Gallade - Blades of Fury

Am I the only one not seeing gallade as too powerful? Hell yeah he can sweep, he's a sweeper lol. I feel like there is more bitching now than when yanmega was still in UU. Gallade does to stall what Yanmega did to offense, and quite frankly, I enjoy that. The ONE thing that isn't impressing me about gallade is his crap speed. Do I enjoy this metagame, absolutely not, so I may be biased, but meh. Just the fact that a single poke makes stall cringe puts a smile on my face. It just seems like when offense gets a good poke, it just gets banned =/.
 

LonelyNess

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.

As for the idea that a Pokemon has to be ‘more threatening’ than Gallade to revenge-kill it, where did that come from? Clearly if a Pokemon is more threatening than a suspect, then that Pokemon is probably more suspect worthy than the Pokemon in question. The argument can be reworded as “The only viable revenge-killers to this broken Pokemon are even more broken Pokemon”, and by that logic the most threatening Pokemon of any tier will always be broken. No need for me to explain why such an argument is both irrelevant and downright ridiculous.
<aldaron> that's silly, that would mean the #1 offensive thread in each metagame cannot have revenge killing used against it
<aldaron> threat*
<LonelyNess> it doesn't have to be more threatening, aldaron, but it does actually have to be threatening... to the point where you can punish someone for using Gallade
<LonelyNess> it all comes down to how punishable the kill is
<aldaron> yes and your argument that "i can just switch gallade out" doesn't mean anything because "i can just use the appropriate move for whatever comes in" basically forcing gallade out is enough; why do we assume perfect play for one side and not the other?
<LonelyNess> That's the point though, aldaron, is that there's nothing that can revenge kill Gallade like a salamence that can threaten -anything-.
<LonelyNess> If Scizor comes in to revenge a Salamence, it's a threat to damn near everything that could switch in, if Salamence comes in to revenge a lucario it's a threat to everything that could switch in... if Lucario comes in to revenge a tyranitar it's a threat to everything... If Ninjask comes in to revenge a Breloom, it's a threat to like.. nothing except Breloom
<LonelyNess> That's the difference, aldaron
<LonelyNess> is that all the gallade revenge killers are like Ninjask


Now this is obviously a little bit of a dramatization, but I think you'd agree that nothing that can come in to revenge kill can be said to be like a Lucario / Scizor / Salamence... Most of the things can be very easily handled with 100% counters, with no more than 1 or 2 pokemon. Hell, just slap a Normal resist on your team and you can deal with almost every COMMON revenge killer (swellow / ambipom / tauros / kangaskhan).

It's not about the revenge killer being -more- threatening... it's about them posing a threat at all and being able to actually punish you for switching out.
 
there are two parts to this post
A. revenge killers don't need to directly punish gallade / gallade's team for switching out
B. asserting "xyz isn't threatening" doesn't make sense

part A -- in a perfectly damage calc based world, I agree with LN's idea that a revenge killer must be able to punish Gallade for switching out. however, there are a few real world consequences to switching out independent of whether you get hit by the revenge killer or not. these factors are all relatively insignificant on their own, but can easily add together to prevent gallade from sweeping again in the same match.

1. entry hazards -- 6% from SR and 12% from each layer of spikes (which are much more common with froslass now) adds up pretty quickly.

2. damage accumulated while setting up -- setting up on relatively weak attacks like milotic's surf (lets just imagine gallade swords danced as it got hit by surf, then close combatted mismagius and shadow sneaked swellow to set up our revenge killer /check scenario) means gallade is losing 20-30% of its HP.

3. life orb recoil -- 10% per hit. duh.

