So here's my plan. To help people prepare for Gym battles, we'll be systematically going through each Pokemon in a manner similar to the UU Threat List.
We'll start off with a few high ranking Pokemon selected from the census.
Note: this will be closed for now before seeking feedback and getting an index ready.
[a]Backtotop[/a]Index:
[Jump=EndList]End List[/Jump]
[Jump=EP1]End Post 1[/Jump]
[Jump=EP2]End Post 2[/Jump]
[Jump=EP3]End Post 3[/Jump]
[Jump=Abomasnow]Abomasnow[/Jump]
[Jump=Absol]Absol[/Jump]
[Jump=Accelgor]Accelgor[/Jump]
[Jump=Aerodactyl]Aerodactyl[/Jump]
[Jump=Aggron]Aggron[/Jump]
[Jump=Alakazam]Alakazam[/Jump]
Alomomola
Altaria
Ambipom
Amoonguss
Ampharos
[Jump=Arbok]Arbok[/Jump]
[Jump=Arcanine]Arcanine[/Jump]
Archeops
[Jump=Arghonaut]Arghonaut[/Jump]
Ariados
Armaldo
Audino
Azumarill
Banette
Basculin
Bastiodon
Beartic
Beautifly
Beedrill
Beheeyem
Bellossom
Bibarel
[Jump=Bisharp]Bisharp[/Jump]
Blastoise
[Jump=Blaziken]Blaziken[/Jump]
Blissey
Boldore (Eviolite)
Bouffalant
Braviary
Breloom
Bronzong
Butterfree
Cacturne
[Jump=Camerupt]Camerupt[/Jump]
Carnivine
Carracosta
[Jump=Castform]Castform[/Jump]
[Jump=Chandelure]Chandelure[/Jump]
Chansey (Eviolite)
Charizard
Chatot
Cherrim
Chimeco
[Jump=Cinccino]Cinccino[/Jump]
Clamperl (DeapSeaTooth)
Claydol
Clefable
Cloyster
Cofagrigus
Colosshale (Eviolite)
Colossoil
[Jump=Conkeldurr]Conkeldurr[/Jump]
Corsola
Cradily
Crawdaunt
Crobat
[Jump=Crustle]Crustle[/Jump]
Cryogonal
[Jump=Cyclohm]Cyclohm[/Jump]
Darmanitan
Delcatty
Delibird
Dewgong
Dialga
Ditto
Dodrio
[Jump=Donphan]Donphan[/Jump]
Dragonair (Eviolite)
[Jump=Dragonite]Dragonite[/Jump]
Drapion
Drifblim
Druddigon
Dugtrio
Dunspare
Durant
Dusclops (Eviolite)
[Jump=Dusknoir]Dusknoir[/Jump]
Dustox
Eelektross
Electabuzz
Electivire
Electrode
Emboar
Emolga
[Jump=Empoleon]Empoleon[/Jump]
Escavalier
Espeon
Excadrill
Exeggutor
Exploud
Farfetch'd
Fearow
[Jump=Feraligatr]Feraligatr[/Jump]
Ferrothorn
Ferroseed (Eviolite)
Fidgit
Flareon
Floatzel
Flygon
Forretress
Froslass
Furret
[Jump=Gallade]Gallade[/Jump]
Galvantula
Garbodor
Garchomp
Gardevoir
[Jump=Gastrodon]Gastrodon[/Jump]
[Jump=Gengar]Gengar[/Jump]
Gigalith
Girafarig
Glaceon
Glalie
Gligar (Eviolite)
[Jump=Gliscor]Gliscor[/Jump]
Golbat (Eviolite)
Golduck
Golem
Golurk
Gorebyss
Gothitelle
Granbull
Grotle (Eviolite)
Grumpig
Gyarados
Hariyama
[Jump=Haxorus]Haxorus[/Jump]
Heatmor
Heatran
Heracross
[Jump=Hippowdon]Hippowdon[/Jump]
[Jump=Hitmonchan]Hitmonchan[/Jump]
[Jump=Hitmonlee]Hitmonlee[/Jump]
[Jump=Hitmontop]Hitmontop[/Jump]
[Jump=Honchkrow]Honchkrow[/Jump]
Houndoom
Huntail
[Jump=Hydreigon]Hydreigon[/Jump]
Hypno
Illumise
Infernape
Jellicent
Jolteon
Jumpluff
Jynx
Kabutops
[Jump=Kadabra]Kadabra (Eviolite +Spe)[/Jump]
Kangaskhan
Kecleon
Kingdra
[Jump=Kitsunoh]Kitsunoh[/Jump]
[Jump=Klinklang]Klinklang[/Jump]
Kricketune
[Jump=Krilowatt]Krilowatt[/Jump]
Krookodile
Lanturn
Lapras
Leafeon
Leavanny
Ledian
Lickilicky
Lickitung (Eviolite)
Liepard
Lilligant
Linoone
Lopunny
[Jump=Lucario]Lucario[/Jump]
Ludicolo
Lumineon
Lunatone
Luvdisc
Luxray
[Jump=Machamp]Machamp[/Jump]
Machoke (+SpD Eviolite)
Magcargo
Magmar (Eviolite)
Magmortar
Magneton (Eviolite)
Magnezone
Mamoswine
Mandibuzz
Manectric
Mantine
Maractus
Marowak
Masquerain
Mawile
Medicham
Meganium
[Jump=Metagross]Metagross[/Jump]
Metang (Eviolite)
Mienshao
Mightyena
Milotic
Miltank
Minun
[Jump=Mismagius]Mismagius[/Jump]
Mothim
Mr. Mime
Muk
Musharna
Necturna
[Jump=Nidoking]Nidoking[/Jump]
Nidoqueen
Ninetales
Ninjask
Noctowl
Nohface (Eviolite)
Octillery
Omastar
Pachirisu
Parasect
Pelipper
Persian
Phione
Pidgeot
Pikachu (Light Ball)
Piloswine (Eviolite)
Pinsir
Plusle
Politoed
Poliwrath
[Jump=Porygon-Z]Porygon-Z[/Jump]
[Jump=Porygon2]Porygon2[/Jump]
Primeape
Probopass
Purugly
[Jump=Pyroak]Pyroak[/Jump]
Quagsire
Qwilfish
Raichu
Raikou
Rampardos
Rapidash
Raticate
Regice
Regigigas
Regirock
Registeel
Relicanth
Reuniclus
[Jump=Revenankh]Revenankh[/Jump]
Rhydon
Rhyperior
Roselia (Eviolite)
[Jump=Roserade]Roserade[/Jump]
Rotom
Sableye
[Jump=Salamence]Salamence[/Jump]
Samurott
Sandslash
Sawk
Sawsbuck
[Jump=Scizor]Scizor[/Jump]
[Jump=Scolipede]Scolipede[/Jump]
[Jump=Scrafty]Scrafty[/Jump]
Scraggy (Eviolite)
Scyther
Seadra (Eviolite +Spe)
Seaking
Seismitoad
Serperior
Seviper
Sharpedo
Shedinja
Shelgon (Eviolite)
Shelmet (Eviolite)
Shiftry
Shuckle
Sigilyph
Simipour
Simisage
Simisear
Skarmory
Skuntank
Slaking
[Jump=Slowbro]Slowbro[/Jump]
Slowking
Smeargle
[Jump=Snorlax]Snorlax[/Jump]
Solrock
Spinda
Spiritomb
Stantler
Staraptor
Starmie
[Jump=Steelix]Steelix[/Jump]
Stoutland
[Jump=Stratagem]Stratagem[/Jump]
Stunfish
Sudowoodo
Sunflora
Swalot
Swampert
Swanna
Swellow
[Jump=Swoobat]Swoobat[/Jump]
[Jump=Syclant]Syclant[/Jump]
[Jump=Tangrowth]Tangrowth[/Jump]
Tauros
Tentacruel
Throh
[Jump=Togekiss]Togekiss[/Jump]
Togetic (Eviolite +Atk)
[Jump=Tomohawk]Tomohawk[/Jump]
Torkoal
Torterra
Toxicroak
Tropius
Typhlosion
[Jump=Tyranitar]Tyranitar[/Jump]
Umbreon
Unfezant
Unown
Ursaring
Vanilluxe
Vaporeon
Venomoth
Venusaur
Vespiquen
Victreebel
Vigoroth (Eviolite)
Vileplume
[Jump=Volbeat]Volbeat[/Jump]
[Jump=Volcarona]Volcarona[/Jump]
Voodoom
Wailord
Walrein
Watchog
Weavile
Weezing
Whimsicott
Whirlipede (Eviolite)
Whiscash
Wigglytuff
Wobbuffett
Wormadam (Plant)
Wormadam (Sandy)
Wormadam (Trash)
Xatu
Yanma (Eviolite +Spe)
Yanmega
[Jump=Zangoose]Zangoose[/Jump]
Zebstrika
Zoroark
Zweilous (Eviolite)
[a]EndList[/a]
[a]Abomasnow[/a]
Abomasnow
100 HP / 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 60 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 5 / 3 / 5 / 3 / 60 - +5 Accuracy with +Spe; +1 Grass/Ice BAP.
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 17
Abilities: Smow Warning / Soundproof (DW)
Abomasnow's typing leaves it with a lot of weaknesses, but its greatest strength is its unique ability Snow Warning, which gives it unceasing residual damage against foes and a Blizzard that ignores accuracy. Abomasnow is also fairly heavy, so its Wood Hammer packs a lot of punch. Otherwise Abomasnow gets a good mix of attacks, with physical Grass, Ice, Fighting, Ground, and Rock and special Grass, Ice, Focus Blast, Shadow Ball, Water Pulse, and Hidden Power. Otherwise Abomasnow can tank foes with a combination of Leech Seed, Ingrain (esp. in no-switch battles) and Giga Drain, and wear them away slowly with Hail, Toxic, and Leech Seed. Abomasnow can also prevent evasive actions taken against it with Block.
Without a damage returning attack, Abomasnow's weaknesses are fairly easy to exploit. If you can outdamage its Blizzard attacks you should emerge victorious. Abomasnow dominates anything weak to Grass with its draining attacks, so avoid pitting Water, Ground, and Rock Pokemon against it. Stalling against Abomasnow is not recommended, Hail and Leech Seed put out (and mitigate in the latter case) far more residual damage than most opponents can manage.
Rare Candy buffs both of Abomasnow's offenses to Rank 5, augmenting its offensive presence immensely and letting it take full advantage of its coverage options from two very different STABs.
Other Notable Attacks:
Role Play: A useful situational move against foes with Flash Fire, allowing Abomasnow to be immune to their Fire attacks for six actions.
Worry Seed: For more Ability fun, Abomasnow can prevent a foe from using Rest while overwriting their abilities.
Cool Combinations:
Sheer Cold + Blizzard: An incredible 37 BAP combo that not only hits multiple targets, but also has no accuracy check in the hail that Abomasnow can provide. Be careful, as opposing Ice-Types are immune to this.
Bullet Seed + Seed Bomb: A simple combination that gives Abomasnow the ability to damage through a Sub.
Focus Punch + Ice Punch: A high risk, high-reward way to strengthen Abomasnow's physical Ice STAB. Use this behind a Sub or in an opening.
[a]Absol[/a]
Absol
100 HP / 5 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 75 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Everstone: 100 HP / 6 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 75 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Dark BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 3
Base Rank Total: 18
Abilities: Pressure / Super Luck / Justified (DW)
Absol has a very expansive offensive movepool and a few neat support tricks. With access to Taunt and Magic Coat it can shut down a lot of support options an opponent might use, while Snatch can steal away an opponent's intended boosts. It can inflict Paralysis with Thunder Wave and Burn with Will-o-Wisp. Absol's STAB Sucker Punch and Pursuit are quite powerful and punish attacking and evasion respectively, making it difficult to avoid Absol's assault. Its physical coverage includes Dark, Bug, Flying, Psychic, and Rock, with Bounce as an offensive evasion move and a powerful Fighting-typed Superpower. Absol's special coverage includes Dark, Fire, Ice, and Electric attacks. Finally, it has Counter to discourage strong physical attacks, and Perish Song if it needs to take a foe down with it.
Absol is generally frail and has no way to return special attacks. If you Burn it without getting it bounced back by Magic Coat, you can dampen its threat significantly, and finish it up with Fighting or Bug-type special attacks. Absol has enough coverage to hit most opponents for super-effective damage, so as long as you aren't weak to Dark the battle can be won.
Everstone increases Absol's Attack even more, and particularly boosts it's Dark-typed offense, granting its Sucker Punch and Pursuit even more immense power.
Other Notable Attacks:
Baton Pass: Absol's only boosting moves are Swords Dance, Curse, and Calm Mind, but it can Snatch or Psych Up other boosts and pass them along to allies, even if it gets trapped in by Block or Mean Look.
Me First: Absol has very middling speed generally, but if you can pull off Me First against an opposing Dragon type (or any Pokemon using attacks it is weak to, like opposing Dark types using Fighting Moves) it will work very well.
Razor Wind: Razor Wind has a unique niche as a move that can block opposing priority and multi-hit moves. It's very good in many circumstances and should never be discounted in battle.
Cool Combinations:
Quick Attack + Megahorn / Superpower: A basic priority combination. Used early in a match to minimize the stat drops on Superpower or as a powerful finishing blow.
Scratch + Night Slash / Psycho Cut / X-Scissor: With Absol's higher critical rate from Super Luck, Scratch becomes a more natural choice to boost Base Attack Power than Cut.
[a]Accelgor[/a]
Accelgor
100 HP / 3 / 2 / 4 / 2 / 145 - +30 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Link Cable: 100 HP / 4 / 2 / 5 / 2 / 145 - +30 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Size Class: 2
Weight Class: 3
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Hydration / Sticky Hold / Unburden (DW)
Boasting mind-bending speed and passable offenses, Accelgor has quite a number of leg-ups over most comparable Generation V Pokemon. Accelgor's Acid Spray sets up any following special attacks for additional damage, in addition to allowing it to use Toxic on Steel types by corroding them. Its additional offensive coverage consists of Bug, Grass, Poison attacks along with Hidden Power, and Focus Blast on the special side and even less on the physical side, however don't let that deter you. Accelgor's primary appeal comes from his very esoteric combination of support moves, such as Encore, Gastro Acid, Guard Split, Knock Off, Pursuit, and Spikes, all very likely to occur first in a given round. Defensive options like Acid Armor, Agility, Bide, Endure, Recover, and Yawn make a very welcome appearance in Accelgor's movepool, giving it footing in competitive matches. Accelgor does have a draining move, Leech Life, which is buffed up to 6 BAP in ASB. Accelgor's Abilities are also an esoteric bunch, with Rain Dance acting as an instant Refresh and status immunity (as well as anti-fire) through Hydration, Sticky Hold keeping Acclegor's item in place until it needs to use it, and Unburden raising Accelgor's speed to amazing levels if it uses that item.
Accelgor puts its blistering Speed to work in almost every way you could want. At Size Class 2, Accelgor starts out at 50% Dodge against any foe that doesn't outspeed—which, as you're aware of by now, is quite the list. Accelgor's offenses are passable, and are likely to be overlooked by his nature, but they get the job done when combined with acceptable coverage and the ability to Guard Split particularly hefty foes. Accelgor's bulk itself is underwhelming, but again there are ways to buffer this throughout Accelgor's very precise movepool.
Accelgor can use the signature item Link Cable to buff it's attacking prowess to new heights, which is especially dangerous with its high Speed, Me First, and the ability to heal itself of paralysis in Rain. Don't underestimate Accelgor just because of it's shallow movepool, it can hit very hard and provide a great deal of support to allies, especially in multi-battles where it can cut a particularly sturdy foe's defenses down to size. Accelgor is still relatively fragile, just watch out for Bide returning damage and usually slugging away at it will lead to its defeat.
Other Notable Attacks:
Mind Reader: While Accelgor brings a maximized Accuracy bonus to the table, his potential partners need not be with this. Accelgor can lock on with this on one action, and then Baton Pass the lock to a slower ally the action after in order to set up a nasty Zap Cannon or even an OHKO move.
U-turn: This little toy can render all manner of Speed reduction attempts, such as Bulldoze or Scary Face, moot. It also shakes Taunt, which Accelgor is rather poor at preventing otherwise.
Me First: What a doozy of a move this is at Accelgor's Speed. Faced with a Dragon-type that threatens to one-round you with Outrage? Outrage back! Accelgor gets incredible mileage out of this in multi-battles, where he can take one foe's attack and fire it at another foe with a boost.
Cool Combinations:
Accelgor doesn't often employ combos—the negative priority offsets his biggest advantage—but he has a few that stand out nonetheless. Feint, in particular, combos well with several moves by granting high priority.
Bug Buzz + Struggle Bug: A particularly effective move in multiple battles, hitting all foes, lowering their Special Attack, and possibly lowering Special Defense as well.
Feint + Pursuit: Skeezing past all manner of evasive and protective maneuvers, this is the ultimate finisher after a drawn-out Endure war to shake away that last bit of HP. It also carries a desirable +2 Priority! Just note that it's Normal-type, so it won't affect Ghosts.
Feint + Feint: Yet another Feint combo, this elevates Accelgor's attack priority to a mindboggling +4, allowing it to outspeed even Endure! It outspeeds Protect, but it's Feint, so Protect wouldn't stop it anyway.
Feint + Final Gambit: If you want to get suicidal, this is the way to go, being able to bypass every evasive option an opponent might want to use and having +2 Priority.
[a]Aerodactyl[/a]
Aerodactyl
100 HP / 4 / 3 / 2 / 3 / 130 - +26 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Everstone: 100 HP / 5 / 3 / 2 / 3 / 130 - +26 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Rock/Flying BAP
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Rock Head / Pressure / Unnerve (DW)
Aerodactyl's greatest asset is its immense Speed and physical coverage. It has one of the fastest Taunts available as well as several flinching attacks, including Elemental Fangs, Iron Head, and its STAB Rock Slide. +Spe Aerodactyl patches up the accuracy of every single one of its attacks, although it also has Hone Claws if you opt to boost an offense or defense. Additional physical coverage includes Aqua Tail, Dragon attacks, and Earthquake, as well as Pursuit to punish evasive opponents. Perhaps the most surprisingly effective attack is STAB Sky Attack, which hits with negative priority but is incredibly powerful, and can be augmented with a recoil-free Double-Edge thanks to Rock Head.
Aerodactyl is also fairly sizable for its speed, making it a capable Bodyblocking Pokemon in non-singles battles. Its Special coverage is fairly consolidated, consisting of Ancientpower, Earth Power, Hidden Power, Fire attacks, and a few Dragon attacks, with a few outliers like Air Cutter and Ominous Wind. Aerodactyl's defensive and support movepool is limited, but powerful, with Agility, Bide, Fly, Reflect, Roost, Stealth Rock, Tailwind, Torment, and Whirlwind.
Aerodactyl hates getting paralyzed, and its massive Speed means any opposing Steel-type with Gyro Ball can do massive damage to it. Aerodactyl is also a lot more diverse physically than it is with special attacks, even taking combinations into account, so Pokemon with high physical Defense and a Rock or Flying resistance are good picks. Aerodactyl can almost always Taunt a foe first, but if you can Taunt it, it will be significantly less dangerous.
Everstone increases Aerodactyl's Attack and boosts its Rock and Flying attacks, making it much more physically dangerous considering the flinch on Rock Slide and Sky Attack (against lower priority attacks).
Other Notable Attacks:
Razor Wind: Aerodactyl is weak to several priority attacks, and Razor Wind's defensive whirlwind deflects them off while damaging foes.
Sky Drop: Aerodactyl is fairly heavy and can lift foes with Weight Classes up to six (6), making it one of Aerodactyl's better drawback-free Flying attacks on many foes. In multiple battles it can also interrupt foes targeting another Pokemon, making Aerodactyl a good team player.
Smack Down: It's Aerodactyl's weakest STAB, but it does open foes up to follow-up damage from Earthquake.
Cool Combinations:
Agility (Evasive) + Double-Edge: Who says Aerodactyl doesn't have priority? If you're in a jam, this can help you out as a finishing move.
Double-Edge + Crunch / Dragon Claw / Elemental Fangs / Iron Head / Sky Attack : Put a little bite into your typed attacks by augmenting them with recoil-proof Double-Edge.
Defog + Heat Wave: An effective way to remove screens and hazards while damaging all foes. Never misses to boot.
Snore + Supersonic: If Aerodactyl gets put to sleep, this combination will leave an opponent confused with 100% Accuracy on the turn Aerodactyl wakes up and is cooling down. You can use it in anticipation of a Sleep move as well, and move with lower priority after you get put to sleep.
Twister + Whirlwind: Blow all your opponents away with this attack in a multi-battle, it's even Taunt-proof, and Aerodactyl's Speed means it can time this at the same time as an opponent using a similar move and potentially flinch them out of it.
[a]Aggron[/a]
Aggron
100 HP / 4 / 7 / 2 / 2 / 50 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 4 / 8 / 2 / 2 / 50 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe, +1 Steel/Rock STAB
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 8 / 10 (360kg - 720kg Heavy Metal)
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Sturdy / Rock Head / Heavy Metal (DW)
Aggron is an offensive powerhouse that takes full advantage of ASB's Weight mechanics, dealing immense damage with Block, Body Slam, Double-Edge, Giga Impact, Head Smash, and Heavy Slam. It doesn't even suffer recoil damage because of its Rock Head ability, and it can even throw Tackle into some combinations to give them a Weight-Based BAP Boost. Aggron is no slouch defensively either, with a huge Rank 7 Defense, Sturdy, and a Special Defense boost in Sandstorm to protect it against special attacks. As if its incredible offense were not enough, its low speed makes it an ideal Counter and Metal Burst user, and makes striking its 4x Ground and Fighting weaknesses quite risky. Finally, the only weakness in many of its powerful attacks is their low Accuracy, which Aggron can patch up with Hone Claws, an attack that also makes its physical attacks even more dangerous.
Aggron's coverage is also phenomenal, with Dragon, Fighting, Ground, Rock, and Steel attacks, as well as Elemental Punches, Shadow Claw, Dark Pulse, the 10/12 BAP Fire, Ice, and Electric special attacks, and even Aqua Tail, Surf, and Whirlpool for kicks. Aggron even has Solarbeam, though that's counterproductive in Sandstorm. Basically, it doesn't matter what type of opponent Aggron faces. Short of Ghost/Dark, Aggron has a move that can hit it for super-effective damage, and if that doesn't work it can just plow through it with its STAB attacks. Finally, Aggron's support movepool cannot be ignored. It has access to Dragon Tail, Roar, Stealth Rock, Taunt, and Thunder Wave to cripple foes or pile up residual damage.
Despite its strengths and a fairly slow Metal Burst, Aggron still has huge weaknesses to Ground and Fighting. Faster opponents can use combinations to get around ordinary uses of Metal Burst (but not Counter), but otherwise special attacks are advisable. In general you want to keep Sandstorm weather off the field and pound Aggron with Water, Fighting, and Ground special attacks. Scald is particularly vicious for hitting Aggron's weaker defense, having a burn chance, and for hitting with super-effective damage.
Rare Candy boosts Aggron's already formidable defense slightly more, and gives it a small boost on its Rock and Steel attacks. Aggron tends to fare better with more traditional items like Expert Belt and Life Orb, which capitalize on its coverage.
Other Notable Attacks:
Endeavor: While Aggron can usually do far more damage with direct attacks, Endeavor is very helpful if Aggron comes out of a battle heavily damaged against a foe otherwise resistant to its best attacks, which are usually opposing Steel-types. Endeavor's fixed damage can help bridge that gap.
Magnet Rise: Magnet Rise can help Aggron avoid some of the seismic attacks (Bulldoze, Earthquake, Magnitude) that give it trouble.
Rock Polish: Although Aggron also has Autotomize, its greatest strength is throwing its weight around. Even at -Spe, Rock Polish increases Aggron's Speed to 150, which is enough to tie +Spe Base 130s.
Cool Combinations:
Aerial Ace + Dynamicpunch: Patches up Dynamicpunch's accuracy problem to confuse a foe.
Counter + Metal Burst: A way to return more physical damage without breaking the Energy Bank. This will still work against Special Attacks, but will only return the damage Metal Burst would have. It also changes type to Fighting, so it can't be used on Ghosts.
Double-Edge / Giga Impact + Head Smash: STAB 17 BAP / 19 BAP + 19 BAP under Heavy Metal makes for the strongest single non-suicidal combination available, with either 90 or 85 Accuracy, at a staggering 39 or 41 after STAB is added. This is one of the main reasons Aggron is so dangerous.
[a]Alakazam[/a]
Alakazam
90 HP / 2 / 2 / 5 / 3 / 120 - +22 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Link Cable: 90 HP / 2 / 2 / 6 / 4 / 120 - +22 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 3
Base Rank Total: 18
Abilities: Synchronize / Inner Focus / Magic Guard (DW)
Alakazam is a glass cannon with a few things going for it. It's a very quick Pokemon even without a nature boost, it avoids residual damage due to Magic Guard, and if it is statused, Synchronize will inflict the same status on the opponent. Inner Focus means that it will not flinch, which combined with Bide and Counter makes it quite viable against physical attackers whose main attacks have flinch effects (Iron Head for Steel, Waterfall for Water). Alakazam is also aided in using these counter-attacks with Recover to restore lost HP.
Alakazam's main means of offense are Psychic, Psyshock, Focus Blast, and Shadow Ball. It has other special coverage in Energy Ball, Grass Knot, Hidden Power, Signal Beam, and Zap Cannon. Alakazam's physical movepool is also very good, sporting a slew of Psychic, and Fighting attacks as well as Elemental Punches, so even a positive Attack nature can be useful. Telekinesis allows Alakazam to be a little more diverse in its natures and use its slew of highly inaccurate attacks (Dynamicpunch, Focus Blast, Zap Cannon). Its support movepool is incredible, sporting Disable, Encore, Light Screen, Magic Coat, Magic Room, Reflect, Taunt, Torment, Thunder Wave, and Wonder Room.
Alakazam can also use the Link Cable, which improves its Special Attack and Special Defense (highest true stats) by one (1) Rank, augmenting its focus on the Special side of the spectrum and making it hit slightly harder. Alakazam's general weakness is its physical frailty and difficulty dealing damage with physical attacks, despite its variety of them. It also dislikes being paralyzed a lot more than its target would, even though Syncronize dooms both to the same status.
Other Notable Attacks:
Dig: Alakazam has one of the fastest Digs in ASB, and even though it' Attack isn't that strong naturally, it does allow Alakazam to evade a fair few nasty attacks. Just watch out for Pursuit.
Focus Punch: Alakazam's ability to pressure opponents and lock down their options allows it to occasionally get in Focus Punch, which does immense damage even despite Alakazam's low Attack. It's primary targets are Pokemon with high Special Defense, low Defense, and a weakness to Fighting.
Guard Split: If you choose to lower Alakazam's Defense, Guard Split is a way to get more even with strong physical tanks.
Snatch: While not that useful against stat-ups, Snatch can steal an opponent's Substitutes or direct recovery attacks.
Cool Combinations:
Hyper Beam + Charge Beam / Energy Ball / Hidden Power / Psybeam / Signal Beam: Alakazam is one Pokemon that combines Hyper Beam with it's plethora of "beam" type attacks to create super-charged versions of them.
Shock Wave + Zap Cannon: Alakazam is another Pokemon with this combination, which is especially helpful in providing a strong coverage move. Since Alakazam doesn't have Thunderbolt, this combination can give it an accurate, powerful Electric-type assault.
[a]Arbok[/a]
Arbok
90 HP / 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 80 Spe - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 90 HP / 5 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 80 Spe - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Poison BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 17
Abilities: Intimidate / Shed Skin / Unnerve (DW)
Arbok is a Pokemon defined by a wide variety of attacking options with great abilities, but not much innate offense or defense. Intimidate lowrs the physical power of its foes, while Shed Skin protects it from status and Unnerve can ruin berry-based strategies. Arbok's physical movepool is vast, containing Poison, Dark, Ground, Normal, and Rock moves along with Aqua Tail, Dragon Tail, Fire Fang, Ice Fang, Iron Tail, Seed Bomb, and Thunder Fang. Arbok's special movepool is more constrained, consisting primarily of Poison, Grass, and Normal moves along with Dark Pulse, Hidden Power, and Mud Bomb.
Arbok is notable for support moves like Disable, Gastro Acid, Glare, Haze, Torment, Toxic, Snatch, and Switcheroo, in addition to its own triple stat-up in Coil. It can evade with Dig or punish attacking or evasion with Sucker Punch and Pursuit, respectively. As a first generation Pokemon, opponents should always beware of Bide. Arbok is also unique in its Bodyblocking capability. Even though it is only Size 3, its length is 3.5m, allowing it to Bodyblock very adeptly for its partners, as well as hitting the length threshold to have its Dig hit Levitating foes.
While Arbok is versatile, it isn't particularly powerful, and most of its abilities are defensive. It doesn't win many blow-by-blow skirmishes, so the best course of action is to try and outpace it in damage.
Rare Candy patches up Arbok's issues with offense, granting it a huge Rank 5 Attack and pumping up the power of its STAB Poison moves. As one of the several Poison-types with Acid and Acid Spray, Arbok can use those attacks to corrode Steel-types before striking with its STAB. Ground types on the other hand have to fear paralysis from Arbok thanks to its primary method of paralysis being Normal-typed Glare.
Other Notable Attacks:
Poison Fang: Arbok can inflict Toxic poisoning through Taunt by using this move, which also gets STAB.
Rage: Because most of Arbok's coverage is physical, setting up for a round of attacks with Rage is an effective way to raise Arbok's attack to outpace a foe's damage.
Stockpile: Stockpile is a means for Arbok to increase its defenses and access healing through Swallow, which isn't reliant on type matchups like its Mega Drain and Giga Drain.
Cool Combinations:
Mud Bomb + Sludge Bomb: The ending combination here is Ground-typed, with a 30% chance to poison, a 30% chance to lower accuracy, and 16 BAP.
Poison Tail + Aqua Tail / Dragon Tail / Iron Tail: By combining a Tail move with Poison Tail, Arbok has access to Water, Dragon, and Steel attacks of 19, 14, and 20 respectively, each with a chance to poison and a higher critical hit rate.
Sludge Wave + Venoshock: After poisoning foes, this spread damage attack is incredibly powerful.
[a]Arcanine[/a]
Arcanine
100 HP / 4 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 95 - +14 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Fire Stone: 100 HP / 5 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 95 - +14 Accuracy w/ +Spe; Flash Fire Active (+2 Fire BAP)
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Intimidate / Flash Fire / Justified (DW)
Arcanine combines good overall coverage with a few useful tools to become a formidable mixed attacking threat. Arcanine's physical movepool is extensive, containing, Dark, Electric, Fire, Fighting, Ground, and Steel moves. Its special attacks are more limited, consisting of Fire attacks, Dragon attacks, Hidden Power, Snarl, and Solarbeam. Arcanine operates best under Sunny Day, where its Fire attacks get a boost, Solarbeam fires immediately, and it can recover from the recoil of Flare Blitz and Wild Charge with Morning Sun. Both of these moves, along with Body Slam are weight-based, which work well with Arcanine's significant weight (at BAP 15, 11, and 9, respectively). Arcanine's other attacks of note are Extremespeed, a powerful priority attack, Outrage, a devastating attack against Dragon-types, and Reversal, which does more damage as Arcanine's HP drops.
Arcanine's abilities are each decent in their own right. Intimidate weakens the physical attacks of foes, while Flash Fire gives Arcanine protection from other Fire types under the Sun. It is unlikely an opponent will willingly activate Justified, however an ally using Beat Up can quickly raise Arcanine's attack to obscene levels. Arcanine can use Bide to return damage, or evade it with Agility and Teleport. Arcanine learns Reflect, Roar, Safeguard, and Will-O-Wisp for support, though it can paralyze with Body Slam or Dragonbreath 30% of the time.
Fire Stone gives Arcanine a boost to its Attack and activates its Flash Fire, making its Fire attacks even more incredibly powerful. Its Flare Blitz is made particularly formidible.
Other Notable Attacks:
Odor Sleuth: Useful against evasive opponents, as the majority of Arcanine's movepool is 100% Accurate absent other factors.
Overheat: Although Arcanine's Special Attack is the same as its Attack, Arcanine relies much more on its physical movepool, making Overheat an excellent breaking option with little immediate drawback.
Rage: If you know Arcanine will be damaged by an attack, especially by multiple foes or a multi-hit move, Rage is a very effective way to raise Arcanine's attack.
Cool Combinations:
Crunch + Bite / Fire Fang / Thunder Fang: A simple combination that can enhance the BAP of Arcanine's biting moves while keeping their Dark / Fire / Electric typing.
Extremespeed + Flare Blitz / Wild Charge: Unleash an immensely powerful attack with enhanced priority. Flare Blitz harnesses type and Wild Charge for type coverage.
Hyper Beam + Dragon Pulse / Flamethrower / Hidden Power / Solarbeam: Arcanine's special movepool is limited, but most of it can be buffed into a powerful typed attack through a Hyper Beam combination.
[a]Arghonaut[/a]
Arghonaut
110 HP / 4 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 75 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 110 HP / 5 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 75 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Water/Fighting BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 21
Abilities: Unaware / Iron Fist (DW)
Arghonaut is a solidly built Pokemon with excellent offensive STAB and defensive typing. Although stat boosters are not as ubiquitous a strategy in ASB as they are in OU, Arghonaut's Unaware ability nonetheless makes it capable of boosting its own stats with Bulk Up or Work Up while ignoring the efforts of opposing Pokemon to reduce damage, and utilizing Recover to heal damage.. Iron Fist gives its punching attacks a little more power, and comes in quite handy for Drain Punch, Focus Punch, Ice Punch, Mach Punch, and ThunderPunch. Otherwise Arghonaut uses its Fighting and Water STABs along with physical Ground, Ice, Poison, and Rock attacks, only rarely dipping into its special movepool of Fighting, Ice, Poison, and Water attacks.
Arghonaut has several moves with altered priority, including Aqua Jet, Mach Punch, and Vacuum Wave on the fast side with Revenge and Avalanche on the other. Its support moves are few, but effective: Circle Throw, Embargo, Roar, Soak, Taunt, Torment, and Yawn.
Arghonaut is fairly bulky and has recovery options, so it is very difficult to take down. Fortunately it is not very fast and is very susceptible to Taunt and Toxic stalling. It is also recommended to bring a pokemon that can remove its stat boosts, as Arghonaut can boost itself and not have to worry about responding to opposing stat boosts. It also can't retaliate against attacks with either Counter or Mirror Coat, so blasting it with your best attacks is a safe move.
Rare Candy increases Arghonaut's physical presence by increasing its Attack and strengthening its STAB moves. Its multiple STAB priority attacks in particular enjoy the added strength.
Other Notable Attacks:
Scary Face: Arghonaut generally has middling Speed, so it can't completely take advantage of Dive. Scary Face lowers an opponent's spped and lets Arghonaut get the drop on them.
Swagger: Since Arghonaught has both Unaware and Punishment, Swagger can be a good way to make an opponent damage themselves before following up with Punishment, especially since Unaware only ignores opposing Pokemon's stats when attacking Arghonaut. When they attack themselves, the Attack boost counts.
Whirlpool: Whirlpool can trap foes and cause residual damage, as well as prevent opponents from switching out in a switch battle.
Cool Combinations:
Arm Thrust + Focus Punch: An excellent way to break a foe's Substitute as soon as it is made. Arghonaut picks up the Iron Fist boost, and Arm Thrust's multi-hit property breaks through the opponent's Sub and does spillover damage.
Constrict + Wrap: Lowers an opponent's Speed, and doubles the residual damage per action the opponent will incur from 2 DPA to 4 DPA.
Cut + Cross Chop / Night Slash: If you need to break through Reflect in a pinch, and don't have time for Brick Break, this simple combination will let either move always score a CH.
[a]Bisharp[/a]
Bisharp
100 HP / 5 / 4 / 2 / 3 / 70 - +8 Accuracy w/ + Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 6 / 4 / 2 / 3 / 70 - +8 Accuracy w/ + Spe; +1 Dark/Steel BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Inner Focus / Defiant / Pressure (DW)
Bisharp combines a powerful attack stat with balanced defenses and a mixture of offense-enabling defensive abilities. Defiant raises its Attack permanently by two stages whenever one of its stats are lowered while Inner Focus means it can attack freely without worrying about flinching. Pressure, Taunt, Torment, and Bisharp's decent defensive typing and stats also means an opponent will have difficulty keeping their energy up, and will have to make themselves vulnerable during a Chill much earlier in a match. Swords Dance is also a swift way for Bisharp to use its decent physical coverage to damage the opponent. With a combination of STAB Sucker Punch and Pursuit to punish offensive and evasive attacks respectively, it's very difficult to prevent Bisharp from doing heavy damage.
Bisharp's bread and butter is its combination of Dark and Fighting coverage, with Aerial Ace and Psycho Cut to dispatch the only Pokemon resistant to both (Heracross and Toxicroak, respectively). Against slower foes (either through Thunder Wave Paralysis, lowering their speed with Low Sweep, or using Rock Polish) in can use STAB Iron Head to make them flinch. Bisharp's additional support movepool is limited, but it possesses Knock Off, Magnet Rise, Role Play, Snatch, Spite, and Stealth Rock.
Bisharp is a strong physical attacker, but it's one-dimensional and its STAB attacks have relatively low BAP. Pokemon with high physical defense and strong Ground, Fighting, or Fire attacks are very effective against Bisharp. Pokemon with an immunity to paralysis are also helpful, as that is Bisharp's only status option. Don't get overconfident though, Bisharp can easily punish opponents that are too hasty in attacking it.
Rare Candy boosts Bisharp's attacking prowess further, which provides a boon to almost all of its most common attacking moves. Pursuit and Sucker Punch also appreciate the added strength.
Other Notable Attacks:
Iron Defense: Iron Defense distinguishes itself from the other +2 Defense boosters in that if used before Bisharp is hit by a contact attack in the same action, it can cause recoil damage to the opponent. It's an effective way to dampen those attacks. If there's a water source that Bisharp can submerge itself in, Iron Defense can also purify Bisharp's skin and heal any Burns it might have acquired.
Metal Burst: Metal Burst helps Bisharp deal with bad matchups by giving it means to deal out more damage than any given opponent. Combined with Bisharp's high Attack, it's quite easy to exploit an opponent's attack and follow up with a finishing blow.
Stealth Rock: Bisharp can support a team in longer battles or switch battles by setting up Stealth Rock.
Cool Combinations:
Dual Chop + Brick Break / Revenge / Payback: Dual Chop gives Bisharp a Sub-breaking move it can utilize with Brick Break, Revenge, or Payback to create Dragon, Fighting, and Dark-typed attacks respectively.
Cut / Scratch + Metal Claw / Night Slash / Psycho Cut / X-Scissor: These basic combos allow Bisharp to get around faster evasive attacks and use the boosting effect in combinations of Cut (always CH, bypassing Reflect) or Scratch (boosting the BAP of the linked attack by 1.5x)
Metal Burst + Revenge: It forfeits Steel typing for Fighting since Revenge has an actual BAP (both are CT Passive), but it can be infuriating to Metal Burst against slower foes or foes using combinations or evasive damaging moves like Dig. Metal Burst + Revenge is in the lowest priority bracket (-6) and allows you to use Bisharp's devastating attack and Metal Burst's nasty damage returning ability at the same time. (Note to refs: calculate the Revenge damage, then add the return damage from Metal Burst if applicable)
Rock Polish + Stone Edge: This natural combination buffs Stone Edge to 14 BAP, 100 Acc, and gives +2 Spe. If you're going to use both in a round, might as well use them together.
[a]Blaziken[/a]
Blaziken
100 HP / 5 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 6 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Fire/Fighting STAB
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 21
Abilities: Blaze/ Speed Boost (DW)
Blaziken has two powerful offensive STAB types and two offensive abilities that make it one of the fastest, most dangerous threats in ASB. After a single round its Speed Boost activates, raising a Neutral Speed Blaziken to 140 Speed and a +Spe Blaziken to 161 Speed. Blaziken only gets faster as time goes on, and in the case of +Spe Blaziken, it even patches up the accuracy of its most devastating STAB Attack, Hi Jump Kick. It uses this high speed very well, having two evasive attacking moves in Dig and Bounce, as well as Evasive Agility to fall back on. Perhaps what makes Blaziken most threatening though is its ability to attack with similar viciousness with both physical and special attacks. Its great physical coverage of Fire, Fighting, Flying, Ground, and Rock attacks supplemented by Night Slash, Shadow Claw and Thunderpunch, is threatening enough, but it is supplemented by its Fire and Fighting special attacks, Hidden Power, and Solarbeam. Perhaps the best thing about Blaziken, though, is Mirror Move, which lets it get a drop on many foes that can hit it with attacks quite effective against themselves, such as Dragon and Ghost types.
Blaziken doesn't have much of a support movepool, really only sporting Will-O-Wisp and Roar. It does have a good deal of priority though, with Feint, Quick Attack, and Vacuum Wave, and at the other end it can scare away physical attacks with Counter. Blaziken can also use several stat boosters, including Agility, Bulk Up, Hone Claws, Swords Dance, and Work Up - all of which, along with Speed increases from Speed Boost - can be transferred to allies with Baton Pass. All things considered, Blaziken is a basic hard-driving offensive Pokemon that can usually outdamage its foes easily, and thereby win quickly.
Rare Candy increases Blaziken's already massive offensive prowess, and while it favors physical attacks, the +1 boost to its STAB types also make Fire Blast, Focus Blast, and Vacuum Wave that much more dangerous.
Other Notable Attacks:
Blast Burn: With Blaze and Rank 4 Special Attack, at Low HP Blast Burn can be quite devastating to opponents, especially if Blaziken sets up Sunny Day.
Featherdance: Although Blaziken is an offensive Pokemon, there are times when its unwise to attack. Featherdance can dampen a lot of attacks that hit Blaziken for Super-effective damage.
Reversal: At low HP, not only is Blaze active, but Reversal becomes more powerful. It can't be used in any tricks like Flail, but it can utilize Blaziken's Rank 5 Attack to do incredible damage.
Cool Combinations:
Aerial Ace + Dynamicpunch: A quick combination that fixes Dynamicpunch's accuracy. Blaziken even gets STAB on it.
Feint + Focus Punch: Really want to punish Protect? Here's a good way to do it, provided nothing else is targeting you at the time.
Sky Uppercut + Thunderpunch: Need to knock a faster Pokemon using Fly to its senses? This combination will shock them!
[a]Camerupt[/a]
Camerupt
100 HP / 4 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 40 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 4 / 3 / 5 / 3 / 40 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Fire/Ground STAB
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 6
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Magma Armour / Solid Rock / Anger Point (DW)
Camerupt is the kind of Pokemon you could call a tank; Not only can it dish out lots of damage, but with the help of its abilities: Magma Armor & Solid Rock, Camerupt can also take hits fairly well too; further boosted with solid stats on both physical & special sides. Camerupt has decent coverage, with Normal, Fire, Ground, Rock, Iron Head, and Rock Smash on the Physical Side, combined with Fire, Ground,, Ancientpower, Flash Cannon, Hidden Power, and SolarBeam for Special coverage. Do watch out if you ever get a critical hit on Camerupt, Anger Point will make you wish you hadn't.
While Camerupt can attack, Camerupt also has some interesting non-attacking options to employ, notably Roar, Yawn, Will-O-Wisp, Sunny Day & even Stealth Rock, alongside staples such as Protect, Endure, Substitute, & even Sleep Talk if the opponent tries to put you to sleep. However, Camerupt does have some problems, being weak to common attacking types Water (4x) & Ground (2x). Although Camerupt's abilities do help alleviate this, the lack of instant recovery hurts. That said, Camerupt is a solid Pokemon that will fill its function of dealing lots of damage very nicely & will rarely let you down in doing exactly that.
Rare Candy boosts Camerupt's Special Attack and its Fire and Ground STABs, making its host of Special Fire moves much more powerful, and giving a little boost to its only physical Fire attack, Flame Charge. The increase in damage on its Ground attacks is also welcome.
Other Notable Attacks:
Flame Charge: Flame Charge is Camerupt's only Physical Fire Move, & it is an interesting move, dealing some damage & helping the typically slow Camerupt become faster, though this move tends to be situational at times.
Dig: Standard Evasive Damaging Move, Camerupt doesn't get to use this move to evade often given its low speed, but allows Camerupt to evade many standard double 0 Priority comboes, & even avoid faster Pokemon using Evasive Damaging moves. Like Flame Charge, this is also situational, but becomes far more practical under Trick Room.
Mimic: Another situational move, But Mimic can help Camerupt in a variety of ways, from copying an instant recovery move, to getting an extra coverage move.
Cool Combinations:
Eruption + Overheat / Heat Wave: This powerful combo at full health can deal massive damage to its foes right from the outset. Eruption with Overheat has brute force, but if the temporary Special Attack drop doesn't appease you, Eruption with Heat Wave is a viable alternative, even coming with a Burn Chance.
Selfdestruct + Explosion: This suicide move will allow Camerupt to deal massive damage in one bang before going down in a blaze of glory! Be careful as you need 53 Energy to execute this.
Earthquake + Earth Power: This explosive combo has comparable power to Earthquake + Earthquake, but is cheaper to use, can be synchronised in Doubles or higher (As can Earthquake + Earthquake), hits the opposition on both defences, & also has the ability to strike pesky Pokemon under the influence of Levitate / Magnet Rise! It also has the chance to lower the Special Defence of the opponents as well, which is nice.
Rare Candy gives Camerupt a boost to its Special Attack and its STABs, which is a great boost to its Fire-typed offense because Camerupts only physical Fire move is Flame Charge.
[a]Castform[/a]
Castform
100 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 70 - +8% Accuracy w/ +Spe
Everstone: 100 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 70 - +8% Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Normal BAP (Becomes +2 Fire in Sun, +2 Ice in Hail, +2 Water in Rain)
Size Class: 1
Weight Class: 1
Base Rank Total: 18
Abilities: Forecast
Castform is the perfect example of a Pokemon that is mediocre at best in the cartridge games, but has the tools to become a credible threat in ASB. It has the unique ability to change its type at any point in the match by using the appropriate weather move, then using its expansive movepool to deal massive damage. Due to it's exclusive ability Forecast, it is able to summon these weathers effectively and with less energy, while Weather Ball, one of its best moves, also sees an energy decrease. These traits alone make it a versatile threat to watch out for.
Castform doesn't really have a physical movepool to speak of, containing merely Normal moves, along with Avalanche and Thief. However, Castform more than makes up for it with a special movepool that stretches across the horizon. Its special moves include Weather Ball, which changes its type depending on whichever weather Castform decides to set up, a slew of Fire, Water, and Ice moves to take advantage of said weather, and finally several Electric, Grass, and Ghost moves to round out its coverage. Water Gun is notable for opening up opponents to damage from Electric attacks. Of course, it also comes with three different weathers to abuse. Sunny Day turns it into a Fire type that can launch powerful fire moves as well as Solarbeam. Rain Dance gives it a Water typing to attack with Thunder and devastating water moves.Hail gives Castform an Ice typing, and allows it to deal residual damage to non-Ice type Pokemon and utilize 100% accurate Blizzards. Finally, In ASB Castform's Forecast grants it immunity to Sandstorm, so although it will not change types and pick up STAB (and more weaknesses), Castform will benefit more than lose from its use, as it does stable damage to the foe and gains a rock-typed special attack. Using Castform generally involves using the right weather for the situation, then abusing the weaknesses of its opponent.
However, Castform's greatest strength can also be its greatest downfall. If it is unable to set up the right weather, it will usually have problems. For this reason, having a faster Taunt will harm Castform's efforts, while carrying another beneficial weather will also hamper its efforts and force the user to sub against it. Failing that, using tactics to stall or cancel out the weather, such as using a Pokemon with Cloud Nine, is always an option.
Everstone gives all of Castform's damage dealing and taking stats a boost, turning it from a mediocre Pokemon into a fairly powerful one, especially since its Everstone offensive boost changes when its type changes through Forecast. Castform's weather forms tend to be much better at Special attacks, although the boost to its Attack and additional Normal BAP actually gives Castform's Normal-typed physical attacks some firepower.
Other Notable Attacks:
Tailwind: Castform can use this to patch up both his speed and that of his teammates for several turns, which can turn the match in the team's favor. Additionally, if used before a Taunt user is sent in, it can allow Castform to use an appropriate weather move before getting Taunted.
Sandstorm: While generally not recommended due to Castform not being immune to Sandstorm, this can make Weather Ball a Rock move if one is needed in a pinch.
Clear Smog: One of the few Pokemon that get this move, Castform can use this to reset any stat boosts that may give it trouble, even through Taunt.
Disable: A very useful move that can be used to secure the chosen weather or prevent a devastating move from crushing Castform.
Cool Combinations:
Ember/Water Gun/Powder Snow + Fire Blast/Hydro Pump/Blizzard (respectively): Castform is the only Pokemon bar Smeargle that has access to all three of the moves to boost much stronger moves while using low amounts of energy. Use whichever one suits the situation.
Future Sight + Hail/Rain Dance/Sandstorm/Sunny Day: This unique combination allows Castform to delay a weather move for a later date, which may be useful for getting past weather wars.
Swift + Thunder Wave: When you need to spread paralysis to all foes quickly in a multiple battle, this combination spreads it out quickly, for light damage.
[a]Chandelure[/a]
Chandelure
90 HP / 2 / 3 / 6 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Dusk Stone: 90 HP / 2 / 3 / 7 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Dark/Ghost BAP
Size Class: 2
Weight Class: 3
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Flash Fire / Flame Body / Shadow Tag (DW)
What immediately draws you to Chandelure is its massive Special Attack, which powers its movepool full of Fire, Ghost, Grass, and Psychic attacks, as well as Dark Pulse and Hidden Power. Chandelure's abilities are also helpful, with Flash Fire giving it a third immunity, to Fire attacks, while Flame Body punishes contact attacks that hit it, and Shadow Tag traps foes in all non-switch battles. Not only is Shadow Tag at it's best in doubles or greater battles, Chandelure's Heat Wave is backed by immense power and hits all foes. Chandelure also has Imprison, which shuts off the offensive output of most opposing Ghost types. Finally, its support moves include Acid, which lets it inflict Toxic on any Steel types not scorched by its Fire attacks, Clear Smog, Haze, Safeguard, Taunt, Telekinesis, Trick, Trick Room, and Will-O-Wisp.
Chandelure also has a few stat-up moves. Flame Charge has STAB and can raise its Speed, Calm Mind increases its Special Attack and Special Defense, Acid Armor raises Defense and can let it phaze into the background to avoid an attack if it's faster the action it is used. Finally, Chandelure may be the best user of Minimize in existence, being immune to Stomp and 4x resisting Steamroller. If it does get worn down, Chandelure can sometomes restore HP with Pain Split depending on the health of its opponent. Chandelure is also one of the few 5th Generation Pokemon with Endure, and it can bypass an opponent's Endure with the residual damage from Fire Spin.
Dusk Stone raises Chandelure's already immense Special Attack, and gives an excellent buff to its Ghost attacks and Dark Pulse, for the few Normal-types with Thick Fat sitting out there ready to sponge its Ghost and Fire attacks.
Other Notable Attacks:
Inferno: Chandelure needs to use Telekinesis first to have any good chance of hitting with Inferno, but when it does, it always burns a foe.
Memento: Chandelure can usually go out with a powerful damaging attack, but if your back is against the wall, Memento can set up your next Pokemon for a strong initial advantage.
Overheat: Overheat weakens Chandelure's Special Attack, which isn't all that desirable, but there's no denying its immense power.
Cool Combinations:
Overheat + Heat Wave: Absolutely destructive in doubles or greater, where it torches all opponents at once.
Smog + Clear Smog / Will-O-Wisp: An 18 BAP Special Poison attack that resets an opponent's Stats while inflicting Poison, Smog combined with Will-O-Wisp Burns and Poisons a foe simultaneously.
[a]Cinccino[/a]
Cinccino
100 HP / 3 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 115 - +20 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Shiny Stone: 100 HP / 4 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 115 - +20 Accuracy w/ +Spe; Base Accuracy +10
Size Class: 1
Weight Class: 1
Base Rank Total: 17
Abilities: Cute Charm / Technician / Skill Link (DW)
Cinccino is widely regarded as a powerful damage engine of a mon. Thanks to Technician and Skill Link, Cinccino gains access to powerful offensive options that allow it to disregard Substitutes and interrupt combos with astonishing ease.
STAB Tail Slap and the coverage pair of Rock Blast and Bullet Seed form the core of Cinccino's offensive plan. Boasting 20 BAP for 11 En, Cinccino kills fast or dies fast. These moves can be patched up accuracy-wise with a +Spe nature, leaving their BAP to speak for itself. In addition to this central triad, Cinccino can wield Technician Wake-Up Slap, Aqua Tail, Dig, Gunk Shot,Iron Tail, Seed Bomb, U-turn, and physically. Specially, Cinccino has some cute tricks such as Thunder and Focus Blast which synergize with a high accuracy bonus.
Cinccino has a myriad of support moves that could tickle one's fancy, such as Encore, Endure, Sleep Talk, Helping Hand, Light Screen, Sing, and Thunder Wave. Given Cinccino's relative frailty, these can be very helpful in keeping it in the fight. Cinccino's small size and large Speed also make its Dodge Command extremely effective, boasting a base of 60% (capped at 50%) to start.
The Scarf Pokemon is not without its flaws, however. It has difficulty hitting most Steel-types for significant damage, first and foremost. Rock Blast and Bullet Seed can hit a few targets that are neutral competently, but Steels and part-Steels require it to use Wake-Up Slap or Focus Blast to do significant damage.
Shiny Stone provides Cincinno with two boosts than help solidify its offensive ability by raising the Base Accuracy of its attacks by 10, helping Rock Blast and Aqua Tail reach 100 and bringing Tail Slap up to 95. Combined with the Attack Rank boost, Cincinno can really let its ability combination shine.
Other Notable Attacks:
After You: This causes the target to move immediately after the user, regardless of priority. At Cinccino's speed, this can have intense ramifications, such as lifting the attack portion of Focus Punch!
DoubleSlap: This is your back-up Tail Slap. It has less power, but it still carries the full weight of Cinccino's abilities behind it.
Flail: Tail Slap outclasses this right up to the barest pinch of HP, but Cinccino's access to Endure means it can see mileage out of 20 BAP Flail nonetheless.
Cool Combinations:
Flail + Tail Slap: A doozy of a death knell after an Endure. Carries 35 BAP at maximum, tramples over substitutes, interrupts slower combos, and rolls for critical hits five times.
Facade + Tail Slap: Punishing to anyone who attempts to lay status on Cinccino, coming out as a 22 BAP combo that doubles in power (and jumps in En cost) if the user is suffering from major status.
[a]Conkeldurr[/a]
Conkeldurr
110 HP / 5 / 3 / 2 / 3 / 45 Spe - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Link Cable: 110 HP / 6 / 4 / 2 / 3 / 45 Spe - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Guts / Sheer Force / Iron Fist (DW)
Conkeldurr is a Pokemon that benefits greatly from the All Abilities environment common in many ASB matches, taking it from a run-of-the-mill strong fighting type to an absurd powerhouse packing 12 BAP Elemental Punches with Iron Fist and Sheer Force, powerful priority, and if the user is Gutsy enough, they can push Conkeldurr's power through the roof.
Conkeldurr has excellent physical coverage, boasting a variety of Fighting, Ground, Rock, and Normal moves as well as Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Payback, Poison Jab, and ThunderPunch. It backs this up with a few defensive countermeasures like Bide and Counter to return damage, as well as Endure to survive a deathblow, Drain Punch to recover damage, and Mach Punch for priority. Taunt allows it to be disruptive while Foresight negates accuracy reduction and lets it hit Ghost-types.
Conkeldurr's special movepool is small, containing only Focus Blast, Grass Knot, Hidden Power, Hyper Beam, Round, and Snore. Because of this it is almost completely reliant on physical attacks, with Burn being negated and making it stronger. Conkeldurr is a generally strong Pokemon but if its abilities are disabled or moved around by Skill Swap it becomes much easier to manage. Counter is also particularly effective against it because it has relatively few attacks in-between 6 BAP and 10+ BAP.
Conkeldurr can attach a Link Cable to enhance its Attack and Defense ranks, increasing its ability as a physical tank and further improving its physical damage.
Other Notable Attacks:
Block: Conkeldurr's attacks are usually so powerful that it has comparatively little use for Block's anti-evasive utility, but it does allow it a minor amount of field control when combined with Taunt to prevent foes from recovering energy with Chill.
Dig: Conkeldurr's low speed makes it hard for it to evade with Dig, but it can at least lower the speed of opponents with Bulldoze, Low Sweep, and Scary Face to accomplish this.
Wide Guard: Much more useful in doubles where its priority negates Conkeldurr's low speed. It can also be used in singles matches against a few powerful spread moves like Surf and Earthquake as an alternative to Protect or Detect.
Cool Combinations:
Comet Punch + Drain Punch / Fire Punch / Ice Punch / Poison Jab / ThunderPunch: As Conkeldurr's only multi-hit move, Comet Punch gives its elemental punches and Drain Punch a way to bust through Substitutes with spillover damage. Poison Jab is perhaps helped the most because it will also pick up the Iron Fist boost in this combination.
Focus Punch / Fire Punch / Ice Punch / Thunder Punch + Wake-Up Slap / SmellingSalt: Conkeldurr's Abilities give it a number of high-powered moves begging for a way to enhance their power. Wake-Up Slap and SmellingSalt "help" the opponent when asleep or paralyzed, respectively, to get over it while eating a 24 BAP elemental or 29 BAP STAB combination.
Rock Smash + Stone Edge: Conkeldurr can take full advantage of Sheer Force and use this move to buff it's rock-type offense, resulting in a 21 BAP, 90% accurate combination.
[a]Crustle[/a]
Crustle
100 HP / 3 / 5 / 3 / 3 / 45 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 3 / 6 / 3 / 3 / 45 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Bug/Rock BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Sturdy / Shell Armor / Weak Armor (DW)
Crustle is a rather odd pokemon in ASB to say the least. At first glance, it seems completely outclassed by Armaldo, who sports the same typing, but with higher attack, a bigger movepool, and many of the moves Crustle gets. However, Crustle gets two tools that Armaldo can only dream of having, Shell Smash and Spikes. Sturdy increases Crustle's bulk beyond what you would anticipate, while Shell Armor keeps it protected from critical hits. Weak Armor is interesting in that Speed boosts are often more critical than Defense drops, and combined with Counter can be very effective.
Crustle's physical movepool is light, but contains pretty much everything it needs, containing the obligatory Bug and Rock moves as well as Normal moves, Ground moves, Shadow Claw, Aerial Ace, Faint Attack, and Poison Jab. Sadly, Crustle's special movepool is nonexistant, consisting of Hyper Beam, Solarbeam, and Hidden Power as the only noteworthy moves. Crustle's primary method of dealing damage is using Shell Smash, which when combined with a White Herb pernamently skyrockets Crustle's attacking stats and speed to deal massive damage with moves like Rock Wrecker and X-Scissor, while remaining a defensive juggernaut. While Shell Smash's boosts are permanent, Crustle can enhance its stats further with Curse, Hone Claws, Rock Polish, and Swords Dance. Crustle also gets mileage out of Rock Blast due to Bug typing increasing the number of hits by one. However, Crustle can also use it's great defenses and abilities to become a good entry hazard setter with Stealth Rock and Spikes. Crustle's Block along with its heavy weight is good at punishing evasive actions, and Counter can send back strong super-effective physical attacks. Finally, unlike many Gen 5 Pokemon Crustle can Endure to get extra actions of survivability, and at low HP it can abuse Flail.
While Crustle can be a pain to deal with, it's not without weaknesses. If you can prevent it from using Shell Smash, it's offensive capabilities are subpar. The easiest way to deal with Crustle is to use a faster Taunt, since it prevents him from boosting his stats and from setting up hazards. However, anything that can erase or ignore Crustle's Shell Smash boosts is a good bet.
Rare Candy gives Crustle another boost to its Defense, which can aid it in using Weak Armor and also increases the power of its Bug and Rock moves slightly.
Other Notable Attacks:
Dig: It can be difficult to keep Crustle's Speed up to par to use Dig evasively, but even at low speed it can aid Crustle in avoiding combination attacks from faster foes.
Fury Cutter: Crustle can make use of his Bug STAB and Shell Smash boosts to deal massive damage with this move over time, which gets even more deadly if combined with a Metronome.
Iron Defense: Crustle's Shell Smash raises its speed to a respectable 136, even with -Spe, meaning it can often get an Iron Defense up before a contact attack, causing recoil damage to the opponent. Rock Polish can maintain or enhance that speed boost.
Struggle Bug: Crustle's Special Attack is mediocre and Struggle Bug itself isn't that powerful, but it does weaken the special attacks that tend to target Crustle, and it recieves STAB.
Cool Combinations:
Cut + X-Scissor: A nice reliable Bug typed combo that ensures a critical hit to ignore Reflect. It also doesn't take much energy to use, so it can be used several times in a single match.
Flail + Aerial Ace / Night Slash / Poison Jab / Shadow Claw / X-Scissor: At low HP, Crustle's plethora if direct physical attacks can aid it in target typing opponents for a powerful final blow.
Rock Blast + Rock Wrecker: A Substitute nuker. With Rock Blast as Crustle's only multi-hit attack, having a crushing attack with trampling damage can come in handy.
Rock Polish + Rock Blast/Rock Slide: A very powerful combo that Crustle can use to increase speed under Taunt and at the same time do massive damage and patch up the accuracy issue of the chosen Rock move. Rock Blast will make the combo do terrible damage to any single target due to the Bug STAB, while Rock Slide will do less damage to all targets on the field in a doubles or triples.
Sandstorm + Sand Tomb: This neat combo can set up Sandstorm weather even while Taunted. While it is a bit energy intensive, clocking in around 22 energy, it can deal good amounts of residual damage and boost Crustle's decent Special Defense stat, all while trapping the opponent.
[a]Cyclohm[/a]
Cyclohm
110 HP / 2 / 4 / 4 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 110 HP / 2 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Electric/Dragon BAP
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Shield Dust / Static / Overcoat (DW)
Cyclohm is one of the most popular Pokemon in CAP ASB for its complete ability to control field conditions. Not only does it have every weather at its disposal, it also has Trick Room to deal with messy speed disadvantages, and Light Screen to ward off special attacks. It has direct recovery in Slack Off, Bide to capitalize on its excellent bulk in unfavorable matchups, and three highly useful defensive abilities that mesh well with its movepool. The most menacing aspect of Cyclohm is its coverage. It has Dragon, Fire, Ice, Electric, and Water for special coverage, but it can convert Weather Ball into a Rock attack via Sandstorm in a pinch, and it has Hurricane for when Rain is active. It's only real weakness is that it's almost entirely reliant on special attacks, and it has 3 notable weaknesses in Dragon, Ice, and Ground.
Rare Candy increases Cyclohm's Defense, protecting it even more against Earthquakes while also boosting its formidable combination of Electric and Dragon attacks. Very useful for Cyclohm's both offensive and defensive roles.
Other Notable Attacks:
Heal Bell: Not only is it excellent team support, it also helps Cyclohm ward off residual damage from Burn and Toxic.
Magnet Rise: Gives a temporary immunity to the most ubiquitous Ground attacks, though not all of them.
Torment: While not quite as effective at lockdown as Taunt, Torment gives Cyclohm another way to limit an opponent's options.
Cool Combinations:
Shock Wave + Zap Cannon: A quick Electric-type combination that fixes Zap Cannon's accuracy problem while keeping the 100% paralysis chance.
Twister + Hail / Rain Dance / Sandstorm / Sunny Day: Need to set up weather while Taunted? Twister combined with a weather changes the move to that type (Ice / Water / Rock / Fire) and summons the weather out. Hits all opponents in doubles or larger battles.
[a]Donphan[/a]
Donphan
100 HP / 5 / 5 / 2 / 2 / 50 Spe - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 6 / 6 / 2 / 2 / 50 Spe - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe, +2 Ground BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Sturdy / Sand Veil (DW)
Donphan is a rough and tumble tank that combines a vast offensive movepool with high attack power, excellent durability and no serious weaknesses to overpower its foes. Donphan's physical movepool is expansive, utilizing Ground, Dark, Ice, Normal, Poison, Rock, and Steel moves along with Bounce, Fire Fang, Seed Bomb, Superpower, and Thunder Fang to round out its offensive coverage. Donphan's special movepool is pathetic in contrast, but some of those moves have niche uses.
Donphan also has a significant support movepool, boasting Rapid Spin, Roar, and Stealth Rock as well as a variety of speed altering moves from Bulldoze and Rock Tomb to Rock Polish and Scary Face. All of these are particularly helpful when utilized with Bounce to avoid damage. Sandstorm works with Sand Veil to further increase Donphan's evasiveness. Donphan has Focus Energy to ensure its attacks get critical hits, which are helpful in breaking through screens and getting around Burn. Donphan has Ice Shard for priority, and Counter to return physical damage.
Donphan is almost completely reliant on physical attacks, so it absolutely hates Burn. Taunting Donphan also removes some its support ability, and it has low speed to start. Sturdy shores up its special defense slightly, but it still does not enjoy high-powered Special assaults.
Rare Candy increases Donphan's Attack and Defense as well as its Earthquake damage, making it an even more powerful tank and rendering most physical attacks useless.
Other Notable Attacks:
Block: Donphan's weight is significant, so Block is a viable option to punish evasive actions. It can also act as field control in switch battles, which is helpful combined with Donphan's ability to both set and remove hazards, and phaze.
Endeavor: Donphan's excellent attack usually makes direct attacks more effective, however Endeavor can close the distance against foes it has a bad matchup with.
Water Gun: While it is very weak, it can be used to enhance Electric weakness and allow Donphan a fighting chance against Water-types by using it before Thunder Fang.
Cool Combinations:
Assurance + Fury Attack: An excellent sub-breaker, and combined with a previous use of Focus Energy it has a lot of damage potential.
Flail + Body Slam / Bounce / Fire Fang / Iron Tail / Thunder Fang: At low HP, Donphan can pull off a multitude of elemental flail combinations.
Giga Impact + Bounce / Double-Edge / Head Smash: A power option for Donphan, allowing it to deal immense damage quickly with either Flying or Rock damage, resulting in 25, 30, or 32 BAP. Heavy Slam can also be used with it.
[a]Dragonite[/a]
Dragonite
100 HP / 5 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 6 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Dragon/Flying BAP
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 6
Base Rank Total: 22
Abilities: Inner Focus / Multiscale (DW)
Dragonite is an extremely powerful Pokemon that owes its great success in ASB to its combination of excellent stats, an immense movepool, and its ability, Multiscale. Multiscale gives Dragonite an inordinate amount of comparative bulk the first round it is out, allowing it to muscle through opponents very effectively with its combination of Dragon STAB and Fire, Fighting, and Ground coverage moves to crush Steel types. As if that weren't enough, Dragonite has a competent attack from basically every type except Bug, Dark, Ghost, Grass, and Psychic, in addition to all the perks of being a Generation 1 Pokemon, which include moves like Bide and Reflect, as well as other niche moves through the generation like Zap Cannon, Shock Wave, and the like. Thunder Wave is a common attack Dragonite uses to patch up its low speed and give it more attacks against adversaries. Dragonite's best trick is its priority attacks, with both Aqua Jet and Extremespeed to boost the priority of its other moves. Dragon Tail and Roar round out Dragonite's abilities by keeping foes from statting up or using Substitute effectively.
The truth is, aside from smashing face and Screens, Dragonite has very few tricks up its sleeve that can't be circumvented through common means. It's middling speed so it's Fly and Dive only reach their full potential after Dragon Dance or Agility, the latter of which itself can be broken by super-effect Rock Slide and Blizzard. Basically when you face off against Dragonite, it's going to be a slugfest. If you inflict it with Toxic or Burn early you won't have to worry about Roost getting it back to full health. Just we wary, Dragonite can last the long haul.
Rare Candy provides Dragonite additional power, especially in its strong Physical Dragon attacks. Its small increase in Flying power helps it greatly in Rain when it uses Hurricane or when firing off powerful Draco Meteors.
Other Notable Attacks:
Defog: In a face-smashing game, lowering the opponents Evasion and removing their screens and hazards is one good way to go about it.
Razor Wind: Dragonite's best answer to Ice Shard and multi-hit attacks. Opponents will have to throw them into combinations in order to get through this defensive mechanism.
Sky Drop: As the heaviest user of Sky Drop, Dragonite can use it against targets with Weight Classes of 8 or less, making it sometimes Dragonite's best Physical Flying STAB.
Whirlpool / Wrap: Dragonite's way of dealing residual damage, useful for breaking Endure. Only Jellicent can get around both - too bad it doesn't have Endure.
Cool Combinations:
Aerial Ace + Dynamicpunch: Dragonite is pretty straightforward, but it still uses this combination to great effect, inflicting a status it normally can't.
Extremespeed + Aerial Ace / Aqua Tail / Dragon Rush / Fire / Ice / Thunderpunch: A quick way to deal swift elemental damage and in Dragon Rush's case, possibly flinch with a +2 priority.
[a]Dusknoir[/a]
Dusknoir
90 HP / 4 / 5 / 3 / 5 / 45 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 21
Abilities: Pressure
Reaper Cloth: Pressure (x2), Levitate
Commands: Levitate
Dusknoir is a Pokemon that exemplified bulky offense, being able to slowly wear down opponents with its impressive 90 / 5 / 5 defenses and presenting competent offense with 4 / 3 attacking stats. Dusknoir's signature item, Reaper Cloth expands on its defensive capabilities by augmenting its Pressure effect and adding Levitate to make it harder to hit, as well as bypassing Spikes and Toxic Spikes on the way in during switch battles.
Dusknoir's physical movepool is the most expansive, including Ghost, Dark, Fighting, Ground, and Rock moves along with Elemental Punches. Its special movepool, is not quite as diverse, but still has Ghost, Ice, and Psychic moves along with Charge Beam, Dark Pulse, and Focus Blast. In battles against more defensive foes, Dusknoir has both Seismic Toss and Night Shade to do fixed damage to opponents. It has Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch for priority, and can punish evasion with Pursuit. Dusknoir's support movepool is also sizable, with Confuse Ray, Curse, Disable, Foresight, Gravity, Mean Look, Imprison, Skill Swap, Snatch, Taunt, Telekinesis, Torment, Toxic, Trick, Trick Room, Wonder Room, and Will-o-Wisp. Dusknoir can also Pain Split to recover from damage inflicted on it, and Counter against strong physical attacks. In Doubles, Helping Hand along with Dusknoir's immunity to Normal (and Seismic Attacks with a Reaper Cloth) make it a great partner if your allies want to go nuclear on a foe.
Dusknoir's worst nightmare is Taunt, which shuts down its stalling options and forces it to utilize direct attacks. This isn't necessarily bad for Dusknoir, but it operates best when it can mix and match stalling and offensive tactics, and Taunt also shuts down its healing through Pain Split. Pressure does drain an opponent's energy fast, so Dusknoir is particularly effective against foes that rely on high energy usage attacks. If you can Knock Off Dusknoir's Reaper Cloth, you can greatly mitigate its ability to stall you.
Other Notable Attacks:
Bind: Dusknoir's sole residual damage attack, excellent for blocking a foe's retreat if it gets Taunted, or finishing off an Enduring Pokemon this turn.
Future Sight: By the same token, Dusknoir's Future Sight can delay an attack now for an attack later, which will also ruin a foe's Endure.
Spite: Combined with Dusknoir's already immense Energy draining powers, Spite adds fuel to the fire, making opponents have to Chill much more quickly than they might have anticipated.
Cool Combinations:
Shadow Ball + Will-O-Wisp: While almost every Ghost can do this, few have the luxury of Dusknoir's bulk during the cooldown phase, are slow enough to not really care about being hit when using negative priority, or a need to balance out Will-O-Wisp's Accuracy with a more accurate attack.
Shadow Punch + Dynamicpunch: Dusknoir's direct line to a damaging confusion inducing attack.
Shadow Sneak + Body Slam: Dusknoir is by far the heftiest Ghost in its entire line, and actually has the kind of Attack and Weight to make it worthwhile. Body Slam can paralyze a foe with some luck.
[a]Empoleon[/a]
Empoleon
100 HP / 3 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 60 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 3 / 3 / 5 / 4 / 60 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Water/Steel BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Torrent / Defiant (DW)
Empoleon possesses a unique defensive typing that leaves it with a few common weaknesses (Ground, Fighting, Electric) balanced by an excellent list of resistances. Like most "starter" Pokemon it has well balanced stats and a reasonably diverse movepool. In Empoleon's case, it gets several useful utilities in Bide, Agility, Yawn, and Aqua Jet for priority. It can use Swords Dance and Hone Claws effectively, and its ability Defiant quickly turns it into a huge physical threat if its stats are lowered. Empoleon's physical coverage is decent with Water, Steel, Flying, Rock, Ground, and a few other single-move coverages in Brick Break, Shadow Claw, and Avalanche. Special coverage includes Water, Ice, Signal Beam, Flash Cannon, and Grass Knot. Otherwise, Empoleon has few tricks, it's simply a bread and butter balanced Pokemon.
Rare Candy puts Empoleon on a more offensive path by increasing its Special Attack and Water and Steel STABs, giving its (fairly) unique Hydro Cannon even more impressive power, and shoring up its relatively shall Steel attack repertoire in Flash Cannon, Metal Claw, and Steel Wing.
Other Notable Attacks:
Defog: Empoleon is one of the few Stealth Rock-resistant Pokemon that can use Defog to clear screens for the opponent and hazards / weather from both sides of the field.
Stealth Rock: Empoleon has the bulk to easily set up Stealth Rock during a more extended battle or a switch battle.
Hydro Cannon: As a "starter" Pokemon Empoleon has access to Hydro Cannon, which causes Sluggish instead of a turn loss in ASB. At low health, Torrent Boosted Hydro Cannon can be a very powerful finishing attack, and it's more accurate than Hydro Pump.
Cool Combinations:
Double Hit + Drill Peck / Steel Wing / Waterfall: A quick multi-hit attack that can break Empoleon through an opponent's Sub.
Peck + Fury Attack / Drill Peck: Basic combination that results in either 5 hits for Fury Attack or a Reflect penetrating Critical Hit with Drill Peck.
[a]Feraligatr[/a]
Feraligatr
100 HP / 4 / 4 / 3 / 3 / 78 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 5 / 4 / 3 / 3 / 78 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Water BAP
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Torrent / Sheer Force (DW)
Feraligatr is an interesting option in ASB battles. Its stats are reasonably balanced, making it an excellent pinch hitter in many situations. Its DW ability, Sheer Force, coupled with a wide array of secondary-effect-causing attacks like Crunch, Ice Fang, Ice Punch, Iron Tail, Metal Claw, Rock Slide, and Waterfall, makes it a powerful physical threat. Additionally Feraligatr has general Water, Dark, Fighting, Ghost, Ground, Rock, and Steel coverage. The boost increases the power of his special moves too, meaning that Ancientpower, Blizzard, Focus Blast, Ice Beam, and Scald can also be reliably used. Dragon Tail and Roar give Feraligatr an edge in Switch=KO battles, allowing it to nullify stat-ups and Substitutes set up by opponents. Finally, Feraligatr can retaliate against physical attackers with Counter.
Unfortunately, the blue croc's Speed isn't the best, meaning that sometimes it gets outspend and evaded by faster enemies. Thankfully, Feraligatr also has access to Agility, Dig, and Dive, allowing it to do some dodging of its own, or perhaps even fixing its Speed problem. Alternatively, it can ignore Speed altogether with Aqua Jet. Feraligatr has a great deal of control over stat-ups, with Agility, Dragon Dance, Fake Tears, Hone Claws, Screech, and Swords Dance.
Rare Candy greatly enhances Feraligatr's Water-typed offense, putting real power behind its Sheer-Force boosted Waterfall, evasive Dive, and its priority Aqua Jet, which all welcome the Attack and BAP boost.
Other Notable Attacks:
Block: It's not as all-purpose as Pursuit, and Feraligatr is only mid-weight comparatively, but it is an effective shut-down of opposing evasion.
Mud Sport: Mud Sport temporarily gives Feraligatr even ground with Electric-type threats, which is especially useful given its repertoire of Ground-type attacks.
Rage: A highy underestimated move, Rage is a way to quickly boost offensive power while dealing damage. Especially effective against opponents trying to get around Counter with weak attacks.
Cool Combinations:
Aerial Ace + Dynamicpunch: Put Feraligatr's claws to good use with this patch-up of Dynamicpunch's accuracy.
Hydro Pump + Hydro Cannon: Deals massive damage in a single shot. Feraligatr is one of only five Pokemon that can use this combo naturally.
Surf + Scald: Makes Surf stronger and capable of causing Burn.
[a]Gallade[/a]
Gallade
100 HP / 5 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Dawn Stone: 100 HP / 5 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Fighting/Ghost BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 21
Abilities: Steadfast / Justified (DW)
Gallade has access to a very wide movepool, learning attacking moves of every type except Steel. Notable moves among these include Dual Chop , Fire Punch, Leaf Blade, ThunderPunch and Close Combat, as well as damaging recovery moves such as Drain Punch and Dream Eater. He also has access to priority in the form of Shadow Sneak and stat boosts with Swords Dance. Gallade's wide movepool combines well with Imprison for sealing off an opponent's attacking options.
Gallade can also be used to support teammates through status-inducing attacks, as he has access to moves that guarantee every status in the game bar Freeze (which doesn't have a dedicated inflicting move to begin with). Hypnosis sends foes to sleep, Will-o-Wisp softens physical attacks, while Thunder Wave slows faster opponents so that Gallade's less swift comrades can pick them off. Additionally Gallade can Confuse Ray, Disable, Encore, Taunt, or Torment foes. Helping Hand is also worth mentioning, as it greatly boosts allies' attacks in multi battles, as well as Magic Room and Wonder Room.
Dawn Stone unlocks some of Gallade's potential for Special Attacking, but also increases the power of its varied Fighting-typed attacks, and its neutral coverage in Shadow Sneak and Shadow Ball.
Other Notable Attacks:
Feint: Gallade can break a foes Protect or Detect using Feint in combinations very effectively with it's Rank 5 Atk.
Low Kick: Helps Gallade face down larger foes such as Aggron and Steelix.
Heal Pulse: Allows Gallade to maintain a more defensive role and increase his teammates' survivability in doubles, triples, and brawls.
Cool Combinations:
Cut + Psycho Cut / Night Slash / Slash / Leaf Blade / X-Scissor: A basic combo that takes advantage of Cut's natural critical hit guarantee when used in combos. Made especially effective in Gallade's case, since he learns five differently-typed variations of Slash, more than any other Pokemon.
Magical Leaf + Will-O-Wisp: Gallade's ability to burn is often forgotten. This combination is fairly weak coming from Gallade's Rank 3 SpA, but it does burn foes with -- Accuracy.
Teleport + Shadow Sneak: This combination allows Gallade to simultaneously evade an enemy attack and land a pre-emptive strike of his own. It additionally gets +2 priority for combining an evasive teleport with a priority move. It's not strong, but it is crafty.
[a]EP1[/a]
We'll start off with a few high ranking Pokemon selected from the census.
Note: this will be closed for now before seeking feedback and getting an index ready.
[a]Backtotop[/a]Index:
[Jump=EndList]End List[/Jump]
[Jump=EP1]End Post 1[/Jump]
[Jump=EP2]End Post 2[/Jump]
[Jump=EP3]End Post 3[/Jump]
[Jump=Abomasnow]Abomasnow[/Jump]
[Jump=Absol]Absol[/Jump]
[Jump=Accelgor]Accelgor[/Jump]
[Jump=Aerodactyl]Aerodactyl[/Jump]
[Jump=Aggron]Aggron[/Jump]
[Jump=Alakazam]Alakazam[/Jump]
Alomomola
Altaria
Ambipom
Amoonguss
Ampharos
[Jump=Arbok]Arbok[/Jump]
[Jump=Arcanine]Arcanine[/Jump]
Archeops
[Jump=Arghonaut]Arghonaut[/Jump]
Ariados
Armaldo
Audino
Azumarill
Banette
Basculin
Bastiodon
Beartic
Beautifly
Beedrill
Beheeyem
Bellossom
Bibarel
[Jump=Bisharp]Bisharp[/Jump]
Blastoise
[Jump=Blaziken]Blaziken[/Jump]
Blissey
Boldore (Eviolite)
Bouffalant
Braviary
Breloom
Bronzong
Butterfree
Cacturne
[Jump=Camerupt]Camerupt[/Jump]
Carnivine
Carracosta
[Jump=Castform]Castform[/Jump]
[Jump=Chandelure]Chandelure[/Jump]
Chansey (Eviolite)
Charizard
Chatot
Cherrim
Chimeco
[Jump=Cinccino]Cinccino[/Jump]
Clamperl (DeapSeaTooth)
Claydol
Clefable
Cloyster
Cofagrigus
Colosshale (Eviolite)
Colossoil
[Jump=Conkeldurr]Conkeldurr[/Jump]
Corsola
Cradily
Crawdaunt
Crobat
[Jump=Crustle]Crustle[/Jump]
Cryogonal
[Jump=Cyclohm]Cyclohm[/Jump]
Darmanitan
Delcatty
Delibird
Dewgong
Dialga
Ditto
Dodrio
[Jump=Donphan]Donphan[/Jump]
Dragonair (Eviolite)
[Jump=Dragonite]Dragonite[/Jump]
Drapion
Drifblim
Druddigon
Dugtrio
Dunspare
Durant
Dusclops (Eviolite)
[Jump=Dusknoir]Dusknoir[/Jump]
Dustox
Eelektross
Electabuzz
Electivire
Electrode
Emboar
Emolga
[Jump=Empoleon]Empoleon[/Jump]
Escavalier
Espeon
Excadrill
Exeggutor
Exploud
Farfetch'd
Fearow
[Jump=Feraligatr]Feraligatr[/Jump]
Ferrothorn
Ferroseed (Eviolite)
Fidgit
Flareon
Floatzel
Flygon
Forretress
Froslass
Furret
[Jump=Gallade]Gallade[/Jump]
Galvantula
Garbodor
Garchomp
Gardevoir
[Jump=Gastrodon]Gastrodon[/Jump]
[Jump=Gengar]Gengar[/Jump]
Gigalith
Girafarig
Glaceon
Glalie
Gligar (Eviolite)
[Jump=Gliscor]Gliscor[/Jump]
Golbat (Eviolite)
Golduck
Golem
Golurk
Gorebyss
Gothitelle
Granbull
Grotle (Eviolite)
Grumpig
Gyarados
Hariyama
[Jump=Haxorus]Haxorus[/Jump]
Heatmor
Heatran
Heracross
[Jump=Hippowdon]Hippowdon[/Jump]
[Jump=Hitmonchan]Hitmonchan[/Jump]
[Jump=Hitmonlee]Hitmonlee[/Jump]
[Jump=Hitmontop]Hitmontop[/Jump]
[Jump=Honchkrow]Honchkrow[/Jump]
Houndoom
Huntail
[Jump=Hydreigon]Hydreigon[/Jump]
Hypno
Illumise
Infernape
Jellicent
Jolteon
Jumpluff
Jynx
Kabutops
[Jump=Kadabra]Kadabra (Eviolite +Spe)[/Jump]
Kangaskhan
Kecleon
Kingdra
[Jump=Kitsunoh]Kitsunoh[/Jump]
[Jump=Klinklang]Klinklang[/Jump]
Kricketune
[Jump=Krilowatt]Krilowatt[/Jump]
Krookodile
Lanturn
Lapras
Leafeon
Leavanny
Ledian
Lickilicky
Lickitung (Eviolite)
Liepard
Lilligant
Linoone
Lopunny
[Jump=Lucario]Lucario[/Jump]
Ludicolo
Lumineon
Lunatone
Luvdisc
Luxray
[Jump=Machamp]Machamp[/Jump]
Machoke (+SpD Eviolite)
Magcargo
Magmar (Eviolite)
Magmortar
Magneton (Eviolite)
Magnezone
Mamoswine
Mandibuzz
Manectric
Mantine
Maractus
Marowak
Masquerain
Mawile
Medicham
Meganium
[Jump=Metagross]Metagross[/Jump]
Metang (Eviolite)
Mienshao
Mightyena
Milotic
Miltank
Minun
[Jump=Mismagius]Mismagius[/Jump]
Mothim
Mr. Mime
Muk
Musharna
Necturna
[Jump=Nidoking]Nidoking[/Jump]
Nidoqueen
Ninetales
Ninjask
Noctowl
Nohface (Eviolite)
Octillery
Omastar
Pachirisu
Parasect
Pelipper
Persian
Phione
Pidgeot
Pikachu (Light Ball)
Piloswine (Eviolite)
Pinsir
Plusle
Politoed
Poliwrath
[Jump=Porygon-Z]Porygon-Z[/Jump]
[Jump=Porygon2]Porygon2[/Jump]
Primeape
Probopass
Purugly
[Jump=Pyroak]Pyroak[/Jump]
Quagsire
Qwilfish
Raichu
Raikou
Rampardos
Rapidash
Raticate
Regice
Regigigas
Regirock
Registeel
Relicanth
Reuniclus
[Jump=Revenankh]Revenankh[/Jump]
Rhydon
Rhyperior
Roselia (Eviolite)
[Jump=Roserade]Roserade[/Jump]
Rotom
Sableye
[Jump=Salamence]Salamence[/Jump]
Samurott
Sandslash
Sawk
Sawsbuck
[Jump=Scizor]Scizor[/Jump]
[Jump=Scolipede]Scolipede[/Jump]
[Jump=Scrafty]Scrafty[/Jump]
Scraggy (Eviolite)
Scyther
Seadra (Eviolite +Spe)
Seaking
Seismitoad
Serperior
Seviper
Sharpedo
Shedinja
Shelgon (Eviolite)
Shelmet (Eviolite)
Shiftry
Shuckle
Sigilyph
Simipour
Simisage
Simisear
Skarmory
Skuntank
Slaking
[Jump=Slowbro]Slowbro[/Jump]
Slowking
Smeargle
[Jump=Snorlax]Snorlax[/Jump]
Solrock
Spinda
Spiritomb
Stantler
Staraptor
Starmie
[Jump=Steelix]Steelix[/Jump]
Stoutland
[Jump=Stratagem]Stratagem[/Jump]
Stunfish
Sudowoodo
Sunflora
Swalot
Swampert
Swanna
Swellow
[Jump=Swoobat]Swoobat[/Jump]
[Jump=Syclant]Syclant[/Jump]
[Jump=Tangrowth]Tangrowth[/Jump]
Tauros
Tentacruel
Throh
[Jump=Togekiss]Togekiss[/Jump]
Togetic (Eviolite +Atk)
[Jump=Tomohawk]Tomohawk[/Jump]
Torkoal
Torterra
Toxicroak
Tropius
Typhlosion
[Jump=Tyranitar]Tyranitar[/Jump]
Umbreon
Unfezant
Unown
Ursaring
Vanilluxe
Vaporeon
Venomoth
Venusaur
Vespiquen
Victreebel
Vigoroth (Eviolite)
Vileplume
[Jump=Volbeat]Volbeat[/Jump]
[Jump=Volcarona]Volcarona[/Jump]
Voodoom
Wailord
Walrein
Watchog
Weavile
Weezing
Whimsicott
Whirlipede (Eviolite)
Whiscash
Wigglytuff
Wobbuffett
Wormadam (Plant)
Wormadam (Sandy)
Wormadam (Trash)
Xatu
Yanma (Eviolite +Spe)
Yanmega
[Jump=Zangoose]Zangoose[/Jump]
Zebstrika
Zoroark
Zweilous (Eviolite)
[a]EndList[/a]
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[a]Abomasnow[/a]
Abomasnow
100 HP / 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 60 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 5 / 3 / 5 / 3 / 60 - +5 Accuracy with +Spe; +1 Grass/Ice BAP.
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 17
Abilities: Smow Warning / Soundproof (DW)
Abomasnow's typing leaves it with a lot of weaknesses, but its greatest strength is its unique ability Snow Warning, which gives it unceasing residual damage against foes and a Blizzard that ignores accuracy. Abomasnow is also fairly heavy, so its Wood Hammer packs a lot of punch. Otherwise Abomasnow gets a good mix of attacks, with physical Grass, Ice, Fighting, Ground, and Rock and special Grass, Ice, Focus Blast, Shadow Ball, Water Pulse, and Hidden Power. Otherwise Abomasnow can tank foes with a combination of Leech Seed, Ingrain (esp. in no-switch battles) and Giga Drain, and wear them away slowly with Hail, Toxic, and Leech Seed. Abomasnow can also prevent evasive actions taken against it with Block.
Without a damage returning attack, Abomasnow's weaknesses are fairly easy to exploit. If you can outdamage its Blizzard attacks you should emerge victorious. Abomasnow dominates anything weak to Grass with its draining attacks, so avoid pitting Water, Ground, and Rock Pokemon against it. Stalling against Abomasnow is not recommended, Hail and Leech Seed put out (and mitigate in the latter case) far more residual damage than most opponents can manage.
Rare Candy buffs both of Abomasnow's offenses to Rank 5, augmenting its offensive presence immensely and letting it take full advantage of its coverage options from two very different STABs.
Other Notable Attacks:
Role Play: A useful situational move against foes with Flash Fire, allowing Abomasnow to be immune to their Fire attacks for six actions.
Worry Seed: For more Ability fun, Abomasnow can prevent a foe from using Rest while overwriting their abilities.
Cool Combinations:
Sheer Cold + Blizzard: An incredible 37 BAP combo that not only hits multiple targets, but also has no accuracy check in the hail that Abomasnow can provide. Be careful, as opposing Ice-Types are immune to this.
Bullet Seed + Seed Bomb: A simple combination that gives Abomasnow the ability to damage through a Sub.
Focus Punch + Ice Punch: A high risk, high-reward way to strengthen Abomasnow's physical Ice STAB. Use this behind a Sub or in an opening.
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[a]Absol[/a]
Absol
100 HP / 5 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 75 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Everstone: 100 HP / 6 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 75 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Dark BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 3
Base Rank Total: 18
Abilities: Pressure / Super Luck / Justified (DW)
Absol has a very expansive offensive movepool and a few neat support tricks. With access to Taunt and Magic Coat it can shut down a lot of support options an opponent might use, while Snatch can steal away an opponent's intended boosts. It can inflict Paralysis with Thunder Wave and Burn with Will-o-Wisp. Absol's STAB Sucker Punch and Pursuit are quite powerful and punish attacking and evasion respectively, making it difficult to avoid Absol's assault. Its physical coverage includes Dark, Bug, Flying, Psychic, and Rock, with Bounce as an offensive evasion move and a powerful Fighting-typed Superpower. Absol's special coverage includes Dark, Fire, Ice, and Electric attacks. Finally, it has Counter to discourage strong physical attacks, and Perish Song if it needs to take a foe down with it.
Absol is generally frail and has no way to return special attacks. If you Burn it without getting it bounced back by Magic Coat, you can dampen its threat significantly, and finish it up with Fighting or Bug-type special attacks. Absol has enough coverage to hit most opponents for super-effective damage, so as long as you aren't weak to Dark the battle can be won.
Everstone increases Absol's Attack even more, and particularly boosts it's Dark-typed offense, granting its Sucker Punch and Pursuit even more immense power.
Other Notable Attacks:
Baton Pass: Absol's only boosting moves are Swords Dance, Curse, and Calm Mind, but it can Snatch or Psych Up other boosts and pass them along to allies, even if it gets trapped in by Block or Mean Look.
Me First: Absol has very middling speed generally, but if you can pull off Me First against an opposing Dragon type (or any Pokemon using attacks it is weak to, like opposing Dark types using Fighting Moves) it will work very well.
Razor Wind: Razor Wind has a unique niche as a move that can block opposing priority and multi-hit moves. It's very good in many circumstances and should never be discounted in battle.
Cool Combinations:
Quick Attack + Megahorn / Superpower: A basic priority combination. Used early in a match to minimize the stat drops on Superpower or as a powerful finishing blow.
Scratch + Night Slash / Psycho Cut / X-Scissor: With Absol's higher critical rate from Super Luck, Scratch becomes a more natural choice to boost Base Attack Power than Cut.
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[a]Accelgor[/a]
Accelgor
100 HP / 3 / 2 / 4 / 2 / 145 - +30 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Link Cable: 100 HP / 4 / 2 / 5 / 2 / 145 - +30 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Size Class: 2
Weight Class: 3
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Hydration / Sticky Hold / Unburden (DW)
Boasting mind-bending speed and passable offenses, Accelgor has quite a number of leg-ups over most comparable Generation V Pokemon. Accelgor's Acid Spray sets up any following special attacks for additional damage, in addition to allowing it to use Toxic on Steel types by corroding them. Its additional offensive coverage consists of Bug, Grass, Poison attacks along with Hidden Power, and Focus Blast on the special side and even less on the physical side, however don't let that deter you. Accelgor's primary appeal comes from his very esoteric combination of support moves, such as Encore, Gastro Acid, Guard Split, Knock Off, Pursuit, and Spikes, all very likely to occur first in a given round. Defensive options like Acid Armor, Agility, Bide, Endure, Recover, and Yawn make a very welcome appearance in Accelgor's movepool, giving it footing in competitive matches. Accelgor does have a draining move, Leech Life, which is buffed up to 6 BAP in ASB. Accelgor's Abilities are also an esoteric bunch, with Rain Dance acting as an instant Refresh and status immunity (as well as anti-fire) through Hydration, Sticky Hold keeping Acclegor's item in place until it needs to use it, and Unburden raising Accelgor's speed to amazing levels if it uses that item.
Accelgor puts its blistering Speed to work in almost every way you could want. At Size Class 2, Accelgor starts out at 50% Dodge against any foe that doesn't outspeed—which, as you're aware of by now, is quite the list. Accelgor's offenses are passable, and are likely to be overlooked by his nature, but they get the job done when combined with acceptable coverage and the ability to Guard Split particularly hefty foes. Accelgor's bulk itself is underwhelming, but again there are ways to buffer this throughout Accelgor's very precise movepool.
Accelgor can use the signature item Link Cable to buff it's attacking prowess to new heights, which is especially dangerous with its high Speed, Me First, and the ability to heal itself of paralysis in Rain. Don't underestimate Accelgor just because of it's shallow movepool, it can hit very hard and provide a great deal of support to allies, especially in multi-battles where it can cut a particularly sturdy foe's defenses down to size. Accelgor is still relatively fragile, just watch out for Bide returning damage and usually slugging away at it will lead to its defeat.
Other Notable Attacks:
Mind Reader: While Accelgor brings a maximized Accuracy bonus to the table, his potential partners need not be with this. Accelgor can lock on with this on one action, and then Baton Pass the lock to a slower ally the action after in order to set up a nasty Zap Cannon or even an OHKO move.
U-turn: This little toy can render all manner of Speed reduction attempts, such as Bulldoze or Scary Face, moot. It also shakes Taunt, which Accelgor is rather poor at preventing otherwise.
Me First: What a doozy of a move this is at Accelgor's Speed. Faced with a Dragon-type that threatens to one-round you with Outrage? Outrage back! Accelgor gets incredible mileage out of this in multi-battles, where he can take one foe's attack and fire it at another foe with a boost.
Cool Combinations:
Accelgor doesn't often employ combos—the negative priority offsets his biggest advantage—but he has a few that stand out nonetheless. Feint, in particular, combos well with several moves by granting high priority.
Bug Buzz + Struggle Bug: A particularly effective move in multiple battles, hitting all foes, lowering their Special Attack, and possibly lowering Special Defense as well.
Feint + Pursuit: Skeezing past all manner of evasive and protective maneuvers, this is the ultimate finisher after a drawn-out Endure war to shake away that last bit of HP. It also carries a desirable +2 Priority! Just note that it's Normal-type, so it won't affect Ghosts.
Feint + Feint: Yet another Feint combo, this elevates Accelgor's attack priority to a mindboggling +4, allowing it to outspeed even Endure! It outspeeds Protect, but it's Feint, so Protect wouldn't stop it anyway.
Feint + Final Gambit: If you want to get suicidal, this is the way to go, being able to bypass every evasive option an opponent might want to use and having +2 Priority.
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[a]Aerodactyl[/a]
Aerodactyl
100 HP / 4 / 3 / 2 / 3 / 130 - +26 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Everstone: 100 HP / 5 / 3 / 2 / 3 / 130 - +26 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Rock/Flying BAP
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Rock Head / Pressure / Unnerve (DW)
Aerodactyl's greatest asset is its immense Speed and physical coverage. It has one of the fastest Taunts available as well as several flinching attacks, including Elemental Fangs, Iron Head, and its STAB Rock Slide. +Spe Aerodactyl patches up the accuracy of every single one of its attacks, although it also has Hone Claws if you opt to boost an offense or defense. Additional physical coverage includes Aqua Tail, Dragon attacks, and Earthquake, as well as Pursuit to punish evasive opponents. Perhaps the most surprisingly effective attack is STAB Sky Attack, which hits with negative priority but is incredibly powerful, and can be augmented with a recoil-free Double-Edge thanks to Rock Head.
Aerodactyl is also fairly sizable for its speed, making it a capable Bodyblocking Pokemon in non-singles battles. Its Special coverage is fairly consolidated, consisting of Ancientpower, Earth Power, Hidden Power, Fire attacks, and a few Dragon attacks, with a few outliers like Air Cutter and Ominous Wind. Aerodactyl's defensive and support movepool is limited, but powerful, with Agility, Bide, Fly, Reflect, Roost, Stealth Rock, Tailwind, Torment, and Whirlwind.
Aerodactyl hates getting paralyzed, and its massive Speed means any opposing Steel-type with Gyro Ball can do massive damage to it. Aerodactyl is also a lot more diverse physically than it is with special attacks, even taking combinations into account, so Pokemon with high physical Defense and a Rock or Flying resistance are good picks. Aerodactyl can almost always Taunt a foe first, but if you can Taunt it, it will be significantly less dangerous.
Everstone increases Aerodactyl's Attack and boosts its Rock and Flying attacks, making it much more physically dangerous considering the flinch on Rock Slide and Sky Attack (against lower priority attacks).
Other Notable Attacks:
Razor Wind: Aerodactyl is weak to several priority attacks, and Razor Wind's defensive whirlwind deflects them off while damaging foes.
Sky Drop: Aerodactyl is fairly heavy and can lift foes with Weight Classes up to six (6), making it one of Aerodactyl's better drawback-free Flying attacks on many foes. In multiple battles it can also interrupt foes targeting another Pokemon, making Aerodactyl a good team player.
Smack Down: It's Aerodactyl's weakest STAB, but it does open foes up to follow-up damage from Earthquake.
Cool Combinations:
Agility (Evasive) + Double-Edge: Who says Aerodactyl doesn't have priority? If you're in a jam, this can help you out as a finishing move.
Double-Edge + Crunch / Dragon Claw / Elemental Fangs / Iron Head / Sky Attack : Put a little bite into your typed attacks by augmenting them with recoil-proof Double-Edge.
Defog + Heat Wave: An effective way to remove screens and hazards while damaging all foes. Never misses to boot.
Snore + Supersonic: If Aerodactyl gets put to sleep, this combination will leave an opponent confused with 100% Accuracy on the turn Aerodactyl wakes up and is cooling down. You can use it in anticipation of a Sleep move as well, and move with lower priority after you get put to sleep.
Twister + Whirlwind: Blow all your opponents away with this attack in a multi-battle, it's even Taunt-proof, and Aerodactyl's Speed means it can time this at the same time as an opponent using a similar move and potentially flinch them out of it.
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[a]Aggron[/a]
Aggron
100 HP / 4 / 7 / 2 / 2 / 50 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 4 / 8 / 2 / 2 / 50 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe, +1 Steel/Rock STAB
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 8 / 10 (360kg - 720kg Heavy Metal)
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Sturdy / Rock Head / Heavy Metal (DW)
Aggron is an offensive powerhouse that takes full advantage of ASB's Weight mechanics, dealing immense damage with Block, Body Slam, Double-Edge, Giga Impact, Head Smash, and Heavy Slam. It doesn't even suffer recoil damage because of its Rock Head ability, and it can even throw Tackle into some combinations to give them a Weight-Based BAP Boost. Aggron is no slouch defensively either, with a huge Rank 7 Defense, Sturdy, and a Special Defense boost in Sandstorm to protect it against special attacks. As if its incredible offense were not enough, its low speed makes it an ideal Counter and Metal Burst user, and makes striking its 4x Ground and Fighting weaknesses quite risky. Finally, the only weakness in many of its powerful attacks is their low Accuracy, which Aggron can patch up with Hone Claws, an attack that also makes its physical attacks even more dangerous.
Aggron's coverage is also phenomenal, with Dragon, Fighting, Ground, Rock, and Steel attacks, as well as Elemental Punches, Shadow Claw, Dark Pulse, the 10/12 BAP Fire, Ice, and Electric special attacks, and even Aqua Tail, Surf, and Whirlpool for kicks. Aggron even has Solarbeam, though that's counterproductive in Sandstorm. Basically, it doesn't matter what type of opponent Aggron faces. Short of Ghost/Dark, Aggron has a move that can hit it for super-effective damage, and if that doesn't work it can just plow through it with its STAB attacks. Finally, Aggron's support movepool cannot be ignored. It has access to Dragon Tail, Roar, Stealth Rock, Taunt, and Thunder Wave to cripple foes or pile up residual damage.
Despite its strengths and a fairly slow Metal Burst, Aggron still has huge weaknesses to Ground and Fighting. Faster opponents can use combinations to get around ordinary uses of Metal Burst (but not Counter), but otherwise special attacks are advisable. In general you want to keep Sandstorm weather off the field and pound Aggron with Water, Fighting, and Ground special attacks. Scald is particularly vicious for hitting Aggron's weaker defense, having a burn chance, and for hitting with super-effective damage.
Rare Candy boosts Aggron's already formidable defense slightly more, and gives it a small boost on its Rock and Steel attacks. Aggron tends to fare better with more traditional items like Expert Belt and Life Orb, which capitalize on its coverage.
Other Notable Attacks:
Endeavor: While Aggron can usually do far more damage with direct attacks, Endeavor is very helpful if Aggron comes out of a battle heavily damaged against a foe otherwise resistant to its best attacks, which are usually opposing Steel-types. Endeavor's fixed damage can help bridge that gap.
Magnet Rise: Magnet Rise can help Aggron avoid some of the seismic attacks (Bulldoze, Earthquake, Magnitude) that give it trouble.
Rock Polish: Although Aggron also has Autotomize, its greatest strength is throwing its weight around. Even at -Spe, Rock Polish increases Aggron's Speed to 150, which is enough to tie +Spe Base 130s.
Cool Combinations:
Aerial Ace + Dynamicpunch: Patches up Dynamicpunch's accuracy problem to confuse a foe.
Counter + Metal Burst: A way to return more physical damage without breaking the Energy Bank. This will still work against Special Attacks, but will only return the damage Metal Burst would have. It also changes type to Fighting, so it can't be used on Ghosts.
Double-Edge / Giga Impact + Head Smash: STAB 17 BAP / 19 BAP + 19 BAP under Heavy Metal makes for the strongest single non-suicidal combination available, with either 90 or 85 Accuracy, at a staggering 39 or 41 after STAB is added. This is one of the main reasons Aggron is so dangerous.
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[a]Alakazam[/a]
Alakazam
90 HP / 2 / 2 / 5 / 3 / 120 - +22 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Link Cable: 90 HP / 2 / 2 / 6 / 4 / 120 - +22 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 3
Base Rank Total: 18
Abilities: Synchronize / Inner Focus / Magic Guard (DW)
Alakazam is a glass cannon with a few things going for it. It's a very quick Pokemon even without a nature boost, it avoids residual damage due to Magic Guard, and if it is statused, Synchronize will inflict the same status on the opponent. Inner Focus means that it will not flinch, which combined with Bide and Counter makes it quite viable against physical attackers whose main attacks have flinch effects (Iron Head for Steel, Waterfall for Water). Alakazam is also aided in using these counter-attacks with Recover to restore lost HP.
Alakazam's main means of offense are Psychic, Psyshock, Focus Blast, and Shadow Ball. It has other special coverage in Energy Ball, Grass Knot, Hidden Power, Signal Beam, and Zap Cannon. Alakazam's physical movepool is also very good, sporting a slew of Psychic, and Fighting attacks as well as Elemental Punches, so even a positive Attack nature can be useful. Telekinesis allows Alakazam to be a little more diverse in its natures and use its slew of highly inaccurate attacks (Dynamicpunch, Focus Blast, Zap Cannon). Its support movepool is incredible, sporting Disable, Encore, Light Screen, Magic Coat, Magic Room, Reflect, Taunt, Torment, Thunder Wave, and Wonder Room.
Alakazam can also use the Link Cable, which improves its Special Attack and Special Defense (highest true stats) by one (1) Rank, augmenting its focus on the Special side of the spectrum and making it hit slightly harder. Alakazam's general weakness is its physical frailty and difficulty dealing damage with physical attacks, despite its variety of them. It also dislikes being paralyzed a lot more than its target would, even though Syncronize dooms both to the same status.
Other Notable Attacks:
Dig: Alakazam has one of the fastest Digs in ASB, and even though it' Attack isn't that strong naturally, it does allow Alakazam to evade a fair few nasty attacks. Just watch out for Pursuit.
Focus Punch: Alakazam's ability to pressure opponents and lock down their options allows it to occasionally get in Focus Punch, which does immense damage even despite Alakazam's low Attack. It's primary targets are Pokemon with high Special Defense, low Defense, and a weakness to Fighting.
Guard Split: If you choose to lower Alakazam's Defense, Guard Split is a way to get more even with strong physical tanks.
Snatch: While not that useful against stat-ups, Snatch can steal an opponent's Substitutes or direct recovery attacks.
Cool Combinations:
Hyper Beam + Charge Beam / Energy Ball / Hidden Power / Psybeam / Signal Beam: Alakazam is one Pokemon that combines Hyper Beam with it's plethora of "beam" type attacks to create super-charged versions of them.
Shock Wave + Zap Cannon: Alakazam is another Pokemon with this combination, which is especially helpful in providing a strong coverage move. Since Alakazam doesn't have Thunderbolt, this combination can give it an accurate, powerful Electric-type assault.
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[a]Arbok[/a]
Arbok
90 HP / 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 80 Spe - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 90 HP / 5 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 80 Spe - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Poison BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 17
Abilities: Intimidate / Shed Skin / Unnerve (DW)
Arbok is a Pokemon defined by a wide variety of attacking options with great abilities, but not much innate offense or defense. Intimidate lowrs the physical power of its foes, while Shed Skin protects it from status and Unnerve can ruin berry-based strategies. Arbok's physical movepool is vast, containing Poison, Dark, Ground, Normal, and Rock moves along with Aqua Tail, Dragon Tail, Fire Fang, Ice Fang, Iron Tail, Seed Bomb, and Thunder Fang. Arbok's special movepool is more constrained, consisting primarily of Poison, Grass, and Normal moves along with Dark Pulse, Hidden Power, and Mud Bomb.
Arbok is notable for support moves like Disable, Gastro Acid, Glare, Haze, Torment, Toxic, Snatch, and Switcheroo, in addition to its own triple stat-up in Coil. It can evade with Dig or punish attacking or evasion with Sucker Punch and Pursuit, respectively. As a first generation Pokemon, opponents should always beware of Bide. Arbok is also unique in its Bodyblocking capability. Even though it is only Size 3, its length is 3.5m, allowing it to Bodyblock very adeptly for its partners, as well as hitting the length threshold to have its Dig hit Levitating foes.
While Arbok is versatile, it isn't particularly powerful, and most of its abilities are defensive. It doesn't win many blow-by-blow skirmishes, so the best course of action is to try and outpace it in damage.
Rare Candy patches up Arbok's issues with offense, granting it a huge Rank 5 Attack and pumping up the power of its STAB Poison moves. As one of the several Poison-types with Acid and Acid Spray, Arbok can use those attacks to corrode Steel-types before striking with its STAB. Ground types on the other hand have to fear paralysis from Arbok thanks to its primary method of paralysis being Normal-typed Glare.
Other Notable Attacks:
Poison Fang: Arbok can inflict Toxic poisoning through Taunt by using this move, which also gets STAB.
Rage: Because most of Arbok's coverage is physical, setting up for a round of attacks with Rage is an effective way to raise Arbok's attack to outpace a foe's damage.
Stockpile: Stockpile is a means for Arbok to increase its defenses and access healing through Swallow, which isn't reliant on type matchups like its Mega Drain and Giga Drain.
Cool Combinations:
Mud Bomb + Sludge Bomb: The ending combination here is Ground-typed, with a 30% chance to poison, a 30% chance to lower accuracy, and 16 BAP.
Poison Tail + Aqua Tail / Dragon Tail / Iron Tail: By combining a Tail move with Poison Tail, Arbok has access to Water, Dragon, and Steel attacks of 19, 14, and 20 respectively, each with a chance to poison and a higher critical hit rate.
Sludge Wave + Venoshock: After poisoning foes, this spread damage attack is incredibly powerful.
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[a]Arcanine[/a]
Arcanine
100 HP / 4 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 95 - +14 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Fire Stone: 100 HP / 5 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 95 - +14 Accuracy w/ +Spe; Flash Fire Active (+2 Fire BAP)
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Intimidate / Flash Fire / Justified (DW)
Arcanine combines good overall coverage with a few useful tools to become a formidable mixed attacking threat. Arcanine's physical movepool is extensive, containing, Dark, Electric, Fire, Fighting, Ground, and Steel moves. Its special attacks are more limited, consisting of Fire attacks, Dragon attacks, Hidden Power, Snarl, and Solarbeam. Arcanine operates best under Sunny Day, where its Fire attacks get a boost, Solarbeam fires immediately, and it can recover from the recoil of Flare Blitz and Wild Charge with Morning Sun. Both of these moves, along with Body Slam are weight-based, which work well with Arcanine's significant weight (at BAP 15, 11, and 9, respectively). Arcanine's other attacks of note are Extremespeed, a powerful priority attack, Outrage, a devastating attack against Dragon-types, and Reversal, which does more damage as Arcanine's HP drops.
Arcanine's abilities are each decent in their own right. Intimidate weakens the physical attacks of foes, while Flash Fire gives Arcanine protection from other Fire types under the Sun. It is unlikely an opponent will willingly activate Justified, however an ally using Beat Up can quickly raise Arcanine's attack to obscene levels. Arcanine can use Bide to return damage, or evade it with Agility and Teleport. Arcanine learns Reflect, Roar, Safeguard, and Will-O-Wisp for support, though it can paralyze with Body Slam or Dragonbreath 30% of the time.
Fire Stone gives Arcanine a boost to its Attack and activates its Flash Fire, making its Fire attacks even more incredibly powerful. Its Flare Blitz is made particularly formidible.
Other Notable Attacks:
Odor Sleuth: Useful against evasive opponents, as the majority of Arcanine's movepool is 100% Accurate absent other factors.
Overheat: Although Arcanine's Special Attack is the same as its Attack, Arcanine relies much more on its physical movepool, making Overheat an excellent breaking option with little immediate drawback.
Rage: If you know Arcanine will be damaged by an attack, especially by multiple foes or a multi-hit move, Rage is a very effective way to raise Arcanine's attack.
Cool Combinations:
Crunch + Bite / Fire Fang / Thunder Fang: A simple combination that can enhance the BAP of Arcanine's biting moves while keeping their Dark / Fire / Electric typing.
Extremespeed + Flare Blitz / Wild Charge: Unleash an immensely powerful attack with enhanced priority. Flare Blitz harnesses type and Wild Charge for type coverage.
Hyper Beam + Dragon Pulse / Flamethrower / Hidden Power / Solarbeam: Arcanine's special movepool is limited, but most of it can be buffed into a powerful typed attack through a Hyper Beam combination.
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[a]Arghonaut[/a]
Arghonaut
110 HP / 4 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 75 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 110 HP / 5 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 75 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Water/Fighting BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 21
Abilities: Unaware / Iron Fist (DW)
Arghonaut is a solidly built Pokemon with excellent offensive STAB and defensive typing. Although stat boosters are not as ubiquitous a strategy in ASB as they are in OU, Arghonaut's Unaware ability nonetheless makes it capable of boosting its own stats with Bulk Up or Work Up while ignoring the efforts of opposing Pokemon to reduce damage, and utilizing Recover to heal damage.. Iron Fist gives its punching attacks a little more power, and comes in quite handy for Drain Punch, Focus Punch, Ice Punch, Mach Punch, and ThunderPunch. Otherwise Arghonaut uses its Fighting and Water STABs along with physical Ground, Ice, Poison, and Rock attacks, only rarely dipping into its special movepool of Fighting, Ice, Poison, and Water attacks.
Arghonaut has several moves with altered priority, including Aqua Jet, Mach Punch, and Vacuum Wave on the fast side with Revenge and Avalanche on the other. Its support moves are few, but effective: Circle Throw, Embargo, Roar, Soak, Taunt, Torment, and Yawn.
Arghonaut is fairly bulky and has recovery options, so it is very difficult to take down. Fortunately it is not very fast and is very susceptible to Taunt and Toxic stalling. It is also recommended to bring a pokemon that can remove its stat boosts, as Arghonaut can boost itself and not have to worry about responding to opposing stat boosts. It also can't retaliate against attacks with either Counter or Mirror Coat, so blasting it with your best attacks is a safe move.
Rare Candy increases Arghonaut's physical presence by increasing its Attack and strengthening its STAB moves. Its multiple STAB priority attacks in particular enjoy the added strength.
Other Notable Attacks:
Scary Face: Arghonaut generally has middling Speed, so it can't completely take advantage of Dive. Scary Face lowers an opponent's spped and lets Arghonaut get the drop on them.
Swagger: Since Arghonaught has both Unaware and Punishment, Swagger can be a good way to make an opponent damage themselves before following up with Punishment, especially since Unaware only ignores opposing Pokemon's stats when attacking Arghonaut. When they attack themselves, the Attack boost counts.
Whirlpool: Whirlpool can trap foes and cause residual damage, as well as prevent opponents from switching out in a switch battle.
Cool Combinations:
Arm Thrust + Focus Punch: An excellent way to break a foe's Substitute as soon as it is made. Arghonaut picks up the Iron Fist boost, and Arm Thrust's multi-hit property breaks through the opponent's Sub and does spillover damage.
Constrict + Wrap: Lowers an opponent's Speed, and doubles the residual damage per action the opponent will incur from 2 DPA to 4 DPA.
Cut + Cross Chop / Night Slash: If you need to break through Reflect in a pinch, and don't have time for Brick Break, this simple combination will let either move always score a CH.
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[a]Bisharp[/a]
Bisharp
100 HP / 5 / 4 / 2 / 3 / 70 - +8 Accuracy w/ + Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 6 / 4 / 2 / 3 / 70 - +8 Accuracy w/ + Spe; +1 Dark/Steel BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Inner Focus / Defiant / Pressure (DW)
Bisharp combines a powerful attack stat with balanced defenses and a mixture of offense-enabling defensive abilities. Defiant raises its Attack permanently by two stages whenever one of its stats are lowered while Inner Focus means it can attack freely without worrying about flinching. Pressure, Taunt, Torment, and Bisharp's decent defensive typing and stats also means an opponent will have difficulty keeping their energy up, and will have to make themselves vulnerable during a Chill much earlier in a match. Swords Dance is also a swift way for Bisharp to use its decent physical coverage to damage the opponent. With a combination of STAB Sucker Punch and Pursuit to punish offensive and evasive attacks respectively, it's very difficult to prevent Bisharp from doing heavy damage.
Bisharp's bread and butter is its combination of Dark and Fighting coverage, with Aerial Ace and Psycho Cut to dispatch the only Pokemon resistant to both (Heracross and Toxicroak, respectively). Against slower foes (either through Thunder Wave Paralysis, lowering their speed with Low Sweep, or using Rock Polish) in can use STAB Iron Head to make them flinch. Bisharp's additional support movepool is limited, but it possesses Knock Off, Magnet Rise, Role Play, Snatch, Spite, and Stealth Rock.
Bisharp is a strong physical attacker, but it's one-dimensional and its STAB attacks have relatively low BAP. Pokemon with high physical defense and strong Ground, Fighting, or Fire attacks are very effective against Bisharp. Pokemon with an immunity to paralysis are also helpful, as that is Bisharp's only status option. Don't get overconfident though, Bisharp can easily punish opponents that are too hasty in attacking it.
Rare Candy boosts Bisharp's attacking prowess further, which provides a boon to almost all of its most common attacking moves. Pursuit and Sucker Punch also appreciate the added strength.
Other Notable Attacks:
Iron Defense: Iron Defense distinguishes itself from the other +2 Defense boosters in that if used before Bisharp is hit by a contact attack in the same action, it can cause recoil damage to the opponent. It's an effective way to dampen those attacks. If there's a water source that Bisharp can submerge itself in, Iron Defense can also purify Bisharp's skin and heal any Burns it might have acquired.
Metal Burst: Metal Burst helps Bisharp deal with bad matchups by giving it means to deal out more damage than any given opponent. Combined with Bisharp's high Attack, it's quite easy to exploit an opponent's attack and follow up with a finishing blow.
Stealth Rock: Bisharp can support a team in longer battles or switch battles by setting up Stealth Rock.
Cool Combinations:
Dual Chop + Brick Break / Revenge / Payback: Dual Chop gives Bisharp a Sub-breaking move it can utilize with Brick Break, Revenge, or Payback to create Dragon, Fighting, and Dark-typed attacks respectively.
Cut / Scratch + Metal Claw / Night Slash / Psycho Cut / X-Scissor: These basic combos allow Bisharp to get around faster evasive attacks and use the boosting effect in combinations of Cut (always CH, bypassing Reflect) or Scratch (boosting the BAP of the linked attack by 1.5x)
Metal Burst + Revenge: It forfeits Steel typing for Fighting since Revenge has an actual BAP (both are CT Passive), but it can be infuriating to Metal Burst against slower foes or foes using combinations or evasive damaging moves like Dig. Metal Burst + Revenge is in the lowest priority bracket (-6) and allows you to use Bisharp's devastating attack and Metal Burst's nasty damage returning ability at the same time. (Note to refs: calculate the Revenge damage, then add the return damage from Metal Burst if applicable)
Rock Polish + Stone Edge: This natural combination buffs Stone Edge to 14 BAP, 100 Acc, and gives +2 Spe. If you're going to use both in a round, might as well use them together.
