Physical Defensive walls: Which do you prefer?

zxn666

As we all know, Blissey is the ultimate special wall. There are no other walls that can compare to Blissey in terms of special walling. On the physical side of things, however, this is quite different. There are no surefire physical walls that can take hits quite as well as Blissey, as a matter of fact most don't even come close. There are many physical walls avaliable, but most aren't as game breaking as a Blissey is.

Now, I encountered a problem when making a team. The problem is this: there is simply no surefire physical wall that can stop all physical attackers. There are quite a couple of wals that come close, but most do not have the hit taking ability of a Blissey. Now I want all of your opinions, which wall would you use nowadays, and why?

I'll start off by listing some of the more common walls and some of their Pros and Cons.

Skarmory- the immortal iron chicken.
Pros: Steel typing, Flying typing that makes it Earthquake immune, Take neutral from fighting. Can learn spikes, whirlwind, and roost for instant recovery. Unable to be poisoned. Resists Dragon attacks. 140 base defence.
Cons: Low attack. Magnezone is death to it. Flying typing hurts it by making Stealth Rock neutral. Low base HP

Gliscor- The Dark Knight
Pro: Not magnezone bait. High defense+ an Ok amount of HP. Taunt, Baton pass, and a host of Support options. Ground typing makes it immunt to Electric, and also immune to Earthquake. Can roost to restor HP. STAB earthquake hurts. Resists fighting and kills Heracross, Metagross, and tons of other dangerous physical attackers.
Cons: Weak to ice. Weak to water, cannot counter any water type. HP not enough to make up for weaker defences. does not resist Dragon.

Hippowdon- The new Fatman
Pros: Sandstream. High HP and Defences. Best Ttar counter ever made. Strong EQ, can Roar for PHazing. Slack off instant recovery.
Cons: Sandstream forces Sandstorm, double edged sword. Weak special defence, lack of power in attacks. Weak special defence

Swampert- I kno U liek Mudkipz
Pros: Water physical STAB, Earthquake STAB. Good HP and Defenses. One weakness, and not commonly seen. Best counter for all Electric types w/o Hp Grass
Cons: Defenses not quite that good. No instant recovery. Grass Weakness is lol. No earthquake immunity.

Bronzong- It's a fricking bell!!!
Pros: One weakness, and it's only 2x. Strong Gyro Ball. Hypnosis. Amazing resists. Good support.
Cons: No instant recovery. No Phazing.

Garchomp- I'm not kidding, It's better defensively than Swampert
Pros: Powerful, sweeper strong. Kills things with ease. Nice defenses. High speed and powerful attack.
Cons: Lol, who uses Garchomp as a Wall? Even though it can be used as a mighty tank, nobody would use it that way.

Besides Garchomp, those are the best defensive walls in DP. Unless I missed any, in which you'll have to tell me. What are your thoughts on the physical walls of DP?
 
I'm using Slowbro.

He has a few problems, but a good recovery move, good defense and HP, etc... makes him a solid choice for my team. I can cover some of his weaknesses in other places on my team.
 
The closest things I have to a physical wall on my team are a tag team of Swampert/Salamence/Celebi. I prefer to play off of resistances, so Heatran joins the group and takes most special things.
 
Skarmory will always be very effective I think. His EQ immunity and dragon resist makes him invaluable. Magnezone isn't that common and most stall teams will use a Shed Shell anyways.

Swampert and Gliscor's 4x weaknesses bother me a little, as you never know what's carrying a random Hidden Power, but grass is fairly rare (unlike ice).

Garchomp is probably the most underused (as a wall) pokemon. He has sand stream evasion, great defenses, and can hit back. He also outspeeds quite a bit. Many people just see him as a powerful sweeper, which he does very well, but he is also a great wall.
 
My favorite defensive wall recently is Leafeon. It has access to sleep, poison, healing, Baton Pass, ect, ect... Not to mention almost all physical attacks is relatively a 3hitko. I use this for Ou and Uu btw.
 
