Pokemusings, week 15

News
By published

What the hail!?

In addition to the weakening of the aforementioned healing moves, Blizzard is one of the few moves that hail effects. This powerful ice attack gets its accuracy boosted to 100 percent during hailstorms. Given how common dragons are in competitive play, this makes hail an awfully appealing weather effect. The combination of a hailstorm and Blizzard will also vanquish your opponents Flying, Grass, and Ground Pokemon or force a switch.

There are also a few abilities that are bolstered by hailstorms. Pokemon with the Snow Cloak ability get their evasion rate boosted, while Pokemon with the Ice Body ability recover hit points every turn.

While there aren't as many Ice Pokemon as we'd like, there are more than enough to create an interesting and powerful team that exploits hailstorms. Snow Cloak potentially allows Pokemon like Froslass and Swinub extra turns to attack while their opponents miss. Ice Body makes Walrein a pretty formidable tank.

Blizzard can be taught to a wide variety of Pokemon - not just Ice types - but you need to be mindful of the incremental damage non-ice Pokemon will receive during hailstorms. With a combination of strong Ice types and other Pokemon that can learn Blizzard, it's easy to form a balanced team of sweepers, walls, and annoyers that take advantage of hail. With two excellent abilities to take advantage of and one devastating move, hailstorms can be deadly to your opponent.