4. you are scouted -- your opponent knows gallade's moveset, gallade's item, etc, which means they know whether to attack or status gallade the next time, and whether weezing or spiritomb walls it. most importantly they know you have a gallade so they will keep their checks and counters alive.

all of these contribute towards "gallade's inability to set up again in the future and sweep". one layer of each entry hazard alone and one round of life orb recoil puts gallade at 52.5% after its second switch-in. even assuming it didn't take any damage setting up the first time (such as a milotic's surf for 30% or however much), it's relatively low on health and can be KOed by a relatively large range of pokemon. the concept of scaring something out and swords dancing on the switch no longer applies when almost everything can ko you, which means it's essentially a guessing game as to whether you should sd (and potentially die) or attack (and most likely lose the potential for a sweep). once you've revealed gallade it's a lot harder to set up again because your opponent knows you have it and probably knows your moveset and item. even if gallade switches out of a revenge killer, these factors means that frequently, this means the revenge killer will have accomplished its goal -- i.e. stopping gallade from sweeping the opposing team.

part B -- the idea that certain revenge killers aren't threatening is a logical fallacy because it assumes that certain pokemon in your team are alive. what if their ambipom 2hkoed your rhyperior earlier in the match with cb low kick? what if swellow uturns to azumarill and your water resists are weakened or fainted? the two situations i've created are hypothetical, but are no more hypothetical than saying "well swellow isn't a problem, i've got a rhyperior". it's just as easy to say "your team is weak to this revenge killer! surprise!" as it is to say "my team beats this revenge killer hands down", and both statements are equally incorrect.

plus, this relies on the assumption that gallade's revenge killers must all fit a certain narrow mold. cb azumarill, arcanine, nidoking, moltres, leafeon, scyther, sceptile, ambipom -- basically everything faster and is has strong physical attacks or can hit it super-effectively on the special side and is not weak to shadow sneak can be a revenge killer, not just choiced normal types and swellow.
 
there are two parts to this post
A. revenge killers don't need to directly punish gallade / gallade's team for switching out
B. asserting "xyz isn't threatening" doesn't make sense

part A -- in a perfectly damage calc based world, I agree with LN's idea that a revenge killer must be able to punish Gallade for switching out. however, there are a few real world consequences to switching out independent of whether you get hit by the revenge killer or not. these factors are all relatively insignificant on their own, but can easily add together to prevent gallade from sweeping again in the same match.

1. entry hazards -- 6% from SR and 12% from each layer of spikes (which are much more common with froslass now) adds up pretty quickly.

2. damage accumulated while setting up -- setting up on relatively weak attacks like milotic's surf (lets just imagine gallade swords danced as it got hit by surf, then close combatted mismagius and shadow sneaked swellow to set up our revenge killer /check scenario) means gallade is losing 20-30% of its HP.

3. life orb recoil -- 10% per hit. duh.

4. you are scouted -- your opponent knows gallade's moveset, gallade's item, etc, which means they know whether to attack or status gallade the next time, and whether weezing or spiritomb walls it. most importantly they know you have a gallade so they will keep their checks and counters alive.

all of these contribute towards "gallade's inability to set up again in the future and sweep". one layer of each entry hazard alone and one round of life orb recoil puts gallade at 52.5% after its second switch-in. even assuming it didn't take any damage setting up the first time (such as a milotic's surf for 30% or however much), it's relatively low on health and can be KOed by a relatively large range of pokemon. the concept of scaring something out and swords dancing on the switch no longer applies when almost everything can ko you, which means it's essentially a guessing game as to whether you should sd (and potentially die) or attack (and most likely lose the potential for a sweep). once you've revealed gallade it's a lot harder to set up again because your opponent knows you have it and probably knows your moveset and item. even if gallade switches out of a revenge killer, these factors means that frequently, this means the revenge killer will have accomplished its goal -- i.e. stopping gallade from sweeping the opposing team.

part B -- the idea that certain revenge killers aren't threatening is a logical fallacy because it assumes that certain pokemon in your team are alive. what if their ambipom 2hkoed your rhyperior earlier in the match with cb low kick? what if swellow uturns to azumarill and your water resists are weakened or fainted? the two situations i've created are hypothetical, but are no more hypothetical than saying "well swellow isn't a problem, i've got a rhyperior". it's just as easy to say "your team is weak to this revenge killer! surprise!" as it is to say "my team beats this revenge killer hands down", and both statements are equally incorrect.

plus, this relies on the assumption that gallade's revenge killers must all fit a certain narrow mold. cb azumarill, arcanine, nidoking, moltres, leafeon, scyther, sceptile, ambipom -- basically everything faster and is has strong physical attacks or can hit it super-effectively on the special side and is not weak to shadow sneak can be a revenge killer, not just choiced normal types and swellow.
All of this post has nothing to do with the main reason why gallade is too good for uu. You are using offensive counters when NONE of those offensive pokemon are helpful on a stall team and you simply wont find them in a stall team.

