INTRO: I heard a lot of people say that Wo-Chien was not worth using or not good at the start of the gen, but it turns out we probably didn't give this mon its due justice back then given how often we're seeing it in tour usage recently. I thought I may as well give it a go and see how much work it can put in since the developers decided to try to make another Grass/Dark Type work in a slightly more defensive role.
SETS USED:
Wo-Chien @ Leftovers
Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Substitute / Ruination
I used a max defense spread too but decided that it wasn't worth it after like a couple games. Wo Chien's typing just doesn't allow for it to be a stable answer to the plentiful physical attackers since they can brute force their way through anyways, chief among them being mons like Lokix, Gallade, Pawmot, and yeah there's just too many. Not only that it comes off as a bit redundant when Terra Ghost helps deal with the majority of them in a one on one scenario and in general its very easy to slot in something like Talonflame to deal with them and trust me Talon is one of its best partners. Not living things like Gengar's Sludge Bomb or Armarouge's Armor Cannon from full is also rather irritating so I elected to keep this set the entirety of the run and Wo Chien punishes them sooo much harder than it would to the Fighting mons.
Ruination was my first choice since I thought that accelerating the rate at which wearing down opponents was better but after not really using it in a notable number of my games, I gave Substitute a shot and it worked out a lot better. Not having the opponents be able to touch you makes it a hell of a lot easier to take advantage on something like a Quagsire when they're caught using Recover.
Teammates
Fighting answers are a must even if they can't cover everything since you don't always want to use terra ghost on Wo-Chien.
I was not too big a fan of scream tail at first, namely because of how passive it was but that's probably more because I tried to use stealth rock to have Quagsire use spikes. After I tried it with encore I liked it more. It is the more reliable answer to Gallade in the tier so there's also that and it can stomach a hit from Iron Jugulis.
Biggest Threats
Iron Jugulis was probably my biggest hurdle before I started using substitute, sometimes it felt legitimately painful to play guessing games around the damn thing, but after I added substitute it became a lot better to deal with. Noivern has infiltrator so its still a massive threat but specs terra boomburst isnt doing jack in front of terra ghost, Draco Meteor does half Wo Chien's health but axes its damage afterwards and Hurricane is either hard to fit or prone to missing. Gallade and Armarogue are probably the biggest nuisances pre-terra so its very annoying if I wanted to terra something else.
Sandy Shocks also goes on the list of annoying things on occasion if they have additional hazards like spikes or toxic spikes. Volting around the battle field is annoying and Terra Ice is annoying.
Okay I won't talk about how long it took me to implement the team link correctly. This was the final result I got. I like Tatsugiri I think its pretty cool. It has pretty bad defensive utility but at least its very good offensively and has spinning potential, it doesn't get to do it too often but it is very offensively potent to make up for it, terra steel is very fun when it gets a good setting for it. Grafaiai is another mon that works as a check to gengar and has knock off for Tink and parting shot for Wo Chien to pivot into Quaggy on the switch without the toxic risk is bueno. Scream Tail vs Tinkaton was another dilemma I faced but I think either or is fine depends on what preference you have between the two or the threats you don't like.
NOTABLE REPLAYS:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1808982415-8f2y7mscl2a96l1rbc9f908261skpvzpw - Just a little display on how much value a low health Wo Chien can get. If I had Substitute this would've been an absolute stomping ground but surviving a crit sludge bomb from gengar after the poison and still knocking off the Tinkaton and Talonflame is still very nice. Gigaton Hammer is funny to do mind games with when you're on the other side.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1808988795-k7hcu7gwoweq26o9ip7bwm4marbjw53pw - Yeaaahhhh, I didn't know Gengar terra fairy was a thing and frankly speaking that was a royal fuck up on my end that came from greed. This shows how worth it is to think about when to terra because this really could have been avoided had I saved up the terra ghost on Wo Chien.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1809019366-7brr6fxmdzcxt24awzwb2ogfgmas9r6pw - So this is when I really felt like Gastrodon wasn't it for me at least at dealing with sweepers, at least in the way I was doing it before because at least one setup stopper is really really nice to deal with things like the Cetitan shown here.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1809703845-ft18akwrax7rdr5xmzb6l050tc4j425pw - See this is what I mean Gastrodon just wouldn't have been able to do the same. Granted the team did suck into Sandy Shocks after another few games so I swapped to Gastrodon and just admitted to relying on Grafaiai.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1809693930-r799mxif6x8nfd956whi2kro2r1ij89pw - This made me really appreciate Substitute a lot. Im still weak to Iron Jugulis but im no longer at the complete mercy of needing to swap around whenever it comes in even after I scouted the move and can take the chance even to leech seed it and put some pressure on it. I could probably use Tinkaton over scream tail, I kind of just wanted a wish passer at the time but Tinkaton is a very nice option
CONCLUSION: I think Wo Chien is very solid, it has problems like not being able to fit Tyranitar for Iron Jugulis but it is part of a really solid core to wear down enemies a lot. It can be rather painfully reliant on terra but it can dominate the mons that would otherwise nuke it so that helps.
