Pokémon Ceruledge

[JTD783]

Base Stats: 75 HP / 125 Atk / 80 Def / 60 SpA / 100 SpD / 85 Spe (525 Total)

Abilities: Flash Fire | Weak Armor

Type: Fire / Ghost

Notable Moves:
- Shadow Claw
- Flame Charge
- Will-O-Wisp
- Swords Dance
- Bitter Blade
- Psycho Cut
- Tera Blast
- Substitute
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Bulk Up
- Taunt
- Phantom Force
- Destiny Bond
- Shadow Sneak

Pros:
- Ceruledge’s solid base 125 attack in conjunction with Swords Dance and Bulk Up make it a very strong attacker.
- Fire / Ghost STABs with Close Combat as coverage has no resistances in the entire Pokédex.
- Bitter Blade is a reliable, drawback-free STAB that also heals the user.
- 85 base speed is decent and enables Ceruledge to serve as a reasonably fast wallbreaker or a Choice Scarf user.
- Access to moves such as Taunt and Will-O-Wisp alongside the healing from Bitter Blade allow for some defensive utility.
- Flash Fire is a free immunity that boosts its STAB.
- Weak Armor is potentially usable since +2 Speed is very nice in the late game.
- Shadow Sneak can become very threatening in the late game after a Swords Da

Cons:
- Fire/Ghost is a mixed bag defensively, with many common weaknesses.
- Base 85 speed is not exceptional and other powerful threats will easily outrun it.
- Ceruledge doesn’t have very good physical bulk and its special bulk is merely decent.
- Its only options for physical Ghost moves are Shadow Claw and Phantom Force, or potentially Ghost Tera Blast. They are weak, require a turn to charge, and require Terastallizing, respectively.
- Bulk Up isn’t easy to use due to Ceruledge’s mediocre defensive typing and lack of reliable recovery.
-They didn’t give it Cutter. Why didn’t they give it Cutter?

Terastallize Potential:

- A Ghost Tera type enables Ceruledge to hit very hard with the otherwise weak Shadow Claw or make good use of Tera Blast while becoming neutral to Stealth Rock.
- A Fighting Tera type enables it to switch into Dark and Rock types and resist Stealth Rock.
- A Dark Tera type can be used to beat the plethora of powerful Ghost and Dark types in the new meta.
- A Steel Tera type provides many useful resistances and has good synergy with Flash Fire.

Potential Sets:

Swords Dance

Ceruledge @ Life Orb / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost / Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Claw / Shadow Sneak
- Bitter Blade / Flare Blitz
- Close Combat

This set is designed to overwhelm opponents with boosted attacks, making its already-great coverage increasingly difficult to switch into. Shadow Claw is better for wallbreaking while Shadow Sneak helps clean in the late game. Bitter Blade vs Flare Blitz is a choice of no drawbacks and some healing vs extra power and recoil damage.

Choice Band

Ceruledge @ Choice Band
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shadow Claw
- Bitter Blade / Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Shadow Sneak

This set gives Ceruledge excellent immediate power. Opponents will have to play around it carefully as it has the necessary coverage and power to 2HKO nearly any Pokémon on the switch.

Choice Scarf

Ceruledge @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shadow Claw
- Bitter Blade / Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Flare Blitz / Destiny Bond

Choice Scarf Ceruledge is fast enough to outrun positive speed nature Pokemon whose base speed is in the 140s and can pick off weakened targets without trouble or clean in the late game. Any two of the three of Bitter Blade, Flare Blitz, and Destiny Bond are good options on the set. Destiny Bond in particular is convenient panic button against opponents.

Substitute Set-Up

Ceruledge @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost / Fighting / Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Bulk Up / Swords Dance
- Shadow Claw / Phantom Force / Shadow Sneak
- Close Combat / Bitter Blade

This set invests in bulk to help keep its Substitute intact while it sets up with Bulk Up or Swords Dance. These EVs are highly customizable and not yet optimized; better speed tiers and defensive benchmarks will be discovered as the meta progresses.

Stallbreaker

Ceruledge @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost / Fighting / Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Bulk Up / Will-O-Wisp
- Shadow Claw / Phantom Force
- Bitter Blade

Taunt + Bulk Up or Will-O-Wisp enables Ceruledge to heavily pressure bulky teams. Bulky Steel and Fairy types in particular are easy to switch in against, providing an opportunity to regain HP with Bitter Blade.

Other Options:
- Tera Blast becomes Ceruledge’s best Ghost STAB if it activates its Ghost Tera type. But Tera Blast is a wasted move slot if it does not do so.
-A Normal Tera type helps Ceruledge avoid being revenge killed by other Ghost types.
- Flame Charge can be used alongside Swords Dance or Bulk Up as a pseudo double dance set.
- Weak Armor can be used to attempt a sweep.

Overall:

This second Fire/Ghost of Paldea has plenty of potential. With access to boosting moves, good attack and decent speed, and unresisted coverage, Ceruledge is a potential threat to every team. It can even use bulkier sets to harass stall. However, Ceruledge is not without its drawbacks. Its power isn’t exceptional and many other strong attackers easily outspeed it, which is made worse by their ability to easily KO it. Ceruledge is also held back by the low base power of its Ghost STAB options and by not getting Cutter. Curse you Gamefreak.

In the short term it will have to compete with yet-to-be-banned threats with even more power and much better speed so its capabilities may not be immediately apparent. I think it will eventually find a consistent home in a tier lower than OU but it will certainly still be usable there. For now I expect it to be decent.

What do you think about Ceruledge? Have you enjoyed using it or found success with it? Should its cry have been changed to a neckbeard voice saying “Heh, nothing personnel, kid…”? Share your thoughts below.

 

[MrHands]

If this thing's signature move was Ghost it would be such a fun Pokémon. But instead it has to rely on Shadow Claw which is just so unfortunate.

Also Bitter Blade is boosted by Sharpness, which naturally the Pokémon with knives for arms does not get. We were so close to greatness.

 

[Selenaxoxo]

Ceruledge @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Fighting / Ghost / Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bitter Blade / Flare Blitz
- Shadow Claw / Shadow Sneak
- Close Combat / Flare Blitz
- Swords Dance

I've been using this for the last few days, it's not the best set ever but it's pretty fun and I was surprised by how many things, at least on the first two days of the format, were simply hardwalled by the Ground + Fire immunity this set has. Notably Great Tusk, specifically sets without Knock-Off, as many are only running Headlong Rush and Close Combat alongside Rapid Spin and Rocks, and Torkoal both can sometimes give you free opportunities to fire off it's reasonably strong, zero-drawback Bitter Blade or very strong Close Combats with Tera-Fighting. You can also find surprising amounts of opportunities to SD by taking advantage of how much ground spam is in the tier right now, e.g. things like Both Quag forms that often run mono-EQ.

Set Details:
I experimented with Adamant but running Jolly for outspeeding non-scarfed Gholdengo feels too valuable, especially if you're a Corv enjoyer such as myself which gives you opportunities to U-Turn into Ceruledge as it comes in and take advantage of that to SD or fire off strong STAB moves. My preferred tera-typing is Fighting, giving you a much needed resistance to Sucker Punch while also giving your Close Combat a nice boost. Other options are just boosting your other STABs further, and if using Fire as the tera-typing then I like running Flare Blitz over CC, or Bitter Blade, to give me a guaranteed 2hko on max/max Clodsire.

Overall, probably my favourite set and mon from this generation, and I haven't seen anyone else mess around with Air Balloon so figured I'd throw that in here.

 

[Fancy1]

I’ve been running tera normal which has won me games in sitatuions against a lot of shadow sneakers and faster ghosts (flutter mane and houndstone in sand before they were banned)

 

[JTD783]

I’ve been running tera normal which has won me games in sitatuions against a lot of shadow sneakers and faster ghosts (flutter mane and houndstone in sand before they were banned)

Definitely worth considering, especially when crazy strong Ghosts are running around everywhere. I’ll add it to other options.

 

[shack]

Is no one liking the weak armor + weakness policy set with a defensive nature/EVs?

 

[Selenaxoxo]

Is no one liking the weak armor + weakness policy set with a defensive nature/EVs?

