Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion and Keldeo

The time has come (largely because I’m running out of anything else) to think about some more legendary Pokémon, namely the so-called “legendary musketeers,” Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion and Keldeo.  These Fighting-type Pokémon have that name because, according to the designers, they are based on the eponymous French warriors of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel, the Three Musketeers, though personally I think it would be more appropriate to say that they are, if anything, parallel to the musketeers.  You might be forgiven for not thinking that the connection is immediately obvious (in fact, I’m not convinced anyone could work it out without being told or simply getting very lucky with a wild guess) – both groups have (in brief) an old one, a fat one, and a gay one (Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, respectively), plus an annoying kid who hangs around with them because he wants to join their club (d’Artagnan).  They are also both renowned for swordsmanship – the Pokémon versions only in a figurative sense, in that they all learn Swords Dance and share a signature move called Sacred Sword; despite the name, they fight mainly by goring enemies with their horns.   Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion and Keldeo are, furthermore, motivated by their ideals of duty and justice, which likewise sounds like a reference.  All four of these Pokémon are Fighting-types, probably because that’s the element that’s normally given to Pokémon based on human warriors or martial artists, but these equine Pokémon have been shifted so far from what they’re actually ‘based on’ (like I said, ‘parallel to’ would be a more accurate description) that they have very little in common with all the other Fighting-types.  Every other Fighting Pokémon has a vaguely humanoid or at least bipedal form, with two arms and two legs (Machamp and Heracross are the greatest deviations you get from this pattern), many Fighting attacks require arms and hands and most of them are martial arts or wrestling moves.  I can appreciate the effort at creating a Fighting attack that works for a horned quadruped, but the fact is, it’s not a very good one; horns are for stabbing, not cutting, and the image of these Pokémon trying to toss their heads in such a way as to slash an opponent standing in front of them is ludicrous (and yes, I believe Sacred Sword is supposed to be like a slashing sword, not a stabbing one – notice, for instance, that the Bug attack available to these Pokémon is X-Scissor, not Megahorn, which would also be appropriate).  That’s all I have to say about Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion and Keldeo as a group: now, let’s tackle ‘em one by one.

Cobalion (the old one) is a proud and stoic Fighting/Steel-type who bears a vague resemblance to an antelope.  His hide is the cobalt blue that gives him his name, and as hard as iron.  Cobalion, like Athos, is thought of as the leader of his troupe and, as such, his defining qualities are his absolute composure and his aura of authority; his stare is said to compel obedience in any Pokémon.  Even his species name is the “Iron Will” Pokémon.  His expression certainly looks stern, but it’s marred by his awkwardly pointy, almost weasel-like face, and what looks awfully like a very thin, wiry moustache (another musketeer reference, possibly, but if so an out-of-place one).  I also have trouble taking seriously any Pokémon whose feet make it look like it’s wearing socks.  Cobalion’s specialty is physical defence, as you might expect from a Steel Pokémon.  Like the other musketeers, Cobalion is very fast, and his attacks pack a decent punch too, but he won’t make a particularly good attacker without Swords Dance – then again, since he does have Swords Dance, you could put together a decent attacking set with Sacred Sword, Iron Head and X-Scissor or Stone Edge.  Personally, though, I would prefer a more defensive approach; Calm Mind will improve Cobalion’s weaker special defence while allowing him to do respectable damage with his own special attacks, Flash Cannon and Focus Blast.  The trouble with this track is that, whereas the physical version can rely on Sacred Sword as its go-to move, a Calm Mind Cobalion would have to rely mainly on Flash Cannon, since Focus Blast is quite inaccurate, and Steel attacks do not make good primary attacks.  Cobalion also has no easy way of healing and few worthwhile support moves (Reflect is nice but with Cobalion’s already excellent physical defence he wishes he had Light Screen instead, and Thunder Wave is normally useful for team support but something as fast as Cobalion doesn’t really need it).  Cobalion’s combination of toughness and speed is unusual, but he doesn’t do much with it that’s very interesting.  He is still a Steel-type, though, with all the useful resistances that come with that.

Terrakion (the fat one) is, like Porthos, the strongest of the group, a huge bull-like Fighting/Rock Pokémon who can supposedly demolish stone fortifications with ease.  Like Cobalion, he looks the part, with enormous pillar-like legs, thick bands around his ankles and shins that look almost like manacles, and a crown of sharp horns.  His main horns look disconcertingly like floppy ears in the official art, but they’re better-done in the in-game sprite.  My biggest concern about Terrakion is that he lacks the grandeur of a legendary Pokémon.  Cobalion and Virizion are regal in appearance, while Keldeo has the fey traits of other “cute” legendary Pokémon, but Terrakion looks like a simple brute.  It doesn’t help that there are few legendary Pokémon with a muscled appearance to compare him to, but you might look at Entei, for instance, who also possesses prodigious physical strength but still has the otherworldly grace you would expect from an immortal being of tremendous power.  In battle, Terrakion combines the speed he has in common with his brothers with frightening power, which will become only greater if he has time to use Swords Dance, making him probably the most obviously dangerous of the four.  With access to Stone Edge, Close Combat and Earthquake, powerful attacks from three of the strongest offensive types in the game, as well as the option of X-Scissor for dealing with Psychic-types, he can cause severe pain to just about anything that doesn’t give him a wide berth.  Terrakion is not complicated; his purpose is always to murder everything as fast and as brutally as possible, and he is exceedingly good at it.

Virizion (the gay one), whose name seems to come from viridian, a shade of green, is a Fighting/Grass-type who fights with speed and grace rather than power.  He may be the only Pokémon in Black and White (possibly the only Pokémon in the world) who looks even half as smug as Snivy, and that’s saying something.  With feet reminiscent of high boots and fine, tapering antlers ending in neat curls, Virizion is a Pokémon for whom elegance is a matter of no small importance. It’s very difficult to imagine using those delicate horns for a Sacred Sword attack, though, and harder still to picture the slashing whirlwind described by the Pokédex.  This is, as I said, something of a jarring detail for the whole quartet, but Virizion is the one who throws it into sharpest relief, as the analogue to the musketeers’ master swordsman Aramis and supposedly the most agile fighter of the four.  Like his brothers, Virizion makes a perfectly competent Swords Dancer, with Sacred Sword, Leaf Blade and Stone Edge or X-Scissor for attacking, and like Cobalion he can use Calm Mind for a more balanced strategy, though he has certain advantages over Cobalion – Reflect, which all the musketeers have, covers Virizion’s weaker defensive side nicely, and Virizion can actually heal himself by attacking with Giga Drain.  Like Cobalion, though, he must cope with the shaky accuracy of Focus Blast and has no other special attacks to speak of.  Virizion’s greatest strength is his resilience to special attacks, and he can take some fairly strong ones quite comfortably; combined with further special defence boosts from Calm Mind he can be quite hard to damage with energy attacks, so pick your battles and use Virizion where he can do the most good.

Cobalion, Terrakion and Virizion are all supposed to have fought against humans in ancient times when a war between two human nations began to threaten Pokémon and their homes.  One of the Pokémon they were fighting to protect eventually became the fourth member of the group, the Fighting/Water-type Keldeo (who can’t actually be obtained in the games, or anywhere for that matter, since Nintendo is officially pretending that he doesn’t exist).  According to the legends, Keldeo was orphaned by a fire during the war and was raised by Terrakion, Virizion and Cobalion.  He looks a little like a unicorn, but his name comes from the kelpie, a shapeshifting water spirit from Celtic myth that normally took the form of a horse and would lure people into trying to ride it before dragging them into a deep lake to drown – an odd link to draw with such a cute and innocuous Pokémon, to say the least.  Keldeo is nothing like a kelpie; instead he is annoyingly similar to Suicune, another four-legged legendary Pokémon who travels the world, dashing at tremendous speed across the surface of the water and searching for pristine lakes and rivers.  Unlike Cobalion, Terrakion and Virizion, Keldeo is not particularly well-served by Swords Dance; he is unequivocally better off with Calm Mind since he can’t really use physical attacks properly, and he also has the advantage of his own signature move, Secret Sword, a special attack that frees him from the reliance on Focus Blast that plagues special versions of the other three.  Sadly, he shares their very limited special movepools; aside from Water attacks and Secret Sword, Keldeo doesn’t really have any special attacking options (he doesn’t even get Ice Beam; even Basculin gets Ice Beam, for goodness’ sake).  As a result, it’s actually quite difficult to think of more than one viable moveset for Keldeo (and even filling out one takes some scrounging if you don’t want to resort to Hidden Power; I guess Reflect is always helpful for a Calm Mind Pokémon).  As a legendary Pokémon, Keldeo is very powerful and good at what he does, but he is – if I may be excused the pun – something of a one trick pony.

In the end, the really sad thing about these Pokémon is that they don’t tie into the story.  Their backstory is all about the relationship between humans and Pokémon and how Pokémon can be hurt by the actions of humans, even when they have nothing to do with human conflicts – which is exactly what the plot of Black and White is about.  Virizion, Terrakion and Cobalion aren’t out there fighting for their allegedly firm beliefs, though – they’ve given up on the world and are hiding away in caves (only Cobalion is even accessible; showing him your fighting spirit and bond with your Pokémon will draw the other two out of hiding somewhat), which honestly strikes me as kind of a jerk move given the significance of the conflict with Team Plasma and its direct correspondence to the events that compelled them to fight against humanity in the first place.  Ideas like this would have made things far more interesting if they’d been associated with Reshiram and Zekrom in place of that vague “truth and ideals” nonsense, and instead they’re sitting in a cave gathering dust and moss!  Come on, Game Freak!

I hereby deny this Pokémon’s right to exist!  Give 'em a head start and release the hounds!

Deino, Zweilous and Hydreigon

Remember Dragonite?  I liked Dragonite; Dragonite was nice and enjoyed helping people.  Not all Dragon Pokémon are nice, of course; Flygon, Haxorus and Altaria are, but Kingdra and Druddigon are basically crazy old men shouting at the kids to get off their lawns, Garchomp is ill-tempered though not malicious, and Salamence is just slightly insane and prone to extremes of anger and joy.

Hydreigon, on the other hand, is utterly, completely, irredeemably, certifiably, three-eggs-short-of-an-Exeggcute WHACKO.

Deino, Zweilous, and Hydreigon, whose names come from the German ein, zwei, drei, in reference to the number of heads they each have, are the only Dark/Dragon dual-type Pokémon.  Dragon-types are (Druddigon and Altaria notwithstanding) among the strongest of all Pokémon, while Dark-types tend to be pathological liars, brooding loners, manipulative jerks, creepy stalkers or outright psychopaths.  This is a recipe for disaster.  I love recipes for disaster.  Being cave Pokémon, Deino and Zweilous are blind, and use their sense of touch to explore the world around them.  How do they do this without hands or long tails or other suitable appendages?  Simple: they bite everything.  Then, whenever something doesn’t bite them back (and often even if it does) they eat it.  Then they move on to find something else to bite, because these Pokémon are always hungry and eat voraciously.  In Zweilous’ case, both heads are always hungry and squabble constantly over food – and, for that matter, over just about everything.  Hydreigon doesn’t actually have this problem because two of Hydreigon’s heads aren’t really ‘heads’ at all; they don’t have brains and I think they’re really decoys to draw attention away from his central head during fights.  However, consider this for a moment.  Zweilous has two heads, with independent minds and personalities, which hate each other and are always hungry.  Zweilous evolves into Hydreigon, who has only one true head.

Yeah.

Hydreigon is even more aggressive than Deino and Zweilous.  He actually has eyes, so presumably he isn’t blind like them (the eyes on his side ‘heads’ have no pupils, so it’s possible that those are just markings that look like eyes).  He doesn’t need to bite everything he meets to figure out what it is, but he’s very angry all the time and will blast literally anything that moves, regarding pretty much any other living thing as his enemy.  He also retains Zweilous’ insatiable appetite, scaled up to match his larger size, and will eat absolutely anything he can get his hands (or rather, his heads) on.  In short, Hydreigon is a loud, angry, hungry wild animal with incredible supernatural powers: not so much a Pokémon as a living natural disaster.  All things considered, it’s probably a good thing that Zweilous evolves later than any other Pokémon in existence, at level 64.  The artwork fits the part too; this thing looks vicious and cruel.  There are a lot of Dark- and Ghost-type Pokémon around that are kind of evil, but I can think of only two Pokémon that embody destruction in the way Hydreigon does: Gyarados and Tyranitar... so, with Hydreigon, we finally have the complete set of land, sea and sky, meaning that NOWHERE is safe!  MUWHAHAHAHA!  It’s the existence of Pokémon like Hydreigon that reminds us just how different this world is from our own and why human industry and culture seem to revolve around Pokémon they way they do – these things can’t just be ignored, and you can’t beat them, so it’s probably best to join them.  Just giving a moment of thought to what must happen when Gyarados, Tyranitar and Hydreigon actually arise in the wild suggests some fun stories (look at the Lake of Rage storyline in Gold and Silver for starters); they may not have the kind of world-changing effects that legendary Pokémon like Groudon and Kyogre do, but they’d certainly have the potential to cause a major shake-up of any ecosystem.

Hydreigon may be an environmental cataclysm waiting to happen, but when he’s on your side he’s nothing short of awesome.  He’s a fully-evolved Dragon-type; awesomeness is practically his birthright.  He has some painful vulnerabilities (particularly Ice and Fighting attacks) but these are balanced by multiple useful resistances and immunity to Ground and Psychic attacks.  What I’m pleased about is that Hydreigon has a different kind of awesomeness to the other Dragon-types; other than the various legendary Dragon-types like Latias, he’s the only Dragon Pokémon that prefers special attacks to physical attacks.  It’s a little odd that he’s the first, really – back when attacks were designated physical or special according to their element rather than individually, Dragon techniques were all special, not physical, and the original Dragon Pokémon, Dragonite, has a wide selection of powerful special attacks.  Hydreigon’s, actually, isn’t nearly as varied in comparison, but it’s still plenty.  The most important weapon in Hydreigon’s arsenal is Draco Meteor, which I’ve described in the past as the tactical nuke of Pokémon.  Draco Meteor’s recoil halves a Pokémon’s special attack stat, so really you can fire it twice at most without switching out, which makes it difficult to work with, but it’s one of the strongest attacks in the game and only Steel-types resist it.  Draco Meteor was scary when Salamence had it, and Salamence is primarily a physical attacker; in Hydreigon’s hands this attack is downright terrifying and if you don’t have a Steel-type or a Blissey on hand to block it, your best course of action is probably to let out an exaggerated sigh, summon a Pokémon that’s been talking smack at you lately, and sweep up the ashes when the battle is over.  Because of the crippling recoil effect, Hydreigon can’t just fire off Draco Meteors willy-nilly; his primary source of damage should usually be Dark Pulse, or potentially Dragon Pulse if you want a more consistent source of Dragon-type damage.  With his wide selection of other special attacks – Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Earth Power (careful with this one; Earth Power and Dark Pulse are both hereditary moves for Hydreigon, so he can’t have both), Surf, Flash Cannon, Focus Blast and Hyper Voice – Hydreigon can learn ways to eradicate just about any opponent.  He’s also the only Dragon besides Flygon to learn U-Turn, making him a good skirmisher – nuke something with Draco Meteor, then bounce back to the Pokéball with U-Turn.  Finally, Hydreigon easily has a good enough physical attack stat to use physical moves like Outrage, Crunch, Earthquake and Head Smash to surprise opponents expecting a special attack.  Hydreigon’s biggest flaw is the same as Haxorus’ – namely, he’s ‘fast,’ but slightly slower than a lot of other powerful Pokémon like Salamence, Garchomp, Flygon, Mienshao, Infernape and Volcarona, all of whom have attacks that will knock Hydreigon out of the sky.  Hydreigon is, as the designers intended him to be, one of the most devastating weapons Black and White have to offer, but if you’re not careful with him then his weaknesses will be exploited.

Unique type combination – check.  Combat role that goes against the standard for his type – check.  Wide movepool with useful choices – check.  Abilities that fit his flavour – check (though I don’t understand why a Dark-type would get Flash Cannon).  General awesomeness – check.  As the heir to Dragonite, Tyranitar, Salamence, Metagross and Garchomp, Hydreigon is one of the most powerful Pokémon in the game – the biggest worry in cases like this is that the designers will go overboard and make them too powerful (see Garchomp) but I don’t think this has happened with Hydreigon; he has enough vulnerabilities to be realistically beatable.  As the most evil dragon Pokémon has given us so far, I’m also satisfied that he’s not just a carbon-copy of his predecessors, and a fitting signature Pokémon for Black and White’s main villain, Ghetsis.  Hydreigon shows, I think, that even Game Freak’s repetitive stock designs – “generic bird,” “generic rodent,” “legendary trio,” “Pikachu clone” – don’t have to be bad things in and of themselves as long as they’re taken as starting points and not complete design templates.  What I’m saying is...

I hereby affirm this Pokémon’s right to exist!

P.S.

I’m going to Italy for a month to study; the place I’ll be staying in has free wireless internet so I’ll still be putting up entries, but since I’ll have a fair bit of work to do my schedule is officially changing from “every three days” to “when I feel like it” until I get home.  Since I’m so close to finishing Black and White (there’s only another eight entries to go) I’ve decided to keep working on that, rather than take a break and look at something else like I did when I went to Greece earlier in the year.  Let’s see if I can wrap this up by Christmas!

Heatmor and Durant

Okay, you remember how I said last time that I thought I was just about done with all the genuinely bad Pokémon?

I was lying.

I’m doing Heatmor and Durant together because, although they aren’t part of a single evolutionary family, they do in a sense ‘go together.’  Heatmor is a bloody great anteater that some delightfully mad person has decided to splice together with a blast furnace or something, and Durant is an angry giant ant plated from head to abdomen in steel, and Heatmor’s favourite food.  Durant, the Pokédex insists, covers itself in steel plating specifically to protect itself from Heatmor, which makes absolutely no sense in a world of elemental ‘types’ with distinct strengths and weaknesses relative to one another.  Why does this make no sense?  Because Heatmor is a Fire Pokémon, and relying on metal armour to protect yourself from a Fire-type is tantamount to suicide according to everything we have ever seen about the way this world works.  Now, evolution (in the real-world biological sense, not the Poké-world pseudozoological whacko sense) is an insanely complicated phenomenon, this I will grant you, but no-one and nothing is going to convince me that natural selection would actually push a species to become more vulnerable to its own major natural predator.  Just to be clear here, I agree that it makes perfect sense for an anteater to be really good at eating ants.  For example, it would make a degree of sense to be told that Heatmor evolved their fire abilities as an adaptation for preying on Durant, since Durant were protected by this steel plating that they had evolved to keep themselves safe from the other crazy wildlife of Unova’s Victory Road.  It would make less sense, but still some, to be told that the Heatmor had come from elsewhere originally and had simply done what was natural by exploiting a local prey animal that was vulnerable to their powers.  All of this, of course, is assuming that Durant’s armour is a biological trait that it’s evolved, but the language of the Pokédex is surprisingly vague: “covering themselves in steel armour to protect themselves from Heatmor” could well mean that they dig up the metal and somehow beat it into shape.  This wouldn’t require turning natural selection completely on its head; it would just require that Durant really are that stupid.

I guess I can live with that.

