AOTW: Water Absorb and Volt Absorb

Sometimes, guys, you just need to stop and soak everything in. Just take it easy and let the waves go by. Watch out the window while a thunderstorm rumbles by. It can be healthy for you! Unless you, you know, let the waves go by so much you get caught in the tide. Or watch that storm so closely you catch a lightning bolt with your face. That wouldn’t help you out much, unless you enjoy hospitals. I suppose that’s a fundamental difference between human beings and digital representations of imaginary monsters that do battle with each other, because for a select few pokémon, that’s exactly what the doctor ordered. This is Ability of the Week: Volt Absorb AND Water Absorb!

These two generation three Abilities fall into that “same thing, only different” category, like Snow Cloak and Sand Veil. Any pokémon with Volt Absorb will recover 1/4th of its maximum HP when hit with an Electric attack, and a pokémon with Water Absorb will do likewise when hit with a Water-type attack. Perfectly enough, there’s a monster that falls into both camps: Lanturn.

Lanturn is arguably more useful with Volt Absorb, as it’s damaged 1x by Electric attacks and only 1/2x by Water, but a Water Absorb Lanturn is good and unexpected due to its status as Lanturn’s Hidden Ability. An ideal setup for any Water or Volt Absorb is in a doubles format. Keeping Lanturn as an example, one with Volt Absorb could be paired with a Discharge-user, whilst one with Water Absorb is ideally paired with a Surf-user. Water Absorb also means that Lanturn will find itself right at home on a Rain Dance team. Utilize its 100% accuracy Thunder as well as its team as well as having a team mate Surf its health back. I think it also bears mentioning that a pokémon with Water Absorb is immune to the extra damage dealt by Surf when hiding underwater during Dive. Some other candidates to consider for Volt Absorb and Water Absorb include Maractus (see SBJ’s VGC team from last year), Quagsire, Jellicent, and Jolteon (because honestly there aren’t a lot of Volt Absorb-users).

Sorry for the quickie this week, kids, but these two are really pretty straightforward. Probably why it’s taken me so long to cover them! I’ll see if I can’t rustle up something more intricate to discuss next time. Later, trainers!

-Wil

www.wheretheresawil.com