>>31924014It's actually a common enough pick in VGC that you'll see it in certain brackets of play here and there.
>Torkoal (You want eruptions. Lots of them.)Quiet
252 HP/252 SpAtk/4 Spd or SpD
Firium Z
-Eruption
-Solar Beam
-Heat Wave/HP Ice (based on whether you wanna be able to reliably deal with dragons, or if you want a fallback if your hp gets low and Eruption stops being useful)
-Protect
Its 2 main allies are:
>Lilligant (with Chlorophyll, she generally moves first and using After You allows Torkoal a speedy Eruption, plus she can hit fairly hard while providing fast sleep support)Timid
252 SpAtk/252 Spd/4 SpD
Focus Sash
-Leaf Storm
-Sleep Powder
-After You
-Protect
>Orangaru (It's a surprisingly beefy mon that provides T-room which torkoal loves, and more importantly Instruct, allowing for Double sun-boosted Eruptions)Sassy
244 Hp/208 SpAtk/56 Def (the SpAtk EVs are flexible, just make sure you have the hp and defense for fucking over Kartanas, Pheromosas, and Groundium Z users. Teams with no Trick Room counters WILL double up into Orangaru looking for the quick KO, so it's something you need to learn to read)
Mental Herb or Sitrus Berry
-Psychic
-Instruct
-Trick Room/Focus Blast (if you don't wanna be walled by dark types take F-blast, but if Orangaru is the last pokemon on your field then you have bigger issues than that)
-Protect
All in all Torkoal is solid, but held back quite a bit by the overabundance of Arcanine, Gyarados, and to a lesser extent Garchomp. All three have the tools to either kill (Gyarados, Chomp) or cripple (Arcanine) Torkoal while not being particularly threatened in return by Torkoal or its supports. But, if the other pokemon around them burn down leaving you to deal with the threat at your leisure, that's another story entirely.
