Qwilfish
Balloon Pokémon
To fire its poison spikes, it must inflate its body by drinking over 2.6 gallons of water all at once.
Base Stats
Type Effectiveness
Abilities
Held Items
Evolution Chain
Moves
Details
Sprites
Competitive
Strategy Overview
Qwilfish is one of the PU tier's top Spikes and Toxic Spikes setters thanks to its good physical bulk, solid defensive typing, and access to Intimidate, which lets it handle a good number of the tier's physical attackers such as Gurdurr and Skuntank. In addition, a solid Speed tier and access to Taunt make Qwilfish the premier Spikes user of the tier, separating it from other Spikers such as Ferroseed and Roselia, which are unable to touch opposing Taunt users such as Skuntank and Aggron. With a multitude of support moves to choose from, like Taunt, Thunder Wave, and Destiny Bond, Qwilfish is able to add a great amount of utility to teams and succeeds at performing different functions apart from setting entry hazards. Swords Dance also enables Qwilfish to function as a fast rain sweeper alongside its near-unresisted STAB combination and ability to remove Toxic Spikes. However, Qwilfish lacks recovery, which means it's susceptible to getting chipped throughout the course of a game from hazards and continually switching into the Pokemon it needs to check like Hitmonchan and Gurdurr. Qwilfish also has a really poor Special Defense stat and is at the mercy of special attackers like Alolan Raichu and Drampa, which easily force it out. In addition, Qwilfish's passiveness means these special attackers have an even easier time threatening it, since it cannot do anything in return to force them out. Furthermore, outside of rain, Qwilfish struggles to break through bulkier walls such as Gurdurr and Gastrodon and relies on Explosion in order to threaten these Pokemon.
Most Used Moves
Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc