Competitive Pokemon History - Zangoose Quiz

Answer: A Swords Dance sweeper with physical STAB

With a nice 115 Attack stat, workable 90 Speed and STAB Return, Zangoose could lay the hurt on teams after a Swords Dance boost. Access to a physical Shadow Ball kept Ghost types from totally blanking it, while Brick Break could take out Tyranitar, Rock and Steel types.

Answer: 60

73/60/60 bulk with only a single immunity to Ghost made Zangoose quite milquetoast, to say the least. If it couldn't finish its target off in 1-2 turns, Zangoose would get mowed down very easily due to its poor bulk. Thankfully, it had the offenses and movepool to where it could generally achieve this, but due to its inability to reliably hold down a sweep, it was often outclassed as a sweeper by Pokemon like Tyranitar, Metagross, Salamence and more.

Answer: Immunity

Immunity grants Zangoose an immunity to being poisoned in anyway. Thematically, being immune to a Seviper's poison-inducing STAB moves makes sense from a lore perspective. Sadly, the competitive scene ultimately cares little for lore, and because Zangoose can be KOed by, at most, two mildly strong attacking moves, an opponent is more likely to do that than think to afflict Zangoose with Toxic while it ravages the opponent's team before eventually being KOed far more slowly.

Answer: No

Quite the opposite: Zangoose flat out sucked in fourth generation UU. All of its problems from third generation standard play followed it to fourth gen UU. Only here, Zangoose was immensely outclassed by a bevy of other UU Pokemon, including but not limited to Tauros, Ambipom, Ursaring and even Slaking of all Pokemon. All of these Pokemon were faster, bulkier, offered more utility in the case of the former three and were far, far more consistent at doing their jobs. Zangoose's terrible bulk and merely decent Attack, meshed with below average Speed, caused it to just suck completely compared to the competition. Notably, it was hard countered by the ubiquitous Spiritomb and easily dealt with by any team that had an even mildly decent defensive backbone, or was hyper offensive and could just mow Zangoose down with something.

Sadly, Zangoose was too strong for fourth generation NU, causing it to linger in a sad state of Pokemon Purgatory.

Answer: Hitmontop

Actually switching straight in to Zangoose is usually not a good idea, as it has good power, could pick up a free Swords Dance boost if its trainer predicts a switch, and has a rather wide movepool to hit a lot of the metagame hard.

However, Hitmontop, alongside Spiritomb, is about as consistent a switch-in as it gets. Hitmontop's Intimidate will cut Zangoose's Attack, making it easier to switch in. Hitmontop's naturally good bulk and lack of weakness to anything Zangoose can run also help it do this consistently. Once in, Hitmontop can take a second hit, or survive a Swords Dance-boosted hit, and destroy Zangoose in return with Close Combat. The "Technitop" set is also capable of dispatching of a mildly weakened Zangoose with Mach Punch, though that particular variant did not run Intimidate for an ability and, thus, had a slightly trickier time switching in.

Spiritomb and Hitmontop were rather common in fourth generation UU, and thus, did heavily contribute to Zangoose's diminishing viability in the tier.

Answer: Toxic Boost

Toxic Boost is very similar to Guts, only it is slightly inferior since it does the same thing, only mandating that Zangoose be poisoned to activate, whereas Guts could be triggered by any status. Still, Zangoose's terrible bulk and, by association, longevity meant this shortcoming was immaterial and, in practice, it functioned like Guts did anyway.

This was huge for two reasons. One, Zangoose had access to Facade, a move which naturally becomes stronger when the user gets statused, making its synergy with Toxic Boost clear. Facade also got STAB, meaning it would become obscenely powerful once Zangoose got poisoned. The second was that Zangoose finally had unbelievable raw power with which to separate itself from the large pack of otherwise superior Normal types, being far, far stroner than the likes of Swellow, Ursaring, Tauros or Slaking.

Answer: A slow U-Turner/Volt Switcher/Baton Passer

Unfortunately, Zangoose's Toxic Orb, a compulsory item to reliably activate Toxic Boost, does not automatically trigger when it touches the battlefield; it must wait one turn first. With Zangoose's pathetic bulk, this is not usually doable on its own, as the opponent is sure to recognize the massive threat in front of them and hit Zangoose as hard as they can, crippling it and stopping it from getting far once Toxic Orb activates, if even it gets the chance to do so.

If Zangoose is paired with a teammate, such as Mesprit with U-Turn, Forretress with Volt Switch, or Drifblim with Baton Pass, these Pokemon could take a hit first, bring Zangoose in safely, and allow it to remain on the battlefield for the required one turn, for Toxic Orb to safely activate. It was important that these Pokemon were as slow as possible, so that they could reliably move after the opponent, then bring Zangoose in to ensure it could come onto the field unscathed.

It might seem like Zangoose could get away with running Protect, to reliably activate its Orb. However, Zangoose would then have issues with its moveset, having to give up something extremely important to fit Protect. Facade was mandatory for obvious reasons, and then it was best to run Night Slash to hit Ghosts who were immune to Facade, Close Combat to smack Rocks and Steels who resisted Facade, and Quick Attack to deter speedier Pokemon from simply picking off a weakened Zangoose before getting hit by Facade. Choosing to run Protect constrained Zangoose, preventing it from reliably doing its job and making it less threatening.

Thus, a slow Pokemon capable of pivoting Zangoose onto the field would be needed, to ensure it could do its job as lethally as it was capable of doing it.

Answer: 315

To offer some perspective, three Earthquakes used by Groudon have a combined 300 base power, meaning that Zangoose's lone Facade, when boosted by Toxic Boost and the Toxic Orb, hit roughly as hard as three Earthquakes from the mover of continents itself (factoring in Zangoose's lesser Attack stat than Groudon's)! That is some utterly obscene power.

When you consider that Zangoose could make use of this in tiers lower than Ubers, it's a shame its other deficiencies have stopped it from seeing serious standard play viability, as it would have been incredibly fun watching trainers take advantage of this!

Answer: Garbodor

Defensive Garbodor frequently ran Rocky Helmet. When combined with Zangoose's Toxic Orb chipping away at its HP, and the fact that Garbodor is not 2HKOed by Facade, the absolute best case scenario for Zangoose is that it has to KO itself in order to bring Garbodor down. Even if, hypothetically, both Facades were to critically hit, and would 2HKO Garbodor, the residual damage from two turns of Rocky Helmet, two turns of Toxic poison, and Garbodor's Aftermath ability would KO Zangoose every single time, meaning Garbodor doesn't even have to attack Zangoose in order to take it down.

The fact that both Facades hitting critically as Garbodor came in was extremely unlikely meant Garbodor would just about always survive the encounter, and would be able to attack Zangoose back with something anyway to make the encounter more lopsided than it would seem. Thus, Garbodor was definitely a counter.

Answer: Belly Drum

Belly Drum maximizes the user's Attack stat, putting it to +6, in exchange for halving the user's HP. As Zangoose was immensely frail and would get OHKOed or 2HKOed by most moves from full HP anyway, the drawback was not too consequential. Still, actually boosting without getting immediately KOed was clearly quite difficult, to the point of necessitating the boost be picked up on a predicted switch. If Zangoose could boost with Belly Drum without being KOed or crippled by status, it would be incredibly difficult to stop from there, and would likely ride the boosts to victory. Thus, it was the ultimate risk/reward strategy in seventh generation PartiallyUsed.