Tropius, The Fruit Pokémon. The bunches of fruit around Tropius's neck are very popular with children. This Pokémon loves fruit, and eats it continuously. Apparently, its love for fruit resulted in its own outgrowth of fruit. Children of the southern tropics eat as snacks the fruit that grows in bunches around the neck of Tropius. This Pokémon flies by flapping the leaves on its back as if they were wings. It flies by flapping its broad leaves. The bunch of fruit that grows around its neck is deliciously sweet. In the spring, it scatters pollen from its neck. Because it continually ate only its favorite fruit, the fruit started growing around its neck. The fruit grows twice a year.
Overview
Tropius is a Pokémon with some potential, but just a bit short on being able to hook onto it. Whilst it's built in the mould of a generic Grass type, the Flying type adds a little extra uniqueness to it, but at the same time hinders it greatly too. You gain Roost and some Flying STAB, but at the cost of a Rock weakness and quadrupling your Ice weakness. With those being two common attacking types, its defensively-minded stat distribution is difficult to take advantage of. Offensively, it's somewhat lacklustre, but it does have two offensive-minded abilities (that take advantage of sunlight) as well as access to Swords Dance and a respectable attacking move-pool.
With all that in mind, Tropius finds itself caught in somewhat of an Underused (UU) netherworld, even falling into the realms of Never-used (NU). Decent stats, decent move-pool, decent synergy possibilities but just no solid foundation to work from.
Ability
Chlorophyll: is a Grass type classic. It doubles your Speed during sunlight and happily combines with STAB Solarbeams, creating an obvious synergy move-set. Since Tropius has a pretty poor Speed stat, this ability can compensate for it and give it the Speed necessary for sweeping.
Solar Power: is somewhat of an oddball ability, but again, it relies on sunlight support. Tropius gets a 50% Special Attack boost but loses 1/8th of its HP per turn when sunlight is active. For a special sweeper, you would probably still favour Chlorophyll for the Speed, but if you have some inconsistent Sun support, it could add some more attacking menace to a less sun-inclined move-set. The downside is that Tropius is more inclined to physical move-sets than special ones, so even non-sweeper move-sets may see no reason for it.
Move Sets
Swords Dance
- Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Earthquake / Aerial Ace / Roost
- Earthquake / Aerial Ace / Roost
Item Attached: Leftovers / Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 120 HP / 252 Atk / 136 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
A lot of Grass types get Swords Dance, but Tropius actually has the right kind of move-pool to put that stat-boost to use. Sceptile's former signature move, Leaf Blade, has found its way into Tropius's move-pool, and at 90 base power, gets onto its move-set without he slightest hint of an argument.
In addition to STAB Grass, you have two other viable physical attacks. Earthquake, a type coverage classic, and STAB Aerial Ace. Grass-Ground fails to cover Grass and Flying types, whilst Grass-Flying fails to cover Steel types; so if you only pick one of the two, you might hit some type coverage gaps. If you do go with just two, it lets you make room for Roost, which gives you a consistent 50% recovery to work with, and lets you drop that Flying type temporarily if you use it before your opponent attacks.
Chlorophyll is your ability of choice here, and if you can get some Sun support going, it'll really help. Tropius really lacks Speed, so if something can set up a Heat Rock-Sunny Day, that's half the battle. Of course, the same applies to Trick Room or Baton Pass support, but that applies to every slow sweeper anyway.
Leftovers or Life Orb is a bit of the 'same-old' when it comes to item choosing. Leftovers gives you a little extra bulk, whilst Life Orb takes away from it but tags on a nice 1.3x boost.
Sunny Day
- Sunny Day
- Solarbeam
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Air Slash / Synthesis
Item Attached: Heat Rock / Leftovers / Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
Originality isn't shining brightly here, but the Sunny Day synergy trick can be pulled off well by any Pokémon packing Chlorophyll and Solarbeam. Tag on Hidden Power [Fire], which benefits from makeshift STAB (from the sunlight) and you nearly have a completed move-set. You can toss in Air Slash as well for some more STAB (and a little bit of neutral coverage on Fire types), or you can run with Synthesis for healing, which also gets a nice boost from the sun.
Item-wise, you have some options. Heat Rock adds on a few more turns of sun, Leftovers adds a little extra healing, and Life Orb gives you a nice little power boost, which is handy when you look at Tropius's not-too-eye-catching Special Attack.
Defensive
- Leech Seed
- Roost
- Air Slash | Aerial Ace
- Energy Ball | Earthquake / Leaf Blade
Item Attached: Leftovers
Ability: Solar Power / Chlorophyll
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 244 HP / 192 Def / 72 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk) | Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
Tropius has a nice defensive stat distribution and a recovery move (Roost), and whilst it has some awkward weaknesses, it has a fair few resistances to play with too. Tropius is a bit too slow to Sub-Seed, but it can take advantage of Leech Seed for a bit of healing and damaging. A STAB Flying move is necessary for taking on your fellow Grass types, who are immune to Leech Seed, so pick the special or physical route by choosing between Air Slash and Aerial Ace. If you choose the special route, you can back that up with Energy Ball (or a Hidden Power), and if you go physical, you get the options of Earthquake and Leaf Blade.
You can consider Solar Power here if you're using special attacks, since you've got a nice source of healing coming along, but if you're using physical moves or just don't want to deal with the passive damage, run with Chlorophyll.
EVs and Nature:
Swords Dance
You have a few EV spreads to work with here. This particularly matters when it comes to your Speed and HP EV distributions, particularly depending on whether you have Chlorophyll support and if you're using Roost.
With Chlorophyll support, you'll want enough Speed to get to 362 (172 Speed EVs) to outrun Persian, or even 384 (216 EVs) for Swellow or 198 (240 EVs) to outrun Crobat. Choice Scarf threats might influence your decision here, since there are plenty who will throw their Speed goals into the 362+ area.
Without Chlorophyll support, you'll want to invest a lot of Speed. Tropius is slow, but it'll want to outrun other slow opponents. Even a Jolly nature might be worth consideration, for those extra 20 Speed points.
As for defensive EVs, you don't need them but you should give them some consideration, particularly if you have any excess EVs leftover.
The sample EV spread should work comfortably if you have some sun support, but if you don't, you might want to go with more Speed EVs and possibly even a Jolly nature. You could go the opposite way though, and just skip Speed EVs altogether in an attempt to make your defences a bit sturdier.
Sunny Day
Since you have your own sun support, Speed is a bit more straightforward. Again you have three numbers to aim for: 362 (172 EVs), 384 (216 EVs) or 198 (240 EVs, or just max to keep things simple). Tag on Modest with Max Special Attack and then tag on whatever EVs are leftover into HP.
Defensive
You can vary things up here, ranging from offensive EV investment to favouring one defence over another and so forth. The sample EV spread gives balanced defences (250 a piece) with a chunky 400 HP, although some serious consideration should be given to offensive investment, since at their base, Tropius's offensive stats are rather dismal.
Other Options
Leaf Storm, Curse, Choice Specs, Whirlwind, Toxic.
Leaf Storm's your strongest move, although the huge Special Attack drop makes it unfavourable when your main special sweeping set has one-turn Solarbeams to work with.
Curse can work for a cross between the Swords Dance and Defensive sets. The large number of exploitable weaknesses is the main downfall, since you'll be moving slowly and defensive boosts or not, super-effective hits hurt (particularly if they're going against your un-boosted Special Defence).
Choice Specs is usable as a special set, and could be combined with Solar Power for a nice stack of boosts, but you aren't working with the most diverse of move-pools nor the best stats for a Choice set.
Whirlwind and Toxic are a couple of defensive-supportive options that can work for Tropius, but don't fit particularly neatly into any specific move-set.
Countering Tropius
If you're faced with the Swords Dancer, depending on whether you have to deal with one backed by a Chlorophyll boost, it can be a little more complicated. As with all stat-boosters, it does need to take a turn to set itself up for a sweep, and getting Chlorophyll support is an even more prolonged process. Weezing can take on a boosted Tropius quite easily, same with a fair majority of defensive Flying types. Tropius's poor Speed helps out a bit on the perspective of picking it off before it can fight back.
The Sunny Day move-set is handled fairly easily by Fire types, who get the benefit of a boost off of the sun too. STAB Air Slash poses the biggest threat to them, but the fairly defensive Ninetales, Flareon and Torkoal should get the job done.
A general point to remember is Tropius's large weakness count, particularly that huge 4x Ice weakness. Fire, Rock, Flying and Poison round off the collection. It still has some decent defences to contend with though, as well as access to recovery moves. On the bright side, without some boosting, it shouldn't pose a large offensive threat.
Locations in Games
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Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Route 119 Colosseum/XD Snagged from Cipher Peon Ston in Realgam Tower Colosseum (Col) Trade from RSEC (XD) Fire Red/Leaf Green Trade from RSEC Diamond/Pearl/Platinum Trade from RSEPt (DP) Great Marsh (Pt)
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Animé Appearences
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Tropius has had a few Animé appearances. Most of them were just simple cameos in random episodes. Ash faced up against one in the Hoenn League and a wild one was against Ash's Grovyle for the affections of a Meganium.
Movie 6: Jirachi - Wish Maker! |
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