Overview
At a glance, you notice one thing about Florges: it’s outstanding special defense. Florges’ special defense is high enough that it usually invests in its frail physical defense to help stave off the meta’s strong physical attacks. Florges’ flaws are fairly numerous, though. Its middling speed makes it too slow to sweep but too fast to slow pivot on the slower mons in this meta or be a trick room abuser. It gets walled by Slowking-Galar and assault vest Muk-Alola and is punished with slow pivot or super-effective damage due to its lack of good coverage. It has average physical bulk at best, even with full investment.
Roles
Florges main role in this meta is special wall and wish passer. It is able to switch into nearly every strong special attack in this meta and either wish/protect or wish pass to a teammate. It achieves this best on teams that can patch up their physical defense and poison weakness with teammates like Mudsdale and Rotom-Fan, and Florges can support both with wish to fix their lack of reliable recovery.
Calcs:
252 SpA Life Orb Starmie Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Florges: 134-160 (37.2 - 44.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Slowking-Galar Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Florges: 146-174 (40.5 - 48.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Hatterene Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Florges: 136-162 (37.7 - 45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Cleric
Florges is one of two mons to have aromatherapy; due to that, it has a solid role as a cleric. Since one of the most consistent ways to deal with physical attackers is with burn, Florges can heal teammates like Krookodle and Mudsdale.
Calm Mind
Florges can run calm mind sets and clean up specific endgame situations, but with its lack of coverage and low physical defense, it can struggle to break through certain threats and can get revenge killed easily by Basculin-White Stripe and choice band Komola
Niche Roles
Florges has a few niche roles that, while not being great, can help very specific teams.
Florges is the only mon that can set grassy terrain. While there are no good grassy terrain abusers in this meta, it can help Glimmora and Slowking-Galar set up on hyper offense teams with grassy seed and lower earthquake damage.
Florges can run a specs set to get to certain benchmarks like OHKOing Starmie, but because it gets walled by the common Slowking-Galar, it can be used as slow pivot fodder
Calcs:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Florges Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Starmie: 264-312 (101.1 - 119.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Florges Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Politoed: 229-271 (59.6 - 70.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Conclusions:
While Florges is a great special wall, it has tough competition from Slowking-Galar and Hatterene. Its biggest downside is its inferior physical bulk and higher speed than the other special walls. Its only real niche is wish passing.
Written by Zetious