MOTW: Heal Pulse

Having a super powerful team is great, but when you don’t have any defense built into it you’re only going to be able to pull of a couple moves per battle on your opponent. At that point you’re relying on OHKO’s and pure power to take care of your opponent every time, nearly without fail. We’re going to look at a way to keep yourself alive more than anything else today. Feel better! Heal Pulse, Go!

What is Heal Pulse? Well, it’s one of the few moves that can heal other Pokemon even your opponent, and it’s also one of the only ones that has a 100% chance of working every time. It will take the target’s HP that you are looking to restore, and restore up to half of their max HP. Let’s say you have a Gengar on your team that faints really easily. If you have something helping it out with healing you can make it last a lot longer than it normally would. Kind of like a spotter in weightlifting, it’s there to make sure you don’t take 400 lbs of weights to the chest while bench pressing. While you’re trying to bench press the crap out of your opponent, Heal Pulse will keep you from you collapsing in on yourself.

Looking at who can actually learn Heal Pulse is sort of interesting. It’s a Psychic type status move, like Rest, but it’s not nearly as easily learned as rest. There’s no HM/TM available for this guy, so it’s pure breeding and leveling up, and taking a look at who all can learn it, the list isn’t that long...

Well... When I’m looking at a supporting/healing Pokemon, I’m generally looking for a wall. Something that won’t faint after one or two hits, but can really take a beating and keep on going without having to heal all that much. Normally people go straight to something like a Blissy for a wall, but I’m going to try and stay away from an absolute pure wall. Blissy is nice and all, but that’s pretty much all it is, a wall. If you’re working in double battles a pure wall isn’t as effective as it normally would be as draining your opponents life slowly, cause it has something else to focus on, and you have to keep in mind your opponent also has a supporting teammate as well.

Out of any Pokemon that can learn Heal Pulse I would choose Slowking. Although people may not know it, Slowking is one of my favorite Pokemon for a couple of reasons. Even though it is SUPER slow (I mean, come on, it says it in the name), the rest of it’s stats are pretty epic. It’s base total is 490, with speed being it’s lowest base at 30. There are key stats in this Pokemon though that make it a great choice. First, it’s HP. It may not have the highest HP, but a 95 base isn’t shabby at all. The main reason why I like it though is looking at it’s Special Def. and Sp. Atk.

Slowking isn’t just a defensive beast with 110 base in Sp. Def., but it’s Sp. Atk. is very good for being a wall at a flat 100. I also really enjoy the typing of Slowking. It’s weak to Bug, Ghost, Grass, Electric, and Dark due to it’s Water/Psychic typing, but it’s resistant to Fighting, Steel, Fire, Water, Psychic, and Ice. Not bad at all. It’s not as resistant as some others, but having resistances against some of the main, and most powerful types in the game is super useful.

Another reason why Slowking is a great choice for a Pokemon is it’s moveset. It can obviously learn Heal Pulse, but it can also learn an amazing range of moves. Just to name a few... Psyshock, Ice Beam/Blizzard, Earthquake, Psychic, Shadow Ball, Brick Break, Flamethrower (epic on a water pokemon), Dragon Tail... Just to name a few.

To be honest, Slowking has any move available to it that it needs to counter it’s weaknesses, which can be super useful for a wall to keep itself going for even longer. I had a really hard time picking a move set for it... so I didn’t pick one, hahaha. I mean, I could suggest one, but there are way too many to choose from. I would probably recommend Flamethrower, just based on it’s weaknesses to Bug and Grass. If you want to take advantage of STABs you could choose Psychic, which would be a standard choice, and you could also go with Surf. Both are pretty conservative choices, but with a wall, I want a move set that’s pretty much proven. I need it to perform at 100%, and in order for that to happen I need moves that I can depend on.

Along with all of this you can stick it with Heal Pulse for double and triple battles so you can be that helpful defender for the weak and battered Pokemon. The nice thing about Slowking is that it can be it’s own defender as well, with well balanced moves, and even a substitute if you wanted it to. Heal Pulse, if you let it, can be a great defensive asset to your team.

-It’s Super Effective

-aaronspriggs