How viable is Talonflame in Gen 6 OU?

Question

Geez I have quite a lot to say about this Pokemon.

Talonflame is a fast Pokemon that can outspeed heck of a lot of other Pokemon, but...

Yeah, Talonflame was only my favorite Pokemon in Gen 6.

In Gen 6, Talonflame had access to the amazing ability Gale Wings, which gave priority to all Flying-type moves and let me tell you I loved Talonflame because of that. But in Gen 7 and 8, Gale Wings was nerfed so bad that Flying-type moves were only priority moves when Talonflame had full HP. Even damage from overworld weather without having Leftovers to heal the damage back up could make Talonflame have a useless ability.

Which is most of the reason why you don't see it in Gen 7 or 8 battles. And if you like the ability Flame Body, then Volcarona or many other Pokemon are better Flame-Body-users then Talonflame

But in Gen 6 OU I use it quite a lot. That said, I only ever had 5 or 6 Gen 6 OU battles...

But all of my battles, or at least majority of them, I used Talonflame and it was fricking OHKO-ing some of my opponent's Pokemon, because in Gen 6, Talonflame had Gale Wings and I used Brave Bird over and over again.

That all said, out of all of the Gen 6 OU battles that I have seen, barely any of them had Talonflame as one of the members. So just how viable is Talonflame in Gen 6 OU?

Comments

Actually, being at full HP doesn’t matter in gen 6. They nerfed Gale Wings in gen 7.

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ik, but I still don't see much battles having Talonflame in them for gen 6 OU

Answer 1

Viable? It's very viable. Maybe you saw low ladder people. Here's what smogon says :

With Gale Wings giving it very powerful priority moves in Brave Bird and Acrobatics, its excellent Speed enabling it to outpace almost the entire unboosted OU metagame, a great offensive typing, and access to boosting moves in Swords Dance and Bulk Up, Talonflame is one of the greatest offensive threats in the OU metagame. It can also serve as a very potent defensive Pokemon, with a decent support movepool consisting of Will-O-Wisp, Taunt, and U-turn, a solid defensive typing with resistances to common types such as Ground, Fighting, Fire, and Fairy, and priority on its recovery move, enabling it to stall out offensive Pokemon a lot more easily. However, it also suffers from glaring flaws, such as a crippling 4x weakness to Stealth Rock, lackluster initial power provided by a base 81 Attack stat, lack of offensive coverage making it relatively easy to wall, and mediocre bulk mitigating the nice defensive capabilities brought by its typing and support options.

It has lot of options and is very good after swords dance. In fact, it's the only Pokemon who can outspeed greninja in gen 6 OU with jolly and without priority ( it's not a check to it of course, but why not?).
Gale wings is a great ability to have. It can be a good lead as it then avoids stealth Rock for for time being and also defog away hazards. As smogon says it's very viable.
Hope I helped!