Pokemon Super Effective Files: Poison Spotlight

This week I’m going to focus on the Poison type in Pokemon. Dragalge will be the spotlight, but first I’d like to go over some info about the Poison type in general.

There are strengths and weakness like any type and I think it is important for you to get a better understanding of how this type is compared to others.

Poison Type Info

The Poison type in general is very helpful, though many people may not use an actual Poison type Pokemon. It is strong against 2 types, Grass and Fairy, and weak against 2 types, Ground and Psychic.

Defensively, they are solid by taking half damage from Grass, Poison, Bug, Fighting, and Fairy.

Offensively however, they deal half damage to Poison, Ground, Rock, and Ghost. They also cannot damage Steel at all.

This doesn’t mean that it is a bad type, nope, it is actually really good. Poison moves cause damage over time, and Toxic is one of the best moves to use in competitive battling. It badly poisons, which is more than the normal Poison moves, the enemy and causes increasing damage each turn until they could pretty much instantly faint from 1 turn of Poison damage.

There is also the move Toxic Spikes, which puts down a layer of spikes so that whenever an enemy Pokemon switches into battle, they get poisoned. You can even lay down 2 or more Toxic Spikes to cause the enemy to become badly poisoned.

The best part about these 2 moves is that most Pokemon can learn them, even if they don’t have the Poison type.

When it comes to actual attacks, there is usually no reason to use a Poison move unless the Pokemon using it is also the Poison type. Right now, only Grass and Fairy is weak to Poison, and with all the other attacks you can learn, it is only really worth using Poison attack on Fairy types.

The reason for this is that you usually want the Poison status effect and using Toxic or Toxic Spikes is a much better choice. Again, this doesn’t mean Poison type are useless, there are some great ones. The one I’m showcasing today is one of my favorites, the Poison/Dragon type Dragalge.

The Power of Poison

Dragalge is also weak to Ice and Dragon type moves because of the Dragon type it gets, but it also gets additional resistance to Fire, Water, and Electric types. It has a high Special Defense and a decent Defense, but mediocre HP.

• HP: 65
• Attack: 75
• Defense: 90
• Special Attack: 97
• Special Defense: 123
• Speed: 44

Skrelp evolves into Dragalge at level 48. It also has 2 normal abilities, Poison Point and Poison Touch, and 1 hidden ability, Adaptability.

• Poison Point has a 30% chance of poisoning the enemy when you get hit by a move that makes physical contact. 

• Poison Touch, my personal favorite, has a 30% chance of poisoning the enemy when you hit them with a move that makes physical contact.

• Adaptability increases the Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) from 1.5x damage to 2x damage.

The Poison Wall

Since Dragalge has a great Special Defense, it makes a decent Special Defense Wall/Stall, which is used to defend against Special Attacks. 

I have it hold Black Sludge, which works like Leftovers except it only recover HP each turn if a Poison Pokemon holds it.

Sassy is the best nature to use since it raises Special Defense and lowers Speed, which is really low already. Any nature that raises Special Defense will work though since this style is used to just survive and stall.

I made mine max Special Defense in Super/EV training, but then split the remaining in HP and Defense. You could also just go straight Special Defense and HP, or even put some in Special attack, which is decently high.

I prefer Poison Touch because of the moveset I use, plus you want to use Dragalge against Special Attacks and not physical ones.

The moveset I use is: Sludge Bomb, Toxic, Dragon Tail, and Protect.

• Sludge Bomb is a powerful Poison special attack. It is STAB and takes advantage of the naturally high Special Attack Dragalge has.
• Plus, it gives a chance to poison the enemy while dealing damage.
• Toxic is the bread and butter and ensures you get high Poison damage on the enemy.
• Another option is Toxic Spikes which goes well with the moveset and style I chose.
• Dragon Tail is the reason I have Poison Touch as my ability. It physically hits, so it has a chance to Poison Pokemon and it also sends Pokemon out of the fight and brings a new one in.
• This is also great for getting rid of Pokemon that are immune to poison, or switching in other Pokemon to use Toxic on or to get hit by Toxic Spikes.
• Protect cements the Wall/Stall status of this Pokemon. I use this every other turn to stop all damage, make sure the enemy takes more Poison damage, and to recover HP from Black Sludge.
• This is your main move if you are using this Pokemon defensively and you want to chip away the enemy’s HP with Poison damage.

That’s it for this week’s Pokemon Super Effective Files! I hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to showcasing a new one next week!