A weak armour + wpol set seems a little too hard to consistently pull off to me. It might be way better than I think, but after doing a few calcs it doesn't look amazing to me initially.


252 Atk Roaring Moon Crunch vs. 252 HP / 92 Def Ceruledge: 296-350 (83.6 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
max hp/92 defence without pos nature lets you live mence's crunch from full without rocks up, but without SD'ing on the crunch bitter blade isn't even guaranteed to 2hko roaring moon back unless you have significant atk investment or you tera fire on the second bitter blade. CC obviously sends it packing but I feel like tera flying mence is everywhere and +2 CC doesn't kill that.

252 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ceruledge: 330-390 (93.2 - 110.1%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
max/max impish is a roll in tusk's favour with max attack no nature, and you can only barely guarantee to ohko even 0hp/0def investment tusk back at -1 defence with tera-fighting cc at +2 or tera-fire bitter blade at +2, with the spread needed to survive the attack.
+2 0 Atk Tera-Fighting Ceruledge Close Combat vs. -1 0 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 373-439 (100.5 - 118.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 0 Atk Tera-Fire Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. -1 0 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 373-440 (100.5 - 118.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

If you've done any calcs yourself, have thoughts on what mons the wpol set comes in on/takes advantage of, or what EV spreads to run then I'd love to hear, cos it sounds fire but I don't really see it rn

 

[shack]

A weak armour + wpol set seems a little too hard to consistently pull off to me. It might be way better than I think, but after doing a few calcs it doesn't look amazing to me initially.


252 Atk Roaring Moon Crunch vs. 252 HP / 92 Def Ceruledge: 296-350 (83.6 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
max hp/92 defence without pos nature lets you live mence's crunch from full without rocks up, but without SD'ing on the crunch bitter blade isn't even guaranteed to 2hko roaring moon back unless you have significant atk investment or you tera fire on the second bitter blade. CC obviously sends it packing but I feel like tera flying mence is everywhere and +2 CC doesn't kill that.

252 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ceruledge: 330-390 (93.2 - 110.1%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
max/max impish is a roll in tusk's favour with max attack no nature, and you can only barely guarantee to ohko even 0hp/0def investment tusk back at -1 defence with tera-fighting cc at +2 or tera-fire bitter blade at +2, with the spread needed to survive the attack.
+2 0 Atk Tera-Fighting Ceruledge Close Combat vs. -1 0 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 373-439 (100.5 - 118.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 0 Atk Tera-Fire Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. -1 0 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 373-440 (100.5 - 118.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

If you've done any calcs yourself, have thoughts on what mons the wpol set comes in on/takes advantage of, or what EV spreads to run then I'd love to hear, cos it sounds fire but I don't really see it rn

Gotcha, I have yet to run numbers, but saw this set floating around, but like you said, it likely loses to some of the bigger physical threats:

Ceruledge @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Weak Armor
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 248 HP / 16 Def / 244 SpD
Impish
- Bitter Blade
- Shadow Sneak
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance

 

[Selenaxoxo]

Gotcha, I have yet to run numbers, but saw this set floating around, but like you said, it likely loses to some of the bigger physical threats:

Ceruledge @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Weak Armor
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 248 HP / 16 Def / 244 SpD
Impish
- Bitter Blade
- Shadow Sneak
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance

Do you know why the set runs practically max SpDef? Seems wiser to focus on taking physical hits as they're the ones that actually give you your weak armour boost, since unfortunately Ceruledge struggles with its speed when not scarfed or having gotten weak armour procced. Because I don't entirely get it, unless the idea is you tank a weak u-turn from something like Corv and then tank a Dragapult Shadowball on the following turn, but that still seems shifty.

 

[Xallista]

Seems like Ceruledge gets Solar Blade as well, so you could run Grass Tera in some kind of a sun team. Flash Fire would cover one of grass' weakness as well.

Probably not as reliable as just using Normal of course.

