Frenzy Plant Torterra Analysis: Community Day Exclusive Move

Farm Stardust, not Turtwigs.

Torrterra Pokemon GO
Torrterra Pokemon GO

Trainers, Niantic has just shared that Torterra evolved during Community Day will Frenzy Plant as CD exclusive move. You can evolve Torterra up to two hours after Community Day hours, up from 1 hour compared to previous Community Days.

Event Turtwig Community Day
Date & Time Sunday, September 15, 2019, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
(local time globally)
Features
  • Turtwig will appear more frequently in the wild.
  • Lure Modules will last three hours for the duration of the event.
  • You may encounter a Shiny Turtwig if you’re lucky!
  • Evolve Grotle during the event or up to two hours afterward to obtain Torterra that knows Frenzy Plant!
Bonuses 3x Catch Stardust

Torterra with Frenzy Plant

Torterra

Torterra is a Grass and Ground Pokemon, the final evolution of Turtwig, Gen IV’s Grass starter. Although Frenzy Plant is undoubtedly Torterra’s best Grass type move, it doesn’t make Torterra much better in the meta.

Overview

Since Gen IV was introduced, Torterra always had the same problem: Razor Leaf. In raids and gym battles, Vine Whip always outperforms Razor Leaf, regardless of which Pokemon is using it. As a result, Torterra never had the opportunity to challenge Venusaur’s well established position in the Grass meta. Vine Whip / Frenzy Plant Venusaur was very easy to obtain back in the day, and it was followed by a few strong additions to the Grass roster: Roserade, Frenzy Plant Sceptile, Leafeon and Tangrowth.

Unfortunately for Torterra, all of the Pokemon mentioned above outperform it in some fashion:

  • Roserade is easy to obtain, cheap to evolve and has better DPS with appropriate moves. Shiny Roserade is beautiful and a fan favorite as well.
  • Tangrowth has slightly better stats and slightly more bulk, but has access to Vine Whip since day one. Solar Beam is a worse move, but if you already have a strong Tangrowth, chances are you will not spend Stardust on Torterra
  • Sceptile has excellent DPS, a lovely shiny form and access to two viable Fast moves (Bullet Seed and Fury Cutter). FP Sceptile has been available for a while
  • Leafeon is the latest addition to an already crowded roster of grass type Pokemon and it doesn’t bring anything special to the table, but a large number of players already has one. This doesn’t help Torterra in any capacity.

When you go through the list above, it’s quite hard to recommend spending dust and TMs on Torterra. For players that have good selection of Roserade, Venusaur and Sceptile, there’s no reason to spend resources on a subpar Pokemon that will see no usage. Wasted Stardust is the only kind of bad Stardust, and we advise against spending it on Torterra. Generation V is coming in less than 7 days and there are better, more exciting Pokemon coming along soon. Be smart, don’t spend!

Comparison with other Grass attackers

Here’s a chart how these Pokemon stack against each other (do note that for Roserade we went with double Grass moveset rather than Poison Jab / Grass Knot, which is her best move set overall):

Comparison of Frenzy Plant Torterra vs other Grass Pokemon
Pokemon Move set DPS TDO Total
Tangrowth
  • Vine Whip
  • Solar Beam
14.49 685.83 2087.69
Venusaur
  • Vine Whip
  • Frenzy Plant
14.78 612 1975.27
Exeggutor (Alola)
  • Bullet Seed
  • Solar Beam
14.83 569.51 1856.35
Breloom
  • Counter
  • Grass Knot
15.94 425.72 1725.27
Leafeon
  • Razor Leaf
  • Leaf Blade
14.27 588.69 1712.22
Torterra
  • Razor Leaf
  • Frenzy Plant
13.8 641.32 1686.78
Roserade
  • Razor Leaf
  • Solar Beam
14.94 502.37 1674.49
Sceptile
  • Bullet Seed
  • Frenzy Plant
14.41 490.54 1468.26

Torterra in Trainer Battles

Again, the story repeats itself here. Frenzy Plant is Torterra’s best Grass-typed charge move for PvP, but how often do you encounter Torterra in Great League match ups? The answer is almost never, as Torterra’s typing doesn’t give it any advantage against other Grass types.

Yes, it takes ridiculously low damage from Electric moves, and yes, it takes reduced damage from Ground and Rock moves, but those are the only resistances Torterra has. Outside of a specific Cup format, it’s more important to have additional type resistances than to be excellent at just few.

Torterra’s biggest problem (in my eyes) is the lack of Water resistance, which makes her a sitting duck for the inevitable Azumarill and Swampert. These Pokemon are meta defining in PvP and it’s ludicrous to use a Grass type that doesn’t provide type coverage against them. Venusaur, Meganium and Sceptile are all better, less risky, options when creating a Great League team.

PvPoke ranks Torterra as #188 without Frenzy Plant, we’ll see what the ranking will be after they update the charts with Frenzy Plant, but it’s not looking good regardless.

Parting Words

For better or for worse, Frenzy Plant does not make Torterra great nor does it make it a “must have” Pokemon. Luckily, Turtwig Community Day Announced features triple Stardust for catches, which makes it worthwhile to participate and grind. To some extent we feel like Niantic knew that players won’t be super excited about FP Torterra and added this bonus to keep participation levels high. If that’s the case, we have nothing bad to say – an excellent move on their end.

Enjoy your Turwig CD, relax, prepare a ton of PokeBalls and Star Pieces – you’re aiming to catch everything you can, as Stardust is the best in-game reward you can take away from this Community Day.