[DI-X: PRP] It's Actually Good in VGC! #5: Poliwrath

[Guest KaikoaVGC]

AUTHOR: KaikoaVGC

META: VGC (2017-18)

INTRODUCTION

Konichiwa tomodachi, and welcome to It's Actually Good In VGC!, where I introduce a Pokemon that either no one uses or everyone laughs at, and try to show you how viable it can actually be and how you can use it, too! The goal of these guides is to inform everyone of options they didn't think of, and try to shake up the metagame a little in order to prevent stagnation! I'll try to do this as a weekly or twice a week thing.

As part of our three part Poke-week, we now feature our second aquatic creature: Poliwrath!

Poliwrath has been around since Gen 1, but it’s yet to make a SPLASH in any mainstream competitive metagame. *ba dum tsh* Get it? Splash? Lame puns aside, Poliwrath, while he looks all strong and has some notable scenes in the anime series, is not the best Pokemon out there. Despite that, he’s actually worthy your time and attention So WATER we wating for? *ba dum tsh*. Let’s get started! Here’s a quick list of its pros and cons before you start throwing tomatoes at me.

PROS

-1 of your 2 Physical Swift Swimmer options, making it a unique pick

-Poliwrath is one of the few FIGHTING-TYPES in this metagame. Not only does Fighting get good coverage overall, but you will also get STAB super-effective damage on Porygon2 and Snorlax, something not many Pokemon, particularly on a rain team, can brag about. It also gets at Dark, Steel, Rock, and Ice-types, and with Water-typing, Fire and Ground as well.

-Has surprisingly okay coverage with all moves considered, as well as some nice support moves in Encore, Endeavor, and Hypnosis

-Faster than and has 5 more base Attack than Relicanth; also has better special bulk and isn’t nearly as ugly (still not the most pleasant thing to look at, though)

-Resistances to Fire, Water, Ice, Bug, Rock, Dark, and Steel make for a great switch in overall; this complements its excellent 90/95/90 bulk, allowing it to take hits comfortably well even without investment

-Good offense in 95 Attack and a mediocre but usable 70 Special Attack

-Fast enough in Rain with 70 speed, outspeeding ScarfLele on a Neutral nature and Unburden Neutral speed Drifblim on Positive

CONS

x-It competes heavily with Golduck and Relicanth (mostly Golduck)

x-Water/Fighting, while it has its pros, also has its problems, much like Keldeo in OU. You will be blocked by Parasect, Tentacruel, Slowbro, Slowking, Gyarados, Starmie, Dragonite, Mantine, Pelipper, Salamence, Whimsicott, Trevenant, Decidueye, Primarina, Toxapex, Araquanid, Shiinotic, Golisopod, Bruxish, Dhelmise, Tapu Bulu, and Tapu Fini. You’re also just generally going to struggle against bulky waters. This is a MASSIVE amount of Pokemon that can take your STAB hits and respond back, and this doesn’t speak well offensively, even with the other coverage moves you get.

x-Your moves, overall, have lower BP than other Pokemon despite the good Attack stat. This is soooooo disappointing. It really needs move tutoring ASAP.

x-After Water/Fighting coverage, you get stuck in 4-Moveslot Syndrome. You really want Protect, but you also want Poison/Ground/Rock/Ice coverage and access to Encore, Haze, and Hypnosis. That’s just not going to happen.

x-The coverage is really an issue, as, depending on if and what you utilize, something is always going to hardwall your sweep. This isn’t the biggest issue ever, since Kartana and Tapu Koko have this problem, too (although in fairness, Koko has Electric Terrain and Kartana base 181 Attack), but you’re going to really need your teammates to work well.

x-Also, not having Ice Punch means that, if you want Ice coverage, you need to use the much weaker Ice Beam thanks to your Special Attack stat. That sucks.

