Starting with physical moves, Rillaboom’s primary and most sought move is Wood Hammer. As a grass-type move, Wood Hammer is fueled further by Rillaboom’s ability to get STAB from it. Wood Hammer has a pretty good base power of 120, which causes sizable damage to its opponents. The recoil damage by Wood Hammer is most of the time negligible due to the Grassy Surge ability providing passive recovery to Rillaboom. Another advantage of using Wood Hammer is that it has a high critical hit ratio and this can be further enhanced by providing a held item called “Grassy Seed” to Rillaboom. Drum Beating is the next move on the list. In comparison to Wood Hammer, Drum Beating can be quite far behind but listen to this; every time Drum Beating is used, it lowers the Speed of the opponent hit. The base power of Drum Beating is 80 and once again, Rillaboom reaps the benefit of STAB. Since lowering of its opponent’s speed is a game-changing boon and helps Rillaboom or its team members to cause more damage, the recommended PP of Drum Beating should be maximum level 24. Now comes High Horsepower, which is normally used for coverage and also considered as a move with 95% accuracy. As with Wood Hammer and Drum Beating, Rillaboom gets STAB attributes from using High Horsepower and its base power is 95. This move is useful for putting another typing under pressure since it is very effective against several Steel and Rock types in the game. Also, High Horsepower can be considered as an alternative to Wood Hammer as the latter inflicts recoil damage to Rillaboom and High Horsepower is proven to have a far better accuracy.
WOOD HAMMER
Rillaboom is a pretty bulky and powerful attacker, and Wood Hammer is the main STAB move you’ll be using with a physical moveset. You should always use this over Drum Beating when you need to hit your opponent hard, and both moves have the same base power anyway, so it’s really a no-brainer. Just be aware that you will take recoil damage, but it’s worth noting that its power got increased to 120 in this generation, so when combined with Rillaboom’s grassy starter move, this is the most useful move in its arsenal for my money. With Rillaboom’s Overgrow ability, as soon as its health drops into the red, power for grass type moves like Wood Hammer will increase by 50 percent. So this is Rillaboom’s time to shine – it gives you a very good chance of getting in two solid hits before it goes down, and with a 30 percent chance of Wood Hammer causing the flinching status effect, you have everything to play for here. Plus, with a held item like a Miracle Seed to increase the strength of its grass type moves, including Wood Hammer, your opponents are in real trouble. However, if you choose to take advantage of the Superpower move to add some variety to your battle tactics, remember that its power gets reduced by 30 percent every time you use it in succession. Also, Superpower will potentially not just lower your opponent’s attack and defence, but yours too, so you may not want to give your rivals that kind of upper hand if Wood Hammer is already bolstered by the Overgrow ability and a held item.
DRUM BEATING
You may be familiar with Drum Beating from Rillaboom’s earlier evolutionary stages, as both Grookey and Thwackey are able to learn this move as well. All the same, I’m happy to say that Rillaboom has access to an upgraded version of this move, called “Drum Beating”. As with Wood Hammer – and indeed most moves on this list – Drum Beating is a Physical move with an impressive starting Base Power of 80; even better, it’s a move that’s 100% accurate to use in battle. The real kicker, however, is that Drum Beating also has a neat side effect. Specifically, it boasts a 100% chance of lowering an opponent’s Speed stat by one stage which, if used correctly, can give you a big advantage in battle. Why? The ability to reduce an opponent’s Speed comes down to the fact that it essentially determines how quickly or how slowly combatants – including Pokemon and their Trainers – are able to make their moves during battle. By using Drum Beating to lower a rival’s Speed stat, you can effectively limit the number of moves they can make – and how often they can make them – compared to your own Rillaboom, or any other Pokemon you’ve got lined up. If you plan to set up a Rillaboom with a few different stat boosters – like the aforementioned “Bulk Up”, say – then having access to a move like Drum Beating can give you the extra time you need to bulk up effectively and make the most out of these stalling tactics. Plus, if you’re taking on more rapid, frailer foes, a guaranteed Speed reduction can effectively let your Rillaboom become an unchecked, unstoppable force. All these reasons make Drum Beating a desirable move for fans of the Grassy Surge ability and – as we’ll explore later in the guide – makes Rillaboom a worthy and versatile choice for Single Battle formats.
HIGH HORSEPOWER
Despite its coverage against opposing Fire-types and Electric-types, High Horsepower is generally outclassed by other moves, mainly due to its type coverage. Even considering Rillaboom’s move pool, notable Fighting-types such as the Tapus and Tyranitar can normally cope fairly well against Rillaboom with little support, and this factor doesn’t falter even if High Horsepower were to be used due to its lack of a same type attack bonus and its generally middle-of-the-road Base Power. For instance, visually comparing High Horsepower and its Base Power to two of the year’s most notable Ground-type moves- namely, Earthquake and High Horsepower’s other Field Move equivalent in Bulldoze- falls heavily in preference of its alternatives. High Horsepower manages to finally jump up and experiment with Cherrim due to its Flower Gift ability and the Grassy Surge support, but there is still not much of a gain. The move is not recommended unless the team is focused around an offensive variety of Rillaboom considering Grassy Surge, in which massive damage can be done in spite of High Horsepower’s lack of a same type attack bonus, purely due to the extra damage gained through Grassy Terrain and the supportive Field Move’s auto-healing aspect when a Pokémon is on the ground. However, this is definitely circumstantial at best and it is highly likely that other moves such as U-Turn or Rock Slide will offer much more consistency when it comes to the overall competitive environment.
