Top 100 Pokemon #77: Tyranitar

One of the reasons I probably have some of my best memories from Gen II (specifically Silver version) is because I played much of that game blind. With no Player's Guide and no information on the Internet, I was left to discover many of that game's new Pokemon on my own. As such, I found myself encountering all sorts of mysterious creatures which I would learn about only after I caught them.

Stumbling into Mt. Silver at the end, I would every once in a while run into a Larvitar. Compared to the more monstrous beasts inside the mountain, Larvitar seemed pretty... weird. He was a weak, low-level Pokemon, but my intuition was already alarming me that a beast was waiting to emerge...

...and boy, was I right!

#77: Tyranitar

Tyranitar is Gen II's answer to Gen I's Dragonite, thus making "pseudo-Legendaries" officially a thing (instead of Dragonite's abnormally high Base Stat Total being just an anomaly). His concept of a rock version of Godzilla and the resulting design are simple yet plenty effective in portraying how terrifying it is, and this is only helped by Tyranitar's appearances in the anime, especially in the 4th movie (the last Pokemon movie I watched from start to finish). (There's also his Pokedex entry about destroying mountains so that maps have to be re-written...

As terrifying as Tyranitar looks--or appears in the anime--it says nothing about how terrifying he is on the competitive circuit, where he's currently the 7th most popular Pokemon on Smogon's OverUsed tier. To start, there's his stats, and as I mentioned, Tyranitar belongs to the "pseudo-legendary" category of Pokemon, meaning his Base Stat Total is a Legendary-comparable 600... and that's being distributed with a massive Base 134 Attack, great Base 110 Defense, a very good Base 100 HP and Special Defense, and solid Base 95 Special Attack. Only his Base 61 Speed is on the low side. But wait! Tyranitar's stats in battle are actually even higher than these!

Tyranitar's formerly-signature ability is Sand Stream, which is Sandstorm's version of Drizzle and Drought, and summons a permanent sandstorm upon entering the field. As of Gen IV, Sandstorm grants a 50% boost to Rock-types' Special Defense while active... which means, as long Tyranitar's induced Sandstorm is not overwritten by another weather or negated by an ability, Tyranitar is fighting with an absolutely monstrous Special Defense stat. And that's to say nothing of the residual damage that sandstorm's forcing on the opponent...

(Tyranitar also gets Unnerve from the Dream World. You might end up using this on Doubles if you don't want to form a Sandstorm team, as berries are more commonly used there.)

Wait, you want some moves to go with those killer stats? Tyranitar has that covered easily. Crunch and Stone Edge (or Rock Slide for doubles) provide strong primary STAB, while Pursuit can be used to take down a frail opponent, particularly a Psychic- or Ghost-type, without them being able to switch out of impending doom. If you want some Special coverage, Tyranitar can also use Dark Pulse.

If you want coverage moves... oh goodness, does Tyranitar have coverage moves! Fire Blast, Surf/Aqua Tail, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Superpower, Earthquake, Outrage... Of those, Superpower is probably the most useful, going well with Crunch, while Fire Blast is the best option for any mixed set. But hey, if you want to just put a lot of elemental moves and powerful physical attacks together and just go to town on in-game opponents... why not? A couple of support moves, like Stealth Rock and Thunder Wave, are worth noting, but for the most part, you're better off just destroying stuff.

If it sounds like Tyranitar is near-unstoppable, well, he's not. His unique Rock-Dark type, while providing some nice resistances and immunities, also gives him a number of weaknesses, most notably a 4x weakness to Fighting, and he's also rather slow. Take advantage of this, and he will go down.

However, even if you take down Tyranitar, there's no saying what punishment awaits from his team. Tyranitar's ability to instantly start a Sandstorm allows him to form the basis of a Sand team, which uses residual damage and new abilities like Sand Rush and Sand Force to brutalize the opposition. Some may choose to use Hippowdon, who's more defensive, instead, but if you want your weather starter to come with some sheer power, Tyranitar is a fantastic choice.

As far as monstrous Pokemon go, few do it better than Tyranitar, both in concept and in battle. Tyranitar truly is one of the most terrifying Pokemon out there.