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[a]Blaziken[/a]
Blaziken
100 HP / 5 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 6 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Fire/Fighting STAB
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 21
Abilities: Blaze/ Speed Boost (DW)
Blaziken has two powerful offensive STAB types and two offensive abilities that make it one of the fastest, most dangerous threats in ASB. After a single round its Speed Boost activates, raising a Neutral Speed Blaziken to 140 Speed and a +Spe Blaziken to 161 Speed. Blaziken only gets faster as time goes on, and in the case of +Spe Blaziken, it even patches up the accuracy of its most devastating STAB Attack, Hi Jump Kick. It uses this high speed very well, having two evasive attacking moves in Dig and Bounce, as well as Evasive Agility to fall back on. Perhaps what makes Blaziken most threatening though is its ability to attack with similar viciousness with both physical and special attacks. Its great physical coverage of Fire, Fighting, Flying, Ground, and Rock attacks supplemented by Night Slash, Shadow Claw and Thunderpunch, is threatening enough, but it is supplemented by its Fire and Fighting special attacks, Hidden Power, and Solarbeam. Perhaps the best thing about Blaziken, though, is Mirror Move, which lets it get a drop on many foes that can hit it with attacks quite effective against themselves, such as Dragon and Ghost types.
Blaziken doesn't have much of a support movepool, really only sporting Will-O-Wisp and Roar. It does have a good deal of priority though, with Feint, Quick Attack, and Vacuum Wave, and at the other end it can scare away physical attacks with Counter. Blaziken can also use several stat boosters, including Agility, Bulk Up, Hone Claws, Swords Dance, and Work Up - all of which, along with Speed increases from Speed Boost - can be transferred to allies with Baton Pass. All things considered, Blaziken is a basic hard-driving offensive Pokemon that can usually outdamage its foes easily, and thereby win quickly.
Rare Candy increases Blaziken's already massive offensive prowess, and while it favors physical attacks, the +1 boost to its STAB types also make Fire Blast, Focus Blast, and Vacuum Wave that much more dangerous.
Other Notable Attacks:
Blast Burn: With Blaze and Rank 4 Special Attack, at Low HP Blast Burn can be quite devastating to opponents, especially if Blaziken sets up Sunny Day.
Featherdance: Although Blaziken is an offensive Pokemon, there are times when its unwise to attack. Featherdance can dampen a lot of attacks that hit Blaziken for Super-effective damage.
Reversal: At low HP, not only is Blaze active, but Reversal becomes more powerful. It can't be used in any tricks like Flail, but it can utilize Blaziken's Rank 5 Attack to do incredible damage.
Cool Combinations:
Aerial Ace + Dynamicpunch: A quick combination that fixes Dynamicpunch's accuracy. Blaziken even gets STAB on it.
Feint + Focus Punch: Really want to punish Protect? Here's a good way to do it, provided nothing else is targeting you at the time.
Sky Uppercut + Thunderpunch: Need to knock a faster Pokemon using Fly to its senses? This combination will shock them!
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[a]Camerupt[/a]
Camerupt
100 HP / 4 / 3 / 4 / 3 / 40 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 4 / 3 / 5 / 3 / 40 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Fire/Ground STAB
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 6
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Magma Armour / Solid Rock / Anger Point (DW)
Camerupt is the kind of Pokemon you could call a tank; Not only can it dish out lots of damage, but with the help of its abilities: Magma Armor & Solid Rock, Camerupt can also take hits fairly well too; further boosted with solid stats on both physical & special sides. Camerupt has decent coverage, with Normal, Fire, Ground, Rock, Iron Head, and Rock Smash on the Physical Side, combined with Fire, Ground,, Ancientpower, Flash Cannon, Hidden Power, and SolarBeam for Special coverage. Do watch out if you ever get a critical hit on Camerupt, Anger Point will make you wish you hadn't.
While Camerupt can attack, Camerupt also has some interesting non-attacking options to employ, notably Roar, Yawn, Will-O-Wisp, Sunny Day & even Stealth Rock, alongside staples such as Protect, Endure, Substitute, & even Sleep Talk if the opponent tries to put you to sleep. However, Camerupt does have some problems, being weak to common attacking types Water (4x) & Ground (2x). Although Camerupt's abilities do help alleviate this, the lack of instant recovery hurts. That said, Camerupt is a solid Pokemon that will fill its function of dealing lots of damage very nicely & will rarely let you down in doing exactly that.
Rare Candy boosts Camerupt's Special Attack and its Fire and Ground STABs, making its host of Special Fire moves much more powerful, and giving a little boost to its only physical Fire attack, Flame Charge. The increase in damage on its Ground attacks is also welcome.
Other Notable Attacks:
Flame Charge: Flame Charge is Camerupt's only Physical Fire Move, & it is an interesting move, dealing some damage & helping the typically slow Camerupt become faster, though this move tends to be situational at times.
Dig: Standard Evasive Damaging Move, Camerupt doesn't get to use this move to evade often given its low speed, but allows Camerupt to evade many standard double 0 Priority comboes, & even avoid faster Pokemon using Evasive Damaging moves. Like Flame Charge, this is also situational, but becomes far more practical under Trick Room.
Mimic: Another situational move, But Mimic can help Camerupt in a variety of ways, from copying an instant recovery move, to getting an extra coverage move.
Cool Combinations:
Eruption + Overheat / Heat Wave: This powerful combo at full health can deal massive damage to its foes right from the outset. Eruption with Overheat has brute force, but if the temporary Special Attack drop doesn't appease you, Eruption with Heat Wave is a viable alternative, even coming with a Burn Chance.
Selfdestruct + Explosion: This suicide move will allow Camerupt to deal massive damage in one bang before going down in a blaze of glory! Be careful as you need 53 Energy to execute this.
Earthquake + Earth Power: This explosive combo has comparable power to Earthquake + Earthquake, but is cheaper to use, can be synchronised in Doubles or higher (As can Earthquake + Earthquake), hits the opposition on both defences, & also has the ability to strike pesky Pokemon under the influence of Levitate / Magnet Rise! It also has the chance to lower the Special Defence of the opponents as well, which is nice.
Rare Candy gives Camerupt a boost to its Special Attack and its STABs, which is a great boost to its Fire-typed offense because Camerupts only physical Fire move is Flame Charge.
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[a]Castform[/a]
Castform
100 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 70 - +8% Accuracy w/ +Spe
Everstone: 100 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 70 - +8% Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Normal BAP (Becomes +2 Fire in Sun, +2 Ice in Hail, +2 Water in Rain)
Size Class: 1
Weight Class: 1
Base Rank Total: 18
Abilities: Forecast
Castform is the perfect example of a Pokemon that is mediocre at best in the cartridge games, but has the tools to become a credible threat in ASB. It has the unique ability to change its type at any point in the match by using the appropriate weather move, then using its expansive movepool to deal massive damage. Due to it's exclusive ability Forecast, it is able to summon these weathers effectively and with less energy, while Weather Ball, one of its best moves, also sees an energy decrease. These traits alone make it a versatile threat to watch out for.
Castform doesn't really have a physical movepool to speak of, containing merely Normal moves, along with Avalanche and Thief. However, Castform more than makes up for it with a special movepool that stretches across the horizon. Its special moves include Weather Ball, which changes its type depending on whichever weather Castform decides to set up, a slew of Fire, Water, and Ice moves to take advantage of said weather, and finally several Electric, Grass, and Ghost moves to round out its coverage. Water Gun is notable for opening up opponents to damage from Electric attacks. Of course, it also comes with three different weathers to abuse. Sunny Day turns it into a Fire type that can launch powerful fire moves as well as Solarbeam. Rain Dance gives it a Water typing to attack with Thunder and devastating water moves.Hail gives Castform an Ice typing, and allows it to deal residual damage to non-Ice type Pokemon and utilize 100% accurate Blizzards. Finally, In ASB Castform's Forecast grants it immunity to Sandstorm, so although it will not change types and pick up STAB (and more weaknesses), Castform will benefit more than lose from its use, as it does stable damage to the foe and gains a rock-typed special attack. Using Castform generally involves using the right weather for the situation, then abusing the weaknesses of its opponent.
However, Castform's greatest strength can also be its greatest downfall. If it is unable to set up the right weather, it will usually have problems. For this reason, having a faster Taunt will harm Castform's efforts, while carrying another beneficial weather will also hamper its efforts and force the user to sub against it. Failing that, using tactics to stall or cancel out the weather, such as using a Pokemon with Cloud Nine, is always an option.
Everstone gives all of Castform's damage dealing and taking stats a boost, turning it from a mediocre Pokemon into a fairly powerful one, especially since its Everstone offensive boost changes when its type changes through Forecast. Castform's weather forms tend to be much better at Special attacks, although the boost to its Attack and additional Normal BAP actually gives Castform's Normal-typed physical attacks some firepower.
Other Notable Attacks:
Tailwind: Castform can use this to patch up both his speed and that of his teammates for several turns, which can turn the match in the team's favor. Additionally, if used before a Taunt user is sent in, it can allow Castform to use an appropriate weather move before getting Taunted.
Sandstorm: While generally not recommended due to Castform not being immune to Sandstorm, this can make Weather Ball a Rock move if one is needed in a pinch.
Clear Smog: One of the few Pokemon that get this move, Castform can use this to reset any stat boosts that may give it trouble, even through Taunt.
Disable: A very useful move that can be used to secure the chosen weather or prevent a devastating move from crushing Castform.
Cool Combinations:
Ember/Water Gun/Powder Snow + Fire Blast/Hydro Pump/Blizzard (respectively): Castform is the only Pokemon bar Smeargle that has access to all three of the moves to boost much stronger moves while using low amounts of energy. Use whichever one suits the situation.
Future Sight + Hail/Rain Dance/Sandstorm/Sunny Day: This unique combination allows Castform to delay a weather move for a later date, which may be useful for getting past weather wars.
Swift + Thunder Wave: When you need to spread paralysis to all foes quickly in a multiple battle, this combination spreads it out quickly, for light damage.
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[a]Chandelure[/a]
Chandelure
90 HP / 2 / 3 / 6 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Dusk Stone: 90 HP / 2 / 3 / 7 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Dark/Ghost BAP
Size Class: 2
Weight Class: 3
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Flash Fire / Flame Body / Shadow Tag (DW)
What immediately draws you to Chandelure is its massive Special Attack, which powers its movepool full of Fire, Ghost, Grass, and Psychic attacks, as well as Dark Pulse and Hidden Power. Chandelure's abilities are also helpful, with Flash Fire giving it a third immunity, to Fire attacks, while Flame Body punishes contact attacks that hit it, and Shadow Tag traps foes in all non-switch battles. Not only is Shadow Tag at it's best in doubles or greater battles, Chandelure's Heat Wave is backed by immense power and hits all foes. Chandelure also has Imprison, which shuts off the offensive output of most opposing Ghost types. Finally, its support moves include Acid, which lets it inflict Toxic on any Steel types not scorched by its Fire attacks, Clear Smog, Haze, Safeguard, Taunt, Telekinesis, Trick, Trick Room, and Will-O-Wisp.
Chandelure also has a few stat-up moves. Flame Charge has STAB and can raise its Speed, Calm Mind increases its Special Attack and Special Defense, Acid Armor raises Defense and can let it phaze into the background to avoid an attack if it's faster the action it is used. Finally, Chandelure may be the best user of Minimize in existence, being immune to Stomp and 4x resisting Steamroller. If it does get worn down, Chandelure can sometomes restore HP with Pain Split depending on the health of its opponent. Chandelure is also one of the few 5th Generation Pokemon with Endure, and it can bypass an opponent's Endure with the residual damage from Fire Spin.
Dusk Stone raises Chandelure's already immense Special Attack, and gives an excellent buff to its Ghost attacks and Dark Pulse, for the few Normal-types with Thick Fat sitting out there ready to sponge its Ghost and Fire attacks.
Other Notable Attacks:
Inferno: Chandelure needs to use Telekinesis first to have any good chance of hitting with Inferno, but when it does, it always burns a foe.
Memento: Chandelure can usually go out with a powerful damaging attack, but if your back is against the wall, Memento can set up your next Pokemon for a strong initial advantage.
Overheat: Overheat weakens Chandelure's Special Attack, which isn't all that desirable, but there's no denying its immense power.
Cool Combinations:
Overheat + Heat Wave: Absolutely destructive in doubles or greater, where it torches all opponents at once.
Smog + Clear Smog / Will-O-Wisp: An 18 BAP Special Poison attack that resets an opponent's Stats while inflicting Poison, Smog combined with Will-O-Wisp Burns and Poisons a foe simultaneously.
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[a]Cinccino[/a]
Cinccino
100 HP / 3 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 115 - +20 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Shiny Stone: 100 HP / 4 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 115 - +20 Accuracy w/ +Spe; Base Accuracy +10
Size Class: 1
Weight Class: 1
Base Rank Total: 17
Abilities: Cute Charm / Technician / Skill Link (DW)
Cinccino is widely regarded as a powerful damage engine of a mon. Thanks to Technician and Skill Link, Cinccino gains access to powerful offensive options that allow it to disregard Substitutes and interrupt combos with astonishing ease.
STAB Tail Slap and the coverage pair of Rock Blast and Bullet Seed form the core of Cinccino's offensive plan. Boasting 20 BAP for 11 En, Cinccino kills fast or dies fast. These moves can be patched up accuracy-wise with a +Spe nature, leaving their BAP to speak for itself. In addition to this central triad, Cinccino can wield Technician Wake-Up Slap, Aqua Tail, Dig, Gunk Shot,Iron Tail, Seed Bomb, U-turn, and physically. Specially, Cinccino has some cute tricks such as Thunder and Focus Blast which synergize with a high accuracy bonus.
Cinccino has a myriad of support moves that could tickle one's fancy, such as Encore, Endure, Sleep Talk, Helping Hand, Light Screen, Sing, and Thunder Wave. Given Cinccino's relative frailty, these can be very helpful in keeping it in the fight. Cinccino's small size and large Speed also make its Dodge Command extremely effective, boasting a base of 60% (capped at 50%) to start.
The Scarf Pokemon is not without its flaws, however. It has difficulty hitting most Steel-types for significant damage, first and foremost. Rock Blast and Bullet Seed can hit a few targets that are neutral competently, but Steels and part-Steels require it to use Wake-Up Slap or Focus Blast to do significant damage.
Shiny Stone provides Cincinno with two boosts than help solidify its offensive ability by raising the Base Accuracy of its attacks by 10, helping Rock Blast and Aqua Tail reach 100 and bringing Tail Slap up to 95. Combined with the Attack Rank boost, Cincinno can really let its ability combination shine.
Other Notable Attacks:
After You: This causes the target to move immediately after the user, regardless of priority. At Cinccino's speed, this can have intense ramifications, such as lifting the attack portion of Focus Punch!
DoubleSlap: This is your back-up Tail Slap. It has less power, but it still carries the full weight of Cinccino's abilities behind it.
Flail: Tail Slap outclasses this right up to the barest pinch of HP, but Cinccino's access to Endure means it can see mileage out of 20 BAP Flail nonetheless.
Cool Combinations:
Flail + Tail Slap: A doozy of a death knell after an Endure. Carries 35 BAP at maximum, tramples over substitutes, interrupts slower combos, and rolls for critical hits five times.
Facade + Tail Slap: Punishing to anyone who attempts to lay status on Cinccino, coming out as a 22 BAP combo that doubles in power (and jumps in En cost) if the user is suffering from major status.
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[a]Conkeldurr[/a]
Conkeldurr
110 HP / 5 / 3 / 2 / 3 / 45 Spe - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Link Cable: 110 HP / 6 / 4 / 2 / 3 / 45 Spe - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Guts / Sheer Force / Iron Fist (DW)
Conkeldurr is a Pokemon that benefits greatly from the All Abilities environment common in many ASB matches, taking it from a run-of-the-mill strong fighting type to an absurd powerhouse packing 12 BAP Elemental Punches with Iron Fist and Sheer Force, powerful priority, and if the user is Gutsy enough, they can push Conkeldurr's power through the roof.
Conkeldurr has excellent physical coverage, boasting a variety of Fighting, Ground, Rock, and Normal moves as well as Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Payback, Poison Jab, and ThunderPunch. It backs this up with a few defensive countermeasures like Bide and Counter to return damage, as well as Endure to survive a deathblow, Drain Punch to recover damage, and Mach Punch for priority. Taunt allows it to be disruptive while Foresight negates accuracy reduction and lets it hit Ghost-types.
Conkeldurr's special movepool is small, containing only Focus Blast, Grass Knot, Hidden Power, Hyper Beam, Round, and Snore. Because of this it is almost completely reliant on physical attacks, with Burn being negated and making it stronger. Conkeldurr is a generally strong Pokemon but if its abilities are disabled or moved around by Skill Swap it becomes much easier to manage. Counter is also particularly effective against it because it has relatively few attacks in-between 6 BAP and 10+ BAP.
Conkeldurr can attach a Link Cable to enhance its Attack and Defense ranks, increasing its ability as a physical tank and further improving its physical damage.
Other Notable Attacks:
Block: Conkeldurr's attacks are usually so powerful that it has comparatively little use for Block's anti-evasive utility, but it does allow it a minor amount of field control when combined with Taunt to prevent foes from recovering energy with Chill.
Dig: Conkeldurr's low speed makes it hard for it to evade with Dig, but it can at least lower the speed of opponents with Bulldoze, Low Sweep, and Scary Face to accomplish this.
Wide Guard: Much more useful in doubles where its priority negates Conkeldurr's low speed. It can also be used in singles matches against a few powerful spread moves like Surf and Earthquake as an alternative to Protect or Detect.
Cool Combinations:
Comet Punch + Drain Punch / Fire Punch / Ice Punch / Poison Jab / ThunderPunch: As Conkeldurr's only multi-hit move, Comet Punch gives its elemental punches and Drain Punch a way to bust through Substitutes with spillover damage. Poison Jab is perhaps helped the most because it will also pick up the Iron Fist boost in this combination.
Focus Punch / Fire Punch / Ice Punch / Thunder Punch + Wake-Up Slap / SmellingSalt: Conkeldurr's Abilities give it a number of high-powered moves begging for a way to enhance their power. Wake-Up Slap and SmellingSalt "help" the opponent when asleep or paralyzed, respectively, to get over it while eating a 24 BAP elemental or 29 BAP STAB combination.
Rock Smash + Stone Edge: Conkeldurr can take full advantage of Sheer Force and use this move to buff it's rock-type offense, resulting in a 21 BAP, 90% accurate combination.
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[a]Crustle[/a]
Crustle
100 HP / 3 / 5 / 3 / 3 / 45 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 3 / 6 / 3 / 3 / 45 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Bug/Rock BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Sturdy / Shell Armor / Weak Armor (DW)
Crustle is a rather odd pokemon in ASB to say the least. At first glance, it seems completely outclassed by Armaldo, who sports the same typing, but with higher attack, a bigger movepool, and many of the moves Crustle gets. However, Crustle gets two tools that Armaldo can only dream of having, Shell Smash and Spikes. Sturdy increases Crustle's bulk beyond what you would anticipate, while Shell Armor keeps it protected from critical hits. Weak Armor is interesting in that Speed boosts are often more critical than Defense drops, and combined with Counter can be very effective.
Crustle's physical movepool is light, but contains pretty much everything it needs, containing the obligatory Bug and Rock moves as well as Normal moves, Ground moves, Shadow Claw, Aerial Ace, Faint Attack, and Poison Jab. Sadly, Crustle's special movepool is nonexistant, consisting of Hyper Beam, Solarbeam, and Hidden Power as the only noteworthy moves. Crustle's primary method of dealing damage is using Shell Smash, which when combined with a White Herb pernamently skyrockets Crustle's attacking stats and speed to deal massive damage with moves like Rock Wrecker and X-Scissor, while remaining a defensive juggernaut. While Shell Smash's boosts are permanent, Crustle can enhance its stats further with Curse, Hone Claws, Rock Polish, and Swords Dance. Crustle also gets mileage out of Rock Blast due to Bug typing increasing the number of hits by one. However, Crustle can also use it's great defenses and abilities to become a good entry hazard setter with Stealth Rock and Spikes. Crustle's Block along with its heavy weight is good at punishing evasive actions, and Counter can send back strong super-effective physical attacks. Finally, unlike many Gen 5 Pokemon Crustle can Endure to get extra actions of survivability, and at low HP it can abuse Flail.
While Crustle can be a pain to deal with, it's not without weaknesses. If you can prevent it from using Shell Smash, it's offensive capabilities are subpar. The easiest way to deal with Crustle is to use a faster Taunt, since it prevents him from boosting his stats and from setting up hazards. However, anything that can erase or ignore Crustle's Shell Smash boosts is a good bet.
Rare Candy gives Crustle another boost to its Defense, which can aid it in using Weak Armor and also increases the power of its Bug and Rock moves slightly.
Other Notable Attacks:
Dig: It can be difficult to keep Crustle's Speed up to par to use Dig evasively, but even at low speed it can aid Crustle in avoiding combination attacks from faster foes.
Fury Cutter: Crustle can make use of his Bug STAB and Shell Smash boosts to deal massive damage with this move over time, which gets even more deadly if combined with a Metronome.
Iron Defense: Crustle's Shell Smash raises its speed to a respectable 136, even with -Spe, meaning it can often get an Iron Defense up before a contact attack, causing recoil damage to the opponent. Rock Polish can maintain or enhance that speed boost.
Struggle Bug: Crustle's Special Attack is mediocre and Struggle Bug itself isn't that powerful, but it does weaken the special attacks that tend to target Crustle, and it recieves STAB.
Cool Combinations:
Cut + X-Scissor: A nice reliable Bug typed combo that ensures a critical hit to ignore Reflect. It also doesn't take much energy to use, so it can be used several times in a single match.
Flail + Aerial Ace / Night Slash / Poison Jab / Shadow Claw / X-Scissor: At low HP, Crustle's plethora if direct physical attacks can aid it in target typing opponents for a powerful final blow.
Rock Blast + Rock Wrecker: A Substitute nuker. With Rock Blast as Crustle's only multi-hit attack, having a crushing attack with trampling damage can come in handy.
Rock Polish + Rock Blast/Rock Slide: A very powerful combo that Crustle can use to increase speed under Taunt and at the same time do massive damage and patch up the accuracy issue of the chosen Rock move. Rock Blast will make the combo do terrible damage to any single target due to the Bug STAB, while Rock Slide will do less damage to all targets on the field in a doubles or triples.
Sandstorm + Sand Tomb: This neat combo can set up Sandstorm weather even while Taunted. While it is a bit energy intensive, clocking in around 22 energy, it can deal good amounts of residual damage and boost Crustle's decent Special Defense stat, all while trapping the opponent.
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[a]Cyclohm[/a]
Cyclohm
110 HP / 2 / 4 / 4 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 110 HP / 2 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Electric/Dragon BAP
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Shield Dust / Static / Overcoat (DW)
Cyclohm is one of the most popular Pokemon in CAP ASB for its complete ability to control field conditions. Not only does it have every weather at its disposal, it also has Trick Room to deal with messy speed disadvantages, and Light Screen to ward off special attacks. It has direct recovery in Slack Off, Bide to capitalize on its excellent bulk in unfavorable matchups, and three highly useful defensive abilities that mesh well with its movepool. The most menacing aspect of Cyclohm is its coverage. It has Dragon, Fire, Ice, Electric, and Water for special coverage, but it can convert Weather Ball into a Rock attack via Sandstorm in a pinch, and it has Hurricane for when Rain is active. It's only real weakness is that it's almost entirely reliant on special attacks, and it has 3 notable weaknesses in Dragon, Ice, and Ground.
Rare Candy increases Cyclohm's Defense, protecting it even more against Earthquakes while also boosting its formidable combination of Electric and Dragon attacks. Very useful for Cyclohm's both offensive and defensive roles.
Other Notable Attacks:
Heal Bell: Not only is it excellent team support, it also helps Cyclohm ward off residual damage from Burn and Toxic.
Magnet Rise: Gives a temporary immunity to the most ubiquitous Ground attacks, though not all of them.
Torment: While not quite as effective at lockdown as Taunt, Torment gives Cyclohm another way to limit an opponent's options.
Cool Combinations:
Shock Wave + Zap Cannon: A quick Electric-type combination that fixes Zap Cannon's accuracy problem while keeping the 100% paralysis chance.
Twister + Hail / Rain Dance / Sandstorm / Sunny Day: Need to set up weather while Taunted? Twister combined with a weather changes the move to that type (Ice / Water / Rock / Fire) and summons the weather out. Hits all opponents in doubles or larger battles.
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[a]Donphan[/a]
Donphan
100 HP / 5 / 5 / 2 / 2 / 50 Spe - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 6 / 6 / 2 / 2 / 50 Spe - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe, +2 Ground BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Sturdy / Sand Veil (DW)
Donphan is a rough and tumble tank that combines a vast offensive movepool with high attack power, excellent durability and no serious weaknesses to overpower its foes. Donphan's physical movepool is expansive, utilizing Ground, Dark, Ice, Normal, Poison, Rock, and Steel moves along with Bounce, Fire Fang, Seed Bomb, Superpower, and Thunder Fang to round out its offensive coverage. Donphan's special movepool is pathetic in contrast, but some of those moves have niche uses.
Donphan also has a significant support movepool, boasting Rapid Spin, Roar, and Stealth Rock as well as a variety of speed altering moves from Bulldoze and Rock Tomb to Rock Polish and Scary Face. All of these are particularly helpful when utilized with Bounce to avoid damage. Sandstorm works with Sand Veil to further increase Donphan's evasiveness. Donphan has Focus Energy to ensure its attacks get critical hits, which are helpful in breaking through screens and getting around Burn. Donphan has Ice Shard for priority, and Counter to return physical damage.
Donphan is almost completely reliant on physical attacks, so it absolutely hates Burn. Taunting Donphan also removes some its support ability, and it has low speed to start. Sturdy shores up its special defense slightly, but it still does not enjoy high-powered Special assaults.
Rare Candy increases Donphan's Attack and Defense as well as its Earthquake damage, making it an even more powerful tank and rendering most physical attacks useless.
Other Notable Attacks:
Block: Donphan's weight is significant, so Block is a viable option to punish evasive actions. It can also act as field control in switch battles, which is helpful combined with Donphan's ability to both set and remove hazards, and phaze.
Endeavor: Donphan's excellent attack usually makes direct attacks more effective, however Endeavor can close the distance against foes it has a bad matchup with.
Water Gun: While it is very weak, it can be used to enhance Electric weakness and allow Donphan a fighting chance against Water-types by using it before Thunder Fang.
Cool Combinations:
Assurance + Fury Attack: An excellent sub-breaker, and combined with a previous use of Focus Energy it has a lot of damage potential.
Flail + Body Slam / Bounce / Fire Fang / Iron Tail / Thunder Fang: At low HP, Donphan can pull off a multitude of elemental flail combinations.
Giga Impact + Bounce / Double-Edge / Head Smash: A power option for Donphan, allowing it to deal immense damage quickly with either Flying or Rock damage, resulting in 25, 30, or 32 BAP. Heavy Slam can also be used with it.
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[a]Dragonite[/a]
Dragonite
100 HP / 5 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 6 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Dragon/Flying BAP
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 6
Base Rank Total: 22
Abilities: Inner Focus / Multiscale (DW)
Dragonite is an extremely powerful Pokemon that owes its great success in ASB to its combination of excellent stats, an immense movepool, and its ability, Multiscale. Multiscale gives Dragonite an inordinate amount of comparative bulk the first round it is out, allowing it to muscle through opponents very effectively with its combination of Dragon STAB and Fire, Fighting, and Ground coverage moves to crush Steel types. As if that weren't enough, Dragonite has a competent attack from basically every type except Bug, Dark, Ghost, Grass, and Psychic, in addition to all the perks of being a Generation 1 Pokemon, which include moves like Bide and Reflect, as well as other niche moves through the generation like Zap Cannon, Shock Wave, and the like. Thunder Wave is a common attack Dragonite uses to patch up its low speed and give it more attacks against adversaries. Dragonite's best trick is its priority attacks, with both Aqua Jet and Extremespeed to boost the priority of its other moves. Dragon Tail and Roar round out Dragonite's abilities by keeping foes from statting up or using Substitute effectively.
The truth is, aside from smashing face and Screens, Dragonite has very few tricks up its sleeve that can't be circumvented through common means. It's middling speed so it's Fly and Dive only reach their full potential after Dragon Dance or Agility, the latter of which itself can be broken by super-effect Rock Slide and Blizzard. Basically when you face off against Dragonite, it's going to be a slugfest. If you inflict it with Toxic or Burn early you won't have to worry about Roost getting it back to full health. Just we wary, Dragonite can last the long haul.
Rare Candy provides Dragonite additional power, especially in its strong Physical Dragon attacks. Its small increase in Flying power helps it greatly in Rain when it uses Hurricane or when firing off powerful Draco Meteors.
Other Notable Attacks:
Defog: In a face-smashing game, lowering the opponents Evasion and removing their screens and hazards is one good way to go about it.
Razor Wind: Dragonite's best answer to Ice Shard and multi-hit attacks. Opponents will have to throw them into combinations in order to get through this defensive mechanism.
Sky Drop: As the heaviest user of Sky Drop, Dragonite can use it against targets with Weight Classes of 8 or less, making it sometimes Dragonite's best Physical Flying STAB.
Whirlpool / Wrap: Dragonite's way of dealing residual damage, useful for breaking Endure. Only Jellicent can get around both - too bad it doesn't have Endure.
Cool Combinations:
Aerial Ace + Dynamicpunch: Dragonite is pretty straightforward, but it still uses this combination to great effect, inflicting a status it normally can't.
Extremespeed + Aerial Ace / Aqua Tail / Dragon Rush / Fire / Ice / Thunderpunch: A quick way to deal swift elemental damage and in Dragon Rush's case, possibly flinch with a +2 priority.
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[a]Dusknoir[/a]
Dusknoir
90 HP / 4 / 5 / 3 / 5 / 45 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 5
Base Rank Total: 21
Abilities: Pressure
Reaper Cloth: Pressure (x2), Levitate
Commands: Levitate
Dusknoir is a Pokemon that exemplified bulky offense, being able to slowly wear down opponents with its impressive 90 / 5 / 5 defenses and presenting competent offense with 4 / 3 attacking stats. Dusknoir's signature item, Reaper Cloth expands on its defensive capabilities by augmenting its Pressure effect and adding Levitate to make it harder to hit, as well as bypassing Spikes and Toxic Spikes on the way in during switch battles.
Dusknoir's physical movepool is the most expansive, including Ghost, Dark, Fighting, Ground, and Rock moves along with Elemental Punches. Its special movepool, is not quite as diverse, but still has Ghost, Ice, and Psychic moves along with Charge Beam, Dark Pulse, and Focus Blast. In battles against more defensive foes, Dusknoir has both Seismic Toss and Night Shade to do fixed damage to opponents. It has Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch for priority, and can punish evasion with Pursuit. Dusknoir's support movepool is also sizable, with Confuse Ray, Curse, Disable, Foresight, Gravity, Mean Look, Imprison, Skill Swap, Snatch, Taunt, Telekinesis, Torment, Toxic, Trick, Trick Room, Wonder Room, and Will-o-Wisp. Dusknoir can also Pain Split to recover from damage inflicted on it, and Counter against strong physical attacks. In Doubles, Helping Hand along with Dusknoir's immunity to Normal (and Seismic Attacks with a Reaper Cloth) make it a great partner if your allies want to go nuclear on a foe.
Dusknoir's worst nightmare is Taunt, which shuts down its stalling options and forces it to utilize direct attacks. This isn't necessarily bad for Dusknoir, but it operates best when it can mix and match stalling and offensive tactics, and Taunt also shuts down its healing through Pain Split. Pressure does drain an opponent's energy fast, so Dusknoir is particularly effective against foes that rely on high energy usage attacks. If you can Knock Off Dusknoir's Reaper Cloth, you can greatly mitigate its ability to stall you.
Other Notable Attacks:
Bind: Dusknoir's sole residual damage attack, excellent for blocking a foe's retreat if it gets Taunted, or finishing off an Enduring Pokemon this turn.
Future Sight: By the same token, Dusknoir's Future Sight can delay an attack now for an attack later, which will also ruin a foe's Endure.
Spite: Combined with Dusknoir's already immense Energy draining powers, Spite adds fuel to the fire, making opponents have to Chill much more quickly than they might have anticipated.
Cool Combinations:
Shadow Ball + Will-O-Wisp: While almost every Ghost can do this, few have the luxury of Dusknoir's bulk during the cooldown phase, are slow enough to not really care about being hit when using negative priority, or a need to balance out Will-O-Wisp's Accuracy with a more accurate attack.
Shadow Punch + Dynamicpunch: Dusknoir's direct line to a damaging confusion inducing attack.
Shadow Sneak + Body Slam: Dusknoir is by far the heftiest Ghost in its entire line, and actually has the kind of Attack and Weight to make it worthwhile. Body Slam can paralyze a foe with some luck.
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[a]Empoleon[/a]
Empoleon
100 HP / 3 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 60 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 3 / 3 / 5 / 4 / 60 - +5 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +1 Water/Steel BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 19
Abilities: Torrent / Defiant (DW)
Empoleon possesses a unique defensive typing that leaves it with a few common weaknesses (Ground, Fighting, Electric) balanced by an excellent list of resistances. Like most "starter" Pokemon it has well balanced stats and a reasonably diverse movepool. In Empoleon's case, it gets several useful utilities in Bide, Agility, Yawn, and Aqua Jet for priority. It can use Swords Dance and Hone Claws effectively, and its ability Defiant quickly turns it into a huge physical threat if its stats are lowered. Empoleon's physical coverage is decent with Water, Steel, Flying, Rock, Ground, and a few other single-move coverages in Brick Break, Shadow Claw, and Avalanche. Special coverage includes Water, Ice, Signal Beam, Flash Cannon, and Grass Knot. Otherwise, Empoleon has few tricks, it's simply a bread and butter balanced Pokemon.
Rare Candy puts Empoleon on a more offensive path by increasing its Special Attack and Water and Steel STABs, giving its (fairly) unique Hydro Cannon even more impressive power, and shoring up its relatively shall Steel attack repertoire in Flash Cannon, Metal Claw, and Steel Wing.
Other Notable Attacks:
Defog: Empoleon is one of the few Stealth Rock-resistant Pokemon that can use Defog to clear screens for the opponent and hazards / weather from both sides of the field.
Stealth Rock: Empoleon has the bulk to easily set up Stealth Rock during a more extended battle or a switch battle.
Hydro Cannon: As a "starter" Pokemon Empoleon has access to Hydro Cannon, which causes Sluggish instead of a turn loss in ASB. At low health, Torrent Boosted Hydro Cannon can be a very powerful finishing attack, and it's more accurate than Hydro Pump.
Cool Combinations:
Double Hit + Drill Peck / Steel Wing / Waterfall: A quick multi-hit attack that can break Empoleon through an opponent's Sub.
Peck + Fury Attack / Drill Peck: Basic combination that results in either 5 hits for Fury Attack or a Reflect penetrating Critical Hit with Drill Peck.
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[a]Feraligatr[/a]
Feraligatr
100 HP / 4 / 4 / 3 / 3 / 78 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Rare Candy: 100 HP / 5 / 4 / 3 / 3 / 78 - +9 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Water BAP
Size Class: 4
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 20
Abilities: Torrent / Sheer Force (DW)
Feraligatr is an interesting option in ASB battles. Its stats are reasonably balanced, making it an excellent pinch hitter in many situations. Its DW ability, Sheer Force, coupled with a wide array of secondary-effect-causing attacks like Crunch, Ice Fang, Ice Punch, Iron Tail, Metal Claw, Rock Slide, and Waterfall, makes it a powerful physical threat. Additionally Feraligatr has general Water, Dark, Fighting, Ghost, Ground, Rock, and Steel coverage. The boost increases the power of his special moves too, meaning that Ancientpower, Blizzard, Focus Blast, Ice Beam, and Scald can also be reliably used. Dragon Tail and Roar give Feraligatr an edge in Switch=KO battles, allowing it to nullify stat-ups and Substitutes set up by opponents. Finally, Feraligatr can retaliate against physical attackers with Counter.
Unfortunately, the blue croc's Speed isn't the best, meaning that sometimes it gets outspend and evaded by faster enemies. Thankfully, Feraligatr also has access to Agility, Dig, and Dive, allowing it to do some dodging of its own, or perhaps even fixing its Speed problem. Alternatively, it can ignore Speed altogether with Aqua Jet. Feraligatr has a great deal of control over stat-ups, with Agility, Dragon Dance, Fake Tears, Hone Claws, Screech, and Swords Dance.
Rare Candy greatly enhances Feraligatr's Water-typed offense, putting real power behind its Sheer-Force boosted Waterfall, evasive Dive, and its priority Aqua Jet, which all welcome the Attack and BAP boost.
Other Notable Attacks:
Block: It's not as all-purpose as Pursuit, and Feraligatr is only mid-weight comparatively, but it is an effective shut-down of opposing evasion.
Mud Sport: Mud Sport temporarily gives Feraligatr even ground with Electric-type threats, which is especially useful given its repertoire of Ground-type attacks.
Rage: A highy underestimated move, Rage is a way to quickly boost offensive power while dealing damage. Especially effective against opponents trying to get around Counter with weak attacks.
Cool Combinations:
Aerial Ace + Dynamicpunch: Put Feraligatr's claws to good use with this patch-up of Dynamicpunch's accuracy.
Hydro Pump + Hydro Cannon: Deals massive damage in a single shot. Feraligatr is one of only five Pokemon that can use this combo naturally.
Surf + Scald: Makes Surf stronger and capable of causing Burn.
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[a]Gallade[/a]
Gallade
100 HP / 5 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe
Dawn Stone: 100 HP / 5 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 80 - +10 Accuracy w/ +Spe; +2 Fighting/Ghost BAP
Size Class: 3
Weight Class: 4
Base Rank Total: 21
Abilities: Steadfast / Justified (DW)
Gallade has access to a very wide movepool, learning attacking moves of every type except Steel. Notable moves among these include Dual Chop , Fire Punch, Leaf Blade, ThunderPunch and Close Combat, as well as damaging recovery moves such as Drain Punch and Dream Eater. He also has access to priority in the form of Shadow Sneak and stat boosts with Swords Dance. Gallade's wide movepool combines well with Imprison for sealing off an opponent's attacking options.
Gallade can also be used to support teammates through status-inducing attacks, as he has access to moves that guarantee every status in the game bar Freeze (which doesn't have a dedicated inflicting move to begin with). Hypnosis sends foes to sleep, Will-o-Wisp softens physical attacks, while Thunder Wave slows faster opponents so that Gallade's less swift comrades can pick them off. Additionally Gallade can Confuse Ray, Disable, Encore, Taunt, or Torment foes. Helping Hand is also worth mentioning, as it greatly boosts allies' attacks in multi battles, as well as Magic Room and Wonder Room.
Dawn Stone unlocks some of Gallade's potential for Special Attacking, but also increases the power of its varied Fighting-typed attacks, and its neutral coverage in Shadow Sneak and Shadow Ball.
Other Notable Attacks:
Feint: Gallade can break a foes Protect or Detect using Feint in combinations very effectively with it's Rank 5 Atk.
Low Kick: Helps Gallade face down larger foes such as Aggron and Steelix.
Heal Pulse: Allows Gallade to maintain a more defensive role and increase his teammates' survivability in doubles, triples, and brawls.
Cool Combinations:
Cut + Psycho Cut / Night Slash / Slash / Leaf Blade / X-Scissor: A basic combo that takes advantage of Cut's natural critical hit guarantee when used in combos. Made especially effective in Gallade's case, since he learns five differently-typed variations of Slash, more than any other Pokemon.
Magical Leaf + Will-O-Wisp: Gallade's ability to burn is often forgotten. This combination is fairly weak coming from Gallade's Rank 3 SpA, but it does burn foes with -- Accuracy.
Teleport + Shadow Sneak: This combination allows Gallade to simultaneously evade an enemy attack and land a pre-emptive strike of his own. It additionally gets +2 priority for combining an evasive teleport with a priority move. It's not strong, but it is crafty.
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[a]EP1[/a]
