Palafin, from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, is a MONSTER. Errata: Drain Punch, not Draining Kiss at 5:53 Join the Team Freeze Discord! / discord footage used: • OUR FIRST WIFI BATTLE ...
it would have been more interesting if it changed forms every time it swapped in. so once you get the hero form in you might not want to switch it out because you might not be able to get it in safely two more times to be able to utilize it again
I remember a quote a few days ago I read in a Showdown OU Chat. “This generation of pokemon makes Dracovish’s Fishous Rend look like Childs Play.” And seeing how damning some of the move sets are, like a Moxie pokemon that doesn’t need scarf to get a boost, Future/Past pokemon having the ability to get a boost to their speed or attack stats without being locked, and more? I would agree
There's definately a LOT more noticeable powercreep this gen than any other gen prior to it. Like way more. I do think that Palafin is an issues for Singles OU though. Argueably he is the only mon I think deserves/deserved to be ban within a short frame of time. I'd of been fine letting Houndstone play around for a bit before anything was done with him to see if he was more than just an early meta cheese pick y'know. Is he really that strong? Or was he simply percieved to be strong at the start? There's very likely many perfectly viable counters that have a larger use outside of JUST dealing with a Houndstone. Palafin isn't the same though. You're forced to bring 1 if not 2 specific mons that are built around dealing with Palafin. Flutter Mane, Houndstone, Iron Bundle and other similar mons that have been/are about to be on the chopping block are unfortunately just stronger mons than currently seen and banning them away just means that next gen is going to be THAT much harder to deal with. We're going to start to see former sweepers/supports/walls become obsolete because that's how they'll continue to sell their next game. This is literally any franchise ever to exist. Suprisingly enough the only other ban outside of Palafin that makes sense is Dunsparce in LC. Nobody really thought of it but it wasn't intended to be a baby mon.
Palafin is probably the most interesting attempt at an "Achilles Heel" and I like that he's actually usable *anywhere* instead of needing to try and tear the chains off or not walk on eggshells in Archeops' case. The fact that he's not just usable, but OP in singles, shows the level of fine line it is. This generation is totally designed for doubles lol
Archeops is honestly the flip case in my experience: in Competitive, it’s really hard to pull off, and while rewarding, it’s not usually worth the effort. Ingame? The best strategy is already to just not get hit. Acrobatics everything and you don’t even NEED to think about abilities half the time. Also, when AI trainers have Archeops, it’s genuinely one of the scariest things they can have on their team in a challenge run, because you just KNOW that thing is gonna be carrying Acrobatics with no hold item, and it’s going to hit you with Conk’s attack stat on Gengar’s Speed. And there’s not actually a whole lot that resists flying that also has the bulk to take a direct hit from Stone Edge, Rock Slide, Dragon Claw, or the like Like, yeah, ANY Pokémon can be stupidly good ingame, but Archeops is uniquely powerful in that regard
The poor achilles heel group finally having a new member that Will bring justice for them "fear not My poor friends, in short time i'll be going to the top of the battle and punch arceus in the face in name of You and all the suffering" Parafin and his motivations
I always thought golisopod was the perfect example of how to balance an Aquiles heel pokemon, he is super strong and bulky with a lot of priority moves with his ability being a detriment you can play around or even play around to get an advantage
Jet punch is so good I could see the zero form in a mid tier like NU. It has good speed and decent bulk to begin, with plus strong priority and decent coverage.
@@Dr_Donald_Duck that's not a bad idea but I really don't think there's gonna be any more than like 6 Pokémon who are banned in ou but bad in Ubers, I really doubt that you can make an entire tier with how few Pokémon would be in it
tbf, they look more at VGC to balance their mons so that’s why singles always seems to have the most bans. A lot of strategies that wouldn’t work in doubles can cripple singles. I’m sure as far as GF is concerned any fanmade formats can be handled by the fans
I mean, technically it lost those last generation too, it's just that Smogon doesn't care about the restrictions in the main game's online battle restrictions of Pokémon having to lose their old moves to fight in them for some reason.
pokemon only lose moves when the moves are removed from the game , otherwise they just transfer in from home after the connection is enabled , ei. it has toxic
@@Marcusjnmc The new transfer mechanic straight up removes/replaces moves that are unobtainable now. It's a change from how transfer from Home has previously worked.
