What if Gastrodon was in RBY?

(This is part of a weekly series. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/1hhy8d2/ksyons_rby_port_ideas_masterpost/) for information on my general methodology, links to previous entries, and a list of pokemon I plan to cover in the future. Since this series is close to wrapping up and I've already chosen the remaining pokemon I want to cover, I am no longer taking requests for reviews.)

**Gastrodon**

*Water/Ground type*

* HP: 111 * Attack: 83 * Defense: 68 * Speed: 39 * Special: 92

Moves:

* Harden * Body Slam * Recover * Toxic * Take Down * Double-Edge * BubbleBeam * Water Gun * Ice Beam * Blizzard * Hyper Beam * Rage * Earthquake * Fissure * Dig * Mimic * Double Team * Bide * Skull Bash * Rest * Rock Slide * Substitute * Surf * Strength

Gastrodon was actually a request from two separate people, but both requests were made on the comments of individual reviews instead of on the masterpost, so I made a point of not taking them at the time because I didn't want to set a precedent that would lead to the comments of every review being filled with more requests than actual discussion. But now that I'm not taking *any* requests anymore, there's no reason not to go back and hit some of these.

Being a water/ground type means that you get ground's electric immunity without its weakness to water and ice moves, which is handy in Gen I since Blizzard is such a powerful move, and the added grass weakness is even less of a problem than it is normally - a x4 Mega Drain doesn't even hit as hard as a x2 Thunderbolt does on any other water type, and Mega Drain is a much less common coverage move than Thunderbolt, while Razor Leaf is only present on two pokemon. However, being water/ground does mean that you don't have the *resistance* to Blizzard that a normal water type would have, or really any useful resistances at all other than electric, but that's still more useful resistances than normal gets, and no one is saying that *normal* is a bad type in RBY! Just being immune to Thunder Wave without being weak to ice moves is huge, and taking neutral damage from most attacks is fine if you have the bulk to take them stat-wise.

Gastrodon's bulk is alright physically and pretty good specially, but what really makes it stand out is its access to Recover. Gastrodon is the only ground type in the series to learn Recover via level up, which is significant because paralysis is an incredibly valuable tool for breaking through a pokemon that can heal itself, but with an immunity to Thunder Wave, Gastrodon shuts off one of the primary methods of applying that paralysis. This is offset by Gastrodon being itself very slow and having no way to apply its own paralysis other than hoping to get lucky with Body Slam, but much like Rhydon, Gastrodon can do well at bullying teams in the late game after your other pokemon have done the paralysis spreading for it. Gastrodon doesn't have Rhydon's damage output, so fights will take longer and Gastrodon has to be more worried about getting paralyzed by enemy Body Slams, but with no ice weakness and much better special bulk, Gastrodon is a lot harder to force out or KO and has way fewer pokemon that it has to be afraid of in the way that Rhydon does.

Gastrodon really wants to run Surf, Earthquake, Body Slam, Blizzard, and Recover, but that's five moves, so something has to go. Recover is obviously mandatory. Dropping Body Slam removes Gastrodon's only method of spreading its own paralysis, but may be worth it if you're confident enough in the rest of your team's ability to spread status. And dropping any of Surf/Earthquake/Blizzard hampers your damage output against vital targets - Surf is your best move for Tauros, Earthquake is good for Chansey and Starmie (though paralyzing Starmie with Body Slam is better), and Blizzard is vital for Exeggutor and Zapdos. If you can afford to drop two of the above moves, Substitute is also a promising option - Gastrodon is a ground type with over 400HP that can Recover off the self-damage taken from making Substitutes, making it on paper one of the best pokemon possible for abusing the move. However, Gastrodon's bulk works out in such a way that most pokemon in OU do just enough damage to reliably take out a substitute in one hit - Rhydon can abuse Substitute because it can set up on Zapdos and there's nothing the Zapdos can do to stop it, but Gastrodon doesn't have any comparable matchups other than perhaps Gengar, and loses way more from dropping coverage moves than Rhydon does.

Every other Recover/Softboiled user in Gen I has access to Thunder Wave, and in OU and below basically uses the move 100% of the time, so a Recover user *without* TWave doesn't have any precedent in RBY (other than Mewtwo and Mew, which are very different pokemon from Gastrodon for other reasons). Because of that, I can't really say for sure how Gastrodon would shake out, but I think OU is a bit of a pipe dream for it - not having reliable paralysis in OU is a huge handicap that you need insane damage or bulk to make up for, neither of which Gastrodon really has, and it can't counter Zapdos like Rhydon can, which is really what keeps Rhydon in OU. Gastrodon seems decent in OU, but in the same way that Kangaskhan or Persian are "decent" - it can work, but you generally have better options. UU, however, looks great for Gastrodon, where its fire resistance is not just more useful, but also gives it pokemon that it can reliably set up substitutes on that it doesn't really have in OU, letting it actually reach its full potential as a Substitute abuser, though the choice of only two moves to run alongside Recover/Substitute will be as hard as ever.