Volbeat

This is a gen 3 pokemon that is very forgettable and may even cause laughs if seen in a competitive battle. Or at least it used to be. This thread is dedicated to the discussion of the Pokemon competitively, not whether it will or will not be banned, although honestly... its a Volbeat people... Just keep that in mind.


Potential Sets:

Priority Baton Passer
Mischievous Heart~Focus Sash
*Timid 252 Speed/ 252 sp.atk*
Tail Glow
Baton Pass
Thunder Wave/ Light Screen
Bug Buzz


Lightning Bug Sweeper
Mischievous Heart~Focus Sash
*Modest 252 speed 252 sp.atk*
Tail Glow
Thunderbolt
Bug Buzz
Shadow Ball / Confuse Ray / Thunder Wave


ParaFlinch Firefly
Mischievous Heart~Leftovers
*Adamant 252 attack and mix of defences and HP, no speed necessary*
Swagger/Moonlight/
Substitute
Zen Headbutt
Thunder Wave


Toxic Night-light
Mischievous Heart~Leftovers
*def, HP and sp.def EVs would be best, no speed necessary*
Toxic
Protect
Subsitute
Flash/Confuse Ray


Double-Status
Mischievous Heart~Focus Sash
*Jolly 252 Speed 252 atk*
Thunder Wave
Toxic
U-Turn
Confuse Ray


Physical Attacker/ Scouter
Mischievous Heart~Focus Sash
Jolly / Adamant 252 atk 252 speed
Thunder Wave
Zen Headbutt
Brick Break/U-Turn
Acrobat


Commentary:

Volbeat's new toy in Black and White is practically the new ability in Mischievous Heart, which i receives from the Dream World. That one addition actually makes volbeat usable, albeit still pretty weak. However if not many people expect to see volbeat, it could become an annoying surprise to them.

Volbeat now has priority on the only thing it can really do... Status, Set Up, and Baton Pass... with priority Thunder Waves and access to Zen Headbutt, a Paraflinch set is now possible.

However where it really shines is its unique ability to Baton Pass it's newly upgraded set-up move. "Tail Glow" known only to Manaphy and itself, Tail Glow now boosts the special attack stat of the user a whopping 3 stages. yes, 3! with a focus sash and a priority baton pass, unless the opponent is running a priority move itself, you are guaranteed to pass +3 sp.atk to a potential sweeper. and if you are bold enough to go for 2 Tail Glows and your opponent didn't catch on and try to end your setup, thats a +6 in sp.atk that can be passed. ((an ideal recipient to take full advantage of this is Toxicroak with its STAB Vacuum Wave. priority move at max power sounds good to me))

And if you think you can manage some attacks of your own, after 1 Tail Glow, a Max sp. atk Modest Volbeat should go from a 212 to a sp atk of 530. A Timid would be boosted from 193 to a sp.atk stat of 482.5(not sure if it is rounded up or down). this gives you a respectable stat to fire Bug Buzz, Shadow Ball and Thunderbolt from.

Although his physical attack stat is higher then its special attack stat, tail glow makes his special side the way to go, minus the occasional zen headbutt for flinch. its physical movepool is quite poor. when using Volbeat, concentrate on what it can do, rather than what it cannot do. Use poison, paralasis and confusion to your advantage. and don't forget about priority substitutes.

Feel free to comment on the sets i made or add your own ideas. This is my first time doing this so please feel free to say if i did something wrong or missed something.

And finally, discuss. How well do you think he will do compared to others with his ability, like Erufuun? How well will it do as a stand alone pokemon? Will his usage increase now that it can pass a +3 sp atk boost in 2 turns?

Just clarifying. Tail Glow has been confirmed that the boost is + 3 right? Anyways, good analysis. I'm gonna try this Volbeat out. I like the Lightningbug Sweeper set.

Confirmed Tail Glow now raises the user's SpAtk (at least) three levels. (TwilightMystery, iruchii)

Click to expand...

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79340
Smogon's Official B/W Research Thread has it up. ^ is states that it is at least +3. more testing needs to be done to see if it is 4 or 5. but it is assumed to be 3 for now, as with only 2 Tail glows you are at +6 and cannot get any more boosts from it.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3024792&postcount=526
the actual Move's research thread ^

I think you're missing one of the coolest toys that Volbeat is given.

