Volcarona and the Days of Future Past

 

 I. love. Volcarona! How cool is it to have a mythical sun-deity flaming moth on your team with Stats nearly as high as a Legendary Pokemon? Even in a Singles metagame defined by Stealth Rock and a Doubles metagame with Rock Slide galore, it has managed to carve out a niche as a hugely powerful Sp. Attacker. So when Scarlet and Violet introduced two more bizarre forms of this exceptional Bug type, I thought "Weird! But I'll take them!" All three forms of Volcarona will be available as Legendary Pokemon in Bugmerald, befitting their mythical descriptions and powerful stats. Let's take a look at how they'll operate in a Bug-only world!

1. Stats

While they certainly don't need a boost, now that they're official Legendary Pokemon I'm upping all their base stat totals to a well round 600. Slither Wing with its prehistoric ferocity has the lowest speed and Sp. Attack but the highest HP and Attack. Iron Moth is the fastest and hits hardest on the Sp. Attack side but has the worst defenses, while Volcarona lands in the middle defensively but remains decently fast and certainly hard hitting.

For typing, you may think Iron Moth would be a Steel type but it wasn't in Scarlet and Violet (you cost me a lot of points on PokeGrid for this, Game Freak >:( ) and we're doing the same by making it Bug/Poison. Volcarona is of course, Bug/Fire and Slither Wing keeps its Bug/Fighting mix. 

2. Abilities

Volcarona never needed a primo ability to perform well in battle, but I would like an ability that is a bit more unique to it, and of course the same goes for Slither Wing and Iron Moth with their bland Paradox abilities. We're going to take a page out of Volcarona's Pokedex and the movie monster Mothra to spice things up.

• Flaming Scales: Halves the power of Fire attacks used by all opponents
• Paralyzing Scales: Any Flying type moves used by Slither Wing reduce the target's Speed by one stage
• Reflective Scales: Status moves used after Iron Moth's turn are reflected back at the user

Volcarona's Dex entry talks about how the danger of its scales are not how they burn, but how they use up the oxygen in the area. I think Flaming Scales is a neat play on that lore. Meanwhile, Paralyzing Scales and Reflective Scales pull on some abilities from Mothra that I think are very fitting for the prehistoric and futuristic backgrounds of these two forms. As signature abilities, we won't include anything else in the secondary or Hidden Ability slots for these Pokemon.

3. Movepool

Iron Moth will get Armor Cannon, Clear Smog, and Corrosive Gas. I love the idea of it shooting off a piece or two of its metallic wings to inflict massive fire damage at the cost of defense. It notably won't get access to a strong, single-target Poison move outside of Venoshock. I like the idea of it relying on Sludge Wave, which will hit your ally unless you're prepared, or having to rely on allies setting up poison via Toxic Spikes or other moves. Venomoth would be a great partner here.

Slither Wing's new ability turns Dual Wingbeat from a lackluster coverage move to a pretty debilitating physical move that sharply lowers the opponents speed. It will also get access to Air Cutter for a weaker attack that compensates by hitting the field and lowering the speed of both foes. For flavor, I want Ancient Power and Dragon Tail to play off its prehistoric nature and Vacuum Wave as one of the few (only?) Fighting types that has huge hurricane-producing wings. 

Volcarona will be getting a buff to Fiery Dance, making it always increase Sp. Attack instead of only having a 50% effect rate. It will also get access to Sacred Fire if you want to fish for burns instead. Otherwise, I think its in a pretty darn good place.

Conclusion

Volcarona has always been powerful, and while its crippling Rock weakness can be troublesome it can no doubt provide some amazing power to your team if you can support it. Slither Wing and Iron Moth will also be incredible additions to any team, assuming you can find them. Will you be able to catch all three or will you need to make a hard choice of who to add? Where will you find them in the Hoenn map? What place do they hold in the Bugmerald lore? All of that, you'll have to find out in game.