Competitive Pokémon History - Heatmor Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Right away, it was clear Heatmor never had a chance in fifth generation standard play. Or UU. Or RU. Or really, even the game's lowest tier at the time, NU, was quite a bit hostile to it. This was mainly due to Heatmor's bad overall stats, with miserable bulk and poor Speed. What was Heatmor's Speed?

Answer: 65

A 65 in Speed is just awful by any standards. It's even worse considering Heatmor's horrid bulk and poor defensive typing. As a result, Heatmor was easily overwhelmed and would often only get to hit the field once before inevitably getting taken down somehow.

2. In NU, any Fire type in general had big competition to live up to, as this Fire type was the king of the tier who overshadowed Heatmor and many other Fire types. What Pokémon was this?

Answer: Charizard

Charizard had very solid, well rounded stats with an amazing movepool. This allowed it to use physical or specially offensive sets- it could even try its hand with a defensive set if it wanted. Charizard was the king of NU, naturally meaning any other Fire type is going to be basically outclassed by it in comparison.

This was definitely the case for Heatmor, who has very little going for it in general, to distinguish itself from Charizard nevertheless.

3. Heatmor possessed one interesting move that its Fire type competition did not that could make it at least not worthless in fifth generation NU. What move was this?

Answer: Sucker Punch

In the entire game, only Houndoom joined Heatmor as Fire types with access to Sucker Punch, and Houndoom was banned from NU. This meant Heatmor at least had a niche as a Fire type with this move. It wasn't the only Fire type with priority in general, as Monferno and Magmortar had Mach Punch while Rapidash got Quick Attack. Sucker Punch was stronger than those moves, but this was not any particularly strong reason to use Heatmor over the aforementioned Fire types or Charizard.

4. Heatmor was one of few Pokémon to debut with three different abilities. Two of its abilities were Gluttony and White Smoke, which didn't see much use. Heatmor's first slotted ability was generally its best. What was it?

Answer: Flash Fire

Heatmor lacked a way of boosting its merely decent offenses, so a trainer should try to switch it into a Fire type attack to correct this. With Flash Fire, if Heatmor is targeted by a Fire type move, it will take no damage from the move and will receive a +1 to its Fire type attacks until switched out of play.

5. Despite its general mediocrity, Heatmor was actually quite difficult to counter. It had a good enough movepool and just enough power to make achieving this quite difficult. However, it did have one assailant who could get the job done, switching into Heatmor and reliably winning. Who was this?

Answer: Camerupt

Regirock is typically able to counter Fire types. Heatmor is a bit too much though, as it's decently strong, super effective Giga Drain supplemented by a Life Orb is barely strong enough to guarantee the 2HKO on Regirock from full health. This is generally the case for most Water types as well, and the few which were only neutral to Giga Drain such as Ludicolo were now only neutral to Fire as a consequence, making Heatmor's Fire Blast too strong to counter it on.

Camerupt, however, was both bulky enough and possessed the correct typing to properly counter Heatmor. Camerupt wouldn't be 3HKOed by anything Heatmor could viably use. Once it hit the field, Camerupt could threaten Heatmor with an OHKO using a super effective Earth Power as long as it was either being boosted by Life Orb, Expert Belt or a Choice Specs item. As such, Camerupt can indeed counter Heatmor.

6. Heatmor encountered issues in the sixth generation. Which usage based tier did it end up in here?

Answer: Untiered

The sixth generation debuted a new lowest tier- PU or PartiallyUsed. However, Heatmor still couldn't find any prominence here. Almost every Pokémon which overshadowed it in fifth gen NU joined it here in PU, outclassing Heatmor similarly. An era where Mega Evolutions were introduced brought forth tremendous power creep which Heatmor simply couldn't keep up with.

7. Curiously, Heatmor's best, most commonly used moveset per Smogon usage statistics involved it using 216 Speed EVs in the sixth generation. Typically, weird values like this are done as a means of dealing with a specific threat. In this case, these Speed EVs allow Heatmor to outspeed a top tier threat in PU whom Heatmor actually had a very good matchup against. Who was this?

Answer: Pawniard

A Pawniard with an Adamant nature, which it just about always used, is outsped by a Heatmor using at least 216 Speed EVs. Given that Heatmor's status in PU was quite lacking, this speed investment was highly encouraged to give it a nice niche in the tier as a mixed attacker who didn't fear Pawniard.

This was definitely a very specific niche that was scarcely actually useful to the average team, but it could help at least someone, which was better than just being totally useless and unviable.

8. In the seventh generation, Heatmor was curiously given a brand new signature move that, at the time, was exclusive to itself and only Smeargle. What move was this?

Answer: Fire Lash

Fire Lash is a base 80 physically offensive move that comes with the second effect of having a 10% chance to reduce the target's Defense by one stage upon use.

Sadly, even though it's pretty cool that Heatmor got an exclusive move, Fire Lash was far from enough to elevate its status in a considerable manner. Still, it was a nice upgrade over Fire Punch, which was at least something.

9. Heatmor's versatility increased a bit in the eighth generation as well, as it gained access to a new specially offensive move it could use to check opposing Fire types. What move was this?

Answer: Scorching Sands

Scorching Sands is basically a Ground type clone of Scald- a Ground type move with middling power and a 30% chance to burn the target after use. It was strong enough to allow Heatmor to properly deal with most Fire types, as well as deter the average Rock type from switching into it.

10. Heatmor and Durant have a well documented rivalry thematically, Durant being the ant and Heatmor the anteater. They've both gone in very different directions competitively, as Durant has been productive and common in mid tier play, Heatmor not so much. However, in the one-on-one between the Fire type Heatmor and the Bug/Steel type Durant, which of the following is true?

Answer: Durant checks Heatmor

Despite Durant being 4x weak to Heatmor's STAB, Durant is much faster and has access to Stone Edge. Thanks to the Hustle boost, Durant's Stone Edge is strong enough to OHKO Heatmor on the spot. The matchup is a bit dicey though, as while Hustle is giving Durant's Stone Edge a power boost, it has the drawback of reducing Stone Edge's iffy accuracy to a poor 64%. If Stone Edge misses, Heatmor will melt Durant with a 4x super effective Fire attack and win. However, because Durant is faster and Stone Edge has a better than even chance to hit and OHKO, it checks Heatmor.

This matchup just about never actually took place on the competitive scene, unfortunately, as Durant was too busy dominating the RU and UU tiers to take notice and pity towards Heatmor, who was languishing down in PU. What a way to add insult to injury.

Source: Author cavalier87

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor kyleisalive before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Competitive Pokémon History - Heatmor Quiz

The archnemesis of Durant, the anteater Heatmor gets a competitive history quiz! See if you can rise up for it here, spanning from generations 5-8!

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