RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

The second of our reader requests appears today, the fighting mushroom known as Breloom. This critter has gotten a pretty big boost with the current generation of Pokemon, gaining a new ability, better hold items to play with, and most importantly, an improved movepool. 

Breloom
Grass / Fighting
HP: 60 Atk: 130 Def: 80 Sp Atk: 60 Sp Def: 60 Spd: 70
Ability: Effect Spore: If this Pokemon is struck by a move that makes contact, the attacking Pokemon has a 30% chance to be either Paralyzed, Poisoned, or put to Sleep.
Poison Heal: If this Pokemon is Poisoned, instead of taking damage it will recover 1/8th of its HP per turn.

One of only three users of Spore the game has to offer, Breloom is a very useful and popular Pokemon. Most commonly used to inflict status effects, this is the role it was mostly relegated to in the R/S/E generation. In D/P/P, Breloom has much more flexibility, thanks to a new ability and an improved movepool. A lot of its strategies still revolve around Spore, however, simply because a Sleep move with 100% accuracy is a powerful tool in just about any circumstance.

Breloom has a number of things in its favor besides Spore, though. Breloom’s massive attack stat is its most obvious advantage, though the middling to low speed it has been saddled with is a bit of a problem. Its typing is a bit of a mixed blessing, giving it resistances to both Ground and Rock, something few other Pokemon can claim, but also saddling it with a massive weakness to Flying. Strangely enough, what comes out as being Breloom’s best trait in the end is its ability. Poison Heal is an incredibly useful ability not just for the HP recovery, but because it can make him effectively immune to status. With so many physical tanks using Will o Wisp to supplement their physical bulk, giving Breloom a Toxic Orb or even just switching it into Toxic Spikes will let it avoid getting burned while also providing a nice bit of HP recovery.

For all the bonuses D/P/P has brought for Breloom, it has also amplified its weaknesses. For example, in R/S/E, the only Flying moves Breloom really had to worry about was the odd Hidden Power Flying from Gyarados, or Aerial Ace from Pokemon specifically designed to counter the mushroom man. Now, Breloom needs to worry about Air Slash, Brave Bird, and the unholy terror of Gliscor, who can outspeed and Taunt Breloom before bringing it down with Aerial Ace or Fire Fang. Breloom’s relatively low speed does little to help its poor defenses, too, since one thing Breloom does not enjoy is being outrun.

Breloom has jumped up the ladder a bit in D/P/P, and although it can be a bit tricky to use, there is no denying the power of a perfect accuracy sleep move. With a bit of caution and cunning, Breloom can be a real threat even to things faster and nastier than it is.

Sporangeospore
Breloom @Toxic Orb / Leftovers
Jolly nature (-Sp Atk, +Spd)
Poison Heal ability
252 Atk, 252 Spd, 6 HP
-Spore
-Focus Punch
-Substitute
-Seed Bomb / Stone Edge
This is Breloom’s most popular set, the Spore Puncher. The basic strategy is simple – if you think you can outspeed your opponent, use Spore. The next turn, your foe will have to either switch out or hope they get incredibly lucky (since the minimum amount of time a Pokemon can be afflicted by Sleep is one turn, barring the Early Bird ability), which gives you more or less free reign to Focus Punch their face off.

The rest of this moveset is designed to support Focus Punch and Spore. Substitute can be used on the turn after Spore, as a sort of insurance policy. If they switch out or turn out to have Early Bird, you’ve still got a chance to Focus Punch. Substitute also works well with Poison Heal, as you’ll have enough HP recovery to use Substitute every couple of turns. If you’re feeling cocky, you could use Leftovers instead and try to get your Poison on by switching Breloom into Toxic or Toxic Spikes. The combined recovery of Poison Heal and Leftovers will keep Breloom Substituting until the cows come home, but it’s very risky. Seed Bomb and Stone Edge are included mainly for type coverage – Flying Pokemon resist both Seed Bomb and Focus Punch, so Stone Edge is a good idea to nail the troublesome flying buggers.

Zygospore
Breloom @Toxic Orb / Leftovers
Jolly nature (-Sp Atk, +Spd)
Poison Heal ability
252 Atk, 252 Spd, 6 Def
-Spore
-Leech Seed
-Substitute
-Seed Bomb / Focus Punch
Though it isn’t normally thought of as a defensive Pokemon, Breloom can actually stall fairly well if used properly. This sort of moveset is normally referred to as SubSeed, since it relies on Leech Seed to both damage the foe and to provide your Pokemon with the HP required to use Substitute. Speed is really essential for this kind of moveset, because the faster you are, the less likely it is your foe will be able to block Leech Seed with a Substitute of their own or hit you with a status effect that’ll make life difficult for you.

You might think that, being a defensive Pokemon, the first thing you’d want to do would be to improve Breloom’s HP. But in this case, it’s actually in your best interest that his HP stays low. That way, you get a larger percent of your own HP back from Leech Seed every turn, making it easier to Substitute. In any case, Poison Heal is what really makes Breloom stand out amongst other SubSeed Pokemon like Sceptile and Shaymin, whose huge speed stats would seem to make them a better choice for this kind of set. Poison Heal recovers 1/8th of Breloom’s max HP every turn, meaning that even without Leech Seed in play, you can use Substitute every other turn. This ability to hang on even without one of its critical moves in action makes Breloom a surprisingly sturdy SubSeeder.

The other thing that makes Breloom stand out from the SubSeed crowd is Focus Punch, which gives it an exceptionally powerful attack that works great with Substitute. And, of course, the attraction of a 100% accurate sleep move should never be discounted.

Teliospore
Breloom @Choice Scarf
Jolly nature (-Sp Atk, +Spd)
Poison Heal ability
252 Atk, 252 Spd, 6 HP
-Spore
-Superpower / Sky Uppercut
-Seed Bomb
-Stone Edge
The way most people normally go about defeating Breloom is by outspeeding it, which makes Choice Scarf set a good way to surprise a Breloom counter. The only problem here is, for all the power of a high-speed 100% accuracy sleep move, the Scarf will force you to switch out after one Spore. This problem can be made less significant by including a second Pokemon in your team that loves having a free switch-in – another Choice Pokemon, for instance, or something that needs a turn to set up.

In many cases, the key to using Breloom effectively is not to overestimate its speed. Send it in against slower defensive Pokemon like Blissey or Dusknoir and use them as setup bait, and you’ll be nine tenths of the way home.