VolLead@Focus Sash / Salac Berry
252 Spe / 252 SpA / 4 HP - Timid
~Tail Glow
~Baton Pass
~Encore
~Substitute / Bug Buzz

Since it's been confirmed that you can breed DW abilities, Encore is a great move for a lead! Basically, you can Tail Glow on turn one vs any lead that lacks priority OR has priority but is slower than you (Because of MH, your Baton Pass will actually outspeed their priority!). If they set up Stealth Rock / Spikes, Encore the move and have fun Baton Passing +6 SpA! Otherwise, you can always feel free to Substitute on status leads. Fake Out leads are a problem but they're pretty easy to take care of with Shanderra / Rhyperior anyways in general. Alternatively, you can abuse +1 Substitutes to bring yourself into Salac range also, effectively passing +3 SpA and +1 Spe to a mon of your choice. What fun!

Mischievous Heart is by far my favorite ability this gen. Even Volbeat has great uses with it!

Why are we putting max speed on a Pokemon that gets priority on all its support moves, including Baton Pass?

Rolf, as i am not very experienced with encore, i left it alone. but that sounds like a great idea for a set. priority encore does mean you can set up and only use the encore AFTER the opponent uses a non-damaging move, since the priority almost guarantees the encore will strike first. then that gives you an automatic extra set up turn. afterwards its smooth sailing to pass it or attack if you have the type coverage.

so everyone knows, with 2 Tail Glows, a Modest Volbeat can reach a sp.atk stat of 848 and 772 if it is running Timid. a good stat for some possible OHKOs


oh and to OmegaDonut

OmegaDonut said:

Why are we putting max speed on a Pokemon that gets priority on all its support moves, including Baton Pass?

Click to expand...

well depending on the set, it would be to outspeed base 80 pokemon or speed tie pokemon with base 85 speed. this would only be nessesary on sets that do not have thunder wave but have attacking moves. so if you want to Tail Glow and use Bug Buzz or ThunderBolt, then you really would want to hit first as volbeat doesn't take damage very well.

Omega, you still need to outspeed common priority user leads / other pokes such as Metagross, Machamp, Scizor, Empoleon, and Mamoswine so that you can get off a Baton Pass before they send you into oblivion with Bullet Punch, Aqua Jet, or Ice Shard respectively. I guess technically you could run 216 speed with a timid nature and stick the rest in HP to beat all of those...

You don't need max speed to outspeed the common priority users. All the ones you named are pretty slow.

I think it'd be worth it to give it EVs to outspeed Scizor, but the rest of its EVs - including SpAttk - should be going into defenses. The important part is making sure Volbeat survives to get those boosts to the really dangerous Pokemon on your team.

you could make the argument for either side OmegaDonut. either EV your defences and HP to survive attacks better and pass boosts to better sweepers or go with speed and special attack EVs to laugh at your opponent when a littly firefly/lightning bug gets some hilarious OHKOs. the preference is yours.

but even so, you could always KO an enemy with bug buzz/thunderbolt/shadow ball, and then on the next turn when they bring in a counter, baton pass away the boosts to something that can take their counter's attacks.

Curses, I wanted to make a thread about Sudowoodo and then tell people not to discuss whether it would be banned or not, but it seems that ship has sailed now, and I'm a man of originality.

I'm definitely liking where this is going, though. Being able to pass +3 Special Attack in just two turns with priority is pretty pro. And it even gets that fancy new ability so Smeargle doesn't just automatically do it better (Though hell, it probably still might.) That's gotta be one of my favorite parts of the new generations, watching them give nice things to old Pogeys. Well that and watching all the people who ragequit when they learn of mechanics changes that take them out of their comfort zone, OHOHO.

heres a thought, if you pass a +6 sp.atk boost to Dry Skin Toxicroak while your enemy is locked by Encore, or is about to use an obvious Water, Grass, Rock, Bug, Fighting, Poison or Dark attack, you can shrug off the attack, gain a leftovers boost, and then dominate with a MAX power Vacuum Wave from a 1084 or a 1192 sp atk depending on the nature. just keep a sucker punch for ghosts.

I think Toxicroak is one of the better teammates to receive a baton pass from Volbeat. Although you could make the argument of Lucario for a faster and more powerful Vacuum Wave. but it is has a very common counter in Mach Punch and will probably be picked off more easily than toxicroak. Just watch out for extremespeed, ice shard, paralasys/burn and ghost types.

Though it would inevitably be useless as a two pokemon combo due to priority, I think it's hilarious how two turns of setup could end in a +3 pass to the Simple bat (so +6), who has 114 base speed, 77 SpA and Psycho Shock, though a lacking special movepool otherwise.

It's defenses are so shitty though that it'd probably just die on the switch in anyway :/.

i think the selling point is tail glow plus baton pass since it gets priority on those 2 and passing +3 to a special attacker is dangerous

what a crazy world this Isshu is when the likes of Politoed, Ditto and Volbeat can now actually be used in competitive battle and make their mark. lol.

so how well do you guys think this stands competitively actually. will it be too gimmicky? is it going to be a staple in OU teams to get a special sweeper set up? will we be seeing Volbeat on a regular basis. throw some opinions my way.

This isn't going to go anywhere, Ninjask was the fastest pokemon ever and try as it may its almost impossible for him to pass necessary boosts. Now volbeat isn't 4x weak to stealth rock like ninjask, but baton pass strategies in general rarely work, and when they do work its by surprise

Volbeat is, technically, faster than Ninjask though.

I think Volbeat could really work. Priority Encore, Tail Glow and then Baton Pass sounds like it could change the tide of the match in the late game. Priority Thunder Wave and Screens aren't half bad either. While I don't think it'll be a top tier OU Pokémon, or even OU for that matter, it has a very unique niche and I can see it being a valuable addition to a team (unlike in Gen IV).

probationsmack said:

This isn't going to go anywhere, Ninjask was the fastest pokemon ever and try as it may its almost impossible for him to pass necessary boosts. Now volbeat isn't 4x weak to stealth rock like ninjask, but baton pass strategies in general rarely work, and when they do work its by surprise

Click to expand...

the difference is Ninjask could still be picked off with priority moves and didnt have much in the way of status. priority beats speed every time... priority thunder waves, confuse ray, encore and substitutes means you can foil your enemy before they can take you out. and when you have the boosts you need, a priority baton pass to boot, so you can get away almost every time.


the only thing he really needs to worry about is hail/sandstorm if hes running focus sash and was hit to 1hp, and pokemon faster than him who have priority moves, like lucario. also extremespeed. thats about it.

Rolf said:

(Because of MH, your Baton Pass will actually outspeed their priority!)

Click to expand...

Actually, Rolf, Mischievious Heart only gives non-attacking moves +1 Priority, which ties it with the likes of Mach Punch, Sucker Punch, Ice Shard, etc., so any pokemon with a speed higher than 295 (Volbeat's highest speed value with a positive nature) will have their priority hit first.

OmegaDonut said:

Why are we putting max speed on a Pokemon that gets priority on all its support moves, including Baton Pass?

Click to expand...

You need to be able to outspeed other priority users, right? Mischievous Heart is only a +1 priority.

But there isn't that many fast pokemon with pirority moves...
The first I can think off is ice shard using weavile.

what we are saying is you want your Priority Baton Pass to outspeed a Priority Mach Punch or whatever. if your speed is lower than the speed of a priority user, then your priority status/whatever move will go second, which it cant afford. but yes, there are very few fast priority users minus a few like weaville and flotzel. and lucario outspeeds it if it uses bullet punch as well. but unless you opponent has those your good.

the speed it to guarantee you dont get beat by anyone of base 85 or slightly lower that has a priority move. none come to mind at the moment but i am sure there are some. it also helps if you are attacking, to be able to beat the likes of gyarados (if it hasnt used Ddance yet) and other that might run +speed natures with 252 EVs that are within range to pass Volbeat and kill it.


Volbeat should be able to OHKO a max speed Gyarados after one Tail Glow with thunderbolt if it doesnt have a Ddance in. if not, it will hit you and activate your sash, and then you would kill it after it attacks. just to put things in perspective.

Its a very special Baton Passer. Use it as such. It can't take any hits but a priority Baton Pass is win.

I think running full HP and full Speed for Baton Passing sets is not unintelligent.

I had a soft spot for fourth gen NU pokemon, and I like to see them make it up in the ranks and I dont think this going to be OU but it would surprise me if it didnt make UU. one pokemon I think would work well with shanderaa due to shanderaa relying on cm to boost and it being imune to fighting type priority, not to mension it could trap an ecored pokemon, this combo could be deadly.

Has anyone ever considered a Sub-Salac set on Volbeat? I think it has a lot of potential. With Mischievous Heart you're guaranteed to get a Substitute in (assuming you don't get Taunted). Just Sub down until the berry activates, possibly getting a Tail Glow if the opponent decides to switch/try to set up on you/or the sub doesn't break somehow (lol), then Baton Pass to something that will appreciate the boosts like Sazando or Life Orb Urugamosu. A +3 SpA, +1 Spe boost on either of them is just crazy.

Even if you don't get the Tail Glow, Sazando and Urugamosu have Cheer Up and Butterfly Dance respectively if they need more power.

I presume the +3 Sp. Atk boost IS confirmed, right? I saw somewhere that a person tried it out by using three Tail Glows in a row and the third said "Its special attack won't go any higher!" That doesn't necessarily mean it was 3. Could've been 4.

But I doubt they would ever go to +4.