Its crazy pursuit isn't in the game anymore since pursuit from a strong physical attacker could really punish something like this. Tyranitar for example OHKOs finizen on switch with pursuit without any items (unless you were running like 252 defense finizen). But now that its gone giving something this ability seems like a mistake. At least for singles. But i guess they have always cared more about their official VGC format.
Given Palafin's comic book superhero theming, having a vulnerability to being followed/intercepted when trying to switch into its super form feels like a very appropriate weakness to have, which makes it even more of a shame that they removed pursuit.
@@majickman welp. I messed that up. So yeah the original Calc was wrong but a choice band ttar pursuit vs a PALAFIN switching is 88-99.7%. 66.8 % max for other items. Still would be a great punish for trying to activate the ability.
Palafin without significant attack investment can easily cripple even defensive tyranitar with close combat. Palafin could very easily adapt to pursuit Tyranita.
@@bakublader1999 Judging by Regenerator, Teleport and Heavy duty boots in gen 8, GF seems to think that 6v6 battles should revolve around nothing but switching out.
@@bakublader1999 They they need to stop making all the single-player adventures 6v6 and actually make the game about Double Battles so it's actually preparing you to play the format they want you to play instead of saddling your story mons with garbage they can't use like Helping Hand. Obligatory "Colosseum and XD did it better" post goes here.
Pretty sure Palafin will join the "Pokemon that are bad in VGC but overpowered in singles" list and see many mentions in these types of videos in the future.
Not bad but more niche, I could see something like Eject Button being useful for him on lead in addition to flip turn. The power creep isn't probably going to hit VGC anywhere near as hard as singles because the overall trend for this gen is HYPER SUPER DOOPER Offence.
@@EnriqueLaberintico Hazards do well in Doubles but not VGC and stall does better as well (or did) so you'd see more Clefables and Cresselia's than in VGC With Smogon tiering too the big VGC threats tend to get banned to Ubers so you'll see more Torkoals since Groudon isn't allowed. So I'm not sure it's bad-good so much as pretty good-good. Its a very different meta game and its like the middle ground between singles and VGC which is why I like it.
Palafin has Regigigas stats if Regigigas was slightly less bulky, then has basically a much less sever Slow Start, and then is also a Water type with a signature priority move with Wave Crash, Close Combat, Ice Punch, Bulk Up, and Zen Headbutt.
When I saw the stat spread on this thing I knew it would get banned in singles. Like I swear every generation since the introduction of Garchomp I am like there is no way game freak is going to make something that overpowered again and every generation I am proven wrong.
@@yep9462 yeah , and the fact was : garchomp was a pseudolegendary , it was kinda supposed to be powerful , and at least had a quad weakness to ice ... now we have mon with higher stats to it , no quad weaknesses , special moves and basically all that good stuff ...
I get the feeling that Palifin is a pokemon meant for new players. Specifically players who may play single player pokemon a lot but not much pvp and this is a pokemon meant to tell them that switching doesn't always lose tempo or teach how to switch without losing tempo
I’d agree but hard to say since the evolution is convoluted and the only hint that it even exists comes from a photoshoot in Porto Mariada. I’m not sure it’s plausible a new player would stumble upon in on their own unless they look it up or have a friend mention it. Hopefully they have friends they regularly play with lol
Well if they really wanted to get new players interested in PvP, then they should do a better job of encouraging double battles since that’s the official VGC format. Is there even a place to have them in Paldea outside of playing against other players or the two battles at the Ghost gym?
In my personal experience, Dondozo has been pretty efective at dealing with Palafin and other physical set up sweepers like Iron Valiant and Annihilape. With Unaware it ignores both the attack and defense boosts the opponent is setting up, which either leaves you free to do Curse Rest Talk shenanigans, or you can Yawn them to force them out if you think they could break you. It is very weak to special attackers like Iron Bundle though.
