Pokémon Gardevoir

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Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Taunt


The first 2 moves are a must. It surprises me how Focus Blast is almost never seen in MGardevoir and I fail to understand why, since it is excellent todestroy most Steel Types that can easily tank her STAB'S (Mega Aggron, Ferrothorn, Heatran). Taunt is extremely helpful against walls that could otherwise stall it (Chansey and Sylveon, for example). I used to run Healing Wish in the 4th moveslot but I very rarely found myself better off by sacrificing Gardevoir, usually prefering to deal a final blow before my opponent finished me.
 
I haven't gone through the whole thread, so forgive me if this set has been posited before, but I have been having a lot of luck running this in both OU and UU on Showdown.

Gardevoir @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Trace
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 SPE
Nature: Timid
IVs: 0 ATK
- Moonblast
- Psychic/Psyshock
- Trick
- Destiny Bond/Healing Wish

This set works as a decent lead - she can graciously donate her scarf to tanky setup leads like Ferrothorn, the types of attacks she baits are obvious so a switch is easy, and she can just go in guns blazing and take a solid chunk out of something with Moonblast/Psychic, esp. if it's something like a Mandibuzz, a Conkeldurr or an Infernape which are weak to her STABs. After tricking away a Porygon2's Eviolite, Moonblast is a 2HKO, for example. She can also trick on the switch to gimp a counter, like Blissey, Chansey, AV Slowking/bro or Clefable. In the mid game, if she didn't go out in a blaze of glory in the first few turns and is still holding on to that scarf, she is an excellent revenge killer. In the late game, when she's low on HP from residual damage or tanking hits on the switch, she can throw out Destiny Bond or Healing Wish to either take one final pokemon down with her, or to return a nearly defeated ally to the fight. Also, if you run it with Aggron (in UU), Garchomp, Heracross or another Mega whose non-Mega form is viable, they often predict that this is Mega Gardevoir and are surprised by how much she outspeeds.

Ironically, due to outspeeding, this set beats Mega Gardevoir in a striaght up slugfest.
 
Base 85 Attack (Mega) is "abysmal" now?
Fun fact: Mega Gardevoir base Attack is higher than Talonflame's.
It's abysmal for a base 40 unSTABbed attack. Compare that to base 126 Speed (so outprioritizing without outright higher priority is nearly impossible) and base 120 STAB attack.
 
So it seems like the most common counters to Gardevoir are Steel-types. What about running HP Fire?
Mega Gardevoir has Focus Blast to deal with Steel types, so HP Fire is not needed. And even if you run HP Fire for hitting the likes of Mawile better you will be walled by Heatran. Gardevoir has enough coverage options in Shadow Ball, Focus Blast and somotimes even Energy Ball for hitting the likes of Quagsire and Gastrodon. HP is not really needed
 
You can actually work the Steel-weakness to your advantage with Will-o'-Wisp. Baiting the obvious Scizor and Aegislash switch and crippling it is great, when you have something weak to them like Latios or Terrakion.
 
Mega Gardevoir has Focus Blast to deal with Steel types, so HP Fire is not needed. And even if you run HP Fire for hitting the likes of Mawile better you will be walled by Heatran. Gardevoir has enough coverage options in Shadow Ball, Focus Blast and somotimes even Energy Ball for hitting the likes of Quagsire and Gastrodon. HP is not really needed
Focus Blast doesn't work against Gardevoir's biggest counter: Aegislash. If you run Shadow Ball you miss out on other important coverage options. If you drop Psyshock for more coverage, you get walled by pretty much everything from Florges to Chansey. Running Calm Mind is also optimal for sweeping and increased damage output. I'm starting to notice that Gardevoir has a case of 4MSS.
 

Halcyon.

@Choice Specs
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Focus Blast doesn't work against Gardevoir's biggest counter: Aegislash. If you run Shadow Ball you miss out on other important coverage options. If you drop Psyshock for more coverage, you get walled by pretty much everything from Florges to Chansey. Running Calm Mind is also optimal for sweeping and increased damage output. I'm starting to notice that Gardevoir has a case of 4MSS.
252 SpA Mega Gardevoir Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 112-132 (34.5 - 40.7%) -- 54% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Generally, HP Fire doesn't really help against Aegislash. The best coverage from what I've found (for the most part) is Hyper Voice | Focus Blast | Psyshock | Shadow Ball / Calm Mind.
 
Focus Blast doesn't work against Gardevoir's biggest counter: Aegislash. If you run Shadow Ball you miss out on other important coverage options. If you drop Psyshock for more coverage, you get walled by pretty much everything from Florges to Chansey. Running Calm Mind is also optimal for sweeping and increased damage output. I'm starting to notice that Gardevoir has a case of 4MSS.
Nah. In my opinion 4MSS is when something is nearly incapable of filling any useful role with only four moves. See Mega Banette. Most things only have to choose between being able to cover X or Y, things like Mega Banette just can't function with only four slots.

Having to choose between whether you have coverage for Aegislash with Shadowball or other Steel Types with Focus Blast isn't that much that much of a dilemma. Aegislash is going to beat you anyway, shadowball only has a really low chance of 2HKOing. Aegislash can either Dance+Sneak, Ball+Sneak, Weakness Policy+Sneak, or just Life Orb Sneak to KO you and avoid getting hit in Blade form. The only way you'd win is if you go Modest, and even then Weakness Policy and Life Orb KO you.

Really, if you want to "beat" steel-type switch ins, just use Will-o-Wisp. You make them pretty much a non-issue for the rest of the team, and you're free to switch out. The only exception is heatran, who can be beat with Focus Blast or HP Ground, and Aegislash who can still spam Shadowball (which is why I have Mandibuzz on all my teams, fuck swords.)
 
