Hey Guys! (and gals) New here to Pokemon, eh hem, actually new as in first time with a Pokemondb.net with a new account, and I do have to say my piece as shuckle is my lifeblood, back in the good old days of gold and silver (back when I was 6) I had just got the brand new silver version (before they made crystal version) after already beating red,blue and yellow special pikachu edition...I popped in the game, began farming (for xp) and later came across my first shuckle (the free water rock Pokemon from a kid on an island I called it...strange phrasing ik) Sadly when I read his description my heart sank as it said bug rock and I went HOW??? then I noticed shuckle immediately had high defense and sp.defense as well as weak attack/attacks, but with great potential. I soon learned yes, a toxic learned shuckle back then was like making charazard use bide and then charazard going, "nah, I think I'll just go ahead and attack with hyper beam after storing all your damagex2 with bide, now ima +150pow instead of waiting till next turn regardless of my code and win"...which I imagined as effing awesome and OP! However, all stat boosts were limited! perma and irreversable but Now since X and Y versions introduced the canny little OP training system of Super Training! One now has complete control over what they want bonus and no bonus...no more tossing of the Pokemon until desired results are reached, now there is a reset of stat bonuses! Perfect for breeders and this is where our little star Shuckle comes to the spot light, as we can see from shuckle, a tank made of yellowish wormlike tentacle something with a turtle shell resembling a sea creature (ironic isn't is? and somehow is a bug and not water) anyways, this slow wall of awesomeness (WHO ISN'T WATER TYPE FOR SOME REASON!!!) can be quite fearsome when you take advantage of his high defenses. Knowing he has a big water weakness(AGAIN, SHOULD BE WATER TYPE ANYWAYS! THE EFFING RED SHELL WITH HOLES CONCEPT IS ALL WATER BASED!!!), the first thing to do is find a nature that ups his sp. def and lowers his speed (cause his speed is so low it won't make a difference at this point) And work soul-ly on defense to max and sp.def to max then sort the rest into whatever you deem needed like hp...basically hp since his atk/sp.atk suck on an equal level of sucking-ness, it wont help you in the long run and make sure he has sturdy and holds Something to either heal him or make him harder to hit. Wallah! PERFECTIMUNGO! Next is the moves which all relies on YOUZZZZZ...seeing as the defensive strategy(s) is/are what shuckle is best at, your best moves of choice are (According to my personal opinion) as followed:
Toxic+facade, power swap, trick room (if you still think his speeds gonna help you...ps it won't!!!) rollout, withdraw, rockslide, flash and protect...stuff like that.
Personally trick room only solves his speed prob, not so wise in a sense simply because...
Shuckle is first and foremost the master at defensive stance,aka the slowgod (whom I have deemed as he's one of thee slowest,sorry slowking...heh heh) with lack of an offense, he's best to have repetitive and turn based dmg attacks but you can turn any offensive threat into an offensive rush, take power split and bide, normally when applied in said order can result in lots of powerx2 so say you got him to 160atk and your beefy opponent has eh 620,thats about 780 after power swap, yeah? No? Don't care i'm calculating this! and now add a successfully timed bide, thats around 1560 give or take the odds! at most and with a critical hit?? 3120??? pretty much breaks the game either way and deals out so much effing damage depending on the Pokemon target. though not very effective, is still pretty much 999dmg LOL not to mention any temporary stat boosts/item boosts and if its super effective, its like how I say it, if your tank is too slow, add more cannon, gets the job done slowly and easily in many situations, sustain tons of damage then dish out stupidly strong attacks, as for another method, I like to call it the troll n toxic flash, mix toxic,flash,protect and withdraw and you have an instant trump card, though weak against taunt like attacks and certain types of enemies, he provides the balls of poisoning your opponents badly, lowering their chance to hit, blocking random attacks and turn charge attacks, and increasing defense even further on a base of making everything deal 1-2 digits and I'm talkin low double digits like 11, or 14. Or replace withdraw with some beef like infestation or rock slide or something... So to the Question proposed? No, he is not the strongest, as for weakest well...Not even close, he's an excellent and horrifyingly powerful trump card when used at the right time and place against the right Pokemon(z) and if you train and use him riiiiiiiiight with the riiiiiiiiiiiiiight nature, ability, item, stats, and moves to your strategy...you can ultimately sway the battle into your fingertips given the right luck with ofcourse shuckle by your side poking his head out proudly through his red somehow non-aquatic water sea urchin-er based shell thingy...that looks like he's water rock based at first glance because its where the idea of his shell came from and every man, woman, child, dog, bird, plane and pepple know this yet noones fixed it cause...noone knows why not to... Anyways, as for why not many people use shuckle is mostly to do with the incredibly tedious idea of sending out a slowgod tank made of rocky chitin, firing stuffed animals hoping it'll do 20+...but then again, I want that kind of tank :3. Though if you're looking for strongest Pokemon of all? Shuckle is not thee, but ah h3lls! Kudos to Shuckle everyone, may the johto region live forever in our hearts...and your game boy color cartridges :3 gold,silver,crystal FTW!!! And most importantly?...SHUCKLE!!!