@@jaiden2974 all taunt does is stop it from using bulk up, but it’s way too possible for it to just switch out and once you lose your taunt user it comes back in, or getting a taunt user too late Either way it’s base stats are already so good and it has longevity with drain punch so no not really
Yeah that would be a unique way to make the Achilles heel more prominent. If it switched between forms every time it came in it could have a more exploitable weakness and then maybe it would be less OP
Something that can make more sense is that if palafin knocks out 1 pokemon, if it switches out, it reverts back into nornal form, as if its saying its job is done here.
The biggest thing is that if you’re faster than your opponents lead it isn’t even an inconvenience to switch out , flip turn from his base attack is still ridiculous value with damage and form swap
@@maxspecs yea but you scout your opponents lead and you gain momentum if you’re faster which is a decent bit of the time by flip turning out, it could have 27 base attack and it’d still be good it’s extra chip for free (Rocky helmet/barbs/rough skin makes this a soft check)
Agreed. It’s a tad annoying to see people scream about GF not caring about balance when technically singles isn’t the main competitive format anymore and hasn’t been for many years now. They’d rather make VGC interesting over what is now a fan format and just let fans decide how they want to play their own stuff
One thing to do in Doubles is to have Palafin switch and have a second, slower and bulkier 'mon use Volt Switch/ U-turn etc. This would bring Palafin, in the hero form, back onto the field for turn 2.
What's hilarious is you can sort of circumvent the negative by switching into Cyclizar or orthworm and use Shed Tail to come right back into it with a decoy. So at the very least you are still progressing the game state without really losing much in the process. You get something out of it basically
START: Palafin Flipturn into Cyclizar NEXT: Regenerator Cyclizar holding Citrus Berry uses Shed Tail into Heroic form Palafin. FINALLY: You have Heroic Palafin with Substitute.
Here’s the thing: you don’t have to attack with palafin, just start double battle with a partner Pokémon that can defend itself or protect while you switch something in and have a deadly palafin in the back for later. It’s devastastating
@@vorpal1174 Having never played competitively for Pokemon, I have to assume at some point it’s like playing a Burn player in Magic. You know what they’re going to do, but good luck trying to stop them.
@@johnbuscher usually not the case in VGC. Games are often 4 turns, and the first 2 turns can decide the whole thing. If the opponent knows for sure you're going for Palafin, they can potentially set up and fire faster than you can, having a clear idea that the first turn that Palafin is out is generally going to be safe. It may change now with Dynamax being gone, but what Freezai said here is right. The value of turns in VGC is extremely high, and knowing Palafin's first action will always to be to switch gives a lot of information. It's unlike singles where there is plenty of opportunities to switch out and switch in.
@@JuukaRock That's why I think we'll see Eject Button Palafin become a potential go to for Palafin. Outside of the switch out stuff his base form has a good speed tier and support moves like Helping hand, Rain Dance and Haze, we could see a lead Palafin support with Eject Button with 2 offensive moves for the switch in a really interesting dual purpose mon. I was thinking of this some more maybe pair EB Palafin with a Bulldoze Pokemon you slow the enemy its likely going to be slower than your Palafin so it can use Rain Dance or whatever set up you want, trigger EB with bulldoze you resist it because of water typing and get the free switch out.
at first i really didnt think palafin would be that OP, just using the choice scarf set, but the bulk up variation immediately proved why its too strong lmfao. just lead with it and now u have an uber lol
palafin was quickbanned from ou singles just two days after you posted this, which is possibly the second funniest possible time for it to have been banned, second only to 'the literal day the video was posted'
Because of palafin, I currently run 5 hyper offense mons(like dragapult) + indeedee with psychic surge and terrain extender to deal with annoying priority moves.
@@storm78211 Good idea, but only useful against non-dark types. Chien-Pao, which is very common in OU and has access to both sucker and shard, would not be a great switch in. At least with indeedee I can revenege off with dragapult or one of my scarfers.
@@storm78211 it doesn't get rapid spin, furthermore tsareena has power whip to hit palafin and both u-turn and high jump kick to hit chien-pao, which are very good against hyper offense and rain teams as they have both priority and strong spammable moves, not to mention the coverage they can boast
I've been able to comfortable deal with palafin by using hazardstacking and dragon tail. With dragon tail being a phasing move that is unaffected by taunt, the bulk up set cannot grow out of control. My biggest issue will be once palafin sets opt for substitute instead of taunt. Then the situation will turn into an uncompetitive 50/50. If he has taunt, dragon tail will deal with it, but if he has substitute, roar/whirlwind will be the answer instead. The latter, whose distributions have been severely nerved.
And it also has a not too bad 106 special attack, wait till people realize he can be a decent special attacker as it's movepool is also decent (specially at lvl 50 VGC) which adds an element of surprise. You won't be as strong, and the surprise only works once, but a surprise drain kiss or aura sphere, or even grass knot can make anyone win. Sadly it's missing calm mind or nasty plot. So it's not as broken... Yet
Restricting Palafin's ability with a switch-out is like giving a marathon runner rocket-powered shoes, but they only work if he takes a drink of water first.
I personally rarely have a hard time against palafin, partially because I always run a check or counter for it, but also I know most people are gona lead with it so I can always have the initiative and out offense them from the start. There are quite a few good pokemon that naturally checks it like Iron bundle, azumrill and dragapult.
Forcing people to run dedicated checks and counters is the problem. It's the same as Dracovish. If you didn't have a water-immunity, it punched a hole through your team or killed everything.
@Ya Mum Using your logic, let's unban Vish, Magearna, Kyurem, Urshifu, and Cinderace in Gen 8 OU. They are all weaker than Palafin, so it should be fine. Just make sure every team you build has a water-immunity, a Clef, a Blissey, and Hippo. Go nuts with those last two slots tho.
You underestimate how many options there are for those thanks to dex cut, coming from someone who played on showdown, here. Even with picks like clodsire shown in the vid, palafin can still make them its toy. And with the Tera ghost comment you have to factor that if you are essentially wasting a Tera slot to overcompensate for one specific pokemon, there is a severe balancing issue with the game and that threat needs to go. Hell if game freak would make a special electric priority move that something like jolteon could use, or if ferrothorn were in the game, the damn dolphin probably wouldn’t be that big of an issue, but at the moment it’s so over-centralizing and busted.
There's no mons with those abilities that could actually break through though. No water immune mons have enough offense to kill palafin through boosted jet punches. Maybe tera blast seismatoad but it's not in the dex.
the only mons with these abilities in this meta are - Gastrodon - Lumineon (which is also the only one that can trap with whirlpool) - Tatsugiri - Cacturne - Clodsire / Quagsire - Vaporeon none of these are very strong offensively and pose little threat to palafin despite fully walling it, which means it can safely get up a taunt. they also can't try to burn him because they lost scald. these pokémon (bar cacturne?) can still be muscled through with draining kiss or ice punch variants, and even if palafin can do nothing, most of these pokémon are either not exactly OU material and/or are quite passive which means that taunt + switch results in you having to concede momentum anyways unless you double correctly maybe i'm being very pessimistic but it doesn't seem like a very viable way to control palafin, not to mention how much it bottlenecks teambuilding if it becomes a requirement to have one of these seven pokémon (or, more realistically, three: Clodsire, Quagsire, and Clear Smog Gastrodon)
This is the reason I have a Mimikyu on my team (other than it being my favorite Ghost type). I don’t play competitive, but it’s really helpful during playthroughs. Since Mimikyu’s Disguise can easily take any hit, switching Palafin with Mimikyu can make for a good strategy during singles.
Or just run sash on a mon. That accomplishes the same thing and you aren't limited to just mimikyu. Prankster mons often run sash normally anyway, even without a mon specific gimmick team.
Palafin may as well be a legendary Pokemon, with those stats and movepool I’m surprised it was even in OU to begin with It should have been Uber from the start since it’s only a regular Pokemon for 1 turn
Palafin was the ONLY mon that I feel should've been in Uber to begin with. The rest are just an unfortunate case of us having to accept powercreep (Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle) or could've possibly just been an early development cheese strat that could've been solved in a couple more days (Houndstone).
The way I thought Zero to Hero would work is that everytime you switch out, you would switch between forms (which I still feel would have been more interesting and better balanced).
the one way to counter it i feel is water absorb clodsire; the problem still is that wheel lizard in a full paraxod/ruin sweep team. if it at least was forced to switch out with flip turn so you can block it from turning it'd be fair. its already fast; didnt need jet punch and aqua jet
Even clodsire isn’t a counter, most clodisre sets are specially defensive, and even then, palafin can just taunt bulk up on clodsire. If it’s unaware, jet punch just kills anyway :(
Normally I just been countering it with quagsire or poison heal breloom. Poison heal breloom with max defense will survive most water hits and protect fishes out ice punch. If it's a substitute set then I switch in quagsire who can earthquake it to death.
This is a bit of why, although I do enjoy, I feel Showdown is a bit of a shitty thing for the pokemon community. I'd wager that 85% of the playerbase haven't seen half the mons banned yet. Nobody is running properly trained full paradfox + palafin mons or shit like that because nobody has them. Personally I really enjoy the start of a new gen where everyone is kinda messing around and using their favorite level 70 just because. Now people aren't even gonna buy the game because 'I'll just use them on showdown'
Diversity of palafin checks and counters Palafin counters to virtually all sets: rocky helmet on dondonzo, earthpower clear smog gastrodon, amoongus, slowbro with chilling water and psychic Other switchins to bulk up: physically defensive clodsire, physically defensive bellibot (charge and voltswitch), physically defensive horn leech gogoat (okay this last one is a stretch) Note all previously mentioned mons have reliable recovery Checks that make it cry: meowscarda, iron bundle Checks that make it sad: dragapault It can't run leftovers, choice band, and punching glove all at once If we ban it, then let's unban it when pokemon home comes out and when/if tera evolving is banned
Yeah, the moment Palafin got explored in singles, I knew it was gonna be an absolute demon. Thankfully it's not as good in VGC. Though in tier lists I've seen from pretty competent VGC players, it's been placed sort of middle of the pack. Pretty good, but won't fit on every team.
I wish mummy and wondering soul carried over to Pokemons when they retreat. That would, of course, be very powerful in its own right but provide a constant presence in the game against super powerful abilities.
It's so weird to me running a balance team seeing everyone complain about palafin but like if you look at the meta it makes a lotta sense. The majority of teams are hazards spam and/or hyper offense. Teams which absolutely get blasted by palafin and have no real counter besides maybe a single mon which leaves them open to getting tera swept.
Ive been loving my new team with palafin in doubles. You can flip turn into your teamate coalosal, prock its weakness policy and steam drive, use explosion, and get palafin back in on turn 2. Thus, its the palafin explosive entry team
@@JoshuaRodriguez-xv6gd I have found a bunch of success using flutter main, dragapult, and telepathy noivern. I like noivern specifically as instead of always exploding, you can tera ground the coalosal and earthquake as you switch in noivern. One other, even more gimmicky idea i had recently is max hp max defence chilan berry flamigo, as it can come in as the explosion comes down, gaining all the stat bonuses, poping chilan berry for access to acrobatics, and being flying for when you earthquake instead of explode
Another example of a mechanic that’s not balanced around 6v6 formats is Last Respects. It would be totally fine for 3v3 singles and 4v4 doubles. Honestly feel like it could make sense for showdown to artificially rebalance these mechanics for 6v6 formats. E.g. zero-to-hero switches form every time they switch in or rescale the Last Respects increase to max at 150 (20 each faint) after five teammates have fainted rather than 300 (50 each faint).
@@thefranklin6463 The simulator is meant to replicate actual in-game battling as accurately as possible. The *only* modification made which isn't achievable ingame (in other words, that isn't simply a ban on certain things), is the sleep clause, and in some earlier gens, the freeze clause. If you want to artificially rebalance it, you might as well just make a new Pokemon-like game from the ground up instead.
I think thats a little hyperbolic but i don't disagree with your point. The point I was trying to make is that if you want the main format to be 6v6, but the base game is explicitly being designed to not be balanced for 6v6, Showdown wouldn't be totally crazy to move away from such a rigid simulation philosophy in the interest of making it fun to play and to take maximal advantage of the infrequent updates, especially since the consistent complaint a half a year into every new gen is that the gameplay gets stale
Even if we had Jellicent in this gen, Palafin could always run tera electric or something of the sort to beat it. I do feel like Palafin would still be more manageable with Jellicent around as it would not be able to run all the moves it wants because it would need a move to break through it.
Palafin has taunt to prevent will--o-wisp, recover, etc. and Jellicent doesn't get scald anymore. So it would be reliant upon shadow ball to break palafin. I could see palafin beating it with zen headbutt after a bulk up or two
Jellicent would prolly be running chilling water, the new water type attack that lowers ur opp atk, but u would start seeing tera electric palafin with blast
I wonder if meowscarada’s flower trick could be used as a counter to the bulk up set. I know it’s pretty obscure but it’s something that could maybe be a check?
In my experience, Meowscarada does well vs Hero because of her speed and flower trick. She resists jet punch, and doesn't have to worry about fighting coverage thanks to Protean
It is a pretty clever idea, and can beat palafin in a pure 1v1! However, in the turn it takes Meowscarada to switch in, Palafin will have already gotten a bulk up or two in. After 3 bulk ups (or even less with hazard chip from stealth rock), Meowscarada will get killed by terra water jet punch before being able to move even through the resistance.
@@neversparky i see. Another niche idea i thought of is maybe using stakeout mabosstiff to punish the intial switch in the first place by taking out another vital team member, but to be honest I’m not very experienced in competitive play in the first place, and this is a new fresh meta of course, but it is definitely interesting for me to think about.
@@neversparky Meowscarada is a check, but not a true counter. If Palafin is already beefed up a lot and sweeping, and Meowscarada is worn down, then it's too late. Besides those scenarios, Meowscarada checks. Flower Trick was made for this lol.
Wouldn't Appletun be a decent counter to Palafin-Hero? Barring an Ice Punch from Palafin, Appletun would quad-resist it's water stab and be able to target it's lower SpDef stat.
Bless my soul Herc was on a roll Person of the week in every Greek opinion poll What a pro Herc could stop a show Point him at a monster and you're talking SRO He was a no one A zero, zero Now he's a honcho He's a hero Here was a kid with his act down pat From zero to hero in no time flat Zero to hero just like that (snaps) When he smiled The girls went wild with Oohs and aahs And they slapped his face On ev'ry vase (On ev'ry "vahse") From appearance fees and royalties Our Herc had cash to burn Now nouveau riche and famous He could tell you What's a Grecian urn? Say amen There he goes again Sweet and undefeated And an awesome 10 for 10 Folks lined up Just to watch him flex And this perfect package Packed a pair of pretty pecs Hercie, he comes He sees, he conquers Honey, the crowds were Going bonkers He showed the moxie brains, and spunk From zero to hero a major hunk Zero to hero and who'da thunk Who put the glad in gladiator? Hercules! Whose daring deeds are great theater? Hercules Isn't he bold? No one braver Is he sweet Our fav'rite flavor Hercules, Hercules ... Bless my soul Herc was on a roll Undefeated Riding high And the nicest guy Not conceited He was a nothin' A zero, zero Now he's a honcho He's a hero He hit the heights at breakneck speed From zero to hero Herc is a hero Now he's a hero Yes indeed!
Palafin is basically OU's own Zacian, the best answers I've used for it are either Unaware mons (Dondozo, Quaqsire, Skeledirge or Clodsire) or something with Water Absorb or similars (Gastrodon and the sire bros again).
I don't want to give this away since so many people have yet to see how strong this Pokemon is, but Garganacl is a straight up counter to him outside of water tera + bulk up + wave crash. Salt cure, it isn't affected by taunt, does 1/4th dmg to water/steel types and never ends until switch out. I'm won't reveal the rest of the moves that make him so strong YET because that's half the fun
@@walaceandrade4046 Max defense and hp should be able to take a hit. The trick is making him have to switch out. Then you get free recover move, and I like to run curse for the attack and defense boost
But it's less flavorful. The idea is palafin is just an ordinary citizen (or finizen, hence the identical base stats and near identical model), then when it sees trouble it retreats to bring out it's alter ego, much like a classic super hero story. Also that change would probably make it extremely broken in gameplay and in vgc as well
My prediction for Palafin is that after it gets banned from OU, it'll probably be useless in Ubers, sadly. Its base form isn't great and having to spend 2 turns to "set up", so it can switch out and come back in, is not an irrelevant obstacle to have to work around.
I’d actually argue the opposite: strong STAB Priority is at a premium in almost every tier, and Palafin backs that up with an incredible attack stat: it only slightly weaker than unboosted Ekiller Arceus’s Espeed, and while it’s obviously no Arceus, it doesn’t NEED to be, because it can be there to either Rip holes for other people, or to clean up the holes: it’s PERFECT for that kind of thing. Base 100 also outspeeds a lot of the older Uber Mons, and even its base form isn’t ATROCIOUS. It’s very weak, but it’s still stronger than some fully evolved Pokémon, meaning it’s entirely possible to bring it in safely before it’s reached hero form
@@spindash64 You're not wrong. I guess it's just a matter of whether or not the pay-off is worth the tempo you lose to get it into position. If you switch it out and back in at a good opportunity, it'll probably do good work for you. You obviously don't have to throw all of your effort behind Palafin just for the sake of setting it up, so we'll see.
I have no doubt it’ll get banned to ubers, and I also don’t think it’ll be particularly good in ubers. I can definitely see it working in its own little niche as a somewhat “off-meta” pick (as much as there really is a fluid “meta” in Ubers) and creative players can absolutely do some admittedly funny stuff with it you aren’t careful (I’m still somewhat new to competitive singles so go easy on me if I’m way off-base)
Yes and Annihilape's taunt bulkup moveset is more broken imo, it's literally harder for a defensive pokemon to switch in and beat then Zygard-C imo, that's completely insane. Attacking it powers it up so you can't even do that. You probably need a taunt immune pokemon to beat it but there aren't any good ones.
Thinking about it this way.. if Palafin was a normal Pokemon it would probably have 100 more bst in his base form, so by switching and gaining 100 more basicaly IS a mega evolution by just switching while sacrificing your ability instead of your item.
I wonder if Grafaiai doodle might make Slaking a new Doubles threat? Since Grafaiai gets prankster it can first turn swap Slaking’s ability with something the enemy has which likely would be really good then you could make the slaking max attack and nuke stuff
I'd argue that the biggest weakness of Palafin is it's predictability like if your opponent is using a Palafin then they're obviously gonna switch it out and back in, this also means Palafin is uniquely susceptible to entry hazards
Palafin is one of my favorite Pokémon in its gimmick and inspiration! I don't do competitive battling, but it's still cool to see that it's considered strong.
It's not that OP in 3v3 battles, where the main game doesn't allow you to play 6v6 like smogon does, I've used that pokemon quite a bit, I know what I'm talking about
Palafin is one of the funniest pokemon they've ever made. When it evolved and it just got a heart on its chest I already thought it was great, but the gimmick is hilarious. It's been really fun using it as my lead and flip turning into a better matchup, even if it sacrifices the first turn of every fight.
I genuinely thought after switching out you turned back to zero form again bc that made the most sense but when I realized it stayed in hero form permenantly I was like "Jesus christ is gamefreak on drugs or something"
Wishiwashi’s bad form gets 175 bst but Palefin’s gets 427 lol, which isn’t even that bad, especially since it has 100 speed for fast flip turns and jet punch gives it a priority move of a comparable power to a much stronger Pokémon.
