Top 100 Pokemon #86: Aggron

So you have this guy, Rampardos, who has a high Attack stat and this move called Head Smash that has 150 Base Power plus STAB, and he'll probably smash your Pokemon in with one hit... but the move also does half the damage it did to you back to him, the most of all "recoil" moves, which means he'll probably knock himself out in a few turns, if you didn't take advantage of his weakened state to knock him out already.

What's worse than facing that guy? Facing a guy who uses the same attack... and doesn't take any of that recoil damage back to himself.

That is a killer helmet he has there to keep his own noggin safe.

#86: Aron/Lairon/Aggron

These guys were among my main team from my first Pokemon Ruby playthrough, in which I used some admittedly... weak Pokemon. (How I thought Delcatty was worth using, I don't know.) But hey, not this guy. The Aron line is the first family of Rock/Steel types out there. As one can imagine from that typing, they have ridiculous Defense stats. Concept-wise, aside from the dinosaur influence, he also might be based on the iron-eating Pulgasari. Or he might just be an iron-eating dinosaur.

The whole line features some cool designs. Aron is cute for a little iron-eating critter made of rock and steel. Lairon looks more ferocious and beast-like, while still being a clear intermediary stage, and as for Aggron... I think that helmet of his speaks for itself.

Rule #1 of killer helmets: The more sharp things, the better.

Competitively, Aggron has some notable strengths and flaws. Rock/Steel is a double-edged typing; he has a number of resistances and can take hits from Normal- and Flying-type attacks all day, but Ground- and Fighting- attacks do 4x damage to him, which he will have trouble surviving even with a ridiculously high Base 180 Defense. He also won't like special attacks, with only a Base 60 Special Defense and Base 70 HP. Speed, at Base 50, is particularly low, though Aggron does have ways to fix that. Aggron does have a nice Base 110 Attack, which is important when considering his particular specialty.
Aggron's three abilities are Rock Head, Sturdy, and his Dream World ability Heavy Metal. Sturdy got a nice buff in Gen V that allows him to survive a hit from full health; this ironically means that a Lv. 1 Aron can be a dangerous threat, especially in sandstorm, as Sturdy allows him to survive a hit at 1 HP, he can then use Endeavor, and the opponent will be reduced to 1 HP and then KO'd by Sandstorm; if Aron is holding a Shell Bell, he can then even recover all his lost health back to full and get ready to do the same thing to the next opponent. This FEAR-like strategy isn't the most reliable, but Aron's one of the best Pokemon to abuse it, as he's immune to Sandstorm damage and poison, and it can be fun to play around with in-game or against unsuspecting friends.

Heavy Metal goes best with Heavy Slam, a Steel-type move that is more effective the heavier you are compared to the opponent. Aggron already has a weight of 793.7 lbs, meaning that any Pokemon weighing less than 158.7 lbs. gets hit by the full base 120 power plus STAB. Heavy Metal doubles Aggron's weight and thus makes any Pokemon less than 317.4 lbs. get hit at full strength.

However, these abilities all pale in comparison to Rock Head, which removes recoil from recoil-inducing moves. In his debut in Gen III, this mostly meant recoil-free Take Down and Double-Edge, which was cool to mess with in-game; however, once HeartGold and SoulSilver came out, this line got an amazing new Egg move to abuse with the ability, courtesy of their friend Rampardos: Head Smash.

Head Smash is a Rock-type attack with a whopping Base 150 Power (the same as the Hyper Beam family of moves), 80% accuracy, and inflicts half the damage done to the enemy to the user as recoil. This last part is a pretty harsh drawback for many of its users, but for Aggron with Rock Head, he gets to use the move with no drawback other than imperfect accuracy. And a Base 150 attack with STAB off Aggron's Base 110 Attack will put a massive dent in many things. He is one of only two Pokemon that can do this, the other being Relicanth, who has much lower Attack, so Aggron is quite unique here.

The last thing you see before having your own head smashed in.

As I mentioned before, Aggron has two ways to patch up his low Base 50 speed: Rock Polish and Autotomize. Both increase his Speed by two levels (that means his Speed doubles on the first use). The difference is that in addition to that, Autotomize also halves Aggron's weight. This makes the move worse if Aggron is using Heavy Slam, but otherwise better as it means Aggron won't take as much damage from the odd Low Kick or Grass Knot. (Don't expect a huge reduction, though; the Base Power of those two attacks just drops from 120 to 100.) Either move is good for Aggron, though.

Of course, a Pokemon like Aggron can set off strong Earthquakes, and he also has moves like Fire Punch and Aqua Tail for coverage. He also has Magnet Rise, if you want to temporarily get rid of one of his 4x weaknesses.


One cool thing about Aggron, according to Pokedex entries, is that not only does one claim an entire mountain as his territory, but if the mountain is hit by a landslide or fire, he'll actually go and haul topsoil and plant trees to restore the territory, meaning if you can manage to befriend one of these guys, you have one of the best Pokemon out there for environmental restoration projects.

Aggron: Now EPA-approved.

There will be a Pixie Theater episode for these last 5 Pokemon coming up, as well as the next Pokemon entry. Whichever one I finish first will go up first.

As for which Pokemon is next? How about a Pokemon that can see through walls?