So you were disappointed because half of your last six 10km eggs were Pineco.

However, the good news is that two hatched Pineco make a Forretress in the 1260 CP range, which is half the CP of the typical gym bottom defenders in many areas.

The even better news is that Forretress with Bug Bite / Heavy Slam is an excellent prestiger.

Stats

Forretress’s 161/242/150 base stats yield a stats ratio P = sqrt (Def x Sta) / Att = 1.18, which makes for a quite tanky (albeit slow) prestiger, in particular against Snorlax.

Typing

Bug/Steel (the same typing as Scizor) is an interesting typing: it resists Normal, Ice, Poison, Psychic, Bug, Dragon, Steel and Fairy, it double-resists Grass and it is only vulnerable (actually double-vulnerable) to Fire. Steel’s vulnerabilities to Fighting and Ground are compensated by Bug’s corresponding resistances.

Among other movesets, that means resistance to Zen Headbutt, Pound, Body/Heavy Slam, Hyper Beam, Psychic, Dazzling Gleam, Solar Beam, Seed Bomb, Extrasensory, Confusion, Psybeam, Future Sight, Outrage, Dragon Breath/Claw/Tail, Iron Tail, Megahorn.

Moveset(s)

Bug Bite is one of the best fast moves in the game with a middle-of-the-pack 10 DPS (12.5 with STAB) and an excellent 12 EPS. It’s also a very fast move (500 ms) so it’s easy to dodge with it.

Heavy Slam is not incredibly good (only 140 DPE) but it’s fast enough (2.1 seconds) to allow dodging most charge moves, making the BB/HS combination quite powerful.

Struggle Bug / Heavy Slam is still viable but much less powerful.

Earthquake and Rock Tomb, mediocre charge moves and even without STAB, are just plain terrible.

Performance

According to my CP efficiency calculator, here is the relative performance of Forretress (in terms of combined time and revive efficiency) against some of the most common defenders gym sitters:

Defender Charge move Performance (time & revive efficiency combined) Benchmark Revive effectiveness (excl. Chansey/Blissey) Benchmark Blissey any 73%* Machamp 91%* Skarmory Exeggutor any 75% Scizor 83% Skarmory Snorlax Earthquake 84% Poliwrath 80% Umbreon Snorlax Body Slam / Hyper Beam 94% Machamp 100% Forretress Snorlax Heavy Slam 77% Poliwrath 85% Lanturn Rhydon Earthquake or Stone Edge 43% Tangela 68% Jumpluff/Azumarill Rhydon Megahorn 59% Ivysaur 78% Jumpluff/Azumarill

*Forretress against Blissey might time out, so don’t try for 1000 prestige and don’t use against 2700+ Blissey.

These rankings are done with a 0%-70%-30% dodge setting, i.e. dodge only specials and more likely to dodge if using a non-Super-Effective fast move (because it doesn’t delay the “Defender used Charge Move” message).

Limitations

– Not suitable against Gyarados because both Bug Bite and Heavy Slam are NVE.

– Due to its double vulnerability to Fire, stay away from Tyranitar/Slowking with Fire Blast and of course from Flareon and Arcanine.

– Forretress is not very fast, therefore it may time out against a high-level Blissey.