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I ATTAC

8 (15.4%)

I PROTECC

6 (11.5%)

Waiting on the third one

2 (3.8%)

Waiting on the third AND fourth one

1 (1.9%)

GET WELL SOON ZYGARDE

5 (9.6%)

I am a concientous objector and abstain from taking up arms

30 (57.7%)

Total Members Voted: 51

[RekkaAtsuma]

Also the two games seem to have different styles for their pokedex entries, from what I remember.

Nah they're both dark. Just some alternate.

It's not that one's less dark, it's that they have a different... style? I'm not sure how to describe it, the Sun ones seem more... analytical? than the Moon ones.

Spoiler: Buzzwole (click to show/hide)

Sun: This Ultra Beast appeared from another world. It shows off its body, but whether that display is a boast or a threat remains unclear.
Moon: A mysterious life-form called an Ultra Beast. Witnesses saw it pulverize a dump truck with a single punch.

Moon's all like "Holy crap, it punched a truck!" and stuff. I don't really want to delve through 800 entries to see how consistently they're different, but in the dozen or so I looked at, Moon definitely seems more... enthusiastic?, and I found that interesting.

Eh "pulverize" in this case means more that Bzzwole turned the truck "into fine particles".
So no Buzzwole didn't just punch the truck, Buzzwole went all Saitama on that truck with...
---ONE-PAWNCH---
((Lol yes, I had too!, and yes I edited it to be Cap'n Falcon-y cause Nintendo!))

[Culise]

With the Marshadow event coming to a close Monday in the Americas, it seems they're wasting no time in starting off the next serial code event.  A shiny Silvally shall be available from October 23 to November 13 in North America or from November 3 through 16 in Europe.  This is almost identical to the Japan code event, but unlike that one, isn't a preorder-only bonus. 

Also, don't forget that next week (October 24-30) is the last week to pick up Ash's Pikachu via serial code if you're interested.  The last Pikachu offered is the Alola-cap version. 

[Sirus]

When you say that the event is closing, do you mean that they'll stop distributing the cards? Or will the codes on those cards no longer be valid?

[Culise]

When you say that the event is closing, do you mean that they'll stop distributing the cards? Or will the codes on those cards no longer be valid?

Cease distribution, sorry.  The codes should be valid until...well, mine says the code will be valid until February 23, 2018. 

[Furtuka]

Something very unexpected showed up on the back of the japanese download cards for ultra sun and ultra moon.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Team Rocket Members and an scene of a building that might be the Aether Mansion branded with a rainbow colored  Rocket logo

[Reudh]

Time for another one of Reudh's Almost Never Used Pokemon specials!

Today, we have Wailord! The Float Whale pokemon, interesting for a number of reasons.


First off is its size: Wailord is the largest pokemon, standing at 47'07" tall, and weighing an incredibly light 877lbs (it is after all, basically a blimp + whale).
It has base stats that are quite interesting as well:

170/90/45/90/45/60

Look at that enormous 170 HP!!! That's crazy. Only four other pokemon, and one pokemon forme outdo Wailord in HP: those being Blissey (255), Chansey (250), Guzzlord (223), Zygarde-Complete (216), and Wobbuffet (190). Oh. Oh. 45 base defenses. That puts a very heavy damper on the 170 HP. No point in having titanic HP without defenses to match; while Blissey and Chansey lack Defense, they have quite good special defenses. Wobbuffet and Guzzlord aren't exactly defensive titans, but they're both better than 45/45 defenses. Zygarde-Complete might have much higher stats, but it only triggers at low HP, so it's not great either.

But Wailord. Wailord has nearly nothing it can do.
Unlike fellow blimp-inspired pokemon Drifblim, Wailord is just about useless. It has one and one only niche. It can PP stall. It has recovery, albeit limited in Leftovers and Aqua Ring. It can learn Protect, and it can learn Substitute (and with such high HP, it can form quite a few before needing to stop and heal up.) It gets Scald, but with a usually uninvested and unimpressive base 90 special attack, it's not going to be doing much but fishing (or whaling?) for a burn so it's slightly less pathetic on the physical side.

So, the only "viable" strategy with Wailord is the aforementioned Protect/Sub/Scald/Aqua Ring, which is almost entirely shut down by Taunt pokemon. Wailord can act as a win condition, but only if your entire team is a full stall team invested into helping Wailord survive. Wailord hates burns and poisoning, which prevent it from stalling effectively as its limited recovery is effectively nullified by burns and poisoning. Wailord demands Toxic Spikes, and the elimination of threats like anything with Boomburst or Infiltrator, as well as any grounded poison type that can absorb the toxic spikes it desperately needs to help stall out foes.

To go along with Wailord's only semi-viable option in PP stalling, it gets the abilities Water Veil (prevents burns), Oblivious (cannot be attracted), and Pressure (doubles PP usage). While Water Veil might be kind of useful, Pressure is the preferred option, because Wailord just hasn't got anything it can do besides PP stall, and if you remove effectively 50% of its ability to PP stall, then it's even more useless.

Oh, and even with support, Wailord gets shut down horribly by Rest pokemon, be they ChestoRest or RestTalk pokemon.

Poor Wailord.

[pikachu17]

Why is Wailord using Scald, instead of Toxic? You yourself said it is a stall pokemon.

