#52 + #53: Meowth and Persian

Now we have another one of the most well known Pokemon out there, the mascot of (and some may even say brains behind) Team Rocket.

Meowth is a pretty cool Pokemon in the anime, the only one that speaks English, and he gives some sass, being generally entertaining and a weird counterpart to Ash's Pikachu. In the games you can use him and an odd exploit to become super rich.

It's kinda cute, but I think it'd try to mug me if I stroked it...

Following on nicely from Diglett and Dugtrio we have another stupidly fast pairing (not quite as fast but still pretty quick). Meowth's best stat is definitely the speed at base 90, with all the other stats being mediocre 40s, with the exception of 45 attack and 35 defence. Pretty underwhelming so far, so let's think about abilities... Pickup has nice utility in the field, finding random items whilst walking around (better chance of better items at higher levels), and since generation five it now allows Pokemon to reclaim used or thrown items at the end of a turn. Technician is arguably the pick of the abilities as it gives a 50% boost to moves of power 60 or lower, so things like mach punch and quick attack have a sudden level of utility. The hidden ability, unnerve, is decent, I suppose, so it shuts down things like a belly drum Slurpuff that relies on its sitrus berry consumption to double its speed as well as healing the health lost to make it go nuclear (more on this in a distant future post). You get to be the most vanilla of typings as a normal-type.

Moves wise and you get a lot of ones 60 or under that could make use of technician. You really need to consider this when picking moves, since something with base 70 will miss out on the boost and could easily be surpassed by a weaker move. You start with scratch, normal-type and thus STAB and also technician can apply here, but the move still sucks. Growl can be used to drop the foe's attack by a stage, which means that they'll just kill you anyway that turn because of the actually woeful base 35 defence. Focus on bite as a nice coverage option: base 60 with a chance of flinching, dark-typing isn't too bad, but you get technician as well, so this is better than crunch in a way (you don't get crunch by level up anyway). Despite a low base power, fake out gets STAB and technician boost, and will cause flinching, BUT it is only viable on the first turn in battle.

Fury swipes is an odd one, since it can hit 2 to 5 times with 18 base each time, and will get STAB and technician, so this could be very good for basically the first time ever. Screech will lower the foe's speed by a decent two stages, and feint attack will pretty much always hit, with the technician boost on the base 60 power, this becomes pretty nice as a dark attack, so you have to decide between this and bite (with the chance of flinching). The last move before the evolution level of 28 is taunt, which means that the foe can only use attacking moves. This could go great for killing a setup Pokemon, stopping a potential baton pass chain or killing something which only has traps and screens by struggling or switching. Decent utility there. Further moves include pay day (base 40 and throws coins that equals five times the users level, which boosts with amulet coin, happy hour and the prize money o-power), slash (good but no technician), nasty plot (double stage boost to special attack so is basically worthless here), assurance (can get technician boost like bite and feint attack BUT won't get both technician and the conditional doubling together), captivate (gender based but can lower the foe's special attack by two stages), night slash (generally a good move, but if you have technician then go with bite or feint attack or whatever), and feint (base 30 but gets technician and STAB and can hit past protect).

Shadow ball, thunder(bolt) and hidden power on the TM list could make nasty plot viable since you didn't get any special moves by level up despite attack only just out-doing special attack by stats (even when you evolve). Round and echoed voice offer decent power as special STAB moves, both also getting technician boosts. Dark pulse is a nice special dark move that is base 70, so no boosts and no STAB but a chance at flinching and goes well if you want to be special based or have one of the other abilities. Dig and U-turn allow for interesting physical coverages or utility, and you can also carry retaliate and act as a revenge killer (like my Terrakion) since the 70 base doubles if a teammate was killed on the previous turn. Payback and aerial ace are decent ideas, as are STAB return and facade. Other move choices include the general array of TM moves like torment and toxic, as well as dream eater (but nothing to put them to sleep), rest/sleep talk, and shadow claw.

Foul-play, iron tail and punishment are the zirconia in the rough (not really good enough to be diamonds) from the egg moves list, but the tutor is a busy man with a lot of moves available, too many to really go into, but several do fit with technician like water pulse, so consider a trip.

Upon evolving, the speed goes to a nice 115, with the other stats at 65 other than attack (70) and defence (60). This isn't too bad, but you don't really hit hard enough to sweep. You'll need to consider secondary effects on the lower powered moves that get technician boosts. As you may have guessed, Persian keeps technician and unnerve, but pickup is lost to limber (cannot be paralysed, so not bad, but technician is still the best option).

Just don't hurt me! All I have is a 10p coin... Wait, why did you throw it at me?

New moves coming in include the fairly powerful play rough (fairy-type with 90 base), switcheroo (allows you to swap items with your foe, so you could take a really horrible item and swap it onto them, or whatever). Other new moves: swift (60 base normal attack that basically never misses and gets technician boost), power gem (rock special attack with 80 base, which is an interesting choice for coverage) and that's it for levelling.

Going for the TMs which we didn't have before then you could waste your time with hyper beam and giga impact, with nothing else to really write home about that wasn't there before. You may as well go to the tutor to plug the deficiencies, going with stuff like shockwave and icy wind.

All in all, this family isn't brilliant. The saving grace that makes it potentially worthwhile is the ability technician, which covers up for the rather weak attack stats. The defences aren't bad per se, and fit well with the decent HP. Speed it terrific, but you can't live on that alone, so with the right ability you could make a go of it. However, a good use would be using pay day at level 100 with an amulet coin and the money o-power to just farm some coins in wild battles, for example.

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

#50 + #51: Diglett and Dugtrio

Ok, this evolutionary line kinda straddles the border between cute maybe disturbing on the first glance, but I guess more importantly there's the question of how good it is...

So, Diglett is ground-type and has access to three abilities including the hidden ability: sand veil (increases evasion in a sandstorm and decreases the wild Pokemon encounter rate in a sandstorm), arena trap (prevents Pokemon from fleeing or switching out unless they are immune to ground-type moves or are ghosts) and sand force (boosts the power of rock, steel and ground-type moves in a sandstorm).

I can't decide if this is an adorable little thing, poo or the protrusion of a planet destroyer...

Stat-wise, the main thing here is the incredible (and slightly baffling) speed stat with base 95 as an unevolved Pokemon. To put this into perspective, Charizard only has 100, Arcanine is 95, and both Rapidash and Scyther (well known for being quick) only get to 105. Hell, Diglett dramatically outpaces Blaziken and Absol, and is nearly as fast as the Mega-Blaziken, as well as getting a tie with Sharpedo (which is a shark, so you'd expect it to be quite fast)... But enough about this amazing speed: aside from 55 attack and 45 special defence, you have nothing to offer. 25 defence and 35 special attack let this Pokemon down a little, but the worst is the pathetic HP with only 10. Yikes...

Diglett evolves at level 26, basically when it gets mud bomb, meaning good moves will probably come in for Dugtrio instead, but this is no concern, really. You get access to sand attack and growl in an attempt to hinder the opponent, but since you won't survive a hit from an enemy unless you're sashed or behind screens then this isn't necessarily wise unless there is a good plan in place. There are some good moves available with secondary effects like bulldoze which can drop speed on the foe. Scratch is fairly pointless unless you can't think of anything better and have no TMs at hand in which case this may be your only cover, and you're willing to die in two turns. Astonish hits without much force (30) but does give another type as coverage (ghost) and also can cause flinching, meaning you may get chance to do a little damage.

As a direct replacement for sand attack you could take mud slap (you're trading normal for ground, so remember what this conveys in terms of typing). Mud slap is base 20 damage but also can drop accuracy one stage. For sheer damage output, you can get bulldoze and sucker punch (only works if the foe is readying an attack, and is dark-type), or take a chance on magnitude: this attack has a wide range of powers that it can randomly draw from ranging from magnitude 4 (5% chance hitting at just base 10) all the way to magnitude 10 (again 5% chance hitting at a devastating 150), with the most common being at base 70 as magnitude 7. Mud bomb (basically a harder hitting mud slap) hits at a good 65 base, but is special, and is thus wasted here, as is earth power, but you'll probably evolve before then, so we'll come back to the others in a little while.

So we go to the TM list. You get quite a bit of the standard fare like toxic, return, sunny day (no danger here since you won't really see many fire moves coming your way) and protect. More interesting options are things like earthquake, though you can get this by level up, and dig, which hits with less force and means that if you are underground earthquake and magnitude will hit twice as hard BUT it has uses in the field and also can be of use having that turn hidden out of the way. Sandstorm can work quite well with the abilities you have and the lack of damage you take from it, and as coverage you maybe should consider rock tomb and facade (remember that if you have an ailment then it will hit with double the power at a terrifying 140). One move that baffles me that you can get here is aerial ace, since Diglett is hidden underground (largely) then how the hell can it learn flying moves?! Absurd!

With that mini-rant over, you could get shadow claw (pretty powerful ghost move) and rock slide. For use in the field then you can take secret power (which opens secret bases and hits fairly hard) as well as rock smash (not really worth it) and cut. From breeding you could pick up ancient power if you (for some reason) focus special attack, and beat up and feint attack allow for decent dark type attacks. Pursuit, reversal and headbutt are all also possibly viable, but with reversal, this is only really worth it if you know you can take a heavy hit, so maybe use a focus sash, go down to low health and guarantee that you won't be outsped...

