Alright, so for the new Dark Horse Project I used Landorus-T as my Dark Horse, and with great success being the 2nd fastest to finish the challenge, and the reason that I elected to use him as my Dark Horse, besides the fact that hes fucking awesome, is that I had an idea for a defensive core that could fit on a range of different teams. The core; Specially Defensive Rotom-W and Physically Defensive Landorus-Therian.
Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 236 SDef / 240 HP / 32 SAtk
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Pain Split
- Will-O-Wisp
Landorus-Therian @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 200 HP / 244 Def / 64 Atk
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Sleep Talk
So the Rotom is a fairly standard Specially Defensive Rotom, which I believe is becoming a lot more popular than the choiced variants due to the way it mercilessly counters the vast amounts of Offensive Rain teams running around in the current meta. EVs are quite straight forward, 240 HP to ensure it lives 3 Seismic Toss', provided no prior damage, a bit of SATK investment to help it pack a little more punch, in the rain even with such a low investment that Hydro Pump wrecks shit, and then the rest into Special Defense, because its a Specially Defensive Rotom. 0 Attack IVs because it often takes Tornadus-T's Hurricanes, and we all know it doesn't confuse 30% of the time, still wondering when its going to officially get changed to 200% >.>
Moveset is very standard for this, Hydro Pump for a great offensive STAB option, Volt Switch for working in tandem with Landorus, whilst providing a very useful secondary STAB, Will-o-Wisp to act as an annoyer, I know its got shaky accuracy, but I found that I'd rather have it than Thunder Wave, and finally Pain Split as its most reliable form of recovery. Pain Split has saved me quite a few times through good prediction, so thats why I say its more reliable than Rest, although ChestoRest Rotoms do work quite well also.
The Landorus set is by no means a creation of mine, although I did give it my own little mark. Its more or less the traditional (can I say that given its still so relatively new?) Defensive Pivot set, which is in my opinion the best set by far, and so the EVs reflect that. An Adamant nature was used over Impish because with the HP and Defensive investment it already has plenty of bulk, coupled with intimidate, so the extra punch that Adamant packs is quite appreciated. The moveset is once again almost the standard cut, although I have opted to use Sleep Talk over Stone Edge. I know a lot of you may think that its really quite an amateur idea in theory, although in practice it works incredibly well. QuakEdge is one of Landorus-T's biggest selling points, however I felt comfortable enough that the vast majority of players would expect that, so lets say they didn't know I was a bulky set and it was in against a non boosted Dragonite without Multiscale, they're switching out nine times out of ten. Sleep Talk allows Landorus to truly be a great Breloom counter, as it can come in take the Spore
and lower Breloom's attack, then you can roll the dice trying to get U-Turn or Rocks, if they aren't already up, or you can just switch to something to take on the weakened Breloom. Whilst this has introduced some elements of luck into some of my wins, the Sleep Talk move is that which I would have gone for had I been awake, so I look at is taking something that tends to make it a 5-6, and straightening that out. Of course a lot of you will still obviously prefer to just use Stone Edge as we all know how effective that is.
The combination of Rotom-W and Landorus-T is actually an incredibly solid one, if you look at the synergy the only type that can potentially give you any trouble is Grass, due to it being Rotom's only weakness, and neutral to Landorus, so if using this core make sure you factor that in. The two also form a pseudo VoltTurn core, which is very nice, because whilst not being incredibly fast, they are quicker than most other defensive cores, so being able to switch around like that really exploits their great synergy as much as possible. Rotom deals with all the common Rain teams, while Landorus wrecks most Sand, and quite a lot of Sun teams. Obviously there are teams that the combination won't beat, but even for a defensive pair I often find they will grab upwards of 3 KOs per match, so the last four members of your team could include only one dedicated offensive mon and you'd still find success.
Great defensive core for a bulky offense or Balance team, in or out of weather, not sun, give it a try sometime ;)