Buddy Barrier vs Choice vs Curse Incense:
choice is a crutch for early game secures and a small power increase for the rest of the game. its dramatically better with scald, but then again not required. buddy provides burst sustain to an ally and yourself, which can be more useful if your team plays for it, and Slowbro’s early secures are still strong. Curse now applies to Slowbro’s Scald burn ticks, so he can fill in as Curse applicator for the team in a pinch where needed, if the game calls for Scald to be picked in the first place (i.e. against Tyranitar).
Exp Share and Resonant Guard are just hard core items, can never be replaced.
During your laning phase you want to secure contested farm with water gun. practice your secure range and coordinate burst with your lanemate, as if you charge water gun and don’t release it it goes on a 1 second cooldown where you can easily get it stolen by enemy burst. you should also be conscious about when you charge water gun and whether or not you want to wait in a bush for the enemies to rip farm or have your lanemate rip farm and coordinate secure. enemies will most likely stop ripping farm when they see you charge water gun, so you often will go for an uncharged water gun as fast secure for contested farm. outside of your great secure you also have a good amount of survivability despite the lack of amnesia until 6, as slack off doubles self-healing (including that from potion and focus band).
you have basically no mobility, and only get a very slow “dash” in the form of surf at 4, which is too valuable a cooldown to be thrown out for mobility. this doesn’t end up being much of a problem, as in the early game, water gun is a very long ranged secure which is unique among defenders. outside of water gun and survivability not much else is noteworthy about your laning phase, you generally want to go for secures and make sure your laning partner is getting exp.
Scald vs Surf
Now that surf’s bug is fixed, Surf is preferred in this slot in most cases. the cc is really massive when you get Surf+, and the move is your best option for peeling for your team (which scaldbro struggles to do). if you are confident your team doesn’t need the peel, and the enemy is mostly physical attackers, you can go scald. else, surf. note that this scenario is awfully niche and sometimes difficult to identify. I (law) would just recommend going Surf every time, as Scald is just bait in this meta.
Speaking of Surf, it’s very good. You send out 3 waves, the first of which stuns (all 3 stun when you get surf+ at level 11) and pushes the enemy along the wave. this is a great tool to peel for your allies, and it only gets better with surf+. You can also use surf to put enemies in a more favorable position for your ult, or ally ults, or whatever. Though it is a great peel tool, it is also amazing for covering crucial chokes due to the move lasting an eternity. another great use of surf is punishing bad positioning, as it cc’s long enough to give your team ample time to react accordingly. For example, Surfing a Zoroark can give your Clef time to put down a gravity. The move is absolutely busted in teamfights and it’s definitely not a cooldown you want to throw out randomly like mystical fire. note that surf also dispositions you, so be careful where you surf. surfing into a wall can mitigate this, as you wont move but your surf will go through the wall.
When you hit level 6, you get Amnesia. Amnesia rapidly heals your blue health bar (recent damage taken) along with adding flat 300 defense buff for 4 seconds. This, in combination with Surf’s annoying cc or Scald’s burn, can make Bro seem impossible to break, especially for physical attackers. remember to adjust your Amnesia timings as to whether or not you have Focus/Potion up, as the healing is not instant so you definitely want to Amnesia early when focus/potion isn’t up or the enemy team has a lot of burst. Amnesia does not buff Spdef until 13, so keep that in mind when fighting popsicle dogs and psychic cats. Amnesia’s high cooldown also means that the move is best used in reaction after some burst tools have been used. It’s too risky to go for predictions as the move is one of the main reasons Slowbro is such a menace to deal with.
Telekinesis also has some use cases, especially in situations where targets are up close and easier to land that little skillshot, and technically is greater peel for divers that do that gapclosing job for you. In addition, keeping a target in mid-air with Telekinesis also prevents them from being able to use Hoopa’s Hyperspace Hole, even if they are above the circle on the ground. So that can REALLY mess with some dive tactics if timed right.
Your ult is BROKEN, seriously. The fact that you can’t full heal it effectively makes it either a free pick in teamfight scenarios, or a tool to bring out a support ult/buddy barrier. Try to identify when and where you will ult from the team preview screen (e.g ult the Charizard after they use their ult). Don’t be scared to use ult on a squishy carry that is trying to get away, sometimes the raw damage of ult alone can be enough to significantly damage and/or kill a chipped down squishy like Zoroark or Dodrio, but you’re probably best off ulting with a team to follow up on it. This is your single most valuable resource, so make sure you make good use of it by ulting priority targets. when it comes to certain divers, brawlers or carries, try to use surf to punish them instead of ult, to conserve your ult for something that would get more value. Don’t be scared to eject ult as it’s basically unreactable and can win a teamfight easily. Remember not to hold onto it too long though, as if you don’t ult you are losing value in the Slowbro pick you probably endured draft hell to get.
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