[overview]
**Draft Order**: Round 6 onwards
**Price Range**: 7-10 points
**Overview**: Goodra is a solid special tank, using its massive special bulk, useful resistances, and Grass immunity via Sap Sipper to soak up attacks and return the favor with powerful moves like Draco Meteor and Earthquake. It has an extremely wide movepool, boasting coverage for almost any foe, and provides additional utility by removing items with Knock Off, phazing setup sweepers with Dragon Tail, and spreading status with Toxic and Scald. Unfortunately, Goodra's STAB moves are either unreliable, like Draco Meteor and Outrage, or weak, like Dragon Pulse and Dragon Claw, sometimes forcing it to rely on its coverage and utility to make progress and thus rendering it somewhat passive despite its solid attacking stats. Additionally, Goodra is fairly slow and struggles against physical attackers, which is especially bad given its lack of reliable recovery. All this combines to make it a niche pick, but it can still be viable on teams that need its bulk and resistances.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Special Tank**: Goodra most commonly takes advantage of its huge special bulk to pressure opposing special attackers with a powerful Draco Meteor or disruptive Knock Off. If they try to set up, it can also phaze non-Fairy-types with Dragon Tail. This set commonly runs Assault Vest to boost Goodra's Special Defense to obscene heights without a real downside or Heavy-Duty Boots to avoid being worn down by entry hazards. It can also run both physical and special attacks, as Goodra has a wide variety of both, and its attacking stats are both solid; mixed sets are common to get around Draco Meteor's Special Attack drop.
**Setup Sweeper**: In the right matchup, particularly when the opposing team has poor Fairy- and Ice-types, Goodra can use Acid Armor or Curse to boost its Defense, wearing down foes with boosted Body Presses or other physical moves, respectively.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB Moves**: Draco Meteor, Dragon Pulse, Outrage, Dragon Claw
**Setup Moves**: Acid Armor, Curse
**Utility Moves**: Dragon Tail, Knock Off, Toxic, Substitute, Protect
**Coverage**: Earthquake, Scald, Body Press, Power Whip, Sludge Bomb, Sludge Wave, Hydro Pump, Surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, Focus Blast, Rock Slide, Aqua Tail, Fire Punch, Thunder Punch, Skitter Smack
Niche Moves
========
**Rest**: As Goodra's only form of non-item recovery, Rest can increase its longevity, especially when combined with Chesto Berry to let it wake up immediately, Sleep Talk when it needs to maintain a presence while using Rest multiple times, and Hydration on rain teams.
**Counter**: With Counter, Goodra can punish physical attackers that attempt to exploit its mediocre physical bulk, dealing a devastating return blow and possibly dropping their Speed with Gooey to add insult to injury. For additional spice, it can combine this with Stomping Tantrum to benefit from even failed predictions.
**Breaking Swipe / Charm**: Breaking Swipe and Charm make Goodra less vulnerable to physical attackers. Breaking Swipe additionally deals solid chip damage, while Charm drops foes' Attack more sharply and affects physical Fairy-types like Iron Valiant and Grimmsnarl.
**Acid Spray**: Acid Spray's sharp Special Defense drop renders Goodra's Draco Meteor and special coverage even more threatening, forcing foes out.
**Dragon Breath / Mud Shot**: Dragon Breath lets Goodra threaten to paralyze foes, lowering their Speed, while inflicting significant chip damage. Mud Shot accomplishes a similar purpose, trading a high amount of chip damage for a guarantee to drop the foe's Speed. Dragon Breath is more commonly run, but Mud Shot can be the right choice when Goodra can't fish for paralysis multiple times or has to threaten Fairy- and Steel-types.
Common Items
========
**Assault Vest**: Assault Vest boosts Goodra's Special Defense to the point where most special attacks hardly leave a scratch. It's best used when opposing entry hazards aren't a threat. Goodra also often uses sets with four attacks, so Assault Vest's downside isn't much of a consideration.
