Wednesday, March 5

Ranking the Pokemon: #51- Nidoking

Look at this hideous thing. Like a third of Nidoking's body is his tail, and it appears to be permanently hunchbacked. But his hearing is probably really good, so there's a bonus. Also, being Poison/Ground means Nidoking is one of the worst types in the game.

Ugly appearances and crappy type aside, Nidoking is a very well-rounded fighter. Apparently in Generation V he's even better, with higher Attack and Special Attack. But in Generation I we had to just live with Special, which wasn't too shabby (though not as good as the Special Attack nowadays). The King's strength lies in its Attack and Speed, so it works better as a physical sweeper, but...

...King Nido can learn so many TMs that you can really go in any direction. Nothing it learns naturally is worth keeping, but you could physical-move 'im up with Earthquake, Rock Slide, and some combination of Submission/Hyper Beam/Rest/Horn Drill. I don't really like Horn Drill since it only has a 30% success rate, but getting to kill some chump in one turn is pretty cool.

Alternatively, you could tell Nidoking, "Hey, Nidoking, let's be a special sweeper instead," and then Nidoking would yell "NIDOKING!" since 99% of Pokemon can only say their own name. And Nidoking is not in the 1%. Not coincidentally, Nidoking's stock market knowledge is quite limited. But with Blizzard, Fire Blast, Thunderbolt and Surf all available, you can theoretically take out most of the types that Nidoking is weak against.

Or you can mix and match. Go wild! Whatever TM you can think of that's worth knowing, Nidoking can probably learn. And that's pretty darn good in my book.

Battling Grade: B

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