Why does Whimsicott have lower Special Attack than Toxicroak?

I was looking at Whimsicott’s stats and thought, hey, none of these stats are that great except Speed. Its Special Attack is 77, I believe. But Toxicroak’s Special Attack is 86. A Poison/Fighting type has higher Special Attack than a Grass/Fairy type. A fairy with plant-like features is pretty much guaranteed to have strong powers relating to nature and stuff.

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

Just because a Pokemon is Fairy/Psychic/etc doesn’t mean its good in attacking special-wise. Whimsicott, as evidenced by its Pokedex entries, it preferably rides the wind, since it isn’t very strong so it should be quick.

Also shown in the entries, its speed, and its ability, Whimsicott is a prankster. A support role in an RPG. It isn’t meant to hit very hard, rather to buff it’s own team and cripple the enemy.

Toxicroak on the other hand, fits very well the attacking role. Its best played physically but despite this that doesn’t make Toxicroak weak special-wise. It also has moves like mud bomb and sludge bomb, which I assume is deployed from its mouth like in the anime.

Comparing Whimsicott and Toxicroak is like comparing a Healer Sorcerer and a knight who happens to have a laser cannon. Both have different roles, so they have different stats.

First of all, GameFreak Logic. They’re not known to be super specific as to how stat distribution is done. It’s not uncommon to see other cases where X Pokemon ought to have a higher stat than Y Pokemon, but doesn’t, and so on. That said,

One can’t really 100% sure, but Pokemon design and origin might have played a role into it. And if movepools are decided before stats, then stats are probably likewise adjusted to fit the Pokemon better.