"There's not a single person who can defeat me when fighting in the desert!"
- Sir Crocodile, One Piece (Chapter 178, Page 7)
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Sandshrew/Sandslash
Type: Ground
Ability(s): Sand Veil
One of the new Pokemon that you can find in the desert area of Route
111, Sandshrew seems like a decent option until you realize that being
ground typed after midgame is more of a curse than a blessing.
Sandshrew starts off quite impressive on paper, being at absolute worst 3
levels from evolution, where he gets 100/110 physical stats, and having
access to the Dig TM right off the bat, giving him a strong STAB move
that covers most of the things that you would find in the Magma Cavern
(as well as the Space Center after the Mossdeep gym), but ground isn't
very useful elsewhere due to enemies in between Mauville and Lilycove
using types that are resistant or immune to ground, not to mention that
both Winona and the twins laugh at Dig (Juan destroys him even if Ground
was mutually effective against Water, and while he's not bad against Norman, he isn't
great either).
Sandslash's level-up movepool is absolutely disgusting outside of Lv24
Slash, so TM support is absolutely vital. While I already mentioned Dig,
Earthquake is yet another must if Sandslash is to stay relevant during
the endgame stretch, and since he's a ground type, there is zero excuse
to denying him EQ. The coverage he gets is also good, even if they are
contested. Rock Tomb synergies well with Dig/EQ and allows our armadillo
to do something to Winona, but you will find that its power really
sucks by this point in the game and Rock Slide isn't available until the
postgame. Likewise, he can use Aerial Ace, which gives him much needed
coverage against grass/bug types and Brick Break, which gives mostly
redundant coverage with EQ and is only useful against Sid's grass types
(STAB EQ hits everything else for the same magnitude as a super effective Brick
Break), but like I said, those moves have huge competition.
Compared to something like Golem, Sandslash will find that he doesn't have
the Rock typing that makes them useful against Norman and Winona, and
it does not help that while he is rather fast for his type, he is still
rather sluggish and really wants the quick claw for some of the later
fights, like against Drake. Also, compounding his sorrows is the fact
that everything after Lilycove is a massive waterfest, though
thankfully, he's only takes double damage from water unlike a certain
rock ball and can OHKO most of them due to a level advantage. Still, it
hurts, and the water kings obviously have their way with him.
Basically, ground typing is only really useful in the midgame, and
Sandshrew misses that portion of the game and has to deal with a series
of anti-ground routes followed by ocean.
3.5/10
Trapinch/Vibrava/Flygon
Type: Ground, Ground/Dragon (Vibrava/Flygon)
Ability(s): Hyper Cutter/Arena Trap (Trapinch), Levitate (Vibrava/Flygon)
Another Pokemon that you can be found in the Route 111 desert area,
Trapinch is, in a way, like Nino: Starts out quite bad, but given some
training, can turn out to be quite devastating.
And boy oh boy does Trapinch start out unimpressive. On one hand, we've
got 100 attack, which is completely insane for a first form and allows
Trapinch to do some major damage, especially considering the Dig TM is
gotten before you even get access to the desert. On the other hand, 10
speed is among the worst in the game, and Trapinch isn't especially
bulky either, so more often than not, he'll end up getting killed before
he can get a shot off (either through sheer force or getting flinched
to death.) And unlike Sandshrew from before, Trapinch doesn't have an
early evolution to look forward to, instead evolving at the high level
of 35. Still, before then, Trapinch can still tear shit up with STAB
Dig, the Strength HM, and maybe Bite/Crunch on ghosts/psychics, but face
it: 10 speed with 45/45/45 defenses hurt, and like I said, ground
typing simply isn't very helpful after Lavaridge.
So what if he is? Vibrava gains dragon typing upon evolution, which
neutralizes his water and grass weaknesses and gives him a fire
resistance, as well as gaining Levitate, making him a perfect counter
for those Numels you face in the Magma Hideout. Also added to his
arsenal is STAB Dragon Breath, though that won't do much coming off 50
SpA. Speaking of stats, while his speed has increased sevenfold, he lost
30% of his attack upon evolving, effectively giving him Linoone level
offense, and we all know how good Linoone's lategame offense is. This
combined with durability that is worse than Spinda's makes him
undesirable against the twins, though Crunch will still leave a dent in
Xatu and Solrock. And using him against Juan is a joke and a half
considering that not only does he take massive damage from his STAB
Water moves, but both Sealeo and Kingdra carry ice moves, which basically kill him faster than you can say "fuck". Getting Earthquake at this
point does help, but Vibrava is pretty much a negative in that fight,
as a whole.
