#72 + #73: Tentacool and Tentacruel

I guess the easiest way of introducing this is by saying that it's the Zubat of the sea but lacking a final evolution still. Yep, we've reached the jellyfish Pokemon, Tentacool and it's evolved form Tentacruel.

Tentacool, on the face of it, is set up as a bit of a special wall type Pokemon: 40 physical and 50 special attack means you aren't dealing much damage, and 40 HP and 35 defence don't allow it to tank, but a brilliant 100 special defence means you can switch in on a special attacker and shut them down somewhat, and then factor in the reasonable 70 speed and you could get some buffs up or whatever. The primary ability, clear body, prevents stats from being decreased by moves like leer or by abilities like intimidate (though not by paralysis or burn). The next ability, liquid ooze, means that when a foe tries to use a draining move like giga drain or draining kiss (for example) then rather than gaining health from you, they take damage. The hidden ability is rain dish, which is pretty awesome: we've covered this before, but it basically means you get 1/16 HP back each turn in the rain and it can stack with leftovers. This makes rain dance viable again.

It looks like this jellyfish has lost a fight and most of its tentacles...

The water/poison typing makes Tentacool and Tentacruel pretty resistant, suffering a mere three weaknesses in ground, electric and psychic, which regrettably are fairly common, but you resist fighting, fire, water, steel, poison and fairy that are common, as well as ice and bug.

Tentacool's moveset by levelup is pretty huge, in all honesty, but carries only four physical moves and four status moves. In the physical camp you get STAB with poison sting (base 15 with chance to poison) and constrict (normal base 10 and carries a small chance of lowering the foe's speed by a stage). You also later get access to wrap (normal base 15t that traps and hurts the foe for a couple of turns) and poison jab (base 80 STAB move that has a 30% chance of poisoning the target). In terms of status you get toxic spikes (an entry hazard where Pokemon will be poisoned when they switch in to play unless they are resistant or flying above them), supersonic (55 accuracy that can confuse the foe), barrier (gives a +2 stage boost to defence, making damage-taking roles a lot easier) and screech (drops the foe's defence by two stages).

In terms of special moves, you get access to both acid and acid spray: the former has greater PP, they both have the same base power and poison typing, but the latter leads to a 2 stage drop in the foe's special defence, whereas the former is a slight chance of a one stage drop, so take acid spray. You can also take two of my favourite water moves: water pulse (base 60, chance to confuse) ad brine (base 65, doubles in power when the target's HP is below 50% so is a good way to finish off an opposition tank). You get one of my other favourites by TM (see below). Bubble beam is a decent water attack at base 65 with the slight chance to slow, whilst hydro pump carries great power at 110 but the lack of PP and accuracy count against it quite heavily. Sludge wave is a pretty cool poison move with base 95 and a 10% chance of poisoning, hitting all foes in multi-battles, which can wreck your opponent quite nicely. The remaining move by level up is hex, a ghost type move base 65 that hits twice as hard when the foe has a status problem, such as poison or burn, so it's like venoshock but works with more status conditions, except here it doesn't carry STAB.

As you could have guess, venoshock is on the list of TMs along with a lot of the standard fare, like safeguard and protect and stuff. Protect could be useful, as could rain dance as it could activate that cool hidden ability. Further to this, ice beam or blizzard are worthwhile shouts to shut down ground types that may try giving you grief. Hidden power, if you know what you're getting, could be a handy move, and sludge bomb might be worth taking if you can't get sludge wave for some reason, with sludge wave being on level, TM and my list of recommendations. Scald is that water move I hinted at above, and I love it. Facade may not be worth much here, but infestation could offer some utility against psychics if you can hold them off for it to wreak its havoc. Round, dazzling gleam and surf are all options, as are waterfall and maybe payback. Other recommendations would be moves like swagger (is a risk), rest and sleep talk, substitute and confide, which lowers the foe's special attack.

As far as breeding goes, there are a few ok moves: aurora beam is like a weaker version of ice beam for dealing with ground Pokemon, aqua ring can add another 1/16 healing at the end of each turn, accupressure could be amazing if you are running a support Tentacool/Tentacruel or just if you want a two stage boost on a random stat. Bubble isn't too great, muddy water is basically surf with a small chance of dropping the foe's accuracy but with lower PP and no overworld utility (just use surf). Mirror coat basically reflects special attack damage thrown at you before it strikes but with double the power, confuse ray confuses the foe, haze resets all status changes to zero, and knock off is knock off. The main one a lot of people may choose here is rapid spin from breeding with a Kabuto, as it allows you to remove hazards and clear the way for things susceptible to entry hazards, especially toxic spikes as they won't affect you.

The only moves the tutor adds on top of those you probably already have are snore, icy wind and giga drain, which aren't awful moves, to be honest.

Tentacruel gets no change of types or abilities, but it does get a nice big boost to all stats: HP up to 80 (from 40), attack up to 70, defence to 65, special attack to 80, special defence to 120 and speed to 100. This remains a nice special wall with decent speed to throw in the obstacles you may want to put out.

The 'Kraken' jokes stopped being funny a long time ago, so don't you dare!

From the level up list, you get a new move in reflect type, which basically just takes on the type of the foe. Y'know what? That's the only difference in any of the move selections. The only one. No new TMs, breeding of course doesn't change, but there's not even any new tutor ones. You don't even get hyper beam! This is a bit odd...

I guess I should just wrap things up now: Tentacruel is a pretty good special wall. Think of how you can survive and grind the foes down: not many things can hit you that well, so take advantage of this, and you could be golden.

(All artwork presented by Ken Sugimori, taken from the Bulbapedia image archives)