Competitive Pokemon History - Houndoom Quiz

Answer: It actually has the right stats to be effective, unlike most Fire types

Due to the lack of a physical/special split, all Fire type attacks could only be specially offensive, even moves such as Fire Punch. Houndoom's excellent base 110 Special Attack was second only to Moltres for Fire types, and Houndoom's secondary Dark typing and good base 95 speed allowed it to shine alongside its good movepool, which are two traits Moltres lacked. Because of this, Houndoom has an important niche as a threatening special wallbreaker for standard play in its debut generation.

Answer: Snorlax

Starmie could not threaten an OHKO against Houndoom, while Houndoom could 2HKO it with Crunch. Starmie was therefore a check, but not at all a counter.

While Blissey might seem like the correct answer, as it has a reputation for endlessly walling special attackers across numerous metagames, Houndoom has one ace in the hole to deal with it; Beat Up. If Houndoom has at least four healthy teammates, it can threaten Blissey with, at worst, a 2HKO with the move. If Houndoom came with Pokemon like Snorlax or Machamp as partners, it might even be able to OHKO Blissey with the move.

Unfortunately, the king of the tier Snorlax effortlessly countered Houndoom. As Snorlax saw usage on every single well-built standard play team, and any serious trainer needed to pack multiple countermeasures to it, this was a huge problem. The only way conceivable for Houndoom to ever come out on top was if the Snorlax user was stupid enough to come in and immediately attack Houndoom, at which point, Houndoom could use Counter to likely OHKO in return. Unfortunately, Snorlax's massive special defense and workable defense stat means it is scarcely ever pressured into immediately attacking Houndoom, and can just Curse up until its Earthquake becomes a guaranteed OHKO against it. Because of this, anyone looking to make use of Houndoom has to be excellent at making risky, high tension predictions in order for it to not become a liability.

Answer: Halves the amount of time the user spends asleep

If Houndoom were to use Rest, it would only be incapacitated for one turn instead of two. It would also be asleep for less time if it was hit by moves such as Spore or Hypnosis. Sadly, this ability was totally useless in practice. In no remote way could Houndoom risk switching into Breloom, the only semi-common Spore user, or Gengar, who rarely but sometimes ran Hypnosis, which meant Houndoom was not an effective sleep absorber against these foes. Houndoom's poor bulk also makes using Rest impractical, as it would have a tough time surviving long enough for Early Bird to activate. Additionally, Houndoom really needs to dedicate all four of its moveslots to offensive moves to be genuinely effective. All of this means Flash Fire is its optimal ability by a sizable margin.

Answer: Doing this would prevent Houndoom from giving away its moveset or its teammates

Beat Up is a move that calls upon all of Houndoom's teammates to individually use a typeless base 70 physical attack against the target. Hypothetically, if Houndoom was paired with a Machamp, Snorlax and a Regice as it used this move, the game would introduce each team member as it was their turn, by saying "Machamp's attack!" before Machamp's Beat Up played out, and so on. Because of this, if Machamp hadn't been revealed on its user's team yet, using Beat Up without nicknaming the Machamp would reveal the presence of a Machamp on one's team, which would grant that information to the opponent and allow them to act accordingly. Because of this, even if Houndoom is not running Beat Up, it is best to nickname all of Houndoom's teammates, to keep the opponent honest.

Answer: UnderUsed

Through two full generations, Houndoom was deemed too strong for UU play and was on UU's Banned List. It had failed to receive enough usage to be OverUsed by usage statistics in its debut and third generations. In bitter sweet fashion, Houndoom ultimately fell out of favor in standard play completely, as the introduction of Infernape and Heatran largely stole away any niche conceivable for it.

However, in UU, Houndoom came into its own and became a much greater threat, which is, all told, not a bad trade off.

Answer: Nasty Plot

With Nasty Plot, Houndoom could double its already high Special attack in one turn. Due to the lack of Blissey or Snorlax, combined with the fact that Moltres did not get this move itself, Houndoom could quickly threaten the entirety of the UU meta after just a single turn of setup.

It actually had a reasonable time finding opportunities to set up, despite its poor bulk. It could use common Pokemon such as Spiritomb, Mismagius, and sometimes even the king of the tier in Venusaur, as opportunities to boost and ravage the opposing team.

Answer: Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch gave Houndoom priority that could sometimes allow it to evade a revenge killing attempt against it. Additionally, this move deterred Pokemon like Mismagius from staying in on it and attempting to damage it with Hidden Power Fighting on a predicted Nasty Plot set up, as Houndoom could just as easily OHKO it with Sucker Punch. Finally, Sucker Punch gave Houndoom mid-game offensive utility which most end game sweepers tend to lack, giving it a unique niche that kept it viable in the much higher power level of fifth generation UnderUsed

Answer: Solar Power

With Solar Power, if the weather is sunny, Houndoom gains a massive boost to its overall attacking power at the expense of losing 10% of its HP every turn. Sadly, Drought was banned from UnderUsed and the only viable user of it in standard play was Mega Charizard-Y, who cannot be paired with Mega Houndoom. This meant that the weather would need to be set manually, which was a risky strategy and was only usable on specific hyper offensive builds. Mega Houndoom's stats were certainly conducive to these teambuilds, but in UU, Hyper Offensive teams had a tough time overcoming common stall teams, and Mega Charizard-Y is generally a stronger choice than Mega Houndoom on these builds in standard play.

Still, Mega Houndoom was a fine choice for standard play or UU. Its massive Base 115 Speed and good Base 140 Special Attack stat, alongside still having access to Nasty Plot, made it a very viable end game sweeper in both tiers.

Answer: The banning of the Drought ability from the tier

The power levels of UU were low enough, combined with the above average efficacy of stall teams, where Drought was initially allowed again in the tier. Mega Houndoom was by far the tier's biggest beneficiary from this, as its Solar Power boosted, potentially Nasty Plot boosted, and sun boosted Fire Blasts 2HKOed everything that wasn't outright immune to Fire, even bulky Water types and renowned special wall Blissey. Its Base 115 Speed meant it outsped nearly the whole relevant metagame, only being outdone by Mega Aerodactyl and Mega Pidgeot. All of this made it so that Mega Houndoom was, initially, by far the strongest Pokemon in the meta.

Before long, it was found that Mega Houndoom's presence was too problematic from a balancing perspective. However, Mega Houndoom itself was not the problem- Drought was. The fact that Mega Houndoom could abuse Drought so thoroughly ultimately led to Drought itself being banned, not Mega Houndoom. After this, Mega Houndoom fell into more of a mid-tier viability in UU; it was still a threat, but it now had noticeable issues stopping it from ravaging the tier, now that Drought was banned.

Answer: Hydreigon

As a Dragon/Dark type, Hydreigon resisted both of Mega Houndoom's STAB moves and could return fire with a Draco Meteor nuke that OHKOed after Stealth Rock. Apart from Hydreigon and Mega Aerodactyl, all other top tiers learned to fear Mega Houndoom's name, as it could incinerate the king of the tier in Scizor, use either STAB to destroy Celebi, and could plunge Latias into a Dark type grave with its strong Dark Pulses.