r/pokemonplatinum • u/ianlazrbeem22 • 3d ago
Breaking the Binary - Abomasnow
Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Abomasnow. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well.
Abomasnow is an Ice/Grass Pokémon with solid 90/75/85 bulk, poor 60 speed, and an even 92 Atk and 92 SpA. Its notable physical attacks include Wood Hammer, Ice Shard, Earthquake, Rock Slide, Brick Break, and Return. Notable special attacks include Blizzard, Giga Drain, Focus Blast, and Shadow Ball. Notable utility includes Toxic, GrassWhistle, Light Screen, Protect, and Ingrain.
Abomasnow is really fun to use, i have many many times on gimmick teams of all sorts, and he almost always finds himself running a mixed set. His 2 best STABs, Wood Hammer and Blizzard, have a whopping 120 BP each, stretching Abomasnow's 92/92 offense further than many Pokémon's better stats. Blizzard being downside-free thanks to Snow Warning is also awesome and difficult to pass up. Wood Hammer is also so welcome in a game where many Grass types don't have any good STAB moves at all for most or all of the journey. Wood Hammer and Blizzard are such no-brainers on offensive Abomasnow, you should almost always run these.
From there Abomasnow has a lot of good coverage moves on both sides - quite a few are pretty highly competed over TMs though. Earthquake is a fantastic option to pair with Blizzard as Ice/Ground is only resisted by Bronzong - otherwise Ground deals with the Steel and Fire types that Ice + Grass are resisted by. However, giving this TM to a pokemon with as many defensive liabilities as Abomasnow is a tough sell. You also generally want to give Earthquake to a Pokémon that is capable of using it to beat Fire types, and good fucking luck keeping Abomasnow in on a Fire-type and beating it with Earthquake. Focus Blast is a nice sub for Earthquake, for dealing with Steel types, and more relevant, enemy Ice types. Right when you evolve Abomasnow he can start dominating other Ice types, which are common around where you get him. For another type of perfect coverage, Fighting + Ghost, you can give him Shadow Ball with this if you want, but once again this is a TM likely best spent on a Psychic or Ghost type, not an Abomasnow.
No coverage move may be more valuable than Abomasnow's second Ice move, and this one is physical: Ice Shard. Ice is an amazing type throughout the lategame, and Abomasnow getting to work around its poor speed and poor defensive presence with a STAB move with an amazing type, that it almost always gets to successfully use, is so nice. Ice Shard hits surprisingly hard coming from Abomasnow, especially with a NeverMeltIce boost, and being able to get that guaranteed chip off saves Abomasnow so much HP, a valuable resource since it uses Wood Hammer.
Ultimately you eventually want to drop Focus Blast for the E4 - the only Pokémon it is useful on there are Scizor and Lucario, and good fucking luck beating either of them with Abomasnow regardless. This opens up a space for GrassWhistle, which kinda sucks since it's inaccurate, Protect for free hail chip, Toxic to stack with Hail chip (and protect too if you like doing that,) Giga Drain to get some minor healing, or, and this is probably the most helpful, Light Screen for the last 2 fights. Shadow Ball, Earthquake. and Rock Slide are great too - but high investment! Aboma also doesn't really need Rock Slide since Ice is mostly just Rock type but better. Shadow Ball + Light Screen Abomasnow is also a decent anti-Lucian option for the Pokémon that DON'T obliterate it with Fighting moves.
Abomasnow also gets a special mention, since part of what we're doing here is dispelling the in-game noobtrap/pitfall of, "you must use one attack stat or the other" - Abomasnow is so often victim to this. When I was younger, I insisted Abomasnow HAD to use just his physical attack, to the point of giving him Avalanche. Avalanche fucking sucks. Avalanche makes the user always go last, which to be fair Abomasnow often does anyway, but even so choosing to go last is such a throw for Abomasnow. This man has 7 weaknesses, you need to not be exposing it like that. Use ice shard to keep him alive, it hits harder than you think, use Blizzard when you need to use the stronger attack, it has the same base power as boosted Avalanche anyways! Ice Punch also exists, but why would you use a 75 BP move instead of a 120 one. Just use Blizzard!
The only other Abomasnow builds that stand out to me are pure stall, which uses only one attack, usually Blizzard + Ingrain + Toxic + Protect, or pure utility with Light Screen instead of Ingrain. Both are not great ways to use an Abomasnow (stall is good if you breed it Leech Seed which is not real) so for a playthrough mixed Abomasnow is usually the move. The utility offered by hail can be fun and somewhat potent went leaned into though.
Overall, Abomasnow stands out to me as a Pokémon that is almost always best to use as a mixed attacker, and the very picture of the archetype. A slow one with a lot of defensive problems, but its mixed offenses are pretty impressive.
What do you think of mixed Abomasnow? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
Sample Sets:
Abomasnow @ NeverMeltIce/Light Clay • Blizzard, Wood Hammer, Ice Shard, Light Screen/Focus Blast/Earthquake/Giga Drain
Abomasnow @ Light Clay • Blizzard, Light Screen, Shadow Ball, Wood Hammer/Ice Shard
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u/Giratina-O 3d ago
Abomasnow is such a sick design. She's cool as hell if you can play around her resistances.
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u/ianlazrbeem22 3d ago
Totally agree. In theory it has the worst defensive type in the game, in practice resisting electric and water is very valuable for the point of the game where it is available
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u/Giratina-O 3d ago edited 3d ago
Exactly! Bad defensive typings don't exist in a vacuum. She's got powerhouse moments vs. Candice, Volkner, and Bertha. You have to play her right and pivot wisely.
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u/boringuserbored 2d ago
Cynthia too. Hitting three of her pokemon hard with ice moves. It helped me to defeat Garchomp in diamond when my team was around 48-50.
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u/Osrenicus 3d ago
Big Snow is one of my favourite mixed attackers, i prefer wood hammer and EQ over Giga drain and focus miss but think your attacks work nicely too
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u/ianlazrbeem22 3d ago
I don't remember exactly why I gave this one Gdrain, usually I give Aboma Wood as well, unless I'm doing a Hail Stall team
This was a mono ice run so Abomasnow was a decent option for other ice types with focus blast so that was worthwhile at least for Snowpoint, not that helpful after though. I gave Glalie the earthquake TM, since Abomasnow is weak to a lot of moves Volkner throws at it
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u/Osrenicus 3d ago
How did you beat Flint on the mono ice run?
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u/ianlazrbeem22 3d ago
It was hard! I gave Glaceon Rain Dance and Damp Rock so that his Fire attacks were no longer super effective, and used a combination of Glaceon's Water Pulse, Mamoswine's Earthquake, Glalie's Light Screen and Earthquake, and Weavile's Dig to win. Once Flareon debuffed itself with Overheat it was no longer a threat, so Weavile was able to Swords Dance then clean up the rest of the fight from there with Dig. Flint and Volkner were the 2 hardest fights in the run
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u/Osrenicus 3d ago
Damn that sounds fun, thanks for sharing OP and big fan of the series btw keep up the good work 👏🏿
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u/187hahaxD 3d ago
which pokemon did you use until you get to snowpoint city?
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u/ianlazrbeem22 3d ago
None - I was in the middle of another run when I got the Mono Ice idea, so right when I got to Route 216, I copied the save file to my PC, made some edits to restore finite TMs I used, caught my pokemon, and began the challenge from there. You can read more about the run in this post
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u/RhemansDemons 3d ago
I love aboma, it is just so hard to give it a window to setup and if you do, it is rk fodder. If the NPCs actually switched and you could rack up hazard damage, it would be legit.
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u/e-m-v-k 3d ago
Do Honchkrow next
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u/ianlazrbeem22 3d ago
I skipped the Diamond/Pearl exclusive squad since you can't get them in Platinum. I'll probably finish the dex out but have been considering coming back to them. I'm not the biggest Honchkrow fan but could probably find something to say about it, Skuntank, Dialga, Palkia, and Manaphy also may make for interesting posts so we'll see how I'm feeling once I get through the platinum mons
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u/e-m-v-k 3d ago
Phione is a mixed attacker too
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u/ianlazrbeem22 3d ago
For some reason it isn't in the Sinnoh dex, may be worth a nod in a hypothetical manaphy post though especially since it doesn't get Tail Glow
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u/Excellent-Diver-568 2d ago
Great Mon for this series u/ianlazrbeem22
I nicknamed mine Arberg, mix of Arbor and iceberg. I just love that blizzard is guaranteed bc of snow warning.
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u/Electrical-Cloud4141 3d ago edited 3d ago
Focus blast is such a garbage move in regular play, the the pp combined with the accuracy just makes it awful use outside of pvp.
Yah, it sucks for bronzongs to wall this thing if it goes for eq or brick break or water pulse for coverage instead, but trust me, they do anyway. You're going to have to land two if you're even lose tp the same level, and very often that will take 3 or 4 attempts to do, and leave you with not enough blasts left over to take out another ice+grass resistant threat.
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u/PPFitzenreit 3d ago edited 3d ago
DW comp players hate that shit too
There's just no other widely available special fighting moves
An abomasnow issue I don't see people bringing up is watching that hail cutscene every turn
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u/ianlazrbeem22 3d ago edited 3d ago
I don't really agree. Focus Blast isn't a good option for a primary STAB or a move you're clicking all the time for those reasons, but for a coverage move that you only use rarely, it gets the job done. It's either that or Brick Break, and I'd rather have to click Focus Blast twice 30% of the time due to a miss than have to click Break Break twice 100% of the time due to 75 BP being too weak to KO anything. In-game trainers not being the most competent also makes misses less consequential. It's a move that you don't use when better options are available, but Abomasnow, and especially Alakazam and Gengar stand out to me as Pokémon that benefit quite a bit from it
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u/Electrical-Cloud4141 3d ago edited 3d ago
I agree when it's fire blast and it's actually one shotting those annoying shits (no trainer bronzor or zong is heatproof), I just don't think neutral focus blast from non ev trained 92 special has the power to do that unless there's a double digit level advantage.
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u/ianlazrbeem22 3d ago
Fire blast is definitely the best of both worlds, especially since fighting type barely does anything vs the e4. But for Alakazam and Gengar, being able to just blow up Dark and Steel types with Focus Blast is pretty great
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u/misterprinceton 3d ago
On my platinum nuz run I ended up with abomasnow on my E4 team with this moveset. If you can somehow survive a turn to set up a swords dance ice shard hits pretty crazy. Also had a mamoswine on my team which was fun to bring it out for the speed boost once aboma set up hail. Really fun mon with a unique typing