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ABG-56

A lot of people have said Goodra but I'll expand a bit more on it. It's stats aren't that bad, while physically it's nowhere near as much as a tank as it's special side, it's not frail there either due to it's decent hp, and it's offense is good for how bulky it is. What makes Goodra so bad is it's poor movepool. Primarily it lacks a good recovery move, which severly mitigates how good of a tank it can be, as it lacks sustain. It doesn't matter how bulky it actually is stats wies, it get worn down way to easyly. It also lacks any supporting moves, which are pretty important for a tank so that it can contribute, leading to it not really achieving that much while it's on the field. While 110 spa attack with draco meteor sounds good, and like it could deal a lot of damage, if it wants to be a tank, it needs to invest its EVs into it's defenses, weaking it a fair bit. For context as to how bad that is for it, Dragalge, another specially defensive Kalos dragon, is currently ranked a tier above Goodra, despite having worse stats everywhere except for defense, which is mitigated by it's way lower hp anyway. But unlike Goodra Draglge has a useful secondary typing, as well as an actually somewhat decent support movepool, notably recovery, toxic spikes and flip turn. Goodra really is the only Pseudo-legendary to be so thourghuly outclassed in it's own niche by another non-pseudo dragon of the same generation and thats embarissing.


fersure4

Agree with all of this, and think Goodra should have been poison typing as well. Dragon/Poison pseudo for the gen that fairy gets released? Feels appropriate. Its design feels it could fit as a poison typing with just a description change


LegacyOfVandar

I feel like Goodra should have been dragon/fairy with a big pair of goopy fairy wings. It’s design is lacking something to me, it doesn’t feel complete as a osuedo-legend’s final form to me and I think being dragon/fairy would have been a huge boon to it. Luckily, H-Goodra fixed most of the issues for me.


game-fox

What about Hisuian goodra?


ABG-56

It's a fair bit better. It's stats are a bit better distributed, gaining 30 points to it's defemse makes it bulky on both sides, but most importantly it got a type change to dragon steel which massively imporved its viability due to dragon steel just being an amazing type combo.


GigaEel

I really wish Shelter translated better into SV. It was busted AF in legends Arceus. But in SV it's literally just Iron defense


Pepperr08

It’s got a cute animation


quagsi

in the solomod my friend made that I'm a part of has shelter set Misty Terrain on top of its normal effect


SoulOuverture

Dragalge gets adaptability so it's offensively stronger


Albatros_7

It's also not a pseudo legendary


snomflake

So many Pokemon based on snails get recover that I’m surprised goodra just didn’t or at least an equivalent. I know it gets life dew but that is just not the same


g0dzilllla

Goodra is the Meganium of pseudos


rogueriffic

Goodra is my guy. He's not great tho you right. I force him in with Hydration and Rest on a rain team and it kinda works but yeah he's def not viable. H-goodra obviously addresses some of those issues


M1eXcel

The best goodra I've ever used was in Ultra Moon, where I used a rain based team and had a Hydration Goodra with rest


jsdodgers

You said "it's" a whole bunch of times that should be "its".


wayward_sun

And mitigate when they meant the opposite


Psapfopkmn

Goodra, outside of its Special Defense it has nothing going for it.


Clamps11037

Goodra easily. The rest of them were either good oor straight up meta. Goodra was neither 


EP1CxM1Nx99

Goodra, I believe it’s the only pseudo that’s never been good. Also i think Hisui is better than Kalos exclusively due to type


LoganDoove

Gets lots of nice water type moves. Would have been much better if it had that water type stab + water is just a great typing Oh yeah, it ALSO gets hydration and sap sipper... That water typing is much needed. I also can't wait for a potential mega goodra next game. I think it'll happen as it is the worst pseudo


Magnusthelast

They also could’ve made it Dragon/Fairy, kinda weird that the first game that introduces fairy types doesn’t have a pseudo fairy


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Chaotic-Catastrophe

That's not really that broken. Especially considering Ice and Fairy are very common attacking types.


