Rotom Forms

[Ditto]

Introduction
With the introduction of Platinum, GameFreak granted Rotom 5 alternate forms, often referred to as Rotom-A or Appliance Rotoms. Each of these boasted a new Stat distribution, as well as a specialty move for each different form. However, despite the changes in forms, all Rotoms held onto its Electric/Ghost typing. With the advent of Generation 5, Appliance Rotoms forgo their Ghost typing in place of a new typing to match their signature move. Despite this change in typing, all Rotoms seem to retain the Levitate ability.
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Rotom

50 | 50 | 77 | 95 | 77 | 91

Offensive Typing
Resisted by: Dragon/Dark, Dragon/Normal, Dragon/Steel, Electric/Dark, Electric/Normal, Electric/Steel, Grass/Dark, Grass/Normal, Grass/Steel, Ground/Dark, Ground/Normal, Ground/Steel

Defensive Typing
Immunity: Normal, Fighting, Ground
Resistant: Electric, Poison, Flying, Bug, Steel
Neutral: Fire, Water, Grass, Ice, Psychic, Rock, Dragon
Weak: Ghost, Dark

Rotom-Fan

50 | 65 | 107 | 105 | 107 | 86
Special Move: Air Slash

Offensive Typing
Resisted by: Electric, Electric/Dragon, Electric/Ground, Steel/Dragon, Steel/Ground, Rock/Dragon, Rock/Ground

Defensive Typing
Immunity: Ground
Resistant: Grass, Fighting, Flying, Bug, Steel
Neutral: Normal, Fire, Water, Electric, Poison, Psychic, Ghost, Dragon, Dark
Weak: Ice, Rock

Rotom-Frost

50 | 65 | 107 | 105 | 107 | 86
Special Move: Blizzard

Offensive Typing
Resisted by: Electric/Steel, Electric/Fire, Electric/Ice, Lanturn

Defensive Typing
Immunity: Ground
Resistant: Electric, Ice, Flying
Neutral: Normal, Water, Grass, Poison, Psychic, Bug, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Steel
Weak: Fire, Fighting, Rock

Rotom-Heat

50 | 65 | 107 | 105 | 107 | 86
Special Move: Overheat

Offensive Typing
Resisted by: Dragon, Electric/Dragon, Rock/Dragon, Ground/Dragon, Ground/Fire, Ground/Rock, Lanturn

Defensive Typing
Immunity: Ground
2x Resistant: Steel
Resistant: Fire, Electric, Grass, Ice, Flying, Bug
Neutral: Normal, Fighting, Poison, Psychic, Ghost, Dragon, Dark
Weak: Water, Rock

Rotom-Mow

50 | 65 | 107 | 105 | 107 | 86
Special Move: Leaf Storm

Offensive Typing
Resisted by: Dragon, Grass, Dragon/Bug, Dragon/Fire, Dragon/Ground, Dragon/Poison, Dragon/Steel, Electric/Dragon, Electric/Bug, Electric/Fire, Grass/Dragon, Electric/Fire, Electric/Poison, Electric/Steel

Defensive Typing
Immunity: Ground
2x Resistant: Electric
Resistant: Water, Grass, Steel
Neutral: Normal, Fighting, Flying, Psychic, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark
Weak: Fire, Ice, Poison, Bug

Rotom-Wash

50 | 65 | 107 | 105 | 107 | 86
Special Move: Hydro Pump

Offensive Typing
Resisted by: Dragon, Grass, Electric/Dragon, Grass/Dragon, Ground/Dragon, Ground/Grass, Lanturn

Defensive Typing
Immunity: Ground
2x Resistant: Steel
Resistant: Water, Fire, Ice, Flying
Neutral: Normal, Electric, Fighting, Poison, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark
Weak: Grass

Effect on the Metagame
Perhaps the biggest effect that dropping the Ghost-type will bring is a loss of Spinblockers and immunity to Explosion. Also, Rotom's 3 immunities allowed it to easily switch in to many targets, but without its Ghost typing Rotom loses all but its Ground immunity. Although, Rotom now loses its Pursuit weakness, making it easier for many sets to counter or just survive Tyranitar and Scizor better.

