For the purposes of this thread, "Offense" is defined as any team that isn't a Stall Team or a Screen Pass team (though the latter don't exist anymore now that everyone has Dragon Tail).
Making a stall team is pretty formulaic, and hasn't changed much since Gen IV except you see less Blisseys and Chanseys now. But making offense teams has a lot of room for variation, and I think it could be helpful to discuss the similarities and contrasts between various approaches to offense.
I don't know too much about making beast offensive teams, so I welcome anybody's advice. But I'll do my best to start this thread off on the right foot.
1) The Stealth Rocker
Stealth Rock is still a very powerful move. Regardless, without it it's much harder to check threats like Ho-oh, Reshiram, Kyurem-B/W, as anyone who's played our CCAT knows. There are a few options for this.
Deoxys-S: The best choice if you don't mind starting the game 5-6 in exchange for SR+Taunted Enemy or SR+Spikes. You should pair this up with Giratina-O or Ghost Arceus.
Dialga: One of the best SR setup Pokemon, with its amazing typing, solid defenses, and powerful Draco Meteor.
Groudon: Good on Sun Teams, but it often invites strong, faster special attackers who threaten it out and blast your team. Thunder Wave can turn this into an advantage though...
Forretress: For those who want to condense Stealth Rock and Spikes (and Rapid Spin) onto one Pokemon that doesn't have paper defenses. Some players use this, just remember to use Volt Switch to get in a sweeper after you've set the hazards you want. Red Card as an item is also viable as a failsafe against a sweeper, if its a bit gimmicky.
Support Arceus: You can also shove Stealth Rock onto an Arceus form to get the hazard up while patching up a hole in your team.
The Strategy:
Offensive Teams have a variety of different strategies they can use to sweep through teams. These can be based around weather, or just synergistic offensive combinations designed to weaken counters and sweep.
Rain Abuse:
Kyogre is obviously a requirement for these teams. For the main sweeper, you have the option of Palkia, Manaphy, Waterceus, or a Swift Swimmer. These teams tend to have issues with Lati Twins and Ferrothorn. Grassceus, Chansey/Blissey, and rival weather changers are also concerns depending on the chosen sweepers. A Rain Team should use its remaining Pokemon to deal with these threats, while avoiding accumulating weaknesses to other common sweepers.
Sun Abuse:
Groudon is required for these, of course. Other than that, a Sun Abuser can be Ho-oh, Reshiram, Blaziken, Fire Arceus, or a Chlorophyller (though most of those suck). These teams tend to be vulnerable to residual damage, and those without Reshiram suffer against Giratina/Giratina-O. Additionally, those without Ho-oh can be slow and vulnerable to strong special assaults from Darkrai, Mewtwo, and various Arceus formes. Many of these teams favor Terrakion as a check against against the latter, and Latias (or Wobbuffet) against the former.
Sand Abuse:
These teams frequently feature Tyranitar (though Hippowdon also sees some usage) as their weather Pokemon. For their sweeper, Garchomp, Excadrill, and Rockceus are favored choices, and Gliscor and Ferrothorn are useful support/defensive Pokemon they use. These teams don't have the sheer power of Rain or Sun teams, but Sand's residual damage hits a lot of people in Ubers, and Sand's sweepers are strong in their own right.
Offensive Combinations:
The idea here is to either use a particular strategy to destroy walls/scarfers/crap so other dudes can sweep. For example, RPDon and EK Normceus double up and kill Giratina so one of them can sweep. MixRay serves as a Groudon lure so Poison (or Steel/Water/Whatever) Arceus can CM up and sweep. These can be related to weather too.
Checking Threats:
An offensive team should be able to have decent matchups against both stall and offensive teams. If the offensive team is using Pokemon that can't get past stall (eg: IceCeus, SpecsOgre, etc) it should use wallbreakers like Darkrai or Giratina-O.
Calm Mind is well distributed throughout Ubers, and often after a Calm Mind it's difficult to revenge enemy Pokemon on the special side. So right now, a lot of the popular scarfers are physical ones like Terrakion, Zekrom, and Garchomp. Other way to check Pokemon include weather-boosted revenge killers like Kingdra, Excadrill, or Blaziken.
The amount of threats you need to check also depends on what you let setup. For example, if your team doesn't let Rayquaza get stat boosts, you don't need to have a DDRay Check.
Addendum:
I dunno, I had an example team posted here, but usually it takes several playtest games for me to make a good offensive team (Sand doesn't count, its easy to make those). What do you think?
Making a stall team is pretty formulaic, and hasn't changed much since Gen IV except you see less Blisseys and Chanseys now. But making offense teams has a lot of room for variation, and I think it could be helpful to discuss the similarities and contrasts between various approaches to offense.
I don't know too much about making beast offensive teams, so I welcome anybody's advice. But I'll do my best to start this thread off on the right foot.
1) The Stealth Rocker
Stealth Rock is still a very powerful move. Regardless, without it it's much harder to check threats like Ho-oh, Reshiram, Kyurem-B/W, as anyone who's played our CCAT knows. There are a few options for this.
Deoxys-S: The best choice if you don't mind starting the game 5-6 in exchange for SR+Taunted Enemy or SR+Spikes. You should pair this up with Giratina-O or Ghost Arceus.
Dialga: One of the best SR setup Pokemon, with its amazing typing, solid defenses, and powerful Draco Meteor.
Groudon: Good on Sun Teams, but it often invites strong, faster special attackers who threaten it out and blast your team. Thunder Wave can turn this into an advantage though...
Forretress: For those who want to condense Stealth Rock and Spikes (and Rapid Spin) onto one Pokemon that doesn't have paper defenses. Some players use this, just remember to use Volt Switch to get in a sweeper after you've set the hazards you want. Red Card as an item is also viable as a failsafe against a sweeper, if its a bit gimmicky.
Support Arceus: You can also shove Stealth Rock onto an Arceus form to get the hazard up while patching up a hole in your team.
The Strategy:
Offensive Teams have a variety of different strategies they can use to sweep through teams. These can be based around weather, or just synergistic offensive combinations designed to weaken counters and sweep.
Rain Abuse:
Kyogre is obviously a requirement for these teams. For the main sweeper, you have the option of Palkia, Manaphy, Waterceus, or a Swift Swimmer. These teams tend to have issues with Lati Twins and Ferrothorn. Grassceus, Chansey/Blissey, and rival weather changers are also concerns depending on the chosen sweepers. A Rain Team should use its remaining Pokemon to deal with these threats, while avoiding accumulating weaknesses to other common sweepers.
Sun Abuse:
Groudon is required for these, of course. Other than that, a Sun Abuser can be Ho-oh, Reshiram, Blaziken, Fire Arceus, or a Chlorophyller (though most of those suck). These teams tend to be vulnerable to residual damage, and those without Reshiram suffer against Giratina/Giratina-O. Additionally, those without Ho-oh can be slow and vulnerable to strong special assaults from Darkrai, Mewtwo, and various Arceus formes. Many of these teams favor Terrakion as a check against against the latter, and Latias (or Wobbuffet) against the former.
Sand Abuse:
These teams frequently feature Tyranitar (though Hippowdon also sees some usage) as their weather Pokemon. For their sweeper, Garchomp, Excadrill, and Rockceus are favored choices, and Gliscor and Ferrothorn are useful support/defensive Pokemon they use. These teams don't have the sheer power of Rain or Sun teams, but Sand's residual damage hits a lot of people in Ubers, and Sand's sweepers are strong in their own right.
Offensive Combinations:
The idea here is to either use a particular strategy to destroy walls/scarfers/crap so other dudes can sweep. For example, RPDon and EK Normceus double up and kill Giratina so one of them can sweep. MixRay serves as a Groudon lure so Poison (or Steel/Water/Whatever) Arceus can CM up and sweep. These can be related to weather too.
Checking Threats:
An offensive team should be able to have decent matchups against both stall and offensive teams. If the offensive team is using Pokemon that can't get past stall (eg: IceCeus, SpecsOgre, etc) it should use wallbreakers like Darkrai or Giratina-O.
Calm Mind is well distributed throughout Ubers, and often after a Calm Mind it's difficult to revenge enemy Pokemon on the special side. So right now, a lot of the popular scarfers are physical ones like Terrakion, Zekrom, and Garchomp. Other way to check Pokemon include weather-boosted revenge killers like Kingdra, Excadrill, or Blaziken.
The amount of threats you need to check also depends on what you let setup. For example, if your team doesn't let Rayquaza get stat boosts, you don't need to have a DDRay Check.
Addendum:
I dunno, I had an example team posted here, but usually it takes several playtest games for me to make a good offensive team (Sand doesn't count, its easy to make those). What do you think?
