T-Bolt vs T-Punch on Electivire

Lord Alchemy

Lord Alchemy

I really can't decide on which to use. Every set I see around here has him running with T-bolt and some Special Attack EVs.

It seems like the entire point is to run somewhat with a split sweeping idea in mind to prevent being walled physically, but what physical walls are you going to be hitting with Thunder Punch?

It seems that most Physical walls are going to be Rock/Ground/Steel which the most common Electivire move set covers with Cross Chop, Ice Punch, and Earthquake. It seems that most Bulky Waters are more on the Special Defense side, so wouldn't you want to be hitting them with Thunder Punches instead?

I dunno, I could be crazy. Stacking EVs into Attack and running Thunder Punch seems slightly better to me as it not only does more Electric damage but also boosts Chop/Ice Punch/EQ aswell.

Hopefully we can also get a decent discussion out of this, tried this topic on GameFAQs and got nothing but "lawls attack".
 
Thunderbolt does more damage than Thunderpunch on Electivire against a pokemon that had the same defense as special defense. It's also much better against Skarmory and nice to be able to hit form the special side. Some Electivires will also be carrying Hidden Power Grass.
 
Thunderbolt hits certain walls harder and its higher bp makes up for the stat which is by no means bad.

Bolt has like 30 or so more bp after STAB and the power of an attack is more important in damage than the stat, hence why focus punch is viable on gengar despite it's 65 base attack.
 
I'd always go with Thunderbolt, except maybe on a CB set, and, even then, Thunderbolt is still better against things like Skarmory.
 
If you use Thunderpunch then stuff like Weezing and Forretress can beat you, whereas Thunderbolt can 2HKO them. Water types like Suicune and Milotic usually concentrate their EVs in physical Defense in order to take hits from Earthquake and Stone Edge. Here's a few damage calculations.

Weezing (320 HP, 372 Defense, 193 Special Defense)

379 Attack (max Attack, Adamant) Thunderpunch is 26 - 31%
203 Special Attack (Adamant, 0 Special Attack EVs) is 38 - 44%

So even with no EV investment and a hindering nature, Thunderbolt does more. With a neutral nature, 0 Special Attack EVs and a Life Orb Thunderbolt will do 54 - 63% to that same Weezing.

Calculations have similar damage ratios for Forretress.

Skarmory (334 HP, 416 Defense, 176 Special Defense)

379 Attack (max Attack, Adamant) Thunderpunch is 45 - 53%
203 Special Attack (Adamant, 0 Special Attack EVs) is 72 - 84%

Skarmory will never switch into Electivire, but if knows you have Thunderpunch over Thunderbolt it can come in after a sacrifice or on a predicted Earthquake and phaze away any boost you may have from Motor Drive. Situational, I know but the fact that it's a possibility is really shitty.

Even a CB Thunderpunch won't OHKO Skarmory, whereas Electivire only needs 237 Special Attack to OHKO with an Expert Belt Thunderbolt, 220 Special Attack to OHKO with Life Orb or 285 Special Attack to OHKO without an item boost.

Thunderpunch is usually only a better choice if you're running Choice Band or Meditate. With Thunderbolt your offensive ability isn't entirely crippled if you get burned either.
 
ƒantastic ♥Love♥ said:
If T-bolt is better than Thunder Punch (It's Strongest Physical Attack after STab), then that means Thunderbolt is stronger than all of its other moves.

In that case, it may as well just go Special with
Click to expand...

Worst. Reasoning. Ever.

First, Thunderbolt only beats Thunderpunch in damage for two reasons: 1. Higher Base power (142.5 after STAB vs. 112.5), and 2: the pokemon you would use your STAB move on have better Defense than SD (Skarm, Weezing, Milotic, et al.) Given a pokemon with the same defense and special defense, Thunderpunch(380 Atk) has a base damage of 148-174, Thunderbolt(237 SA) has a base damage of 118-138. The pokemon in the Thunderpunch examples had large defense but mediocre SD. Had anything like Hariyama, Dusknoir, or Dootakun switched in, Thunderpunch would deal more damage (assuming split defenses/only HP were used.)

To Thunderpunch's credit, it can still 2HKO Suicune after a Calm Mind. Although from 100% HP it isn't a great prospect since it needs max damage. If Suicune has even SR damage though, its going down.

Focus Blast/Cross Chop/Focus Punch
Thunderbolt
Hidden Power [Grass]
Flamethrower

Possibly Cross Chop or Focus Punch for Blissey.

And if this is the case, you may as well just switch to a better Special Sweeper, like Togekiss, or just use Infernape for a mixed sweeper who can use Grass Rope and STAB Infight or Focus Blast for even more power. (And he is faster).
Click to expand...

That set has far, far worse coverage than Elec/Fighting/Ice/(Ground/Grass), and uses Electivire's smaller stat for dealing damage. If you want a special sweeper, Azelf or Gengar can do this set better. Hell, Manectric can do this set better, with Crunch over the fighting move.
 
Crunch is physical, why would Manectric use it? It's still not going to do anything to Blissey.
 
If your Electivire has max Attack (379), you would need more than 299 SpAtk to start dealing more damage with Thunderbolt than with Thunderpunch (assuming you're against a Pokemon with equal defense and SpDef). This can only be reached with a +SpAtk nature, which is impossible since we're assuming that Electivire has a +Atk nature already.

However, since Electivire's 3 other moves will almost certainly be physical, it would make sense to use Thunderbolt against things that would otherwise wall the 3 other physical moves.
 
Lonely is a good nature for Electivire. Preserves his speed and sp. atk for T-bolt/HPGrass and reduces a stat he's hardly ever going to use.
 
Skarmory isn't touching you anyway and even bulky waters typically have about equal or better SpD even when EVed toward Defense (lol Milotic having higher Def). What does that leave, Weezing? Ooh, scary.

I don't think the minor advantage of Tbolt, if it has one at all, is worth losing the power from Electivire's non-Electric attacks not to mention being forced to take a -Def nature. I suppose if you're running HP Grass you have that option, but if not there's not much reason to hold your SpA.

The only good point against Tpunch I've heard so far is Burn kicking your ass. Even then, Burn kicks your ass since it still cripples your versatility and the passive damage will wear you down quickly.
 
I'm agreeing with the above post and disagreeing with every other post.

Thunderpunch seems pretty flat out better on Electivire. As has been indicated, having a OHKO on Skarm means very little. You get a 2HKO anyway with Thunderpunch, and Skarmory can do nothing to you as you resist both of its STAB attacks. Skarmory won't be coming in and phazing you, ever. If you aren't running a CB, it will have to eat a STAB Thunderpunch to phaze you out. I would prefer to not half kill my Skarm to phaze something, and this assumes that I predict correctly and come in on an EQ which Electivire might not be running at all. Coming in on something like Thunderpunch is just gg Skarmory. If you're running a CB(and Electivire is an awesome CBer so this "if" should be very common), you just own Skarmory all over the place. Bulky waters were also covered by the above post, though I should note that the major physical walling type in DP seems like ground to me so running tbolt just to take care of the physical walling threats seems silly. I don't see tbolt helping you take down any Donphan, Swampert, Claydol, or Hippowdon.

As per stuff like Steelix, Regi-whatever, and Forretress, you are still very likely to have SEs on them. You learn Cross Chop, Focus Punch, Earthquake, and Fire Punch. These moves are fairly scary for these Pokemon. No, you won't be using all of them at once, but odds are that you'll have a really good answer for some of them anyway. By the way, tbolt was only doing better than tpunch against Forretress on that list. Steelix is immune to both (0 equals 0), tpunch will probably do more to Regice and Registeel, and with the probable sand, both will do really sad damage to Regirock.

So yeah, that really does just leave Weezing. Running tbolt Electivire just for Weezing seems like running Psychic Electivire to me. Psychic will do more, but it will be an inferior move against almost everything else. Weezing isn't exactly what I'd call really hard to switch into either. Oh, there's also Dusknoir to worry about, but he's yet another one of those many walls that could give Electivire trouble that tbolt doesn't help against at all.

In order to make Thunderbolt better, you have to put EVs into special attack and/or reduce some of your other stats. Electivire is neither fast nor slow really and has a trait to boost speed so you don't want to reduce his speed. Cutting those defenses is dangerous for the same reason really. He already wanted more than 510 EVs before you even got to thinking about putting more than zero in special attack. You're just spreading yourself way too thin by trying to go that path. I could see some utility on tbolt on a surprise special or true mixed set (true mixed having multiple special attacks), but tpunch seems to be pretty plainly the main STAB attack.
 
I'm running a Lonely Electivire w/ Thunderbolt, because of a few reasons, you can't Intimidate, Burn, or Charm away T-bolt's special attack.

Sure, Intimidate shouldn't be an issue since you're not going to use either on Salamence/Luxray, and any electric attacks are killing Gyarados or Staraptor (right?)...

But the thought of having my STAB attack halved by some bulky burner or speedy ghost is enough to warrant using his quite acceptable special attack w/ T-bolt, especially since I don't expect people to be throwing fragile, electric weak pokemon in front of him to begin with.

I'm actually considering Discharge for the parahax... for times when he doesn't get in that speed boost.
 
No one is going to Charm an Electivire, and if Electivire is burned he's dead regardless of if he has Thunderbolt or not. His three other moves are physical unless you're using a mixed set, and they can just switch something in that would normally be beat by those moves.
 
I'd still rather have a useful STAB attack than have him completely useless after a burn, and can also be used on those pokemon that think Counter is a surefire way to get rid of him, or thinking they're safe behind a Reflect.

I see nothing wrong with a more powerful Thunderpunch as a standard... but the benefits of Thunderbolt are not completely overshadowed by it.
 
I'd run Thunderpunch after AA's post, and although I'm a Meditate Electrivire fan anyway, you have to admit that the extra damage on Cresselia, probably the most defensive Pokemon in the game will help you more often than it will hurt you. The only Pokemon you damage more would be an uncommon Poke in the first place, and it's not hard to predict a WoW and switch to Heatran or Infernape and start raping.
 
True, on any sweeper, more damage is critical, and I like the idea of having such a powerhouse of a physical sweeper, especially with such a lack of Blissey-esque walls on the physical end.

I'm probably going to test them both out before I make any decisions on what I finally end up running...

I still like the idea of having a good STAB attack that can't be burned or intimidated, and having options with Light Screen/Reflect... although another possibility is running Brick Break over Cross Chop to remove Reflects.

My question would then be, what would Electivire live against had he been running a neutral def nature over a -def nature? He's practically as fragile as Infernape, Staraptor, or Weavile.
 
If you get Adamant Electivire, then I would see the worth of Thunderpunch over the others (got that one on first try). But, I have raised a special Electabuzz with Psychic and Thunderbolt with good success. It all depends on the EV's you feed it and the nature it holds.
 
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