The first variety of pokemon I want to cover is the Wall. A Wall is a pokemon whose express purpose is to soak up damage- and your opponent’s resources. They may also try to knock out whatever’s fighting them, but a true wall will only do this passively- through ongoing damage like hail, a burn, Spikes on the field, a Rocky Helmet, or a ‘sub-status’ effect like confusion or Leech Seed
Wall pokemon typically either have a huge amount of health points, or a very high Defense or Special Defense stat. Once in a while, a wall will have strong numbers in both Defense and Special Defense, or both HP and one of the Defenses. Most walls have some kind of good defensive move as well- something that will restore its HP, cure it of status effects, or increase its defenses even further.
Some of the more distinguished walls include Chansey/Blissey, Bastiodon, Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Wobbuffet, Umbreon, Hypno, Cresselia, and Forretress.
Walls are a good pokemon variety to have on your team. They’re durable, they eat through the PP of your opponents’ powerful moves, some of them can heal other members of your team, some of them can lay out hazards that punish your opponent for switching pokemon, and many of them have ways to take out opposing pokemon that will leave the wall itself virtually or even completely unharmed at the end of the fight.
Walls are a bad pokemon variety to have on your team. They often have poor or even nonexistent offensive capability, they make the battle drag on for round after round, and for all that they’re durable, each and every one has at least one major weakness. Worse yet, their poor offenses and slow activity will often give your opponent time to boost their own stats, either to wall you or to prepare to break your wall and punch giant gaping holes in your own team.
Be aware of your walls and what they can do, take note of their strengths and weaknesses.
Chansey and Blissey are excellent special walls with their high Special Defense and colossally huge HP values. The same high HP protects them very well against Seismic Toss, and they have only one type weakness. Softboiled lets them recharge their HP over and over again, and sometimes they know Heal Bell or Wish, which will restore other members of the team. However, the type they’re weak to, Fighting, can easily bust through their terrible physical defense, and without Seismic Toss they become utterly useless against another special wall. Their high HP makes them very vulnerable to a low-HP pokemon that uses draining moves or Pain Split to steal their HP, and putting any significant offense on them can severely weaken their ability to make up for their defensive weaknesses.
Skarmory is a horror with its ability to lay out spikes and fly over other peoples’ spikes, access to Whirlwind to force enemy switches, and immunity to poison. But Roost can only do so much about Flamethrower and Thunderbolt strikes, and there are many things protected against Brave Bird. Forretress is even more full of entry hazards, but burns down that much faster. Bastiodon’s ludicrous defenses are no good against its 4x weaknesses to Fighting and Ground attacks, and its low HP make it vulnerable to Seismic Toss- but access to Metal Sound and a wide pool of Special Attack moves makes it more dangerous than you might expect.
If you want to go slowly and calculate, to protect your team and heal yourself, and are ready with answers to the things that will break through, pick a Wall.
