Volcarona [QC 1/3]

Gomi

yep
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[Overview]
Volcarona's access to Quiver Dance, powerful stabs, and a great defensive typing when supported by Heavy Duty Boots allows it to be a threatening sweeper in the OU metagame. It is a staple on offensive teams looking for a threatening wincon, as well as bulkier teams looking for a dangerous late game cleaner with valuable defensive utility. Its above average speed tier of 100 and solid typing allows it to consistently generate setup versus popular pokemon such as Melmetal and choice locked Kyurem, with the aforementioned speed tier allowing Volcarona to outspeed every unboosted Pokémon after a Quiver Dance. Adding onto this, Volcarona has an incredible ability in Flame Body that can punish U-turn spam and other contact moves with a game changing burn, forcing your opponent to play carefully in order to not be crippled. Additionally, Volcarona's broad movepool allows it to customize its checks and counters to suit your team's needs, including Safeguard for Blissey and Giga Drain for Tapu Fini. Additionally, Volcarona is capable of using its immense pressure to force in less consistent counterplay such as Urshifu-r, Landorus-T, and Tyranitar and directly attack instead of boosting, setting itself up for a sweep later in the game. Unfortunately, Volcarona is not without its flaws. Most teams currently can easily fit multiple checks to Volcarona, necessitating more support before it can properly sweep, most notably priority, such as Urshifu-Rapid's Aqua Jet, or specially defensive ground types, which can comfortably stomach a hit and retaliate with a Toxic or Earthquake. Furthermore, Volcarona is incapable of touching the most prominent steel in the metagame, Heatran, who can easily dispatch Volcarona by Taunting to prevent Quiver Dances and Toxicing it, necessitating Volcarona's teammates to heavily wear down Heatran in order to win.

[SET]
name: Bulky Quiver Dance
move 1: Quiver Dance
move 2: Flamethrower
move 3: Psychic / Safeguard
move 4: Roost
item: Heavy Duty Boots
ability: Flame Body
nature: Timid
evs: 248 HP / 156 Def / 16 SpA / 88 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
This set of Volcarona's allows it to function as a powerful Sweeping threat while focusing more on its bulk to allow for easier set up. Volcarona's rather unique typing makes it one of the best checks to pokemon such as Melmetal, Specs Kyurem, and Buzzwole, as well as allowing it to more comfortably abuse its contact punishment in Flame Body to cripple pokemon such as Lando-T, Scizor, and Kartana, albeit with extreme caution due to the frequency of Knock Off on these pokemon's movesets. By virtue of its increased bulk, Volcarona can also set up far more comfortably on many pokemon, including but not limited to Slowbro, Scarf Kartana, and Tapu Koko. While on the topic if this set's increased bulk, the Evs of this set allow Volcarona to stomach a Choice Banded Crawdaunt's Aqua Jet from Full while still outspeeding Zeraora after a Quiver Dance. The evs allocated to Special attack allow Volcarona to always OHKO Rillaboom unboosted, which can be useful for avoiding crippling +2 Knock Offs. Volcarona can additionally comfortably change its moveset in order to beat its checks, allowing you to easily pick and choose what your team should focus on overwhelming, with the primary option being Psychic for Toxapex, Urshifu Rapid, and Dragapult. Safeguard is also a viable option, but should be considered with great care due to requiring bountiful team support in order to properly utilize, as it renders Volcarona incapable of handling counterplay such as Urshifu-r and Toxapex by itself, though the tradeoff is potentially worth it as it renders status reliant answers such as Blissey inneffective as answers.

Bulky Volcarona tends to gravitate towards Bulky Teams looking for a win condition with defensive utility against the tier's plentiful Offensive Grass and Ice types. Common teammates include pokemon such as Hippowdon, that can force out Heatran while setting Stealth Rocks, and Toxapex, that can pester many of Volcarona's problematic Matchups, including Dragonite and Urshifu-Rapid. Hazard support in particular is integral to building a successful Bulky Volc team, as Hazards hit nearly all of Volc's most common counterplay, most notably the omnipresent Heatran and Toxapex. Skarmory is a great partner for this reason, setting spikes while additionally checking pokemon such as Garchomp and the aforementioned Dragonite, which Bulkarona will struggle to bypass early on in the match. Additionally, pokemon such as Clefable or Shed Shell Toxapex that can force in Heatran and cripple it via Knock off, or in Clefable's Case, Thunder Wave, can be very effective teammates. Other Heatran lures, such as Tornadus-Therian and Tapu Lele, also make great teammates for this reason, as they consistently force Knock offs or huge damage onto it that Volcarona can capitalize on. When building around Safeguard specifically, one should keep in mind that Toxapex, the most common bulky water in the metagame, will completely shut you down. As such, you should focus on anti Pex lures such as Trick Clef or pokemon that heavily abuse Pex's prescence, such as substitute Kyurem.

[SET]
name: Offensive Quiver Dance
move 1: Quiver Dance
move 2: Flamethrower / Fire Blast
move 3: Psychic
move 4: Bug Buzz / Giga Drain
item: Heavy Duty Boots
ability: Flame Body
nature: Timid
evs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
Offensive Volcarona doubles down on its late game power, losing out on the ease of set up bulk investment allows for in order to brute force checks such as Specially Defensive Ground types, Toxapex, and Garchomp with far more immediacy. The additional moveslot gained by dropping Roost for recovery adds onto this, allowing you to customize your Volcarona even further to beat what the team needs, such as Giga Drain for Tapu Fini and Gastrodon or Bug Buzz for Garchomp, Tyranitar, and Victini. Additionally, Volcarona can use Fire Blast as its main stab, giving up Flamethrower's consistency in order to break past checks such as Landorus-Therian and Unaware Clefable, notably 2hkoing Unaware Clef on the switch and picking off weakened Spdef Landos at around 60%, potentially saving your sweep. Psychic is needed in order to hit the most prominent bulky water in the tier, Toxapex, as well as common Pokemon such as Urshifu and Dragapult.

Offensive Volcarona tends to gear itself towards offensive teams looking for a late game win condition. It pairs very well with pokemon such as Tapu Lele and Weavile, who can force consistent chip onto its checks for a late game sweep, such as Heatran. Garchomp and Kartana can also pair quite well due to abusing Volcarona's checks with set up oppurtunities, including Toxapex and Tapu Fini. Pokemon that appreciate Volcarona's contact punishment in Flame Body and great resistances such as Ice, Grass, and Steel also make for great teammates, such as Dragonite having a burn forced onto Melmetal. Hazard support from great suicide leads such as Heatran, Mixed Garchomp, and Mew can also be beneficial. Mew specifically should be singled out, due to its access to Spikes, which heavily punish a majority of Offensive Volcarona's counterplay. Pokemon that force in opposing Pokemon that Volcarona can abuse for set up are also great partners, such as Melmetal or Weavile forcing in Skarmory. Solid Heatran fallbacks are also generally appreciated, such as Dragons like Dragonite or Offensive Waters like Urshifu-Rapid.

[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
====

Fiery Dance is a possible alternative stab option for either of the sets listed above, allowing Volcarona to more easily snowball. This is most notably useful in matchups versus teams that stack checks to Volcarona, such as Urshifu alongside Spdef Lando, allowing you to potentially overwhelm both. However, Flamethrower's higher PP and Fire Blast's significantly higher burst damage are much preferred, as the boosts gathered rarely end up mattering in comparison.

Substitute also exists as an option on Volcarona that negates priority as counterplay while allowing it to mess with pokemon that rely on Toxic to beat it consistently, such as Hippowdon and Tankchomp. While these benefits can be alluring, be aware that it removes a coverage slot from Volcarona, forcing it to rely more on its teammates to beat pokemon such as Garchomp and depriving it of Roost as an option for consistent recovery.
Checks and Counters
====

**Heatran**: Heatran completely blanks every move Volcarona can use and easily dispatches it with the combination of Toxic and Taunt, which is made worse by Heatran's very high usage. Volcarona is entirely reliant on teammates in order to work around Heatran, and great care should be taken in the builder to ensure Heatran can be heavily weakened or KO'd by synergestic teammates with relative ease.

**Specially Bulky Pokemon** Specially Bulky Pokemon like Tyranitar and Blissey can easily stomach several hits from Volcaronas lacking the proper coverage, and retaliate by either KOing or heavily crippling it. Toxapex in particular should be noted due to its high usage and ability to stomach any hit from a boosted Volcarona and cut its sweep short with Toxic. Specially defensive ground types such as Hippowdon and Landorus can function Similarly, eating any boosted hit and responding by cutting its sweep short with Toxic.

**Priority** Powerful, super effective priority such as Urshifu Rapid and Crawdaunt's Aqua Jet can ignore Volcarona's speed boost and KO it with ease, though the Bulky set can fare better versus these, as it can stomach an Aqua Jet at high health.

**Bulky Offensive Threats** Pokemon such as Dragonite, Victini, and Garchomp can eat a hit from Volcarona at high health and retaliate with either a KO or heavy damage. Dragonite in particular should be noted due to its troublesome combination of Heavy Duty Boots to ignore hazard damage, Multiscale to eat any hit, and Dual Wingbeat to KO Volcarona easily, though Volc can at least cripple Dragonite in return with Flame Body.

[CREDITS]
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Last edited:

airfare

is a Tutoris a Tiering Contributoris a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
OUPL Champion
[Overview]
Volcarona's access to Quiver Dance, powerful stabs, and a great defensive typing when supported by Heavy Duty Boots allows it to be a threatening sweeper in the OU metagame. It is a staple on offensive teams looking for a threatening wincon or bulkier teams looking for a check to several offensive threats that can pose a threatening late game prescence. phrase this better Its above average speed tier of 100 and solid typing allows it to consistently generate setup versus popular pokemon such as Melmetal and choice locked Kyurem, with the aforementioned speed tier allowing Volcarona to outspeed every unboosted Pokémon after a Quiver Dance. Additionally, Volcarona's broad movepool allows it to customize its checks and counters to suit your team's needs, including Safeguard for Blissey and Giga Drain for Tapu Fini. Unfortunately, Volcarona is not without its flaws. add more about the base defensive utility in checking kart melm kyu & flame body for tactical punishes of contact moves & uturns. an interesting aspect of volc is also how it affects your opponent's gameplan - ppl can often panic when they see it come in and let you take out their lando/watershifu/cbtar/whatever other soft check without even having to boost Most teams currently can easily fit multiple checks to Volcarona, necessitating more support before it can properly sweep, most notably priority, such as Urshifu-Rapid's Aqua Jet, or specially defensive ground types, which can comfortably stomach a hit and retaliate with a Toxic or Earthquake. Furthermore, Volcarona is incapable of touching the most prominent steel in the metagame, Heatran, who can easily dispatch Volcarona by Taunting to prevent Quiver Dances and Toxicing it, necessitating Volcarona's teammates to heavily wear down Heatran in order to win.

[SET]
name: Bulky Quiver Dance
move 1: Quiver Dance
move 2: Flamethrower
move 3: Psychic / Safeguard / Bug Buzz believe we talked abt this earlier
move 4: Roost
item: Heavy Duty Boots
ability: Flame Body
nature: Timid
evs: 248 HP / 156 Def / 16 SpA / 88 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
This set of Volcarona's allows it to function as a powerful Sweeping threat while focusing more on its defensive utility. i wouldn't necessarily call it "defensive utility" as much as just "bulk" - volc is using this investment to set up safely more than it is to provide actual defense imo (although the two go hand in hand) Volcarona's rather unique typing makes it one of the best checks to pokemon such as Melmetal, Specs Kyurem, and boosted threats such as Weavile and Kartana that the metagame has to offer, although the latter two should be handled with caution as Knock Off is a staple of their movesets and could potentially cripple Volcarona for the rest of the game. volc does not check boosted weav. even kart is a stretch but if you mean like a +1 scarf kart then sure By virtue of its increased bulk, Volcarona can also set up far more comfortably on many pokemon, including but not limited to Slowbro, Kartana, and Tapu Koko. While on the topic if this set's increased bulk, the Evs of this set allow Volcarona to stomach a Choice Banded Crawdaunt's Aqua Jet from Full while still outspeeding Zeraora after a Quiver Dance. The evs allocated to Special attack allow Volcarona to always OHKO Rillaboom from Full unboosted, which can be useful for avoiding crippling +2 Knock Offs. Volcarona can additionally comfortably change its moveset in order to beat its checks, allowing you to easily pick and choose what your team should focus on overwhelming, with the primary options being Psychic for Toxapex, Urshifu Rapid, and Dragapult or Safeguard for invalidating Blissey and other passive status reliant walls as counterplay. should mention that safeguard usually requires a lot more team support (and elaborate below) Bug Buzz also exists as an alternative to these 2 options, but is largely inferior due to hitting less of the tier overall, mostly just Garchomp and Slowking-Johto, while being entirely ineffective against common checks such as Toxapex.

Bulky Volcarona tends to gravitate towards Bulky Teams looking for a win condition with defensive utility against the tier's plentiful Offensive Grass and Ice types. Common teammates include pokemon such as Hippowdon, that can force out Heatran while setting Stealth Rocks, and Toxapex, that can pester many of Volcarona's problematic Matchups, including Dragonite and Urshifu-Rapid. Hazard support in particular is integral to building a successful Bulky Volc team, as Hazards hit nearly all of Volc's most common counterplay, most notably the omnipresent Heatran. Skarmory is a great partner for this reason, setting spikes while additionally checking pokemon such as Garchomp and the aforementioned Dragonite, which Bulkarona will struggle to bypass early on in the match. can mention some more tran lures like lele/torn Additionally, pokemon such as Clefable or Shed Shell Toxapex that can force in Heatran and cripple it via Knock off, or in Clefable's Case, Thunder Wave, can be very effective teammates. this is where u should mention safeguard & its unique team support

[SET]
name: Offensive Quiver Dance
move 1: Quiver Dance
move 2: Flamethrower / Fire Blast
move 3: Psychic
move 4: Bug Buzz / Giga Drain
item: Heavy Duty Boots
ability: Flame Body
nature: Timid
evs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]
Offensive Volcarona doubles down on its late game power, losing out on the ease of set up and defensive utility bulk investment allows for in order to brute force checks such as Specially Defensive Ground types, Toxapex, and Garchomp with far more immediacy. The additional moveslot gained by dropping Roost for recovery adds onto this, allowing you to customize your Volcarona even further to beat what the team needs, such as Giga Drain for Tapu Fini and Gastrodon or Bug Buzz for Garchomp, Tyranitar, and Victini. Additionally, Volcarona can use Fire Blast as its main stab, giving up Flamethrower's consistency in order to break past checks such as Landorus-Therian and Unaware Clefable. specific notable calcs? Psychic is needed in order to hit the most prominent bulky water in the tier, Toxapex, as well as common Pokemon such as Urshifu and Dragapult.

Offensive Volcarona tends to gear itself towards offensive teams looking for a late game win condition. It pairs very well with pokemon such as Tapu Lele and Weavile, who can force consistent chip onto its checks for a late game sweep, such as Heatran. Garchomp and Kartana can also pair quite well due to abusing Volcarona's checks with set up oppurtunities, including Toxapex and Tapu Fini. Hazard support from great suicide leads such as Heatran, Mixed Garchomp, and Mew can also be beneficial. Mew specifically should be singled out, due to its access to Spikes, which heavily punish a majority of Offensive Volcarona's counterplay. Pokemon that force in opposing Pokemon that Volcarona can abuse for set up are also great partners, such as Melmetal or Weavile forcing in Skarmory. Solid Heatran fallbacks are also generally appreciated, such as Dragons like Dragonite or Offensive Waters like Urshifu-Rapid. should mention what volc gives to offense with flame body & defensive typing giving an ice/grass resist

[STRATEGY COMMENTS]
Other Options
====

Fiery Dance is a possible alternative stab option for either of the sets listed above, allowing Volcarona to more easily snowball. This is most notably useful in matchups versus teams that stack checks to Volcarona, such as Urshifu alongside Spdef Lando, allowing you to potentially overwhelm both. However, Flamethrower's higher PP and Fire Blast's significantly higher burst damage are generally much preferred, as the boosts gathered rarely end up mattering in comparison. "generally" implies that there's a use case for fiery dance when there really isn't unless ur using god harden

mention sub (that giga drain shit that gama used?)


Checks and Counters
====

**Heatran**: Heatran completely blanks every move Volcarona can use and easily dispatches it with the combination of Toxic and Taunt, which is made worse by Heatran's very high usage. Volcarona is entirely reliant on teammates in order to work around Heatran, and great care should be taken in the builder to ensure Heatran can be heavily weakened or KO'd by synergestic teammates with relative ease.

**Specially Bulky Pokemon** Specially Bulky Pokemon like Tyranitar and Blissey can easily stomach several hits from Volcaronas lacking the proper coverage, and retaliate by either KOing or heavily crippling it. Toxapex in particular should be noted due to its high usage and ability to stomach any hit from a boosted Volcarona and cut its sweep short with Toxic. Specially defensive ground types such as Hippowdon and Landorus can function Similarly, eating any boosted hit and responding by cutting its sweep short with Toxic.

**Priority** Powerful, super effective priority such as Urshifu Rapid and Crawdaunt's Aqua Jet can ignore Volcarona's speed boost and KO it with ease, though the Bulky set can fare better versus these, as it can stomach an Aqua Jet at high health.

**Bulky Offensive Threats** Pokemon such as Dragonite, Victini, and Garchomp can eat a hit from Volcarona at high health and retaliate with either a KO or heavy damage. Dragonite in particular should be noted due to its troublesome combination of Heavy Duty Boots to ignore hazard damage, Multiscale to eat any hit, and Dual Wingbeat to KO Volcarona easily, though Volc can at least cripple Dragonite in return with Flame Body.

[CREDITS]
- Written by: [[username1, userid1]]
- Quality checked by: [[username1, userid1], [username2, userid2], [username3, userid3]] do this
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