Thankfully, the fruits of the labor of training this failure of a Pokemon will come to pass once Vibrava reaches Lv45, when he finally
evolves into Flygon, regaining his old attack stat, as well as getting
massive all around boosts. Of course, this is likely going to happen
when you are at Victory Road's doorstep, so Flygon's contributions are
pretty much limited to the elites, which he has an ok performance in.
Sid and Phoebe can be dealt with by him for the most part (you may want
Flamethrower for Shiftry and Cacturne, EQ will take care of the rest of
Sid's team), though you may want to be wary of Phoebe's second Dusclops,
which knows Ice Beam. Drake is hit or miss, since you hit him super
effectively with Dragon Claw, but he's hitting you hard as well, and
Glacia and Wallace are both no goes due to heavy Ice Beam usage.
There's not much to say about his movepool, other than the fact that
outside of Dragon Breath and Crunch, his level up learnbase sucks. He
needs TMs to have existing Ground STAB due to learning Dig too late as
Trapinch (Lv41? Seriously?), and Dragon Claw comes hella late, nevermind
the fact that Vibrava can't use it anyway. As for anything else, I
already mentioned Flamethrower, which can help take out grass and bug
types, but Giga Drain is also an option if you really hate Whiscash. And
like with any ground type, Rock Tomb synergies well with EQ, but is
laughably weak otherwise.
In a nutshell, Flygon is awesome, but the waiting period before that
happens is too long, and Trapinch and Vibrava's stats do not justify
waiting 25 levels.
3.5/10
Baltoy/Claydol
Type: Ground/Psychic
Ability(s): Levitate
Baltoy is like Swablu, if Swablu had worse defensive lategame typing,
but had access to suicide moves and had better overall defenses post
evolution.
First of all, Baltoy already comes with Self Destruct, so if you don't
have something that can put him to sleep (Damp is inaccessible until
Psyduck is obtainable), I recommend just chucking Great Balls at him (the
catch rate is 255, so you have a pretty good shot at catching Baltoy from
full HP). Once you have caught your Baltoy, besides Self Destruct, he'll
have Psybeam, Rock Tomb, and Mud-Slap, which besides the last one, is
actually a pretty good selection of moves (replace Mud-Slap with Dig
ASAP). However, even with a good selection of moves, you will find that
Baltoy's offenses are shit. With 40/40 offenses and typing that isn't
great after midgame (though being able to smoke Numels in the Magma
Hideout is pretty sweet), he will wait a loooong time before his Lv36
evolution, at which point his offenses will increase to a still crappy
70/70, which isn't what you want to be seeing lategame.
What Baltoy lacks in offense, he makes up for in durability, or so it
seems. While 40/55/70 defenses are pretty cool for something that is
unevolved, they do not help much when Routes 119 and 120 are full of
grass trainers that hit him super effectively, not to mention that
everything after Lilycove is a massive waterfest (granted, it's not anywhere near as
bad as what Golem and Camerupt go through, since Claydol has 120 SpD and isn't double weak to water),
though resisting the twins' main form of offense is quite cool. Too bad
Claydol is doing fuck all to them in return. Not helping matters is the
fact that the elites all have ways of killing psychic types, not to
mention that Glacia and Wallace target Claydol's ground type.
Another thing in Claydol's favor is Self Destruct with its 400 effective
base power. While he won't reap the exp from killing whatever the hell
he blows up, it is nonetheless a great option to take out or at absolute
worst weaken something (Norman's Slaking, anyone? Juan's Kingdra is
another obvious target.) Explosion is even stronger with a heart
stopping 500 power, but it comes way too late.
While Claydol's offenses suck, he isn't hurting for good moves, which is
a plus. While he starts out rocking Dig and Psybeam, he later picks up
Earthquake from the Seafloor Cavern and Psychic from either Victory Road
(too late to matter) or the Game Corner (better availability, but costs
70K). Ice Beam is another move worth considering on Claydol, allowing
him to pick off Drake's dragons as well as giving him something to use
against Winona (by the way, not a good idea since you aren't OHKOing
Tropius or Altaria with 40 SpA and Tropius will sunny beam your ass, not
to mention Pelipper and Skarm basically laugh at you). If you are dead
set on using him against the twins, Shadow Ball is a must, but there are
far better users out there, so blegh.
Another thing worth mentioning is that you can find Lv38 Claydol in the
sky tower, thus bypassing the ubermassive suck phase that Baltoy goes
through, but at this point, his contributions are limited to Juan and
the elites, which, as I've mentioned, he's not doing much in other than
committing suicide, except against Drake due to Ice Beam.
Basically, while Claydol has a notable niche, he is partially outclassed
by Weezing and Golem in that niche, and his offenses suck too much to
be of much use elsewhere. Not to mention the downsides of being ground
typed during lategame.
2.5/10
Cacnea/Cacturne
Type: Grass, Grass/Dark (Cacturne)
Ability(s): Sand Veil
The last wild Pokemon to be found in the Route 111 desert, Cacnea is
different from the rest of the desert denizens in that he's a grass type
that lives in groundville. Coming at Lv20-22, he's of a decent enough
level to not lag behind and face the trainers here for easy exp,
especially considering you hit them super effectively and you are immune
to sandstorm by courtesy of Sand Veil. Lack of a grass STAB until Lv41
hurts, but that is what the Bullet Seed TM is for.
Like with most grass types, Cacnea's utility stems from lategame, where
pretty much everything after Lilycove is ocean. While Cacnea isn't very
helpful against Norman outside of maybe seeding Slaking and is doing
jack shit against Winona, he really starts showing his worth once you
set out from Mossdeep, where he can easily take out the hordes of water
types as well as the water kings, and helping matters is the Dark typing
that Cacturne gets upon evolution (which should happen soon after
Winona considering Lv32 is pretty reasonable and he learns Feint Attack 3
levels before that, immediately giving him STAB on that type), allowing
him to easily deal with the twins since their primary attack option
doesn't work against him. As you can probably imagine, this makes him
very handy against Phoebe as well.
Like Treecko, Cacnea is more geared towards offense, though he wishes he
were a bit faster since 55 speed coupled with 70/60/60 defenses means
that Cacturne has some issues surviving shit that he doesn't resist,
which is basically the entirety of the Magma Hideout and both Glacia and
Drake, though thankfully, he resists water and is immune to psychic.
However, 115s in both attacking stats are downright scary, especially
considering that grass is one of the best types to have in the lategame,
with dark not being too far behind. Even as Cacnea, 85's in either
offense are no joke.
While I would mention that Cacturne's movepool is sparser than the hairs
on FE7!Wallace's head, the truth is that he gets by just fine with the
moves he does get. While Lv29 Feint Attack is certainly welcome indeed,
he does wish he learned Needle Arm earlier than Lv41 (though you'll
still have it before you face Juan), though once again, he can make use
of Bullet Seed and perhaps Giga Drain to pass the time. Unfortunately,
his physical movepool isn't as good, but at the very least, he can use
either the Secret Power TM or the Strength HM, and if you are really
anal about using him against steel types (which aren't even all that
common), he can pick up Focus Punch.
In a nutshell, Cacnea is a lot more useful to an efficient player than
the other desert mons, and has great boss matchups thanks to his dual
Grass/Dark typing post-evo.
6.5/10
Lileep/Cradily
Type: Rock/Grass
Ability(s): Suction Cups
If you chat with the fossil maniac who lives in the shanty just west of
Fallarbor Town, he will tell a tale of a mysterious tower that randomly
spawns in the Route 111 desert. Scale this tower (you will need Rock
Smash and the mach bike to get to the top), and at the very top, you
will find two fossils, each one waiting for the budding trainer to pick
up and take to the Devon Corporation building for resurrection, but you
can only obtain one of them before the credits. This rating covers the
Pokemon that you can get if you took the root fossil from that tower.
Lileep has one of the worst starts out of the Pokemon that join during
this point in the game, sporting 41 Atk/61 SpA/23 Spe offenses and a
very unhelpful natural movepool. While the Bullet Seed TM can be helpful
in giving him some much needed STAB, a natural offensive movepool
consisting of Astonish, Constrict, and Acid until Lv48 Ancient Power is
completely fucking disgusting. Not helping matters is the fact that he
is Lv20, which is around 8-10 levels below your team, though thankfully,
you can return to the desert to train him (though if you're in
Rustboro, why even go back to the damn desert
when Petalburg is just a parsec away) since Grass hits everything and
their grandfather super effective there.
Evolution is another pain in the ass for Lileep. Like with the original
Kanto fossils, Lileep feels the need to wait until Lv40 to evolve, which
is quite late considering that Lileep's combat is pretty unimpressive
as a whole, and he'd really like to be evolved before facing the ocean.
Thankfully, the evolution is somewhat worth it since Cradily gets
something resembling decent offense as well as 86/97/107 defenses,
though he is still slower than molasses in January.
So, with his fancy Rock/Grass typing (which is quite bad defensively TBQH), how does Lileep fare against the various boss fights that are
left? While he can certainly survive Norman's onslaught, he's not doing
much there due to a lack of offense, and while he's certainly a lot
better than Winona than other grass types due to his Rock typing, he's
not doing a whole hell of a lot there due to not being able to learn
Rock Tomb. Against the twins, Cradily is actually pretty good here,
hitting Claydol, Lunatone, and Solrock super effectively with STAB Giga
Drain and easily tanking their attacks since everybody except Claydol
targets his 107 SpD, and while he doesn't resist water like other grass
types, he is pretty comfortable against the water kings due to hitting
them SE with Giga Drain and having 107 SpD to soak up their hits.
