MOTW: Rage Powder
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Black and White are out! Hooray! Now with the official introduction of triple battles into the fighting mechanics our first MOTW article is diving head first into one of the most potentially complex fighting systems out there. Lets go!
With a whole new set of Pokemon out and a new set of moves, that’s what we’re going to be covering into the future, at least for a while here. So why Rage Powder? It’s not even an attacking move! Well, it’s not the power of the move, but the battle strategy to it this time. Rage Powder, for one turn, makes all opposing Pokemon, including in double and triple battles, attack that Pokemon. So whatever Pokemon knows this move is going to take some serious abuse, and is going to need some major help.
Now with this Pokemon taking major abuse and damage during battle, it’s going to help if it is a sort of wall, like a Blissy of sorts, but now with Black & White out we’re going to stick to the newest set, so let's find a Pokemon in there that can learn it. Well, there are 9 Pokemon that can learn it by leveling up, and 4 more with breeding. Out of those are only 3 from the newest set. Foongus, it’s evolution Amoonguss, and Volcarona. Now Volcarona’s base special attack is sitting pretty at a 135, but that’s not what we’re going for here. Amoonguss, however, has a base HP of 114, and is much closer to a wall than anything else that can learn Rage Powder.
So we’ve got our main Pokemon with a decent HP stat and modest, but good, defense and special defense. The major downside to Amoonguss is it’s Speed, sitting at a miserable 30. The nice thing about this is that Rage Powder’s priority is +3, so it will go first almost every time, no matter what. What would an ideal Amoonguss look like? Here’s a sample I put together for your viewing pleasure:
Amoonguss - Ability: Effect Spore - Nature: Quiet
Item: Leftovers
Moves:
Rage Powder
Sunny Day
Solar Beam
Amoonguss’s ability is Effect Spore. Effect Spore has a 30% chance of inducing Paralysis, Sleep, or Poison to your opponent when they make contact with you. Not bad. It’s nature would be Quite so your base special attack would go up to benefit having Solar Beam, and your speed would go down, which it already sucks anyways so that’s not that big of a deal. The item I chose for this Pokemon to hold is Leftovers, mainly because it’s a wall. That would just make just it that much more painful to take out. It’s got Sunny Day to make Solar Beam a one turn move, and also you’ll see another one of it's uses later on.
Now, the 4th move could vary with Amoonguss. A couple that I think would be good options would be either Rest, Sludge Bomb, or Substitute. Rest for it taking a break from taking so much of a beating, while the other teammates could take some abuse for a bit. Sludge Bomb would be a possible use of a STAB move, plus the chance of poisoning the opponent. But the move that I would probably pick would be Substitute, mainly because Amoonguss is supposed to be a wall, so with the high HP, Leftovers, and Substitute, it would be a pain to get rid of.
Rage Powder on a Pokemon almost instantly makes it a double or triple battle player only, so picking it’s partner is extremely important. Partnering up Pokemon can be a little tricky, but the main rule of thumb is to play to each other’s weaknesses. The main obvious weakness to a grass type Pokemon is fire types, so the teammate I chose for Amoonguss is Seismitoad.
Seismitoad is a dual type water/ground Pokemon and is resistant against fire types, and is only normally effected by the other weaknesses that Amoonguss has. It’s unaffected by electric types, which is awesome for water Pokemon, and it’s only weakness is grass. It’s easily accessable being in the first 30 or 40 Pokemon you see in the new games, and it’s base stat isn’t shabby sitting at a 499.
Seismitoad also has a high HP base stat with a 105, and it’s lowest stat is a 74 for speed. Over all it’s a very balanced Pokemon, so that makes choosing it’s move set a little more broad. Here’s what I think a good example of a team player Seismitoad would look like:
Seismitoad - Ability: Poison Touch - Nature: Brave
Item: Wide Lens
Moves:
Rock Slide
Muddy Water
Rest
Substitute
Let’s break it down here. The ability you’ll want your Seismitoad to have is Poison Touch, which is similar to Amoonguss’s ability, but this time when you’re physically attacked your opponent has a 20% chance of being poisoned. It’s nature would be brave, so it’s attack would go up and it’s speed would go down. No need here to be super fast, seeing as it’s not very fast to begin with. Rock Slide and Muddy Water are our attack choices here, with Rock Slide doing 75 damage, 90% accuracy, and Muddy Water doing 95 base damage and 85% accuracy. Both moves damage all opposing Pokemon, but not your own, making them great team moves. Now if you’ve read any of my other articles you know I hate less than 100% accuracy, so we’re going to go with a Wide Lens for our item, to boost each of those by 10%.
The non-attacking moves we have here are Rest and Substitute. The goal of this team that I’m building is to stay alive for as long as possible, and also to be a pain to battle, so while everybody is forced to attack Amoonguss, Seismitoad can attack everybody at once, and while Amoonguss is healing, Seismitoad’s substitute can take a substantial amount of damage.
Now, those two make a decent pairing if you wanted to match up two Pokemon for a double battle, but where Rage Powder really excels is TRIPLE battles, so what Pokemon would be our third teammate here? Well, let’s play it safe again here and match with our weaknesses. Seismitoad’s only weakness is to grass, so what’s grass’s biggest weakness normally? Fire!!! The new fire Pokemon that I chose to play nicely with these guys is none other than Darmanitan. You may remember seeing, or even catching the pre-evolution to Darmanitan, Darumaka, in the desert ruins early on in the game, so this Pokemon is also fairly easy to add to your team. Moves, items, natures, we’ve got em!!!
Darmanitan - Ability: Sheer Force - Nature: Adamant
Item: Life Orb
Moves:
Fire Punch
Psychic
Rest
Substitute
Darmanitan is pretty baller, not gonna lie. For, again, only having an average total base stat of 480, it is awesomely balanced. It’s HP, again, like this whole team’s, is just over 100 at 105, it’s lowest stat is special attack at 35, it’s special defense and defense are low at 55, and it’s speed is 95. The sweetest thing about Darmanitan is that it’s attack base stat is at 140! That is around 5th highest in the entire game, not bad at all. So let’s have some fun with this.
So, let’s make it’s base attack even higher and it’s special attack lower with a nature of Adament. Also let’s boost it’s attack even more and give it a Life Orb to hold. There’s another 30%. Ok, so on to moves. Fire Punch is one doozy of a move, and here’s why. Remember Amoonguss’s move set? Remember that we put Sunny Day on it? Not only does that make Amoonguss’s Solar Beam not need a charging first move, but it also increases the power of all fire type moves in play by 50%. The ability Sheer Force boosts all moves with secondary effects by 30% and removes the chance of burning in Fire Punch’s case. No big deal it was only 10% anyways. Oh yea, Darmanitan is fire type, so any fire type moves instantly get a 50% bonus.
Did you do the math yet? 30% from Sheer Force, 30% from Life Orb, 50% from Sunny Day, and 50% for being a STAB move. I’ll give you a little bit.... Give up? 160% bonus!!! Think about it. Fire Punch is a 100% accurate move with 75 base power. With all of your bonuses built up Fire Punch’s base power goes up to 195...
Dang...
So with that little beauty built up lets flush out the rest of the moves. We have Rest and Substitute on there so every team member has a substitute up and are self healing, so everyone can switch off and heal while other’s are attacking. Now why Psychic do you ask. Well Darmanitan is baller for multiple reasons. You may not know, but it has a hidden type of psychic, so that when that type is in effect, the attack Psychic is STAB powered. This is all because of Darmanitan’s Zen Mode. Darmanitan is the only Pokemon in the entire game to have this sweet ability and what it does is pretty awesome. (correction, it's either Zen Mode, OR Sheer Force. Thanks listener base for the correction! So you're move set should have psychic if you plan on using Zen Mode instead.)
When Darmanitan’s HP is below the halfway point in battle, at the end of the turn where it drops below that Zen Mode activates and Darmanitan becomes a dual psychic/fire type. When HP is recovered back above the halfway point Zen Mode deactivates and it changes back to just fire. That’s not all that changes though. It’s special attack and attack stats swap, so its base special attack is now 140, making Psychic STAB powered, and backed by a very high base stat.
Phew, that was a lot to cover, but now you can see the whole scope of why this team works together. Everybody is covering each other’s backs for weaknesses. One Pokemon can single out itself for being attacked because of Rage Powder, which leaves the other one or two Pokemon untouched to go about attacking the other team. One Pokemon can attack the entire opposing team at once, while the other is insanely strong with a major possibility of OHKO’ing an opposing Pokemon, or at least injuring it enough so that the other can finish it in the same turn. All while this is going on two all three can have substitutes up taking damage, so in short, this team I would foresee being a pain to battle.
In short, new battle strategies have gotten complicated, and my articles are getting longer, lol. Just off of one move, I based an entire team around it, and found some interesting combinations along the way. To put it simply, Rage Powder is not to be messed with.
- It’s Super Effective
- aaronspriggs
P.S. See you at C2E2 this weekend! Come to our live panel for another live podcast!
--(side note)--
Corrections made! Thanks you guys! In summary:
