Tapu Lele Discussion

Just realised Tapu Lele hampers priority sweepers like Mega Scizor and Belly Drum Azumarill A LOT.

Torn-T, mega Diancie, or most fast things with Fire coverage revenge kills Scizor will Fire coverage easily

Azumarill canNOT Aqua Jet Lando, Heatran, Weavile, Zam, etc
 

Deck Knight

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Tapu Lele is going to be extremely powerful in OU, however do not forget it may have to compete in Terrain Wars with Tapu Koko, who seems like the most viable of the Tapus after Lele. The best answer to Tapu Lele is really all the new Poison/Dark Pokemon who can tank Moonblasts without getting laid to waste by Focus Blast. Otherwise it's biggest threat is probably Mega Meta, which itself appreciates no follow-up Sucker Punches and can afford to Mega Evolve in the face of Focus Blast. SpD Jirachi is also an effective answer.
 
Well actually


Granted you can have checks and counters for them and you can smell them a mile away, but I believe after SM stabilizes they'll be as popular as ever.
And don't forget:



Too bad it probably won't get as much play, despite it wrecking house in the Sand.

Just realised Tapu Lele hampers priority sweepers like Mega Scizor and Belly Drum Azumarill A LOT.

Torn-T, mega Diancie, or most fast things with Fire coverage revenge kills Scizor will Fire coverage easily

Azumarill canNOT Aqua Jet Lando, Heatran, Weavile, Zam, etc
It can still Aqua Jet Lando and Lando-T, because they're not on the ground.
 
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Tapu Lele + Mega Alakazam looks like it'll be a devastating core, especially if you throw in something like Dugtrio or Magnezone to trap steels like Jirachi and Metagross. With Psychic Terrain active, Mega Alakazam can 2HKO Chansey with Psyshock.
 
What are the chances of this getting banned? Psychic terrain seems busted making it hit super hard on both the special and physical side(bless psyshock), and it negates priority attacks. It's not a mega, and has a good stat spread. The more I look and read about this mon the scarier it gets.
 
Specs Lele will actually hit harder than Band Crawdaunt - on top of my head, the only Pokémon that can switch on it safely are Slowbro, Cresselia, Jirachi, Aegislash and Reuniclus.

Dark-types can't switch due to Moonblast. Steel-types also can't switch due to Focus Blast. Psyshock (120 base power) kills anything with low Defense, and Psychic (135 base power) is the go-to STAB for opponents with lower Special Defense. And if this is not enough, you can even try a "Psychic spam" thing, to buff even further M-Gardevoir or M-Alakazam.


The strongest of the Tapus, no doubt about it.
 
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It just so happened I was looking through the list of possible Megas that benefit from this and uh... wow this is a serious problem.

Sharpedo with Psychic Fang, Metagross, Gallade, Gardevoir, Diancie and Altaria (immunity to Bullet Punch), Slowbro, Gengar, Alakazam, Both Mewtwos Immunity to Sucker Punch), Houndoom, Absol, Tyranitar (immunity to Mach Punch/Vacuum Wave), Glalie (immunity to Bullet Punch, Mach Punch, and Vacuum Wave), and Beedrill (frail AF). These are just pokemon who either are super weak to priority or can abuse attacks from the terrain boost. And I'm certain I might have missed some! That's 17 out of 48 available megas. If this goes unchecked, the smogon council is going to be very busy this generation...
 
Well, Defiant user Bisharp, you were good while you lasted, buddy.
Mega Gardevoir hits harder and is faster, but the priority advantage really does take Lele here over the edge.
An OU staple.
 
Well, Defiant user Bisharp, you were good while you lasted, buddy.
Mega Gardevoir hits harder and is faster, but the priority advantage really does take Lele here over the edge.
An OU staple.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Reuniclus Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 324-382 (95 - 112%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO (just realised psychic terrain makes psychic even stronger than adaptability, so pretty sure its an ohko)

compared to:

232 SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 226-267 (66.2 - 78.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

or even this if you run modest on garde:

252+ SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 252-297 (73.9 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Tapu Lele outpowers garde.
 
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In VGC I predict it will be a Staple on Trick Room teams along with Oranguru

It fills the role of Powerful Fast Mon delivering a devastating First Turn Psychic or Taunt ontop if auto setting the terrain protecting the team from Priority another stab with Dazzling Gleam+Protect and Taunt/Calm Mind

It will be slow once tricky room goes up but if all else fails it's am excellent fast mon and stops those first turn Fake Outs
 
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Reuniclus Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 324-382 (95 - 112%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

compared to:

232 SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 226-267 (66.2 - 78.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

or even this if you run modest on garde:

252+ SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 252-297 (73.9 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Tapu Lele outpowers garde.
I knew someone would try to pick up on this.
Lele outpowers Garde on the Psychic side, but M-Garde outpowers Lele on the Fairy side - which one is more valuable?
 
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Lele's greatest advantage over Garde is that she doesn't take up a Mega slot, while having comparable firepower.
 
So
gardevoir is faster now thanks to the fact that megas get their speed on the turn they mega evolve. That's a small thing to consider.

Is there a mega pokemon who has good coverage to compliment fairy+psychic+fighting coverage? Perhaps something that tears aegislash and clefable a new one?
 
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i think you are asking the imposible, lol, the more i look at this the more broken it seems.

on a more serious note, what can actually switch in and threathen Lele?

psychics cant do much back
dark gets booped by fairy
steel --> focus blast

that leaves us with... ehm.... ahm...

megagross, skarmory... drapion? alolan muk?...

i dont know. seriusly, can someone give me a check for this thing? preferibly not in Ubers pls
 
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Reuniclus Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 324-382 (95 - 112%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

compared to:

232 SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 226-267 (66.2 - 78.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

or even this if you run modest on garde:

252+ SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Shaymin: 252-297 (73.9 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Tapu Lele outpowers garde.
Pretty sure he means with no items. With no Specs/life Orb Mega Garde hits harder without being reliant on Terrain & not taking damage from life orb or being limited to one move.
 

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i think you are asking the imposible, lol, the more i look at this the more broken it seems.

on a more serious note, what can actually switch in and threathen Lele?

psychics cant do much back
dark gets booped by fairy
steel --> focus blast

that leaves us with... ehm.... ahm...

megagross, skarmory... drapion? alolan muk?...

i dont know. seriusly, can someone give me a check for this thing? preferibly not in Ubers pls
Anything listed in Gardevoir's ORAS OU analysis that's not a priority user would be a good place to start. Faster physical attackers in general are checks as long as they switch in safely, but that's why they're called "checks."
 
Jirachi, Metagross AV (or Megagross, maybe a SpDef Zor if it exists) comes into mind. Tbh, I guess that you should run 216+ Speed on Jirachi to outspeed it because you definitely don't want to eat two hits from it.
Also, keep in mind that its Moonblast is significantly weaker than M-Garde, so the most important move to resist to is Psychic / Psyshock (and you try to stomach the others). I guess that things like Mandibuzz / A-Muk should work but do you really want to use those?
 
Specs Tapu Lele:
+1 252+ SpA Choice Specs Gengar Psychic vs. 248 HP / 200 SpD Mega Scizor: 150-177 (43.7 - 51.6%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

This thing is going to take down stuff with just Psychic/Psyshock with no drawbacks (-2 Sp. Atk for example). Also has Moonblast and Focus Blast...
 
Mega Garde won't even be available until January, when bank is updated.

And even then, the two aren't really in direct competion with each other: Mega Garde will enjoy the boost to its Psychic STAB, and immunity to Bullet Punch (among other priority moves).

The two of them together make a scary offensive duo.
 
