Competitive Pokemon History - Groudon Quiz

Answer: 150

Matching Kyogre's Base 150 Special Attack, Groudon can likewise put in great work as a physically offensive wallbreaker. Its Earthquakes boast second-to-none type power, and are pretty much impossible to switch into without an outright immunity, or a bulky Pokemon which also resists the move. For those which meet the criteria, be warned- Groudon has three other moveslots to deal with them.

Answer: Hidden Power Bug

Hidden Power Bug initially seems like a bizarre move to run, but the move is used to annihilate Exeggutor and hit Latios and Latias for huge damage, which could otherwise take an Earthquake (the latter being immune to the move) and check Groudon in the process. Hidden Power Ghost was likewise worth consideration to retain coverage on the Latis and target Lugia, though it would do far less damage to Exeggutor than HP Bug.

Solar Beam would seem to combo well with Groudon's ability to summon permanent sun, as the move can be fired off immediately thanks to the sun, and it would target Water types that could otherwise competently try to check Groudon. However, Groudon's iffy Base 100 Special Attack by Uber standards, lack of STAB on the move, combined with the fact that Kyogre and Rayquaza could steal sun away by switching in when Groudon uses Solar Beam, essentially leaving it for dead in the process, makes it unviable to use. That, and, Groudon's Earthquakes are strong enough to keep Water types at bay, preventing them from being good switch ins.

Likewise, Thunder is a genuinely poor move for Groudon to try out. In fact, the sun that Groudon is known for summoning betrays the notion of running Thunder, turning an already poor 70% accuracy into a terrible 50% accuracy when under sun. While it might seem like turning the tables on Kyogre's rain, should it switch in on Groudon and give Thunder perfect accuracy, is a good idea, Earthquake actually hits Kyogre for more damage than Thunder does, despite Thunder being super effective. This means it is terrible for Groudon to run as a whole.

Finally, Fire Punch was actually a specially offensive move in the third generation, due to the lack of physical/special split. In that regard, if Fire type coverage was desired, Overheat, Fire Blast and Flamethrower made for better choices than Fire Punch did, simply because they were all stronger than Fire Punch was.

Answer: Drought

In the third generation, Drought allows Groudon to summon permanent sunny weather on the battlefield. Pokemon who could abuse the sun, such as Exeggutor and Shiftry, were Uber-viable strictly due to the existence of Groudon activating their Chlorophyll abilities and enabling them to be offensively threatening.

It also powered up Fire type moves from Groudon's teammates and could protect teammates who were weak to Water, Ho-Oh in particular enjoying both benefits.

Answer: Thunder Wave

Groudon has never had access to Belly Drum or Baton Pass. Bulk Up sets were somewhat of a possibility, though they were outclassed by Dialga and generally not too amazing due to Groudon's iffy Special Defense. Thunder Wave seems like a strange move to base a sweeping set around. However, opposing Groudon and Garchomp generally don't switch into Groudon itself, since Groudon could easily check them in such a scenario. This means Groudon made for a good source of paralysis, hitting threats which were crippled by the status which commonly switched into it, such as the Latis and Lugia. Donned the "Paradancer", the idea was that after enough of the opposing team had been paralyzed, Groudon could come in on something, take advantage of its heavily reduced speed, and potential inability to move, and boost with Swords Dance. The moveset was generally Thunder Wave/Swords Dance/Earthquake/Stone Edge.

The set was best used on balanced teams, namely ones with a Wish passer that could heal Groudon if it took damage paralyzing the opposing team. To that end, stall teams were also a possible fit for this set as they could offer Wish passing and clerical support, while appreciating Groudon's good bulk and ability to switch in on opposing threats and take them out if need be, as well as its status as the team's win condition.

Answer: Cresselia

Skarmory can counter a Groudon lacking a Fire type move. However, Fire Punch was a rather common move for Groudon to run, making this pretty unreliable.

Lugia seems like the correct choice as well, but its weakness to Stealth Rock combined with Groudon very frequently running Stone Edge can make this a bit shaky at times. Additionally, Groudon's Thunder Wave set is deliberately designed to eventually allow Groudon to overcome Lugia, making it iffy at consistently countering Groudon.

Rayquaza was definitely the oddball out, as it can't switch in on Stone Edge or Dragon Claw, fairly common coverage moves, at all. It also can't switch in on Swords Dance, since Groudon can take a hit and then destroy Rayquaza with one of the aforementioned moves. Rayquaza also needs a quirky coverage move like Surf or Waterfall, or a specially offensive move like Draco Meteor, to threaten a 2HKO on Groudon. It can sometimes check Groudon, but it can never consistently counter it.

