Why is acid armor usually useless while iron defense is not on certain Pokemon on showdown?

Nov. 8, 2020

Such as on reuniclusAlso isnt acid armor technically a bit better since it has more pp(although both probably not going to run out of pp any way)

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

One reason is the sheer availability of the moves. Acid Armor is available by level up to 8 evolution chains, and can be bred into another 5. Iron Defense, on the other hand…. is available to what appears to be half of the Pokedex. Iron Defense is also a TR in Sword/Shield, so you don’t need to mess with breeding to get it onto the Pokemon you want to put it on.

The other glaring issue with Acid Armor is which specific Pokemon can actually learn it. As already mentioned, it’s not exactly an extensive list:

Looking at that list, the only sets that really jump out at me as being favorable are Eviolite Shelmet (maybe) and Melmetal. Iron Defense, by comparison, has a lot more situations and movesets where it can be a valuable asset.