Pokémon Sword & Shield Surprise Trade Week 8: Solrock
3I have randomized the list again, and in case you are wondering, after doing the Surprise Trade for that week, I remove Pokémon that I have already done, and randomize the list again, and then go with the first Pokémon on that list, which will be the one I will Surprise Trading, and in this case, it was Solrock.
I'm sure a lot of players that do Max Raid Battles will remember how infamous Martin and his Solrock are for being the memetic loser out of the AI partners for Max Raid Battles due to how often it would use Cosmic Power and Rock Polish, even Pokémon.com makes fun of that.
As for the Surprise Trades, these Solrock have up to 4-5 perfect IVs (Individual Values), and an Adamant Nature, well Impish does work as well, but Solrock is not a Pokémon you would use in online battles, unless you really want to have fun with your favourite Pokémon, if Solrock happens to be one of your favourite Pokémon.
As it is a Genderless Pokémon, or Gender Unknown as the game refers to them as, Solrock cannot learn any Egg Moves, the nice thing is that it can get Morning Sun and Flare Blitz through the Move Relearner at Level 1, so these are great early-game moves for Surprise Trade Challenges. Solrock's best stat is Attack, the downside is that none of its base stats go over 100, so it is outclassed by way better Pokémon, for Rock-types, Rhyperior, Tyranitar, and Coalossal outclass it, and for Psychic-types, it is outclassed by Gardevoir, Hatterene, and many others, and in Double Battles, Indeedee is the more preferred Psychic-type, and I have even checked sites like Pikalytics, and Solrock has never seen any use in the competitive scene, and I have even checked its counterpart Lunatone to see if it has any use, and not even Lunatone is viable.
All these Solrock are good for is Pokédex filler, as Solrock is exclusive to Pokémon Sword, so it is good for any Shield players for filling up the Pokédex. Now for level up moves, Solrock does get some nice moves, like Rock Slide, Zen Headbutt, Stone Edge, Rock Polish, and a few others, while it does get Solar Beam and Psychic, Solrock's Special Attack stat isn't that great.
Now onto Solrock's TM and TR movepool, for TMs, it can get Rock Tomb, Bulldoze, Will-O-Wisp, Rock Blast, Acrobatics, Light Screen, and Reflect, and for TRs, it can get Earthquake, Baton Pass, Swords Dance, Gyro Ball, and Iron Head. Solrock's Physical movepool is quite limited, and it does get some Special moves like Flamethrower, Shadow Ball, Overheat, Psyshock, and Grass Knot, but it isn't meant to be a Special attacker.
Solrock is decent when playing through the story, as it does have solid stats, despite there being better options, but for competitive battling, it's not that great, Solrock has a ton of weaknesses, and that does hold it back from being as good as Tyranitar or Rhyperior, and even if Solrock doesn't have any 4x weaknesses, its stats aren't high enough to be viable, the best it could do is use Rock Polish and attempt to sweep with moves like Stone Edge, Zen Headbutt, and Earthquake, or go with a defensive set with moves like Will-O-Wisp, Stealth Rock, and Morning Sun, there are just way better Pokémon out there, other than be a memetic loser in the Max Raid Battles.
Other Videos By Meta375
Other Statistics
Pokémon Sword and Shield Statistics For Meta375
At this time, Meta375 has 119,890 views for Pokémon Sword and Shield spread across 651 videos. Roughly 9 days worth of Pokémon Sword and Shield videos were uploaded to his channel, or 11.55% of the total watchable video on Meta375's YouTube channel.