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Community POTW #153

Serebii

And, as if by magic, the webmaster appeared...
Staff member
Admin
Time for the next Pokémon of the Week and we're continuing the spooky feel!

442.png


It's Spiritomb!

 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
Spiritomb
Adamant nature/Brave nature
Ability: Infiltrator/Pressure
EVs: 252 Attack/252 HP/4 SpDef
@Choice Band
-Poltergeist
-Payback
-Shadow Sneak
-Sucker Punch/Rock Tomb
Spiritomb
Modest nature/Quiet nature
Ability: Infiltrator/Pressure
EVs: 252 SpAtk/252 HP/4 SpDef
@Choice Specs
-Dark Pulse
-Shadow Ball
-Icy Wind
-Shock Wave
 

RishRaff

Prince of the Sea
Spiritomb has always been a cool Pokemon. It was on Cynthia’s team, had no weaknesses upon introduction, and some of the darkest Pokemon lore out there (being inspired by the significance of 108 in Japanese Buddhism is cool too!). It has also consistently been one of the most frustrating Pokemon to obtain, from DP right up through Legends Arceus.
All that aside, Spiritomb was greatly hyped upon initial release. It had, and still has, a lot going for it. Most notably, its solid 108/108 defenses and great Ghost/Dark typing. However, Spiritomb has long fallen off after the initial hype back then. While its defenses are good, it has a pitiful base 50 HP and no reliable recovery that hurts its defensive utility, and only average offenses and poor movepool outside of STAB leaves Spiritomb without a niche there either.
Still, Spiritomb has usability in lower tier even in SwSh. It gained access to Poltergeist as a fantastic high powered STAB that it can take advantage of, and its bulk is still good nowadays.

Physical Offensive
Nature: Brave (+Att, -Spe)
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 HP/252 Att
Item: Choice Band
-Trick
-Poltergeist
-Payback
-Rock Tomb/Shadow Sneak/Sucker Punch

Probably one of the better sets Spiritomb can run in the modern metagame. Choice band provides a much needed power boost, and can be used to cripple opposing Pokemon if need be with Trick. Poltergeist is Spiritomb’s best move, while Payback is secondary STAB that takes advantage of Spiritomb’s horrendous Speed stat. The last option is customizable. Rock Tomb provides some additional coverage and the Speed drops are potentially useful. Shadow Sneak is useful priority to pick off a weakened enemy, while Sucker Punch is stronger but less reliable priority
 

XaelOstigian

Competitive...kinda
A Pokemon made of 108 evil spirits? Even by creepy Pokemon dex standards, that still sounds pretty cursed (Cue the protesters with crosses). Anyways, Spiritomb has quite the history in Pokemon. Prior to the introduction of Fairy types, it alongside Sableye was the only Pokemon to have zero weakness, and it was champion Cynthia's lead Pokemon in gen 4. But perhaps its most infamous reputation comes not as the dreaded champion's starter or as a conglomeration of Insideous styled spirits, but as being one of the hardest Pokemon to get in gen 4. You needed to find an Old Keystone, drop it into the hallowed out well just east of Hearthome City, and then talk to 32 freaking other players via local WiFi in the Sinnoh Underground before going back to the well to fight it.
Hallowed_Tower_DP.png

If you didn't have a friend with a copy of DPP it was flat out impossible to acquire! Thankfully it isn't as hard to get these days, so at least now you can run this sturdy spirit easier. It isn't exactly a top tier threat, but still fun to play around with thanks to excellent bulk, mixed offensive stats, and a few nifty moves at its disposal.

Tank of Terror
Ability: Pressure
Item: Leftovers/Chesto Berry
Nature: Bold
EVs: (HP 252) (Defense 252) (Sp. Defense 4)

Moves:
Calm Mind
Dark Pulse/Shadow Ball
Will-O-Wisp
Rest

Set Details:
A set up tank set that plays into Spiritomb's natural bulk. First, set up Calm Mind to boost your offensive output while making you harder to damage with special attacks. Your offensive move will either be Dark Pulse or Shadow Ball, the former of which has slightly less neutral coverage than the latter but isn't walled by Normal types. Will-O-Wisp is helpful as a form of residual damage and a means of protecting you more from physical attacks thanks to the attack drop burn inflicts. Finally, while Spiritomb lacks reliable recovery it still has a few options. Pain Split has recovery and offensive potential the greater the difference in HP your target is from yours, but if their health is declining as slowly as yours it will be close to useless. Rest offers full recovery and a counter to bad poisoning, but then Spiritomb will become overall useless for two turns. Pressure as its ability works excellently with this defensive set since it will drain your opponent's more powerful but low PP moves very fast, Leftovers is your mandatory defensive item to offer additional recovery, albeit the Chesto Berry is an option too if you are running Rest and want at least one heal without consequence. And stat distribution goes solely into HP and physical defense since Calm Mind can always give you more special defense.

So if you can play well into its strengths, Spiritomb will provide you a lot of creepy fun. Minus that mission in Legends Arceus. That collectathon was such a pain...
Spiritomb-Conclusion1.jpg
 

Mestorn

Wandering Battler
Spiritomb is in a very similar situation to last week's Hatterene, where above average defenses, but Poor HP. And just like Hatterene having problems with its bulk, so does Spiritomb, only, unlike Hatterene, Spiritomb does not have a bonkers Special Attack to fall back on. This worsens Spiritomb's effective bulk, because now to do appreciable damage it has to invest in its offenses, something Hatterene did not have to worry about as much.

The move to Generation 8 was also very unkind to Spiritomb. Yes it loves its new Ghost STAB in Poltergeist, but since its Attack and Special Attack are equal, it always had the reliable Shadow Ball to fall back on. Losing Pursuit on the other hand was a major blow. With its fantastic immunities, Spiritomb was a good Pursuit Trapper, able to get free uncontested damage on many a target that it forced out. With Pursuit gone, so is Spiritomb's niche. And while Dynamax seems to be a great solution for Spiritomb, giving it the extra Bulk and Power it always wanted, Spiritomb is in many ways the archetypical Ghost/Dark type, relying on subversion and the side effects of its moves to succeed, which are completely gutted by Dynamax. And even though the side effects of Spiritomb's STAB max moves do enable a form of Pseudoramping, Ghost/Dark is a very lackluster type offensively, having nigh identical coverage and both types are walled by opposing Dark types. And to further drive the nail in, Spiritomb has no super effective coverage for opposing Dark types, leaving them a consistent problem.

Wall-A-Tomb
Spiritomb
Ability:
Pressure
Item: Leftovers
-Will-o-Wisp
-Snarl
-Hex/Night Shade
-Pain Split
EVs and Nature:
252 HP / 4 DEF / 252 SDEF
Bold Nature (+DEF, -ATK)

Dedicated walling set. Will-o-Wisp and Snarl form a synergistic combo crippling any offense your opponent can bring to bear, and enabling a setup sweeper to come in and start boosting while your opponent is forced to switch out or strike with weakened attacks. Hex pairs well with Will-o-Wisp having impressive power after the boost, while Night Shade performs well irrespective of the opponents status (some Pokémon can't be burned after all). Pain Split rounds out the set, giving Spiritomb some measure of recovery.

Pressure is ability of choice here, draining PP from repeated attacks, though Infiltrator is good for Burning through Substitutes.

Other Options
Spite -Spiritomb can run spite to further speed up the clock on a move's usage, but it is very situational. Most attacks have Max PP values of 8, 16 and 24. Of those, only the 8 PP's are feasible to drain -the others have way too many uses to drain without Spiritomb being knocked out first. Ironically, this works slightly better in higher powered metagames as many Pokémon's signature attacks only have 8 PP, but Spiritomb's flaws prevent it from functioning well in those. If PP Ups didn't exist, Spite would be fantastic, completely draining 5 PP moves after one use, and 10 PP moves after 2.
RestTalk -most reliable recovery Spiritomb has, but comes at the cost of two moveslots.
 

Divine Retribution

Conquistador de pan
Just like what you would expect from an amalgamation of evil spirits, Spiritomb is competitively a pretty strange, disjointed Pokemon. Base 108/108 defenses are good, but 50 base HP is very much not. Base 92/92 offenses are usable, but undermined its terrible Speed, lack of strong coverage, and important STABs that it wishes it had. It gets almost no strong coverage moves, especially physical ones, which is disappointing because it really wants to leverage its access to Poltergeist, Shadow Sneak, and Sucker Punch to make up for its lackluster offensive stats and abysmally low Speed.

It doesn't get Knock Off or Crunch, leaving it with Sucker Punch, Payback, and Lash Out as its only Dark STABs, all of which can be played around easier than the former two. It gets no recovery outside of Rest and Pain Split, so it can't even try to run a defensive set (not that 50/108/108 is really high enough for that in the upper tiers anyways). All of this adds up to a Pokemon who wants to fill a lot of different roles, but just doesn't have the stats or movepool to effectively fill any of them.
 
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