#109+ #110: Koffing and Weezing

YAY! More spheres with faces! Originality for the win, since generation one was the only one with original thought...

Ok, aside from being bland in terms of shape, what does Koffing offer? Well, a poison-type, for starters, with a heap of defence (95) and decent offensive capability in both physical (65) and special (60) attack. Where you get let down is with HP (40), special defence (45) and speed (shocking at 35). Trick room, else you're fragile if hit by special moves to the point you aren't worth it. Your one and only ability is levitate, which removes the weakness to ground unless you get smacked down, for example.

Here we have the young smoker, who thinks it's cool and makes them feel good...

Poison gas is a decent move for multi-battles, as it poisons all adjacent foes at 90 accuracy, and the other starting move is the old standard of tackle. Smog has base 30 damage as a poison special move (so it gets STAB) but at a low 70 accuracy, yet this is almost made up for with a good 40% chance of poisoning the target. Smokescreen lowers the foe's defence by a stage, whilst assurance is a base 60 dark physical move that doubles in power if the foe has already taken damage (even if self-inflicted) during the turn. The next move by level is clear smog, and later on, several steps later, you get haze, both of which reset all stat changes to zero (haze does to all, clear smog does to a specific target). The differences between haze and clear smog is that haze covers everyone, so you can remove your own debuffs, whilst clear smog is target specific and does damage as base 50 poison special without an accuracy check. Sludge is a decent power (65) poison special move that carries a chance of poisoning the foe, and self-destruct fills in the gap before haze, remaining as it ever is: a seriously powerful normal physical move (base 200) that will also kill you. Gyro ball is a great move here as a steel physical that hits harder the slower you are, and considering snails can easily overtake Koffing whilst also texting and dragging a yacht through syrup, you'll hit pretty hard with this, or at least should. The last move before the evolution level is sludge bomb (three guesses what type), which is base 90 special and has a 30% chance to poison the foe.

If you don't fancy evolving at the first juncture, you can get explosion, which is the same as self-destruct, but does 250 base rather than 200 and is still an awful idea. Next up is destiny bond, which basically means that (if you attack first) if you are KO'd that turn the foe who defeated you will also faint, and if you go last, then it carries over to the next turn. Consider that you faint before they do, so if this is your last Pokemon, you still lose, really. Belch is an extremely (base 120) powerful poison special move that can only be used if you have consumed a berry earlier on in the battle. The last move is memento, which faints the user to drop the foe's offensive stats by two stages. You don't faint if they protect or have a substitute, but if they have another form of immunity to stat changing, you still die for no reason. With self-destruct, explosion and memento, it's like this Pokemon wants to die.

Since nearly everything on the level list screams "kill me", frustration may well be an ideal move, so long as you don't walk around much and regain the Pokemon's trust. In addition to the standards from TM town, you can take venoshock (may well be worth it), hidden power (ok, it's a standard, but was worth saying), thunder/bolt, shadow ball, flamethrower and fire blast, round, incinerate, infestation and dark pulse as special options, and on the physical side you can take facade, payback and thief, as well as all the filler like rest, taunt, substitute, sleep talk and protect.

If you feel the need to breed, you can pick up curse, which won't hurt since your speed is so low that lowering it won't be much of a disadvantage, grudge will remove PP from the move that kills you so long as you haven't used another move in between, pain split averages your HP and the HP of your foe, and psywave hits dealing damage that is anywhere between half and one and a half times your level. Psybeam has a base 65 psychic special feel to it that could be useful, spite saps PP from the last move that hit you, and you do get the stockpile set (i.e. with spit up and swallow). It is possible to chain breed in toxic spikes. The tutor only offers snore, shockwave (base 60 electric special), uproar, pain split and spite.

If and when you evolve, Koffing sprouts a lump on its side, which also grows a face: two balls joined together makes Weezing. They may not look as happy, but they do get nice increases to all stats by 25, making them 65 HP, 90 attack, 120 defence (which is pretty good, allowing you to wall), 85 special attack, 70 special defence and 60 speed. Attack and special attack allow you to dole out some damage, but the poor(ish) special defence and HP mean you can't truly tank anything, and the increase in speed makes trick room and gyro ball less favourable. You keep being poison-type, and your ability remains levitate.

The tobacco addiction has caught up to them, and now they beg for death...

Aside from the level of the moves increasing after evolution at level 35, there's no difference to the level up list, so looking to the TM list you find the inclusion of hyper beam and giga impact to be rather token. Since the breeding list can't change, you can pray for something from the tutor, and you can be sorely let down with no change here either. How dull is that.

With the expression on Weezing's face, you can tell it's begging for death if you couple that with the movesets. You do get nice defence, and if you take the time to breed in toxic spikes, you could do ok, forcing physical attackers to switch out on you. You also have a great niche with clear smog and haze, which run similar duties but the subtle differences make them both viable on a move list. The choice is yours here, but it will never dine at the top table as far as I can see...

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