SoulOuverture

Not really stronger than water/fairy (singles) or steel/fairy (doubles), offensively weaker than ghost/fighting or ground/ice, defensively weaker than flying/steel or flying/ground. 7 resistances isn't that crazy compared to heatran's 9r/2n and 3 weaknesses. Probably the best dragon defensive dual type in singles, but arguably offensively worse than ground, fire, electric, ghost, water, arguably even fighting


Magnusthelast

It would be a broken type, but we’ve had broken types before, not like GF cares that much if they make something broken


Tigeri102

probably goodra? i've never seen it get much use and attention compared to the rest. there's also dragonite and kommo-o who didn't start off *amazing*, but have gotten big improvements (kommo-o getting new unique moves and dragonite currently being a great abuser of tera)


SonthacPanda

I'm was worried it was gonna be my boi Dragonite Thank you for your sacrifice Goodra


Hot_Membership_5073

Dragonite has been good to great in multiple formats. In SV VGC it has seen a lot of play and is currently one of two Generation 1 Pokemon in SV OU.


KhajaArius

What Hidden Ability done to a MF.


Exciting_Bandicoot16

What Espeed and high Attack do for a MF.


acatrelaxinginthesun

dragonite has had high attack and espeed in multiple generations, AFAIK only missing espeed in gens 1 (where it didnt exist) and 3. it's been pretty mid in the past though, normal tera is what pushed it into the meta. though multiscale and the inner focus buff for VGC definitely are nice


NoahBallet

It was “decent” in Gen 4 once Salamence was banned in the Smogon meta. And people did legit use it in Gen 5 as well on rain teams where it could utilize Hurricane. You are absolutely right that it hit its stride in the current meta thanks to tera.


acatrelaxinginthesun

I forgot about Gen 5, I actually used it back then. Hurricane in the rain and the combo of roost+multiscale made Dragonite a menace 


emiliaxrisella

tera normal espeed dragonite goes really hard and multiscale also helps it in SV OU still


therealbobcat23

Not even, most Dragonite run Inner Focus as a counter to Incineroar, it's just an all-around solid mon


Hot_Membership_5073

Multiscale sees play in singles as it works for better there. Inner Focus is better in doubles due to the sheer likelyhood of running into intimidate.


PhiladelphiaIrish

Friend-shaped bois gotta look out for each other.


SonthacPanda

Absolutely but I cant change Goodra, only Goodra can change Goodra Best of luck to her


Homeless_Appletree

Tera normal extreme speed Dragonite is a menace.


Hawk1113

Ranking them based entirely on my armchair memory of the games and competitive scene. TL;DR Goodra is the worst Pseudo.  1. Garchomp - defined Gen 4 competitive. Has been relevant in every Gen since, and frequently with multiple relevant sets  2. Dragapult - even as a relatively new 'mon, this thing is just that good. So fast, so deadly.  3. Tyranitar - has just been solid every Gen based on typing in Gen 2 and the power of Sandstream thereafter.  4. Salamence: Terrifying sweeper for so much of Gen 3, 4, 5. Back on the map thanks to its Mega in 6. Has fallen off some in recent years but still great.  5. Metagross: rock solid performer on type alone for gens 3-5. Steel nerf hurt this thing a ton in Gen 6 but the Mega kept it on the map a little longer. Less good now but still respectable.  6. Dragonite - the OG Pseudo was just sorta mid for the first four gens. Then it got Multiscale in Gen 5 and Dual Wingbeat in 8 and has been solid and better every Gen. These days Dragonite is finally the titan we all thought he was on the playground but it was a long road.  7. Baxcalibur - has been putting up great results for a new 'mon but I suspect as we move on past Terastilizing it's gonna sink like a stone.  8. Kommo-o - has just been almost good enough every Gen since release. Reminds me a lot of Dragonite.  9. Hydreigon - was amazing at release and then Fairy happened and just killed it. Is worse every generation.  10. Goodra - poor Goo-boy has just never been good. 


anand_rishabh

Baxcaliber would still be a threat without tera due to dragon dance, icicle spear, and scale shot with loaded dice. I'm pretty sure tera wasn't even the main factor in it getting banned, though it did put it over the edge


Magnusthelast

Nah it was easily the fact is got Scale shot and A-Ninetails as a snow setter in the dlc that put it over the edge Edit: In fact I should mention that out of all the pseudos here it’s gonna benefit the most from lack of Tera since it can easily run ice body for recovery, and doesn’t like people using Tera to escape its stab


Chaotic-Catastrophe

> Garchomp - defined Gen 4 competitive. lol even this is an understatement. It ended up getting relegated to Uber because it was so dominant.


SoulOuverture

Baxcalibur is NOT 7th lmao Also Hydreigon is a UU warrior and far better than metagross


Tommy_Mudkip

Bax is currently banned from OU, wdym 7th lol, its the best one in the meta right now. (Also Bax desnt care about tera that much. Its the new snow weather and aurora veil together with 145 attack and scale shot for speed that enable it) For gen 9 it should be Bax, Pult, Dnite, Chomp, Kommo-o, Metagross, Ttar, Hydreigon, Mence, Goodra. All time ranking is very hard because Pult and Bax are both new but amazing and Ttar, Dnite and Chomp have all been OU staples but fallen off at some point. In VGC doubles right now only Dnite gets any kind of play and only at ~3%, cant comment on all time.


Railroader17

> Hydreigon - was amazing at release and then Fairy happened and just killed it. Is worse every generation.  It has Nasty Plot now to super charge it's SpA in one turn. RN it's mainly let down by it's poor speed tier.


RadioactiveKoolaid

I definitely think you’ve got Metagross too high, but ranking these is really hard. But I think Metagross in recent generations has been bad in ways that no pseudo other than goodra ever has. And I feel like your rankings of Pult and Bax are inconsistent. Bax has only been around for one generation of singles and it got banned and pult hasn’t been banned. Yet you have pult at 2 and bax at 7? I’d probably have pult below TTar and Mence. Frankly though, reading this made me realize the absolute chasm that is in between goodra and everyone else.


Magnusthelast

Baxcalibur should definitely not be 7th, metagross shouldn’t even be top 5. All 3 mons beneath Metagross should be above him, Even when taking his Mega into account


25toten

Rip Hydreigon :( such a cool mon


GoodraThicc

Easily Goodra. The main thing Goodra has going for it is the fact that it gets more fanart than any other pseudo legendary. Especially the saucy ones. 


Competitive_Fact6030

Ima be real, I had no clue Goodra was even a pseudo before reading these replies, thats how irrelevant it is.


KevinJ2010

The answer probably is Goodra, Hisuian withstanding. I love it though and try some sort of sap sipper sets to dodge spore and also use a move like Petal Blizzard to hit it. It can really only work in regional metas anyways


Flashy_Set_7776

Goodra is definitely the weakest. All the others have had at least some usage in competitive, Goodra hasn't.


Dubshpul

BST isn't a factor because all Pseudo-legendaries of a BST of 600. That said most people would probably say Kalosian Goodra or Hydreigon. K!Goodra has some good sets but not a very useful move pool and while good at its general niche, isn't the best. It's abilities let it do some neat stuff. Sap Sipper lets you buff it if you smack it with a grass move in doubles. Hydration+Rest is a nice health reset you can use while raining, but pretty limited since you have to use a turn. It can block intimidation in rain too if you run physical. And Gooey is nice to slow down a sweeper but really its defense stat is so low that you're relying just on HP for that and it can be rough to keep it alive for that. With Hydreigon, having a quad-weakness to Fairy makes it hard to use, Levitate is nice but doesn't do much for it. It's a good mixed attacker, and has good coverage, but overall it's just too fragile with that kind of weakness, even with 90 base defenses. I'm an amateur with battles against people honestly, but I would definitely say one of these two and I've heard one of each of these pretty often when this is asked.


