Is Shuckle a good wall?

Question

One day I was looking for a wall and the first non-legend/mythic on the competitive pokedex was Shuckle. I know he has high defense, but his hp is so low that I never considered him as a wall. Is this a meme or is he actually good?

Comments

I don't think so as its got 20 base HP, but if you still want to use Shuckle, its good at setting up hazards like Sticky Web and Stealth Rocks however.

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What format/rules are you asking about?

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I used to do shuckle sweep teams, but its all meme and for fun. I just had to drop by since I saw my favourite pokemon mentioned ;)

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He was just going to be my wall for Pokemon Y, so no specific format.

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What are you doing in Pokemon Y that requires a wall? If you're just doing a playthrough, then you don't need to bother with defensive Pokemon.

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Do you want to use a Shuckle to battle other people? If yes, then there must be some kind of ruleset that you and the other person agree to use.

Answer 1

Long story short, no, Shuckle isn't a good wall in the tiers it is utilized in. It's primarily used as a lead to set up Sticky Web and Stealth Rocks, and usually doesn't stay in the field for too long. There are much better walls to use in the formats that Shuckle is valid in, which all outclass it as a wall. My reasoning behind Shuckle being a bad wall are as followed:

1. Unless it uses a gimmicky move like Power Split, Shuckle has got no form of damaging the opponent outside of Toxic. This leads into it being absolute Taunt bait, and needing to tank a lot of damage with its low HP as its Toxic stalling. Infestation could help, but as a Shuckle with Infestation doesn't do much damage outside of its passive damage and is rarely used on it, its still struggles (and I mean literally struggles) against Taunt users.
2. It's defenses are excellent and the best in the series, but its HP is too low to have much use. This results in it hardly being able to wall out a Pokemon due to it sustaining a lot of damage with each attack taken. Shuckle also has 0 reliable form of recovery aside from Rest, but as Shuckle is sleeping, its going to be left as an easy target to wipe out. 0 recovery and 20 Base HP is going to leave it knocked out in quite a few turns, which makes it no good as a tank.
3. Its got a really bad defensive typing, its weak to Water, Rock, and Steel which are all either common STAB types or common coverage moves in the tiers its used in, and its resistances are Normal and Poison, which are both uncommon offensive types, so unless your opponent is using Choice Band Blissey or decides to run Sludge Bomb on Landorus Therian, your resistances won't help you out much. Even if Shuckle was used as a wall in the lower tiers where there are more offensive Normal and Poison types, most low tiered Normal and Poison types have secondary typing or coverage that can deal with our reptilian friend.

Comments

If hes so bad why is number 2 on the competitive pokedex(For a wall)?

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Uh, what?

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What competitive pokedex are you referring to?

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My guess is OP looked at this... https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/stats/combo
...which obviously gives a very narrow view of what makes a good wall in competitive Pokemon.

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I now understand what the OP was talking about.
The stat combo pokedex primarily focuses on stats exclusively, rather than the actual viability of that Pokemon being as that role. Mega Beedrill and Regieleki are ranked as the best physical sweepers, but that isn't the case.

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Raw stats aren't always a good indication of viability. If that were the case, Slaking would be top tier.

Answer 2

I wouldn't recommend Shuckle as its low HP makes those defences useless so I would recommend Ferrothorn as its quite bulky on both sides and has access to more hazards with a better hp stats combined with its Grass/Steel typing not having that many weaknesses were as Shuckle has a lot of weaknesses and lack of recovery unlike Ferrothorn, Overall my advice would be to use Ferrothorn as it can do everything what Shuckle can do way better. Hopefully, this helps :)

A moveset for Ferrothorn

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Atk
Nature:Impish (+Defense -Special Attack)
-Stealth Rock
-Leech Seed
-Spikes
-Gyro Ball

Comments

In almost every format where Shuckle has a niche (ex: AG, Ubers, OU, NDOU) it is used as a Sticky Web lead, and not a wall. Shuckle is a bad wall, for reasons this answer mostly includes already.

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lemme edit this answer, I need to put an alternative

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What ability for Ferrothorn?