What I have done with my stall team is to use the only three defensive "kind of" checks that there are.
 
Lemmiwinks MkII said:
It is a shame then that your argument isn't logically relevant to the issue at all, it is just a bunch of Pokemon-beats-Pokemon-with-move nonsense that can generally apply for anything. It says nothing about Gallade's particular qualities. As far as i am concerned, the only teams that Gallade can genuinely threaten are those that don't rely on the concept of revenge-killing at all anyway.

And I will say it again. I don't care at all for what 'bad' players do, and neither should you.
Oh come on you definitely see the relevance. It's really easy to call a semi-complicated post "irrelevant lol", but I'm sure you realized that it makes sense.

Gallade was Pokemon X if you wanted a direct relation.

So this means, Gallade comes in on....let's say....(for the other argument's sake I'll use an offensive Pokemon) Scarfed Venusaur locked in EQ / -2 Leaf Storm or a Taunted Froslass (Ambipom Taunt + U-turn tactic is great).

So Gallade comes in, possibly KOes something or just SD's, and does whatever (irrelevant at the moment), and then you send in (for offensive purposes again) CB Tauros or Kangaskhan. The Gallade user switches in Rhyperior to take the Normal attack. Rhyperior lets a big Stone Edge or Earthquake loose on the opposing OFFENSIVE team and scores big damage. Rince and repeat!

If said counter was something like Staraptor then obviously it would be a different story and Gallade's team would be in trouble when Staraptor came in.
 
All of this post has nothing to do with the main reason why gallade is too good for uu. You are using offensive counters when NONE of those offensive pokemon are helpful on a stall team and you simply wont find them in a stall team.

What I have done with my stall team is to use the only three defensive "kind of" checks that there are.
I wasn't trying to apply the characteristics in the context of defensive Pokemon. clearly the point of my post was just to respond to the debate about revenge killing gallade with offensive teams.
 

FlareBlitz

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Is anyone noticing the utter lack of stall right now? I think it says a lot about Gallade that the most dominant playstyle in old UU is now the least popular...
 

Seven Deadly Sins

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Gallade was only really "counterable" by Crobat during the time that the bat was available in UU. Since it has left, there's really no reliable "counter" to Gallade, since the few things that can switch in and not get absolutely obliterated find it extremely difficult to actually HURT Gallade.

The only real answer that Stall has to Gallade is attempting to Status it, and that loses horribly to Lum Berry Gallade. Attempting to "counter" Gallade simply isn't happening, end of story.
 

Erazor

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You know, a lot of its checks rely on switching in on the SD... why isn't CB Gallade being used more? When your check takes a CC to the face on the assumption that Gallade's going to SD, it can significantly soften up a team.
And it can use Trick too. Uxie comes in to wall you? Trick a band onto it. Milotic is irritating? Trick it. Spiritomb? Well, to a lesser extent, Trick is still effective against it.
So what I'm basically saying is, CB Gallade really works well when most of its counters are geared towards the Swords Dance set. It is more threatening to me than SD as well.

And Lol, Honchkrow isn't forced out by Gallade, it OHKOes min/min Gallade with Sucker Punch.
 
Oh come on you definitely see the relevance. It's really easy to call a semi-complicated post "irrelevant lol", but I'm sure you realized that it makes sense.

Gallade was Pokemon X if you wanted a direct relation.

So this means, Gallade comes in on....let's say....(for the other argument's sake I'll use an offensive Pokemon) Scarfed Venusaur locked in EQ / -2 Leaf Storm or a Taunted Froslass (Ambipom Taunt + U-turn tactic is great).

