Quality Control Choice Specs Gholdengo [QC 1/2]

[Charlotte]

Gholdengo @ Choice Specs
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 100 HP / 44 Def / 252 SpA / 112 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Make It Rain
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem / Focus Blast
- Trick

[SET COMMENTS]

• Choice Specs forgoes Gholdengo's ability to setup with Nasty Plot for devastatingly strong immediate damage. Make It Rain is one of the strongest spread damage moves in the game, and the centerpiece of this set. With Choice Specs and Tera Steel the damage output can quickly become overwhelming, leaving the opponent scrambling to bring in their few Steel resistant Pokemon. Shadow Ball acts as the secondary STAB, hitting key targets such as Iron Crown and opposing Gholdengo super effectively.
• Power Gem and Focus Blast provide answers to some of the common pokemon that resist Gholdengo's STAB coverage. Incineroar is hit super effectively by both of these moves, though neither will come close to securing a knockout alone. Kingambit however, only fears the less reliable Focus Blast. Trick is able to severely disrupt the opponent's more support or setup oriented Pokemon such as Amoonguss. Trick can also be utilized against Sucker Punch users, causing the attack to fail and locking their pokemon down with a Choice item.
• Steel is the Tera type of choice here to push Make It Rain's damage even further. It also provides defensive benefits in removing Gholdengo's weakness to Ghost- and Dark-type attacks, notably opposing Gholdengo's Shadow Ball and the Sucker Punches coming from Chien-Pao and Kingambit.
• The EV spread maximises Gholdengo’s Special Attack to focus on heavy damage output. The HP and Defense investment allow it to survive Jolly Chien-Pao's Sucker Punch, without the need to use tera defensively. The Speed, while supported by Tailwind, makes Gholdengo faster than Booster Energy Gouging Fire and Modest Choice Scarf Chi-Yu.
• Gholdengo's Speed leaves it out paced by many of the metagame's major threats, such as Landorus-I and Ogerpon-H, because of this it is very frequently paired with Tailwind users to support it. Tornadus and Whimsicott both have the Prankster ability which make them particularly ideal in this role.
• Good As Gold is one of Gholdengo's unique and key strengths. Granting it an immunity to all status moves is incredibly powerful. This often allows it to switch in against status reliant Pokemon completely unthreatened by them. Most notably Amoonguss, whose presence in the metagame often demands teams have Spore immunties.
• Pokemon that can assist Gholdengo in breaking down the tougher Steel resists are helpful. For instance, Landorus-I is particularly effective at taking down the Fire, Electric, and Steel-types with its incredibly strong Ground-type STABs, Earth Power and Sandsear Storm. Rillaboom is also a fantastic partner, efficient in removing the Water-types that resist Steel. In addition it's also effective at luring the Fire- and Steel-types that resist its terrain boosted Grass moves, wearing them down for Gholdengo to break through. Further still, Rillaboom is an effective pivot which can help to secure Gholdengo's safe entrance onto the field.

[SET CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/charlotte.159382/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/smudge.550367/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/user3.103/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/user4.104/

 

[zoe]

Charlotte is this done or are you still working on it?

 

[Charlotte]

Still working, I can get back to it soon, been sick

 

[Charlotte]

respread, mentioned on disc but it got buried so posting here
If we're keeping the current spread, I think this is close enough to moving into qc. The spread is sort of self explanatory in that it's a balance of bulk spatk and speed, and doesn't specifically need anything clarified as it's not benchmarked.

If it where to change, I think 148+ SpA is a practical benchmark
-1 148+ SpA Choice Specs Tera Steel Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Flutter Mane: 316-372 (100.6 - 118.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
securing the ko on flutter at -1 by utilising tera, 252/0 is like the bulkiest that should ever be reasonably expected.
From this point it's about how much you value speed investment. maintaining 252 speed, you can still invest in enough bulk to survive 252 flutter sball, the most I would ever expect from speed booster, which has the reveal, or sash (rare)
252 SpA Flutter Mane Shadow Ball vs. 72 HP / 36 SpD Gholdengo: 282-332 (84.6 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
If speed isn't as much of a priority it can shift the spdef investment over to HP to become more broadly durable, and potentially even look at surviving sash pao's sucker from full
252 Atk Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Sucker Punch vs. 148 HP / 12 Def Gholdengo: 296-350 (84 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This leaves you with 200evs to dump in speed (254 as the actual stat, 267 is max modest)

Is there anything relevant within those speed tiers I'm blanking on?
The only thing jumping to mind is that with twind max modest catches some of the slower forms of speed booster flutter, but I find that those flutter are trending faster anyway, and only timid ghold could look at doing that more reliably anyway.
In terms of icy wind tiers, I don't think anything too relevant is lost, it's like just Boulder, and if that's not speed booster, it's got clear amu anyway to prevent speed drops and also not that relevant. If you wanted it to be faster than the 135s it'd have to be timid.
Unmodified speeds: max modest heatran is 253, so it only loses out on being faster than like no investment ogerpon, and of course the mirror. But the mirror is always at the mercy of them just running timid anyway to achieve actual max speed.

I don't mind which spread our wonderful CC team desires, I just personally think something more in the realm of 148 HP / 12 Def / 148+ SpA / 200 Spe is stronger

 

[Charlotte]

Removed: Mentions of Flutter Mane mostly, including adjusting the EV spread to be less flutter-centric.
In the brief section about Tailwind it was previously mentioned that Booster Energy Icy Wind Flutter was an additional effective speed control partner, this has been removed, but should it be replaced by anything?
Currently only tailwind is mentioned in regards to setting it up speed wise. Is it worth mentioning TR, in the Tail-Room Torn-Giraffe style team sense?

 

[Smudge]

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Gholdengo @ Choice Specs
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 100 HP / 44 Def / 252 SpA / 112 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Make It Rain
- Shadow Ball
- Power Gem / Focus Blast
- Trick

[SET COMMENTS]

• Choice Specs forgoes Gholdengo's ability to setup with Nasty Plot for devastatingly strong immediate damage. Make It Rain is one of the strongest spread damage moves in the game, and the centerpiece of this set. With Choice Specs and Steel-type terastalization Tera Steel the damage output can quickly become overwhelming, leaving the opponent scrambling to bring in their few Steel resistant Pokemon. Shadow Ball acts as the secondary STAB, hitting key targets such as Iron Crown and opposing Gholdengo super effectively.
• Power Gem and Focus Blast provide answers to some of the common pokemon that resist Gholdengo's STAB coverage. Incineroar is hit super effectively by both of these moves, though neither will come close to securing a knockout alone. Kingambit however, only fears the less reliable Focus Blast. Trick is able to severely disrupt the opponent's more support or setup oriented Pokemon. example here is nice, something like shroom is fine since you hit on it later, also able to cripple sucker punches too.
• Steel is the tera typing Tera type of choice here to push Make It Rain's damage even further. It also provides defensive benefits in removing Gholdengo's weakness to Ghost- and Dark-type attacks, notably opposing Gholdengo's Shadow Ball and the Sucker Punches coming from Chien-Pao and Kingambit.
• The EV spread maximises Gholdengo’s Special Attack to focus on the heavy damage output. The HP and Defense investment allow it to survive a Jolly Chien-Pao's Sucker Punch, without the need to use Tera defensively. The Speed, while supported by Tailwind, makes Gholdengo faster than Booster Energy Gouging Fire and Modest Choice Scarf Chi-Yu.
• Gholdengo's Speed leaves it out paced by many of the metagame's major threats, such as Landorus-I and Flutter Mane, need a replacement mon here, Chien-Pao works ok enough, as does Ogerpon-H because of this it is very frequently paired with Tailwind users to support it. Tornadus and Whimsicott both have the Prankster ability which make them particularly ideal in this role.
• Good As Gold is one of Gholdengo's unique and key strengths. Granting it an immunity to all status moves is incredibly powerful. This often allows it to switch in against status reliant Pokemon completely unthreatened by them. Most notably Amoonguss, whose presence in the metagame often demands teams have Spore immunties. , which this ability provides.
• Pokemon that can assist Gholdengo in breaking down the tougher Steel resists are particularly helpful. For instance, Landorus-I is particularly effective at taking down the Fire-, Electric-, and Steel-types I think you only add the hyphen to the last one i.e. Fire, Electric, and Steel-Types with its incredibly strong Ground-type STABs, Earth Power and Sandsear Storm. Rillaboom is also a fantastic partner, efficient in removing the Water-types that resist Steel. In addition it's also effective at luring the Fire- and Steel-types that resist its terrain boosted Grass moves, wearing them down for Gholdengo to break through. Further still, Rillaboom is an effective pivot which can help to secure Gholdengo's safe entrance onto the field.

[SET CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/charlotte.159382/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/user2.102/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/user3.103/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/user4.104/

In the brief section about Tailwind it was previously mentioned that Booster Energy Icy Wind Flutter was an additional effective speed control partner, this has been removed, but should it be replaced by anything?

you can *kinda* use ewebs bolt, fairly common partner, but not anywhere close to the level that flutter was (it plays a different way), so it's up to you

Currently only tailwind is mentioned in regards to setting it up speed wise. Is it worth mentioning TR, in the Tail-Room Torn-Giraffe style team sense?

I think it's okay, it's decent for protecting it from things like pao, but will struggle into gambit, so sort of a mixed bag. when I think of ghold being with giraffe, it's usually as an anti-tr measure rather than trying to keep it in tw.

1/2, well done