 

[shack]

Do you know why the set runs practically max SpDef? Seems wiser to focus on taking physical hits as they're the ones that actually give you your weak armour boost, since unfortunately Ceruledge struggles with its speed when not scarfed or having gotten weak armour procced. Because I don't entirely get it, unless the idea is you tank a weak u-turn from something like Corv and then tank a Dragapult Shadowball on the following turn, but that still seems shifty.

I see what you mean. Makes sense to run a more physically bulky one if going for the weak armor boost.

I guess my thing is wondering how to get a decent speed boost on it so it can be a bigger threat since it's outsped by so many things that can hit it hard. If it cant really run a bulky set and Flame Charge is likely a waste of a slot

 

[Selenaxoxo]

I see what you mean. Makes sense to run a more physically bulky one if going for the weak armor boost.

I guess my thing is wondering how to get a decent speed boost on it so it can be a bigger threat since it's outsped by so many things that can hit it hard. If it cant really run a bulky set and Flame Charge is likely a waste of a slot

I think the only hope for some kind of bulky set is going all in on the idea, using something like Bitter Blade/Close Combat/Shadow Sneak/Flame Charge with Weakness Policy (or dropping policy entirely for boots/leftovers) and Flash Fire, because even with weak armour giving you that +2 speed, the defence drop just means we'd get revenge killed after setting up on something by any priority even with things like Tera-Fighting helping vs Sucker. We probably have to accept that any kind of weak armour setup just falls over to all suckers, machs and so on, and try to use Flame Charge instead. Then we don't have to worry about only being able to setup on physical attackers, and hope to make some kind of team that reliably can remove the main priority users in the tier.

All of this might just be bullshit though I don't even know haha. Maybe bulky Ceruledge is just ass when it's not used as a stallbreaker.

 

[Fancy1]

I see what you mean. Makes sense to run a more physically bulky one if going for the weak armor boost.

I guess my thing is wondering how to get a decent speed boost on it so it can be a bigger threat since it's outsped by so many things that can hit it hard. If it cant really run a bulky set and Flame Charge is likely a waste of a slot

i actually have been running flame charge and it works pretty well a set like

tera normal

(sets up on ghosts or weakened foes)
- flame charge
- bitter blade
- SD/ shadow sneak
- shadow claw

EVs can vary

 

[Selenaxoxo]

I think the only hope for some kind of bulky set is going all in on the idea, using something like Bitter Blade/Close Combat/Shadow Sneak/Flame Charge with Weakness Policy (or dropping policy entirely for boots/leftovers) and Flash Fire, because even with weak armour giving you that +2 speed, the defence drop just means we'd get revenge killed after setting up on something by any priority even with things like Tera-Fighting helping vs Sucker. We probably have to accept that any kind of weak armour setup just falls over to all suckers, machs and so on, and try to use Flame Charge instead. Then we don't have to worry about only being able to setup on physical attackers, and hope to make some kind of team that reliably can remove the main priority users in the tier.

All of this might just be bullshit though I don't even know haha. Maybe bulky Ceruledge is just ass when it's not used as a stallbreaker.

This also most definitely is complete garbage but here's a thought: The idea is to try to live stray U-Turns while we use Tera-Dark, using those as opportunities to setup with, and since we're Tera-Dark'ing I think some dark types that normally threaten us out become decent targets to SD on.

Ceruledge @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Weak Armor
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 244 HP / 100 Def / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bitter Blade
- Close Combat
- Terablast
- Swords Dance

EV Spread:
244HP/100Def lives LO Lokix U-Turn, not because we're gonna setup vs it, but I just used it as a baseline of 'decently strong U-Turns I want this thing to live.'
The spread also gives us a favourable roll to live Mach Punch at 100% from LO Loom, while we resist most other priorities with Tera-Dark, even living +2 Sucker from Kingambit with up to 3 of its teammates down. 164 Speed is to outspeed any base 100 scarfers (mainly looking at Chi-Yu, here) after weak armour proc. We also live max Atk Adamant Palafin's Jet Punch at -1, even LO doesn't kill from 100% and CB is 12.5% chance to OHKO from 100%.