You may choose to go see the tutor, who will only give you earth power (which is available at level 29), snore (which goes with rest on the TM list, but neither are worth it) and stealth rock, which can allow Diglett a nice niche as the trap setter as a lead off Pokemon, so long as you don't mind it being wiped out pretty much straight away.

Dugtrio has some very messed up fan-art for what's under the ground, so do yourself a favour and never look for this. You remember how good the speed was on Diglett? Well, Dugtrio gets a nice healthy boost to a massive 120, which leaves a large number of sweepers behind, excepting some of the mega evolutions. You also get nice boosts to attack (making this a possible sweeper if you choose the right moves and the right item), special defence (70) means that you can almost take a hit if it wasn't for the poor HP (35), but the defence and special attack (both 50) aren't something to work with. Oh, you're also still mono-ground-type and keep the same abilities.

Does it have three heads, or are there just three Digletts? Maybe to evolve it decapitated others... Damn...

The introduction of tri-attack is almost heartbreaking since it hits quite hard, is quite rare but is a special attack, and since my own special attack stat is higher than that of Dugtrio (seriously, I'm an absolute monster). To make things worse (well, more disappointing), there's a 20% chance of inflicting one of three status afflictions on the enemy, so there's temptation to take this move that won't hit very hard due to no special attack here. Night slash is a more welcome addition as a pretty good dark attack (70 base with a better chance of a critical). The other sudden addition is rototiller, which may lead to your destruction as it gives boosts to all grass-type Pokemon on the field. The last move snuck in is sand tomb. Sand tomb is a low power ground (so with STAB) physical that traps the opponent for a few turns, inflicting routine damage.

Going back to the ones we skipped over before, you can take earth power if you don't understand the difference between special and physical attacks by this point (really, think this through). More likely you'll be looking at dig, slash and earthquake. Slash is an interesting proposition as it hits fairly hard (70) with a good critical chance and in being normal it hits most things neutrally. Additions to the TM list are almost universally pointless due to them being special type and not that good, but stone edge is a very hard hitting rock-type coverage move, so a decent idea, maybe.

Since the tutor offers nothing more, then I will just say it: I like Diglett and Dugtrio. They're dorky looking and throwing a crisp at them could knock them out, but they are surprisingly fast with decent attack and some nice moves available (though mainly only normal, ground, rock, dark and ghost, plus aerial ace for some unknowable reason, so you are fairly restricted). The thing is, this is a Pokemon for a lower tier, and this makes it viable for those reasons: it won't be facing a Ho-Oh or Mega-Charizard unless you have special plans for it in tiers that are maybe a little high. All in all, it's not a bad shout to have one trained and on hand.

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

#48 + #49: Venonat and Venomoth

No ATV jokes please as we introduce the little fuzzball and it's moth friend...

It must be said that Venonant looks a little silly. Cute, but silly... It also isn't very good. All of its stats are just meh, from its 60 base HP, 55 attack, 50 defence, 40 special attack, 55 special defence and only 45 speed. This is pretty poor, since it doesn't excel at ANYTHING. It's also bug/poison, so it has a lot to live up to in the previously visited Mega Beedrill.

It's like Gohan staring at the moon again...

The hidden ability is run away, and I've maligned that enough already. Instead you should go for compound eyes (30% accuracy boost and increases the chances of wild Pokemon carrying hold items) or tinted lenses (doubles damage on 'not very effective' moves).

One blessing of Venonat is that it evolves just by level up, though this is at 31, which is quite high. You start off with tackle, disable (stops the foe from using that move again) and foresight (allows normal and fighting moves to hit ghosts and negates evasion changes). You can get supersonic (causes confusion) and the psychic special attack confusion. You can get poison powder, leech life (20 base bug physical that drains health with STAB), stun spore, and then you can upgrade confusion to psybeam and then get sleep powder. At this point you could then just evolve before you get to signal beam (75 base bug special with a small chance of confusing your foe) and then zen headbutt (psychic physical with a chance to cause flinching), poison fang (STAB poison physical with base 50) and then psychic (base 90 psychic special).

The TM/HM spread is quite small, mainly with the standard fare. You can grab venoshock for STAB poison. You can also get sunny day/solar beam combo, psychic if you aren't high enough level, and then more specifically of focus you get struggle bug, sludge bomb and infestation all as special STAB moves. You can get substitute and double team, and these can both be passed on by baton pass, which you can get from breeding... Also from breeding you could consider giga drain, morning sun, toxic spikes and skill swap, which can be interesting. Skill swap allows you to swap abilities, so you could dump the awful run away for something good... You could circumnavigate the necessity of breeding for giga drain by tutoring it, and if you chose rest then you could pick up snore.

Now that you have Venomoth, you get some interesting stat increases. Rather than just across the board boosts (you do get small improvements to everything at the very least) you get specialisation, with an enormous boost in special attack to 90, which goes well with 90 speed. 70 HP, 60 defence and 75 special defence allow some survivability but 65 attack is probably best ignored.

This is a little impressive than Gohan's giant monkey form...

Typing stays the same, but you lose compound eyes for shield dust (already covered to death), you keep tinted lens and dump the pointless run away for wonder skin, which reduces all inbound status moves to just 50%.

Suddenly you get some good moves via level up, like signal beam, quiver dance (both special stats and speed go up one stage), bug buzz (90 base and can lower opponent special defence) and silver wind (60 damage and chance to raise all five of your main stats, that is attack, special attack, defence, special defence and speed). Add these and gust (a weak flying special) onto the Venonat list and done...

TMs wise you can get energy ball as a fairly powerful grass special attack, and things like hyper beam and giga impact remain utterly pointless. Aerial ace and acrobatics are decent flying moves for coverage, but lack bite due to their physical nature, and U-turn suffers the same fate, yet has utility as a switching move. The only addition from the tutor is tailwind.

Venonat is pretty useless if you don't plan on evolving it, but Venomoth is actually pretty good as a low tier special sweeper: it's fast and hits hard, but the main drawback is that it has a lack of coverage moves: you get psychic, bug and poison that hit hard, but basically nothing much else other than energy ball.

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

#46 + #47: Paras and Parasect

Seeing as I'm VERY allergic to mushrooms (much to my girlfriend's ire), Paras and Parasect are not great for me in terms of design, but does that make them bad Pokemon all round? I remember finding a level 49 Parasect in Mt. Silver whilst playing Crystal, and I threw a Pokeball at it on the first turn, and BAM! Mine, so I have that positive.

Before we really get going I'd like to point out that you get access to stun spore and sleep powder along with false swipe, which is great for catching wild Pokemon, so it could always have a use.

One thing to take into account is that Paras is slow... 25 base speed slow... Only on a trick room team slow... Both of your defences are reasonable at 55, but health is a bit crap at only 35, so you don't hit first and you may not survive much, especially since you're bug/grass and thus demolished by fire... If, by a miracle, you survive then you'll be using your physical attack (70) rather than special (45).

AAAAH! Kill it with fire (so long as I have a respirator)

You get three available abilities: effect spore (we've seen this before: contact has a 30% chance of inflicting a status condition on the opponent), dry skin (makes fire hurt you more, sunlight also inflicts damage to you, but water attacks and rain heal you) and damp (hidden ability which prevents self-destruct and explosion, and also negates the effect of aftermath).

From levelling, you gain access to a few decent moves. Early on you get scratch and the effect powders/spore. There's not too much to think about here, you know if you want them or not. You get access to leech life and fury cutter, which are both bug-type, so you get STAB, and they're both physical. Leech life is very low base power (20) but does give you some of their health, whilst fury cutter is a bit stronger (40). Slash is a good neutral move at 70 base power, and being normal it will hit most (not all) things as neutral but without STAB, yet with a fairly high critical chance. Growth boosts both attack stats by one stage unless you're in the sun, in which case it goes up two stages. Tragically, the poor special attack means that giga drain, which hits hard and heals well, is not that practical for you. Aromatherapy cures all status problems within the party and rage powder makes the Pokemon as a preferential target. X-scissor will probably be your primary STAB attack, since it has very good base power (80) with good accuracy (100) and decent PP (15) with no secondary effects.

You do get access to some decent TMs, so consider dig, since that can hurt the fire-types that will wreck you (if you can't switch out on them) along with brick break as a decent coverage attack. Special attacks are pretty much not worth it, like solar beam (since with dry skin you'll be losing HP when trying to support solar beam and a charging turn is basically suicide), and sludge bomb, hidden power and venoshock also don't play to your strengths. You could pick up aerial ace (not bad), facade (if you have a status problem then this would be really powerful), cut, rock smash and false swipe. False swipe, if you didn't know, will always leave 1HP, with 40 base power, so this is great for catching. Other special moves that are available but probably should be ignored: round, energy ball, grass knot and struggle bug. You also get the rest of the standard fare, like toxic and return and things like that (rest included).

Some decent moves can be bred in, such as cross poison, fell stinger, metal claw and bug bite. You can also get things like leech seed, flail, endure and counter. If you go to the tutor, you can get seed bomb (very decent physical grass-type attack) and knock off, with a few other moves that aren't necessarily worth it because they are special.

Evolving, you become Parasect, and get a nice few boosts to the stats. Your speed goes up to 30, so not a big jump but that's good for trick rooming things. Attack gets respectable at 95 (not great but decent), 80 in both defences with 60 HP, so there is some survivability, oh, and special attack now gets up to 60, so basically decent for an unevolved Pokemon. You don't really even get anything new from this evolution: no new typing, no new abilities, and no new level moves. You get one or two new TMs that aren't particularly worthwhile. All in all, you just get the boosts...

J-John Lennon????

This isn't an evolutionary line I really care for other than using one at a grossly high level in wild encounters to ensnare new Pokemon. This is probably the best use for them, but don't just ignore them: if you like them then use them...

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

#43 - #45 + #182: Oddish, Gloom, Vileplume and Bellossom

Oh good! A nice happy generation one family which gained a fourth member, making it a divergent series... Way to complicate this, Pokemon people...

So we start with Oddish. Being brief you can say that the stats aren't bad, or at least the special stats aren't bad: 75 special attack with 65 special defence, actually rather impressive for an unevolved Pokemon. The thing is, the speed is poor, HP is just 45, defence is 55 and attack is 50, so make of this what you will... Abilities wise, the poor speed is almost made up for by chlorophyll, which doubles speed in the sun (but you carry the risk of being hit by fire moves which will kill your grass/poison-type self), but you can also get run away, which is pointless...

Looks rather happy and cute...

Since there are four Pokemon to discuss here I'm going to be brief on the moves lists (which maybe I should carry over a bit more to other posts). By level up, all you get are special moves and status moves, so this negates the comparatively poor attack. You evolve at level 21 into Gloom, so I'm going to cut off there: you get very little... You start with absorb (basically you drain some of their health, but not much since this is the weakest of the absorb/mega drain/giga drain line of moves), you can also get sweet scent (improves your accuracy, and in the field entices wild Pokemon, forcing a horde battle if available). Acid is available as a weak STAB poison attack, you also get poison powder, sleep powder and stun spore (all 75% accuracy) and then mega drain, which is double the power of absorb. You do get some better moves down the line, such as giga drain, moon blast and petal dance.

From the TM list, venoshock isn't a bad option (STAB and special correlation), hidden power could be useful as coverage, sunny day sits well with chlorophyll and solar beam (if you can survive, that is), otherwise you could take a safer option with energy ball. Round is a possibility, especially in double battles, and if you don't want venoshock then you can take sludge bomb. Grass knot would also be viable against heavier enemies. There are a lot of the standard TM moves that every Pokemon seems to learn, like rest/return/substitute/blah, but here you may choose infestation as a bug-type move that deals sustained damage. HM wise, you get cut, despite their being no evidence Oddish has anything to cut with... Moves via breeding tend to be on the physical side and thus not really that great since they also carry lower base power than the TM moves you could go with. Tutor-wise, giga drain is available, so if you don't want to level to it, then here it is as one of your better STAB options.

Level 21, you get Gloom... Nice cheery name for a Pokemon that doesn't see that much of an improvement on its predecessor. The major change is that the hidden ability is replaced by stench, which reduces the wild encounter rate and also adds the chance of flinching the opponent when contact is made, so not dreadful, really...

I guess Oddish went into an emo-phase?

So we have small improvements across the stats and a middling ability replacing a useless one. From here you will probably go for the moves you didn't stretch to with Oddish (that is you evolved and now can go for them if you wish), so giga drain is one you should really consider. Moonlight is a reasonable healing move that has different powers dependent on the weather (clear bestows 1/2, sunny gives 2/3s and other weathers only 1/4), but unless you're going with a sunshine set to buff speed and give spammable solar beams then giga drain is better since it's reliable and covers for solar beam quite nicely. Petal blizzard is a high damage physical attack, but petal dance is a harder hitting special attack with a twist: it hits for a few turns at 120 base before confusing you.

TM wise there is nothing else new, but with the tutor you could take seed bomb or drain punch if you randomly decide to focus on the weaker physical attack side of things.

So... which stone will you use: leaf or sun? Let's go with leaf first, shall we? Say hello to Vileplume, where the stats look great, other than 50 speed. 110 special attack, 90 special defence, 85 defence, 80 attack and 75 HP are all pretty good, and you get to keep chlorophyll and the poison/grass-typing. Stench as the hidden ability is replaces by effect spore, which has a 30% chance of causing an affliction on a Pokemon that makes contact.

Looks shady... HAHA!

If you've chosen this route, I hope you got all the moves you wanted, since the only new one from level-up is solar beam, with the vast majority of earlier moves no unavailable. Further to this, nothing of real consequence is added to TMs or tutors.

If, rather than the leaf stone, you took the sun stone, you will get Bellossom, which doesn't carry the damage output, but defends better, with stats reading 75HP, 80 attack/90 special attack, 95 defence/100 special defence and still 50 speed. You lose the poison-typing to go with the friendlier name, so now you're pure grass, for better or worse. You keep chlorophyll, but you replace stench with healer as the hidden ability. Healer carries a 30% chance of healing an adjacent ally's status conditions at the end of each turn in multi-battles. So chlorophyll may be wiser... maybe...

That reminds me to go to that limbo competition...

In place of solar beam by level-up (pretty much everything else by level has been covered in the previous evolutions and the list looks the same as the contracted one for Vileplume bar the last) you get leaf storm, which hits a little harder than solar beam without the need for charging. The issue with leaf storm is that it drops your special attack by a whopping two stages, so this is pretty ruinous unless you can get it on a contrary Pokemon. The TM and tutor lists have basically been covered, and are rather uninspired, sadly.

All in all, this isn't a bad little run of Pokemon. For Oddish and Gloom, they offer decent damage outputs with more than acceptable defence to cover for the poor speed: stick them with eviolite and you could do pretty well... Moving to the top table duo, and things get more complicated. If you want to pull off sunny day, run with a heat stone and it will extend it from 5 to 8 turns, but this may be better on a support Pokemon. You could go choice items for more power or speed (but without the sun the speed will still suck), or you could go life orb, which works wonders with giga drain, since you can patch over the previous turn's recoil. Another option is assault vest if you don't want to use status afflictions and rely on just pure damage output. The choice is yours, but forgive the slightly frail typing...

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

#41 + #42 + #169: Zubat, Golbat and Crobat

So, we have the most common annoyance Pokemon. If you get through a cave, statistically speaking, you will have encountered 83.4 trillion Zubat before reaching daylight once more. I guess from the overwhelming encounter rate, it should be bad, but is it?

As itself, yeah, probably, because it's an unevolved Pokemon. But for a first evolution, it's quite quick (55) and the attack isn't depressingly poor (45), so it isn't so bad that you should just write it off (which would be an error considering it gained a third evolution in generation two). The issue is, that with those ok stats, the rest are indifferent at best (40 special defence and HP, 35 defence and only 30 special attack), meaning that there's only one way to use it and it can't take a hit. A one trick pony that's a glass cannon isn't always bad (see Mega Beedrill), but since the attack and speed aren't in the region of 120ish then it isn't that scary.

You've probably seen this enough times to not need the picture...

Zubat is poison/flying-type, which is ok I guess. It has just two abilities (one normal and one hidden): inner focus (normal) and infiltrator (hidden). Inner focus prevents flinching (unless affected by mold breaker, turboblaze or teravolt), whilst infiltrator ignores screens light safeguard, reflect, light screen, mist and substitute, which is actually very handy. Neither ability is bad, but infiltrator can be a ruinous ability to unleash on your foes, so if you can get it, it can be very VERY good.

You can evolve Zubat to Golbat at level 22, so what moves do you get before then? Well, leech life is fairly weak but gives you health back, which I guess is pretty good but not all that viable since you have no defence and you'll just get shredded anyway. More interesting moves are bite (you'll probably hit first, and you get a good chunk of physical attack power (60) with the chance to cause a flinch), wing attack (decent physical STAB on the flying side of things) and confuse ray (100% chance to confuse, and it directly replaces supersonic, which you may already have had). Air cutter, though similarly powered to wing attack and with the chance to flinch, is special, and since your special attacks hit about as hard as a newborn kitten, it isn't really worth it for now (maybe later Golbat and Crobat have huge leaps on special, but even then, physical is much better). You also get access to astonish, which is weak but again with a decent flinch chance and gives ghost-type coverage. No more moves are learned before you could evolve, but some are still there.

At 23, you get access to swift, again special. Poison fang is decent (base 55, STAB poison physical with a chance to inflict status), mean look prevents opponents escaping (which can be handy in catching roaming legendaries, or trapping Pokemon into situations where they can't really do anything to you, making them waste moves and then struggle, which is a nice sadistic plan), haze resets all stat boosts or reductions to zero (punish those baton pass teams!) and quick guard (which prevents being hit by most priority moves like quick attack). You can also pick up air slash and my beloved venoshock, but these are both special, so unless you want to run a special variant of the evolved forms (sacrificing a better attack stat for a surprise) then don't bother. The last level-up move to mention is quite interesting. Whilst wing attack has decent power and a huge PP (35), acrobatics carries only 55 base and 15PP, so why bother mentioning it? Both moves can hit non-adjacent foes in triple battles, but acrobatics get double the base power when you don't have an item, making it hit pretty hard!

