DPPt/HGSS Bellossom or Vileplume + Movesets? Help!

[Linkachu]

Sometimes I hate choices. They hurt my brain

So, I have a Gloom. A Gloom I really love for some odd reason. But it's gonna have to evolve someday... The question is, to what? o.o;

Bellossom and Vileplume both have the same base stats aside from Special Attack and Special Defence. Vileplume has a higher Sp. Attack while Bellossom has a higher Sp. Defence (the stats are switched). They also learn a few different attacks. Bellossom can learn Magical Leaf through use of the Move Tutor, while Vileplume can learn Aromatherapy (a very, VERY useful sounding attack IMO).

Then there's the type combination Vileplume has verses Bellossom's pure Grass. Poison means Vileplume isn't resistant to Ground attacks and has an added weakness to Psychics, but it is resistant to Fighting types and doesn't have a weakness to Bugs or other Poison Pokemon.

Makes Vileplume seem like the better choice, eh? Only problem is... What to give it?

A quick skim of its moves gave me this set:

Solar Beam
Aromatherapy (Because it sounds great)
Sludge Bomb (STAB, and it does have a decent attack stat)
Sunny Day (For Solar Beam and its Ability)


I'm very reluctant to using this moveset because Sludge Bomb is the only offensive attack I can use in one turn, but it would probably work nicely. Gloom also learns Sleep Powder and Moonlight, though... Then there's Petal Dance, but I fear Petal Dance.


Bellossom wouldn't need Sunny Day/Solar Beam. Magical Leaf would be enough, but what else could it know then? Sludge Bomb wouldn't get STAB. I guess you could give it this, though:

Magical Leaf
Sludge Bomb
Moonlight
Sleep Powder


Decisions... I think I'm leaning towards Vileplume because of its higher Sp. attack stat and STAB but I'd like to hear more moveset ideas for it. Which would you go with between the two, and what movesets would you give 'em?

All opinions are appreciated... And no. Eggmoves are not an option.

 

[baratron]

Vileplume and Bellossom are a bit annoying because they only learn Grass, Poison or Normal moves - nothing else that uses the Sp Atk stat. So it's difficult to take advantage of Vileplume's high Sp Atk stat without putting multiple Grass moves on.

As for the Sunny Day + Chlorophyll ability, I've always been worried about using Sunny Day on a Grass pkmn, because it powers up Fire attacks, giving the enemy the option of switching to a Fire type (or another pkmn with a Fire move - potentially worse, as you won't have warning) and incinerating you messily. I have the Sunny Day / Solarbeam combo on my Houndoom (along with Flamethrower), and I'm thinking of using it on Castform as well. Obviously, if you've had no problems with it, then use it. I've just never dared .

Petal Dance is cool. It's a rampage over 2-3 attacks that leaves the attacking pkmn confused (like Uproar, or Outrage). But in the normal game you can heal confusion with a Yellow Flute, or you could have Vileplume hold a Persim berry to heal the confusion without losing a turn. Petal Dance, which does damage of 70 per turn, is also more powerful than Solarbeam, unless Sunny Day is in play. I am also keen on Giga Drain, which does 60 damage per turn with healing - the same as an unpowered Solarbeam. It only has a crappy 5 PP but you can boost that up to 8 PP with PP Ups (and if you're playing in Emerald which I assume has berry-growing facilities like Ru/Sa, you can just cultivate plenty of Leppa berries to recharge it between battles).

And you could always try Hidden Power to see whether it comes out as something Special. I always have a huge stack of TM 10s from FR/LG Pickups, so it wouldn't really be a waste.

I suppose I'd go for:
Vileplume @Persim Berry
Sleep Powder
Petal Dance
Sludge Bomb - for STAB, also a powerful attack
Hidden Power - & hope it's useful, or replace with e.g. Facade ?

Vileplume can also learn Mimic and Double-Edge from the FR/LG Move Tutors, if you still have access to one. Dunno if either of those would give you more options.

Sorry I can't help more - although I love Grass Pokemon, the Oddish line has never been in my top 5, mostly because of their lack of flexibility compared to other Grass types (but also because of the Ru/Sa Safari Zone where you can't move without seeing a billion of them!).

 

[Linkachu]

Sorry I can't help more - although I love Grass Pokemon, the Oddish line has never been in my top 5, mostly because of their lack of flexibility compared to other Grass types (but also because of the Ru/Sa Safari Zone where you can't move without seeing a billion of them!).

You were a great help. I was hoping you'd give a reply

Compared to something like Treecko Oddish is a very limited Pokemon (not one of my top choices either), but since my only other choice for a Grass-type was Roselia I think I made the right decision ^^;

Its Hidden Power would be worth checking out. Who knows... Might get something worth while.

 

[baratron]

Heh. Thanks for the compliment. You do realise that everything I know about Pokemon strategy I learned from you? You were the person who got me out of the mentality of giving everything STAB, and taught me that I needed to think about my Pokemon's weaknesses and find moves to cover those...

Another advantage of Vileplume over Bellossom is that the Grass/Poison dual type is useful. Adding Poison type to Grass reduces the effectiveness of Poison and Bug attacks to 1 x, which helps a lot with defence. It also reduces the power of Fighting attacks to 0.5 x, while increasing Ground to 1 x and Psychic to 2 x - but these aren't quite so worrying because Grass attacks are still 2 x effective against Ground, and 1 x effective against Psychic.

Aromatherapy is one of these moves that I've heard people (the kind of people who use names like Skarmbliss and Tyraniboah) rave about, but I haven't had much luck with in practice. It sounds great, because it heals all status ailments suffered by your team (except Fainted). However, in practice, I didn't find it useful in battle. The examples where it might be useful could be something like:
- you're fighting someone who keeps inflicting Sleep on your pkmn, and you're switching desperately because you can't use items for some reason (like in Colosseum)
- you're fighting a Toxic-shuffler or Burn-shuffler strategy (as might be seen on Skarmory, Mightyena or Houndoom), where the attacker inflicts Poison or Burn status on one of your pkmn, then uses Roar or Whirlwind to keep switching out your pkmn, so that you don't know whether any of your moves will even hit, and your entire team could end up with the same damaging status ailment.

But the problem with using Aromatherapy to counteract these strategies in battle is that it necessitates two things:
1. Your Aromatherapist pkmn being awake or non-paralysed to use the move.
2. Your Aromatherapist being faster than the opponent, so that it can use the move before it gets put to sleep or switched out.

And it's the latter point that's the real problem - someone like Skarmory is really really fast, and it's difficult to outpace it - especially if you've been Paralysed so your speed is down.

When I had a pkmn with Aromatherapy, I actually found it most useful out of battle, as a way of healing ailments cheaply. But in Ru/Sa/Emerald, where you can readily grow berries for free healing, I'm not sure that use is helpful. And if you're using the pkmn as part of your "defeat the Elite Four" team, can you really afford to have a move that is more use out of battle than in?

I did wonder whether Bellossom might be useful as a Tank-type pkmn, which could use:
Substitute or Protect to avoid being hit
Rest + Chesto Berry or Moonlight to restore health
Giga Drain to restore health and cause damage to the opponent
and then something like Attract or Toxic to add severe annoyance, or Safeguard or Double Team for extra protection.

But to do that you'd have to EV train it to have maxed out Def and Sp Def, and you'd need a lot of patience, because it would be a very slow strategy to use. I certainly couldn't use it, because it'd drive me nuts! The tank Grass-type I have is Exeggutor, with Sleep Powder / Dream Eater / Giga Drain, which works well because Exeggutor has decent Sp Atk.

 

[Linkachu]

You're right about Aromatherapy. I've given it some thought, and while it sounds good in theory it'd probably work about as good as Belly Drum does - you just never get the chance to pull it off before fainting. Pokemon who Burn/put you to sleep, though, won't have 100% accurate attacks (at least not first turn, ie. Yawn), and Whirlwind/Roar always goes second (as far as I know).

I have to admit one thing, though. The chances of me using Vileplume in competitive battling (aside from Battle Frontier/Battle Tents) is pretty slim so it probably doesn't need that attack. If I did use some of these Pokemon in a Colosseum team I'd probably switch 'em up for others. I guess I just like having good movesets on all my Pokemon, no matter how much I plan to use them outside of the games ^^

An annoyer Bellossom could work, but you're right about one thing - I'm pretty lazy to work a strategy like that (Although, I did have a similar one planned for my Ninetales). My Gloom hasn't really been EV trained for something like that either... Still, it's something to keep in mind.

 

[seve_guy]

Firstly, I love Glooms too.

I love them so much that I sometimes catch four Oddish.

Keep one an Oddish

Keep one Gloom

Plus a Vileplume and a Bellossom.

My pick would be to evolve into Vileplume with these moves,
Solarbeam
Sleep Powder
Sludge Bomb
Moonlight (or Mega/Giga Drain)

 

[Plapti]

Check the dates please. This died almost 3 years ago. Lock'd and Warn'd by Sem.