Pokemon Super Effective Files: Ice Spotlight

This week’s Super Effective Files focuses on Ice-type Pokemon. The spotlight will be on Avalugg, but first I want to take some time to go over some general info on the Ice type.

Ice is peculiar type in Pokemon since it is separate from Water. Many RPGs will count water and ice as the same type and give them the same strengths and weaknesses.

Pokemon treats them separately, which they really should, as it presents more options and makes things more realistic. Water beats Fire, makes sense, so Ice is weak to Fire since it can melt it. However, there is much more to Ice types than just being realistic.

Ice Type Info

Ice-type Pokemon were one of the best to have in early generations, because it was the only type that was super effective against Dragons (besides other Dragons). They deal 2x damage to Grass, Ground, and Flying types as well. They only deal half damage to Fire, Ice, Steel, and Water.

For defense, they take half damage from only other Ice types. They take 2x damage from Fire, Fighting, Rock, and Steel. As you can see, they aren’t the best in the defense department, but it is still a solid choice.

There are plenty of Ice moves to choose from, and most have the unique ability to cause opponents to freeze. Frozen Pokemon cannot use any moves until they are thawed out, similar to the Sleep status. Moves like Ice Punch and Ice Beam are very powerful and have the chance to freeze opponents.

Ice also has a weather effect move called Hail that will damage any non-Ice Pokemon every turn it is active. It doesn’t have as many helpful effects as other popular weather moves like Sunny Day or Rain Dance.

Most of the time, Ice is best used when it is a dual type, but today’s spotlight on Avalugg will show how defensive Ice can be.

The Power of Ice

I won’t go over the type strengths and weaknesses of Avalugg because it is a pure Ice type. When it comes to Defense, Avalugg’s stats are extremely high. Even the Attack is pretty high, with a good HP to go on top of it all. The other stats, particularly Speed, are abysmal. 

• HP: 95
• Attack: 117
• Defense: 184
• Special Attack: 44
• Special Defense: 46
• Speed: 28

Bergmite evolves into Avalugg at level 37. It has 2 normal abilities, Own Tempo and Ice Body, and 1 hidden ability, Sturdy.

• Own Tempo – Prevents Confusion.
• Ice Body – HP is restored by 1/16th of its maximum HP every turn during Hail.
• Sturdy – Immune to One Hit KO moves and will remain at 1 HP if it is hit by a move that would make it faint when at full health.
• This one is good for being able to get an attack off on Pokemon that could easily faint Avalugg, as long as you are at full health.

The Unbreakable Avalugg

Avalugg’s biggest strength is easily its outrageous Defense stat. This makes it a great physical wall, regardless of type. It can survive nearly any physical attack, except some really powerful ones like a Close Combat from a mega evolved Lucario.

Since it also has a pretty high Attack, you can deal some good damage or even take out other Pokemon when you’re not defending.

Impish is easily the best nature, since it raises Defense even more and lowers a stat it won’t use, Special Attack.

I maxed Defense in EV/Super Training, then split the remaining between HP and Attack. This lets me have the max Defense, while still having a decent HP pool and stronger attacks. You could also try maxing Defense and HP for more a more tanky build, or Defense and Attack for more damage.

Leftovers is my first choice for held items since you can recover HP at the end of each turn. Focus Band or Focus Sash are also good choices, so you can potentially survive a move that would otherwise KO you. Only use Focus Sash if you don’t have the Sturdy ability.

The moveset I chose focuses on keeping Avalugg in the fight as long as possible, while still hitting the enemy hard. I went with Recover, Earthquake, Roar, and Avalanche.

• Recover – Restores HP by half of its Max HP.
• This is the most helpful ability in keeping Avalugg alive since you can recover any damage you take to stay in the fight longer.
• Earthquake – Powerful physical Ground move that can hit multiple Pokemon.
• This is here just to have a strong attack and it is great for taking out Fire types, which is one of the biggest weaknesses.
• Roar – Makes the target flee in the wild and switches the current opponent Pokemon to a different one in a trainer battle.
• Even though Avalugg is very slow, this is great for getting rid of threats without needing to switch to a different Pokemon.
• Avalanche – Physical Ice attack that deals double damage if the user has been hurt by the target during that turn.
• This move was made for Avalugg. Its job is to take damage and it is so slow that it will almost always go last in the turn. This allows Avalugg to almost always get the double damage boost, plus it gets STAB since it is Ice.

That wraps up this week’s Pokemon Super Effective Files! I’ll be here next week!