(Disclaimer: Heya,quick note here.I am now doing Pokemon reviews every 10 days! Hope you guys like the extra content!)

I said it before,and i'll say it again: "Bug types are a dying breed."

The bug types have never,ever been used competitively until gen 4.Which was when this guy *Points down* Started getting popular.


While scizor was introduced in gen 2,they never started getting played competitively until gen 4.This was due to Scizor being an extremely powerful tank,that could stay in the battle for a very,very long time.And due to Scizor,the bug types actually started getting some use.

People started using Heracross,after figuring out that it was a very powerful glass cannon.Forretress was used as an effective wall.And gen 5 introduced Genesect,the first bug type legendary pokemon,and it was actually good! But enough of the history of other bug types,lets get into the Pokemon that we are going to be talking about today.

This one,Volcarona.


When Volcarona was first introduced,it was used heavily in competitive play and normal play alike.This was due to its most popular,and still most popular set: Quiver Dance.A very powerful move that boosted special attack,special defense,and speed.All you had to do was get 1-2 of these in,and you could take on a variety of Pokemon.

Sure,Volcarona was no Scizor,but statistically,it was in the top 5 most used bug type Pokemon,and it was in the top 20 most used Pokemon for the first 6 months of gen 5's release (According to Smogon that is.)
However,this is when it started to go downhill for out little Mothra.

Who here knows about a little move,called Stealth Rock? Yeah,that move screwed over Volcarona,hard! After people started to fill there teams with at least one Stealth Rock user,Volcarona started to get dropped from teams.In fact,after 2 more months,Volcarona's pick rates dropped by approximately 20%. And that number grew,and grew.Eventually it slowly started to go away.And in gen 6,Volcarona currently rest in the BL (Borderline) tier.A.K.A,that means that its just mediocre enough to sit the middle.Not good enough to be higher tier,but decently good enough to be used by loyalist who will use this Pokemon despite its flaws.

And now that that long winded introduction is over,i'd say its about time we get into this.Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to Pokemon Reviews,and this week: Volcarona.Lets get started.

Moveset,and Leveling Experiences
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*Sigh* Don't you love gimmicky Pokemon that take a LONG time to evolve,so the game can try to make you feel like you actually did something important? Yeah that's Volcarona.

Volcarona takes an insane amount of time to evolve,reaching its evolution at level 59.And as you may have guessed,its a very slow,very boring process.But enough about that,lets get to the moveset
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Right when your little Mothra hatches,it will already know Ember and String Shot...I think we all know what to do,just spam Ember.

At level 10 you will learn Leech life.A low damage bug type move that deals a base damage of 20,and has 100% accuracy.50% of the damage you deal to the target,will restore health.This move sucks.It's much better for you to burn your enemies to cinder,then use this.But there's really no point in me telling you this,because you're forced to learn it anyway.

Level 20 gives you a surprisingly good move.Take Down.A physical normal type move that deals a base damage of 90,and has 85% accuracy.However,you take 25% of the damage your opponent takes.This move is actually very good,use it.Its statistically your best option right now.As larvetsta is focused on attack,not special attack.Unlike its evolution.

Level 30 will let you learn Flame Charge.A physical fire type move that will deal a base damage of 50,and has 100% accuracy.This move will also raise the users speed stat by 1 stage.Now,is this move better than Take Down? Yes,but only against opponents that are super effected by fire type attacks.Lets do the math here.

1.Larvesta is focused in attack.That's already a boost.Now you may be saying. "Doesn't Take Down get a boost to?" Yes,but we are not done yet.

2.This is a fire type move.Larvesta is a fire type Pokemon.This counts as a STAB.Doing 50% more damage than normal.

3.Certain Pokemon have a weakness to fire type attacks,taking 2x the damage than normal.

Mathmatically speaking,this move is more powerful than Take Down when using it on a Pokemon that is super effected by fire type moves.There's your answer.

I swear to god i would be a great teacher.Moving on.

At level 40,you will get Bug Bite.A decently powerful phyisical bug type attack,that deals a base damage of 60,and has 100% accuracy.Also,if your opponents Pokemon is holding a berry,this move will get rid of it.This move is better than Flame Charge,for the same reason Flame Charge is better than Take Down.If you would like to know why,simply break down this move using the formula we previously used.

..Or don't.Its better because Bug Bite has a base damage of 60,unlike Flame Charge's base damage of 50.Add in the previous formula,and its better.Simple.

