Type: Grass/Fighting
Stats: 91/90/72/90/128/108 (580 BST)
Abilities: Justified
Noteworthy Moves
Status:
- Swords Dance
- Calm Mind
- Taunt
- Synthesis
- Close Combat
- Leaf Blade
- Stone Edge
- Zen Headbutt
- Upper Hand
- Trailblaze
- Leaf Storm, Grass Knot, Energy Ball, Giga Drain
- Focus Blast, Aura Sphere
- Vacuum Wave
- Air Slash
- Virizion has high Base Power STAB moves and setup on both sides of the attacking spectrum, making it a versatile threat.
- Its dual STAB is complemented decently by Stone Edge on physical sets, or Air Slash on special sets.
- Virizion has a good Speed stat and the means to act even faster, either via boosting its speed with STAB Trailblaze or via priority in the form of Vacuum Wave.
- Virizion's fantastic Special Defense and resistance to a lot of common attacks, notably including the EdgeQuake combination, affords it many setup opportunities.
- Virizion has very mediocre offensive stats that can leave it unable to secure many KOs, even after multiple boosts.
- While its Speed stat is good, it's rather lacking by OU standards these days.
- Virizion has to get very creative to not be walled by Gholdengo in an OU context.
- Certain Poison-type and Flying-type Pokémon can give Virizion issues in spite of its coverage options, especially for Calm Mind sets.
- Virizion has several common and harmful weaknesses, notably including a quad weakness to Flying.
Tera Potential
- Rock is a surprisingly great Tera type for Virizion. Defensively, it provides resistances to three of Virizion's six weaknesses in Flying, Fire, and Poison and takes neutral damage from the rest, while Rock's own weaknesses are covered fantastically by Grass/Fighting. Offensively, Stone Edge or Tera Blast Rock pairs with Virizion's STABs to hit all available Pokemon for neutral damage other than Gholdengo, Hisuian Sneasel, and the Croagunk line.
- Ghost obviously pairs well with Fighting STAB, letting Virizion hit every Pokémon for at least neutral damage with its STAB moves, and drops all of Virizion's weaknesses in the process. As it allows Virizion to hit Gholdengo for supereffective damage, this may be your best option in OU.
- Poison is of interest on more defensive setup sets, providing a resistance to Fairy and an immunity to Toxic while only maintaining Virizion's weakness to Psychic.
Swords Dance
Virizion @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
Tera Type: Rock / Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Trailblaze / Leaf Blade
- Stone Edge / Tera Blast
Switch Virizion in on something, probably a Ground-type, and click Swords Dance. Then try and win! Life Orb is practically required to help counteract Virizion's poor Attack stat. Trailblaze enables more sweeping opportunities, but if you'd prefer to break bulky Pokémon better then Leaf Blade might be worth a try. As previously mentioned, Stone Edge provides very good complementary coverage, and does solid damage when boosted by Tera Rock. Tera Ghost Tera Blast is not as strong, but its coverage can be fantastic, especially in an OU context. Stone Edge sets will need help from teammates to get through Gholdengo.
Bulky Calm Mind
Virizion @ Leftovers
Ability: Justified
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 248 Def / 8 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Calm Mind
- Taunt
- Synthesis / Aura Sphere / Air Slash
Another Tera Poison setup sweeper in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet? How exciting. This one has fast Taunt and a STAB Giga Drain too which is kinda interesting I guess, you can probably Taunt your way through the Unawares if you support it well.
Choice Specs
Virizion @ Choice Specs
Ability: Justified
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leaf Storm
- Focus Blast
- Vacuum Wave
- Tera Blast
Probably the best way to make use of Vacuum Wave. You should probably be using Keldeo instead, especially for this set, but you can switch this in on Earthquakes I guess?
Conclusion
Virizion is absolutely going to the lower tiers- it's not strong enough or defensively adept enough, leaving it with no role to really excel in. Tera does help solve a lot of its issues though, especially in tiers without Gholdengo where Tera Rock SD could genuinely be quite threatening. I'm interested to see where it ends up!
