In Pokemon games the poison attack type has not traditionally been the most popular among players. For starters, it lacks a serious offensive presence. It’s only super-effective against Grass-types and (eventually) Fairy-types. Steel-types negate Poison moves entirely unless the user has Corrosion. Generation 1 didn’t have a Poison attack that caused significant damage, and bugs in the code made it weaker than it should have been. Generation 2 only added one Poison move, Sludge Bomb, which at least had a high attack rating of 90, and could Poison the opponent. Unfortunately, many of its best Poison-type Pokemon didn’t have the right stats to actually let Sludge Bomb shine.
It wasn’t until Gen 4 that Poison-type moves began to compete with the other damage types in terms of damage potential. Now that this type has more damaging moves in its collection it’s become a viable option when choosing a party; despite lagging behind many Pokemon types in terms of offensive potential.
20 Poison Gas
There isn’t much to Poison Gas. It doesn’t directly damage the opponent; all Poison Gas does is give them the poison status ailment. The silver lining is that this move has 90% accuracy, so, chances are, the opponent is going to be poisoned at the end of the turn.
Poison is a nuisance in battle. It removes 1/8th of the opponent’s hit points in damage every turn. This forces the opponent to either switch out their Pokemon, try to have them endure the poison damage, or waste a turn using an item or move to cure the poison. The latter opens up a window of opportunity; which, in Pokemon games, is often crucial.
19 Acid Spray
Acid Spray has an impressive name that brings to mind deadly things such as Xenomorphs and black dragons. If only Acid Spray lived up to its name. This isn’t a bad move - it has a power of 40, an accuracy of 100, and a PP count of 20. Acid Spray also lowers the target’s Special Defense by two stages.
Sadly, a power of 40 isn’t actually that bad for Poison-type moves. Overall it’s pretty low, but for the Poison-type, 40 is about average. At least it does more damage after every use. A PP count of twenty is a little low for a move this weak, though, players should absolutely never use their PP Up and PP Max on Acid Spray.
18 Sludge
Sludge is a decent Poison-type attack move. It has an attack power of 65, an accuracy of 100, and a PP count of 20. Sludge also has a 30% chance of poisoning the target. The average damage and chance to poison make Sludge an okay option for an opening move. It will allow a player to gauge how much damage the opponent can take while also offering a good chance of leaving the opponent poisoned.
In the end, Sludge is simply a weaker version of Sludge Bomb and Poison Jab. If this is the most powerful attack move a Pokemon receives, it might be a good idea to use a TM in order to improve its move-set.
17 Gastro Acid
Abilities were introduced in Gen 3; Pokemon: Ruby and Sapphire (and Emerald). These are passive abilities, separate from move-sets, which aid Pokemon and hinder their opponents. Many of these abilities seem underpowered, however, there are some abilities that can make a Pokemon much stronger than they would otherwise be.
Gastro Acid cancels an opposing Pokemon’s ability. It doesn’t do any damage or inflict a status ailment, but, usually, canceling the opponent’s ability is enough. This can prevent an opponent from changing the weather in their favor, or remove any defensive buffs granted by an ability. Players should therefore never underestimate the usefulness of Gastro Acid.
16 Shell Side Arm
Shell Side Arm is an excellent attack move. It has a power of 90, an accuracy of 100, and a PP count of 10. This move has two effects. The first is that it has a 20% chance of poisoning the opponent. Shell Side Arm’s second effect is a choice of using either Special Attack or Attack when calculating its damage; whichever causes more damage is used.
There is one major drawback to Shell Side Arm though: only the Galarain Form of Slowbro learns this move. This isn’t a TM or TR move either; the only way to use this move is to get hold of a Galarian Slowbro in Pokemon: Sword and Shield. A move this unique should be a little more powerful than Shell Side Arm. This move is made a little more useful by being a non-contact attack move.
15 Corrosive Gas
Corrosive Gas is a new attack introduced in The Isle of Armor DLC, part of the Gen 8 (Sword and Shield) experience. This attack can be taught to a variety of Poison-types through the move tutor on the island. This attack is a status move with 40 PP and perfect accuracy, like many status moves. However, the status ailment it inflicts isn’t traditional, but is quite crippling in the right hands.
Corrosive Gas will render the target’s held item unusable. The corroded item cannot be swapped, removed, or restored; it’s as if the Pokemon is holding a junk item. This effect lasts throughout the rest of battle and cannot be cured through moves like Aromatherapy or Heal Bell. Considering how many Pokemon are reliant on abusing powerful held items, Corrosive Gas can help to cripple both offensive and defensive Pokemon that rely on an item to succeed.
