Venusaur

[PapaBearAds]

Okay I'm currently running this mixed set on my Sun team and would love some thoughts and advice. I'm currently trying to juggle about the EVs, I saw this spread on a post here on Smogon (somewhere, can't remember whose spread it was to give credit, sorry) and it's working well for me at the moment.

Venusaur @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 156 Atk / 172 SpA / 180 Spe
Naive Nature (+Spe, -SpD)
-Solarbeam
-Earthquake
-Hidden Power Ice
-Growth

Now, I'm fairly adamant that I'm going to keep EQ and HP-Ice as they offer beautiful coverage, and the amount of switches it forces means finding opportunities to Growth are rife. The thing I'm contemplating at the moment is Giga Drain over Solarbeam. This is for two reasons. The first being that it's the only Politoed counter on my team, and I can't Solarbeam it for obvious reasons. The second being the life recovery offered by Giga Drain counteracts some of the Life Orb recoil damage, which is nifty. If I do switch for Giga Drain then I would also consider running more SAtk EVs to make up for the loss of power.

Thoughts?

[BurningMan]

If you don't run sunny day on a pokemon never use solar beam, yeah the power is nice if you are up against weatherless team, but if your opponent switches in an opposing weather starter you will be trapped to fire of a 60 BP solar beam wich both tyranitar and politoed can tank (or they just switch to a resist) and you will lose a lot of momentum.
I don't know what the EV spread was designed for, but i guess it is designed to get some key KOs with EQ and or HP Ice (likely against Heatran/DNite/Jirachi) so i wouldn't change it unless you feel you absolutly need more power.
Now that Giga Drain is legal with Chlorophyll i don't think there is much reason to use Solar Beam because Giga Drains recovery reallly pairs well with Venausaurs natural bulk making it much harder for your opponent to revenge kill you.

[alexwolf]

Originally Posted by Fat BurningMan

If you don't run sunny day on a pokemon never use solar beam, yeah the power is nice if you are up against weatherless team, but if your opponent switches in an opposing weather starter you will be trapped to fire of a 60 BP solar beam wich both tyranitar and politoed can tank (or they just switch to a resist) and you will lose a lot of momentum.
I don't know what the EV spread was designed for, but i guess it is designed to get some key KOs with EQ and or HP Ice (likely against Heatran/DNite/Jirachi) so i wouldn't change it unless you feel you absolutly need more power.
Now that Giga Drain is legal with Chlorophyll i don't think there is much reason to use Solar Beam because Giga Drains recovery reallly pairs well with Venausaurs natural bulk making it much harder for your opponent to revenge kill you.

It is viable to run Solarbeam if your team is built to trap and kill other weather inducers. You just won't be able to use your Grass move 'till late game, which doesn't really matter, as Venusaur is supposed to be a late game sweeper, especially with Growth and Life Orb.