Pokémon Scarlet & Violet: The Best Iron Hands Builds

Among the most combat-viable pocket monsters in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, the future form of Hariyama is one that can dish out some of the most damage. To do so, you must find the right Iron Hands builds for your team.

Choice Band Bruiser – Competitive Battle Build

The goal of this Iron Hands build is to be prepared for as many types of foes as possible. However, never forget that holding a Choice Band locks you into a single move. To use another one, you must switch out.

Despite Choice Band (+50%) giving you more of an Attack boost than triggering Quark Drive (+30%), being unable to use a different move than the first one you select will always leave you in an awkward spot eventually. As such, if you use this Iron Hands build, you need to have another Pokémon to switch to when your Iron Hands gets walled.

Choice Band Bruiser Moveset

1. Wild Charge
2. Ice Punch
3. Close Combat
4. Earthquake

This set has the coverage to potentially one-shot and two-shot almost anything. The exceptions are the bulkiest Bug, Ghost, Psychic, and Fairy-types. If your opponent sends in such a Pokémon, you should swap out to a Steel-type or another viable counter option.

For the most part, other trainers you battle online will try to check Iron Hands with a Psychic or Fairy-type. However, it’s also possible that they will send in a Ground-type. In the latter case, you should switch to a Flying-type.

If you plan on using this one out of all the possible Iron Hands builds, for the aforementioned reasons, it would be a good idea to have a Steel and Flying-type on your team. A solid choice would be a Corviknight.

Hard-hitting moves like Wild Charge and Close Combat have downsides. Though, you’re better off using them instead of less risky moves like Thunder Punch and Drain Punch for this build.

Remember, you’re going to need to switch Iron Hands out at some point. As such, the debuffs gained from using Close Combat will get sorted out naturally. The HP loss from Wild Charge can be more debilitating. Therefore, make sure to use your Iron Hands wisely so that you score knockouts to justify taking recoil damage.

Choice Band Bruiser Battle Traits

• Item – Choice Band
• Ability – Quark Drive
• Nature – Adamant (+Attack, -Special Attack)
• EVs – 252 HP, 252 Attack, and 4 Defense
• Tera Type – Fighting or Electric

Choice Band is a given for the item slot due to the purpose of this build. Quark Drive, while it is an amazing ability, won’t be the most useful. However, Iron Hands doesn’t have any other ability options, so you’re stuck with it.

If you really want to make use of Quark Drive, make sure to bring another Pokémon that knows Electric Terrain. On a related note, if you do so, it would be good to add other Pokémon with Quark Drive to your team.

As usual for a physical sweeper, Adamant is the best Nature on Iron Hands; you won’t need Special Attack at all with this build. In regard to EVs (Effort Values), HP is more valuable than Defense. It can be tempting to bulk out Iron Hands’ already decent Defense stat, however, remember that a lot of the counters to Iron Hands are specially-oriented (Psychic-types and Fairy-types to say the least).

It doesn’t make much sense to try and increase Iron Hands’ Special Defense with EVs as, to begin with, it’s pretty low. Even if you give it 252 Special Defense EVs, it won’t be enough to make a huge difference. Therefore, gaining HP EVs would serve Iron Hands the best, as simply having more HP will help it stay in the fight longer against the majority of foes.

In terms of Tera Type, you want Iron Hands to hit as hard as possible with its STAB (same type attack bonus) moves. For example, Terastallizing into a Fighting-type will give Close Combat an x2 multiplier. Comparatively, Terastallizing into a Ground-type and using Earthquake will only grant an x1.5 modifier.

Dance and Drain – Competitive Battle Build

Contrary to tactics used in other Iron Hands builds—like Choice Band Bruiser—the Dance and Drain build is all about keeping your Iron Hands in battle as much as possible. By using the big Attack stat gains from Sword Dance and Quark Drive together, your aim is to heal by hurting foes with Drain Punch.

With that said, you can’t hit every target with Drain Punch. Ghost-types are immune and Drain Punch—even with huge boosts—won’t let you heal from certain foes very well. For example, Hatterene has a double resistance to Fighting-type moves, so you never want to use Drain Punch on it.

Although with both the Sword Dance and Quark Drive boosts active, you can still heal somewhat reliably from less physically defensive foes that have regular resistance to Fighting-type moves. But it won’t give you great returns, so be cautious if you do so. Weigh whether it’s better to heal or try to knock out such targets with a move besides Drain Punch.

Dance and Drain Moveset

1. Sword Dance
2. Drain Punch
3. Thunder Punch
4. Ice Punch

The two first slots are obvious: Iron Hands builds like this need Sword Dance and Drain Punch to work as intended. The other two slots should be used for coverage moves. You’re going to need to deal with Ghost-types and other foes that won’t be hindered by Fighting-type moves.

Electric and Ice-type attacks are great for this, as usual. The dual coverage granted by both Thunder Punch and Ice Punch let you account for a large number of threats. Also, since Iron Hands gets STAB on Thunder Punch, it is particularly handy.

You don’t want Wild Charge on this build, as you will lose too much HP. Don’t forget that the goal of Iron Hands builds like this is to stay alive as long as you can. Wild Charge is for builds that don’t mind if its user gets knocked out as long as it gets multiple knockouts of its own.