Focus Blast doesn't work against Gardevoir's biggest counter: Aegislash. If you run Shadow Ball you miss out on other important coverage options. If you drop Psyshock for more coverage, you get walled by pretty much everything from Florges to Chansey. Running Calm Mind is also optimal for sweeping and increased damage output. I'm starting to notice that Gardevoir has a case of 4MSS.
M-Gardevoir only really has 4MSS when it runs Calm Mind, which isn't too fitting for it anyway due to it's lackluster Def. It already hits hard from the get-go anyway, so the reduced coverage could be a liability.

Also, Will-O-Wisp is SICK on Gardevoir for messing with many of it's common switch-ins and should always, always, always be worth a moveslot.
 
Shadow Ball is defintely a better 3rd move for Gardevoir as Focus Blast is just an all around horrible move due to inconsistancy
Yeah but isn't a 70% chance to kill stuff like Heatran better than a 100% of getting forced out because you can't do anything to it?
 
hp:ground might be a better move for hitting steels as it hits heatran as hard as focus blast, hits aegislash, and won't miss. it learns thunderbolt but you probably won't be seeing skarmory switch into gardevoir too often.
 
Will-o-wisp really messes up a lot of Gardevoir's checks and potential counters. I've been running a defensive Gardevoir on stall:

Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
nature: Bold
ability: Trace (Pixelate)
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpDef
- Will-o-wisp
- Protect
- Wish
- Hyper Voice

DISCLAIMER: THIS WILL NOT WORK ON EVERY TEAM. It has a measly two resistances and one immunity, and 65/68/135 defenses are passable at best. However, since (Mega) Gardevoir is typically seen as an offensive threat than a defensive one, it can be used to bluff stronger sets from Team Preview (and Hyper Voice still packs a punch uninvested with STAB, Pixelate, and 165 base Special Attack). If you're interested in running full stall (where the full team composition matters hugely), you're good at predicting, and don't want to run Venusaur as your Mega, here you go.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-90106889

I doubt my opponent was the best (Sucker Punch Rotom-W...), but on a new account, this was the latest replay I had of Mega Gardevoir doing some major work on full stall. Will-o-wisp completely crippled Mega Mawile, sat in front of AV Conkeldurr, and tanked a U-Turn from Scarfed Scizor. I'll be doing more battles and adjusting my team as I climb the ladder.
 
I prefer Gardevoir Sweeper with sticky web. Maybe with the support of someone with flame body.
Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite
Nature: Timid ; Evs: 252 Speed 252 SpAtt 4 Hp
Ability: Trace
Moves: -Calm Mind
-Hyper Voice
-Focus Blast
-Psyshock
 
hp:ground might be a better move for hitting steels as it hits heatran as hard as focus blast, hits aegislash, and won't miss. it learns thunderbolt but you probably won't be seeing skarmory switch into gardevoir too often.
Considering the 80BP Shadow Ball barely 2HKO Aegislash, a 60BO HP Ground is not going to defeat Aegislash anytime soon with the risk of activating Weakness Policy. So you are only gonna use this on only Heatran pretty much. In that case you should just run EQ support on your team to take them both on as well as othet Steel types bar Skarmory.
 

Aragorn the King

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Would Destiny Bond be worth running on her over stuff like Will O Wisp?
I used it last gen in NU, and it worked very well. Mega Gardevoir is faster too, so it may be better on her. It would theoretically allow you to destiny bond on the switch to Aegislash, so you gain a free turn to Shadow Ball. Although Aegislash would just King's Shield... In this case it would provide a free switch, knowing Aegislash would KS. Overall, I think Willow is better, but Destiny Bond has its uses.
 
So it seems like the most common counters to Gardevoir are Steel-types. What about running HP Fire?
In my experience it works fairly well since I often tends to get a flashfire boost from tracing heatran. Having what is pretty much flamethrower is really useful for hitting a predicted switch in. Faces harsh competition from W-o-W though.
 

Shroomisaur

Smogon's fantastical fun-guy.
Would Destiny Bond be worth running on her over stuff like Will O Wisp?
Destiny Bond is most noteworthy on Choice Scarf Gardevoir, because it lets you nab a surprise KO on things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to take down.

Speaking of Scarf Gardevoir, it might not be BW NU anymore, but it's still one of my favorite sets because it's very unexpected with Mega Gardevoir being the norm. Gardevoir has solid power, and the big boost in Speed will net some surprise KO's. The real beauty of it is that Gardevoir also has a number of great options: Trick to cripple walls, Destiny Bond for surprise KO's, or Healing Wish to give a teammate a new lease on life.
 

alexwolf

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WoW is just so great on this lady, as Steel-types, Chansey, and Blissey are the only safe switch-ins to Mega Gardevoir, and WoW takes any Steel-type outside of Heatran out of the equation. So with Hyper Voice + Psyshock + WoW, you only have to worry about three Pokemon, Heatran, Chansey, and Blissey. Taunt shuts down the latter two while Focus Blast / HP Ground fucks up Heatran, so it's pretty easy to cover anything. Just make sure to have something to tank repeated Shadow Ball from Aegislash, as even though WoW makes it very easy to wear down, those Shadow Balls still hurt. SpD Hippo, Mandibuzz, AV Tangrowth, SpD Mega Venusaur, SpD Zapdos, and Krookodile can all do this job easily.
 
I'm trying to make a team with Mega Gardy, so I made a list of S/A/B rank pokemon who can check her using a common set. Gardy's set is HV/Psychock/Focus Miss/WoW. Here's what I got:

EDIT: the list is mostly wrong, I'm gonna edit it again some other time.

It's actually less than I'd imagined, considering the high number of pokemon in those ranks. I also included any pokemon whose checking depends on winning a speed tie against Gardy, since that's a scenario I want to avoid.

Well, back to team building.
 
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