Dual Weather Teams

[BTzz]

Credits to Daenym for a lot of this. Sorry if my spelling/grammar is off.

So I've been testing out dual weather combos and abusers and I thought I should share them with you. What are your thoughts on dual weather? Do you think it can be viable?

Any dual weather team obviously needs 2 weather starters. The problem is finding two weathers with good synergy. Drizzle/Dought would be hard to pull of because of their clashing effects, where as Sandstorm/Rain can have can both have bennifits on a single Pokemon on your team. Here are the permanant weather starters. I'm not going to go to in depth, that's what the analysis are for.


Sandstorm:

Tyranitar is the staple of many sandstorm teams due to his ability to make use of the his weathe. He boast impressive base stats and I wide move pool. Tyranitar can also be a great special wall under SS and a bit of SpD investment, checking the likes of Latios.

Hippowdon is ofter over looked by as a sandstorm starter in favour of Tyranitar Hippo does have some nice tools to work with. He's a nice physical wall with acess to stealth rocks and reliable recovery in slack off.

Drizzle:

Politoed is definitley up there with Tyranitar as the most versitile weather starter. With his nice typing he can lean towards a more deffensive set or he can abuse the rain by attacking with x2 STAB attacks.

Drought:

Ninetales is one of the frailest weather starters so Ninetale sets are often built to keep him alive. Ninetales does have some nice tools to works with. Like Politoed, Ninetales can abuse the sun for x2 STAB fire attacks and he has some nice status moves like will-o-wisp.

Hail:

Along with his unique typing, Abomosnow also has a pretty diverse move pool. 100% accurate blizzard is a great asset for an offensive Abomosnow set, while moves like Giga Drain and Leech Seed (along with hail damage) can make Abomosnow an effective staller.


Temporary Weather: having a standard weather starter and a temperary weather starter would still technically make your team a dual weather team. Here are some of the most effective temp. weather starters (remember effects of temp. weather can be prolonged with items like Damp Rock or Heat Rock).

Pranksters: the ability pranster is perfect for temporary weather starting, giving moves like Rain Dance and Sunny Day +1 priority.

Whismicott can get off a priority Sunny Day along with some other useful utility moves.

Tornadus and Thundurus can both get off a priority Rain Dance along with their high offensive stats and ability to abuse rain.

Non Prankster:

Bronzong was on of the premeire temporary weather starters last gen with his great bulk and pleathora of resistances. Bronzong has acess to Sunny Day and Rain Dance.


Dual Weather abusers: of course there are normal weather abusers like Excadrill or Toxicroak you can use. These are pokemon that can bennifit from 2 weathers

*Sandstorm/Rain

Steel-Types:

*
Any Steel-Types can find a home on a Drizzle/Sandstorm team. They're immune to sandstorm damage and their Fire weakness is nerfed under the rain. Pokemon like Ferrothorn can can sit in the Sanstorm racking up residual damage or he can sit in the rain protected from fire.

Ground/Water-types

These Pokemon enjoy racking up residual damage in Sandstorm and getting a nice boost to the STAB water attacks in Rain.

Drizzle Drought

Ludicolo can abuse a STAB Solarbeam (despite it being not the best attack) in Sun, while enjoying added recovery in Rain with Rain Dish. Throw it together with HP Fire and SubSeed and all of a sudden you've got something that can work on different roles in different weathers.

Rotom-H's Electric/Fire typing is perfect for Drizzle/Dought. He has STAB 100% accurate Thunder while in rain and x2 STAB Fire attacks in sun.

Drizzle/Hail

Rotom-F has acess to Thunder/Blizzard/Volt Switch/WoW giving him the ability to throw status around, flee if the weather condition isn't great, and abuse either weather with a no-miss STAB attack. Thunder in Rain and Blizzard in Hail.

Laparas can also be a good option on a Drizzle/Hail team. Laparas can abuse Hydration in Rain and STAB Blizzard in Hail with a great boosting move in Dragon Dance.

Starmie signature Bolt-Beam is up-graded into Thunder-Blizzard a Hail/Drizzle team. The rain boosted STAB water attacks are also a nice addition.

Tentacruel fills a very important niche on a Drizzle/Hail team. He can spin away stealth rocks, which really hurt ice types ans he can lay doen toxic spikes. In rain he can heal up with Rain Dish and in Hail he can abuse Blizzard if your running a more offensive set.*

Sandstorm/Drought

Ground-Types
Ground types are good choices for a Sandstorm/Drought team. They could stall in or abuse the sandstorm and when water attacks are a threat, you can put sun into play to help.*


Magic Guard

Any Magic Guard can be a good choice for dual weather team with either Hail or Sandstorm. There different typing from usual abusers can *be useful, although Sigliphy isn't to fond of the possible Blizzard of Thunder that can come with Drizzle/Hail.


I'll add to this if I think of any more. I also might add I support section. **

 

[pok101]

i think its a great idea

 

[verbatim]

This is the kind of thing that should go into RMT's (assuming you change your post to follow the guide lines they have). On topic, I feel that (bar sandstorm users) the weather starter is to weak to merit competitive play for any reason other than its ability, and that throwing two of them onto a team will leave a lot of slack for the other four to pick up. Even if you use a sandstorm team, the pokemon that benefit from the other type are just going to end up taking sandstorm damage.

 

[alphatron]

I tried running a sand/hail stall team in the past. The idea was to use hippodown to cover for the rock weakness and abuse his walling abilities, while still using hail as a weather. I think I used mandibuzz and mamoswine too.

 

[Rackham]

I don't see what you're trying to do here. You don't have any sand abusers nor do you have anything that much benefits from sun (apart from Heatran) Ninetales is pretty poor as a pokemon on its own, so apart from disrupting the opponent's weather, how is this intended to work without half your team ending up as dead weight?

 

[Woodchuck]

I suggest you edit your OP with more substance (Benefits/Disadvantages of Dual Weather teams, Pokemon that work well in both, etc.) or this topic will get locked. Probably by Haunter.
On topic, Reuniclus obviously works well in every weather as it doesn't take residual damage and appreciates its teammates using weather-boosted attacks to wear down walls so it can TR sweep.

 

[Daenym]

Well, barring this getting locked shortly, I think it's a topic that could generate some good discussion.

I've often wanted to come up with a good dual-weather team. The problems that usually arise are:

- Weather-setters aren't always the best Pokemon for doing stuff besides setting
- Finding one or more Pokemon that benefit from the combination of weathers


So the first point: Weather-setter Pokemon.

Obviously we have 5 dedicated weather-setters. You know them, so I'm not going to go nuts.

Tyranitar

An absolute boss. Sand Stream or no, he's awesome. With a great movepool and ability to run a pretty wide variety of sets (with the current LeadTar being the most common atm) he can do quite a bit besides setting up weather.

Hippowdon

Personally, I can't say too much for Hippo. He's a good bulky physical Pokemon. The problem is that his most effective 4th gen set, imo, involved Curse, and boosting counters are much more prevalent this gen (looking at you, Quagsire).

Politoed

Honestly, one of the stars of 5th gen. He's able to run some more bulky sets to mess with Perish Song and the like, or can try to sweep with nasty double-STAB Hydro Pumps.

Abomasnow

One of the cool selling points of Abomasnow is his typing. He's not particularly bulky, but with no-miss Blizzard and things like SubSeed sets he's able to do things that other weather-setters can't dream of.

Ninetales

Ninetales gets a bad rap as a weather setter. Definitely the most frail, its biggest challenge is staying alive. But with the ability to throw around Burn, it does have some good support value.

Now, obviously each weather-setter provides instant auto-support for itself. In most cases. Ttar gets a big SpDef boost, making his special bulk pretty significant. Politoed's STAB of choice (Scald or Hydro Pump, most likely) gets a good boost, giving him some offensive power even if he's running a bulky/stallish set. Abomasnow's Blizzard hits for some nasty damage, and Hail is the weather most likely to damage the opponent each turn. Ninetales, like Politoed, enjoys the double-STAB to whatever its Fire move is. Sadly, Hippowdon is the only one of the 5 dedicated weather-setters that doesn't get a significant benefit after putting up his own weather.

The list of potential weather-setters isn't limited just to the auto-setters, however. After the Drizzle/SwSw ban, Rain Dance made its way back onto movesets. I won't go into too much detail, since relying on excessive setting up will cost you the game, but things like Tornadus, Thundurus, and Bronzong are some of the best Rain setters. Anything with Prankster can get any weather up quickly and reliably. And anything with some good bulk that is not harmed by the weather it sets up can be turned into a solid setter, allowing it to take a hit or two and then get to work after setting.


Now, on to the rest of the team.

Rain and Sun allow for the most variance of your other teammates, since they are guaranteed not to harm anything. Conversely, Hail is probably the hardest thing to fit onto a dual-weather team.

Now, I've got a real paper to write that's due in a couple hours, so I'm going to have to wrap this up pretty quickly. So just some thoughts off the top of my head.

Rotom-F is something that can work on a Rain/Hail team. Thunder/Blizzard/Volt Switch/WoW would give him the ability to throw status around, flee if the weather condition isn't great, and abuse either weather with a no-miss STAB attack.

Rotom-H can do the same thing as his frozen counterpart, but with Rain/Sun. Meh, Rotom just came to mind right away.

Bronzong was mentioned before as a good backup Rain Setter. And Sandstorm immunity doesn't hurt. While Zong's attacks aren't going to get phenomenal boosts from the weathers, he's a big fan of having no weaknesses after the Rain weakens Fire attacks.

Ludicolo can abuse a STAB Solarbeam (despite it being not the best attack) in Sun, while enjoying added recovery in Rain. Throw it together with HP Fire and SubSeed and all of a sudden you've got something that can work on different roles in different weathers.

Reuniclus was mentioned earlier. But anything and everything with Magic Guard can work on a weather team, since it doesn't mind lacking immunity to SS/Hail. The exception might be Sigilyph, who is not going to be fond of Blizzard and Thunder.

Anyway, this is taking me longer than I thought. I'll come back once I've finished my paper and flesh it out more.

As a (temporary) final thought, you don't always need to have to have your team benefit from the weather as long as the opponent's team is hindered more. I remember a Tentacruel on a Hail team (4th gen, iirc) that enjoyed the support Hail provided in wearing down opponents more quickly, despite taking damage itself.


still more to come. Race to the finish before Haunter sees this topic XD

 

[Olijolly]

It works.
At least rain + sand did.
There are mixed r+s teams and one prime example of a successful "mixed" team is

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3448790

where Tez uses the rain and sand abusers or mons that can effectively use both fairly well.

 

[BTzz]

Sorry for the crappy OP guys, I'm working on some serious edits right now. Hopefully I can get them up before the almighty mods get me D:

 

[Boondocker]

Instead of running 2 weather starters and 4 "abusers" why not just not run any weather starters and run 6 abusers? Most teams are either rain or sand, so 3 rain abusers and 3 sand abusers could work. Stuff like rotom-w and virizoin can check both teams.

 

[BTzz]

Finished the changes

 

[Byrn Dragonstone]

So I was going to save some of my finding till I do a RMT thread for it but I guess I will post up my findings from running a couple Dual Weather teams.

First team I tried was Sand+Hail.

The best way to utilize this combination is to play to their strengths. Both Sand and Hail cause damage over time, so having pokemon that can weather the storm (Sorry bad pun there) and not have it affect them too much are great. Basically I rand Sand offensively, and used Hail as my defensive core. Thrash the enemies with powerful sweepers from sand, then when they are weakened bring in hail to stall and finish them off. Toxic Spikes were extremely useful in helping to wear the enemies down. Some notable mons for this combo include: Excadrill, Cradily, Landorus, Wallrien, Tentacruel, Mamoswine, Vaporeon, Blissey/Chansey, Forretress (Use him over Ferrothorn, spinning is important+he gets Toxic Spikes). Remember to always use the residual damage to your advantage.

The next one I tried was Sand+Sun but I didn't use it too much and so didn't really have a chance to test out strategies with it.

I then tried Sun+Rain, which is actually what my current team is based around, and I won't post too much up as it is really fun to use and I don't want counters for it popping up everywhere. Lets just say that I haven't lost a battle with it unless I was completely Haxed out of it (Crit, Crit, Miss, Crit, Crit..... Yeah had a couple of those battles)

 

[Raj]

I've been using a dual weather team for the past few weeks with Rain and Sand. I'm more of a Dream Worlder than plain OU, but I got to #1 on the leaderboard without losing a single match, and then got 100 points higher that the next person behind me. The premise was that I could use Tar as my special wall and Latios trapper, then Politoed to take physical hits with Perish Song to force switches to rack up Spikes damage from Ferrothorn. I made my movesets malleable so that they could be used varying with the weather. For instance, having Thunder and HP Fire on the same set. HP Fire has little use in Rain, but I could change weather whenever I wanted to make the moves I needed work.

Depending on my oppnent's team, Rain or Sand (Hail and Sun don't stand a chance against this) I would play their style in the beginning of the match until they were weakened, then revert to my other weather and fuck them completely. With 2 weathers it makes it twice as easy to take out your opponent's inducer. No matter what kind of team your opponent's using, they're screwed. You can stop their Excadrill from 600 speed or prevent Hydro Pump/Thunder sweeps.

 

[iLeBronz]

To be honest, I think it's very deadly. It can easily destroy your opponent if he has weather. It's also useful if one of your instant pokemon dies, you still have the other pokemon to rely on weather.

 

[Prankster]

I think Excadrill can work on rain sand or sun sand with sun destroying its water weakness while doubling its fire weakness and rain destroying its fire weakness while doubling its water weakness.
Latios can work in rain sun because hp fire will kill ferrothorn while you still have a rain boosted surf. (And thunder)

 

[Blue_Star]

scarftar is also good on a sun team, since it's an awesome switch-in for defensive ttar, heatran and lati@s, who are constant pests for sun teams...

 

[kanak0]

Here is an RMT of a triple weather team that I have put a lot of thought into.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3449518

I try to use each to their strengths. Using all three also hard counters most dedicated weather teams.

 

[lordkira]

rain + sand is fantastic as some have already stated in this thread.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3448790

this guy clearly had much success with the rain+sand team

 

[Daenym]

I think Excadrill can work on rain sand or sun sand with sun destroying its water weakness while doubling its fire weakness and rain destroying its fire weakness while doubling its water weakness.
Latios can work in rain sun because hp fire will kill ferrothorn while you still have a rain boosted surf. (And thunder)

Sun > Rain, imo. Helps remove the threat of Aqua jet. Though Excadrill out of Sand is always a bit iffy, imo. Add that to a Water Spout Jellicent (absorbing Mach Punches) and you have a fun Rain section of Sand/Rain.

Also, I dropped the ball on updating my post. Blame mafia.

 

[CanadiEntei]

Ninjask & Accelgor are able to Sandstorm. So can Shedinja but...

Hail + Sun sounds awful beyond Weather Ball and DW Drifblim. Will wait for a warstory of it if it is any good.

Using Sun + a Blaze Kick Fight type sounds tempting given the priorities of Hitmonlee and Infernape. Rain + Scald Emboar?

 

[AuraSphere]

Ninjask & Accelgor are able to Sandstorm. So can Shedinja but...

Hail + Sun sounds awful beyond Weather Ball and DW Drifblim. Will wait for a warstory of it if it is any good.

Using Sun + a Blaze Kick Fight type sounds tempting given the priorities of Hitmonlee and Infernape. Rain + Scald Emboar?

That is effective suicide. This is why I've seen Sunny Day on some Shedinja sets, bluffing a switch-out.

 

[The Requiem]

rain + sand is fantastic as some have already stated in this thread.

This. I don't really think it would be all that hard to build a solid team that can abuse both rain and sand at the same time. My only thing about it is I'd probably rather use this strategy on IR battles, and have the weather switch come in the late game as a surprise. Getting exposed on Team Preview using 2 perma-starters doesn't sound quite as fun to me.

Hail + Sun sounds awful beyond Weather Ball and DW Drifblim. Will wait for a warstory of it if it is any good.

What does flare boost have to do with hail OR sun? Anywho...

I don't know about awful, it could be just as useful as any other dual-weather setups. If you focus a little more on the hail than the sun, you could use the hail to wear down your opponent, and abuse maybe a Chlorophyll pokemon, or something like Darmanitan to hit ridiculously hard under sun and tear a nice sized hole in a squad. I'd worry more about Stealth Rock than anything else, seeing as how Hail + Sun would require you to use several pokemon with a SR weakness.

 

[Z-rex]

What's the point of running 2 weather ?! I'm not mocking here i juste want know what's the strategy ? disturb the opponent ? you just have to build a good weather team and it's fine .. I just don't get the strategy here .. it's just like running a gravity/trick room team ..

 

[RaRaRabbit]

I used a rain/sand team for a bit. I enjoyed it. I called it my "mud" team.

I generally used it with the intention of sand to stall early, and rain to clean up late. Tyranitar, Skarmory, Politoed were always givens.

Kabutops was awesome to use for late game while rain was up, as I gave him a focus sash and he has breakable armor+swords dance. I just had to have a spinner, or make sure they didn't get spikes up.

I also shuffled around with Zapdos, Quagsire, and Nidoking.


The most awesome part about the duel weather team build is the advantage one has over other weather teams during a weather war. If I lose my Ttar, I still have my Toed ready to fix the weather. Or, if my enemy is running weather too, (with a high chance of it being rain or sand) I am not entirely gimped if they get their weather up.



I was considering rain/sun for awhile but I felt like that was too contradictory. I may have to explore it more.

 

[Pocket]

Are "weather specialists" such as Excadrill, who only shines in Sandstream, not recommended in these types of teams?