TM wise, you get a lot of the standards like protect, hidden power, sunny day/rain dance, toxic, double team, rest, sleep talk, swagger, substitute, facade (but since you're immune to poison, burn reduces attack drastically and paralyze wrecks your speed then it isn't worth existing with a status affliction here so you just get the decent base 70 from a normal-type move) and all the ones that litter every entry so far. You can also get roost (heals but removes flying-type for a short while, exposing you to earthquake which will hit you hard), aerial ace, steel wing, fly (so if you're running with an item then it's this or wing attack, and this hits harder but is two turns) and u-turn, which hits hard as a bug move and switches you out, so good in emergencies, allowing switches whilst still hurting them. You get a smattering of good special attacks, but are they worth it? Sludge bomb (hits hard), shadow ball (for coverage and also can drop their special defence when they get hit) and venoshock and hidden power. Payback as a physical move may be worthwhile, but then again, you'll most likely outspeed and not take advantage of this.

You can breed in the heavy hitting (but recoiling) brave bird if you wish, along with curse and defog (clearing up the entry hazards that may already have scorched you somewhat). Pursuit and zen headbutt are also possibly worthwhile, but I would say that the other moves available through breeding aren't worth the effort due to being weaker versions of what you have or special. You could go for giga drain, but even though this is a good move, it's not great for the Zubat family.

Again you find giga drain AND zen headbutt from the tutor (so why breed unless you struggle with item hunting), as well as super fang and another couple of special moves that are high base power and thus wasted on Zubat. You can also get tailwind as a support move, so that isn't out of the question.

So you now have Golbat, I'm guessing. You gets significant boosts to basically every stat, making Golbat a decent Pokemon before Crobat was added, and it only got better as an option with eviolite. 90 speed, 75HP, 80 attack, 70 and 75 for the defences (+50% each with eviolite) and 65 special attack (a sizeable boost) makes for respectable reading. You'll hit fast and fairly hard, even if it is only in lower tiers. And since you have access to some decent moves as already outlined, then even though you'll have been plagued by these nuisances, catching them isn't something to forget.

Nothing screams 'I want to be friends' less than that face...

Abilities, typing, level up moves (though the levels change a bit), tutor moves and breeding all stay the same (which is great for me in terms of typing this stuff out) and the only additions by TM/HM are hyper beam and giga impact, which I hate...

The biggest problem (aside from the plaguing in caves) that I have is with needing friendship to evolve to Crobat, both because it's annoying and because it makes no sense...

Crobat's a bit of a monster, really... With EV investment and a good nature, you could maybe outspeed Mega Beedrill, and at the very least, not many things will strike first. 90 attack is not bad, with 80 in both defences and 85 HP meaning you could well stick around a bit. 70 special attack is the main drawback, but you could risk it with some monstrous moves or a well set venoshock as a nice curveball tactic to catch people out.

Ok it no longer has legs, but this is seriously badass...

Aside from gaining access to cross-poison, X-scissor and dark pulse by TM, as well as sky attack by tutor, not much changes other than the stat boosts and the cooler looking Pokemon appearance, which could be considered a shame, but why fix something already pretty decent (especially when it means less to think about).

All in all, Zubat could well be the most underrated Pokemon because it can evolve into a bit of a beast, yet we all disregard it half the time as just a pest. So much potential masked by so much annoyance. Crobat is worth a thought, at least for a second or two.

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

#39 + #40 + #174: Jigglypuff, Wigglytuff and the baby Igglybuff...

So what do we have here? We have another baby introduced to a generation one family by the generation two baby boom, which still makes me frown a little. We also have the original Pokemon mascot, which, for the first episode was actually animated as Ash's Pokemon, and then was replaced after initial testing... So Pikachu, the iconic little mousey-thing, could have easily been the little pink ball, Jigglypuff. I see why they changed it: Pikachu has pretty much universal appeal (it's cute but still kinda badass, and doesn't convey overt gender stereotypes), whereas Jigglypuff is a more niche appeal, being overtly effeminate.

Igglybuff is just terrible, in basically every way... The design is atrocious. Seriously atrocious. Not only is the design crap, but so are the stats, boasting an admittedly good HP but without the defences to back it up, and a mediocre special attack coupled with dreadful speed and poor attack...

It looks like a failed BB for a toy gun...

The abilities you get could be useful, with the exception of cute charm, as this can be negated by neutral gender foes. The hidden ability of friend guard we have seen before on Cleffa and family, but the most interesting is competitive. With the competitive ability, whenever a foe lowers one of your stats, you get a +2 stage boost to special attack, but consider that it doesn't apply if you have the reduction from yourself or a team mate.

You won't want to be Igglybuff for long, since you basically have no moves to learn by level up. You get sing, charm (which is of minimal use if you have the cute charm ability), defence curl, pound, copycat and sweet kiss. Pretty much nothing worth using here, since the only guaranteed attack, pound, is physical, so doesn't even play to your strengths...

