Vileplume
Base Stats - 75/80/85/110/90/50 - TOTAL: 490
Abilities - Chlorophyll (1), Effect Spore (H)
Notable Moves
- Giga Drain
- Leech Seed
- Moonblast
- Sludge Bomb
- Strength Sap
- Swords Dance (hilariously enough)
- Leaf Storm
- Toxic
- Weather Ball
- Substitute
- Stun Spore
- Sleep Powder
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Has an alright statspread.
- Amazing combination of status-spreading utility with Effect Spore and the Spore/Powder moves.
- Resists BOTH of Iron Valiant's STAB combos, as well as Thunderbolt and Liquidation.
- Has access to Chlorophyll, making it okay on sun (however still outclassed by mons like Venusaur).
- Hilariously has access to Swords Dance if you really want to make a physical set
- Gets Strength Sap, something Amoonguss doesn't have (which WOULD make up for the lack of Spore, but atleast we have Sleep Powder).
Cons
- Outclassed in almost every way by Amoonguss and Venusaur as defensive and offensive threats respectively.
- Does not get Spore for some reason.
- Very slow, so it's kind of hard to make an offensive set outside of sun. And even then you might not get anywhere when Venusaur would be better in sun anyways.
- While 75/85/90 is okay bulk, it's still very weak to pokemon like Ceruledge, Cinderace, or Iron Moth without a tera.
- SEVERE lack of physical moves, making that 80 Attack stat a little skimpy, unless you plan on using a Sun set with Solar Blade, which STILL isn't recommended.
- You still miss about 1/4-5 of your Stun Spores or Sleep Powders.
Analysis
Vileplume has been our OG 'Shroom for quite a while, but since Amoonguss came around, it's been absolutely IRRELEVANT. And even before Amoonguss, Vileplume had been falling off (it placed NU in DPP, after being in UU for gens 2 and 3). Even more so when we have Pokemon such as Iron Moth, Weavile, and even the occasional Cinderace running around, this Pokemon probably couldn't last too long in the OU scene.
HOWEVER, just like I mentioned in my Whimsicott thread, we're bringing Vileplume into a tera-ridden metagame, meaning we can find ways to increase its longevity, bringing us into the Tera Potential category of this silly little shroom.
Tera Potential - The Goods and the Bads
Unlike Whimsicott, there's actually more than one tera to help Vileplume here. There's about four, actually, mainly for defensive sets, being:
Tera Water - Gets rid of the Fire, Ice, and Flying weaknesses in exchange for Electric and Grass weaknesses, but there's no notable Electric-types in OU besides Zapdos and Raging Bolt, and the only Grass-types in OU are the Ogerpons, Serperior, and Meowscarada currently. So it provides shelter from Weaviles and Volcaronas, but it's a double-edged sword here, especially when Wellspring and Serperior are common this time around.
Tera Steel - Being the most defensive typing, this could help Vileplume out quite a bit defensively. To start, it turns your Ice and Flying weaknesses into resists, but you keep your Fire weakness and gain a Fighting and Ground weakness. You still resist Fairy, however, making a tera Steel vileplume an alright switchin to an attacker like Enamorus, though most Enamorus run tera Stellar now.
Tera Dark - This is mainly to stop an occasional Grimmsnarl or to wall Psychic-type attackers. The main problem here is you are now weak to both of Iron Valiant's stab combos, making Vileplume susceptible to a free kill.
Tera Fairy - Possibly the most versatile Tera here, considering Fairy is an alright defensive typing, but also because it can power up Moonblast (given you run it for coverage), as well as resist both Fighting in the forms of Iron Valiant and occasional High Jump Kicks, you also resist Darkrai's STAB, despite being susceptible to Hypnosis.
Potential Sets
While Vileplume is a tad irrelevant since Gen 4, I still have some sets for it that I made just last night actually:
Specs Sun
Ms. Shady (Vileplume) (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Chlorophyll
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Fairy/Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Solar Beam
- Sludge Bomb
- Weather Ball
- Moonblast
The gist of this set is to be put onto a sun team. You can run either Tera Fairy to power up Moonblast, or Tera Fire to power up Weather Ball. Either way, if you use this, you might need some other support besides Sun setters to back you up, which is a MASSIVE undercut for this Pokemon, given it's got Solar Beam and Moonblast in its belt.
Defensive Sapper
The OG 'Shroom (Vileplume) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Effect Spore
Tera Type: Fairy/Dark/Water
EVs: 252 HP / 144 Def / 112 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leech Seed
- Toxic
- Sludge Bomb
- Strength Sap
This is the actual defensive set for Vileplume I have in mind, as you can chip damage with Leech Seed and Toxic, gain MASSIVE health with Strength Sap, and hit your opponent with Sludge Bomb all at the same time. Yes, you're pretty much walled by Steel-Types, but the other 17 types (excluding Stellar) may or may not have some bad times facing this. It's really dependent on what you actually face with this and who is using the set.
Status Spreader
Allergy Season (Vileplume) @ Leftovers
Ability: Effect Spore
Tera Type: Steel/Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sleep Powder/Stun Spore
- Strength Sap
- Substitute
- Acid Spray/Moonblast
Sub up and sprinkle that sleep powder on your opponent.. If you can, that is. This is mainly a SpDef set, so you're absolutely fucking NUKED if you use this against a physical attacker such as Great Tusk or Kingambit. Though you're safe from sucker punch as this Pokemon's only attack here is either Acid Spray or Moonblast. And this set takes advantage of Vileplume's nifty status utility with Sleep Powder/Stun Spore and Strength Sap to be able to drop ailments on as many Pokemon as possible. Just beware of Hatterenes, Weaviles, or Great Tusks with this one.
My Final Thoughts
While Vileplume is DEFINITELY not making a splash anytime soon when AMOONGUSS is still here, it's also still outclassed by the OTHER OG Shroom, Breloom, because BRELOOM still has Spore. Though I can see Vileplume having a nice place in PU or NU, it's not going anywhere above that unless some crazy miracle happens to it that gives it a niche in the meta. But all in all, Vileplume is still nothing more than a silly little shroom that won't be anywhere as long as Amoonguss and Breloom still exist in the metagame, sadly.
