But take me to the place I love, take me all the way
I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day
But take me to the place I love take me all the way
Following the responses to the most recent tiering survey, Archaludon has emerged as the next DOU suspect test target!
At first glance, Archaludon doesn't appear to overwhelming: despite a pseudo-legendary level BST, its stat spread wasting a lot in Attack while leaving a middling Speed and lackluster Special Defense (which it would love to take advantage of with its excellent Dragon/Steel defensive typing) leave something to be desired. However, Archaludon has two important aces (one unique, one almost unique) up its sleeve which take it up a level. The first of these is Electro Shot, a 130 BP Electric-type attack similar to Meteor Beam where the first turn is spent raising Special Attack before attacking on the second turn, with the massive plus of not requiring a charge turn while in rain. With weather support readily available from Pelipper or Rain Dance Tornadus (who can also set Tailwind to help with Archaludon's middling Speed), this provides Archaludon a powerful coverage attack which simultaneously makes it more threatening, and as this can be used multiple times unlike Meteor Beam which requires a one-off Power Herb, provides especially strong snowball potential. Electro Shot's powerful boosting potential also helps allow Archaludon to invest defensively, usually opting for Assault Vest and a Specially Defensive EV spread to patch up its vulnerability on the special side.
Archaludon's true trump card, though, is its ability Stamina. This ability boosts Archaludon's Defense by one stage whenever damaged by attack, with multi-attacks activating multiple times (meaning a Beat Up user like Whimsicott may be paired to quickly rack up boosts, though this is less common), but also notably activating even on being hit by special attacks as well. In practice, this means Archaludon finds ample opportunity to begin racking up boosts, as with its Dragon/Steel typing providing a number of resists, moves like Fake Out or U-Turn, Bleakwind Storm from Tornadus, or any STAB moves from Ogerpon-Wellspring or Rillaboom will do minimal damage while in fact benefiting Archaludon. Quite importantly, Archaludon can switch into any of these attacks to get the boost train rolling before it even selects a move, and this is often the best way to start gaining boosts as once Archaludon is on the field the opponent should avoid unnecessarily targeting it or risk playing into its hand. Even beyond the aforementioned attacks one must be careful about choosing to attack Archaludon, doing so thoughtlessly can easily let it run away with the game, as attacking with for example a neutral physical attacker like Incineroar or Kingambit may do decent damage on the first hit, but will be unable to break through with subsequent attacks while boosting Archaludon up. As if steadily turning Archaludon into an untouchable monster, Stamina boosts also pair perfectly with Body Press, letting them function as an offensive boost as well. On top of dealing with pesky Steel-types like Kingambit that resist Archaludon's STABs, Body Press quickly becomes a nuke after racking up a few defensive boosts, capable of KOing most non-resists. Electro Shot is nice, but often Body Press alone is strong enough alone for Archaludon to get by relying on that as its damage output, while also letting it get away with investing in Special Defense.
However, Archaludon is not without its flaws. Even with Assault Vest and Special Defense investment, Archaludon is still quite vulnerable to ever-present threat Landorus-I, often being forced to Tera to remove its Ground weakness (and generally being quite tera hungry as a result). Other strong special attackers like Chi-Yu, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, or Regidrago can also threaten Archaludon, though not as strongly as Landorus, while also lacking its helpful Body Press/Electro Shot resists. On the physical side, Chien-Pao can pierce through Archaludon's Defense boosts using a super effective Sacred Sword, and while Tera can remove this weakness, usually a Terrastallized Archaludon will be weak instead to Chien-Pao's Ice-type attacks as a result. Amoonguss resists both Body Press and Electro Shot while being able to tank Archaludon's other attacks as well and can Spore it in return (or Clear Smog a Terrastallized Archaludon, though this does still leave it at +1 Defense), though Safety Goggles or Tera Grass variants can make it unreliable. Gholdengo is immune to Body Press and resists Archaludon's other attacks outside of Electro Shot, often being able to Nasty Plot up on it. In general, using a Tera type which resists/is immune to Body Press can be effective against Archaludon as this is usually its primary damage source, particularly so for Iron Defense sets. Archaludon's reliance on rain also holds it back, either needing to find time to manually set with Tornadus, or use an otherwise inferior choice in Pelipper to get rain on switch-in; overriding rain to prevent Electro Shot or force Archaludon to lock into a 2-turn execution can also cripple it. Archaludon's biggest flaw, however, is its reliance on boosts to be effective, without which it is damage output is quite non-threatening, and it can still be hurt by a well-timed physical attack. Avoid letting Archaludon acquire too many boosts, particularly from needlessly attacking into it, and it is much easier to deal with.
As usual, 60% of the vote must be in favor to ban Archaludon.
Important: For this suspect, there will be two ways to qualify. The first is the typical laddering period, where players must reach the minimum GXE. The second is by winning a live suspect tournament, to be held in the Smogon Doubles Room. You may compete in the suspect tournament on any account, and will need to post proof of you winning the suspect tournament on the voter ID thread.
There will be two live suspect tournaments:
Suspect Tournament Times
Saturday, 11th May at 12:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
Sunday, 12th May at 4:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
The laddering period will last for a total of nine days.
Laddering Period
Start: Friday, 10th May at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
End:
All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! Doubles OU ladder on a fresh alt with the prefix DOUAR [name]. For example, I might register "DOUAR Yoda” to ladder with. You must follow this format to qualify.
To qualify to vote, you must achieve a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may subtract 1 game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. As always, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE is fine.
| GXE | minimum games |
| 80 | 50 |
| 80.2 | 49 |
| 80.4 | 48 |
| 80.6 | 47 |
| 80.8 | 46 |
| 81 | 45 |
| 81.2 | 44 |
| 81.4 | 43 |
| 81.6 | 42 |
| 81.8 | 41 |
| 82 | 40 |
| 82.2 | 39 |
| 82.4 | 38 |
| 82.6 | 37 |
| 82.8 | 36 |
| 83 | 35 |
| 83.2 | 34 |
| 83.4 | 33 |
| 83.6 | 32 |
| 83.8 | 31 |
| 84 | 30 |
Archaludon will be legal during this suspect.
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vs 
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What a guy man. This pokemon stands as the best blanket check to special offense in the format aside from perhaps AV raging bolt. Ting lu priority offense is honestly a great metagame adaptation that really flipped things on its head without completely undermining the format. The metagame of recent months has trended away from the once-commonplace practice of carrying disruption moves such as taunt on lando-t back in DLC 1 and it's left a lot of opportunity for ting lu to start playing its little hazards game again. Ting lu's rise has the potential to go much farther than it already has and I for one am loving how its impacting the metagame and the potential adaptations it may soon force out of teams. I've also experimented with snarl + sand tomb which has felt very solid on the right teams over the whirlwind + hazards + stabs sets and overall I'm glad that this guy alongside snow is helping to keep the metagame a little slower than just being a special offense versus pao phys offense banana show right now.
On the tails of discussing snow, I think bax is heavily underrepresented in the metagame right now. So many different good sets to prey upon a litany of ice-weak pokemon in the metagame and an aboslute nuclear bomb of a signature move off its incredible attack stat. Definitely feels underused right now.
Insanely good pokemon. Establishes control over slower teams so effectively that it really doesn't need to do anything else. The full sets on this pokemon has never quite felt solved to me between throat spray, sitrus or even seed variants but honestly it never really needed to have a perfect set. One of my favorite metagame presences that continues to feel better as the generation progresses.
I nommed this guy for tier 5 beacuse it's honestly put in some good work lately. Really effective at preying upon ting lu teams andsort of beats glimmora at its own game when it comes to spreading poison and being generally annoying. Dual confusion hax can lead to some really stupid outcomes and has just enough other options in its toolkit such as recover and parting shot that it can absolutely ruin somebody's game if they run out of checks for it late. Probably not something that will pick up too much but I do think it represents an opportunity in the metagame for more disruptive strategies to find a foothold again that isn't really being explored.
