" Would you mind not hitting me? I’m doing my Yoga stretch. It helps me calm my mind. "
-Mega Delta Venusaur
Hi guys, girls and everything in-between! To be honest, I’m not sure if i really like this starter. Sure, I chose Delta Bulbasaur as my starter for my No Faint run, but honestly, I probably would have preferred Delta Charmander. I think Delta Venusaur’s saving grace for me its its bulky sweeper status and its ability.
Be warned, since there is no competitive usage stats avaliable, I do not have any reliable ways to accurately predict the metagame. This analysis is theoretical and does not entirely reflect a Pokémon’s viability.
Typing, Stats, Ability & Movepool
Fairy/Psychic
Ability: Hubris (Psycho Call/Regenerator(DW) before Mega)
Hp: 80
Atk: 100 (82)
Def: 123 (83)
SpA: 122 (100)
SpD: 120 (100)
Spe: 80
Having an overwhelming bulk, amoung the best abilities in the game and great offenses, Mega Delta Venusaur is difficult to stop after few Calm Minds. Mega Delta Venusaur suffers greatly from the comparison to Mega Latias who has better resistances, superior stats, Levitate giving it immunity to Toxic Spikes, arguably better coverage, Recover instead of the often unreliable Moonlight and Stored Power. The last nail in the coffin is Cefable who is totally immuned to residual damages, possesses coverage astronomic units from Mega Delta Venusaur’s, possess Soft Boiled and has a Dark Type resistance instead of neutrality.
However, Delta Venusaur has the fairy type, making it neutral to Dark, Ice, Bug and Fairy and immune to Dragon. Plus, Hubris makes Delta Venusaur way harder to stop when attempting to sweep. Mega Delta Venusaur don’t seems to have a whole lot of advantages over Mega Latias (and frankly, its the case), but the slight difference are really matchup defining. As for example, Mega Venusaur can win its duel against Mega Medichamp carrying Ice Punch, Mega Flygon (to an extension, plz ban) and TTar, something Mega Latias could only dream of. Yeah, but Clefable car deal with TTar and Mega Flygon in the worst case…
Even if its typing is the same as the incredibly strong Tapu Lele and Mega Gardevoir, we have to admit it: Fairy / Psychic is not that great. Ghost is very common with New Moon team and the prevalence of Fairy types mean Mega Metagross and Mega Scizor are extremely popular. The tier don’t lack Poison type wallbreaker either, Delta Volcarona and Delta Hydreigon being able to muscle through. Delta Volcarona in particular. It is also very susceptible to Toxic and Toxic Spikes. As being put on a timer means a sweep is potentially impossible.
Hidden Power being its only mean to defeat Steel types mean it can be stopped cold by either Heatran if running Hidden Power Fire or Mega Scizor if running Hidden Power Ground. As those two are frequent in many teams, it makes Venusaur’s life harder. Delta Venusaur does, however, have pretty nice tools to play with. First of all is Moonlight. At least, it has reliable recovery 8 times, still better than nothing. Second is Draining Kiss. I consider this to be underrated because, as Hatterene sometimes demonstrates, having a draining move on a bulky sweeper set can be very useful, especially if Moonlight run out of PP or if Sandstorm is up. Lastly, we have Psyshock. Now, Chansey and some special walls aren’t counters anymore! It also has Psycho Boost, but honestly, I don’t know if there is really a situation where I would prefer to suffer from the heavy SpA drops than hitting for less but more consistant damages.
Sets Suggestions
Credits to A_Wild_Noob_Appeared for the sets. I’ve add my sauce on these, but credits still goes to them.
Defensive sweeper
Venusaur-Delta @ Delta Venusaurite
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 240 HP / 244 Def / 24 Spe
Bold Nature
-Draining Kiss/Moonblast
-Hidden Power Fire/Psyshock
-Calm Mind
-Moonlight
This set is Mega Delta Venusaur’s trademark and what prevent me from saying Mega Latias totally outclasses it. With the given investments, it can outspeed offensive regular Mega Venusaur and survive immensely powerful attacks. I’ll let the set creator speak for itself:
I prioritized Draining Kiss instead of Moonblast because I feel like Draining Kiss’s extra recovery is more useful than the extra power from Moonblast. Psyshock is used for specially bulky Pokémon while Hidden Power Fire .
Moonlight could be ditched to fit Psyshock in the moveset if running Draining Kiss, but without prior boosts, Draining Kiss will mostly never give back enough HP. After all, because you could doesn’t mean that you should.
Offensive
Venusaur-Delta @ Delta Venusaurite
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 240 HP / 244 SpA / 24 Spe
Modest Nature
-Psyshock/Psycho Boost
-Moonblast
-Calm Mind/Hidden Power Fire
-Moonlight
A more offensive variant. Nothing much to say about this, outside of Psycho Boost doing insane damage to anything neutral to it.
Other options
Leech Seed can be used for having passive recovery, but Delta Venusaur already having the 4 moveslot syndrome, it cannot fit it in its moveset. Heal Bell or Taunt can be used to set-up easier against Stall, but as mentioned, it either sacrifices recovery, STAB or important coverage.
Good Teammates
As with Mega Latias, Mega Delta Venusaur does a big loss of momentum and as such, don’t fit on offensive teams. Bulky Offense at best, but mostly Balanced.
- Intimidate users can soften physical hits even more, which allows Delta Venusaur to setup even more easily.
- Magnezone can trap and beat most steel types, giving Mega Venusaur more space to breathe.
- On a similar note, Corrode users can lure and defeat unsuspecting steels. Armored Delta Volcarona in particular for its Dark typing allowing to switch in Ghost types like Gengar and access to Defog.
- Grounded Poison types remove Toxic Spikes when entering the field and have a nice synergy together. Special mention has to go to Substitute Toxicroak and Tentacruel, as the former completely DOMINATE Mega Milotic/Ferrothorn/Heatran core, has Sucker Punch to beat Ghosts and appreciate a sturdy Psychic type Switch-In while the latter can setup Toxic Spikes itself and Rapid Spin.
- U-Turn and Volt Switch users can get back the loss momentum made by Delta Venusaur. Good ones includes Tornadus-T, Landorus-T and Rotom-W.
Checks & Counters
- Heatran 100% shuts down non-Calm Mind variants and also run Toxic on some of its utility sets. While lacking recovery and being tasked to cover a lot of threats, Heatran is sometimes coupled with Wish Clefable.
Overall
It might be part of the most broken Pokémon avaliable for the adventure, Mega Delta Venusaur have an hard time in OU. It just suffers too much from its competition with Mega Latias and Clefable, the omnipresence of Heatran in the tier don’t help either. I would put it in UUBL at worst or Low to Mid tier as for OU performance.
- Toxicroak
- Landorus-T
- Delta Vespiqueen
- Mega Delta Lucario
- Zygarde
- Others