Pokémon Palossand

[Fyntabulous]

The Palossand I'll be running will be:

Palossand@Leftovers/Rockium-Z
Ability: Water Compaction
EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 220 Sp.Def
Sassy Nature
- Earth Power
- Shadow Ball
- Ancient Power/Stone Edge
- Shore Up

This gives it equal defenses, which is great for such a beastly wall like Palossand. Unfortunately, Ancient Power requires waiting until PokeBank for Slugma to get as an Egg Move.

Leftovers is good for good residual recovery, but Rockium-Z can be used as a surprise base 120/180 move to OHKO threats that might switch in on Palossand. These are all calcs for pokemon that you would run Ancient Power or Stone Edge for, due to Shadow Ball, Earth Power, or Giga Drain not being able to hit, and HP Ice not being strong enough for, and they cannot OHKO Palossand with this EV spread barring crits or Choice Band. These Calcs are with Ancient Power, not Stone Edge. Stone Edge turns the %'s into guaranteed OHKOs after Stealth Rock, but does not turn them into OHKOs without Stealth Rock (However, Stone Edge sacrifices the accuracy of Ancient Power as well as the chance of stat boosts in exchange for power). Due to Intimidate, it does turn Staraptor into a 2HKO though (With Z-Move). Sassy Nature means you can swap out Stone Edge and Ancient Power as you see fit however.

0 SpA Palossand Continental Crush (120 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Chatot: 176-208 (115.7 - 136.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Palossand Continental Crush (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Swellow: 154-182 (114 - 134.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Palossand Continental Crush (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Dodrio: 136-162 (100.7 - 120%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Palossand Continental Crush (120 BP) s. 4 HP / 0 SpD Staraptor: 136-162 (84.4 - 100.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Palossand Continental Crush (120 BP) vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Honchkrow: 148-176 (71.8 - 85.4%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Palossand Continental Crush (120 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Pidgeot: 110-130 (69.1 - 81.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Palossand Continental Crush (120 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Braviary: 114-136 (64.7 - 77.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (Will KO after Brave Bird, the only thing Braviary can do to Palossand)

Toucannon, Shiftry, Cacturne, Sawsbuck, Mandibuzz and Yveltal remain the main threats to this set, as Palossand has nothing that can really hurt them before they can kill Palossand. Life Orb Toucannon will outspeed and kill Palossand with Bullet Seed before it gets a chance to Z-Move. That said, if you predict the switch to Toucannon:

0 SpA Palossand Continental Crush (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Toucannon: 114-136 (73.5 - 87.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

That said, I'm not sure which I would prefer, Lefties or Rockium-Z, since Rockium-Z is pretty niche, whereas Lefties is good all-around, but it's definitely a viable option as you can see.

 

[XDman]

For the defensive attacker set is there any reason to put giga drain and earth power on the same set to replace stockpile/amnesia? Just wondering because I feel giga drain could be useful with earth power and shadow ball for maximum coverage (I'm not the best player out there, and I'm not that good at building my own sets. Sorry for any trouble)

 

[KabutopsPwnsAll]

For the defensive attacker set is there any reason to put giga drain and earth power on the same set to replace stockpile/amnesia? Just wondering because I feel giga drain could be useful with earth power and shadow ball for maximum coverage (I'm not the best player out there, and I'm not that good at building my own sets. Sorry for any trouble)

You COULD do that, but the problem is you'd die to any supereffective special attack, and if you don't survive you can't get the weakness policy boost. If you only plan to use it against physical pokemon, it would do fine, but I feel like it would be a lot harder to use since your opponent can just switch to a special attacker and OHKO you.

 

[XDman]

You COULD do that, but the problem is you'd die to any supereffective special attack, and if you don't survive you can't get the weakness policy boost. If you only plan to use it against physical pokemon, it would do fine, but I feel like it would be a lot harder to use since your opponent can just switch to a special attacker and OHKO you.

Thanks for the relpy!
Again I'm not the best player and I don't know many things about damage calculations and stuff like that, but this will really help as I've wanted to use a palossand for a little while but didn't know what to do with it.
Also, is amnesia the better pick? I'm wondering because I would have to breed for that. (I don't play showdown all that much, I like the actual games more)

 

[KabutopsPwnsAll]

Thanks for the relpy!
Again I'm not the best player and I don't know many things about damage calculations and stuff like that, but this will really help as I've wanted to use a palossand for a little while but didn't know what to do with it.
Also, is amnesia the better pick? I'm wondering because I would have to breed for that. (I don't play showdown all that much, I like the actual games more)

No problem! Always happy to help out a fellow Palossand fan.

I personally think Amnesia is the best choice since you can already wall most physical attacks okay, but honestly they're both good. After a stockpile you can wall physical attackers much more reliably so it's really a matter of if you want to do a little better against everything or a lot better against a certain thing.

