This pokemon really can be a dead weight. Get it? Because he's a ghost and he's an anchor?...
Let me just go sit in the corner...
[OVERVIEW]
* Dhelmise's typing is useful defensively and offensively. It has many useful resistances, two immunities, and can hit anything at least neutrally.
* It possesses a great Attack stat of base 131, and, thanks to its typing, can OHKO a handful of threats and 2HKO almost everything else.
* Its 70/100/90 defenses are nothing to laugh at, giving it high longetivity and increasing its usefulness as a switch-in.
* Steelworker effectively gives it a third STAB type in Steel, further increasing its coverage and making it the only viable Pokemon besides Celesteela that resists Ground and does 1.5x damage with Steel-type moves.
* Its typing can also be a hindrance, having weaknesses to Dark, Ice, and Fire, three very common types in the metagame.
* Its base 40 Speed makes it almost useless when not under Trick Room, for it has to take large chunks of damage before it can use an attack that doesn't even always KO in return. Its good qualities as a switch-in are also fairly neutered by this.
* It doesn't have a good physical Ghost-type STAB move, limiting the damage it can do to Ghost-vulnerable targets.
[SET]
name: Offensive
move 1: Heavy Slam / Anchor Shot
move 2: Power Whip
move 3: Shadow Claw
move 4: Protect
item: Life Orb / Grassium Z
ability: Steelworker
nature: Brave
evs: 188 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Def / 52 SpD
ivs: 0 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========
* Heavy Slam or Anchor shot is Dhelmise's main source of damage, OHKOing most things that it hits super effectively and 2HKOing most things that it hits neutrally.
* Heavy Slam is more powerful than Anchor Shot in most situations, but if you feel that preventing things from switching will be useful to your team or you have trouble dealing with heavy Pokemon such as Snorlax, Anchor Shot should be chosen. Note that Anchor Shot still OHKOes all of the island guardians except for Tapu Fini.
* Power Whip hits almost everything that resists Steel for super effective or neutral damage.
* Shadow Claw serves as Dhelmise's last resort for coverage due to its low Base Power.
* Protect allows Dhelmise to block strong attacks, and if led along side a Trick Room setter (which is not advised), it can use Protect to wait for Trick room to go up.
Set Details
========
* Steelworker is Dhelmise's only released ability, giving it a 50% boost to Steel-type attacks.
* Brave is its nature of choice in order to deal maximum damage while being slow as possible, which allows it to move before Alolan Marowak and Araquanid in Trick Room.
* The offensive investment along with Life Orb allows it to OHKO all things it hits super effectively (unless it's using Shadow Claw) along with Tapu Koko, Gyarados, Pelipper, and Xurkitree while also having a 68.8% chance to OHKO Alolan Marowak that have no investment in Defense.
* Life Orb is important here, for it allows a good portion of Dhelmise's OHKOs.
* You may alternatively use Grassium Z, allowing Dhelmise to get the same OHKOs with Power Whip as Life Orb would along with perfect accuracy and the ability to OHKO Araquanid, Hariyama, and Garchomp, but such an OHKO is only feasible once due to being a Z-Move.
* Its defensive investment allows it to take a Shadow Ball from Gengar or a Crunch from Krookodile while also minimizing the recoil from Life Orb.
Usage Tips
========
* Dhelmise sees the most use as a mid-game wallbreaker when any Alolan Muk or Arcanine is gone while Trick Room is up.
* Never lead with it. An exception to this would be if the opponent's team has no checks to it, but even then, you should keep it out of battle until the time is right.
* It can serve as a good switch-in, but it isn't a good situation to do so when there's a Pokemon that threatens it on the field and Trick Room isn't up.
* If Power Whip and Heavy Slam would deal the same amount of damage to a Pokemon, use Heavy Slam because it has more accuracy.
Team Options
========
* If you are using Dhelmise, you should be using it on a Trick Room team, and Porygon2 serves as almost non-debatably the best Trick Room setter in the game. However, Porygon2 is not the only setter out there, and there may be one that better fits the roles you need for your team.
* Tapu Fini serves as a good supporter for Dhelmise. It walls Fire, Ice, and Dark-types for Dhelmise, while Dhelmise walls Electric and Grass-types for Tapu Fini. Tapu Fini also gives Dhelmise immunity to Will-O-Wisp with its Terrain, and it has solid support options for it such as Heal pulse and Swagger.
* Araquanid helps Dhelmise with similar resistances while threatening most of the things that Dhelmise is threatened by. It also appreciates being in Trick Room along with Dhelmise.
[SET]
name: Assault Vest
move 1: Power Whip
move 2: Heavy Slam
move 3: Shadow Claw
move 4: Rock Slide
item: Assault Vest
ability: Steelworker
nature: Brave
evs: 156 HP / 252 Atk / 100 SpD
ivs: 0 Spe
[SET COMMENTS]
Moves
========
* Heavy Slam is Dhelmise's main source of damage, OHKOing most things that it hits super effectively and 2HKOing most things that it hits neutrally.
* Heavy Slam is used over Anchor Shot because Dhelmise does not have the Life Orb boost to make Anchor Shot OHKO most things that Heavy Slam also does.
* Power Whip hits almost everything super effectively/neutrally that its steel STAB doesn't hit super effectively.
* Shadow claw serves as Dhelmise's last resort of coverage due to its low base power.
* Rock Slide gives coverage against Arcanine and a few others as well as giving a flinch chance while under Trick Room.
Set Details
========
* Steelworker is its only released ability, giving it a 50% boost to Steel-type attacks.
* Brave is the preferred nature, for it maximizes damage and minimizes speed for Trick Room, allowing it to move before Alolan Marowak and Araquanid.
* The offensive investment allows it to OHKO most things it hits super effectively (unless it's using Shadow Claw). However, it will require some prior damage to take out certain Pokemon, most notably Tapu Koko.
* Its defensive investment allows it to almost always tank a maximum attack Krookodile's Crunch. Assault Vest along with the investment in Special Defense allows it to withstand two of Alolan Ninetale's Blizzard after hail's chip damage 93.7% of the time, always tank 2 Tapu Lele Psychics when Psychic Terrain isn't up, and always survive an Arcanine's Burn Up.
Usage Tips
========
* Dhelmise sees the most use as a switchiin or late-game wincon when all of its checks are gone.
* Never lead with it. An exception to this would be if the opponents team has no checks to it, but even then, you should reserve it for switching into hits or winning the match.
* Since it has an Assault Vest, one of its best qualities is being a reliable switch-in; unless Alolan Muk or Arcanine is on the field, throwing out Dhelmise to tank an Earthquake or Thunder Bolt is almost never a bad idea. However, you still need to mind faster Pokemon.
* If Power Whip and Heavy Slam would deal the same amount of damage to a Pokemon, use Heavy Slam, since it has more accuracy.
Team Options
========
* If you are using Dhelmise, you should be using it on a Trick Room team, and Porygon2 assists Dhelmise in finishing off Pokemon with its flexible offensive movepool. Mimikyu also serves well as a Trick Room user, although it is not fully reliable due to its frailty and vulneralbility to double targeting.
* Tapu Fini serves as a good supporter for Dhelmise. It walls Fire, Ice, and Dark-types for Dhelmise, while Dhelmise walls Electric-types and Grass-types for Tapu Fini. Tapu Fini also gives Dhelmise immunity to Will-O-Wisp with its Terrain, and it has solid support options for it such as Heal Pulse and Swagger.
* Araquanid helps Dhelmise with similar resistances while threatening most of the things that Dhelmise is threatened by. It also appreciates being in Trick Room along with Dhelmise.
* Alolan Muk appreciates Dhelmise's resistance to Ground, while Dhelmise appreciates Alolan Muk's resistance to Dark. Alolan Muk can also help pick off foes with Shadow Sneak.
* Pokemon with Intimidate or Will-O-Wisp help Assault Vest Dhelmise a lot, since it lacks investment in the Defense stat. Arcanine is the most notable of both and has access to both.
[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
=============
* Phantom Force can be used as a powerful Ghost-type STAB move, but even though it bypasses Protect, gives it a turn of invulnerability, and guarantees an OHKO on Alolan Marowak when used with Life Orb, it takes a turn to charge, making it very predictable and bad for situations that just need immediate damage. You also stall your own turns of Trick Room when using this attack, taking away an additional turn that Dhelmise could be doing damage.
* Earthquake can be an alternative to Shadow Claw or Rock Slide, dealing more damage to Fire and Steel-types. However, you should consider that Earthquake also hits your teammate. Groundium Z could be used alongside Earthquake to give a strong Ground-type move to possibly OHKO Arcanine or Torkoal, but that costs both Dhelmise's item slot and your Z-Move for the game.
* Gyro Ball can serve as an alternative due to Dhelmise's low Speed, but it won't often be better than Heavy Slam due to the large number of slow Pokemon in the metagame.
* Misty Seed can be used to give it a Special defense boost when it enters Misty Terrain, giving it the ability to use Protect, unlike Assault Vest. However, you have to use Tapu Fini alongside it in order to get the boost reliably, and it only lasts until Dhelmise switches out. This isn't much of a problem, however, since Tapu Fini is a very good partner for Dhelmise, and chances are you'll only need it for the one or two special attackers Dhelmise faces.
Checks and Counters
===================
**Fire-type Pokemon**: Dhelmise will take huge damage from Fire-type attacks used by Pokemon like Arcanine and Tokoal, if it isn't outright OHKOed. Dhelmise can barely do anything back with Shadow Claw or Rock Slide.
**Dark-type Pokemon**: Dark-types like Alolan Muk and Alolan Persian deal huge damage to Dhelmise and often possess Knock Off, hampering it by removing its item.
**Flying-type Pokemon**: Flying-type Pokemon like Celesteela an Talonflame wall Dhelmise, and Dhelmise doesn't take Pelipper's or Talonflame's Flying-type attackss very well.
**Intimidate and Burns**: Dhelmise can barely get OHKOs as is, so anything coming from a reduced Attack stat won't do much that's useful.
Last edited:
