Iron Ball or berries for a trick room malamar?

Question

I have a relatively fast team, but I've decided for the sake of my Abomasnow, trick room is a good idea. My Malamar is the one using trick room, so would it be better to have it hold the Roseli or Chople berry for its weaknesses? Or should I have it hold an iron ball? It has average to low speed with a base stat of 73. Halving that to 37, would that be worth it? Or does it desperately need one of those berries given its average-ish defenses (86/88/75)? For your convenience if you'd like to check it, here's Malalmar's page.

Answer 1

If your using Malamar with Trick Room give it the Iron Ball.

If your using a Pokémon with Trick Room you want it no have little to no Speed at all if possible. Malamar has an average Base Speed Stat of 73 so there are still a lot of Pokémon that will be able to out speed it under the effect's of Trick Room.

Common threats include Scizor who has a Base Speed Stat of 65 and Sylveon who has a Base Speed Stat of 60. Both are Super Effective against Malamar and will be able to out speed it under the effects of Trick Room.

If you give Malamar the Iron Ball it will reduce it's Speed Stat by 50% allowing it to out speed a lot more variety of Pokémon under the effect's of Trick Room.

I wouldn't recommend giving Malamar a berry as a held item over the Iron Ball basically because it can only be used to negate the damage of one Super Effective Move after that it is consumed and can't be used again in the battle.

Hope I helped :)

Comments

Berries are actually effective in VGC, js.

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Yeah I know but I'd say an Iron Ball would be a better use item if he's using Malamar with Trick Room that's just my opinion though

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Thanks, I see your point. I wasn't quite sure if it's 73 base speed was slow enough, but now that you pointed out some specific, slower threats I see that I do in fact need the lower speed. However, what moves do you recommend to cover a fairy type, and at least neutrally cover scizor?

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Well unfortunately Malamar can't actually learn any Poison or Steel type moves to cover Fairy other than Hidden Power. For Bug types you could give your Malamar Flamethower if it is a mixed set if it isn't a mixed set give it Rock Slide or Pluck. Pluck is a Flying type move so it is 2x Super Effective against most Bug types and 4x Super Effective against Heracross. It is only 60 Power but has 100% Accuracy and if the target is holding a berry it will eat the berry and gain it's effect. Pluck is good to use in the VGC because of the amount of players that give their Pokémon berries to hold. Rock Slide is 2x Super Effective against most Bugs and 4x Super Effective against Bug/ Flying types. It is 75 Power, 100% Accuracy and a 30% chance to flinch.

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Thanks. I think I'm going to go with rock slide instead of night slash, exchanging a bit of power for the necessary coverage, but what about pluck? I don't have any actual specific reason for Topsy-Turvy in my strategy, but I thought it could be useful. Should I go with pluck instead?

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Well honestly I would probably give it Psycho Cut (STAB + Increased Critical Hit Ratio), Night Slash (STAB + Increased Critical Hit Ratio), Rock Slide (Coverage) and either Trick Room (If this is the Pokémon setting it up), Pluck (Coverage) or Substitute (So it doesn't get hit.) I actually wouldn't give it Topsy-Turvey because I have a feeling that this year Sticky Web will be a massive feature in the VGC and it will actually benefit you becauce your using Trick Room.

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We'll Malamar's main purpose was to abuse contrary superpower, but when I added abomasnow, I needed trick room. I think I may need find a better trick roomer.

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Ah okay sorry you never actually said what your Ability was. If your Ability is Contrary then I'd definitely keep Superpower in your move set.

Answer 2

Iron ball. You only use berries once unless you have a ton of them.

Comments

I should've mentioned this is for VGC, so quantity does not matter.

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What's VGC?

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Video Game Competition
The official Pokemon tournaments with regional, national and a worldwide level.

Answer 3

I think you should make your Malamar hold a Roseli berry

• You said that your Malamar had a low speed stat so there is no point of you using a Iron Ball

• There would be no point in holding a Chople berry because Malamar doesn't have a weakness to Fighting types

• Roseli berry would be the only listed item that would actually help you, by lessening the damage taken from one supereffective Fairy-type attack.

Comments

Iron ball makes malamar be faster in trick room, I think

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Yeah, but Malamar is already a slow pokemon

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Well 73 for speed isn't drastically low like mega abomasnow, but it is low enough I suppose. And by chople I meant tanga. Which weakness is more important to cover for?

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In that case you should definetley take the tanga berry because a x4 weakness is more important to cover for than a x2 weakness

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It's just that I can only think of three bug type threats, not too likely (note this is for VGC), mega Heracross w/ mega horn, mega Ampharos w/ signal beam, or Volcarona w/ bug buzz. Fairy though, so many Pokemon with play rough and moonblast. There's good reasoning for both of them.

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Also, with a berry, the 4x weakness is reduced to 2x, so still very strong.

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Still better than a x4 weakness though