Forretress is worth mentioning, it's just as defensive as Skarmory and with slightly more HP, can explode if needed, and it can Rapid Spin. On the other hand, it dies to Magnezone and fire attacks and lacks a solid recovery move like Roost.

Dusknoir and Uxie I think are also worth mentioning. Dusknoir has amazing defenses on both sides, letting him come into almost any hit, but the low HP weighs him down. Uxie has slightly less defenses than Dusknoir, but makes up for it with more HP and Levitate.
 
Just noticed this post doesn't have Cresselia. Wtf? Cresselia is the definition of a wall IMO. Insane HP + defenses and ability to recover + BoltBeam. It also thunderwaves or psycho shifts to cripple sweepers. Add Cresselia =(
 
Uhh, why exactly isn't Cresselia mentioned? Cresselia's pretty much the best you can get in terms of physical walling and it takes down a lot of the physical threats out there as well as being immune to Earthquake. It even has instant recovery in Moonlight, although most people prefer to use Rest/Sleep Talk.

If anything, it's probably a lot better than Garchomp at it. -.-

Don't Steelix/Regirock get a bit of a mention?
 
Where's Cresselia? =_=... She has good typing, Levitate, great defensiveness, a movepool and she can only be female (hence Blissey). How could you forget her ?
 
You've only touched the surface of all the walls there are defensively.

Slowbro - Massive defense + Slack Off, and Calm Mind to help the special side. Counters fighting pokemon well, and can counter Gyarados.

Cresselia - Uh, this thing is a supreme wall. You list Garchomp but not Cressy????

Suicune - King of stall. Higher defenses than both Skarmory and Gliscor when talking about defense tiers. No reliable recovery, but Resttalk and / or Reflect go a long way in compensating for this.

Shuckle - Uh yea, an unboosted Outrage is a 4HKO. Go figure.

Celebi - Close to a wall persay, but gets reliable recovery and can stand up to a good number of physical attackers.

Mesprit - No reliable recovery, but is sturdy and stands up to Gyarados and Garchomp quite well.

Uxie - Same as Mesprit, but lower special attack and higher defenses.

Forretress - No recovery, but can take quite a bit of punishment and set up spikes.

Metagross - I don't want to hear shit about this thing not being a wall. It's defenses are insane if you actually EV the thing.

Salamence - Not a wall? Intimidate + Roost and acceptable defenses mean this thing can wall hard physically... Check out aldaron's sets.

Gyarados - Resttalk Gyarados is pretty damn sturdy, and can switch in to fighting hits just as well as Gliscor. And he actually can pose an offensive threat..

Spiritomb - How about the best Lucario counter in the game! Spiritomb counters all fighting pokemon reasonably well, with Will-O-Wisp and pain split to boot.

Dusknoir - decent choice I guess.

Weezing - severely underrated wall. Takes down Heracross, Gyarados, and can combat Garchomp if you wish.

Donphan - Good support pokemon, doesn't wall as well as the other I think because its typing makes it mandatory to have instant recovery.

Steelix - Steelix is surprisingly sturdy, and won't let even an OU team down. His main downfall is you have to keep him away from Close Combats...

Registeel - This thing is so sturdy it can even wall in ubers... Common...

Regirock - Walls well despite its typing.

So think about all these I listed, because the OP left a ton out.
 
Umm fortress much? I mean it has Rapid Spin and Toxic Spikes, two rare ass moves.

Anyway, I'm using Taunt Gliscor atm and I love it. Forces mad switches and has an instant recovory move. I'm also using Haryanma. Knock Off and Whirlwind can win you a battle. Thick Fat is always welcome.
 
Cressilia has great defenses but she isn't that impressive with the resistances. That doesn't cancel it out as being a physical wall, as it can do it effectively well with Rest + Sleep Talk or Moonlight, the poor side-affect which comes along with only 8 PP which isn't appealing at all.

Bronzong and Gliscor are my main choices. Bronzong because it has great resistances and fits on nearly any team, and not fogetting it's an amazing lead with Hypnosis and Stealth Rock. Gliscor is the metagame's main Lucario and Heracross counter, and who wouldn't mind stopping them Pokemon in their tacks? With that in mind, it has a reliable recovery move (Roost) which allows it to take hits considerably well while being able to recover off the damage. Both have game breaking/changing moves to boot; Taunt, Explosion, Swords Dance and Trick Room.
 
Bulk Up Machamp with Sleep Talk can take a serious beating. Works well for me, it is similar to DD Sleep Talk Gyrara but with a defense boost instead of a speed boost. With Guts and priority move like Mach Punch or Bullet Punch, it is very good at taking stuff down while holding the fort.
 
You said yourself that there is no one physical wall that takes on stuff in general, so what is the point of this thread?

"Yeah, I know you can't use one Pokemon to take all physical attacks, but which Pokemon would you guys use if you wanted something that takes all physical attacks?"

The answer is now and will always be: It depends on what you want to wall. If your strategy is "OK, I stuck 4-5 cool Pokemon on my team, now I need to add a generic physical wall" you have a bad team because you have no strategy except to try out stop your opponent's strategy. In other words, your opponent built their team to make their strategy in particular work, while you make your team trying to stop stuff in general. You're trying to fight them on their own ground. Which do you think is more likely to come out of the battle with a win?
 
Actually if Cress had any other SINGLE type (I'm not going to type out every single double type combination) typing she would either be a lot worse wall or a or very broken one

imagine

Pros
Ground - best bulky ground ever
Water - " "
Grass - " " Think Celebi w/o a dark weak. Or a tangrowth with a big boost to his stats. Growth/CeleTran combo would be now CressTran combo and be ridiculously good as well
Fighting - Like a defensive Hariyama even more defensively adept with a much better support movepool. This is even comparable to Fighting type Arceus in ubers.
Poison - Thanks to levitate it would have only one weakness - Psychic. Still would resist Fighting which is its key resist anyway, and now doesn't have a pursuit or bug weak either, I see that as broken.
Ghost - Dusknoir with a better offensive movepool and way better stats. Think Giratina without dragon weak.


Cons
Fire - definitely not an improvement on Psychic typing.
Ice - " "
Dark - " "
Bug - " "
Rock - " " (but would be cool in sandstorm)
Electric - " "
Dragon - Couldn't defend against dragons anymore which is one cress's best attributes, and would also have an ice weak which is arguably as bad as dark weak.

Nuetrals
Flying - always a dual type. Cress already has an EQ immunity, so how good this would be really depends on what the second type you give him is. Rock + BoltBeam weak though? Not a great improvement on psychic typing
Normal - This one is actually sort of in the middle. You could just make it like a Bliss that doesn't reach as high SpDef, in return for a nice big base def. On the physical side it probably would be worse than having psychic typing, but is a but weird. This is plausible typing but not much better than psychic if at all. Takes away nice dark/ghost weak though, in return for swapping fight resist to a weakness.
Steel - Levitate gets rid of ground weakness, than you are just left with Fighting or Fire to deal with something with such huge defenses. Unfortunately, that it not a great combination of moves to be weak to, as a fire weak does not make for a great special defender and a fighting weak does not make for a great physical defender. (OU standards). Would get an awesome amount of resists to including pursuit resist.
 
Gastrodon


This thing is hands down the best wall I've ever used. He even works well for taking special hits.

After 3 Stockpiles, which is fairly easy to get if you come in at the right time, he's almost unstoppable as long as you can keep away from any grass attacks. If he gets shot down it's usually a crit.

I have a few saved logs (10+ at least) of Gassy pretty much sweeping an entire team.

also, swamperts usage going down = less grass attacks.
 
I've found that it's best to play off of resistances and immunities in D/P. I also abuse Will-O-Wisp, a great move that unfortunately there is no special equivalent to. Perhaps in the future, we will have a status like 'disturbed' or something along those lines that lowers SPA power.