Some quick calcs of various priority moves/u-turns the set lives:
252+ Atk Life Orb Lokix U-turn vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 296-351 (84 - 99.7%)
252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Mach Punch vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 299-354 (84.9 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord (3 allies down) Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. -1 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 289-341 (82.1 - 96.8%)
252+ Atk Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. -1 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 202-238 (57.3 - 67.6%)
0 Atk Dragapult U-turn vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 126-150 (35.7 - 42.6%)
252 Atk Choice Band Dragapult U-turn vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 232-274 (65.9 - 77.8%)
0 Atk Corviknight U-turn vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 96-114 (27.2 - 32.3%)
252+ Atk Life Orb Iron Fist Pawmot Mach Punch vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 218-260 (61.9 - 73.8%)
252 Atk Meowscarada U-turn vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 218-258 (61.9 - 73.2%)
252 Atk Maushold U-turn vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 114-136 (32.3 - 38.6%)
252+ Atk Scizor U-turn vs. 244 HP / 100 Def Tera-Dark Ceruledge: 270-318 (76.7 - 90.3%)

Does it matter that this weird ass set lives these moves? I have no clue, just a silly idea.

 

[Mr. Universe]

View attachment 466957

Base Stats: 75 HP / 125 Atk / 80 Def / 60 SpA / 100 SpD / 85 Spe (525 Total)

Abilities: Flash Fire | Weak Armor

Type: Fire / Ghost

Notable Moves:
- Shadow Claw
- Flame Charge
- Will-O-Wisp
- Swords Dance
- Bitter Blade
- Psycho Cut
- Tera Blast
- Substitute
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Bulk Up
- Taunt
- Phantom Force
- Destiny Bond

Full Movepool

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Work in progress]

New Moves

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Work in progress

Pros:
- Ceruledge’s solid base 125 attack in conjunction with Swords Dance and Bulk Up make it a very strong attacker.
- Fire / Ghost STABs with Close Combat as coverage has no resistances in the entire Pokédex.
- Bitter Blade is a reliable, drawback-free STAB that also heals the user.
- 85 base speed is decent and enables Ceruledge to serve as a reasonably fast wallbreaker or a Choice Scarf user.
- Access to moves such as Taunt and Will-O-Wisp alongside the healing from Bitter Blade allow for some defensive utility.
- Flash Fire is a free immunity that boosts its STAB.
- Weak Armor is potentially usable since +2 Speed is very nice in the late game.

Cons:
- Fire/Ghost is a mixed bag defensively, with many common weaknesses.
- Base 85 speed is not exceptional and other powerful threats will easily outrun it.
- Ceruledge doesn’t have very good physical bulk and its special bulk is merely decent.
- Its only options for physical Ghost moves are Shadow Claw and Phantom Force, or potentially Ghost Tera Blast. They are weak, require a turn to charge, and require Terastallizing, respectively.
- Bulk Up isn’t easy to use due to Ceruledge’s mediocre defensive typing and lack of reliable recovery.
-They didn’t give it Cutter. Why didn’t they give it Cutter?

Terastallize Potential:

- A Ghost Tera type enables Ceruledge to hit very hard with the otherwise weak Shadow Claw or make good use of Tera Blast while becoming neutral to Stealth Rock.
- A Fighting Tera type enables it to switch into Dark and Rock types and resist Stealth Rock.
- A Dark Tera type can be used to beat the plethora of powerful Ghost and Dark types in the new meta.

Potential Sets:

Swords Dance

Ceruledge @ Life Orb / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost / Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Claw
- Bitter Blade / Flare Blitz
- Close Combat

This set is designed to overwhelm opponents with boosted attacks, making its already-great coverage increasingly difficult to switch into. Bitter Blade vs Flare Blitz is a choice of no drawbacks and some healing vs extra power and recoil damage.

Choice Band

Ceruledge @ Choice Band
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shadow Claw
- Bitter Blade
- Close Combat
- Flare Blitz

This set gives Ceruledge excellent immediate power. Opponents will have to play around it carefully as it has the necessary coverage and power to 2HKO nearly any Pokémon on the switch.

