Glalie, The Face Pokémon. To protect itself, it clads its body in an armor of ice, made by freezing moisture in the air. It has a body of ice that won't melt, even with fire. It can instantly freeze moisture in the atmosphere. It has the ability to freely control ice. For example, it can instantly freeze its foe solid. After immobilizing its foe in ice, this Pokémon enjoys eating it in leisurely fashion.
Overview
Glalie is an unexceptional Pokémon. It has all-round Base Stats of 80, making it acceptable yet forgettable in pretty much all areas. It's capable of defence or offence, but it's mediocre at both. Being a pure Ice type gives it a nice offensive STAB, but defensively it leaves it with a single resistance and with several weaknesses. Its move-pool has some possibilities though. In particular, its physical arsenal contains the offensive staple, Earthquake, and the ever useful, Explosion.
Trait
Ice Body: restores 1/16th of Glalie's max HP in Hail. Generally speaking, the way you would guarantee Hail being active is by using Abomasnow. The downside is, if you're using Abomasnow, you've probably packed your team with Pokémon who can benefit from Hail, and frankly, Glalie isn't a top choice for a Hail theme-team. Without Hail, this ability is useless, but you can always chance that the opponent will activate Hail for you.
Inner Focus: prevents Flinching. With there being few frequently used flinching moves, it's not overly useful, but it can be of use, particularly against the Serene Grace-abuse sets used by Dunsparce.
Move Sets
Choice Band / Physical Attacker
- Avalanche
- Earthquake
- Crunch / Ice Shard
- Explosion
Item Attached: Choice Band / Life Orb / Expert Belt
Ability: Ice Body / Inner Focus
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
With STAB Ice moves and Earthquake, Glalie has coverage against most Pokémon. With Choice Band, it can be an acceptable Choice Pokémon and with Life Orb or Expert Belt, it can be an acceptable physical attacker.
Avalanche is probably the best choice it has for STAB. Its power is weak, but its power doubles if it takes a hit before using it (something helped by the fact that it'll usually strike last). Earthquake has some great coverage, and importantly, hits Steel, Fire and Rock types (all of which cause it problems).
Crunch mostly serves as an expendable filler, with decent power and coverage but nothing notable. Ice Shard could be put in its place, for when Glalie absolutely has to strike first. Understandably, Explosion is there for a last ditch suicidal attack, and ideally, a KO.
Choice Specs / Special Attacker
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Ground] / Shadow Ball / Water Pulse
- Hidden Power [Ground] / Shadow Ball / Water Pulse
- Explosion
Item Attached: Choice Specs / Life Orb / Expert Belt
Ability: Ice Body / Inner Focus
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Mild Nature (+SAtk, -Def)
Glalie's special move-pool is quite unexceptional. STAB Ice Beam is the main reason to give it consideration, with Choice Specs being available for Choice sets and Life Orb and Expert Belt available for special attacker sets.
Of its three other special options, Hidden Power [Ground] is undoubtedly its best, for the same reason as Earthquake, type coverage. Shadow Ball is a usable filler, like Crunch. Water Pulse is a weak filler, but it has some use against some Fire and Rock types (it's worth noting that a neutral Ice Beam does more damage than a super-effective Water Pulse).
Once again, Explosion is a last ditch suicidal attack. Even without EV support, it still does good damage (especially with a boost from Life Orb).
EVs and Nature:
The obvious spread to go with is 252/252. With Avalanche in use (which usually goes last), one might consider Speed to be more of an expendable stat than usual, but aside from that, there's little variation needed.
Other Options
Spikes, Light Screen, Taunt, Toxic, Ice Fang.
There are few viable Spikers, especially in the UU environment, so the fact that Glalie has Spikes automatically makes it an interesting choice. It could simply be slotted over an offensive move on one of the aforementioned move-sets (obviously without a Choice item attached), or tailored to a different move-set incorporating another one of its non-offensive moves.
Light Screen adds some defensive survivability for Glalie and its team. It's not great on Glalie but it's not bad, and can buy it some time to use the aforementioned Spikes.
Taunt can keep non-offensive moves at bay, not that Glalie attracts them particularly.
Toxic is an effective way to pick away at defensive opponent's HP, especially that of defensive water types, who cause Glalie some troubles. Just be careful of Steel types, who already resist Ice attacks and will see Toxic as a free switch-in.
Ice Fang is a physical alternative to Avalanche. The power difference isn't vastly difference (before side-effects are counted), but Avalanche (almost) always goes last, whilst Ice Fang's offensive priority is dependant on Speed.
Countering Glalie
Glalie isn't offensively or defensively spectacular. Defensive Water types are fairly safe bets against it, with their Ice resistance. Blastoise, Poliwraith and Walrein are comfortable bets, although all of them, as well as others, need to watch out for Explosion. Steel types are also comfortable, provided they don't walk into Earthquakes. Probopass and Bastiodon do nicely, but they really do have to worry about Earthquake, considering their 4x weakness.
Locations in Games
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Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Evolve Snorunt Colosseum/XD Trade from RSEXD (C) Evolve Snorunt (XD) Fire Red/Leaf Green Trade from RSEXD Diamond/Pearl Evolve Snorunt
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Animé Appearences
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Glalie has had a few Animé Appearences. In all of them, it was used by Ash after his Snorunt evolved into one. It was a prime member of his team in the Hoenn League but was eventually left at Oak's when Ash went to challenge the Battle Frontier
Episode 400: Rhapsody in Drew! |
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