Gallade

Gallade fulfills its niche by having the widest movepool of any Fighting-type in the tier. Gallade's access to Will-O-Wisp, Taunt, and a strong Close Combat make it an excellent lead against defensive teams. Defensive counterplay to burns typically are frail (most Fire-types such as Infernape or Camerupt), weak to Fighting (Heatran and Clefable), or are ruined by Taunt (passive Natural Cure Pokemon including Celebi and Blissey and RestTalk users such as Suicune, Rotom-A, or Gyarados). Combined with Gallade's unusually high Special Defense stat and uncommon weaknesses to Flying- and Ghost-types, it can spread burn to foes that typically do not want to be statused, such as Jirachi, Zapdos, and Latias. Gallade also has numerous excellent coverage moves such as a STAB boosted Zen Headbutt, Shadow Sneak, Ice Punch, Stone Edge, and even Leaf Blade. These, all of which can be powered up with Swords Dance, make an unknown Gallade set dangerous to face.

Unfortunately, Gallade cannot run all of these options at the same time and additionally struggles due to its mediocre Speed stat, poor defensive profile, and competition from other Fighting-types such as Lucario and Machamp. Gallade's average Speed and likelihood to lower its own defensive stats with Close Combat makes it easy to revenge kill with almost every faster threat in the tier, such as Flygon, Latias, Rotom-A, and Scizor using Bullet Punch. This issue is exacerbated by Gallade's lack of resistances, weakness to residual damage, and poor HP and Defense stats. As a lead, Gallade really struggles with physically bulky or faster leads that carry a Lum Berry if it doesn't have the coverage to deal with them, such as Metagross, Gyarados, Azelf, offensive Jirachi, and some Swampert. These Pokemon either survive Gallade's attacks and KO back, or fulfill their role to set up Stealth Rock. While its ability is nice against Jirachi trying to flinch it, the Speed boost is often nullified by Jirachi spreading paralysis. Gallade struggles to differentiate itself from Lucario and Machamp: Lucario is faster, has much better priority in Extreme Speed, better defensive typing, and can reliably use Life Orb without residual damage piling up. As an anti-lead, Machamp's greater overall bulk, confusion from Dynamic Punch, and a stronger coverage option against Ghost- and Psychic-types in Payback makes it generally threatening to more offensive Pokemon.