Rillaboom is one of the best Pokémon in competitive play because of its Ability and access to Grassy Glide. Rillaboom’s Ability is Grassy Surge, which sets up Grassy Terrain that heals every Pokémon (that isn’t Flying-type or levitating) by 1/16th of their HP and boosts the power of Grass-type moves. This means Rillaboom gives itself (and a potential teammate) free health recovery while retaining its access to powerful Grass attacks. Rillaboom is proficient both in Singles and Doubles formats, making it a great choice to add to your team!
Singles
Though Rillaboom is perhaps more popular in Doubles formats, it’s still quite good in Singles. Its claim to fame is Grassy Glide, which lets it move first so long as Grassy Terrain is up. Conveniently enough, its Ability, Grassy Surge, lets it do just that! Rillaboom has access to even stronger Grass-type moves (the big one being Wood Hammer), but those aren’t needed. Grassy Glide gets the job done just fine, and you can run a multitude of other moves in addition.
Our first set is a Choice Band set, and for that one, you can run either Adamant or Jolly as your nature. Adamant makes you stronger but slower, while Jolly makes you faster but slightly weaker. This comes down to personal preference, but keep in mind that Rillaboom almost always moves first when using Grassy Glide in Grassy Terrain. You can also use U-turn to pivot around and deal extra damage to Grass- and Psychic-type opponents.
Then we’ve got a Swords Dance set! This one forgoes Choice Band in favor of Life Orb. It packs Grassy Glide, Knock Off, and High Horsepower; the latter is intended to hit Fire- and Steel-type targets that resist Grassy Glide. We can’t use Earthquake here because Grassy Terrain reduces its power, which is why High Horsepower is used instead. Knock Off cripples opposing Pokémon that rely on items — examples include Chansey’s Eviolite and Azumarill’s Sitrus Berry. All of our sets use Gigantamax form — the regular Grass-type Max Move sets Grassy Terrain, which Rillaboom can already do without Dynamax. May as well go Gigantamax for the extra power!
Doubles / VGC
In VGC or Doubles formats, Rillaboom is a simple but strong Pokémon. It fills the roll of a solid Fake Out user and a strong Grass-type for your team. It lacks in Sp. Defense, so most players either run an Assault Vest or invest more EVs into its special bulk. The Assault Vest increases Sp. Defense by 1.5x but disables the use of status moves — this is fine since Rillaboom doesn’t really need Protect to function.
Another potential set is running a Miracle Seed over Assault Vest for the extra damage (1.2x). Factor in Miracle Seed with STAB and Grassy Terrain, and your Grassy Glide is going to be doing lots of damage. No matter what item you use, you’re almost always going to be using the same four moves. Fake Out disrupts opponents for one turn and Grassy Glide is a strong priority move. Knock Off removes the target’s item, and works great against Dusclops to remove its Eviolite. The last move is High Horsepower, which allows Rillaboom to hit Fire- and Steel-type Pokémon it would otherwise struggle against. You could also use U-turn in this slot instead, though the coverage is sorely missed. The given EVs maximize bulk and attack power while outspeeding other Rillaboom that don’t have any Speed investment.
Thanks to Mono for writing this post! If you have any questions about the sets listed here or want more details on making your Pokémon battle-ready, feel free to join our Discord community! We can help you more there, or even trade you items if you really need them. We hope this was helpful to you — happy training!
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