Ability
White Smoke / Drought / Shell Armor
Roles
Fire-type wall, physical wall, hazard setter, hazard remover, setup sweeper, artillery, Trick Room attacker, weather setter
Assessment
Suddenly, the skies cleared.
Torkoal was a tortoise-like Pokémon with a mostly orange-brown body. Each of its limbs and its long neck had a dark gray ring around it, each foot had three claws, and a short tail extended behind it. Its shell was primarily dark gray, with five fiery red recesses around it and a small hole at the very top.
Many Torkoal lived in abandoned coal mines, constantly digging up coal and placing it in the holes in their shells to burn. When attacked by enemies, they released black smoke to escape. When Torkoal puffed smoke from its nostrils, it made a sound like a train whistle. It generated energy by burning coal, grew listless when its fire weakened, and became unable to move if its coal burned out. If the flame inside its shell went out, it died, so anyone raising one at home had to keep fuel on hand. The smoke rising from its shell revealed its physical condition: a strong plume meant it was full of energy.
Generation VII gave plenty of obscure Pokémon a helping hand, with Pelipper and Torkoal being prime examples. Not only did they receive weather-setting abilities as regular abilities, but they also posed a serious challenge to the established weather setters. Still, Torkoal had actually been doing much better than Pelipper before it gained weather-just look at that list of roles. Apart from the final two, none had much to do with sun. Torkoal had excellent physical bulk, on par with Skarmory, reasonably decent offenses, and blazing speed under Trick Room. Its lower special bulk was unfortunate, since Fire-types were better suited to being