I’ve never played with falinks but I feel like it’s always underwhelming when I go against it. You know pretty much what to be prepared for every time it comes in. Every time I see this it’s so easy to play around and just blow their team open before falinks even gets to go in once.
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Pokémon Falinks
- Thread starter Robb576
- Start date
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Using a Focus Sash defeats the entire point of using Falinks in the first place. The attractive quality of No Retreat is that it boosts both your offensive and defensive stats in a single turn. If you're using Falinks in situations where it would be one-shot anyways then you're getting no value out of those defense boosts, and in that case No Retreat is just a worse version of Dragon Dance.
Falinks just doesn't have the stats to cut it in OU. You can make it work against lower-rated players and teams, but against experienced players this is just a weak pokemon that is likely to get blown away.
As a rule of thumb, if you're using Focus Sash on anything other than a dedicated lead or a Magic Guard pokemon you may wish to rethink that. It's a bit of a crutch for beginner players to handle gaps in their team composition, but it's very inconsistent. Hazards are very common in singles format, and sandstorm is pretty common due to Tyranitar and Hippowdon both being in the dex. There are just too many easy ways your sash can be broken, and you'll want to design your team so you don't need to rely on it.
Ah, I see now! Well, I now suppose that it is very unlikely Falinks will make it into OU. I now need to rethink what item I'd have instead of a Focus Sash, and I'm thinking along the lines of a Life Orb. The reason I thought Focus Sash would be suitable for Falinks is because it was quite a squishy Pokemon but reading your reply has made me think otherwise. In return for this valuable information, I give you my undying gratitude. Thanks for the feedback!
I’ve been running Falinks as a secondary Lead when I’m unsure. I’d say he averages 1-2 kills a match, tbh.
Falinks(NoTurni@Choice Band
*Defiant*
Adamant
252 HP/ 252 Atk/ 4 Spe
• First Impression
• Close Combat
• Iron Head
• Throat Chop
Everyone expects a No Retreat. But we don’t play that game. With the HP investment and natural physical bulk, you can take basically any physical attack and hit back for a KO or massive damage. Choose the move that hits hardest and watch. First Impression destroys psychic/dark/grass types fairly easily, and is very useful to help revenge kill things later if you switch out. Not wasting a turn on no retreat gives you some nice matchups, such as 2HKOing most Seismatoads with Close Combat. Iron Head can kill any fairy switch ins you might expect, and can flinch if you’re lucky/have para support. Throat Chop let’s you give Dragapult a nice wake up(knock out) call.
With this guy, I even enjoy webs, cuz defiant makes you hit like a truck(over 900! Atk with band and x2 from defiant), so even if you come in on your last leg, First Impression is gonna chunk them one last time.
Falinks(NoTurni@Choice Band
*Defiant*
Adamant
252 HP/ 252 Atk/ 4 Spe
• First Impression
• Close Combat
• Iron Head
• Throat Chop
Everyone expects a No Retreat. But we don’t play that game. With the HP investment and natural physical bulk, you can take basically any physical attack and hit back for a KO or massive damage. Choose the move that hits hardest and watch. First Impression destroys psychic/dark/grass types fairly easily, and is very useful to help revenge kill things later if you switch out. Not wasting a turn on no retreat gives you some nice matchups, such as 2HKOing most Seismatoads with Close Combat. Iron Head can kill any fairy switch ins you might expect, and can flinch if you’re lucky/have para support. Throat Chop let’s you give Dragapult a nice wake up(knock out) call.
With this guy, I even enjoy webs, cuz defiant makes you hit like a truck(over 900! Atk with band and x2 from defiant), so even if you come in on your last leg, First Impression is gonna chunk them one last time.
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