Pok�mon of the Week

Shuckle, The Mold Pok�mon. It stores berries in its shell. The berries eventually ferment to become delicious juices. The berries it stores in its vase-like shell decompose and become a gooey liquid. It stores berries inside its shell. To avoid attacks, it hides beneath rocks and remains completely still. It hides under rocks, keeping its body concealed inside its shell while eating stored berries. The berries mix with its body fluids to become a juice.

Shuckle has always been a fan favorite. I mean just look at it, how can you not like Shuckle? It has the highest defenses in the game, although its horrible HP and non-existent attacking stats make it kind of.. bad. But it's cute right? .. that's important.. Stealth Rock weakness and effectively zero offenses really hurts Shuckle's usefulness but when used right the mold can be very hard to remove. I mean seriously have you ever tried to get mold out of a bed? Impossible!

Sturdy: Makes Shuckle immune to OHKO moves like Fissure and gives it a free Focus Sash at full HP. Pretty useless considering besides maybe a Choice Specs Politoed or Choice Band Metagross nothing is really going to OHKO Shuckle.
Gluttony: Activates berries early.. Ok this is actually worse than Sturdy. Useless as Shuckle don't make good use of berries.
Contrary: Reverses stat changes. At first glance this is useless, until you realize that random Crunch or Shadow Ball defense drop actually turned into a boost.

- Power Split / Stealth Rock
- Rest
- Toxic
- Knock Off / Encore
Item Attached: Leftovers
Ability: Contrary
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -Sp Atk)

This is THE Shuckle set. You absolutely need Sandstorm blowing to maximize Shuckle's amazing walling capabilities, but it also slightly helps Shuckle do damage. The goal is to take hits and spread damage as much as possible before going down. Power Split effectively halves the opponent's attacking stats. Best of all this isn't a stat drop like what Charm or Growl does.. it actually edits the opponent's stats so they can't overpower it with more Swords Dances or ignore it with Haze. Oh and best of all Crits are affected by it, so a Crit is effectively 1x damage. Still this effect is removed when they switch out so Stealth Rock is an option as Shuckle certainly has the bulk to pull it off. Rest is critical to your survival as Shuckle lacks any other forms of healing. Keep in mind the sleep counter resets whenever you switch out, so if you have to use Rest you'd better be ready to sit there a very long time. If you use Rest and have to switch out Shuckle is as good as dead. Toxic is the primary damage dealing move and racks up damage on Water and Rock types that hit you for super effective damage. Knock Off is awesome on Shuckle as removing the item from Choice Band Scizor and random Leftovers from Ferrothorn effectively ruin them. Encore is another option to screw over stat boosting Pokemon who think you can't do anything. And finally Contrary is the ability of choice, as turning stat drops into boosts is invaluable. Shadow Ball, Crunch, Focus Blast, Energy Ball, Psychic etc.. Wall them forever.

- Rest
- Power Trick
- Acupressure
- Rollout
Item Attached: Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SDef
Relaxed Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)

Ok, serious set done.. now for the set you SHOULD NEVER USE. Lets be honest here. Shuckle is bad. Its best uses are walling and that's about it. But maybe you want to use an offensive Shuckle? Do you want to grind faces with a Pokemon that has less attack than Weedle? Well.. here it is. Find someone who for whatever reason gives you enough time and doesn't Critical hit you until you reach +6 everything with Acupressure. Basically this is impossible but maybe if you ask your opponent nicely enough they'll let you out of the sheer hilarity. After that use Power Trick and your crazy Defense will switch with your Attack. Still alive? Well start spamming Rollout. Yeah, it might not be OHKOing much after the first hit or two, but wait. At the 5th hit you do 200% MINIMUM to STEELIX. Steelix has a 4x resistance to Rock and the best physical defense in the game.. and you just wiped it out two times over. Sure it might have taken about 30~ turns to set up but letting a pitiful Shuckle eradicate literally every Pokemon in the game in one hit can be one of the defining moments in your Pokemon career.

Shuckle
248 HP is preferred over 252 HP as this means Stealth Rock damage rounds down, so you can survive 4 hits instead of only three. Max Defense is also best as Sandstorm boosts your Special Defense already. You can run some more Special Defense EVs but if you try purely Special walling you might as well just use Cradily.

Pretty much nothing. A few things are worth mentioning.. sort of. Wrap / Sand Tomb, Flash, Body Slam, Mimic, and Regirock
Wrap / Sand Tomb can rack up some additional damage and trap something like Porygon 2 until Toxic finishes the job. Usually useless compared to just using Knock Off and switching.
Flash is a funny option as it can completely screw up your counters. After only one hit the accuracy is lowered to 75%, meaning Stone Edge is only hitting with 60% accuracy and Focus Blast might as well never hit. Works ok with Spikes / Stealth Rocks as Flash forces a ton of switches.. how does SHuckle even learn Flash?
If you want to spread status that isn't Poison Body Slam is an ok option. Keep in mind Shuckle's attack is all but zero, so it's only going to do something useful 30% of the time.
Mimic is worth a mention because if you're using Shuckle you're probably insane anyway. Mimic a Chansey Softboild or Skarmory Spikes and laugh.
Regirock is worth mentioning because.. its much better of a Pokemon.

Nothing that's actually usable. You can try Power Trick + Trick Room teammate to pound the field with 600 base attack Rock Slides. There's also a defensive support set you can use with something like Power Split / Helping Hand / Knock Off / filler. Overall it's not great but it has some minor uses.

First and most important is Sandstorm. Get a Tyranitar / Hippowdon / Hippopotas in as soon as possible. Using Shuckle without Sand is like using Blaziken in the Rain.. that's not peachy at all. Shuckle appreciates Rapid Spin support too as it doesn't last long with Stealth Rocks down. Wish partners are nice as it keeps Shuckle from needing to use Rest, which generally is the last thing Shuckle does before fainting. Aromatherapy and Heal Bell teammates also help keep Rest from being a death mark on poor Shuckle.

Are you immune to Toxic? Are you not immediately destroyed by losing your item to Knock Off? If you answered yes to both of those questions you most likely counter Shuckle. It lacks good recovery moves so all you have to do is pound away until it needs to use Rest, then just switch in something strong like Scizor or Terrakion who can 3HKO it. If it switches out the Rest counter will reset and it won't wake up for two MORE turns. Basically the moment Shuckle has to use Rest it dies, unless your team is damaged to the point you can't 3HKO it anymore. Skarmory and Forretress are nice switch ins because of a Toxic immunity and they can set up Stealth Rock / Spikes that Shuckle really hates. Seismic Toss takes away almost half of Shuckle's low HP in one hit. Taunt also destroys it, leaving it's only option as Knock Off. I could go on and on about what counters Shuckle but its pretty hard to NOT beat.

Locations in Games

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald:
Safari Zone Extention (Emerald)
Trade from Emerald/Colosseum/XD (Ruby/Sapphire).

FireRed/LeafGreen:
Trade from Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald or Altering Cave after events.

Colosseum/XD:
Snagged from Deep King Agnol in Deep Colosseum (Colosseum)
Trade for Surskit with Duking in Pyrite Town (XD).

Diamond/Pearl/Platinum:
Route 224

HeartGold/SoulSilver:
Cianwood City, Vermillion City
Safari Zone

Black/White:
Route 14