Anyway, putting all of that firmly aside... Durant are basically big metal ants that dig their nests in rock rather than in soil.  They are utterly nightmarish and I hate them.  I was a little surprised, honestly, to realise that there was no ant Pokémon already, and I suppose it’s good that we have one now.  Nothing about Durant makes me think ‘wow, this is an awesome Pokémon; I am so glad they came up with this one,’ but I guess it’s okay... ish... if you like huge creepy bugs with massive iron jaws.  Now, Heatmor, on the other hand, is such a bizarre idea that I almost can’t help but like him.  You can see with a bit of effort that he’s based on an anteater, but he breathes through his tail, which is shaped like some kind of exhaust pipe, and has body parts that seem distinctly inorganic, like the curling tendrils of iron creeping up his back and torso (maybe that’s a side-effect of his diet?).  “Burning with an internal fire” is not something new to Fire-types; many of them are described that way and I assume most or all of them could be, but taking the idea and actually making a Pokémon with traits of a furnace is a pretty fun idea.  I have trouble understanding why Heatmor isn’t a Steel-type (then again if he were, he’d be doomed to a life spent comparing himself to the other Fire/Steel Pokémon, the legendary Heatran) but he is, again, so wonderfully mad that I have to like him just for that.

Heatmor has problems, though; big ones.  Time for another history lesson.  Back in Red and Blue, Fire Pokémon were terrible.  Being a Fire-type pretty much disqualified you from learning any attacks other than Fire or Normal ones (unless your name was Charizard, in which case you got Earthquake, or Magmar, in which case you got Psychic, but that was about it), and the lack of versatility left most of them struggling to contribute against anything that wasn’t bothered by Fire attacks.  Nowadays, those original Fire Pokémon have been given all sorts of new toys like Rapidash’s Megahorn, Arcanine’s Dragon Pulse, and Magmortar’s... just about everything (Flareon, however, is still terrible because Game Freak decided long ago that Flareon Is Not Allowed To Have Nice Things).  Now along comes poor Heatmor who is right back where we started.  Heatmor has Fire attacks, Solarbeam (which Game Freak started giving to all Fire-types in Diamond and Pearl), and Sucker Punch.  There are other moves on his list but they are maddeningly unhelpful.  He’s also slow and has poor defences.  Sucker Punch helps to compensate for his awful speed by hitting first, and will do reasonable damage because Heatmor, if nothing else, is quite capable with both physical and special attacks, but it only works against opponents about to attack Heatmor directly (it fails against a target about to use something like Swords Dance).  Heatmor can also spread burns with Will’o’Wisp, but most Fire- or Ghost-types can do that, and most Water-types as well now that they get Scald.  I guess he can... use his long tongue to Tickle the opposition and weaken their physical attacks and defences?  Yeah, I’m... I’m grasping at straws now; Heatmor really is terrible and I am honestly at a loss as to what you could possibly do with him that wouldn’t be done better by every Fire-type ever (except maybe Flareon).

Durant is terrible as well but at least it has the decency to be terrible in a unique and imaginative fashion.  It’s even more brittle than Heatmor; its armour affords it... fairly solid protection from physical attacks but it is appallingly vulnerable to energy attacks.  The good news for Durant is that it has only one weakness (Fire), it’s extremely fast, is capable of very heavy damage, has the Hustle trait, which swaps accuracy for even more damage, and can learn Hone Claws, which improves both accuracy and damage.  Basically I’m saying Durant likes to damage things.  Unfortunately this is when the pendulum swings right back to bad news for Durant because its movepool is... well, I don’t want to say terrible because it blows Heatmor’s movepool right out of the water but it’s grim.  Durant’s primary attacks are X-Scissor and Iron Head, but neither Bug nor Steel is a particularly inspiring type offensively and they don’t cover each other very well.  Thunder Fang is very weak but gets a couple of useful super-effective hits, Rock attacks are very useful and strong against a lot of elements, but also inaccurate to start with, which doesn’t combine well with Hustle, and that’s about it.  Bug/Rock/Steel isn’t bad, but it’s hardly stellar – and you need Hone Claws in that fourth slot to compensate for the accuracy drop associated with Hustle, so you can actually rely on its attacks.  This highlights Durant’s big weakness (besides Fire): most Pokémon that use boosting attacks like Swords Dance or Calm Mind can at least try something and be reasonably effective if they don’t have time to set up properly.  Without Hone Claws, all of Durant’s attacks have a significant chance of missing completely, and it just isn’t tough enough to cope with the consequences.  If you’re using a Durant with Swarm (which powers up Bug attacks when his health is low) instead of Hustle, you need to ask yourself “why am I not using Scizor?”  If you’re using a Durant with Truant instead of Hustle you need to get your head checked.  A Truant Pokémon only even moves once every two turns (by the way, I have no idea why an ant, a stereotypically industrious creature, would get this, even as a Dreamworld ability) – Durant, notably, can use the Entrainment technique to copy this awful, awful ability onto an opponent instead, but the crippling effect lasts only until the target switches out and gets its old ability back, and in order to do even that much, you’ve had to a) give your Durant Truant and b) use Durant in the first place.  Don’t.

I really am spoiled for choice here.  Heatmor is pretty cool, but unambiguously awful for reasons that the designers should be familiar with from Red and Blue, while Durant fights in a unique and amusing style but is still pretty bad, and has flavour that isn’t nearly so amusing.  Well... at least I can take comfort in having seen worse.

I hereby deny this Pokémon’s right to exist!  Let them be tossed back through time to the Galapagos to become part of Darwin’s collection; that’ll fox the smug bastard!

