What it does on the ladder
Venusaur appears on 7.4% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 21st of the 282 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Sludge Bomb, on 97.2% of sets.
The item is usually Life Orb at 55.3%.
The ability is split: Chlorophyll on 99.3% and Overgrow on 0.7%.
Those are Smogon's published usage figures, not anything measured here, and they describe what
the ladder plays rather than what is strongest. The full set is in the panel above.
The Pokémon itself
Venusaur is number 3 in the National Dex, a Kanto Pokémon, Grass and Poison
with a base stat total of 525 — 55th of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Sp. Atk at 100, 67th
in the format; its weakest is Speed at 80, 100th.
It can have Overgrow and Chlorophyll.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 3-stage line: Bulbasaur → Ivysaur → Venusaur.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Bulbasaur and Ivysaur are not.
What gets through
As Grass and Poison, 4 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it. It
resists 5. The board above
has all of it. 3 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Vileplume, Victreebel, Roserade.
What threatens it
Smogon publishes no head-to-head checks-and-counters data for doubles formats, so this list is
computed, not measured: the most-played Regulation M-B Pokémon carrying a damaging
move of a type Venusaur takes extra damage from.
- Incineroar — Flare Blitz (Fire, ×2), on 91.2% of its sets
- Charizard-Mega-Y — Heat Wave (Fire, ×2), on 99.2% of its sets
- Farigiraf — Psychic (Psychic, ×2), on 54.4% of its sets
- Pelipper — Hurricane (Flying, ×2), on 98.1% of its sets
- Staraptor-Mega — Brave Bird (Flying, ×2), on 83.4% of its sets
- Aerodactyl-Mega — Dual Wingbeat (Flying, ×2), on 91.2% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Venusaur reaches
145 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
100. Invested, it outruns 10 of the 20
most-used Pokémon in the regulation when they are invested too — which is the comparison that
decides who moves first.
It weighs 100 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 100 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Venusaur learns 97 moves in the Champions data.
53 of them do damage, across 8 of the eighteen
types, and 22 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Frenzy Plant at 150 base power.
It has no priority move, so it moves in Speed order every turn.
That pool is what the team builder reads from when you seat it, and the
damage calculator will take it as the attacker with
the form already chosen.