Choice Scarf

Ceruledge @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shadow Claw
- Bitter Blade / Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Flare Blitz / Destiny Bond

Choice Scarf Ceruledge is fast enough to outrun positive speed nature Pokemon whose base speed is in the 140s and can pick off weakened targets without trouble or clean in the late game. Any two of the three of Bitter Blade, Flare Blitz, and Destiny Bond are good options on the set. Destiny Bond in particular is convenient panic button against opponents.

Substitute Set-Up

Ceruledge @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost / Fighting / Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Bulk Up / Swords Dance
- Shadow Claw / Phantom Force
- Close Combat / Bitter Blade

This set invests in bulk to help keep its Substitute intact while it sets up with Bulk Up or Swords Dance. These EVs are highly customizable and not yet optimized; better speed tiers and defensive benchmarks will be discovered as the meta progresses.

Stallbreaker

Ceruledge @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ghost / Fighting / Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Bulk Up / Will-O-Wisp
- Shadow Claw / Phantom Force
- Bitter Blade

Taunt + Bulk Up or Will-O-Wisp enables Ceruledge to heavily pressure bulky teams. Bulky Steel and Fairy types in particular are easy to switch in against, providing an opportunity to regain HP with Bitter Blade.

Other Options:
- Tera Blast becomes Ceruledge’s best Ghost STAB if it activates its Ghost Tera type. But Tera Blast is a wasted move slot if it does not do so.
-A Normal Tera type helps Ceruledge avoid being revenge killed by other Ghost types.
- Flame Charge can be used alongside Swords Dance or Bulk Up as a pseudo double dance set.
- Weak Armor can be used to attempt a sweep.

Overall:

This second Fire/Ghost of Paldea has plenty of potential. With access to boosting moves, good attack and decent speed, and unresisted coverage, Ceruledge is a potential threat to every team. It can even use bulkier sets to harass stall. However, Ceruledge is not without its drawbacks. Its power isn’t exceptional and many other strong attackers easily outspeed it, which is made worse by their ability to easily KO it. Ceruledge is also held back by the low base power of its Ghost STAB options and by not getting Cutter. Curse you Gamefreak.

In the short term it will have to compete with yet-to-be-banned threats with even more power and much better speed so its capabilities may not be immediately apparent. I think it will eventually find a consistent home in a tier lower than OU but it will certainly still be usable there. For now I expect it to be decent.

What do you think about Ceruledge? Have you enjoyed using it or found success with it? Should its cry have been changed to a neckbeard voice saying “Heh, nothing personnel, kid…”? Share your thoughts below.

I like to introduce a build that I have not seen from any other Ceruledge enjoyer.

Hot Rod

Ceruledge @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 Hp / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Shadow Sneak
- Bitter Blade
- Bulk Up
- Will-O-Wisp/ Substitute

The point of this build is to get as bulky as possible before the opponent realizes what's happening. Ceruledge is arguably the best pokemon to take advantage of the terastral mechanic, ESPECIALLY Tera steel. It's able to compliment the Tera steel-type with its Flash Fire ability. Not only allowing it to have just 2 weaknesses (ground and fighting) but also be resistant to 10 types, including 2 immunities (fire and poison)! That also means that while setting up, the opponent can't poison or burn Ceruledge to ruin your build. Although there are a lot of ground and fighting-type users in the current meta, most of them are physical users. You can use easily use Will-O-Wisp to halve the damage of many fighting and ground-type users, preventing them from killing Ceruledge. Substitute is a good alternative but I find Will-O-Wisp to be more viable as even if your Ceruledge dies the next turn you've turned one of the physical attackers on the enemy team to be impotent. You don't have to worry too much about special attackers as Ceruledge has a base of 100 Sp. Def. to survive most Sp. Atk. It's arguably better for Ceruledge to attack after your opponent does as Ceruledge can take a hit and then do massive damage afterward to get the maximized healing output in case the opposing pokemon survives a hit. If they do survive you can finish them off with shadow sneak, giving you priority before they can kill Ceruledge.

I really love this pokemon and is easily my favorite in the new games. The design is very gorgeous and slick with the colors complimenting the pokemon's theme (P.S. the Naruto running animation is peak). Hopefully, this will become a meta-build for Ceruledge, as I really love the new tera-typing mechanic and how we can get creative with different pokemons that have decent/bad typings to an amazing type that compliments the pokemon's ability and moveset.