[Culise]

Probably to help cover for that 45 defense: Scald's Burn effect, while slower and less reliable than Toxic, does halve the opponent's physical attack.  You can pick up a toxic status by pairing Wailord with another Pokemon with Toxic Spikes as suggested, which means you don't need to worry about inflicting burn at all and can simply use it as a straight attack between Protect/Subs.  Scald also prevents this moveset from being complete taunt-bait, another significant concern. 

[umiman]

Wailord has one fearsome moveset.

Choice Scarf + Water Spout

It only works under extremely specific situations in extremely specific times, but when it does work... Oh ho ho ho...

Well actually it isn't particularly impressive damage-wise but it will 2HKO most things. Until something hurts it.

[Reudh]

Scarfed 60 isn't that fast, though. Slap specs on it instead.

Why is Wailord using Scald, instead of Toxic? You yourself said it is a stall pokemon.

Like Culise said; it can get a burn, which helps it survive more on the physical defense side (except against Facade or Guts users).
Additionally, if you run four support moves, you're incredibly vulnerable to being locked into Struggle by a Taunt pokemon; with the gargantuan recoil Struggle does it would entirely shut down Wailord's stalling capability, leftovers + aqua ring or not.

[Greiger]

I should probably do one of those write ups sometime.  I'd probably do my burn up arcanine debuffer.   But, since I typically don't look at buildsets and stuff, and really only play doubles they are probably already covered by some build list site somewhere, or completely unviable to anyone but my crazy double and triple battling self.

Especially the arcanine in singles because it's incapable of doing real damage more than twice a match, and is only there to make the opponent incapable of fighting back.

[Reudh]

Oh, most of my writeups are not based on my own experiences, bar the ones that I explicitly mention are from one of my teams. I just like doing writeups about shitty and/or gimmicky pokemon.

[umiman]

Scarfed 60 isn't that fast, though. Slap specs on it instead.

Why is Wailord using Scald, instead of Toxic? You yourself said it is a stall pokemon.

Like Culise said; it can get a burn, which helps it survive more on the physical defense side (except against Facade or Guts users).
Additionally, if you run four support moves, you're incredibly vulnerable to being locked into Struggle by a Taunt pokemon; with the gargantuan recoil Struggle does it would entirely shut down Wailord's stalling capability, leftovers + aqua ring or not.

What's the point of specs on it? It'll get hit the very first turn and make water spout completely pointless. I cannot think of many scenarios where you would rather switch out of a Wailord rather than just attack it. A support Pokemon with no offensive abilities whatsoever? In which case, I bet that Bronzong or whatever will be quite happy to sacrifice itself to set up hazards or screens. A choiced fire type stuck on something crap?

At least scarf has a chance of actually using water spout before it becomes worse than surf. Wailord has nonexistent defenses. Even a single non-stab earthquake will take it to half. If you use specs on it, it'll do one big hit (or fail completely actually because practically everything outspeeds it) then lose the fight. Wailord is so frail it can't even really handle non-effective attacks and will get owned even by things like iron head. A scarfed one can at least threaten slow and average speed Pokemon, or be a revenge killer in this ultra crap tier.

The only time you would even want to put specs on it is if you have trick room.

----------

That being said Showdown Randoms actually puts specs on Wailord. It's predictably trash, though if it does manage to get a full power specs water spout off, it's pretty comical. But it's nowhere near as scary as Showdown Random's other specs water spout user. Kyogre.

[Culise]

At least you can outspeed Golem.
...
Actually, that's not a complete joke.  If you use it in its base PU-tier, that base-60 speed with some investment is not completely, totally awful, even if it's close.  Specs Wailord sounds like something that gets sent out as a revenge-killer against bulky but slow threats.  Poking around in PU, that seems to include Golem forms (beware of Sturdy), Golurk, Ursaring (maybe?), Aggron, Crabominable, Crustle (as long as it doesn't have some Shell Smashes under its belt yet), Granbull, Mudsdale, and an injured vanilla Muk (because Muk is rather bulky to be one-shot otherwise). I haven't done any calcs, but I could see a Specs Wailord being used to absolutely hammer something into the ground.  Assuming, of course, the opponent is not using a Scarf themselves (Scarf on something with even less than 60 Speed, though?).  Or have priority.  Or Sandstorm.  Fully half of those are also already vulnerable to Water as well, so it may be overkill. 

[umiman]

At least you can outspeed Golem.
...
Actually, that's not a complete joke.  If you use it in its base PU-tier, that base-60 speed with some investment is not completely, totally awful, even if it's close.  Specs Wailord sounds like something that gets sent out as a revenge-killer against bulky but slow threats.  Poking around in PU, that seems to include Golem forms (beware of Sturdy), Golurk, Ursaring (maybe?), Aggron, Crabominable, Crustle (as long as it doesn't have some Shell Smashes under its belt yet), Granbull, Mudsdale, and an injured vanilla Muk.  I haven't done any calcs, but I could see a Specs Wailord being used to absolutely hammer something into the ground.  Assuming, of course, the opponent is not using a Scarf themselves (Scarf on something with even less than 60 Speed, though?).  Or have priority.  Or Sandstorm.  Fully half of those are also already vulnerable to Water as well, so it may be overkill.

Yeah, most of that stuff would die to a regular water spout.