But the terror does not stop here! Next is a terror from the seas, emerging from the most unlikely of beasts.

Top 100 Pokemon #78: Abomasnow

With the introduction of abilities in Gen III, three abilities were created to instantly start up each one of the three weather conditions introduced in the previous generation. Gen III also introduced a new weather condition, Hail, though they waited until Gen IV to create the ability that would automatically start up that weather.

Hail was one of the more puzzling weather conditions to me. Unlike Sandstorm, which supported multiple types, Hail only supported the Ice-type, which is not that common of a type. The move didn't really do much else, either. Gen IV did add some additional support by giving Blizzard perfect accuracy in Hail, much like what Rain does for Thunder. It also gave us the Pokemon that would become the official herald of hail...

A snow warning for this Christmas. Art by algeria.

#78: Snover/Abomasnow

Snover is just a cute little snow-covered pine tree, that evolves into the yeti-inspired Abomasnow. His menacing appearance goes well with his distinctive trait of being the Pokemon that starts up a hailstorm every time he enters the battlefield, thanks to his Snow Warning ability. (As of Gen V, if you really want an Abomasnow that doesn't start up hail, you can get one with the Dream World ability Soundproof.)

Of course, Abomasnow's ability to start hail is his specialty, but Abomasnow is an interesting Pokemon himself. His Ice/Grass typing is completely unique, and although it comes with seven weaknesses, it also comes with some nice resistances to common attacking types like Water, Electric, and Ground. His stats aren't nothing to speak of; they can best be described as "thoroughly average", with no stat higher than base 92 but only a weak base 60 Speed and mediocre base 75 Defense, with the rest at least base 85.

The real gem lies in Abomasnow's movepool. He gets some absolutely killer moves; Blizzard is already a powerful move, but because Abomasnow provides his own hailstorm, he also automatically gets perfect accuracy on the move, making it his ace in the hole. He also gets an equally powerful and accurate Grass STAB in Wood Hammer, with only the drawback of 1/3 recoil. (He can use Giga Drain, Grass Knot, or Seed Bomb if the recoil is too much of a problem.) He also has Ice Shard if he wants some STAB priority. He also nice secondary attacks like Earthquake and Focus Punch and some support moves like Leech Seed.

Still, the big draw of Abomasnow is his ability to instantly start hail. This allows him to be the cornerstone of hail teams, which use the residual damage from hail as well as powerful Blizzard attacks to flash-freeze teams. This is particularly fearsome in doubles, where Blizzard hits both opponents. Hail teams are a bit of an underused team style, but the prospect of sending out Pokemon like Glaceon to plow through opponents definitely sounds fun and can be cool to play around with (though in Smogon competitive play, anything below UU where Abomasnow is, and you have to use Snover instead). He's  a fun Pokemon to use, perhaps less on his own but definitely as part of the larger hail team.

Next time... ooh, we've got another auto-weather-starter!

Changes to the Top 100 Pokemon series

Sorry for the lack of posts recently; life got really busy these last six weeks, so I haven't had much time to do much of anything Pokemon-related. Even now, things are pretty busy, and the Top 100 Pokemon entries do take quite a bit of time. As such, in order to have this series finished at least before Pokemon X & Y come out and I have to start accounting for a new batch of Pokemon, I'm going to institute a couple of changes...

First of all, each entry, for now, will only include one picture, near the beginning after I introduce the Pokemon. Finding good pictures for each Pokemon isn't always easy, so this will help keep me from going crazy trying to find pictures.

Second, unfortunately I'm going to have to put Pixie Theater on hiatus. This is partially because those posts take a particularly long time trying to gather all the relevant information from Smogon's usage statistics, and partially because with Pokemon X & Y coming soon, I'd rather wait until that comes out and be able to give in-game advice geared towards that game (while also looking at 5th gen, just because).

Hopefully, these changes will allow me to finish this series quickly enough. The next Pokemon entry is coming soon.

Top 100 Pokemon #79: Golurk

Next up is a ghost giant-robot golem. I'm pretty sure that's one of those things that is just automatically awesome.

