Competitive Pokemon History - Heatran Quiz

Answer: The most used Pokemon in all of standard play

Heatran was by a million miles the most common Pokémon in fourth generation standard play, clocking in at a 41.6% usage rate. That type of usage hadn't been seen since second generation Snorlax (over 90%), and it wouldn't be contested until seventh generation Landorus-Therian (33.8%) or eclipsed until eighth generation Clefable (49%).

The reasons for this are simple: Heatran is extremely malleable, and can fit any teambuild conceivable. All of its stats are good, while its Special Attack is great, its typing, offensively and defensively, is great, and its movepool gives Heatran a bounty of options to explore. Simply put, Heatran may not have objectively been the greatest Pokémon in the tier, as it did have stiff competition for that title, but it can be statistically proven that it was the most used Pokémon.

Answer: Traps the target and does damage to it every turn

Magma Storm is essentially a far, far superior version of Fire Spin. Imagine if this move existed in the first generation!

The reason it was essentially impossible to safely switch into wasn't that it did too much damage. Pokémon like Blissey, Milotic or Dragonite could take a single hit from this move without keeling over. However, it was the trapping aspect of this move that put the switch-in in a lot of trouble. Once the Heatran user knows the target can't switch out, they immediately gain a deadly upper hand by limiting the opponent's options. Heatran can either hit the helpless Pokémon with a more appropriate move, slam it again with Magma Storm, or freely switch a counter in. Heatran's high offenses often meant it could usually deal with the trapped target itself. Access to Explosion meant Blissey was a goner, an appropriate Hidden Power could deal with Milotic or Dragonite, and so on.

Answer: Nothing

Heatran's massive amount of options, great all-around stats and typing meant that countering it with consistency was completely impossible. Tyranitar comes close, but Heatran has a specialized moveset, based around Metal Sound of all things, that T Tar cannot safely switch into. That very same moveset helps Heatran to deal with bulky Water types, which would be the next best bets. Heatran's trapping set often runs Explosion solely to trap and OHKO Blissey, preventing it from being safe.

It is rather amusing to note that, out of all the potential counters Heatran has, the single closest thing to a consistent counter would be your own Heatran! If a Heatran with Earth Power (relatively common) switches into a Heatran without Earth Power, the Heatran with Earth Power will easily prevail. Heatran's immunity to its own Fire type attacks, resistance to Explosion, and massive resistance to most Hidden Powers Heatran commonly runs aids that ability to switch in. Of course, because the other Heatran could quite obviously also be running the 4x super effective Earth Power, this is clearly unreliable.

Answer: Flash Fire

As mentioned, Flash Fire gives Heatran an immunity to the Fire type attacks it would otherwise take neutral damage from. Moreover, if Heatran is targeted by a Fire type attack, the power of its own Fire type attacks raises by one stage until it switches out, making its Magma Storms even more lethal.

Answer: Stallbreaker

Heatran's immunity to Toxic, movepool, 4x resistance to Ice, respectable Speed and bulk made it into a potent stallbreaker. While normally, this set features a moveset generally consisting of Magma Storm/Taunt/Toxic/Explosion or something to that effect, it is almost totally different when deployed in Ubers.

Here, the moveset of choice was generally Flamethrower or Lava Plume/Taunt/Roar/ Dragon Pulse or Toxic. While seemingly bizarre, it fits the fourth generation Uber tier far better than its standard play variation due to the composition of the overall meta. Taunt + Toxic lets Heatran walk over Giratina and Lugia that didn't have Earthquake or Earth Power, Blissey and Deoxys-D.

Heatran's typing naturally gave it a great matchup against Skarmory and Jirachi, using Flamethrower or Lava Plume to exploit that distinction. Roar was used to rack up entry hazard damage that Pokémon like Lugia absolutely hated, while Dragon Pulse was an option to let Heatran not be defenseless against the bevy of Dragon types which scourged the tier. Thus, Heatran was a decent stallbreaker in the vaunted Uber tier.

Answer: Air Balloon

All four are certainly plausible options for any particular Heatran set, but Air Balloon stands out in giving Heatran even more defensive utility, albeit until the balloon gets popped. The item itself gives the user a temporary immunity to Ground type attacks until they take a hit, thus popping the balloon. With the Steel/Ground type Excadrill rising to prominence (before it got banned), Garchomp returning to the tier for good, and with plenty of Pokémon Heatran happened to beat starting to run Ground type coverage solely for Heatran, the Air Balloon was effective at keeping Heatran consistent and letting it take on Pokémon it had a lot of trouble with beforehand.

Answer: Flame Body

Flame Body makes it so that any Pokémon making contact with the user has a 30% chance to suffer from the Burned status effect. The ability is confirmed to have been initially intended for distribution via an event during the fifth generation lifespan, but the giveaway never actually ended up happening. Even more bizarre is that Heatran actually has a second-slotted ability within the game's code where Flame Body was going to end up being placed, but never was due to the nixed giveaway. Attempting to tinker with the game's code so that Heatran will have its second-slotted ability will result in it being given Flame Body, confirming that this was the ability of choice in said giveaway.

However, at a time where fifth generation online functionality was active, attempting to bring such a Heatran into an online or offline game against another player would have resulted in the game crashing, so it was never even usable illegally, much less going through the proper channels.

Answer: Talonflame

Talonflame's Gale Wings ability combined with its good offensive movepool made it a demon for all sorts of teams to face! That is, unless you've got a Heatran with Stone Edge, who switches into it basically for free and destroys it with this move. Heatran's immunity to Talonflame's Fire type attacks and resistance to its Flying moves meant it could easily come in and immediately force it to switch, lest it stay in and get mauled by Stone Edge.

Answer: Grass

Grassium-Z turned Solar Beam, an otherwise mostly useless move, into a one-turn nuke in Bloom Doom. Bloom Doom would savagely tear apart any Water or Ground type unfortunate enough to try switching into it. Thanks to Magma Storm, Heatran could throw this move out, see if the opponent tried tanking it with a Water type check, then watch as their Water type is trapped and forced to be a lamb to the slaughter of a super effective Bloom Doom.

This set circumvented a lot of common counterplay to Heatran, and made it even more unpredictable in the process.

Answer: It is very well balanced

All of Heatran's stats are good, but not in a "good enough to not be bad" way. Its Special Attack is really strong, its bulk is pretty good, its Speed is pretty good, while its movepool is also pretty good. Heatran's drawbacks have been incredibly well documented, and are usually easy to exploit.

It has a massive weakness to Ground while also being weak to Fighting and Water, which are quite common. Its Speed, while decent enough, doesn't outspeed offensive staples and because it has no reliable recovery, it must be played with some caution as to not get overwhelmed when facing them.

Heatran's easily exploitable weaknesses mean that over the course of teambuilding, a player is likely to devise a few methods of combatting it without even specifically intending to do so.

However, its good traits have always made it a great Pokémon, capable of fitting a lot of different teambuilds. Thus, Heatran is both easy to find a teamslot for and easy to devise counterplay against, making it incredibly well balanced.