Pokémon Tapu Lele

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HailFall

HailFall

my cancer is sun and my leo is moon
Tapu Lele

Pokedex Number - 786
Types - Psychic / Fairy
Base Stats - 70 HP / 85 Atk / 75 Def / 130 SAtk / 115 SDef / 95 Spe

Abilities
Ability 1 - Psychic Surge: Turns the ground into Psychic Terrain when the Pokemon enters a battle.
Hidden Ability - Telepathy: This Pokemon does not take damage from attacks made by its allies.

Level-Up Movepool
Lv0 - Psychic Terrain
Lv0 - Aromatic Mist
Lv0 - Aromatherapy
Lv0 - Mean Look
Lv0 - Draining Kiss
Lv0 - Astonish
Lv0 - Withdraw
Lv0 - Confusion
Lv8 - Psywave
Lv14 - Psybeam
Lv20 - Sweet Scent
Lv26 - Skill Swap
Lv32 - Psyshock
Lv38 - Tickle
Lv43 - Nature’s Madness
Lv48 - Extrasensory
Lv53 - Flatter
Lv58 - Moonblast

TM Compatability
TM03 Psyshock
TM04 Calm Mind
TM06 Toxic
TM10 Hidden Power
TM11 Sunny Day
TM12 Taunt
TM15 Hyper Beam
TM16 Light Screen
TM17 Protect
TM20 Safeguard
TM21 Frustration
TM24 Thunderbolt
TM25 Thunder
TM27 Return
TM29 Psychic
TM30 Shadow Ball
TM32 Double Team
TM33 Reflect
TM41 Torment
TM42 Facade
TM46 Thief
TM48 Round
TM49 Echoed Voice
TM52 Focus Blast
TM53 Energy Ball
TM56 Fling
TM57 Charge Beam
TM68 Giga Impact
TM77 Psych Up
TM86 Grass Knot
TM87 Swagger
TM88 Sleep Talk
TM90 Substitute
TM96 Nature Power
TM99 Dazzling Gleam
TM100 Confide


Analysis Of Tapu Lele:
Tapu Lele is a powerful wallbreaker due to its great Special Attack alongside Psychic Surge to boost its STAB moves. It has a decent speed tier, especially considering the slower nature of this generation of Pokemon, and it has average bulk, with slightly above average Special Defense. It has a complimentary STAB combo only walled by Steel-types, with a movepool containing the necessary coverage to get past them.


Potential Movesets

Wallbreaker
Tapu Lele @ Choice Specs / Life Orb
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest / Timid Nature
- Psyshock / Psychic
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Fire] / Shadow Ball

Set Description:
Choice Specs and Life Orb maximize offensive potential, taking full advantage of Tapu Lele's incredible power. Psyshock is preferred over Psychic to 2HKO chansey and hit on the physically defensive side. Moonblast hits Dark- and Dragon-types, while focus blast hits most steels for extreme damage. Hidden Power Fire is more reliable than Focus Blast, and targets pokemon like Mega Scizor. Alternatively, Shadow Ball may be used to hit Aegislash for huge damage.

Choice Scarf
Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Set Description:
Choice Scarf gives Tapu Lele a great speed tier and turns it into a revenge killer. Psychic is preferred over Psyshock for the extra power, and Psyshock cannot OHKO chansey like specs can. Likewise, it is not advisable to run Shadow Ball on this set, as it lacks the power to 2HKO Aegislash.

Calm Mind
Tapu Lele @ Leftovers
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest / Timid Nature
- Psyshock / Psychic
- Moonblast
- Hidden Power [Fire] / Shadow Ball
- Calm Mind

Set Description:
This set allows Tapu Lele to set up with Calm Mind and become a powerful wincon. The coverage moveslot can go to Hidden Power Fire to target Steel-types (excluding heatran), while Shadow Ball is another option that hits Aegislash harder and has neutral coverage on most Steel-types including heatran.


Personal Opinion:
I can see Tapu Lele becoming a very defining force in the Sun and Moon OU metagame due to its incredible wallbreaking power, decent speed, good coverage, flexibility, and immunity to priority. It's definitely a pokemon with a lot of potential and I'm excited to see its impact on the metagame. I think it will give Mega Gardevoir a run for its money and potentially result in it dropping to BL or UU.
 
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One could run Aromatherapy or Taunt in the last slot of the offensive set. Taunt is particularly useful for dismantling Chansey, though I'm not sure how popular stall will be this early in the metagame. Both HP Fire and Shadow Ball hit pretty much 1 target, as long as you have teammates to handle these threats you should be okay.
 
I honestly think this mon is incredible, but for different reasons than everyone else. Yeah, it's damage output is great and it has the stats to back it up, but its fairy stab calcs are relatively unimpressive and we all know how dangerous it is to spam psychic stab. Add subpar speed to the equation and what I believe will be an offensively focused meta to kick of SuMo and it really doesn't pose as much of a threat by itself as you'd think.

What really makes this mon stand out is it's support capabilities. Terrains are a potential game changing mechanic that can warp entire playstyles around it, much like weather did back in BW OU. So many fast, frail, sweepers are going to have a field day when not having to worry about Bullet Punches, Mach Punches, Aqua Jets etc flying around, be them new threats (Pheromosa, Kartana), old threats (Lopunny, Weavile), and buffed threats (Diancie, Beedrill). It's going to force so many semi-fast attackers onto scarves to revenge kill it's not even funny. I've seen arguments that your opponent can take advantage of psychic terrain as well so it restricts your teambuilding by locking out mons with priority, which is just not true at all. You can absolutely run mons like Azumarill who love their priority move but are plenty threatening without it, not to mention you're the one in control of Lele and can set the terrain at a gamestate that is much more likely to benefit you than the opponent. Furthermore it'll be more a Tyranitar than a Politoed/Ninetales in that it can put in work by itself, not to mention it's a great candidate as a wallbreaker to open up holes for these sweepers to run amock.

Can't wait to see the top tier cores, combos, and playstyles this thing will create.
 
Not too keen on Choice sets when Psychic is your best STAB :/

I think the best three move coverage will be Psyshock / Moonblast / HP Fire, with Calm Mind or Substitute being by far the best options for the last moveslot.
 
There should be some kind of support set with Terrain Extender. Some mons are just plain scary under the effects of Psychic Terrain.

Pretty much anything grounded base 120 speed and over appreciates the effects of Psychic Terrain, but here are what I think are the main ones that are OU relevant:

Alakazam
Dugtrio
Greninja
Pheromosa
Weavile
Mega Alazkazam
Mega Beedrill
Mega Lopunny
Mega Manectric
Mega Sceptile

A few of these, a Choice Scarf user and a few bulky Volt-Turners and you basically have a team.
 
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I was using a more supportive set with a terrain extender and draining kiss alongside pheremosa. Probably a bit too gimmicky, but it worked out well enough for me; toss it out there, sac a mon, sweep with pheremosa, repeat if necessary, win (all after getting rid of aegislash of course).
 
I've played 10-15 matches with Scarf Tapu Lele and it's really good in my opinion. Choice Specs / Life Orb is good for obvious reasons, but it kinda struggles to get multiple kills because the current metagame is just offense spam. Scarf revenge kills pokemon like Tapu Koko, Mega Pinsir (can't use Quick Attack), Mega Scizor (can't BP), Landorus, Kartana etc. and Psychic is still really scary to switch into if you don't have a bulky Steel-Type such as Magearna, Heatran, Celesteela or Aegislash. Also really nice to get a surprise KO on Pheromosa because that thing is broken.

Its power shouldn't be underestimated. Even without LO / Specs it is stronger than most other Psychic-Types, but it's also faster and blocks priority.
252 SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy in Psychic Terrain: 222-262 (65.1 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Alakazam Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy: 199-234 (58.3 - 68.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Hoopa-Unbound Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 240-283 (70.3 - 82.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
Calling it right now, Tapu Lele gonna be an OU staple.

I've been laddering with a core of Lele / Pheromosa / Bisharp, and it's gone very well. The core is as follows:

Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power Fire

Pheromosa @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Bug Buzz
- Ice Beam
- U-turn

Bisharp @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Knock Off
- Pursuit
- Iron Head

Lele is scarfed in order to check and net surprise kills on Pheromosa. Psychic is disgustingly strong even without a boosting item and lets it function well as a great late game cleaner. Bisharp weakens or kills Aegislash among other things, letting Lele and Pheromosa sweep more easily. Pheromosa is special with U-turn as I don't find poison coverage to be necessary on my team, and Bug Buzz has proven itself as a great move to spam versus what's being used on the ladder currently. U-turn on Aegi gives me the free switch into Bisharp for the kill. Tapu Lele supports Pheromosa unbelievably well with psychic surge, as Pheromosa would otherwise die to the tens of new and old priority moves on every team.

