Pokemusings, week 12

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Soaking up the sun

Aug 30, 2007

Controlling the weather has always been an integral part of competitive combat strategies in Pokemon. With the new tweaks in Diamond/Pearl, manipulating the weather to your advantage has become more important than ever. Over the next few weeks, we're going to talk about various weather effects, what they do, and how to take advantage of them. First up, we're going to cover that mass of incandescent gas (a gigantic nuclear furnace) known as the sun.

First off, there are two ways to supercharge the sun. You can use the Sunny Day move (TM 11) or use a Pokemon with the Drought ability. There are also a few areas in the game where the sun is naturally in this state. When the sun is hyper-activated, you'll see a message during a battle that says, "The sunlight is strong." When this happens, there are several changes in combat mechanics that you need to be mindful of.

The most obvious benefit of a strong sun is a boost to fire moves. A stronger sun will increase their base power by 50 percent. Pokemon that rely on water moves will need to switch out or wish for some luck since the power of their moves will be decreased by 50 percent. For some meteorological reason that escapes us, Thunder's accuracy is reduced to 50 percent as well.