Pokémon Gholdengo

[Pabloaram]

Gholdengo
Type: Steel/Ghost
Stats: 87/60/95/133/91/84
Ability: Good as Gold.

Moves: Shadow Ball, Make it Rain, Recover, Nasty Plot, Focus Blast, Thunder/bolt, Psychic, Substitute, Reflect, Light Screen, Trick, Hex, Psyshock, Memento, TWave, Flash Cannon, Steel Beam, Terra Blast

New Ability:
Good as Gold: Inmunity to Status moves (Wow, Leech Seed, Defog, etc). Can still be burned, freezed, para or sleep by secondary effects.

New Move:
Make It Rain: :steel: Special 120 BP 100 AC 5 PP Additional Effect: -1 SpA for the user.

Pros:
-Amazing 133 SpA with perfect coverage, spammeable STAB Shadow Ball and unique nuke in Make it Rain
-Great typing (same as Aegislash) giving 3 inmunities (Normal, Fighting, Poison) and pletora of resistance (Fairy, Psychic, Ice, Dragon, etc)
-Great utility movepool in Nasty Plot, Recover, Screens.
-Fairly resitance to Residual. Semi Inmune to Status effects tranks to the pasive and resistance to Stealth Rock. Acess to Recover lets play the long game against defensive teams.
-Block Every form of hazzard control. Making him strong in Hazzard Stacking archetypes

Cons:
-Stats outside SpA are average as best
-Typing have common weaknes is Ghost, Dark, Ground and Fire

Edit1: Added Terrastal Potencial and some sets.

Terrastal potencial: Fighting, Steel, Flying
Fighting give you another STAB to play with and a crucial resistance to Dark. Moves like Kingambit Sucker Punch or Meoscarada Knock Off treathen Gholdengo and Fighting reverse the situation
Steel let you maintain crusial resistance to Fairy, Ice and Dragon without the weakness of Ghost, empowering Make it Rain as a result
Flying let you fight Ground-type evading his STAB and punish with a big hit. Is the less offensive terrastal type.

Sets:
Choicelocked @ Choice Scarf/Specs
Ability: Good as Gold
Terra Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 SpA/ 4 SpDef/ 252 Spe
Timid/Modest Nature
-Shadow Ball
-Make It Rain
-Terra Blast/Focus Blast
-Psyshock/Trick

Choice attacker. Scarf take the roll of speed control when Specs become a fierce Wallbreaker.
Ghost/Steel/Fighting give you full coverage. Fighting TerraType explained in Terrastal Potencial.
Last Move could be to ruin a wall giving your choice item or hitting a special wall in his weakside

EV can be change depende if max speed is needed. Can put some ev on HP bc typing lets take a few hit.

Nasty Plot @ Leftovers
Ability: Good as Gold
Terratype: Flying/Steel
Evs/nature: Same as before
-Shadow Ball
-Make it Rain
-Recover
-Nasty Plot

Setup Swepper. Specially strong in screen/web HO or versus Bulkier Team.

 

[Turtleye_]

This mon is almost an auto-include on Hazardspam imo, literally only Maushold is able to clear hazards vs it. It blocks Rapid Spin, Defog and even Mortal Spin which is crazy. Main downside of it is that you sorta stack typings with Flutter Mane but thats not too big of a deal.


Gholdengo @ Air Balloon
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hex
- Make It Rain
- Recover / ???
- Thunder Wave

I've been running this set on a HStack team alongside Flutter Mane for dual Hex memes. Set works quite nicely, as it beats a lot of spinners already. The main obstacles are Tusk and Treads, which is why I'm running Air Balloon. Thought they can carry Knock Off, for some reason most of them do not have knock? Maybe its just too low ladder.

It's probably better to run more Speed EVs rather than HP, I havent looked into that yet. Can probably put enough EVs to outrun the Donphans,

Recover is also something I've not ever clicked, but I'm not sure what options would be good. Perhaps Sub to capitalize on the many switches this thing forces. NP is also solid, and more niche options like Memento, Trick or even a screen could be interesting.

 

[Pabloaram]

This mon is almost an auto-include on Hazardspam imo, literally only Maushold is able to clear hazards vs it. It blocks Rapid Spin, Defog and even Mortal Spin which is crazy. Main downside of it is that you sorta stack typings with Flutter Mane but thats not too big of a deal.


Gholdengo @ Air Balloon
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hex
- Make It Rain
- Recover / ???
- Thunder Wave

I've been running this set on a HStack team alongside Flutter Mane for dual Hex memes. Set works quite nicely, as it beats a lot of spinners already. The main obstacles are Tusk and Treads, which is why I'm running Air Balloon. Thought they can carry Knock Off, for some reason most of them do not have knock? Maybe its just too low ladder.

It's probably better to run more Speed EVs rather than HP, I havent looked into that yet. Can probably put enough EVs to outrun the Donphans,

Recover is also something I've not ever clicked, but I'm not sure what options would be good. Perhaps Sub to capitalize on the many switches this thing forces. NP is also solid, and more niche options like Memento, Trick or even a screen could be interesting.

The donphan bros are the only things capable of clearing hazzard outside of niche cases like the Family Mouse move.

 

[Soiramio3000]

I want to reccomend a different set.
I call it "dedicated anti-hazard"

item:choice scarf
EVs:68 hp,252 sp.atk,188 speed.
nature: modest.
moveset:
-steel beam
-dazziling gleam
-psychic
-thunderbolt/fighting type tera blast.

let's adress the elephant in the room: why use steel beam over make it rain?
the answer to this question is this: while maushold's bulk is nothing to write home about,it is is still good enough to survive a make it rain attack, if you let maushold to use tidy up before you kill it then you have failed as a hazard control blocker therefore steel beam is necessary.

the speed EVs are also necessary combined with choice scarf in order to outrun a non-scarfed cyclizard, which is faster than maushold.

the other moves are there in order to beat the other hazard removers.

dazzling gleam is a guaranteed 2HKO on cyclyzard.
psychic has 14/16 chance oh OHKO great task,it has 76.56 chance of 2HKO glimmora with max hp and sp.def investment.
thunderbolt is for corviknight(which is the only reliable defoger right now).
the fighting terablast is your only hope against the iron threads(unless if you preffer focus blast and its unreliable 70% accuracy).

 

[Bold School]

I tried to use this thing in a hazard spam team with Gengar. The goal was to get everything poisoned and then use Hex and Venoshock. The team wasn't very good, but Gholdengo was awesome. It really is the ultimate hazard clear blocker. It also hits pretty hard. You can switch into block the clear and then threaten to hit hard.

I originally had Steel Beam on a Specs set. But I found that Make It Rain is much better. You don't really mind the special attack drop since you are generally switching in and out frequently anyway. And you don't need to suicide to block defog when your ability already does that.

I found terastallizing Normal was a pretty good break glass in case of emergency counter to offensive ghost types. But now that Houndstone and Flutter Mane are banned, I'm wondering if it's even necessary to do this anymore. Dragapult is still running around I guess.

I'm thinking it might be good to terastallize into pure ghost to counter Great Tusk and Iron Treads a bit. That way you can still block the spin without getting KO'd on the switch by the ground moves. Not sure if the natural bulk makes this worth it or not.

 

[Lectrys]

I still think defensive Gholdengo sets are underrated because they can check every Fairy-type they're supposed to check and emergency check things they should not be able to check, such as Life Orb Flutter Mane Specs Dragapult:

Gholdengo @ Spell Tag
Ability: Good As Gold
Tera Type: Fairy / Steel / Ghost / Flying / Water
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Def / 160 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Make It Rain
- Substitute
- Recover / Thunder Wave / Dazzling Gleam / Focus Blast / Nasty Plot

Substitute is a pretty good 3rd move in this Ghost- and Dark-infested meta, letting you pull up a buffer against something you force out (e.g. dang near all Corviknights) and forcing their next guy to eat an attack.

The 96 Def EVs is to survive Iron Valiant's Choice Band Knock Off after Stealth Rock and guaranteed OHKO back:

252 Atk Choice Band Iron Valiant Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 96 Def Gholdengo: 300-354 (79.3 - 93.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Gholdengo Flash Cannon vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Iron Valiant: 332-392 (114.8 - 135.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO (ouch, not even Make It Rain and/or Spell Tag)

All remaining EVs (besides the 4 Speed EVs to speed creep other defensive Gholdengo) are sunk into Special Defense (the extra buffer helps in case you need to tank a Corviknight U-turn into Dragapult); this lets you survive Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball (and Specs Enamorus Earth Power FWIW) after SR, and Spell Tag lets you guaranteed OHKO Dragapult back (assuming no Teras):

252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Gholdengo: 272-324 (71.9 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Spell Tag Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragapult: 336-396 (105.9 - 124.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 Atk Corviknight U-turn vs. 252 HP / 92 Def Gholdengo: 10-12 (2.6 - 3.1%) -- possibly the worst move ever

By the way, the same EVs were enough to similarly tank Life Orb Flutter Mane Shadow Ball after SR and guaranteed OHKO back with Make It Rain.

 

[Cdijk16]

I think that Air Balloon NP Gholdengo is worth looking into. It allows you to Spinblock a bit vs Great Tusk and Iron Treads. Tera Flying could be used for the same reason.

 

[zantaRay]

This mon is almost an auto-include on Hazardspam imo, literally only Maushold is able to clear hazards vs it. It blocks Rapid Spin, Defog and even Mortal Spin which is crazy. Main downside of it is that you sorta stack typings with Flutter Mane but thats not too big of a deal.


Gholdengo @ Air Balloon
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hex
- Make It Rain
- Recover / ???
- Thunder Wave

I've been running this set on a HStack team alongside Flutter Mane for dual Hex memes. Set works quite nicely, as it beats a lot of spinners already. The main obstacles are Tusk and Treads, which is why I'm running Air Balloon. Thought they can carry Knock Off, for some reason most of them do not have knock? Maybe its just too low ladder.

It's probably better to run more Speed EVs rather than HP, I havent looked into that yet. Can probably put enough EVs to outrun the Donphans,

Recover is also something I've not ever clicked, but I'm not sure what options would be good. Perhaps Sub to capitalize on the many switches this thing forces. NP is also solid, and more niche options like Memento, Trick or even a screen could be interesting.

This set has been great but you definitely want 4 spd on it, to avoid tying with unboosted paralysed iron bundle.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

\

This mon is almost an auto-include on Hazardspam imo, literally only Maushold is able to clear hazards vs it. It blocks Rapid Spin, Defog and even Mortal Spin which is crazy. Main downside of it is that you sorta stack typings with Flutter Mane but thats not too big of a deal.


Gholdengo @ Air Balloon
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hex
- Make It Rain
- Recover / ???
- Thunder Wave

I've been running this set on a HStack team alongside Flutter Mane for dual Hex memes. Set works quite nicely, as it beats a lot of spinners already. The main obstacles are Tusk and Treads, which is why I'm running Air Balloon. Thought they can carry Knock Off, for some reason most of them do not have knock? Maybe its just too low ladder.

It's probably better to run more Speed EVs rather than HP, I havent looked into that yet. Can probably put enough EVs to outrun the Donphans,

Recover is also something I've not ever clicked, but I'm not sure what options would be good. Perhaps Sub to capitalize on the many switches this thing forces. NP is also solid, and more niche options like Memento, Trick or even a screen could be interesting.

Air balloon still does not solve the problem of getting smacked by knock off though, so keep that in mind.

 

[Devoured]

Gholdengo's ability, Good As Gold blocks Whirlwind. I'm not sure if this is how it works in-game or if this is a bug. I was using Ting-Lu and used Whirlwind which the opposing Gholdengo was not affected due to its ability. Whirlwind isnt exactly a status move, so if anyone can verify or test in-game?

 

[Pabloaram]

Defong and wirlwind are the same.
I mean Good as Gold block all status move, no only wow and toxic

 

[Cheryl.]

does Good As Gold block Taunt too?

 

[Pabloaram]

Yes

 

[Fenghuang]

does Good As Gold block Taunt too?

when you hear "status move" you're thinking "move which inflicts status" but that's not what it means. There are three categories of moves: Physical, Special, and "Status". Gholdengo is immune to the third category. So it's gonna be any move that targets it but doesn't deal damage.

 

[ZyroBerk]

Which Pokémon are good pairings with Gholdengo? I'm building my first team with it, so I don't know what to use.

 

[Darkbirt]

Can someone give an opinion if this is any good:

Gholdengo @ Leftovers
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 SpA / 130 Def / 126 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: All 31
- Charge Beam
- Shadow Ball
- Recover
- Protect

I've taken charge beam for saving up a slot (it ups special attack with one stage most of the time.) I don't know if both recover and protect would be overkill, but I've got the feeling that it will be annoying for the opponent. Shadow ball is it's main stab. However the missing of Make it rain might hurt. Or is it be better to give up on raising the special attack and switch Charge beam with Make it rain or Iron head?

 

[Darkbirt]

Which Pokémon are good pairings with Gholdengo? I'm building my first team with it, so I don't know what to use.

Maybe Iron Jugulis?
They both cover each others weakness for thee of the four weaknesses.

 

[Jaetheho]

Maybe Iron Jugulis?
They both cover each others weakness for thee of the four weaknesses.

But then you have to use iron jugulis

 

[Darkbirt]

But then you have to use iron jugulis

Other options would be Honchkrow and Bombirdier, but their might be no synergie between them (same type combination). Hydreigon and Hawlucha might be possible. The problem is that when you need an immunity for ground, Fire becomes a fatal weakness. Bug and grass Pokémon don't like it, and only flying is left. The dark type is also essential for immunity against ghost and dark. If you want to combine it with other types either Fire becomes a major issue or the weakness against ghost and dark isn't covered. The only other option is using two Pokémon to cover for it's weakness, then their are to many options, a dark type and flying type can be combined with other types you can use Pokémon that cover only two weakness each. A Fairy and a dragon type makes it in the classic Steel/Fairy/Dragon core, this also works.

If you ignore ground then Dark and water are also a good combination, but their aren't any in the game on the moment.

 

[UsernameUnknown404]

Does Mold Breaker counter Good as Gold?

 

[Hades_049]

Does Mold Breaker counter Good as Gold?

Yes, Mold Breaker ignores it so something like defog hawlucha can defog on it

 

[UsernameUnknown404]

Yes, Mold Breaker ignores it so something like defog hawlucha can defog on it

This is really good to know! Thank you!

 

[Umbriwii]

What are the best way to counter this thing? Because my current strategy is to forfeit when I see it.

 

[LunaPhoebe]

ting-lu

 

[STEELDRAGON]

The most frustrating Pokémon to face. Good as Gold is a incredible ability, along with one of the best typings in the game, recover make it the best Pokémon in the tier. It also hits like a truck and can set up with NP. I do see it falling a little bit in the future though.