Jirachi, Metagross AV (or Megagross, maybe a SpDef Zor if it exists) comes into mind. Tbh, I guess that you should run 216+ Speed on Jirachi to outspeed it because you definitely don't want to eat two hits from it.
Also, keep in mind that its Moonblast is significantly weaker than M-Garde, so the most important move to resist to is Psychic / Psyshock (and you try to stomach the others). I guess that things like Mandibuzz / A-Muk should work but do you really want to use those?
the problem i see in that, to resist psychic you use or another psychic (which will mean u will be doing jackshit to Lele), dark (who gets whiped with either fairy OR focus blast) or steel.

and in top of that, only those steels that dont take SE with Fblast will actually do something back.

what i want to say actually is that either you have a steel type NOT weak to Fblast or you are screwed...

and what about walls?

well, lets take suicune who is neutral to both stabs.

252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Gardevoir Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 148-177 (36.6 - 43.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
good¡ walls dont get 2KOed¡¡ yay

252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Gardevoir Psychic vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Suicune: 226-268 (55.9 - 66.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
or not...

and suicune is doing back...

0 SpA Suicune Scald vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Gardevoir: 70-84 (24.9 - 29.8%) -- 1.2% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock
not much. and lele is faster anyway.

and since its stabs are only resisted by steel and Fblast is godlike, u can use dual psychic stab to wreck things that would wall you from whatever side of the spectrum.

Sand rush exca? if lele predicts the switch there ends the fun. and even if not a predict

252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Gardevoir Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Excadrill: 182-214 (50.4 - 59.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

cant come twice and needs the sand to revenge kill it properly

WAIT.

does psychic terrain stops pursuit in a changue? if it does so, then when u see Mgross u can just... switch out again like nothing happen.

252 SpA Life Orb Gardevoir Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Metagross: 94-109 (31.2 - 36.2%) -- 99.8% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Gardevoir Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Metagross: 58-70 (19.2 - 23.2%) -- guaranteed 5HKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Life Orb Gardevoir Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Metagross: 157-186 (52.1 - 61.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

and FB 2KOES Mgross. if pursuit is blocked by psychic terrain this pokemon is... basically imposible to revenge kill.
 
Pretty sure he means with no items. With no Specs/life Orb Mega Garde hits harder without being reliant on Terrain & not taking damage from life orb or being limited to one move.
This is also true.
Not trying to be rude, but thats terrible logic.

What makes tapu lele that much better is the fact that it can hold an item other than a mega stone, which garde has to. In a way - a mega stone is an item too.

Tapu Lele is better than garde in almost every way.
 
It just seems very scary that even when i force out tapu lele which is a destructively powerful mon in its own right, i still have to start thinking of new ways to deal with its teammates which will be abusing their priority immunity afterwards. Weavile will be Tapu Lele's best friend in the future, taking out things like victini, mega metagross, jirachi etc whilst abusing the crap out of priority immunity. Or perhaps that honor will go to excadrill who does the same, while also being stupid-fast on a sand team and enjoying blocked mach punches and aqua jets. either way its utility cannot be understated and almost outvalues its offensive presence. This mon could singlehandedly change the metagame and kill off bulky prio spam. life orb sets outspeed regular bulky prio users like scizor, bisharp or azumarill, and scarf sets will make for successful sweepers.


btw, if you above are using adaptability to act as a psychic terrain boost, im pretty sure thats wrong. the boost from adaptability is lower than the +1 that psychic terrain gives to psychic attacks, so tapu lele does actually have a chance to 2hko physdef suicune after rocks with psyshock
 
Not trying to be rude, but thats terrible logic.

What makes tapu lele that much better is the fact that it can hold an item other than a mega stone, which garde has to. In a way - a mega stone is an item too.

Tapu Lele is better than garde in almost every way.
I've already made my point in this thread that while they are similar they still have a couple differences and different advantage. I think the more important question is it whenever Lele will be OU and not be suspect'd in the first place. And to be fair like I've said Specs limits Lele to one moves and Life Orb limits its survivability, and is also below the 100 speed mark.
 

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