Observe. This is what pure beautiful sloth looks like. They need their rest, especially after spending up to 14 hours eating 29 pounds of pure bamboo a day. If they weigh around 200 pounds, that’s over 10% of their body mass every day.
They spawned an even more extreme Pokemon.
This beast weighs a little over a thousand pounds, and eats roughly 880 pounds. That’s almost 90% of its body weight. Whenever it finishes eating it goes into a food coma, so deep that smaller pokemon can jump on its belly like a trampoline and it won’t wake up.
Snorlax spends its whole life simply eating and sleeping. This is a beast that has its life figured out. It’s no surprise that it’s a fan favorite – being a signature Pokemon in the manga and the series, not to mention a plot point in the very first game.
Despite all its excellent life planning and love from the fans, let’s look at how it does in competitive singles.
The speed is no surprise for this sleeping boi. Nor is the special attack, special defense, and health points. This is a large fellow with no proclivity for magical attacks. What surprised me was the abysmal defense and massive attack stat. For something that sits around all day, it packs a ridiculous wallop and really can’t take a physical hit, despite its fat.
Immunity is its most interesting looking ability, not being related to the massive amount of food it eats. Immunity grants it, well, immunity to toxic. It’s also basically useless, because its other abilities are better. Gluttony makes it so that it eats its berries earlier, and Thick Fat halves damage from fire and ice type moves.
With its impressive attack and abysmal speed, Snorlax is primed to be an excellent trick room sweeper. It does not have access to the move trick room itself, but it can switch in relatively easily with its high health stat, especially onto an ice or fire move with Thick Fat. Sometimes exercising off the flab is not the best move, if you’re a monster battling another beast.
Like most other Gen 1 Pokemon, Snorlax has an absurd movepool. Having fantastic STAB in Double Edge and Return, it could also run the riskier but devastating Self-Destruct or Giga Impact. In terms of coverage, this fat panda gets Gunk Shot, Heavy Slam (it’s also in the heaviest weight class!), Outrage, Superpower, Earthquake, Wild Charge, Crunch, Iron Head, Seed Bomb, Zen Headbutt, Fire Punch, Ice Punch, and even Rock Slide.
Does it make sense for this panda to have the rage of a dragon, fire a trash can, summon earthquakes, explosive seeds, and a pile of rocks? No. Does it make it nearly impossible to switch into? Yes.
When going up against a Snorlax under Trick Room, a big part of the way to deal with it is learning what coverage options it has.
Yet that’s not the only scary thing. Snorlax also has access to the move Curse, increasing its middling Defense Stat, and increasing its already massive attack, while decreasing its speed, as if that needed lowering. It’s attack stat can already force switches, and if you get up a Curse on the switch then something that otherwise could have dealt with Snorlax can find itself OHKO’d.
Trick Room is hard to maintain, lasting a maximum of four turns. Therefore Trick Room is not even Snorlax’s scariest set. The name that strikes fear into an unprepared team is simply “Curselax”.
As you can imagine this Snorlax uses the move Curse to its maximum potential. Yet I hear your concerns. Snorlax has no access to recovery moves! It’s also so slow so it can simply be worn down by more powerful fighting type moves, or even just a well placed coverage move. That’s where eating massive quantities of food is another advantage for Snorlax. Gluttony, the ability I mentioned before, makes it so that Snorlax will eat a berry when it’s at a higher percentage.
That’s a little confusing, so let me take it slower. There’s a class of berry that restores 1/2 of a Pokemon’s HP, but only if the Pokemon is at 1/4 HP or less. It will also confuse the user if its the wrong nature. Yet with Gluttony Snorlax is able to eat this berry whenever it reaches 1/2 of its HP, which can get it back up to full health. It also has access to Recycle, meaning that whenever it eats the berry, it can get it back to heal itself again. All the while its getting up Curse after Curse, making itself more defense and dishing out more and more damage.
The only weakness of this set is that it means Snorlax can only carry Return and one more coverage move, usually something to hit ghosts. However, with its excellent spdef and health, that’s all it needs to make itself unkillable. Especially with cleric support, Snorlax is capable of sweeping, despite its awful speed.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-724788764
Here’s an example of Snorlax doing its work in League format. Despite all the Focus Blasts hitting, Snorlax ate them up and lived, doing exactly what the people fear.
Remember the first Pokemon game where Snorlax was an unmovable wall? Don’t worry. If you’re against the right player, Snorlax is an unmovable wall just the same.
As always, good luck and have fun!
What a guy!! I wish that I was Snorlax so I could also just eat and sleep all day. I really didn’t know what you were talking about for most of your post, because I have no idea how your Pokemon battle game thing works even though I’ve seen you play it so many times, but I still enjoyed it! He’s an icon.
Snorlax is the epitome of lifeforms and I am confident that after another million years of evolution, the planet will literally only be inhabited by Snorlaxs.
Snorlax is my boi. Mans was always either in my party, or up for consideration. Also the pokemon every person wishes they were.