• Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.

    However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.

    We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure.
  • Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

Community POTW #005

Serebii

And, as if by magic, the webmaster appeared...
Staff member
Admin
Time for the next Pokémon of the Week and this week we go to the Kalos region!

666-f.png


It's Vivillon!

 

Mr Spaz

Loading title. Please wait.
Vivillon @ Focus Sash/Heavy Duty Boots
Ability: Compound Eyes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Hurricane
- Sleep Powder
- Energy Ball

Vivillon remains the same one-trick pony it's been since its debut in Gen 6. Compound Eyes boosts Sleep Powder to 97.5% accuracy and Hurricane to 91%. Sleep Powder to give you an opportunity to set up Quiver Dances. Hurricane is your main damaging move while Energy Ball is your coverage option. You could use Bug Buzz for STAB, but that doesn't provide any relevant coverage over Hurricane. You can use Sash to usually guarantee that you can land a Sleep Powder to set up or force a switch, but Heavy Duty Boots allows you to switch Vivillon into the battle while Rocks are on the field.
 

RishRaff

Prince of the Sea
While it is true Vivillon can really only run one set, you could add Terrablast with Fire or Ground type to cover Steel types as an option, especially for an NU or PU team where Vivillon would be a cleaner/sweeper.

Also Pollen Puff is an alternative Bug STAB with higher PP but without the sound move effects of Bug Buzz.
 

Mestorn

Wandering Battler
Vivillon's only true niche is that it is the fastest reliable Sleep abuser (poor Darkrai and Toesdcruel) and is a good look into how broken Sleep Mechanics are.

For Review, Sleep lasts 1-3 turns upon being afflicted, during which the target does nothing. Since this is not gen 5, the Sleep counter does not reset upon switching out. But as proven many times by various other mechanics (Truant, Hyper Beam and its clones), every turn matters in competitive Pokémon, and missing a single turn can be game determinative.

Game Freak is aware of this hence why Sleep is kept heavily restricted. Most Sleep moves are unreliable, having far from perfect accuracy, with the only accurate move, Spore being on cripplingly slow Pokémon and Toedscruel. Sleep Powder is the next most "reliable" one at 75% accuracy. Which Vivillon bumps up to 97.5% with Compound Eyes which is fairly reliable.

So this completely underwhelming Pokémon with a BST of 411, horrid typing and no broken ability can completely turn a game around with just a bout of good luck. A 2 or 3 turn sleep (66%) of the time guarantees a free switch in, which as the popularity of Teleport in the previous generation has proven is incredibly powerful and that is only scratching the surface of sleep, especially in formats where there isn't a Sleep Clause as your first instinct may be to pivot to another of your Pokémon to stop Vivillon and oops -now they're asleep as well.

So thank goodness Vivillon only has Base 89 Speed, falling just short of outspeeding... Annihilape, Hydreigon, Lokix, Volcarona, Charizard, Chi-yu, Arcanine, P-Tauros, Haxorus, etc. And many slower targets (Gholdengo, Gargnacl, Breloom) are immune to Sleep Powder. However, that still leaves a large range of Pokémon (Baxcalibur, Ceruedge, Clodsire, Dragonite, Orthworm, Ting-Lu, the Pex, etc. that Vivillon can turn into setup fodder or cripple outright. Vivillon needs speed control to be at its best, but its best is a domain in which few can fight back.
 
Last edited:

XaelOstigian

Competitive...kinda
Let me take a moment to appreciate this confetti butterfly. Thanks to all the regional variations depending on what part of the world you live in, back in gen 6 there was an entire market at the GTS for rate Vivillon forms, turning even your average player into a butterfly collector. If you were fortunate enough to live in a rare exclusive region you could easily ask for even event exclusive legendaries in exchange for your mostly cosmetic Vivillon. What a wonderful time it was to be a trader.
 
Top