THE BEST VENUSAUR BUILD GUIDE - POKEMON UNITE

Solar Beam (AKA Beamu)
Beam build is all about big snipes, and his build reflects that.
Spoon is a no-brainer just about every big special attack mage in this game, and Beamu is no different. Yes, Sludge Bomb does decrease the target’s SpDef which does lower Spoon’s efficacy, however:
1) Spoon helps early game damage considerably,
2) you aren’t always hitting Sludged targets with your Beams, and those targets will take full Spoon carnage
3) 40% is not enough of a decrease to invalidate the item’s boost
4) you aren’t picking Sludge every game anyway.

Choice is another natural choice for burst which Beamu obviously loves, and the internal cooldown of Choice lines up very well with Beam’s cooldown as well (pre-13 at least). Choice will also help Bulbasaur with some pinch lane secures early on when needed.

Curse Incense pairs well with Sludge Bomb (when you are allowed to run it) making lingering AoE tick damage areas.

Amp is a core item on Venu no matter what moves you pick…makes your already strong ulti become a certified atomic bomb, and can make the following Beam right after (still boosted by amp!) delete anything unlucky enough to be caught in the line. Along with some nice flat CDR on the item to give you some more uptime, it’s a perfect fit.

Giga Drain/Petal Dance (AKA Draindance)
Rather than focusing on big single uses of moves, Draindance’s main priority is high uptime, and sustained damage over time. Because of this, this build loves Scarf’s attack speed for more frequent boosted basic stuns, to keep targets disoriented and unable to retaliate.
Focus plays perfectly into his high sustain gameplan with Giga Drain spamming, and allows him to stay in fights longer than he has any business doing.
Amp, as mentioned above, is Venu’s favorite toy and he will never let any of the other frog children play with it.

Your entire livelihood depends on you being able to press Drain as hard as humanly possible, and anything that stops you from doing that = instant death, so Full Heal is mandatory.

MOVESET 1 – Sludge Bomb/Giga Drain + Solar Beam/+

Sniper gatorade lazer.
Early Game
Early game in this build just consists of keeping distance, and leaning into your boosted autos and Razor Leaf as your big windows of doing work. Thanks to this build’s itemset being oriented around beefing up your Beams, your Spatk hits are going to chunk better than they normally would, at the expense of less intimidating A-pressing. You can prime 2 autos, Razor Leaf an Indeedee and immediately 3rd boosted auto it and that should knock it out from just about half health. Bulba’s securing strength comes more from burning down the farm faster than the enemy can react to it, rather than stealing it from under their noses with a big hit.
Similarly, when fighting enemy players, you may want to do the opposite and boosted auto stun > Razor Leaf, to make then stun help you in landing the full barrage of RL onto them for max dmg.

Once you hit 5, here is where you take a look at the enemy team and make a decision of whether you are safe enough to afford to be greedy with Sludge Bomb’s extra dmg and shred, or if you need the protection/healing/dmg reduction from Drain. Generally Beam’s damage isn’t *significantly* affected by Sludge’s shred, so you aren’t losing out on too much output by resorting to Drain there…and listen, a living Venusaur will shoot more Beams than a dead Venusaur. If Drain grants you a second chance at life from the bloodthirsty Zoroark long enough for him to die/get shoo’d away even once, the pick was already worth it.

Mid Game
Hopefully with some diligent farming and a good support/tank partner, you will have hit lvl 7 by around 7:00, and will finally be able to start exerting your presence from a mile away as the sun gods intended.
Your main priority at this point should *still* be farming, and Beam makes that mission easier now in giving you the ability to clear groups of birds in a single cast (the small ones at least), or even steal farm from enemy’s side with your range. VERY few things outside of Inteleon or a very attentive Mew will be able to prevent you from taking most of the farm at this point. Make no mistake however, you STILL will be staying on YOUR side of the lane during this farming period, you have zero reason to overextend at this point and can reach all farm from a safe position. PLEASE use your range to your advantage if I see you point-blanking a Beam on a hostile Indeedee I am ordering my jungler to ego ult you on sight.

Here is also where you can start to exert pressure on opposing mages…keeping in mind that you outrange all of them (except for Snipe Shot Intel/Shackle Deci/a Mew if he has Beam chosen) you can use this to your advantage to pick the right times to make their healthbars disappear. Being that they are mages, it just so happens that a great time to do this is when they cast their moves. They need to stand still to use their abilities, and that should fire off alarm bells in your head to use that second of time for a free lazer to the dome. Ideally you will want to hit them before they are able to cast abilities to mitigate their output and cause them to retreat before they can do any work, but this is a simpler more tried and true way to land some key hits when needed.

Once you are lvl 9, always keep in mind the power of a Unite > Beam combo under the effects of Energy Amp. Ult alone will get most squishies down to about 1/4 health, but combined with Beam you are absolutely capable of erasing even bulky allrounders and making most defenders have to retreat or die very soon after at the very least. Combining these two casts is also a great way of securing an objective from much higher HP thresholds than just a raw Beam would. *Keep in mind that Beam’s total damage is HARD CAPPED at 2250 on wild mons/objectives*, so getting above that will take another source of dmg, i.e. Unite.
Unite also serves as a tool that you should not be afraid to use as self-peel as well. In the event of an assassin jumping on you and you are in dire need of surviving, dropping your Unite at your own feet and blasting that diver into orbit is a perfectly acceptable response and is definitely something most divers do not respect in general.

An interesting thing to note as well for these dive attempts on your life, is that Solar Beam’s hitbox is deceptively wide and deep. And by that I mean it hits noticeably wider than the skillshot reticle implies (an inch or two on each side more of less), as well as very close up into Venu’s body. I swear I’ve hit people with a Beam that have been overlapped behind my rear legs before, and I’m almost certain Venu’s body itself also becomes part of the hitbox. This can come in very handy when divers start trying to dance the tango around you during their combos.

Late Game
As with all other backline mages, you will always be operating behind ALL other members of your team, even moreso as Beamu during teamfights. Enemy team should NEVER be seeing your face before your tank’s face, and if they did you have positioned poorly (or they flanked you). Try to line up your Beam casts with your teammates’ CC if possible, or other big burst hits to get unexpected kills and valuable picks, even if a full teamfight is not being engaged. Simply having more numbers will give your team the area control it needs to gain a better foothold on the farm in that area, or an upcoming objective.

While Beam’s damage is obviously great for countering opposing mages and poking them out, you do NOT need to be picky with who you blast with Gatorade at all. With your % max HP damage, Beam is just as much of a nuisance to tanks and frontlines as it is to backliners, and it is one of the most oppressive poking tools in the game as of now due to that. Having a frontliner have to reel back and heal up because they got chunked to half gives YOUR team engagers an easy track into making the teamfight go how you want it, and removes the protection those backliners relied on to do their jobs.

Before level 13 however, you do need to be aware of when and where you use these Beams, since generally this is the time where flankers will be hunting specifically for you, and the moment you are busy hitting their Lapras with a Beam is precisely when they will jump on your butt and ruin your day without you being to retaliate. Be sure to identify where these threats are or may be coming from, and stick to your bodyguard like glue (if you have one), and try not to fire off your abilities until you have information about their intentions and/or they’ve already committed elsewhere.

Level 13 is a HUGE power shift for you, as the + version of Beam lowers the cast time AND the cooldown of the move considerably, making it extremely spammable. You no longer need to be particularly cautious about missing, and can be even LESS discriminatory about who you hit with it since the rate at which you fire these things shoots up drastically.
Use the walls of Ray pit to your advantage for coverage, if the teamfight is occurring at the bottom right of the pit you can easily position in the top left/mid and hit any enemy you like for free, and vice versa…make it as *hard as possible* for an enemy to get to you if that is their decision. Your Unite move has practically just as much range as Beam, and can be fired off from a considerable distance as well if enemy grouping occurs. In case the message wasn’t clear enough…STAY AT MAX RANGE.

As with any big securing tool, make absolutely sure you have it ready and primed to fire as Rayquaza gets lower in health, your big hit from relative safety will be something your team will rely on to ensure Ray goes to the right hands.

MOVESET 2 – Giga Drain + Petal Dance
Takes a while to get his dmg out, but has great sticking power and when backed up properly (like a blissey) can mow down teams if left unchecked. Yes in Pokemon unite, *the grass mows YOU*

Favourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined VENUSAUR is strong against. VENUSAUR will generally be able to shut down these opponents playstyle's or have the advantage in a one on one fight.

SNORLAX

NINETALES

SLOWBRO

Unfavourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined VENUSAUR is weak against. These Pokémon will have the upper hand in a fight or be able to exploit VENUSAUR's weaknesses.

ZACIAN

ZOROARK

URSHIFU