Competitive Pokemon History - Palkia Quiz

Answer: 150

The same Special Attack stat Kyogre had, only with more Speed and a good bit more physical bulk, Palkia was ready to take some names in its debut generation.

Answer: It has a high critical hit rate

If the player has Palkia on the field and is ever unsure of what to do, just clicking Spacial Rend is often not a bad idea. If it does critically hit, it is so powerful that even Pokémon who resist the move will get heavily dented. As a Dragon type move, it naturally pressured the opposing team greatly. Conveniently, as Palkia outsped just about every Dragon in the metagame, it often had the chance to come in and place the opponent's team in a bad situation. Unlike the other Dragon type nuke in Draco Meteor, Spacial Rend has essentially no drawbacks, so Palkia can use it repeatedly and not lose momentum, barring an untimely miss off of its 95% accuracy.

Answer: No

It may seem like the master of special walls, Blissey, could pull this off. Blissey can achieve this against very specific Palkia sets, but because it's the only Pokémon in the game that can even stand a minor chance of occasionally doing this, it would be foolish to believe that the average Palkia user wouldn't at least consider the existence of Blissey while building their competitive Palkia. Palkia had numerous methods of bypassing Blissey. The most common was equipping Focus Punch, which just about always OHKOed Blissey from full health as long as Palkia had a Hasty or Naďve nature instead of Timid. Physically oriented Palkias also existed, and they naturally had their way with the immensely physically frail Blissey.

Apart from Blissey, nothing came even slightly close to countering Palkia. Its sheer power and excellent offensive movepool gave it a way of reliably hitting the entirety of the meta for very good damage. As it also had good bulk and could take a hit, in order to counter it, a Pokémon would often have to withstand three hits to perform this deed. That was just about impossible for the vast majority of the meta.

Answer: It could overcome its checks far more easily

Arceus-Grass is one lone Pokémon who can actually stalemate and attempt to stall Palkia out if it gets a free switch in, as it can take Spacial Rend reasonably well and resists Water. Under sun, however, Palkia could destroy it with a super effective, boosted Fire Blast. Steel types which resisted Spacial Rend, such as Scizor, Jirachi and Metagross, could also be dealt with using similar rationale.

While the Ho-Oh matchup would now be incredibly difficult due to Palkia's only threatening moves against it be heavily neutered, the rest of the meta had to fear a Palkia in the sun. One of either Spacial Rend + Fire Blast would hit anything not named Ho-Oh or Blissey extremely hard thanks to the presence of the sun.

Answer: Kyogre with Choice Specs

Kyogre's full HP, rain boosted, Choice Specs boosted Water Spouts were absolutely absurdly powerful, capable of 2HKOing even Blissey. Before Palkia's talents at taming this beast were discovered, teams across the meta began to resort to absurd options that were terrible at doing anything other than sponging this Water Spout, like the awful Parasect, Ludicolo, Quagsire, or even more laughably, Shedinja. Thus, when it was discovered that Palkia's 4x resistance to Water and sizable special bulk enabled it to always avoid a 2HKO from anything Choice Specs Kyogre offered, Palkia's viability skyrocketed into the moon.

Answer: Pressure

Pressure was pretty forgettable for Palkia, as the ability didn't really help it achieve anything of note. Palkia is better off used aggressively, using its bulk to switch in to hits it can take, and whenever it does come into play, it is better off using its turns to start blasting holes in the opponent's team. Pressure is thereby not a very useful ability on it.

Answer: Telepathy

Telepathy does literally nothing in singles. Though to be perfectly honest, Palkia players could have equipped it with Telepathy and would scarcely notice the difference between Pressure and Telepathy, as Pressure doesn't really do much of note for Palkia either. Because Pressure actually does do something in singles, though, it would be better to use it than Telepathy since the latter does not do a single thing in a single battle format.

Answer: Latias

Latias barely had the bulk to survive Spacial Rend despite the fact it was a super effective move, due to the re-emergence of Soul Dew buffing its already good Special Defense. Latios did not, so it fails as a Palkia counter since the Palkia user could theoretically predict a Latios switch in and then smoke it with Spacial Rend. Primal Groudon can switch in for free on Hydro Pump or Thunder, takes minimal damage from Focus Punch or Fire Blast, but has a very strong chance to get 2HKOed by Spacial Rend and fails to threaten an OHKO in return. Likewise, Xerneas comes in for free on Spacial Rend, takes little from a resisted Focus Punch, but is always 2HKOed by Hydro Pump should the Palkia user predict that switch.

Latias would be cleanly OHKOed should Spacial Rend critically hit, but its mere 12.5% critical hit rate meant Latias could survive the move the majority of the time. Once in, Latias could outspeed and destroy Palkia with a Draco Meteor, thus enabling it to counter Palkia.

Answer: Psychium-Z

When paired with Heal Block, Psychium-Z would instantly double Palkia's Special Attack one time per battle, essentially a Nasty Plot boost. This gave Palkia theoretical utility, as it could simultaneously deny the healing options of walls such as Blissey and Lugia, boost its own offenses, then overcome the tandem by simply outslugging them and maybe even proceeding to end the game with a sweep.

However, in practice, since only one Pokémon per game can use a Z-Move, giving it to Palkia meant one could not give it to an arguably even stronger user of a Z-Move, such as Arceus-Ground, Arceus-Ghost, Xerneas or Yveltal. Still, the fact that Palkia could quickly become incredibly frightening for defensive teams to deal with did mean the arrangement was viable, albeit not particularly common.

Answer: The best Pokemon in the game were immune to some of its best moves

The undisputed king of the tier by a New York mile, Primal Groudon, was immune to Hydro Pump and could switch in on this move for free. The distant runner-up, Xerneas, was immune to Spacial Rend and can similarly freely switch in should the Xerneas user correctly predict the usage of this move. Those two were the best and second best Pokémon by an incredibly sizable margin, and were therefore quite common. Thus, with the looming threat of giving them a free switch in and tons of momentum, Palkia users now had to be very careful about getting too comfortable with its STAB attacks.