How GOOD was Golem ACTUALLY? - History of Golem in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 1-7)

next up we have Gollum the Megaton pokémon and the evolved form of Geodude and gravel err this Pokemon is one of those with a pretty cool design even though I don't know what it's supposed to be exactly what is it like a turtle I guess it's a turtle I don't know Gollum debuted in the anime where it defied pokey logic by shrugging off Bulbasaur's grass attacks before succumbing to charmander's fire ones and another golem does this in the first movie by losing two Pikachu's electrical tax even though it's a ground site yeah we're still trying to wrap our heads around that two decades later but here at FSG we prefer order to chaos and thus we will examine Gollum in the competitive scene where this nonsense will never happen so as always we pose the question how good was Gollum actually and in this video we'll be going over these competitive formats ever since the beginning of June 1 overuse Gollum has been locked in a battle with Rhydon for the title of superior rock and ground-type a niche incredibly important because they hard counter the otherwise terrifying Zapdos who's one of the most lethal pokemon available if the rocks aren't around now before you ask why they aren't automatic additions to teams in that case it's because they're slow they get countered by the omnipresent executor and they're weak to the omnipresent ice moves this isn't to make them sound bad it's just to illustrate that their main quality is not without drawbacks they have other positives too of course and the differences between the two have split the opinions of Gen 1 battlers for two decades ride-on is more powerful and bulkier on both sides thanks to its massive HP set that also allows it to put up 101 HP substitutes thus surviving seismic tosses golem is faster and has explosion so let's see how this concretely effects the game defensively there isn't much of a difference blizzards and ice beams to hit ko both Snorlax is earthquake 3 hit Kos both exeggutor psychic is a 4% to hit ko against ride-on and 23 percent against golem while alakazam is 48 percent against ride-on and 78% against golem realistically though it's about the offensive numbers and tools golem's extra speed is better against right on and that's about it explosion lets it take out about double the amount of Toros before dying then right ons earthquake would which can be pivotal for one zone Toros but on the other hand right as much more powerful earthquakes has benefits such as always to hit Kaylin chancy as opposed to golems 23% chance to do so as well as having a 97% chance to the three hit Caleb Snorlax as opposed to golems virtually Niall chance to do so and having a 69% chance the three hit kale Slowbro as opposed to golems complete inability to come anywhere near that mark so what this translates to is that golem is more of a wall breaker with explosion potentially clearing out or at least heavily damaging a major threat such as executor Lapras star me Snorlax Slowbro or Toros while right out is more of a paralysis abusing wall breaker and sweeper who could potentially abuse it with substitute using the sheer power of its stabs to break through those Pokemon barring Toros who always tries to avoid paralysis you may notice that right on does not have to kill itself in order to break through those Pokemon which is what leads many players to prefer it since it's more self-sufficient and actually remains alive to check Zapdos however other players prefer to be more aggressive and knock a hole in the opponent's team with golem which can blow a game open more quickly than right on repeated bashing and of course the emergency boom is incredible utility that can get one out of various pinches such as when it's at low health or when it wants to end the turn against Slowbro so the follow-up Pokemon can finish it off and with all that being said overall Gollum was amongst the key Pokemon of red blue and yellow overused now why it's a Gen 2 thanks to an event Golo received rapid spin in the same generation that spikes were introduced however it was still pretty obscure and thus took a long time to be noticed previously its so-called niche was basically curse right on except with explosion which wasn't bad but wasn't used much either but once golem was discovered it took off of course golem doesn't want to take on the main Spiker cloyster but given how often that pokemon switches in and is targeted early in and throughout games it's not all too difficult to bait it remove it and then get rid of it spikes not only our lures like thunder or lovely kiss Snorlax or your own Cloisters toxic excellent but cloyster also loves to explode golem was also a great spinner because thanks to its powerful earthquake it utterly destroys the ghosts in the tier and thus it is very difficult to spin block Gengar is one-hit ko to 87% of the time from full health and mr. vez is losing around half itself explosion and normal resistance are of course great weapons against Snorlax and while the last move was originally fire blast to threaten fortress roar eventually popped up as it allowed golem to fulfill the phaser role that is just about mandatory on most GSC teams and allowed it to compress more roles into one slide it also meant its only weapon against cursed lakhs was an explosion which would of course not be nearly as effective after a curse at first it was mostly used on offensive teams to help them relieve spikes pressure which was huge in helping Snorlax check the electrics especially since golem is a ground sight and while it doesn't want to eat several hidden power Isis and it definitely doesn't want to die to the rare hidden power water its ability to directly switch in and respond to both aspects of the timeless GSE strategy of thunder being spammed with spikes down is something nothing else besides the relatively obscure donphan can do and donphan definitely doesn't fit on offensive teams the way golem does thanks to its lack of explosion and normal resistance eventually the logical next step of using golem spinning ability for more balance and defensive approaches came to light and it established itself as a top contender in the modern GSC meta game it and right on have similar surface roles but the differences in how they function is night and day golem is a spinning exploder basically team support while right imposes a sweeping threat it was an extraordinarily late start for golem but it was a great case of better late than never unfortunately since you cannot trade GSC Pokemon two generation three and rapid spin was a second generation event golem lost it upon the generational shift it does became nothing but a lump in overuse with Skarmory spiking on everything alongside a bounty of new waters and threats such as meta growth Celebi jirachi Salamence arena trap Dugtrio and hidden power grass being everywhere golem was both walled and killed by just about everything right on suddenly rivaled it again and it was vastly superior boasting Swords Dance megahorn and much better bulk to fend off the various earthquakes in the tier with thus golem dropped to under use there it's normal resistance and great physical defense was hugely useful in fending off choice benders like Kangaskhan and furrow the latter of which sometimes opted to run hidden power grass solely for golem it then posed a threat in return with choice bandits tabs were incredibly tough to ward off unless there was a glider an explosion would basically truck everything of course the lack of left overs meant it wasn't exactly a permanent answer to things it was checking especially in conjunction with spikes but it wasn't meant to fill that role it was meant to give offensive teams both a resist to threatening opposing offensive Pokemon and a way to eliminate an opposing defensive threat to open up its own team's offense and at this role in Excel now on to diamond and pearl golem sadly stood no chance and overuse especially with new counters such as bronze Ong Gliscor and poison Hill Breloom among other things ruling the roost and unfortunately golem wasn't too effective and underused either its longtime rival ride-on had somehow managed to both gain in evolution and also join it in the lower tier it was tough to want golems 80 HP 110 attack and a hundred 30 defense when rhyperior packed 115 HP 140 attack an equal defense alongside the ability solid rock those golem had to use the tools at its disposal the one thing he could do decently is an all-out attacking focus sash lead set with its stabs which included rock blast for substitute pokémon like Moltres and miss Maggie's explosion and the new sucker punch for priority it could potentially rip a decent hole however it was fairly easy to predict around for example you could just go - Milotic and then - wrote him to eat the explosion and if they had spiritomb it was a whole other matter altogether and could quite easily do nothing this meant that even a good lead matchup against site there or vultures could potentially not do much and thus golem drops and never use and even there it wasn't very good because it faced brutal competition with Reggie Rock who is not quadruple weak to grass or water thus letting it more easily reap the benefits of its fire resistances and being far less immediately threatened by most Pokemon to the point where while golem feared one-hit chaos at every corner Reggie Rock would often require multiple Pokemon teaming up on it poor Gollum Gollum predictably went straight to never used in the fifth generation it had no hope of recourse whatsoever in any of the higher tiers and never used however it was pretty rock-solid sorry we have to get at least one Rock pun in here it's rock type it was incredibly useful against flyers such as Bray VRE swellow and road fan and it was a stealth Rock Center Charizard didn't want to switch in on immediately either thus it was a good way of ensuring that that menace would start at fifty percent which was huge and limiting off its threat potential this made for a solid pokemon on offensive teams it was also fairly customizable since it already essentially held focus ash thanks to the newly buffed sturdy and this rewarded creative players who ran everything from cussed at Barry to let it be offensive despite its low speed even after it was taken to low HP to rocky helmet to punish you turns to left over so it could get back to sturdy even with stealth rock of its resistance to the hazard men had only needed one turn explosion also meant it could spin block the rare Wartortle and keep up offensive momentum overall golem had a good unique place in the never-used meta game also in the days of scolipede ruling the meta game golem could break through its focus sash with rock blast and thus limited to one layer spikes which was huge considering how oppressive scolipede could be unfortunately for Golem its rival ride-on was back once again this time in never used but now with the audacity to be able to run Evo Lite which meant it had absolutely ludicrous bulk and golem just couldn't catch a break for right on jeez those golem was pretty forgotten and dropped to the no-man's land of PU there however it was pretty decent it was key in staving off stout land and dill geo and with its standard specialty defensive spread it could destroy electrics like Zeb striker not caring much for hidden power ice and proceeding to toxic a bulky grass like Tangela or gourgeist sometimes they even ramp protect for really rack up the residual damage while maximizing its leftovers recovery making it highly difficult to wear down and thus letting it stand unwavering I guess whatever it was it be trying to check even in the face of super effective coverage moves it was overall a solid Pokemon within the pu meta game while it technically does have Lanisha as an offensive stealth rocker with weakness policy to jack up its explosion or Sucker Punch golem is no longer a staple of PU as a matter of fact it's bad to the point where it has officially received the lowest dishonor a fully evolved Pokemon can have the limbo of being untoward however not all is lost because in generation 7 golem also got a regional variant which is short yeah it's short for a lowland golem it gained a unique typing a rock and electric and got some awesome new ability now technically this golem is also P you where it is outclassed by Provo Pass however it does have a very specific niche in overuse it possesses magnet pole trapping steel types and with earthquake it destroys Heatran this is an absolutely incredible niche considering how many Pokemon become dangerous once Heatran is out of the picture such as top abbulu and mega sizzler of course it needs a choice scarf but that's a small price to pay it also must be careful about switching in since it is of course completely shattered by earth power however with good prediction it could potentially reward its user like nothing else but gear now also takes massive damage from earthquake and excadrill is dispatched as well these are things that Magnezone couldn't dream up in a pinch it can also take a mall while sucker punch and remove it for good with wild charge and also crushes Seles ela so long as it doesn't switch into a leech seed and fire punch dispatches Ferrothorn and mega sizzler and this isn't a gimmick good players have used it in important games it's not an O you staple of course but it definitely does have its small place in the meta game which is quite nice after so many generations of being awful a lowland Golem was unsurprisingly one of the pokemon that was experimented in in early VGC 2017 since its new ability galvanized let it blow through cela Stila especially in electric terrain while still packing rocks tab for a lowland marowak but it was quickly discovered that it just wasn't that good since it struggles with many staples such as car Tana top abbulu and of course the move earthquake in fact the only notable placement we could find was jackson Hambrick placing 10th place at the georgia regionals so well done to jackson but golem was unfortunately not really part of this meta game or any meta game to follow and that's it so how good was golem actually in the first two generations it was quite decent not the easiest most intuitive thing to use but definitely rewarding and possessing some key characteristics that let its nice shine on in the medes however generation 3 and onward it became exclusively a lower tier pokemon and it fell through the ranks pretty safely also its rival ride-on continued to bug it throughout the generations it wasn't until its generation 7 a lowland form breeds some new life back into it this gave it a small but significant role within the ultra sun and moon' overused meta game however it is still Anish and since it's basically golems first appearance and over you since GSC that's pretty much all that needs to be said not all Pokemon could be amazing sadly and Gollum's a prime example also for VGC yeah we've literally just could not find anything until Gen 7 and even then we only found one notable placement and that's probably because Gollum is a rock and a Ground type but there are much better rock and ground types and like every single VGC meta that'd probably have better moves thanks for watching everyone and as always if you like the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to the false web gaming from our weekly Pokemon content and for today's video I want to know what do you think about competitive golem how would you change it do you think right our needs in the Lolan forum - whatever it is let me know in the comments below and as for the voting process to vote for next week's Pokemon go to the community tab of this YouTube channel and there should be a post that goes up around the same time as those videos release and you can comment on what pokemon you want to see next week there thank you so much to the patrons for continued support of our videos and thank you to all of you watching as well and follow my crew on these social media platforms and that's all I got see you next time everyone

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 839,225

Keywords: Pokemon, Golem, Geodude, Graveler, Pokemon Go, Brock, Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Black, White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon, Competitive Pokemon, VGC, Smogon, False Swipe Gaming

Id: YlTCjcJ8HFE

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/SirNumel]

I like A-Golem because it's the first time I've seen a VGC set incorporate Selfdestruct unironically.

[u/ThunderCharged]

This video was enlightening for me since I had no idea that Alolan Golem could be used as an alternative to Magnezone for Steel-type trapping. These videos always have seem to have a surprise when it comes to lesser talked-about Pokémon.

[u/Golden-Owl]

No mention of Galvanize Explosion? Darn...