For my next pokemon review, I'm going to talk about one of my perennial favourites, Mienshao. Unlike my previous pokemon posts, Mienshao is actually quite viable.
Easily my favourite Fighting type pokemon, and in my top 3 for design. Mienshao is a pokemon clearly designed after shaolin monks, with its long "sleeves" being reminiscent of the Chinese shéng biāo or Japanese Johyou, an interesting subset of martial arts where centrifugal force is used to slash at the enemy with rope darts.
Mienshao's names in various languages are generally a play on the words for "weasel" and "kung fu" or other martial arts.
English/Spanish/Italian; Mienshao: comes from "ermine" and "shaolin"
Japanese name Kojondo / コジョンド comes from " オコジョ okojo (ermine) and Taekwondo
French Shaofouine comes from "shaolin" and "fouine" (weasel)
and the German "Wie-shu" comes from the frankly quite simple "Wiesel" (weasel) and "Wu-shu".
Mienshao is quite clearly designed as a frail speedster fighting type. It possesses two abilities, Inner Focus (a fairly common ability amongst Fighting types; blocks flinches from occurring altogether) and the amazing Regenerator (heal 33% HP on switching out), and the also useful Reckless (a good ability; powers up recoil/crash moves by 20%, with Mienshao's primary STAB High Jump Kick being a crash move, this makes it rather strong).
Mienshao is blessed with a base stat total of 510; a fairly nice total, with an obviously "frail speedster" archetype of stat distribution.
Mienshao's stat distribution is as follows:
65/125/60/95/60/105.
65/60/60 defenses are pretty pitiful, and it usually ensures Mienshao won't be staying in long, or wanting to switch in to even resisted moves too often; it's super duper fragile. Even resisted STAB moves will do considerable damage. Priority moves also give it a hard time, with papery defenses.
Mercifully if it buggers up in some way, you can back it out in a hurry with a 105 base speed U-Turn, or just hard switch and heal with Regenerator.
The good: Its 105 base speed is very, very good for the UU tier, only really outsped by Azelf, Raikou and common Scarf users. I wouldn't go throwing it around in OU where its weaknesses are common and its speed of 105 isn't quite so impressive anymore, but it's certainly one of the best Fighting types in UU.
It has a superb 125 base Attack, equivalent to fellow fighting UU member Heracross, and quite surprisingly a usable 95 Special Attack, ensuring it's somewhat less predictable than a straight physical Fighting type. It even gets access to Lucario's not-really-signature move Aura Sphere.
Mienshao also has quite a wide movepool, with plenty of utility. It gets access to Detect, and both of the Guard moves (Quick Guard, blocks priority; Wide Guard, blocks AOE moves like Earthquake).
It has the always amazing High Jump Kick, a base 130 power Fighting type move; the most powerful Fighting type move besides Focus Punch, which fails if the user is hit at all and operates at a negative priority, and stronger than both Focus Blast (base 120, 70 accuracy, special) and Close Combat (base 120, accuracy 100, physical, drops def and spdef of user). High Jump Kick comes at a pretty major cost though: if it misses, and it will, the user loses 50% of its HP. If Mienshao misses a HJK, it's likely it'll faint, because a 50% HP Mienshao is a sitting duck unless it can U-turn out safely. Still, 125 attack, 130 BP STAB move, and access to the Life Orb + Reckless combo for +30+20% more damage on HJK, it'll blow holes in anything without needing excessive setup. It's also rather weirdly capable of being a weather setter; i suppose it's not bad in that regard; it's fast, and you certainly wouldn't expect a Mienshao to set up Sunny Day for a fire team, as well as having Rest/Talk without the bulk to utilise it. It also has Psych Up; you could probably do some kind of hilarious gimmick strat with a Sashed Mienshao Psych Up against a foe that has already set up but it outspeeds to become even tougher. Mienshao also has Swords Dance, but it's probably not going to be able to live long enough without excessive support to get the boosts off. It has a moderately fast Taunt.
It has a fair amount of coverage. Like many fighting types, it carries Rock Slide and Stone Edge to deal with Flying types, and Poison Jab to get past Fairies that resist Fighting and its other common coverage moves like Stone Edge, Knock Off and U-Turn. It also has access to Low Sweep and Fake Out, both of which are generally preferred over HJK if being played in Doubles, as Mienshao can do a utility/support role with something like Fake Out/Low Sweep/Taunt/Wide or Quick Guard. Incidentally, the two Guards make it a fantastic doubles partner for Aegislash or the aforementioned Tyranitar. Protect being basically mandatory in doubles makes HJK considerably more risky, and Low Sweep is still a decentish move that has a 100% chance to drop speed, always a useful move in that regard.
Its special movepool is rather small, being just Aura Sphere, Swift, Hidden Power, Round, Focus Blast and Grass Knot, but it's always amusing to blow past a physical wall with tiny special defenses with Focus Blast or HP Ground or Dark. Grass Knot is basically useless, because anything weak to Grass Knot is hit neutrally by Fighting anyway, maybe with the exception of Quilfish and Toxapex and it's slightly unreliable damage-wise.
Now, its movepool downsides.
Let's say you're using its Life Orb set. Knock Off/U-Turn/HJK/Poison Jab, Fake Out or Stone Edge. (You could even run HP Ice, which would let you deal with Gligar and maybe Gliscor, who would otherwise wall it.)
Knock Off is mediocre in power. U-Turn also has mediocre power. HJK is risky on a miss, and naturally has a 10% miss chance. Stone Edge is required to have it cover flying types instead of fleeing, but as we all know Stone Edge misses whenever you NEED it to hit. So really any of its strongest moves are also the shakiest in accuracy. HJK counts a blocked attack or a semi-invulnerable turn as a miss for the sake of crashing.
Checks and counters to Mienshao:
Anything physically defensive. Mienshao struggles to get past most of the common physical defensive pokemon in its tier, especially Suicune and Chesnaught, unless they've taken a little bit of prior damage and Mienshao has a Life Orb on hand. Scarfed sets just can't do much to them.
Ghost type pokemon. Mienshao's best move is guaranteed to miss against Ghost types. If you're using Mienshao and you're aware that the opponent has a Ghost type, it might be worth trying to predict with Knock Off for the switch, though players will sometimes predict that occurring too. Out of any Ghost types, only Spiritomb and Doublade (and I guess Aegislash too) don't fear Knock Off.
Poison type pokemon. Mienshao's most common sets have everything but Stone Edge and Knock Off resisted by mono-type Poisons, and defensive Nidoqueen and Crobat are especially frightening, because Crobat can easily outspeed and KO, and only fears stone edge; and defensive Nidoqueen isn't 3HKO'd by any combo of the sets Mienshao runs.
Fairy type pokemon. Mienshao's most common sets have everything but Stone Edge and Poison Jab resisted by monotype Fairies. Stone Edge is unreliable, and while Poison Jab can net a KO here and there, Klefki is immune, Mimikyuu is neutral, Granbull is only 2HKO'd because of Intimidate. Most Fairies are quite capable of OHKOing Mienshao.
Anything naturally or Scarf'd faster. Mienshao's papery bulk means it's probably KO'd by basically everything that looks at it harshly.
lastly, any kind of Protecting move.Protect forces HJK to miss. Spiky Shield, seen on Chesnaught and Togedemaru, forces HJK to miss and causes additional damage on top of the Crash. A Rocky Helmet Togedemaru can click Spiky Shield against a silly Mienshao trying to HJK "because steel is weak to fighting" and have it take 50+12.5+16.6% in recoil, practically a KO. That's a crazy 79% from just a single turn from the little spiky hedgehog. Baneful Bunker causes poison on top of the 50% crash, but it's unlikely the opponent will have to stall Mienshao out because of its frailty.
So all in all, Mienshao is one of those most interesting of pokemon; the ones with deep, gaping flaws and huge peaks of excitement. It's one of those pokemon you use that can quite easily clutch victory from the hands of defeat, or defeat from the hands of victory. Plus, its design is amazing! I try and use Mienshao a lot, but I don't expect Aegislash, Azumarill or Salamence level performance out of it.
Poll
8 (15.4%)
Author
Topic: A Thread about the Pokemans: POKEMANS ON MOTORCYCLES (Read 684712 times)