At level 50 you get..Well,basically a more powerful version of Take Down.Double Edge.This is a normal type move that deals 120 base damage,and has 100% accuracy.However,you will take 50% of the damage your opponent recieves.Aka,you will be taking alot of damage.This move is matmatically better than both Flame Charge,and Bug Bite.Even with all the factors we have used before.However,while i do recommend it,don't use it to often.

And finally at level 59,you get Volcarona.When this happens,Volcarona gains a major boost in most stats.Especially special attack.So,Flame Charge and Bug Bite are now kind of..Inefficient.However,you gain something very,very good.Quiver Dance.This move will increase your special attack,special defense,and speed.My god,this move is so fun to use.Please take it.

Level 60 gives you Heat Wave.A very powerful fire type move,that deals 95 base damage,and has 90% accuracy.This move is very effective in Double Battles,and i recommend you keep it if you're building Volcarona to be used in Double Battles.

At level 70 you can get bug buzz,a once again very powerful bug type move with a base damage of 90,and has 100% accuracy.This move also has a 10% chance of lowering the targets special defense by 1 stage.I once again recommend this move.

At level 80 you learn..Oh dear.This is a move called Rage Powder.And it is so,so complicated.This move forces your opponent to target a specific Pokemon on your team.This move is only useful in Double,or Triple battles.Other than that..Eh,i suppose i could recommend it.There are a few Rage Powder sets for Volcarona.I suppose you should keep this move if you want to use them.

Level 90 gives you Hurricane.A very powerful flying type move that deals a base damage of 110,and has 70% accuracy.This move also has a 30% chance to confuse the target.Hurricane also hits your opponents Pokemon in Double and Triple battles.While this move is powerful,its accuracy is a huge risk.I recommend it,but always have a plan for when this move misses.

And finally,level 100 gives you Fiery Dance.A powerful fire type move that deals a base damage of 80,and has 100% accuracy.This move also has a chance of raising your special attack by 50%.I recommend it for accuracy freaks.If you don't want a move to miss,just use this instead of heat wave.

*Sigh* And that's done.Don't you hate it when you have to level a Pokemon to 100? Ugh.Moving on to the stats.
Stats Weaknesses & Abilities.
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Alright,lets see what we have here.

HP:85
Attack:60
Defense:65
Sp. Atk:135
Sp. Def:105
Speed:100

Volcarona's healths sits at a healthy 85.Allowing it to take a decent bit of damage.It's a decent amount of bulk.
It's attack is terrible,and for good reason.It barely has any physical attack moves.Why put points into a stat you will almost never use.I find that the stats made a logical choice.

Volcarona's defense is sadly very low.And you want to know what the sad part is? Well,you'll know once we get to it's weaknesses.So i'll just end this by saying that it's bad.

Volcarona's Special Attack is amazing.You can blow away so many damaged enemies easily.Perfect.

It's Special Defense is very high.Now if only you could switch this stat with the defense stat.But i suppose this works to.This is good.

Volcarona's speed is amazing.You will be able to out run many of your opponent.

Onto Volcarona's weaknesses.For this case,you will only have to worry about 3 things.Flying,rock,and water.These will be rather easy to counter.As these type have common weaknesses.

Flying is easily defeated by a common rock or electric type.Try Tyranitar.And if you have it avalible,Zapdos.

Rock is defeated by Starmie or Slowbro easily.I recommend Starmie.As it can get rid of entry hazards,such as stealth-..Oh yeah,i forgot.Unfortunately for you,Volcarona has a huge weakness.Stealth Rock.This move single handedly dropped Volcarona from teams.And this will be your biggest flaw.It will deal 4x's damage to you,and its a physical attack move.You know,your most vunerable defensive stat?! Now,how to get past it? Well,there are a few options.Bring a pokemon such as Starmie.This Pokemon will clear entry hazards with Rapid Spin.Easily getting rid of it.And,well..Just pray your opponent does not use taunt,or its over.

And finally we just have to worry about water.This will arguably be the easiest to get rid of.Any of these should help you.*Points Down.*

1.Altaria
2.Breloom
3.Celebi
4.Dragonite
5.Ferrothorn
6.Gyarados
7.Keldeo
8.Latias
9.Latios
10.Raikuo
11.Venasuar
12.Zapdos.

 Any of these will get rid of your problem.
Onto the abilities.

1.Flame Body:Our first ability is Flame Body.To give it to ya short,here is what it does.When you get hit by a physical attack move,there is a 30% chance your target will be burnt.This ability is excellent.And i'll tell you right now,i recommend this alot more than the second abiltiy,but i'm basically obligated to tell you about it,because that wouldn't be fair.

2.Swarm: This ability increases your damage by 1.5,if you have half your health remaining.While this ability does have its uses,its not very optimal in many traditional sets.I don't recommend it.
That's that.Time to talk about some competitive play.

Competitive Play.
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Yes.Favorite part of the review for me.Now,Volcarona's playstyle is meant to be somewhat of a hybrid between a tank,and an attacker.The basic style is to use Quiver Dance to gain power,and try to stay alive long enough to use the power you gained.A.K.A Calm Mind/Dragon Dance playstyle.And our first set will make use of this.
(You may notice the new format i made for giving information about the set.A.K.A the thing below.Try to get used to it.)

Volcarona @ Lum Berry/Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 72 HP / 252 SpA / 184 Spe
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Fire Blast
- Giga Drain
- Bug Buzz

Say hello to the traditional Quiver Dance set.This set is meant to make you stay alive for as long as possible,while gaining power from Quiver Dance.The trick is to stay alive long enough,to gain the benifits from Quiver Dance.

Our first move is obviously Quiver Dance.All you need to do is get 2-3 of these in,and you're going to be set for a long time.If you can manage to pull 5 of these off,you have a very high chance of just automatically winning.Especially if your opponent has no counter.

Fire Blast is here to deal as much damage as possible.This is a very powerful STAB,and can blow away most targets.Some may prefer Heat Wave,of Flamethrower for accuracy purposes,that is acceptable.But just know you may need a few more hits to bring a target down.I actually recommend Fiery Dance for the possible boost in special attack.

Giga Drain is a very powerful addition to this set.This can help you stay in the fight for a long time.And,this can be effective against unsuspecting water types that try to get the jump on you."Oh,you think that hydro pump got rid of me? Nope.I still have 30% health,and i'm going to drain your health now.*Ding* right back up to 60%."

Bug Buzz is an effective STAB against unsuspecting Psychic types.And in all honesty,it's just a filler move.But it can still be powerful in the right situations.

Our item is either going to be Leftovers,or a Lum Berry.And there are advantages to both.Lets say you're confused.Bam,confusion cured.Let's say you're poisoned? Bam,cured.However,Leftovers allows you to stay in the fight alot longer.But a smart player will just decide to cripple you,while you're using your Quiver Dance tactic.Shutting you down instantly.There are advantages to both.Just pick what you believe is best.However,i will say from my personal experiences,i found Lum Berry worked better for me.

Our ability is obviously going to be Flame Body.There is a chance you may K.O'ed is one hit,but there is a chance you will burn your target before you go down.This is our best option right now.

And finally,Ev's are put in Health to make sure you can stay alive for a long time.Points are put into special attack to maximize our damage,and points are put into speed so we can use Quiver Dance,before our opponents have time to get to us.

The nature is going to be Timid,so we can get speed,and drop points in attack.

Now,lets move onto one other set.
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Volcarona @ Charti Berry/Lum Berry/Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Heat Wave
- Bug Buzz
- Quiver Dance
- Protect

This set is traditionally used for Double or Triple battles.It focuses on trying to do damage to multiple targets at once,while slowly gaining power in the backround.This set aims to make you a sort of..Perhaps you could say,manipulator? It makes sure you can try to control the tide of battle.

Our first move is Heat Wave.This allows you to deal damage to multiple targets at once.Couple this with Quiver Dance,and you will deal massive amounts of damage.

Second is Bug Buzz.A filler damage move,that deals decent damage.Its best to use this move when facing an opponent that is not effected by fire.

Third is obviously going to be Quiver Dance.This will allow us to slowly gain massive amounts of power.It will be fairy easy to deal with the enemy after you get about 3 of these in.The trick is trying to survive for 3 turns.And i must admit,its quite tough.

Protect is here to check an opponents team for anything super effective.If this thing stops a Stone Edge from hitting you,well first of all,consider yourself lucky,and secondly,get out of there!

The item for this set is going to be tricky.A Charti berry removes 50% of the damage from a super effective rock type move.Meaning stone edge will most likely take only 30% of your health.Then again,you could be faced with an opponent that uses toxic,and decays you over time,and finally,leftovers could keep you alive for a very long time.And removes the need for a move such as Giga Drain,or Roost.Once again,this one is all up to you.However,i will tell you right now,i have had more games won due to having a Charti Berry.Just throwing that out there.

Ability is once again Flame Body.For the previous reasons mentioned in the last set.

Ev's are put into special attack and speed to maximize damage,and to make you move as quickly as possible.And we can put just a bit of points in health,to make sure we have a bit of bulk.

Welp,time for final thoughts.
Final Thoughts.
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...Volcarona is a Pokemon that suffers from many,many problems.It's heavily weak to a common amount of things.Its predictable,it's easy to shut down.And it's..Well,that's it.

I think i figured out what's wrong here.Despite popular belief,Volcarona does not have alot of problems.Its just the fact that is has few problems,but those problems are major.Very similar to Gyarados,but Gyarados has a way to deal with those problems without switching out.

Volcarona's moveset is rather lacking for the first 50 levels.But the last 50 levels easily make up for it.It has rather focused stats,but still suffers from massive vunerability due to its weaknesses.Its abilities are rather mediocre,but can prove useful at times.

And competitively..You can see why it stopped being use alot.Sadly,it pretty much only has one way you can play it.Which is quite unfortunate.

Volcarona has major flaws.And its quite obvious why it stopped being used on major levels.However,it still has potentiol.I believe that if you want to use this Pokemon,you need to find ways to deal with its flaws.For example,Volcarona is vunerable to stealth rock.Add in a starmie to deal with this problem.We need time to gain power from Quiver Dance,but we are faced with a powerful glass cannon? Add in something sturdy to deal with the glass cannon.

However,we can cover as many weaknesses as we want,but we are still faced with a problem.Can anyone guess what that problem is..? The problem is this: We have to deal with those weaknesses,when other Pokemon don't.There are some Pokemon out there,that don't need to have 2-4 contingency plans for different situations.There are Pokemon that do not need to literally build an entire team around dealing with its problem.This is exactly why Volcarona is deemed "Just Okay." Because while it can outclass higher tier Pokemon with Quiver Dance,some Pokemon don't even need a move to boost its stat's at all,because its already powerful.

All in all,Volcarona is fun to use,but heavily flawed.Still,if you want to deal with those flaws..You may have a chance to win with this guy.

This leads me to giving Volcarona an overall score of-3.5/5

Pros
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It has Quiver Dance,which is one of the best stat boosting moves in the game.

Its stats are rather balanced.

To be fair,i believe it is much better in Double Battles,then in single battles.

If you're smart,you can make this thing stay in play for quite a long time.

Pretty powerful in singleplayer.

Cons
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Extremely predictable,because there is only one way to play it competitively.

Takes an extremely long time to level.

Very vunerable.If you want to play this competitively,you will need 2-4 contingency plans,just to play this one Pokemon.You may need to build an entire team around this one Pokemon.And lets not forget that you need to make a plan,just in case Volcarona goes down.Have fun!

So easy to shut down with taunt.Sort of a rehash of the first con,but we all know what Volcarona is running,Quiver Dance.Taunt will easily destroy this set up.

For alternate Pokemon recommendations,let me point you towards.

1.Scizor: So obvious.Scizor is possibly the best bug type in existence right now.Second only to Genesect.

2.Gyarados: Well,looks like Gyarados is not done boasting about how good it is.Gyarados can use Dragon Dance,and fills in a role very similar to Volcarona.

3.Heatran: Heatran is a Pokemon that can perform just as well as Volcarona is double battles.Using a variety of sets.


And that's all for me this week.And just in case you forgot,i am doing these every 10 days now.This allows me to do 3 reviews a month,rather than 2.YAY! So,see yah on the 20th for a new review.Also,i take request.If you would like me to review something,please tell me in the form of a reply,or in a private message.See yah next time.*Waves*
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Now if you excuse me..Well,i think i'm going to load Skyrim.It's been a while.

You're doing this again? That's really cool!

I really enjoy these, and you make pokemon that aren't very interesting at all seem pretty dang interesting.

I didn't really understand why everyone used Volcarona when it first came out in competition play, I just don't really find Volcarona to be that good of a pokemon overall, its pretty crazy to me that some people were able to figure out how to make it a pretty amazing pokemon.

I hate pokemon that evolve at such a high level and aren't very good at all when they are in the pre evolved form, it is pretty crappy trying to train them up to such a high level. I had to do that with my dragon pokemon, and I tell you, it takes forever to get them to be so great, but it is totally worth it.

To me, the cons outweigh all of the pros for this, so I didn't really become a Volcarona user, even though I did go through that huge process to evolve it.

But this was a really great review, and kind of a guide. I look forward to you doing more of these, they are really great and pretty dang interesting at that.