Toxicroak Weaknesses Explored

Toxicroak is a poison/fighting type Pokemon acquired by evolving Croagunk at level 37. Introduced in Diamond and Pearl, the 4th generation installments of the game. Toxicroak’s dual typing makes it 4x weak to psychic type moves, however, do not underestimate this dark horse. Its Dry Skin ability gives you many synergistic options with water-type Pokemon and survivability in battle.

Although Toxicroak doesn’t have the most incredible stats with low Defense, Special Defense, and average Health and Speed, making it squishy and quickly knocked out.

However, it can be picked for competitive teams due to its fighting and powerful poison moves. Toxicroak’s Poison Touch hidden ability introduced in Sun and Moon further enhances the Pokemon’s utility in battle by having a chance to inflict the Poison status when Pokemon come into physical contact with Toxicroak. 

Toxicroak has been used throughout the generations peaking in generation five. However, it’s a Pokemon that is not often seen in competitive play recently. It’s a Pokemon that can still catch out trainers. It’s respected by many competitive players and has seen use in competitions. 

Toxicroax’s design and typing suggest that it is based on a Poison Dart Frog. It’s no surprise that this Pokemon and its junior from Croagunk are first encountered in Shinoh’s wet and muddy Great Marsh. Toxicroak bares a sinister smile with a curled up lip. The Pokemon has a sac positioned below its neck and covers a portion of its chest.

Toxicroak can expand this sac when threatened. A PokeDex entry describes Toxicroak’s sharp protruding claws connected by tubes that wrap around its arms. These features resemble that of boxing tape. Its curled lip also resembles a mouth guard, cohering to its Fighting-type.

Toxicroak and Croagunk are often used by members of Team Galactic, whether it’s for their intimidating look or their Poison-type moves, and is battled throughout Diamond and Pearl and the remasters. As illustrated by Commander Saturn, you will fight on multiple occasions throughout the 4th generation’s story.

Typing and Moves

Image from wiki

Toxicroak is the only Pokemon to have a Poison and Fighting dual typing. Its unique typing makes it vulnerable to only a minority of move types, such as Psychic, Flying, and Ground. However, Toxicroak can learn a bunch of Ghost and Dark-type moves such as Shadow Ball and Dark Pulse to counter Psychic types.

But while this may work in your playthrough, you will most likely come to the 4x damage inflicted by Psychic moves in competitive play. Even though Toxicroak is weak to Ground and Flying types, it can knock these Pokemon types out using Ice Punch, Stone Edge, and Hidden Power (Ice).

Toxicroak has excellent type coverage in its move pool thanks to its unique dual typing as Toxicroak has some potential to be a decent sweeper, thanks to its great stab and priority moves such as Drain Punch and Sucker Punch. Swords Dance and Bulk Up are commonly used to improve Toxicroak’s damage and survivability.

Toxicroak can be very unpredictable to fight against, as it has many different combinations of moves making the Pokemon a great one at checking your opponent. 

Because of Toxicroak’s low defense, Psychic, Flying, and Ground moves will rip through Toxicroak; however, don’t its weaknesses deter you from picking Toxicroak for your team. It has excellent resistance to a decent amount of movement types.

Furthermore, Toxicroak is also somewhat weak to Fire-type moves or harsh sunlight with the Dry Skin ability and immune to Water-type moves and will recover health from them. 

Here is a breakdown of all move types Toxicroak is resistant to:

  • Fighting
  • Poison 
  • Rock
  • Bug 
  • Grass
  • Dark

Key Strengths and Weaknesses

Image from wiki

Toxicroak has an exciting position in the weather meta of the Pokemon competitive scene as it is capable of causing havoc to Rain Dance and Water teams in competitive battles. Thanks to its Dry Skin ability, Toxicroak can benefit from its opponent by healing.

It also makes Toxicroak an excellent option for your Rain Dance and Water team, as you’ll be able to launch various move types to round your team off. However, the ability does come with a downside as Toxicroak will get a reduction in health with harsh sunlight imposed by the Sunny Weather move or Pokemon ability. Toxicroak will also take a bit more damage from Fire-type moves. 

Toxic and Toxic Spikes are commonly used moves and strategies in competitive play to chip away at the opponent’s health. This strategy can destroy unprepared teams. Toxicroak is immune to the poison status ailment inflicted by Toxic and Toxic Spikes and absorbs scattered Toxic Spikes when sent into battle.

Allowing you to clear the field for your other Pokemon. Toxicroak can also learn an array of Ground-type moves, enabling it to make short work of Poison-type threats on the opponent’s team. 

Powerful Double Battle Potential

Toxicroak can be incredibly powerful when partnered with the right Pokemon. I recommend that you make the most out of Toxicroak’s powerful Dry Skin ability by using Water-types to support it.

As moves such as Surf and Rain Dance will heal Toxicroak and give Toxicroak time to set up with Swords Dance and Bulk Up. A few rounds using these moves and Toxicroak will have significant sustainability by recovering from water moves and a powered-up Drain Punch. 

Toxicroak Counters

While Toxicroak is strong against Rain Dance teams, it is weak against sand stall teams, teams that focus on defense and ground types to slowly chip away at their opponent by using the move Sandstorm. This results from Toxicroak’s inability to shut down Pokemon with high defense, such as Hipowdon, Skarmory, and Gliscor Pokemon, often found in sand stall teams. As Toxicroak can be quickly defeated when walled in. 

The Skill Swap ability will destroy Toxicroak as it removes its all in significant health recovery and water immunity. This can also spell disaster if you have set up rain weather effects, as your opponent will be able to benefit from this instead. 

Best Pokemon to Fight Against

Best Pokemon to Fight Against
Image from wiki

Toxicroak will leave Fairy-types shivering with fear as it unleashes a barrage of poison attacks such as Poison Jab and Venoshock. Toxicroak can use Bullet Punch to compensate for its low speed and quickly take out Fairy-types before they can even move due to the move’s high priority. 

Tentacruel can pose many problems to trainers, it’s Water/Poison dual typing makes it a frequent pick for Toxic Stall teams. Due to its Toxic Spikes and high defense. However, Toxicroak does short work of Tentacruel due to its resistance to Poison types. Although Tentacruel may also be resistant to many of Toxicroak’s moves.

 If needed, Toxicroak can learn Ground-type moves to inflict double damage to Tentacruel. However, I recommend using a charged-up Focus Punch to remove Tentacruel from the field.

Toxicroak is brilliant for countering Ludicolo as it can take advantage of its water attacks and inflict super effective poison attacks to ruin it. Tyranitar can often destroy its opponents due to its vital stats. However, Toxicroak can deal some severe damage with a Drain or Focus Punch. 

Competitive Setup

Toxicroak’s unique dual typing and move variety allows it to be built for different strategies and teams. You can either build it as a dangerous sweeper or check your opponent. Either way, you will likely have your opponent guessing what they are against.

Toxicroak can be very unpredictable in his moveset. For example, a trainer may think that they can wipe Toxicroak out with one Psychic attack. However, moves such as Fake Out will take priority, and if Toxicroak has been able to set up a few rounds of Bulk Up or Swords Dance, you can make short work of your opponent’s Psychic Pokemon.

Generally, Adamant and Jolly nature Toxicroaks are the best used for competitive battles. The Jolly nature boosts its speed, giving Toxicroak a bit of fortitude from its low defense stats. Remember that Toxicroak is best used in combat when under the rain as this will heal it, granting it more survivability.

SubPunch Build

This build uses the following moves:

  • Substitute
  • Focus Punch
  • Sucker Punch
  • Ice Punch

To get the most out of this build, give Toxicroak either the Leftovers or the Black Sludge held item, as this allows Toxicroak to heal from the damage taken by Substitute. I prefer Black Sludge as a held item for Toxicroak as this powers up its Poison-type moves making Poison Jab a great alternative to Ice Punch.

Note that Ice Punch serves the critical role of removing Flying types. This build is excellent for Toxicroak as it fixes its low defense stats and average health and speed stats, giving Toxicroak substantially more survivability. Moreover, Toxicroak can destroy teams with Focus Punch due to its extremely high power. 

The build greatly benefits from Sucker Punch as this allows you to take priority in battle if the opponent uses a physical or Special attack allowing you to strike and potentially wipe out your opponent before it can damage your Substitute, consequently giving Toxicroak more time to heal.

Swords Dance Bulk UpBuild

This build uses the following moves:

  • Swords Dance
  • Bulk Up
  • Drain Punch 
  • Ice Punch 
  • Stone Edge
  • Bullet Punch 
  • Poison Jab 
  • Gunk Shot
  • Cross Chop

This robust build can be mixed and matched in combination to devastating effect. This build centers around powering up Toxicroak’s moves with Swords Dance or Bulk Up. You can either use Leftovers, Black Sludge, or the Life Orb items for this build. I recommend using the Black Sludge item if your moveset includes Poison-type moves to further power their damage and heal Toxicroak.

A Life Orb as although this inflicts damage to Toxicroak, it raises the power of Toxicroak’s attacks by 30%, giving Toxicroak a significant boost to its attacks alongside the use of Bulk Up and Swords Dance. Note that Swords Dance doubles the attack value of Toxicroak peruses. In contrast, Bulk Up raises the attack and defense stat of Toxicroak by one, therefore using either according to the situation. 

I highly recommend that you include Drain Punch in your Toxicroak’s moveset. Depending on how much you have powered up Toxicroak’s attacks, you will recover a significant portion of your health. As this will counter the damage inflicted by the Life Orb.

A Toxicroak with Dry Skin will recover extra HP from water attacks, further circumventing the damage from Life Orb. This build is excellent for one-hit KOs using Cross Chop and is even better in double battles when partnered up with a Water-type Pokemon using Surf. 

Nasty Plot Build

This build uses the following moves:

  • Nasty Plot 
  • Vacuum Wave
  • Sludge Bomb 
  • Sludge Wave
  • Dark Pulse
  • Shadow Ball

This builds dropsToxicroaks physical attacks and opts for special attacks, although this doesn’t synergize with Toxicroak’s Poison Touch hidden ability as much. It allows Toxicroak to deal severe damage to Psychic and Ghost-type Pokemon, as Nasty Plot doubles the power of Toxicroak’s special attacks allowing you to wipe out Toxicroak’s weaknesses before it gets wiped by a Psychic-type move. 

There isn’t as much move variety with this build. However, Shadow Ball sometimes allows you to lower the special defense of your opponent, allowing you to inflict even more damage. However, this is rare, and you could alternatively opt for Dark Pulse instead to impose flinch ailment on your opponent.

Vacuum Wave is essential for this build as although that is a low power move, Toxicroak can be equipped with a Life Orb to increase this move’s potency. Vacuum Wave has great utility as the move takes priority and is a rare special attack fighting move. Note that Vacuum Wave’s damage is further increased when used by Toxicroak due to it being a stab move.

This build is best used for Toxicroaks with the Timid (+Spd – Atk) and Modest nature (+sAtk -Atk) as there is no trade-off for the increased speed or special attack, respectively, as the attack stat is not used due to there being any physical moves used in the build. Once again, the Black Sludge, Life Orb, or Leftovers are great items to use in this build. 

King’s Rock Toxicroak

This build uses the following moves:

  • Fake Out
  • Gunk Shot
  • Sucker Punch 
  • Power-Up Punch

This build focuses around inflicting the flinch status ailment in the battle to interrupt your opponent, stopping them from being able to attack you. The use of Fake Out to inflict flinches on your opponent. Used you will always attack first. You can raise the attack stat of Toxicroak by using Power-Up Punch to set up Toxicroak to inflict more damage with Fake Out.

This will allow you to take out Psychic types either by knocking them out in one round with Sucker Punch or slowly chipping away at their health with Fake Out. This build includes Gunk Shot as a decisive stab move that can melt your opponents if it lands.

The King’s Rock item applies a 10% chance to inflict flinch to your opponent with any move. Therefore this item allows you to quickly increase the attack power of your Toxicroak while protecting it from incoming attacks. Toxicroak’s with an Adamant nature is best used for this build. 

Choice Scarf Build

This build uses the following moves:

  • Cross Chop
  • Drain Punch
  • Ice Punch
  • Poison Jab

This build centers around the Choice Scarf held item. This item raises the speed of any Pokemon by 50%, allowing slower-moving Pokemon to get an edge over faster opponents. However, Pokemon will get locked into one move. Selecting a different move will fail to carry the move-out, but no PP will be reduced. The next move will then be locked in once again.

There isn’t much strategy in this build, but it is effective. The extra speed allows Toxicroak to land Cross Chop, a high critical hit rate move before its opponent. Using this build, you will be able to counter Toxicroak’s weaknesses and low defense stat by not letting your opponent hit you first.

Drain Punch gives you more survivability in battle as you will be able to heal before your opponent’s next attack. You may consider many moves for this build, such as Stone Edge to inflict some severe damage or Sucker Punch to land a hit consistently. Although I see less utility for Sucker Punch, it often takes priority anyway. 

You can use this build best for Toxicroak’s with an Adamant nature (+Atk -sAtk) to inflict extra physical damage from your punches. This will further boost the amount of healing received from Drain Punch. A Toxicroak with a Jolly nature is also great to use as this will give you an extra bit of speed to fight opponents specialized in fast attacks.

I like this build. However, I prefer an Adamant nature Toxicroak as you are generally going to strike first, and if not, you will still recover more HP from Drain Punch. However, if you only have access to a Jolly Toxicroak, consider using a Choice Band instead of the Scarf. This held item raises the carrier’s attack by 50%, making Toxicroak a deadly fighter that can cause some severe damage.

Best Team for Weakness Coverage

With the right Pokemon, you will be able to build a team that covers Toxicroak’s weaknesses and takes advantage of its builds shown above. The following Pokemon are great picks to use alongside Toxicroak as they make use of Toxicroak’s Dry Skin, allowing it to raise its stats in the battle to set up for high damage dealing attacks. As well as benefit from Toxicroak’s flinching and poisoning capabilities. 

Politoad

Image from wiki

Politoad is one of the best Pokemon to include in your team, as this duo is especially deadly in double battles. Its Drizzle ability applies rain to the battlefield when entering the fight. The rain effect heals Toxicroak and increases the power of Politoad’s water type moves.

The move Surf is a decisive stab move that affects all Pokemon on the battlefield allowing you to deal damage to both opponents in double battles while healing Toxicroak at the same time. Furthermore, the Drizzle ability allows Politoad to counter the harsh sunlight weather effect quickly. 

Combining these battle toads benefits both frogs as Toxicroak can make short work of Pokemon such as Ferrathorn, a massive threat to Politoad and rain teams. A powered-up Cross Chop will inflict severe damage allowing you to regain control over the battlefield. Ferrathorn is very tanky, and it may be tricky if Toxicroak hasn’t been able to power up its stats. 

Politoad is often run with Belly Drum, a move that halves the user HP and multiplies its attack by six. This allows Politoad to inflict tsunami-scaled Surfs that will only be imposed on your opponents due to the Dry Skin ability.