Vullaby and Mandibuzz

I think I’m just about through the Pokémon that are genuinely bad now.  A lot of what’s left is, for want of a better term, so-so – like the female counterparts to Rufflet and Braviary, the vulture Pokémon Vullaby and Mandibuzz.  I see some initial sensible choices here.  Vultures are a nice choice for a starting point; their associations are specific and evocative, and Dark/Flying makes sense and isn’t overdone; there’s only one other Pokémon of that type, Honchkrow, who’s sufficiently different from Mandibuzz that it doesn’t bother me.  Honchkrow is into plots and schemes, while Mandibuzz is a far more straightforward opportunistic predator.  She also has a macabre fashion sense: Vullaby and Mandibuzz ornament themselves with bones and even build their nests out of bones.  This was Cubone and Marowak’s thing, of course, but that’s not such a problem; they wore skulls as (I think) some kind of creepy honour thing, whereas for Vullaby and Mandibuzz it’s mostly about protection and decoration.  No, the thing that bothers me about Vullaby and Mandibuzz is how silly their bones make them look.  Vullaby is known as the “diapered” Pokémon, so yes, that eggshell-shape around her lower body (which is actually made of plates of bone) is indeed meant to look like a nappy.  I don’t know whether Mandibuzz is supposed to look like she’s wearing an apron but that’s certainly what I think of, and the domestic imagery of Vullaby’s nappy makes me think this is exactly what’s meant to be conveyed here.  Perhaps it’s just me, but this sounds incredibly ridiculous when applied to Dark-type Pokémon who, in keeping with the usual stereotypes of that element, habitually pursue injured and vulnerable prey (not carcasses as real vultures do, incidentally) and use the bones of their victims as armour and building material.  There are ways this could make sense.  “Pokémon that seem savage to us, but that’s just how nature works; actually they have a caring and maternal streak” is a concept I could really get behind if Vullaby and Mandibuzz were actually portrayed that way.  The Pokédex just dwells on the things I’ve mentioned already: Vullaby and Mandibuzz like bones and prefer to fight weaker opponents.  This way, if you take out the annoying parts, they’re really just stereotypical cartoonish portrayals of vultures, which isn’t very interesting.  Finally, I usually prefer not to talk about names, but Mandibuzz, while it does have an appealing sound to it, doesn’t work with the rest of the design.  -buzz obviously comes from the buzzard, a bird of prey, but a common complaint about Mandibuzz is that it sounds like it comes from mandible and buzz-saw, and ought to be the name of some dreadfully vicious Bug-type, or at least something very aggressive (which, as we’ll see, Mandibuzz isn’t).  The internet suggests that Mandi- comes from mandil, the Spanish word for apron, which I’m beginning to think is what they had in mind, but who would think of that first?  Maybe this is a New Zealand thing and mandil is a really common word in parts of the US that have a lot of Spanish speakers.  Again, I don’t like complaining about names, but I don’t think it’s sensible to pick a name with such an obscure meaning when it also has a far more obvious meaning that doesn’t fit the design at all.

Thanks to her bony mantle, Mandibuzz has very good protection against most direct attacks – she’s comparable to Skarmory, one of the best defensive Flying-types in the game, in her ability to endure physical attacks, which is no mean feat, and she’s almost as effective against special attacks (where Skarmory fails miserably).  She’s also a little faster than Skarmory.  What, you might well ask, is the catch?  Skarmory is a Steel-type, and is therefore resistant to more than half of the attack types in the game, while Mandibuzz is a Dark-type and is decidedly less impressive: her three resistances (Ghost, Dark and Grass) are reasonably useful ones, but far less significant than her three weaknesses (Rock, Ice and Electric).  Neither is affected by Ground attacks, although Mandibuzz probably benefits more from her immunity to Psychic attacks than Skarmory does from his immunity to Poison attacks, and her Overcoat ability protects her from Sandstorm and Hail damage (Skarmory’s immune to Sandstorm damage too, but hey, take what you can get).  Skarmory is a lot more effective – but that’s not exactly surprising; Steel Pokémon make effective tanks because it’s what they’re made for.  Mandibuzz stacks up reasonably well against other defensive Flying Pokémon like Drifblim, Altaria and Mantine – and once again, Honchkrow, the other Dark/Flying dual-type, has a very different style to Mandibuzz, being a high-powered mixed attacker.  The other really good news is that, unlike poor Braviary, Mandibuzz can inherit Roost from a father of the appropriate species and use it to heal herself, so – again, unlike poor Braviary – she can use her remarkable bulk to its maximum potential.  Mandibuzz does also have one major edge over Skarmory besides her impressive special defence: U-Turn.  By letting Mandibuzz switch out after attacking, U-Turn can give her trainer a major tactical advantage, and if you’re choosing to use Mandibuzz over Skarmory, you should definitely consider it.

Now for the bad news.  Very few Pokémon can match Mandibuzz in both toughness and speed (she’s not exactly quick, but for a tank she’s quite light on her feet... or rather, her wings – an advantage for using both U-Turn and Roost).  However, she’s managed to do all this by sacrificing heavily on the offensive side of things.  Mandibuzz requires extremely powerful attacks to inflict significant harm on her opponents, and the only one available to her that’s strong enough is Brave Bird, which deals recoil damage and compromises her toughness.  She has enough hit points that she can take recoil damage fairly comfortably but has no other reliable attacks that are even remotely strong enough to make up for her awful attack and worse special attack stats.  This being the case, Mandibuzz basically has two ways of actually harming things.  The first is Toxic, which anything can learn, although Mandibuzz is admittedly rather good at stalling Pokémon out.  The second is Whirlwind, which will blow Pokémon out of battle and bring new ones in.  This will only hurt anything if one of Mandibuzz’s teammates has prepared Spikes, Toxic Spikes, or Stealth Rock for her, so some kind of support is pretty much mandatory here, and even then it’s a fairly roundabout way of killing things.  Any Steel-type can more or less ignore Mandibuzz completely, and Poison-types with good resistance to physical attacks like Drapion are fairly safe too, because unless you’ve taught her Bone Rush (an unreliable attack, to say the least) she’s likely not to hurt them at all, ever.  One expects trickery from a Dark-type, and Mandibuzz is not without options there, but they aren’t spectacular; Punishment and Payback are very situational, Mean Look is amusing but there’s not a whole lot Mandibuzz can do with a trapped Pokémon other than just blow it away again, and Mirror Move is just asking for trouble.  She’s fast enough to make reasonable use of Taunt, at least, and tough enough that she’s likely to be fairly happy with opponents who are only allowed to use direct attacks against her; defensive Pokémon already hate Mandibuzz because her main source of damage is Toxic, so Taunt is certainly a logical choice if you can spare the move slot.

For what she is, Mandibuzz is fairly solid; her main flaw is that Skarmory’s best strategies are more or less the same as hers and Skarmory has nine resistances and can set up Spikes for himself.  If we accept that it’s not Mandibuzz’s fault Game Freak were so absurdly nice to Steel-types to begin with, she’s not really too bad.  If you like Dark-types or want a versatile tank that can block special attacks as well as physical ones, there are worse choices than Mandibuzz, and I can’t think of any other Pokémon that fights quite like she does.  I cannot get over the utter silliness of her design, however.  I cannot, try as I may, bring myself to call Vullaby and Mandibuzz clever or interesting and I don’t think that the elements of their design support each other.  This really is a shame because we need more well-done bird Pokémon; so many of them have terrible flavour and terrible abilities, and I’m tempted to let Mandibuzz pass on her strengths alone, but I’m just not happy with the overall impression.

I hereby deny this Pokémon’s right to exist!  Let its bones be ground to make our bread!