 

[JTD783]

I edited a few of the sets because somehow I forgot that Ceruledge gets Shadow Sneak. Definitely a big deal with its solid 125 Attack and tendency to struggle against faster attackers.

 

[shack]

I think the only hope for some kind of bulky set is going all in on the idea, using something like Bitter Blade/Close Combat/Shadow Sneak/Flame Charge with Weakness Policy (or dropping policy entirely for boots/leftovers) and Flash Fire, because even with weak armour giving you that +2 speed, the defence drop just means we'd get revenge killed after setting up on something by any priority even with things like Tera-Fighting helping vs Sucker. We probably have to accept that any kind of weak armour setup just falls over to all suckers, machs and so on, and try to use Flame Charge instead. Then we don't have to worry about only being able to setup on physical attackers, and hope to make some kind of team that reliably can remove the main priority users in the tier.

All of this might just be bullshit though I don't even know haha. Maybe bulky Ceruledge is just ass when it's not used as a stallbreaker.

Is WoW worth running? It could help cut physical attackers down along with giving you an option and mind game against sucker punchers.

I like to introduce a build that I have not seen from any other Ceruledge enjoyer.

Hot Rod

Ceruledge @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 Hp / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Shadow Sneak
- Bitter Blade
- Bulk Up
- Will-O-Wisp/ Substitute

The point of this build is to get as bulky as possible before the opponent realizes what's happening. Ceruledge is arguably the best pokemon to take advantage of the terastral mechanic, ESPECIALLY Tera steel. It's able to compliment the Tera steel-type with its Flash Fire ability. Not only allowing it to have just 2 weaknesses (ground and fighting) but also be resistant to 10 types, including 2 immunities (fire and poison)! That also means that while setting up, the opponent can't poison or burn Ceruledge to ruin your build. Although there are a lot of ground and fighting-type users in the current meta, most of them are physical users. You can use easily use Will-O-Wisp to halve the damage of many fighting and ground-type users, preventing them from killing Ceruledge. Substitute is a good alternative but I find Will-O-Wisp to be more viable as even if your Ceruledge dies the next turn you've turned one of the physical attackers on the enemy team to be impotent. You don't have to worry too much about special attackers as Ceruledge has a base of 100 Sp. Def. to survive most Sp. Atk. It's arguably better for Ceruledge to attack after your opponent does as Ceruledge can take a hit and then do massive damage afterward to get the maximized healing output in case the opposing pokemon survives a hit. If they do survive you can finish them off with shadow sneak, giving you priority before they can kill Ceruledge.

I really love this pokemon and is easily my favorite in the new games. The design is very gorgeous and slick with the colors complimenting the pokemon's theme (P.S. the Naruto running animation is peak). Hopefully, this will become a meta-build for Ceruledge, as I really love the new tera-typing mechanic and how we can get creative with different pokemons that have decent/bad typings to an amazing type that compliments the pokemon's ability and moveset.

Hmmm, what about air balloon to help get rid of that ground weakness? Or do you rely on leftovers too much?

 

[Mr. Universe]

Is WoW worth running? It could help cut physical attackers down along with giving you an option and mind game against sucker punchers.




Hmmm, what about air balloon to help get rid of that ground weakness? Or do you rely on leftovers too much?

I don't know what you mean by "Or do you rely on leftovers too much?" but I feel like you would get more value out of leftovers if you're trying to do a bulk-up build. Also, while it is nice to have immunity to ground-type moves you're still vulnerable to fighting moves like close combat and mach punch. With leftovers, you can cushion some of the damage you get hit, while one hit from a non-ground-type move will permanently remove air balloon. I'll definitely try out air balloon to see if it potentially has more value than leftovers.

 

[Selenaxoxo]

Is WoW worth running? It could help cut physical attackers down along with giving you an option and mind game against sucker punchers.




Hmmm, what about air balloon to help get rid of that ground weakness? Or do you rely on leftovers too much?

Will-o-Wisp can be run on stallbreaker sets, it's not the worst thing ever.

