NationalDex
gengar
#094

Gengar

Shadow Pokémon

GhostPoison

It steals heat from its surround­ ings. If you feel a sudden chill, it is certain that a GENGAR appeared.

Base Stats

HP 60
Attack 65
Defense 60
Sp. Atk 130
Sp. Def 75
Speed 110
Total 500

Type Effectiveness

Held Items

Evolution Chain

haunter Haunter Lv. 25
gengar Gengar Trade

Moves

Details

Category Shadow Pokémon
Height 1.5 m
Weight 40.5 kg
Base Exp 225
Growth Rate Medium Slow
Capture Rate 45
Base Happiness 70
Gender 50% ♂ / 50% ♀
Habitat Cave
Egg Groups Indeterminate

Sprites

gengar Front Front
gengar Back Back
gengar Front Shiny Front Shiny
gengar Back Shiny Back Shiny
gengar Official Art Official Art
gengar Official Art (Shiny) Official Art (Shiny)

Competitive

ou Usage: 25.4%
Assassin
Moves
Thunderbolt / Thunder
Hypnosis / Dynamic Punch
Explosion / Destiny Bond
Item
Leftovers
Perish Trapper
Item
Leftovers

Strategy Overview

Gengar is an interesting Pokemon. It gets a wonderful movepool with super effective coverage and sacrificial moves that can hurt pretty much anything the OU tier has to offer. However, since Shadow Ball is physical, Gengar gets no special STAB moves to run off that amazing base 130 Special Attack stat. Gengar is also very frail, and while its Ghost typing is very useful for capitalizing off foes that only run Normal-type STAB moves, it's vulnerable to Pursuit and cannot take a hit that it doesn't resist. Moreover, as a Ghost-type, Misdreavus outclasses it as a spinblocker, Perish trapper, and Snorlax counter because of Gengar's unfortunate weaknesses to Earthquake and Starmie's Psychic. Furthermore, its Speed, while great, is eclipsed by that of Raikou and Starmie, which leads to particularly relevant match-up problems. In spite of these issues, Gengar is the tier's best assassin, being able to take down pretty much anything it wants to with Explosion, Destiny Bond, wonderful type coverage, or some sort of surprise. To get the most out of it, Gengar users should be sure to play to its strengths, maintain good prediction, know how to utilize the element of surprise, and be wary of letting it take any kind of status-inducing move or unresisted hit.

Most Used Moves

Ice Punch
80.4%
Explosion
76.1%
Hypnosis
44.8%
Thief
20.4%

Most Used Items

Leftovers
75.4%
Nothing
20.0%

Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc