What Beats Wonder Guard? The Ultimate Guide to Countering Pokémon’s Most Unique Ability
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Wonder Guard, the signature Ability of the enigmatic Pokémon Shedinja, is one of the most unique and potentially powerful mechanics in the Pokémon world. This Ability grants the user near-invulnerability, making them immune to any damage that isn’t super-effective. However, despite its seemingly impenetrable defense, Wonder Guard is not invincible. This article will delve deep into what can break through Wonder Guard’s protection, offering a comprehensive guide for trainers looking to counter this tricky Ability.
How to Bypass Wonder Guard: A Direct Answer
The core concept behind Wonder Guard is that only super-effective attacks can deal damage. However, there are more exceptions and counterplays than most might think. To summarize directly:
- Super-Effective Moves: This is the primary weakness. Fire, Flying, Dark, Ghost, and Rock type attacks will hit a Pokémon with Wonder Guard (like Shedinja) for damage.
- Indirect Damage: This includes status-inflicting conditions and environmental damage. This means Hail, Sandstorm, poison, burn, Leech Seed, Spikes, and Stealth Rock can all bypass Wonder Guard’s protection.
- Specific Moves: Certain moves that, for reasons hardcoded into the game or have unique properties, will bypass the normal checks of Wonder Guard. These include Beat Up, Bide, Doom Desire, Fire Fang, Future Sight, and Struggle.
- Ability-Ignoring Abilities: Abilities like Mold Breaker, Teravolt, and Turboblaze allow Pokémon to use any move and inflict damage, even if it isn’t super effective. The same is true of moves that ignore Abilities such as Sunsteel Strike.
- Ability-Changing Moves: Moves such as Simple Beam, Worry Seed, Entrainment, and Gastro Acid can overwrite Wonder Guard completely.
These are the primary methods of dealing damage to a Pokémon with Wonder Guard. A combination of direct attacks, indirect damage, and ability manipulation are the keys to overcoming this potent ability.
Detailed Breakdown of Wonder Guard Weaknesses
To fully understand how to defeat a Pokémon with Wonder Guard, it’s crucial to examine each of the weaknesses in more detail:
Super Effective Attacks
This is the most obvious weakness. Shedinja, the most famous user of Wonder Guard, is a Bug/Ghost type, meaning it’s vulnerable to Fire, Flying, Dark, Ghost, and Rock-type attacks. Understanding your opponent’s typing is paramount when facing a Wonder Guard user.
Indirect Damage
While direct damage might be difficult to apply, status conditions and field hazards can quickly chip away at a Wonder Guard Pokémon’s HP. For instance:
- Weather: Hail and Sandstorm deal damage at the end of each turn.
- Status: Poison and burn damage also occur each turn.
- Hazards: Stealth Rock and Spikes damage Pokémon upon switching into battle.
- Leech Seed: Steals HP from the affected Pokemon, and will even be activated if used by a Pokemon against an immune Shedinja.
The Exceptionary Moves
Specific moves break the rules of Wonder Guard. These seemingly random exceptions can be the deciding factor in a battle:
- Beat Up: Damages based on party members, and bypasses Wonder Guard.
- Bide: Deals damage after a set amount of turns, and bypasses Wonder Guard.
- Doom Desire and Future Sight: Delayed attacks that hit regardless of type effectiveness.
- Fire Fang: A peculiar exception, not due to being a super-effective type, but simply through the coding of the game itself.
- Struggle: When a Pokemon runs out of PP and needs to struggle to use a move, it’s a move that bypasses Wonder Guard.
Abilities that Ignore Abilities
Abilities like Mold Breaker, Teravolt, and Turboblaze are invaluable when facing Wonder Guard. They effectively neutralize Wonder Guard by ignoring its effects, allowing all moves to damage the user. Likewise moves like Sunsteel Strike or other attacks that are designed to bypass abilities can also be used here.
Ability-Changing Moves
Strategically overwriting the Wonder Guard ability can open up a myriad of attack possibilities. Moves like Simple Beam, Worry Seed, Entrainment, or Gastro Acid can change the ability of the Wonder Guard user to something less useful or harmful and open the user up to the full range of Pokemon attacks.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can a Pokémon with Mold Breaker, Teravolt, or Turboblaze deal damage to Shedinja?
Yes, these Abilities ignore the effects of Wonder Guard. A Pokémon with any of these abilities can inflict damage on Shedinja with any attack, even if it isn’t super-effective.
2. Does Struggle bypass Wonder Guard?
Yes, Struggle is a unique move that bypasses Wonder Guard, although it isn’t recommended as it damages the user.
3. Can a Pokémon’s Ability be Skill Swapped or Role Played with Wonder Guard?
No. Skill Swap will fail if either Pokémon has Wonder Guard, and Role Play will fail if the target has Wonder Guard.
4. Can a Pokémon with Trace copy Wonder Guard?
Yes, Wonder Guard can be Traced.
5. Can Wonder Guard be copied by an opponent Pokémon using Transform?
Yes, Transform will copy Wonder Guard, but note that Transform only copies the target’s current form, not its abilities.
6. Is Shedinja immune to moves that are not super effective?
Yes, Shedinja’s Wonder Guard Ability makes it immune to any move that isn’t super-effective (Fire, Flying, Dark, Ghost, and Rock types).
7. Does a Focus Sash save Shedinja from a one-hit KO?
Yes, the Focus Sash will prevent Shedinja from being knocked out by a super-effective hit, but only for one hit. Once activated, the Focus Sash is used up.
8. Does the Ability Wandering Spirit swap Abilities with Wonder Guard?
No, Wandering Spirit will not swap abilities with Wonder Guard.
9. Why does Fire Fang bypass Wonder Guard?
Fire Fang’s bypass is not due to a type advantage, but because of a specific coding anomaly in the game where Wonder Guard’s protection check is skipped for Fire Fang.
10. How can you get rid of Wonder Guard with other moves?
Moves such as Simple Beam, Worry Seed, Entrainment, and Gastro Acid can change or remove Wonder Guard.
11. Is Shedinja invincible with Sturdy and Skill Swap?
No, Shedinja cannot be made invincible in this way. Even though the idea is good, Shedinja still has the Wonder Guard ability, so Sturdy would be useless if Shedinja still can’t be hit.
12. Why is Shedinja so hard to catch?
Shedinja is hard to catch due to its low capture rate and high CP, resulting in an “extremely strong” designation in the capture mechanics.
13. Why does Shedinja only have 1 HP?
Shedinja has only 1 HP to balance its Wonder Guard Ability and prevent players from easily abusing it and to make it more strategic.
14. Is Shedinja the only Bug/Ghost type Pokemon?
Yes, Shedinja is the only Pokemon with this unique type combination.
15. Can a Pokemon with Wonder Guard become invinsible?
No, even though Wonder Guard makes Pokemon incredibly difficult to hit, direct super-effective moves, indirect damage, a few special moves, and abilities that negate abilities can all bypass Wonder Guard, so the Pokemon is far from invincible.
Conclusion
Wonder Guard is a powerful ability, but not an unbeatable one. By understanding its limitations and the various ways to circumvent its effects, trainers can effectively deal with Pokémon like Shedinja. Whether it’s exploiting super-effective attacks, using indirect damage, exploiting certain moves, using Abilities, or overwriting Wonder Guard, strategies exist to counter this unique and fascinating Ability. Mastering these counterplays will make you a more adept and versatile trainer in the Pokémon world.