Competitive Pokemon History - Venusaur Quiz

Answer: Access to Sleep Powder

Both Exeggutor and Venusaur had access to the incredible move in Sleep Powder. However, the two could take advantage of each other's rare access to this move by running on a team in tandem. Usually, Exeggutor would keep the move and free Venusaur from having to run it. As Venusaur's only viable function in generation one standard play was as a Swords Dance mixed sweeper, being able to drop Sleep Powder gave it room to run another useful damage-dealing option. Venusaur's typical moveset without Exeggutor was Swords Dance/Sleep Powder/Body Slam/Razor Leaf. Razor Leaf nailed most of the things that resisted Body Slam, such as Rhydon and Golem, which could open up a lane to sweep with Body Slam despite the move's relative passivity, due to lacking STAB or a high base power. No longer needing to run Sleep Powder to open up opportunities to set up, Venusaur would usually replace the move with Hyper Beam. Doing this enabled Venusaur to pick up KOs with Swords Dance boosted attacks without needing to have threats chipped away at to take them down.

Exeggutor's Sleep Powder could incapacitate a check to itself or Venusaur, to minimize the chances of its sweep getting cut off. Exeggutor could also check Gengar- who hard countered Venusaur- with its powerful, super effective STAB Psychics. For these reasons, the two often actually worked in tandem rather than compete with one another.

Answer: UnderUsed's banned list

Razor Leaf no longer had a massive critical hit rate, other better sweepers popped up, and even Venusaur's defensive utility was being challenged by newcoming Grass type starter Meganium. Venusaur was no longer OU by usage. Sadly, it was too strong for UnderUsed. It was generally too bulky and had the right typing to wall out threats like Electabuzz and Nidoqueen. Checks and counters like Scyther and Crobat could be invalidated by Sleep Powder, set up on, and overwhelmed. As such, Venusaur found itself in UU's banned list.

While this may sound like Venusaur was hopeless for standard play, it wasn't quite useless. It was somewhat outclassed, but it could function in the tier with its useful bulk, unique access to Sleep Powder, and versatility. Venusaur was a capable tank, taking hits and spreading status/supporting the team with Reflect. It could also perform mostly the same Swords Dance set as generation one, just replacing Razor Leaf with Giga Drain. The issues with these sets, though, were that Meganium mostly outclassed it defensively, it could do absolutely nothing at all to Skarmory or Snorlax offensively, and it generally wasn't all that effective in practice since it was checked by just about every prominent threat in the game. Spreading Sleep Powder also wasn't as valuable since seemingly everything and their brother carried Rest + Sleep Talk and wasn't bugged much by sleep. Because of these shortcomings, Venusaur was ultimately fringe-viable at best, and it was usually a better idea to look elsewhere for whatever role you'd want it to fill.

Answer: Three

Venusaur had its signature "Disabler" set, followed by its traditional Swords Dance sets and a new set which focused more on special attacking. The former was a set of Sleep Powder/Leech Seed/Sludge Bomb/Synthesis. The objective of the goal was to harass the opposing team as much as possible, putting something to sleep and spreading as much residual damage as it could, while staying healthy with Synthesis and, to a lesser extent, Leech Seed and Leftovers. Sleep Powder could be used to temporarily put Skarmory out of commission, allowing Venusaur to try to poison something else or chip at something else with Sludge Bomb. Leech Seed increased the residual damage the opponent took, eased Venusaur's reliance on the low-PP Synthesis, and could provide a teammate with an easier time switching in thanks to the passive healing it would grant them. Synthesis could keep Venusaur healthy, but it only had 8 PP and was rendered ineffective in the ubiquitous sandstorm, so it was not a good idea to recklessly use it.

Sludge Bomb ran off of Venusaur's Attack stat due to the lack of physical/special split, and because it gained access to Earthquake this generation, its Swords Dance set became a lot better. It still could do absolutely nothing to Skarmory barring putting it to sleep with Sleep Powder, but it was generally a lot better at threatening the rest of the meta with its strong Sludge Bombs, and Earthquake to cover opposing Fire types and other non-Skarmory Steel types. It was pretty decent as a whole.

Finally, if the player had an agenda against Skarmory but didn't want Venusaur to end up useless against special walls, namely Blissey, its Special Attacker set was a good choice. It was a set of Giga Drain/Hidden Power Fire/Sleep Powder/Leech Seed. Hidden Power Fire would let Venusaur defeat Skarmory one-on-one, while Leech Seed and Sleep Powder let Venusaur claim victory against Blissey. Giga Drain was used in tandem with Leech Seed to keep Venusaur reasonably healthy, while Sleep Powder did what it always does- give Venusaur an option against threats it couldn't beat on its own, like Celebi or Salamence.

Overall, Venusaur had enough versatility and usefulness where it was finally regarded as a legitimate pick for the tier. Unfortunately, it still didn't see enough usage in OU and was clearly still too strong for UU, so it once again settled into UU's banned list. Still, at least it was a good pick for OverUsed unlike the second generation.

Answer: Its versatility

None of Venusaur's UU sets are actually all that amazing by themselves. However, the fact that Venusaur had access to Sleep Powder and had six different, unique sets, made it into a top tier threat that was impossible to consistently deal with. Many of its different sets had completely different checks, and nearly all of them ran Sleep Powder, meaning that ascertaining the set you were dealing with was quite difficult, giving the Venusaur user mind game potential. Venusaur had, in no particular order, a Special Attacking wallbreaker, Swords Dance sweeper, Physically defensive wall, Specially defensive wall, Mixed wallbreaker, Choice Scarf revenge killer/sweeper, and it even had a classic Substitute + Leech Seed stalling set. All of these variants demanded specific checks or strategies to defeat them, or they could win entire games by themselves. While Pokémon like Moltres or Registeel could do a reasonable job contending with most of them, they were vulnerable to being put to sleep and rendered useless, over which time, Venusaur could boost and overwhelm them, slam them with strong, uncontested attacks and win, or it could put up a free Substitute and start effortlessly Leech Seed stalling them thanks to the free turns it picked up. Because of this, any serious team made within the tier absolutely had to have a plan, a back up plan, then a back up plan to the back up plan, in order to reliably defeat Venusaur.

Sadly, Venusaur was generally outclassed and not a worthwhile pick in standard play for this generation. Power creep, along with new Grass types to outclass it, and new threats to destroy it, stopped Venusaur from gaining any serious traction in the tier.

Answer: Chlorophyll

Chlorophyll gave Venusaur tons of utility in Ubers, of all places, as a sun sweeper that could also defeat Kyogre one-on-one, to stop it from effortlessly switching in to remove the sun. With its suddenly blazing speed, colorful movepool, and passable offenses alongside a good boosting move, Venusaur actually found utility as a fearsome sweeper alongside monstrous threats which all had to respect its ability to turn the tide of a battle quickly.

Answer: Venusaur's new ability becoming banned on sun teams

Chlorophyll in tandem with the Drought ability was ultimately banned from OverUsed, and this removed Venusaur's chances of performing in the tier at all. Venusaur would not survive the ban hammer of UnderUsed either, as Chlorophyll pushed it over the top there, causing it to be banned from the tier.

As such, Venusaur is in Pokémon Purgatory for the fifth generation; too strong for UnderUsed, but far too weak to make a meaningful impact in standard play.

Answer: Mega Evolution

Mega Venusaur was a solid force in standard play, and definitely had a solid footing in the tier overall. It did have trouble fending off Pokémon like Kyurem-Black, the ubiquitous Talonflame, and practically any Psychic type scurrying about, but its defensive typing was otherwise quite solid. Thick Fat removed its weaknesses to Ice and Fire, with the exception of Kyurem-Black, and gave credence to a solid defensive set Mega Venusaur could use to be a useful member of stall and balanced teams alike. It could use its decent natural power to check offensive threats which could not hit it super effectively, while utilizing Synthesis and good natural bulk to try to outlast defensive Pokémon as well. With Knock Off, Venusaur could remove Chansey's Eviolite and Skarmory's Shed Shell, allowing physically offensive and extremely strong special attackers to overwhelm the former, and for Magnezone to trap and remove the latter. It could also run Earthquake to check Heatran with. Heatran was a menace to stall and balanced teams, meaning Mega Venusaur would be doing its team well by eliminating it assuredly and reliably. Mega Venusaur could also easily check Belly Drum Azumarill, a Pokémon renowned for demolishing entire balanced teams after boosting.

Overall, Mega Venusaur was like a fully grown adult; no longer exciting and carrying more responsibilities than its base form, but being a lot more useful and splashable in standard play for the sixth generation.

Answer: RarelyUsed

In RU, Venusaur was pretty solid. Chlorophyll was unbanned, and although Drought was not, Venusaur was a menacing sweeper on sun teams, which utilized a manual Sunny Day setter and were typically hyper offensive. Growth's effects were doubled under sun, meaning Venusaur generally only needed to boost once before it was ready to flatten the opposing team, or break down a wall for a teammate to achieve that goal. With good defensive utility options and solid natural bulk, Venusaur also had the option of exploring a defensive utility set, putting something to sleep and checking threats on offensive teams while Knocking Off important items as well.

Answer: Primal Kyogre

Primal Groudon would flatten Mega Venusaur, as its massive all around base stats and access to Swords Dance meant it could easily take hits from Mega Venusaur, boost in its face practically for free, then straight up delete it with a heavily boosted Precipice Blades. As Venusaur was weak to Psychic, it was obviously not going to do anything to the Mewtwo forms if it valued being left remaining in one piece. Finally, Venusaur was too passive to threaten Lugia much, and though certain variants of Lugia struggled to do any damage back, Lugia would reliably be able to stall it out in the long haul if needed. Certain Lugias also ran Psychic to combat Mega Gengar and Mega Lucario, and Psychic meant Lugia could just straight up defeat Mega Venusaur.

Primal Kyogre gained a notch of viability in Ubers after acquiring the strong physical move Liquidation. This meant Primal Kyogre had deadly offensive talents on both physical and specially offensive sides. Fortunately, Mega Venusaur had the bulk, ability and typing to reliably defeat Primal Kyogre one-on-one, barring a horrible misplaying of the matchup by its trainer. Mega Venusaur could 2HKO offensive Primal Kyogre with Grass Knot, stall out defensive Primal Kyogre by easily taking its hits and staying healthy with Leech Seed + Synthesis, and was therefore one of the best checks to it in the tier. Stall and balanced teams were heavily threatened by Primal Kyogre, meaning they appreciated Mega Venusaur's ability to beat it pretty consistently.

Mega Venusaur could also check other prominent threats, such as Xerneas, Arceus-Fairy and Marshadow. This wide blanket of threats it could check as a singular Pokémon allowed it to stand out and gain a niche for itself in the tier.

Answer: Venusaur has been viable in Ubers, while the other two have not

Venusaur has had multiple stints as a legitimate Uber tier threat, while the other two simply have not. It has definitely been better than Blastoise, but Charizard can argue that it has been a top tier threat in OverUsed in two different generations with its Mega forms, and was a legitimate threat in generation two OverUsed while Venusaur was not.

The ultimate verdict as to which has been better is very close, but Venusaur can at least claim that its peak has been higher than Charizard's through seven generations.