PokéBase - Pokémon Q&A
Meta Rate My Team

Why do people complain about Floatzel's defenses?

0 votes
2,756 views

I know they're bad, but Sharpedo's are even worse, and Sharpedo's HP is worse too.

by
edited by
Yeah thre is no reason for it. It has high Speed and Attack, Decent HP ;....etc This Pokémon is pretty good (Floatzel was my first shiny) not the best but good. I am not sure if you could ask this but whatever this isn't that bad.
by
In-game or competitive? If competitive, what format?
by
No SYL, Floatzel is honestly terrible and only good in PU. I think you're very biased here as Floatzel is your first shiny
by
Did you know it is a fast Attacker? I doesn't need to take care of Defenses. + Floatzel was always a cool Pokémon for me.
by
That sounds like a comment I would leave XD
by

2 Answers

2 votes

I'm not sure why people would complain about Floatzel's defenses in particular, since they're not its main selling point. But, yes, both Floatzel and regular Sharpedo have pretty bad defenses. But Sharpedo also has a Mega, which gives it better Def and SpD (despite keeping the same HP).
Overall, Sharpedo and Floatzel's stats both suggest a fast sweeper, which is why people consider Sharpedo superior to Floatzel. Floatzel has a very mediocre Speed and Attack (and Smogon recommends using its even worse SpA and running it as a fast Special Sweeper, due to a bad Physical movepool). Sharpedo boasts a much higher Attack and better movepool, and even though it sports an underwhelming 105 Base Speed in its Mega, it can Protect stall to gain a Speed Boost before Mega Evolving to remedy that.
Unless you're running it as a tank, I'm not sure why people would criticize it for its bad defenses, rather than just calling it out for only having mediocre sweeping potential at its best.

And here's a comparison between Floatzel and Sharpedo, just for good measure.

by
He wanted to run a tank Floatzel and I told him it was a bad idea lol
by
Mediocre speed? Really? It's the second fastest Water type and is faster than most Legendaries. It doesn't have mediocre speed.
by
Have you ever used a Floatzel? No? Hidden Power excluded of course, lets take a look at its physical and special movepools:
Physical
Water (Waterfall, Liquidation, Aqua Jet, Aqua Tail)
Ice (Ice Fang, Ice Punch
Dark (Crunch, Pursuit, Payback)
Fighting (Brick Break, Low Kick)
Normal (Return, Quick Attack)
Special
Water (Hydro Pump, Scald, Water Gun)
Ice (Ice Beam, Blizzard, Icy Wind)
Fighting (Focus Blast
Normal (Echoed Voice, Round)
by
There’s no point in asking a question if you’re going to get angry at every answer. I think this is a perfectly acceptable answer and I upvoted
by
Also Quick Attack? Echoed Voice? WATER GUN? Payback? Half of these moves are 100% impossible to use, not just in competitive, anywhere!
by
Payback is only the slightest bit usable if you are Slow, Floatzel is pretty terrible, I only use it because it is a fun shiny for Casual battles and PU. Most choice scarf users outspeed it, most megas outspeed it, a lot of legendaries outspeed it; Even when it outspeeds stuff, It generally isn't enough to KO anything before getting destroyed, and it can be walled by Forretress, Scizor, Shuckle, Garchomp, Magearna, etc; it even has a hard time damaging Tapu Koko because of bad coverage (and that is if it is faster). Unburden Hawlucha is much faster, and with a Psychic seed boost, none of Floatzel's attacks do much.

Floatzel is just terrible outside PU, Unless Game Freak buffs it, which I highly doubt it will ever receive.
by
Since when did people use Fortress?
by
To be fair, mediocre might have been downplaying its speed a bit, but trying to compare its speed to legendaries is a huge overstatement. Especially since 105 Atk is nothing to back it up. On a physical set, a base 85 Liquidation is its strongest move with STAB, then Ice Punch is good coverage (albeit having pretty lackluster power), and then everything else it gets really isn't that great. Iron Tail I guess is good if your team struggles with Fairies, but suffers from 75 accuracy; Low Kick can provide nice coverage, but is unreliable in this case since PU has a lot of low-weight mons that won't take much damage, and the alternative Brick Break just doesn't have the power to back it up; and then Dark and Normal are just bad attacking types without STAB, since they either have little or literally no coverage. Floatzel suffers from a movepool filled with underpowered moves backed up by an unimpressive base Attack stat.

Also, @EvilTwineedle, Forretress is in a higher tier than Floatzel.
by
I was just saying it lacks anything needed to KO, etc. against nearly everything in higher tiers than it. Also, I use Forretress in VGC a lot :P
by
Sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude. Also, I agree, Payback is awful on Floatzel, same with Echoed Voice and Water Gun. I was just making a statement.
by
0 votes

See, it's all about contrast. For example, if most Pokemon had 5 defense, then Floatzel's miserable 50 would be really high. But, most competitive sweepers (what Floaztel is) have around 70-90 defenses, making Floatzel's absolutely terrible. Not only that, but Floatzel is much better at carrying the role of a mixed/special/physical sweeper, and his moves as a tank are quite limited, even if he had decent defenses. Also, you can't compare Sharpedo to Floaztel, because people complain about Sharpedo's defenses even more than Floatzel's, and Sharpedo has a great ability in Speed Boost, allowing it to outspeed almost everything and making his god awful defenses negligible. Anyways, 85 HP is only mediocre, and 50/55 defenses are abslutely HORRID. Tank Floatzel can literally get OHKOd or maybe even 2HKOd by anything and everything ever. There's no reason why you should use Floatzel as a tank instead of using Toxapex, Jellicent, any other bulky water type, really. HAPPINY has better defenses than Floatzel (except in Defense but that's still pretty sad).

Points:
- Shallow Movepool
- Weak defenses in comparison to anything else (ex. Toxapex, Jellicent, even Greninja)
- Much better as sweeper, and even gets outclassed in that by others. (Ex. Greninja, Sharpedo, Mega Blastiose)

Conclusion - Floatzel's base defenses are absolutely awful and you should never use him as a tank except for casual battles.

by
Mega Blastoise isn't a better sweeper than Floatzel. Just saying. Also, Floatzel's base defence is 55, not 50.
by
“Defenses” means defense, hp, and special defense. Also, yes Mega Blastoise is, there’s a reason why Blastoise-Mega is UU and Floatzel is only PU
by
Mega Blastoise is a better Water Type, Yes, But Blastoise is a bulky rapid spinner with a nasty (but sometimes Underwhelming) Hydro Pump/Cannon. I only say Hydro Cannon because it can surprise OHKO a few threats; Hydro Pump can be better at times. Blastoise isn't a sweeper though.
by
...
Blastiose @ Blastoisite
Ability: Mega Launcher
Modest Nature
EVs: 252 Spe/252 HP/4 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
- Water Pulse
- Aura Sphere
- Dark Pulse
- Aqua Jet

This is the smogon suggested BSS set. Please don’t tell people Mega Blastoise isn’t a viable Water Sweeper or you’ll look like a noob. P.S. that’s not to say you are one, and also Blastiose-Mega is more of a Bulky Sweeper, but he can still sweep
by
Honestly, I don't know why I said that. Mega Blastoise is a good sweeper (and I hope people don't think I'm getting out of sounding like a noob).
by

Related questions

Useful Posts