OVERALL RATING: A-
SETS USED:
Wo-Chien @ Leftovers
Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Substitute / Ruination
I used a max defense spread too but decided that it wasn't worth it after like a couple games. Wo Chien's typing just doesn't allow for it to be a stable answer to the plentiful physical attackers since they can brute force their way through anyways, chief among them being mons like Lokix, Gallade, Pawmot, and yeah there's just too many. Not only that it comes off as a bit redundant when Terra Ghost helps deal with the majority of them in a one on one scenario and in general its very easy to slot in something like Talonflame to deal with them and trust me Talon is one of its best partners. Not living things like Gengar's Sludge Bomb or Armarouge's Armor Cannon from full is also rather irritating so I elected to keep this set the entirety of the run and Wo Chien punishes them sooo much harder than it would to the Fighting mons.
Ruination was my first choice since I thought that accelerating the rate at which wearing down opponents was better but after not really using it in a notable number of my games, I gave Substitute a shot and it worked out a lot better. Not having the opponents be able to touch you makes it a hell of a lot easier to take advantage on something like a Quagsire when they're caught using Recover.
Teammates
Fighting answers are a must even if they can't cover everything since you don't always want to use terra ghost on Wo-Chien.
I agree which is why I think Talonflame is a damn near must on Wo-Chien teams. The ability to fuck over Lokix and the other threats is too valuable to pass up. Also I was torn between Quagsire and Gastrodon for the water slot because SpDef Gastrodon makes Terra Ice Sandy Shocks less of a pain but having a nice answer to something like Pawmot and makes it nice at dealing with sweepers like Dance mence when it comes up on ladder.
I was not too big a fan of scream tail at first, namely because of how passive it was but that's probably more because I tried to use stealth rock to have Quagsire use spikes. After I tried it with encore I liked it more. It is the more reliable answer to Gallade in the tier so there's also that and it can stomach a hit from Iron Jugulis.
Biggest Threats
Iron Jugulis was probably my biggest hurdle before I started using substitute, sometimes it felt legitimately painful to play guessing games around the damn thing, but after I added substitute it became a lot better to deal with. Noivern has infiltrator so its still a massive threat but specs terra boomburst isnt doing jack in front of terra ghost, Draco Meteor does half Wo Chien's health but axes its damage afterwards and Hurricane is either hard to fit or prone to missing. Gallade and Armarogue are probably the biggest nuisances pre-terra so its very annoying if I wanted to terra something else.
Sandy Shocks also goes on the list of annoying things on occasion if they have additional hazards like spikes or toxic spikes. Volting around the battle field is annoying and Terra Ice is annoying.
Okay I won't talk about how long it took me to implement the team link correctly. This was the final result I got. I like Tatsugiri I think its pretty cool. It has pretty bad defensive utility but at least its very good offensively and has spinning potential, it doesn't get to do it too often but it is very offensively potent to make up for it, terra steel is very fun when it gets a good setting for it. Grafaiai is another mon that works as a check to gengar and has knock off for Tink and parting shot for Wo Chien to pivot into Quaggy on the switch without the toxic risk is bueno. Scream Tail vs Tinkaton was another dilemma I faced but I think either or is fine depends on what preference you have between the two or the threats you don't like.
NOTABLE REPLAYS:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1808982415-8f2y7mscl2a96l1rbc9f908261skpvzpw - Just a little display on how much value a low health Wo Chien can get. If I had Substitute this would've been an absolute stomping ground but surviving a crit sludge bomb from gengar after the poison and still knocking off the Tinkaton and Talonflame is still very nice. Gigaton Hammer is funny to do mind games with when you're on the other side.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1808988795-k7hcu7gwoweq26o9ip7bwm4marbjw53pw - Yeaaahhhh, I didn't know Gengar terra fairy was a thing and frankly speaking that was a royal fuck up on my end that came from greed. This shows how worth it is to think about when to terra because this really could have been avoided had I saved up the terra ghost on Wo Chien.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1809019366-7brr6fxmdzcxt24awzwb2ogfgmas9r6pw - So this is when I really felt like Gastrodon wasn't it for me at least at dealing with sweepers, at least in the way I was doing it before because at least one setup stopper is really really nice to deal with things like the Cetitan shown here.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1809703845-ft18akwrax7rdr5xmzb6l050tc4j425pw - See this is what I mean Gastrodon just wouldn't have been able to do the same. Granted the team did suck into Sandy Shocks after another few games so I swapped to Gastrodon and just admitted to relying on Grafaiai.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-1809693930-r799mxif6x8nfd956whi2kro2r1ij89pw - This made me really appreciate Substitute a lot. Im still weak to Iron Jugulis but im no longer at the complete mercy of needing to swap around whenever it comes in even after I scouted the move and can take the chance even to leech seed it and put some pressure on it. I could probably use Tinkaton over scream tail, I kind of just wanted a wish passer at the time but Tinkaton is a very nice option
CONCLUSION: I think Wo Chien is very solid, it has problems like not being able to fit Tyranitar for Iron Jugulis but it is part of a really solid core to wear down enemies a lot. It can be rather painfully reliant on terra but it can dominate the mons that would otherwise nuke it so that helps.
OVERALL RATING: A-
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