Ferroseed and Ferrothorn

Today’s Pokémon are Ferroseed and Ferrothorn, the... uh... the... spiky... metal... plant-things...

Google, help me out here.

...y’know, I don’t think anyone has a completely satisfactory explanation as to what Ferroseed and Ferrothorn are.  People think they’re based on the durian, the world’s most passive-aggressive fruit, which comes from South-East Asia.  It tastes delicious, smells revolting, is covered in vicious thorns, and is perfectly capable of killing you if it falls on your head.  In many respects, Ferroseed is very much like a durian; he’s round, spiky, vegetative, and wishes that the world and everything in it would just leave him alone.  However, he’s also made of iron, lives on the walls of caves and survives by leaching minerals from the rocks.  I suppose when you think about it this is the logical conclusion for a fruit that clearly wants nothing to do with anyone – hiding in a cold, dark place, sucking on rocks and jabbing anyone who bothers you.  Ferrothorn... doesn’t really look like a durian anymore because his body shape is squashed and he has little spiked pod-things dangling on the ends of vines; I think someone was just given the art for Ferroseed and a bottle of sake and told to go nuts.  Ferrothorn, like Ferroseed, lives in caves – he prefers to cling to ceilings rather than walls, though.  I’m not sure how we’re supposed to imagine him doing this; I find it most natural to picture him digging his spiked pods into the rock so his body dangles below them, but then again, he supposedly fights by using those things like flails, so maybe he latches on with his body spikes and the vines hang down beneath?  I’m not sure it’s entirely fair of me to complain about that, although it is kind of important that we should be able to picture a Pokémon in its natural state.  Ferrothorn is the only Pokémon in Black and White who is even more antisocial than Ferroseed, and will start throwing spikes at you just for being there, even if you’re not actually bothering him.  Personally, I am sympathetic to his point of view.

If I were to criticize Ferroseed and Ferrothorn, I would have to say that they remind me a little too much of Pineco and Forretress.  Although Pineco is a Bug-type, he’s (obviously) plant-based in his design, and although he and Forretress are forest Pokémon and have quite a different appearance to Ferroseed and Ferrothorn, anyone who can remember fighting wild Pineco in Gold and Silver (which learn Selfdestruct at an absurdly low level) will agree that the similarities in temperament are striking; we have two Pokémon with metallic physiology, a sedentary lifestyle, defensive tactics based on scattering spikes, and multiple crippling personality defects.  The case against Ferrothorn becomes significantly more damning once you recognize that he’s very similar to Forretress in mechanics as well as flavour.  Both of these Pokémon are absurdly resilient physical walls with few weaknesses whose main contribution to teams, outside of their tremendous capacity to absorb physical damage, is their habit of leaving a generous layer of spikes behind them wherever they go.  As you will know if you’ve been paying attention to my assorted nonsense, switching Pokémon at the right moments is an important part of gaining the upper hand in battle, which is why entry hazards – moves that make switching costly by causing damage to the incoming Pokémon every time your opponent tries it – are a popular choice.  Stealth Rock is generally favoured because it only takes one turn to set up and does a great deal of damage to certain Pokémon, while Spikes sees less use because it has to be stacked up over three turns to become effective.  A few Pokémon, however – Forretress and Ferrothorn among them – are tough enough that they can afford to sit around laying Spikes for three turns, and if they do, they can make life very difficult indeed for their enemies.  Provided they avoid Fire attacks, from which they both take quadruple damage (this is Forretress’ only weakness; Ferrothorn is also weak to Fighting attacks but not as severely) they can switch into most physical attacks and more or less negate them, which is their other main role – and once they’ve done all they can, they can always blow themselves up if there’s something in your way.

Ferrothorn is, for the most part, better at his job.  Defensively, Grass/Steel is probably better than Bug/Steel overall, despite being weak to Fighting attacks and only neutral to Ice attacks (which Forretress resists) because it also buys resistances to Water, Electric and Rock attacks, three powerful and common attack types.  In addition Ferrothorn, despite having weaker physical defensive potential than Forretress, is streets ahead of him in defence against special attacks, giving him greater versatility as an all-purpose roadblock.  He also has a wonderful passive ability: Iron Barbs, which damages any opponent that makes physical contact with Ferrothorn.  Many people like to compound this effect by making Ferrothorn hold an item called a Rocky Helmet, which does exactly the same thing as Iron Barbs and stacks with it.  Even if you think you can maim Ferrothorn severely with an attack, it will come at a heavy cost unless you can do it without touching him.   Moreover, although Forretress is not a Pokémon you want to allow free turns, he has relatively little in the way of offensive power (unless you want to blow him up).  Ferrothorn’s Power Whip, on the other hand, while it is easily resisted as a Grass attack, has quite a sting.  Almost nothing enjoys being hit by a Leech Seed either, since it means losing health the longer you stay in play while Ferrothorn becomes even harder to kill.  For all that, though, Forretress still has a few tricks of his own that Ferrothorn can’t match.  He’s just about the toughest Pokémon in the game that learns Toxic Spikes, a technique similar to Spikes that poisons incoming Pokémon, and one of the toughest that learns Rapid Spin, a vital attack that does negligible damage but clears away entry hazards laid by your opponent.  Forretress wishes he could learn U-Turn, which switches its user out after doing damage, but can’t (a shame; as a Bug-type attack it would do respectable damage coming from Forretress), but he does get the next best thing: the Electric equivalent, Volt Switch.  Your special attack score is terrible and you’re not an Electric-type, but the tactical advantage make it a possible option nonetheless.

I don’t think there can be any reasonable argument that Ferrothorn’s not strong.  It bothers me that he eclipses Forretress to an extent, but even if Forretress becomes more of a niche Pokémon, Rapid Spin and Toxic Spikes are still rare enough, and Forretress is still tough enough, that he’s not going to vanish completely; I’m glad Game Freak had the presence of mind not to take those things from him by giving them to Ferrothorn too.  Also, although Ferrothorn and Ferroseed converge with Forretress and Pineco in many important respects, they’re still quirky enough that I consider them good designs in their own right (better than Pineco and Forretress? Maybe... not sure).  If you know me well, though, you’ll know there’s one thing that makes me really like Ferroseed and Ferrothorn: they’re really kickass Grass-types!  So, since we all know that Grass-types need more love...

I hereby affirm this Pokémon's right to exist!