pokemon sword shield nolazy

Pokemon Sword & Shield: Best Grimmsnarl Moveset

If you’re planning to use Grimmsnarl in Pokemon Sword & Shield, you’ll want to know the best possible build and moveset to aim for. Grimmsnarl is a powerful new Dark/Fairy pokemon that becomes available around halfway through the game outside the Fairy gym. Grimmsnarl gains a lot of special tools that turn it into a valuable support pokemon.

pokemon sword and shield best grimmsnarl build moveset

Best Nature

The best nature for Grimmsnarl is Adamant (+Attack, – Special Attack), hands down. It doesn’t need speed much, since its ability (Prankster) makes the majority of its moves high priority moves (like Quick Attack),

Best Ability

Grimmsnarl’s best ability is Prankster, which increases the speed factor of moves which affect stats, or generally any move which isn’t an attack. Since Grimmsnarl is all about these types of annoying moves, Prankster is an overall major increase to its speed.

Best Held Item

Because Grimmsnarl is one of a handful of pokemon who has access to both Light Screen and Reflect, it gets a lot of mileage out of the Light Clay item, which increases the duration of both of those abilities from 5 turns to 8 turns.

Grimmsnarl Build Moveset

Although Grimmsnarl boasts very high attack power and a decent amount of bulk, the most effective way to use it is more as an annoying support character:

Light Screen
Reflect
Taunt/Thunder Wave
Spirit Break

Grimmsnarl can easily set up both Light Screen and Reflect for the party and then switch out, or bully its opponent down and then switch out.

During the course of the main game, you should definitely use Thunder Wave or another physically damaging skill, in order to really hamstring any opposing pokemon so it slowly, somewhat pathetically, tries to damage Grimmsnarl with its halved speed and half-powered attacks that only work half the time.

In the post-game, you may want to consider switching to Taunt so Grimmsnarl can disrupt the strategies of pokemon that try to set up or destroy entry hazards.

Spirit Break is Grimmsnarl’s signature move and it gives it a decent source of damage to apply to ailing opponents before it’s time to switch out to a sweeper that can take advantage of the dual screen setup.

Grimmsnarl Moveset Conclusion

Grimmsnarl is an annoying pokemon to face off against and also a pokemon that can irritate and bully opponents. Due to its high defenses and Prankster-boosted speed, most pokemon that face off against Grimmsnarl find their strategies repeatedly disrupted while they get slowly whittled down by Spirit Break. Overall, Grimmsnarl is a fantastic support pokemon.

That about covers it when it comes to the best Grimmsnarl build in Pokemon Sword and Shield. Be sure to check out the Games Section for more articles like this and click here for more game guides for Pokemon Sword and Shield.