#114+ #465: Tangela and Tangrowth

Ok, it's a ball shaped tangle of vines that seemingly evolves into a tree version of cousin it? Eh...

Tangela looks either really dumb or like a creepy stalker/murderer. Going a little deeper than skin, we find that it has really good defence (115) and special attack (100), but rather poor special defence (40), which is a shame since its grass-type, and thus the weakness to fire and ice is exacerbated by the poor special defence, since most inbound hits will likely be of the special variety. 65HP is alright, 60 speed is mediocre and 55 attack isn't worth talking about. As far as abilities go, it's another Pokemon that gets chlorophyll (double speed in sunlight), and this is joined by leaf guard (again in sunlight, you cannot be afflicted by status, including from orbs and rest), and the hidden ability of regenerator (restore 1/3rd health when switching out or the battle ends). Yeah, grass-type and two of the potential abilities needing sunlight doesn't go too well...

The rookie error of stalkers everywhere: make sure your feet are hidden...

Ok, moves? Ingrain digs into the battle field and grants recovery of 1/16th maximum health per turn which is great for tanking, and also works as an anchor, preventing you from being roared, red carded, dragon tailed or whatever out of play. You also start with constrict (physical normal base 10 with the chance to lower the foe's speed by a stage, but only 10%, so it's dire). Sleep powder has been covered to death, and vine whip hits base 45 physical grass, which is rather meh. Absorb is an obvious early choice as a base 20 special grass that heals you (later, you can upgrade this for mega drain (base 40) and giga drain (base 75) so it'll get better, but for now it's a good way to heal yourself). I also don't want to talk about poison powder too much, but bind comes in as a weak (base 15) physical normal move that can attack for a few turns, trapping the foe in the battle unless they rapid spin out of it. Growth boosts attack and special attack by a stage, except in the sun, where it's two stages. Mega drain and knock off don't really need any coverage here, nor does stun spore, but natural gift's effects are different dependent upon the berry held by the user. We've also covered giga drain, really.

Ancient power gets the new paragraph because a) it's a pretty awesome move (base 60 special rock that when used can boost ALL your stats) and b) you have to have it on Tangela to evolve. Oh, and also, ancient power offers some coverage for you. Slam probably isn't all that (75 accuracy for 80 normal physical power with no secondary effects). Tickle lowers both the foe's physical stats by a stage, and wring out is made more powerful the more HP the foe has remaining. Grassy terrain boosts the power of grounded Pokemons' grass moves, restores the HP of grounded Pokemon by 1/16th their maximum and halves the power of earthquake, bulldoze and magnitude. The last move by level is power whip, a base 120 physical grass (85 accuracy) with no secondary effect.

Moving onto the TMs, you get the standard set, of course, including sunny day (no rain dance), solar beam (of course...), sludge bomb, thief, round, energy ball (base 90 grass special with a chance of lowering the foe's special defence). You also get swords dance, which is great for attack boosting (up by two whole stages). Infestation can come in for decent routine damage, whilst both hyper beam and giga impact are available. Cut and rock smash are there as HM moves, whilst reflect as a TM really does help to make a physical wall by doubling the defence of the team.

Having stuck on some Barry White, you can breed in amnesia (two stage special defence boost), confusion, flail and endeavour. Leaf storm can hit pretty hard as a grass special, but it causes the special attack stat to tank (a two stage drop). Leech seed can be in there for some decent routine damage as well as some decent routine healing. The other moves you can get are either what you've seen before or pretty redundant. Instead, go see the tutor for seed bomb, shockwave and snore in addition to things you could have had before.

I hope you learned ancient power (if not, why not, you muppet?), since that would enable you to evolve into Tangrowth and give us something else to look at. In one of the rare cases, you get a stat decrease in speed from 60 to 50, but elsewhere there are nice boosts: 100 HP, 100 attack, 125 defence, 110 special attack, and 50 special defence. I've heard a lot of people run assault vest on this with the decent attacking options negating the need for things like toxic stalling, so with the AV equipped, that would work out at basically 75 special defence and 187.5 defence. Abilities and type stay the same.

I just can't take this one seriously...

You only get the addition of block to the level list, which is pretty disappointing all round. The TM list grows a fair bit to add some versatility and coverage options with: earthquake, brick break, rock tomb, aerial ace, facade (ok it was there before, but now you have a workable attack stat), focus blast, pay back (to go with the poor speed), rock slide, bulldoze, poison jab and strength. The tutor adds nothing.

You've got a decent range of options in terms of moves if you evolve, with the stats to back them up, pretty much (well, except the speed). You could very much be at home on a trick room team as a mixed attacking sweeper, or whack on the assault vest and rely on the natural damage output without investment to make you a viable physical wall. The world is your creeper living stalker bush, as that old saying goes.

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