From the TM list you can hope for some options: you get sunny day and rain dance, and with the former you can couple in solar beam. You also get hidden power (of course you do), psychic, shadow ball, flamethrower/fire blast, round, grass knot and dream eater (but nothing to provoke sleep). You can sleep yourself with rest and sleep talk, and you can tutor snore. You get protect, light screen, safeguard, reflect, thunderwave, swagger, confide and substitute... The issue is that there isn't much that plays to the shocking stat distribution you get.

Breeding-wise you get some junk, like covet, feint attack and whatnot, and heal pulse, wish, gravity, perish song (works great if you trap them), and misty terrain (which basically casts a fairy aura over the battlefield, reducing the power of dragons (which you are immune to as normal fairy but is a good support idea), making nature power moonblast, but this only affects Pokemon on the ground).

I've touched on tutor moves with snore, and this aside you are looking at hypervoice or uproar, water pulse, shockwave and icy wind. You also can get role play, but you may not want to shed either friend guard (if in multi-battle) or competitive, so this is optional to the extreme. Magic coat is pretty decent, reflecting incoming moves that would inflict status, so this could be a great prediction tool. Recycle, heal bell, pain split and endeavour are possibilities if you aren't going in as damage dealer (per se), but you do get a smattering of physical attacks that are covet, bounce and last resort (which can only be used when nothing else is available, hits extremely hard but with horrific recoil).

Walking around for hours with Igglybuff can lead to the friendship increase needed to get the original Pokemon mascot, Jigglypuff, and hopefully before you miss out on any moves you may want, otherwise to the relearner with you! Staying as normal/fairy-typing and the same abilities, the differences are that you look even odder than before and you get some nice stat boosts, giving you an impressive 115 base HP, but the defences are still frightful at 20 and 25! You also now have more balanced attacks with 45 in both, but the speed is shocking at base 20, so unless you have trick room active, you offer nothing as a Pokemon other than a punching bag.

Mascot idea: deformed Christmas tree decoration. You can see why nobody uses it on Smash Bros.

The level up moves list suddenly expands a fair bit, and if you plan on remaining as a Jigglypuff for whatever reason rather than using a moonstone, then physical options are just as viable as special. If you're looking to do damage, you get pound (terrible, don't use), disarming voice (not bad, avoids stat changes that can halfway make up for low power, but is killed by soundproof), double slap (no, just no...), wake-up slap (goes well if sing actually works, as does the TM move dream eater), body slam, hyper voice and double edge (if you don't mind recoil). Other ideas can run with putting them to sleep, or putting yourself to sleep, which isn't a terrible idea since you have good HP but no defence, so you can fully heal (just carry chesto berry and recycle and you can pull this off a fair deal). Rollout is another damaging move, which lasts for 5 turns of increasing power, but if you use defence curl before it, it gets a nice boost. Arguably the best move you get is gyroball, which hits harder the slower you are, so this goes well with the frankly pathetic speed you get.

You do get some extra moves added to the TM/HM list with things like blizzard/ice beam, thunder/bolt, return (since you have to have high friendship then this may be worthwhile), brick break, facade, charge beam, dazzling glean, strength and power-up punch all being ok damage dealing options. Basically everything else was already available, so scroll back up, dudes.

For breeding, I forgot to mention punishment earlier, which is a decent move, but probably not worth the chain breeding required to get it. Punishment hits the opponent for variable power, which works on how many stat boosts they have, so base 60 and up. Decreases below the normal level, as well as accuracy and evasion are ignored, marking another dramatic difference from stored power. Get this one to hit the recipient on a baton pass team at 200 base (maximum available) and you could make the trainer cry...

There are some decent tutor moves, such as focus punch that fits with substitute pretty well, drain punch is a good option as it restores your health, fire punch and ice punch are both new options with thunder punch, as are stealth rock and knock off.

By using a moon stone, you get Wigglytuff, which looks stupid once more. What's interesting is that the main two abilities remain the same, but the hidden ability, friend guard, is replaced with frisk, showing what item the foe is holding. This is pretty useful whilst wild farming, and also in how to judge the opponent's threat.

That look on its face is the sheer delighted surprise that it's still alive...

HP is now rather high at 140, attack is up to 75 so isn't so laughable anymore, and special attack is better at 85, but the defences are still low, and the speed is a pedestrian 45, so even on trick room it's probably too high, putting it in the limbo of uselessness.

Other than a couple of mediocre or situational moves to the tutor list, there isn't really much here. Yes, it's stronger than Jigglypuff, but then so are most newborn kittens.

As a generalisation, this evolutionary line is one to avoid, or else you need to know exactly what you want to do and know how to achieve it, because the decent stats are drastically let down by what could be paired with them. A decent movepool, but you won't land a hit because you have no defences.

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