Sets
Sleep Puncher
- Item Held
- Toxic Orb
- Ability
- Poison Heal
- Nature
- Adamant
- Effort Points
- 252 Attack – 220 Speed – 38 HP
Simple set to pull off. Put them to sleep with that awesome
100% sleep-inducing move and watch them fly after being hit by
Breloom’s STABed Focus Punch. Facade gets fantastic neutral coverage
along with Focus Punch and causes considerable damage to its
“counters”. Thunderpunch will OHKO Gyarados after Stealth Rock and
score a super-effective hit on Skarmory. Stone Edge will 2HKO both
Salamence and Gyarados. Seed Bomb gets STAB and can 2HKO most bulky
Waters, such as Vaporeon and Slowbro.
Swords Dance
- Item Held
- Toxic Orb
- Ability
- Poison Heal
- Nature
- Adamant
- Effort Points
- 252 Attack – 220 Speed – 38 HP
Not much is scarier than Swords Dance Breloom. Mach Punch
gets priority, so even faster foes aren’t safe. Thunderpunch will
2HKO Skarmory and OHKO Gyarados, while Seed Bomb gets STAB and will
get rid of bulky Water and Ground-type Pokémon. Facade is here once
again for its neutral damage to anything that isn’t Rock, Steel or
Ghost type, preventing Breloom from being walled. It also gets the
boost from the Toxic Orb. Spore is the alternative, which will put
foes to sleep and potentially give a chance to a free Swords
Dance.
If you decided not to use Facade, Life Orb is a pretty decent
option over Toxic Orb. While you don’t have a way to heal Breloom
anymore, you have a massive Attack stat and a STABed priority move
further powered by Life Orb’s 1.3x boost. Of course, Breloom’s
survivability is significantly reduced.
SubSeeder
- Item Held
- Toxic Orb
- Ability
- Poison Heal
- Nature
- Adamant
- Effort Points
- 252 Attack – 220 Speed – 38 HP
Breloom is sometimes considered a bit too slow to use a
SubSeed set, but Breloom has Poison Heal, making him unique. This is
just like any other SubSeed set. Predict the foe’s switch, set up a
Substitute, use Leech Seed, stall the foe’s team to death. Because
there will be a long line of consequtive uses of Substitute, Focus
Punch nicely complements this set. The last move can be important.
Spore will prevent the foe from attacking, which means a free
Substitute. Stun Spore slows the foe down, which helps Breloom’s poor
Speed, while still providing a 25% chance of not having your
Substitute broken. Seed Bomb will allow Breloom to hit Ghosts, which
would otherwise get a free switch-in on Focus Punch. This can be
avoided with some prediction by putting Ghosts to sleep as they
switch in with Spore, thus making it the superior choice most of the
time.
LeadLoom
- Item Held
- Toxic Orb
- Ability
- Poison Heal
- Nature
- Adamant
- Effort Points
- 252 Attack – 160 HP – 96 Speed
The infamous Breloom lead. Many people are willing to outrun
this guy just so that they don’t become asleep by Spore. Well, what
they don’t expect is a Mach Punch coming their way. Many common
leads, namely Weavile and Tyranitar, are weak to Fighting. Mach Punch
OHKOs Weavile and 2HKOs Tyranitar. Seed Bomb deals with Hippowdon and
Swampert leads, both of whom are common for setting an early Stealth
Rock. Spore allows you to put slower leads to sleep, and then proceed
to clobber them. Protect has two functions. Firstly, it gives you a
free turn for the Toxic Orb to kick in. Secondly, it allows you to
scout for which attack a Flying-type will use against you, thus
allowing you to switch to a good counter for it.
Other Possible Options
Sky Uppercut, Brick Break, and Superpower are
alternatives to Focus Punch and Mach Punch, but they
do not have the power or the priority that those two other moves
have. Force Palm’s 30%
chance of paralysis is also appealing, especially with Breloom’s poor
Speed. Bulk Up can be used,
but it’s generally inferior to Swords Dance. The
only time it could get serious consideration over Swords Dance is when
it is used with Superpower. A Choice
set is an option, but you lose Poison Heal recovery, the powerful Facade, and it’s
generally left better to Heracross. Stone Edge and Rock Slide are not
bad, but they only score 2HKOs on Gyarados and Salamence, who are the
two main targets. The Coba Berry would reduce Breloom’s Flying
weakness, but then you would lose the guaranteed Poison Heal recovery
and Facade’s boost.
The EVs for most sets are meant for Breloom to outrun Adamant Scizor. Max
Speed is always and option, as it will allow you to tie with other
Max Speed Breloom
and Adamant max Speed Metagross. The extra HP EVs allow for extra Poison Heal recovery. On the
LeadLoom set, not much more Speed is needed because he has Mach Punch, which
gets priority, and Seed Bomb is meant mainly for the slower bulky
Waters.
Counters
The Sleep Punch Breloom is one of the hardest Pokémon to counter.
The mighty Bronzong
is 2HKOed by Focus Punch, as is Skarmory.
However, Rest-Talk Cresselia, with every EV put into HP and Defense, can absorb a Spore and will never
be 3HKOed by Facade. Cresselia
will then 2HKO with Psychic or Ice Beam. Some other
Rest-Talkers, such as Uxie, can do
the same thing.
The Swords Dance set is a
little harder to deal with. A Dusknoir
can take hits and will likely 2HKO with Fire Punch or Ice Punch. However,
he will be 2HKOed by Seed Bomb. Spiritimb can switch in, but can’t do anything in return. If he runs Spore, Breloom likely
won’t have Facade, which is his
major wallbreaker move. If so, Cresselia, Uxie,
and other Rest-Talkers will suffice.
SubSeeder is a different story. Grass-types are good, as they are
immune to Leech Seed. Sceptile
could switch in and take Breloom out with Aerial Ace, but he
could get put to sleep by Spore. Any Pokémon
with Taunt will completely
destroy this set, as it is not stopped by Substitute and will
leave Breloom with Focus Punch and maybe
one other attacking move.
There are a wide variety of revenge killers that can deal with
Brave Bird Staraptor, and Aerial Ace Dugtrio
can switch-in after something has been killed and deal with their
respective moves. Ice Shard Weavile
can pick-off a slightly weakened Breloom. Don’t try to KO with Ice Punch, because
there might be a Mach Punch coming
your way.
Just a small note: Don’t bother with paralysis or burn when trying
to deal with Breloom. Nine out of ten times it is poisoned, so status
moves will do nothing. The best way to get rid of it is to exploit
its 4x Flying weakness.
Opinion & Notes
Because of D/P, Breloom became a fantastic Pokémon. Platinum has
now turned this guy into a beast. Just think about it: Not only is he
immune to poison, but he also benefits from it with Facade and Poison
Heal. What’s more, Thunderpunch became
available with Poison Heal, which is a huge gain. With resistances to
Rock (and therefore Stealth Rock,)
Electric, Water, Ground, and Dark, common attacks such as Thunderbolt and Earthquake are not
super-effective. With Spore, Swords Dance, a
priority move in the form of Mach Punch, and a
STABed Focus Punch too,
there isn’t much explaining needed to prove how great Breloom is.
Note that Superpower and Thunderpunch are
Platinum move tutor moves. You could get Thunderpunch from
Emerald, but then you lose your awesome Poison Heal ability.