Competitive Pokémon History - Cobalion Quiz

Answer: 129

With an acceptable 91 in HP to go with 129 in Defense and a solid defensive typing, a support set was very doable and quite solid a role for Cobalion to take on. Access to numerous utility moves and a pretty good Speed stat of 108 made it consistent at supporting its team.

Answer: Ten

Cobalion boasted resistances to Dragon, Ghost, Grass, Ice, Normal and Steel. It also had 4x resistances to Bug, Dark and Rock while being completely immune to Poison. With solid defensive stats, this gave Cobalion plenty of avenues to switch in to damaging moves and begin supporting its team or checking a dangerous threat.

Answer: Swords Dance

Cobalion's base 90 in Attack left a little to be desired, but it's good defenses and access to Swords Dance proved capable of consistently rectifying the problem. Access to Close Combat as a high powered STAB option meant that Cobalion was perfectly viable as an offensive Pokémon as well as a defensive one.

Calm Mind, while rarer and generally niche, was a set Cobalion could also potentially pull off. It's specially offensive move set was generally less effective than its physically offensive move set, but it could throw opponents off just as well and, thus, was worth using.

Answer: Justified

Justified grants the user a +1 to Attack if they are struck by a Dark type move.

With good defenses and a 4x resistance to Dark, Cobalion could easily shrug off a Dark type attack and make use of the boost. An experienced trainer would be able to use team preview to identify the existence of Cobalion on the opponent's team, so they wouldn't be too likely to just throw out a Dark type move in a predictable situation- however, being forced to refrain from doing this meant Justified would get value even if it didn't directly activate. As such, Cobalion became a good partner to Pokémon weak to Dark, providing them particularly sturdy defensive backup.

Answer: Bisharp

Cobalion could win one-on-one with Tyranitar and Mega Diancie due to being able to hit them 4x super effectively with STAB. However, switching into either was quite risky due to its middling Special Defense, Tyranitar's tendency to use Fire Blast, and Mega Diancie's incredibly high Special Attack. So while it could check them, countering them consistently was a bit above its pay grade. Talonflame would also have the upper hand over Cobalion thanks to its type advantage.

Bisharp, however, has to run for the hills upon a Cobalion sighting. Cobalion resisted both of Bisharp's STAB, could use Justified to take advantage of Bisharp's Dark type repertoire, and could annihilate it with a 4x super effective Close Combat. In an era where Bisharp gained a lot of notoriety in standard play, Cobalion was an effective countermeasure for teams based around Pokémon who feared Bisharp, such as Gengar, (Mega) Alakazam or Chandelure.

Answer: Ignore stat changes in its target

Close Combat was generally preferred for its power advantage, but Sacred Sword was a good idea on support sets which valued longevity over raw power. Sacred Sword's utility wasn't always useful, but it could come in handy in niche but important moments.

A Snorlax with a few Curses under its belt might be in a position to sweep your team unless you've got a Sacred Sword Cobalion who will be able to ignore Snorlax's defensive Curse boosts. In future generations, more Pokémon began to use moves which boosted Defense, such as Iron Defense and Bulk Up, meaning Sacred Sword's utility would become more useful in future generations.

Answer: No

Cobalion's versatility and widespread movepool gave it just enough theoretical counter play to make actually countering it difficult. Between its support set, physically offensive set and specially offensive set, there were a number of Pokémon who could counter one, maybe two, but not all of them. Gligar and Nidoqueen were basically hard counters to the physically offensive set, but if it turned out that Cobalion was a specially offensive set with Hidden Power Ice, they would get flattened trying to counter it. A Tentacruel with Haze, Calm Mind Suicune or Nasty Plot Chandelure can counter the specially offensive move set, but Tentacruel and Chandelure can easily lose to the physically offensive set, while the support set can do its job with pathetic ease in front of Suicune, then Volt Switch out into a more appropriate teammate to directly deal with it.

As such, Cobalion had no true counters in the strictest sense of the term.

Answer: No

Cobalion would fortunately find its way into action during the Crown Tundra DLC. Unfortunately, it would not receive enough usage in UU to become a native member of the tier as a result of its absence, causing it to fall to RU.

Answer: Doublade

With the removal of Hidden Power, Cobalion lost a crucial coverage option it needed to reliably fend off would-be counters as it had in generations past. This was excellent news for Doublade, who could leverage its unique Steel/Ghost typing to completely wall Cobalion, then boost in its face with Swords Dance and proceed to win the game or, at the very least, mow down Cobalion.

Answer: Amoonguss

The incorrect options represent Pokémon who Cobalion absolutely did not counter, and in some or most cases could be countered by. Amoonguss became somewhat of a rising star in UU in the eighth generation. While it doesn't possess the move set or offenses to threaten Cobalion, Spore is all it needs to be a major thorn in Cobalion's side, as Cobalion's immediate offenses aren't enough to deal with it. Safety Goggles renders the user immune to Spore, so Cobalion can equip Safety Goggles and then fearlessly switch into Amoonguss, being resistant or immune to every single move it can use and then threatening to boost in its face for free and threaten a sweep.

As such, teams weak to Amoonguss would get excellent mileage out of having a Cobalion with Safety Goggles handy.