Awesomeness that goes beyond the impossible and pierces the heavens.

#79: Golett/Golurk

Golett and Golurk, according to the Pokedex, are Automaton Pokemon. There really aren't a whole lot of Pokemon with a cooler descriptor in the Pokedex than that. They were created by an ancient civilization for protection, so instead of being Steel-type, they are based on clay golems and are thus Ghost/Ground, which I think is much cooler than if they were just steel.

The Pokedex also apparently classifies them as "green" in color. I guess ancient civilizations, in addition to channeling Gundam somehow, also liked going green.

That's all for Golurk's concept and design; it's definitely awesome, but not much needs to be said about it. More needs to be said about its competitiveness.

Golurk has an excellent Base 124 Attack and solid defenses with Base 89 HP and Base 80 Defense and Special Defense. It is on the slow side, though, with only a Base 55 Speed. Its typing is interesting, and while it does come with some common weaknesses, it also provides key immunities to Normal, Fighting, and Electric, making it easy to switch in, as well as a good choice for a spinblocker (keeps the opponent from successfully using Rapid Spin to remove entry hazards).

Golurk's abilities contain two useful and one... not so useful. Ignoring Klutz, we have Iron Fist, which goes well with Golurk's huge assortment of punching moves (including Hammer Arm), and No Guard, making Golurk the other Pokemon that can use the No Guard + DynamicPunch combo.

Just to give the scope of Golurk's punching capabilities, it can learn the following Iron Fist-boosted moves: Drain Punch, DynamicPunch (though you should probably use No Guard with that), Fire Punch, Focus Punch, Hammer Arm, Ice Punch, Mega Punch, Shadow Punch, and ThunderPunch. That's not all, though; Golurk can also make good use of its Ground STAB with Earthquake. It can set up Stealth Rock without worrying about it being spun away while it's still on the field.

It can also learn Fly, which while not competitively interesting, allows you to fly around on a giant robot. That has to count for something.

Lost my hat? Totally worth it.

All in all, Golurk is a very interesting Pokemon. And yes, it learns Rollout. It can't learn Transform, though, so save that joke for Ditto.

Next time: Have you put away your Christmas tree yet?

Top 100 Pokemon #80: Raikou

The Pokemon of this entry is part of a trio of Legendaries that have left a special legacy in the game series. In Gold and Silver, in the Burnt Tower at Ecruteak City, you could run into these three beasts, who'd then escape. Then, sometime later, you'd be wandering around the local routes, expecting fairly low-level Pokemon, when suddenly...

...that's no Raticate.

#80: Raikou

So you meet up with this Level 40 beast, expecting to be thoroughly trounced. You ready your strongest attack just in case, and...

...so much for worrying that I'd be thoroughly trounced.

Okay, so now you're a lot stronger and actually want to catch the guy. But now you've got two problems. One, he appears on random routes and warps to a random place any time you Fly. So you Fly to Ecruteak until he appears in one of the three routes around that city, then walk to another route and hope he ends up on your route. You spray on your Repels and get ready to encounter him, but what about his tendency to run away as soon as the battle starts? No problem; you've got a Pokemon with that new Mean Look attack that keeps a Pokemon from escaping. So you go into battle with Raikou, use Mean Look, and then...

Okay, now the game creators are just trolling us.

 At this point, you crank up Eye of the Tiger on your stereo (fittingly enough) and start a grueling process of finding Raikou, putting him to sleep (the only way to keep him from running or Roaring), weakening him, and throwing those Fast Balls Kurt made for you until he wakes up and gets away again, and then you repeat the process over and over until it finally clicks (the Poke Ball, that is).

Then, several years later, HeartGold and SoulSilver come out, and you get to do it all over again, except this time, Raikou can run away even when he's sleeping!

"We meet again... and I've learned how to sleepwalk."

Needless to say, Raikou and his buddies Entei and Suicune have left their mark on the Pokemon world as the first roaming Legendaries. Putting aside from the sheer frustration of trying to catch them, though, Raikou is definitely my favorite of the three.

Embodying the speed of lightning (estimated at 50 km/s with much variance), Raikou is conceptually based on the Raijū, a Japanese mythological beast of lightning, which just sounds cool all on its own. His design is also great, being a tiger with thunderstorm motifs and that awesome lightning tail.

The clouds cannot contain the awesomeness of that tail.

As a Legendary Pokemon, you can expect that Raikou will easily rise up to the challenge of his rivals. Raikou sports a Base 115 Special Attack and Speed, making him a very literal Lightning Bruiser, hitting both hard and fast. Having a Base 100 Special Defense with a Base 90 HP is nothing to laugh at either, especially with Pressure as an ability and Calm Mind in his arsenal.

Raikou is pretty limited in attacks. You have Thunderbolt or Thunder for a main STAB and Volt Switch for keeping momentum, which is great for sheer power; however, for coverage, aside from Hidden Power, you only have moves like Extrasensory, Shadow Ball, Signal Beam, or Aura Sphere and Weather Ball if you have that one Event Raikou that is locked into a Rash nature. Pairing attacks with Calm Mind and perhaps Substitute is a great idea, allowing Raikou to become a fearsome threat both offensively and defensively.

As a final note, Raikou is also awesome in Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs, where you can ride on his back and jump over large gaps like a boss.

Riding on the backs of legendary thunder beasts wasn't in the job description for being a Ranger...

Next time: Apparently, even ancient mechanical engineers liked going green.

Top 100 Pokemon #81: Hydreigon

So let's hypothetically say you have two heads. And your two heads don't get along at all and have to compete with each other for food. And now, to make things worse, you're about to grow a third head. What do you do?

If your answer is to use the third head to turn your other two heads into puppets and then go on a massive spree of destruction, congratulations, you are a Hydreigon.

Worst puppet show ever.

#81: Deino/Zweilous/Hydreigon

Bringing Pokemon's time-honored tradition of multi-headed Pokemon into the dragon realm, the Hydreigon family is conceptually based on the Yamata no Orochi, sort of a Japanese mythological equivalent of the Hydra. To start things off, there is the fairly cute Deino, who has no eyes to see with, so he's always ramming into stuff and biting everything that moves.

Like a blind, emo puppy.

Zweilous is basically a two-headed Deino. Not quite as cute, but you have two heads that squabble with each other as they eat up everything in sight.

Like a high school sitcom.

And finally, Hydreigon is the final boss, a dragon of darkness that wields his spare heads on his hands like arm cannons.

A fun fact about the Hydreigon family is that they were initially going to be cybernetic dragons with tank elements. As cool as that sounds, the developers eventually decided to go the Hydra route, creating the first Dark/Dragon types in the process. The tread marks on their bellies, though, are remnants from the original plan.

Maybe they were just worried about being sued by the makers of Panzer Dragoon.

Speaking of final boss, probably one of the most well-known Hydreigons out there is the one Ghetsis uses, particularly when you face him in Black and White. He was ridiculously fast and had insane coverage with his moves, making him tough to take down. (He was also at a level below when Hydreigon is supposed to evolve, but as Lance can attest, that's nothing new.)

And that's a downside of the Hydreigon family: their evolution points are extremely high. Deino doesn't evolve until Level 50 (Gabite evolves into Garchomp before then!), and Zweilous has to wait until Level 64, the highest of all level-up evolutions.

It is worth the wait, though. Hydreigon is an absolute monster. He is Gen V's resident pseudo-legendary, meaning he has a Base Stat Total of 600, comparable to many actual legendaries. And with none of his stats lower than a Base 90, his stats are rather well-rounded. His standout stat is Special Attack at 125, while a Base 105 Attack means that Hydreigon makes a great mixed attacker. Levitate is just a nice ability overall to give him an extra immunity and switch-in opportunity.

