ARMAROUGE STRATEGY IN COMPETITIVE POKÉMON

Armarouge is a Pokémon introduced in the 9th generation (in Paldea) and is the other evolution that Ceruledge has . Visually it won’t be as handsome as the other (although to taste colors, as always), but in terms of competitive it is also a bad beast.

We are facing a Pokémon with an exaggerated offensive potential and that can be boosted in different ways so that we can adapt our strategy. It also has a very powerful moveset and excellent coverage.

It has some combos, which if we carry it out correctly, will allow it to sweep everything in its path as long as no one stops us. Keep reading and you will see.

? ARMAROUGE STATS

His statistics add up to a total of 525 points , so we start off well, let’s see his distribution:

Health: 85.
Attack: 60.
Defense: 100.
Special Attack: 125.
Special Defense: 80.
Speed: 75.

Offensively, you can see that he’s a beast with those 125 points in Special Attack, but he has very little Speed and that takes its toll on him (he had to compensate for it somewhere, a shame it’s here). Also, it’s also not such a low Speed that it would be interesting in Trick Room .

Defensively not bad, a decent Health and Special Defense accompanied by those 100 Defense, so on the physical side we are quite well covered.

TYPE, RESISTANCES AND WEAKNESSES

Armarouge is a Psychic Fire-Type just like Delphox, which gives it the following weaknesses and resistances:

It is resistant to Fairy, Fighting, Grass, Fire, Steel, Ice, and Psychic.
It is weak to Dark, Ghost, Water, Rock, and Ground.

Certainly not the best combination of Pokémon types. It has plenty of resistances, something we’ll always appreciate a lot, but let’s talk about weaknesses because they’re generally very dangerous.

Dark : The least dangerous it has, but you still have to watch out against powerful and fast Pokémon of this type such as Houndoom or Hydreigon .
Ghost : In 9th generation there are many powerful ghosts and therefore it is a weakness to fear. Pokémon like Annihilape , Ceruledge , Houndstone or Dragapult will destroy us.
Water : As you well know, it is a very common type in competitive. Be careful against Pokémon like Palafin , Gyarados or Barraskewda .
Rock : Problematic especially in singles due to Rock Trap and Pokémon like Tyranitar or Garganacl.
Earth : Always dangerous due to its high presence in competitive both in type and in coverage movement. Watch out for Excadrill , Krookodile , or Garchomp .

ARMAROUGE ABILITIES

Let’s see now his abilities, both are tremendous:

ABSORBS FIRE

It immunizes us to Fire and if we are hit with this element it will increase our Fire damage by 50%, this effect is lost when switching to your Pokémon. If we are frozen, the ability is deactivated so that we can unfreeze it with Fire.

BRITTLE ARMOR (HIDDEN ABILITY)

If we are attacked with a physical hit, our Defense will be reduced by 1 but our Speed will be increased by 2. Multiple attacks count for this, that is, 1 boost for each hit.

IVS, EVS AND NATURE

The perfect Iv’s as usual; regarding EV’s and Nature:

EV’s : 252 Special Attack, 252 Speed, 4 Special Defense.
Nature : Modest (+Special Attack, –Attack) or Fearful (+Speed, -Attack).

ARMOR CANNON: HIS SIGNATURE MOVE

STAB Fire.
Special.
12th Power.
100 Accuracy.
Lowers the user’s Defense and Defense by 1 level when using it.

Armor Cannon is a Fire-type Point Blank and hits on the Special side , so like this, it is a tremendous movement to take into account for its power and precision. The loss of Defenses is a drag, but at least we lose them when switching.

BEST MOVES FOR ARMAROUGE

The movements that I recommend the most for Armarouge:

Armor Cannon : Our favorite Fire STAB. Fire is effective against Ice, Grass, Steel, and Bug. It will come in handy against Pokemon like Abomasnow, Cetitan, or Amoonguss .
Psychic : STAB Psychic, Special, 90 power, 100% accuracy and a 10% chance to lower the target’s Special Defense. Psychic is very effective against Fighting and Poison for Pokemon like Clodsire or Hawlucha.
Power Reserve : STAB Psychic, Special, 20 power, 100% precision and increases power by 20 for each stat increase that the Pokémon has… with the combo that we will do this will be very broken.
True Wave : Fighting, Special, 120 power, 70% accuracy and a 10% chance to lower Special Defense by 1. Tremendous hit but misses a lot, anyway it’s worth it for being tremendous coverage especially against Dark, Normal and Rock for Pokemon like Umbreon .
Shadow Ball : Ghost, Special, 80 power, 100% accuracy and a 20% lowering of the target’s Special Defense by 1. Cover for Ghosts and other Psychics like Gallade or Mimikyu .
Protection : It has priority +3 (you attack first) and you will protect yourself from all the damage you take that turn. Be careful because you should never use it 2 times in a row or you will almost certainly fail. We love him especially in Doubles.

ARMAROUGE STRATEGIES

Below are the strategies that we have prepared for this Pokémon, the doubles will surprise you.

ARMAROUGE SWEEPER WITH BANDANA (SINGLES)

IVs: Perfect.
EVs: 252 Special Attack, 252 Speed, 4 Special Defense.
Nature: Modest (+Special Attack, -Attack).
Object: Election Scarf.
Ability: Absorb Fire.
Movements:
- cannon armor
- Psychic
- Accurate wave
- Shadow ball

The ideal would be to take it out preventing a Fire attack to absorb it and dope it with Fire Absorb and proceed to attack preferably with Armor Cannon (which will be very doped at that time), but don’t forget that we have tremendous coverage. Coverage somewhat diminished by the Election Scarf, but we need that Speed a lot for the combo to work, if they take out a Pokémon that resists the movement we have anchored we will have to change it.

ARMAROUGE BRITTLE ARMOR (SINGLES)

Same set as above but with Fragile Armor and Life Orb.

In this set, what we will be looking for is to go out and eat a Physical Attack that is not very effective in order to have the +2 in Speed and start to distribute with our tremendous moveset, which has colossal coverage.

ARMAROUGE RESERVE POWER BROKEN (DOUBLES/VGC)

IVs: Perfect.
EVs: 188 Health, 252 Special Attack, 56 Defense and 12 Speed.
Nature: Modest (+Special Attack, -Attack).
Object: Insurance Weakness.
Skill: Brittle Armor.
Movements:
- cannon armor
- Power Reserve
- Shadow Ball / Accurate Wave
- Protection

With this set we are looking to hit our Armarouge with Beatdown , activating our Weakness Insurance that will give us +2 Special Attack, as well as activating our Fragile Armor ability to increase our Speed by at least 2 levels (Maushold with his Compiedescort ability to protect our Armaludge is a very good option).

With only 2 levels of Speed we already passed Pokémon as fast as Meowscarada. If the opponent uses Decoy it will cause our Beat Beat move to target the opponent, eliminating our combo. As well as an enemy Surprise that does not let us move.

With that much boost on top of it the potency of Power Reserve will be colossal, not to mention that Armor Cannon will pack a tremendous punch as well. It’s a very good set.

TERACRYSTALLIZATION ARMAROUGE

Teracrystallization Fire .

The ideal would be to use Teracrystallization of Fire to have double STAB on this element and thus hit very hard with Armor Cannon, at which point this attack will have absurd damage.

Psychic Teracrystallization .

This would be interesting for the Doubles set to further boost Power Reserve and have an extremely absurd power hit.

HOW TO DEFEAT ARMAROUGE AND COUNTERS

Brutal image created by Orangesyum88

And now the best thing you can do if you want to defeat him:

Fastest Pokémon that hit a weakness : Very fearful Pokémon like Dragapult or Barraskewda .
Rain : Rain will deplete his Armor Cannon quite a bit, so Pokemon like Pelipper would be a great help.
Fog : To eliminate the boosts. Several Pokémon, such as Toxapex , have this move.
Fastest Pokémon that Delete it : Gengar or Dragapult are good examples of this.

ARMAROUGE STRATEGY IN COMPETITIVE POKÉMON

? ARMAROUGE STATS

TYPE, RESISTANCES AND WEAKNESSES