When you send in Iron Hands, you want to use Sword Dance right away. However, if you’re facing a threat that you don’t think Iron Hands can deal with, switch out instead of boosting with Sword Dance.

You want to be extra careful when you send in Iron Hands, as you don’t want to waste the Booster Energy gains. Booster Energy can only be used once per battle. As such, it may be better to save your Iron Hands for later in the battle if possible. Use it as a late-battle sweeper.

Dance and Drain Battle Traits

• Item – Booster Energy
• Ability – Quark Drive
• Nature – Adamant (+Attack, -Special Attack)
• EVs – 252 HP, 252 Attack, and 4 Defense
• Tera Type – Fighting

Since you’re focusing on boosting stats, Booster Energy is an appropriate item. The combined boosts gained from both Sword Dance and Quark Drive result in your Attack getting increased by 160% (damage gets multiplied by 2.6). Quark Drive increases Attack by 30%. Since Quark Drive triggers automatically if Booster Energy is the item being held, you can only use Sword Dance afterward.

The 30% (an x1.3 multiplier) Attack stat increase does not raise the stat stage; it is applied directly to the Attack stat. Therefore, when the +2 stat stage (an x2 multiplier) from Sword Dance is applied on top, the result means that your Attack stat after both boosts is 2.6 times more than your original Attack.

For example, if your level 100 Iron Hands has 400 Attack, the calculations will look like this:

1. 400 x 1.3 = 520
2. 520 x 2 = 1040

As a result, your Iron Hands’ Attack stat reaches a whopping total that is over 1,000. With Quark Drive alone, it would only reach 520. And, with Sword Dance alone, it would only reach 800. While either is fairly usable alone, together, they are exceptionally dangerous for opponents.

The same Nature and EV distribution are just as viable as for the Choice Band Bruiser build. HP is even more important to invest in for Iron Hands builds like this one, as a bigger HP pool makes staying alive easier.

Though, for the Tera Type, you want to stick to Fighting. This means a bigger damage multiplier on Drain Punch, which is the core of this build.

Drum and Drain – Tera Raid Battle Build

Using Belly Drum is a bit too risky for competitive battles. It will leave you at around 50% HP, which will bring Iron Hands within the knockout range of bigger threats. Even with the largest HP and defensive stats, Iron Hands won’t last long at half-health. It’s far too slow to outspeed foes, so you need to be able to take a hit to get a chance to counterattack.

With that said, outspeeding a Raid Boss is not very important. Also, Raid Bosses are way tougher than standard enemies, so you need the massive gains granted by Belly Drum for optimal damage output.

Iron Hands builds like this are simple: apply big-time boosts and then stay alive until the Raid Boss goes down. Just like the name of this build implies, it’s much like the Dance and Drain competitive build mentioned above. But dialed up to the extreme!

Drum and Drain Moveset

1. Belly Drum
2. Drain Punch
3. Thunder Punch
4. Ice Punch

Since you can’t switch out during a Tera Raid Battle, there’s little harm in activating your boosts as early as possible. When you enter the raid, Booster Energy will activate Quark Drive to net you a 30% Attack boost. Then, on your first turn, use Belly Drum and hope that the Raid Boss doesn’t hit you with something nasty.

On turn two, use Drain Punch. Even if this doesn’t affect the foe’s huge HP bar as much as you’d like, you’ll still heal a lot. Raid Bosses have a ton of hitpoints, so absorbing any sort of notable damage will heal your Iron Hands sufficiently.

For the most part, you don’t want to use Iron Hands builds like this on a Ghost-type Raid Boss, as you can’t hit them with Drain Punch. But almost everything else should be fair game.

Even Raid Bosses that resist Fighting-type moves will take a lot of damage from a fully-boosted Iron Hands. With that said, it may be better to use the heal command to recover HP and attack with either Thunder Punch or Ice Punch. Use your judgment and try not to get knocked out, as you will lose your boosts if you do.

Drum and Drain Battle Traits

• Item – Booster Energy
• Ability – Quark Drive
• Nature – Adamant (+Attack, -Special Attack)
• EVs – 252 HP, 252 Attack, and 4 Defense
• Tera Type – Fighting

The same benefits apply as with the Dance and Drain competitive build. You want to use Booster Energy to get that 30% Attack increase from Quark Drive. Then, use Belly Drum to multiply this stat by four. This results in a truly monstrous Attack stat.

Let’s use an Iron Hands at level 100 with 400 Attack as an example. Here’s a breakdown of the math:

1. 400 x 1.3 = 520
2. 520 x 4 = 2080

As you can see, this raises your Attack to over 2,000! This makes your Iron Hands hit twice as hard as if you used Sword Dance and Quark Drive together. Even a Raid Boss won’t be able to take a pounding from such a Pokémon for long.

Once more, you want to have an Adamant Nature and maximum EVs in HP and Attack. Iron Hands is all about tanking hits and then hitting back with more force. Moreover, Fighting is the best Tera Type, as this set is focused on using Drain Punch as much as possible.