Pawniard and Bisharp

It was, of course, a statistical inevitability that we would eventually get a set of chess-themed Pokémon – and here they are, the sword-wielding Dark/Steel Pokémon, Pawniard and Bisharp.  In fact, not content with merely using bladed weapons, these Pokémon are literally made of interlocking blades, just to make absolutely sure that they can cut you to ribbons just by running into you.  As always, the first question is: what were Game Freak thinking here?  I don’t mean that rhetorically or sarcastically, I’m genuinely curious.  This design seems to be going in a couple of different directions and I’m not sure which one they started from or where they’re trying to take them or how they’re supposed to fit together.  Their vicious and aggressive personalities seem to follow sensibly from the blade theme, which seems to be Pawniard’s main schtick (or alternatively, simply from the fact that he’s a Dark-type; the vast majority of them are born to be jerks).  Then, on a completely different tack, we have the chess idea, with their names referencing the pawns and bishops of European chess.  Pawniard’s body shape, particularly the rounded head, seems intended to mimic the shape of a pawn, and Bisharp could likewise be seen as fairly similar in appearance to a bishop, although that one’s a bit of a grey area.  I’m not sure what to make of the chess motif since it doesn’t seem to extend beyond that.  Pawniard hunt in groups led by a single Bisharp, which might be taken to imply that Bisharp have an aptitude for strategy, but that’s all I can find (also, if chess is what the designers had in mind there, one would expect to find two Bisharp in a band, since there are two bishops in a chess set).  Honestly, that seems to me like a really weird design choice – naming a pair of Pokémon Pawniard and Bisharp hits some very specific and very obvious notes, and I don’t understand why you’d want to hit them unless you intended to go somewhere with them.  From what I’ve been able to find out, the chess pun isn’t as strong in their original names, Komatana and Kirikizan – koma is the word for a piece (any piece, not a pawn specifically) in Japanese chess, and Kirikizan doesn’t seem to be a chess pun at all (there are bishops in Japanese chess, which work in exactly the same way as European bishops, but the word for them is kakugyo) – or in the names they have in other languages.  I’m left wondering whether the translated names are just inappropriate.  If not chess references, though, what is the point of these two?

The thing about Bisharp that sticks out the most at me is how much he reminds me of Gallade, the Psychic/Fighting knight Pokémon of Diamond and Pearl.  I see a humanoid body shape, I see arm blades, I see rounded helmet-like heads and I see curved head crests (I even see similar combat attributes – switch their physical defence and special defence scores, and Bisharp and Gallade would be uncannily similar – but I’ll talk about that later).  Bisharp would actually be strikingly appropriate as a dark counterpart to Gallade: a “black knight” to Gallade’s “white knight.”  Unfortunately that’s not what he is; he’s just something that the designers thought was cool the first time and might be cool this time too.  Again I don’t really know whether this is actually the idea they had in mind, because if so, it’s not really referenced at all.  This brings me back to my initial point: Pawniard and Bisharp seem to be made up of a whole bunch of ideas jostling against each other, any of which could be done extremely well, but they’re all jumbled up to produce a result that’s vague and confusing, and not nearly as cool as it should be.  To his credit, though, Bisharp is one seriously badass Pokémon.  Gallade may have done it first, but the art is still a nice take on that idea.  It’s a shame there isn’t something more coherent to back it up.

So, what can Bisharp do for you?  He is not, for the most part, a subtle Pokémon.  He likes to stab things, and stabbing things is very much what he is geared for; he has an excellent physical attack stat.  He can also weather physical attacks fairly well, though special attacks are another matter.  Unfortunately, his speed is average at best, so he’s unlikely to make it as a sweeper out of the box.  Bisharp can buff either his speed with Rock Polish or his attack with Swords Dance; now, normally with an attack stat that high I would suggest that he could plausibly do without Swords Dance but unfortunately Bisharp’s offensive movepool is quite sad.  His primary Dark attack is the relatively uninspiring Night Slash, and his main Steel attack, Iron Head, while somewhat stronger, is still a Steel attack, and Steel attacks are comparatively easy to resist and strong against only two elements (Rock and Ice).  For backup attacks, he learns Brick Break, which compliments Night Slash brilliantly but is only slightly stronger, X-Scissor, which suffers from similar problems to Iron Head, and Stone Edge, which is a legitimately good attack but will have you beating your head on your desk every time it misses.  This is all Bad News.  The Good News is that Bisharp is a Dark-type, and Dark-types know how to fight dirty: they get Pursuit and Sucker Punch.  Pursuit lets Bisharp chase down Pokémon as they’re being recalled and deliver a nasty hit before they escape, but does little damage to opponents that stand and fight, while Sucker Punch lets him attack before a faster Pokémon and is far stronger than moves like Quick Attack, but only works on opponents who are about to attack Bisharp directly (it just fails if your target is about to use, say, Recover, or if it switches out).  These attacks are difficult to get the hang of, but extremely useful.  They’re also exactly the kind of thing most Dark Pokémon can do; Sucker Punch in particular is very popular for Pokémon with Bisharp’s unfortunate disjunction of power and speed, like Absol, Spiritomb and Honchkrow, so it’s hardly new.  Moreover, Sucker Punch is just about Bisharp’s strongest source of damage, which is worrying considering its hit-and-miss nature.  It’s hard to see why anything that resists Sucker Punch would even care about Bisharp; you shouldn’t take him too lightly but for a Swords Dancer with his natural strength he’s surprisingly lacklustre.  Probably the best reason to use Bisharp over, say, Absol is his ridiculous number of resistances, but honestly that says less about Bisharp than it does about how easy it is to make something at least decent by slapping the Steel type on it.  Probably the thing I like most about Bisharp is his cool Defiant ability, which gives him an attack boost equivalent to a Swords Dance whenever an opponent tries to lower his stats.  Situations where this would give him the advantage aren’t likely to come up often, but it’s a handy deterrent to a particular kind of aggression, and more importantly it’s his; it’s not a common ability and it fits his flavour nicely.

In summary, I’m disappointed in Pawniard and Bisharp.  They have potential, certainly, but I’m simply not convinced that the designers actually knew what they were aiming for.  I almost suspect that two or three different people who didn’t speak to each other very often are responsible for these Pokémon.  The things that make Bisharp good at fighting (and he is at least vaguely competent; now that we’ve got him you may as well use him if he appeals to you) are, quite simply, the things that make other Dark-types and other Steel-types good at fighting.  I am, to put it bluntly, not “feeling it.”

I hereby deny this Pokémon’s right to exist!  Let it be sliced into fragments by a billion paper-cuts!

Golett and Golurk

Today on Pokémaniacal I’m looking at Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man, a Marvel Comics superhero who made his debut appearance in 1963 and has since-

...I’m sorry, I seem to have wandered into the wrong blog.  Normally I do Pokémon stuff.

Oh, really?  Huh.

*Ahem*  Today on Pokémaniacal I’m looking at Golett and Golurk, the automaton Pokémon.  These two are based on golems (as distinct from Golem, the evolved form of Graveler), humanoid guardian creatures from Jewish folklore originally associated with the city of Prague, which have since worked their way into a number of high fantasy settings as the magical equivalent to robots.  Nowadays golems can be constructed from just about any material you care to name, the more outlandish the better, but as Ground-types Golett and Golurk seem to follow the original in being made primarily out of clay.  They are likewise believed to have been created by ancient people to act as protectors (goodness knows how the things are still around after all this time).  So far, so good.  As more astute readers will have guessed by now, I am convinced that Golurk is a great big Iron Man reference, for three reasons which I will describe in order from least to most blatant.  First, it has an ability called Iron Fist and naturally learns some Steel attacks, including Iron Defence.  These are perfectly fitting and sensible things for Golurk to have; even on a humanoid Pokémon with an artificial appearance they don’t mean much on their own.  My friends think that its entire body looks metallic, like tarnished bronze, and that Golett and Golurk look more like Ghost/Steel Pokémon than Ghost/Ground ones; personally I disagree (the shape and smoothness of Golurk’s torso make me think of glazed pottery; I think its body is primarily ceramic), but I digress.  Second, the Pokédex explains that “removing the seal on its chest makes its internal energy go out of control,” which sounds an awful lot like a reference to the... glowy blue sciency thing... in Iron Man’s chest.  Third, and to my total astonishment, Golurk can fly.  The Pokédex explicitly notes that it can fly (at the speed of sound, no less... normally I would be annoyed by this since Golurk is actually rather slow, but in this case it’s easy to imagine it flying like a rocket – all speed and no control – while being slow and clumsy on the ground, where he does most of his fighting) and, in fact, he can actually do that: in the games he can learn Fly and take you from town to town.  In summary, we have a flying humanoid protector with an artificial appearance, a power source in its chest, and a couple of metal-themed abilities.  I hate pop culture references, but I will grant that, if I am looking at what I think I’m looking at, Golurk is remarkably restrained about it (compared to, say, Gothitelle), so it doesn’t get in the way of what this Pokémon is actually about.  As for how well the “constructed guardian” thing actually hangs together... well, I’ve always suspected that Sigilyph was something like this, thousands of years in the past, but that’s entirely speculation on my part.  Golurk clearly is intended to suggest that humans had some part in its creation, which raises interesting questions about where Pokémon come from, how they related to people long ago, and what place Golett and Golurk have in the world now.  This is a concept you could do a lot with.  Their art is nicely done too; Golett is weirdly cute, Golurk looks strong, inscrutable, almost sinister, and the spiral motif and the mysterious glow that pours from their insides add a little extra life to the designs and remind us that, although they were created by “ancient science,” the division between science and magic may be a little vague here.  In short, I think these are really well done.

Golurk is not by any means a remarkable Pokémon in battle, but it gets the job done – and that job is bashing things.  Hard.  Its type, Ghost/Ground, is unique and confers a fantastic three immunities (to Normal, Fighting and Electric attacks) but also multiple common weaknesses (notably to Surf, Ice Beam and Pursuit).  Golurk’s strengths are its mighty physical attacks, its fairly solid defences and its ability to hit all Pokémon for at least neutral damage with a combination of Ghost and Fighting attacks.  Its flaws are its regrettable lack of speed and the aforementioned multiple common weaknesses (which, together, make it rather easy to kill if you’re not careful with it), as well as the anaemic Ghost-type attack it has to work with, Shadow Punch.  Golurk’s Iron Fist ability makes all punching attacks 20% more powerful, but Shadow Punch is so terrible to begin with that this only pushes it up through the floor and into the bottom of the barrel.  The good news is that Golurk’s other type provides it with a tremendously powerful Earthquake, such that although most Water Pokémon will destroy it fairly easily one-on-one, few of them are entirely comfortable switching in against it.  Rock Slide or Stone Edge, depending on whether you prefer power or accuracy, compliments Earthquake, and you can round out your Golurk with Hammer Arm, which is dangerously strong after the Iron Fist bonus (yeah, it makes you slower when you use it; who cares? Golurk outruns, like, three Pokémon that actually matter anyway).  Alternatively, you could teach it Rock Polish to make it faster, although I don’t think I’d recommend it; that kind of strategy is incompatible with Hammer Arm, which is one of Golurk’s major selling points, and Golurk is easy enough to scare off that you’ll probably have to switch it out and loose the speed boost before too long anyway.  Its other cool trick is Iron Fisted Focus Punch, which can dish out astronomical amounts of Fighting-type damage, but because Focus Punch always goes second and fails if you take any damage, it more or less demands that you use it with Substitute, which uses a portion of your health to create a dummy that absorbs attacks for you, thus protecting you while you focus.  Several Pokémon can do this, and even with Iron Fist Golurk isn’t the strongest, or the toughest.  Whatever role you want Golurk to take, his biggest draws are his unique typing, those lovely immunities that come with it, and Earthquake; although almost every respectable physical attacker can learn it, very few (six, by my count, one of them a top-level legendary) can produce one stronger than Golurk’s.

It really is a shame Golurk doesn’t learn Thunderpunch; an Iron Fisted Thunderpunch would have most Water-types running in terror.  It’s also an incredible shame that there are no decent physical Ghost-type attacks; that sounds like a contradiction but since there are indeed Ghost-types like Golurk that animate physical bodies (and have been since Banette in Ruby and Sapphire) we do in fact need one.  Given that, Golurk would be a wonderful Pokémon despite its glaring vulnerabilities (and they really are bad).  As is, it’s underwhelming.  Perhaps one day it will be given that missing piece it needs, but until then I’m prepared to wait.  Golurk is a unique Pokémon with a fun design that provokes some fascinating questions.  Apparently it’s the work of the same guy who was responsible for Vanilluxe; if he thinks he’s been forgiven, he’s got another thing coming, but I guess it’s a start.

I hereby affirm this Pokémon's right to exist!

Druddigon

What do most people think of when they hear the word “dragon”?  Reptilian traits are practically a given, and you can usually expect flight, but there’s a lot of room for interpretation.  You might think of an ancient, majestic and fiercely intelligent creature, possibly with magical powers, or you might think of a terrifying fire-breathing predator that ravages the countryside while snacking on maidens (or possibly the other way around).  You might think of both at once.  You might also think of a grumpy old jerk who sits in a cave all day muttering darkly to himself and snapping at strangers.

Well, you might.

This big ugly git is Druddigon, the cave dragon Pokémon.  He doesn’t have Dragonite’s serene wisdom, Salamence’s terrible power, Altaria’s preternatural grace or Flygon’s aura of mystery, and it drives him absolutely nuts.  Druddigon is technically a Dragon-type, largely because there’s nowhere else to put him, but he’s very much the (literally) red-headed stepchild of the group.  He has wings, but I don’t think he can fly (he learns Aerial Ace, but that means nothing); the wings just provide a nice big surface area for taking in sunlight, which Druddigon needs to stay active since he’s cold-blooded.  If his body temperature drops too low, he becomes sluggish and eventually immobile.  In winter, Druddigon seem to retreat into deeper caves and other places where they can stay warm, and no longer appear outside; personally, I suspect they hibernate.  While active, Druddigon are vicious predators that chase prey with surprising agility through rough mountain terrain and narrow cave passages.  This is all in stark contrast with older Dragon-types, who tend to be characterised by their limitless vitality and power over natural phenomena.  In a number of places, but most notably in Blackthorn City, Dragon Pokémon are revered as holy beings.  Druddigon and the other new pure Dragon-type, Haxorus, as well as Garchomp from Diamond and Pearl, are powerful, sure, but they’re much more down-to-earth.  I’m not sure whether I like this or not.  On the one hand, variety is always better.  On the other, I personally feel that it’s their mythical status that holds Dragon Pokémon together as a type; after all, Kingdra isn’t much of a dragon when you think about it, and Altaria certainly isn’t.  Back in Gold and Silver, I remember that one of Clair’s gym trainers essentially defined Dragon-types as Pokémon that are filled with life energy, which doesn’t seem to fit Druddigon at all.  At some point you have to start asking yourself what all these Pokémon actually have in common.  I admit, though, I’m probably complaining about something that doesn’t bother most people.  Druddigon certainly looks the part; more so than Altaria at any rate, and something about an ill-tempered, not especially mythical dragon that lurks in a cave waiting to bite your head off has a certain appeal.  It’s a lot closer to what a dragon is like in European cultures than, for instance, Dragonite.

Let’s talk about Sheer Force.  Sheer Force is a special ability Druddigon has that makes some of his attacks more powerful: specifically, any attack that has a secondary effect loses that effect, but gets a 30% power boost, rendering all kinds of normally underpowered attacks quite usable.  This doesn’t normally work for negative effects like recoil damage, with one important exception: a Pokémon holding a Life Orb (an item that powers up all direct attacks by 30% in exchange for draining 10% of its wielder’s HP with every hit) doesn’t take recoil damage for attacks that would trigger Sheer Force anyway (no, holding a Life Orb does not make all attacks eligible for Sheer Force). Druddigon has all of the usual benefits associated with just being a true Dragon – multiple resistances, few weaknesses and powerful attacks – but this is what he has to differentiate himself from the other single-typed Dragon Pokémon, Haxorus, as well as all the other powerful dual-typed Dragons out there... and boy, does he need it.  See, I have a theory that Druddigon is in the game mainly to make Altaria feel better about herself.  In Diamond and Pearl, a world of Dragon Pokémon who commanded world-destroying power, Altaria was hands-down the weakest of the lot, with lacklustre attacks, average speed and defences that, although they were her strong point, actually weren’t as good as Dragonite’s.  Well, no longer!  Druddigon is far stronger, physically, than Altaria, but he’s much slower (and can’t learn Dragon Dance to speed himself up) and not as resilient.  This should give you an idea of how well he stacks up against the major Dragons – based on his raw numbers, he sort of doesn’t.  This is why, if you’re planning to use Druddigon over one of the stronger Dragon-types, you must abuse the hell out of Sheer Force at every opportunity, so let’s have a look at how we can do that.

Druddigon does not learn any Dragon-type attacks to which Sheer Force is applicable.  He really should, because there is one – Dragon Rush, which no-one ever uses because its accuracy is a miserable 75%; Druddigon would use it if he had it, though, because he can actually boost his own accuracy with Hone Claws.  Alas, it was not to be.  Still, there’s enough power for anyone in every Dragon-type’s go-to attack, Outrage.  The other attack you’ll be drawn to is Earthquake, for the Dragon/Ground combination that has always served Garchomp so well, but personally I’d advise Druddigon to eschew Earthquake because it doesn’t get a Sheer Force boost, and every attack he picks up that doesn’t get a Sheer Force boost brings him one step closer to being an inferior version of Haxorus.  Fire Fang, on the other hand, does get a bonus, turning it into something that most Dragon Pokémon would kill for: a physical Fire attack that’s actually halfway decent.  Even accounting for Druddigon’s weaker attack stat, Fire Fang will still do more damage than Dragonite’s Fire Punch, the most powerful comparable attack (and let him hit every Pokémon but Heatran for at least neutral damage).  He can likewise manage impressive electrical damage with Thunder Fang, Rock Slide gives him a Rock attack which is at least comparable to the other Dragons’ Stone Edge while being more accurate, and Crunch doesn’t score a lot of super-effective hits but will be pretty powerful after Sheer Force.  When all’s said and done, though... these are not strong reasons to use Druddigon.  He’s horribly slow, so he kind of needs Sucker Punch (which doesn’t get a Sheer Force boost either) to avoid being shanked by faster Pokémon.  He can’t heal, so his decent defensive stats are of moderate utility at best.  His disruptive options... sorry, his disruptive option is Glare, a paralysing attack which... well, it’s less accurate than Thunder Wave, but... it works on Ground-types, I guess?  His absurdly bad speed stat does at least make him easily the most appropriate Dragon for use in a Trick Room team (where being slow is a good thing), but if he really is in the game to alleviate Altaria’s crippling self-esteem issues, he succeeds admirably.

Pokémon like Dragonite are quite literally the very best, like no-one ever was.  Even Flygon and Kingdra, by all rights top-tier Pokémon themselves, seem a tad lacklustre in such company.  Poor Druddigon and Altaria have to pull out all the stops just to compete on an even footing with their cousins at the stuff that they’re best at.  Creating a Dragon Pokémon at this kind of level is setting it up to fail, nothing more and nothing less.  Game Freak have set the bar very high for Dragon-types and in Druddigon they have not met it; it’s hard to imagine that Lance could have had Druddigon in mind when he said that Dragon Pokémon are “virtually indestructible” and that “they’re hard to catch and raise, but their powers are superior.”  Druddigon’s a cool Pokémon who doesn’t deserve to be overshadowed the way he is, but I can’t allow this to stand.  Come back when he has a lot more HP and Dragon Rush, and I’ll consider it.

I hereby deny this Pokémon’s right to exist!  Let it be slain by a valiant knight in glorious battle!