So Gallade comes in, possibly KOes something or just SD's, and does whatever (irrelevant at the moment), and then you send in (for offensive purposes again) CB Tauros or Kangaskhan. The Gallade user switches in Rhyperior to take the Normal attack. Rhyperior lets a big Stone Edge or Earthquake loose on the opposing OFFENSIVE team and scores big damage. Rince and repeat!

If said counter was something like Staraptor then obviously it would be a different story and Gallade's team would be in trouble when Staraptor came in.
No, I really don't see the relevance at all. What you said can easily be twisted into anything you like to help your own argument. And by 'help', I mean to sway anyone who is easily fooled by your strawman to begin with, and guess what, I am not one of them.

As for your example, last time I checked Froslass always has at least Ice Beam and max special attack. So let us come up with a new scenario: Ambipom U-turns out of Taunted Froslass to Gallade, who takes ~40% from Ice Beam. Gallade SDs predicting a switch, but Froslass (having little to lose as Shadow Sneak doesn't OHKO unboosted anyway) predicts this and Ice Beams again, leaving Gallade at 20%. Froslass user (assuming no Ice Shard to easily finish off) sees Shadow Sneak coming and switches to Tauros to nullify it, then finishes off Gallade with CB Pursuit.

See how easy that was? That's why your XYZ bullshit is irrelevant. There are no guarantees in Pokemon like you're claiming, it is always much more complicated than that. And you certainly can't use prediction anywhere in your argument. At all. That is a no-go. You have already insulted my intelligence by claiming that I tried to cheap-shot you, so I suggest sparing your embarrassment and just accepting the irrelevance of your argument now. Anyone else with a certain degree of intellect would see that I am in the right here, and probably wouldn't be surprised to find out that this is an argument between a High School student and a Physics graduate. Take that whichever way you like, I honestly don't care.
 
No one (besides Lemmiwink's previous post) has brought up the facts that all these Normal-types can run Pursuit, besides Kangaskhan. Even without a Close Combat defense drop, Ambipom's Pursuit does 55-65% to a fleeing Gallade, which is enough to keep it from doing real damage later. "Oh but what if he stays in" yeah fucking right that would be bullshit. If you have a healthy Gallade facing an Ambipom, you are going to switch out unless you don't have any more Normal resists, in which case feel free to spam Return.

From Swellow and Tauros it is a little less powerful due to a lack of Technician, but still enough to take a nice chunk of Gallade's health. From Swellow (assuming Guts, which may or may not be unreasonable), it does 50-59%, 33-39% without. From Tauros, it does 37-44%. Not as impressive, but enough to make Gallade more managable later.

Also, Ambipom can be a pretty threatening force. With Low Kick, it deals a ton of damage to its usual stops, like Regirock, Registeel, Steelix, and offensive Rhyperior. It also can go with a gimmicky Grass Knot and fuck over Rhyperior if it wants.

But I still think it's pretty baffling that people think that only Normal types can take an unSTAB Shadow Sneak. As mentioned earlier, Leafeon takes it for a ~14HKO with its 130 Base Defense, and its Life Orb Leaf Blade (from Jolly Leafeon, though Adamant Leafeon will still outspeed Jolly Gallade so you could even run that if you want) does 87-102%.

Even Sceptile, who is not physically bulky by the most liberal definition of the term (70/65 defenses), takes only 60-70% from +2 Adamant Shadow Sneak, and then OHKOs with Leaf Storm. Obviously not a real check that anyone is advocating, but I'm just showing that Shadow Sneak lacks any real OHKOing power on non-Ghosts and non-Dugtrios. Anything faster than Gallade that can kill it is an offensive check. And if Gallade has used Close Combat, that is a really high list.

Does anyone else find it horribly ironic that heysup is saying "checking Gallade isn't good enough" when for months he was saying "Crobat checks the whole metagame!". Just saying.
 
Does anyone else find it horribly ironic that heysup is saying "checking Gallade isn't good enough" when for months he was saying "Crobat checks the whole metagame!". Just saying.
Two separate issues really, particularly as Crobat had the ability to sustain itself for most of a match. But that in itself brings up another point.

