Competitive Pokemon History - Arceus-Fighting Quiz

Answer: Stall teams

On paper, most offensive Arceus formes tend to fit faster playstyles better, so Arceus-Fighting would seem to follow suit. However, it has a lot of unique qualities that make it highly appreciable on stall teams. Chief among them would be its excellent matchup against a lot of scary stallbreaking threats.

The list includes Darkrai, Dialga, Arceus-Dark, Tyranitar and Heatran. The second notable quality is its resistance to Stealth Rock, easing the need to keep entry hazards off the field at all times. Finally, Arceus-Fighting made for a great win condition for stall teams.

As these teams passively wore the opponent down, Arceus-Fighting could come in, boost with Calm Mind once or twice, and finish the game for them. This unique and highly valuable set of niches made Arceus-Fighting a good Pokémon in fourth generation Ubers.

Answer: Weak STAB options

Arceus-Fighting had a bounty of useful coverage options that such a set could make use of. However, its best STAB option is the extremely underwhelming Brick Break - a pitifully weak move. Because other formes of Arceus have much better STAB options, namely the Extreme Killer, Ghost, Ground and Dragon variants, this set was outclassed in whole by them, and was not worth using over its Calm Mind alternative.

Answer: Ho-Oh

Ho-Oh's mighty Special Defense, resistance to Fighting and massively powerful super effective Brave Birds enabled it to switch in all day and immediately threaten an OHKO. Simply put, this matchup was insurmountable, so Arceus-Fighting needed teammates that could help handle the golden phoenix. In addition to Ho-Oh, Mewtwo, Lugia and the Lati twins were capable of pulling this off.

Answer: Lucario and Heracross

Lucario had excellent mixed attacking potential. Unlike Arceus-Fighting, it had access to the brutally strong Close Combat, making a physically offensive set worthwhile. Its Steel typing made it immune to Toxic, so it could obliterate Blissey and contend with Skarmory, two things Arceus-Fighting could struggle with. Arceus-Fighting's vastly superior longevity and Speed made it better overall, but again, Lucario's crown advantage was that it could be run without opportunity cost, enabling its trainer to use a different Arceus forme; this was not possible for Arceus-Fighting.

Heracross' claim to fame was being one of few Pokémon who could outright hard-counter any Darkrai set conceivable, even if the Darkrai user predicts the switch and puts Heracross to sleep with Dark Void. Most Pokémon hit by Dark Void become useless as they sleep, but not Heracross; it always came packed with Sleep Talk, had the Guts ability to take advantage of being put to sleep, and both of its STAB options tore Darkrai apart. It also frequently donned a Choice Scarf, could outspeed Darkrai, and could easily annihilate it if it dared make the foolish mistake of staying in play against it. This, by itself, gave Heracross incredible standing in the Uber tier, as this niche was entirely unique to itself.

These two Pokémon becoming mainstays, and the latter's strengthening viability in the fifth generation, made using Arceus-Fighting questionable at times.

Answer: Utility Wall

Arceus-Fighting lacked the relevant resistances and overbearing bulk it needed to make an outright Physical Wall set at all useful compared to the monstrous Lugia or Skarmory. Instead, a Utility Wall set worked far better. This set aimed to take advantage of Arceus-Fighting's excellent matchup against Steel types, the extreme rarity of Poison types, and its access to Toxic to spread nasty poison all around the opposing team.

It also still was an excellent check to major metagame players, like the newcoming Ferrothorn, Dialga, Darkrai, Tyranitar and Arceus-Dark. Thus, this set was definitely viable for the overall meta, and was quite notable at being far superior to other Fighting types who could not even come close to trying out the same thing.

Answer: Fairy

The cover legendary Xerneas sprung to life in Ubers, and it could brush Arceus-Fighting aside like a stiff breeze. Arceus also obtained a Fairy type forme that similarly dominated its Fighting type counterpart. The addition of the Fairy typing may seem like the heightened need for Steel type answers would serve to benefit Arceus-Fighting. However, in that regard, there are two major problems; the majority of relevant Steel types were neutral or even immune to Fighting, and even if that wasn't the case, Primal Groudon was the best Pokémon in Ubers by a significant margin, and it blasted every Steel type in the game without struggling, leaving Arceus-Fighting without a niche in that department.

Sadly, Arceus-Fighting was pretty useless in the sixth generation.

Answer: Extreme-Killer Arceus

As previously mentioned, Xerneas totally slaughtered Arceus-Fighting, and only even mildly worried about switching into it as it used Thunder Wave or Toxic, with Aromatherapy variants not even worrying about that. Yveltal could also use its signature move, Oblivion Wing, to fitfully blast Arceus-Fighting into oblivion. Mega Salamence could achieve the same thing with Aerilate-boosted Double Edge or Return.

However, Extreme Killer Arceus had to watch out for the niche Arceus-Fighting. It failed to OHKO with any move even after a Swords Dance boost, while being OHKOed by Arceus-Fighting's super effective Judgment.

This was pretty notable, even though it wasn't enough to make Arceus-Fighting actually viable for the tier.

Answer: Grass

To give an idea of how silly this was, Arceus-Grass itself wasn't even that good in the Uber tier. It was marginally viable, and the fact that it totally outclassed Arceus-Fighting was just sad. Both formes share pretty much the same exact checks and counters, while Arceus-Grass can at least take down Primal Kyogre, deter Primal Groudon from switching in, and most importantly, has a unique typing that generally wasn't contested as a whole, much less anywhere near as heavily as Arceus-Fighting. Thus, practically any team looking to use Arceus-Fighting should explore Arceus-Grass instead, as it was infinitely better. Such a team may wish to change its overall structure before trying to use either forme, but that's neither here nor there.

Answer: It lost to every relevant Dark type

Yveltal, by far the most popular Dark type, used its secondary Flying typing to destroy Arceus-Fighting. Said typing also made it merely neutral to Fighting, so it actually had the upperhand from a typing perspective. Arceus-Dark was once upon a time hard countered by Arceus-Fighting, but the shift in the meta effecting both Pokémon gave Arceus-Dark a much better shot at overcoming the Fighting variant. If it could get a single Calm Mind boost in before Arceus-Fighting switched in, the matchup became very dangerous for Arceus-Fighting, and if it lost, the game would be pretty much over as a heavily boosted Arceus-Dark could proceed to destroy its team.

Even Tyranitar carried a pretty heavy degree of risk for Arceus-Fighting to switch into. Thunder Wave crippled it immensely, as did Toxic, and a Tyranitar with a single Dragon Dance boost could quite conceivably finish a mildly weakened Arceus-Fighting off.

Thus, pretty much any Fairy type imaginable made for a better counterpick to these Dark types than Arceus-Fighting did due to its horrific unreliability at beating them.

Answer: No

Rather, Arceus-Fighting was one of the worst Pokémon in the tier. Its talents as a Fighting type were outclassed by Mega Lucario and Marshadow, and using it boosted the evergrowing opportunity cost of being unable to use another vastly superior Arceus forme.

It matched up incredibly poorly with most of the overall meta, didn't offer a useful niche at all, and had poor overall synergy with most high-top level threats in the meta. Thus, Arceus-Fighting was a total joke. It was so bad that it was often spoken of in the same breath as other meme-worthy threats were, like Cloud Nine variants of Golduck, Mega Metagross, Arceus-Fire and Pheromosa.