Single Battle Strategy - Walrein + Gorebyss combo

I thought I’d try my hand at combos, after discussing Battle Tower with Joel at lunch. They’re generally tricky and difficult to pull off, but what the heck…

I decided to start the combo with a Pokemon that could learn Baton Pass and some cool defensive buffs. I settled on Gorebyss – it could pick up Aqua Ring, Baton Pass, and Amnesia…the fourth move slot should be an attack, just in case it has to come back out. I settled on Toxic, although I might come back to Water Pulse.

I figure it can Amnesia and Aqua Ring, then Baton Pass into Walrein. Walrein was chosen for its ability to learn Defense Curl (as Spheal), Yawn (as an egg move), Rollout (as move tutor) and Ice Ball (as a level-up). Why these moves?

First, Defense Curl is going to boost its Defense (Amnesia from Gorebyss will give it Special Defense). Defense Curl also doubles the damage of both Ice Ball and Rollout. Both of those moves continue to grow in power over multiple turns, until they miss or hit round 5. They need Walrein to stick around.

I’m hoping that Aqua Ring, Amnesia, and Defense Curl will keep Walrein around as it pounds away with its double-damaged attacks. I put Yawn as the 4th move, so that Walrein might have a slight warm-up chance. Its Ability was kind of a toss up, so I went with Ice Body, just in case I toss in Hail somewhere for more HP gain.

I bred a Sealeo with an Adamant Ditto (+ Everstone), until I got an Adamant-natured female Spheal. I then bred a male Slowpoke who knew Yawn, with the newly hatched female (+ Everstone). Defense Curl didn’t show up as one of the beginning moves – I figured I would come back to it, as I didn’t have a Heart Scale lying around. (MISTAKE! I levelled it up to Sealeo, then to Walrein, and then realized I had to Heart Scale it while it was still a Spheal. I reset the game, and it turned out that I had saved it while it was still a level 27 Spheal. Whew!)

In Platinum, it gained Rollout from the Move Tutor in the post-game island. Sadly, I was short on Green Shards! All of this training lately has been draining my Heart Scales and shards. Fortunately I had some Star Pieces still, and I ran over to the end guy in Fuego Ironworks, who gives you 1 of each shard for a Star Piece.

I’m debating its held item right now – Leftovers for HP gain, or Wide Lens for accuracy so that Ice Ball and Rollout won’t miss (and thus stop building up).

All it took after that was some levelling up after all that. Now I need to go make its combo-buddy, Gorebyss.