Pokémon Veluza

[churine]

VELUZA

base stats: 90 HP / 102 Atk / 73 Def / 78 SpA / 65 SpD / 70 Spe || (Total: 478)
typing:
ability: Mold Breaker / Sharpness (HA)

relevant moves:
- Fillet Away
- Aqua Cutter
- Psycho Cut
- Night Slash
- Liquidation
- Psychic Fangs
- Drill Run
- Slash
- Crunch
- Recover
- Focus Energy
- Final Gambit
- Tera Blast

movepool full

Learned Moves:
Tackle @ Lv. 1
Aqua Jet @ Lv. 1
Pluck @ Lv. 7
Water Pulse @ Lv. 11
Focus Energy @ Lv. 15
Slash @ Lv. 20
Aqua Cutter @ Lv. 25
Fillet Away @ Lv. 30
Night Slash @ Lv. 35
Psycho Cut @ Lv. 40
Liquidation @ Lv. 45
Crunch @ Lv. 50
Final Gambit @ Lv. 55
Egg Moves:
Thrash, Recover
TM Moves:
Body Slam, Take Down, Hydro Pump, Surf, Ice Beam, Blizzard, Hyper Beam, Psychic, Agility, Waterfall, Rest, Substitute, Protect, Icy Wind, Endure, Sleep Talk, Rain Dance, Crunch, Water Pulse, Giga Impact, Ice Fang, Zen Headbutt, Stored Power, Drill Run, Psychic Terrain, Psychic Fangs, Liquidation, Tera Blast, Snowscape, Chilling Water

new moves: Fillet Away, Aqua Cutter
Fillet Away - Normal-type status move / 16 PP
Increases the Attack, Special Attack, and Speed of the user by two stages at the cost of reducing 50% of its maximum HP.

Aqua Cutter - Water-type physical move
70 BP / 100% acc / 32 PP
Considered a slicing move and is boosted by Sharpness. Has a high critical-hit ratio.

new ability: Sharpness
Increases the power of slicing moves by 1.5x.

pros:
- Strong new ability in Sharpness that boosts the power of its moves.
- Has a new move in Fillet Away that functions like Shell Smash but at the cost of 50% HP instead of lowering defenses.
- Speed stat is good enough to outspeed most threats after Fillet Away, just like Cloyster.
- Pretty well-rounded coverage across Aqua Cutter, Psycho Cut, and Night Slash.
- Has access to Recover to potentially offset Fillet Away's HP reduction.

cons:
- Very middling bulk that can give it a hard time setting up and makes it susceptible to priority, particularly to Sucker Punch, First Impression, and Shadow Sneak.
- Speed stat is quite mediocre before using Fillet Away, and at +2 it can still be outsped by certain Pokemon with a Protosynthesis/Quark Drive Speed boost up.
- Attack stat is good but can seem quite lacking before a boost, in general this mon is reliant on setting up a Fillet Away.
- Coverage is mid beyond Water, Psychic, and Dark, with its best options being Slash and Drill Run after.

terastal potential:
- Dark Tera-type is useful for turning Veluza's weaknesses to Dark and Ghost into resistances while powering up its Night Slash.
- Fighting Tera-type can make Veluza resistant to First Impression and Sucker Punch, common forms of priority in the metagame currently.
- Veluza can still Tera into Water or Psychic to further augment the power of its STAB moves.


potential sets:

fillet away:
Veluza @ Leftovers / Sitrus Berry
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Dark / Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fillet Away
- Aqua Cutter
- Psycho Cut
- Night Slash

Veluza aims to sweep or clean the opposing team after a Fillet Away with its slicing moves. Like most sweepers, Team support in the likes of Screens, Memento, and Shed Tail all benefit Veluza's opportunities to set up Fillet Away, potentially even multiple times. One thing I want to point out is that Veluza can potentially opt for a bulkier setup sweeper with different EV investment and Recover, with the intent of boosting itself multiple times, however the metagame is currently too volatile and offensive for this set.


overall:
Veluza is an interesting setup sweeper given its signature move Fillet Away is essentially a Shell Smash boost with a different drawback. Sharpness greatly complements its movepool effectively giving it consistent base 105 power attacks. The OU metagame will probably be too strong for Veluza to perform consistently even when it calms down given its lower base stats and susceptibility to powerful priority moves.

 

[STEELDRAGON]

Veluza @ Aguav Berry/Life Orb
Ability: Mold Breaker
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest/TImid Nature
- Fillet Away
- Stored Power
- Hydro Pump
- Tera Blast/Substitute

Stored Power is the crux of this set and the main reason why it is viable over the Physical set. With a boost it gets up to base 210 Power factoring in STAB. Hydro Pump still does some decent damage and with Tera Blast can get through Bulky waters especially Slowking more easy. Bug Tera Type is probably its best option

 

[GaileOxstain]

This Pokemon looks like a Nier Automata version of Barraskewda, and that not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Baloor]

I've experimented with veluza a bit and personally feel Terra Fighting + Terra Blast is a superior option than dark + night slash. Right now you're more likely to run into mons trying to revenge kill you with sucker like Chien Pao or Kingambit than you are into a slowbro. Anything you're using night slash for other than the kantotwins are still nuked by your two primary stabs at +2

 

[lolgod3]

I feel Veluza benefits from shed tail support, and with the sub up it can safely fillet away without worrying about a mild case of OHKO'ing. Also, I suggest putting the 4 spare EV's into HP so it becomes even, then you can trigger berry right after fillet away.

 

[STEELDRAGON]

I feel Veluza benefits from shed tail support, and with the sub up it can safely fillet away without worrying about a mild case of OHKO'ing. Also, I suggest putting the 4 spare EV's into HP so it becomes even, then you can trigger berry right after fillet away.

Shed Tail is almost mandatory given how fast paced/hazard based the metagame is. Veluza is really hard pressed to set up on the vast majority pokemon. With the physical sets, how common Dondozo is also makes it not nearly as good.