Things to notice

• Rotom-Frost can have near perfect neutral coverage with STAB BoltBeam with Thunderbolt and Blizzard, but will often be unreliable because of Blizzards lackluster accuracy.
• Rotom-Heat now counters Scizor better, resisting both of its STABs and no longer being weak to Pursuit.
• Rotom-Wash has both excellent Offensive and Defensive typing, being only weak to Grass and only resisted by Pure Dragon, Pure Grass, Dragon/Electric, Dragon/Grass, and Lanturn.

​

 

[VictoryStar]

They ruined five good spin blockers for me. RUINED FOREVER.

Not to mention the Explosion thing and most other things Ghost types are good at >_>

 

[yiran]

Obviously the one that benefits most is water.

And they now will be different enough to be put in different tiers.

 

[IcyMan28]

Rotom-W is easily looking to be the best of the batch, sporting a simple Hydro Pump/Thunderbolt/HP Ice/Trick set, with Swimming Goggles to boost its accuracy and sleep any potential walls.

 

[Colonel Darren]

Interesting. The Rotom Formes now have more reason to pursue their signature moves (STAB Boltbeam in the form of Blizzard? If it's Hail, yes please!), but at the same time, lose a large niche of their OU potential in the form of spinblocking. Granted, a slew of new ghosts are ready to take up that job, as well as older ones such as Dusknoir, but still.....

It might be too early to tell just yet. These changes are a boon for offense in my opinion, but damning for Rotom to fit on Stall or Hazard-focused teams.

 

[some hero]

I never liked the formes because i battled mostly in Wi-Fi...Does this mean that they will now be usable over Wi-Fi?

I like the Electric/Water, since it keeps Levitate...But losing their Ghost typing really hurts when so many new Fighters have just arrived.

GF probably did this in purpose, this way, there won't be too many Ghosts running around.

 

[lati0s]

Hopefully rotom-frost will get a more reliable ice move than blizzard to abuse that awesome stab coverage. Also it does not resist steel as the OP states because steel is super effective on ice, and it does resist electric.

 

[Raseri]

Wash-Form obviously benefited the most. The loss of ghost typing will probably hurt them in the long run, some of the most reliable spin blockers are gone. Does this mean they'll be treated as different Pokemon in tiering now?

 

[cosmicexplorer]

RUININ MAH SPIN BLOCKERS!

Now I'll have to use Shanderaa. But seriously, this almost completely devalues the Rotom forms. Their Ghost typing allowed them to wall many serious threats, like SD Lucario, and serve as an excellent lead Azelf switch-in. I suppose that they'll be replaced in usage by the new Ghost types, but it really disheartens me to see some of my favorite pokemon made almost useless.

 

[ungulateman]

Rotom-Fan is epic trolling material thanks to double-Ground immunity.

Rotom-Fridge has STAB BoltBeam, but it's a bit slow and has terrible defensive typing now.

Rotom-Heat has gained some weaknesses.

Rotom-Mow is pretty nice seeming so far.

Rotom-Wash is a hovering Lanturn with better support. Sign men up.

And they all can't spinblock or absorb Explosion.

 

[danmantincan]

I hope that there is an option given to the players, on whether or not the Rotom forms retain their Ghost typing. On another note, Rotom-W now has the best typing (both offensively and defensively), while Rotom-H has now become the greatest Scizor counter.

 

[Manafii101]

I think Rotom-Fan will be a lot more useful now with Zapdos' great defensive typing and the ability to kill Lucario without fear of Crunch (although it has to watch out for Stone Edge). Rotom-Wash looks like a better Lanturn now.

 

[Swagodile]

This is what I wanted for them when they were first revealed for Platinum, personally.

 

[EpicTurtle]

Thats GFs plan. Don't nerf SR but nerf the main spin blockers and buff moves like defog! Trollfreak strikes again. Also I miss blocking explosion now =(

Well Rotom-W seems more useful overal, no pursuit weakness and STAB hydropump. Rotom-F seems good on hail teams with boltbeam. Rotom-A is meh, Eletric Flying is good with STAB air slash but seriously do we need levitate?

