Shellos or Buizel in Pokémon Platinum Version?

Question

I’m doing a platinum play through right now and wanted to use one of the Sinnoh water types. I have a Monferno, Rhyperior, and an Electivire. Any ideas?

Comments

Use Floatzel because it has higher attack stats. HP and defenses don't matter as much outside competitive battles because having high HP and defenses slows down your game.

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Just mentioning that this exists: https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/275201/who-are-better-water-type-buizel-floatzel-shellos-gastrodon

Answer 1

Gastrodon
- Storm Drain is a nice Ability
- Excellent typing gives it one weakness
- Very high HP
- Solid Special Attack
- Learns moves like Surf, Ice Beam, and Sludge Bomb
- Very slow and average defenses
- Shallow movepool
- Best special Ground move until the post-game is Mud Bomb

Floatzel
- Superb Attack and Speed
- Evolves earlier than Gastrodon
- Learns moves like Waterfall, Strength, Brick Break, and Aqua Jet
- Frailer than Gastrodon

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Go with Floatzel. Offense is everything in-game, and it's more offensive than Gastrodon.

Floatzel @ Mystic Water
Ability: Swift Swim
- Waterfall
- Brick Break / Ice Beam / Ice Punch
- Strength / Ice Beam / Ice Punch
- Aqua Jet / Crunch

If for some reason you decide to use Gastrodon:

Gastrodon @ Mystic Water / Soft Sand
Ability: Storm Drain
- Surf / Muddy Water
- Mud Bomb / Earth Power / Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Sludge Bomb / Recover

Hope I helped!

Comments

Thanks guys! Looks like Mel the Buizel will be joining my team. It even has swift swim so that’s good.

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Storm Drain isn't super good in Gen 4, since the water immunity comes in Gen 5

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Why would you recommend strength over stuff like dig or ice beam? Strength doesn't cover anything.

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I would recommend Ice Beam over Strength, and would make use of both the HMs (Surf and Waterfall).  The rest would be Crunch.

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“If for some reason you decide to use Gastrodon”

I will use it because Shellos is cute

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Unless you have no room on your team for another surf user, Floatzel likes having waterfall and 3 moves of different types.

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Floatzel needs a Special Variant to defeat some Physically Defensive (but not specially defensive) 'mons. Waterfall can 2KHO Gravellers. Brick Break can 2KHO or 3KHO. But Surf.... Even for the Ground E4, Surf is way more reliable than Waterfall. (Except Whiscash and Gliscor, the latter is destroyed by Ice Beam). But Waterfall is *also* needed for 'mons like Flint's Houndoom. So both are needed. However you already have a Fighting type. So I chose too eliminate Brick Break.

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@sumwun I chose Strength because it's reliable neutral coverage and an HM. I suppose Ice Beam is a good alternative though, so I'll edit it.