#144: Articuno (and more apologies)

For the avid reader(s) of this blog, I apologise for being away for around a week, but life has been rather hectic, and it isn't over just yet, as I'm scheduled to be away at two conferences in the next few weeks, starting next Monday. However, we're within reach of finishing this first generation of monsters, so we'll do our best to have this wrapped up for when I'm away, giving a more suitable pause than in the middle of a gen for the third time...

We move onto the bird trio, or as some may have them, the Spanish trio, since they count one to three in Spanish in their names. Articuno is the first legendary Pokemon in the Pokedex, which is something rather special, and probably one of the first legendaries you legitimately caught, so that has to count for something, right? The rather sad thing is that most legendaries have around 600 total in base stats, whereas this trio hits only 580, making their total lower than Mega Aerodactyl, Slaking (which is a bit of an exception in all truth) and even Dragonite among others. But it's a legendary, and we must show it some respect.

"The fish I caught was THIS big!"

Ok, so the base stat total is lower than some regular Pokemon, but it's still high. Speed is a little disappointing at base 85, but there is decent bulk here with 90 HP, 100 defence and 125 special defence, supported by 85 physical and 95 special attack, so nothing dreadful, but just a sad lack of speed. You won't be sweeping, but you could stall or even revenge kill a little. You're an ice/flying combo for the types, which is rather interesting, and you get pressure as the main ability (causes the foe to consume PP twice as fast). As a hidden ability, you get snow cloak, which boosts evasion by 25% in hail or snow, which is fairly handy if you intend to tank and chip away, making this a good set, but either ability could be worthwhile depending on how you want to play it.

Ok, the move set is pretty decent here, with one combo that will just make you weep. But we'll get to that in a little while. To start off with, let's say that you get roost (sacrifice your flying-type for the turn to heal you), hurricane (base 110 power, 70 accuracy flying special move, can hit anyone in multi-battles, gets perfect accuracy in the rain but reduced in the sun, and can hit foes that are in the middle of flying for double damage), freeze-dry (base 70 ice special move that has a 10% chance of freezing the foe and is always (even in inverse battles) super-effective against water-types for a change), tailwind (boosts the speed of the team), sheer cold (back to this in a bit), gust (a weak base 40 flying special but hits fliers for double again) and powder snow (hits all adjacent foes with a slight chance of freezing the target, but is otherwise just a weak base 40 ice special move). All these are listed as "start" moves, and up to reflect in the following, they all come at a level below you are likely to find this Pokemon in the wild, so think of them as relearner moves. At level 8, supposedly, you get mist (prevents stat modifiers for a few turns), ice shard (a weak base 40 ice physical move with a single level of priority) and mind reader (again, we'll get to that one in a few moments). Ancient power is its usual self with base 60 rock special and a chance to boost all stats, agility is a psychic move that allows you to boost your speed, ice beam is a good standard ice special move with base 90, the chance to freeze and 100 accuracy, so in a way better than a non-hailed blizzard, and as we mentioned, reflect (effectively doubles the team's defence for a few turns).

Ok, so now we may see the moves cropping up that we can select! Hail pops up pretty early, which allows you to hide in the hail with your snow cloak and boost the accuracy of blizzard, as well as hurting all non-ice types a little per turn as a decent way of tanking out a bit. We've mentioned tailwind, which comes back, followed by blizzard, which is like hurricane in that it's 110 damage and 70 accuracy other than in weather, in this case it's an ice special move which skips the accuracy check in hail. We've talked about roost and hurricane that pop up after sheer cold, so it's about time to fill you in: mind reader basically guarantees that the next move will hit, whilst sheer cold is an ice-type one hit KO move. This is pretty special as if you can survive the hits, you will get a kill (unless they see it coming and protect, or are sturdy or whatever). There's no combo like this elsewhere as far as I know, unless you can skill swap no guard onto something that has fissure or whatever.

There's no chance of egg moves here as this is a genderless legendary ice-Phoenix, and so cannot breed, so we'll see what the TMs are. The standard array pop up with things like aerial ace, return, sunny day, hail, rain dance, protect, roost, toxic, hyper beam, frustration/return, double team, facade, round, rest, sleep talk, swagger and all that. You can also nab steel wing, sky drop, U-turn, sandstorm (for some unknown reason), frost breath, fly (of course), rock smash and secret power, because almost everything learns secret power. For a change here, you do not get hidden power, which makes me sad. With regards to the tutor (not the relearner), you can nab icy wind, tailwind (for the millionth time), signal beam, snore (why can everything learn those two), sky attack and water pulse, which I'm sure I can learn by tutor, since everyone else can.

The USP (unique selling point) for this is obviously the accuracy/OHKO combo: there are actually two other examples of this: Smeargle (which is a bit of a cheat since it can sketch anything) and Poliwrath, which could only do it in generation 2. You get good bulk with decent attacking stats, but I'd trade all the physical attack for a boost to speed. You get 4 weaknesses here, being fire, electric and steel as regular and rock as a 4x weakness: this rock weakness is bad in an age of stealth rock as it will mash you up and leave you needing to roost straight off, whilst fire in particular is common. Bug and grass resistances are rather worthless but the obvious ground immunity is nice, as are the neutrals which will just brush off on your tankiness. All in all, this is a legendary and deserves your respect for that (it's always nice to catch them and tuck them away at the very least as a badge of honour since it's fiddly to catch, looks cooler than most things and has good backstory) but it also deserves respect for being rather powerful yet sufficiently poor enough a legendary to be allowed to use in the battle resort etc.

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