Sludge Bomb

Sludge Bomb
Type	Poison
Category	Special
Base power	90
Accuracy	100%
PP	10
Priority	0

What it does

Has a 30% chance to poison the target.

At 90 base power it is the 14th strongest of the 39 damaging special moves that appear in this format.

Who carrys it

13 of the 277 Pokémon measured on the Regulation M-B ladder carry Sludge Bomb. The one that matters most is Venusaur, which is on 11.6% of teams and carrys it on 93.9% of its sets. The full list is above, ordered by how much of the format each one is.

What it hits

As a Poison move it is super effective against Fairy and Grass, resisted by Ghost, Ground, Poison and Rock, and does nothing at all to Steel. 3 other Poison moves appear in this format: Poison Jab, Toxic, Gunk Shot.

Who could and does not

44 Pokémon legal in this regulation can learn Sludge Bomb at all, against the 13 that actually bring it. The gap is the interesting number: it is the set of Pokémon that have the option and decline it. The most-played of those are Sneasler, Torkoal, Excadrill, Toxapex, Swampert and Zoroark-Hisui — each of them measured on the ladder, each of them leaving this move on the shelf.

How concentrated it is

Across the ladder, Sludge Bomb accounts for an expected 0.23 of the six slots on an average team, which makes it the 23rd most-brought of the 121 moves this format runs. 48% of that comes from Venusaur alone, so it is spread across the field rather than propped up by one Pokémon. Its carriers are mostly Poison (9), Grass (4) and Dragon (2).

Where these numbers come from

Usage is Smogon's published statistics for the Regulation M-B VGC ladder, and the description is the one shipped in the Pokémon Showdown data set. Both are regenerated on every build rather than written by hand, so this page follows the format instead of trailing it. Take any of it to the team builder or the damage calculator.