Heysup's claim would have a whole lot more merit if the Pokemon in question also had stellar checking ability itself and was able to keep itself in tip-top condition. But I am baffled by how anyone in the right mind could think that Gallade (with its poor HP, pathetic physical defense, decent but penetrable special defense, mediocre speed, and only two predominantly physical resistances) is able to get multiple opportunities to come in and make some kind of impact against good offense. It doesn't stand to reason on paper, and it certainly doesn't work that way in practice either.

In short, Gallade's effect on the offensive side of the metagame has nothing to do with its suitability in meeting any of the BL Characteristics. The fact that a large chunk of this discussion has been focused on this non-issue is what has aggravated me the most.
 
Gallade was only really "counterable" by Crobat during the time that the bat was available in UU. Since it has left, there's really no reliable "counter" to Gallade, since the few things that can switch in and not get absolutely obliterated find it extremely difficult to actually HURT Gallade.

The only real answer that Stall has to Gallade is attempting to Status it, and that loses horribly to Lum Berry Gallade. Attempting to "counter" Gallade simply isn't happening, end of story.
I do this with stall
1) Spiritomb tries to take it out w/ shadow sneak... usually this has been enough. Either way, though, its going to take ~50 percent as long as spiritomb isn't nearly dead which is enough to beat the gallade.

Depending on if it take LO recoil when it attacks, if it manages to beat spiritomb I do this:
LO-
Go to arcanine, who is faster, and attempt to burn it. Im testing flare blitz so I can just outright ko it though which is an actual counter, though I hate the idea of flare blitz on a stall pokemon.

Lum-
Lum gallade cant OHKO tangrowth regardless of nature. Seed bomb after close combat will kill it supposing spiritomb at least hit it with a shadow sneak before dying.
 

franky

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Gallade is strong but not BL. I want it to be BL, I really do but it never overwhelms my team and mine doesn't even over centralize it. You just need strong play to handle it, much like any other offensive juggernauts such as Blaziken or Honchkrow. Gallade promotes a faster-paced metagame, which isn't really a bad thing.

Also why are people using Arcanine as a check? Rapid Spin is almost difficult to pull off in this offensive metagame, and Arcanine can't check Gallade efficiently. Normal-types check it pretty well, and anything with a good defensive stat + higher than 80 Speed is considered a check as well. +2 Shadow Sneak is being overrated from what I've read in this thread.
 
Gallade is strong but not BL. I want it to be BL, I really do but it never overwhelms my team and mine doesn't even over centralize it. You just need strong play to handle it, much like any other offensive juggernauts such as Blaziken or Honchkrow. Gallade promotes a faster-paced metagame, which isn't really a bad thing.

Also why are people using Arcanine as a check? Rapid Spin is almost difficult to pull off in this offensive metagame, and Arcanine can't check Gallade efficiently. Normal-types check it pretty well, and anything with a good defensive stat + higher than 80 Speed is considered a check as well. +2 Shadow Sneak is being overrated from what I've read in this thread.
I'm going to be discussing this post from a stall standpoint because that really is where the problem lies.

Gallade IS BL, imo, because stall basically has to rely on checks that dont even work half of the time to beat it. There are like 3 pokemon that work on a stall team as checks and 2 of them are really only good against a gallade holding one specific item.

Rapid spin ISN'T hard to pull off in this meta at all franky
Missy as a spin blocker- Spritiomb kills it the first time its in the match
Spiritomb as spin blocker- THE reason to run foresight hitmontop on stall again, but even blastoise and donphan can do the same thing.
Rotom- alot less common now

People are using arcanine because it is faster and can still make a very good stall pokemon. Flare blitz outright ko's after SR, or he can just put -3 on gallade before it can do anything. its not OHKO'd by a -1 anything from gallade so switching in isn't a major worry.
 

franky

aka pimpdaddyfranky, aka frankydelaghetto, aka F, aka ef
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Gallade IS BL, imo, because stall basically has to rely on checks that dont even work half of the time to beat it. There are like 3 pokemon that work on a stall team as checks and 2 of them are really only good against a gallade holding one specific item.
You really don't have to use stall. You have to adapt to the metagame. I'm on the fence with Gallade as it handles a 'decent' portion of the metagame (stall mostly), but from an offensive standpoint, he is just another offensive threat like Blaziken, Honchkrow, Mismagius, etc.

Rapid spin ISN'T hard to pull off in this meta at all franky
Missy as a spin blocker- Spritiomb kills it the first time its in the match
Spiritomb as spin blocker- THE reason to run foresight hitmontop on stall again, but even blastoise and donphan can do the same thing.
Rotom- alot less common now
I took the Arcanine from an offensive standpoint instead of Stall, which is why I said its difficult to pull a spin because it ruins the momentum of the offensive pace. But from a more defensive standpoint, the spinning is still hard to pull off because your common spinners (Donphan, Hitmontop, etc.) are constantly switching out due to the high powered offensive pace. And with the lack of recovery from there is not good. Mismagius can bring down all three of these with Taunt and Nasty Plot. Rotom can do it as well to a lesser extent. Sure you have Spiritomb to check, but a team can be built to lure in Spiritomb and kill it. This brings me back to the point with using Arcanine as a check to Gallade because you practically require two things to check Gallade efficiently, spin + Arcanine. Spin is needed so that Arcanine doesn't take 25% everytime. Stall is just difficult to use, period. People just have to stick to semi-stall, bulky offense, or heavy offense. The win rate for Stall is really low at this stage.

People are using arcanine because it is faster and can still make a very good stall pokemon. Flare blitz outright ko's after SR, or he can just put -3 on gallade before it can do anything. its not OHKO'd by a -1 anything from gallade so switching in isn't a major worry.
The thing is, Arcanine is shakey at best. It has intimidate, sure. But if you come in on Stealth Rock (or possibly Spikes) on a -1 Close Combat, your left with such low health, your forced to use Morning Sun, giving the right time to bring in an Arcanine check. Since Morning Sun will only retain a little bit of HP, the next time around, Arcanine might die. Overall, Arcanine is not doing anything but forcing it to switch-out while loosing over half of its hp with Sr down.

orb = max hp / 120 def - 51.82% - 61.20% +25%
lum = max hp / 120 def - 34.64% - 40.89% +25%

If I were me, I'd use Defensive Arcanine as a "back-up" check, but not a dedicated check to Gallade if I was to use a stall team. Personally, I haven't tried stall yet but I could imagine checking Gallade with Arcanine a nightmare. Offensive Arcanine is a good check though.
 
Franky, I disagree about having to not use stall. It still work, but the amount of effort needed to put into checking gallade (and to a lesser extent honchkrow) is ridiculous

Arcanine isn't my main check to gallade, spiritomb is, just like every other defensive team.

Pokemon shouldn't be allowed to hinder an entire playstyle so badly and not be kicked out of the tier.

Hitmontop- is resistant to sr, so he doesn't even lose health when he switches in after leftovers, neither does donphan. If missy tries to taunt, then its a free kill with spiritomb & pursuit because I use spiritomb for two pokemon that can actually dent him and she she is one of them. He is a very sturdy spinner, and he really doesn't have much trouble finding the time to come in and rapid spin which is what arcanine needs.
 

franky

aka pimpdaddyfranky, aka frankydelaghetto, aka F, aka ef
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Pokemon shouldn't be allowed to hinder an entire playstyle so badly and not be kicked out of the tier.
Its not that it hinders it, the play style itself is less effective due to the amount of offense coming into UU. Its not only Gallade you know, its a combination of Alakazam, Froslass, and Rhyperior that still pose a huge threat to stall. You add the fact there are still the same offensive threats pre-gallade like Honchkrow, Blaziken, etc. Stall is just harder to run these days. Hopefully it will come back once a defensive Pokemon drops from OU (hopefully Cresselia).
 