Outside of Wallace, he's not doing anything significant against the
elites due to not having sufficient offenses for sweeping, though he
does hit all of Glacia's Pokes super effectively with Ancient Power
(btw, his late/endgame STABs both have 5 PP, so he will end up eating
through your Leppa berry supply), but is getting iced in return.
Like with a lot of grass Pokemon, Lileep has some movepool issues. I
already mentioned that his level up movepool is absolutely disgusting
outside of Ancient Power... which is learned while going through Victory
Road. Another thing that is fucked up is the lack of a damaging grass
move in his level up arsenal, necessitating the Bullet Seed and Giga
Drain TMs. But even looking through his TM and move tutor movepool, it
isn't all that pretty before evolution, either. While I would normally
never consider a Poison move on something that doesn't get STAB on it,
Sludge Bomb is nonetheless Lileep's best option of dealing good (a bit
of an oxymoron due to Swablu level attack) damage to things that resist
Grass before evolution, and later on, he can use Earthquake for more or
less the same role (though that shit is the most contested thing ever
and there are far better things to spend your only TM26 on).
In a nutshell, if you picked up the root fossil from the Mirage tower,
you probably just made a mistake that you will later regret.
3/10
Anorith/Armaldo
Type: Rock/Bug
Ability(s): Battle Armor
The other fossil Pokemon you can obtain by taking a fossil (in this
case, the claw fossil) to the Devon Corp scientist for resurrection,
Anorith is very much Lileep's polar opposite: While Lileep specializes
in tanking hits, Anorith excels in killing things. 95 Atk/75 Spe is
completely insane for a first form, and it helps that he joins during a
time when rock is still relevant offensively (and defensively, though
45/50/50 defenses aren't exactly great for tanking hits from Norman)
However, Anorith's starting moveset kind of sucks, though Water Gun is
kind of cool against ground types (though it will not do much off 40
SpA). Unlike Lileep, Anorith is fully compatible with the Rock Tomb TM
right from the get go, so he has usable STAB. Even without the Rock Tomb
TM, he gets Ancient Power at Lv37, which is far more reasonable than
when Lileep gets it. While Rock Blast is an even stronger option, and
has the benefit of hitting multiple times, that is learned at Lv64, so
forget about it for ingame purposes.
Like Lileep, Anorith wishes he evolved sooner than Lv40. Unlike Lileep,
Anorith's unevolved phase isn't shitty, just unspectacular due to being a
total glass cannon, and he really wishes he evolved before fighting
Winona (since he's good there offensively). However, when he does
evolve, Armaldo becomes a complete wrecking ball with 125 base attack,
and is quite bulky to boot, with 75/100/80 defenses (but a mediocre
defensive typing). However, his speed takes a big dip, going from 75 to
45, which I will admit sucks, considering that a lot of enemies are
faster than this, but with attack and overall bulk this good, he cares
very little (the occasional flinch sucks, though).
Anorith's boss performance isn't all that great, to be perfectly honest. While he does
resist Norman's STAB, his subpar durability almost makes the resistance
not matter, and against Winona, he's tearing shit up with Rock Tomb,
though he wants nothing to do with Pelipper or Skarm, not to mention
that Rock Tomb's base power kind of sucks at this point, so you won't be
doing as much damage as you would like. As for the lategame gym
leaders, while Armaldo would theoretically be awesome against the twins
due to bug typing, the problem is that the only bug move he gets prior
to generation 4 is Fury Cutter, which you shouldn't even bother with,
and he is avoiding Juan at all costs. His elite performance is also
certainly better than Cradily's by a long shot (other than Wallace),
mainly due to the fact that Armaldo has an offensive presence. Another
thing in his favor is that against Glacia, Armaldo isn't hit super
effectively by ice while hitting hard with Ancient Power in return, only
really fearing Walrein due to it being the only thing on her team that knows Surf. Speaking of water, while the ocean isn't particularly kind to Armaldo, he can actually absorb weaker hits just fine
thanks to his actually decent special defense.
Like Cradily, Armaldo kind of gets shafted in his level up movepool,
though it's a lot better considering he gets his best ingame move 11
levels earlier than when Cradily gets the same move, not to mention that
Lv25 Metal Claw is a lot more useful than fucking Acid. I would mention
Rock Blast, as that's his actual best move, but good fucking luck
learning it before the credits since that's learned at Lv64. As for TMs,
Armaldo is actually quite a bit better off than his counterpart,
getting some pretty cool stuff like Aerial Ace and Brick Break, not to
mention the highly contested Earthquake (though at least he actually has
a good claim on it, unlike Cradily).
All in all, a decent sweeper who is only really hindered by a high
evolutionary level and a low speed stat after the fact. That and ocean.
5.5/10
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