc mega bulk is funny ngl
Interesting offensive threat.
Wg core idk not much to say
Innards
Second offensive mon + mg sweeper
Am I cooking with my first ladder team or nah
yeah a few other more niche moves arent here
petal blizzard: best 100% accurate phys grass move, doesnt make contact so it avoids kings shield and its kartana's best option to hit mega mgyarados and mega slowbro in 1 slot
earthquake: stronger than tarrows but still 100% accurate, niche option on stuff like mold pdon to hit certain rolls
lava plume: scald but fire type, used on defensive stuff that prefers threatening steel types over threatening pdon
malicious moonsault: used as a physical dark nuke, effective on stag mons to target melo, slowbro, and solgaleo/ndm
soul stealing 7 star strike: same as malicious but trades hitting melo for more power
spirit shackle: ghost trapping option, sometimes better than anchor shot on doublade cuz it hurts mmx more and hits mons that want to switch into it like gengar and mmy
circle throw: phazing that threatens damage on wg sweeper gyarados and non-harvest setup slaking
lunge: weird utility move on defensive mons that forces out a lot of the offensive wgs weak to bug while lowering the attack of whatever they switch into
origin pulse: steam eruption but you trade accuracy and burn for pp
horn drill: no guard option to break through articuno and nothing else (tldr: use to cteam)
natures madness/guardian of alola: used on some harvest slaking variants to break through innards/imposter/pranksters
but overall the list covers basically every viable option in 7ph, pretty good resource
besides the electric/grass coverage slander (i am genuinely the only person who uses that on not kartana)
Merry Christmas hackmonners, here's a really bad team as a present for y'all.
For some reason I decided to make a Christmas theme team. Yes, I'm using Delibird. And before you say Chansey isn't Christmas based, I need at least 1 good mon on my team, and it kinda fits the Christmas theme.
Even though Xurkitree is the undisputed best WG (jk), I went with a Mold Breaker sweeper instead. Thunderbolt + Icicle Plate Judgment offers great coverage, and the reason I went with Judgment over Ice Beam is so Sceptile can improof it.
I've always believed in No Guard Sceptile. With Choice Scarf, it outspeeds Xurkitree at +2, is immune to Spore, and always lives Judgment. Fissure is so it can hit stuff like Alolan Muk. Zap Cannon hits most flying types for good damage and can paralyse them, Trick is Trick, and Gastro Acid is for when it has tricked its scarf (or been knocked) and the opponent only has 1 WG/Sturdy mon left .
Kyurem-Black is the team's most reliable revenge killer with Refrigerate FakeSpeed (especially because MRay is common on low ladder). Thousand Arrows offers pretty good coverage (and the wonderloons of low ladder), and Toxic Spikes is so it can't let WGs that wall it get momentum.
I wanted a little bit of bulk on my team so I added Avalugg. Originally I had Fur Coat with Safety Goggles and Defog, but I changed it to Magic Bounce, Leftovers, and Will-O-Wisp so it can punish Imposter transformed into Kyurem better, and bounce back Sing from No Guards.
You can't have a Christmas team without Delibird. Just like most bad mons, Prankster Destiny Bond is the way I decided to use it, with Encore to punish setup sweepers, Parting Shot for pivoting, and Ice Shard to finish off low stuff and potentially bluff an offensive set. Darkinum Z gives it an immunity to Trick and lets it heal something, and the EV spread lets it do 99.8% maximum to Innards Out Chansey.
is imp
Also it beat bullsht https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2264107189
It almost lost to Raikou spam though https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2263543708-3qvd4f2a78tqu7g2o8sppuzfudordbzpw?p2
I'm also planning on submitting one of my teams as a sample soon, I want more replays for it first though
For some reason I decided to make a Christmas theme team. Yes, I'm using Delibird. And before you say Chansey isn't Christmas based, I need at least 1 good mon on my team, and it kinda fits the Christmas theme.
Even though Xurkitree is the undisputed best WG (jk), I went with a Mold Breaker sweeper instead. Thunderbolt + Icicle Plate Judgment offers great coverage, and the reason I went with Judgment over Ice Beam is so Sceptile can improof it.
I've always believed in No Guard Sceptile. With Choice Scarf, it outspeeds Xurkitree at +2, is immune to Spore, and always lives Judgment. Fissure is so it can hit stuff like Alolan Muk. Zap Cannon hits most flying types for good damage and can paralyse them, Trick is Trick, and Gastro Acid is for when it has tricked its scarf (or been knocked) and the opponent only has 1 WG/Sturdy mon left .
Kyurem-Black is the team's most reliable revenge killer with Refrigerate FakeSpeed (especially because MRay is common on low ladder). Thousand Arrows offers pretty good coverage (and the wonderloons of low ladder), and Toxic Spikes is so it can't let WGs that wall it get momentum.
I wanted a little bit of bulk on my team so I added Avalugg. Originally I had Fur Coat with Safety Goggles and Defog, but I changed it to Magic Bounce, Leftovers, and Will-O-Wisp so it can punish Imposter transformed into Kyurem better, and bounce back Sing from No Guards.
You can't have a Christmas team without Delibird. Just like most bad mons, Prankster Destiny Bond is the way I decided to use it, with Encore to punish setup sweepers, Parting Shot for pivoting, and Ice Shard to finish off low stuff and potentially bluff an offensive set. Darkinum Z gives it an immunity to Trick and lets it heal something, and the EV spread lets it do 99.8% maximum to Innards Out Chansey.
is imp
Also it beat bullsht https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2264107189
It almost lost to Raikou spam though https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2263543708-3qvd4f2a78tqu7g2o8sppuzfudordbzpw?p2
I'm also planning on submitting one of my teams as a sample soon, I want more replays for it first though
Here to submit a sample:
Using mainly this team, I was able to climb to top 10 of the ladder.
This team has proven to be really effective at dealing with the meta threats and has powerful offensive and defensive threats alike, so I think it could be worthy of sample status.
Yveltal @ Lum Berry
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Trick-or-Treat
- Pursuit
- Knock Off
- Sunsteel Strike
Improof:
This mon is a really strong midgame breaker. Trick-or-Treat Knock Off puts huge pressure on balance cores because it can deal super effective damage to most Wonder Guards as well as removing their items. Pursuit deals critical damage to Wonder Guards trying to escape which sets up for a Dawn Wings sweep later. Sunsteel hits most Wonder Guards that are neutral to Dark after Trick-or-Treat, such as Mega Audino. Just one correct predict can cause huge damage to most defensive cores. Yveltal can notably trap and remove Meloetta, one of the biggest counters to Dawn Wings, without any prior chip needed. Lum Berry is for utility against Spore sweepers or Prankster Spore, as well as being able to absorb burns from Pokemon that it wants to beat, such as Mega Slowbro, Celesteela, or Primal Kyogre.
Gyarados-Mega @ Shed Shell
Ability: Magic Bounce
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Anchor Shot
- Knock Off
- Milk Drink
- Defog
Improof:
Mega Gyarados is here to improof the Yveltal. Magic Bounce prevents Trick-or-Treat from weakening it, and if the Impostor tries to stay in and chip Mega Gyarados down, they risk being trapped by Anchor Shot and PP stalled. It also serves as the Defogger for this team, matching up well into common hazard setters such as Mega Audino and Mega Slowbro. It also provides a secondary special check alongside Yveltal. Shed Shell is chosen as the item so that it cannot be trapped by Thousand Waves and PP stalled by Zygarde-Complete or Mega Steelix. It also allows it to avoid Shadow Tag users trapping and removing it with Let's Snuggle Forever.
Necrozma-Dawn-Wings @ Lunalium Z
Ability: Wonder Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Shell Smash
- Photon Geyser
- Moongeist Beam
- Earth Power / Ice Beam
Improof:
Dawn Wings is the main wincon of this team. Very few Pokemon can deal with it after a Shell Smash due to its Z-Move, Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom, which can OHKO almost any Pokemon that does not resist it. There are also three Pokemon on this team that take very little or no damage from its STAB moves, meaining that Impostor can never utilize Dawn Wings against this team. Photon Geyser is chosen in order to remove Mega Audino, who will often be weakened by Yveltal's Sunsteel Strike or Mega Gyarados's Anchor Shot. Earth Power ensures that Alolan Muk cannot switch into Moongeist Beam, as Earth Power will KO it right after. Ice Beam is also an option in order to improve the Zygarde-Complete matchup. However, I find Earth Power to be a better option as without it, Alolan Muk is difficult to deal with as you must often use your Z-Move to remove it, potentially preventing you from breaking open a bulkier threat later in the game.
Blissey (F) @ Shed Shell
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Whirlwind
- Soft-Boiled
- Magic Coat
- Spikes
Improof:
Impostor is a very strong tool in USUM PH because of the capacity of sweepers to run all sorts of coverage moves and surprising abilities to catch defensive cores off guard. Even the bulkiest Pokemon can be caught unaware and suddenly removed. Having Impostor to scout opponents' movesets and abilities, as well as take advantage of poor improofing from the opponent, will always make a team much more consistent. Beyond transforming, Blissey has a secondary role on this team: to improof Dawn Wings. This is why it carries Whirlwind. Because of how easy it is for Impostor to heal mid-game, as well as the importance of keeping Yveltal and Mega Gyarados's HP high to improof the other team members, Blissey will often find itself as the preferred improof for Dawn Wings over either of the Dark-types. Shed Shell was chosen as the item of choice so that Blissey cannot be removed by Shadow Tag or Thousand Waves/Anchor Shot.
Zygarde-Complete @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Thousand Waves
- Strength Sap
- Reflect
- Haze
Improof:
Zygarde-Complete acts as the physical wall and secondary anti-setup Pokemon on this team. Its moveset is designed to deny the Impostor the ability to heal off of it midgame. Prankster Strength Sap will fail against opposing Dark-types, and Mega Gyarados will even reflect the Strength Sap and heal itself, meaning that either of the two Dark-types are free switch-ins. Both Dark-types can PP stall the Impostor; Yveltal is immune to all of its moves and discourages it from switching out due to Trick-or-Treat, while Mega Gyarados can trap the Impostor with Anchor Shot. Both can remove its item with Knock Off. Reflect is ran so that Zygarde-Complete can switch in on Huge Power Pokemon, mainly Mega Mewtwo X. Leftovers is the preferred item so that it can heal in case the opponent carries a Dark-type. Since Impostor will usually not run Leftovers itself, (and if they do, it will almost certainly be removed) this prevents the Impostor from taking advantage of this team defensively.
Swampert-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Wonder Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- U-turn
- Magic Coat
- Soft-Boiled
- Stealth Rock
Improof:
Mega Swampert is the final Pokemon on this team and provides a secondary Wonder Guard, a slow pivot, and a hazard setter. It has a decently strong U-turn and an immunity to opposing U-turn and Volt Switch, giving it a good matchup against opposing Wonder Guards. Magic Coat is chosen in order to ease the matchup against No Guard, and also to discourage the Impostor from setting Stealth Rock. Most Shadow Tag Pokemon cannot OHKO Mega Swampert and it can escape with U-turn, making Shed Shell unnecessary. Therefore, Safety Goggles is used for a Spore immunity. This Pokemon is the only Pokemon that Impostor can use to heal, but in exchange Dawn Wings can switch in on it for free, allowing it to potentially pick up a KO as a consequence.
Threats
Opposing Reflect Zygarde tend to pose an issue for this team since they do not typically run Strength Sap and as such, their healing cannot be blocked. If Zygarde lacks Reflect, then it will typically get worn down over the course of the game by Yveltal and Mega Gyarados until it is in range of Dawn Wings' +0 Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom. However, Reflect allows it to avoid pressure from Yveltal even if it is hit by Trick-or-Treat, making it a challenging opponent. Your best bet at defeating it is to try to trap it with Mega Gyarados and PP stall it. It is difficult to fully PP stall Reflect Zygarde-Complete with Mega Gyarados as it has 112 PP and Mega Gyarados only has 104 PP, which it will often spend on the Impostor. However, if you stall it out of either Haze or recovery, it will not be able to answer Dawn Wings anymore.
Wonder Guard Mega Gyarados is able to answer both Yveltal and Dawn Wings, avoid getting trapped by Zygarde-Complete and your own Mega Gyarados, and avoid item removal due to Knock Off immunity, making it very scary to face. It can also potentially trap and eliminate Dawn Wings with Pursuit. Your typical answer to Wonder Guard Mega Gyarados is to use U-turn and Stealth Rock from Mega Swampert to chip it down. If the Mega Gyarados is not Wonder Guard, then it can also potentially be trapped and/or have its item removed.
Let's Snuggle Forever tends to be a difficult move for this team to face, as 3 of its team members are weak to it. It is especially dangerous on Mega Mewtwo X; it can lure Zygarde-Complete in and then KO it, and the Impostor will also take heavy damage as it will copy Mega Mewtwo X's Psychic/Fighting type and become weak to Fairy. You can attempt to bait the Mega Mewtwo X's Let's Snuggle Forever with Strength Sap or a switch to one of your Wonder Guards.
No Guard is not an especially threatening matchup due to the presence of Magic Bounce Mega Gyarados and Magic Coat Mega Swampert. However, due to the lack of recovery on Dawn Wings, No Guard users are sometimes capable of breaking the defensive core by using Gastro Acid to force hazard damage. You must also play cautiously with Mega Gyarados, as one mispredict will render it KOed.
Replays
Regretfully, I don't have many replays, but I have a few. The team in these replays is very slightly different. The only changes are that Shed Shell Blissey is Shed Shell Chansey, an incredibly minute difference, and Magic Coat on Mega Swampert is Whirlwind, which is a minor change that happened because it was difficult to improof Mega Swampert.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2268972611?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2268479446?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2268477027?p2
Thanks for reading, and please consider this team!
Using mainly this team, I was able to climb to top 10 of the ladder.
This team has proven to be really effective at dealing with the meta threats and has powerful offensive and defensive threats alike, so I think it could be worthy of sample status.
Yveltal @ Lum Berry
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Trick-or-Treat
- Pursuit
- Knock Off
- Sunsteel Strike
Improof:
This mon is a really strong midgame breaker. Trick-or-Treat Knock Off puts huge pressure on balance cores because it can deal super effective damage to most Wonder Guards as well as removing their items. Pursuit deals critical damage to Wonder Guards trying to escape which sets up for a Dawn Wings sweep later. Sunsteel hits most Wonder Guards that are neutral to Dark after Trick-or-Treat, such as Mega Audino. Just one correct predict can cause huge damage to most defensive cores. Yveltal can notably trap and remove Meloetta, one of the biggest counters to Dawn Wings, without any prior chip needed. Lum Berry is for utility against Spore sweepers or Prankster Spore, as well as being able to absorb burns from Pokemon that it wants to beat, such as Mega Slowbro, Celesteela, or Primal Kyogre.
Gyarados-Mega @ Shed Shell
Ability: Magic Bounce
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Anchor Shot
- Knock Off
- Milk Drink
- Defog
Improof:
Mega Gyarados is here to improof the Yveltal. Magic Bounce prevents Trick-or-Treat from weakening it, and if the Impostor tries to stay in and chip Mega Gyarados down, they risk being trapped by Anchor Shot and PP stalled. It also serves as the Defogger for this team, matching up well into common hazard setters such as Mega Audino and Mega Slowbro. It also provides a secondary special check alongside Yveltal. Shed Shell is chosen as the item so that it cannot be trapped by Thousand Waves and PP stalled by Zygarde-Complete or Mega Steelix. It also allows it to avoid Shadow Tag users trapping and removing it with Let's Snuggle Forever.
Necrozma-Dawn-Wings @ Lunalium Z
Ability: Wonder Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Mild Nature
- Shell Smash
- Photon Geyser
- Moongeist Beam
- Earth Power / Ice Beam
Improof:
Dawn Wings is the main wincon of this team. Very few Pokemon can deal with it after a Shell Smash due to its Z-Move, Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom, which can OHKO almost any Pokemon that does not resist it. There are also three Pokemon on this team that take very little or no damage from its STAB moves, meaining that Impostor can never utilize Dawn Wings against this team. Photon Geyser is chosen in order to remove Mega Audino, who will often be weakened by Yveltal's Sunsteel Strike or Mega Gyarados's Anchor Shot. Earth Power ensures that Alolan Muk cannot switch into Moongeist Beam, as Earth Power will KO it right after. Ice Beam is also an option in order to improve the Zygarde-Complete matchup. However, I find Earth Power to be a better option as without it, Alolan Muk is difficult to deal with as you must often use your Z-Move to remove it, potentially preventing you from breaking open a bulkier threat later in the game.
Blissey (F) @ Shed Shell
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Whirlwind
- Soft-Boiled
- Magic Coat
- Spikes
Improof:
Impostor is a very strong tool in USUM PH because of the capacity of sweepers to run all sorts of coverage moves and surprising abilities to catch defensive cores off guard. Even the bulkiest Pokemon can be caught unaware and suddenly removed. Having Impostor to scout opponents' movesets and abilities, as well as take advantage of poor improofing from the opponent, will always make a team much more consistent. Beyond transforming, Blissey has a secondary role on this team: to improof Dawn Wings. This is why it carries Whirlwind. Because of how easy it is for Impostor to heal mid-game, as well as the importance of keeping Yveltal and Mega Gyarados's HP high to improof the other team members, Blissey will often find itself as the preferred improof for Dawn Wings over either of the Dark-types. Shed Shell was chosen as the item of choice so that Blissey cannot be removed by Shadow Tag or Thousand Waves/Anchor Shot.
Zygarde-Complete @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Thousand Waves
- Strength Sap
- Reflect
- Haze
Improof:
Zygarde-Complete acts as the physical wall and secondary anti-setup Pokemon on this team. Its moveset is designed to deny the Impostor the ability to heal off of it midgame. Prankster Strength Sap will fail against opposing Dark-types, and Mega Gyarados will even reflect the Strength Sap and heal itself, meaning that either of the two Dark-types are free switch-ins. Both Dark-types can PP stall the Impostor; Yveltal is immune to all of its moves and discourages it from switching out due to Trick-or-Treat, while Mega Gyarados can trap the Impostor with Anchor Shot. Both can remove its item with Knock Off. Reflect is ran so that Zygarde-Complete can switch in on Huge Power Pokemon, mainly Mega Mewtwo X. Leftovers is the preferred item so that it can heal in case the opponent carries a Dark-type. Since Impostor will usually not run Leftovers itself, (and if they do, it will almost certainly be removed) this prevents the Impostor from taking advantage of this team defensively.
Swampert-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Wonder Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- U-turn
- Magic Coat
- Soft-Boiled
- Stealth Rock
Improof:
Mega Swampert is the final Pokemon on this team and provides a secondary Wonder Guard, a slow pivot, and a hazard setter. It has a decently strong U-turn and an immunity to opposing U-turn and Volt Switch, giving it a good matchup against opposing Wonder Guards. Magic Coat is chosen in order to ease the matchup against No Guard, and also to discourage the Impostor from setting Stealth Rock. Most Shadow Tag Pokemon cannot OHKO Mega Swampert and it can escape with U-turn, making Shed Shell unnecessary. Therefore, Safety Goggles is used for a Spore immunity. This Pokemon is the only Pokemon that Impostor can use to heal, but in exchange Dawn Wings can switch in on it for free, allowing it to potentially pick up a KO as a consequence.