Also, Stockpile is an egg move too so you'd have to breed if you wanted either one~

 

[XDman]

No problem! Always happy to help out a fellow Palossand fan.

I personally think Amnesia is the best choice since you can already wall most physical attacks okay, but honestly they're both good. After a stockpile you can wall physical attackers much more reliably so it's really a matter of if you want to do a little better against everything or a lot better against a certain thing.

Also, Stockpile is an egg move too so you'd have to breed if you wanted either one~

Well thank God I got a good one off wonder trade haha, bold and had stockpile, so I just need to level it up and ev train it now!

 

[Pastel Umbreon]

Palossand
252 SpDef, 252 SpAt, 4 Def
Ability: Water Compaction
Item: Weakness Policy
Nature: Modest
Moves:
Shore up
Amnesia
Shadow Ball
Earth Power

This is intended to be in a double battle with a special attacking Greninja with no IVs in attack using water shuriken on palosand on the first turn. This will drastically increase Palossand's defense and special attack with the weakness policy.

 

[Jajoken]

Sorry to rain on your parade but Water Shuriken is a special move now. In any case, HP would be better to invest in than SpDef.

 

[Adsiduus]

Palossand
252 SpDef, 252 SpAt, 4 Def
Ability: Water Compaction
Item: Weakness Policy
Nature: Modest
Moves:
Shore up
Amnesia
Shadow Ball
Earth Power

This is intended to be in a double battle with a special attacking Greninja with no IVs in attack using water shuriken on palosand on the first turn. This will drastically increase Palossand's defense and special attack with the weakness policy.

This may be a misunderstanding by me. But doesn't water shuriken hit special now? If I understand correctly what it is that you're trying to do, then you'd wanna run 0 IVs in Sp.A and have your Greninja be physically based.

 

[Pokelatent5]

This may be a misunderstanding by me. But doesn't water shuriken hit special now? If I understand correctly what it is that you're trying to do, then you'd wanna run 0 IVs in Sp.A and have your Greninja be physically based.

Water Shuriken is now Special-based in Sun/Moon, 15 BP normally but 60 BP when it's used by Ash-Greninja. 145/153/132 offensive power on it is nice but this isn't really the place to discuss Greninja.

Palossand is a nice check and counter to the ever so present Tapu Koko, who's scared to stay in for one turn as Earth Power straight up OHKOs it normally.
*Moves with some explanations for why I would somewhat or choose them:
-Earth Power/Earthquake: Ground STAB, since most of the Alolan Pokemon are either bulky yet slow or fast yet rather weak defensively, either move works. Earth Power is better for doubles and that chance of dropping the target's Sp.Def is also nice but not that common. EQ is good in singles as it hits very had yet common walls are still physical oriented.
-Shadow Ball: Only real reliable Ghost-Type STAB and Ghostinium-Z with it hits fairly hard even on those that resist it.
-Giga Drain: You will at some point want to hit those Water and bulky Ground-Types that come in to make your day bad. It also plays a bit of a mind game as Grass-Type Giga Drain on a Ground-Type attacker like Palossand covers up one of it's major weaknesses.
-HP Ice/Water/Fire: HP Ice hits Ground, Grass, Flying and Dragon-Types for SE damage and the likes of Chomp and Flygon get hit for 4x damage causing them to either switch out or get in one more hit before dying. HP Water can be used if you lack Giga Drain as it hits Rock, Ground and Fire-Types for SE damage but you won't see as lot of Rock and Fire-Type opponents come in while Palossand is still standing strong as EQ or Earth Power with a possible Stone Edge is a terrifying move to make. HP Fire burns Ice, Grass, Bug, and Steel-Types for SE damage. Post-Poke Bank I can see HP Fire doing wonders when Ferrathorn and Skarmory come in to check/counter it. Pre-Post Bank, HP Fire helps you monitor and semi-keep the likes of Defensive Skarmory at bay.
--Stone Edge is a nice move if you desire, hitting Bug, Ice, Fire and Flying-Types for SE damage but that 70-80% Accuracy is rather shaky and one miss could lead to a disaster. Still, it scares away Charizard and Talonflame since they will either be OHKOd or be close to being KOd after being hit.
--Iron Defense as some people have said is a good move, already making that 110 Base Defense even higher. Although one would wonder why run that over...
--Amnesia boosts the Sp.Def stat by 2 and makes it better at tanking Special hits by a better margin. Given that most Pokemon will want to hit this Pokemon on its much lower Special side, Amnesia is a good option if you can find the opportunity to use it.

Sad that Water Compaction doesn't boost its Sp.Def as well when hit by a Water-Type attack or else this thing could be rather awesome to use.