Small Questions Thread

[wraith89]

Oh we're talking bulky attackers?

Blissey was an extreme case because of her polarised stats: very low physical Defence and already high base HP means investing Defence serves better. I suppose it's the same for Wigglytuff. You can even see things like Drifblim invest more in Defences than HP due to that reason. Having more HP is generally the simpler way because it adds more survivability in both sides. Uninvested can leave stuff like Blastoise with 299 HP cap with 31 IVs, and that's not desirable. But usually when there is Defence or Special Defence invested, it is to survive something specialised. I even remember at one point someone said 52 HP/204 Def on Donphan is bulkier physically than just going 252 HP altogether, but of course not on the special side. It's a tough case, but if you feel like you're not surviving something (for example 252 HP/12 Def on Metagross survives an Earthquake from Dugtrio or something or 156 HP/100 Def Gyarados survives 3 CB Scizor's Quick Attacks, and I even invested HP and Def on Moltres to survive 2 + 2 Extremespeed from Lucario or something...) try to use a damage calculator to test it out. But like randomspot said, generally you want to invest in HP over the defences for bulky attackers.

[Gin]

Spoiler

Oh we're talking bulky attackers?

Blissey was an extreme case because of her polarised stats: very low physical Defence and already high base HP means investing Defence serves better. I suppose it's the same for Wigglytuff. You can even see things like Drifblim invest more in Defences than HP due to that reason. Having more HP is generally the simpler way because it adds more survivability in both sides. Uninvested can leave stuff like Blastoise with 299 HP cap with 31 IVs, and that's not desirable. But usually when there is Defence or Special Defence invested, it is to survive something specialised. I even remember at one point someone said 52 HP/204 Def on Donphan is bulkier physically than just going 252 HP altogether, but of course not on the special side. It's a tough case, but if you feel like you're not surviving something (for example 252 HP/12 Def on Metagross survives an Earthquake from Dugtrio or something or 156 HP/100 Def Gyarados survives 3 CB Scizor's Quick Attacks, and I even invested HP and Def on Moltres to survive 2 + 2 Extremespeed from Lucario or something...) try to use a damage calculator to test it out. But like randomspot said, generally you want to invest in HP over the defences for bulky attackers.

wraith is basically right. However, when talking about natures, it's better not not bother with this kind of stuff for now. Because natures always give you 10%, it's silly to use a bold nature on blissy for that extra like 5-10 defense rather than a calm nature for like 50 spdef, unless it saves you in a very specific case. And by the time you're building teams to be safe from those cases, you'll know what you're doing.

[DowntownOwl]

I'm raising an Eelektross but part of me wants to keep it as an Eelektrik and slap an eviolite on it. The additional 25 base special attack would be great with Eelektross but the double defense on Eelektrik would be spectacular too. Any advice on my decision would be greatly appreciated.

[wraith89]

If you are talking in terms of competitive viability, Eelektrik is not all too bulky, and despite the "no weakness", its lack of resistances does not help it much. Also, Eelektross's movepool is very expansive; you are missing out a lot when you leave it as an Eelektrik (well until it learns moves that you need it to learn, so no evolving until it learns all that it needs to from Eelektrik stage). There's Flamethrower, Grass Knot, Brick Break, etc from Eelektross that would really help because its role was meant to be a hard hitting wallbreaker Pokemon. Otherwise, an Eviolite Eelektrik is more like a bad Ampharos, only slower and not as hard hitting.