Team No Scarf (#5 and counting)

[Moose V]

NO SCARF​

I made this team a few months ago and so far its served me well enough to put me to #5 on the ladder. I've not only found it incredibly effective but also is unique in a lot of ways and has definitely grown on me in the time I've used it.

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Alright so my primary motive for making this team was that I wanted to try out choice banded heracross, so he's the first one I put on the team:

Next, I added rhyperior because it complements heracross's resistances very nicely and is also just very anti-meta in of itself.

Now, I needed a special wall, so I decided upon umbreon, partly because I liked it at the time and partly because I wanted wish/heal bell support.

For a strong physical wall, I decided to use slowbro as it easily walled things like mienshao and darmanitan plus it got access to regenerator.

To patch up the final holes in my defense (I noticed I had a megahorn weakness) and to provide rapid spin support, I added hitmontop to the team:

Finally, I needed some sort of set up sweeper but I also at this point didn't have a scarfer to take out fast threats either. After a lot of experimentation, I decided upon moxie honchkrow, a poke that literally sets up by killing fast threats. Finally I had:

After playing with this team for some time two of its members stood out as potentially replaceable. This first was umbreon, which I considered replacing with snorlax. Although umbreon had wish and heal bell, snorlax had superior special bulk, a much needed phazing move that ignored subs, a chance to status and better typing and ability. Snorlax sets were and still are also much less predictable (and thus require my opponent to do a little scouting) and also are harder to set up on. Thus, snorlax replaced umbreon.

The second candidate for removal was slowbro for a couple reasons:
1) Didn't help my megahorn weakness
2) Gave grass types (especially shaymin) a free switch-in which my team did not appreciate. Also became a problem because it gave umbreons a free chance to wish or heal bell.
3) Didn't really do anything. In terms of versatility, all slowbro can do is use toxic or twave, which every good player sees coming from miles away (shaymin and umbreon also absorbed statuses with leisure). Slowbro can't use hazards, phaze, taunt, rapid spin or intmidate. Specs sets helped provide additional offense force but were to weak to act as reliable walls.

Dipping down to the RU tier for an answer, I pulled up this behemoth: Qwilfish. It fit like a glove into my team with access to spikes, toxic spikes, intimidate and the ability to completely counter darm, azumarill, mienshao, heracross, and machamp as well as other threats.

My final team:

Now on to the individual members:

Heracross

Guts
Adamant Nature (+Atk -SpA) 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Moves:
-Close Combat
-Megahorn
-Stone Edge
-Shadow Claw
​

This guy is an absolute monster. Megahorn and CC for powerful stab attacks, stone edge for things like crobat, and night slash for things like cofagrigus and dusclops that would wall heracross otherwise. Why shadow claw over the more common night slash? They're almost identical, same high crit ratio, same base power, same exact pp and same general offensive capabilities, one hitting normal types better while the other hits fighting types better. Here a just a few reasons shadow claw is more useful:
-cobalion
-mienshao
-machamp
-hitmontop
-scrafty
-virizion
-other heracross
-surprise factor
-no normal type is going to switch into a heracross anyway
Having guts on heracross is also amazing a) because it can absorb statuses for the team and benefit from them and b) most people are so afraid of moxie scarf hera that they tend to want to burn it immediately and often take it for granted that a burned heracross can't do anything and play around it stupidly.

Here are a few damage calcs to show the power of heracross:
252+ Atk Choice Band Burned Guts Heracross Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 307-363 (75.99 - 89.85%)

-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Burned Guts Heracross Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hitmontop: 234-276 (76.97 - 90.78%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (This is after an intimidate)

252+ Atk Choice Band Guts Heracross Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blastoise: 339-399 (93.64 - 110.22%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Burned Guts Heracross Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Weavile: 2676-3148 (952.31 - 1120.28%) (Yes, heracross is so strong it can literally kill eleven weaviles in one hit.)

It can also ohko slowbro, crobat, and xatu without a guts boost.

Rhyperior

Solid Rock
Careful Nature (+SpD -SpA) 252 HP / 252 SpD /4 Spd
Moves:
-Rock Blast
-Stealth Rock
-Dragon Tail
-Earthquake​

Fairly self explanatory set: ruins electric types, sets up rocks, tanks fucking everything. Looking at its stats, rhyperior doesn't look like it can take many special hits but its actually incredibly good at walling things like raikou, zapdos, togekiss, victini, honchkrow etc. Dragon tail can be replaced by things like megahorn, protect, stone edge, etc. but its a very nice phazing move to have on a team that uses both spikes and rocks.

Snorlax

Thick Fat
Careful (+SpD -SpA) Nature 204 HP / 252 SpD / 52 Def
Moves:
-Body Slam
-Whirlwind
-Rest
-Sleep Talk​

Snorlax can take special hits for days, phaze out anything that tries to set up on it and get of a huge hit and maybe a paralysis on anything that dares switch into it (like mienshao). The Hp EVs are specifically to give Snorlax and hp number and the def EVs are there to strengthen snorlax's survivability and take hits from victini if it has to.

Qwilfish

Intimidate
Impish Nature (+Def -SpA) 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spd
Moves:
-Poison Jab
-Waterfall
-Spikes
-Pain Split
​

This guy is amazing. Qwilfish single-handedly walls almost all UU attackers by itself with its great typing and ability. It also provides spikes support which nearly guarantee the team to win stall wars and works great with rhyperior and snorlax's phazing. It also compliments rhyperior's resistances really well and baits choiced pokes' earthquakes and psychics, providing perfect opportunities to allow honchkrow to get a sweep going. I run dual stab instead of taunt or something for a couple reasons. When an opponent sees waterwall, they assume things like virizion and shaymin get a free switch in. When they see poison jab, they assume things like rhyperior and nidoking get a free switch. Also, while waterfall is more reliable, the chance for a poison with poison jab is incredibly useful, especially with things like xatu that like to switch in. Thus, I've found dual stab to be more useful than any another move. The 8 speed EVs are to outspeed and potentially pick of any low hp gligars (and maybe get a flinch). I urge you all to try out qwilfish in UU if you already haven't.

Hitmontop

Intimidate
Impish Nature (+Def -SpA) 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Moves:
-Close Combat
-Toxic
-Sucker Punch
-Rapid Spin​

Although Hitmontop is probably seen least on this team during a regular battle, he still plays a very important role. IMO, he's by far the best spinner in the UU tier and on top of it provides intimidate support, toxic support (only one on the team), priority and a powerful stab move. This guy has saved me from defeat countless times. Foresight can be used over toxic; both are better in different situations and one is definitively more useful. It also gives me a very beneficial double intimidate

Honchkrow

Moxie
Adamant Nature (+Atk -SpA) 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SpD
Moves:
-Brave Bird
-Sucker Punch
-Superpower
-Roost​

"Honchkrow isn't sweeping me enough"
-Said no one ever

To be honest, when I initially put honch on the team, I kinda just slapped it on for no reason, but it's worked out amazingly. It gets excellent coverage, an amazing ability, stab priority and typing that allows it to switch into ground and psychic moves with no damage at all. All he needs is a free kill and 9 times out of 10 he ends up taking out most of the opposing team. A few drawbacks are its frailty, rocks weakness and mediocre speed but it makes up for them fairly well. Keep in mind honchkrow works best late game, so don't lose him too early.

Threat List​

Shaymin

-The only thing that can comfortably take a hit from shaymin is my snorlax and if it gets a SpDef drop with seed flare, my team has a lot of trouble dealing with it. I also don't have anything to outspeed it if its running max speed.

Bisharp

-The problem with running dual intimidate it that it can be abused by anything with defiant, mainly bisharp. If my rhyperior is at full health, it can take a +2 iron head and ohko with EQ but if rhyperior's weakened, bisharp can prove to be a pain to take down

Gligar

-This thing can be somewhat difficult for my team to take down, and I have nothing that can straight up 2HKO it, but it does eventually get worn down by hazards, flinches, paralysis, etc. If it comes down to it, I can also stall it out of pp with snorlax (rest w/o using sleep talk) assuming it doesn't have taunt.

There may be more threats that I can't remember at the moment so let me know if anything comes to mind.

Team Analysis​

There are a few things you may have noticed about my team which may seem questionable. As the title suggests, I have no scarfer which, to many of you, may seem appalling for the UU tier. This really doesn't hurt my team; however, and it can even play into my favor when opponents assume my heracross is scarfed.

Another unique aspect of my team is that I don't have a single special attacker, in fact every nature on my team is a minus SpAtt nature. This can be pretty nice as it renders some opposing pokes like snorlax practically obsolete. This also isn't a problem for my team because I can at least 2HKO every physical wall in the tier barring the aforementioned gligar.

One final less obvious thing to note is that my team is also very tankish. It has an average base speed of 64, hits extremely hard and takes hits very well.


Synergy-wise, I've found the team checks its own weaknesses very well, with the exception of psychic (and a little bit ground) attacks. This is intentional as opponents either are reluctant to lock themselves into either of these two types or may get a short-term kill only to open themselves up to be massacred by Honchkrow.






Here are some of the best replay's I've had with the team:
http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/uu-17107575 -- Me 6-0ing a threatening ass team (I'm on the other side. Also wasn't technically a 6-0 cuz they foreited but it would've been one in 2-3 turns

http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/uu-16835548 -- Very close match showing the power of Honchkrow

Please rate, comment, suggest, etc. I am always open to suggests unless they're shamefully awful (put hyper beam on snorlax).

 

[PTJon7]

Hey congrats on peaking so high, it's clear that this is a well made team.

I find it really odd how there are no special attackers however, even your walls. This just seems like it'd make the team much easier to wall in general, but I could be wrong. Your whole team's hatred of W-o-W also doesn't really help things.

I honestly don't know how this team kills a Gligar though, honestly. It walls the crap out of everything on your team besides Qwilfish, but even Qwilfish can't reliably kill it.

It seems like fitting something like a Nidoqueen onto this team would really help it, but to be honest what can I say? You're frikkin 152 & 35.

 

[morningsun]

Hey. Great team! I just have a couple of suggestions that may help you out a bit. You may want to consider Night Slash over Shadow Claw on Heracross because Shadow Claw doesn't hit Normal types at all and, otherwise, they're both practically the same move. My second suggestion would be to try Mach Punch on Hitmontop over either Toxic or Sucker Punch. This would allow you to put a dent into Bisharps that try to take advantage of Intimidate. Lastly, I'd like to second PTJ's suggestion of a special attacker somewhere on this team. Otherwise, most physical walls should wall your entire team. However, as s/he mentioned, you do have a pretty impressive record with the team despite having no special attackers, so…

 

[PTJon7]

Jon = Guy's name

I do agree about Night Slash over Shadow Claw, it just makes more sense.

 

[KM]

Rather than use Night Slash over Shadow Claw, why not opt for Sleep Talk? Sure, you already have Snorlax to absorb sleep, but Guts Sleep Talk heracross is really quite a cool thing, and I can't see many times when you'd rather use Night Slash than just hard switch into something better able to deal with whatever you're predicting. Just a thought.

Also, I'd consider Thunder Wave over Poison Jab on Qwilfish. Qwilfish just isn't going be dealing massive damage to anything anyway without investment, and Thunder Wave is massively helpful for your team, as you have a lot of strong, slower pokemon like Rhyperior, Snorlax, and even Honchkrow.

It's hard for me to really criticize your team given how well you've done with it, and I'm sure you have some reason for the moves that you do. Overall, this is a really cool team, and I especially like the idea of pure physical power - I've recently realized that having a team completely focused one one thing, whether it be a type, physical/special, stall can be nearly as if not as effective as a balanced team purely because once the counters to the team have fallen, the rest is easy to clean up. Awesome job and congrats on such a high ladder ranking ! :)

 

[PTJon7]

Night Slash makes Heracross deadly even to Ghosts, something the team kind of struggles with (especially defensive Cofagrigus). Sleep Talk is a really inconsistent strategy in my opinion, having to bank on the right move not only getting chosen but hitting makes pretty shaky win conditions if you ask me.

T-Wave over Poison Jab is an option but I think Taunt would be better myself. But that's really just personal preference.

 

[MANNAT]

mosse V, i think that sticking Nidoqueen in there would really help your Gligar(ice beam) Shaymin(ice beam/poison moves/fire blast) and Bisharp problems at least a little bit.

Maybe you could replace quilfish for it since Queen is very bulky as well, it can tank a hit and kill most threats.

 

[PTJon7]

Yea either Qwilfish, Rhyperior, or Hitmontop. I would say Hitmontop just cuz I don't believe in rapid spinners.

 

[Moose V]

Forgive me if I mess this up, but I'm gonna try to respond to all of you at once.

@PTJon's first post
I may actually give nidoqueen a try. The trouble with nido, however, is that it isn't as reliable as qwilfish as a primary defensive wall and doesn't really have any way to get back hp. It would provide a nice way to kill gligar, tho. BTW I agree that on paper my team seems I have to way of taking out gligar (I'm still surpised I can), but somehow it always ends up dead at the end of the day. I guess a key factor is how gligar gets no leftovers recovery and rarely roosts unless its below half health. That means, after wearing it down even like 15%, I can actually 2HKO it with Honchkrow, which is the way gligar gets taken down a lot of the time. Another way (because gligar like to switch into snorlax) is parahaxing it to death. If I can get it down to 50% and paralyze it, there's a good chance that qwilfish can paraflinch it to death. Point is, gligar gets chipped away much more easily than you might think. I might find a battle against another gligar later and post it to show you how it gets taken down.

@morningsun
Not sure if you read about why I used shadow claw but overall I've found it very slightly more useful. Also, when an opponent sees me locking myself into a ghost type move, this gives me a chance to double into rhyperior, which can counter pretty much any normal type in the tier. Shadow claw isn't worlds better but because there are so many fighting types in the tier, IMO its more useful more of the time.

I may actually try mach over sucker because its a bit redundant with honchkrow (and you're right, bisharp is very annoying), but it is still a weaker move overall by 20bp. Both are just better in different situation and are definitely both viable but I'll give mach a try.

@Kitten Milk
I have tired ST and it can work very well, but PTJon's right, I need a move to hit ghosts. If the opponent doesn't have a ghost, ST is by far a better option but I'm also pretty screwed without shadow claw when they do.

I have also considered twave/taunt (twave has worked out better because of my team's tankish nature), but I always come back to poison jab, because my team does not like strong offensive grass pokemon like shaymin. Qwilfish does actually hit fairly hard with decent attack (base 95) which is another reason I use poison jab.

0 Atk Qwilfish Poison Jab vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Virizion: 218-258 (67.49 - 79.87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 Atk Qwilfish Poison Jab vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Shaymin: 168-198 (49.26 - 58.06%) -- 96.48% chance to 2HKO

Also the chance to poison is sooooooooo nice, though, yes t-wave can be pretty helpful too. Ground types are also common switch-ins to qwil which is another factor that diminishes twave's usefulness.


Thanks for the rates guys , I appreciate it =)

 

[Moose V]

@PTJon/littlelucario
After trying out nidoqueen, it's proved to be pretty bulky with excellent typing, but it has a couple of drawbacks. The first huge drawback is that now I have no water resistance on the team and azumarill can get huge damage off on anything. Another one is that my team really needs spikes over toxic spikes to beat more stall oriented teams which frequently carried a poison type to completely nullify my toxic spikes. The last thing that somewhat surprised me was that, even with sheer force, nidoqueen didn't hit hard at all with no sp.att investment, nidoqueen seemed to do even less damage than qwilfish and ice beam still couldn't ohko gligar and it could literally roost up and gain more hp back than I was doing in damage.

As a result, I've decided to stick with qwilfish for now

 

[Shadow Poochyena]

Great team! It obviously has to be good to get to number one, congrats!

Somewhere in your post, you stated a general weakness to psychic and ground. I see how bent you are on using qwilfish as a spikesetter, but I think there is a better way to kill two birds with one stone.

I don't know how well this could work, but a TrickSpecs Slowbro seems very viable on your team. Unlike Nidoqueen, it doesn't boast the same weaknesses that you spoke, rather walling one and taking the other generally well. Slowbro also gets access to Ice Beam and Fire Blast, allowing it to readily take care of Gligat (Ice Beam) and some grass types if able to survive a hit (Fire Blast.) The Regenerator ability gives it great survivability, with Trick and Toxic/Slack Off/Scald to round out the set

I realize this post is wayyyy later than the most recent one, but I hope you see this and try out my suggestion.