#140 + #141: Kabuto and Kabutops

Since this is another fossil (the dome, this time around), and it was a choice between Kabuto and Lord Helix, does this make Kabuto the antichrist?

Back on topic, this is another rock/water-type with swift swim (see Omanyte among others) and weak armour (when you're hit, you lose defence and gain speed), and the other standard ability is battle armour, which is the same as shell armour in that it blocks criticals. As far as stats go, you get a rather low base 30 HP, 90 physical defence and 45 special defence, so a special hit will probably kill you. Base 80 attack and 55 speed suggests that you can dish out an attack but only after you've been savaged, and the low base 55 special attack doesn't really matter if you intend on using your ok physical prowess.

You can see why I went with the evil theme, right?

You know how you have decent attack and poor special attack? Well, you get scratch (base 40 normal physical) and aqua jet (base 40 normal physical with priority) as the only physical moves by level. You get harden to buff your defence, leer to lower the foe's defence, sand attack to lower their accuracy and you also get endure to keep you alive. Absorb and mega drain are grass special moves that heal you for a fraction of the damage you deal (the former base 20 and the latter base 40), whilst mud shot is a base 55 ground move that lowers the foe's speed. Metal sound comes in rather late to soften up the foe's special defence by two stages, and you can couple this with ancient power that hits as base 60 and can grant a stage boost to all stats and wring out hits the foe with greater power the healthier they are to start with.

Again in the TM list you can get ice beam and blizzard (not sure why) along with hail, and you can pick up some physical moves at long last: return is a decent shout as ever, rock tomb and smack down are STAB attacks (the latter knocks fliers out of the air), facade is never a dreadful one, hell, you can even summon a sandstorm. Rock slide and thief come in to the mix, too, waterfall and rock smash are decent bets, but surf and scald aren't the best since they are special focused.

Breeding nets you a couple of things, mainly flail (you hit harder when you have less HP) and knock off, as well as take down (which isn't really worth it) and rapid spin (which can be used to clear hazards). If you want to use the tutor, you can get knock off again, as well as another array of special moves (like giga drain, icy wind, snore and water pulse), plus stealth rock and iron defence. This is pretty miserable, really...

If you get up to level 40, you can evolve into Kabutops, which based on the overused meme would probably be the devil. You get no change to the abilities, but you do get some stat boosts: you're now up to 60 HP, 115 attack, 105 defence, 65 special attack, 70 special defence but only 80 speed. You also stay as rock/water-type.

Is this a predecessor to Scyther?

In addition to the previous level set, you can pick up night slash, a base 70 dark physical move, along with regular slash, with the same details but as a normal attack, and these BOTH have increased critical ratios. Moving onto the TM list, you can also bag swords dance, X-scissor (a base 80 bug physical), and now stone edge, dive and cut. The tutor can also now bestow aqua tail, superpower (high power fighting physical that will torch your stats on use) and low kick (hits harder against faster foes).

All in all, there is some promise here as a sort of low end physical sweeper: the attack stat is pretty decent, but the speed is a little low unless you take some hits with the weak armour ability. I like this Pokemon, the design is cool and you can do some damage, but you have to get to Kabutops before you can be a threat with any variety of moves.

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