**Heavy-Duty Boots**: On the other hand, Goodra prefers to use Heavy-Duty Boots when entry hazards are a threat and it intends to switch in multiple times. Running Heavy-Duty Boots is also an excellent option if it wants to use Toxic.
**Leftovers**: When opposing entry hazards aren't threatening and Goodra wants to use its status moves, Leftovers is an excellent choice to provide some passive recovery. It's especially good on Goodra's setup sets, which remain on the field for a long time and need the extra longevity.
Niche Items
========
**Sitrus Berry**: Sitrus Berry gives Goodra a quick burst of healing, which is more useful than Leftovers in faster-paced games or when checking specific threats.
**Resistance Berries**: Resistance Berries can help Goodra survive threatening attacks, particularly from Ice- and Dragon-types, and retaliate with Draco Meteor or an appropriate coverage move.
**Choice Specs**: Choice Specs boosts Goodra's Special Attack, making its Draco Meteor an even more threatening nuke and its coverage much stronger.
**Choice Band**: Choice Band accomplishes a similar purpose to Choice Specs on physical Goodra sets, boosting strong physical options like Outrage and Earthquake.
**Choice Scarf**: Goodra's Speed isn't bad, so with a Choice Scarf, it can often outspeed faster threats and ambush them with a surprise Draco Meteor.
**Weakness Policy**: Goodra can often tank super effective special attacks, so Weakness Policy can boost its attacking stats and let it KO the foe in return.
**Custap Berry**: Alongside Endure, Custap Berry can let Goodra survive an attack from a faster, threatening foe and retaliate with a priority Draco Meteor, making it a stopgap against opposing sweepers.
**Eject Pack**: Eject Pack lets Goodra use Draco Meteor without losing momentum from a Special Attack drop, instead pivoting out to a teammate.
**Chesto Berry**: Chesto Berry allows Goodra to use Rest safely, recovering its HP.
Tera
========
Goodra is a decent secondary Tera Captain, depending on its cost. It benefits from its wide variety of coverage and can use an array of Tera types to boost said coverage and change its defensive typing. These Tera types include Tera Poison to boost Sludge Bomb and punish Fairy-types, Tera Fire to boost Flamethrower and resist Fairy and Ice, and Tera Water and Ground to gain a better defensive type and benefit from the Grass immunity Sap Sipper provides, although the optimal Tera type depends on the matchup. However, it should not Terastallize often—other Pokemon typically benefit from Tera much more, especially primary Tera Captains, and its base typing is fine. If Goodra is on the more expensive side of its price range, making it a Captain can also present an opportunity cost, preventing its draft from using a top-tier Tera Captain.
Draft Strategy
========
Goodra is best drafted alongside specially frail teammates that it can absorb hits for. Beyond this, as a bulky special tank with a few valuable resistances, it fits on both balance and offensive drafts. However, it doesn't do much beyond this, and its setup sweeper set is only occasionally viable, so other members of its team are harder-pressed to fill necessary roles. It benefits most from the below types of support.
**Steel-types**: Steel-types cover for Goodra's defensive weaknesses perfectly, resisting all three of its weaknesses in Fairy, Ice, and Dragon and typically being physically defensive to shore up its poor Defense. Pokemon like Gholdengo, Heatran, and Tinkaton prevent Goodra from being turned into a momentum sink in the face of these foes.
**Fairy Checks**: Fairy-types in particular threaten Goodra, so it's best to have Pokemon that can switch into and threaten them in return. The above Steel-types work for this purpose, but other answers to Fairy-types like Galarian Slowking, Iron Moth, and Hisuian Arcanine are also valuable.
**Fast Offensive Pokemon**: Goodra struggles with passivity and poor Speed, so it needs fast sweepers and cleaners that can capitalize on the foes it wears down. In return, it can easily absorb special attacks for its teammates, which are often frail. Partners like Sneasler, Iron Bundle, and Meowscarada benefit from this.
**Physically Defensive Pokemon**: Pokemon with high Defense like Pecharunt, Uxie, and Weezing can fill out a defensive core with Goodra, switching in to cover physical and special attacks, respectively.
**Entry Hazards**: Goodra is a solid Knock Off user, so it amplifies entry hazard setters on its team by removing opposing Heavy-Duty Boots. It sometimes doesn't work well with common Ground-type Stealth Rock setters, which share its weakness to Ice, but Pokemon like Iron Treads, Glimmora, and Hisuian Samurott can be great partners.
**Entry Hazard Removal**: Assault Vest is one of Goodra's most common items, but running it can leave Goodra vulnerable to being worn down by entry hazards, in particular Toxic Spikes. Hazard removers like Iron Treads, Terapagos, and Scizor can solve this problem.
Checks and Counters
========
**Fairy-types**: Fairy-types are Goodra's single biggest threat, as not only do they threaten it offensively, they are immune to its strongest attacks in Draco Meteor and Outrage and can freely set up on it without being phazed by Dragon Tail. Iron Valiant is a particularly common top-tier threat, and any opposing Tera Captain can also easily exploit Goodra by using Tera Fairy.
**Physical Attackers**: Strong physical attackers faster than Goodra like Great Tusk, Meowscarada, and Urshifu-S destroy it with even neutral STAB moves and commonly learn coverage moves to hit it super effectively.
**Entry Hazards**: Entry hazards like Stealth Rock and Spikes punish Goodra for not running Heavy-Duty Boots by wearing it down, leaving it within KO range of the special attacks it's meant to absorb. Toxic Spikes are especially bad for it, putting it on a timer that it struggles with without a means of reliable recovery. Getting hit by Knock Off guarantees Goodra gets punished by these hazards even if it does run Heavy-Duty Boots.
**Damaging Status**: Toxic, poison, and burn put additional pressure on Goodra's longevity, which it already struggles with. Burn does less damage than the first two, but it also weakens Goodra's essential physical coverage moves.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/solarbeam.470115/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/jscurf2.608304/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/vmnunes.613460/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno.527276/
**Draft Order**: Round 6 onwards
**Price Range**: 7-10 points
**Overview**: Goodra is a solid special tank, using its massive special bulk, useful resistances, and Grass immunity via Sap Sipper to soak up attacks and return the favor with powerful moves like Draco Meteor and Earthquake. It has an extremely wide movepool, boasting coverage for almost any foe, and provides additional utility by removing items with Knock Off, phazing setup sweepers with Dragon Tail, and spreading status with Toxic and Scald. Unfortunately, Goodra's STAB moves are either unreliable, like Draco Meteor and Outrage, or weak, like Dragon Pulse and Dragon Claw, sometimes forcing it to rely on its coverage and utility to make progress and thus rendering it somewhat passive despite its solid attacking stats. Additionally, Goodra is fairly slow and struggles against physical attackers, which is especially bad given its lack of reliable recovery. All this combines to make it a niche pick, but it can still be viable on teams that need its bulk and resistances.
[strategy comments]
Common Roles
========
**Special Tank**: Goodra most commonly takes advantage of its huge special bulk to pressure opposing special attackers with a powerful Draco Meteor or disruptive Knock Off. If they try to set up, it can also phaze non-Fairy-types with Dragon Tail. This set commonly runs Assault Vest to boost Goodra's Special Defense to obscene heights without a real downside or Heavy-Duty Boots to avoid being worn down by entry hazards. It can also run both physical and special attacks, as Goodra has a wide variety of both, and its attacking stats are both solid; mixed sets are common to get around Draco Meteor's Special Attack drop.
**Setup Sweeper**: In the right matchup, particularly when the opposing team has poor Fairy- and Ice-types, Goodra can use Acid Armor or Curse to boost its Defense, wearing down foes with boosted Body Presses or other physical moves, respectively.
Common Moves
========
**Primary STAB Moves**: Draco Meteor, Dragon Pulse, Outrage, Dragon Claw
**Setup Moves**: Acid Armor, Curse
**Utility Moves**: Dragon Tail, Knock Off, Toxic, Substitute, Protect
**Coverage**: Earthquake, Scald, Body Press, Power Whip, Sludge Bomb, Sludge Wave, Hydro Pump, Surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, Focus Blast, Rock Slide, Aqua Tail, Fire Punch, Thunder Punch, Skitter Smack
Niche Moves
========
**Rest**: As Goodra's only form of non-item recovery, Rest can increase its longevity, especially when combined with Chesto Berry to let it wake up immediately, Sleep Talk when it needs to maintain a presence while using Rest multiple times, and Hydration on rain teams.
**Counter**: With Counter, Goodra can punish physical attackers that attempt to exploit its mediocre physical bulk, dealing a devastating return blow and possibly dropping their Speed with Gooey to add insult to injury. For additional spice, it can combine this with Stomping Tantrum to benefit from even failed predictions.
**Breaking Swipe / Charm**: Breaking Swipe and Charm make Goodra less vulnerable to physical attackers. Breaking Swipe additionally deals solid chip damage, while Charm drops foes' Attack more sharply and affects physical Fairy-types like Iron Valiant and Grimmsnarl.
**Acid Spray**: Acid Spray's sharp Special Defense drop renders Goodra's Draco Meteor and special coverage even more threatening, forcing foes out.
**Dragon Breath / Mud Shot**: Dragon Breath lets Goodra threaten to paralyze foes, lowering their Speed, while inflicting significant chip damage. Mud Shot accomplishes a similar purpose, trading a high amount of chip damage for a guarantee to drop the foe's Speed. Dragon Breath is more commonly run, but Mud Shot can be the right choice when Goodra can't fish for paralysis multiple times or has to threaten Fairy- and Steel-types.
Common Items
========
**Assault Vest**: Assault Vest boosts Goodra's Special Defense to the point where most special attacks hardly leave a scratch. It's best used when opposing entry hazards aren't a threat. Goodra also often uses sets with four attacks, so Assault Vest's downside isn't much of a consideration.
**Heavy-Duty Boots**: On the other hand, Goodra prefers to use Heavy-Duty Boots when entry hazards are a threat and it intends to switch in multiple times. Running Heavy-Duty Boots is also an excellent option if it wants to use Toxic.
**Leftovers**: When opposing entry hazards aren't threatening and Goodra wants to use its status moves, Leftovers is an excellent choice to provide some passive recovery. It's especially good on Goodra's setup sets, which remain on the field for a long time and need the extra longevity.
Niche Items
========
**Sitrus Berry**: Sitrus Berry gives Goodra a quick burst of healing, which is more useful than Leftovers in faster-paced games or when checking specific threats.
**Resistance Berries**: Resistance Berries can help Goodra survive threatening attacks, particularly from Ice- and Dragon-types, and retaliate with Draco Meteor or an appropriate coverage move.
**Choice Specs**: Choice Specs boosts Goodra's Special Attack, making its Draco Meteor an even more threatening nuke and its coverage much stronger.
**Choice Band**: Choice Band accomplishes a similar purpose to Choice Specs on physical Goodra sets, boosting strong physical options like Outrage and Earthquake.
**Choice Scarf**: Goodra's Speed isn't bad, so with a Choice Scarf, it can often outspeed faster threats and ambush them with a surprise Draco Meteor.
**Weakness Policy**: Goodra can often tank super effective special attacks, so Weakness Policy can boost its attacking stats and let it KO the foe in return.
**Custap Berry**: Alongside Endure, Custap Berry can let Goodra survive an attack from a faster, threatening foe and retaliate with a priority Draco Meteor, making it a stopgap against opposing sweepers.
**Eject Pack**: Eject Pack lets Goodra use Draco Meteor without losing momentum from a Special Attack drop, instead pivoting out to a teammate.