14 Coil
Coil is an appropriately named technique, particularly due to being available for serpent-like Pokemon (and Furret, for some reason). The user coils themselves up and goes into deep meditation, focusing their power. This status move increases attack, defense, and accuracy by one stage. In many ways, it’s limitations to specific Pokemon helps to keep it balanced, as these sorts of stat buffs are hard to come by. Hone Claws may have more widespread use, but the defense increase is hard to pass up.
Unfortunately, despite how powerful the move sounds, its users don’t exactly spark joy. Many either have better options for stat buffs, can’t make use of the attack boost, or are simply too bad to actually make it worth learning. However, if your Pokemon can learn Coil, it’s still a solid option, and the most effective self-buff with the Poison-typing.
13 Toxic
Toxic is arguably the definitive Poison attack. It has been in the game since Gen 1, and from the start, it was a powerful technique. It has 10 PP, imperfect accuracy, and doesn’t deal damage. As a status move, it’s fairly one-dimensional. However, it inflicts one of the greatest status ailments to cripple both damage dealers and tanks alike: the badly poisoned status.
A badly poisoned Pokemon will take damage at the end of each round, like traditional poison. However, badly poisoned Pokemon will take progressively more damage as they stay engaged in battle. This prevents stalling Pokemon from stalling, and puts a ticking timer onto buffed-up attackers. The timer resets upon switching out. There are other attacks that have a chance of inflicting this type of poison, but Toxic is the most reliable. Best of all, the move can be learned by just about every single Pokemon.
12 Baneful Bunker
Toxapex is one of the strongest Water-types ever added to the series, and likewise it’s one of the strongest Poison-types. Its unassuming appearance may fool inexperienced trainers, but those who have been battling competitively post-Sun and Moon will know the terror. It’s a bulky Pokemon with great stalling techniques. This includes its signature move: Baneful Bunker.
Baneful Bunker is a specialty Protect-like move, with 10 PP and similar mechanics. It fails if used successively, and can be broken through by Dynamax moves. However, Baneful Bunker is powerful due to its special features. If a contact move hits the Baneful Bunker, the attacking Pokemon will be poisoned. This free poison puts it a step above other similar moves, and helps Toxapex reign as one of the premiere walls of top-tier play.
11 Toxic Spikes
Toxic Spikes is arguably the best status move within the Poison-type as a whole. It isn’t locked as a signature move, meaning a large variety of Pokemon can use it. Plus, it works perfectly on Pokemon that are already the move effective poison-types to begin with.
Toxic Spikes are a hazard move added in Gen 4. They scatter across the field, and the opponent’s Pokemon will become poisoned when they switch in a new Pokemon. This excludes Steel-types and other Poison-types, who will absorb and remove the spikes. It can also be layered twice, applying Toxic poison onto the opposing Pokemon instead of regular poison. Although it has a fair number of counters, Toxic Spikes are wildly dangerous when left unchecked. It single-handedly cripples teams, and is part of the reason hazard control is so valuable in the current metagame.
10 Belch
Belch would be near the top of this list if not for its prerequisite. For Belch to be available, the Pokemon using it must have already eaten a berry in that battle. Manually feeding the berry to the Pokemon doesn’t satisfy the prerequisite either. However, after the berry is consumed, the move will continue to be available throughout the rest of the battle.
This move does have a whopping 120 power and a 90 accuracy, which makes it tied with another move for most damaging poison attack. Probably because of the move’s prerequisite, Belch has 10 PPs – which is twice the amount of most moves with a 110+ power rating. Despite this amazing power rating there are much better Poison-type moves. For builds that can play around the berry-eating prerequisite, it is a useful and often surprising technique.
9 Poison Tail
This is a Gen 3 move, and it’s still one of the better Poison attacks. Poison Tail has a power of 50, an accuracy of 100, and a high amount of PPs with 25. Poison Tail has a 10% chance of poisoning the opposing Pokemon.
Additionally, this move has an increased chance to perform a critical hit; from 1/16 chance to 1/8. The chance to poison, 100% accuracy, increased critical hit chance, and high PP count make Poison Tail a great standard attack. A higher power would be preferable, but this is something reliable and typically available early on for players.
8 Poison Fang
Poison Fang and Poison Tail are very similar moves. They both have a power rating of 50, and have 100 accuracy ratings. They both also have a chance to poison the opposing Pokemon; however, Poison Fang has a 50% chance of badly poisoning the opponent.