The physical walls i've had the most success with are Gliscor, Celebi and Suicune. Gliscor is just awesome with its typing, movepool and instant recovery. Celebi can work around the lame typing easily with status and recovery. The scarcity of physical grass and electric moves means Suicune is made in the shade, but give it calm mind and your opponent's phaser will be lucky to survive. Rest is great on Suicune, and Pressure is just overkill.

Cress and Uxie can stop physical attackers too, but Cress' lame moonlight and Uxie's lack of any recovery hurt badly. They are both better support pokemon in my experience.

In UU, Leafeon is underrated. It has the not-nerfed-in-UU synthesis as well as 130 def and the UU-wrecking Leaf Blade.

If you want to talk about under-the-radar walls, it's hard not to mention Gastrodon. The thing really does work well, even in OU. I can't say the same about Torterra, but its not all that bad of a tank. Ice attacks are as easy to predict as EQs aimed at Heatran.

Noone has mentioned Jirachi it seems. The little pixie has great typing, stats, wish and reflect.

I hear alot of people talking about Swampert's fall from grace as of late and i'm hard pressed to disagree, but one Pokemon whose popularity I really don't understand is Slowbro. My pokemon salivate when they see it.

Woah I totally ranted there, sorry. Late night mindlessness I suppose. Just pay attention the first couple of lines about how resistances and WoW are more helpful than any one wall.
 
Obi said:
You said yourself that there is no one physical wall that takes on stuff in general, so what is the point of this thread?

"Yeah, I know you can't use one Pokemon to take all physical attacks, but which Pokemon would you guys use if you wanted something that takes all physical attacks?"

The answer is now and will always be: It depends on what you want to wall. If your strategy is "OK, I stuck 4-5 cool Pokemon on my team, now I need to add a generic physical wall" you have a bad team because you have no strategy except to try out stop your opponent's strategy. In other words, your opponent built their team to make their strategy in particular work, while you make your team trying to stop stuff in general. You're trying to fight them on their own ground. Which do you think is more likely to come out of the battle with a win?
Click to expand...

i agree, this is the best post of the thread so far. the answer is always the same: 'it depends'. if you think you can get a physical wall that walls like blissey, you are delusional. hence the best physical wall is simply the one that fits in your team best.
 
Tyranitar, Gyarados, Infernape, Electivire, Heracross, Salamence, Garchomp, Lucario, Weavile, Machamp, Breloom, Metagross, Dragonite, Mamoswine, Gallade, Scizor...

There is an insane amount of threats in D/P, and those are only a few, only 16 Pokemon out of 493. Is there any way you can possibly counter all the physical threats in the metagame with one Pokemon? Hell no. I usually have a a strong physically defensive core, many times playing off resistances, and those paired up with Bliss, who helps to wall on the special defensive spectrum. It usually consists of 3-4 Pokemon, and I like to use Pokemon that are defensive but can still be an offensive threat (like say an SD Scizor that counters Weavile).

You should probably edit your post with more "choices", I think people are perceiving the examples the wrong way.
 
On my most recent team I have been using a Thick Fat Hariyama. He can fill most of your teams weaknesses with his 4 resists (Dark for Ttar which is a boon) and beat down some of the most threatening attackers (Gyra with thunderpunch, Salamence/Garchomp/Dragonite with Ice Punch) He also gets counter, and with his massive HP you can bounce back physical attacks like a Wobbuffet. (A bulky Hariyama can counter CB Outrages from garchomp, CB EQs from Ttar and, any attack (except a rare Zen Headbutt) from Metagross.

Add a wish Passer to your team and he will last a very long time.
 
Well, In his defense the title says 'Which do you prefer?". So no need to say that this article is entirely worthless. To make this a more productive post I'll add a couple more of my favorite 'walls'... Hariyama, Zapdos, BulkyStaraptor, and of good ole' Bronzong. Those are some other preferences of mine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top