Tapu Fini (QC 0/3)

[shrang]

[OVERVIEW]
- Cool mon with a bunch of applications
- Misty Terrain prevents status for 5-8 turns depending on item, which is a huge boon to a bunch of set up sweepers
- Outside of terrain, Tapu Fini is also a decent Dark-type check, easily checking Yveltal, as well as a good Primal Kyogre pivot for Primal Groudon, as well as disrupting Psychic Terrain
- Weak to Mega Gengar unfortunately, so you need to be quite careful with it around
- Also lacks ways to hurt Primal Groudon outside of Nature's Madness, which is quite debilitating
- Also has no options for recovery outside of Leftovers, which is kind of annoying since you really want Terrain Extender to boost time for Misty Terrain


[SET]
name: Misty Terrain
move 1: Nature's Madness
move 2: Defog
move 3: Moonblast
move 4: Hydro Pump / Taunt
item: Leftovers / Terrain Extender
ability: Misty Surge
nature: Calm
evs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD

[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========
- Nature's Madness is your catch all "hurt every switch-in" move that wipes out 1/2 HP to anything that switches in, which is really cool
- Defog - well Tapu Fini learns it, so you may as well use it over a Pokemon you could probably do a lot more with, like an Arc forme
- Moonblast is consistent STAB to hit things Tapu Fini are supposed to check - namely Darks
- Hydro Pump hits Gengar relatively hard
- Taunt stops CM Darkceus from getting too many boosts (although you will lose and end up trading with it), it also stops hazard users like Ferrothorn from taking advantage of Tapu Fini's lack of offenses


Set Details
========
- Status immunity is an awesome boon to give to its allies, especially those that are commonly stopped by status - see Ekiller, GeoXern, setup Primal Groudons and a bunch of others
- On top of that Tapu Fini is also good for switching into Dark-types, switching into Water attacks from Primal Kyogre so Primal Groudon can come back in, and disrupting Psychic Terrain teams
- Problems: Mega Gengar weak (never good), no reliable recovery, has trouble hitting Primal Groudon outside of Nature's Madness
- Another thing to note as a problem: Tapu Fini is inherently a defensive Pokemon but the Pokemon that it gives support to are offensive Pokemon, which means you lose a ton of momentum as soon as you're in, kind of like what Lugia does if you land it in an HO team
- Leftovers is ideal because unlike other Tapus, Tapu Fini is primarily a defensive Pokemon and needs to switch into Pokemon multiple times, but Terrain Extender is also valuable for extending Misty Terrain to 8 turns


Usage Tips
========
- Don't throw this thing away willy-nilly - it does more than just provide terrain
- Early game you should probably just spam Nature's Madness and catch switch-ins while setting up terrain and switch out whenever possible to your sweeper
- Be careful around Mega Gengar - while you can live a Sludge Wave, you can only beat it if you hit it with Nature's Madness or Hydro Pump on the switch-in, switch out as it's Mega evolving and kill it after it comes back in later (Hydro Pump does ~45%)
- As mentioned above, Tapu Fini is a huge momentum sapper, as such you should limit its time in battle as much as possible. Once you've switched into like Yveltal or something, try to double to your sweeper straight away so you can take advantage of whatever they switch into Tapu Fini rather than passive switching out of their counter - while you should not play recklessly, you do need to be quite aggressive when using this


Team Options
========
- Setup sweepers - lots of them
- Extreme Killer Arceus - loves the fact it can't be burned or Toxiced so it can set up a couple of times and go to town
- (Z-)Geomancy Xerneas - Thunder Wave, while nerfed, is still annoying to GeoXern. Z-Geomancy is a completely different beast with Misty Terrain; with Ingrain and Misty Terrain, you take out any chance for it getting stopped passively
- Double/Swords Dance Primal Groudon - stuff like Waterceus can now do absolutely zero to Primal Groudon under Misty Terrain
- Calm Mind Lunala - Misty Terrain lets it Calm Mind and Roost more freely without having to worry about status for a few turns, and Tapu Fini switches beautifully into Dark-types that counter Lunala
- Other Calm Mind users - Primal Kyogre, Arceus-Fairy (a bit redundant on typing)
- Obviously don't just pile Tapu Fini + 5 sweepers, you still need stuff like entry hazards, a defensive core and what not
- Primal Groudon itself can be used as the most reliable Stealth Rock user (aside from probably Dialga)
- Defensively things that go well with Tapu Fini - Giratina-O, Dark-types (particularly Tyranitar, see next entry), Steel-types like Solgaleo, Ho-oh
- Tyranitar: While Sand Stream messes with Tapu Fini's longevity (especially if you're holding Terrain Extender), it goes a long way in removing Gengar from the picture (although Pursuiting Gengar is still tricky, even with Tyranitar)
- Other Pursuit users: Deoxys-A will pretty much guarantee a Gengar switch-out for an easy Pursuit - defensively it doesn't do much for Tapu Fini, but it's a great fit onto offensive teams and probably the most reliable Pokemon to Pursuit Gengar with at this stage


[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============
- Haze
- Calm Mind - pretty interesting, as you can beat CM Refresh Dark Arceus with this, while if you Calm Mind on a Gengar switch, you can Calm Mind again and then OHKOing the thing with Hydro Pump, while Tapu Fini avoids getting 2HKOed by Sludge Wave
- Dual Screens
- Soak
- Psych Up
- Whirlpool


Checks and Counters
===================
- Note: None of the following Pokemon will enjoy taking Nature's Madness, unless they have reliable recovery
- Primal Groudon
- Mega Gengar
- Primal Kyogre
- Skarmory
- Ferrothorn
- Solgaleo
- Ho-oh
- Toxapex/Tentacruel/Arceus-Poison

 

[Fireburn]

Early comments:

I think Defog is mandatory on the first set. It's a big niche Tapu Fini has and without it, it just kinda sits there.

I don't really think the Calm Mind set is any good - it is weak even with boosts and lacks recovery. If you're scared of CM Darkceus overpowering you it is probably a better idea to just use Taunt, which should allow you to beat it consistently combined with Nature's Madness and Moonblast. Taunt is also nice to keep Spikers from trying to set up on Tapu Fini (otherwise you can't really do anything to touch Ferrothorn).

So I'd do one set that looks like this:

[SET]
name: Misty Terrain
move 1: Nature's Madness
move 2: Defog
move 3: Moonblast
move 4: Hydro Pump / Taunt
item: Leftovers / Terrain Extender
ability: Misty Surge
nature: Calm
evs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD

Decided to forgo Protect since I don't think it's necessary - if you have a free turn where you don't need to Defog you should click Nature's Madness since it chunks literally everything.

Will comment more when this moves out of WIP.

 

[Cobalt314]

Do you think Whirlpool deserves a mention in Other Options? Combined with taunt, it can completely shut down defensive walls, and nothing can force it out thanks to an immunity to Dragon Tail and taunting any Roars/Whirlwinds. It is admittedly a gimmick at best, which is why I think it should be only OO.

 

[shrang]

Okay, this is ready for QC
- Personally I kind of like Calm Mind, it gives Tapu Fini a bit of offense, plus it lets you defeat Mega Gengar 1v1 (Sludge Wave does ~50% to +1 and even less at +2, which means you can CM to +2 and OHKO Gengar with Hydro Pump) - we can talk about it later anyway
- Whirlpool - I haven't really tried it, but I'm not sure how keen people would be to switch their defensive walls into Tapu Fini seeing as 1) it's quite weak and there's no need, 2) they can't do anything to Tapu Fini due to Misty Terrain which leads to 3) the only Pokemon that people would switch into Tapu Fini are those that will be able to attack and kill Tapu Fini

 

[thirdcry]

arceus dark actually doesnt give a fuck about this pokemon. it just keeps clicking cm and recover and then sweeps over it. even taunt doesnt help much because moonblast only does twenty to +2 arceus dark. at best you can force chip and then revenge kill after sacking tapu fini because you cant hard switch into boosted judgments. also you just lose if the arceus dark runs coverage regardless of your set. tapu fini is just a bad role compression pokemon sadly.

