Poliwrath
Tadpole Pokémon
With its extremely tough muscles, it can keep swimming in the Pacific Ocean without resting.
Base Stats
Type Effectiveness
Abilities
Held Items
Evolution Chain
Moves
Locations
Details
Sprites
Competitive
Strategy Overview
Poliwrath's solid Water / Fighting typing along with Water Absorb grants it a unique array of resistances. This, combined with its impressive bulk, enables it to serve as an offensive check to many physical Water-types, such as Samurott, Kabutops, and Barbaracle, as well as Rock- and Steel-types such as Rhydon, Aggron, and Klinklang. Unfortunately, it is weak to many common offensive Pokemon like Rotom, Mesprit, Lilligant, and Ludicolo, which can all outspeed it. Poliwrath's lack of access to reliable recovery prevents it from fully utilizing its defensive typing. Poliwrath also lacks a good physical movepool, lacking a solid physical Fighting-type attack in particular, which leaves it reliant on its lower Special Attack stat to threaten most targets. Despite being a Water-type, it struggles to check Fire-types because of their strong secondary coverage like Magmortar's Thunderbolt or Charizard's Air Slash. Poliwrath is also slower than all the common Fire-types, forcing it to sponge at least one hit before attacking.
Most Used Moves
Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc