Key Takeaway
To evolve Qwilfish into Overqwil, you’ll need to make Qwilfish use Barb Barrage in Strong Style 20 times.
Like many of the new Pokémon evolutions in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, you’ll need to meet specific criteria to evolve Qwilfish. Thankfully, this can easily be done—and in a short amount of time. It’s time to unleash a barrage!
Table Of Contents
What You Need to Do to Evolve Qwilfish
To evolve Qwilfish into Overqwil, you’ll need Qwilfish to use the move Barb Barrage in Strong Style 20 times. Hisuian Qwilfish learns Barb Barrage at level 15 and will master it at level 25. As such, you won’t be able to evolve them until they have mastered Barb Barrage at level 25.
When you’ve used Barb Barrage in Strong Style 20 times, you’ll get a prompt on the left of your screen that will tell you your Qwilfish is ready to evolve. Head into the party menu and select Qwilfish to evolve them into Overqwil.
Tips for Evolving Qwilfish Quickly
Since Strong Style moves decrease your action order speed, using Barb Barrage in Strong Style will usually allow enemies to hit you multiple times in a row. To avoid the dangers this brings, you’ll want to train Qwilfish by battling weak and slow pocket monsters.
Ideally, you either want to one-shot opposing Pokémon or face off against foes who can’t hit you. The latter is more efficient, and there’s a neat trick that can speed up how many times you can use Barb Barrage in Strong Style.
Low-level Drifloons are arguably the best target for this evolution task. Even those at level two or three will be able to tank one Strong Style Barb Barrage from a Qwilfish around level 35. This is because Drifloons have high base HP stats and because their Ghost-typing causes them to resist Poison-type attacks.
More importantly, Drifloons at such low levels will only know Confusion, which is a Psychic-type move. Due to Hisuian Qwilfish being part Dark-type and immune to Psychic-type attacks, the Drifloons won’t be able to hit you.
Put simply, you can engage a group of low-level Drifloons and spam Strong Style Barb Barrages against them with no risk whatsoever. This will greatly cut down on all the running around you’ll need to do to find and battle Pokémon.
Furthermore, while training Qwilfish, be sure to stick close to a camp. Barb Barrage only has 15 PP, so you can’t use it 20 times in Strong Style without letting Qwilfish rest at least once. Also, keep in mind that Strong Style moves use two PP per attack as opposed to regular moves that only consume one PP per attack.
Reasons to Use Overqwil on Your Team
Overqwil is an offense-oriented Pokémon with a solid Attack stat backed up by decent Defense, HP, and Speed stats. This makes it pretty reliable as a physical attacker. Its only real weakness is special attacks, however, due to great typing, Overqwil has few vulnerabilities in this regard.
As far as type matchups go, the only type that’s super effective against Overqwil is Ground. This is preferable to the type matchups of other Poison-type Pokémon, as they usually fair poorly against Ground-types and Psychic-types. Thanks to Overqwil’s partial Dark-typing, they are immune to Psychic-type attacks.
Overall, Overqwil is a great choice for your party if you need a physically-oriented Poison-type Pokémon. However, don’t use them for any Dark-type offensive tactics, as they cannot learn any physical Dark-type moves. With that said, Overwqil still has a decent movepool.
The Best Moves for Overqwil in Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Due to Overqwil possessing a much higher Attack than Special Attack, you’ll only want to teach them physical moves. Thankfully, Overqwil can learn a few good ones.
Here’s a list of the best moves Overqwil learns through leveling up:
- Barb Barrage [Poison-type] (60 base power)
- Poison Jab [Poison-type] (80 base power)
- Aqua Tail [Water-type] (85 base power)
- Double-Edge [Normal-type] (100 base power)
- Self-Destruct [Normal-type] (150 base power)
Between Barb Barrage and Poison Jab, Barb Barrage is the move with the higher potential damage. This is because Barb Barrage will deal double damage to foes afflicted by a status condition, which essentially makes its base power 120 in certain cases. Furthermore, since Barb Barrage has a 30% chance of poisoning the target, it can set itself up for big damage on the next turn.
Moves that have recoil (like Doube-Edge and Self-Destruct) often come with a risk, as they hurt Overqwil when used. However, due to Overqwil’s decent bulk and access to the status move Rest (via the move tutor), they can be viable in some cases.
Sadly, Overqwil doesn’t learn any viable moves from the move tutor besides Rest. Giga Impact is passable if all you need is high damage output, but Self-Destruct trumps it in that department.
If you like living on the edge, you can put together a high-risk-high-reward build for Overqwil. Alternate using Double-Edge (or Self-Destruct, since it doesn’t immediately knock out the user in Pokémon Legends: Arceus) and Rest to hit hard and then heal yourself.
