GROUDON STRATEGY IN COMPETITIVE POKÉMON

Today we bring you the Competitive Strategy of Groudon , the great third generation legendary.

Since the release of the third generation with Ruby and Sapphire Groudon has been one of the most decisive Pokémon in the Competitive, both in UBER Singles and in VGC Doubles. Its excellent stats, typing, variety of moves, and most of all its ability make it the mainstay of sunny weather archetypes.

It is a Pokémon that will surely be great for you to know how to incorporate into your team or know how to deal with it. Here we show you how.

? GROUDON STATS

His stats add up to a total of 670 points , of which 570 are his effective points (when discounting the Special Attack):

Health: 100.
Attack: 150.
Defense: 140.
Special Attack: 100.
Special Defense: 90.
Speed: 90.

We are facing a Pokémon with great defensive statistics , especially its Physical Defense. His not-so-great 90 Special Defense is something we’ll take into account later in his strategies. He’ll be able to hold out for a long time and use that 150 Attack to wreak havoc on the opponent. Its 90 Speed makes many Pokémon faster than Groudon, which is something to keep in mind.

TYPE, RESISTANCES AND WEAKNESSES

Groudon is a Ground-Type , which gives it the following weaknesses and resistances:

It is immune to Electric and Sandstorm damage.
It is resistant to Rock and Poison.
It is weak to Water, Grass and Ice.
It is not very weak to anything.

Immunity to Electric makes Groudon a great Pokemon to cover our Flying or Water Pokemon with a safe switch.

Its resistances to Poison and Rock, although not very decisive, can save you in key moments against Pokémon like Venusaur and Tyranitar .

Let’s take a look at its weaknesses:

Grass : Be especially careful with Pokémon like Rillaboom and its Phytoboost. Thanks to his ability we will be able to have a good response with coverage.
Ice : Of Groudon’s 3 weaknesses this is the least problematic. Most Ice-type Pokémon are slower than Groudon and we will also have good coverage, but you must be careful with Darmanitan de Galar and Mamoswine.
Water : Most Water-type attackers deal Special damage, and let’s remember that this is Groudon’s worst defensive stat. We will see how our ability perfectly covers this weakness, although we must be very careful with Pokémon like Greninja, Dracovish and Toxapex .

GROUDON’S ABILITIES

Groudon has only one ability and it is so powerful that it can create a complete strategy for an entire team:

DROUGHT

When Groudon enters the field, it changes the weather to Sunny Day for 5 turns. This weather will boost Fire-type attacks by 50% and decrease Water-type attacks by 50%.

IVS, EVS AND NATURE

With Groudon we want to have perfect IV’s. It will be in the EV’s and Nature where we will see adjustments:

EV’s : Since Groudon has a great Attack stat, we will seek to boost his defenses so that he can withstand as much as possible, especially his Special Defense.
Nature : We will almost always use a Steady nature (+Attack -Special Attack), although if we need a lot of speed we can opt for Cheerful (+Speed -Special Attack)

BEST MOVES FOR GROUDON

The movements that I recommend the most for Groudon:

Edge of the Abyss : STAB Ground, Physical, 120 power and 85% accuracy. Groudon’s signature move. It hits very hard and hits both Pokemon, but its accuracy makes it inconsistent. Devastating against Electric, Steel, Fire, Poison, and Rock-type Pokémon.
Sharp Rock : Rock, Physical, power 100 and an accuracy of 80%. A good alternative to do more damage to Pokémon like Charizard or Dragonite .
Rock Trap : Rock-type trap move that places Rocks on the opponent and will deal damage when entering the field.
Sword Dance : Movement that will raise our Attack level by two levels. A turn where we can dope can cause Groudon to finish off the entire opposing team.
Earthquake : Ground STAB, 100 power and 100% accuracy. A more consistent STAB alternative for which we’ll be sacrificing some damage.
Heat Blow : Fire, Physical, 100% accuracy and whose damage will depend on how heavy our Pokémon is compared to the rival, and being Groudon one of the heaviest Pokémon in the game, the damage will always be high. This is a great coverage that with Sunny Day will do massive damage to those Grass (Rillaboom), Steel (Bisharp), Bug ( Scizor ) and Ice type Pokémon that can cause us problems.
Shadow Claw: Ghost, Physical, 70 power and 100% accuracy. Great coverage against Ghost-types like Dragapult and Psychic-types like Metagross.
Heavy Body: Steel, Physical, 100% accuracy and whose damage will depend on how heavy our Pokémon is compared to the rival as with Heat Blow. This coverage will allow us to do a lot of damage to Fairy-types like Togekiss , Ice-types like Alolan Ninetales, and Rock-types like Tyranitar.
Rock Tomb : Rock, Physical, 50 power and 80% accuracy. In addition, whenever it hits, it will lower the opponent’s speed level by 1. Very useful against Flying, Fire, Ice and Bug types.

GROUDON STRATEGIES

We are facing a very powerful Pokémon both offensively and defensively and thanks to this it can be used in various ways.

The most common option is to build a team around the Sunny Day weather, where the important thing will be to keep our offensive Pokémon like Charizard or Venusaur alive and ensure that Groudon sets the weather at the right time. We can also use its great power as an offensive force thanks to its great power as a Legendary Pokémon. While the first option is more consistent and versatile, an offensive Groudon can throw off your opponent and do all the work on its own.

GROUDON MURO DURO (WALL) – SINGLES

IVs: Perfect.
EVs: 236 Health. 4 in Attack. 4 on Defense. 180 Special Defense. 12 in Speed
Nature: Firm.
Object: Zidra Berry.
Ability: Drought.
Movements:
- Edge of the Abyss.
- Rock Tomb.
- Heat Stroke.
- Rock Trap.

With this set we want to make it very difficult to eliminate our Pokémon in order to set Trap Rocks and use Grave Rocks to slow down the opposing sweeper Pokémon. We will use Heat Stroke as coverage for Grass, Ice and Steel, because the damage when we have Sunny Day is very very high, knocking down without problems if we do very effective damage. When it’s neutral damage, Edge of the Abyss will be our highest damage move. Thanks to Berry Zidra Groudon it will last many turns in the field.

GROUDON FOR SOL – DOUBLE VGC

IVs: Perfect.
EVs: 252 Health. 148 in Attack. 4 on Defense. 84 in Special Defense. 20 Speed
Nature: Firm.
Item: Assault Vest.
Ability: Drought.
Movements:
- Edge of the Abyss.
- Rock Tomb.
- Heat Stroke.
- Shadow Claw/Heavy Body.

In this set Groudon will have an offensive threat next to him that will get a lot of attention (Charizard and Venusaur are great options, as I’ll tell you at the end) so we can carry more offensive stats and be able to do more damage. This is why we carry extra coverage with Shadow Claw or Heavy Body. Thanks to Assault Vest we can take hits by putting Groudon in a change to place Sunny Day by surprise.

GROUDON ATTACKER (SWEEPER) – SINGLES OR VGC

Although this set may seem simpler than the previous ones, that doesn’t make it any less effective. The high speed can surprise more than one player, and if we manage to drug ourselves with Sword Dance it can be Game Over for the rival.

IVs: Perfect.
EVs: 252 Attack, 4 Special Defense and 252 Speed
Nature: Firm.
Object: Life Sphere.
Ability: Drought.
Movements:
- Edge of the Abyss.
- Heat Stroke/Tomb Rocks.
- Sword dance.
- Protection/Heavy Body/Shadow Claw.

Here we see more options that we will use depending on what we need to cover with the covers. Personally we advise you to use Protection, because our Groudon will not have much Health, but we can be brave and go bare-chested.

We’re trying to set up Groudon against Pokémon that are vulnerable to it, in order to force a switch out of it so we can use Sword Dance safely. If we get this, Groudon will be like Godzilla in New York.

HOW TO DEFEAT GROUDON AND COUNTERS

Groudon has great stats, great skill, and great moves, but we’re going to give you some ideas on how you can play against this Competitive titan.

Playing the climates : Most teams where we find Groudon make good use of the Sunny Day climate, so changing it can make the opponent very uncomfortable. Pokémon like Tyranitar, Pelipper , and Kyogre are options to consider.
Flying Pokémon : Most Groudon use their devastating Edge of the Abyss as their main source of damage, so using a Flying-type Pokémon to avoid it is a great option. We recommend Gyarados , because its Water type is also very effective against Groudon and with its Intimidate ability it lowers the damage of the legendary.
Special Attackers : If we find out that the enemy Groudon doesn’t have the Assault Vest equipped (either because they use a status move like Ward or Rock Trap, or because they use another item like a Berry) a Special Attacker will deal damage to that stat lower than Groudon. Venusaur is one of the best options as it not only deals very effective damage with Grass, but also makes use of Sunny Day with its ability. Other options are Kingdra or Primarina.

OUR LOAN TEAMS

Do you want to play with Groudon? We help you! Here’s a team focused on Groudon and the Sunny Day weather for Pokémon Showdown .

We leave you a team to use in VGC double fights with Groudon as the centerpiece. Thanks to Sunny Day Charizard and Venusaur are fantastic sweepers. We recommend you start with both in the field and change the one that interests you the least, placing Groudon in its place. Charizard will gain a lot of damage thanks to his Solar Power ability and Venusaur will double his speed thanks to her Chlorophyll.

GROUDON STRATEGY IN COMPETITIVE POKÉMON

? GROUDON STATS

TYPE, RESISTANCES AND WEAKNESSES