All this means nothing without good attacks in his arsenal, but Hydreigon's got that covered in all sorts of ways. As the in-game Hydreigons can attest to, this Pokemon has access to a huge movepool; in fact, he has significant offensive attacks in 14 of 17 attacks, only lacking offensive moves of Grass, Poison, or Ghost (unless you really want to use Astonish). This allows Hydreigon to have incredible coverage. In fact, all you really need is a Dragon STAB like Dragon Pulse or Draco Meteor, combined with a Fighting attack in either Superpower or Focus Blast, to get neutral coverage on every Pokemon not named Shedinja. Dragon+Fire (with either Flamethrower or Fire Blast) is another good combination, only missing out on Heatran. And, of course, you can use Dragon + Fire + Fighting to make sure that nothing can escape unscathed from Hydreigon's rampage.

Other awesome moves in Hydreigon's arsenal? U-Turn, Earthquake, Dark Pulse, and Roost because healing is helpful when you have solid 92/90/90 defenses. And that's just the ones Smogon suggests for various sets. He's got lots more he can use, so find some moves you like and tear through the opposition.

You can also use Tri Attack, not because it's good, but because Hydreigon likes inflicting random status on his targets.

All this makes Hydreigon a monster of a Pokemon. No wonder it is Ghetsis's Pokemon of choice. Though at least a nice girl like Iris also uses one.

Even three-headed dragons of destruction need love.

Next time: ~50 Kilometers Per Second. Also expect a Pixie Theater to go up at some point.

Top 100 Pokemon #82: Roserade

Roselia was okay as a Pokemon when she was introduced in Gen III. She obviously had the thorny-rose theme going on, and while her stats weren't that good, she could be annoying to face as she could throw all sorts of status at you, including poisoning you with Poison Point if you indiscriminately used contact moves against her. Still, she didn't have that much going for her, until Gen IV introduced her evolution, Roserade, who is more powerful and a whole lot more... fabulous?

Much more fabulous, indeed.

#82: Roserade

Roserade takes the outward elegance of a rose and the prickly, poisonous interior within and dresses it all up with the mystique of a masquerade host. That last part is what helps Roserade be more interesting of a Pokemon, adding a lot of flair to what could be an otherwise boring Pokemon. It also makes everything Roserade do very stylish.

A natural at taking bows.

Aside from the visual appeal of Roserade, she's also great on the battlefield. Roserade got a much-needed boost in stats from her pre-evolution, now having a very strong Base 125 Special Attack, a decent Base 105 Defense, and a Base 90 Speed that does help her accomplish her tasks. She has abilities like Poison Point and Technician (in Dream World), but her Natural Cure ability is definitely her most useful one, as it means she is not as crippled by status.

As a Grass-type, she has access to a wide variety of Grass-type attacks as well as support moves. To work off her excellent Base 125 Special Attack, she can use STAB attacks like Leaf Storm, Giga Drain, and Sludge Bomb; she can also use certain secondary attacks like Extrasensory and Weather Ball if you're using her on a weather team. (Of course, depending on circumstances, Hidden Power is an option.) This is augmented by her great selection of support moves; she can use both Toxic Spikes and Sleep Powder, making her a good choice for a lead if Toxic Spikes support is what you want. She can also use regular ol' Spikes, but be warned that she cannot legally learn both Spikes and Sleep Powder, since both are Egg Moves and cannot both be learned by any compatible Pokemon.

Roserade can also heal herself with Synthesis, if weather is not too much of an issue. She can even use Rest effectively, since Natural Cure means she will wake up as soon as she switches out, making that a potentially potent option.

She can also learn Petal Dance, which might be competitively inferior to Leaf Storm, but it sure looks prettier.

That's all I have to say about Roserade; she really is cool and a definite improvement over Roselia, even if I didn't have as much to say about her. I apologize for the long delay in getting this post out; I think I might have gotten a bit burnt out from trying to find enough to say (and enough good pics) for this entry. In order to try to get all this done before Gen VI comes out, I'll probably have all following entries be a bit shorter overall.

The next post should come soon, so until then, I shall bid you goodbye with a bit of "Marisa Stole The Precious Thing".

Yi er san, yi er san, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, ichi ni san
Yi er san, yi er san, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, ichi ni san
Yi er san, yi er san, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, ichi ni san
...uh, something, something, Guten Morgen...