x-Being a Water-type entails weaknesses to Electric and Grass, two already big threats in the metagame and in Rain; as a Fighting-type, you also need to look out for Tapus + Fairies, Flying, and Psychic types and moves

x-Without a Tailwind or especially Rain, it sits at a really awkward speed tier and becomes really subpar (this applies to Golduck, but not Relicanth, who doesn’t really give a damn and flies right into Trick Room) => he has one non-Rain reliant set, but, even with that set, you’d still rather go with a Rain one

x-Hurt by Intimidate, particularly by Gyarados, who can take everything but Rock Slide (even then, it can take it after an Intimidate)

BASIC INFO

Spoiler

POKEMON: Poliwrath

TYPE/S: Water / Fighting

ABILITIE/S: Water Absorb, Damp, HA: Swift Swim

HP: 90

ATTACK: 95

DEFENSE: 95

SPECIAL: 70

SPECIAL DEFENSE: 90

SPEED: 70

IMPORTANT MOVES: Circle Throw, Hypnosis, Toxic, Bulk Up, Ice Beam, Protect, Rain Dance, Earthquake, Brick Break, Rock Tomb, Facade, Thief, Low Sweep, Bulldoze, Rock Slide, Poison Jab, Sleep Talk, Substitute, Waterfall, Splash, Haze, Encore, Endeavor

ANALYSIS

You need to make sure that your team really calls for Poliwrath and that you’re dedicated to using him, as, depending on how you want to utilize him, there’s probably a much better Pokemon out there. Use Poliwrath for what makes it unique, as he’s a very niche Pokemon depending on what set to use. He will more or less play like Relicanth and Golduck, but will be able to take a lot more hits and hit a lot more things for damage, as well as give you some really cool options to utilize.

USUAL ROLES

Bar one set, you’re going to only see this on Rain teams. You can choose to play more offensively or more defensively, depends on your playstyle. Poliwrath has some versatility.

Alrighty, let’s DIVE right in, shall we? *ba dum tsh* … You guys aren’t sick of me yet, right?

SETS

Swift Swim Sweeper

Spoiler

Poliwrath @ Fightnium-Z, Waterium-Z, Poisinium-Z, Life Orb, King’s Rock

Ability: Swift Swim

Level: 50

EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 244 Spe

Adamant Nature

- Waterfall

- Brick Break / Circle Throw

- Poison Jab / Encore / Ice Beam / Rock Slide / Haze / Substitute / Earthquake

- Protect

Adamant because you really don’t need to outspeed all the way up to Drifblim as you’ll make a lot more use out of the extra fire-(or should I say water)-power. Max attack, speed to get you all the way up to ScarfLele in Rain, and the rest in HP for extra bulk.

Now, Poliwrath has quite a movepool to pick from, so get ready for some tough decisions. Your first mandatory move will be Waterfall. STAB Water in rain is a must. Second, you need to pick your Fighting-move. Unfortunately, you’re stuck with Brick Break and Circle Throw (Submission has low accuracy, okay BP, and recoil- terrible). Brick Break is okay at 75 BP, has 100% accuracy, and has the benefit of breaking screens and Aurora Veil. Circle Throw is 90% accurate with 60 BP, but you’ll be able to shuffle around your opponent if you end up with a bad match up. Plus, this’ll piss off your opponent by shuffling off a potential counter. Think about what you want more very carefully. If you would prefer to have Submission for Z-Move purposes, go right ahead, but the 5 extra BP really isn’t worth it for that bad of a move.

Third, you’ve got your plethora of moves. Soooo many options. Poison Jab is excellent for rounding out your coverage and letting you smack Fairies upside the head. Encore works well with screwing over anyone who wants to set-up and can be quite irritating, yet helpful if you pull it off at the right moment. Ninetales-Alola is an example of a mostly-offensive Pokemon that excels at that. Ice Beam, should you want it against Garchomp and the like, requires you to go either Naughty or Lonely, and you throw the rest of the EVs in Sp. Atk instead of HP (you could also take some Attack EVs out and relocate it to Sp. Atk to bump up the power, but be wary you’re not trying to make a Golduck out of Poliwrath). Not really as great as your other options, but it’s there. Rock Slide is next, and works well with flinching and striking two opponents, as well as giving you Rock coverage to round everything out. Haze is great for dealing with a set up Pokemon like Snorlax and CM Tapu Fini that you can’t stop or is now an immediate threat. Substitute is there in case you’re okay with the STAB coverage and want a way to hide and annoy the opponent. Finally there’ s EQ, which has excellent coverage alongside what you’ve got now and is a decent spread move.

Then there’s Protect. Because this is VGC and not singles, where we wouldn’t be having as big of an issue with 4MSS.

As for your item, generally, use Fightnium-Z. The STAB power from that will help you nearly knock out Porygon2 and Snorlax and severely damage them (this is assuming you use Brick Break). Waterium-Z is good, too, should you want a Water Z-Move. Poisinium-Z is really interesting for breaking down Tapus and Fairies who think they can screw with you. You outspeed ScarfLele and kill it with that. Life Orb is a good general item to have just to increase Poliwrath’s power. Finally, King’s Rock is there for you spicy nuggets who like to take chances. It’s best to have that if you have both Rock Slide and Waterfall for maximum flinch power. You could also use a berry for healing, but you really want Poliwrath to go all out offensive for this set.

Z-Belly Drum

Spoiler

Poliwrath @ Normalium-Z

Ability: Swift Swim

Level: 50

EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 244 Spe

Adamant Nature

- Waterfall

- Belly Drum / Brick Break / Circle Throw

- Belly Drum / Poison Jab / Encore / Ice Beam / Rock Slide / Haze / Substitute / Earthquake

- Belly Drum / Protect

Very similar to the last set; all that’s changed is, this time, we’re tossing Z-Belly Drum in there. This makes things really difficult, as it was hard enough picking a move last time, now I’m forcing you to throw something out. You absolutely need to keep your Water-move because it’s super strong and hits harder in Rain, so that’s out of the question.

Should you chose to forgo your Fighting-move, you can forget about giving huge damage to Normal-types and Fighting-weak stuff with your STAB. That’s not reconmmended.

Should you forgo a coverage move (I recommend this), you’ll be hard walled by a lot of stuff, but that’s the risk you’re going to need to take. Golduck has this problem, too, but with Water/Ice covereage, and same with Relicanth and his Rock/Water coverage. The only difference is you now have a guaranteed +6 attack coming out to back up your moves.

Finally, you can forgo Protect and play it risky, but you need to remember this: Poliwrath isn’t Snorlax. He’s not healing back health, and he’s staying at 50% unless you’ve got a Heal Pulse or Grassy Terrain up. Being he’s now easier to knock out, Protect is pretty much a necessity to keep you around for a sweep as long as possible.

Normalium-Z is your only item option here in order to have Z-Belly Drum happen. This is slightly outclassed by Snorlax, but because you get insane speed in Rain, there’s a niche.

Z-Hypnosis

Spoiler

Poliwrath @ Psychium-Z

Ability: Swift Swim / Water Absorb

Level: 50

EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe

Adamant Nature

- Hypnosis / Waterfall

- Hypnosis / Brick Break / Circle Throw

- Hypnosis / Poison Jab / Encore / Ice Beam / Rock Slide / Haze / Substitute / Earthquake

- Hypnosis / Protect

Our only non-Rain set, and this is going to throw you for a loop. You can have Water Absorb if you’re more interested in having a Water-immunity and healing from it, but it’s recommended you stick with Swift Swim to stay as fast as possible, especially if Rain happens to come up.

The genius with this set comes with the 100% accurate Hypnosis putting the [crucial] target to sleep while you get a +1 Speed boost. This places your opponent in a bad spot, and even if they have a Lum Berry or Protect that turn, you end up with a Speed Boost. With a Neutral Speed nature and max Speed EVs, you arrive right at max Positive 115 Speed area after the +1. In Rain, if you opt for Swift Swim and have a +1 down, you’ll be the fastest thing on the field at any given time bar something like Max Speed Lycanroc-Midday in Sand or Max Speed Alolan-Raichu on Electric Terrain. With speed ties like that, you know this guy is fast. It’s not recommended to go +Spe Nature as you really don’t need to be any faster than this, and you also need all the power you can get.

Being this doesn’t need to be in Rain, you can opt out of a Water-move and replace any of these with Hypnosis. All of this said, the same decisions and problems you will face with your moveslots will be the same as with Belly Drum. Look back to the Belly Drum and Swift Swim Sweeper, and you’ll have the same advice.

Only thing with item is Psychium-Z is mandatory for Z-Hypnosis to go off. With all that said, consider heavily, if you’d rather have a strong Z-Move coming out of an offensive set from Poliwrath or another Pokemon.

Bulk Up Bruiser

Spoiler

Poliwrath @ Fightnium-Z, Waterium-Z, Poisinium-Z, Life Orb, King’s Rock, Lum Berry, 25% Berry, Sitrus Berry

Ability: Swift Swim

Level: 50

EVs: 252 HP / 84 SDef / 172 Spe

Careful Nature

- Waterfall

- Bulk Up / Brick Break / Circle Throw

- Bulk Up / Poison Jab / Encore / Ice Beam / Rock Slide / Haze / Substitute / Earthquake

- Protect / Substitute

A bit of a change of pace from the others, you opt out of immediate offensive power in order to set up boosts and break through bulkier Pokemon that can withstand your hits. This set also optimizes Poliwrath’s bulk while keeping him ready to punch. With this spread, you should be able to take a number of Special hits, and Physical ones, particularly when you’ve got a boost down. As for the speed, you’ll get up to +Spe Pheromosa, which you can KO with Waterfall. You’re welcome to go Impish and invest the SDef EVs in Atk or Def in order to personalize it better for yourself. My focus on SDef helps keep Porygon2 from getting the dreaded Download boost for Thunderbolt, which you’ll really suffer from if you don’t kill or neuter it promptly.

Waterfall and Swift Swim go hand in hand under Rain, so that’s kept there for the damage. You can have either your second or third slot dedicated to Bulk Up. It’s recommended you pick the STAB Fighting-move and put it in the third slot, but you can opt out of a Fighting-move and choose either coverage or a support move in the third slot. Finally, for the fourth, you can pick between Substitute and Protect. Substitute gives you immunity to status and chances to boost behind a barrier, but Protect provides you with instant immunity without draining your precious HP.

The same advice from the other sets applies here, although this time, remind yourself to use this a little more like Calm Mind Tapu Fini. You don’t absolutely need it to be powerful or a threat, but if you set up, you can make your opponent’s life difficult. You’ve got all the items I’ve told you about before, and the option of Lum Berry to cure status like burns and healing berries to restore your health. Depends how you want to play with Poliwrath. My personal preference is either Fightnium-Z for a super nuke after a boost, or a healing berry to keep you nice and healthy as you boost.

To be perfectly honest, you could probably come up with a better EV spread than this, but this is what I’ve got from my testing and theorizing thus far.

Annoying Bulky Defense

Spoiler

Poliwrath @ Sitrus Berry, 25% Berry, Seeds, Fightnium-Z, Waterium-Z

Ability: Swift Swim

Level: 50

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 60 Def / 20 SDef / 172 Spe

Careful Nature

- Waterfall / Brick Break / Circle Throw

- Encore / Haze

- Poison Jab / Encore / Ice Beam / Rock Slide / Haze / Earthquake / Waterfall / Brick Break / Circle Throw / Toxic / Thief

- Protect

Finally, Politwrath can afford to move away from being full on offensive and utilize a more defensive role. This is a similar spread from the Bulk Up Bruiser, and you can always customize to be a little more physically defensive or offensive. This aims to be more balanced and prevent Porygon2 from getting the Sp. Atk Download boost.

Your first move is your STAB choice of coverage (Fighting-moves recommended). Your second move comes between Encore and Haze, both being excellent support moves, Encore being preferred. Your third move can either be a lot of different things. You can opt for coverage, Haze, Encore, or STAB, but let me go into deeper explanation about the new options. Toxic is excellent for breaking down things you can’t necessarily get to without full power, like Porygon2. Thief, on the other hand, is great for stealing items, particularly berries from Snorlax and defensive Pokemon. My only note there is that if you use Thief, make sure to use a Berry or some other disposable item like Seeds so you can actually steal something.

Finally, Protect is there because this is VGC.

The item is totally up to you. It’s great to have a Z-Move to break stuff down and offer offensive prowess to your team, but it may also be worth your while to pack a berry or seed to increase Poliwrath’s defensive capabilities. This thing can also work without Rain, but it’s preferred that it stays in rain to get the STAB Waterfall boosted and/or get the Swift Swim boost in order to outspeed and annoy.

ALTERNATE STRATEGIES

There’s not really much else I think you can do with Poliwrath, but you’re welcome to try and experiment with other things! Only other things I can say is Rain Dance, and given the 4MSS, you don’t want to waste a turn setting up something an ability or another Pokemon can do. You could also try to utilize Endeavor, but you’re already tied for options and it’ll be rare for you to reach a low enough HP stat to have Endeavor worth using. You can certainly give it a shot, though, as it’s an itneresting option that’s worked on other Pokemon.

HELPING POLIWRATH

First off, have Rain. Politoed and/or Pelipper are mandatory, and you don’t want to really waste time having to use Rain Dance.

Second, have some support against Electric and Grass-types under Rain, such as Flying-types (ex: Salamence), Ground-types (ex: Garchomp), Poison-types (ex: Nihilego and Muk-A), Lightningrod Users (ex: Togedemaru and Marowak-A), Magnezone, and some Fire-types (Arcanine + Snarl Support and Marowak-A can work in rain and support outside of it, too). Gastrodon is also great for opposing rain.

Third, finding a way to opposing weather can be a little tricky. Pelipper and Politoed along with Poliwrath can struggle against all other three weather setters. Torkoal takes little damage from Water-moves under the sun, takes little from Physical-moves bar Rock Slide and Earthquake from Poliwrath, and underspeeds Pelipper/Politoed. Ninetales-A won’t get its weather up, but Freeze Dry can be a pain to deal with, as well as the occassional Moonblast and Encore. You also have Brick Break for breaking down an Aurora Veil that gets up, so there’s a silver lining there. Finally, Gigalith will underspeed and get Sand up. While it’s great Poliwrath hits the Physical side, this is still an uncomfortable situation to be in, and you generally want to save your Z-Move for something else like Porygon2, Snorlax, and Arcanine. Don’t underestimate Gigalith and make sure to play around it or get it off the field quick. With all these weather starters, try to find traditional counters to them and play smart. Arcanine is particularly good for taking little from Torkoal’s moves, having Flare Blitz for Ninetales-A, and having access to Close Combat against Gigalith. Marowak-A is also in a very similar position, albeit stronger but much slower.

Fourth, do you remember the list of Pokemon I had above that resist Poliwrath’s STAB? You better have an answer to every single one of them, particularly the ones that are commonly used.

Parasect: uncommon, taken care of by Flying, Poison, or Fire-types (thanks to x4 weaknesses); your Rock coverage can also help, but be wary of its Dry Skin, which makes it immune to Water

Tentacruel: almost never seen, but an EQ, Psychic-type, or your own Electric-type like Tapu Koko should be good

Slowbro, Slowking, Gyarados, Starmie, Primarina, Toxapex, Araquanid,Golisopod, Bruxish: Electric-types, Kartana, and Bulu should do the trick. Gastrodon also absorbs their Water moves and leaves them hanging with their coverage.

Salamence, Dragonite: The latter is arely seen, but when it does appear, Multiscale is annoying; kill it fast with an Ice Beam, Ice-moves from a teammate, Rock-moves, Fairy-moves, or a Tapu bar Bulu. Salamence has the same weaknesses, but the addition of Intimidate to deal with.

Mantine, Pelipper: Electric-types are your best friend here, but be mindful of yours or the opponent’s Lightningrod users and Ground-types; Freeze-Dry is also good

Trevenant, Decidueye, Dhelmise: Ice-types and Flying-types are great here, as well as Tapus thanks to the great overall damage. Unfortunately, Fire can only do so much for you under Rain. Ghost-types like Mimikyu, Marowak-A, and Gengar help kill them off fast. Their bulk might present an issue, so having something like Celesteela or Arcanine out of rain is also great.

Whimsicott, Shiinotic, Tapu Bulu: A good Poison-move should do the trick. Fire won’t help you under rain, so your next best bets are Ice-moves and Flying-moves. Finally, Steel-moves are a good option, too. Watch out for Spore and Strength Sap from Shiinotic. I’ll get into a future article about how annoying Shiinotic can be in VGC. Taunt is great against Whimsicott, and having Psychic Terrain or a strong/defensive Dark-type in Rain isn’t a bad idea either to help against that.

Tapu Fini: Have some powerful Electric and Grass-types, as well as your own Tapu to remove Misty Terrain if you want to Poison it. This thing is never easy to take down bar having Kartana and Bulu.

As you’re probably seeing as the general theme, try to have your own Electric-type to fight off many of the bulky Water-types. It’s also good to have a Flying or very strong Fire-type to work against the rest. For the Tapus, Poison-types like Gengar, Nihilego, and Muk-A and Steel-types (they get a shoutout for having their Fire weakness weakened in Rain) like Celesteela, Kartana (who helps against opposing Gastrodon), and Magenzone are all very helpful. Tapu Koko especially gets a shoutout for being synergetic with Rain and breaking down Celesteela easily. Bulkier Waters like Tapu Fini also appreciate the rain and can help absorb hits and dish back damage alongside Poliwrath. Just be mindful of the stacking Water weaknesses.

Finally, keep an eye out for opposing Speed control like Tailwind and Trick Room, and be wary of things with Taunt that can screw with Poliwrath’s support moves. Poliwrath appreciates Tailwind in case Rain falters, and having Taunt on your team to screw with the likes of Porygon2 and other bulk-wads is always great.

CONCLUSION

Be sure to give Poliwrath a try to BUBBLE him into the mainstream, and leave a comment below about what you think! *bah dum tsh* If you have any recommendations for future articles or want to let me know where you want to see the direction of these articles go, let me know down below, too!

COMING UP NEXT

a) Who you callin’ a Primadonna? It’s Primarina!

b) Starmie, Shiinotic, and the Spotlight Family

c) Reader Bewear, you’re in for a scare

[13thShade 4,323/5000]

Approved!

@Nitro @Eastonn8

[Guest Eastonn8]

You've inspired me to give Poliwrath a shot. I think the fightinium set is the most viable. But the support set looks really interesting.

Approved!

[Nitro 2,318/3200]

Approved! Great article, Kaikoa.

[N1CK0 275/300]

Good as always! Can you take request for future posts?

[Guest KaikoaVGC]

3 hours ago, Eastonn8 said:

You've inspired me to give Poliwrath a shot. I think the fightinium set is the most viable. But the support set looks really interesting.

Approved!

I'm so glad to hear! :D It's the goal of my articles after all haha

2 hours ago, Nitro said:

Approved! Great article, Kaikoa.

Thank you! :)

1 hour ago, N1CK0 said:

Good as always! Can you take request for future posts?

Thank you!! And of course, lay them on me.

[Guest Wyatt]

very nice, this poke was in day 1 od vgc worlds 17 in a rain team and makes 2 so, good job