 

[BuddyBlueBomber]

They ruined five good spin blockers for me. RUINED FOREVER.

No, Aiming Rock ruined your spin blockers forever.

 

[Bologo]

Rotom-W looks awesome now. As danmantincan said, it has the best typing both offensively and defensively. It has only 1 weakness thanks to Levitate, and Grass Knot has only 20 BP on it, meaning that if you don't use something like Energy Ball, Giga Drain, or Leaf Storm on it, it's going to be tickled. The Swimming Goggles would definitely be awesome on it since Rotom-W could use the Speed boost as well as the accuracy boost for its Hydro Pump (and possibly Thunder). All Rotom-W really needs is a recovery move (it already has Pain Split but that can be unreliable at times) and he seems like an OU candidate regardless of the lack of Ghost-typing.

As other people have said, Rotom-S, on the other hand, is just stupid. I really hope they change its ability somehow, because even gamefreak must have thought that was stupid.

 

[Denchura]

this sucks, a lot, badly, should be ghost / X, stupid.

word

Gamefreak trying to stop SR?

 

[Sandstreamer]

Rotom-Fan is epic trolling material thanks to double-Ground immunity.

Ymmd. LOL.

Well, at least we get a LOT of different typings from that. Water/Electric already is great on Lanturn and really appreciates being immune to Ground lol. Having Grass as only weakness is a good one. Also, I (still) really love Rotom-Mow. Grass/Electric is a great offensive combination and a nice defensive one, too. Also, it simply walls every move Doryuuzu is gonna through at it. A typing resisting both Ground and Rock has always been great.

 

[lati0s]

none of the rotoms resist rock

 

[IcyMan28]

Key to Rotom-W's success is its access to Trick.

With it, any problematic switch-ins are immediately shut down with what is basically a 100% accurate Sleep move.

Blissey switched in? Put her out of commission for the rest of the match. Celebi/Shaymin is threatening a Seed Flare while resisting your STABs? Put them to sleep. The new Grass/Steel is attempting to set up on you? Swiftly put a stop to its efforts, and then proceed as you were.

 

[Eraddd]

I don't understand why everyone isn't commenting how much of an upgrade Rotom-H got. He may be hit super effectively by water and rock, two of the more common attacks in the metagame (well the 4th generation metagame anyways). However, he gets super effective coverage on water types, with thunderbolt/discharge, and he's able to get past the rock weakness with Hidden Power Ice. I believe that an offensive set of choice scarf/spec with Overheat, Hidden Power Ice, Discharge/Thunder and Trick will be effective. It's able to neutralize any walls like Blissey that want to switch it. It has a multitude of resistances that it can switch in on, such as ground, bug, grass, steel, and ice and hit back hard with an almost unresisted coverage. STAB Overheat will receive an additional STAB, allowing Rotom-H to hit harder before inevitably switching out, and discharge and Hidden Power Ice form a pseudo-boltbeam combo that's been effective since the dawn of the metagame. I'm looking forward to using Rotom-H on my team in the new metagame. Although it'd be my first time, I'm looking forward to writing this guy's analysis on the new metagame.

 

[lmitchell0012]

I'm really not liking these changes personally. They should have just kept them as electric/ghost types. Rotom-W's usage will obviously increase seeing as how he only has one weakness. On a different note. In the old game, you had to expose rotom to different appliances to get him to change form. How does he change form in the new games, or do we not know yet??

 

[yiran]

Does rotom fan become vurnable to ground after gravity?

 

[Denchura]

hp ice won't be doing much and they will probable switching into thunderbolt/overheat unless you have perfect prediction, now you come back into the game for 25% SR damage. +2 immunities lost ect. already had stab t-bolt, loses stab shadow ball ect.

 

[IcyMan28]

Rotom-H will prefer HP Grass over HP Ice; the latter fails to hit Rock types hard at all, while HP Grass gives it the best 3-move coverage. Dragons still wall it,however.