Cresselia, on the other hand, is not susceptible to any of Groudon's coverage moves. It is also not particularly vulnerable to being defeated by the Paradancer set, due to its lack of weakness to Stealth Rock or Stone Edge. Cresselia frequently ran Ice Beam, a move which easily 3HKOed a full-HP Groudon. Finally, Cresselia profited from the presence of Groudon's sun, as its Moonlight would now heal it for 67% of its HP instead of 50, making it even harder for Groudon to take out. This meant that Cresselia was very consistent at facilitating Groudon's removal, and any team built around Groudon needed reliable Cresselia answers more than anything else.

Answer: Dragon Tail

Groudon's high Base 150 Attack stat meant it would be difficult to setup against it anyway, but Dragon Tail offered sufficient backup in the face of Ground-resistant threats. It also paired well with Groudon's access to Stealth Rock, as it could set the hazard, then use Dragon Tail and force whatever came in to take Stealth Rock damage immediately. This hampered traditional Groudon checks, like Skarmory, Lugia and Giratina, who Groudon could incidentally easily target as fodder to set Stealth Rock against.

However, Dragon Tail's most important function was undoubtedly protecting Groudon from being trapped and removed by an opposing Wobbuffett. If Groudon uses Earthquake, and then Wobbuffett comes in, Wobbuffett would be forced to either Encore Groudon, and eventually lose since it would have to take two Earthquakes before retaliating (spoiler: it can't survive two Earthquakes) or use Counter, and simply get removed from the field with Dragon Tail. This effectively made Groudon Wobbuffett-proof, which was a great trait to have for a support Pokemon.

Answer: Reshiram

Reshiram's sun-boosted Blue Flares were so absurdly powerful that it could overcome all of its otherwise crippling flaws and become amazing at wallbreaking. Groudon's ability to laugh at and destroy Chansey, Blissey, Terrakion and special walls in general synergized with Reshiram's ability to obliterate Skarmory, Giratina, Cresselia and Ferrothorn. Groudon's Stealth Rock also made Reshiram thoroughly impossible to switch into, making it into the ultimate wallbreaker.

Without Groudon, Reshiram would have undoubtedly gone down as the worst cover legendary to have ever existed, a status which it may ultimately go down in history with anyway. Without sun support, Reshiram's Blue Flares are far more tame and, while not by any means passive, are not particularly daunting. Without Groudon's Stealth Rock, Reshiram suddenly becomes quite ho-hum, and is ultimately outclassed as a wallbreaker by Kyogre, Rayquaza, and more. Without Groudon's ability to take out Chansey and Blissey and remove Kyogre's rain, Reshiram would suddenly become extremely easy to counter and even more pathetically easy to check.

Simply put, Reshiram needs Groudon to get anywhere at all. With Groudon, Reshiram becomes immensely threatening.

Answer: It does a ton of damage

Not much to say here, except get out of the way if Primal Groudon targets you with this. At 120 Base Power, this move was a spammable nuke which did tons of damage to anything lacking a resistance, doing good damage even to those which resisted it.

Answer: Nullify Water type moves

If under Desolate Land, anything which user a Water type move, barring those under Rayquaza's Air Lock or something else's Cloud Nine effect, will be wasting a turn, as the move will do nothing. Primal Groudon's new Fire typing to go with its Ground typing would have made it cripplingly weak to Water, but Desolate Land had something to say about that. Of course, should Primal Groudon's rival, Primal Kyogre, get a free switch in, its Primordial Sea would override Desolate Land and suddenly make Primal Groudon extremely vulnerable to Water, so this was not always a failsafe strategy.

However, Rayquaza and Primal Kyogre were the only Uber-relevant Pokemon who could nullify Desolate Land, and neither made for good switch-ins, making the strategy as a whole very consistent.

Answer: No

During the beginning of the generation, newcomer Zygarde-Complete forme was initially thought to fill this role. However, Primal Groudon's decent Base 150 Special Attack combined with this status enabled the discovery of a specially based, mixed sweeping set. A moveset of Fire Blast/Hidden Power Ice/Precipice Blades/Rock Polish would allow Primal Groudon to walk all over Zygarde-C, potentially even baiting it in to do the deed.

Lugia could generally stop Primal Groudon's sweeping sets, but support Primal Groudon would merely use Lugia as setup fodder to effortlessly put up Stealth Rock, cripple Lugia with Toxic, and potentially force it out with Roar or Dragon Tail if desired.

Beyond this, nothing even came close to reliably countering Primal Groudon. Indeed, individual sets could be countered by very specific threats, but no one Pokemon could reliably counter all of Primal Groudon's sets. And it had a lot of sets, ranging from physical wallbreakers, to specially offensive sweepers, to physically offensive sweepers, Stealth Rock based support sets, and more. Simply put, Primal Groudon could do anything, and it could do just about anything more effectively than anything else, making it pretty much mandatory to use in some capacity on a successful seventh generation Ubers team.