Carvanha Guide: What Can This Piranha Inspired Pokemon Do?

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Jesus Cruz, Lifelong Pokémon Fan

It all started in 2010 when Jesus was 10 years old. His dad gifted him a Nintendo DS and let him choose a game for it. A weird, enormous, and grey serpent caught my attention on the box art for Pokémon Platinum, and since that moment he's been hooked! He can only thank his 10 years old self for choosing the game that he loves the most in the series

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Carvanha, the savage Pokémon, is a Water/Dark-type Pokémon introduced in Gen 3, and it’s the pre-evolution of Sharpedo.

Carvanha is inspired by a piranha but taken to the extreme since this Pokémon is pretty aggressive and territorial. In fact, every time a foe invades Carvanha’s territory, it gets angry and attacks without hesitation. These Pokémon usually form packs in the sea, devouring everything in their way.

Carvanha has a blue head and a red jaw with pointy and robust teeth. It has a yellow star in the bottom half of its body, two fins in the top of its head and one fin with the same shape in the bottom of its body, and lastly, it has a redfin in the back with a yellow membrane; it uses it to do a pretty fast swim.

It is said that Carvanha’s jaw is mighty, and its teeth are strong enough to drill steel. The sailors prevent crossing through Carvanha’s packs since they can sink a boat in a matter of seconds. Carvanha’s name comes from the combination of the words Carve and Piranha.

Carvanha Summary of Appearances in Pokémon Versions and Media (Games, Anime, Movies)

In the games, you can find Carvanha in the following places:

• Gen 3: In all games, it is in the Routes 118 and 119 but only with a good rod or a super rod.
• Gen 4: It can be found in the Great Marsh, only fishing with a super rod.
• Gen 5: You can find it in the Village Bridge, only by fishing.
• Gen 6: It can only be found on Route 22, only by fishing. Also, in ORAS, it can be found in the same place as Gen 3.
• Gen 7: In SM you can get it only by breeding Sharpedo (That can be found in the Poni Breaker Coast). In USUM You can find it in the Poni Breaker Coast only by fishing.
• Gen 8: Carvanha could not be obtained in Sword and Shield before the expansion pass. After that, you can find Training Lowlands only by fishing.

Carvanha’s debut in the anime was as a pack of them in A Corphish Out Of Water when Ash had to get across a river with a lot of Carvanhas. After that, Carvanha has a lot of minor appearances, primarily being a wild Pokémon.

Carvanha appeared for the first time in the manga in PS188, in which it was under the ownership of Amber, a Team Aqua Admin. After that, it appeared two more times in the Pokémon Adventures saga.

Lastly, Carvanha has 17 different cards in the TCG. 13 of its cards are normal Carvanhas while 4 of them are Team Aqua’s Carvanha. Of those 13 cards, all of them are common and they appeared in EX Ruby & Sapphire, EX Deoxys, EX Holon Phantoms, EX Power Keepers, Secret Wonders, Rising Rivals, Triumphant, Plasma Storm, Sun & Moon, Guardians Rising, Cosmic Eclipse, Unbroken Bonds and Champions Path.

1 of the 4 Team Aqua’s Carvanha is uncommon and it appeared in the EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua as well as 2 common cards. The last card was a common one and it appeared in Double Crisis.

Carvanha Evolution Line: When Does Carvanha Evolve?

Carvanha evolves into Sharpedo at level 30. Sharpedo doesn’t evolve.

Carvanha Stats

Carvanha is very strong. It is probably one of the best Pokémon in its tier, LC (Little Cup). Their stats are pretty decent (perhaps because it evolves only one time); It is meant to be a Physical Sweeper; we can know that seeing its null Defenses and its powerful Attack. It is also faster than most of the sweepers in this tier, which gives it a great advantage when choosing a sweeper in your team.

Let’s check out the Carvanha’s abilities; we will choose a specific one to make it the perfect cannon:

Abilities

Carvanha can have the following abilities:

• Rough Skin: Whenever a foe hits Carvanha with a Physical attack, it will get 1/16 of its maximum HP as damage.
• Speed Boost (As a hidden ability): At the end of every turn, Carvanha will get a raise of one stage of its speed.

We have two options, but Rough Skin is pretty useless since Carvanha isn’t likely to handle most of the attacks in a battle. We are going to use Speed Boost; it is perfect for a sweeper.

Natures

We need Carvanha to be fast. Nonetheless, we don’t need a favorable speed nature since it has Speed Boost, and its base speed isn’t bad at all. That means that we are gonna use a good attack nature; let’s check the list:

• Lonely (Increases Attack, reduces Defense)
• Brave (Increases Attack, reduces Speed)
• Adamant (Increases Attack, reduces Special Attack)
• Naughty (Increases Attack, reduces Special Defense)

Our picks have to be Lonely or Naughty since Carvanaha’s defense stats are really bad, we don’t need to buff them since our strategy has the intent that Carvanha doesn’t get a single hit.

Stats

Carvanha has the following stats:

Carvanha is really strong, as we can see, it has a total of 305 base points. Their HP, Defense, and Special Defense is really low, to compensate for that, its Attack, Special Attack, and Speed are better than the standard in the LC tier. Every time you faint a wild Carvanha you’ll get 1 EV in Attack.

Moves list per level (Gen 8)

Carvanha can learn the following moves by leveling up:

We have plenty of options here, like Liquidation or Crunch. It can even learn Poison Fang, to counterplay its weakness to the Grass-type. Aqua Jet can be a great option too.

Let’s check its TM/TR move list:

Move list per TM/TR (Gen 8)

Carvanha Strengths

Carvanha is a Water/Dark-type Pokémon, which means it is strong against the following types:

• It gets only ½ of the damage against Steel-type.
• It gets only ½ of the damage against Water-type.
• It gets only ½ of the damage against Ghost-type.
• It gets only ½ of the damage against Fire-type.
• It gets only ½ of the damage against Ice-type.
• It gets only ½ of the damage against Dark-type.
• It is immune to Psychic-type.

Carvanha is probably one of the worst defenders of the game, which means that a strong attack can get it down even if Carvanha is strong against it. This is why Carvanha needs to be faster than its foe; a good hit can get Carvanha down. But you don’t have to be scared. With a good setup, Carvanha is really fast and sweeps out every single thing that crosses its way.

Carvanha’s Dark-type attacks can get down a Psychic or a Ghost-type Pokémon while its Water attacks can get rid of those Fire, Rock, and Ground-types.

Carvanha Weaknesses

We will not get tired of saying this: If Carvanha gets a strong hit, regardless of which type is it, our strategy can be destroyed as well as Carvanha.

• It takes x2 damage against Electric-type.
• It takes x2 damage against Bug-type.
• It takes x2 damage against Fairy-type.
• It takes x2 damage against Fighting-type.
• It takes x2 damage against Grass-type.

Also, its Water-type attacks will not do great damage against Water, Dragon, and Grass-types and its Dark-type attacks will be weak against Fairy, Fighting, and Dark-types. There’s a lot of Pokémon that can kill Carvanha’s strategy, most of them Focus Sash users or those “chunky” walls like Aron, Beldum, or Bonsly that can have a good move against it.

Carvanha Moveset

Let’s check out the moveset and its build and then we will comment on how to use Carvanha properly:

• Poison Fangs
• Crunch
• Aqua Jet
• Protect

With Life Orb as its item, Speed Boost as its ability, and Adamant as its Nature.

EVs: 196 Atk / 36 Def / 36 SpD / 236 Spe / 9 HP

Let’s talk about its moves set. Aqua Jet and Crunch are our picks since they are the strongest STAB attacks that Carvanha can learn. Aqua Jet is a good option to fight against those Pokémon that can be faster than our favorite piranha. Now, we choose Poison Fangs to outplay those Grass-types that can get Carvanha down quickly. Lastly, Protect if you want to play safer and get a free Speed Boost turn.

Life Orb will work perfectly with Carvanha since this item will buff in a 1.3x its attack, but it will drain 1/10 of its HP every turn. Its 9 EVs in HP will make it last enough to win the battle. We talked before Speed Boost and Adamant before; they will make Carvanha a solid and fast sweeper.

Its EVs will significantly buff its attack and speed and has some points on its defenses to make it last a little more.

Lastly, we recommend not making Carvanha your lead; it is more likely to use Carvanha when the opposite’s team is weak enough. This means that a great companion to Carvanha is those entry hazards like Dewpider with Sticky Web or some Spikes / Stealth Rock users like Dwebble. It can be way better if you have a Light Screen or Reflect setter too.

Carvanha in a video

In this video, we can see how, with the exact same strategy that we showed here (except for the Life Orb, using Focus Sash as its item), Carvanha is capable of destroying an entire team. It used Protect to get a Speed Boost in the first turn, and then it started to destroy everything in its path!

FAQs

Conclusion

We can say without hesitation that Carvanha is one of the best sweepers in its tier, considering it is straightforward to use, and it can get hazardous by only being in the field and getting two Speed Boosts. It is unstoppable when it gets in the field to finish the foe’s team.

Probably, the only problem with Carvanha is that it has to be with a great company; Otherwise, it will not do its job perfectly. But we recommend using it in your team! you’ll not be disappointed!