What is a good moveset for Gallade?

Question

If you have a good competitive moveset for Gallade, post an answer below and upvote the best ones. Movesets for any of its pre-evolutions can also be shared on this thread.

Be sure to include full set details in your post, e.g. items, abilities, natures and EVs. Some detail, including the intended game mode for your set, is also appreciated. Access the full list of guidelines here.

Gallade Pokédex and learnset for reference.

Answer 1

Gallade @ Leftovers
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 240 HP / 200 SpD / 64 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch / Night Slash

This is the Gallade that Fear Itself Fears! xD

Late-game sweeper set that relies on sustainability from Leftovers, Drain Punch, and Bulk Up. Substitute helps it set up against status users. Night Slash lets it not be walled by Ghost- and Psychic-types.

Comments

This is the Gallade I fear.

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Fear Itself, fears this Gallade.

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That's how effective and powerful it is.

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Ah my Peanutbutter, making me proud as always.

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This should be called the FEAR Gallade. It's so fearsome that even Fear fears it!

Answer 2

Gallade @ Leftovers
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Careful / Impish Nature
- Mean Look
- Encore
- Disable / Torment
- Psycho Cut / Close Combat

The same strategy as my previously posted Gardevoir moveset. First, use Mean Look. Then, use Encore to lock the foe into a move. Next turn, if you resist, use Torment/Disable. The opponent is now forced to use Struggle and you have an automatic KO! The opponent can't escape anymore. Psycho Cut/Close Combat is STAB and is for not being a Taunt bait.

Comments

needs moar speed

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Meh, right.

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gallades sp def is alredy high

Answer 3

Gen 8 SS NU Substitute + Swords Dance

Gallade (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Atk / 188 SpD / 56 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Psycho Cut
- Swords Dance
- Substitute

A bulky Substitute + Swords Dance set for SS NU. Substitute allows you to scout opposing Pokemon as well as dodge status condition such as Burns and Toxic Poisoning. Swords Dance is used to boost your attack so you can deal more damage to opposing Pokemon. Drain Punch is used for the Fighting STAB on this set to let you recover HP. Psycho Cut is used for the Psychic STAB to avoid making contact with Vileplume, Talonflame, and random Rocky Helmet Pokemon. Psycho Cut also doesn't miss, unlike Zen Headbutt.

Leftovers is used as the item to give Gallade a little HP recovery each turn. 56 Speed EVs allow you to outspeed Golurk. 252 HP and 188 SpD EVs allow Gallade's Substitute to not get broken by 1 Scald from Vaporeon, allowing you to use it as setup fodder. The rest of the EVs are dumped into Attack. Adamant Nature is used to give some power to Gallade's attacks.

Answer 4

Role: Tricker / Sweeper

Gallade (M) @ Lagging Tail
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 96 HP / 80 Atk / 252 Def / 80 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Trick
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Zen Headbutt

Trick gives opponents a Lagging Tail to screw their speed up, and let him outspeed easier.
Bulk Up increases physical bulk, and allows an attack boost, while Drain Punch is STAB and recovery, and Zen Headbutt is STAB and Flinching.

Comments

Put fling on instead of trick, give him 0Evs and Ivs in speed and make him a trick room sweeper when trick room runs out use fling

Answer 5

Gallade @ Galladite
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Ice Punch / Shadow Sneak
- Drain Punch
- Psycho Cut

Swords Dance wallbreaker. Shadow Sneak and Drain Punch together give Gallade priority and sustainability that could help it sweep late-game.

Comments

Zen Headbutt is better than Psycho Cut because you can use a different attack if you need something that won't miss. Justified is better than Steadfast because it's a nice way to swap Gallade into defensive mons clicking Knock Off mindlessly.

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Drain punch doesn't give gallade priority

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Shadow Sneak and Drain Punch collectively do, but I'll change the wording.

Answer 6

Mega Gallade

Gallade @ Galladite
Ability: Justified / Steadfast
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat / Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Psycho Cut / Zen Headbutt / Ice Punch

• Swords Dance boosts it's attack by two stages, making it a terrifying physical sweeper.
• Close Combat is for sheer power at the cost of lowering your defences. Drain Punch is an alternative STAB which recovers health but isn't as strong.
• Knock Off provides almost perfect coverage and is a great move to hit Ghost and Psychic types as well as removing items.
• Psycho Cut or Zen Headbutt can be used for a second STAB option, providing a strong hit on Fighting and Poison types.

As an extra option, Ice Punch can be used over one of the Psychic STAB options to cover Dragon, Flying, Ground and Grass types. Justified is useful before mega evolving as it allows you to have your attack raised. Likewise steadfast is also useful in raising your speed if flinched, but outside of Fake Out it's very situational.

Answer 7

Gallade @ Life Orb / Lum Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Zen Headbutt
- Knock Off

• Swords Dance: Boosts attack by 2 stages
• Close Combat: High base power, STAB
• Zen Headbutt: Great coverage, hits poison types like Amoongus and weezing effectively, STAB
• Knock Off: More great coverage, hits psychic types like Uxie and Musharna hard

Life Orb gives more damage to Gallade's attacks
Lum Berry is an option that protects Gallade from status attacks

Answer 8

I have noticed that a lot of these posts have no Galladite so here's a moveset WITH the mega stone

Gallade @ Galladite
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Psycho Cut
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch
- Night Slash

• Psycho Cut - Sig move+high crit ratio
• Close Combat - STAB (next move you can replace with Reflect for cover)
• Ice Punch - Coverage (against Flying, Grass, Dragon, and Ground)
• Night Slash - Coverage against Ghost and high crit ratio

Comments

What nature? Also, is "SPD" supposed to be special defense or speed?

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I recommend Jolly or Adamant Nature but you can do brave nature if you want and SPD is Speed

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Psycho Cut isn't actually Gallade's signature move. Pokémon like Absol and Mewtwo can learn it. Though I do recommend it over Zen Headbutt. Accuracy>Power

Answer 9

Gen 8 SS NU Choice Band

Gallade (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly / Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Psycho Cut
- Knock Off
- Trick

A Choice Band Gallade set for SS NU. Sirfetch'd and Machamp are banned from SS NU, meaning Gallade has potential in SS NU as a Fighting-type that can beat Vileplume thanks to its part Psychic typing.

Close Combat is Gallade's Fighting STAB since it is pretty powerful. Psycho Cut is used for the Psychic STAB so you don't touch Vileplume and get affected by Effect Spore. Knock Off is useful against Ghost-types such as Decidueye, Dhelmise, Golurk, Psychic-types such as Xatu and Starmie, as well as defensive Pokemon such as Mudsdale by removing their items to cripple them. Trick allows you to cripple a defensive Pokemon by giving them your Choice Band to make them locked into one move. Jolly Nature gives you more speed, while Adamant can be used for more power if your team can handle +speed base 70s Pokemon such as Decidueye, Tsareena, and Tyrantrum.

Answer 10

Gallade @ Assault Vest
Ability: Justified
EVs: 202 HP / 54 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
• Drain Punch
• Psycho Cut
• Knock Off
• Shadow Sneak

Uses Gallade's good Special Defence to make it a switch-in against special attackers. Wide coverage including Shadow Sneak for priority gives Gallade options against a range of targets.

Answer 11

Gallade-Mega @ Galladite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 116 Def / 120 SpD / 20 Spe
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- Zen Headbutt
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch

With this set, you have recovery, boosts, and coverage for flying types! This works well in Pokemon Showdown in addition!

Answer 12

For the newer games this is the Gallade I use to mainly destroy a good amount of damage on other teams.

Gallade @ Life Orb / Muscle Band / Galladite
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Power-Up Punch
- Psycho Cut
- Knock Off
- Wonder Room

• Power-Up Punch (raises attack and does damage)
• Psycho Cut (double the chance of a critical hit)
• Knock Off (gets rid of the opponent's item for the battle, but can't knock off mega stones)
• Wonder Room (with the really low defense on my Gallade switch it with the opponents and Gallade's moves do more damage)

Comments

Why does it have a Quiet nature if all its attacking moves are physical, Quiet lowers speed as well so you pretty much gave Gallade one of the worst natures.

Answer 13

Powerhouse set

Warlord
Gallade (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Psycho Cut
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Poison Jab / Night slash

Gallade learns so many punching moves that he should be able to have iron fist as his ability. But this set is a good one for going up against fake out users. Psycho cut is his main STAB move for some good damage on those pesky Gengars and a couple of other things. Drain punch is his second STAB move hitting for some decent and healing up life orb damage and can deal with Ferrothorn leads. Thunder punch is there for flying coverage and possible paralysis although Fire punch could deal with Forretress and Ferrothorn better and Ice punch is just an alternative. Poison Jab and Night slash both cover weaknesses but I find Night slash to work better usually.

Answer 14

Mega Gallade. This thing is an absolute beast. 110 base speed and 165 base attack!!! Huge.
This is what I have on it

Gallade (M) @ Galladite
Ability: Steadfast / Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe or 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly / Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
- Psycho Cut

Mega Ability: Inner Focus (Prevents flinching, good for Fake Out spammers)
- Swords Dance: Boosts Attack to insane levels.
- Drain Punch: STAB, Same Power as Brick Break, but with healing, instead. Better than Close Combat because Defense drops can easily cripple it. Also allows you to heal damage taken on Swords Dance setup turn.
- Ice Punch: Good power, handles Flying type weakness, coverage, and helps with psuedo legendary Dragons.
- Psycho Cut: STAB, more accuracy than Zen Headbutt and only 15 less power, plus high crit chance.

Answer 15

Gallade (M) @ Galladite / Leftovers
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 HP / 68 Atk / 188 Spe
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Psycho Cut
- Drain Punch

• Substitute (for strategy I will explain in a bit)
• Focus Punch (also for strategy)
• Psycho Cut (good Psychic STAB and good damage)
• Drain Punch (more STAB and also healing)

So the strategy is: We added the HP EVs because we are going to make a substitute, which takes some of Gallade's HP to make a decoy. Then we use Focus Punch, which takes 1 turn to charge up before it launches the attack, and if the user gets damaged in between, it will fail. That's why we have Substitute, which will take the damage for Gallade so that way Focus Punch will succeed 100% of the time as long as he is behind the substitute. Then we have Psycho Cut for STAB and covers Fighting and Poison types, then Drain Punch for more STAB damage and also healing. So that's it for this, hope you have fun annoying some people with this rage-inducing Gallade loadout. Enjoy!

Answer 16

Gen 7 OU / National Dex Monotype (Psychic and Fighting)

Gallade (M) @ Galladite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Zen Headbutt
- Drain Punch / Close Combat

Substitute is to protect yourself from status. Swords Dance boosts your attack. Zen Headbutt is STAB. Drain Punch is STAB that heals you. Close Combat can be used for a stronger fighting STAB move.

Answer 17

Gen 9 Monotype Choice Scarf/Band + Sharpness Ability (Fighting)

Gallade @ Choice Scarf / Choice Band
Ability: Sharpness
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sacred Sword
- Psycho Cut
- Night Slash
- Shadow Sneak

A Choice Scarf/Band set with Gallade's new ability for Fighting teams in Gen 9 Monotype. In Gen 9, Gallade gets access to a new Ability called Sharpness, which gives Gallade's slicing moves a 1.5x boost. This Ability is basically a Choice Band for slicing moves. This Gallade set has 3 slicing moves that get boosted by Sharpness: Sacred Sword, Psycho Cut, and Night Slash.

In Gen 9, Gallade gets access to Sacred Sword, which gets boosted by Sharpness. This means that STAB + Sharpness Sacred Sword stronger than STAB Close Combat. Psycho Cut is for Psychic STAB that gets boosted by Sharpness. Night Slash, which gets boosted by Sharpness, is used to deal super effective damage to most of the Ghost-types in the meta. Shadow Sneak is used to revenge kill weakened Pokemon that Gallade can't outspeed with a Choice Scarf if you use Choice Scarf. Choice Scarf allows Gallade to serve as a revenge killer and help with the Ghost matchup, while Choice Band can let Gallade become a more potent wallbreaker.

Answer 18

Gen 9 National Dex OU
Gallade (M) @ Galladite
Ability: Sharpness
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat /Sacred Sword
- Psycho Cut
- Leaf Blade/Shadow Sneak
This set is great for breaking walls. Close Combat is great consistent fighting STAB however it also got Sacred sword this gen so you can swords dance and ignore Corviknight bulk ups. You can also run Sacred Sword if you don't like the Close Combat defense drops. Psycho Cut is great for high crit chance. You can run Zen Heabutt instead if you want to trade in accuracy and crit rate for power and flinch chance. Leaf Blade is coverage for mons like Unaware Quagsire and Tapu Fini. Shadow Sneak for Priority

Answer 19

Gallade @ Salac Berry
Ability: Sharpness
EVs: 252 Atk/64 SpD/60 Spe/128 HP
Jolly Nature
-Bulk Up/Swords Dance
-Drain Punch
-Psycho Cut
-Shadow Sneak/Leaf Blade

I am very proud of this set.

Bulk Up or Swords dance for decent setting up and this can be good because your opponent gets a free hit which could do lots of damage but most likely not OHKO due to the invested SpD and HP which may activate the Salac berry so Gallade can outspeed almost everything. Drain Punch for STAB and can heal lots of health back thanks to the boosted attack from Swords dance or bulk up. Psycho Cut also for STAB and also gets the boost from sharpness. Shadow sneak for coverage and nice priority as well as countering ghost types, or go leaf blade instead since it gets boosted from sharpness.

Comments

How does the Lum Berry activate from not getting OHKOed?
Also, 126 and 63 are not divisible by 4, so you are wasting some evs.

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Oop- i didnt mean to put lum berry i meant salac berry, i will edit it right now

Answer 20

Gen 9 NU Swords Dance

Gallade @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Sacred Sword
- Psycho Cut
- Shadow Sneak

A Swords Dance set Gallade can use in Gen 9 NU. Swords Dance makes Gallade's attack powerful, allowing it to use its Sharpness STAB moves, Sacred Sword and Psycho Cut, to OHKO or 2HKO most of the tier. Most Pokemon in NU can't resist both Sacred Sword and Psycho Cut. Shadow Sneak allows Gallade to deal super effective damage to Pokemon such as Galarian Articuno, Hoopa, Bruxish, Hisuian Braviary, Uxie, and Delphox, Pokemon who resist its STAB combination. Shadow Sneak is also useful to pick off faster Pokemon since it is a priority move. Heavy-Duty Boots is used since Gallade's STAB moves are powerful thanks to Sharpness, and Gallade really doesn't want to get chipped by hazards. Tera Ghost lets Gallade have a more powerful Shadow Sneak, allowing it to OHKO Delphox after a Swords Dance boost.