Proof it works:
2a2c2d511e2e4d0997471af6f29d50de.png
 
Psychic Terrain has soooooo much potential for team building. It will be a sad day when Lele gets vanished to Ubers. I'm really digging Specs on Lele. Psychic obliterates pretty much anything that isn't Blissey / Chansey or a Dark type. Hidden Power is decent, though it's very dangerous locking yourself into it. Mega Scizor which is probably the most relevant HP Fire target, takes a heavy chunk from Psychic and either has to Roost or switch out. Roosting only means that Psychic has a chance to crit or lower it's Sp.Def losing the heal war.

Lele is half baked solo. Not extremely impressive, though it's ability makes it amazing for sure.
 
I love using an Expert Belt set on this guy:

786.png

Tapu Lele @ Expert Belt
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]

I don't really like choiced sets since Psychic is such an awful STAB to lock yourself into and since this guy gets pretty decent coverage I thought an EBelt set would work fine. LO is kinda meh too since it's affected by all forms of passive damage and isn't very fast. Turns out Psychic is still plenty strong thanks to the Terrain boost (you're as strong as Specs Latios) and the coverage moves hit pretty much everything that like to switch into you. Darks / Latis get slammed by Moonblast, Scizor / Ferro by HP Fire, Celesteela / Skarmory / Mantine by Thunderbolt. Aegislash can't really take repeated HP Fires so if you have Spikes or are just able to chip it beforehand you can actually pick it off with Fire thanks to the Sneak immune.
 
Really cool mon here. Hits extremely hard with specs and can severely dent all the pokemon in the metagame. Pair this up with a Mega Sharpedo or something else that hates priorty and you have got a great wallbreaking core. Mega Alakazam would be insane with with Psychic terrain. Having a Steel Weakness isnt even that big of a issue because of its immunity to bullet punch.
 
I think Scarf will end up being Lele's best set. Since its able to outrun the entire unboosted meta when scarf plus being immune to priority on top of that makes Lele pretty scary. It's move pool is good enough being able to hit a large portion of mons super effectively between dual stabs, hp fire/focus blast, and shadow ball.
 
i would say that specs is the best set right now, just beacause you can fucking nuke everything, even resists take to much from moonblast/psyshock, and also is one of the only mons able to KO 252 hp/sp.def zygarde 100%, also being immune to extreme speed.
 
Olly said:
There should be some kind of support set with Terrain Extender. Some mons are just plain scary under the effects of Psychic Terrain.

Pretty much anything grounded base 120 speed and over appreciates the effects of Psychic Terrain, but here are what I think are the main ones that are OU relevant:

Alakazam
Dugtrio
Greninja
Minior
Pheromosa
Weavile
Mega Alazkazam
Mega Beedrill
Mega Lopunny
Mega Manectric
Mega Sceptile

A few of these, a Choice Scarf user and a few bulky Volt-Turners and you basically have a team.
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minior is not grounded :(
 
Mega Sharpedo also does quite well with Lele, as it appriciates both the new immunity to priority and its new toy Psychic Fangs gets a boost from both Strong Jaw and Psychic Terrain, allowing it to breeze through former checks like Mega Venusaur, Amoongus and Toxapex.

A Waterfall, Crunch, Psychic Fangs, Protect set is really hard to wall without a Dark type that resists water (Mega Gyarados/Guzzlord) or a bulky grass like Ferrothorn, Tangrowth or Tapu Bulu, all of which Lele can handle quite nicely with it's STABs and HP Fire coverage.
 
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252 Speed is unneccesary on the Choice Scarf build. The nature should be Timid. Tapu Lele gets a clean kill on everything with a weakness to Psychic or Fairy, but it needs the speed to outspeed Pheromosa (the highest speed in the format without Choice Scarf). 176 HP with a positive nature allow it to outspeed max speed Naive Pheromosa. The rest of the points should go to HP. As for attack choices, HP Fire is horrible and it does nothing because who on their right mind is going to switch in Scizor against a clearly faster Tapu Lele? Only idiots. Shadow Ball is better thanks to the prominence of Alolan Marowak that otherwise entirely walls Tapu Lele.
 
Edgar81539 said:
252 Speed is unneccesary on the Choice Scarf build. The nature should be Timid. Tapu Lele gets a clean kill on everything with a weakness to Psychic or Fairy, but it needs the speed to outspeed Pheromosa (the highest speed in the format without Choice Scarf). 176 HP with a positive nature allow it to outspeed max speed Naive Pheromosa. The rest of the points should go to HP. As for attack choices, HP Fire is horrible and it does nothing because who on their right mind is going to switch in Scizor against a clearly faster Tapu Lele? Only idiots. Shadow Ball is better thanks to the prominence of Alolan Marowak that otherwise entirely walls Tapu Lele.
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You defenitely want to outspeed Scarf Lando-T, which requires 224 Speed EVs at least. And I would argue that speed tying with +1 Jolly Zygarde is probably pretty important, though I have no idea if any do run Jolly.
 
Albacore said:
You defenitely want to outspeed Scarf Lando-T, which requires 224 Speed EVs at least. And I would argue that speed tying with +1 Jolly Zygarde is probably pretty important, though I have no idea if any do run Jolly.
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Jolly Zygarde at +1 is going to outspeed you (if you mean 10% Zygarde as that's the best version to run Dragon Dance with, normal Zygarde should stick to Coil and Dragon Dance builds are a waste of its bulk). I forgot about Lando-T as I'm testing on non-pokebank OU, but even then, 252 EVs on Tapu Lele speed are going to waste.
 
Well, right now my favourite tapu lele set is

786.png

Tapu Lele @ Ghostium Z
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
This set more basically acts like a lure for aegislash, as right now it is so common for a pheromosa check. Base 160 power move snipes aegislash in it's shield form after a layer of spikes, and totally spdef versions die to never ending nightmare + shadow ball.So pairing it with Pheromosa + hazard stack obviously works. This thing is EV'ed to outspeed base 80s like Hoopa and just bop them with a moonblast. Psychic even without any boosting item hits hard as fuck. I kind of don't like it locking into a particular move because it has such a good coverage so using it as a lure has worked for me.
 
Edgar81539 said:
252 Speed is unneccesary on the Choice Scarf build. The nature should be Timid. Tapu Lele gets a clean kill on everything with a weakness to Psychic or Fairy, but it needs the speed to outspeed Pheromosa (the highest speed in the format without Choice Scarf). 176 HP with a positive nature allow it to outspeed max speed Naive Pheromosa. The rest of the points should go to HP. As for attack choices, HP Fire is horrible and it does nothing because who on their right mind is going to switch in Scizor against a clearly faster Tapu Lele? Only idiots. Shadow Ball is better thanks to the prominence of Alolan Marowak that otherwise entirely walls Tapu Lele.
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STAB + psychic terrain makes psyshock essentially base 180, and psychic base 202.5, both greater than super effective shadow ball (160). Shadow ball is redundant, unless you want it to hit Aegislash harder than hp fire does.
 
I'm not convinced Timid is the best set to run with Scarf, Modest let's you guaranteed 2HKO standard Chansey with Psyshock after Rocks under Psychic Terrain which seems to be a pretty important benchmark. On the flip side, a lot can get through Chansey these days on the physical side quite easily, so it might be the meta shifts towards more specially bulky sets - in which case Timid might start also be able to get a 2HKO, and as people have said Timid does outspeed all the current monsters of the meta, though I guess we'll see how the many of them last the winter in terms of bans.

Something I've not seen anyone mention is pairing Tapu Lele with Soul Dew Latios/Latias. It's legal again now, and with the added bulk I think they would make pretty fearsome sweepers particularly without fear of hazards under Psychic Terrain.
 
Jojobobo said:
I'm not convinced Timid is the best set to run with Scarf, Modest let's you guaranteed 2HKO standard Chansey with Psyshock after Rocks under Psychic Terrain which seems to be a pretty important benchmark. On the flip side, a lot can get through Chansey these days on the physical side quite easily, so it might be the meta shifts towards more specially bulky sets - in which case Timid might start also be able to get a 2HKO, and as people have said Timid does outspeed all the current monsters of the meta, though I guess we'll see how the many of them last the winter in terms of bans.

Something I've not seen anyone mention is pairing Tapu Lele with Soul Dew Latios/Latias. It's legal again now, and with the added bulk I think they would make pretty fearsome sweepers particularly without fear of hazards under Psychic Terrain.
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Wasn't soul dew nerfed, I mean I don't think it boosts spdef anymore, though no more vulnerability to sucker punch is pretty good,. But still, both are generally walled by steel types barring coverage moves which is kind of meh.
 
darksylvion said:
Wasn't soul dew nerfed, I mean I don't think it boosts spdef anymore, though no more vulnerability to sucker punch is pretty good,. But still, both are generally walled by steel types barring coverage moves which is kind of meh.
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I didn't hear about a nerf, but I'd sure you're right. Still, it hits a lot harder than other Psychic types, like Mega Alakazam - so it seems like a good contender for a wall-breaker (particularly with CM). Earthquake can easily be run for Steel types, so I don't think it's too bad - no pokemon exists in a bubble so other pokemon can be used for the steel types.
 
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