Giratina-O/5th Gen Ubers
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Heatran | #487-1 Giratina-O | Giratina |  |
#487 |
GhostDragon
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Analyses5th Gen Ubers
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Abilities
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Dream World (Unreleased) |
| Levitate: Evades Ground moves. | Telepathy: Protects against damaging moves from friendly Pokémon. |
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General
Giratina-O is arguably the single greatest spin blocker the Uber tier has to offer and of course in competitive Pokémon in general, with its typing, offense, defense and immunity to Spikes/Toxic Spikes. With base 150 HP and 100 in each Defense Giratina-O can switch into numerous attacks with ease, helped more-so with its unique typing. With two excellent STABs and base 120 in each Attack stat Giratina-O can cause much damage, beating the likes of Mewtwo one-on-one, and packing STAB Outrage and Draco Meteor.
Despite all these pros Giratina does have its cons. For one, it's forced to hold the Griseous Orb, taking away its options of say having a Choice Scarf or Leftovers. Its average speed of 90 lets it be out-sped by numerous Uber threats who can take advantage of its weaknesses to Dragon, Ice, Dark and Ghost types. However, it's still a top choice and can find its way into many teams thanks to its rare traits and well placed stats.
Calm Mind
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Giratina-O's speed is clearly not the best when compared to its Uber competition but it can still run a viable Calm Mind set thanks to its typing and resistances. With immunity to Toxic Spikes and Seismic Toss it can set up easily on stall teams with more ease than other Calm Minders.
Dragon Pulse is your main attack here of course. With its terrific neutral and special effective coverage on much of the ubers metagame. Aura Sphere is for the pesky steel types that would otherwise wall and/or phaze Giratina-O out, racking up Stealth Rock and Substitute damage.
Dragon Tail or Roar can also be an option so Giratina-O itself can phaze.
Mixed Attacker
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Thanks to its STABs, high offensive stats, and the boost from Griseous Orb, Giratina-O is a great mixed attacker. It may not have the power of Dialga or Rayquaza, but its typing and bulk set it apart from the two. With max special attack, Griseous Orb boost and STAB Draco Meteor will seriously damage everything that isn't named Chansey/Blissey or a defensive steel. With Hidden Power Fire, Giratina-O cam perform its spin-blocking duties more effectively - taking care of Excadrill and Forretress. It also pairs well with Draco Meteor, taking care of Ferrothorn and Skarmory, who would otherwise simply resist Giratina-O's attacks and recover through Leech Seed (with Giratina's base 150 HP!) and Roost respectively. Shadow Sneak appears weak, but it allows Giratina-O to pick off weakened sweepers. Among the most notable are Mewtwo and Arceus-Ghost, as they are both weak to it; however you must be wary if the Arceus is in fact bulky and packing Will-o-Wisp. Dragon Tail allows it to phaze enemies around to rack up damage with entry hazards and make setting up on Giratina-O extremely difficult. Dragon Tail also allows you to scout for switch-ins and counters to Giratina and damage them if they are specially defensive and were expecting a Draco Meteor.
The EVs on Giratina are to maximize its attacking as opposed to its speed. With Hidden Power Fire Giratina must run an IV of 30 speed and thus requires 8 EVs to get past base 90's that do not run speed EVs such as Groudon, Dialga and some Kyogre. While it sounds ideal to lower speed through a nature such as Brave, this would cripple its wallbreaking abilities by being outsped by the aforementioned Lead Dialga and Groudon.
Other Options
On the Calm Mind set it's viable to replace Aura Sphere with Shadow Ball to help it beat Mewtwo, Mew, Wobbuffet and most importantly Lugia who causes Giratina-O serious problems. Though remember that Aura Sphere compliments Dragon Pulse and nets Giratina-O coverage over Tyranitar, Heatran, Dialga, Arceus-Steel and Arceus. Also worthy of note is that with Shadow Ball you lose coverage against Ferrothorn, though with a Substitute up Ferrothorn should not cause huge trouble.
Should Dragon Tail's negative priority and low Base Power not appeal to you on the mixed set, Dragon Claw or Outrage are viable options. If defensive Kyogre and Ho-Oh are problematic, Outrage is the superior option as it 3HKOes the former and 2HKOes the latter. It can also deal over 50% to all Arceus formes with 4 HP (Sans Arceus-Steel) and in conjunction with Toxic Spikes, Arceus will have a hard time trying to stall it out. If confusion is bothersome to you do not go with Dragon Claw as Dragon Tail in conjunction with proper hazards is more damaging and can leave the enemy in a predicament.
RestTalk allows Giratina-O to preserve its bulk but severely limits its attacking options. It's best used with Calm Mind and Dragon Pulse. Will-O-Wisp can burn unsuspecting enemies such as Arceus and Tyranitar. With a physically defensive spread, Giratina-O can act as a check to Arceus-Ground. Stone Edge can be used to take down Ho-Oh but offers no real use outside of that. Most importantly though is that its outclassed defensively by its alternate forme which can take advantage of RestTalk more.
Checks and Counters
Lugia can generally wall whatever Giratina-O throws at it and whittle it down with Ice Beam or blow it away with Whirlwind, while setting up Reflect to weaken its physical moves. Arceus-Dark and Arceus-Steel, with their great bulk and Speed, can switch into almost anything that Giratina-O throws at it and heal off the damage with Recover before KOing back with a super effective Judgment. Heatran can counter sets without Earthquake if it packs Dragon Pulse to damage Giratina back, resisting Giratina-O's STABs and benefiting from Hidden Power Fire makes Heatran an easy switch-in. Do note that Dragon Tail can make Giratina-O a little tricky to counter.
The best method to beat Giratina-O is through outspeeding and thus revenge killing it. Choice Scarf Palkia, Dialga, Reshiram, and Zekrom can easily OHKO Giratina-O with their STAB Dragon-type attacks. Darkrai can outspeed, put it to sleep and KO it with its STAB Dark-Type attacks, not to mention resists Shadow Sneak.