 

[Selenaxoxo]

I don't know what you mean by "Or do you rely on leftovers too much?" but I feel like you would get more value out of leftovers if you're trying to do a bulk-up build. Also, while it is nice to have immunity to ground-type moves you're still vulnerable to fighting moves like close combat and mach punch. With leftovers, you can cushion some of the damage you get hit, while one hit from a non-ground-type move will permanently remove air balloon. I'll definitely try out air balloon to see if it potentially has more value than leftovers.

I've been running air balloon for a hot minute now and it feels pretty solid, though my preferred set rn is boots with 100hp investment to always live scarf gholdengo sball from full

 

[Skymin50]

If there was a Pokemon that needed to get Poltergeist it was probably Ceruledge lol. Maybe if DLC has Move Tutors. Ah well...

This thing will definitely shine once lower tiers come out, I think. It's pretty solid all around, but it's not strong enough to really warrant being a consistent OU threat. But it's fun to use, and I feel it's at least decently viable, so hey, that's something.

 

[Aurafere211]

A set I use with Cereludge that’s surprisingly effective is
252/HP/252/ATK/4/Sp
Weak Armor
White Herb

Swords Dance
Bitter Blade
Iron Head
Shadow Claw
Tera Steel type

you set up with swords dance… you can live most turn 1 attck with the extra bulk.. weak armor doubles your speed after getting hit..
now your plus two ATK & Sp and can OK most threats, bitter blade gets you your health, you get STAB iron head if you terastylize and have potential to flinch as you now outspeed everything

 

[Zennistrad]

I've been playing around with an odd assault vest build that's given me some success:

Jolly Nature

52 HP / 252 Atk / 204 Spe

Flash Fire

Assault Vest

Flame Charge
Bitter Blade
Shadow Claw
Close Combat

With this build, Ceruledge at +1 is able to outspeed Timid Choice Specs Dragapult and hit for massive damage with Shadow Claw, and can even tank a single Shadow Ball from Dragapult provided no hazards are up.

Main thing holding it back is that having to go without heavy-duty boots really hurts.

 

[Magcargo]

Ceruledge @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Bulk Up
- Taunt
- Bitter Blade
- Shadow Sneak

I've been hearing about some Tera Bug Ceruledge set making waves, but don't know anything about the EV spread or moves it runs so I've just been running this on some generic Cyclizar + Grimmsnarl screen team. Its actually not too bad, has won me the occasional game here and there, but Unaware mons are a very hard matchup, whether its Clodsire, Dondozo, or Skeledirge. Its got a similarish problem to Annihilape where it can take a while for it to get Bulked Up and start sweeping. Also I can't help but feel that Tera Bug isn't even that useful? Tera Grass seems way better since it makes the Ceruledge immune to Spore (which is broken if you don't run Golden Joe).

Any tips on partners for beating up the Unaware mons + a more optimized EV spread and moves?

 

[pika pal]

Ceruledge @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Bulk Up
- Taunt
- Bitter Blade
- Shadow Sneak

I've been hearing about some Tera Bug Ceruledge set making waves, but don't know anything about the EV spread or moves it runs so I've just been running this on some generic Cyclizar + Grimmsnarl screen team. Its actually not too bad, has won me the occasional game here and there, but Unaware mons are a very hard matchup, whether its Clodsire, Dondozo, or Skeledirge. Its got a similarish problem to Annihilape where it can take a while for it to get Bulked Up and start sweeping. Also I can't help but feel that Tera Bug isn't even that useful? Tera Grass seems way better since it makes the Ceruledge immune to Spore (which is broken if you don't run Golden Joe).

Any tips on partners for beating up the Unaware mons + a more optimized EV spread and moves?

Bug vs Grass I think comes down to avoiding weaknesses to Ice (common offensive coverage and avoids Chien-Pao stopping a sweep early or revenging easily) and weakness to U-Turns vs Rock (which the HDB mitigate to rare coverage instead of hazards). The only Spore users in the tier already don't want to go near Ceruledge, and Bug/Grass have quite a few resistance overlaps. Bug does also add a Fighting Resistance to give you defense to both STABs from Great Tusk, who is a common Physically tanky mon to watch for.