Threats
Opposing Reflect Zygarde tend to pose an issue for this team since they do not typically run Strength Sap and as such, their healing cannot be blocked. If Zygarde lacks Reflect, then it will typically get worn down over the course of the game by Yveltal and Mega Gyarados until it is in range of Dawn Wings' +0 Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom. However, Reflect allows it to avoid pressure from Yveltal even if it is hit by Trick-or-Treat, making it a challenging opponent. Your best bet at defeating it is to try to trap it with Mega Gyarados and PP stall it. It is difficult to fully PP stall Reflect Zygarde-Complete with Mega Gyarados as it has 112 PP and Mega Gyarados only has 104 PP, which it will often spend on the Impostor. However, if you stall it out of either Haze or recovery, it will not be able to answer Dawn Wings anymore.
Wonder Guard Mega Gyarados is able to answer both Yveltal and Dawn Wings, avoid getting trapped by Zygarde-Complete and your own Mega Gyarados, and avoid item removal due to Knock Off immunity, making it very scary to face. It can also potentially trap and eliminate Dawn Wings with Pursuit. Your typical answer to Wonder Guard Mega Gyarados is to use U-turn and Stealth Rock from Mega Swampert to chip it down. If the Mega Gyarados is not Wonder Guard, then it can also potentially be trapped and/or have its item removed.
Let's Snuggle Forever tends to be a difficult move for this team to face, as 3 of its team members are weak to it. It is especially dangerous on Mega Mewtwo X; it can lure Zygarde-Complete in and then KO it, and the Impostor will also take heavy damage as it will copy Mega Mewtwo X's Psychic/Fighting type and become weak to Fairy. You can attempt to bait the Mega Mewtwo X's Let's Snuggle Forever with Strength Sap or a switch to one of your Wonder Guards.
No Guard is not an especially threatening matchup due to the presence of Magic Bounce Mega Gyarados and Magic Coat Mega Swampert. However, due to the lack of recovery on Dawn Wings, No Guard users are sometimes capable of breaking the defensive core by using Gastro Acid to force hazard damage. You must also play cautiously with Mega Gyarados, as one mispredict will render it KOed.
Replays
Regretfully, I don't have many replays, but I have a few. The team in these replays is very slightly different. The only changes are that Shed Shell Blissey is Shed Shell Chansey, an incredibly minute difference, and Magic Coat on Mega Swampert is Whirlwind, which is a minor change that happened because it was difficult to improof Mega Swampert.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2268972611?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2268479446?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7purehackmons-2268477027?p2
Thanks for reading, and please consider this team!
It's been nearly two months since I last posted my views on how Pokemon are in this metagame and after some time witnessing further stages of development, my thoughts about some Pokemon have considerably changed. I'm not 100% sure about of the Pokemon I'm about to address should firmly change into the ranks I'm proposing and it has been debatable among the community since I last posted so I'd like to gather thoughts about them.
This was my previous thought about the viability rankings
S Rank
S
Chansey
Mewtwo-Mega-X
Wonder Guard
Zygarde-Complete
S-
Blissey
A Rank
A+
Doublade
Gengar-Mega
Groudon-Primal
Slaking
Steelix-Mega
A
Diancie-Mega
Greninja-Ash
Kartana
Mewtwo-Mega-Y
Regigigas
Solgaleo
A-
Gyarados-Mega
Lopunny-Mega
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane
Slowbro-Mega
B Rank
B+
Aggron-Mega
Celesteela
Deoxys-Attack
Metagross-Mega
Muk-Alola
Necrozma-Dawn-Wings
Necrozma-Ultra
Pikachu
Pheromosa
Rayquaza-Mega
Type: Null
B
Banette-Mega
Deoxys-Speed
Kyogre-Primal
Kyurem-Black
Yveltal
B-
Arceus
Articuno
Cresselia
Gardevoir-Mega
Giratina
Giratina-Origin
Guzzlord
Heracross-Mega
Lugia
Lunala
Marowak-Alola
Mawile @ Mawilite
C Rank
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ho-Oh
Registeel
Tyranitar-Mega
D Rank
Avalugg
Froslass
Groudon @ Red Orb
Sceptile-Mega
Blacklist - Do not discuss putting these on the VR
Any pure Fire-type for their Burn Up sets.
Changelog:
S
S Rank
S
Audino-Mega
A Rank
A+
Meloetta
Slowbro-Mega
A
Greninja-Ash
Muk-Alola
Necrozma-Dawn-Wings
Oranguru
Slaking
A-
Arceus
Gyarados-Mega
Hoopa-Unbound
Kartana
Regigigas
B Rank
B+
Celesteela
Groudon-Primal
Ferrothorn
Kyogre-Primal
Mewtwo-Mega-X
Umbreon
B
Bisharp
Gardevoir-Mega
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Houndoom-Mega
Magearna
Mewtwo-Mega-Y
Scizor-Mega
Type: Null
B-
Cresselia
Gengar-Mega
Sableye-Mega
Swampert-Mega
C Rank
Blissey
Chansey
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane
Pheromosa
D Rank
Aggron-Mega
Lopunny-Mega
Steelix-Mega
S
A Rank
A+
A
A-
B Rank
B+
B
B-
C Rank
D Rank
S-
A Rank
A+
A
A-
B Rank
B+
B
B-
C Rank
D Rank
Blacklist - Do not discuss putting these on the VR
Any pure Fire-type for their Burn Up sets.Pure Fire-types in the metagame don't stand very well as Wonder Guards as they for the most part are outclassed by other possible Wonder Guards such as Primal Groudon and Alolan Muk for having similar but less weaknesses, and usually higher defensive stats. However, the main strategy of a Pure Fire-type Pokemon with Wonder Guard is to utilize the move Burn Up, a move that removes a Pokemon's Fire-type after successfully hitting. With many viable Wonder Guards in the metagame, these types of Pokemon should find it hard to be able to successfully hit an attack, and even if they do, they can still be forced to switch either by phazing or by matchup, causing them to have to redo their main strategy. It is also worth noting that the ability of Wonder Guards to carry four moves in this metagame is a gift. Most of them use their four moves in order to support, recover themselves, boost stats, inflict status, and/or throw hazards. Their type combination is good enough to handle on their own without the absolute need to provide a move to get rid of their type. Pure Fire-type Pokemon who follow the Burn Up strategy can also struggle more heavily against Mold Breaker/Turboblaze/Teravolt Pokemon or Pokemon that have Photon Geyser or Moongeist Beam, making the entire point of the strategy lose any value it had.
Post to stack on explanation: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pure-hackmons.3656851/page-3#post-8375359
Post to stack on explanation: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pure-hackmons.3656851/page-3#post-8375359
Alright so the way I see things now are
Normal VR:
Blissey: S- -> SWhile Chansey is overall a bit better, Blissey still finds itself to be an immensely valuable alternative for many teams in the metagame. It mostly does the same job as Blissey and with oftentimes close effectiveness. Regarding Imposter, I deem Eviolite to not be as valuable as we once previously thought. While Eviolite is still a major item and one of the best for Chansey to use, I find that Imposter tends to love prioritizing on outspeeding the opposition with Choice Scarf, escaping Shadow Tag with Shed Shell, or being able to counteract Imposterproofing with a dedicated plate or Memory item. Choice Scarf in particular is an extremely good item to guarantee outspeeding the most dangerous offense threats in the metagame, without them being able to overcome you in dire moments where they can win a speed tie and OHKO back. In a metagame halfway dominated by enormous offense threats, Eviolite can more easily be overwhelmed upon losing speed ties. For stall teams, Eviolite is still the top item but these teams are more prone to Shadow Tag and giving the Imposter a Shed Shell heavily alleviates this issue, ensuring there's a great way out for Imposter each time. Shed Shell is also useful overall against people trying to use Arena Trap or Shadow Tag to counteract a transformed Imposter. Finally, there are times where it just wants Lum Berry or other items to get rid of status effects.
With all this being said, whenever Chansey prioritizes on Choice Scarf, Shed Shell, or any other item over Eviolite, it performs at nearly the same effectiveness as Blissey if not slightly worse due to a full HP Innards Out Blissey serving as a decent threat. I've mentioned before that bluffing Eviolite is valuable, but upon trying out Blissey for long enough, Blissey tends to decently bluff items as well due to its ability to run a myriad of them in the metagame. With Choice Scarf it oftentimes also doesn't need to bluff because the opponent either has a strong imposterproof or they just get overwhelmed by Scarf regardless of how predictable the item is.
Whenever Chansey runs Innards Out, it tends to be more effective than Blissey in cases where people try to play around it with incredibly low base power attacks, such as Ice Shard Kartana or U-Turn on Mega Audino. The lowered defenses help for a very specific set of cases whereas much of the time players prefer to save Innards Out nigh exclusively for the more extreme powerhouses on the opposing team. Blissey can easily get KOed by any massive powerhouse in the same way Chansey does, while being able to KO opposing Imposter Chansey.
Imposter Blissey can work around Innards Out Chansey and Innards Out Blissey can work around Imposter Chansey. Chansey and Blissey are interchangeable in many cases, with more advantages favoring the use of Chansey over Blissey. However, due to the ability to safely replace Chansey with Blissey in a large amount of cases for what it could do to stop Chansey, I find that even though Chansey is better, it's not better enough to separate Chansey and Blissey by rank. Blissey on its own is a highly nightmarish threat in the same manner unless your specific team composition runs dedicated low base power moves and the Blissey didn't receive some chipping ahead of time. Its ability to frequently replace Chansey is what I consider puts it on a similar level.
WG VR:
Alolan Muk: A -> A+After a while of thinking and having countless debates about Alolan Muk, the combination of reasonable arguments made to support this Pokemon and most Wonder Guards, new or former big names, slowly falling off overall, I've decided it's worth for Alolan Muk to be raised to A+. Alolan Muk needs a typically large support structure to work but when it gets that its job is to seal in victories against what's primarily special attackers. Most special attackers have to sacrifice ground coverage to opt for coverage against Meloetta, Mega Audino, and/or Steel-type Pokemon, which results in a combination of these Pokemon alongside Alolan Muk to be consistent in many battles. This role alone is more consistently useful than what Wonder Guards in A rank and below can consistently pull off nowadays, and they all tend to rely on more specific / rarer and harder to piece together team structures to be placed at their most effective. Alolan Muk still has the major exploit of being weak to Fissure and needing to sacrifice an item slot that could be played around without much difficulty in order for its teams to not be completely decimated by some of the best No Guard sets available, and a weakness to Fissure is significantly more difficult to cover up for than weaknesses most other Wonder Guards have, but No Guard itself, while fantastic isn't one of the most dominating threats in the metagame due to the variety of other Wonder Guards, Innards Out, revenge killers, or even occasional Sturdy users that answer it quite well. Our toxic gunk is able to sneak in and not have to worry in a fair chunk of high end matchups.
I'm not gonna lie though through lots of playing I've came to the conclusion that Fissure is the best OHKO move in the metagame largely for the coverage or STAB moldy moves that could work to pair well alongside it and the ability to harshly punish Alolan Muk, one of the most dominant Wonder Guard Pokemon in the metagame. Sheer Cold automatically gets blocked by more upper Pokemon it would want to hit with its type but can easily be overshadowed by combinations such as Fissure + Zap Cannon, Fissure + Sunsteel Strike, or Fissure + Moongeist Beam. Even Fissure + Sheer Cold can be effective in this metagame. There's a lot of versatility No Guard has that I'm mostly the only one really exploring in this game. I believe Alolan Muk may fall off to some extent if more people give No Guard the level of exploration I give it, but I also believe most Wonder Guards are very shaky on their own nowadays and I find myself usually wanting to use just a small handful.
Oh yeah I also believe Mega Slowbro isn't so much less problematic to run because it has far too many weaknesses the most powerful threats in the metagame actively love to exploit, especially when its weaknesses tend to be shared with other big names. From my experience it's quite a shaky Pokemon to run outside full-blown stall teams and even in them I find this Pokemon being prone to getting pressured by matchups more due to its sheer amount of vulnerabilities all at once. It's difficult for this Pokemon to properly synergize with the likes of other Pokemon it would like to stall with, such as Celesteela, Mega Gyarados, Meloetta, as just a combination of just a few moves (electric + bug for example) could ruin this team's day. That being said Mega Slowbro is still cracked a lot of the time when it wants to be when the opponents don't often supply themselves with the insane coverage used to take on multiple walls at once, leaving it still do the job of a high end Wonder Guard.
Celesteela: B+ -> A-I'd raise this Pokemon for much of the same reasons I'd keep Mega Slowbro in A+. Mostly because when its weaknesses are patched up by multiple other walls in full-on stall teams, being able to soak in spikes and run defog is a nice additional touch to keep the team lasting. It otherwise serves as a good defensive wall for softer-hitting Pokemon. I wouldn't raise it up higher because outside stall this Pokemon is quite very shaky. When it's the main wall of a team the team struggles more frequently because being the main wall means you have to take on Mega Mewtwo X, and so much as a life orb or small Stealth Rock chipping can cause Celesteela to not be able to switch into Photon Geyser very effectively. This Pokemon is strongly reliant on particular matchups and doesn't heavily thrive off that. Similar to the likes of Wonder Guard Kartana.
C and D rank: C & D rank -> nuked
No one should run Wonder Guards placed in this portion of the VR at all imo and most of them I placed there left, notably the Steel-types, are better off with Sturdy. Part of the main point of a Wonder Guard is for them to effectively block OHKO moves but when you're a huge tank, capable of taking many hits, and would really love to not get hit by Spore, either running Sturdy or trading them off with a different Wonder Guard why they play Prankster/Fur Coat is the more optimal route to go. The other Pokemon that I placed within these ranks would really rather just not run Wonder Guard at all and take a more offense-boosting oriented approach anyway.
Extra thoughts
ChanseyOk so I've came to the conclusion that this is undoubtedly the best Pokemon in the game. Unlike Mega Mewtwo X and Zygarde-Complete, it could really fit virtually anywhere on a team. I find it to be the most useful Pokemon in the metagame when Imposter, for scouting and revenge-killing, then the most threatening Pokemon in the metagame when Innards Out, as it forces you to walk around eggshells in order to overcome it unless you have a very hard answer. Chansey is incredibly centralizing and serves as the lifeblood of this game. Its specialty is to patch team compositions up, rather offensive or stally, to serve as a get out of jail card for bad matchups or when teams are otherwise facing some dire trouble. It's not mandatory, as Blissey can replace it and no Pokemon truly is mandatory in this metagame, but running Chansey rarely ever comes with any real liabilities regardless of how you build it. I've been thinking of moving this Pokemon to S+ or dropping MMX and Zygarde to S- for them to be paired alongside Blissey, but after multiple conversations and some more thinking, honestly... while Chansey is the best Pokemon in this metagame, Zygarde-Complete is not far off at all, Wonder Guard is about equally as important as Chansey, and Mega Mewtwo X is still the ever-dominating monster that devours anything with the right set. It's necessary to re-iterate that no Pokemon is required to have in this game and each of the S ranks strongly dominant as kings of specific playstyles, all of which are able to keep holding up in top level matches. I think keeping this Pokemon in S rank is the accurate approach, as it emphasizes multiple things being similarly dominant in the game as the game's most defining forces, while not making one Pokemon come off as more important/mandatory than the other. To be real all of these have to be prepared for to a very heavy degree, Chansey is largely team dependent but serves super well at patching up teams, and MMX/Zygarde are defining members of entire archetypes who pair incredibly well with any Chansey out there. This is probably just perfect.
Mega AlakazamThis Pokemon exists. I keep forgetting it does. Some people claim it has viability and from what I've seen it could potentially be a B- or B Pokemon maybe? I'd place this on some type of threat watch. It's been a while since Mega Alakazam showed up anywhere but its niches seem to be to post as a valuable lead for psysurge or otherwise spamming CFZs, all while outspeeding the likes of Mega Mewtwo Y while still hitting hard since it boasts a very high Special Attack stat of base 175.
Mega AudinoI got nothing new to say here. I just want people to express their honest thoughts on Mega Audino lol. It's still the most used Wonder Guard in the metagame and quite successful in many team compositions as it provides great synergy in many cases, but there's also lots of teams that opt out of this Pokemon.
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all hail the egg
Ok so I've came to the conclusion that this is undoubtedly the best Pokemon in the game.
My thoughts:It's been nearly two months since I last posted my views on how Pokemon are in this metagame and after some time witnessing further stages of development, my thoughts about some Pokemon have considerably changed. I'm not 100% sure about of the Pokemon I'm about to address should firmly change into the ranks I'm proposing and it has been debatable among the community since I last posted so I'd like to gather thoughts about them.
This was my previous thought about the viability rankings
S Rank
S
Chansey
Mewtwo-Mega-X
Wonder Guard
S Rank
S
Audino-Mega
A Rank
A+
Meloetta
Slowbro-Mega
A
Greninja-Ash
Muk-Alola
Necrozma-Dawn-Wings
Oranguru
Slaking
A-
Arceus
Gyarados-Mega
Hoopa-Unbound
Kartana
Regigigas
B Rank
B+
Celesteela
Groudon-Primal
Ferrothorn
Kyogre-Primal
Mewtwo-Mega-X
Umbreon
B
Bisharp
Gardevoir-Mega
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Houndoom-Mega
Magearna
Mewtwo-Mega-Y
Scizor-Mega
Type: Null
B-
Cresselia
Gengar-Mega
Sableye-Mega
Swampert-Mega
C Rank
Blissey
Chansey
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane
Pheromosa
D Rank
Aggron-Mega
Lopunny-Mega
Steelix-MegaZygarde-Complete
S-
Blissey
A Rank
A+
Doublade
Gengar-Mega
Groudon-Primal
Slaking
Steelix-Mega
A
Diancie-Mega
Greninja-Ash
Kartana
Mewtwo-Mega-Y
Regigigas
Solgaleo
A-
Gyarados-Mega
Lopunny-Mega
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane
Slowbro-Mega
B Rank
B+
Aggron-Mega
Celesteela
Deoxys-Attack
Metagross-Mega
Muk-Alola
Necrozma-Dawn-Wings
Necrozma-Ultra
Pikachu
Pheromosa
Rayquaza-Mega
Type: Null
B
Banette-Mega
Deoxys-Speed
Kyogre-Primal
Kyurem-Black
Yveltal
B-
Arceus
Articuno
Cresselia
Gardevoir-Mega
Giratina
Giratina-Origin
Guzzlord
Heracross-Mega
Lugia
Lunala
Marowak-Alola
Mawile @ Mawilite
C Rank
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ho-Oh
Registeel
Tyranitar-Mega
D Rank
Avalugg
Froslass
Groudon @ Red Orb
Sceptile-Mega
Blacklist - Do not discuss putting these on the VR
Changelog:Pure Fire-types in the metagame don't stand very well as Wonder Guards as they for the most part are outclassed by other possible Wonder Guards such as Primal Groudon and Alolan Muk for having similar but less weaknesses, and usually higher defensive stats. However, the main strategy of a Pure Fire-type Pokemon with Wonder Guard is to utilize the move Burn Up, a move that removes a Pokemon's Fire-type after successfully hitting. With many viable Wonder Guards in the metagame, these types of Pokemon should find it hard to be able to successfully hit an attack, and even if they do, they can still be forced to switch either by phazing or by matchup, causing them to have to redo their main strategy. It is also worth noting that the ability of Wonder Guards to carry four moves in this metagame is a gift. Most of them use their four moves in order to support, recover themselves, boost stats, inflict status, and/or throw hazards. Their type combination is good enough to handle on their own without the absolute need to provide a move to get rid of their type. Pure Fire-type Pokemon who follow the Burn Up strategy can also struggle more heavily against Mold Breaker/Turboblaze/Teravolt Pokemon or Pokemon that have Photon Geyser or Moongeist Beam, making the entire point of the strategy lose any value it had.
