When I first saw that Sunflora has a Delta, I almost passed it up just because Sunflora’s always been a lackluster Pokemon without much potential in and of itself, but like with most Deltas I had to stop and give it a closer look. I wound up liking what I saw a lot.
You see, Delta Sunflora starts resolving its issues by getting the Fire/Poison dual type, which coincidentally keeps its total number of weaknesses down to just four, with one quad weakness in the mix. Ground, Rock, Water, and Psychic are all things it fears, but it can shrug off Fighting, Poison, Fire, Steel, and Ice… and utterly ignore Bug, Grass, and Fairy type moves as they only deal a quarter of their normal damage.
Even better is that it’s immune to Burns, Poison, and is already so slow that only Paralysis’ 25% chance to lose your turn bothers it. Sleep is about the only status this thing hates.
But that BST of 425 still isn’t that impressive, so what else does it have going for it? Analytic.
Analytic boosts the power of moves by 30% when the Pokemon using it goes last, which pairs up perfectly with its base 30 Speed to give it a potent boost to its moves for virtually nothing. Which is good, because a base 100 Special Attack is a little lackluster all considering.
So with a more solid typing and and ability available to it, next up is its moves. Delta Sunflora’s moveset’s been largely swapped out for a deluge of potent Poison and Fire type moves, though the attentive will notice the inclusion of Nasty Plot in the toxic sunflower’s movepool. Additionally, it can pick up Solarbeam through level-up, and Energy Ball via TM, meaning that it’ll have an answer to most scenarios.
It lacks recovery, however, so anyone looking to use this sunflower will need to bear that in mind.
Item-wise, Choice Specs can push its power up even higher, while Air Balloon can mess up anything thinking they’ll get an easy KO via Earthquake. While it likes the boosts, it can make do with Assault Vest instead to help pump up its not entirely terrible special defense, but you’ll likely have other team members who’d make better use of it.
Life Orb is the generic damage booster, but since Delta Sunflora doesn’t have anything in the way of recovery and has such low defenses, it won’t appreciate the recoil.
Partner-wise, Delta Sunflora loves the likes of Exeggutor, Hydreigon, Swampert, and situationally Fighting types in general. Anyone who can soak up its limited list of weaknesses and deal with the threat in turn is appreciated, and those three listed Pokemon in turn appreciate Delta Sunflora’s ability to eat hits that they would otherwise go down to easily.
Wish support won’t go awry either.
Weather support-wise, Drought/Sunny Day users are appreciated since it temporarily weakens Water type moves which would otherwise give Delta Sunflora trouble.
Move-wise, Fire Blast/Sludge Bomb/Energy Ball/Nasty Plot feels like a standard offensive setup that will cover most major threats and make the very Rock/Ground/Water types who would have countered it think twice about jumping in, lest they take a super-effective hit to the face.
Solarbeam is good if you have sun support, since it’s stronger than Energy Ball.
Will-o-Wisp can be good if you plan on crippling someone on the switch.
If available later on, Toxic will work as well.
Reflect and Acid Armor can shore up its otherwise abysmal defense.
Once available:
Shadow Ball/Dark Pulse can give Psychic switch-ins pause.
Sludge Wave is slightly stronger than Sludge Bomb, and is down to personal preference.
Overheat’s good for high burst damage, but the lowered special attack will likely force it out afterward.
Countering Delta Sunflora comes down to a few easy questions.
Is it a physical Pokemon whose type Delta Sunflora doesn’t resist? Is it one of its weaknesses? Can it outspeed the toxic sunflower?
If so, you’ve probably got something that can take it down. Its Base 55 Defense will leave it high and dry more often than not, and undermines its otherwise excellent concept.
That being said, don’t let that scare you off using it. Its value as an anti-Fairy Pokemon cannot be understated as few Fairies can deal with it, and its resistances are nothing to scoff at.