PotW #7 - Volcarona

[Blah]

PotW #7​

Welcome back the to Pokemon of the Week! I’m Blah, and I’ll be running this from now on. If you don’t know what this is, we will be discussing everything about one Pokemon every week. Feel free to discuss it’s moves, stats, tier placing, etc. Pretty much anything is fair game. Without further ado, let’s begin!​

Finally. Trollfreak decides to be more GameFreak and give us a not-so-terrible moth Pokemon. Volcarona is a top tier threat in today’s metagame, with a massive 135 base special attack that can burn through teams with ease after just a single Quiver Dance. With the introduction of Drought Ninetails, Volcarona gets that much better with it’s dual STAB fire moves. It’s ability isn’t useless either; with a low base defense stat a lot of things will try to hit it with physical attacks, immediately regretting it when they get burned by Flame Body. Though it has its flaws, including a horrid 4x weakness to Stealth Rock, Volcarona should never doubted. It also has a grudge against Bippa for some reason.

Volcarona @ Life Orb/Leftovers
Timid Nature
Ability: Flame Body
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
~ Quiver Dance
~ Bug Buzz
~ Fire Blast / Fiery Dance
~ Hidden Power Rock / Hidden Power Ground​

This is a very common set for Volcarona. It’s the most offensive approach and works in a variety of situations. Quiver Dance is the boosting move of choice, raising Special Attack, Speed, and Special Defense. After a Quiver Dance, Fiery Dance and Bug Buzz can be used to rampage through the opponent’s team, not to mention that the former has a high chance of raising Volcarona’s Special Attack another stage. Fire Blast can also be used if more power is needed. Finally, Hidden Power Rock is the better option, hitting Salamence, Gyarados, and Dragonite for super effective damage. However, it is important to note that in the sun Fiery Dance and Fire Blast in the sun still do massive damage to these Pokemon, making Hidden Power Ground a viable option to nail Heatran and Terrakion.

It is quite difficult to counter Volcarona due to the sheer power of it’s attacks. The best counter is, of course, Stealth Rock, stripping Volcarona of half of it’s health on the switch in. Another way is to hit it with Stone Edge. Anything with a Choice Scarf that can outspeed +1 Volcarona and hit it with Stone Edge makes a decent check. Dugtrio, Landorus, and Terrakion are all Pokemon that can do this. Terrakion deserves a special mention because it can take a +2 Hidden Power Ground. Past that, Heatran makes a decent check as long as Volcarona doesn’t have HP Ground, and it also completely walls the ChestoRest set. Salamence, Dragonite, and Gyarados are also viable if it doesn’t have HP Rock, although in the sun Fiery Dance puts some serious hurt in all of them.

To conclude, Volcarona is a fantastic Pokemon and a threat every team should watch out for. So what kind of Volcarona do you use? Do you like the ChestoRest set? Do you have your own custom set? Or do you think Volcarona is detrimental to the metagame and should be banished to Ubers? Discuss!

 

[Professor Palutena]

I really like using Volcarona on rain teams, because its typing and and access to Hurricane give it the ability to check threats to rain, like Ferrothorn (+1 Fire Blast OHKOs in rain), Toxicroak, Dragonite, Celebi and Virizion. I've used it on some of my rain teams and its fantastic at what it does. Volcarona's checks, like Landorus, Terrakion and Dragonite, aren't problems for rain teams (although certain Dragonite can give rain teams problems), so it brings two-way synergy to the team.

 

[Chillarmy]

Volcarona, along with Dragonite, makes Stealth Rock pretty much mandatory. Without Stealth Rock, Volcarona's going to have a fairly easy time setting up, and a +1 Volcarona is not fun to face. He has decent offensive synergy in Bug/Fire, with the resistors being patched up by a Hidden Power. He's downright scary in the Sun, hitting with a monstrous boosted Fire Blast, and then he works very well on Rain teams, hitting Rain's common counters/checks such as Celebi and Virizion. It doesn't define the metagame as much as pokemon like Terrakion and Politoed, but it is very scary and still makes Stealth Rock a requirement on any team.

 

[Equinox]

Volcarona would be much more threatening if Stealth Rock wasn't so common/loses 50% of its health every time it comes out. Other than that, it is an amazing Pokemon who only really gets resisted by Dragonite/Salamence/Heatran/Gyrados (unless it has HP Ground/Rock)

 

[Alan]

This guy is annoying when I battle it. Chandelure can wall it's STAB moves BUT if it its HP Rock/Ground, you can have issues. Maybe a HP Rock Chandelure with a Choice Scarf or something would come in handy if you have problems with Volcarona. Just brainstorming.