Heliolisk or Toxicroak?

[Restal]

I'm going to be adding a (shiny) ducklett to my team once I get there and was thinking about running rain dance and having some fun with the ability dry skin. Both Heliolisk and Toxicroak have it and I was wondering which one would be more viable. Not only would it take hits for my firey mouse it would have a nice way to heal with dry skin. I was thinking that it would be a pretty tough choice.. Heliolisk always hits Thunder in the rain but from what I've seen Toxicroak is definitely the better pokemon. If anyone could share their input on this it would be great..

Also if y'all have any other ideas of pokes that do well under rain I would love to hear them c:

edit; ive also been thinking about cacnea but wasn't sure where it was found between julia and florinia..

Edited November 27, 2015 by Restal

[ShadowStar]

It really depends on the rest of your team. Both of these Pokemon do very well. Heliolisk requires some late TMs and gets TBolt at Level 49 which hinders it a bit.

[mde2001]

Cacnea is a 50% chance of being in an egg. It can also be a Seel.

I'd go with Toxicroak over Heliolisk unless if the rest of your team needs a Heliolisk more.

So if you could give us the rest of your team that would be great!

[Etesian]

Heliolisk is a glass cannon. Don't bother with giving it Dry Skin recovery, it'll die to almost anything anyways. Thunder is nice, but it's only 20 BP more than Thunderbolt and you're screwed if your Swanna dies before it gets Rain up (which it most often will, Swanna is pretty sucky).

If you wanna run Heliolisk, I'd suggest running it as is, normally, with Thunderbolt. But if you really wanna abuse a weather with it, get a Ninetales or something with Sunny Day. With Solar Power active, Heliolisk essentially has 190 Base Sp.Atk.

On the other hand, the IMO best Toxicroak set you can get right now is one with Bulk Up and Drain Punch. With Drain Punch, Black Sludge and Dry Skin recovery, it would be rather hard to kill. You need to go back to E12 to breed to get Bulk Up though (any info you may need on the topic and ways to use CE to be done in a few ~5 minutes are here).

But if you don't wanna run Bulk Up, Toxicroak is really frail, so you'd be much better off running Poison Touch for a 30% chance to poison with any contact move (44% chance with Poison Jab).

And for Cacnea's location (and any other), try the pinned Location Guide V3 in the On The Hunt section.

[Restal]

Okay guys I think I might just run Cacnea (if i get it) and my Typhlosion because Water Absorb/Flash Fire sounds nice..

Since you guys shot down swanna and heliolisk and since ive used toxicroak before i might just try some different pokes..

my team atm is just quilava and i haven't even beaten julia yet so im definitely open to pokes to try out

ill most likely using whatever i find in the mystery egg and surely going to use eevee

[Etesian]

Keep in mind that those cover only one of 18 types. Cacturne is rather frail and slow. Does hit hard, but it often won't get the chance to (especially since most/all Water types pack Ice Beam anyways). And the next number of gyms is really bad for Grass types, so don't bother with trying to find one now.

On that note, don't expect any of the early good stuff to be good for long. Simple CalmMind Swoobat can go up to gym #8, but that's by far the best.

And if you want some good Grass types you can get early, there's Tangela after gym #2, Pumpkaboo before/after gym #3 and Petilil after gym #2. Tangrowth is a great bulky attacker that can go physical, special or both. Gourgeist is IMO the best physical wall in the game if you go back to E12 for Will-o-Wisp and Protect. Lilligant can completely sweep with Petal Dance, Quiver Dance, Sleep Powder and the right Hidden Power (ideally Rock cause it hits 4 of the things Grass is weak to. Stuff like Ice and Fire work too)(though Petilil sucks, don't use it right away).

Heliolisk is great, actually. The best Electric type in the game IMO, it's just that rain does nothing for it. It's great on it's own and REALLY good in sun. It's definitely something worth giving a shot...just not now. As said, it gets Thunderbolt at level 49 and while it does get a lot of moves via TM, you have to wait a while for them (to be specific, they're Grass Knot, Surf, Dark Pulse and Hidden Power. you'll be around level 50 when you get the first of those. you could go to E12 and breed it Grass Knot and possibly IVs for a certain Hidden Power before you get to the third gym, so that's something). But yeah, don't train it now, grind it up later when you can actually get it a decent STAB.

Yeah, like I said, none of the early things are keepers. You have bad things, things that are good for where they are and fall off soon, and things that are great later but are stuck in a currently-useless state like Petilil or Helioptile. Simple Calm Mind Swoobat can get you far, mine lasted until gym #8. A bit of a pain to get the happiness up there, but you can visit the salons, set your computer's date 1 day forward, rinse and repeat.

[TimTim]

I can't comment on Heliolisk since i have yet to use one, but Dry Skin aside, Nasty Plot Toxicroak is really good in term of in-game even with a negative nature in special attack from my experience, it functioned as a mixed attacker since i didnt have any special attacker in my fighting/fairy dual type theme run. As for other mons that work great under rain, i would suggest Swift Swim/Rain Dish Ludicolo, as the former allows it to outspeed most mons and its special stats are quite decent, the latter provides recovery and is even better when you have leech seed-giga drain with big roots. Another mon for rain is Swift Swim Beartic, if you dont have reservation for glass cannon type that is ice type, Swift Swim can make up for its poor speed in rain and complement its massive physical attack and overall decent movepools.