Post to stack on explanation: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pure-hackmons.3656851/page-3#post-8375359
Alright so the way I see things now are
Normal VR:
While Chansey is overall a bit better, Blissey still finds itself to be an immensely valuable alternative for many teams in the metagame. It mostly does the same job as Blissey and with oftentimes close effectiveness. Regarding Imposter, I deem Eviolite to not be as valuable as we once previously thought. While Eviolite is still a major item and one of the best for Chansey to use, I find that Imposter tends to love prioritizing on outspeeding the opposition with Choice Scarf, escaping Shadow Tag with Shed Shell, or being able to counteract Imposterproofing with a dedicated plate or Memory item. Choice Scarf in particular is an extremely good item to guarantee outspeeding the most dangerous offense threats in the metagame, without them being able to overcome you in dire moments where they can win a speed tie and OHKO back. In a metagame halfway dominated by enormous offense threats, Eviolite can more easily be overwhelmed upon losing speed ties. For stall teams, Eviolite is still the top item but these teams are more prone to Shadow Tag and giving the Imposter a Shed Shell heavily alleviates this issue, ensuring there's a great way out for Imposter each time. Shed Shell is also useful overall against people trying to use Arena Trap or Shadow Tag to counteract a transformed Imposter. Finally, there are times where it just wants Lum Berry or other items to get rid of status effects.
With all this being said, whenever Chansey prioritizes on Choice Scarf, Shed Shell, or any other item over Eviolite, it performs at nearly the same effectiveness as Blissey if not slightly worse due to a full HP Innards Out Blissey serving as a decent threat. I've mentioned before that bluffing Eviolite is valuable, but upon trying out Blissey for long enough, Blissey tends to decently bluff items as well due to its ability to run a myriad of them in the metagame. With Choice Scarf it oftentimes also doesn't need to bluff because the opponent either has a strong imposterproof or they just get overwhelmed by Scarf regardless of how predictable the item is.
Whenever Chansey runs Innards Out, it tends to be more effective than Blissey in cases where people try to play around it with incredibly low base power attacks, such as Ice Shard Kartana or U-Turn on Mega Audino. The lowered defenses help for a very specific set of cases whereas much of the time players prefer to save Innards Out nigh exclusively for the more extreme powerhouses on the opposing team. Blissey can easily get KOed by any massive powerhouse in the same way Chansey does, while being able to KO opposing Imposter Chansey.
Imposter Blissey can work around Innards Out Chansey and Innards Out Blissey can work around Imposter Chansey. Chansey and Blissey are interchangeable in many cases, with more advantages favoring the use of Chansey over Blissey. However, due to the ability to safely replace Chansey with Blissey in a large amount of cases for what it could do to stop Chansey, I find that even though Chansey is better, it's not better enough to separate Chansey and Blissey by rank. Blissey on its own is a highly nightmarish threat in the same manner unless your specific team composition runs dedicated low base power moves and the Blissey didn't receive some chipping ahead of time. Its ability to frequently replace Chansey is what I consider puts it on a similar level.
WG VR:
After a while of thinking and having countless debates about Alolan Muk, the combination of reasonable arguments made to support this Pokemon and most Wonder Guards, new or former big names, slowly falling off overall, I've decided it's worth for Alolan Muk to be raised to A+. Alolan Muk needs a typically large support structure to work but when it gets that its job is to seal in victories against what's primarily special attackers. Most special attackers have to sacrifice ground coverage to opt for coverage against Meloetta, Mega Audino, and/or Steel-type Pokemon, which results in a combination of these Pokemon alongside Alolan Muk to be consistent in many battles. This role alone is more consistently useful than what Wonder Guards in A rank and below can consistently pull off nowadays, and they all tend to rely on more specific / rarer and harder to piece together team structures to be placed at their most effective. Alolan Muk still has the major exploit of being weak to Fissure and needing to sacrifice an item slot that could be played around without much difficulty in order for its teams to not be completely decimated by some of the best No Guard sets available, and a weakness to Fissure is significantly more difficult to cover up for than weaknesses most other Wonder Guards have, but No Guard itself, while fantastic isn't one of the most dominating threats in the metagame due to the variety of other Wonder Guards, Innards Out, revenge killers, or even occasional Sturdy users that answer it quite well. Our toxic gunk is able to sneak in and not have to worry in a fair chunk of high end matchups.
I'm not gonna lie though through lots of playing I've came to the conclusion that Fissure is the best OHKO move in the metagame largely for the coverage or STAB moldy moves that could work to pair well alongside it and the ability to harshly punish Alolan Muk, one of the most dominant Wonder Guard Pokemon in the metagame. Sheer Cold automatically gets blocked by more upper Pokemon it would want to hit with its type but can easily be overshadowed by combinations such as Fissure + Zap Cannon, Fissure + Sunsteel Strike, or Fissure + Moongeist Beam. Even Fissure + Sheer Cold can be effective in this metagame. There's a lot of versatility No Guard has that I'm mostly the only one really exploring in this game. I believe Alolan Muk may fall off to some extent if more people give No Guard the level of exploration I give it, but I also believe most Wonder Guards are very shaky on their own nowadays and I find myself usually wanting to use just a small handful.
Oh yeah I also believe Mega Slowbro isn't so much less problematic to run because it has far too many weaknesses the most powerful threats in the metagame actively love to exploit, especially when its weaknesses tend to be shared with other big names. From my experience it's quite a shaky Pokemon to run outside full-blown stall teams and even in them I find this Pokemon being prone to getting pressured by matchups more due to its sheer amount of vulnerabilities all at once. It's difficult for this Pokemon to properly synergize with the likes of other Pokemon it would like to stall with, such as Celesteela, Mega Gyarados, Meloetta, as just a combination of just a few moves (electric + bug for example) could ruin this team's day. That being said Mega Slowbro is still cracked a lot of the time when it wants to be when the opponents don't often supply themselves with the insane coverage used to take on multiple walls at once, leaving it still do the job of a high end Wonder Guard.
I'd raise this Pokemon for much of the same reasons I'd keep Mega Slowbro in A+. Mostly because when its weaknesses are patched up by multiple other walls in full-on stall teams, being able to soak in spikes and run defog is a nice additional touch to keep the team lasting. It otherwise serves as a good defensive wall for softer-hitting Pokemon. I wouldn't raise it up higher because outside stall this Pokemon is quite very shaky. When it's the main wall of a team the team struggles more frequently because being the main wall means you have to take on Mega Mewtwo X, and so much as a life orb or small Stealth Rock chipping can cause Celesteela to not be able to switch into Photon Geyser very effectively. This Pokemon is strongly reliant on particular matchups and doesn't heavily thrive off that. Similar to the likes of Wonder Guard Kartana.
C and D rank: C & D rank -> nuked
No one should run Wonder Guards placed in this portion of the VR at all imo and most of them I placed there left, notably the Steel-types, are better off with Sturdy. Part of the main point of a Wonder Guard is for them to effectively block OHKO moves but when you're a huge tank, capable of taking many hits, and would really love to not get hit by Spore, either running Sturdy or trading them off with a different Wonder Guard why they play Prankster/Fur Coat is the more optimal route to go. The other Pokemon that I placed within these ranks would really rather just not run Wonder Guard at all and take a more offense-boosting oriented approach anyway.
Extra thoughts
Ok so I've came to the conclusion that this is undoubtedly the best Pokemon in the game. Unlike Mega Mewtwo X and Zygarde-Complete, it could really fit virtually anywhere on a team. I find it to be the most useful Pokemon in the metagame when Imposter, for scouting and revenge-killing, then the most threatening Pokemon in the metagame when Innards Out, as it forces you to walk around eggshells in order to overcome it unless you have a very hard answer. Chansey is incredibly centralizing and serves as the lifeblood of this game. Its specialty is to patch team compositions up, rather offensive or stally, to serve as a get out of jail card for bad matchups or when teams are otherwise facing some dire trouble. It's not mandatory, as Blissey can replace it and no Pokemon truly is mandatory in this metagame, but running Chansey rarely ever comes with any real liabilities regardless of how you build it. I've been thinking of moving this Pokemon to S+ or dropping MMX and Zygarde to S- for them to be paired alongside Blissey, but after multiple conversations and some more thinking, honestly... while Chansey is the best Pokemon in this metagame, Zygarde-Complete is not far off at all, Wonder Guard is about equally as important as Chansey, and Mega Mewtwo X is still the ever-dominating monster that devours anything with the right set. It's necessary to re-iterate that no Pokemon is required to have in this game and each of the S ranks strongly dominant as kings of specific playstyles, all of which are able to keep holding up in top level matches. I think keeping this Pokemon in S rank is the accurate approach, as it emphasizes multiple things being similarly dominant in the game as the game's most defining forces, while not making one Pokemon come off as more important/mandatory than the other. To be real all of these have to be prepared for to a very heavy degree, Chansey is largely team dependent but serves super well at patching up teams, and MMX/Zygarde are defining members of entire archetypes who pair incredibly well with any Chansey out there. This is probably just perfect.
This Pokemon exists. I keep forgetting it does. Some people claim it has viability and from what I've seen it could potentially be a B- or B Pokemon maybe? I'd place this on some type of threat watch. It's been a while since Mega Alakazam showed up anywhere but its niches seem to be to post as a valuable lead for psysurge or otherwise spamming CFZs, all while outspeeding the likes of Mega Mewtwo Y while still hitting hard since it boasts a very high Special Attack stat of base 175.
I got nothing new to say here. I just want people to express their honest thoughts on Mega Audino lol. It's still the most used Wonder Guard in the metagame and quite successful in many team compositions as it provides great synergy in many cases, but there's also lots of teams that opt out of this Pokemon.
Agree: Even though I think Chansey is better, Blissey is really effective, and unlike Regigigas vs Slaking, Blissey actually has a good reason to be used over Chansey. Disagree: I still think the weakness to Fissure is a massive problem for Alolan Muk, and most of the time it needs 2 other WGs not weak to Fissure on its team to work well. I also have the unpopular opinion of thinking Air Balloon sucks on it, since lots of Fissure users have Sunsteel or Moongeist, and the next most common ground type move is probably PDon's Thousand Arrows anyway. Agree: Resisting Sunsteel and Photon while still being immune to Fissure is very valuable on stall, and most stall teams should run Celesteela unless they have a good reason not to. I don't think I've seen WG Celesteela used outside of stall though, and I do agree it needs other partners to take on stuff like MMX. C and D rank: Kinda agree: I think most of the low ranked WGs don't really have much of a reason to be used, but I think Mega Swampert is an exception (and you put it in B- anyway), as well as maybe some that are currently UR, like Golisopod and Ho-oh. There are also some WGs above C that I've never seen being used in high level gameplay, and probably could also be nuked, like Umbreon and MMX.
Agree: The GOAT of Pure Hackmons. It's the only Pokémon I'd consider putting in S+. I think this is only viable as a psyspam lead. I don't really see this being good as a CFZ spammer, because imo Deoxys-Attack completely outclasses it in this role as it can run physical moves like Searing Sunraze Smash and Let's Snuggle Forever, and the worse bulk doesn't really matter if your goal is to OHKO everything. I think this is a bit worse than most other people think, probably because of the amount of Kartana I've been spamming. Still S-rank worthy though.
Hello, I made this team few times ago and got to 1500 elo in 30 games, therefore I'd like to make it a sample.
HOWEVER, I'm pretty sure it isn’t good enough yet , this is why I'm publishing it here to wonder if anyone could help me to improove it.
If you have any questions on why I made the team like this, don’t hesitate.
Thank you.
HOWEVER, I'm pretty sure it isn’t good enough yet , this is why I'm publishing it here to wonder if anyone could help me to improove it.
If you have any questions on why I made the team like this, don’t hesitate.
Thank you.
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so glad everyone agrees that every Innards chansey should be named that damn blob in honor of spamton
hello today i am going to post my usum vr. i will try to order but i'll probably change my mind on the order the next day. i am qualified or not depending on who you ask
S Tier
S+
(best mon vs offense, both in innards and impostor form. basically the only reason balance can function. almost every good team will have one)
S
(wonder guard. i didn't put it on the same level as chansey because wgs get cheesed easily in this gen compared to others. but with that being said, wg still controls the pace of the game and provides an incredible defensive tool, pivot, or even sweeper for all archetypes, so it's hard not to put it here)
S-
(mr. huge power himself. it can beat literally any wall with the right moves. amazing offensive type, very fast, not frail, incredible power, there's no downside to running it. also, because any one set is easily improofed, it does not bring impostor trouble for its team like a lot of other breakers. the danger is in trying to figure out what mmx's set is, and even when you do, you still might have to play around cfz nukes that can suddenly take any wall out)
(it can live every hit in the game, including special ones, no matter the type. timid kyuw ice beam only has a 56% chance to ohko, to show how bulky zyg-c is. prank shuts down almost any setup sweeper in the game and they often have to tech moveslots just for this one mon. it's also a pretty good bounce user cause it can live so much naturally. it's another piece that really holds balance together because if your zyg-c is at full hp it's really difficult to lose to jank)
(it's like chansey but it's not as good. the main reason to use it is to survive innards chans trying to improof, which can be huge against offense teams since they usually rely on it for that. it is really strong against innards offense, and innards offense is one of the best archetypes right now. but it can't play mindgames with innards or eviolite, and if it gets chipped at all then innards will ko it anyways. but it has an undeniable niche over chansey)
A Tier
A+
(really strong anti-offense mon with mguard and scarf pbond especially, and it usually forces balance to run maud or melo. it can pick and choose checks similar to wg smashers, but unlike those mons it has access to immediate power. it can also surprise its checks with abilities like tinted lens and mold breaker. similar to mmx, the guesswork is what makes it difficult to approach but any one set is easily improofed. it helps that the impostor usually does not want to come into mgar since it will take a lot from moongeist and there's also the possibility of self-improof with plate judgment. it isn't S- rank because although it can choose checks, it will get completely hardwalled by several special walls no matter what coverage it picks)
(incredible speed tier and stab photon will always keep mmy relevant as a mon who can break both offense and balance. it doesn't like the popularity of first impression, but it likes that mgar is forcing maud on a lot of balance. can run literally any ability it wants. also not S- rank for the same reason as mgar)
(necessary piece on offense right now to combat spore sweepers. it's one of the best mguard mons which is a difficult but important role to be good at. huge power straight up doesn't have walls. kart can also find itself on balances since it's easy to improof with an fc steel. it fits comfortably on every archetype and never disappoints. its main problem is its tendency to lose to fat steels or zyg-c, making the balance matchup an uphill climb, but it isn't strapped for moves so it can reasonably tech for these. it's also slower than a lot of other offense mons which hurts)
(huge power fakespeed sets run over offense and harvest sets run over balance. slaking can really do it all. it's really difficult to answer harvest since it can pp stall a lot of would-be checks like zyg-c. a lot of its answers are mons that are difficult to fit onto teams in the current meta. huge power is also great since it's one of the strongest priority mons in a meta that is really weak to priority. it's really naturally bulky and has a moongeist immunity which gives it lots of opportunities to come in. it's a bit difficult to fit on teams because it doesn't offer a lot of utility)
A
(can run whatever it wants. stag, mold, mguard, hp and more are all on the table, making it really scary to answer on preview, and impostor doesn't want to come in because it doesn't want to take stab ground moves. similar to slaking, teams don't usually have room to answer pdon, since the mons that answer it are very hard to fit on teams in the current meta. this means that any time pdon comes in, something is probably going to die. can be tough to improof at times since pdon is hard to wall and the impostor becomes incredibly bulky. also 90 speed as an offensive mon is a big problem, meaning it usually has to take the role as a breaker against balance, unless it's running stag in which case it will have power issues due to no stab mold move)
(fur coat and prank are both really great. they can both switch in on the majority of physical attackers, including mmx. it's great for improofing sunsteel sweepers like slak and kart. the ground type does give it stab twaves and elec immunity, which are useful. it makes it weak to water and neutral to ice, but you're not usually staying in to tank scald and you can live most ice hammers regardless. fighting coverage on mmx has been getting more popular which is pretty bad for mlix as hp cc will 2hko fc. but first impression and sunsteel have also been popular on mmx and mlix will tank those moves all day.
(maybe controversial placement? but if you're running anchor > twaves and you don't need to improof a mon with electric moves then magg is the better choice over mlix since it isn't weak to scald from waters like mbro and resists ice which is getting common to answer zyg-c. although m-lix is slightly bulkier specially, magg has a slightly stronger anchor and is faster at 50 speed compared to 30, which i feel like fc mons actually want in order to cripple wgs and other supports before they pivot out. besides that they're the same, and i don't see a reason to separate 2 mons that do the same thing with minute advantages both ways)
(fur coat is great, sturdy is awful. similar to mlix and magg, but the fight immunity is the main selling point. fight coverage is getting common recently which is great for doublade. it's big issue is that the meta is getting hostile to it; dark coverage is getting popular on plate smashers, and knock off / spectral are also seeing use on mmx. prank is alright but it has to sacrifice itself to haze on most special sweepers due to the geist weakness, making it a more inconsistent prank user than mlix or magg)
A-
(no guard is predictable, but 2 wg cores are really just not good answers to it. they lose to gastro acid spamming if a single hazard is up or if either of them get lured by anything, and either of the two will happen in most games. a lot of special wgs tend to run sthief as their only attacking move, giving mlop tons of easy switchins against balance. it's alright against offense due to outspeeding mmx, but usually offense will have a lot of tools for it, and being a mon offense can easily answer means the meta is not in mlop's favor. also it's not the worst huge power user)
(can fit lots of abilities, like bounce, prank, stag, hp, or even pheal. one of the strongest special sweeper answers, but can also sometimes wall phys mons since it resists all 3 moldy moves bulky sets free up its wg partners to not have to tank special sweepers, or it can support normal wgs that don't resist photon, like maud. the speed tier is annoyingly average though)
(really similar to mgyara in set diversity. it does basically the same thing but with a different defensive profile. maintains a niche over mgyara because bug/fight coverage are popular on special sweepers recently which hit mgyara but not ygod. it has the same middling speed tier problem as mgyara and the rocks weakness tend to hold it back in both offensive and defensive roles)
(strong fc user but decidedly worse than the steels. the wg version means that every team is gonna have an answer to this mon. but a lot of mmx want to run first impression as their only move to hit psychics, which fc tanks. the other moveslots are getting taken up by sunsteel, fighting coverage, and cfzs (which fc mbro all tank). strangely, this makes mbro anti-meta. but the weakness to u-turn and the increasing anti-psychic techs on offensive mons make it hard to use. prank is okay but suffers from a lot of the same issues as doublade)
(very strong harvest mon because it has stab on ltbts and sss alongside well-rounded stats, and also a very strong no guard mon because it has solganium z which helps it break wgs. a hp set is also alright because of its moldy stabs. it hates being weak to spectral, and in general being a psychic type in this meta is not great. it has trouble against a lot of common sunsteel answers like mbro, mgyara, and mlix)
B Tier
B+
(amazing breaker with lunalium. can sport a lot of scary abilities like no guard, mold, innards, or even adapt. pretty much runs what wg ndw runs. it really hates being 4x weak to spectral and knock though, especially when spectral is so common on specially defensive wgs)
(lower than lunala due to being slower, frailer, and its innards set being much worse than lunala's. but the power boost actually does matter. can ultra burst, but it's worse than lunalium. also can surprise people because of the popularity of wg)
(a great stag mon since dascent can take out most offensive mons and clangsoul ohkoes zyg-c. mixed offenses also let it tech whatever, so it can run like any ability that it wants to. in particular, mold is pretty underrated since a lot of wgs don't resist flying and zyg-c loses to dragon stab. it's down in B+ tier since while it can do anything, it's not great at any of those roles besides stag, just good at them)
(needs support like tailwind, webs, or paraspam, and it's not difficult to see coming. but even if you don't get the tailwind setup, it still puts pressure on the opponent without even coming out, and when it does come out properly it sweeps most teams. you basically have to outplay the pika user in the game, and even if you do they might just go for a speed tie. it just cannot play the game until the last few turns though, which makes it very ride or die, but it works more often than not and it's almost always paired with prankster so it doesn't need to be relied on for setup control)
(need people to realize deo-s isn't a bad mon. its weakness to spectral and u-turn make it a lot worse against balance, which is why it's ranked lower, but it's gonna put those teams in gastro lock all the same. outspeeding deo-a and especially mmy is massive for the offense matchup. it also beats mlop itself who has become the face of no guard nowadays)
(bias? maybe, but this mon is legitimately one of the best harvest users against the current meta. super bulky so it gets tons of chances to boost and when it's boosted, absolutely nothing tanks it. stab clangsoul makes it so pranks cannot neutralize it, since it will omniboost with each hit, and it also lets it beat non-wg normals. as for the wg normals, they will usually die to sss because tina-o has good 120/120 mixed offense. it's very resistant to priority since alongside its massive bulk, it's immune to espeed and resists first impression. its only problems are being weak to spectral and its speed tier)
(the speed tier is the main reason to run this. outspeeding mmy is great for anti-offense measures on offense teams. the mixed offenses means it can tech any coverage in the game. but priority is huge right now which seriously hurts deo-a. it usually needs outside support like psysurge or it needs to run mguard sash which cuts into its power. requiring support as a frail offensive mon limits the kinds of teams deo-a can reasonably appear on)
B
(a great harvest mon. its advantage over solgaleo is the speed tier, being able to outspeed some good mons like ygod and kart. it's ranked lower than solg because it doesn't have a z-move so it's linear)
(stronger than solg but frailer and slower, so solg is usually the better choice because its ability provides the power. however, ndm's power boost lets it do stuff like 2hko mbro with +2 sss which solg can't do. its other niche over the other two is access to ultra burst, which really doesn't help defensively but does boost the speed tier by a lot and increase photon's power on no guard sets)
(pixi is great against offense so it can't go too low, but it's just horrible against balance. you'll never break any wg core or phys wall on their team, unless you're boomburst in which case you'll really never break any wg core on their team. the only prank it beats is mbro since all of them are steel except zyg-c who dodges the 2hko from espeed and the ohko from boomburst unless it's pixie plate, and even then it needs ada for espeed to 2hko. moldy moves from it do nothing because they're unstabbed. as for other sets, stag is pretty cool but it's kind of a worse stag mray. mold smash cannot find opportunities to set up against offense and is a matchup fish against balance since you have to choose between cfz nuke to ohko wgs or coverage for steels)
(underrated huge power mon, mainly because it's not really a breaker but instead a strong revenge killer since the speed tier lets it pursuit trap weakened threats. also a good stag mon due to outspeeding the 130s. its problem is just not being strong enough and not having stab on mold. also the low bulk and first impression weakness means it struggles against prio users)
(water bubble is good don't @ me. it's a matchup fish since it has to choose which special wall it wants to beat in the same way mgar and mmy do, but unlike them it's too slow to threaten offense unboosted. but if it sets up you pretty much won the game. not a single prank, including zyg-c, beats it 1v1. the natural bulk also lets it survive priority sometimes. mold sets are good too since it has such huge special attack and even the water resistant wgs don't want to take a specs or +2 steam eruption)
B-
(stab first impression is amazing on a huge power, and it has stab on sunsteel as well, so it will usually do something in every game. it's also pretty bulky for an offensive mon and has a great defensive type so it can often tank a hit. but it's just so slow that it will often have to trade instead of being able to threaten full-out sweeps like other huge powers)
(its niche is access to ultranecrozium z so it has access to ltbts without having to give up a moveslot for it. this makes unecro really scary to face once it's set up, since it can afford tons of coverage moves and rely on its nuke to beat whatever it can't cover. it even has dragon stab to beat zyg-c. but its defensive type is straight up bad, and its bulk is serviceable but when your defensive type is bad it really exacerbates having average bulk. this mainly matters because it can't run sash. being 1 point slower than 130s is really unfortunate as well. this makes it hard for unecro to get going and makes it pretty bad against offense as well)
(a perfect speed tier and offensive type for stag. its speed tier is high enough to comfortably run a power boost item over scarf, so its power issue is mitigated by that. spore immunity is also pretty helpful. mainly hurt by its frailty due to its inability to run sash. if it does run sash it gets way too weak. also the high power special dragon and grass moves are really bad, they're always inaccurate or lower your stats)
(similar to msciz but has stronger priority and fight stab to hit steels. lack of stab on a moldy and low speed tier really suck though, it means all it really does is click its priority move and then leave. but having such a strong priority option means it can't go too low)
(its niche is access to stab shadow sneak, which is a great move since priority is big right now to deal with offense. it's pretty much the same as mhera and all of the issues with mhera apply to this mon as well)
(decent no guard mon with stab zap cannon to hit some wgs like mgyara, mbro, and steela. zap cannon lets it hit flying types so it can run fissure to beat teams that overrely on alomuk. speed ties mlop which is unfortunate but if you hit it with zap cannon then it's pretty helpless for the rest of the game. sees less play than other no guards since it's pretty difficult to improof and it doesn't see a lot of opportunities to come in)
(steel/flying is an incredible type, but the stats are just not good enough. it gets 2hkoed by a lot of random stuff that it should live. but the type makes it a good enough prank user)
(pidgeotite. can run illusion to lure walls or stag to trap slower mons before ohkoing. after mega evolving it can just be a normal no guard. similarly to mlop, it's immune to sthief and resists uturn, and in addition it's immune to tspikes which are getting more common recently. being slower than 130s and its frailty makes it pretty awful vs offense, especially since its lack of item means it can never trade. its rocks weakness is also a problem vs balance)
(it can outspeed 150s and has stab u-turn and first impression, which makes it a decent anti-offense mon. it also does well into balances that overrely on wgs with bug weaknesses, like melo, mbro, and mgyara. it keeps up against prank and fc because its main stab is u-turn, so it will control the momentum. but it's just way too frail and unlike deo-a, has no stab moldy, so it's really just a matchup fish. it's just waiting to die to priority, and if any wg on balance walls it then it does way worse into that matchup)
C Tier
(an improvement over deo-a if you're only using special moves since it has superior bulk. but the inability to use spectral, sunsteel, mixed coverage, or basically any prio move makes mzam worse most of the time. still, it has a clearly defined niche, and it works well when you use it for the same reasons deo-a works well, so it can't go too low)
(nice stag user to revenge kill 130s + mlop and mmy without needing scarf. it's a pretty good tool against offense just for the speed alone. the problem is that its balance mu is trash. any fc or prank is gonna wall it forever, and it doesn't do well into most wgs because barely any wgs are weak to rock or flying and it doesn't have a stab moldy)
(like pixi mdia but the offensive type is worse and it's weak to rocks. ice weaknesses are just not common nowadays because of no guard. but a lot of the ice resists are water type so a stab freeze dry will do a lot of damage to them. it means that kyub can beat some mons mdia can't, like mbro and mpert, and it also means it will do better against prank mons since it will at least beat zyg-c and mbro and will hit mlix for more damage than mdia will. but it's undeniably worse against offense than mdia and being good against offense is kyub's point)
(gyaradosite. completely neturalized by prankster, and impostor and priority can also stop it easily. it's often forced to mega early against offense for the dark type, which creates a lot of 50/50s that are bad for it. but if it actually manages to boost with no problem, then it's not wallable. illusion and type change help to create additional setup opportunities)
(a good mold mon since its stabs already hit everything except for mlix, which means it can run spore last. having such an easy improof makes sure it won't run over your own team. but zekrom just offers zero utility and it has a pretty poor speed tier as well. it also requires support from a pokemon that you can't just slap on teams, so zekrom only fits on really specific balances. can also run galvanize if you want to meme)
(prank and bounce are nice if you want a geist immunity for those roles, but there's basically always better special walls. it will usually get outdone by darks, normal wgs, or even impostor base form. but if you specifically need a prank or bounce and you want to dodge bug/poison/ice coverage, which isn't that unreasonable of a situation, then arc could fit)
D Tier
(really similar to mbane where it can revenge kill stuff with shadow sneak, and it's significantly stronger than mbane. thick club also lets it use sunsteel reliably since even though it isn't stab, it has the equivalent of a ~205 attack stat, so sunsteel will do tons. but it's just so, so difficult for it to work in practice. its slow speed, low bulk and lack of an item means that all it can do is click sneak and hope it kills. it will eventually be forced out because of this, and with its rocks weakness it will take heavy damage coming back in. so pretty much any team can beat it by just forcing it out a couple times and watching it chip itself)
(its main job is to be a prankster user that has curse, which can pressure balance teams pretty hard midgame. but it doesn't answer anything that hard except maybe for hp fakespeed slak, since it doesn't resist any really important types anymore. in a meta where teams are trying to compress as many roles as possible, it's hard to justify gira just kind of being there in most matchups)
(the only mon immune to both sheer cold and fissure, letting it run bounce to be the best switch in to mlop in the game. it falters as a standalone no guard answer because the ones who aren't named mlop or deo-s are always running other attacking moves, which articuno won't take for long. it's also 4x weak to rocks which blows)
(i really wanted to ur this mon but its ability to force trades is undeniable. it's immune to all non-mold priority and mold priority is rare nowadays. it can't be chipped by wgs, and with sash it can trade with any non-ghost, physical or special, which even innards chans can't do. but it's shedinja. it will lose instantly to hazards, status, and ghost types, which you'll see present on every team. teams with magic bounce or magic coat wgs can also easily force it out. teams will prep for shed without even trying. but there's nothing that can do what shed does, even if it's a gimmick)
thanks for reading
S Tier
S+
(best mon vs offense, both in innards and impostor form. basically the only reason balance can function. almost every good team will have one)S
(wonder guard. i didn't put it on the same level as chansey because wgs get cheesed easily in this gen compared to others. but with that being said, wg still controls the pace of the game and provides an incredible defensive tool, pivot, or even sweeper for all archetypes, so it's hard not to put it here)S
there isn't really an s-tier wg to me, they all have notable weaknesses. there's nothing as good as bw spirit or oras xern
A
(yeah i think melo is the best wg, and what of it? spectral goggles melo is a game changer against the offense mu since it means that most special sweepers aren't taking you on for most of the game. maud can't do the same because due to the lack of photon resist, psychic types will often ohko or cripple it at +2. melo also has 2 weaknesses with low power base moves which gives it good odds as a general switch into any special attacker. BUT, the bug weakness on melo is incredibly damning against balance teams because pretty much every team will have a u-turn pivot slower than melo. because the only attacking move it can really afford is spectral, it struggles to grab momentum for its team midgame against opposing balance. it also hurts it against offense because bug buzz and first impression have been very popular recently due to the high amount of psychic- and dark-type wgs. but despite all this, melo is still the best anti-offense wg in my book. there's nothing that tanks special threats like it. in a different meta i wouldn't put melo first, but i think usum's best playstyle is offense and a wg that does well against offense should be regarded as better than one that does well against balance)
(very close second to melo. undeniably the best wg for balance. it is just ridiculously tanky and even lives a lot of super effective boosted hits. its lack of pivot weakness and slow speed makes it much easier for it to control the pace of the game compared to melo. its overall higher bulk than meloetta makes it a stronger general wall as well. it is able to serve as a one-time switch for a lot of special sweepers when they're boosted, giving it a good mu against offense. maud's nature as a one-time near-universal special check is the kind of role best utilized on a bulky offense team that utilizes pivots to switch into key threats a couple of times and retain momentum. the teams it actually finds itself on are bulky balances that want to switch into threats repeatedly. it has a presence on these structures due to the need for a special wall and the aforementioned pivot immunity giving maud the favor over melo and the dark-types, in addition to the fact that these teams often run mega slowbro as the other wg and don't want to stack weaknesses by adding a second wg weak to bug. when maud is relied on as the main special wall, it will crumble more often than not due to its lack of a photon resist, yet it is repeatedly added because its alternatives don't control the pace as well. maud is also weak to sunsteel, perhaps the best moldy move due to a lack of immunity which also has a 200 bp cfz version of it, which makes it really susceptible to lures or trapping especially since it risks getting invalidated in the special photon mu if it doesn't run goggles. this makes it even more unreliable as the main special wall it often is forced to be. maud is not getting everything it wants out of its kit in this meta while melo often is. but in a bulkier meta i would probably put maud first)
(one of the best special walls and easily the best dark wg in my book since it's the only one who has bulk and isn't weak to no guard. a resistance to all moldy moves makes it a very reliable tank, even with the surge of bug coverage. it can pretty much run whatever 4 moves it wants. it isn't always expected since it can run many different abilities. its smash set is pretty good, but it can suffer from low bp due to lack of stab, and it also hates prankster. it is held back by the bug weakness and its difficulty in controlling pace like other wgs. this would usually make it pretty irrelevant vs balance, but stab knock off lets it hold its own vs the popular psychic-types on balance and also lets it cripple pranksters. it's another pokemon that's great against offense, which is more important than balance right now)
(undoubtedly the best wonder guard at switching into sunsteel. it also is one of the few wonder guard pokemon who can reasonably switch into mmx, pdon, slak, and other very scary physical threats into balance. it is one of the slowest pokemon in the meta, making it one of the most reliable pivots and hazard controllers, both for setting and removing. these are sought out traits that no other wonder guard can do at once, traits that see some pokemon added to teams when they possess only one of them, so mbro is amazing role compression for balance. this is why you will see many different special walls on balance, but the physical wall will usually be mbro, usually alongside another physical wall such as zyg-c or mlix. unfortunately mbro is very easy to tech for, due to having many common weaknesses and low special defense. it also gets chipped easily in the balance matchup because it will often get hit by faster u-turns as it pivots out, combined with taking lots of hazard damage since it tends to run defog a lot. so similarly to maud, it will crumble when it is relied on as the main physical wall. unlike maud, is it almost never relied upon for this role because there are a lot of other strong physical walls like the aforementioned zyg-c and mlix. but also unlike maud, it is very risky to try to be a one-time check to physical threats since they can tech for mbro so easily. its matchup into offense is also rough due to the popularity of mmy, grass move kart, mgar, and dark-types on those structures. mbro ends up needing support to do its job, but there's no other physical wall that compresses as many roles as it)
(the best smash wg mon. +2 mmm will shred most defensive cores, and base moongeist off of 157 spa isn't a joke either. wg makes it much more difficult to revenge since it becomes immune to most forms of priority, particularly all of the ones that are popular like ice shard and first impression. it also gives it easy opportunities to set smash up. it importantly enables its defensive teammates to run more useful abilities, like prank and fc, making it a great cleaner on balance teams. its main weakness is having to choose between beating maud, melo, alomuk, mgyara, and zyg-c with only 2 moveslots. it will always be walled by something, giving it an inconsistent matchup against balance. luckily, it isn't difficult to tailor its teammates to beat the pokemon ndw can't cover, since the archetypes it attracts usually come with a strong defensive backbone)
(i really wanted to put it b-rank but i have to give it up, alomuk gives so many special attackers trouble and the meta favors it right now. a lot of special photon and geist sweepers favor moonblast, secret sword/aura sphere or bug buzz as their dark coverage move which completely misses alomuk. it can also clear toxic spikes. it destroys plate smashers since they never have room to run coverage for it. the very obvious problem is that it is weak to ground, and air balloon just does not cut it, so you have to have another plan for no guard since you can't just hope they aren't fissure. a number of balance teams aren't able to afford alomuk since they can't fit another no guard check. it restricts teambuilding the most of any of its peers. but the unique and important strengths it provides cannot be overlooked)
B
(tons of sunsteel and photon sweepers miss coverage for steela, since bug / fighting coveage is in right now. steela becomes a great anti-meta piece because of this. it also has an immunity to all hazards except rocks which it is neutral to, making it one of the best defoggers and giving it a strong balance matchup. its main weakness is just the lack of stats. its mixed bulk is good enough to do what it needs to, but it's not enough to consistently switch in on threats. it's slow, but not slower than maud and mbro, so it's not getting slow pivots as much as it wants. this means it's going to get overwhelmed easily, limiting the kinds of teams it can show up on)
(the best wg sunsteel sweeper. kart, similarly to mgyara, is capable of running many different abilities and therefore surprising its opponent with wg. stab grass coverage also lets it overpower water-types often used to tank sunsteel. similarly to ndw, it can free up defensive teammates to run better abilities. unfortunately improofing brings a lot of problems for kart. if it's run on offense, then you'll usually have to trade to improof it through sash/innards/prank dbond since kart will ohko everything, resists most priority moves and also usually has the physical bulk to tank one. if it's run on balance, it facilitates the need of an fc steel or prank zyg, limiting the types of teams it can reasonably appear on. it also needs fire memory over sash if it wants to hit steel-types since it isn't improofable on balance otherwise)
(a one-time switch turned to the max. primal kyogre can survive almost any hit, physical or special, boosted or otherwise. it is one of the most reliable special checks since special sweepers will pretty much never run coverage for it and its massive 100/160 special stats let it tank any move. it is also immune to pivot which means other wgs can't take advantage of its presence. it also has a naturally strong matchup into pdon and sunsteel users, pokemon who are notably difficult to switch in on, and it can cripple them with steam or spectral. this makes it the absolute best pivot for offensive teams that want a pokemon to absorb a couple hits to shift momentum into the team's favor. it is knocked down a peg because it does pretty badly into huge power. mmx ohkoes it with photon and even some of the sunsteel users can break it, either with the right coverage or by sheer force, since pogre only has 90 def. it also has trouble fitting on teams because it calls for a specific archetype. overall it is a good piece for offense, but it struggles to find an identity for itself at times)
(a sunsteel resist who is immune to pivot and has a slow, strong u-turn is definitely a desirable set of traits for balance. mpert often finds itself improofing sunsteel + electric since it has a unique type combo. it suffers from the same stats issue as celesteela where nothing is quite high enough to distinguish itself defensively, except it's neutral to photon which is why it's lower than steela)
(a completely self improof wg smasher with plate judgment. it is more flexible in regards to the teams it can find itself on compared to ndw, since its photon immunity gives it lots of opportunities to switch in or create mindgames on offense. it has the same problem as ndw when it comes to choosing who to beat, except it is much more pronounced for hoopa because it is also locked into a select few judgment types and it cannot use moongeist or sunsteel, otherwise it goes against its self-improof nature. it also has a 4x bug weakness, making it very susceptible to first impressions from offense and u-turns from balance. this means it requires team support to scout bug moves, some of which come from huge powers that are difficult to scout due to their high power nature. offense teams often cannot risk their resources to scout bug moves at all. this makes hoopa a naturally inconsistent sweeper)
C
(it's a decent sunsteel resist but its main deal is not to resist anything specific, it's to be immune to spore and have the slowest pivot in the game. it's also great against hazards since it resists rocks, is immune to tspikes, and is actually helped by webs. this helps it be a better general pivot. it's also able to improof sunsteel + bolt strike + tarrows, although zyg-c usually does it better. this is a nice niche to have and makes it useful for balance, but it also means it isn't usually the most active contribution to the team)
(noted niche due to being immune to photon and faster than mmx and mgar, but there's nothing that it wants to do with it. as a smash sweeper it's just a worse version of hoopa, sporting the same coverage problems and the same bulk issues but without stab on photon this time. as a support, it usually has to commit all of its moveslots to subpass or other cheese to do something, meaning if it surprises the opponent once it will never do it again. the main point of wg ash gren is to be a smasher that can revenge kill mgar and mmx, but even with being faster it has to watch out for scarf mgar or first impression mmx which are becoming more common to deal with offense)
(similar to ferro, it doesn't really resist anything much, except perhaps for improofing some sunsteel users. instead, it thrives on having a strong matchup into balance due to its powerful stab u-turns. it also make for an emergency check to mmx since it dodges the 2hko from huge power photon, but it's a big risk)
(grouped them together since they're the same. very sturdy special walls who can take a lot of the popular coverage like bug buzz, dark pulse, moonblast, and even stab photon. they will die to fight coverage though and fight coverage has been on the rise recently. they also have a bad matchup into every phys breaker for obvious reasons. you can fool people into thinking it's impostor or innards on preview, which might lead them to make more conservative plays earlygame. chansey's better than blissey in most ways - it can run eviolite and it has 50 speed to speed tie maud and alomuk for slow pivots - but if you aren't running a pivot move or eviolite, then you can try blissey out instead)
(grouped them together since they're the same. more offensive wgs who are pretty easy to improof since you only really need a sunsteel resist most of the time. unique since they have stab espeed so they can act as speed control alongside their sweeping role. they can also wall some geist sweepers who don't run photon or fight coverage. they don't lack defensive utility particularly, but they don't have a lot of it, and they aren't as good at sweeping as other wg smashers, so it's tough to want to use them.)
