What is a Mold Breaker? What does it do and what are the pros and cons of using one? What pokemon can use mold-breaker, which types cannot be hit by a Mold Breaker attack, or immune to being affected by its abilities. What does Mold Breaker do to Sturdy Pokemon like Jynx or Lickilicky? What about Guts-immune Pokemon like Blissey. We have all these questions answered for you in this article!
The first thing to know about a Mold Breaker is that it’s not something you will find on an individual Pokemon. It is instead an ability that can be found on certain moves. You might see the word “mold-breaker” as part of the description for, say, Power Whip or Rock Slide and assume that this means every time these attacks are used they break through the opponent’s abilities like a sturdy but in reality, this just means one of those two moves has mold breaker built into it! What does this mean? What types can use a mold-breaker attack? What type cannot be hit by a mold-breaker move? What happens when you are fighting against a pokemon with Sturdy (Jynx) or Guts (Zoroark) What happens when you fight a ghost type?
The next question to know is what types can use Mold Breaker
As it stands, there are two different attacks that have mold-breaker built into them: Power Whip and Rock Slide. This means that only the Pokemon who learn these moves or their evolved forms as an attack will be able to benefit from this ability! So, if your team includes any of Sceptile, Meganium, Swampert, Torterra, or Serperior then they should feel pretty comfortable using either of those moves because they’ll be able to break through sturdy or guts respectively with ease! What about fighting against pokemon such as Jynx which has Sturdy – does this mean that they can’t be affected by Mold Breaker? What about Pokemon with Guts like Zoroark – does this mean that they are unaffected by mold-breaker too?
No, Jynx and Zoroark will still be hit hard when you use a move containing mold-breaker. You just won’t have to worry about the pesky effect of sturdy or guts! What about pokemon like Chandelure – does this mean it will be affected by Mold Breaker? What about the effect of sturdy, for example; does that mean you can’t use a mold-breaker on a Pokemon with Sturdy (like Jynx) in order to break through its defense and do damage?
The mold-breaker ignores any effects from moves such as sturdy or guts. What if your opponent is using Guts though, which restores their HP every turn. Will they also get an additional 50% boost when hit with Mold Breaker since it doesn’t ignore Guts? No! When using a move containing Mold Breaker against someone who has used Guts then only some residual damage would be dealt at most because there was no way to “breakthrough.” What about when a move such as Sturdy is used? Will it be unaffected by Mold Breaker, and therefore not take any damage at all from the attack? Again, no! Sturdy still means that being attacked will do some residual damage (though this may differ based on the type of pokemon).
What about Ghost types? What if your opponent is using a Mold Breaker, will any effects be ignored such as Sturdy or Guts when hit by the attack, making it much easier to defeat them regardless of type? Sadly no!
Mold Breaker can act like an “attack that ignores certain abilities” and not just specific moves with this element attached. What does this mean for you though? It means there are more things for pokemon to fear once they know their opponents have mold breakers on hand. Their entire strategy may need to be rethought based on what Pokemon has Mold Breaker in its arsenal because all bets are off against those who ignore status effects from moves such as sturdy or guts thanks to the power of Mold Breakers.
They can still take advantage of these bonuses just like every other Pokemon in their arsenal and use this knowledge with strategic planning. Mold breaker does not ignore moves like Shadow Ball, which hits ghost types hard and nothing else! It also doesn’t matter how many Molds you break because all ghosts get STAB on Shadow Ball anyways so they’ll pummel anything even more now that they’re immune to status conditions protecting their enemy from moves.