Its not that it hinders it, the play style itself is less effective due to the amount of offense coming into UU. Its not only Gallade you know, its a combination of Alakazam, Froslass, and Rhyperior that still pose a huge threat to stall. You add the fact there are still the same offensive threats pre-gallade like Honchkrow, Blaziken, etc. Stall is just harder to run these days. Hopefully it will come back once a defensive Pokemon drops from OU (hopefully Cresselia).
Yeah, Cresselia would probably be the best Pokemon for bringing the balance back to UU, giving stall a great answer to both SD Gallade and almost all forms of Blaziken. And despite not being a paper counter to Honchkrow, it would probably make people seriously consider the option of Super Luck + Night Slash again to try and break it. This would once again give Honchkrow a serious moveslot issue and anything that does that is a good thing in my eyes. Naturally people would call for a ban from the start, but I personally don't think it would be that broken at all. The 8 PP of Moonlight is quite a drawback when you think about it.

But of course, we can't take anything like this into account when assessing Gallade. If Gallade is broken for being too destructive against stall now, then it must be banned obviously. We may have to accept the possibility that UU stall will never get a Cresselia to bolster their ranks, but if we do then I hope the gallade issue can be revisited.
 
Lemmiwinks MkII said:
In short, Gallade's effect on the offensive side of the metagame has nothing to do with its suitability in meeting any of the BL Characteristics. The fact that a large chunk of this discussion has been focused on this non-issue is what has aggravated me the most.
I was merely pointing out that you really underestimate Gallade as a threat to offensive teams. It isn't as useless as you make it out to be since it can, with proper support, be a huge threat to offensive teams. Even with it's shitty defense, it has a decent enough special defense to grab a couple of chances to launch Close Combats, or even get Swords Dance up against offensive teams (who aren't all about speed with Rhyperior running around as well). Not to mention being great with dual screens.

This isn't a non-issue because if you were to say "Gallade makes stall useless, but is a liability on an offensive team" then Gallade's BL status would be much harder to justify. That's why I was pointing out that it isn't the case.

Gallade makes stall teams useless AND is a significant threat versus offensive teams.
 
There is just one thing I am going to ask about stall and this seems to be a good place to ask since it seems that slower pokemon can't handle Gallade. Does every member of a stall team have to be slow?
 
There is just one thing I am going to ask about stall and this seems to be a good place to ask since it seems that slower pokemon can't handle Gallade. Does every member of a stall team have to be slow?
not really, but all of the best walls are slower than than gallade except for a very few (I can think of like 2) who can run enough speed to outpace gallade and still retain some decent bulk. Actually, I don't think stall can afford to be all slow pokemon anymore...
 
Has Spiritomb been discussed yet? I mean, it is immune to both of its STAB moves, resists Leaf Blade, takes neutral from Stone Edge and Shadow Sneak and gets STAB on Shadow Ball, Shadow Sneak and Pursuit. It also does a number to lots of things in the metagame. (Misdreaveus)

Drapion is another poke that hasn't been discussed much. It gets STAB on Pursuit and also gets Night Slash with Sniper. It has good physical defenses, and isn't weak to fighting. Oh, and it gets the added bonus of being able to outspeed Gallade without running a +Spe nature.
 

Bluewind

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Has Spiritomb been discussed yet? I mean, it is immune to both of its STAB moves, resists Leaf Blade, takes neutral from Stone Edge and Shadow Sneak and gets STAB on Shadow Ball, Shadow Sneak and Pursuit. It also does a number to lots of things in the metagame. (Misdreaveus)

Drapion is another poke that hasn't been discussed much. It gets STAB on Pursuit and also gets Night Slash with Sniper. It has good physical defenses, and isn't weak to fighting. Oh, and it gets the added bonus of being able to outspeed Gallade without running a +Spe nature.
Actually Spiritomb is the only reason Stall teams haven't just faced banishment from the tier (Arcanine might do a good job, but is far from being an ideal counter, when even Spiritomb himself isn't).
As a side note Spiritomb takes neutral damage from Leaf Blade.
About Drapion it sounds like a good idea, as it resists Shadow Sneak, got good defenses and outspeeds it, but I don't know if it gets to OHKO Gallade with Night Slash; I believe only the CB set can achieve that. Might be worth trying though.
 

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