Being badly poisoned causes the poison damage to increase by 1/16 every turn. After a few turns this extra poison damage begins to quickly add up. After four turns the poison damage alone will have dealt 10/16 of the opponent’s health. Poison fang has a PP count of 15 – which is enough to use liberally between visits to the Pokemon Center in town.
7 Cross Poison
Cross Poison is basically a slightly better Poison Tail. This move has a power rating of 70, and an accuracy rating of 100. Cross Poison also has a 10% chance of poisoning; making it a poor choice for the specific purpose of poisoning the opponent.
The move also has Poison Tail’s increased critical hit rate, from 1/16 to 1/8 chance. Essentially one out of ten attacks (on average) will cause double damage after other calculations, like having a weakness to a certain attack type. Cross Poison has a decent PP count of 20, but this can be increased to 32.
6 Sludge Wave
Sludge Wave is one of a handful of high damage Poison-type moves; the scarcity of high damage Poison moves is why it, and most of the remaining moves, made this list. This attack has a power rating of 95, an accuracy of 100, 10 PPs, and a 10% chance of poisoning the opposing Pokemon. The attack will also hit every Pokemon in a doubles battle, similar to moves like Discharge or Earthquake.
The attack power compared to its PP count is average, but the PP count can be increased to 16 if desired. However, items that increase PP count should be saved for better moves than Sludge Wave. This is also a move that’s often a TM or a TR, and is best given to a Pokemon in need of a good mid-level attack.
5 Purify
This is one of the few poison moves that is beneficial for the Pokemon using it, as well as being beneficial for the target. This extremely useful poison move removes status conditions from the target, like frozen or paralyze. As a concept, this sort of utility move is incredibly valuable and rare to find amongst competition.
Purify will also heal the Pokemon that used it, if it is successful in removing the status effect. This makes it one of the best moves for removing status ailments, although maybe not on the same tier as Heal Bell or Aromatherapy. This is unfortunately not a TM, and this move is locked as the signature move of Pyukumuku. Maybe in future generations this move will become available to more Pokemon.
4 Venoshock
Venoshock is a devastatingly powerful move for a Poison-type Pokemon to learn. The move’s power rating is 65, its accuracy is 100, and it has a PP count of 10. The reason Venoshock is so high up this list is its ability to deal double damage when used against poisoned opponents – giving it an incredible 130 power rating.
The PP count can be increased to 16, and doing so is highly recommended. If an opposing Pokemon is poisoned there isn’t a better Poison-type attack than Venoshock. This is also a TM, and works well with Poison Jab, Toxic, or Toxic Spikes. Toxic Spikes in particular can enable Venoshock to really shine; without a counter it can allow a Pokemon to cleanly sweep a team.
3 Poison Jab
Poison Jab is the third TM to make an appearance in this list; though, many Pokemon get this ability via leveling-up. This is a great TM for Pokemon when trainers wish to give a secondary attack type to a non-Poison-type Pokemon.
It has a respectable power rating of 80, an accuracy rating of 100, 10 PPs, and a 30% chance to poison. Although it has “jab” in the title, Poison Jab is not considered a punch, and therefore is not usable with abilities like Iron Fist. As a side note, Poison Jab is arguably the best Poison-type quick attack in Pokemon GO; dealing 10 damage with a recharge time of 0.8 of a second.
2 Sludge Bomb
Sludge Bomb is nearly identical to Sludge Wave, but has one change that makes it much better. This move’s power rating is 90, its accuracy is 100, and it has a PP count of 10. This makes it less effective in a single battle, causing Sludge Wave to instead be a better choice for many Pokemon.
Sludge Bomb’s chance to poison is 30%, compared to Sludge Wave’s 10%. This increase to a 1/3 chance of poisoning the opponent makes it much more probable than Sludge Wave’s chance, and is well worth the loss of 5 to its power rating (versus Sludge Wave). Sludge Bomb is perfect for the tankier Pokemon looking to apply the poison status effect on an opponent. This move is worth using an item or two to increase its PP count.
1 Gunk Shot
Gunk Shot is the strongest Poison-type attack move on its own - with a power rating of 120. It has an accuracy of 80, but only starts with a PP count of 5. Fortunately, the 80 accuracy is much more reliable than other high-powered attacks in the same tier
The only two moves that come close to Gunk Shot in terms of power are Belch and Venoshock. Belch requires the Pokemon to have already eaten a berry in battle, and Venoshock’s power is only comparable if the opponent is poisoned. Gunk Shot has no limitations or prerequisites to work. The PP count can thankfully be increased to 8; which players will want to do. For physical attacking Poison-types, Gunk Shot is the best offensive choice hands down.
