#fightingtypes

  Fighting Pokémon tend to be based on human martial artists, warriors or athletes: Sawk is a karate master, Throh is judo, Hitmontop is capoeira, Cobalion and friends are the three musketeers, Medicham is some kind of monk, and so on and so forth.  Hawlucha continues the trend, but picks an especially recognisable and outlandish sport – the style of Mexican wrestling known as lucha libre, which is literally Spanish for “free fighting” or “free wrestling.”  Hawlucha’s flight feathers flare out behind her like a cape in some elaborate costume (I, at least, can’t help but recall Jack Black in Nacho Libre), and the green pattern on her head with her eyes outlined in orange recalls the luchador’s trademark face mask; the orange feathers sticking out behind her head might also be meant to suggest the knotted ends of a cloth mask tied at the back of the head (also, YES, Hawlucha’s design parses as feminine to me for some reason; NO, I have no idea why).  Lucha libre is regularly described as exemplifying a “high-flying” style of wrestling that incorporates many leaps, somersaults, and other so-called “aerial” moves – flashy, impressive moves that require great physical agility – hence Hawlucha’s secondary Flying type, birdlike features, and emphasis on speed and acrobatic techniques.  In North American professional wrestling, this kind of style is favoured by smaller wrestlers to leverage their agility against the greater power of their bulkier opponents – just as Hawlucha uses it to compete with the likes of Hariyama and Machamp.  The lucha angle also kind of plays into my personal vague nonsense about Fighting-types, which is that many of them are distinctively preoccupied with the idea of fighting, and often with honour or glory, in a way which most other Pokémon aren’t.  Luchadores have, or claim to have, their own peculiar code of honour in which their masks hold particular significance, and the whole sport is curiously ritualised in a similar manner to North American professional wrestling, with fighters taking on ‘heroic’ or ‘villainous’ personas to give their matches symbolic meaning, but to an even greater extent, helped by the sense of mystery and drama created by the ubiquitous masks.  Overall, it’s… certainly out of left field for a Pokémon design, but it’s undeniably clever, and it’s one of those designs that just manages to be so damn weird I almost can’t help but like it, in spite of my normal aversion to Pokémon based on modern subcultures.  The blending of the Fighting and Flying elements works very nicely, and the fact that many luchadores actually base their ring personas on animals – including hawks, quite often – makes the whole thing even smoother.

  Some people also link Hawlucha’s raptor-like appearance with the costume of an Aztec eagle warrior, and while I’m not sure there’s any obvious tip-off there it would certainly make sense, since lucha libre and the history of the Aztec empire are linked by both being distinctive parts of Mexican culture.  Jaguars and eagles, both powerful totemic animals in Aztec culture, are for that very reason among the most common animal inspirations for luchador costumes and identities.  There’s another connection in that a lot of people say the luchador mask actually has its roots in Aztec ritual masks; as far as I can tell that’s not actually true (more likely they’re just derived from masked North American professional wrestlers), though the Aztecs certainly did produce a dazzling array of these things from a wide variety of often precious materials, some intended to be worn, others purely ornamental, and – as in many cultures – putting on a mask could be symbolic of taking on a new or changed identity, just as it is for the luchadores.  Even Hawlucha’s red and green colour scheme might conceivably be meant to recall the red and green of the quetzal, a bird held sacred by the Aztecs, who used its feathers to decorate their rulers’ headdresses.  Again, I don’t really think there’s anything about Hawlucha that definitively says “yes, they were looking to the Aztecs as an additional source of inspiration” because everything about the design makes sense without them, but there’s enough that it would hardly surprise me, and it makes for a cool extra dimension.  There’d also be some neat material in that to introduce a Mega Evolution in future generations, if Game Freak were so inclined…

  Like a luchador, Hawlucha is agile, relying on her incredible speed to outmanoeuvre and destroy her enemies.  There’s precious little that can outrun her, and with the Unburden ability she can further raise her speed to ridiculous levels by using a consumable item – like, say, a Liechi Berry to make her attacks stronger as well.  Throw in Swords Dance, and you’ve got a damn threatening physical attacker in there, with a lethal Hi Jump Kick.  Probably Hawlucha’s most obvious flaw is that she lacks any powerful Flying attacks aside from Acrobatics, which is weak when used by a Pokémon holding an item but very powerful otherwise and therefore requires Hawlucha to be played in a certain way – fortunately, the potential of mixing this move with Unburden is obvious.  When and if elemental gems become a thing in generation VI, a Flying Gem/Acrobatics/Unburden combo is something of a foregone (and devastating) conclusion.  For now, though, the options are to have no item at all (suboptimal, but straightforward), use a Power Herb with Sky Attack (gives Hawlucha one extremely powerful shot, but basically leaves you with a dead moveslot thereafter), try to ensure that her item gets used up somehow, probably a Substitute/Liechi Berry combo (a bit awkward since she really needs the Swords Dance boost – a Liechi Berry just isn’t enough since her attack stat is good but not brilliant), or do what Game Freak was probably intending and use her signature move, Flying Press.  Flying Press… isn’t actually a Flying attack at all, but it kind of acts like one – it’s the first and currently only dual-type attack, which functions as a Fighting move for all intents and purposes (gets a damage bonus from a Black Belt but not from a Sharp Beak, only gets a single STAB from Hawlucha’s Fighting type, etc) except for calculating type effectiveness, where it acts as both a Fighting attack and a Flying attack.  Weaknesses and resistances stack – in theory, this means it can get a x4 or x¼ damage multiplier against a single-type Pokémon, though in practice the only time this is likely to happen is when Hawlucha is hit by Electrify and it becomes a Flying/Electric attack, since Fighting and Flying don’t actually share any offensive strengths or weaknesses.  In case there are more moves like this in future, I’m pretty sure the damage formula doesn’t allow for the weakness/resistance multiplier to stack any higher or lower than that, so we don’t have to worry about, say, Parasect getting hit by a x16 damage Fire/Flying attack in generation VII (…wait, actually that sounds awesome).  To be honest, Flying Press isn’t really a great move – by its very nature you’re going to get coverage that’s redundant with Hi Jump Kick and its power is only decent, but it does behave in some ways like a Flying attack, it’s just weird enough to potentially confuse a few people, and hey, it’s Hawlucha’s signature move, so what the hell.

  Fighting/Flying is actually damn good on its own, but potential coverage moves of note that Hawlucha can learn are Stone Edge, X-Scissor and Poison Jab.  Rock-type coverage is generally good, but not particularly useful on Hawlucha; Bug and Poison are generally poor but get super-effective hits against Psychic- and Fairy-types, respectively.  Pick your poison.  Um.  But not literally.  Unless you want to.  Uh… anyway.  Hawlucha gets U-Turn as well, but despite having a good stat profile for it, her reliance on boosts, and particularly the volatile nature of Unburden, make her less than ideal since there will often be times she just doesn’t want to switch out.  Of course, you could just not use Unburden: her hidden ability, Mold Breaker has plenty of universal utility for circumventing defensive powers like Sturdy, Unaware, Solid Rock, or Dragonite’s Multiscale.  Hawlucha doesn’t benefit from it as much as some of its other users do, since she doesn’t use Ground attacks, or really anything else for which there’s a common ability that grants immunity, and some kind of Unburden combo is probably going to be the better pick most of the time, but if you want Hawlucha to use a Choice Band or something, or just don’t like any of the ways of triggering Unburden, it certainly isn’t a bad ability.  Taunt or Encore could see some use for keeping heavy defensive stuff like Hippowdon from healing, and Baton Pass is in there too if you want something else to make use of Hawlucha’s boosts, although she’s really pretty good at doing that for herself anyway and there are better Baton Passers out there.

  The inspiration for these designs is the spiny outer shell of the chestnut.  Nuts, berries and fruit have been underexploited by Grass Pokémon designs in the past, and chestnuts are distinctive and appropriate for a physical tank Pokémon.  There may even be a cultural allusion in play, to the horse chestnuts or ‘conkers’ beloved of British schoolchildren in the 19th and early 20th centuries – in traditional schoolyard games, the hard nuts are hung from strings and smashed together until the weaker one cracks and must be discarded, with veteran conkers that survive multiple such battles being especially prized (Roald Dahl gives a characteristically whimsical account of the game and its strategies in the book My Year).  Only the nuts themselves are used in the game, without the tougher but softer skins, but the nature of the game is so appropriate to Chespin’s physical bruiser battling style, as well as the habit Quilladin have of tackling each other in order to build their strength, that I can’t help but suspect a reference.  Chespin’s ‘helmet’ also resembles the tough, warty outer skin of the horse chestnut more closely than that of a true chestnut, with its dense thicket of bristly, almost needle-like spines.  What I particularly like about the way Chespin and his evolutions use chestnuts is that it ties together the Grass and Fighting elements.  They aren’t ‘chestnut Pokémon’ although that could very easily have been a workable starting point, since there are basically two ways to do a Grass Pokémon: ‘plant creature’ and ‘animal with plant characteristics,’ all Grass starters being the latter.  The Grass-type aspect of the design comes through in Chespin’s ‘helmet,’ Quilladin’s ‘armour,’ Chesnaught’s tortoiseshell plate, and their thorn shield signature move, which are also the things that convey their similarity to a human warrior or knight – in other words, the things that make them Grass-types are also the things that make Chesnaught a Fighting-type.  The combination of the two elements isn’t superficial; they work together.  It’s not always easy to make that happen, but I’m always fond of Pokémon who manage to pull it off.

Chesnaught handles in a similar manner to Torterra in battle, being a slow physical tank.  Probably his biggest problem is that he has rather a lot of weaknesses for a slow, defensive Pokémon, including a dangerous double-weakness to Flying attacks, but he does resist the powerful and popular Earthquake/Stone Edge combination, so it’s not all bad.  His biggest strength is the high power of his staple attacks, combined with a small but useful support movepool to keep opponents guessing.  His strongest Grass attack is Wood Hammer, which retains its 120 power rating in a generation where many of the strongest attacks in the game are being toned down; the recoil hurts, though, and doesn’t mesh well with the standard Grass-type ability Overgrow (because once you’re injured enough for the Grass-type damage boost to kick in, one or two more Wood Hammers have a good chance of dropping you), so Seed Bomb is also an option depending on what exactly you want to do with him.  Most Fighting-types have a wide selection of Fighting-type moves, but Chesnaught really only has two worth speaking of: Hammer Arm, which sacrifices speed for power (not that Chesnaught cares much about speed anyway) and Power-Up Punch, one of X and Y’s new moves, which boosts attack with every use (potentially a worthwhile choice for a more defensive Chesnaught who can afford to hang around for a couple of turns).  Grass with Fighting is not a particularly strong combination offensively – well, okay, let’s be fair, Grass with just about anything is not a particularly strong combination offensively, but Grass with Rock is one of the less bad ones, and Chesnaught can do that too, with Stone Edge.  Stone Edge is also important to make it a little bit harder for Flying Pokémon to walk all over him.  On the support side, there are basically two moves you can build sets around: Leech Seed, the eternal Grass-type favourite which also works well with Chesnaught’s signature move, discussed below, and Spikes, which is just universally useful.  Bulk Up and Swords Dance are both viable ways of increasing Chesnaught’s offensive presence, since he’s tough enough to take a neutral attack while setting up and scary enough to force some Pokémon to retreat.  Don’t count on a sweep, though; Chesnaught is just too slow.

  All three Kalos starters have been blessed with a signature move to emphasise what is unique in their styles of fighting, and Chesnaught’s is Spiky Shield.  In mechanical terms, this thing is pretty neat.  It’s strictly an improvement over Protect, the standard option available to most Pokémon for blocking an incoming attack to stall for time; the advantage to Spiky Shield is that it additionally deals a small amount of damage if it blocks a ‘contact’ attack.  It’s a shame Spiky Shield damage can’t be stacked with the similar effect of a Rocky Helmet, because that would make Chesnaught a seriously daunting proposition for most physical attackers – perhaps not to the same extent as Ferrothorn, who can stack Rocky Helmet with his Iron Barbs ability, but then again, Ferrothorn actually has to take damage to cause recoil while Chesnaught doesn’t, so maybe that would have been too much ‘something for nothing.’  Besides, Protect is hardly a bad technique, particularly for Grass Pokémon who can use it to stall for damage and healing with Leech Seed, or in double battles where a Pokémon can potentially take two attacks in one turn, and Spiky Shield is, again, unambiguously better than Protect.

  Finally, you have two options for healing, besides Leech Seed.  Synthesis is the one you should use if you’re serious, because the sixth generation’s nerfing of Drizzle, Sand Stream and Snow Warning makes it much more likely you’ll be able to use the technique unobstructed.  I want to talk about Pain Split, though, because Pain Split is interesting from a flavour perspective.  Most of the Pokémon who learn Pain Split are Ghost- or Psychic-types, and of those who aren’t, most are in the Amorphous egg group and lack clearly defined anatomy, like Weezing and Swalot (even when it was available more widely, via move tutor, it was most prevalent among Pokémon with overtly magical powers or indistinct anatomy).  It seems to be implied that the attack normally functions on the literal sharing of pain with the opponent, usually through supernatural means, which makes it odd that Chesnaught can learn it at all, let alone as a level-up move.  Probably the intention here is to stress the retributive nature of Chesnaught’s defences, in line with Spiky Shield; the Pokédex is adamant that these Pokémon don’t start fights, but are happy to finish them.  This could possibly be pushed even further by suggesting that, since Pain Split is regularly associated with Pokémon who have mental powers, Chesnaught’s ability to use it stems from a deeply and firmly held belief in ‘eye-for-an-eye’-style justice.

  Chesnaught also has an odd signature ability, Bulletproof, the in-game manifestation of his supposed ability to withstand bomb blasts, which grants total immunity to a select list of ball-, bomb- and bullet-themed attacks.  The most important of these are probably Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb (which is super-effective against Chesnaught and more popular now that Poison attacks are strong against Fairy-types), Focus Blast and Aura Sphere, and to a lesser extent Seed Bomb, Energy Ball and Electro Ball (which Chesnaught resists anyway) and Gyro Ball (which does more damage to faster Pokémon, something Chesnaught is most definitely not).  Most of the others are either too weak or too rare to be major sources of concern.  Probably the main draw of this ability is that it makes him an unorthodox and somewhat risky but very interesting answer to Gengar, who relies heavily on Sludge Bomb, Shadow Ball and Focus Blast.  Aura Sphere immunity also makes him a good possible response to Clawitzer and Mega Blastoise – just watch out for Ice Beam – as well as special Lucario (though Lucario is more commonly a physical attacker).