Man, imagine a timeline where they gave Hydro Steam a burn chance.
Imagine if they gave steam eruption the same effect under sunMan, imagine a timeline where they gave Hydro Steam a burn chance.
List of Checks/Counters to Walking Wake
With the introduction of Walking Wake and Iron Leaves, the meta has already started to adapt quite a lot--and mostly to the former.
Walking Wake is somewhat similar to Iron Bundle in function: same Sp. Atk., slower but still very fast, great offensive STABs to spam Water & Dragon moves, pretty respectable bulk for such an offensive threat, and also a niche in being a Water-type sun abuser. Under the sun, Walking Wake's STAB moves are 120 BP and 130 BP, respectively, and with its great special attack stat paired with a damage-boosting item and even a boost from Protosynthesis, it becomes a fantastic breaker.
Time will tell if it is broken or not, but for now, here are a bunch of defensive and offensive checks! Let me know your thoughts or if you have any other suggestions for me to add to the list. I will also link a PokePaste to some sets I came up with at the bottom of the post.
DEFENSIVE:
Counters
Water Absorb Clod with Tera Fairy will win the 1v1 against Walking Wake while providing great utility. I made a post about it just above this if you want to read more.
Slowking has the combination of Regenerator and Slack Off that makes it very hard to break, the only problem is it cannot do much back to Wake. Otherwise, it is a very solid pivot that should reliably counter Walking Wake.
Blissey is in the same situation as Slowking, but it provides different utility. Also, it can win the 1v1 against Walking Wake much more easily than Slowking.
Sp. Def. Toxapex serves a similar role to Slowking as a Regenerator pivot. It can also spread Toxic, posing a threat to Wake.
Checks
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These Water-types are all decent checks with 2 being immune to Water moves, but a good prediction will cause trouble. Azumarill resists all 3 moves, but it has no reliable recovery; not to mention, sun-boosted Specs Hydro Steam 2HKOs normal Azu sets. Gastrodon is a worse Clod imo since it cannot tank as well on the special side and misses out on Toxic. Vaporeon cannot damage Wake and has to rely on Wish spam & stalling out Draco Meteors. They all are viable picks though, and they offer utility outside of the Wake matchup.
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These Fairy-types are immune to Walking Wake's Draco Meteor and can pressure back with Fairy moves while possessing solid enough Sp. Def. to deal with a Water move as well as reliable recovery. Scream Tail outspeeds Wake, both Scream Tail and Sylveon can pass Wishes, both Sylveon and Florges can set up with Calm Mind, and Florges can take advantage of sun spam with the boost in healing from Synthesis.
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These Steel-types resist Draco Meteor, have good enough bulk to potentially tank Water moves, tank a Flamethrower, and will be useful outside of Wake matchups. Gholdengo has Recover, and Kingambit can Sucker Punch to deal solid damage.
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These Grass-types are quite specially bulky and can kind of check Wake. Both Wo-Chien and Toedscruel can Leech Seed, they both tank Flamethrower easily, and both provide Knock Off support. Toed can also Rapid Spin, set up Spikes, and Spore if need be. Yes, I'm a big Toed enthusiast.
On the off-chance that Wake lost its Choice Specs or is running another item, Cryogonal can actually beat Wake while not being deadweight on the team. Freeze-Dry just barely OHKOs offensive Wake with 8 EVs in Sp. Atk.; it provides Rapid Spin and Haze support; it has reliable recovery; it is a Ground immunity. Very niche but very cool.
Chansey is Blissey but worse. It serves as a check rather than a counter because hazard stacking and/or getting Eviolite Knock'd Off removes its ability to wall reliably. Still an option I guess, so I'll toss it in here.
OFFENSIVE:
Dragapult can use either Draco Meteor or Dragon Darts.
Roaring Moon can use Scale Shot, Outrage, or CB Dragon Claw. It will outspeed any Wake variant in the sun with the typical CB set.
Iron Valiant can use Moonblast or CB Spirit Break.
Walking Wake beats Walking Wake. Wonderful.
Dragonite can Tera Normal, tank a hit, Dragon Dance up, and outspeed. It can also just Extreme Speed to pick up the kill.
Choice Scarf or Focus Sash Garchomp can use Draco Meteor, Outrage, or Dragon Claw (Wake must be chipped).
Choice Scarf Hydreigon can use Draco Meteor.
Choice Scarf or Focus Sash Glimmora can use Tera Fairy Dazzling Gleam (OHKOs Offensive Wake 37.5% of the time).
Maushold just outspeeds Wake, and it can either go for Population Bomb or use Tidy Up on the switch.
Roaring Moon does not outrun Walking Wake in Sun with CB lmfao. Unless you're sacrificing your Attack for Speed Boost Proto, Moon only hits 370 on Max Speed Jolly, whereas Wake hits well over 500. DD, Scarf and nerfed CB does outrun it, though.List of Checks/Counters to Walking Wake
With the introduction of Walking Wake and Iron Leaves, the meta has already started to adapt quite a lot--and mostly to the former.
Walking Wake is somewhat similar to Iron Bundle in function: same Sp. Atk., slower but still very fast, great offensive STABs to spam Water & Dragon moves, pretty respectable bulk for such an offensive threat, and also a niche in being a Water-type sun abuser. Under the sun, Walking Wake's STAB moves are 120 BP and 130 BP, respectively, and with its great special attack stat paired with a damage-boosting item and even a boost from Protosynthesis, it becomes a fantastic breaker.
Time will tell if it is broken or not, but for now, here are a bunch of defensive and offensive checks! Let me know your thoughts or if you have any other suggestions for me to add to the list. I will also link a PokePaste to some sets I came up with at the bottom of the post.
DEFENSIVE:
Counters
Water Absorb Clod with Tera Fairy will win the 1v1 against Walking Wake while providing great utility. I made a post about it just above this if you want to read more.
Slowking has the combination of Regenerator and Slack Off that makes it very hard to break, the only problem is it cannot do much back to Wake. Otherwise, it is a very solid pivot that should reliably counter Walking Wake.
Blissey is in the same situation as Slowking, but it provides different utility. Also, it can win the 1v1 against Walking Wake much more easily than Slowking.
Sp. Def. Toxapex serves a similar role to Slowking as a Regenerator pivot. It can also spread Toxic, posing a threat to Wake.
Checks
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These Water-types are all decent checks with 2 being immune to Water moves, but a good prediction will cause trouble. Azumarill resists all 3 moves, but it has no reliable recovery; not to mention, sun-boosted Specs Hydro Steam 2HKOs normal Azu sets. Gastrodon is a worse Clod imo since it cannot tank as well on the special side and misses out on Toxic. Vaporeon cannot damage Wake and has to rely on Wish spam & stalling out Draco Meteors. They all are viable picks though, and they offer utility outside of the Wake matchup.
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These Fairy-types are immune to Walking Wake's Draco Meteor and can pressure back with Fairy moves while possessing solid enough Sp. Def. to deal with a Water move as well as reliable recovery. Scream Tail outspeeds Wake, both Scream Tail and Sylveon can pass Wishes, both Sylveon and Florges can set up with Calm Mind, and Florges can take advantage of sun spam with the boost in healing from Synthesis.
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These Steel-types resist Draco Meteor, have good enough bulk to potentially tank Water moves, tank a Flamethrower, and will be useful outside of Wake matchups. Gholdengo has Recover, and Kingambit can Sucker Punch to deal solid damage.
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These Grass-types are quite specially bulky and can kind of check Wake. Both Wo-Chien and Toedscruel can Leech Seed, they both tank Flamethrower easily, and both provide Knock Off support. Toed can also Rapid Spin, set up Spikes, and Spore if need be. Yes, I'm a big Toed enthusiast.
On the off-chance that Wake lost its Choice Specs or is running another item, Cryogonal can actually beat Wake while not being deadweight on the team. Freeze-Dry just barely OHKOs offensive Wake with 8 EVs in Sp. Atk.; it provides Rapid Spin and Haze support; it has reliable recovery; it is a Ground immunity. Very niche but very cool.
Chansey is Blissey but worse. It serves as a check rather than a counter because hazard stacking and/or getting Eviolite Knock'd Off removes its ability to wall reliably. Still an option I guess, so I'll toss it in here.
OFFENSIVE:
Dragapult can use either Draco Meteor or Dragon Darts.
Roaring Moon can use Scale Shot, Outrage, or CB Dragon Claw. It will outspeed any Wake variant in the sun with the typical CB set.
Iron Valiant can use Moonblast or CB Spirit Break.
Walking Wake beats Walking Wake. Wonderful.
Dragonite can Tera Normal, tank a hit, Dragon Dance up, and outspeed. It can also just Extreme Speed to pick up the kill.
Choice Scarf or Focus Sash Garchomp can use Draco Meteor, Outrage, or Dragon Claw (Wake must be chipped).