 

[shrang]

Assuming both are at 100% you will always get Refresh Darkceus down to low enough health that you can pick it off with pretty much anything - remember this is supposed to be run on a team with sweepers on it. But yea, you're right Tapu Fini will lose with Taunt/NM/Moonblast. Looks like we actually need CM to beat CM Darkceus?

Basically what happens: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebankubers-491628683

Actually, food for thought:

[22:40:48] #shrang: !learn tapu fini, psych up
In Gen 7, Tapu Fini can learn Psych Up from:

• anywhere (all moves are level-up/tutor/TM/HM in gen 7)

It also gets Haze, so...

 

[Hack]

I'm very unconvinced with this mon's capabilities.

Whenever a lower tier mon with OK defensive stats and poor offenses wants to make it in Uber there are two ways to go about it. The first is to act as a synergetic option for balance by bringing some kind of support move and/or checking capability to a offensive threat(s) to table, think Klefki. The other alternative is to find a niche on stall, by performing a more specialized role in walling, think Blissey.

The second option goes out of the window due to Tapu-Fini's ability, which prevents stall from using status moves on grounded mons. So that leaves us with Tapu-Fini balance which feels... bad? Its a good check to Yveltal and maybe Kyogre while getting the coveted Defog, but it is lacking so much in the anti hazard role due to its poor match up against Pdon. It also inhibits balances from using status moves at crucial times. All in all I think its ability, typing and movepool would be very suitable for an offensive team but it's a poor offensive mon.

I want to see more empirical proof of its usage before I reject this, however.

 

[dice]

this pokemon is a rly piss poor check to anything + lacks the moves and stats to defog effectively + requires another partner to cover darkeus on more offensively inclined teams which makes synergy quite difficult. ok, it beats yveltal: cool. thing is, it lacks much entry otherwise and doesn't have much of a movepool to make up for its shortcomings.

rejected 1/3

 

[shrang]

It's an iffy mon, but maybe try CM as well before you finish testing it?

 

[Fireburn]

After doing some more testing with Tapu Fini...I am also going to reject it.

I honestly did try to make it work because in theory Defog + Yveltal check + status immunity support for grounded sweepers is really nice but I don't think Tapu Fini brings enough to the table to justify using it. It is difficult to use it alongside the grounded sweepers you would want to pair Tapu Fini with (PDon, EKiller) because Tapu Fini is a pretty large momentum drain, only switching in comfortably against Yveltal/defensive walls, losing to most physical attackers, and only having Nature's Madness as meaningful offense (that replay where it lost 1v1 to Arceus-Dark was just tragic lol...guess I overestimated Tapu Fini). You also can't really afford to run Terrain Extender to get more benefit out of the Misty Terrain because Tapu Fini will die very quickly without Leftovers, so you often don't actually get much time to actually take advantage of it before it expires. It's also not a great Defog user in practice since it is easy to wear down due to lack of recovery, is easily trapped by Mega Gengar if it has a Poison STAB, and cannot switch in against offensive hazard setters such as Primal Groudon or Dialga which inhibits its usefulness on Ho-Oh balance teams (a mon that would otherwise be a decent partner). Not to mention this mon hurts stall more than it helps since it blocks Rest and stops you from using Toxic...

In short: it's defensive niche is limited, it's a mediocre Defog user, and its lack of offense clashes with the goal of pairing it with sweepers to make use of Misty Terrain because it's just too darn passive. Nature's Madness is cool but it's not really enough to justify this mon, if Tapu Fini got recovery or better offense we might be playing a different ballgame here. Honestly a shame because it has a cool design. :(

QC Rejected 2/3

 

[Nayrz]

I think the other QC have summed up just about everything I'd say for this mon. There is potential there... but too many downsides. This early in the meta I think it would be wise to have attention elsewhere, but you never know what the future will have for the stuff rejected in the skeleton stage. We'll see.

QC Rejected 3/3