#108+ #463: Lickitung and Lickilicky

You remember when I called out Cloyster and Shellder for looking perverse? Well now we have Pokemon that are basically giant, licking tongues (hence the names). Yeah, err...

Lickitung has great HP (base 90), but aside from that, it's fairly dull: base 55 attack, 60 special attack, both defences at 75 and 30 speed, so a setup for maybe a lower tier tank, since the defences are no way high enough to really soak up too much damage. 30 defence would probably be a gift for trick room and gyro ball (which it doesn't get). You get the abilities own tempo (can't be confused, even if it would confuse itself), oblivious (can't be captivated, infatuated or taunted) and the hidden ability of cloud nine (weather effects are negated). Own tempo is pretty awesome, since you could thrash or, for double or triple battles, target Lickitung with something like swagger. Get used to these abilities since Lickilicky retains them. You are purely normal-type, to add to the boredom.

I'm sure they used to use this to advertise Skips...

I think you could have predicted that you would get the move lick in there somewhere: it's a ghost physical that can cause paralysis and hits only at base 30. Supersonic is so inaccurate (55) that it's hardly worth it, as all it does is cause confusion. Defence curl buffs defence by a stage, which is handy for the walling/tanking prospects. Knock off remains its handy self (dark physical base 65 and removes a foe's held item), and wrap hits with low power (base 15 normal physical) but can trap foes for a few turns, hurting them at the end of each turn they are trapped. Stomp is reasonably powerful (65 normal physical) and doubles in power when hitting minimized foes. Disable disables the foe's last used move, and slam hits hard (80 normal physical) but has poor accuracy (75). Rollout is the usual rollout: it hits base 30 rock physical and gains power on successive turns, but for Lickitung, if it's levelled up with this move, it will evolve. Also, with defence curl, you get the combo.

If you hold off evolving, then you get some other reasonable moves that are all oddly physical focused for a Pokemon with a slightly better special attack stat (other than one move we'll get to). Chip away is a decent move as it hits base 70 physical normal, ignoring stat changes. Me first steals the foe's forthcoming move (so long as it is damaging) and increases power by 50%, and refresh cures paralysis, burn or poison status. Screech drops the foe's defence by two stages. Power whip has very high damage as a physical grass move (base 120) but lacks accuracy at 85, and the one special move by levelling is wring out, which hurts the opponent more the higher percentage HP the foe has remaining, which basically means it can crucify a Blissey.

You do get the standards from the TM list, and if you want to tank, then I would tentatively suggest things like toxic, rest, sleep talk, substitute, protect, maybe attract and dragon tail. Of course, if you want to hit hard, there are things like ice beam/blizzard, return, earthquake, hyper beam (yeurck), thunder/bolt, solar beam (and sunny day), dig, surf (and rain dance), flamethrower/fire blast, shadow ball, rock slide, facade (with STAB for a change), retaliate, brick break, strength and dream eater.

For egg moves, belch is probably a good shout if you run with a berry, whilst belly drum is alright since you have huge HP reserves and good defences, granting all 6 stages of attack boost for half your health (feels like the Shinigami eye deal from Death Note)... Curse will cut your own awful speed for some nice boosts to attack, but hammer arm (heavy recoil), magnitude (unreliable and earthquake is available), and muddy water (less accurate, no overworld utility but does lower the foe's accuracy, surf is still better) are all basically useless. Sleep talk and snore are pretty handy if you want to run a rest set, and smelling salts hits hard, especially if the foe tries to sleep against you since the base 70 physical normal doubles up and wakes them. Zen headbutt is pretty decent with base 80 (90 accuracy) as a physical psychic with a chance to flinch. The tutor can offer the elemental punches, as well as bind and aqua tail. Also from the tutor you can get focus punch, icy wind, iron tail, knock off, shock wave, water pulse (which you know I like) and zen headbutt.

So you've evolved into another tongue monster, Lickilicky. What do you get from that? Well, you get base 110 HP (which is pretty nice), as well as 95 in both defences, 85 in physical attack and 80 in special attack (this seems more fitting), and 50 speed. You've still got the same abilities, and you remain normal-type.

I don't want to talk about this one...

The only move added on for level up is gyro ball, which was desperately missing from Lickitung's moveset, but other than self destruct and explosion you'll be left bored by the TM list. The tutor also offers nothing more than what was there previously.

You can run this as a wall or tank, but there's also the potential of a belly drum set yet you lack the priority move of Azumarill, so this only really works with trick room support. There's a medium amount of utility here: since you're fairly survivable you could last a few turns and try dealing some damage, but there's no call to greatness here.

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