Espeon 

Image from wiki

A Choice Espeon works fantastically by adding much-needed support and utility for Toxicroak. Espeon can lock opponents into moves using the Trick move, allowing you to quickly set up Toxicroak’s Substitute by closing your opponent into weak attacks.

Furthermore, the Baton Pass move allows Espeon to switch into Toxicroak once a Water-type has been locked in. Using the Calm Mind move before using Baton Pass will enable you to pre-power up Toxicroak’s Sp. Atk, Atk, Sp. Def as Baton Pass carries over any stat changes of the user to the switched Pokemon. 

Overall, Espeon synergizes well with most Toxicroak builds as it can grant you Sp. Atk boosts for the Nasty Plot build. As well as grant extra healing by trapping Water-types into healing Toxicroak. Allowing you plenty of time to set up your stats using Swords Dance or Bulk Up.

Espeon can be vulnerable to Pokemon such as Tyranitar, synergizing well with Toxicroak as it can one-hit KO Tyranitar.

Houndoom 

Image from wiki

Houndoom is an excellent choice to include on your team. As it can lure out Water-types and bulky defensive walls such as Blissey and Snorlax.

Houndoom is also fantastic for countering Ferrathorn, a significant threat to Politoad and Espeon. Houndoom may not synergize as well as the previous picks but allows you to draw out Pokemon for Toxicroak to exploit. 

Zoroark

Image from wiki

Zoroark is a brilliant Pokemon to include on your team. This is down to Zoroark’s Illusion ability allowing it to disguise itself as the previous Pokemon you had in battle. The illusion is purely cosmetic and will fade away once Zoroark is hit. This will enable you to trick your opponent into a trap for Toxicroak.

Zoroark is terrified of Fairy-types as they will destroy it. Thankfully, Toxicroak is a Fairy killer. Its decisive Poison Jab stab move will allow you to give Zoroark space to set up Nasty Plot or inflict Night Daze to lower your opponent’s accuracy. Therefore Zoroark works best with a physical Fake Out Toxicroak as your opponent will then have to get through a flinch and accuracy check.

FAQs

Question: How Many Natures are there in Pokemon?

Answer: Pokemon Natures were introduced in generation three and dictate how a Pokemon’s stats grow. There are twenty-five Pokemon Natures in the game, each either increasing a specific stat or slowing a stats growth when leveling up. Natures are given to Pokemon at random. The nature of a Pokemon determines its favorite and least favorite type of food. 

Question: How to Hatch Pokemon Eggs Faster?

Answer: You can speed up the egg hatching process by half by including a Pokemon in your party with the Flame Body ability. You can further increase the hatch rate of your eggs by obtaining the Roto Hatch for Rotom; however, this is a Sun and Moon exclusive. You could alternatively opt for a Magma Armor.

Question: What are Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet?

Answer: Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the next generation (Gen 9) of Pokemon titles to be released. In February of 2022, Game Freak stated that the games would release in late 2022. The games will use the similar 3D style and open world features as Pokemon Legends of Arceus, and its region is speculated to be based in Spain. Game Freak has showcased the gen 9 starters Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and, Quaxly on the Pokemon Violet and Scarlet website and the official trailer.

Toxicroak Weaknesses: Conclusion

In conclusion, Toxicroak is a brilliant Pokemon to add to your team. The plethora of builds available for Toxicroak makes it a fun Pokemon to fight with and powerful addition to competitive battles. You will be able to run circles around your opponent as they mistakenly switch out to counter Toxicroak, only to be wiped by Toxicroak’s unpredictable moveset.

I highly recommend using Toxicroak. Although it may not be picked often in competitive play, it throws a curveball for your opponent. Toxicroak is equipped to deal with many different situations in battle and can wipe the floor with Toxic Stall teams.

Toxicroak can be a fantastic option for competitive battles when supported by strong partners such as Espeon and Politoad. A team that fully utilizes Toxicroak’s features will be able to sustain it in battle by covering its weaknesses and prolonging its typical lifespan in a fight. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *