Pokémon Kartana

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It's so vexatious that this thing has such a wonderful defensive typing with so many resistances and only two weaknesses, but yet it is often literally OHKOed by resisted special attacks. If this thing had more than zero special defense, it would be so much more useful....
 
It's unfortunate, but Kartana simply doesn't have the strong, physical movepool that it is screaming out for. Its only good STAB moves are Smart Strike (70 base power, doesn't check accuracy) and Leaf Blade (90 base power, 100 accuracy). These moves are naturally staple on Kartana in my eyes because of a) STAB, and b) decent base power. Reliable coverage options to include are Sacred Sword and Night Slash, but with Aegislash recently banned, i'm seeing a lot more merit in running Swords Dance over Night Slash to compliment its ridiculously high base attack of 181. Steelium-Z is also a great option for Kartana, Giving it a very powerful STAB option, which would even be a difficult to take move by mons that resist steel.

When it comes to bulk, Kartana is pretty meh. 59 hp is obviously not good, but coupled with grass / steel typing as well as 131 defense means that Kartana can take a wide array of physical hits quite well; but with that being said, Kartana prefers not to have its hp whittled down, as a life orb set alone already makes it somewhat of a glass cannon. On the special side, Kartana is as strong as wet paper, with 31 spd and 59 spa, Kartana can't do anything at all regarding special stats.

For me, one of Kartana's most crippling factors is the base 109 speed. It's such an awkward speed tier to be competing in. Just short of the base 110's and reaching a speed of 348 with jolly, Kartana can't quite keep up. Beast boost doesn't prove useful to this problem either, as no matter what the situation when building, Kartana's attack should always be higher than its speed, unless you run a timid nature with 19 attack IVs. Choice scarf is a very meh option, as Kartana can't pivot properly without access to u-turn (which it doesn't learn) as well as the fact that Kartana as a revenge killer and late game sweeper is not best utilizing it's role, being a physical wallbreaker from my experiences.

Although not a bad pokemon, Kartana will struggle to an extent in holding its own weight once the meta is settled down; I look forward to see what people can do with this mon ^-^
 
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Kartana @ Steelium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 19 Atk
- Swords Dance
- Sacred Sword
- Smart Strike
- Leaf Blade

Spread seems weird at first, but it ensures a speed boost from beast boost. +2 Kartana still has 694 Attack. Disclaimer: I didn't come up with this set.
 

yogi

I did not succumb...
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Now that Aegislash is gone is there much reason to run Night Slash
Night Slash is able to hit a decent amount of things, notabily the Lati twins, Alolan Marowak and even hit things like Zard-Y for neutral/SE; I still think it has use.
 
Night Slash is able to hit a decent amount of things, notabily the Lati twins, Alolan Marowak and even hit things like Zard-Y for neutral/SE; I still think it has use.
Ah, okay.
So you're telling me they couldn't give it Power Whip or strong coverage moves?
Like, you give it Giga Impact...

They know what they're doing; they put it JUST under the 110 Speed tier
Just like they put Phermosa 1 over the 150 Speed tier, in case you wanted to use Alakazam or Aerodactyl's Megas to outspeed.
 
Ah, okay.
So you're telling me they couldn't give it Power Whip or strong coverage moves?
Like, you give it Giga Impact...

They know what they're doing; they put it JUST under the 110 Speed tier
Just like they put Phermosa 1 over the 150 Speed tier, in case you wanted to use Alakazam or Aerodactyl's Megas to outspeed.
Or maybe its because 109 is+1 over Terrakion and Keldeo

And this is why:

Kartana
Base Stats 59 / 181 / 131 / 59 / 31 / 109

Durant
Base Stats 59 / 188 / 112 / 48 / 48 / 109

Seriously i won't be surprised if the entire reasoning for desiging Kartana is "LOLOLOLDURANTWITHMOXIE"
 

Ash Borer

I've heard they're short of room in hell
I've been toying around with this thing more now that the Aegis is gone. I think the Z-move Swords Dance wallbreaker set is probably the best.

Kartana @ Fightinium Z / Steelium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 HP / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Sacred Sword
- Smart Strike
- Leaf Blade

What's nifty about this set as a wallbreaker is that it hits both Unaware users super effectively with STAB (though fully phys def unaware clef needs softening if you don't want to hit it with Corkscrew crash), so those fail to stop it, and, because of Beast Boost it can get away with having no boosting item, as after the first KO that +3 attack is enough to carry it through the rest of the team.

+2 252 Atk Kartana All-Out Pummeling (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 277-327 (82.9 - 97.9%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Kartana All-Out Pummeling (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Celesteela: 477-562 (119.8 - 141.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Kartana All-Out Pummeling (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 40+ Def Mega Scizor: 323-380 (93.8 - 110.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Kartana All-Out Pummeling (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Charizard X: 327-385 (90.8 - 106.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252 Atk Kartana Corkscrew Crash (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 180+ Def Buzzwole: 352-415 (84.2 - 99.2%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Kartana Corkscrew Crash (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Heracross: 384-453 (105.4 - 124.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Kartana Corkscrew Crash (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 363-427 (89.8 - 105.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Kartana Corkscrew Crash (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Venusaur: 366-432 (100.5 - 118.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 Atk Kartana Leaf Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Sableye: 232-274 (76.3 - 90.1%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Kartana Leaf Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 202-238 (66.4 - 78.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Toxapex Scald vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kartana: 63-74 (24.3 - 28.5%) -- 98.4% chance to 4HKO


Yeah, this is pretty tough to wall. I think it's worth mentioning that both Tangrowth and Venusaur need HP fire if they're going to stop Kartana, and both Buzzwole and Heracross probably aren't stall staples, so fightinium-z is the weapon of choice vs. stall I think.

I think it's also worth mentioning that an offensive mega venusaur set of Synthesis / HP Fire / Giga Drain / Sludge Bomb is pretty good lure for pretty much all of these Pokemon. Ill admit having to support a wallbreaker with a lure is usually a bad thing, the calcs show it isn't necessary, just wanted to point it out how good their synergy is.
 
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INSANE CARZY GUY

Banned deucer.
I think the best use of kartana, is a choice scarf revenge killer that has niche coverage and force switches, often if they make a bad switch vs kartana the whole rest of the team can go belly up, honestly I'm just happy to have him as a faster threat for other frail mons, and him just being on Your team just shuts down some pokemon like gengar, clefable, marowak, tartar and etc.

I wish he paired well with choice band pursuit tar.

But kartana kind of wants the few ghost it can get and psychic pokemon often have focus blast or moon blast.

Still just pairs with other things that force a lot of switches that hits on the special side
 
I prefer to run a 4-move set for better coverage so Kartana can be used as a late game sweeper able to OHKO everything after Beast Boost kicks in. I just can't see it surviving long enough to Swords Dance anyway.

But I'm having issues with the move selection. Do I go with Psycho Cut or Night Slash in the 4th slot? Psycho Cut seems appealing as I often have to deal with Venusaur and Toxapex which otherwise wall it. But Night Slash hits ghosts and psychics like Marowak, Exeggutor, Necrosma, Dhelmise and Metagross etc.

HALP!
 
I prefer to run a 4-move set for better coverage so Kartana can be used as a late game sweeper able to OHKO everything after Beast Boost kicks in. I just can't see it surviving long enough to Swords Dance anyway.

But I'm having issues with the move selection. Do I go with Psycho Cut or Night Slash in the 4th slot? Psycho Cut seems appealing as I often have to deal with Venusaur and Toxapex which otherwise wall it. But Night Slash hits ghosts and psychics like Marowak, Exeggutor, Necrosma, Dhelmise and Metagross etc.

HALP!
From my experience, swords dance / sacred sword / leaf blade / smart strike is the best set. With kartana, you don't exactly need to hit everything super effectively. You can swords dance fine when you go to check something, and kartana's physical bulk is good enough to survive and set up a swords dance. You want to best abuse how strong kartana's physical power is
 
I don't see how Swords Dance helps Kartana at all. It already has insane attack and an ability that boosts it.

You can swords dance all you want, but you're not killing Marowak or Toxapex unless you have that coverage move. I don't want to have to spend the whole battle stressing about things that can block a Kartana sweep and switching stuff in to remove every ghost, poison, fighting and psychic Pokémon just so Kartana can come in and swords dance for a guaranteed sweep. I want it to be a more independent Pokémon if that makes sense
 
I don't see how Swords Dance helps Kartana at all. It already has insane attack and an ability that boosts it.

You can swords dance all you want, but you're not killing Marowak or Toxapex unless you have that coverage move. I don't want to have to spend the whole battle stressing about things that can block a Kartana sweep and switching stuff in to remove every ghost, poison, fighting and psychic Pokémon just so Kartana can come in and swords dance for a guaranteed sweep. I want it to be a more independent Pokémon if that makes sense
+2 leaf blade is a 2hko on toxapex I believe, the same as psycho cut non-boosted. As for alolan-maro, you don't really want to have to rely on kartana to beat it, as night slash is still a 2hko after rocks. This means that kartana's ability to beat alolan-maro is limited strictly to having it already weakened to a point where a single night slash will ko.

And, I think you'll find that the "independent mon" you want comes easier with swords dance, due to it relying a whole lot less on teammates when it can just setup by itself and proceed to sweep, break walls, and the rest. Swords dance kartana is arguably the best set. It needs that boost to justify the extremely weak physical movepool. You said that you don't want to spend the whole battle stressing about removing its threats, but swords dance / coverage move or not, kartana will still have issues beating those threats, as it can't get the KO a lot of the time. This is where swords dance comes in as more useful than that extra coverage move
 
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All true words I guess. Swords Dance probably is a better set than 4 moves plus life orb / expert belt. But I'm still not entirely convinced.

Usually I bring Kartana in on something it can kill easily, force the switch, predict the switch as best I can, put a dent in whatever they switch into, then pick the best coverage move and KO what switched in, gain the beast boost, and away we go. It doesn't always happen. But it does work well.
 
All true words I guess. Swords Dance probably is a better set than 4 moves plus life orb / expert belt. But I'm still not entirely convinced.

Usually I bring Kartana in on something it can kill easily, force the switch, predict the switch as best I can, put a dent in whatever they switch into, then pick the best coverage move and KO what switched in, gain the beast boost, and away we go. It doesn't always happen. But it does work well.
I see your strategy; but naturally, you don't want to be relying on predicting with any pokemon to best make use of it. Try a set of 252 attack, 4 defence, 252 speed timid + steelium-z with sacred sword / leaf blade / swords dance / smart strike. Steelium-z is perfect for kartana, as it gives it a temporary nuke which is beneficial to beast boost, giving you an easy +1. When at +2 from swords dance, this hits even harder, putting a really nasty dent in whatever comes in against kartana, which is something you said you like doing.

You mentioned using expert; that's honestly a bad option. Life orb, which you mentioned as well, is the much much better item of choice. Kartana will always have its hp gradually whittled down from it, and while life orb only assists in speeding up this process, it doesn't really mind. If you're well and truly convinced that you absolutely need 4 attacking moves, run it with a scarf. This lets it act as a late game sweeper; a niche wincon but a wincon nonetheless.

Naturally, kartana will struggle with those ghost and poison pokemon, so a strong dark type will work quite well. My personal favourite is actually mandibuzz. Although very niche, it is extremely fat and with reliable recovery + hazard removal. With foul play it comfortably deals with its own physical threats most of the time, and can provide general support with toxic. Although quite a passive mon which seems to be a weird partner with kartana on paper, in practice it performs quite well
 
Quick question: why Steelium Z over the other possible Z moves? I haven't studied all the Z moves but I'm assuming Steel is the strongest option?

Also I assume you meant Jolly and not Timid nature for that set.

Which I will try, and thanks for the advice.
 
N
Quick question: why Steelium Z over the other possible Z moves? I haven't studied all the Z moves but I'm assuming Steel is the strongest option?

Also I assume you meant Jolly and not Timid nature for that set.

Which I will try, and thanks for the advice.
No, it's Timid to allow speed beast boosts. It's quite clever.
 
Right, with 0 Attack EVs and 19 IVs, Kartana reaches 347 Attack. With a Timid Nature, it reaches 348 Speed. As such it gets a speed boost after a KO. With a SD boost, its lower attack becomes much stronger, and it can sweep if it gets +2 Attack/+1 speed.
 
