MOTW: Teeter Dance

Hey ya’ll! It’s that time of the week again! You guessed it (probably by the title of the article), it’s time for move of the week. This week we’re going to briefly touch on the more rare and unique move Teeter Dance.

Now you may have never heard of this move before, and for good reason. Teeter Dance can only be taught/learned by 5 different Pokemon in Gen IV, Spinda, by leveling up, and then taught by breeding to Oddish, Mr. Mime, Cacnea, and Mime Jr. (kind of a repeat, but those are the facts.

In episode 14 we talk teams and move sets again, and we for the first time saw a Spinda in that line up, which knew the move Teeter Dance. So what’s the big deal with Teeter Dance? Why bring it up when only 5 Pokemon out of almost nearly 500 can learn it? Well I’m not necessarily talking about the reason why you would have it on your team, but more of the theories behind this type of move.

This is the first status move we’ve talked about and I wanted to touch on why you would want something like a ‘status only’ move on your team. So what Teeter Dance actually does is it confuses the Pokemon you’re going up against with 100% accuracy. It deals no damage, but a move like this can be greatly utilized. Confusion is an interesting status infliction because it can work for or against you at the same time. When you’re opponent is confused you have the ability to pull off more moves than you may have intended. So lets say you have a move set that is not all that powerful. The power of that set suddenly becomes amplified if you have more moves in which to inflict damage because your opponent is sitting in a corner hitting themselves.

A move like Teeter Dance can also be utilized well in double battle based on that it can actually inflict confusion on to everyone in the field of play, excluding yourself of course. You can easily avoid this side effect by using any of the following items. Bitter Berry, Full Restore, Full Heal, Heal Powder, Lava Cookie, Lum Berry, Miracleberry, Old Gateau, and the Persim Berry. If you had a Pokemon along side, lets say, a Spinda, which knew Teeter Dance, if you had a Pokemon that was holding a Bitter Berry, Lum Berry, Miracleberry, or a Persim berry you would be able to correct this affliction instantly, or even if you were to pair a teammate with it that had the ability Own Tempo, like a Slowbro or a Ludicolo, they would never be inflicted by confusion and therefore not only be able to possibly pull off a move that would hurt both opponents so they would possibly be hurting themselves and also taking team damage in the mean time.

So maybe you could add one of these Pokemon to your team as a interesting mix in. To be honest, none of them are really that good, but this is kind of getting to the idea that status inflicting moves can not only just impair your one opponent, but can be used well against a few different scenarios. Moves like these can be problematic to your own team unless you protect against them, even if it’s as basic as just having a full restore ready to heal yourself, but in the case of using them within move sets, there are strategies that can be put in place to make even oddball moves like this useable and useful within your team.

- Aaron