Choice Scarf Hydreigon can use Draco Meteor.
Choice Scarf or Focus Sash Glimmora can use Tera Fairy Dazzling Gleam (OHKOs Offensive Wake 37.5% of the time).
Maushold just outspeeds Wake, and it can either go for Population Bomb or use Tidy Up on the switch.
these scenarios don't always the translate the way you want it to in actual game Moyashi. azumarill is a fine answer. azumarill is used on mostly offensive archetypes, being a 1-time check is enough. if it's +SpA booster to kill your azumarill, it's most likely not doing the dash on your team to begin with when it's slower than your valiant even post-booster lol. and walking wake, even with +speed protosynthesis, can be out-maneuvered by many offensive archetypes. it's not some unbeatable threat that people are making it out to be: booster valiant, dragapult (6-0's like every sun lol), focus sash users, hydreigon, the aforementioned dragonite, booster iron moth, your own walking wake, roaring moon, quaquaval, baxcalibur, etc. yes i understand that some of these die to hydro steam and draco meteor respectively but it's locking into one or the other and offense can capitalize on this.
one can say a life orb set stops this from being counter-play but i've played many life orb walking wakes with offense and those residuals tend to stack very quickly. i actually find life orb to be a near unusable item in modern gens. health management is too valuable, even on HO nowadays. here's a replay (2k+) demonstrating this. i also have some other high ladder replays of Storm Zone naturally dealing with sun-walking wake with offense:
replay 1 - storm zone didn't go out of his way to check walking wake at all. dragonite, booster valiant, and kingambit are all good 'mons that deal with it. it's not like chien-pao where it has dual priority and 135 base speed to invalidate your entire offense team.
replay 2 - sun is a flawed archetype. dragonite just 6-0'd, nothing the opponent could do even with "broken walking wake."
replay 3 - walking wake doesn't even come out. this pokemon doesn't have as many entry points compared to something like garganacl which comes in net 50 times and spams broken salt cure like a pussy. speaking of garganacl, it 6-0s all suns. there's nothing they can do especially if it's tera-water.
sun is a very volatile archetype. that's my problem. it's S-rank caliber in sun, don't get it twisted, but when you have to use sun for this thing to be "broken" (and even then i don't think it is) then that in itself says a lot. without sun support it's an A, maybe A+ rank threat but walking wake for sure is not broken on weather-less teams. it needs sun for one to say it's broken and sun as an archetype loses hard to so many common threats (very fishy as we have seen in SPL). walking wake simply makes sun more consistent. i don't find that to be a bad thing.
even your own walking wake is amazing counter-play vs opposing sun teams. a lot of weather-less teams love to use the combo of walking wake and great tusk. if your opponent decides to go with the "i want a broken walking wake" approach it will apply both ways. bringing sun to big tour games was already a risk. now it's even more volatile due to the threat of playing what would've been a balanced version of walking wake otherwise.
now you might be saying what about more defensive archetypes? do we have to use slowking and water absorb clodsire on every team now? i mean these are not bad 'mons at all. and no, you don't. even something like fairy garganacl + toxapex can suffice.
also i don't get why you're so harsh on hippowdon and tyranitar. they are not that bad and if you refuse to consider them in the team-building process then idk what to say. i play with fat balance myself and i am very open to this metagame adapting and the shift walking wake has caused. hippowdon and tyranitar are not even close to as bad as something like tauros lol
hippowdon can use stealth rock, phase with whirlwind which annoys offense like crazy (especially shed tail scrubs), and sand is amazing for residuals, breaking sashes, multiscale etc. hippowdon can even pp stall a lot of garganacl's salt cures which is critical in longer games
tyranitar is also a fine 'mon. outside of setting up rocks and sand, it can also pressure great tusk on the switch with ice beam and spread paralysis. the typing is also decent since it can check non-band dragapult, certain volcarona sets, skeledirge, and iron moth.
once again i'd like to clarify that sun is terrible when you load into either of these pokemon. when shit like roaring moon, walking wake, and slither wing are not getting the protosynthesis boost + are getting chipped by sand, they are much more manageable for teammates to deal with and stuff like brute bonnet becomes utter garbage without sun support.
here are some high ladder replays of me adapting to the metagame and using some of the new shit i talked about:
replay 1 - hippowdon as a 'mon is perfectly fine. sand chip is annoying. this was vs a non-sun walking wake team but it's not like my team was garbage when i loaded into a standard baxc balance. the combination of sand, tera-fairy gholdengo, and toxapex not only deals with sun-walking wake builds but it was also very good in this game too
replay 2 - if you are going to tell me this pokemon is broken outside of sun, you're lying to yourself. garganacl is 10x more egregious than this thing will ever be. my team is not ratchet in any way. it's well-constructed and i'd be usin' this build even if walking wake were to be banned.
replay 3 - water absorb clodsire was a great set even before walking wake was released. walking wake can't do shit to water absorb clodsire and has to bank on burning flamethrowers or crit'ing a draco meteor (null if you tera-fairy, which isn't mandatory btw you can run stuff like tera-fairy garg, iron valiant, and hatterene in my case!). this replay really demonstrates how volatile sun as an archetype is. sun gets pressured really badly by the omnipresent dragapult and standard 52% usage great tusk
i personally have had much more trouble dealing with stuff like tera-kingambit, garganacl, and cb baxcalibur with balance than walking wake. walking wake doesn't cause you to go to extremes to beat it unlike chien-pao (which as i said there were a lot of good players who thought that was fine too). this has been the most fresh this metagame has been in a fat minute. i fuck w/ it
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i just don't see why iron leaves in particular is the bane of gallade's existence when some pokemon already in the game give gallade much more competition, to say nothing of the two sharpness wallbreakers in kleavor and hisuian samurott arriving soon via HOME that could give gallade some actual competition
*Especially* on Band sets, running 220 Atk to get the speed boost isn't much of a sacrifice.Roaring Moon does not outrun Walking Wake in Sun with CB lmfao. Unless you're sacrificing your Attack for Speed Boost Proto, Moon only hits 370 on Max Speed Jolly, whereas Wake hits well over 500. DD, Scarf and nerfed CB does outrun it, though.
I have literally never had a Roaring Moon -- that wasn't Scarf or DD -- outrun my Walking Wake in the Sun. They've always been standard Max Atk Band with Proto Atk. Then they just sort of drop to Draco.Haven't played at all since Wake dropped, so not disagreeing with you, but I do want to point out some flaws in your logic around the replays you offered:
The first one is the most egregious. Your opponent is 1829 ELO (which obviously isn't bad!), but you call out your own 2k+ ELO as though that makes the replay more credible from the perspective of the Wake user. You also ignore the fact that your own Wake abuses Sun to KO half of the opposing team. Obviously, this is one of the problems with Sun in SV: Protosynthesis `mons are everywhere even without Sun, and by running the archetype, you risk making your opponent's team stronger without them needing to invest in it, but that's almost a point against Wake: even if you're not running Sun, you can stack it on your team to vastly improve that MU with virtually no cost.
Also, you're running some seriously anti-meta tech with Sash H-Zoroark and multiple eject buttons. Clearly, they worked as intended, but you can't sit here and seriously claim that Eject Button Tusk and Gholdengo should be standard sets, and that type of stuff makes it easy to cherry pick results where it paid off. I've had some brutal wins running manual e-terrain. That doesn't mean the archetype is good.
The other replays are mostly outmatched 1700's players (like me!) still learning how to use Wake (including at least one just blindly using a sample team). Like, the last replay you shared had somebody burn Tera on turn 2 and lock into Hydro Steam when Clodsire was right there on the opposing team. Obviously, we need more time playing with and against this thing.
Seriously, appreciate your thoughts. Glad to see folks not just succumbing to panic, and I think you raise some good points. With the existing power creep, it sure seems like Walking Wake is going to be pushed to run either (1) A Choice Item in Weather, making it fishy and easy-ish to disrupt through protect scouting and good team structures (2) Booster Energy, leaving it prone to revenging or otherwise getting forced out and losing its boost or (3) LO, which, as you say is hella risky in our hazards environment. I think we've all got Chi-Yu flashbacks, but the thing that (maybe) keeps Walking Wake comparatively in check is that its 130 BP nuke doesn't *also* get the weather boost (and has more abundant immunities, which are obviously a completely different animal than resists, which can be brute-forced through). Let's just be honest about the information we can glean from replays less than 24 hours in.
A couple other tangents:
NGL, I've got that user blocked, but I'm assuming the logic is that Gallade gets "STAB" Leaf Blade via Sharpness?
*Especially* on Band sets, running 220 Atk to get the speed boost isn't much of a sacrifice.
Let's just Ban every single legendary Mon. Everyone will be unhappy except me, but I am the one that mattersOkay so here is the plan, on Sunday we quickban Walking Wake and quickban Garganacl and now everyone is either happy or unhappy, but since is now "everybody" then it's all okay
I have literally never had a Roaring Moon -- that wasn't Scarf or DD -- outrun my Walking Wake in the Sun. They've always been standard Max Atk Band with Proto Atk. Then they just sort of drop to Draco.
NGL, I've got that user blocked, but I'm assuming the logic is that Gallade gets "STAB" Leaf Blade via Sharpness?
The only problem with this set is that Tera Fairy Dirge sits on you all day. Donbozo also sits on you pretty damn hard.Honestly, I think y'all are overlooking Walking Wakes by only considering the obvious Special Sets.
...Introducing.. :
View attachment 495750
Walking Wake @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 144 HP / 252 Atk / 112 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Waterfall
- Outrage
Thanks to its 112 EVs Speed, Walking Wakes outspeed Dragapult after one Dragon Dance (+1).
This set can abuse of both Toxapex and Clodsire, as well as Slowking :
It prevents him from being poisoned by Toxic using Substitute, set a Free Dragon Dance, and threaten them by using Outrage.
I didn't really think about the best Tera to use neither best moves / Item to use yet, but this has unexplored potential so far.
Honestly, I think y'all are overlooking Walking Wakes by only considering the obvious Special Sets.
...Introducing.. :
View attachment 495750
Walking Wake @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 144 HP / 252 Atk / 112 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Waterfall
- Outrage
Thanks to its 112 EVs Speed, Walking Wakes outspeed Dragapult after one Dragon Dance (+1).
This set can abuse of both Toxapex and Clodsire, as well as Slowking :
It prevents him from being poisoned by Toxic using Substitute, set a Free Dragon Dance, and threaten them by using Outrage.
I didn't really think about the best Tera to use neither best moves / Item to use yet, but this has unexplored potential so far.
The only problem with this set is that Tera Fairy Dirge sits on you all day. Donbozo also sits on you pretty damn hard.
People are running scarf meow and pult which both wreck this set.
1. Dirge Teraing depends upon the team. If they don't have anything that demands the need to remain Fire/Ghost, using your Tera on Dirge to no longer be weak to Rocks and other Dirges is more than worth it to check/counter your Wake set.I will reply to you by saying forcing the opponent to Terastallize just to deal with this set is completely fine with me, I'd even I'd be really happy as I'd just need to build around the Tera Fairy counter in the team to then apply pressure.
Also, Dondozo won't really be a counterpick to Walking Wakes because of the Special Sets being more frequent ; That being said, the usage of Walking Wakes shouldn't result in a rise of Dondozo usage, and therefore this set should be ok with Dondozo only being a Bad but uncommon Matchup
1. Dirge Teraing depends upon the team. If they don't have anything that demands the need to remain Fire/Ghost, using your Tera on Dirge to no longer be weak to Rocks and other Dirges is more than worth it to check/counter your Wake set.
2. These Calcs would like a word with you:
244 SpA Choice Specs Suicune Hydro Steam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Dondozo: 89-105 (17.6 - 20.8%) -- possible 7HKO after Leftovers recovery
244 SpA Choice Specs Suicune Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Dondozo in Rain: 183-216 (36.3 - 42.8%) -- 97.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
244 SpA Choice Specs Suicune Hydro Steam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Dondozo in Sun: 132-156 (26.1 - 30.9%) -- 9.2% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
244 SpA Choice Specs Suicune Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Dondozo: 193-228 (38.2 - 45.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Suicune Waterfall vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Dondozo: 47-56 (9.3 - 11.1%) -- possibly the worst move ever
252+ Atk Suicune Waterfall vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Dondozo in Rain: 71-84 (14 - 16.6%) -- possible 9HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Suicune Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Dondozo: 94-111 (18.6 - 22%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Protosynthesis Suicune Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Dondozo: 122-144 (24.2 - 28.5%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
Donbozo sits on you. SpDef Curse Bozo checks Wake, and the same set hard counters Sub DD.
No, we're not lmfao. OU Curse with SpDef is a COMMON set. It's even in there on Damage Calc set selection.Then you're playing Spe Def Dondozo, at this rate we're soon opening a whole new circus.
Oops IndeedNo, we're not lmfao. OU Curse with SpDef is a COMMON set. It's even in there on Damage Calc set selection.
Live and learn, my good player. Live and learn.Oops Indeed
I reckon I didn't know about it, then if it's the main way ppl are playing Dondozo I assume you're right
Sorry for my speech haha.
No, we're not lmfao. OU Curse with SpDef is a COMMON set. It's even in there on Damage Calc set selection.