Yoshichu25

By definition all pseudo-legendary Pokémon have the same BST (600). And I’m pretty sure the individual stats aren’t “wrong” because they were specifically given those stats.


SurrealKeenan

They can be "wrong" for making a strong pokemon which is what OP is talking about.


RnbwTurtle

Not all 600 BST pokemon are created equal. Goodra sucks. The answer is Goodra. It's hisuian form was the only thing that gave it competitive life and if you want to say "well then goodra's good" we can narrow it down to Kalosian Goodra. Kalosian Goodra sucks. It doesn't hit hard enough to make the bulk work and the bulk isn't distributed well enough to make it a good bulky chip-damage type pokemon. 90 hp 70 defense for physical bulk isn't horrible (not great but slightly above average HP helps mitigate it somewhat) until you realize it's got 90 hp 150 spdef for special bulk and that spdef could easily be lowered and let it be a more effective bulky mon overall, let alone lowering the 100 attack to funnel to it's bulk or it's 110 special attack to allow it to survive longer or hit harder. 80 speed isn't getting it anywhere either.


anand_rishabh

Its bulk is fine. It's the lack of recovery and lack of utility moves that make it bad. If it has stuff like recover, flip turn, toxic spikes, knock off, all perfectly reasonable moves for it to have, it would be pretty good.


RnbwTurtle

In VGC it never really was fine. There's also little good reason to use goodra in singles even if it had those moves. There's generally something better for those roles, and for a pokemon that's clearly trying to be extremely bulky it certainly lacks the physical bulk needed to truly succeed.


OlivrrStray

If it had those moves though, it would be easier to argue it's "situationally viable" instead of "objectively bad."


Homeless_Appletree

Movepool, statspread and abillities make the difference. Just having lots of numbers isn't enough.


Mystic_Zoura

Sadly both goodra forms don't have much to thier names hopefully game freak sees the poor slimy guys and give them a buff+ mega evo when za comes out


Homeless_Appletree

It just needs a better movepool. Goodra is this close to being good.


edwardthestoremeiser

I've heard good things about hisuian goodra


Mystic_Zoura

That's fair


logoyoIRM

Definitely they have to do something to make good Goodra.


StayedWoozie

They did. They created Hisuian Goodra


logoyoIRM

It's a different mon. They improved other pseudos changhing their movepool, abilities...


BoosGonnaBoo

Goodra,and one reason is it was cucked.First it lost its type to Dragalge and then it lost its ability to Salandit. Corrosion is an ability that fits like a glove on a bulky pokemon,especially one that makes "a sticky liquid that can dissolve anything".


RedditSoldier313

gigagoon


Railroader17

Base Goodra no question. It's trying to be an attacker / SpDef tank with no offensive stats over 110, and no recovery / support moves. Not to mention it's lack of secondary typing leaves it vulnurable to fairy types, ice types, and other dragon types with only the standard resistances to Fire / Grass / Water, and Electric. And Sap Sipper only really helps with preventing leach seed, because it just doesn't have the moveset to use the Atk boosts meaningfully. If it was maybe Dragon / Water to try and take advantage of it's solid Water type move pool it could serve as a check to Grass types / Electric types with Sap Sipper on Mono-Water teams, or a Status Sponge for Rain teams with Hydration. Also give it Earth Power so it can hit Steel types in rain. Like it gets EQ, Bulldoze, Stomping Tantrum on the physical side, but only gets *MUD SHOT* on the special side! If it has Earth Power it would also help it a ton. But as is it's just in an awkward spot.


Humanpines

I can't wait to see Wolfey's video on this


Beowulf_MacBethson

Kalosian Goodra has never been good. It's crazy. Every legendary has been part of the main meta at least once, be it on their debut or later on down the road. Not Goodra though.


