r/pokemonplatinum

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Abomasnow. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well. 

Abomasnow is an Ice/Grass Pokémon with solid 90/75/85 bulk, poor 60 speed, and an even 92 Atk and 92 SpA. Its notable physical attacks include Wood Hammer, Ice Shard, Earthquake, Rock Slide, Brick Break, and Return. Notable special attacks include Blizzard, Giga Drain, Focus Blast, and Shadow Ball. Notable utility includes Toxic, GrassWhistle, Light Screen, Protect, and Ingrain. 

Abomasnow is really fun to use, i have many many times on gimmick teams of all sorts, and he almost always finds himself running a mixed set. His 2 best STABs, Wood Hammer and Blizzard, have a whopping 120 BP each, stretching Abomasnow's 92/92 offense further than many Pokémon's better stats. Blizzard being downside-free thanks to Snow Warning is also awesome and difficult to pass up. Wood Hammer is also so welcome in a game where many Grass types don't have any good STAB moves at all for most or all of the journey. Wood Hammer and Blizzard are such no-brainers on offensive Abomasnow, you should almost always run these.

From there Abomasnow has a lot of good coverage moves on both sides - quite a few are pretty highly competed over TMs though. Earthquake is a fantastic option to pair with Blizzard as Ice/Ground is only resisted by Bronzong - otherwise Ground deals with the Steel and Fire types that Ice + Grass are resisted by. However, giving this TM to a pokemon with as many defensive liabilities as Abomasnow is a tough sell. You also generally want to give Earthquake to a Pokémon that is capable of using it to beat Fire types, and good fucking luck keeping Abomasnow in on a Fire-type and beating it with Earthquake. Focus Blast is a nice sub for Earthquake, for dealing with Steel types, and more relevant, enemy Ice types. Right when you evolve Abomasnow he can start dominating other Ice types, which are common around where you get him. For another type of perfect coverage, Fighting + Ghost, you can give him Shadow Ball with this if you want, but once again this is a TM likely best spent on a Psychic or Ghost type, not an Abomasnow.

No coverage move may be more valuable than Abomasnow's second Ice move, and this one is physical: Ice Shard. Ice is an amazing type throughout the lategame, and Abomasnow getting to work around its poor speed and poor defensive presence with a STAB move with an amazing type, that it almost always gets to successfully use, is so nice. Ice Shard hits surprisingly hard coming from Abomasnow, especially with a NeverMeltIce boost, and being able to get that guaranteed chip off saves Abomasnow so much HP, a valuable resource since it uses Wood Hammer. 

Ultimately you eventually want to drop Focus Blast for the E4 - the only Pokémon it is useful on there are Scizor and Lucario, and good fucking luck beating either of them with Abomasnow regardless. This opens up a space for GrassWhistle, which kinda sucks since it's inaccurate, Protect for free hail chip, Toxic to stack with Hail chip (and protect too if you like doing that,) Giga Drain to get some minor healing, or, and this is probably the most helpful, Light Screen for the last 2 fights. Shadow Ball, Earthquake. and Rock Slide are great too - but high investment! Aboma also doesn't really need Rock Slide since Ice is mostly just Rock type but better. Shadow Ball + Light Screen Abomasnow is also a decent anti-Lucian option for the Pokémon that DON'T obliterate it with Fighting moves. 

Abomasnow also gets a special mention, since part of what we're doing here is dispelling the in-game noobtrap/pitfall of, "you must use one attack stat or the other" - Abomasnow is so often victim to this. When I was younger, I insisted Abomasnow HAD to use just his physical attack, to the point of giving him Avalanche. Avalanche fucking sucks. Avalanche makes the user always go last, which to be fair Abomasnow often does anyway, but even so choosing to go last is such a throw for Abomasnow. This man has 7 weaknesses, you need to not be exposing it like that. Use ice shard to keep him alive, it hits harder than you think, use Blizzard when you need to use the stronger attack, it has the same base power as boosted Avalanche anyways! Ice Punch also exists, but why would you use a 75 BP move instead of a 120 one. Just use Blizzard! 

The only other Abomasnow builds that stand out to me are pure stall, which uses only one attack, usually Blizzard + Ingrain + Toxic + Protect, or pure utility with Light Screen instead of Ingrain. Both are not great ways to use an Abomasnow (stall is good if you breed it Leech Seed which is not real) so for a playthrough mixed Abomasnow is usually the move. The utility offered by hail can be fun and somewhat potent went leaned into though. 

Overall, Abomasnow stands out to me as a Pokémon that is almost always best to use as a mixed attacker, and the very picture of the archetype. A slow one with a lot of defensive problems, but its mixed offenses are pretty impressive.

What do you think of mixed Abomasnow? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. 

Sample Sets:

Abomasnow @ NeverMeltIce/Light Clay • Blizzard, Wood Hammer, Ice Shard, Light Screen/Focus Blast/Earthquake/Giga Drain

Abomasnow @ Light Clay • Blizzard, Light Screen, Shadow Ball, Wood Hammer/Ice Shard

gosh bless the pokeradar

i am astounded by the meta mechanics of these games. the pokeradar is incredible but damn, how in the world was anyone supposed to discover its rules before game decompiling was mainstream??? anyway, i’m over the moon 🌙

I'm doing a steel type nuzlocke and was looking for metal coat on Bronzors, hoping to get a shiny one but i guess i'll just use this one for HMs lol

Was playing Renegade Platinum, a ROM hack for Pokemon Platinum. Part of this hack gives you running shoes and bicycle as soon as you leave the house. I started the professor interaction on my bike. When I was prompted to choose a starter from the briefcase I hopped off the bike. I am now black box.

Edit: Here's me moving around
https://imgur.com/a/KVhTWSs

Didn’t count encounters lol

Totally worth experiencing the game with this team of underdogs. The star of the team has definitely been Ablessa the Camerupt. This run has been full of many memorable moments and fun using the movesets and strategies I've came up with. I will post a success photo if and when we beat Cynthia

At least I'm able to use it in contests much more effectively! Anyone still play contests from time to time? I think it's a good minigame to use Pokemon we like that are not very good in battle.