How GOOD was Volcarona ACTUALLY? - History of Volcarona in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 5-7)

[Music] what's up everybody thanks to you the viewers for voting today we actually have our first Gen 5 Pokemon here on false wipe gaming and surprisingly it's not one of the starters although we'll probably get to that I'm sure nope because this time we have Volcarona this solar deity has been revered since it debuted in generation 5 where you find it while exploring some ruins while also chasing Team Plasma now it's based on many things but mostly the Atlas moth and as a result has drawn cross franchise comparisons to Godzilla's mighty Mothra today though we're gonna see how Volcarona functioned within the competitive scene so as we always ask how good was Volcarona actually and in this video we'll be going over these competitive formats the first thing that stands out about Volcarona is it's astounding Special Attack stat alongside one of the best boosting moves in the game quiver dance day one it seemed like the most broken thing on the planet as it just mow through entire teams after a single dance but as the black and white meta game evolved it became clear that Volcarona was probably the most hit or miss pokemon in the entire tier as it had a litany of issues the next thing that stands out of course is its equally astounding quadruple weakness to stealth rock which basically requires the use of rapid spin and predicates Volcarona z' ability to do anything on the success of pulling a spin-off which could be tough given how good Jellison was luckily the spinners were quite powerful in black and white and sun teams also sometimes packed magic bounce Espeon or za2 for further support alongside Dugtrio to completely deny the most common stealth rocker Tyranitar whose massive bulk on defensive sets meant it could even take a plus-one bug buzz at high health Volcarona was also amazing in the Sun because of its super jacked-up Morning Sun recovery Volcarona wasn't just relegated to sun teams though it worked well on sand teams which of course had the amazing Knight unblockable excadrill but sadly Volcarona took a hit once excadrill was banned boki starmie was a decent replacement but it wasn't anywhere near as reliable as excadrill Volcarona surprise I even found use on rain with its access to hurricane and boosted hidden power water providing good coverage for Dragonite Jellison Taraki on and he trained having the amazing Tentacruel around to spin for it didn't hurt either however Volcarona x' issues were not entirely related to stealth rock first of all it had terrible coverage issues after its two stabs of fire and bug it had to choose between hidden power ground or hidden power ice which is basically the choice between hitting specially defensive Heatran and Tentacruel or Dragonite which was huge plus it still struggled against Jellison now this was slightly amended once it received Giga Drain in black and white - well while I was now better at crushing waters especially Jellison and the nuke l do this didn't do much in the way of heat ran Dragonite and guard shop it also couldn't run every item it wanted to and it wanted a lot for example it wanted Lum berry to take care of status from Pokemon it would prefer to set up on instead like Ferrothorn Jirachi and amoonguss since it didn't have room to set up on much else it also desired Paschal berry for the various water moves in the rain infested metagame or bug gem to cleave through Tyranitar and Garchomp with bug bus after a quiver dance finally though its base 100 speed was solid and outran the incredibly popular choice car Flanders tea after a boost but it unfortunately could not outrun two of the other best car furs in the tier which were Garchomp and Keldeo who in addition to hitting it really hard with their stab attacks also packed the bulk and resistances to swish into it if need be even me and Shou eventually popped up as a useful scarf er thanks to its speed above 100 rock moves u-turn and regenerator but it was mostly that above 100 speed that let it act as a true Volcarona checked now as for Volcarona upsides besides the ones that we've already mentioned common defense of sand teams often folded to it outright as did many offensive sand teams that use Lander steering as the scarf er rain offence teams that use scarf politoed were often dead in the water and Volcarona was just nightmarish against sun teams plus later in black and white to excadrill was unbend so long as it didn't have sand rush so spinning options opened up of course if Volcarona ran into rain what scarf keldeo on the opposing team it wouldn't do much and the same goes for sand teams with scarf khaldiya or chomp and rain stall teams with chancy were just a movable Volcarona was so polarizing that it was dubbed the matchup mock for its ability to either completely dominate a team very often from the beginning of the game or just be utterly useless but in either case though it certainly left its mark on the black and white oh you meta game in Gen 5 VGC since hazards and of course stealth rock just aren't a thing it's no surprise that Volcarona is excellent it's a fire-type that isn't weak to ground which can be crucial in the face of earthquake and of course abuses its signature quiver dance suppose one of the largest threats in the meta game it's spread heat waves slamming both opposing Pokemon makes it even more terrifying it partners terrifically with hitmontop as its stab bug buzz destroys psychics and hitmontop can fake out and white guard the latter protecting against dangerous rock slides so Volcarona can boost and attack unscathed plus it often runs focus - so that it can take one hit in a pinch and that one hit can be all the difference though Lum berry can be similarly key against Amulius esporte and thunder risks Thunder Wave and chardee berry can be useful for rockslides especially since Tyranitar sand couldn't gates ash and despite being a fire-type Volcarona x' domination of grass types means it fits well on rain teams plus Volcarona doesn't necessarily need to boost to be a threat and sub teams forget this doing all they can to prevent the quiver dance only to be melted when a straight-up attacks them especially with fire gem and overheat from maximum power and of course thanks to gems a fire gem boosted +1 heat wave could incinerate both opposing pokemons finally Volcarona can support its teammates as well using rage powder to draw attacks towards itself it's a varied immensely powerful threat and that's why it saw such high usage and Volcarona was such a big threat in the black and white VGC meta game that's a save on time for this video we're gonna be limiting the placements for this videos to top eight of Nationals only and of course top eight of worlds and I apologize if I butcher any of your names for Gen 5 Gen 6 engine 7 spoilers Hayden morrison reached 2nd at the san jose regionals zach drug comp juan fort wayne and madison regionals randy kua AKA are inanimate reached top eight at the canadian regionals and henry m reached top 4 of worlds in the cedars division then in 2013 CEO Huang young reached top 4 at the Korean nationals Paul hora de cretes top 4 at the Utah regionals Devon Ingram reach 2nd at the US Nationals and Michael's Wanda US Nationals with Volcarona and Barry Anderson top cut all three European nationals with it well joy tepee reached top four of the Italian Nationals and Benkei won the UK nationals with it then at Worlds in the Masters division mathias helmet reached eight with it while Ben gold received fourth and then in the seniors division Kamryn Swan reached third with it at world so as you can see Volcarona was quite the powerful threat in Gen 5 VGC the defog buff was enormous for Volcarona in Gen 6 giving it an extra tool for removing stealth rock the lack of permanent weather was also a massive change as Volcarona definitely appreciated not being permanently chipped by sandstorm and thankfully rain nearly completely fell out of the picture then in omega ruby and alpha sapphire Volcarona even gained excellent magic bounce users as teammates like mega diancie and mega Sableye to further assist in the anti stealth rock effort bulky Starmie and extra gel also made fine spinners preying on common stealth rockers like heatran and co fable respectively and being twice as useful with the ansi support this made Voltron a more consistent as a whole and less of a matchup Pokemon now sure it did gain checks most notably the fellow quadruple stealth rock weak talonflame but when Volcarona wasn't as boom or bust as in the previous generation it wasn't so necessary to pray that counters - it just wouldn't show up since it could take its time to remove them as the metagame shifted more and more too bulky spiking teams with Ferrothorn Slowbro and Keldeo mega Metagross offense thanks to both styles consistency Volcarona shown as it excelled against both teams especially with how popular scarf Magnezone was meaning that by partnering up with Ferrothorn it could easily be baited into locking into HP fire allowing Volcarona to come in and set up Ferrothorn also came with a bonus of forcing specs Kel deal to lock into secret sword again for Volcarona to set up plus in this generation scarf errs faster than Volcarona were really weak against the rest of the metagame with the exception of latias who couldn't come close to KO in Volcarona and risk death upon entry especially if Volcarona was staring down a slow bro Volcarona also ran Lum berry more than any other item so Thunder Wave clefable and toxic heat ran weren't a problem and to be honest it didn't really long for any other items it was a tremendous pokemon that no one lacking chancy wanted to face and what the generational shifts Volcarona now possessed the overall consistency and previously lacked now as for Gen 6 VGC unfortunately Gen 6 saw gems done away with and Volcarona didn't exist in 2014 but in 2015 it did come back the next year pulling its usual tricks similar to VGC 2013 but unfortunately the presence of talonflame and the monstrous mega salamence greatly impeded it so its usage went down some it also had fierce competition as a fire-type with heat random mega Charizard y however it was still a decently solid meta game presence dominating the many common grasses and steals with moveset variety to spare and its resistance to the new fairy type was terrific