Pokémon Gyarados

[escarlata]

Base Stats: 95 HP / 125 Atk / 79 Def / 60 SpA / 100 SpD / 81 Spe
Abilities: Intimidate / Moxie
Notable Moves:

Moves

- Crunch
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Tail
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
- Iron Head
- Stone Edge
- Substitute
- Taunt
- Thunder Wave
- Waterfall

Notable Move Deletions

- Power Whip
- Bounce
- Roar

Pros:
- Fantastic bulk and typing allows Gyarados gives plenty of chances to set up.
- Access to two powerful abilities, Moxie giving Gyarados a lot of snowballing potential, while Intimidate is an invaluable rare commodity to have currently.
- Generally less bulky metagame means Gyarados is less easily walled, especially when many of the premier walls currently available are weak to Water.
- Resistance to common priority moves like Mach Punch and Jet Punch.
- Great user of Terastalisation, either giving it a reliable Flying STAB, or giving it the chance to choose for an entirely different one.

Cons:
- Lost access to important coverage options such as Power Whip and Bounce, as well as some utility moves such as Roar.
- 81 Spe can be mediocre depending on the matchup, especially when several Paradox mons have the option to get a +1 Spe for free.
- Coverage can sometimes be limiting without Terastalising.
- Defensive sets lack reliable recovery.

Potential Sets:
Offensive DD
Gyarados @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Life Orb / Leftovers
Ability: Moxie
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Earthquake / Stone Edge
- Tera Blast / Ice Fang / Iron Head

The cookie-cutter Gyarados set really. Gyarados's great typing, especially in a meta currently lacking powerful Electric and Rock moves, allows it to come in and easily boost up. Moxie allows Gyarados to quickly snowball out of control after Gyarados manages to score a KO. Gyarados is a great user of Terastalisation, as it makes up for the loss of Power Whip and Bounce from the generational shift.

Terastalisation Potential:
-

gives Gyarados its much needed Flying STAB to be a true offensive force. Water/Flying/Groundhas effectively perfect coverage, and a +1 Adaptability Flying Tera Blastist just really good at taking names.
-

gives Gyarados's Waterfall a significant increase in power to break through bulky neutral targets such as Corviknight after just a bit of chip damage, can frequently miss out of crucial coverage though.
-

is a very interesting choice for Gyarados to attempt for a second DD boost to blow through Rain teams. Water/Grass with either Ice or Steel is phenomenal coverage, and allows you to keep your Water resistance against the likes of Dondozo or Quaquaval.

Additional tips:
- Utility Umbrella is a very funny item to have on Gyarados because of the abundance of Sun running around, letting you break through things like Torkoal and Great Tusk with impunity. It can also be hilarious to see Specs Chi-Yu try to Fire Blast you in the Sun, deal a bit more than 40% damage, while you just DD up in its face.

Utility DD
Gyarados @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Dark / Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Crunch / Tera Blast
- Taunt / Substitute

Using Intimidate over Moxie means Gyarados loses some of its snowballing potential, but Intimidate is a great utility to have in any team. Taunt and Substitute can be invaluable in allowing Gyarados to avoid status from the likes of Skeledirge, and can often give Gyarados the ability to get multiple boosts under its belt. A more bulky spread can be used, though try to avoid going under 196 Jolly Spe so that you can still reliably outspeed Chien-Pao at +1.

Terastalisation Potential:
-

not only also provides great coverage with Water, but also means Gyarados can run Crunch instead of Tera Blast to be not completely helpless if you are forced to Tera one of your other mons. Dark is especially nice when running Substitute, as it allows you to set up in the face of Roaring Moon, Gholdengo and Chien-Pao. Roaring Moon and Ghodengo especially have to hard read the Tera typing in order to break its sub with a move that Gyarados normally resists.
-

still gives Gyarados phenomenal type coverage in just 2 moves, while retaining Gyarados's invaluable ability to switch into Ground and Fighting moves.
-

and

are just generically good typings to have on a mon with Intimidate, though you may run into coverage issues.

Additional Notes:
- If you don't end up using Tera on Gyarados, vanilla Tera Blast actually still offers pretty decent neutral coverage. But that usually rests on the assumption that you can get multiple DDs up.

Lando-T at home
Gyarados @ Leftovers / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Waterfall
- Dragon Tail / Taunt
- Thunder Wave / Sleep Talk
- Protect / Rest

With an invaluable Ground immunity and Fighting resist, Defensive Gyarados is honestly one of the best defensive Intimidators we have at the moment. After an intimidate, Great Tusk and Chien-Pao can't really touch it. Iron Valiant and Roaring Moon don't hit it particularly hard either, and either eats an Iron Head to the face (Valiant), or get T-waved/Phased when trying to set up. In this fast paced metagame, spreading Paralysis with Thunder Wave can be especially deadly when we don't really have many good status absorbers at the moment. Sure Paradox Donphans feel like they are on every team, but they don't particularly enjoy taking several Waterfalls to the face either, even when unboosteed. The main weakness defensive Gyarados has at the moment is its lack of recovery, which makes Wish / Heal Bell support invaluable to have (though it is perfectly functional without it).

