#triphinx

• Excellent stat spread with a nightmarish 190 ranged attack and 140 in most other stats, only weak point being a pitiful 50 melee attack (but not only is melee attack the less valuable attack stat, it can also use both Shield Bash and Brace For Impact to do melee damage with its 140 defense instead).

• Metal type gives it a favorable matchup against Ice and Poison, which I've found to be quite troublesome types, as well asbeing able to ruin strategies by disturbing Astral types (it can also bully Earth types but Earth is like the second worst defensive type so that's just salting the wound). It's not great as a defensive type though, so be warned (and even then, it can have Grounded to remove one of its weaknesses).

• A movepool so vast that I have to split it up into multiple bulletpoints to get the idea across.

• Astral coverage means it's great for AP draining against several types and destroying walls.

• An honestly absurd utility pool. This thing has Haunt and Phase Shift for some reason. It also has Shrapnel (which doesn't matter much in base game but would absolutely matter in PVP), Close Encounter (legit one of the best status moves you could ask for), Return Fire, AP Steal, Cold Fusion, Air Coating/Camouflage, Mind-Meld and more.

• Thanks to having both Air Camouflage and Glass Cannon, it can do the resonance cheese with a little assistance.

• Ecolocation is broken.

• Offensive movepool just as scary as its utility, though I don't feel like getting specific except for one particular move.

• Triphinx is quite possibly the best Gear Shear user in the game, which is the main reason I wanted to make this post. You'd probably think that it'd be Robindam due to its higher ranged attack, but that's not all there is to it. First off, Gear Shear has -1 priority, so being able to survive a turn to use it is crucial. Robindam's below average melee defense hinders that, however both of Triphinx's defenses are solid, meaning it's more likely to tank the damage to use it. Second, something that gives both Triphinx and Robindam an edge over many Gear Shear users is access to Ecolocation, which allows them to tear through all enemies at once with the move. The biggest factor in this though is typing. Robindam is Plastic type, while Triphinx is Metal type. This means Triphinx gets STAB on Gear Shear, cranking up the damage it can dish out to utterly insane numbers. Since Triphinx's ranged attack is only ten less than Robindam's, Triphinx effectively has even more damaging Gear Shears. Gearyu also gets STAB Gear Shear, however it's held back by having a lower ranged attack. This leads to Triphinx's Gear Shears possibly rivaling the damage of even Khepri's Headshots if all five hits connect, which isn't even mentioning Ecolocation.

Glass bootleg Triphinx