Quick question: why Steelium Z over the other possible Z moves? I haven't studied all the Z moves but I'm assuming Steel is the strongest option?

Also I assume you meant Jolly and not Timid nature for that set.

Which I will try, and thanks for the advice.
Ah yes I meant jolly, my mistake. Although you can run a set of timid with 19 attack IVs for the speed boost, that's not the set which I'm trying to achieve. And it's between a choice of grassium-z or steelium-z based around stab. Kartana doesn't hit hard enough with non-stab option. You want to abuse kartana's attack stat, which you can't properly do with a non-stab option. Kartana is strong enough that even against a mon that resists, its z-move will still hit mercilessly. Coverage isn't needed for the z-move because you have what is a temporary nuke which even mons that resist don't really want to take
 
The scarf set seems like the best idea, imo, I've seen too many times on showdown where kartana would try to set up S-dance and get hit with a special move, but hey, that's just me, plus, I'd prefer that beast boost in attack, it just seems safer. Jolly and Adamant would both be fine, but I'd go with Adamant, just to try and net that first kill sooner.
 
Kartana is a beast and definitely one of the OU powerhouses. It gets to 507 attack (running Adamant nature with max EVs)

Kartana @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Sacred Sword
- Psycho Cut

This is the set I run. With Scarf, it out-speeds the entire unboosted metagame, and after it downs a Pokemon, the Beast Boost simply makes it unstoppable, increasing it's attack to around 750. Unless you have a quad-resist or good defenses, it's so difficult to wall and most of the metagame gets 2HKOed by the appropriate coverage. The only trouble this pokemon has is it's horrendous Special Defense. Vacuum Wave = KO. Sacred Sword gives it really good coverage (Looking at Heatran). Psycho Cut is there for the fighting types.
 
I've been screwing around with Kartana in the Battle Tree. The set I'm running is:

Jolly nature, 252 Atk/ 252 Spd/ 4 Def, and I haven't found an item for it.
Leaf Blade, Smart Strike, X Scissor and Detect. X Scissor is good for checking Pokemon like Weavile and Scrafty. Resistances don't even matter all that much with Kartana with the exception of quad resistance as it basically hammers everything with nasty paper cuts. Beast Boost is just the topping on the cake, as it snowballs ridiculously fast. Not to mention it outspeeds a lot of the Alola Pokedex and I think a pretty reasonable majority of the national Dex.
 
I think running X Scissor is redundant because you have Secret Sword to hit Dark-types (and Fighting >>> Bug as an offensive type) and Psychic types in OU anyway have poor defenses, so you can easily cut through them with Leaf Blade after a +1 from Beast Boost.
 
I think running X Scissor is redundant because you have Secret Sword to hit Dark-types (and Fighting >>> Bug as an offensive type) and Psychic types in OU anyway have poor defenses, so you can easily cut through them with Leaf Blade after a +1 from Beast Boost.
Pun intended ;)

Anyways, this guy is pretty cool to use. I have found him to be a really good late game cleaner, and he can perform pretty well as an offensive Defog user. His defense is that of a wet paper bag, but he is still a ton of fun to use. I wouldn't write this guy off at all, even if he lacks low BP moves and has really bad Special Defense.
 
So, I have been messing around with Banded Kartana as a wallbreaker (cause Weavile is really underwhelming right now without Knock Off) and it is pretty decent. It certainly smashes holes into teams and nothing wants to switch in at all. I personally find the set better than Scarf right now just for the sheer power gap that Scarf lacks. It takes way too much effort to set up a late game Kartana sweep. To me it works better as a nasty wallbreaker that comes in on Physical, non fire Mons, and unloads on them with powerful hits, either killing outright, or weakening them significantly for the rest of the team. I mean, Leaf Blade on Bold Max HP/Max Def Toxapex has a 99.6% chance to 2HKO. Even Tapu Bulu can't switch in well on a Leaf Blade as it is also a 2HKO even after Grassy Terrain if it is just Max HP/Max Atk. This thing eats Stall and Bulky Offense alive and pairs REALLY well with Tapu Koko and Tapu Fini.
 
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