MOTW: Venoshock
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Poison types. Most likely one of the most underrated types in the entire game. We’re going to take a look at one of the most powerful poison type moves in the entire game now that black and white are out. Try not to faint on contact, here comes Venoshock.
Venoshock was introduced in Gen V this year, and it can, in my opinon be the best Poison type move in the game. What it does for damage is normally 65, but... if your opponent is poisoned damage doubles. So let’s say you have a Gengar on your team. Put a Toxic on it and just let it rip. With 130 base in special Gengar is the best choice for this move, at least when it comes to sheer power.
Using a Toxic to poison your opponent is one way to poison, but a double battle better suits this setup. You can have one Pokemon poison with a Toxic, then Gengar is free to have whatever else move set it please. Plus then you'd be able to set up something like a Hypnosis/Dream Eater combo. A couple of good choices for items would be either a Poison Barb (20% pwr increase), Life Orb which is a 30% pwr increase (but watch out for recoil with how much damage you're doing. That could finish of a Gengar pretty quick), or if you really wanted to bet everything you got you could put Choice Specs on it.
So let’s see here... Toxic your opponent. Now Venoshock has 130 base. STAB’ed that automatically up to 195 for a power rating. Let’s add the 50% for Choice Specs on the original. Now the base is up to 260 power...
Dang...
Not to mention that Gengar has one of the highest special attack of any Poison type Pokemon in the game. So with a base of 130 special attack, a 260 powered move, not to mention that it’s base speed is also 110 so you’ll most likely go first anyways. Not bad at all.
Taking the risk of poisoning yourself can go a long ways with Venoshock, and I highly recommend you checking it out.
-It’s Super Effective
-aaronspriggs
I wanted to add my two sense after arguing with Aaron. While he is valid that Gengar has a higher special attack, I believe that a Tentacruel would be a better choice for Venoshock. Gengar is designed to be a pure sweeper. While Venoschock will be devastating to the opponent... Gengar would have to set up with a Toxic (only 90%), then go for a Venoshock. After that first move, it is highly likely Gengar would go down against another sweeper, making this strategy useless. Tentacruel doesn't have as high of special attack as a Gengar, but it has the highest special defense out of any poison Pokémon. On top of that, Tentacruel can learn Toxic Spikes, with that being said, Tentacruel has more then enough defense to withstand a One-Hit KO, resulting in plenty of set up for a Venoshock attack.
