#92, #93 + #94: Gastly, Haunter and Gengar

Ok, so we have another pretty much spherical Pokemon, a flying monstrosity which caused one of the most annoying in game trades ever and the name my nephew calls my dad...

Gastly may look pathetic, but it's another case like Abra where it is absurdly strong: 100 base special attack and 80 speed make it very nice as an unevolved Pokemon, not caring that the other stats are pretty lacklustre. If you're specialised in being fast and being able to hit hard, you don't need anything else to be a good glass cannon, which can sweep if you catch the foe off guard. As I said, the other stats are lacklustre (for now) with only 30 in HP and defence, and 35 in attack and special defence. Don't worry about bad attack, since your special attack is going to be the focus.

How does its eye stick away from the sphere of its body?

As far as abilities go, you get levitate, and nothing else. This isn't too bad, to be honest, as it makes you immune to ground-type attacks, which otherwise would wreck you. With the typing of poison/ghost, you'd normally be weak to ground, but you do get immunity to it along with fighting and normal here, as well as some decent resistances to poison, bug, grass and fairy. The main threats to worry about are ghost, psychic and dark, and even with psychic, you can get decent enough moves to smash them, too.

The level-up list isn't the most inspiring I have ever seen, but you do get hypnosis very early, and can later pick up dream eater to go with it, which is a rather horrifying prospect. Lick can cause paralysis, but it's a very weak physical attack, and should really be disregarded. Spite removes PP from the last move used against you, and so would work well for a set designed to stall or annoy, mean look traps in foes, so if they're unable to hurt you, trap them in an annoy them for a while (they may disconnect if they get wound up enough), curse cuts your HP and then hurts them over time, and night shade is a ghost/special attack which does damage equal to your level, which is great for tanky-Pokemon with low damage outputs, but that is so far from the case here it's a bit silly. Confuse ray (you know this one) and sucker punch (base 80 dark physical that hits a foe before they can hit you but fails if they aren't readying an offensive move) are the last moves before you can evolve at level 25.

Following on, and payback won't do too much for you here, since you're frail, you don't get STAB and it's physical: you probably won't survive the attack, and it won't do too much damage, plus you're probably outspeeding them anyway. Shadow ball is definitely a move to consider with high power (80), and STAB (it's a special ghost move) along with the 20% chance to lower the foe's special defence. I've mentioned dream eater (psychic base 100 special AND drains their health to heal the user), and you can also get dark pulse, which is definitely worth considering (dark special base 80 with a 20% flinch chance and can cover the psychic weakness very nicely). Destiny bond is not a move I like that much (basically, if you die, they die, and vice versa), whilst hex is a great move (more on this in a moment). Nightmare only affects a sleeping target but does 25% of their maximum HP in damage per turn end.

By now you know that you can get moves like toxic, hidden power (useful if you get the right type), sunny day/rain dance, taunt, return/frustration (not worth it here at all), double team, facade (not worth it), rest, sleep talk, attract, swagger, substitute and secret power but you could take thunderbolt (but not thunder at the moment), dazzling gleam (fairy special base 80), infestation, energy ball, sludge bomb (base 90 poison special), explosion (don't take it), psychic, will-o-wisp, and then for those who didn't take it from level up, shadow ball, and dark pulse. I've intentionally neglected one specific move for the time being, and that is venoshock. Both venoshock and hex do basically the same job (base 65 special, the former is poison, the latter is ghost), though hex hits more status conditions than just poison... The thing to think about: you could take both or neither, think about typings: ghost gets ignored by normal and fighting, whilst poison is ignored by steel and resisted by psychic, so they do slightly different jobs for different foes. Also think about setup...

Since this evolutionary line is great, you'll probably want to think about breeding for success, but sadly the egg moves tend either towards physical (elemental punches) or mediocrity, with things like astonish and clear smog as well as some status moves that won't really help your cause littered about. The tutor offers the elemental punches, as well as too many other physical moves, but he does offer giga drain, snatch (can steal the foe's healing moves), snore, icy wind, uproar, pain split and skill swap.

Moving on at level 25, you get the rather more ominous looking Haunter. No change to typings or ability, and you get +15 to all stats aside from special defence, which gets +20. Seriously, the specialisation is a great thing, you're stupidly fast and powerful. As a bit of trivia, Haunter and Gastly tie with Flabebe as the lightest Pokemon known.

Well, the eyes are now properly attached, but what about the hands?

Thrown into the movesets are shadow punch (learnset) and poison jab (TM list), neither of which are worth considering since attack is lagging so far behind an impressive special attack. Of course there is nothing new for breeding, but would it really have killed that tutor to make a few more things available.

Before, I suggested there was an annoying in game trade, and there is: in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, a character called Mindy trades you a Haunter... and she gives it an everstone, stopping its evolution (this mechanic has changed since).

With the new mechanics or without an everstone, trading Haunter makes it evolve into Gengar. You keep your types and your ability, and get more +15 boosts (except for the +20 to special defence). This gives you 130 special attack base, which is pretty scary.

It's finally bled fully into the world, and it looks like it's hungry!

You get nothing new from the level list, but you do get a few more things from TMs. You get focus blast (base 120 fighting move that has a 10% chance of lowering the foe's special defence), as well as some physical fillers, thunder and hyper beam (yawn). The tutor steps up and offers some new moves that you'll ignore because they are physical and thus pretty much useless.

May as well mention now that you have a mega stone available, which is actually banned from a lot of Smogon (here read dumb) rulesets. Mega Gengar is very powerful (though I wouldn't say it was unfair): 20 boost to both defences, 40 more special attack (yep, that's pretty frightening there) and 20 more in speed, but you do lose ground immunity. You still can't take too much punishment, but you really can dish it out. As I hinted, you lose levitate as an ability and take shadow tag in place: non-ghost types are unable to switch out of battle, trapping them in the Hell you created for them. Naturally, I love this Pokemon.

Ok, that's cool. Sadly, my shiny one in an event got a crap nature, so I stuck with the regular and made people cry...

If you have to think twice about whether you want a Gengar, you're maybe not cut out to fight at the top table: this Pokemon is ridiculous and always (ALWAYS) worth consideration. Even if you don't fight with it, train one and keep it in a box, it could well be a match-winner for you.

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

I'll give you something extra here: on Pokemon Y, I ran a three Pokemon team of Drapion (basically just for toxic spikes and any small amount of damage I could do), Druddigon (holding a focus sash to make sure I could get at least one dragon tail off and make something switch in onto the spikes) and then a Gengar with insane speed and special attack just to sweep through the poisoned foes, with some powerful moves as backup in case they removed the toxic spikes or were unaffected (it's been a while, so my memory of what was there is foggy, but I would say shadow ball and dark pulse). I facd a team with Mega Mewtwo Y, Xerneas and I think it was Palkia (don't hold me to that), and took them out very easily with just Mega Gengar. Aside from the name clicking, and the design being rather cool (especially for the mega), this made Gengar just about my favourite Pokemon. The only issues I have are the method of evolution and the choice over what moves: hex and or venoshock is not an easy one...