I switched to the bulky Quiver Dance variant, and it checks a lot of Steel types, and running HP Rock ruins Talonflame switch-ins.
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Pokémon Volcarona
- Thread starter Haze Milotic
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Nope
Oh thanks!
What would be a good rapid spinner/partner for Volcarona? I was thinking Excadrill but they share a lot of the same weaknesses. You definitely want some sort of a Rapid spinner
Defog Latios/Latias?
We should probably note that TTar shreds this Volc/Lati core, he'd better add Keldeo to take care of the aforementioned Tyranitar, Chansey, and Bisharp, who can be lured in quite easily.
Edit: we'd better leave an Aegislash check to the defensive core.
Yeah but defog would still get rid of stealh rocks, plus you could go mixed with latios, but it would still be risky
Mixed Latios is far from risky, it's nearly standard. If teams have sufficient Skarmory/Azumarril/Mandibuzz coverage, it's common for Latios to drop Thunderbolt and run Earthquake to 2HKO Heatran.
In this scenario, Starmie and Conkeldurr would provide similar synergy to the options I previously mentioned; Starmie resists water and preserves your hazards, while Conkeldurr takes Rock attacks for Volc, and Dark/Bug moves for Starmie. You may want some wish support, or an Intimidate user on hand, considering how much this core leans on Conk.
Other than Excadrill (who would be sufficiently covered by Chansey, or a water absorber such as Vaporeon if you use it with Volcarona), you could take up your mega slot with Blastoise, who functions very well, even threatening DeoSharp cores to discourage further hazard stacking.
What is the best Speed investment for bold Volcarona? I saw some people here saying 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 Spe, but why?
Full investment in HP and Def will let Volcarona to be outspeed by some threats?
Full investment in HP and Def will let Volcarona to be outspeed by some threats?
I think 248 HP, 244 Def, 16 Speed is a good spread for bulky Quiver Dance with a Timid nature to outrun positive natured base 130s, not sure how effective this set is as I haven't used it yet but it seems pretty effective.
Nope. It's a transfer exclusive move for Volcarona. If you can't get giga drain on it, then you might as well use roost if you want HP recovery or hidden power for type coverage.
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Here's my personal set. I'm just copy and pasting it from my own post, so the format is a little weird, but that's not important.
Volcarona WP Post
As you see in the title, this is a set that I have used for a very long time on my own Volcarona. People often see Volcarona's stats and they only pay heed to the 135 special attack and 100 speed. With the right EV investments, your special defense will become a very apparent factor as well.
Volcarona @ WP
Nature: Modest
EV's for level 100: 252 SpA/140 SDef/116 SpD
EV's for level 50: 252 SpA/140 SDef/4 HP/4 Def/108 SpD
Moves:
Fiery Dance
Quiver Dance
Giga Drain
Bug Buzz
As simple as that, here is my Volcarona set. Bait your opponent into using their own special attacker to hit it with a supereffective attack and activate the weakness policy. With these EV's, Volcarona will take Greninja's scald and Rotom-W's hydro pump, and if you predict their switch, you can take a hydro pump from a Keldeo at +2 SDef. During the turn your opponent uses a supereffective attack, you get a quiver dance off. After 1 quiver dance you will outspeed all non-scarfed pokemon up through fully invested base 130 pokemon. Now that you are faster, use giga drain and OHKO the pokemon that just activated your WP. You will get back most of your health and have some special defense boosts, which will make it hard for special attackers to take you down.
Of course, Volcarona will always have the problem of stealth rocks, so I had to modify the EV's at level 50 a bit so that your HP is an odd number and you can switch in to stealth rocks twice if need be. Heatran, Rotom-W, and just about anything that counters and kills other Heatrans are good Pokemon to pair up with Volcarona. Heatran can set up rocks and wall Talonflame but not mega Pinsir, and Rotom-W will wall Talonflame and mega Pinsir as well as kill physical water type attackers that would normally kill Volcarona. Garchomp is a pretty good choice, as he can set up rocks to damage your opponent's incoming Talonflame and mega Pinsir when they bring it in the kill Volcarona. He can also kill other Heatrans, hence removing the biggest Volcarona wall in OU, and he can be used as a switch-in to take rock type attacks coming from revenge killers such as Terrakion, which Volcarona does not outspeed after only 1 quiver dance.
Well potential viewers, there is my favorite Volcarona set. If you guys want to test it out for yourselves, I highly recommend you do, as Volcarona gets stopped by nothing after a few quiver dances and the weakness policy. Sorry if there are any grammar errors and such in my post, but I'm only 14, so please cut me some slack. If you have suggestions for me to change anything (although there honestly isn't a lot of room for change on this set), then please, go right ahead. If you like this set, give me a positive rating as well, I'd love to make more unique sets like this one. Anyway, that's that, have fun using Volcarona!
Volcarona WP Post
As you see in the title, this is a set that I have used for a very long time on my own Volcarona. People often see Volcarona's stats and they only pay heed to the 135 special attack and 100 speed. With the right EV investments, your special defense will become a very apparent factor as well.
Volcarona @ WP
Nature: Modest
EV's for level 100: 252 SpA/140 SDef/116 SpD
EV's for level 50: 252 SpA/140 SDef/4 HP/4 Def/108 SpD
Moves:
Fiery Dance
Quiver Dance
Giga Drain
Bug Buzz
As simple as that, here is my Volcarona set. Bait your opponent into using their own special attacker to hit it with a supereffective attack and activate the weakness policy. With these EV's, Volcarona will take Greninja's scald and Rotom-W's hydro pump, and if you predict their switch, you can take a hydro pump from a Keldeo at +2 SDef. During the turn your opponent uses a supereffective attack, you get a quiver dance off. After 1 quiver dance you will outspeed all non-scarfed pokemon up through fully invested base 130 pokemon. Now that you are faster, use giga drain and OHKO the pokemon that just activated your WP. You will get back most of your health and have some special defense boosts, which will make it hard for special attackers to take you down.
Of course, Volcarona will always have the problem of stealth rocks, so I had to modify the EV's at level 50 a bit so that your HP is an odd number and you can switch in to stealth rocks twice if need be. Heatran, Rotom-W, and just about anything that counters and kills other Heatrans are good Pokemon to pair up with Volcarona. Heatran can set up rocks and wall Talonflame but not mega Pinsir, and Rotom-W will wall Talonflame and mega Pinsir as well as kill physical water type attackers that would normally kill Volcarona. Garchomp is a pretty good choice, as he can set up rocks to damage your opponent's incoming Talonflame and mega Pinsir when they bring it in the kill Volcarona. He can also kill other Heatrans, hence removing the biggest Volcarona wall in OU, and he can be used as a switch-in to take rock type attacks coming from revenge killers such as Terrakion, which Volcarona does not outspeed after only 1 quiver dance.
Well potential viewers, there is my favorite Volcarona set. If you guys want to test it out for yourselves, I highly recommend you do, as Volcarona gets stopped by nothing after a few quiver dances and the weakness policy. Sorry if there are any grammar errors and such in my post, but I'm only 14, so please cut me some slack. If you have suggestions for me to change anything (although there honestly isn't a lot of room for change on this set), then please, go right ahead. If you like this set, give me a positive rating as well, I'd love to make more unique sets like this one. Anyway, that's that, have fun using Volcarona!
Due to the damage formula, there is a power creep at lvl 50 compared to lvl 100. You will have to modify those SpDef EVs for the spread to do the same at level 50
Are you sure? I just did the calcs and here is what it says about specs Keldeo's hydro pump:
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. +2 4 HP / 140 SpD Volcarona: 116-140 (72 - 86.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(116, 120, 120, 122, 122, 126, 126, 128, 128, 132, 132, 134, 134, 138, 138, 140)
Likewise for Rotom-W and Greninja. Life orb scald will only do up to 96% on a +0 Volcarona. Rotom-W doesn't outspeed it anyway, but on a 4 SpA Rotom-W against a +0 SDef Volcarona, hydro pump will do a max of only about 81% damage. I actually use this set in-game and since every pokemon gets set to level 50 automatically I've had actual experience with taking these hits and dishing them back as well. I have also taken aqua jet from a +0 azumarill with a sitrus berry and that activated my weakness policy as well, but I was actually predicting that he would anticipate for me to switch and go for a belly drum instead. I guess my luck really helped me there :/ But if there really is a flaw in my ev's and I just missed it, I would love for you to tell me as I am always open to suggestions and I know I have room for improvement.
Not the special defense, but the speed. With those speed ev's you will outspeed base 130+ pokemon at level 50 after 1 quiver dance (and although those are not very common, you will outspeed greninja who is base 122), and you'll outspeed scarfed jolly terrakion after 2. Same thing goes for level 100 but I play at 50 the majority of the time.
Edit: I know but if you do have that much invested and you get a few quiver dances off, taking down a volcarona is next to impossible with special attackers.
Edit: I know but if you do have that much invested and you get a few quiver dances off, taking down a volcarona is next to impossible with special attackers.
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dialganet
Banned deucer.
Gen5 Tutors.
This is not correct. Bold nature is extremely helpful to Volcarona because it needs all the Defense investment it can get most of the time, especially because some of it's most beneficial resistances are more physically-based. Not the same as the spread in the OP, the spread in the (preliminary) analysis of 248 HP / 192 Def / 68 Spd Bold hits all the numbers it needs to; it has maximum Defensive bulk to make setting up easy, and enough Speed to outrun Greninja at +1. With Quiver Dance, any SpD investment tends to not be as important with more and more boosts, while Def is left uncovered. Because current Volcarona sets tend to be bulk and multiple-Quiver Dance oriented, every point in Def possible is needed, and that spread is the most efficient one. Timid or Modest leads to wasted EVs, or making the actual stat values lower because of having to overly invest in them.
I hope that makes sense, but Bulky Volc really need a Bold nature most of the time. The exception is if you're aiming to outrun base 130s (which are less common than BW2 and less relevant - the only ones are Crobat, who doesn't invest fully in Speed and favors bulk a bit; Jolteon, who is rare at best; and Aerodactyl, which if used will go Mega and become base 150 instead, and who Volc doesn't want to face at all, Mega or not), in which case the spread of 248 HP / 252 Def / 16 Spd Timid should be used to keep the stat values as high as possible in all areas.
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