Giratina Origin Forme, The Renegade Pokémon. It was banished for its violence. It silently gazed upon the old world from the Distortion World. Without elements from the Distortion World, Giratina cannot enter the real world and remain in this form.ť
Overview
Giratina's "Origin Form" (henceforth called Giratina-O) is a variation of the "Altered Form" Giratina (henceforth called Giratina-A). The stats are like-for-like, except the Base Stats of its offensive stats are switched with its defensive stats (and yes, I did use the word "stats" a few too many times, but that's technical terms for ya). This makes Giratina-O more offensively-inclined, reinforced by the addition of the Griseous Orb (which gives its STAB moves a 20% boost). Whilst Giratina-O doesn't sacrifice the defensive side of its game completely, it performs in an opposite way to Giratina-A. Giratina-A is a defensive behemoth, and whilst Giratina-O isn't an offensive steamroller (which would be the opposite), it tries to be, and even by the Uber tier's high standards, it doesn't do an awful job of it either.
Ability
Levitate: gives you a nice immunity to Earthquake, Spikes and Toxic Spikes. Altogether a nice all-round package. It gives you an extra type to switch into and keeps that odd touch of passive damage or poison away.
Move Sets
Sub-Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Shadow Ball / Dragon Pulse / Aura Sphere
- Shadow Ball / Dragon Pulse / Aura Sphere
Item Attached: Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 164 Spd / 252 SAtk / 92 SDef
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
It's a page out of Raikou's book. You throw up a Substitute (which in Giratina-O's case is a pretty chunky Sub) and behind it you safely Calm Mind; which is especially gratifying when you're faced with a Special Attacker who is struggling to break your Substitute before the Special Defence boosts, much less after. At the same time, you're getting some helpful Special Attack boosts, making Giratina-O, who is already an impressive offensive threat, more threatening.
You have three main moves to pick from, which you get to turn it into some form of two move combination. Shadow Ball gets STAB and great type coverage over the plentiful Psychics littered over the Uber tier whilst Dragon Pulse gets STAB and great type coverage over the plentiful Dragons littered over the Uber tier, and both get a neat 20% boost off of Griseous Orb. It's tempting to run those two together, but Ghost-Dragon are both resisted by Steel types, which presents a potential problem. Aura Sphere bonds well with either of those two moves, since Ghost-Fighting and Ghost-Dragon are both un-resisted combinations and the Fighting move gives you some super-effective coverage over Steel types.
Special Attacker
- Draco Meteor / Dragon Pulse
- Shadow Ball
- Aura Sphere
- Thunder
Item Attached: Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 92 HP / 164 Spd / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
If you treat Griseous Orb like a Life Orb without the recoil, then you can produce a very usable “all-out attacker” move-set. You don't get a boost on all of your attacking moves, but your two core STAB moves get the all important boost. In particular, you can play the 'in-and-out' game like a Specs-user with your STAB and Orb-boosted Draco Meteor. If you don't fancy having that stat-drop forcing your hand to switch, then you can go with the reliable Dragon Pulse. Either way, you get some STAB Dragon coverage to hit the many Dragons in the Uber environment, and then you have STAB Shadow Ball providing Ghost coverage over the many Psychics. Aura Sphere handles the aforementioned Steel types, as well as Darkrai. Finally, Thunder is there mostly as a filler but also for a super-effective hit on Kyogre.
Physical Attacker
- Dragon Claw
- Shadow Claw
- Earthquake
- Draco Meteor / Will-o-Wisp / Stone Edge
Item Attached: Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 92 HP / 252 Atk / 164 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
Giratina's physical answer to its special option. Its move-pool is slightly more shallow on the physical side, but it still has two reliable STABs to work with: Dragon Claw and Shadow Claw, providing the aforementioned type coverage. Earthquake deals with the Steel types (and you don't have a viable Fighting alternative). Your physical move-pool kind of comes to a halt here. Thanks to your STABs, you pretty much cover the majority of Uber threats. Draco Meteor is still powerful even without EV help, so it's worth some consideration. Will-o-Wisp can cripple Groudon, who is fairly well off against the rest of Giratina-O's moves. Stone Edge will wipe the floor with Ho-oh, but Ho-oh isn't exactly well off taking neutral-hitting STAB moves as it stands, so it's not entirely necessary to carry a move specifically for it.
EVs and Nature:
One of the first areas where you'll need to be decisive is in Speed. Your Base 90 Speed stat is slow by Uber standards, but it's also tied even with several other Ubers, notably Groudon, Kyogre and Dialga. There's a temptation to go with absolute max Speed (306) in order to draw even with or outrun them. This has some make-or-break potential from a sweeping point of view. If you decide to go all the way with Speed, then that'll immediately take up your EVs and nature. If you aren't going to go all the way, then you'll probably want to hit the 230-260 Speed area. 230 Speed puts you ahead of Adamant (max Speed) Scizor, 237 puts you ahead of no-Speed Jirachi, 240 ahead of Adamant (max Speed) Metagross and 257 puts you ahead of no-Speed Lugia and Jolly (max Speed) Scizor. There are all sorts of other variables, but you'll probably want some Speed in order to outrun the aforementioned Groudon, Kyogre and Dialga when they also aren't going heavy on Speed investment. The sample EV spreads provide you with 257 Speed, but you can happily drift below that number if desired.
Now for the rest of the EVs. If you're using Substitute, due to a lack of Leftovers recovery, you'll want to make sure your HP stat is not divisible by 4, allowing you to use 4 Subs and have 1 HP left. It costs you 4 HP EVs (or none if you have some control over the HP IV), so whilst it's slightly situational, it's a small price for an occasional advantage. A 31 HP IV Giratina without any HP EVs comes to 441 HP anyway, so you don't need to worry, but when dealing with other IVs, some minor consideration may need to be exercised. The rest of the EVs should go to maximising your core attacking stat (obviously). On the CM-Sub set the excess EVs go to Special Defence, to benefit from the boosts, but they could honestly go anywhere. HP, Defence, Special Defence, it'll only make a small difference.
Other Options
Outrage, Earth Power, Energy Ball.
There's not much else to list aside from what's already been mentioned. Most of the defensive moves Giratina-O has access to are better utilised by Giratina-A, so the few unmentioned offensive moves are the only 'real' alternatives.
You can mix up STAB Outrage with the Griseous Orb for some offensive steamrolling if you can keep Steels out of the way, but your relatively slow Speed in comparison to other Ubers hurts your “steam-rolling” chances, and being unable to switch can leave you overly exposed.
Earth Power is a good alternative to Aura Sphere, and both are used primarily for handling Steel types. Metagross and Jirachi skip out on super-effective hits from Aura Sphere (although they both take neutral damage from Ghost moves), and Heatran takes a harder hit from Earth Power than from Aura Sphere. The main loss is the desirable super-effective hit on Dark types.
Energy Ball is a bit of a two-for-one deal on Groudon and Kyogre, although Thunder is better for Kyogre and it's hardly like Giratina's STABs are incompetent against Groudon (especially striking at its weaker Special Defence).
Countering Giratina Origin Forme
Since Giratina-O picks up both Ghost and Dragon STAB, giving it super-effective coverage on the majority of its Uber opposition, and as with most offensively-inclined Ubers, finding an “in all situations” counter is difficult. Luckily, it's also weak to Ghost, Dark, Dragon and Ice moves, so almost all Ubers have a super-effective move to use against it (many backed by STAB). This is particularly helpful against the Calm Mind-Sub set, since that super-effective coverage can help breakdown those Substitutes before they become impenetrable.
Aside from the Calm Mind-Sub set, Special-attacking sets can be stopped by Blissey, particularly those equipped with Calm Mind or a Light Screen. Giratina-O has Aura Sphere access but even that super-effective coverage won't bring down Blissey. A defensive Groudon is pretty safe against physically-inclined Giratina-O sets, provided they don't pack something like Will-o-Wisp or Draco Meteor, with the former devastating Groudon's game and the latter taking a decent chunk of HP from it. If Giratina-O lacks a Ghost move, Lugia can pose a walling threat to both physical and special attacking variants. Also, the non-Uber Steel types (and the potential Steel Arceus) pack resistances to both of Giratina-O's STABs, although Giratina-O is usually equipped with a Ground or Fighting move to deal with their possible appearances.
What else can I say? Giratina-O has fairly solid defensive stats, a nice set of resistances and immunities to switch on and pretty strong offensive capabilities. Its major weaknesses lie in its comparatively low Speed stat (Base 90 is low by the standards of an Uber sweeper) and the fact that it's weak to all of the popular attacking types in the Uber environment. Like with all Ubers, it isn't easy to cope with, but it isn't the hardest of the lot to face either.
Locations in Games
|
Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Not in Game Colosseum/XD Not in Game Fire Red/Leaf Green Not in Game Diamond/Pearl/Platinum Not in Game (DP) Distortion World (Pt)
|
|
 |
|
Animé Appearences
| Giratina has had a single Animé Appearence. In it, it decides to hunt down Dialga for causing pollution to the Reverse World. Whenever it left the real world, its form would change to the Origin Forme |
|