Wigglytuff, The Balloon Pokémon. Its fine fur feels sublime to the touch. It can expand its body by inhaling air. The exquisitely pleasant fur conveys an image of luxury. Sleeping alongside a Wigglytuff is simply divine. Its body expands seemingly without end when it inhales. By inhaling deeply, this Pokémon can inflate itself seemingly without end. Once inflated, Wigglytuff bounces along lightly like a balloon. Wigglytuff has large, saucerlike eyes. The surfaces of its eyes are always covered with a thin layer of tears. If any dust gets in this Pokémon's eyes, it is quickly washed away. Take care not to make it angry, or it may inflate steadily and hit with a Body Slam.
Overview
The recurring phrase used to refer to Pokémon like Wigglytuff is 'jack of all trades, master of none'. A hugely diverse move-pool and balanced stats allow Wigglytuff to perform decently in a lot of different roles, however, it'll rarely excel in any of the plentiful roles it can take. Its stats are one of its major letdowns. Its huge HP stat is letdown by very poor defensive stats, balancing out to give it fairly average defensive capabilities. Offensively, it is lacking a lot in Speed and both of its offensive stats are rather average.
It's definitely an NU Pokémon. A major inferiority complex to Clefable ruins any shot it has of breaking out of the NU environment, and despite having plentiful possibilities, it lacks the raw stats to be considered a worthwhile enough choice in any other environment.
Trait
Cute Charm: can infatuate an opposing Pokémon of the opposite gender when struck by a move that's defined as having 'physical contact'. The infatuation is effectively the equivalent of Attract, and activates on a 30% chance. Attract isn't the most useful 'status' to inflict on an opponent, and the fact that it only works on opponent's of the opposite gender restricts the number of opponents it can potential affect, but it isn't an entirely wasteful ability.
Move Sets
Support
- Seismic Toss / Body Slam / Return / Hyper Voice
- Stealth Rock
- Wish
- Protect / Thunder Wave / Reflect/ Light Screen
Item Attached: Leftovers
Ability: Cute Charm
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk) / Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
Its defensive capabilities are somewhat average. It has large reserves of HP but it'll lose them quickly with such poor defensive stats. Nevertheless, it's capable in a defensive role and has access to a lot of useful support moves.
Stealth Rock is a particularly useful one, made all the more attractive with the NU environment containing so many Bug and Fire Pokémon. Wish fills both a supportive role and the role of a self-recovery move. Wish combined with Protect work indirectly to provide something of an equivalent to Recover, and Protect on its own has some useful possibilities for scouting the opponent's next move, as well as stalling for Leftovers recovery.
There are several alternatives to Protect that can also serve in a support role. Thunder Wave can cripple sweeping opponents, and the 25% chance of full paralysis is quite nifty (especially if Cute Charm gets activated as well). It can also choose from Reflect and Light Screen, granting a useful Defence or Special Defence boost to Wigglytuff and its team for five turns.
A Pokémon without offensive moves can be exploited by some opponents, so it's usually preferable to have an offensive move of some sort, even if it won't be dealing out particularly noteworthy amounts of damage. Seismic Toss is an obvious choice for the consistent damage. From its STAB options, Body Slam provides a 30% chance of paralysis (useful if you lack Thunder Wave), Return provides reliable physical damage and Hyper Voice provides reliable special damage.
Choice Specs
- Hyper Voice
- Ice Beam / Thunderbolt / Shadow Ball / Focus Blast
- Ice Beam / Thunderbolt / Shadow Ball / Focus Blast
- Ice Beam / Thunderbolt / Shadow Ball / Focus Blast
Item Attached: Choice Specs
Ability: Cute Charm
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 SDef
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
Although its Special Attack is far from spectacular, it does have a wonderful special move-pool to work with. Hyper Voice provides it with a nice source of STAB. Additionally, it has a wide selection of options to use in the additional move-slots. The Thunderbolt and Ice Beam combination give nice type coverage, Shadow Ball covers Ghost types (who are immune to Hyper Voice) whilst Focus Blast covers Rock and Steel types (who are resistant to Hyper Voice).
Choice Band
- Return
- Brick Break / Focus Punch
- Ice Punch
- Thunderpunch
Item Attached: Choice Band
Ability: Cute Charm
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
Its Attack stat is also far from spectacular, however its physical move-pool is also significantly less appetising than its special move-pool. The main attraction of this move-set is it's significantly more surprising than a special attacker. Return obviously serves as its main source of STAB. A fighting move is essentially required to deal with Rock and Steel types, with Brick Break being preferable for consistency and Focus Punch for additional power (although relying heavily on the element of surprise). Ice Punch and Thunderpunch provides it with a physical equivalent of 'Bolt-Beam' (and it should be noted that it requires using Emerald Move Tutors).
EVs and Nature:
Because of its high HP but low defences, when EVing for defensive purposes, the EVs will usually be funnelled into Defence and Special Defence, rather than HP (since that will give an over all more effective defensive boost).
Offensive move-sets have little use for Speed, since Wigglytuff is a real underachiever even when it does have a large Speed investment, so after funnelling EVs into its offensive stat of choice, the spare EVs can be placed in a defensive stat of choice.
Other Options
Double-Edge, Faint Attack, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Grass Knot, Hidden Power [Fighting], Psychic, Fake Tears, Sing, Counter, Charm, Gravity, Perish Song.
Double-Edge, along with Body Slam, is a STAB alternative to Return. Of course, the recoil is an unattractive aspect, but the power makes it worth a look.
Faint Attack is its strongest physical move to use against Ghosts. Low base power means it isn't worthwhile for anything else though.
Its special move-pool expands beyond what is mentioned on the Choice Specs move-set. Flamethrower, Fire Blast and Grass Knot provide good options whilst Hidden Power [Fighting] can be used as a more accurate (and less powerful) alternative to Focus Blast. Psychic is another option it has, but its coverage isn't too notable.
Fake Tears can be used to make Wigglytuff a more potent offensive threat. It's quite likely to force some switches as well, which can be used to pick up some passive damage from Spikes and Stealth Rock.
It has several support options, which would usually fit onto some variant of the support set quite comfortably.
Sing provides a sleep status option, although poor accuracy is a major letdown. It can be combined with Thunder Wave for a double-status set or used as a status alternative to it.
Counter works very effectively on Wigglytuff. Its high HP means that most physical hits can be countered back for a lot of damage.
Charm can lower the Attack stat of its opponents, making Wigglytuff a bit more durable against physical attackers. The main advantage of this over Reflect is that it can force some switches, for some additional passive damage.
Gravity is a neat little move. It removes immunity to Ground moves, Spikes and Poison Spikes (it also removes immunity to Arena Trap and prevents the use of Hi Jump Kick, as well as the lesser seen Jump Kick, Fly and Bounce). Wigglytuff doesn't carry any of these, but it can be useful for its team-mates, and the move is quite thinly spread.
Perish Song will faint both Wigglytuff and its opponent (or opponents and team-mate in 2v2) after 3 turns. Usually, this'll simply cause both Wigglytuff and its opponent to switch, allowing it to function as a Pseudo-Hazing option.
Countering Wigglytuff
Wigglytuff can be fairly unpredictable, and has some wonderful type coverage from its special side, but lacking raw stats makes it quite manageable. If it doesn't target an opponent's weakness, it usually doesn't pose too much of a threat (although boosted STAB moves can sting a little).
Without Shadow Ball, Ghost Pokémon, don't have much to fear from it (barring Thunder Wave). Banette and Rotom are the main representatives, as well as Drifblim if Wigglytuff lacks Thunderbolt or Ice Beam.
Steel and Rock types can suck up Normal hits comfortably, although Fighting moves can cause some serious problems. Probopass is well off against it, as is Bastiodon (although it has problems bringing it down). Aggron has problems with neutral hitting special attacks, but is otherwise comfortable. Wormadam [Steel] doesn't fear Fighting moves but it does fear Fire moves. Lunatone and Solrock don't fear its Fighting moves but do have problems with Shadow Ball.
As noted at the start of this section, the lack of raw stats means that Wigglytuff isn't the most frightening offensive opponent. With a recovery move, most Pokémon can outlast it, and a lot of hard-hitting sweepers can handle a hit or two from it (which obviously gives ample time for them to aim to KO it).
Locations in Games
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Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Evolve Jigglypuff Colosseum/XD Trade from RSEFRLG Fire Red/Leaf Green Evolve Jigglypuff Diamond/Pearl Evolve Jigglypuff
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Animé Appearences
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Wigglytuff has had a few Anime Appearences. First a trainer had one when they visited Mewtwo's Island. It got cloned and the clone later re-appeared. Another appearence was of a Wigglytuff in the film: "Pokémon In Love" starring opposite Misty's Psyduck. After that Harley used one in his Grand Festival match against May. One also runs the Wigglytuff Guild in Treasure Town
Movie 1: Mewtwo Strikes Back! |
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