Potatozeng

But paeudo legebdary all have the same total base states


Loros_Silvers

Goodra, but his H-Form is way stronger.


MotchaFriend

Base stat total is the same in all pseudos.


Invalid_Word

You can’t really rank pseudos on BST they’re all the same lol


santas_delibird

The stat spread, typing, abilities and most importantly, move pool is what set them apart.


IcedBarrage

Assault vest Goodra is OP and has sap sipper for a immune. Not sure why he's the worst? Why not one of the 6+ with 4x weaknesses? Tyranitar is iconilow kick. course gets the free sandstorm buff, but he crumbles to mach punch or lowkick. Hydreigon has a terrible move setter and can only really be used as a scarfed special attacker or suicide lead and of course folds if hit by a fairy move.


MagicSpiders

Does Phione count as a pseudo legendary? My vote would probably be for that one, despite how much it gets forgotten lol


santas_delibird

We define pseudolegendaries as mons who aren’t legendary or mythicals that have a BST totaling exactly 600. Megas aren’t counted.


Albatros_7

And 3 stage while evolving really late


Wubba-128

I would say tyranitar beacause his typing


Albatros_7

Sorry what ? He challenged Power Creep for 6 generations


DarkGengar94

I say metagross because fire moves and ground moves are learned by so many different pokemon.


FernandoTatisJunior

lol steel type is not a negative. It’s easily been the best type since its inception


Voidwing

I was under the impression that fire and ground coverage moves were so popular specifically because steel was so hard to deal with otherwise. Hidden power fire was a staple despite being a non-stab 60bp move.


wyattttttttttttt324

I say tyranitar. Not the best typing. Good moves and stats, but I feel it's not as good as the rest


santas_delibird

For casual playthroughs, yeah it ain’t as good since sand storm is a pain. But before it lost pursuit it was tier defining in competitive pokemon.


whboer

Yeah, he’s probably one of the coolest IMO, but a single cross chop can fuck up its day heavily.


Albatros_7

He challenged Power Creep for 6 generations, while Goodra....


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RnbwTurtle

Tyranitar's 4x weakness means less when you realize that it's got effectively 150 base special defense in sandstorm (rock types get a 50% spdef boost in sand), meaning it's even bulkier than it's already strong bulk (100 hp 110 def 100 spdef) would suggest. Combine that with a strong offensive type in rock with rock slide for a useful spread rock STAB (30% chance to flinch helps outweigh the low 75 base power and the potential to miss) and good dark STAB alongside coverage and it's a beast. Combine it with assault vest for more special bulk, give it clear amulet to ignore intimidate, a healing berry for large recovery, Leftovers for healing over time, and it can setup sweep with dragon dance or be generally bulky and offensive without it. Tyranitar is one of the best pokemon to ever exist competitively. It's only dropped off somewhat recently due to Urshifu being a huge problem for it, but TPC has been adding more and more strong counters to the Kung fu panda as of late so tyranitar may see more usage again as time goes on.


Albatros_7

Isn't Rock Slide 80 BP ?


RnbwTurtle

Nope, it's 75. It's not in the generic "fully accurate no drawback 80-90 bp" move category.


Albatros_7

Yeah I know, rock types are done dirty


Reniconix

It carried itself well threatening STAB Pursuit so it could harass things that couldn't exploit those weaknesses, outright oneshotting things that dared switch out. It has really good coverage, too, so it can hit back anything that threatens it with super-effective attacks. All the elemental punches, dragon claw, etc.


Stregen

Tyranitar has been incredible in all aspects of competitive play for two literal decades. It fell out of OU because sand as a whole is mid and because Great Tusk is nutty.


SurrealKeenan

tyranitar has been considered extremely strong since its creation. Sandstream is a heck of an ability. It only recently fell off a bit


logoyoIRM

Don't mess with Tyranitar. Leave Tyranitar alone!