#839 - Coalossal

                                    

                                          
Of the few pokémon revealed prior to the release of Sword and Shield, Rolycoly was the one I was the most excited about, and looked forward to finding out what it evolves into.
Then when I first saw Rolycoly's evolved form Carkol, I got even more excited to see the final member of the evolutionary line. 
After all the information about Sword and Shield's pokédex was posted on Serebii, I finally got a look at Rolycoly's final form....and I was admitted a bit disappointed with Coalossal's design. 
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Coalossal is a bad pokémon design by any means, but with Rolycoly being a piece of coal on a wheel and Carkol looking like a minecart, I was hoping Coalossal would be some kind of monstrous steam engine made out of coal, but what we got was basically Golem but black and with some hot coals on its back.
I absolutely love Golem, which is why I'm not all that upset about Coalossal's final design, but I was just expecting something different you know? 
After doing some reflecting, I now understand how so many people felt about Dudunsparce's design in Scarlet and Violet.
I personally think Dudunsparce is amazing, but I get the disappointment many fans felt after years of waiting for a Dunsparce evolution. 
Dudunsparce is a topic for another chapter though, because right now it's time to go over Coalossal as a pokémon. 
For base stats, Coalossal has 110 HP, 80 attack, 120 defense, 90 special defense, and 30 speed.
Besides having incredibly low speed (which is pretty standard for rock types, with some exceptions of course), Coalossal has pretty well rounded stats, including decent special attack and good special defense, which is kind of a rarity for rock types of similar design. 
Coalossal is far from perfect though, as it does have a few problems, one of the most outstanding ones being its typing. 
I like the fire/rock typing as it's fitting for a pokémon with a coal motif, but this gives Coalossal two 4x weaknesses, those being ground and water, and not even those solid defenses can save it most of the time. 
Also, since Coalossal is so slow, it will almost definitely take a hit before getting a chance to attack, so keep that in mind whenever you're using one in battle. 
Besides the rock and fire moves you'd expect, Coalossal gets a decent amount of coverage including Iron Head, Body Press, Solar Beam, Earthquake, Heavy Slam, Earth Power, Terra Blast, and Scald surprisingly enough, plus some pretty useful status category moves like Curse, Will-O-Wisp, Steath Rock, Reflect, Sunny Day, and it's signature move Tar Shot, which lowers the opponent's speed while also making them weaker to fire type moves. 
On to abilities, Coalossal naturally gets both Flame Body and an ability currently exclusive to it and the other members of its evolutionary line called Steam Engine. 
Starting with Flame Body, it works similarly to Static and Poison Point where it has a 30% chance to inflict a status condition on the opposing pokémon if they make physical contact, the status in this instance being a burn. 
This ability also has a secondary effect where it halves the number of steps eggs require in order to hatch if you have a pokémon with this ability in your party, making Flame Body super useful for breeding purposes.
As for its use in battle, Flame Body can be crippling to your opponent's pokémon, especially if they rely heavily on using physical attacks. 
Overall, this is a fantastic ability that you can't go wrong with. 
Steam Engine is a very interesting ability that boosts Coalossal's speed by a whopping six stages if it gets hit by a fire move or a water move. 
This ability is kind of high risk high reward depending on the situation.
Predicting an incoming fire move and switching Coalossal in has practically zero risk due to the coal creature having a 4x resistance to fire and an immunity to getting burned thanks to being a fire type itself 
The water part however, is much more risky due to Coalossal's major weakness to the type that I mentioned earlier. 
If you can pull off activating Steam Engine without Coalossal getting knocked out, that massive speed increase can make it quite the force to be reckoned with.
I don't think you can go wrong with either of these abilities, so I'd leave it up to personal preference.
Wanna shut down your opponent's physical attackers? 
Pick Flame Body?
Feeling bold and want that big speed boost?
Pick Steame Engine. 
As for Coalossal's hidden ability Flash Fire, I feel it's a lot less interesting than the other two. 
Flash Fire gives immunity to fire moves and raises the power of Coalossal's own fire attacks. 
Like I said back in the Houndoom chapter, this ability has its uses, but is pretty situational all things considered. 
In my opinion, stick with either Steam Engine or Flame Body. 
Like many Galar pokémon, Coalossal has a Gigantamax form in Sword and Shield, so I'll briefly go over it similarly to how I went over Gigantamax Sandaconda. 
Honestly, I like Gigantamax Coalossal's design more than regular Coalossal since it has elements of a steam engine that I expected it to have in the first place, but not by much. 
It has the appearance of a coal furnace, which I like, but man do I wish Gigantamax Coalossal was more train-like.
Oh well, it is what it is. 
Replacing the standard rock type move Max Rockfall,  Gigantamax Coalossal gets G-Max Volcalith, which deals 1/6th HP of damage to the opponent for four turns after it's initial use, making this one of the most powerful Max moves from generation 8 in my opinion. 
Having used a regular Coalossal on my team the last time I played Sword and Shield, I grew to appreciate it more than I once did and will definitely use one again in the future. 
Despite my disappointment with Coalossal's design, both its regular form and Gigantamax form to an extent, I still like this pokémon quite a bit because of its signature ability and typing, along with my love for Rolycoly and Carkol, which carries over to it somewhat.