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[Overview]
<p>Shelmet is an often overlooked Pokemon, mainly due to its typing that gives it a weakness to Stealth Rock, as well as itspoor offensive stats. However, Shelmet has amazing defensive stats in 50/85/65, as well as access to interesting moves such as Encore, Spikes, Recover, Yawn, and others. Its typing, while giving it nasty weakness, also grants him excellent resistances to Fighting-, Ground-, and Grass-type attacks, allowing it to setup on some threats.</p>
[SET]
name: Support
move 1: Spikes
move 2: Recover
move 3: Yawn / Toxic
move 4: Bug Buzz / Protect
nature: Calm
item: Eviolite
evs: 116 HP / 236 Def / 156 SpD
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Due to its natural bulk and resistances, Shelmet can be an effective supporting Pokemon, being able to come in threats like Timburr (without Stone Edge), Mienfoo, and others, to get Spikes that will help your team. Spikes is the recommended on this set, racking up damage when the foe performs switches. Recover is an interesting move that allows Shelmet to heal itself from weak attacks in order to get more layers. The third moveslot is for status. Yawn can be used to give more free turns, but Toxic cripples defensive Pokémon and can be used with Recover to stall the foe to death. Protect is useful because it has excellent synergy with the third slot works well with two options.</p>
[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]
<p>The given EVs provide the last odd HP number for Shelmet, meaning that it can enter on a field with Stealth Rock five times instead of four, while the Defense EVs are there to reach the last even number (in order to get a stat jump with Eviolite), as well as the Special Defense EVs. Eviolite is the recommended item here because it makes Shelmet significantly bulkier, which he will need.</p>
<p>Pokemon which benefit from Spikes are good partners to Shelmet. Carvanha is an excellent partner for Shelmet; itresists Shelmet's Fire-typeweakness, while Shelmet resists its Fighting- and Grass-type weakness. Carvanha also loves the Spikes because, with them, it gets many OHKOs that it couldn't achieve without them. Tentacool is another interesting partner because it can spin away Stealth Rock that mauls Shelmet and also give Toxic Spikes support so that Shelmet can stall its foes better. Duskull and Misdreavus are great team options too because they can block attempts to spin Shelmet's Spikes.</p>
[Other Options]
<p>Hidden Power Fire is an interesting option in order to allow Shelmet to 2HKO Ferroseed, who would normally setup on Shelmet. It's also worth to note that Shelmet can learn Baton Pass, and can pass off Curse or Acid Armor.</p>
[Checks and Counters]
<p>Because Shelmet generally uses no attacking moves, Pokemon with Taunt can easily do what they want against him. This means that Taunt + Nasty Plot Misdreavus can use Shelmet as setup fodder. Toxic also proves to be very dangerous because it really hinders Shelmet's staying power. Entry hazards will also cause trouble because Shelmet is susceptible to every form of them and is weak to Stealth Rock. It also has exploitable weakness in Rock-, Fire- , and Flying-types, meaning that Pokémon like Taillow, Houndour and Darumaka can easily OHKO him with their STABs.</p>
[Dream World]
<p>Shelmet gets Overcoat as his Dream World ability. It's useful since Hippopotas and Snover are common and not taking damage from Hail or SandStorm is nice. However, this ability isn't released yet.