The bouncing menace
Abilities: Illuminate / Swarm / Prankster
Notable moves:
Tail Glow
Bug Buzz
Encore
Dazzling Gleam
Seismic Toss
Moonlight
Rainy Dance
Sunny Day
Shadow Ball
Roost
Taunt
Thunder
Tailwind
Terablast
Thunder Wave
Trick
U-Turn
Lost: Defog (hopefully back in DLC 2?), Thunderbolt (??????????????)
Gained: Chilling Water
Overview:
Volbeat is a bug pokemon with unfortunate stats, at least it was blessed with an excellent HA in Prankster and an array of powerful support moves. Carving it a small niche at being a decent Rain or Sun setter
Prankster Sunny day or Rain dance is very hard to prevent unless theres opposing prankster taunt. Almost guaranteeing getting it up
Unfortunately that not enough for OU because weather setting abilities exist and are superior to manually setting up weather. Weather setters are also not deadweight otherwise like our friend
Pros:
- Almost unblockable weather set up
- Fairly slow pivot
- Prankster encore and Twave punishes set up sweepers looking to get a free turn
- Stats. All of it is awful
- Extremely passive
- Barely benefits from tera
- Opposing weather abilities completely negate it
- Dark types being immune to prankster means it cant punish them at all (kingambit.. uh oh)
- Stab u-turn is pathetically weak even vs Darks
Tera types:
Try not to tera this please... it can priority weather meaning it can usually get weather up unless theres an opposing strong priority attack. If you insist
- Steel gives removes 2 weaknesses and gives important resists to strong priority like ice shard, bullet punch and grassy glide
- Poison gives a tspike absorber (weather teams usually lack one)
- Water gives fire resist + ice shard resist in a pinch
- Ghost or Electric gives it offensive prowess (more on that later)
Lets go over main set + possible sample sets:
Utility (M) @ Heat Rock / Damp Rock
Ability: Prankster
Tera Type: Steel / Poison / Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Sunny Day / Rain Dance
- Encore
- Thunder Wave
- U-turn
Not much to say, this is the only set you want to use. 0 -speed IVs so you can go second and safely bring in a sweeper
Defensive (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Prankster
Tera Type: Fairy / Steel / Water / Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Seismic Toss
- Roost
- Thunder Wave / Encore
- U-turn
This is the first gen volbeat can finally use HDB! Except its defensive sets literally cant wall anything besides knock-less tusk... even its niche of priority defog is not available right now. Yea do not use this
Offensive (M) @ Spell Tag / Magnet / Life Orb / Heavy Duty Boots
Ability: Swarm
Tera Type: Electric / Ghost / Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tail Glow
- Bug Buzz / Dazzling Gleam
- Thunder (it lost tbolt...)
- Shadow Ball / Tera Blast
It sounds crazy but hear this out, tera massively helps out its offensive sets.
A problem for it in previous gens was mono bug STAB is terrible. But now with tera u can use spammable stab like shadow ball to wreck havoc after a boost. Tera Fire is also an option to break throygh steels
This wont be OU viable due to low speed and not hitting hard enough but this set could actually be viable in lower tiers
After a single tail glow it gets 482 spa, which is equivalent to base 192 (!) Special attack or a base 97 Spatk at +1
Electric:
+3 252 SpA Magnet Tera Electric Volbeat Thunder vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 331-391 (97 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
+3 252 SpA Magnet Tera Electric Volbeat Thunder vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Corviknight: 656-774 (164.4 - 193.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252 SpA Magnet Tera Electric Volbeat Thunder vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Toxapex: 408-482 (134.2 - 158.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252 SpA Magnet Tera Electric Volbeat Thunder vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 313-369 (99.3 - 117.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO (shadowball easily ohkos)
Ghost:
+3 252 SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Volbeat Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos: 229-271 (59.6 - 70.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Tera Ghost Volbeat Bug Buzz vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Amoonguss: 214-253 (49.5 - 58.5%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Volbeat Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Clefable: 229-271 (58.1 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Volbeat Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 349-412 (80.4 - 94.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Volbeat Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian: 255-300 (66.7 - 78.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Electric:
+3 252 SpA Magnet Tera Electric Volbeat Thunder vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 331-391 (97 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
+3 252 SpA Magnet Tera Electric Volbeat Thunder vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Corviknight: 656-774 (164.4 - 193.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252 SpA Magnet Tera Electric Volbeat Thunder vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Toxapex: 408-482 (134.2 - 158.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252 SpA Magnet Tera Electric Volbeat Thunder vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 313-369 (99.3 - 117.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO (shadowball easily ohkos)
Ghost:
+3 252 SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Volbeat Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos: 229-271 (59.6 - 70.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Tera Ghost Volbeat Bug Buzz vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Amoonguss: 214-253 (49.5 - 58.5%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Volbeat Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Clefable: 229-271 (58.1 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Volbeat Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 349-412 (80.4 - 94.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Volbeat Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian: 255-300 (66.7 - 78.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Conclusion:
Volbeat still the same loveable lower tier weather setter we all know and love. It will find its same decent niche below OU where there are no weather abilities, although there is now new potential in offensive sets thanks to Tera
Edit: formatting, made it shorter and removed defog mentions
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