Terastalisation Potential:
- Similar to the last set,

and

are just generically good typings to have on a mon with Intimidate, though you may want to weigh how much you value the Ground immunity. Tera Blast Fairy can even be an option if you really really hate Roaring Moon.

Additional notes:
- Iron Head, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Crunch etc are also some other coverage you can consider, if you are having specific trouble with something that those attacks hit.
- Icy Wind, Bulldoze, Chilling Water can be run to blank opposing boosts if necessary.
- Body Slam can be run with RestTalk to retain both neutral coverage, as well as Paralysis support.
- SDef or mixed defensive builds can also work to cover the likes of Chi-Yu, though I have not yet found a good spread.
- After the recent bans of Palafin and Flutter Mane, this set can feel really passive against some matchups. RestTalk DD might be possible, though I have yet to actually try it too much yet.

 

[Micesmack]

(wow my avatar's outdated, can you tell I haven't played seriously since Gen 4?)

I'm curious why you didn't mention Tera-Ground for Gyarados. It's the obvious choice. Bait the electric move, get a free set up off the immunity, and then you get STAB Earthquake.

I feel like Gyarados is "Almost Good" in this meta. He can come in on a bunch of stuff. Roaring Moon, Great Tusk, Chien-Pao, Torkoal etc. He resists a lot of the big threats and there are very few mons that OHKO Gyara outright. I think the biggest issue is he's consistently outsped after a Dragon Dance. Even after a DDance he's outsped by Chien-Pao, Dragapult, most scarfers, and the abundance of priority doesn't help. It makes him too easy to chip down for a sweeper. I think there's a reason Dragonite is the premier DDancer right now, and it's because he gets a priority move.

 

[Eeveeto]

Does Gyarados learn some Normal move stronger than Terablast? Because I feel like it might have a potential with Normal Terastal, DD, Waterfall and EQ. Water and Normal already are a type combination resisted by:
Ferro (Dexited)
Kartana (Dexited)
Jellicent (Dexited)
Empoleon (Dexited)
Dragapult ( Present but kinda frail)
Giratina (Uber and Home Mon... For now)
Cradily (Dexited)
Shedinja (Dexited)
Trevenant (Dexited )
Gourgeist (Dexited)
Decidueye (home Mon and kinda frail)
Dhelmise (Dexited )
That new Grass Ghost Mon whose name I didn't learn yet (again, kinda frail)

So, if Gyarados does have something Normal stronger than Terablast, in the right team he could quickly get out of control with Moxie, before Terastal inevitably gets banned of course.

 

[Gun Devil]

Does Gyarados learn some Normal move stronger than Terablast? Because I feel like it might have a potential with Normal Terastal, DD, Waterfall and EQ. Water and Normal already are a type combination resisted by:
Ferro (Dexited)
Kartana (Dexited)
Jellicent (Dexited)
Empoleon (Dexited)
Dragapult ( Present but kinda frail)
Giratina (Uber and Home Mon... For now)
Cradily (Dexited)
Shedinja (Dexited)
Trevenant (Dexited )
Gourgeist (Dexited)
Decidueye (home Mon and kinda frail)
Dhelmise (Dexited )
That new Grass Ghost Mon whose name I didn't learn yet (again, kinda frail)

So, if Gyarados does have something Normal stronger than Terablast, in the right team he could quickly get out of control with Moxie, before Terastal inevitably gets banned of course.

The only stronger Normal moves it can learn besides Terablast are Take Down and Giga Impact and honestly i wouldn't rely too much on them, Terablast seems the most stable option unless you want to go with Take Down which is only 10 BP stronger than Terablast, has recoil and has 85% accuracy. I believe Terablast will be the most stable option to run with Normal Tera Gyarados.

 

[escarlata]

(wow my avatar's outdated, can you tell I haven't played seriously since Gen 4?)

I'm curious why you didn't mention Tera-Ground for Gyarados. It's the obvious choice. Bait the electric move, get a free set up off the immunity, and then you get STAB Earthquake.

