Sunflora who?

Tinnacious

Oh wow, I didn't even remember this Pokemon existing. Yeah, that's what I thought too when I was browsing through Serebii for the last team member of my Sunny Day team. I usually don't even bother to look at trash like Sunflora, but I did because I already had 3 OUs on my team and it's trait really caught my eye.

Solar Power: When Sunny Day is in effect, HP decreases but Special Attack increases

To be more specific

X-Act said:
When Sunny Day is in effect, the Special Attack stat of the Pokemon having Solar Power is multiplied by 1.5. However, it also loses 1/8 of its HP per turn, rounded down.
Click to expand...

This means...

A Modest Sunflora with Choice Specs in the sun would have

339 * 1.5 * 1.5 = 762 SpAtk

A Modest Sunflora with Life Orb in the sun would have

339 * 1.5 * 1.3 = 661 SpAtk

Sexy. So these calculations got me really excited so I decided to take Sunflora out for a spin.

Sunflora@Life Orb/Choice Specs
Modest/Quiet
252 SpAtk 252 HP

Solar Beam/Leaf Storm
Sludge Bomb
Hidden Power [Fire]
Energy Ball

Yeah, it's movepool sucks ass. But hey, Solar Beam hit's hard so it doesn't really matter. Oh and Solar Beam is better for sweeping while Leaf Storm is better for hit-and-run, I prefer Solar Beam because I'm not a big fan of attack drops when I'm sweeping with Sunflora [rofl]. The Quiet nature is there because I use it under Trick Room, with base speed 30 and lackluster defenses, I thought Sunflora would need major support to do some damage. So I paired it up with Bronzong, who can set up Sunny Day with Heat Rock and safely twist the dimensions for Sunflora. Modest is fine too if you're a Chlorophyller, but we ain't talkin' about Chlorophyll aight'?

Choice Specs is there to hit really hard, but when Steels come in, you'd regret not using Life Orb since the damage difference between the two items are marginal. But the thing with Life Orb is, you'd be losing a lot of health at the end of every turn thanks to Life Orb's recoil and Solar Power's effect, but hey, it's Sunflora, do you really expect it to be durable?

Anyway, after a few battles, Sunflora is an amazing late-game sweeper when the ones that wall it is gone (Heatran gets an honorable mention). But enough talking, let's see some damage calculations. I will only mention Life Orb since that's the set I used. Let's hope I did damage calculations correctly.

These are done with MAX SPECIAL DEFENSE and MAX HP, most Pokemon don't even run this much investment in the defensive department so the damages will actually be more than listed here.

I'm just lazy and Serebii's stats only show max stats: P

Sunflora with Life Orb under the effect of Solar Power attacking with Solar Beam

Cresselia [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 49.32% - 57.88%
Blissey [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 32.63% - 38.52%
Gyarados [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 72.84% - 85.79%
Tyranitar [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 129.70% - 152.72%
Electivire [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 90.11% - 105.93%
Raikou [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 74.74% - 88.02%
Suicune [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 129.46% - 152.23%
Garchomp [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 75.95% - 89.29%

Sunflora with Life Orb under the effect of Solar Power attacking with Sludge Bomb

Salamence [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 42.13% - 49.49%
Staraptor [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 57.49% - 67.65%
Tangrowth [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 106.68% - 125.50%
Celebi [max SpDef - max HP] positive nature takes 65.10% - 76.73%

 Sunflora with Life Orb under the effect of Solar Power attacking with Hidden Power [Fire]

Jirachi/Celebi [max SpDef - max HP] positive nature takes 76.49% - 89.85%
Metagross [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 99.45% - 116.76%
Skarmory [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 126.05% - 148.20%
Sceptile [max SpDef - max HP] neutral nature takes 109.01% - 128.20%

Well, there you go. Damage calculations against OU pokes with attacks that you would most likely use on them. But even with set-up, Blissey, Togekiss, and most Fire Pokemon can still wall Sunflora easily. So just be careful with it, support it and it will tear shit up with style. And don't forget that Sunflora is not OU/BL material, so don't expect too much from it alone. Only use under Trick Room and Sunny Day, Stealth Rock support doesn't hurt either.

Discuss.
 
Oh, man. I've always really, really wanted to use Sunflora.

Maybe I should make a Sunny Day team...


What kind of EVs do you run? I'm assuming pumping them into SpAtk and HP.
 
It looks like you can only pull off about five attacks with Sunflora without healing. Maybe put synthesis over energy ball? It heals 66% of your health under the sun, which seems worth it to me.
 
Danigi said:
It looks like you can only pull off about five attacks with Sunflora without healing. Maybe put synthesis over energy ball? It heals 66% of your health under the sun, which seems worth it to me.
Click to expand...

After wich you lose 100% of health due to their attacks.
 
Oops, forgot EVs.

And Synthesis is good, but I doubt Sunflora can last long anyway. But it is an option since Energy Ball is just a filler.
 
It seems like it would kill itself too quickly. Think about it, you lost 1/8 every turn, plus 1/10 every time you attack. Add in the possibility of Spikes or Stealth Rock, and it's not going to be around long. Plus, you have to actually get Sunflora in, and with bad defenses, combined with what I said above, it doesn't seem possible. And whatever you don't OHKO will easily kill you...
 
I like this a lot UU pokes in an OU environment carries a nice, ironic justice for me.
I was thinking, would HP ground be usable Sure you lose the ability to hit levitating steels but heatran and fire types would then pay for the switch in?
 
Notice how I said late-game...when everything is damaged. And yes, I know there are better late-gamers out there, but we're talking about Sunflora in this topic, not ScarfChomp.

HP Ground could work, why didn't I think of that. Maybe the image of Skarmory walling Sunflora keeps playing in my head. Plus, HP Ground doesn't get Sunny Day boost, so yeah...Whatever floats your boat though.
 
Why are all your calcs against pokes with max hp and sdef? Most of them don't run nearly that much on their standard sets. It makes sunflora look a lot worse than it actually is, because when I first saw that list of damage calcs I thought "Hm, it can't even 2HKO salamence." Then I noticed you did the calc with max HP and sdef, when mence doesn't run much of either.

But yeah. It does look like a pretty cool idea. Looks like it requires a bit of set up, though.
 
Sunflora can do almost 50% damage to salamence that has max hp and max sp. def. So sunflora can definitely 2HKO the standard salamence spread.
 
Uh huh... with a base speed of thirty? Defense is 55 base, which is pitiful, and a special defense of 85 with 75 hp put it at a slightly better special defense and a good bit worse phsyical defense than starmie. And why is starmie a good pokemon? Because it has the speed to back up its Sp.att. Unless you're seriously considering both sunny day and trick room at the same time (which is a lot of set up for 1 poke, although arguably other slow fires/grasses could benefit), Sunflora is not going to kill anything.
 
Solar Beam + Specs is stronger than SpecsMence. Obviously, Leaf Storm is even stronger.

I didn't do damage calcs... I run with my Attack tiers :-p But here's my work if anyone is interested:

SpecsMence DracoMeteor tier: (Salamence base, Draco Meteor base, Specs and STAB)
60.49 + 51.85 + 4.25 + 4.25 == 120.84

Sunflora + SolarBeam + STAB + Specs + Solar Power:
60.15 + 50.23 + 4.25 + 4.25 + 4.25 == 123.13

Plenty of problems... of course. Utterly walled by Skarm (Ironicaly) with 4x resists to the grass attacks and immune to poison... T-Tar also walls this by removing the Sun (making SolarBeam 2 turns again if they accuratly predict it) raising his Sp. Def by 50%, lowering your Sp. Atk by 50% (goodbye Solar Power).

Still, this is much better than what I though Sunflora was.
 
I know this sounds stupid but the idea of Trick Room AND Solar Beam seems a little too difficult to pull off, so why not give it Choice Scarf, a beneficial Sp. Attack nature and max Sp. attack EVs? Solar Beam could still do tons of damage against various opponents, right?
 
Sunflora is still crap, no matter what stunt you try to pull with it. Life Orb + Solar Power means you die in five turns, four if you take pretty much any damage at all.
 
Speed is so low that scarf would let it maybe, maybe outspeed an un-speed EV'd Poliwag. (Un-speed trained base 90's, basically.) Trick-room/sunny-day is more viable than scarflora, for sure. Also, whilethough trick-room is handy, I'd use it first, then sunny-day, so they can OHKO bronzong on the same turn with the fire-damage boost, allowing flora to come in and sweep... otherwise, bronzong may not live long enough to use trick room, fire-boost from sunny-day killing it and whatnot.
 
He said you will need trick room and sunny day to pull it off. Seems viable if you can get both of those because it is really really slow, and those boosts pump out some wacky numbers.
 
I tried it out on shoddy and it is very hard to get them both going and finding a team to fit it well. I'm no expert battler but it requires almost psychic prediction.
 
This would be really cool in a double battle with Cerrim as your team mate. Max Sp. Atk, Modest w/Choise Specs, Solar Power, and Flower Gift. Extreme novelty but cool nonetheless.
 
I'm sorry, but this kind of idea is situational past the point of possibility. To get the turns you'll need out of this, you'll need both Sunny Day and Trick Room in effect, which means running a Dry Rock SunnyDayer, then switching to a TRer, successfully getting off the TR, THEN switching to your Sunflora, giving your opponent at least four turns to set up on you in any way it desires. If you run a pokemon with both Sunny Day and TR, you save yourself one turn, but you've got a pokemon that can't do much of anything but setup Sunny Day and TR.

As for switching in Sunflora, you'd better hope that your opponent doesn't attack the turn you try to send it in, because with those defenses you're going to be dead or crippled the second Sunflora makes the switch (you could always explode your Sunny Day / TRer for a safe switch...limiting your options to Bronzong, Gengar, Claydol, Lunatone, and Solrock). Losing massive amounts of health (22.5% every turn it attacks) each turn means that Sunflora can't afford to take any amount of damage, and if it fails to ohko a pokemon, the responding counterattack will kill it.

As for failing to OHKO, this possibility affects a wide range of the pokemon Sunflora is likely to induce a switch into. 2HKOing Blissey is an impossibility, meaning that the big fat blob can Softboil its way to safety while watching you slowly kill yourself. Steel-types such as Heatran or Skarmory laugh at your Solarbeams or Sludge Bombs. And if your opponent can outpredict your moves, it can switch in various resistant or immune pokes to soak your hits for minimal damage while you yourself take comparable amounts each turn. This is assuming, of course, that your opponent hasn't made a switch to a decent counter to Sunflora in the turns you've given him to set up his own team. After using both Sunny Day and Trick Room, you haven't left much to the imagination about what is about to be sent in.

Of course, this Sunflora is a pokemon best reserved for the late game, when such counters simply are no longer around to challenge Sunflora. But keep in mind, for this lategame strategy to work, you'll have to be able to setup Sunny Day and Trick Room, which means you'll need the pokemon that are able to setup such conditions alive in addition to your Sunflora, and you'll need them at nearly pristine health so that they can take the hits necessary to setup both Sunny Day and Trick Room. That's at the very least 1/3 of your team that can't do anything before the late game. If you're in a position where you can throw off Sunny Day and Trick Room nonchalantly near the end of a match, chances are you had it won already, without the need for Sunflora to come in at all.

I like putting underused pokemon onto teams as much as the next guy, but with a pokemon like Sunflora it's honestly more hassle than it's worth. You're basically building a 5-man team with a mascot. And considering most other pokemon that use Sunny Day use it as a speed boost, you're setting up the rest of your team to get owned by Trick Room if your setup fails.
 
As much as more power is nice, 2x speed is probably more useful, but it still only hits 318 regardless, and 348 if you waste your time going Timid.

Tropius seems to do it all better, having a better stat in all but attack. Apart from awful things like a 4x weak to ice, Tropius has all the moves Sunflora has available, with extra stuff like Air Slash, Roost. It doesn't get Sludge Bomb, but poison is a pretty awful attacking type anyway. With Chlorophyll (it actually surpasses 400 speed without Timid unlike Sunflora) Tropius might even get in some flinch hax with Air Slash, and might survive some stuff with its decent defenses and Roost it might even hang around for a whil
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top