Viability of a Pure Special Attack Team?

[RaikouLover]

I was having one of my ingenious ideas... well not really. But anyway. Special Attack has always seemed cooler to me, and more effective at sweeping as long as we eliminate the pink whore. Let's be real, with powerhouses such as garchomp, tyranitar, heracross, and lucario, the metagame is tilted toward physical hitting and physical walling. Teams rely solely on blissey for special walling because.... everything else sucks at it. Milotic loses to Raikou, Registeel and Regice lose to heatran, Snorlax is not quite up there, Cresselia and Dusknoir both lose to Gengar, etc.

So yeah, I was thinking of making a team with special attacks as the sole form of offense, utilizing gengar, heatran and azelf to blow up on blissey and leave the floor open for special rape. In fact I even thought of throwing out gengar in the middle of the match and mean looking the bitch and exploding in her face.

Anyway, what do you guys think about pure special sweeping as a team, and having some radical explosion to dispatch blissey? How would it fare?

Edit: Just want to clarify that by pure special attack I mean pure special sweepers, not pure special moves. Explosion, Close Combat, etc. can definately be used. And this is an idea for a competitive team, not a theme team.

 

[Toothache]

Explosion is not a special move so it wouldn't be an option. Anyway, I'm sure it's viable. Nasty Plot on something like Togekiss can still give Blissey some problems, and Lucario gets some STAB Fighting moves to hurt her with too.

 

[Sunday]

I attempted to run one of these a while ago, with mixed sucess. Perish Trapping Gengar lead, first thing I would do was Mean Look and hope they would switch their Blissey in. Once they had it was up to NP PoryzonZ to take down the rest. It didn't do all that well, probably because I didn't stick with it enough.

 

[RaikouLover]

I mean pure special attackers, not pure special attacks... really just using explosion to deal with blissey

 

[The Shadow Knight]

Explosion is not a special move so it wouldn't be an option. Anyway, I'm sure it's viable. Nasty Plot on something like Togekiss can still give Blissey some problems, and Lucario gets some STAB Fighting moves to hurt her with too.

IIRC Obi's Calm Blissey can stall those out. Perish trapping would be the only failproof way to deal with Blissey.

 

[nardd]

I tried this a while ago, except with a dugtrio at the end of my team to take out blissey. Also make sure you have a revenge killer for garchomp and weavile, because those guys can really screw up the majority of effective special sweepers.

By pure special attackers, what about lucario? Does he count as pure or mixed (could you use him in your theme)

 

[RaikouLover]

So who makes the best special sweepers.

Right now I'm liking Raikou and Empoleon... unsure about the others

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

Azelf looks to go pretty well with those two. Probably the best one you can 'boom' with, too.

 

[The Shadow Knight]

Azelf looks to go pretty well with those two. Probably the best one you can 'boom' with, too.

It's unfortunatly also very predictable, if you'd rely on Azelf alone to take out Blissey and your opponent escapes the explosion you'd just as well can forfeit.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

Maybe Nasty Plot and Explosion on the same set? Certainly you wouldn't expect an Azelf to run both; few in their right mind would. Maybe something like NP / Psychic / HP Fighting / Explosion, perhaps.

 

[The Lost One]

You could always use mixed infernape, but with more leaning on special attack and just enough attack to OHKO Bold blissey with close combat.

 

[Trust]

Mismagius, with Sub Calm Mind, you win Blissey 1 vs 1 if you aren't statused.

 

[Shinryu]

I think that providing you can take out Blissey, you can win. For Blissey killing, something I've been thinking of is Magma Storm/Fire Spin + Explosion on Heatran; granted, losing Heatran is never cool, but if you can get the annoying pink whore out of the way, it lends itself to sweeping with the rest of the team. I'd also consider at least MixApe along with your other special sweepers just in case as well.

 

[Jimbo]

In my experience, Dusknoir doesn't lose to Gengar, Shadow Sneak pretty much smokes it every time since Shadow Ball doesn't 1HKO...

 

[the Lexx]

lava plume + explode heatran then special sweep works well

 

[sbc]

Special sweepers tend to be frail bastards, if something is generally faster than them then you're fucked.

 

[LickThePaint]

^Heatran. Vappy. CMcune. Pory-2. Gardy.

There's more bulk than you may think.

 

[Agahnim]

Well, if you are using explosion, you cant exactly call it a pure special team.
To take out Blissey, Specs infernape can 2hko most blisseys with focus blast. Even if they run max spdef max hp calm theres still a chance for 2hko. If a CMlucario could get in a few CMs itd probably kill it easily too.

 

[Suburvia]

There was a thread about this exact same thing not too long ago, and several people (Me, StarmanXL, chrisisme, maybe some others who didn't post) proved that it is, in fact, entirely viable. I'm sure we weren't the first, and knew we certainly wouldn't be the last.

That said, here's my input. DO NOT RESTRICT YOURSELF SOLELY TO SPECIAL ATTACKS. Period. From the sound of things, you aren't going that route, and that's a good thing. Keep the team focused on Special Sweepers, but do not neglect physical attacking, if for no other reason than Blissey. Mixed Infernape, Mixed Salamence, Exploding LO Gengar, Exploding Azelf, these are the kinds of things you want on a special attacking team or Blissey can and will wall your whole team to hell and back. Dugtrio's a great Blissey-killer, and don't be afraid to use him just because it's a Special team. Restricting yourself that much is just asking for a bad team.

That being said, here are some of my recommendations and reasons for each:

Heatran: Great resistances, great STAB (Fire, anyway), Taunt to help shut down Blissey, and, of course, it hits like a truck.

Porygon-Z: This fearsome beast is the most powerful special attacker in OU. From the NP set that can decimate whole teams, to the Agility set, to the (and my favourite) Scarf set, he's basically D/P's poster-boy for special attacking (forgetting SpecsMence for a second). His defenses aren't exactly great, but he makes a fantastic revenge killer and late-game sweeper with a Scarf. I'm going to tell you right here to not use the NP set. P-Z's too slow and too frail to kill more than Poke. He'll keep getting forced out on the Revenge. The Agility set doesn't hit hard enough, I've found. I'd stick with Scarf or Specs.

Togekiss: Bulky, EQ immune, and a fantastic special sweeper; The NP set doesn't get enough love. It can also pass Nasty Plots off to other members of your team!

Empoleon: It can be both a competent special wall and a great special attacker. STAB Surf off of 111 Base SpA hurts like a bitch. It was great seeing Bronzong switch in only to be 2HKO'd by Surf. Everybody assumes the Sp. Wall, so you also have the element of surprise.

Gengar: Duh. Three immunities, the ability to beat Blissey in more ways than one, and a fearsome special attacker to boot. You practically need this guy on your team if you want it to be a true special team.

Salamence: Hits. Hard. Very. Also, he's bulky enough with Intimidate to come in over and over again, and can even run a mixed set to deal with Blissey.

Celebi: More of a supporter, but eh, it works pretty well as an attacker. Did I mention it can pass off Calm Minds?

There's more (Magnezone, Lucario, Azelf, Infernape, Starmie, the list goes on), but I'll leave it at that. If you do decide to go through with this, just make sure you pack more than one way to kill Blissey and a fast revenge killer (shameless Scarf-Z plug), and you'll be fine. There's more than one way to handle this, as was proven by Starman, chris, and I, as all of our teams ended up very different. Starman had a CM passing Celebi and an Agility Blaziken with a WishPassing Togekiss in there, I think. Chris had NP P-Z and SpecsCario to deal with Blissey, and another sweeper I forget. I packed MixMence and Exploding Gar to take out Blissey, with Empoleon and Porygon-Z (Scarfed, of course) for sweeping and putting the hurt on. I walled with Celebi and Swampert, and the other two had other guys. . . I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Later days, good luck!

EDIT: If you want some ideas for your team, all three of us posted our teams in the RMT forum. I recommend you do the same when you're finished ^_^

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I ran a team like this once. It had mixed success, though Blissey was never a problem (thank you Sub/CM Mismagius).

For those who say you can't put Explosion on a Special-based team: why not? I know Explosion is physical, but it's for very situational use and obviously not a move you're going to sweep with (1 use ftl?). I never saw a special team as one with purely special moves (if your a stickler for definitions, that also means no support moves or Rapid Spin), but rather as one that did the vast majority of its sweeping via special moves. Because let's face it, nothing rips through Blissey like physical moves.

Also, before I forget...

Maybe Nasty Plot and Explosion on the same set? Certainly you wouldn't expect an Azelf to run both; few in their right mind would.

I routinely run NP/Explosion/Psychic/Flamethrower Azelf @ Life Orb. o_O

When I made my own special team, I definitely wanted to include Mismagius for the Sub/CM/HP Fighting w/ ST immunity. Since status wrecked it, I had a Roserade to absorb TW and switch out with Natural Cure. Though something like Starmie could work just as well for that position. (and it wouldn't be weak to IB/FT. <_<)

I'm playing favorites here, but I don't think an all-special team is complete without Porygon-Z. Nasty Plot on that thing is obscene, and there's the whole Hyper Beam w/ conditions for a OHKO on Blissey.

A good point that's been brought up is that a lot of special sweepers are rather frail. With Pokemon like Tyranitar and Garchomp running around (and often in tandem), you really can't afford to make any mistakes, or else your team will soon be missing a Pokemon.

Slightly OT, but am I the only person who thinks it would be hilarious if someone made an all-special team but didn't know about Blissey's uber special walling abilities? XD

 

[sbc]

^Heatran. Vappy. CMcune. Pory-2. Gardy.

There's more bulk than you may think.

Not switching any of those into Heracross CB close combat

 

[grim mouser]

If you want to beat Bliss one on one, Mismagius and Jirachi do very well. Although Mismagius wouldn't be too hard to predict (unless they think it's Perish Trap or something).

=)

 

[Wayff]

I'm pretty sure you can get this to work, though however, you might want to back a LO Lucario with CC/HP Ice/Dark Pulse/Filler to beat Blissey and Regice. Also, put in a Rest Talk Hetran or Resttalk Magnzone for weaknesses, however, with the Raikou set you told me that you wanted to use, I would probaly use resttalk Hetran. Hope I helped.

 

[cim]

Been discussed... and done... before. I made one and it was okay. Regardless...

All-Special teams are actually easier than all physical teams. Every Special Wall in the game that works is basically weak to Fighting except for Spiritomb who is tag teamed with Blissey fairly often. So, running wallbreakers like Specs Lucario and Sub/Calm Mind Jirachi (with HP Bug for Spiritomb) make toppling Blissey actually not that hard. Once you get them, you send out your CM Raikou, Scarf Porygon-Z, or NP Azelf or something and just start raping things. Your tanks can be Blissey/Empoleon and Cress/Mesprit for special attacking walls.

Throw in Ambipom for your Plot-Passing and you're set.

 

[User 12783]

Blissey kills them all with the right set, and there are other Special Walls