MOTW: Sludge Bomb

Now here’s a type that I think gets WAY overlooked in Pokemon. Not necessarily by trainers, but by Nintendo as a company. Even including Gen V Pokemans, there are still only 15 pure poison types, and only a couple dozen more that have half types. Poison type moves are some of the most useful in the entire game. Maybe not the most effective up front, but they definitely do their part on a team. Today we’re talking about the best one out there, Sludge Bomb.

Sludge Bomb was introduced all the way back in Gen II and there were only two Pokemon who could learn it by leveling up. Grimer and Muk, so pretty much only one, as Muk is the evolved version of Grimer. Muk was not that bad of a Pokemon either. It has a really high special attack so a move like Sludge Bomb is really effective. Sludge Bomb by itself does 90 damage and is 100% accurate. There is only one move that has a higher power, and that’s Gunk Shot, which, honestly is not that great. Gunk Shot has 120 power, but 70% accuracy.

One of the biggest things about a poison type attack is that it has a chance to poison, obviously, so you have to take into account what your chances to poison your target are. Sludge Bomb has one of the highest percentages of this at 30%, the only move higher being Smog, at 40%. Now there are moves that are just for poisoning, and that’s it, but we’re combining the best of both worlds into one move here, offense and defense.

Poison is one of the best status inflictions in the game because of it’s mulit-faceted ability to maim a target. Just by being poisoned you have a couple of things to worry about. Firstly, you’re taking damage every turn no matter what else is going on in battle. Second, you have to choose if it’s worth it enough to use a turn to take away that status, or if you should just grin and bare it for a couple of turns. By making your opponent worry about that you can just go on your merry way and totally own them. Poison can also be enough to push that set of two moves that you have that aren’t quite powerful enough to kill, I mean, make a Pokemon faint. I can’t even begin to recount the times that I’ve attacked and come up just short on a move, but because of poison I’ve taken somebody out.

Alright, back to the move at hand. Sludge Bomb, how can it be used? Well there is only a handful (8) of Pokemon who can learn it by leveling up, but there are over 80 who can learn it by TM36. A lot of those 80 are also poison type so you’re gaining a same-type attack bonus which brings it’s power up to 135 with 100%. If you read last week’s MOTW, Dream Eater, you would have seen the Gengar that I have on my team and it’s move set. You can go back and check out exactly what I did to it, but I paired Sludge Bomb with a poison type Pokemon to get that extra bonus, (not a lot of people remember that Gengar is also poison type. I see a lot of teams with Gengar, but more often than not they don’t put a poison type move on it). I then backed that up with a STAB powered and Spell Tag powered Shadow Ball. I’ve got that 30% chance of poisoning my target, so I’ve got a little extra insurance on my semi-powerful to powerful move-set and I’ve given then something else to think about.

If you wanted you could power up a poison type move with something like a Poison Barb, which would give you an extra 20% in power. That could create a pretty powerful move with a poison type Pokemon as well, getting that move power up over 150. 

So that’s my dealey on Sludge Bomb. As always if you have any questions or comments, you can post those below, or email us at pokemonpodcast@me.com. Thanks for reading guys, and go rate us in iTunes so you can win an imported Pikachu charger! Do it! Do it now!

- It’s Super Effective

- Aaron Spriggs