AOTW: Analytic

It’s Friday, trainers! How’s your high-contrast pokémon-training going? I trust that the majority of you have made it past the elite four by now (I know I haven’t), but that’s not stopping me from waxing intellectual about some passive pokémon powers! If you’ve listened to me during Featured Team on It’s Super Effective, you probably know that I love using moves in the vein of Payback, Avalanche, and Revenge, and this week we’re talking about a cool new Ability from Pokemon Black and White Versions that compliments these kind of moves perfectly. Don’t move too quickly- this is Ability of the Week: Analytic!

Like Moxie last week, Analytic is a pretty straightforward Ability. If the pokémon with Analytic is hit by an damaging move before they can use a damaging attack of their own, the power of their attack will increase by 30%. Yes. 30%. That’s huge in pokémon. Five evolutionary lines can have this Ability, though interestingly enough, none of them can have it naturally; Analytic can only be acquired when a pokémon is obtained in the Dream World. Magnezone, Starmie, Porygon-Z, Watchog, Beheeyem, and their pre-evolutions are the monsters that can have this Ability.

Based on speed stats and the moves they can learn, I’d say that Magnezone can take advantage of Analytic the best. With a base speed of 60, Magnezone is good and slow, and it has two moves that work best with sluggish pokémon: Mirror Coat and Gyro Ball. Watchog can be bred to have Revenge, and while Beheeyem has no Payback-style move, it’s so slow (base speed of only 40), Analytic will give a nice boost to any attacking move it might use. Starmie and Porygon-Z are useful in a different sense, because both of these pokémon are Trick Room-users, and they can learn a ton of different types of moves. Trick Roomed Porygon-Z with Analytic using Lock-On and Blizzard or Thunder, anyone?

That does it for me this week, guys! If you’re in the Chicago area this weekend, be sure to stop at C2E2 any time this weekend at McCormick place! See me at booth SP10 with Lonely Robot Comics- mention the podcast to me when buying at two LRC comic books for a free sketch by yours truly of yourself and your favorite pokémon! And don’t forget that on Sunday, Steve, Aaron, Catie and I will be hosting a live one-hour podcast in one of the C2E2 panel rooms! See you there!