3/5 EX-R Academy Gladion and Porygon Z Showcase - Pokémon Masters EX

I am so lucky those Begginer Missions dropped this month, otherwise idk if I’d have been able to make this showcase! But since I have enough to pity both Academy Gladion and Kieran, I decided to pull for Gladion day one since I knew I was still safe to get Kieran on his debut too. Academy Gladion is very good, especially at higher move levels. He is definitely the best Normal damage dealer in the game, though that bar isn’t very high since the previous best Normal DPS was Palmer 😅. Gladion is focused on raw damage, with his passives all buffing his B Move, Hyper Beam and his sync move in that respective order. His only defensive passive being that he can heal instantly at under Half HP, though his defenses still make him a less than ideal tank. Gladion’s primary selling point is his Memory Emulator, which allows his B Move to become a super effective hit. The downside to this is that it only applies to a singular targets weakness, and as far as I can tell, it’s the weakness of the opponent currently being targeted. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of a chance to show off that weakness, due to the only stages I had this week being CS and LG, but I still figured I’d bring it up. Overall, Gladion is a powerful striker and the best Normal DPS as of current. He’ll likely shine most in Towers, but I still look forward to using him more in the future! Enjoy! Timestamps to battles, grids and lucky skills: —————————————————- 0:00 At least I can still put Kieran… 2:06 General Team Academy Gladion is weird to team build for, considering Normal Zone and the opponents weakness need to be considered when boosting his offense. In this case, I focused on buffing his Normal damage while leaving his On-Type as is. Gym Whitney is a better Normal Zone setter for him imo, but I don’t have her Caked, so Palmer is my best alternative. 5:16 Zoneless Since my Gym Whitney isn’t Caked, I can use her as an example for a Zoneless team comp. Plus, it gives me the opportunity to show off Gladion’s Opp Sp. Def ↓: S-Moves ↑ 5 grid node. It’ll pretty much be a staple node from this point onward in the video, since it’s such a powerful and useful passive for him. Plus, most of Gladion’s zoneless team will focus debuffing Sp. Def anyways dude to his self-sufficiency. 8:11 Cheap Team This is more for 1/5 purposes, since I presume most people with Gladion this highly invested don’t need cheap alternatives. But just in case, this team should do just fine for CS. Plus, I like running cheap teams in these videos anyways to show that these units don’t always need to be paired with modern and/or OP units. 11:21 Hit: Sp. Def ↓+ Larry Generally, if you can’t find a way to debuff Sp. Def with a team than I think Gladion’s Sp. Def ↓ multiplier isn’t worth picking up. But, if you still want to pick it up, Gladion does have a node next to that passive that lets him debuff Sp. Def himself with Hyper Beam. I mostly see this being used in niche scenarios though. Funnily enough, Larry seems like a near-perfect partner for Gladion. He lowers rebuff for both Normal and Weakness types and he has several methods of ramping to pair with Gladion’s sync acceleration. 14:09 On-Type Damage Focus Since Gladion’s B Move can only be used post-sync, I personally don’t think his teams should be built focusing on his super effective damage. But, I figured I’d show at least one team off with that idea, buffing the super effective hit with both rebuff and WTZ, along with Holiday Jasmine’s SEUN. 16:41 Self-Sufficient Build + Sync: SMUN 2 Decided to use this clear to show off the last two notable nodes on Gladion’s grid. Ramp Up maxes Gladion’s offensive stats, meaning he can afford to run a tank like Summer Cynthia to sit and take hits. I didn’t do this with any other clear, so I decided to exclusively sync with Gladion and make use of his Sync: SMUN node as well. I also wanted to use his Hyper Beam: Power +50 node because it’s very funny lol. 19:55 Offense LG Example Since Gladion is another example of a “strong move does big damage” unit, his Gauntlet combos will probably be fairly simple if used specifically for his DPS. He may be able to snag a few solos, but without maximum investment I don’t see him getting far. 22:25 Tank LG Example I see this as Gladion’s more likely trajectory in LG. Gladion’s Recover Program passive essentially uses Recover instantly upon Gladion reaching under Half HP, making him a decent tank for Gauntlet. The downside to this is that he can only use it twice, so it may only be viable on certain stages. However, I presume Gladion won’t be used on many of the higher difficulty stages in LG and this team I feel shows the basic idea of this playstyle. —————————————————-