**Chesto Berry**: Chesto Berry allows Goodra to use Rest safely, recovering its HP.
Tera
========
Goodra is a decent secondary Tera Captain, depending on its cost. It benefits from its wide variety of coverage and can use an array of Tera types to boost said coverage and change its defensive typing. These Tera types include Tera Poison to boost Sludge Bomb and punish Fairy-types, Tera Fire to boost Flamethrower and resist Fairy and Ice, and Tera Water and Ground to gain a better defensive type and benefit from the Grass immunity Sap Sipper provides, although the optimal Tera type depends on the matchup. However, it should not Terastallize often—other Pokemon typically benefit from Tera much more, especially primary Tera Captains, and its base typing is fine. If Goodra is on the more expensive side of its price range, making it a Captain can also present an opportunity cost, preventing its draft from using a top-tier Tera Captain.
Draft Strategy
========
Goodra is best drafted alongside specially frail teammates that it can absorb hits for. Beyond this, as a bulky special tank with a few valuable resistances, it fits on both balance and offensive drafts. However, it doesn't do much beyond this, and its setup sweeper set is only occasionally viable, so other members of its team are harder-pressed to fill necessary roles. It benefits most from the below types of support.
**Steel-types**: Steel-types cover for Goodra's defensive weaknesses perfectly, resisting all three of its weaknesses in Fairy, Ice, and Dragon and typically being physically defensive to shore up its poor Defense. Pokemon like Gholdengo, Heatran, and Tinkaton prevent Goodra from being turned into a momentum sink in the face of these foes.
**Fairy Checks**: Fairy-types in particular threaten Goodra, so it's best to have Pokemon that can switch into and threaten them in return. The above Steel-types work for this purpose, but other answers to Fairy-types like Galarian Slowking, Iron Moth, and Hisuian Arcanine are also valuable.
**Fast Offensive Pokemon**: Goodra struggles with passivity and poor Speed, so it needs fast sweepers and cleaners that can capitalize on the foes it wears down. In return, it can easily absorb special attacks for its teammates, which are often frail. Partners like Sneasler, Iron Bundle, and Meowscarada benefit from this.
**Physically Defensive Pokemon**: Pokemon with high Defense like Pecharunt, Uxie, and Weezing can fill out a defensive core with Goodra, switching in to cover physical and special attacks, respectively.
**Entry Hazards**: Goodra is a solid Knock Off user, so it amplifies entry hazard setters on its team by removing opposing Heavy-Duty Boots. It sometimes doesn't work well with common Ground-type Stealth Rock setters, which share its weakness to Ice, but Pokemon like Iron Treads, Glimmora, and Hisuian Samurott can be great partners.
**Entry Hazard Removal**: Assault Vest is one of Goodra's most common items, but running it can leave Goodra vulnerable to being worn down by entry hazards, in particular Toxic Spikes. Hazard removers like Iron Treads, Terapagos, and Scizor can solve this problem.
Checks and Counters
========
**Fairy-types**: Fairy-types are Goodra's single biggest threat, as not only do they threaten it offensively, they are immune to its strongest attacks in Draco Meteor and Outrage and can freely set up on it without being phazed by Dragon Tail. Iron Valiant is a particularly common top-tier threat, and any opposing Tera Captain can also easily exploit Goodra by using Tera Fairy.
**Physical Attackers**: Strong physical attackers faster than Goodra like Great Tusk, Meowscarada, and Urshifu-S destroy it with even neutral STAB moves and commonly learn coverage moves to hit it super effectively.
**Entry Hazards**: Entry hazards like Stealth Rock and Spikes punish Goodra for not running Heavy-Duty Boots by wearing it down, leaving it within KO range of the special attacks it's meant to absorb. Toxic Spikes are especially bad for it, putting it on a timer that it struggles with without a means of reliable recovery. Getting hit by Knock Off guarantees Goodra gets punished by these hazards even if it does run Heavy-Duty Boots.
**Damaging Status**: Toxic, poison, and burn put additional pressure on Goodra's longevity, which it already struggles with. Burn does less damage than the first two, but it also weakens Goodra's essential physical coverage moves.
[credits]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/solarbeam.470115/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/jscurf2.608304/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/vmnunes.613460/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/techno.527276/
Last edited:
