I guess my thoughts about the inevitable Suspect Test regarding Walking Wake is that its well deserved.
I'm very excited to partake and really solidify my initial thoughts about it. Anyone keeping up with the discussion can see that I'm pretty anti-Walking Wake in the current meta. I think the meta was in a really good place, where there wasn't really anything jumping out that seemed broken.
usage =/= brokeness but lets take the most 2 common Pokemons averaging 50% usage or there about. Great Tusk hasn't ever been in the discussion of being tracked on the radar because it can easily be beat, decent speed tier but it gets outspeed by a lot of things, the Booster Energy set / Choiced sets / Bulk Up set is what allows it shine offensively. It isn't ever "too much to handle", if you look at Gholdengo (Good as Gold) has always been in the discussion of potentially being meta restricting but the majority of people are fine with it because Gholdengo isn't the toughest thing to take down and with Tusk running at a higher usage rate, it will always outspeed [if max speed] and really hurt Gholdengo if it's not scarfed / if it doesn't tera. Obviously you have other checks / counters for Gholdengo like Clodsire, Kingambit, Volc, bulky waters etc.
To get back to the point of Walking Wake, it has a couple of checks or counters Gastro / Clodsire (Water Absorb), I'm sure a new tech could be added to beat certain counters since that's what tera blast is made for. To beat the Water Absorb brothers you can go with a Draco Meteor and hope to chip both down, but realistically both are solid counters (No Tera Blast included). Walking Wake has a very limited moveset, you don't have a lot of options of moves, if you're running it under Sun (Which is much easier to abuse than running it under Rain) you're not running Hurricane for example. Chien Pao was hard countered by Tauros Paldea but people didn't want to run Tauros Paldea on their team over better options. It's the same idea here with Walking Wake. Slowking and Toxapex both do a solid job as well of countering, generally any bulky water can take it on but the issue is the opposing team will be suited to take popular Walking Wake counters.
So whatever you have "a lot counters", now what? Protosynthesis.
Walking Wake @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 12 Def / 244 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Steam
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Hydro Pump
This is where my problem with this Pokémon comes in, under Sun this thing is a bit "too much to handle". It's a low effort mon much like Chien Pao, smack a Choice item and go to town. You have roughly 520 Special Attack and 522 Speed, so outside of Iron Valiant with Booster Energy / Roaring Moon under Sun / Booster Energy you're outspeed almost everything that doesn't have priority. Incredible speed tier to say the least, and then you have 520 Special Attack with a move that does 120 BP (under sun) + STAB = 180 total, it really puts a hole into a lot of things and that's not with Tera Water slapped onto it (Very reminiscing of Chi-Yu + Tera Fire).
[I can slap calcs if people are interested but I know people don't like calc arguments so I won't post it here unless someone's curious]
This really puts a restriction on team building, could the meta stay like this with Walking Wake? Absolutely.
Will people get used to it and stop complaining? Probably.
Is it
unhealthy to the metagame? No doubt.
Lastly I want to touch on its bulk and type overall which is understated a lot these last couple of days. Off the bat it's weak to only Dragon / Fairies, so if your opponent switches into something that is trying to kill it, easy play is to stay in and Tera Water to avoid the probable OHKO. Now regarding its bulk 339 HP no investment is a nice base to build around 221 Defense [12 EVs] invested + 202 Special Defense means you can take on hits from walls for days so you cannot easily take it down unless you plan on hitting it neutrally with something that has a Choice Band / Choice Specs (Shoutout to CB Great Tusk OHKOing it with Headlong Rush). My opinions can change in the next 2 weeks, but so far I have a lot of arguments for banning it vs keeping it in the meta, I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts about Christopher Walking Wake.