I feel like Gyarados is "Almost Good" in this meta. He can come in on a bunch of stuff. Roaring Moon, Great Tusk, Chien-Pao, Torkoal etc. He resists a lot of the big threats and there are very few mons that OHKO Gyara outright. I think the biggest issue is he's consistently outsped after a Dragon Dance. Even after a DDance he's outsped by Chien-Pao, Dragapult, most scarfers, and the abundance of priority doesn't help. It makes him too easy to chip down for a sweeper. I think there's a reason Dragonite is the premier DDancer right now, and it's because he gets a priority move.

Ground is a good type to Tera to, but when you have the option of all types to go to, it didn’t necessarily feel like the best when testing.

1. At least at the time of writing the original article, Palafin was still running rampant, and being weak to his Jet Punch meant I often had to hold Tera for way too long.

2. For me personally, whenever Gyarados could hit something, it never actually felt like he didn’t hit hard enough. His problem was always that there is just a lot of things he couldn’t hit, especially after losing Bounce and Power Whip. Water/Ground coverage, especially on a Sub/Taunt set is walled by an entire type, and even on the 3 Attack set, having to run unSTAB Ice Fang just kinda sucks.

3. Losing the Electric weakness is honestly more than enough to get an additional DD that the inferior coverage just didn’t feel worth it imo, especially when Electric coverage this gen is currently at an all time low.

Does Gyarados learn some Normal move stronger than Terablast? Because I feel like it might have a potential with Normal Terastal, DD, Waterfall and EQ. Water and Normal already are a type combination resisted by:
Ferro (Dexited)
Kartana (Dexited)
Jellicent (Dexited)
Empoleon (Dexited)
Dragapult ( Present but kinda frail)
Giratina (Uber and Home Mon... For now)
Cradily (Dexited)
Shedinja (Dexited)
Trevenant (Dexited )
Gourgeist (Dexited)
Decidueye (home Mon and kinda frail)
Dhelmise (Dexited )
That new Grass Ghost Mon whose name I didn't learn yet (again, kinda frail)

So, if Gyarados does have something Normal stronger than Terablast, in the right team he could quickly get out of control with Moxie, before Terastal inevitably gets banned of course.

Wait, this is very interesting, but for a different reason.

The fact that vanilla Terablast is actually good coverage for Gyarados this gen means on the utilityDD set, Terablast kinda functions as the third coverage move. I could totally see something like Tera Fairy Gyarados waiting on the Terastallization to beat Amoongus, and then Tera after it’s gone to break Dragapult for example.

 

[Micesmack]

2. For me personally, whenever Gyarados could hit something, it never actually felt like he didn’t hit hard enough. His problem was always that there is just a lot of things he couldn’t hit, especially after losing Bounce and Power Whip. Water/Ground coverage, especially on a Sub/Taunt set is walled by an entire type, and even on the 3 Attack set, having to run unSTAB Ice Fang just kinda sucks.

TRUE! Gyara feels like a wet noodle compared to Chien & Moon. And true on #3 as well. Not many flying types or even water types now that the Dolphin is out of our lives.

Does Gyarados learn some Normal move stronger than Terablast? Because I feel like it might have a potential with Normal Terastal, DD, Waterfall and EQ. Water and Normal already are a type combination resisted by:

So, if Gyarados does have something Normal stronger than Terablast, in the right team he could quickly get out of control with Moxie, before Terastal inevitably gets banned of course.

How about Body Slam? It's not crazy strong or anything but it has the para utility.

 

[Joseph Gomes]

escarlata Should consider removing all references to banned mons like Palafin/Iron Bundle etc and update OP accordingly

 

[escarlata]

Updated OP to remove mentioned of banned mons.
Below are some of my thoughts following the recent meta shifts.

- When Palafin and Flutter Mane were still around, the defensive set felt the best to me because he semi-reliable answers to most of their common sets. As the meta is starting to slow down, it is starting to feel too passive most of the time. Still surprisingly difficuly to kill thanks to its amazing typing and Intimidate, but otherwise pose no pressure to the opponent at all, unless you really need to spread Paralysis to support something like Specs Chi-Yu.

- Utility DD feels to be the best set at the moment. Against faster teams I'm just using him as a Intimidate + Taunt support, whereas against defensive teams Taunt + DD just makes it a very solid wincon who can break Dondozo Clodsire cores. Sub still works fine, but not having Bounce to stall for Leftovers recover, and opposing defensive Waters no longer having Scald, makes Taunt feel more reliable (especially when Dondozo can't Curse up alongside you)

- Offensive DD with Moxie is still pretty good, but very high-rolly with matchups. Against matchups where you can make use Tera to get a second DD, you can easily snowball out of control, but fails to even find one DD against others.

 

[STEELDRAGON]

The power creep in the generation has led me to using Gyarados with a lot more bulk than in the past. Intimidate is really valuable, and the vast majority of pokemon are unable to hit it super effectively. Dragon Tail+Taunt really rips fat teams once you have hazards down.