I really hated this thing before… all the foongus and
amoongus disguising as items and then they give you all kinds of status
conditions… I once found a shiny foongus but lost it to a freaking magikarp
when I didn’t know what wonder trade did. Did I mention wonder trade is bull?
But then I had this amoongus… one that became a valuable team member in competitive
play for me. The pokemon reviews are back, and I’m here to start this new era
with a… what rank is it? Lemee check smogon… rarely used. God, I hate having to
reference smogon…

Now amoongus is a grass and poison type, because of course
we don’t have enough of those. Amoongus may not seem as remarkable, but trust
me, it gets better the more you evaluate him. His abilities are pretty good,
his main ability, Effect Spore, giving the opponent a ten percent chance of
being poisoned, paralyzed, or put to sleep. His hidden ability is also very
remarkable. Regenerator allows you to restore a third of your health every time
you switch out. That’s the remarkable thing, amoongus can have so many
strategies inputted into it. Let’s see the stats it has…

HP 114: It’s highest stat on here, other than this and its
lowest stat it’s very balanced
Attack 85
Defense 70
Sp Attack 85
Sp Defense 80
Speed 30: You won’t be out speeding many things out there,
so be careful around any foe that has a trick up their sleeve

Now for its movepoll, it won’t learn any extra moves before or
after it evolves so I’m checking the times you learn moves from before it
evolves to when it evolves at level 39.

Level 1, Absorb: This is the first of a nifty bunch of grass
moves that do damage to the opponent and restore half the damage they did to
you as health, good to start with. Only problem? Just 20 X 1.5 base power.

Level 6, Growth: This move is nice to have for a boost if
you plan on having a physical AND special movepool as a foongus as it raises
both attack and defense at the same time. Gotta train to get to the 60’s.

Level 8, Astonish: A ghost type move that does a marginal 30
base damage but has a 30% chance of making the opponent flinch.

Level 12, Bide: This move is always a gamble, for 2 turns
you can’t move, but on the third turn you deal double the damage you took while
biding. I’d always recommend counter or mirror move instead if it can learn it,
but amoongus can’t so just forget this move.

Level 15, Mega Drain: This is the upgraded version of
absorb, dealing double the damage. Be sure to keep this until the next
installment of "Invasion of the HP suckers".

Level 18, Ingrain: This move restores your HP every turn,
but this is a huge risk because the drawback is that you can’t switch out after
using this move. If a fire, ice, or psychic etc. type comes along you’ll just
have to take it like a man. Woman. Gotta consider the feminists.

Level 20, Feint Attack: By far in terms of offensive moves,
this is the best. This dark move does 60 damage and never misses. Now I still
recommend using mega drain when you can, as it does the same damage with stab
and restores health, but when you need a physical dark move with the same power
that you can always rely on this will be coming along with you for a while.

Level 24, Sweet Scent: Don’t need it, it lowers enemy
evasion. Why bother when you have feint attack?

Level 28, Giga Drain: The ultimate in the drain moves, it
does a whopping 75 X 1.5 damage AND restores half the damage you deal as
health. Love this move, hug it, cherish it, and never let go.

Level 32, Toxic: At this point you can start customizing
amoongus as you see fit. Toxic, being one of the best poison moves, would help.
Toxic badly poisons an enemy, where instead of a steady damage rate every turn
the damage slowly increases if the enemy stays in. However there are more
potential ways to mess with your opponents coming up…

Level 35, Synthesis: Depending on the weather this move
restores your health, which is good considering its highest stat being HP. If
it’s rainy, hailing, or during a sandstorm, it restores a quarter of your
health, if no weather, half of your health. But when it’s sunny you restore all
your health! Another good move to keep around to stay in the game.

Level 43, Clear Smog: A useful poison move, it does 50 X 1.5
damage and its additional effect is that it cancels out any stat changes.
Swords dance? Nullified. Curse? Nullified. But it also works if the stats are
lowered, so watch yourself. Oh, and it always hits, so that’s good.

Level 49, Solar Beam: If you plan on using drought or sunny
day to boost synthesis, this move is for you. Doing 120 X1.5 damage and 100
accuracy, the problem is that it takes one turn to charge, another to fire.
This can be changed if you have a power herb, but if you want another item and
love synthesis you can use sunny conditions to restore full health with
synthesis AND use solar beam instantly! Just devastating.

Level 54, Rage Powder: This causes an opponent to aim only
at your amoongus, so if you need to tank hits for an ally you can also do that.
Yeah, whose gonna be rarely used now smogon?

Level 62, Spore: This move has 100 accuracy. With that out
of the way, it also puts opponents to sleep. WH00T! Only problem with this is
amoongus’s low speed, but you can use this to stall for using synthesis and
then attacking if you can.

Now those are all the moves it learns with leveling up, but
there’s still plenty of TM moves it learns, so here’s my recommendations for 2
ways to amoongify opponents.

The sunshroom. This amoongus is equipped with a quick claw,
giving it a chance to move first. It knows sunny day, synthesis, solarbeam, and
spore. It can put enemies to sleep, summon the sun, and then start healing and
attacking as it wishes.

The venonator. This one knows giga drain, toxic, venoshock,
and substitute, and it contains black sludge to support its health. Focus on making
substitutes and use giga drain when low on health or venoshock to cripple the
enemy. You can even choose to replace a move other than toxic with double team
just to assure your chances of waiting the foe out, or if you have regenerator
keep switching back and forth to annoy the opposition.

Now that’s a good summary of how amoongus went from a
pokemon that pissed me off, to a star on my team. He’s basically 2 in one, and
I go use thief on a luvdisc just to switch from toxic mode to day mode. Now I’d
recommend putting all EV’s into Sp Attack as you can’t really rely on any
physical moves, but mainly focus on that high HP. So that’s all for now, hope I
can keep these up and not go on another hiatus, ML OUT!



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