By Emily
Being one of the first Pokemon available, almost every person catches a Lillipup within a few minutes of starting their journey in Black or White. Many times Lillipup is evolved into Herdier, and then forgotten in a box. However, this dog-based evolutionary line has quite a few surprises in store, from abilities to attacks. All of these Pokemon have at least one useful ability, which is usually overlooked due to their typing. Lillipup for example is the only fifth generation Pokemon who can have the Pickup ability.
Pickup is very useful in the beginning of the game, as you can get useful items just by battling trainers or wild Pokemon. Both Herider and Stoutland can have Intimidate, which can come in useful during double or triple battles, though their best ability comes from the Dream World. Scrappy will enable them to damage Ghost-types with Normal-type attacks, which can be extremely useful if the opponent Pokemon can’t easily damage your Herdier or Stoutland.
No Dream World distribution of any character from this evolution line has been available from the Dream World though. In addition to having good abilities, all of these characters are fairly common throughout Unova. So if you wanted to train one, you can choose what level you wanted to start training at. Stoutland is a little harder to find than the others because it only appears in shaking grass, but its high level would give you a good head-start. Thanks to them being so common, hunting for a shiny version of any of these is easy enough to do, though breeding using the Masuda Method is another viable option.
Stoutland’s move pool gives it adequate coverage and makes this Pokemon very well-rounded in general. Its Move Relearner attacks are the three elemental fangs, which are perfectly paired with its high attack stat. Other physical attacks like Crunch and Reversal can also be useful, especially if you are able to accurately time Reversal’s use. Aerial Ace and Wild Charge are good TM options, and give a little more variety. Doubling up Wild Charge and Reversal can be useful since Wild Charge has recoil and Reversal gets stronger as the Pokemon’s HP gets lower.
Stoutland’s special attack stat is very low, making attacks like Surf and Thunderbolt somewhat unappealing. Both Lillipup and Herdier have been in the anime, and were owned by the Gym Leader Lenora. As of the time this article was typed, Stoutland has yet to appear in the anime. None of these Pokemon has had an official event distribution as of right now, though Lillipup has had some merchandise released. Its Pokemon plushie is the most notable of such, and was a Pokemon Center exclusive item.
Banpresto’s “My Pokémon Collection” will eventually feature all three in plush form, and in the future more merchandise of all three characters will likely be released. Even with the somewhat lackluster focus on these three, they make a solid addition to a team. They may not be the strongest or fastest, but decent stats with a varied move pool is very handy during normal game play. They also add a bit of novelty to the game since their usefulness is usually left untapped.
Tags: Generation V, Herdier, Lillipup, Nintendo DS, Pokemon Black & White, Stoutland