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Gengar discussion thread

Vandslaux

Well-Known Member
94.png

60/65/60/130/75/110

Shadow Ball, Focus Blast, Energy Ball, Giga Drain, Hypnosis, Psychic, Thunderbolt, Trick, Substitute, Disable, Destiny Bond, Hidden Power, Thunder (if on a Rain team, for some reason), Protect, Pain Split, Sludge Bomb, Focus Punch, Explosion (?)

Gengar has 18 very viable moves, showing his unpredictability.

Levitate: A really good ability, it lets you switch into Earthquakes for free, giving him yet another immunity. Double, if he didn't have it, he would have a Ground weakness.

A gen. 1 favorite of mine, this ghost is possibly one of the best pokemon in the current BW Metagame. He can easily force out pokemon that usually only carry one attacking move that can touch him, like Jirachi. He can Sub on an Iron Head, Disable it, set up another Sub, and basically get a free turn to do anything he wants. He can even pull off a decent mono-attacking set of Shadow Ball, Focus Blast, Hidden Power Ice/Fire, and Thunderbolt, or maybe even a Sub + 3 Attacks set. Or maybe even a Scarf set to catch pokemon like Deoxys-S off guard and cripple walls with Trick. He can even run a SubSplit set to lure out and beat the pink blobs.

Here are some amazing sets for Gengar, all exportable:

SubDisable
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Gengar (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
- Disable

SubSplit
094.png

Gengar (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
- Pain Split

Special sweeper
094.png

Gengar (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Thunderbolt

HP Ice could be used if you want to hit pokemon like Salamence harder.
Choice
094.png

Gengar (M) @ Choice Scarf/Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest/Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Trick
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Sub + 3 attacks
094.png

Gengar (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Ice]

MysticGar
094.png

Gengar (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Protect could be used to scout what Scizor is going to do.
 
What about Sub Pain Split, one of his best sets? Its worthy of more than just a passing mention since it plays completely different.
 

Ísjaki

Flood Of Red
I like gengar, the various ways he can be used makes him pretty hard to predict
 

Victory

Banned
Sub + Disable is an awesome set. You can devastate opponents with it. I have had personal experience using it, and it's fantastic.
 

Gamefreak

Well-Known Member
Mention Sub Gengar with HP Fire, or Mystic Gar. Those are both really good right now. The common misconception is that Scizor fixes a Gengar weak, and HP Fire lure Gengar takes advantage of that.

Taken directly from the smogon analysis. It still works great in gen 5.

[spoil]Gengar (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Protect
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Protect allows Gengar to defeat most versions of the two Pokemon who give it the most difficulty in the Platinum metagame: Pursuit Tyranitar and Bullet Punch + Pursuit Scizor. After Gengar has switched in and Tyranitar or Scizor have then switched in as well, Gengar will first use Protect to see if Tyranitar or Scizor uses Pursuit. If either Pokemon uses Pursuit, Gengar will use the proper move to OHKO it. If neither Pokemon uses Pursuit, Gengar can safely switch out. Note that even with Protect, Gengar needs to remain wary of non-Choiced Scizor with Bullet Punch and Pursuit and Choice Scarf Tyranitar with Pursuit. Shadow Ball and Focus Blast give Gengar perfect coverage, while Hidden Power Fire lets it OHKO Scizor that decide to Pursuit.


Magnezone is a great partner for this set due to its ability to trap Choice Band Scizor attempting to Bullet Punch Gengar as well as Choice Scarf Jirachi aiming to Iron Head it. Additionally, since this version of Gengar is such a good lure for its usual counters, having a Pokemon who benefits from having Pokemon like Scizor eliminated makes for a great partner. If Gengar lures out and eliminates Scizor, Pokemon like Dragonite can sweep easier, as one of its main counters has been eliminated. Other offensive Pokemon such as Tyranitar can significantly benefit from Scizor's death as well.[/spoil]
 

TrollFreak

Pit is Awesome :P
Why no specs Gar, he has 110 base speed, why not use specs to hurt ****

EDIT- and replace black sludge with Leftovers, if you get tricked, your opponent now has something to hurt your team with
 

LinksOcarina

The true master
I think Gengar and Starmie are the only two pokemon to be OU for 5 generations in a row.

And it shows, his prowess is the diversity in attacks and setups you can make, and he can pretty much fill any role on a team.
 

Ilan

Well-Known Member
Now I look at gengar stats... espeon have the same offense stats while having better defensive stats and ability and they share pretty much the same weaknesses so why isn't espeon used offensively?
why is gengar better than espeon? ghost type? levitate?

what about clear smog? it is like an offensive haze pretty useful with subtitute . and have 75 base power (after stab) seems useful in my opinion.
 

Zachmac

Well-Known Member
Now I look at gengar stats... espeon have the same offense stats while having better defensive stats and ability and they share pretty much the same weaknesses so why isn't espeon used offensively?
why is gengar better than espeon? ghost type? levitate?
It has better typing. Sure, pretty much the same weaknesses, but it also resist more, and has two immunities. With levitate, that's three immunities. It is also capable of Sub/Pain Split and Sub/Disable, and it can pull off the second only because of it's typing.

Prett much nothing Shadow Ball/Focus Blast, while espeon has to rely on HP fighting for coverage, and that's walled by other psychics.

Look at these sets, and give me one of them Espeon can pull off. It doesn't have the movepool for a choice item or Sub+three attacks, before you argue with that. It also gets trick only as a gen 4 move, so it can't keep that with magic bounce.

Espeon and Gengar are completely different. Espeon is usually Dual Screen support or a calm mind booster, while Gengar is offensive.
what about clear smog? it is like an offensive haze pretty useful with subtitute . and have 75 base power (after stab) seems useful in my opinion.
I'd hardly call 75 power offensive. Also, if an enemy is trying to set up on it while it's behind a sub, it's going to be taken out by it's attacks anyway, or is a complete counter to Gengar anyway.
 

lovetheangelshadow

One heck of a Nobody
I noticed none of these sets have Will o Wisp, Toxic, or Thunder Wave...how come? I thought a Sub, Disable, statues messing move, hex would work. No I haven;'t tried it yet...I'm still experimenting with pairings...
 

Zachmac

Well-Known Member
I noticed none of these sets have Will o Wisp, Toxic, or Thunder Wave...how come? I thought a Sub, Disable, statues messing move, hex would work. No I haven;'t tried it yet...I'm still experimenting with pairings...
It's too frail to be a status spreader. It can't stall with Toxic, nor can it take advantage of Will-o-Wisp lowering attack or T-wave lowering speed.
 

kaiser soze

Reading ADWD
I noticed none of these sets have Will o Wisp, Toxic, or Thunder Wave...how come? I thought a Sub, Disable, statues messing move, hex would work. No I haven;'t tried it yet...I'm still experimenting with pairings...
You're completely missing out on that base 130 Special Attack. Besides, Gengar has horrible defenses and can't reasonably expect a Sub to survive more than one turn. Also you risk getting walled by Normals (and probably some Steels too) with only Hex.

You're not going to survive a lot of hits. Just go for max destruction with your above average movepool and great speed and SA. Don't try to be fancy with spending moves and moveslots with statuses, just go f**k s#!t up.
 
I noticed none of these sets have Will o Wisp, Toxic, or Thunder Wave...how come? I thought a Sub, Disable, statues messing move, hex would work. No I haven;'t tried it yet...I'm still experimenting with pairings...

That's like running Swords Dance on Skarmory. WoW could be nice for screwing Scizor / Tyranitar / Jirachi switch ins but they will still probably kill you so you might as well just attack them.
 

jacques

Banned
wow on gar would be good at weaken counters for other special attacker like burn scizor and jirachi now they dont stop reuniclus.if rather attack those mon remember hp fire wont beat jirachi or do much,really and some people chople berry on ttar wont lose to focus blast good at help.
 

kaiser soze

Reading ADWD
If you want a Will-O-Wisper, use a bulky Ghost like Jellicent, Spiritomb, or Dusclops.
 

jacques

Banned
you don't understand wow gar lure out counters because nobody will expect wow on gar so it share counters with something then the other mon sweep.
 

Zachmac

Well-Known Member
you don't understand wow gar lure out counters because nobody will expect wow on gar so it share counters with something then the other mon sweep.
HP fire hits Scizor on the switch, at the very least. It's better off doing damage then spreading status.
Hey, stop making fun of the YouTubers BH, one day they may come and get you
While I agree with Blue Harvest on this one, I still find this post amusing.
That's like running Swords Dance on Skarmory.
I swept a couple teams with Agility/Swords Dance/Roost/Brave Bird in gen four. It was fun. :D

Outclassed by just about every swords or dragon dancer out there, but still fun. I used to be one of those people who refused to go with the crowd whenever I could...I still am in a way, but not to the extremes.
 

Vandslaux

Well-Known Member
OK, so I'm either playing SubSplit Gengar wrong, or something like that. I've tried it, I end up Subbing a few times, and die after I Split.
 
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