#138 + #139: Omanyte and Omastar

Right, first off, sorry I've missed out on two days: I've been majorly busy with real work. Secondly, it's time for the Lord Helix jokes to be confronted...

Omanyte is a fossil Pokemon, which means it was either a choice OR you found it from breaking rocks. What you get with it is a water/rock-type Pokemon with huge defence (100 for a first evolution is nothing to sniff at) and good special attack (base 90), but you are pretty slow (35), with poor special defence (55), poor attack (which isn't really an issue at base 40) and no health (base 35). Standard abilities give you swift swim (double your awful speed in rain, including the investment, which could actually just hinder you in a trick room team), and shell armour (prevents critical hits from hitting you), and the hidden ability is weak armour (being hit by a physical attack, your defence falls and your speed rises).

Have you considered growing a tentacle moustache?

The level up list features some interesting choices: the early moves of constrict and bite are fairly worthless with your awful attack (the former is base 10 normal and has a low chance of lowering the foe's speed and the latter being a base 60 dark physical move that can flinch the foe). Withdraw as a water move boosts your defence by a stage, but the next water move is the base 40 special move water gun, and you will get brine (base 65 special that hits twice as hard when the foe is on less than 50% HP). Between these two, you can also get rollout (base 30 rock physical that keeps attacking for a few turns, growing in power each time), leer (decreases the foe's defence by a stage) and mud shot (base 55 ground special that can lower the foe's speed). Protect is a standard move: you can't be hit for that turn, but successive use can lead to failure. Ancient power is a base 60 rock special attack that has the chance of boosting all of your stats, and so can be amazing in that respect.

Tickle will lower the target's physical stats by a stage each, whilst rock blast hits as a rock physical move with base 25 power, hitting up to 5 times in the turn. The last two moves are shell smash (basically lowers your defences to boost speed and the attack stats) and hydro pump (base 110 water special with only 80 accuracy).

In addition to the standard array of TMs, you can grab ice beam/blizzard (as well as hail, but this can hurt you), smack down (a rock physical move base 50 that knocks the foe out of the sky) and rock tomb and rock slide. Your low speed could be an advantage with gyro ball, and you can lessen your disadvantage with rock polish to boost speed a little, whilst scald is a base 80 water special move that can inflict a burn on your target. You can also take all the water HMs, surf being the best out of these as it has base 90 (not 80) and is the only specially focused one. Breeding moves can also lead to aurora beam (a base 65 ice special that can lower the speed of the foe), bubble beam (base 65 water special that can lower the speed of the foe), haze (removes stat changes) and knock off (base 65 dark physical that removes the foe's item), muddy water (just take surf) and hey, you can even get toxic spikes... If you plod over to the tutor, you can also gain access to earth power (a base 90 ground special), icy wind (as is so often the case, as has been iron defence, water pulse and snore). You can again get knock off and stealth rock as well, if you want to be a trapper.

Level up to 40 and you get to evolve into Omastar, who seems to have entered a punk-phase. To go with this new prickly appearance, you get a new level up move, which we'll come to in a bit, but no change to the abilities. Your base HP actually doubles to base 70, with attack up to 60 (not really worth it), special defence gets a much needed boost to 70 (so you can just about take a special hit), speed is still poor at 55, but physical defence is a mighty 125, with 115 special attack, making you a special attacking threat and a physical wall.

They just don't understand me, man!

As I alluded to, you get spike cannon as a new move from level, but it's a base 20 multi-hitting normal physical move, so that may have got your hopes up a bit. Stone edge is the big addition to the TM list (not hyper beam or giga impact), but even this is a trick, since it's a base 100 rock PHYSICAL move. THERE ARE NO OTHER GOOD MOVES... The tutor adds nothing.

In all honesty, I like this Pokemon. I trained one on Y because of the whole stupid Lord Helix crap and found it to be OK, kinda: nothing special, it was carried on the team by a Delphox and a Mega Aerodactyl, or by a Mewtwo, but it had a decent time and I didn't even set it as a trapper. The thing is, if you expect it to be awesome because of that meme, you'll be disappointed.

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