Pok�mon of the Week

Swalot, The Poison Bag Pok�mon. It swallows anything whole. It sweats toxic fluids from its follicles to douse foes. It gulps anything that fits in its mouth. Its special enzymes can dissolve anything. It has no teeth, so what it eats, it swallows whole, no matter what. Its cavernous mouth yawns widely. An automobile tire could easily fit inside it's mouth. When it spots prey, it spurts out a hideously toxic fluid from its pores and sprays the target. Once the prey has weakened, it gulps it down whole with its cavernous mouth.

Swalot is pretty go... well, its design is co... it's semi usab... okay, Swalot is unremarkable in every sense of the word. Poor base stats apart from HP, generally poor abilities... I'd say a poor movepool, but it has a pretty wide range. It has a lot of possible sets, but none are really good. Its main job is to take hits. As it has base 100 HP and base 83 in the defences, it can do this quite well. It also has a lot of support options and, if you wanted to for some reason, a few offensive choices. I'm not recommending Swalot, but if it is one of your favourites or you want to try something different, go for it.

Liquid Ooze: with Drain Punch and Giga Drain getting power boosts and Leech Seed common, Liquid Ooze could potentially be very, very useful.
Sticky Hold: again, useful. Trick is still used and Knock Off is rare, but you don't want to lose your Black Sludge, right?
Gluttony: this is a dire ability on Swalot. It has no berry that'd be useful. Why couldn't Dream World give it something decent?

- Curse
- Pain Split / Rest
- Substitute / Yawn / Encore / Earthquake / Ice Punch /Gunk Shot / Sleep Talk
- Earthquake / Ice Punch /Gunk Shot
Item Attached: Leftovers / Black Sludge
Ability: Sticky Hold / Liquid Ooze
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -Atk)

Curse boosts Defence and Attack, which is always useful. Pain Split is your only means of recovery outside of Rest. Substitute works with 101 HP, Yawn forces a switch or forces a sleep. Encore forces a switch or keeps the opponent doing something useless. Earthquake is a great attacking move. Ice Punch has no immunities, which is useful, whereas Gunk Shot has all the power. Sleep Talk should only be used with Rest.

- Sludge Bomb / Sludge Wave
- Ice Beam
- Giga Drain
- Shadow Ball
Item Attached: Choice Specs
Ability: Sticky Hold
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)

Offensive Swalot. Sludge Bomb or Sludge Wave, they both do the same thing. STAB power moves. Ice Beam is a great special move in general. Giga Drain hits Water/Grounds and is another good special move, especially with the attack power increase it gained from 4th to 5th gen. Shadow Ball... it's a good special attack. Yeah, heard that before?

- Gunk Shot
- Earthquake / Fire Punch
- Ice Punch / ThunderPunch / Seed Bomb / Explosion
- Ice Punch / ThunderPunch / Seed Bomb / Explosion
Item Attached: Choice Band
Ability: Sticky Hold
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)

The opposite to the above set, but plays very similarly to specs. Gunk Shot is crazy powerful, even coming from Swalot. Earthquake or Fire Punch covers Steels. Earthquake is the better option though. Ice Punch, ThunderPunch, and Seed Bomb are all reliable and useful attacks. Ice Punch and ThunderPunch combined get the pseudo BoltBeam coverage. Seed Bomb handles Quagsire and others like that. Explosion, although nerfed, is still very strong.

- Pain Split
- Encore
- Yawn
- Sludge Bomb / Sludge Wave / Ice Beam
Item Attached: Leftovers / Black Sludge
Ability: Sticky Hold / Liquid Ooze
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk) / Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)

Generic support Swalot. Pain Split is recovery, Encore forces your opponent to do something they don't want to. Yawn forces a switch and possibly gets sleep, which is always useful. Sludge Bomb or Sludge Wave works for a Poison STAB move, with Ice Beam there as nothing is immune.

CurseLot
252 HP and 252 Special Defence so you can keep alive on the special side of things, as you have no way of boosting your Special Defence like you can boost your Attack and Defence with Curse.

SpecsLot
Max HP and max Special Attack keeps you doing as much damage as possible whilst staying alive. You could try 252 Special Attack, 128 Defence and 128 Special Defence. Swalot already has a lot of HP, so it is an option.

BandLot
Max HP and max Attack keeps you doing as much damage as possible whilst staying alive. You could try 252 Attack, 128 Defence and 128 Special Defence. Swalot already has a lot of HP, so it is an option. What? What do you mean this was a shameless copy paste?

SupportLot
Because you are running Pain Split with no boosting move, you want no HP investment. Swalot won't be staying in forever, unlike the Curse set which aims to be in the game for as long as possible. Max each defence out so you can take crazy hits and get more health back with Pain Split.

Acid Spray, Block, Counter, Hidden Power [Fire], Protect, Sing, Stockpile, Toxic, Venoshock
Acid Spray can force switches or allow you to hit harder.
Block stops your opponent to switch, which when combined with Toxic or Encore, can be devastating.
Counter works well with Swalot's nice base HP.
Hidden Power [Fire] is a move that would be used exclusively in OU. It hits Ferrothorn, Scizor and Forretress.
Protect stalls for poison damage and Black Sludge recovery.
Sing is unreliable but if it hits, it is very useful.
Stockpile increases your Defence and Special Defence. Don't bother with Swallow or Spit Up though.
Toxic inflicts very damaging poison on your opponent, which when combined with...
Venoshock doubles damage on poisoned targets.

Weak to Earthquake. Has access to Sludge Wave, but honestly, Swalot is not good in singles let alone doubles and triples. I mean, it honestly gets so little in terms of... anything, that this section is basically pointless. Either I'm being really thick or it really isn't useful at all.

Partners... could just replace Swalot? Eh, not an option. Right, well you want to be able to work off its cool support moves like Yawn and Encore. Obviously Pok�mon immune to Psychic and Ground are useful so you can switch out of dangerous threats and keep your Swalot alive. Honchkrow, Xatu, just try and resist those two types and it's a good partner.

Espeon and Xatu can abuse Magic Bounce to ruin Swalot. Watch out for Poison STAB attacks though. Steel Pok�mon are immune to Swalot's STAB moves, and can destroy Swalot with the very common Earthquake attack. Registeel, Steelix, any Pok�mon like that. Water/Ground Pok�mon like Gastrodon, Quagsire, Swampert, and even Seismitoad all counter Swalot well. As long as they avoid Ice Beam and Earthquake, the Nido couple counter Swalot brilliantly. Donphan can easily KO Swalot, just avoid Ice Beam. Revenge killing Swalot is easy. It's so slow that anything can outrun it and KO it with a strong Psychic or Earthquake. Honestly, Swalot is a worse Muk in my opinion. Sure, it has some options, but Muk is so much cooler. Hits harder, better at taking hits, cooler design... but Muk is irrelevant to this article. Swalot is pretty bad. It has a lot more options than I initially thought, but I pretty much forgot it existed so... yeah, Swalot is one of those kind of Pok�mon. Try it out, I'm sure it could take hits well enough in the lower tiers against the right Pok�mon, just... you might replace the silly Barney the Dinosaur version of Jabba the Hutt very, very quickly.

Locations in Games

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald:
Evolve Gulpin.

FireRed/LeafGreen:
Trade from Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/XD.

Colosseum/XD:
Evolve Gulpin (XD)
Trade from Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (Colosseum)

Diamond/Pearl/Platinum:
Evolve Gulpin

HeartGold/SoulSilver:
Evolve Gulpin (SoulSilver)
Trade from Diamond/Pearl/Platinum/SoulSilver or Transfer from Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (HeartGold)

Black/White:
Transfer from Diamond/Pearl/Platinum/SoulSilver