in fact though Heatran was generally preferred overall especially on the chalk core what set Volcarona apart from Heatran was its flame body ability and bug typing flame body came in handy versus physical threats especially against the terrifying mega Kangaskhan one of the most dominant Pokemon in v GC 2015 since mega kings ability makes it attack twice this gives kangaskhan a 51 percent chance of being burned by flame body Volcarona x' bug typing also helped because mega kangaskhan often carried power of punch which Volcarona resists Volcarona can even survive at least one double edge or return from mega king and some players rant stuff like Sitrus berry on it to make up for the health loss or a rocky helmet to punish the double attacks Volcarona also had the option to use rage powder to actively redirect Kangaskhan or other physical attackers attacks lastly though much like Volcarona Heatran also did well versus aegislash but Heatran would struggle versus landers t Volcarona is able to outspeed Landers key and do a lot of damage with flamethrower if you ran flamethrower overheat with a +1 max special attack Volcarona has a 68% chance to one-hit ko Landers T and because of all this and being a pretty good alternative the Heatran Volcarona of course saw a great amount of usage in fact the save on time we limited the placements to top eight for 2015 with Volcarona ammo bomb and aya bomb reached third and fourth respectively at the indonesian premier challenge Luis Miguel Hernandez reach six at the Mexico City regionals Dani hem Chan and Mike Scylla ski reach fourth of fifth respectively at Massachusetts regionals Kimball Nishimura reach eighth at the Utah regionals Sam Switzer reached eighth at the kansas regionals Brandon Webb at the Australian Nationals then Piercy won the US Nationals B IDC aka Heda Yuki Taita reached top floor at the Japanese nationals and then at Worlds Hideyuki actually managed to reach second using Volcarona in place of he trained his Volcarona carried flamethrower over heatwave a rocky helmet and Giga Drain for common water types in the meta so as you can see Volcarona was quite the force in VG c 2015 then in 2016 the restricted Pokemon came down and Volcarona didn't want anything to do with them so its use has dropped off a cliff however Barry Anderson still managed to reach 7 with it at Worlds using a red card set that also had whirlwind a double phaser that could stave off the incredibly dangerous xerneas thanks to its fire typing resisting his fairy moves while preventing mega Rayquaza or primal Groudon from setting up safely and of course rage powder to redirect the tax Volcarona water also helped its own teammate xerneas to set up a geomancer by either redirecting or phasing Volcarona also beats amoonguss directly if both players have their rage powder user on the field so yeah props to Barry for making it to worlds in VGC 2016 now on to Sun and Moon Z moves made Volcarona even more utterly terrifying the new tox effects seemed like a nice would be counter until a boosted shattered psyche just blew it away tox apec's was a counter at Volcarona issued Z psychic but if proxy pecs was dealt with Volcarona had some other amazing options including fire eum's e to make up for the lack of coverage with Rob power it could also use bug Neum Z on substitute sets that had swarm as its ability to muscle through just about anything with a spectacularly strong savage spin-out Volcarona can even use the 50% pinch berries which would activate to save it from ash greninja water shuriken and also keep it out of range from zygarde extreme speed which was especially useful if Volcarona wanted to grab to quiver dances defog becoming even more widespread with the release of Ultra Sun and Moon was nothing but good news in addition to it being easier to keep stealth rock off than ever before and with so many teams falling back on majora and bulky grasses like top abbulu Ferrothorn and assault vest tangrowth in order to counter ash greninja meant that Volcarona was consistently able to switch in and smoke the opposing team without even needing a boost with the main scar furs in the tier being car Tana and taboo Laila and many teams as chewing scar furs to begin with Volcarona was a massive massive threat terrains also helped it out a ton with psychic terrain blocking annoying priority from greninja zygarde and Megamall while and of course powering up the move psychic which had often carry grassy terrain weakened earthquakes and kept Volcarona healthy and Misty terrain protected Volcarona from status plus the misty terrain center tapu fini was an excellent defogger against Heatran and greninja and could even cause havoc against Volker ona's nemesis chancy and its stall teams with taunt and nature's madness so yeah in generation 7 Volcarona just keeps getting better and better and remains oh you now for Gen 7 VGC Volcarona missed 2017 as a result of not being India Lola Dex but came roaring back with great vengeance and vicious anger in 2018 fiery OMG and pinched berries were obvious excellent choices to compliment as usual quiver dance or rage powder tactics but it could also viably opt for choice scarf thanks to its immediate power making for lots of potential chaos if it could just go first such as against top of Coco it also does particularly well against mega Metagross and Cortana thanks to his resistances rage powder and flame body as well as taboo Laila which it can out speed and destroy at Volcarona scarf as a fire-type though it did get more competition from in sin Aurora as well as Zord y again however compared to Zarb y it's gotten more variety in its item use and support moves it could also hit psychic types really well with its bug bus especially Cresselia who is also strong in this meta the pinch berries helped us more bulky sets with tailwind and/or rage powder to further sustain itself in the support role and whether it was bulky or offensive Volcarona was a monster within the meta game and as such we've limited its placements to top 4 of regionals and of course top 8 of worlds for the sake of time with Volcarona Barry Anderson restart at the Malmo regionals where he also used jinx on his team alongside it Jake says skill swap was used to transfer dry skin to his other teammates for some water proof shenanigans this of course helped Volcarona greatly because it made it immune to water routes and yes I know I missed this placement in the jinx video last week so yeah that's might be anyways Juan Pablos narc won the first Costa Rica special event durian andreas Wynonna's Vallejo Swan de Lima open Emiliano Reyes and Diego Ferreira reach second and fourth respectively at the chill a special event mich Kendrick reached 2nd at the Perth regionals and Matthew Greaves won the Salt Lake City regionals and a rational mati reached six with it at worlds using bug Neum Z on his Volcarona instead of Phi Ramsay this bug neum Z allowed Volcarona to really put the hurt on Cresselia as a savage spin out from this Volcarona at a 37 and a half chance to one-hit kale a max special defense Cresselia so yeah props to mean for his great placement on the biggest stage with Volcarona in VGC 2018 then in 2019 both Coronas uses dropped but it remained a smaller part of the meta game despite the restricted Pokemon dropping in whereas a lesser Pokemon would have completely fallen out of favor in the Sun series as Groudon and Kyogre battled for supremacy in a mega primal and z move less world Melvin can't manage to use Volcarona to reach 7th at the latin-american international championships and once he'll Jung wand the Korean League with it then in the moon series Z moves return and that bolster Volcarona x' usage a good amount with vicious infernal OverDrive's crushing just about anything in the sun width of course rage powder and tailwind being great support as always Justin Burns and James cut sorrows reached third and fourth respectively at Melbourne Jake mid-year one out of collinsville Alvin he D out reached 7th at Brampton while also reaching 5th at Greensboro where Bryan Yom also used Volcarona to reach 4th and Henry rich reached second with Volcarona at Perth so with Volcarona 'he's great usage and damage and weather along with its double support moves so who knows maybe we'll see another Volker on at Worlds I mean that's happened like three times already so yeah and that's it so how good was Volcarona actually well it's gotten monstrous highs and deep lows as you would expect from a quadruple stealth rock weak Pokemon with insane special attack and quiver dance but as you may also expect when there's no stealth rock around aka VGC it becomes even more monstrous and notably more varied in its approach despite its notable weaknesses Volcarona is one of the most powerful pokémon around no matter what the format and well worth supporting as few things are as capable of hitting the field and causing GG to be said shortly after thanks for watching everyone I hope you enjoyed our first look at a Gen 5 Pokemon and as always if you liked the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to false wipe gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and for the comments of course I want to know what do you guys think about competitive vote Rhona do you like how high it's variance is depending on what matchups are present whatever it is let me know in the comments also thank you so much to our patrons for continued support of our videos and thank you to everyone else watching as well and followed by crew on these social media platforms and that's all I got see you next time everyone

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 865,994

Keywords: pokemon, Volcarona, Lavesta, Pokemon black, Pokemon white, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Ultra sun, Ultra Moon, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming, Stealth Rocks

Id: ORkvhNRc_ic

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/YOUREABOT]

People act like gen 5 wasn't even a thing. Gen 5 got one mega evolution

[u/DarkSage90]

I love how this is worded as if it’s been like 20 years since this gen came out lol

[u/Falchion_Punch]

Volcarona has always been super fun to use, as long as you can keep stealth rocks away. Quiver Dance is ridiculous, and Flame Body deters physical priority moves like Shadow Sneak and Extremespeed that would circumvent its Speed boosts and attack its low Def.