Competitive Pokémon History - Drifblim Quiz

Answer: Aftermath

Aftermath makes it so that if Drifblim is KOed by a move which makes physical contact with it, the user of that move loses 1/4th of their maximum HP as Drifblim goes down. This could allow Drifblim to punish priority users who sought to cut off its sweep, as it could often do enough damage to them to potentially take them down with it.

Answer: Unburden

Unburden doubles Driftblim's speed if it's item is either consumed or removed. Pair this with a Sitrus Berry and the move Substitute, and Drifblim could use Substitute to lower its HP into range for Sitrus Berry to activate, consume the berry, then activate Unburden and potentially have an active Substitute along with reasonably high HP. Trainers who wanted to take more of a risk could give Drifblim a Petaya Berry instead; this would prevent it from recouping lost HP to its Substitutes, but it would elevate Drifblim's offenses to give it more of an edge to try and end the game with a sweep.

Answer: 150

Sharing the same HP stat as the immensely bulky Giratina, Drifblim's other stats didn't let it be anywhere in the same zip code in terms of being as bulky as the Renegade Pokémon. Still, having a high HP stat let Drifblim create bulky Substitutes, which helped a lot in letting it sweep or Baton Pass said Substitutes to something else.

Answer: Flying Gem

Gems were an item introduced in the fifth generation. They were consumed once a damaging move of the appropriate type was used, and a Gem gave the move in question a one time 1.5x boost. Acrobatics is a move which has 120 base power when the user is not holding an item, 60 base power otherwise. Due to game mechanics, the Flying Gem would be consumed before Acrobatics was used, as to offer Acrobatics the buff and make it into a base 180 nuking move. Consuming the Flying Gem would also activate Unburden, giving Drifblim a +2 to its speed. Anything which stands in the way of a Drifblim with a Flying Gem ready either needs to resist Flying, be a Pokémon the trainer can afford to sacrifice, or will need to get out of the way before it gets nuked to Poke Hell.

Answer: Magnetron and Empoleon

Anything weak to Acrobatics will get annihilated, so Venusaur and Hitmontop can immediately and thoroughly be ruled out. Hitmonlee can be too, but it was never seen in UU anyway. Spiritomb and Suicune could be a desperation play to try and counter Drifblim, but for as bulky as they are, they take too much damage from Acrobatics and need to get extremely lucky with Rest and Sleep Talk rolls to achieve this. Because odds are against them, they cannot reliably counter Drifblim.

Magneton boasts a 4x resistance to Acrobatics, meaning even its poor bulk can stand up to repeated assaults, and a swift Thunderbolt will drop Drifblim easily. Meanwhile, Empoleon is far tankier, also resists Acrobatics, and can easily use Roar to cancel out Unburden and remove Drifblim from the field. It can also fish for crippling burns with Scald, or simply use Scald or Ice Beam to outslug Drifblim should a more direct approach be necessary. As such, they were both excellent counters.

Answer: Gems were removed from the game

The Flying Gem was integral to Drifblim's success. It gave it the ability to nuke something with a boosted Acrobatics, then twirl a sweep off the heels of Unburden. Unburden could still be activated fairly easily, but Drifblim could not start the snowball by nuking something anywhere as easily.

Answer: PartiallyUsed

In PU, Drifblim was a very so-so Pokémon. It lacked the ability to reliably sweep with no way of bolstering its mediocre offenses, and its defensive profile was quite negligible. Still, Unburden gave it a solid matchup against offensive teams, making it hard to revenge kill by virtue of the massive speed boost conveyed by Unburden. So it wasn't totally useless, though it was hardly anyone's first choice for a team slot.

Answer: Flare Boost

Flare Boost gives a +1 to special attack when the user suffers from the burned status effect. Unfortunately, Drifblim's stats outside of HP were quite poor, the Burned effect ruins its HP, and it's immediate offenses are not enough to properly use Flare Boost. This makes it outclassed by Unburden in practice.

Answer: Untiered

In the power creep laden Z Crystal era, Drifblim had no real chance of keeping up. Z Crystals unfortunately did not synergize with Acrobatics the way the Flying Gem once did in the fifth generation, so Drifblim was a poor user of them. With its low immediate power, Drifblim was left in the dust as an offensive Pokémon, and its bad typing and poor defenses with no recovery made a defensive set laughable.

Answer: Strength Sap

Strength Sap lets Drifblim recover an amount of HP based on the target's attack stat, then reduces said stat by one stage. This was the first form of immediate, reliable recovery Drifblim had ever had access to. Combine that with the new Heavy Duty Boots and, for the first time since its debut generation, a defensive set or a Tank role were actually feasible options for it.

This let it return to a decent degree of viability in PU.