AOTW: Harvest

What’s up, kids! Welcome back to your weekly Abilities class! I’m sure that many of you have used a strategy that hinges on the use of a held Berry, but it sure sucks when you can only use that strategy once, and even more if you were on your last Berry. I’m sure you can guess- we’re gonna see about fixing that today. This is Ability of the Week: Harvest!

You might not have heard of Harvest before, but that’s for good reason. Not only was this Ability introduced in generation five, it’s also a Dream World Ability that’s only accessible by Exeggcute, Exeggutor, and Tropius. When the pokémon with Harvest uses up their held Berry, the Ability has a 50% chance of activating and restoring the held Berry for another use after each turn, and will not fail when there’s intense sunlight on the field. Normally, there is no limit to the number of times Harvest can restore your held Berry, but there is an exception to the rule. If Harvest restores your Berry, and your pokémon eats it again immediately, Harvest will not reactivate.

What makes Harvest great is the fact that with so many different Berries in the game, the strategies you have at your fingertips are varied and numerous. Let’s consider Tropius, which you probably have the most degree of freedom with. Though not spectacular, its stat total is respectable at 460 and reasonably evenly spread, including adequate defensive stats. Tropius can learn Leech Seed via breeding or capture in the Dream World, as well as Synthesis via level up. Its Speed is low enough to make Curse worth teaching it, too. Building its HP recovery and defenses, a Sitrus Berry/Harvest combo wouldn’t go amiss. Tropius also has a move in its learnset that relies on the Berry its holding- Natural Gift, whose type changes based on the held Berry. Normally, this move wouldn’t be worth much of your time due to the Berry being used up, but that’s fixed with Harvest. As for Exeggutor, I’d recommend a Petaya Berry, which will crank Exeggutor’s already impressive Special Attack when its health drops below 25%.

That about does it for this Ability of the Week! As a shameless plug for myself, I’m offering 50% off my regular character commission rates this month, so if you’d like some inexpensive made-to-order artwork, check out my DeviantArt or SheezyArt profiles for details! Have a week!

-Wil
www.wheretheresawil.com