Pokemon Black and White spotlight: Tabunne, Moguryuu and Doryuuzu

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Continuing our journey through the Isshu Pokedex with an annoying healer and a physical powerhouse

Tabunne
#037 Isshu / #531 National
Type: Normal
Species classification: Healing Pokemon
Abilities:
Healing Heart – 30% chance each turn of healing adjacent ally's status ailment in double/triple battle
Regeneration – Restores 1/3 of max HP when user switches out
Dream World abilities: Klutz – Disables the effect of user's held items (except for EXP affecting items)
Location found (Black/White): Special shaking grass patches (everywhere)
Wild hold items: Oran Berry (common), Sitrus Berry (rare)
Egg groups: Fairy
Capture rate: 255
Gender ratio: 50/50
Experience at lvl 100: 800,000
Base stats: 103 HP / 60 Atk / 86 Def / 60 SAtk / 86 SDef / 50 Spd / 445 Total
Effort values: 2 HP
Evolution family: Does not evolve from or into any Pokemon

Tabunne faces some tough competition in its space as a Normal-type defensive/healing annoyer Pokemon, with Blissey, Togekiss and Wigglytuff already strong options in this role. It's going to be tough for Tabunne carve out a name for itself, but its powerful new abilities, Healing Heart and Regeneration (both introduced in this generation), help to distinguish it from the pack. Of the two, Regeneration is probably the most annoying for your opponents, since it restores 1/3 of Tabunne's max HP when you switch it out.

Its physical and special attack stats are split at base power 60 each, so you can easily go for a mix of both, although Tabunne doesn't learn any special attacks via level up. Normal-type physical attack Last Resort is even more powerful this generation, with a base power of 140 (it was 130 before), so that's a STAB move definitely worth considering, although it might be tricky to pull off given that you must use all three of your other moves at least once for Last Resort to be successful. Hyper Beam (TM15) is another good option on the special attack side, although it requires one turn of recharge time afterwards.

Tabunne isn't really mean to be an offensive threat though, so you're best off mostly focusing on recovery and status moves. Tabunne can learn Wish as an egg move, which works brilliantly in combination with the Regeneration ability. If you're not familiar with Wish, it restores half of the Pokemon's HP on the next turn after you use it, and you can pass it to a teammate by swapping the Pokemon who used wish out for another Pokemon in your party, and the Pokemon you swapped in will get half its HP back. With Tabunne's Regeneration ability, you can pass a Wish on to a teammate while simultaneously also recovering HP on Tabunne. Excellent!

Previous Pokemon B&W spotlights:
The starters and their evolutions
Minezumi, Yorterii, Choroneko and their evolutions.
The monkey trio and their evolutions
Munna, Mamepato, Shimama and their evolutions
The ghosts of Isshu
Victini
Dangoro, Koromori and their evolutions

GamesRadarCarolynGudmundson
GamesRadarCarolynGudmundson
Life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh.