Wednesday, November 30

Ranking the Pokemon: #122- Rhyhorn

Rhyhorn is kind of frustrating. On the one hand, it's pretty badass--it's got outrageous Attack and Defense and can learn a ton of cool moves like Earthquake, Rock Slide and Horn Drill (I don't care if it only works 30% of the time. Any move that can kill an opponent in one hit, no questions asked is cool). It also looks all steel-like and spiny, despite the fact the Steel type wasn't invented until the next generation of games. Then they created Aron and his evolutionary line, which was basically the same thing (see the bottom two rows of this chart for proof).

On the other hand, Rhyhorn's types are Ground/Rock (not to be confused with Rock/Ground, which is what Geodude and every other dual Rock/Ground type is), it's slow as hell, and its Special is terrible. Those are three awful traits to have, and here's why: In R/B/Y (and still pretty much to this day), like 98.6% of teams had a Water type, and EVERY one of those are faster than Rhyhorn. Most are faster than Rhydon, too, but we'll bash the higher evolution when we get to it. Since those Water types are faster, they attack first. Strike one for Rhyhorn. Since the Water types will most likely attack with a water move, that's strike two for Rhyhorn, since water is a Special attack. And the biggest one (strike three, called looking on the outside corner) is that since Rhyhorn is both Ground AND Rock, any Water attack (or Grass or Ice, for that matter) does FOUR times the damage it would normally do, AND if the attack is the same type it gets STAB (Same Type Attack Bonus), so it will ultimately deal SIX times the amount of damage a normal attack would.

In case all that capitalization threw you off, allow me to summarize with a handy equation:

Rhyhorn + Water = Fainted Rhyhorn

Even an attack like Bubble can kill it. Embarrassing.

Grade: D+

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