Sharpedo, The Brutal Pokémon. Nicknamed "the bully of the sea," Sharpedo is widely feared. Its cruel fangs grow back immediately if they snap off. Just one of these Pokémon can thoroughly tear apart a supertanker. Sharpedo can swim at speeds of up to 75 mph by jetting seawater out of its backside. This Pokémon's drawback is its inability to swim long distances. Its fangs rip through sheet iron
Overview
Sharpedo is a personal favourite of mine, and it received a major boost in the generation shift. The split of Special and Physical moves finally means Sharpedo has physical STAB, and two good STABs at that. Throw in Earthquake, Ice Fang and a Base 120 Attack stat and you have a nice hard-hitter.
I'd love to say “Sharpedo is the most improved Pokémon in the generation shift”, but at the end of the day, it's still an Underused Pokémon. Getting physical STAB gave it a huge jump in quality, but it's still not leaping out of UU with its current stats. As far as its Speed is concerned, Base 95 is good for a UU, but it's just a bit short of ideal for the standard environment. Obviously, its defensive stats are best forgotten, they're downright poor and even moves it resists are going to be taking chunks out of it.
Treat Sharpedo like a glass cannon. It's not gonna eat up a lot of hits, but it can rip holes into unprepared opponents.
Trait
Rough Skin: chips off 1/16th of the opponent's HP when they use an attack that makes 'physical contact'. Since Sharpedo frequently faints from the slightest of touches, this ability will probably only be seen once, if at all. The main use you'll ever see for it is sacrificing Sharpedo to a Flail or Reversal, letting Rough Skin chip off the opponent's last few hit points.
Move Sets
Choice Band / Physical Sweeper
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
Item Attached: Choice Band / Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs and Nature:
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk) / Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
Your basic hard-hitter, all-out-offence, glass cannon. Choice Band obviously gives the largest boost but it locks Sharpedo into one mode of offence, whilst Life Orb lets it switch between its attacks with a smaller boost, at the cost of its HP. You might find Sharpedo KOing itself, but that HP isn't going to be all that useful for taking hits anyway.
Waterfall and Crunch provide its most reliable STAB choices, although it has a couple of other options. Earthquake is an obvious necessity, with its wonderful type coverage. Ice Fang's main use is for Grass types, although even then its power will only just about climb above Crunch, but there's not much else to occupy that move-slot. In the Standard environment, it becomes a bit more of a necessity, with so many Pokémon having 4x weaknesses to Ice moves.
Mixed Sweeper
- Waterfall / Surf
- Crunch / Dark Pulse
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
Item Attached: Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SAtk
Hasty Nature (+Spd, -Def) / Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
Sharpedo has a perfectly usable Special Attack to work with, and with Life Orb boosting both of its offensive stats it becomes a very viable possibility. The obvious advantage is that this Sharpedo set will be able to deal with both kinds of defensive wall, physical and special.
Earthquake has no Special counterpart, and on a mixed sweeper, Ice Beam is a clearly superior choice to Ice Fang. It's really just a matter of picking which STABs you want to be physical and which you want to be special. Waterfall and Crunch are its physical options, Surf and Dark Pulse are its special options. You could run two special ones, or two physical ones or a mix.
Choice Specs / Special Sweeper
- Surf
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric / Grass]
Item Attached: Choice Specs / Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) / Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
As noted above, Sharpedo's Special Attack is perfectly usable, and the fact that it's predominantly considered a physical sweeper gives Special sets the element of surprise. As with the equivalent physical set, it can go with Choice Specs for a bigger boost or Life Orb for a boost and the ability to switch between its offensive moves.
Surf and Dark Pulse provide STAB whilst Ice Beam deals with Grass types (and some 4x weak Pokémon). Hidden Power will mainly be used to deal with opposing water types, with Electric being especially useful for Mantine and Grass especially for Quagsire and Lanturn.
EVs and Nature:
Being that its defences can't be salvaged, the only route to really go is 252/252. With a Speed boosting nature, its Base 95 Speed can be bumped ahead of some other Pokémon. In the Standard environment, special note should be taken that it can potential set it above Salamence and Garchomp. In the UU environment, you have the likes of Manectric and Typhlosion that can potentially be outran. Obviously, the alternative +10% offensive boost from Adamant (or Modest) is none too shabby either.
On the mixed set, the EVs should be tailored towards whichever offence is being used primarily. Aside from the possibility of using Choice Scarf, its Speed stat shouldn't be sacrificed, so more complex EV spreads might be needed if both of its offences need to be boosted.
Other Options
Choice Scarf, Hydro Pump, Brine, Night Slash, Aqua Jet, Poison Jab, Taunt, Focus Sash.
Choice Scarf is an adequate choice for any of the sets above, especially on the mixed sweeper where it'll save a lot of Speed EVs that could be dedicated to boosting both of its offences.
Hydro Pump and Brine are special alternatives to Surf.
Night Slash is a physical alternative to Crunch.
Aqua Jet is a STAB priority move. Sharpedo won't be getting KOs with it but it can pick off weakened opponents, and having the opportunity to strike first never hurts.
Poison Jab only scores super-effective damage on one type, but it's the strongest move it has for use against pure Grass types. Unfortunately, up against Poison/Grass types (which are fairly numerous) Ice Fang would be a better choice.
Taunt can be used for any opponents cocky enough to try and deal with Sharpedo non-offensively (such as throwing Will-o-Wisp or Thunder Wave in its direction).
Since Sharpedo is so fragile, Focus Sash is a pretty decent option on it, to at least guarantee it'll get a hit off.
Countering Sharpedo
Despite its power, Sharpedo is extremely fragile. Short of its resistances, pretty much any decently powered move will have a good shot at KOing it. That just leaves the simple matter of finding a Pokémon that can land a decently powered hit on it without being KOed by Sharpedo. Whether Sharpedo has a Choice boost or not can cause a few problems when countering, so a little scouting beforehand might be required.
Poliwrath and Crawdaunt resist both of its offensive STAB moves without having weaknesses to any of its other moves (barring Hidden Power). Hariyama and Hitmontop can come in relatively comfortably on Crunch, same for generally any defensive Fighting type. Defensive Grass types like Meganium and Vileplume can come in against its Water moves but need to watch out for Ice Fang. Defensive Water types like Lapras and Quagsire can comfortably come in against its Water moves as well.
Up against Special variants, Mantine and Lanturn are effective, depending on which Hidden Power is in use. From the aforementioned list, Meganium, Vileplume and Lapras also are effective. Much like the aforementioned list, resistant Pokémon with good defences work nicely.
Sharpedo is pretty susceptible to Thunder Wave and Will-o-Wisp, if the Pokémon in question is unable to deal with it offensively. Being weak to Fighting moves, Mach Punch and Vacuum Wave cause it problems. Sharpedo is relatively quick, but it's hardly a Speed freak and trails behind several Pokémon who are more than capable of KOing it (like Electrode and Manectric).
Locations in Games
|
Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Routes 103, 118, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, Mossdeep City, Pacifidlog Town (Fish) Colosseum/XD Trade from RSEXD (Col), Evolve Carvanha (XD) Fire Red/Leaf Green Trade from RSEXD Diamond/Pearl Routes 213 & 222 (Fish w/ Super Rod)
|
|
 |
|
Animé Appearences
| Sharpedo has had an Animé Appearence. In it, a group of them attacked Ash & Co. on an island. Their leader got injured and he was eventuially healed by Brock |
|