Castform Movesets & Competitive Sets

Moves Rain Dance turns Castform blue and dampens the spirits of the opponent. Sunny Day turns Castform red, turning up the heat on the opponent and firing Castform up for battle. Hail turns Castform blue again, sending a chill down the opponent's spine. This array of colors will take your opponents by storm and dazzle them into submission. And after this fascinating display, the trump card can be revealed: Castform's almost-signature move Weather Ball, a three-in-one coverage move that only takes up one moveslot, only takes one turn to set up, and only actually KOes its foes if it hits super effectively. Set Details A Modest nature is used to grant Castform some power, although "modest" is also a bit of an overstatement of Castform's potential. You can choose to lengthen a weather of your choice by using a Damp Rock, a Heat Rock, or an Icy Rock, but whichever you pick, weather rocks. Castform doesn't. Its ability is Forecast, but it doesn't even tell you that it's going to rain until the rain has been set up and you're all drenched in the downpour. Those scientists sure had one job. Usage Tips Use Castform to tell you the weather outside without you even having to turn around to look out the window. Use Castform as a disco ball that has a wide array of colors from its many forme changes, namely red and blue. Use Castform as a police siren; its wide spectrum of colors from its forme changes will probably achieve the desired effect all the same. Use Castform to boil a hot, soothing cup of herbal tea if you're feeling a little under the weather, as the molecules in its body are just like water. Use Castform as death fodder to bring in another Pokemon safely. Castform can be used as just about anything under the sun. Just don't bring it into the battlefield and expect to grab KOs with it, to survive hits with it, or to win battles with it. Team Options Castform can do with teammates that help it to set up weather so that it can change color and start firing off Weather Ball as soon as possible; it won't get much time before it is KOed, after all. Electrode is a great teammate, and not just because it can set up Rain Dance. Being a ball that can set up weather, it also complements Castform's Weather Ball perfectly. In addition, adding Electrode as a teammate to Castform is a good choice, because they are both floating heads and two heads are better than one. Castform could also do with teammates that can sweep the opponent's team under the correct weather conditions. Flower Gift Cherrim is a very fitting teammate for Castform: Cherrim also doesn't have a body, can also use Weather Ball, and is just about as good at sweeping its foes as Castform is at predicting the weather. Apart from weather support, any other kind of support will also do to help Castform to perform its job at a minimal standard. This can range from Stealth Rock support to help secure the KO on Zebstrika, to dual screens support to help avoid the 2HKO from Dusknoir's Shadow Sneak and Zebstrika's Volt Switch on neutral hits, to paralysis support to help it outspeed and 2HKO Persian.

Let's face it, if you're using Castform at all, it's for the pure novelty value of Weather Ball. Having Castform on your team and not using Weather Ball is like visiting Paris without going to the Louvre or visiting New York without eating a hot dog. Start by using the weather move of your choice, and then once the skies have changed, it's time to pound away at the opponent with Weather Ball. Thunderbolt and Ice Beam are there to provide additional coverage, but you'll be so busy clicking Weather Ball you won't even realize these additional moves are there and that Castform got KOed 3 turns ago. Whether Castform the Weather Pokemon can weather the weather is dependent on whether the weather that it's weathering is the proper weather for it to weather. Whether the opponent can weather the weather is also subject to whether the weather that it's weathering is the right weather to weather. Whether Castform can weather the opponent is once again dictated by the weather and whether that weather is the favorable weather for weathering. But most importantly, you should know whether there will be weather to weather rather than what weather they will be weathering and whether they can weather that weather. Castform's overall low stats means that it'll struggle against many foes, so it'll appreciate support from entry hazards, dual screens, paralysis, and you returning it to its Poke Ball where it can take shelter for the rest of the battle. The items and EVs chosen ensure that Castform hits as hard as possible with Weather Ball, but odds are at the end of the day it's still going to be the equivalent of a wet paper towel fighting a mountain lion, even if it looks like Castform's got the balls to pull it off. Hopefully you'll know better next time.

This set is Castform's best chance at being competitively viable. BoltBeam forms Castform's attacking core, with a Fire-type move rounding off the coverage perfectly. Energy Ball is mostly filler, but is useful against Water / Ground-types, who are neutral to BoltBeam. Same goes for Shadow Ball, but for Ghost- and Psychic-types. With these four moves, Castform hits quite a bit of the tier super effectively, which is good since he lacks a reliable STAB attack, so anything he can't hit super effectively can quite easily shrug off any of his attempts. A boosting item is pretty much necessary if Castform wants to be offensively capable at all; Life Orb provides the highest boost possible (while still maintaining the ability to switch moves), but since Castform hits so many Pokemon super effectively, Expert Belt is also a viable option, with a similar boost and no recoil. The EVs are an attempt to bolster Castform's lackluster stats for sweeping, putting Castform a point above Jolly Torterra. A Timid nature and 244 Speed EVs can be used if you want Castform to outpace neutral-natured base 80 Speed Pokemon. The remaining EVs can then be added to HP for bulk. Castform is a slow, relatively weak special attacker; therefore, we can say that he'll appreciate entry hazard, dual screen, paralysis, and wallbreaker support. Uxie can do the former three well, and also makes a great fallback Pokemon when facing powerful attackers. Blaziken is pretty much undisputed as the best wallbreaker in the tier, although Nidoking can give him a run for his money. Castform really shouldn't be used in any competitive team, so it's recommended that you just replace him with one of the many other, better special attackers in the tier if you're at least a little bit serious about winning, and go with their team options.

Even more novelty as you aren't even getting power boosts from the weather, just Leftovers negation on your opponent. This is just a worse version of the general special set.

Weather Ball has 5 more Base Power, but it loses the chance to burn things. Flamethrower also has 5 more PP, but Castform will never survive to use even half of Weather Ball's PP anyway. It seems to be able to 2HKO a lot of things, but it is completely ineffective against things like Blissey and Gyarados. Tyranitar could screw up this set if it catches you on a Solar Beam, especially if it has Substitute. If it's Tyraniboah, that Substitute can hurt you pretty badly. This set can actually beat Suicune head-to-head assuming Castform gets a free Sunny Day. The time I tested it though, Castform barely survived, so there is probably a good amount of luck involved. It was still cool though.

You can go with Thunderbolt if you don't want to rely on having Rain Dance up, although having Rain Dance up is the entire point of even using this (novelty) set. This set already relies on having Rain Dance for Weather Ball though, and you need all the power you can get. Tyranitar ruins this set.

Castform actually does decently well as a special attacker, as long as they don't switch in something that doesn't have a weakness to it (any Normal-type). Its main problem is its tendency to die quickly.