(similar to alomuk but it resists sunsteel and has better phys bulk. geist sweepers use earth power and fight coverage a lot, but special photon users will usually favor sludge / buzz / moonblast instead, giving incin one of the safest profiles into special photon users overall. the big problem is the weakness to ground so you have to build really carefully when you use it. it has some bad weaknesses like fighting and rocks (sr) so it's often outclassed by alomuk. mainly used for specific improofs)
D
(like pogre but it can wish pass and it also has higher phys bulk. it also is immune to pivots which helps it in the balance matchup. but it has 65 speed so it's at that range where you outspeed all the slow pivots on balance anyway, so you're not really grabbing momentum. wish is fucking awful so it's not a real niche. so your actual niche is being more physically tanky than other water wgs except for mbro, who is weak to u-turn. usually you're getting outdone by fc steels, but if you need a wonder guard alomomola works fine)
(well rounded normal wg, it tanks moongeist pretty well. my question is when and why would you use this? there's definitely better geist improofs out there since fighting coverage has always been popular, and arceus is generally suited to running different abilities like bounce or prank. but if you need a mixed wall geist resist and you don't want a u-turn weak and maud won't work for whatever reason, then i guess arceus is your guy. and honestly i've been in that situation more than once so i can't even say it's not real)
(complete lack of bulk seriously does it in. if it's not immune to the opponent's move it will probably 2hko. the popularity of moongeist / sunsteel / moonblast is really bad for msab. it's a terrible special wall because most moongeists will put it on watch. it is similar to ferrothorn in that it is slower than everything else and exists not to tank hits, but to set up momentum. but it gets opened up way easier and is also a lot more vulnerable to hazards in comparison to ferro, so there isn't usually a reason to pick it. but a lot of mmx nowadays are choosing bug / ice / dark / fight coverage over fairy, or making their fairy coverage lsf only. mhera has also been on the rise and that mon doesn't really run fairy coverage a lot either. this means the meta is actually in msab's favor for once. ferro doesn't have a chance against huge powers, but msab can sometimes completely wall them, and as it's one of the best pivots it can completely control the pace in certain matchups. it's really matchup fishy but it's really strong if you get the proper matchup)
(like msciz but it is a lot slower, even slower than mbro, and it still has 135 atk for a strong u-turn so it can control pace really well. but the bulk, which is already dicey on mcsiz, is basically nonexistent on escav in comparison, so it really is a park and bark mon who is just there in a lot of matchups)
(its main draw is to have a really strong and slow volt switch. it outspeeds mbro but underspeeds maud which is basically the perfect speed tier. there are stronger electrics, but they are weak to ground or ice and vikavolt is not. it can improof a lot of the same type combos that ferrothorn can. but it's really bad into most breakers and volt switch as the pivot move is always dicey. it's also weak to rocks)
(bad plate smasher, it's basically worse hoopa. you also can't run more than 1 anti psychic move since you'll hit yourself, so mmy is forced into lame coverage combos a lot. it also has a bad matchup against balance because it sucks into the special walls and needs to have lucky coverage to win. but it does outspeed mmx / mgar / mlop which could be big for the offense mirror if you really need a wg. it's also a big surprise since mmy can run a lot of other abilities and usually doesn't run wg)
(gyaradosite. the lack of an item and the reliance on power trip (since all the dark stab is awful) means that any prankster just sits on you forever. also you are very weak to priority post-mega and impostor can reverse sweep on a speed tie so you can't really sweep vs any archetype ever until the lategame)
(it's like mgyara but it's not weak to electric or grass. in return it sacrifices sunsteel resist and becomes extremely passive. umbreon is also one of those mons that really wants to be a slow pivot but it's not actually that slow. it doesn't even underspeed steela. but it's definitely useful for an improof somewhere)
(sablenite. msab already dies to anything that hits it neutral so base sab isn't really any different, except you get a one-time magic bounce. base sab has 50 speed which is really annoying since it can't slow pivot on some of the slow mons now. also when you become bounce you lose your wg, so it's tough to confidently mega evolve in most situations)
(like other dark wg smashers but it can run bug buzz since it's not weak to bug. but it has no stab photon like hoopa and no speed like ashgren and it's also weak to rocks and fissure so like it sucks really bad)
(this mon sucks but i have to mention it since one time i built a life orb mguard pdon set with shell smash / mind blown / freeze-dry / sunsteel and found out ho-oh was the only wg who could improof it. so i can't say it doesn't have a niche)
there isn't really an s-tier wg to me, they all have notable weaknesses. there's nothing as good as bw spirit or oras xern
A
(yeah i think melo is the best wg, and what of it? spectral goggles melo is a game changer against the offense mu since it means that most special sweepers aren't taking you on for most of the game. maud can't do the same because due to the lack of photon resist, psychic types will often ohko or cripple it at +2. melo also has 2 weaknesses with low power base moves which gives it good odds as a general switch into any special attacker. BUT, the bug weakness on melo is incredibly damning against balance teams because pretty much every team will have a u-turn pivot slower than melo. because the only attacking move it can really afford is spectral, it struggles to grab momentum for its team midgame against opposing balance. it also hurts it against offense because bug buzz and first impression have been very popular recently due to the high amount of psychic- and dark-type wgs. but despite all this, melo is still the best anti-offense wg in my book. there's nothing that tanks special threats like it. in a different meta i wouldn't put melo first, but i think usum's best playstyle is offense and a wg that does well against offense should be regarded as better than one that does well against balance) (very close second to melo. undeniably the best wg for balance. it is just ridiculously tanky and even lives a lot of super effective boosted hits. its lack of pivot weakness and slow speed makes it much easier for it to control the pace of the game compared to melo. its overall higher bulk than meloetta makes it a stronger general wall as well. it is able to serve as a one-time switch for a lot of special sweepers when they're boosted, giving it a good mu against offense. maud's nature as a one-time near-universal special check is the kind of role best utilized on a bulky offense team that utilizes pivots to switch into key threats a couple of times and retain momentum. the teams it actually finds itself on are bulky balances that want to switch into threats repeatedly. it has a presence on these structures due to the need for a special wall and the aforementioned pivot immunity giving maud the favor over melo and the dark-types, in addition to the fact that these teams often run mega slowbro as the other wg and don't want to stack weaknesses by adding a second wg weak to bug. when maud is relied on as the main special wall, it will crumble more often than not due to its lack of a photon resist, yet it is repeatedly added because its alternatives don't control the pace as well. maud is also weak to sunsteel, perhaps the best moldy move due to a lack of immunity which also has a 200 bp cfz version of it, which makes it really susceptible to lures or trapping especially since it risks getting invalidated in the special photon mu if it doesn't run goggles. this makes it even more unreliable as the main special wall it often is forced to be. maud is not getting everything it wants out of its kit in this meta while melo often is. but in a bulkier meta i would probably put maud first) (one of the best special walls and easily the best dark wg in my book since it's the only one who has bulk and isn't weak to no guard. a resistance to all moldy moves makes it a very reliable tank, even with the surge of bug coverage. it can pretty much run whatever 4 moves it wants. it isn't always expected since it can run many different abilities. its smash set is pretty good, but it can suffer from low bp due to lack of stab, and it also hates prankster. it is held back by the bug weakness and its difficulty in controlling pace like other wgs. this would usually make it pretty irrelevant vs balance, but stab knock off lets it hold its own vs the popular psychic-types on balance and also lets it cripple pranksters. it's another pokemon that's great against offense, which is more important than balance right now) (undoubtedly the best wonder guard at switching into sunsteel. it also is one of the few wonder guard pokemon who can reasonably switch into mmx, pdon, slak, and other very scary physical threats into balance. it is one of the slowest pokemon in the meta, making it one of the most reliable pivots and hazard controllers, both for setting and removing. these are sought out traits that no other wonder guard can do at once, traits that see some pokemon added to teams when they possess only one of them, so mbro is amazing role compression for balance. this is why you will see many different special walls on balance, but the physical wall will usually be mbro, usually alongside another physical wall such as zyg-c or mlix. unfortunately mbro is very easy to tech for, due to having many common weaknesses and low special defense. it also gets chipped easily in the balance matchup because it will often get hit by faster u-turns as it pivots out, combined with taking lots of hazard damage since it tends to run defog a lot. so similarly to maud, it will crumble when it is relied on as the main physical wall. unlike maud, is it almost never relied upon for this role because there are a lot of other strong physical walls like the aforementioned zyg-c and mlix. but also unlike maud, it is very risky to try to be a one-time check to physical threats since they can tech for mbro so easily. its matchup into offense is also rough due to the popularity of mmy, grass move kart, mgar, and dark-types on those structures. mbro ends up needing support to do its job, but there's no other physical wall that compresses as many roles as it) (the best smash wg mon. +2 mmm will shred most defensive cores, and base moongeist off of 157 spa isn't a joke either. wg makes it much more difficult to revenge since it becomes immune to most forms of priority, particularly all of the ones that are popular like ice shard and first impression. it also gives it easy opportunities to set smash up. it importantly enables its defensive teammates to run more useful abilities, like prank and fc, making it a great cleaner on balance teams. its main weakness is having to choose between beating maud, melo, alomuk, mgyara, and zyg-c with only 2 moveslots. it will always be walled by something, giving it an inconsistent matchup against balance. luckily, it isn't difficult to tailor its teammates to beat the pokemon ndw can't cover, since the archetypes it attracts usually come with a strong defensive backbone) (i really wanted to put it b-rank but i have to give it up, alomuk gives so many special attackers trouble and the meta favors it right now. a lot of special photon and geist sweepers favor moonblast, secret sword/aura sphere or bug buzz as their dark coverage move which completely misses alomuk. it can also clear toxic spikes. it destroys plate smashers since they never have room to run coverage for it. the very obvious problem is that it is weak to ground, and air balloon just does not cut it, so you have to have another plan for no guard since you can't just hope they aren't fissure. a number of balance teams aren't able to afford alomuk since they can't fit another no guard check. it restricts teambuilding the most of any of its peers. but the unique and important strengths it provides cannot be overlooked)B
(tons of sunsteel and photon sweepers miss coverage for steela, since bug / fighting coveage is in right now. steela becomes a great anti-meta piece because of this. it also has an immunity to all hazards except rocks which it is neutral to, making it one of the best defoggers and giving it a strong balance matchup. its main weakness is just the lack of stats. its mixed bulk is good enough to do what it needs to, but it's not enough to consistently switch in on threats. it's slow, but not slower than maud and mbro, so it's not getting slow pivots as much as it wants. this means it's going to get overwhelmed easily, limiting the kinds of teams it can show up on) (the best wg sunsteel sweeper. kart, similarly to mgyara, is capable of running many different abilities and therefore surprising its opponent with wg. stab grass coverage also lets it overpower water-types often used to tank sunsteel. similarly to ndw, it can free up defensive teammates to run better abilities. unfortunately improofing brings a lot of problems for kart. if it's run on offense, then you'll usually have to trade to improof it through sash/innards/prank dbond since kart will ohko everything, resists most priority moves and also usually has the physical bulk to tank one. if it's run on balance, it facilitates the need of an fc steel or prank zyg, limiting the types of teams it can reasonably appear on. it also needs fire memory over sash if it wants to hit steel-types since it isn't improofable on balance otherwise) (a one-time switch turned to the max. primal kyogre can survive almost any hit, physical or special, boosted or otherwise. it is one of the most reliable special checks since special sweepers will pretty much never run coverage for it and its massive 100/160 special stats let it tank any move. it is also immune to pivot which means other wgs can't take advantage of its presence. it also has a naturally strong matchup into pdon and sunsteel users, pokemon who are notably difficult to switch in on, and it can cripple them with steam or spectral. this makes it the absolute best pivot for offensive teams that want a pokemon to absorb a couple hits to shift momentum into the team's favor. it is knocked down a peg because it does pretty badly into huge power. mmx ohkoes it with photon and even some of the sunsteel users can break it, either with the right coverage or by sheer force, since pogre only has 90 def. it also has trouble fitting on teams because it calls for a specific archetype. overall it is a good piece for offense, but it struggles to find an identity for itself at times) (a sunsteel resist who is immune to pivot and has a slow, strong u-turn is definitely a desirable set of traits for balance. mpert often finds itself improofing sunsteel + electric since it has a unique type combo. it suffers from the same stats issue as celesteela where nothing is quite high enough to distinguish itself defensively, except it's neutral to photon which is why it's lower than steela) (a completely self improof wg smasher with plate judgment. it is more flexible in regards to the teams it can find itself on compared to ndw, since its photon immunity gives it lots of opportunities to switch in or create mindgames on offense. it has the same problem as ndw when it comes to choosing who to beat, except it is much more pronounced for hoopa because it is also locked into a select few judgment types and it cannot use moongeist or sunsteel, otherwise it goes against its self-improof nature. it also has a 4x bug weakness, making it very susceptible to first impressions from offense and u-turns from balance. this means it requires team support to scout bug moves, some of which come from huge powers that are difficult to scout due to their high power nature. offense teams often cannot risk their resources to scout bug moves at all. this makes hoopa a naturally inconsistent sweeper)C
(it's a decent sunsteel resist but its main deal is not to resist anything specific, it's to be immune to spore and have the slowest pivot in the game. it's also great against hazards since it resists rocks, is immune to tspikes, and is actually helped by webs. this helps it be a better general pivot. it's also able to improof sunsteel + bolt strike + tarrows, although zyg-c usually does it better. this is a nice niche to have and makes it useful for balance, but it also means it isn't usually the most active contribution to the team) (noted niche due to being immune to photon and faster than mmx and mgar, but there's nothing that it wants to do with it. as a smash sweeper it's just a worse version of hoopa, sporting the same coverage problems and the same bulk issues but without stab on photon this time. as a support, it usually has to commit all of its moveslots to subpass or other cheese to do something, meaning if it surprises the opponent once it will never do it again. the main point of wg ash gren is to be a smasher that can revenge kill mgar and mmx, but even with being faster it has to watch out for scarf mgar or first impression mmx which are becoming more common to deal with offense) (similar to ferro, it doesn't really resist anything much, except perhaps for improofing some sunsteel users. instead, it thrives on having a strong matchup into balance due to its powerful stab u-turns. it also make for an emergency check to mmx since it dodges the 2hko from huge power photon, but it's a big risk) (grouped them together since they're the same. very sturdy special walls who can take a lot of the popular coverage like bug buzz, dark pulse, moonblast, and even stab photon. they will die to fight coverage though and fight coverage has been on the rise recently. they also have a bad matchup into every phys breaker for obvious reasons. you can fool people into thinking it's impostor or innards on preview, which might lead them to make more conservative plays earlygame. chansey's better than blissey in most ways - it can run eviolite and it has 50 speed to speed tie maud and alomuk for slow pivots - but if you aren't running a pivot move or eviolite, then you can try blissey out instead) (grouped them together since they're the same. more offensive wgs who are pretty easy to improof since you only really need a sunsteel resist most of the time. unique since they have stab espeed so they can act as speed control alongside their sweeping role. they can also wall some geist sweepers who don't run photon or fight coverage. they don't lack defensive utility particularly, but they don't have a lot of it, and they aren't as good at sweeping as other wg smashers, so it's tough to want to use them.) (similar to alomuk but it resists sunsteel and has better phys bulk. geist sweepers use earth power and fight coverage a lot, but special photon users will usually favor sludge / buzz / moonblast instead, giving incin one of the safest profiles into special photon users overall. the big problem is the weakness to ground so you have to build really carefully when you use it. it has some bad weaknesses like fighting and rocks (sr) so it's often outclassed by alomuk. mainly used for specific improofs)D
(like pogre but it can wish pass and it also has higher phys bulk. it also is immune to pivots which helps it in the balance matchup. but it has 65 speed so it's at that range where you outspeed all the slow pivots on balance anyway, so you're not really grabbing momentum. wish is fucking awful so it's not a real niche. so your actual niche is being more physically tanky than other water wgs except for mbro, who is weak to u-turn. usually you're getting outdone by fc steels, but if you need a wonder guard alomomola works fine) (well rounded normal wg, it tanks moongeist pretty well. my question is when and why would you use this? there's definitely better geist improofs out there since fighting coverage has always been popular, and arceus is generally suited to running different abilities like bounce or prank. but if you need a mixed wall geist resist and you don't want a u-turn weak and maud won't work for whatever reason, then i guess arceus is your guy. and honestly i've been in that situation more than once so i can't even say it's not real) (complete lack of bulk seriously does it in. if it's not immune to the opponent's move it will probably 2hko. the popularity of moongeist / sunsteel / moonblast is really bad for msab. it's a terrible special wall because most moongeists will put it on watch. it is similar to ferrothorn in that it is slower than everything else and exists not to tank hits, but to set up momentum. but it gets opened up way easier and is also a lot more vulnerable to hazards in comparison to ferro, so there isn't usually a reason to pick it. but a lot of mmx nowadays are choosing bug / ice / dark / fight coverage over fairy, or making their fairy coverage lsf only. mhera has also been on the rise and that mon doesn't really run fairy coverage a lot either. this means the meta is actually in msab's favor for once. ferro doesn't have a chance against huge powers, but msab can sometimes completely wall them, and as it's one of the best pivots it can completely control the pace in certain matchups. it's really matchup fishy but it's really strong if you get the proper matchup) (like msciz but it is a lot slower, even slower than mbro, and it still has 135 atk for a strong u-turn so it can control pace really well. but the bulk, which is already dicey on mcsiz, is basically nonexistent on escav in comparison, so it really is a park and bark mon who is just there in a lot of matchups) (its main draw is to have a really strong and slow volt switch. it outspeeds mbro but underspeeds maud which is basically the perfect speed tier. there are stronger electrics, but they are weak to ground or ice and vikavolt is not. it can improof a lot of the same type combos that ferrothorn can. but it's really bad into most breakers and volt switch as the pivot move is always dicey. it's also weak to rocks) (bad plate smasher, it's basically worse hoopa. you also can't run more than 1 anti psychic move since you'll hit yourself, so mmy is forced into lame coverage combos a lot. it also has a bad matchup against balance because it sucks into the special walls and needs to have lucky coverage to win. but it does outspeed mmx / mgar / mlop which could be big for the offense mirror if you really need a wg. it's also a big surprise since mmy can run a lot of other abilities and usually doesn't run wg) (gyaradosite. the lack of an item and the reliance on power trip (since all the dark stab is awful) means that any prankster just sits on you forever. also you are very weak to priority post-mega and impostor can reverse sweep on a speed tie so you can't really sweep vs any archetype ever until the lategame) (it's like mgyara but it's not weak to electric or grass. in return it sacrifices sunsteel resist and becomes extremely passive. umbreon is also one of those mons that really wants to be a slow pivot but it's not actually that slow. it doesn't even underspeed steela. but it's definitely useful for an improof somewhere) (sablenite. msab already dies to anything that hits it neutral so base sab isn't really any different, except you get a one-time magic bounce. base sab has 50 speed which is really annoying since it can't slow pivot on some of the slow mons now. also when you become bounce you lose your wg, so it's tough to confidently mega evolve in most situations) (like other dark wg smashers but it can run bug buzz since it's not weak to bug. but it has no stab photon like hoopa and no speed like ashgren and it's also weak to rocks and fissure so like it sucks really bad) (this mon sucks but i have to mention it since one time i built a life orb mguard pdon set with shell smash / mind blown / freeze-dry / sunsteel and found out ho-oh was the only wg who could improof it. so i can't say it doesn't have a niche)S-
(mr. huge power himself. it can beat literally any wall with the right moves. amazing offensive type, very fast, not frail, incredible power, there's no downside to running it. also, because any one set is easily improofed, it does not bring impostor trouble for its team like a lot of other breakers. the danger is in trying to figure out what mmx's set is, and even when you do, you still might have to play around cfz nukes that can suddenly take any wall out) (it can live every hit in the game, including special ones, no matter the type. timid kyuw ice beam only has a 56% chance to ohko, to show how bulky zyg-c is. prank shuts down almost any setup sweeper in the game and they often have to tech moveslots just for this one mon. it's also a pretty good bounce user cause it can live so much naturally. it's another piece that really holds balance together because if your zyg-c is at full hp it's really difficult to lose to jank) (it's like chansey but it's not as good. the main reason to use it is to survive innards chans trying to improof, which can be huge against offense teams since they usually rely on it for that. it is really strong against innards offense, and innards offense is one of the best archetypes right now. but it can't play mindgames with innards or eviolite, and if it gets chipped at all then innards will ko it anyways. but it has an undeniable niche over chansey)A Tier
A+
(really strong anti-offense mon with mguard and scarf pbond especially, and it usually forces balance to run maud or melo. it can pick and choose checks similar to wg smashers, but unlike those mons it has access to immediate power. it can also surprise its checks with abilities like tinted lens and mold breaker. similar to mmx, the guesswork is what makes it difficult to approach but any one set is easily improofed. it helps that the impostor usually does not want to come into mgar since it will take a lot from moongeist and there's also the possibility of self-improof with plate judgment. it isn't S- rank because although it can choose checks, it will get completely hardwalled by several special walls no matter what coverage it picks) (incredible speed tier and stab photon will always keep mmy relevant as a mon who can break both offense and balance. it doesn't like the popularity of first impression, but it likes that mgar is forcing maud on a lot of balance. can run literally any ability it wants. also not S- rank for the same reason as mgar) (necessary piece on offense right now to combat spore sweepers. it's one of the best mguard mons which is a difficult but important role to be good at. huge power straight up doesn't have walls. kart can also find itself on balances since it's easy to improof with an fc steel. it fits comfortably on every archetype and never disappoints. its main problem is its tendency to lose to fat steels or zyg-c, making the balance matchup an uphill climb, but it isn't strapped for moves so it can reasonably tech for these. it's also slower than a lot of other offense mons which hurts) (huge power fakespeed sets run over offense and harvest sets run over balance. slaking can really do it all. it's really difficult to answer harvest since it can pp stall a lot of would-be checks like zyg-c. a lot of its answers are mons that are difficult to fit onto teams in the current meta. huge power is also great since it's one of the strongest priority mons in a meta that is really weak to priority. it's really naturally bulky and has a moongeist immunity which gives it lots of opportunities to come in. it's a bit difficult to fit on teams because it doesn't offer a lot of utility)A
(can run whatever it wants. stag, mold, mguard, hp and more are all on the table, making it really scary to answer on preview, and impostor doesn't want to come in because it doesn't want to take stab ground moves. similar to slaking, teams don't usually have room to answer pdon, since the mons that answer it are very hard to fit on teams in the current meta. this means that any time pdon comes in, something is probably going to die. can be tough to improof at times since pdon is hard to wall and the impostor becomes incredibly bulky. also 90 speed as an offensive mon is a big problem, meaning it usually has to take the role as a breaker against balance, unless it's running stag in which case it will have power issues due to no stab mold move) (fur coat and prank are both really great. they can both switch in on the majority of physical attackers, including mmx. it's great for improofing sunsteel sweepers like slak and kart. the ground type does give it stab twaves and elec immunity, which are useful. it makes it weak to water and neutral to ice, but you're not usually staying in to tank scald and you can live most ice hammers regardless. fighting coverage on mmx has been getting more popular which is pretty bad for mlix as hp cc will 2hko fc. but first impression and sunsteel have also been popular on mmx and mlix will tank those moves all day. (maybe controversial placement? but if you're running anchor > twaves and you don't need to improof a mon with electric moves then magg is the better choice over mlix since it isn't weak to scald from waters like mbro and resists ice which is getting common to answer zyg-c. although m-lix is slightly bulkier specially, magg has a slightly stronger anchor and is faster at 50 speed compared to 30, which i feel like fc mons actually want in order to cripple wgs and other supports before they pivot out. besides that they're the same, and i don't see a reason to separate 2 mons that do the same thing with minute advantages both ways) (fur coat is great, sturdy is awful. similar to mlix and magg, but the fight immunity is the main selling point. fight coverage is getting common recently which is great for doublade. it's big issue is that the meta is getting hostile to it; dark coverage is getting popular on plate smashers, and knock off / spectral are also seeing use on mmx. prank is alright but it has to sacrifice itself to haze on most special sweepers due to the geist weakness, making it a more inconsistent prank user than mlix or magg)A-
(no guard is predictable, but 2 wg cores are really just not good answers to it. they lose to gastro acid spamming if a single hazard is up or if either of them get lured by anything, and either of the two will happen in most games. a lot of special wgs tend to run sthief as their only attacking move, giving mlop tons of easy switchins against balance. it's alright against offense due to outspeeding mmx, but usually offense will have a lot of tools for it, and being a mon offense can easily answer means the meta is not in mlop's favor. also it's not the worst huge power user) (can fit lots of abilities, like bounce, prank, stag, hp, or even pheal. one of the strongest special sweeper answers, but can also sometimes wall phys mons since it resists all 3 moldy moves bulky sets free up its wg partners to not have to tank special sweepers, or it can support normal wgs that don't resist photon, like maud. the speed tier is annoyingly average though) (really similar to mgyara in set diversity. it does basically the same thing but with a different defensive profile. maintains a niche over mgyara because bug/fight coverage are popular on special sweepers recently which hit mgyara but not ygod. it has the same middling speed tier problem as mgyara and the rocks weakness tend to hold it back in both offensive and defensive roles) (strong fc user but decidedly worse than the steels. the wg version means that every team is gonna have an answer to this mon. but a lot of mmx want to run first impression as their only move to hit psychics, which fc tanks. the other moveslots are getting taken up by sunsteel, fighting coverage, and cfzs (which fc mbro all tank). strangely, this makes mbro anti-meta. but the weakness to u-turn and the increasing anti-psychic techs on offensive mons make it hard to use. prank is okay but suffers from a lot of the same issues as doublade) (very strong harvest mon because it has stab on ltbts and sss alongside well-rounded stats, and also a very strong no guard mon because it has solganium z which helps it break wgs. a hp set is also alright because of its moldy stabs. it hates being weak to spectral, and in general being a psychic type in this meta is not great. it has trouble against a lot of common sunsteel answers like mbro, mgyara, and mlix)B Tier
B+
(amazing breaker with lunalium. can sport a lot of scary abilities like no guard, mold, innards, or even adapt. pretty much runs what wg ndw runs. it really hates being 4x weak to spectral and knock though, especially when spectral is so common on specially defensive wgs) (lower than lunala due to being slower, frailer, and its innards set being much worse than lunala's. but the power boost actually does matter. can ultra burst, but it's worse than lunalium. also can surprise people because of the popularity of wg) (a great stag mon since dascent can take out most offensive mons and clangsoul ohkoes zyg-c. mixed offenses also let it tech whatever, so it can run like any ability that it wants to. in particular, mold is pretty underrated since a lot of wgs don't resist flying and zyg-c loses to dragon stab. it's down in B+ tier since while it can do anything, it's not great at any of those roles besides stag, just good at them) (needs support like tailwind, webs, or paraspam, and it's not difficult to see coming. but even if you don't get the tailwind setup, it still puts pressure on the opponent without even coming out, and when it does come out properly it sweeps most teams. you basically have to outplay the pika user in the game, and even if you do they might just go for a speed tie. it just cannot play the game until the last few turns though, which makes it very ride or die, but it works more often than not and it's almost always paired with prankster so it doesn't need to be relied on for setup control) (need people to realize deo-s isn't a bad mon. its weakness to spectral and u-turn make it a lot worse against balance, which is why it's ranked lower, but it's gonna put those teams in gastro lock all the same. outspeeding deo-a and especially mmy is massive for the offense matchup. it also beats mlop itself who has become the face of no guard nowadays) (bias? maybe, but this mon is legitimately one of the best harvest users against the current meta. super bulky so it gets tons of chances to boost and when it's boosted, absolutely nothing tanks it. stab clangsoul makes it so pranks cannot neutralize it, since it will omniboost with each hit, and it also lets it beat non-wg normals. as for the wg normals, they will usually die to sss because tina-o has good 120/120 mixed offense. it's very resistant to priority since alongside its massive bulk, it's immune to espeed and resists first impression. its only problems are being weak to spectral and its speed tier) (the speed tier is the main reason to run this. outspeeding mmy is great for anti-offense measures on offense teams. the mixed offenses means it can tech any coverage in the game. but priority is huge right now which seriously hurts deo-a. it usually needs outside support like psysurge or it needs to run mguard sash which cuts into its power. requiring support as a frail offensive mon limits the kinds of teams deo-a can reasonably appear on)B
(a great harvest mon. its advantage over solgaleo is the speed tier, being able to outspeed some good mons like ygod and kart. it's ranked lower than solg because it doesn't have a z-move so it's linear) (stronger than solg but frailer and slower, so solg is usually the better choice because its ability provides the power. however, ndm's power boost lets it do stuff like 2hko mbro with +2 sss which solg can't do. its other niche over the other two is access to ultra burst, which really doesn't help defensively but does boost the speed tier by a lot and increase photon's power on no guard sets) (pixi is great against offense so it can't go too low, but it's just horrible against balance. you'll never break any wg core or phys wall on their team, unless you're boomburst in which case you'll really never break any wg core on their team. the only prank it beats is mbro since all of them are steel except zyg-c who dodges the 2hko from espeed and the ohko from boomburst unless it's pixie plate, and even then it needs ada for espeed to 2hko. moldy moves from it do nothing because they're unstabbed. as for other sets, stag is pretty cool but it's kind of a worse stag mray. mold smash cannot find opportunities to set up against offense and is a matchup fish against balance since you have to choose between cfz nuke to ohko wgs or coverage for steels) (underrated huge power mon, mainly because it's not really a breaker but instead a strong revenge killer since the speed tier lets it pursuit trap weakened threats. also a good stag mon due to outspeeding the 130s. its problem is just not being strong enough and not having stab on mold. also the low bulk and first impression weakness means it struggles against prio users) (water bubble is good don't @ me. it's a matchup fish since it has to choose which special wall it wants to beat in the same way mgar and mmy do, but unlike them it's too slow to threaten offense unboosted. but if it sets up you pretty much won the game. not a single prank, including zyg-c, beats it 1v1. the natural bulk also lets it survive priority sometimes. mold sets are good too since it has such huge special attack and even the water resistant wgs don't want to take a specs or +2 steam eruption)B-
(stab first impression is amazing on a huge power, and it has stab on sunsteel as well, so it will usually do something in every game. it's also pretty bulky for an offensive mon and has a great defensive type so it can often tank a hit. but it's just so slow that it will often have to trade instead of being able to threaten full-out sweeps like other huge powers) (its niche is access to ultranecrozium z so it has access to ltbts without having to give up a moveslot for it. this makes unecro really scary to face once it's set up, since it can afford tons of coverage moves and rely on its nuke to beat whatever it can't cover. it even has dragon stab to beat zyg-c. but its defensive type is straight up bad, and its bulk is serviceable but when your defensive type is bad it really exacerbates having average bulk. this mainly matters because it can't run sash. being 1 point slower than 130s is really unfortunate as well. this makes it hard for unecro to get going and makes it pretty bad against offense as well) (a perfect speed tier and offensive type for stag. its speed tier is high enough to comfortably run a power boost item over scarf, so its power issue is mitigated by that. spore immunity is also pretty helpful. mainly hurt by its frailty due to its inability to run sash. if it does run sash it gets way too weak. also the high power special dragon and grass moves are really bad, they're always inaccurate or lower your stats) (similar to msciz but has stronger priority and fight stab to hit steels. lack of stab on a moldy and low speed tier really suck though, it means all it really does is click its priority move and then leave. but having such a strong priority option means it can't go too low) (its niche is access to stab shadow sneak, which is a great move since priority is big right now to deal with offense. it's pretty much the same as mhera and all of the issues with mhera apply to this mon as well) (decent no guard mon with stab zap cannon to hit some wgs like mgyara, mbro, and steela. zap cannon lets it hit flying types so it can run fissure to beat teams that overrely on alomuk. speed ties mlop which is unfortunate but if you hit it with zap cannon then it's pretty helpless for the rest of the game. sees less play than other no guards since it's pretty difficult to improof and it doesn't see a lot of opportunities to come in) (steel/flying is an incredible type, but the stats are just not good enough. it gets 2hkoed by a lot of random stuff that it should live. but the type makes it a good enough prank user) (pidgeotite. can run illusion to lure walls or stag to trap slower mons before ohkoing. after mega evolving it can just be a normal no guard. similarly to mlop, it's immune to sthief and resists uturn, and in addition it's immune to tspikes which are getting more common recently. being slower than 130s and its frailty makes it pretty awful vs offense, especially since its lack of item means it can never trade. its rocks weakness is also a problem vs balance) (it can outspeed 150s and has stab u-turn and first impression, which makes it a decent anti-offense mon. it also does well into balances that overrely on wgs with bug weaknesses, like melo, mbro, and mgyara. it keeps up against prank and fc because its main stab is u-turn, so it will control the momentum. but it's just way too frail and unlike deo-a, has no stab moldy, so it's really just a matchup fish. it's just waiting to die to priority, and if any wg on balance walls it then it does way worse into that matchup)C Tier
(an improvement over deo-a if you're only using special moves since it has superior bulk. but the inability to use spectral, sunsteel, mixed coverage, or basically any prio move makes mzam worse most of the time. still, it has a clearly defined niche, and it works well when you use it for the same reasons deo-a works well, so it can't go too low) (nice stag user to revenge kill 130s + mlop and mmy without needing scarf. it's a pretty good tool against offense just for the speed alone. the problem is that its balance mu is trash. any fc or prank is gonna wall it forever, and it doesn't do well into most wgs because barely any wgs are weak to rock or flying and it doesn't have a stab moldy) (like pixi mdia but the offensive type is worse and it's weak to rocks. ice weaknesses are just not common nowadays because of no guard. but a lot of the ice resists are water type so a stab freeze dry will do a lot of damage to them. it means that kyub can beat some mons mdia can't, like mbro and mpert, and it also means it will do better against prank mons since it will at least beat zyg-c and mbro and will hit mlix for more damage than mdia will. but it's undeniably worse against offense than mdia and being good against offense is kyub's point) (gyaradosite. completely neturalized by prankster, and impostor and priority can also stop it easily. it's often forced to mega early against offense for the dark type, which creates a lot of 50/50s that are bad for it. but if it actually manages to boost with no problem, then it's not wallable. illusion and type change help to create additional setup opportunities) (a good mold mon since its stabs already hit everything except for mlix, which means it can run spore last. having such an easy improof makes sure it won't run over your own team. but zekrom just offers zero utility and it has a pretty poor speed tier as well. it also requires support from a pokemon that you can't just slap on teams, so zekrom only fits on really specific balances. can also run galvanize if you want to meme) (prank and bounce are nice if you want a geist immunity for those roles, but there's basically always better special walls. it will usually get outdone by darks, normal wgs, or even impostor base form. but if you specifically need a prank or bounce and you want to dodge bug/poison/ice coverage, which isn't that unreasonable of a situation, then arc could fit)D Tier
(really similar to mbane where it can revenge kill stuff with shadow sneak, and it's significantly stronger than mbane. thick club also lets it use sunsteel reliably since even though it isn't stab, it has the equivalent of a ~205 attack stat, so sunsteel will do tons. but it's just so, so difficult for it to work in practice. its slow speed, low bulk and lack of an item means that all it can do is click sneak and hope it kills. it will eventually be forced out because of this, and with its rocks weakness it will take heavy damage coming back in. so pretty much any team can beat it by just forcing it out a couple times and watching it chip itself) (its main job is to be a prankster user that has curse, which can pressure balance teams pretty hard midgame. but it doesn't answer anything that hard except maybe for hp fakespeed slak, since it doesn't resist any really important types anymore. in a meta where teams are trying to compress as many roles as possible, it's hard to justify gira just kind of being there in most matchups) (the only mon immune to both sheer cold and fissure, letting it run bounce to be the best switch in to mlop in the game. it falters as a standalone no guard answer because the ones who aren't named mlop or deo-s are always running other attacking moves, which articuno won't take for long. it's also 4x weak to rocks which blows) (i really wanted to ur this mon but its ability to force trades is undeniable. it's immune to all non-mold priority and mold priority is rare nowadays. it can't be chipped by wgs, and with sash it can trade with any non-ghost, physical or special, which even innards chans can't do. but it's shedinja. it will lose instantly to hazards, status, and ghost types, which you'll see present on every team. teams with magic bounce or magic coat wgs can also easily force it out. teams will prep for shed without even trying. but there's nothing that can do what shed does, even if it's a gimmick)thanks for reading
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I do agree for a lot of this VR, however I think you underestimated the strength of set up Sweeper WG : both HoopaU and GrenAsh sould rank up because of perfect self proof (if the imposter is not holding a plate) and good offense, especially Hoopa with Photon and Power Trip STAB in order to pass both MAud and Melo, they both can’t hit MukA but it is less used nowadays because of the omnipresence of TArrows.hello today i am going to post my usum vr. i will try to order but i'll probably change my mind on the order the next day. i am qualified or not depending on who you ask
S Tier
S+
S
S
there isn't really an s-tier wg to me, they all have notable weaknesses. there's nothing as good as bw spirit or oras xern
A
B
C
D
S-
A Tier
A+
A
A-
B Tier
B+
B
B-
C Tier
D Tier
thanks for reading
I also think that WG Scizor to be ranked higher
And, I have to admit it, MAud should be in S or at least still in A but over Melo.
you know, you can't just repeat what i said in my write ups if you're gonna argue against a vr post. i explained exactly why hoopa and ashgren are inconsistent sweepers who will always get walled by something and struggle against balance.
i didn't explain why msciz isn't good against mold moves, but if you want to know, it takes like 40% from huge power mmx photon and kart sunsteel and has little hope against special photon because they almost always carry moongeist. fire coverage also exists on some phys mons like the aforementioned mmx and kartana to hit fur coat steels. it's just not reliable as a physical wall. and the strength sap thing is completely untrue because phys attackers commonly run setup or cfz, and even if they don't it's also slower than most physical attackers so it can't switch in on hits and then sap them considering it will have to take 2 moves.
explained why i put melo > maud in my writeup as well
Out of all the personal VRs I've seen, this is probably the most different to the actual VR. And I do agree with some of your opinions, like Kartana in A+ and Pidgeotite ranked, but there are also some things I disagree with, like Shedinja being ranked (any F.E.A.R + Prankster DBond mon would be better because it can do what Shed claims to be able to do once and can still trade even if rocks are up) and lots of the WG VR, especially lots of the self improofed sweepers being so low.hello today i am going to post my usum vr. i will try to order but i'll probably change my mind on the order the next day. i am qualified or not depending on who you ask
S Tier
S+
S
S
there isn't really an s-tier wg to me, they all have notable weaknesses. there's nothing as good as bw spirit or oras xern
A
B
C
D
S-
A Tier
A+
A
A-
B Tier
B+
B
B-
C Tier
D Tier
thanks for reading
FINALLY SOMEONE WHO PUTS MELO OVER MAUD ON THE WG VR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!hello today i am going to post my usum vr. i will try to order but i'll probably change my mind on the order the next day. i am qualified or not depending on who you ask
S Tier
S+
S
S
there isn't really an s-tier wg to me, they all have notable weaknesses. there's nothing as good as bw spirit or oras xern
A
B
C
D
S-
A Tier
A+
A
A-
B Tier
B+
B
B-
C Tier
D Tier
thanks for reading
also please please dont put the shedninja sprite for wonder guard vr everytime i look at it it makes me think that shedninja is S+ tier:(
Heya! It's SpamtonZZZSpamton, here again to finish what I started so long ago. The Movepedia was apparently the single best thing best thing I ever made for PH, so I am making the sequel, the Status Movepedia! Once again, the moves will be sorted by typing, so keep that in mind. Also, if any moves are identical, I will combine them together (Ex. Heal Bell and Aromatherapy). Now, without further adew, let us begin the show!
NORMAL
Baton Pass There is a whole teamstyle around this move. Outside of BP teams, this move has a niche of being a way of switching out with priority without interacting with the opponent, avoiding Dark Types and Magic Bounce. Also, this move is good on mons that use Spectral Thief to potentially move the stolen boosts to something else.
Belly Drum Honestly not that great. Any mon that runs this needs to have a way to kill Zygarde before they can just Haze away the boosts, so Ice Shard or Extreme Speed on a Normal Type. Even then, other Haze mons can deal with it, and it is very hard to Improof it. Honestly, just use Extreme Evoboost if you want a now or never setup move.
Block/Mean Look Generally outclassed by Anchor Shot and Thousand Waves, but this can hit Wonder Guard mons in exchange for being blocked by Magic Bounce. Maybe worth it on something, but Thousand Waves is generally better. (BTW this is a worse Spider Web because Spider Web has twice the PP. Thanks Hendrit)
Disable Some niche-ass Protect + Disable Stall stuff. Don't use it.
Conversion This + Anchor Shot can make Zygarde into a Steel Type, shoring up all of its original weaknesses. However, this takes a turn to do, and is more of a gimmick then anything real.
Encore Encore mostly remained in Gen 6, but it can be good for forcing Sweepers to fear pressing the set up button. Innards Out has taken over this job somewhat, but Encore very much has a place.
Extreme Evoboost All of nothing set up move. Just like Belly Drum, you better have a way of dealing with the Prankster Haze mon in the back, but if you do this can force checkmates very well. Also, very, very good on Harvest mons like Slaking, because you can just keep doing it. Not worth it to run Leppa Berry on a non-Harvest Mon to use this move twice, as you generally won't get the time, or you only needed one to begin with.
Glare Annoying ass move that is just better then Thunder Wave. This hits Ground Types, and is 100% accurate. Para is probably one of the worse statuses in PH, but it can be very good on Impostor Pikachu teams to make Pikachu always win the speed war.
Heal Bell/Aromatherapy Gets rid of annoying status. Be aware of the 8 PP, as it can be easily PP stalled by many teams. Generally on WG mons like Melo, MAud, and the like, as they sometimes have moveslots to use on stuff like this.
Lovely Kiss Just no. If you use this, be aware. Wrath takes many forms, and those forms can hide anywhere. You will never sleep soundly, knowing that your sins may finally catch up to you. Know this, and stay away. Do not be corrupted by the taint of pure RNG.
Metronome On the note of pure RNG, this move is technically the best move in the game. Technically, and only technically.
Minimize Read the Lovely Kiss thing.
Pain Split Mainly used on level 2* mons to try and abuse Sturdy. This is Gen 7, the moldy moves exist. You are not gonna get away with it. (* Some rounding shenanigans)
Perish Song A anti-Impostor tech? Trying to Perish Trap is not gonna work, so I guess this is mostly anti-Impostor. Innards Mons can probably use it to force you to not just set up on it or something...maybe. I'm not sure.
Recover/Roost/Milk Drink/Shore Up/Heal Order/Slack Off/Soft Boiled 50% HP. Yeah, it is good. Technically, Shore Up is the best because it can heal 66% in Sand, but in reality they are all equal. All equal other then Milk Drink, which is better in every way because it gives your Pokemon Calcium to strengthen their bones, and also beats Impostor if the Chansey is Lactose Intolerant.
Roar/Whirlwind Mainly on Innards Out mons to punish passive plays, but it can also be used on Comatose mons to do the Hazard Shuffle. Honestly Comatose Hazard Stack sucks, so just use it on Innards Out.
Shell Smash Realistically, the best set up move in the game. +2 in a Offensive stat and +2 in Speed at once? Oh my, we have a threat on our hands. The main reason not to use Shell Smash over other set up moves is that Shell Smash makes it easier to Revenge kill with Priority, but generally most mons that want to use Smash would die to said Priority anyway. It is good.
Sing Fuck the Bunny. Not in a sexual way, that Bunny can burn in hell.
Substitute Sub Passing is not as good as it was in Gen 6, but it is still ok. It can be used to punish status spam, predicted switches, and Impostor. Overall, a lot of mons need all four moves to function, but if it is a option Substitute is very threatening. Also, Slaking uses it on the Harvest set, which is the most common sighting of Substitute.
Swords Dance Use Shell Smash. "But, the Defens-" Silence, use Shell Smash. If you really want to be hippie and special, then use Shift Gear. No Mon wants to use Swords Dance.
Transform That one Trapper Imprision Tranform set sucks, so this is another move for Innards Out. Honestly, this move is very scary on Innards Out, I am surprised I don't see it very often. It can hard punish passive moves, which is something that most of Innards Out's moveset is going to try and do. And this does it very well.
Wish Honestly, it takes too long to get benefit from it. The most use it will get is in a extremely drawn out battle it can heal set-up sweepers. But, if you want that, use Darkinium Z Parting Shot.
FIGHTING
Bulk Up Worse Coil. Just don't. The only reason I am putting this here is because I keep seeing it in low ladder on Marshadow. Stop this madness.
Detect ...why.
FLYING
Defog The best way of removing hazards, because Rapid Spin sucks. Defog gets rid of Screens on the opponent's side, and it does NOT clear Terrain this Generation. It starts clearing Terrain in gen 8, so don't use this hoping to stop Psyspam. It is still a move that every team that is not HO should probably run, and even HO generally runs a Magic Guard Defog Mon to keep Sashes up on the other mons. Also all of the Hazards can PP stall Defog so you need a way to make them stop or else they will suck your PP dry.
Tailwind A niche way of making Impostor Pikachu work by guaranteeing speed ties. Generally, Paralysis support is the better way to do this, but this can work I guess.
Grass
Cotton Guard I have been cooking with using this on Prankster mons as a upgrade to Reflect that can be passed with Baton Pass, but I have not gotten the guts to actually try it. If somebody wants to give it a shot, be my guest.
Forest's Curse Some niche No Guard stuff to make a Mon weak to Sheer Cold. I don't think it is worth it.
Ingrain Full BP. That is it. And if you use full BP, then [REDACTED].
Leech Seed It always feels like it is too slow to do something, but it does make progress and can stall out a trapped MMX or something. Strength Sap is generally better, but this works better into WG mons.
Spiky Shield Better Protect. Baneful Bunker is better if you want raw damage, Spiky Shield is better if you want to Status them later or if they are immune to Toxic. Both are good.
Spore Half of the WG mons run Safety Goggles because of this move. It is still good even with all the Goggles, as most Offensive mons can't afford to run Goggles, so it still has targets. Just don't try and use it into WG mons, it will fail half the time.
Strength Sap A way of beating Physical mons like MMX while also healing off the damage. Probably don't want to make it your only recovery move, but it is good. I feel that Reflect is generally better at this job tho, but then again this very much has a good niche.
Worry Seed Gasto Acid is better because you don't give them a immunity to Sleep for free.
WATER
Aqua Ring Ingrain is better most of the time due to the forced switching immunity, but I guess this does the same thing without that. Ingrain is better, but then again Ingrain kinda sucks to begin with.
Soak I only ever see this being pressed to be followed up by 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt. That should tell you how bad this move is.
FIRE
Sunny Day Harvest. Manual Harvest is not good. Moving on.
Will-O-Wisp This move is a better Reflect into every Mon that is not a Fire or Dark Type! However, some steps must be done to use it. First, you must find a Virgin Goat, and contain it within a Sacrificial Altar. You must stab into the Goat with a sharpened Fire Tera Shard, and give a prayer to Gen 1 PH Electrode. If Gen 1 PH Electrode is pleased with your sacrifice, they will grant you the RNG needed to hit Will-O-Wisp. If not, you will be cursed to lose every Speed Tie into Impostor. Alas, it is a high risk, high reward move. I switched to Reflect a long time ago. I suggest you do the same.
ELECTRIC
Electrify Used on mons like Prankster Zygarde and Prankster Mega Steelix to burn Z moves into becoming Electric moves, which they are immune to. It is surprisingly effective, but it can be played around, and you need to predict them fairly well to have a chance of making it work. Overall, I could see this move being a threat.
POISON
Baneful Bunker The other better Protect. If you want to Paralyze or Sleep a Mon, use Spiky Shield. Otherwise, this move is right here.
Coil Generally outclassed by Shell Smash or Shift Gear due to it not razing Speed, but I guess this has a niche of making a Mon more bulky. Still, don't use this. And if you are even THINKING of Lovely Kiss, well...[REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED].
Gasto Acid A way for No Guard mons to actually do something into WG. You need something to stop them from just switching between WG mons, so Hazards are a must. But, with Hazards up, this move can be annoying. (Note, Entrainment is probably actually better for the job because it ignores Magic Bounce. Keep this in mind)
Toxic It's Toxic. What am I supposed to say? It does what it says on the tin.
Toxic Spikes Can be good on Stall to try and force slow progress, but it also makes them immune to other Status so don't go combining Toxic Spikes and mons with Sleep moves.
Toxic Thread I don't know why you would use this. Paralyze them for the Speed drop, or Toxic them for the scaling damage. Trying to do both only leads to a bootleg version of both that is not worth the slot.
BUG
Powder Can be used on mons like Mega Scizor and Ferrothorn to stop Shadow Tag mons, as well as just generally be a annoyance. Requires prediction, and is niche as hell, but it can do something.
Quiver Dance Speed plus Special Attack. Yeah, kinda good. Plus, it doesn't make your defenses worse, so it makes it harder to Revenge Kill. You do need a damn good reason to use this over Shell Smash tho.
Sticky Web This move seems great, but I can't think of times where it has been a threat. Maybe I am just blanking, but I feel like this move is not that worth it most of the time. Is this a common opinion? I don't know, but I would love to find out.
Tail Glow Plus THREE? Ok then. No Speed boost, so this is best on already fast mons or stuff like Triage Mega Rayquaza. Much more niche then Shell Smash, but it does something that Shell Smash cannot, which is neat.
ICE
Aurora Veil Not worth it. Ever. Don't even try it.
Haze This is used on every Prankster mon that is not some random weird shit like Prankster Primal Groudon. Stops greedy Extreme Evoboosts, or boosts in general. Very good move, and this meta would be so much worse without it.
DRAGON
Jack Fucking Shit Dragon Dance is outclassed by Shift Gear. There are no other Status Dragon moves. Great job Dragon Type.
(STEALTH) ROCK
Stealth Rock The only good Status Rock move, but damn is it a good one. Breaks Sashes, does good damage to mons weak to it, it's Stealth Rock. You all know that Stealth Rock is good. I feel that I don't need to explain further.
GROUND
Spikes A worse Stealth Rock most of the time, but if you have a Mon that has the time to set all three layers it can do some real damage on the switch. Can't hit Flying Types, but Stealth Rock generally makes that up. Good move, just not as good as Rocks are.
FAIRY
Geomancy Power Herb plus Geomancy is not worth it. Just press Shell Smash and have a Focus Sash. It does the same thing but better. Trust me.
Misty Terrain A way to get Status immunity as a Field Effect. Most of the time the mons that want to run it, Prankster mons, don't have the moveslots to run it, but it can be ok if you try to make it work.
DARK
Dark Void Go on, use this on all of your mons. Do it. Do it, I dare you. I fucking dare you. Go and make me relive my Gen 6 trauma. Try it, I dare you.
Parting Shot Generally the go-to Status Momentum move. The minus 1 to Attack and Special Attack can wear down a MMX into not being a threat, which is good. However, it is Magic Bounced, and because Prankster likes to run it it is also blocked by Dark Types. Still probably the best one. Also, this move is one of the few that is actually worth running a Z Crystal for because it fully heals whatever comes in after Parting Shot. Cool.
Switcheroo/Trick Tricking Choice Items onto WG mons. It can be annoying as hell, and can shut down WG mons hard, but it requires a Mon that runs a Choice Item. Not that hard to find, but it is a requirement for usage.
Taunt It is good. It actually blocked Extreme Evoboost now (I think), so it can stop Harvest. I wish my Prankster mons had the moveslots to run it, but they just don't most of the time. (Also turns out it does not block it if they clicked it on the turn you Taunted them. Fuck)
Topsy-Turvy It is blocked by Substitute, and if you are Prankster Dark Types block it as well. Probably not worth the effort over just using Haze.
STEEL
King's Shield It doesn't block Status moves, but in exchange it has the best on-contact effect of the Protect moves. Honestly, I think that King's Shield was left behind in Gen 6. And I think it might be a good idea to keep it there. Also, I forgot to mention it in the other Protect moves, but CFZ moves completely ignore the Protect moves. So that makes this much worse.
Shift Gear A niche sidegrade to Shell Smash that gives less Attack in exchange for not lowering your Defenses. Most of the time Shell Smash is better, but if you have a good reason Shift Gear could be okish. Still probably not worth it tbh.
PSYCHIC
Cosmic Power Stall, and it is not good even there. This is a low ladder kind of move that is used on Shuckle and Deoxys Defense. Not good, better options exist.
Heart Swap This move is similar to Topsy-Turvy, as both deal with set-up sweepers in more debilitating ways then Haze does. However, just like Topsy-Turvy, Substitute stops it, and so does Dark Types if Prankster, and also Psychic Terrain if Prankster. Overall, Haze is more consistent, which makes it better.
Imprison This move has two uses, for doing some very convoluted Improofing, or that one Shadow Tag Imprison Transform set. Both are bad, it takes too long to set up, and the reward is generally not worth it.
Light Screen Generally this is worse then Reflect as Special Attackers are not as strong as Physical ones. I have never seen this get used, but I am sure it could be used. Just not as well as reflect can.
Lunar Dance Darkium Z Parting Shot generally does the job better. This can work on stuff like Impostor mons to do something if the Impostor is blocked, or Innards Out mons to gain momentum, but it is not worth a moveslot and the Pokemon's life.
Magic Coat Good for WG mons to block Sing and Gasto Acid from No Guard mons, as well as ensuring that Hazards can not be set on Innards Out mons. Those are generally the main uses, but it can be extremely good. The main issue is that you need to predict very well to make use of it, which can be hard and can backfire. Still a very good move, just one with a high skill cap.
Psycho Shift Used on Magic Guard or Poison Heal mons to spread Burn and Toxic. It is ok, but only ok. Also don't try and use it on anything else, it will not work.
Reflect Generally the best way for a Prankster mon to wall MMX. Better then Will-O-Miss because it does not miss and it can effect Fire and Dark Types. It is good, and is a very good contender for a moveslot on any Prankster mon. Outside of Prankster, it is not worth it.
GHOST
Curse Not used as much as it was back in Gen 6, but it is still ok. It is ok on Giratina, but not much else tbh.
Destiny Bond Bootleg Innards Out that ignores Magic Guard. Innards Out is better because you can switch into a killing blow, but Destiny Bond can be slapped onto any Prankster mon to randomly kill a MMX or something when it would have just died.
Trick-O-Treat That one Yveltal team that used it plus Pursuit. It is probably the best Type changing move, but that is not a high bar to be honest. It is still niche.
And that's all! Sheesh, that took longer then I thought! But I think the end product is good, so that's that! Anyway, that's about it. Not sure how to end this, so...uh...go out and be a [BIG SHOT!] today! See ya!
NORMAL
Baton Pass There is a whole teamstyle around this move. Outside of BP teams, this move has a niche of being a way of switching out with priority without interacting with the opponent, avoiding Dark Types and Magic Bounce. Also, this move is good on mons that use Spectral Thief to potentially move the stolen boosts to something else.
Belly Drum Honestly not that great. Any mon that runs this needs to have a way to kill Zygarde before they can just Haze away the boosts, so Ice Shard or Extreme Speed on a Normal Type. Even then, other Haze mons can deal with it, and it is very hard to Improof it. Honestly, just use Extreme Evoboost if you want a now or never setup move.
Block/Mean Look Generally outclassed by Anchor Shot and Thousand Waves, but this can hit Wonder Guard mons in exchange for being blocked by Magic Bounce. Maybe worth it on something, but Thousand Waves is generally better. (BTW this is a worse Spider Web because Spider Web has twice the PP. Thanks Hendrit)
Disable Some niche-ass Protect + Disable Stall stuff. Don't use it.
Conversion This + Anchor Shot can make Zygarde into a Steel Type, shoring up all of its original weaknesses. However, this takes a turn to do, and is more of a gimmick then anything real.
Encore Encore mostly remained in Gen 6, but it can be good for forcing Sweepers to fear pressing the set up button. Innards Out has taken over this job somewhat, but Encore very much has a place.
Extreme Evoboost All of nothing set up move. Just like Belly Drum, you better have a way of dealing with the Prankster Haze mon in the back, but if you do this can force checkmates very well. Also, very, very good on Harvest mons like Slaking, because you can just keep doing it. Not worth it to run Leppa Berry on a non-Harvest Mon to use this move twice, as you generally won't get the time, or you only needed one to begin with.
Glare Annoying ass move that is just better then Thunder Wave. This hits Ground Types, and is 100% accurate. Para is probably one of the worse statuses in PH, but it can be very good on Impostor Pikachu teams to make Pikachu always win the speed war.
Heal Bell/Aromatherapy Gets rid of annoying status. Be aware of the 8 PP, as it can be easily PP stalled by many teams. Generally on WG mons like Melo, MAud, and the like, as they sometimes have moveslots to use on stuff like this.
Lovely Kiss Just no. If you use this, be aware. Wrath takes many forms, and those forms can hide anywhere. You will never sleep soundly, knowing that your sins may finally catch up to you. Know this, and stay away. Do not be corrupted by the taint of pure RNG.
Metronome On the note of pure RNG, this move is technically the best move in the game. Technically, and only technically.
Minimize Read the Lovely Kiss thing.
Pain Split Mainly used on level 2* mons to try and abuse Sturdy. This is Gen 7, the moldy moves exist. You are not gonna get away with it. (* Some rounding shenanigans)
Perish Song A anti-Impostor tech? Trying to Perish Trap is not gonna work, so I guess this is mostly anti-Impostor. Innards Mons can probably use it to force you to not just set up on it or something...maybe. I'm not sure.
Recover/Roost/Milk Drink/Shore Up/Heal Order/Slack Off/Soft Boiled 50% HP. Yeah, it is good. Technically, Shore Up is the best because it can heal 66% in Sand, but in reality they are all equal. All equal other then Milk Drink, which is better in every way because it gives your Pokemon Calcium to strengthen their bones, and also beats Impostor if the Chansey is Lactose Intolerant.
Roar/Whirlwind Mainly on Innards Out mons to punish passive plays, but it can also be used on Comatose mons to do the Hazard Shuffle. Honestly Comatose Hazard Stack sucks, so just use it on Innards Out.
Shell Smash Realistically, the best set up move in the game. +2 in a Offensive stat and +2 in Speed at once? Oh my, we have a threat on our hands. The main reason not to use Shell Smash over other set up moves is that Shell Smash makes it easier to Revenge kill with Priority, but generally most mons that want to use Smash would die to said Priority anyway. It is good.
Sing Fuck the Bunny. Not in a sexual way, that Bunny can burn in hell.
Substitute Sub Passing is not as good as it was in Gen 6, but it is still ok. It can be used to punish status spam, predicted switches, and Impostor. Overall, a lot of mons need all four moves to function, but if it is a option Substitute is very threatening. Also, Slaking uses it on the Harvest set, which is the most common sighting of Substitute.
Swords Dance Use Shell Smash. "But, the Defens-" Silence, use Shell Smash. If you really want to be hippie and special, then use Shift Gear. No Mon wants to use Swords Dance.
Transform That one Trapper Imprision Tranform set sucks, so this is another move for Innards Out. Honestly, this move is very scary on Innards Out, I am surprised I don't see it very often. It can hard punish passive moves, which is something that most of Innards Out's moveset is going to try and do. And this does it very well.
Wish Honestly, it takes too long to get benefit from it. The most use it will get is in a extremely drawn out battle it can heal set-up sweepers. But, if you want that, use Darkinium Z Parting Shot.
FIGHTING
Bulk Up Worse Coil. Just don't. The only reason I am putting this here is because I keep seeing it in low ladder on Marshadow. Stop this madness.
Detect ...why.
FLYING
Defog The best way of removing hazards, because Rapid Spin sucks. Defog gets rid of Screens on the opponent's side, and it does NOT clear Terrain this Generation. It starts clearing Terrain in gen 8, so don't use this hoping to stop Psyspam. It is still a move that every team that is not HO should probably run, and even HO generally runs a Magic Guard Defog Mon to keep Sashes up on the other mons. Also all of the Hazards can PP stall Defog so you need a way to make them stop or else they will suck your PP dry.
Tailwind A niche way of making Impostor Pikachu work by guaranteeing speed ties. Generally, Paralysis support is the better way to do this, but this can work I guess.
Grass
Cotton Guard I have been cooking with using this on Prankster mons as a upgrade to Reflect that can be passed with Baton Pass, but I have not gotten the guts to actually try it. If somebody wants to give it a shot, be my guest.
Forest's Curse Some niche No Guard stuff to make a Mon weak to Sheer Cold. I don't think it is worth it.
Ingrain Full BP. That is it. And if you use full BP, then [REDACTED].
Leech Seed It always feels like it is too slow to do something, but it does make progress and can stall out a trapped MMX or something. Strength Sap is generally better, but this works better into WG mons.
Spiky Shield Better Protect. Baneful Bunker is better if you want raw damage, Spiky Shield is better if you want to Status them later or if they are immune to Toxic. Both are good.
Spore Half of the WG mons run Safety Goggles because of this move. It is still good even with all the Goggles, as most Offensive mons can't afford to run Goggles, so it still has targets. Just don't try and use it into WG mons, it will fail half the time.
Strength Sap A way of beating Physical mons like MMX while also healing off the damage. Probably don't want to make it your only recovery move, but it is good. I feel that Reflect is generally better at this job tho, but then again this very much has a good niche.
Worry Seed Gasto Acid is better because you don't give them a immunity to Sleep for free.
WATER
Aqua Ring Ingrain is better most of the time due to the forced switching immunity, but I guess this does the same thing without that. Ingrain is better, but then again Ingrain kinda sucks to begin with.
Soak I only ever see this being pressed to be followed up by 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt. That should tell you how bad this move is.
FIRE
Sunny Day Harvest. Manual Harvest is not good. Moving on.
Will-O-Wisp This move is a better Reflect into every Mon that is not a Fire or Dark Type! However, some steps must be done to use it. First, you must find a Virgin Goat, and contain it within a Sacrificial Altar. You must stab into the Goat with a sharpened Fire Tera Shard, and give a prayer to Gen 1 PH Electrode. If Gen 1 PH Electrode is pleased with your sacrifice, they will grant you the RNG needed to hit Will-O-Wisp. If not, you will be cursed to lose every Speed Tie into Impostor. Alas, it is a high risk, high reward move. I switched to Reflect a long time ago. I suggest you do the same.
ELECTRIC
Electrify Used on mons like Prankster Zygarde and Prankster Mega Steelix to burn Z moves into becoming Electric moves, which they are immune to. It is surprisingly effective, but it can be played around, and you need to predict them fairly well to have a chance of making it work. Overall, I could see this move being a threat.
POISON
Baneful Bunker The other better Protect. If you want to Paralyze or Sleep a Mon, use Spiky Shield. Otherwise, this move is right here.
Coil Generally outclassed by Shell Smash or Shift Gear due to it not razing Speed, but I guess this has a niche of making a Mon more bulky. Still, don't use this. And if you are even THINKING of Lovely Kiss, well...[REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED].
Gasto Acid A way for No Guard mons to actually do something into WG. You need something to stop them from just switching between WG mons, so Hazards are a must. But, with Hazards up, this move can be annoying. (Note, Entrainment is probably actually better for the job because it ignores Magic Bounce. Keep this in mind)
Toxic It's Toxic. What am I supposed to say? It does what it says on the tin.
Toxic Spikes Can be good on Stall to try and force slow progress, but it also makes them immune to other Status so don't go combining Toxic Spikes and mons with Sleep moves.
Toxic Thread I don't know why you would use this. Paralyze them for the Speed drop, or Toxic them for the scaling damage. Trying to do both only leads to a bootleg version of both that is not worth the slot.
BUG
Powder Can be used on mons like Mega Scizor and Ferrothorn to stop Shadow Tag mons, as well as just generally be a annoyance. Requires prediction, and is niche as hell, but it can do something.
Quiver Dance Speed plus Special Attack. Yeah, kinda good. Plus, it doesn't make your defenses worse, so it makes it harder to Revenge Kill. You do need a damn good reason to use this over Shell Smash tho.
Sticky Web This move seems great, but I can't think of times where it has been a threat. Maybe I am just blanking, but I feel like this move is not that worth it most of the time. Is this a common opinion? I don't know, but I would love to find out.
Tail Glow Plus THREE? Ok then. No Speed boost, so this is best on already fast mons or stuff like Triage Mega Rayquaza. Much more niche then Shell Smash, but it does something that Shell Smash cannot, which is neat.
ICE
Aurora Veil Not worth it. Ever. Don't even try it.
Haze This is used on every Prankster mon that is not some random weird shit like Prankster Primal Groudon. Stops greedy Extreme Evoboosts, or boosts in general. Very good move, and this meta would be so much worse without it.
DRAGON
Jack Fucking Shit Dragon Dance is outclassed by Shift Gear. There are no other Status Dragon moves. Great job Dragon Type.
(STEALTH) ROCK
Stealth Rock The only good Status Rock move, but damn is it a good one. Breaks Sashes, does good damage to mons weak to it, it's Stealth Rock. You all know that Stealth Rock is good. I feel that I don't need to explain further.
GROUND
Spikes A worse Stealth Rock most of the time, but if you have a Mon that has the time to set all three layers it can do some real damage on the switch. Can't hit Flying Types, but Stealth Rock generally makes that up. Good move, just not as good as Rocks are.
FAIRY
Geomancy Power Herb plus Geomancy is not worth it. Just press Shell Smash and have a Focus Sash. It does the same thing but better. Trust me.
Misty Terrain A way to get Status immunity as a Field Effect. Most of the time the mons that want to run it, Prankster mons, don't have the moveslots to run it, but it can be ok if you try to make it work.
DARK
Dark Void Go on, use this on all of your mons. Do it. Do it, I dare you. I fucking dare you. Go and make me relive my Gen 6 trauma. Try it, I dare you.
Parting Shot Generally the go-to Status Momentum move. The minus 1 to Attack and Special Attack can wear down a MMX into not being a threat, which is good. However, it is Magic Bounced, and because Prankster likes to run it it is also blocked by Dark Types. Still probably the best one. Also, this move is one of the few that is actually worth running a Z Crystal for because it fully heals whatever comes in after Parting Shot. Cool.
Switcheroo/Trick Tricking Choice Items onto WG mons. It can be annoying as hell, and can shut down WG mons hard, but it requires a Mon that runs a Choice Item. Not that hard to find, but it is a requirement for usage.
Taunt It is good. It actually blocked Extreme Evoboost now (I think), so it can stop Harvest. I wish my Prankster mons had the moveslots to run it, but they just don't most of the time. (Also turns out it does not block it if they clicked it on the turn you Taunted them. Fuck)
Topsy-Turvy It is blocked by Substitute, and if you are Prankster Dark Types block it as well. Probably not worth the effort over just using Haze.
STEEL
King's Shield It doesn't block Status moves, but in exchange it has the best on-contact effect of the Protect moves. Honestly, I think that King's Shield was left behind in Gen 6. And I think it might be a good idea to keep it there. Also, I forgot to mention it in the other Protect moves, but CFZ moves completely ignore the Protect moves. So that makes this much worse.
Shift Gear A niche sidegrade to Shell Smash that gives less Attack in exchange for not lowering your Defenses. Most of the time Shell Smash is better, but if you have a good reason Shift Gear could be okish. Still probably not worth it tbh.
PSYCHIC
Cosmic Power Stall, and it is not good even there. This is a low ladder kind of move that is used on Shuckle and Deoxys Defense. Not good, better options exist.
Heart Swap This move is similar to Topsy-Turvy, as both deal with set-up sweepers in more debilitating ways then Haze does. However, just like Topsy-Turvy, Substitute stops it, and so does Dark Types if Prankster, and also Psychic Terrain if Prankster. Overall, Haze is more consistent, which makes it better.
Imprison This move has two uses, for doing some very convoluted Improofing, or that one Shadow Tag Imprison Transform set. Both are bad, it takes too long to set up, and the reward is generally not worth it.
Light Screen Generally this is worse then Reflect as Special Attackers are not as strong as Physical ones. I have never seen this get used, but I am sure it could be used. Just not as well as reflect can.
Lunar Dance Darkium Z Parting Shot generally does the job better. This can work on stuff like Impostor mons to do something if the Impostor is blocked, or Innards Out mons to gain momentum, but it is not worth a moveslot and the Pokemon's life.
Magic Coat Good for WG mons to block Sing and Gasto Acid from No Guard mons, as well as ensuring that Hazards can not be set on Innards Out mons. Those are generally the main uses, but it can be extremely good. The main issue is that you need to predict very well to make use of it, which can be hard and can backfire. Still a very good move, just one with a high skill cap.
Psycho Shift Used on Magic Guard or Poison Heal mons to spread Burn and Toxic. It is ok, but only ok. Also don't try and use it on anything else, it will not work.
Reflect Generally the best way for a Prankster mon to wall MMX. Better then Will-O-Miss because it does not miss and it can effect Fire and Dark Types. It is good, and is a very good contender for a moveslot on any Prankster mon. Outside of Prankster, it is not worth it.
GHOST
Curse Not used as much as it was back in Gen 6, but it is still ok. It is ok on Giratina, but not much else tbh.
Destiny Bond Bootleg Innards Out that ignores Magic Guard. Innards Out is better because you can switch into a killing blow, but Destiny Bond can be slapped onto any Prankster mon to randomly kill a MMX or something when it would have just died.
Trick-O-Treat That one Yveltal team that used it plus Pursuit. It is probably the best Type changing move, but that is not a high bar to be honest. It is still niche.
And that's all! Sheesh, that took longer then I thought! But I think the end product is good, so that's that! Anyway, that's about it. Not sure how to end this, so...uh...go out and be a [BIG SHOT!] today! See ya!
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One thing not mentioned here is that it can pass buffs stolen with spectral thief, making it arguably the best pivot on spectral mons such as doublade or some support wg. Baton pass also has more pp than the other pivots, which while it usually doesn't matter, is important to add.
Spider web outclasses block/mean look as it is a clone but with higher pp (8 vs 16).
Seeing as you didn't actually write an analysis despite the fact that the move actually has a use: Lovely kiss is 75% accurate and puts your opponent to sleep, making it a slightly worse unnerfed dark void, however it's main niche comes from it's Z variant, which gives +1 speed. This was used on a past sample with wg greninja passing the boost.
afaik its primarily used on level 2 mons with wg and flame orb such as sableye and spiritomb (im pretty sure it has something to do with rounding but im not entirely sure)
Wonderful setpedia, this is pretty accurate.
Every things I could have add has already been said by Hendrit
bad niche and can be used only on mon that totally walls another.
Every things I could have add has already been said by Hendrit
I just wanted to add : another bad set that can be used is disable + encore + STag / Spider web to force struggle but this is very
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Lovely Kiss deserves no analysis. It is a move a divine sin, a move that beckons into the dark beyond and brings about despair and hatred. For the other things, should I add what you said to the descriptions or do you want to keep them seperete?
Well, I guess you know what you can add next to your group of stories of ph gen 7
But yeah you're totally right
So, this is my first time posting here so, i'mma just make this quick.
- Dual HP& Bounce (Pretty good on offense and defense, made it to 1700 with my account: High Bullsht & Adapting Bullsht)
-Weakness (
) Random No Guards are a pain to scout for
() Parental Bonds yea also scout for these too
(
) Innards Out you will only have to rely on which mon you will have to sac for it
() Priority Moves/Abilities who even uses Triage?
() Harvest If you're lucky enough if it doesn't harvest for at least 20/30 turns
- Dual HP& Bounce (Pretty good on offense and defense, made it to 1700 with my account: High Bullsht & Adapting Bullsht)-Weakness (
) Random No Guards are a pain to scout for(
) Parental Bonds yea also scout for these too(
) Innards Out you will only have to rely on which mon you will have to sac for it(
) Priority Moves/Abilities who even uses Triage?(
) Harvest If you're lucky enough if it doesn't harvest for at least 20/30 turns
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