Bring in Poliwrath on Waters, Tyranitar, or some other Dark or Rock, set up your shielding doll and check the arena to see what your opponent pulled in. If it isn't resistant to Fighting, it will be in a world of pain from Focus Punch. If it is, they're still only halfway there! Poliwrath's third slot is exclusively reserved for Fliers that wish to meddle with him. Rock Slide hits some of the weaker Flying-types, but doesn't do much to Gyarados, sadly. Ice Punch also covers Flying-types (especially the Dragons) and also helps against Grassers that resist Fighting (such as Roserade, Vileplume and Celebi) and puts a nice dent in Garchomp if the hypnotic tadpole is ever facing him off. Speaking of hypnotic, Hypnosis is a splendid move on a Focus Punching Poliwrath. Not only can it disable about anything he doesn't want to take on 70% of the time, but it also helps him get in a free turn to use Substitute or Focus Punch. Waterfall is an extra STAB option, which is good for hitting some of the weaker Ghosts like Gengar and Rotom. Brick Break may seem pointless when you already have Focus Punch, but it can be handy, for example if you're facing a Dragon Danced Tyranitar, where you'll want to go for a quick KO with Brick Break instead of setting up Substitute and Focus Punch.
Get in there, and pump some iron. Substitute prevents slower things from statusing you and helps your prediction, or lack thereof. Hypnosis will make this easier to set up, but you'll be losing the protection Substitute provides. You can use another attack in slot 4, but the utility moves are generally more useful.
Again you'll want to take Poliwrath to the gym to make for a sturdy Substitute. Bulk Upped Focus Punches to the stomach will hurt, especially that Skarmory fellow. Dusknoir isn't going to beat you up easily either as it relies on physical attacks to break your Substitute.
STAB on Water moves is the only thing that sets Poliwrath apart from all its Fighting brethren, as the more powerful Toxicroak also boasts the ability to absorb Water. However, Poliwrath has much better defenses, and notably he isn't weak to Earthquake, making switching in a lot easier. Earthquake is usually useless on Fighting-types, but Poliwrath can use it to hammer Toxicroak, who resists everything barring Ice Punch, and the extra power against some of the bulkier Electrics like Ampharos and Lanturn doesn't hurt either. If you elect to use this in OU, then it is highly recommended you ditch Earthquake for Rock Slide to take on Gyarados, who can actually be 2HKOed with it, assuming Poliwrath switches in, thus avoiding Intimidate. The lack of great Fighting STAB is disappointing (read: Poliwrath doesn't learn Close Combat), hence the reason Focus Punch is included as an option over Brick Break.
Poliwrath deserves credit as a defensive Pokémon. It resists all STAB attacks of Weavile, Tyranitar and Houndoom. It can take Stone Edge hits from Aerodactyl and Rhyperior with reasonable comfort, and a Salamence Dragon Claw with either Choice Band or one Dragon Dance behind it will usually take 3 hits to down Poliwrath unless he's suffered some damage before. You'll need to drink some Water attacks to stay alive though, as Poliwrath has no other way to heal wounds. Rain Dance clears up Tyranitar's Sand Stream for you if you want that, and can help you in a Rain Dance themed team. If that's your thing, you may want to attach Damp Rock to make it last longer. If Poliwrath is fighting in OU battles, and you want a secondary STAB attack here, go with Hydro Pump rather than Waterfall. It will 3HKO Skarmory and Weezing, even with a mere 158 Special Attack, and it 2HKOs the likes of Donphan and Hippowdon, who take pitiful damage from Ice Punch and unboosted Waterfalls. On this set, with these EVs, Waterfall would only do 30% at best to Donphan, while Hydro Pump does about 70% minimum. Protect provides some healing, but the prevalence of Sand and Hail in OU, makes it mostly useless for that task, but it does help with scouting your opponent. The good news is that this kind of Poliwrath lasts pretty long as his HP and Defense are decent and pumped with EVs. You know what's coming: there's also bad news. The bad news is that Poliwrath is going to do little to no damage at all, it won't even OHKO Tyranitar with Brick Break. You'll need somewhere between 260 and 280 Attack for that, depending on how many EVs Tyranitar invests into HP.
Okay, I just lied. Poliwrath does have a way of recovering health outside of Water Absorb—namely by taking a snooze. Like with every single other Pokémon that uses Rest, this recovery comes at a risk. Even with Sleep Talk, Poliwrath still tends to have the offense of an 8 year old kid with a plastic baseball bat, hence the reason why Life Orb is a good alternative to Leftovers.
Substitute on a switch-out (or on an attack that doesn't break your Substitute, if your opponent is foolish enough to leave such an offensively weak Pokémon in), and then Belly Drum to land Poliwrath at 393 Speed and 1076 Attack—high for a usual Pokémon, but rather mediocre for a Belly Drummer. Nonetheless, when you actually get there and you aren't getting owned by Quick Attack clones or Choice Scarf enemies, you could actually be in sweeping position. This set is hard to pull off, but can cause quite an uproar, especially in underused matches. Either Brick Break / Ice Punch or Waterfall / Return provide good coverage, as only a handful of opponents resist either combination. Besides Shedinja, who is immune to all four attacks, Fighting / Ice is only resisted by Froslass, Grumpig (with Thick Fat), Starmie, Slowbro and Slowking, and Water / Normal is walled only by Empoleon, Giratina and Dialga. There are some riskier alternatives for executing this set, which require replacing Substitute. One way involves switching Poliwrath into a slower Pokémon that does between 25% and 50% to it, then use Hypnosis. Pray to Arceus it hits, then Belly Drum. The only thing you'll have to fear is an unexpected Sleep Talk. Or, of course, a counter to Belly Drum Poliwrath. Instead of Hypnosis, you can use a third attack, to offer greater type coverage. Adding Rock Slide to the Brick Break / Ice Punch combination offers complete coverage. To use this option to full potential, you must let Poliwrath take a hit that doesn't kill you, but still lets you get into Salac range. Without taking any residual damage into account, that means between 25% and 50%. Switching into Blissey Seismic Toss is good for this, because it will often switch out. A weak Earthquake from something like Quagsire or Gastrodon will also work. Optionally you can use Adamant. You'll get a little more oomph, in trade for a speed cut-down (358 after Salac Berry). You won't outspeed Raikou, Persian, Weavile and other fast critters with heavy Speed investments though. Make sure your HP is divisible by four though when using Substitute. Other OptionsPayback hits incoming Ghosts and Psychics with a 100 BP Dark attack. Body Slam isn't bad if you want some paralysis support, and combines well with Waterfall, both in terms of coverage and secondary effects (paralyze enemies and try to flinch them). Haze works against Calm Mind Suicune and not much else. Endeavor rubs in Poliwrath's inability to get more than 393 Speed, but is a reasonable move that can surprise people in a pinch. Counter can KO a physical attacker that Poliwrath would otherwise struggle to hurt. Thief steals an item, nothing more, nothing less. EVsSetting EVs for Poliwrath is actually quite difficult. He needs all the Attack he can get if you plan on making his attacks "hurt", but also enjoys plenty of investment in his HP and Defense. Some investment in Speed is often welcome. 208 Speed (128 EVs) is enough to outspeed Suicune with no Speed EVs, most Metagross, and max Speed, Jolly Marowak. You're also a few points ahead of Milotic, so you can set up a Sub before it tries to hit Poliwrath with Hypnosis or Toxic. 222 (184 EVs) outruns Adamant Tyranitar. After that, max out HP and put the remainder in Attack, or vice versa. For Bulk Up sets that use Substitute, max HP will guarantee that minimum Attack Dusknoir fails to break Poliwrath's Sub with ThunderPunch, after one Bulk Up. For Belly Drum sets, max out Attack and aim for 373 or 384 Speed. OpinionPoliwrath has no reason to wear that grumpy face of his in Diamond/Pearl, because he's improved quite a bit this generation. His typing is very valuable this generation: he resists Dark, Rock, Ice and Fire, all very important attacking types, and actually absorbing Water attacks is no small feat. This gives him capabilities to counter Gyarados, Tyranitar, Weavile (beware Aerial Ace), Aerodactyl and quite a few others. Poliwrath has no real big flaws stat-wise, but this balance is also what kills him as a potential standard. Usually things need to hit really hard or take hits really well to be very successful, Poliwrath is more of a middleman. If you put his EVs where his purposes lie, he will certainly pull his weight for you in your standard team. In underused matches, he is a force to be reckoned with. CountersBefore going through this, note that Poliwrath is a great fan of carrying Hypnosis and is willing to test it out on anyone who dares to come in. Pack Sleep Talk, absorb it with something else or risk your counter taking a snooze. Skarmory, the premiere physical wall, sticks up his head again. He takes little damage, can phaze Poliwrath or hurt him with Drill Peck. Salamence resists both his STAB moves and Intimidates to top it off, but as mentioned, he usually doesn't carry a Flying move and he should beware of Ice Punch. Draco Meteor from Choice Specs sets will usually KO Poliwrath unless he invests a lot of EVs into HP though. Gyarados is very circumstantial. Intimidate hinders Poliwrath and he does resist Waterfall and Brick Break. However, he's doing very little damage in return, especially if he doesn't have Earthquake or Return. Zapdos with defensive investment can switch into Poliwrath any day of the week and Thunderbolt it into oblivion. Cresselia and the more defensive pixies Uxie and Mesprit can do the same; they also tend to Reflect and Thunder Wave more often, really hindering Poliwrath's sweeping. Dusknoir and Spiritomb work really well as defensive Ghosts and can burn Poliwrath with Will-o-Wisp—beware of Substitute variants though. Defensive Grassers such as Celebi and Venusaur can be troublesome to get past, especially these two as they resist Fighting. Vileplume can do the same in UU. Of course, Poliwrath usually tends to be either fragile or quite harmless depending on its EV spread, which you can use to your advantage when countering him. One must also keep in mind that while Poliwrath boasts a very respectable 90 Special Defense, his weakness to Psychic and Thunderbolt rarely allows him to sweep with fast sweepers like Azelf, Raikou and Alakazam around. |
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