A team I made after the apprentice program

[IceTime]

SO after my first tutoring round, I made a new team and improved an old team. This was the team I liked more, it's very offensive, and focuses on putting non-stop pressure on my opponent, while aiming for a Salamence or Rhyperior finishing sweep.

TEAM AT A GLANCE:

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Heatran (M) @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 Def/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Stealth Rock
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power
- Explosion
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Heatran starts off the battle for me, probably one of the most reliable leads out there. I originally wanted ScarfTran, but Stealth Rock is a must for every offensive team, to ensure KOs and to stop the random focus sasher from completely halting the offense. Flamethrower because I am an accuracy freak, and it still hurts anyway with such high SpAtk and STAB. Earth power for the Tran switch, and Explosion to take out all the shit that is lured into this thing, though I tend to be cautious using it too early, people predict the boom easily. It's a very solid lead, normally living all the way to lategame, and can also take scarf from those tricksters. Azelf can't do jack to it, Scarfrachi needs a ground move to take care of it, Metagross is outsped and outdamaged by Flamethrower, etc. Great lead.

Scizor (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 176 HP/100 Atk/56 Spd/176 SDef
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Superpower
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Pursuit
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Scizor provides me with a sturdy Latias counter, along with an early game scout and Celebi/Cresselia killer. Superpower does a shitload to many things, and is immensely powerful with choice band equipped. Bullet Punch cleans up, U-Turn scouts switches, and Pursuit screws up switches. Funny, almost all the Scizor these days are now Choice Banded, this has almost become the bread and butter Scizor set. It works fantastic though, and hits like a brick early on in game, and the steel typing is always a bonus.

Kingdra (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 40 HP/216 Spd/252 SAtk
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Rain Dance
- Hydro Pump
- Draco Meteor
- Signal Beam
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tennisace suggested special Rain Kingdra, it hits as hard as shit when setup. I originally intended to go with the standard specially based Rain set, but then I felt that this Kingdra wasn't actually meant for consistent sweeping, it's meant to rip large holes in teams and break walls for Salamence and Rhyperior, so I ditched Surf for Hydro Pump, and Dragon Pulse for Draco Meteor, but left Signal Beam there for Celebi. The difference was very noticeable, it does a lot more to those specially defensive Scizors, and cleans up Bulky Waters a lot easier with Draco Meteor. Sometimes if i'm lucky, the game ends right here with Kingdra spamming Hydro Pump in the rain. EVs were meant for speed, outspeeding Neutral Base 80s, and outspeeding the standard Rain Special Kingdra, since I'm also betting on this to beat Rain teams.

Jolteon (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 6 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Charge Beam
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Jolteon helps my team with even more insurance against Bulky Waters. I initially wanted the Specs Set, but then the Charge Beam set was great for sweeping so I took that instead. Charge Beam raises my SpAtk 70% of the time, which is the main crux of the set. A boost turns Thunderbolt 1.3x stronger than it would've with Specs, and that's a lot of power right there. Ability to switch moves, boost its special attack, and hit almost as hard as Specs even when unboosted made me choose the LO set over the other one. T-Bolt/Charge Beam are obvious STABs, Shadow Ball helps out a ton with Latias, Rotom, etc, and HP Grass is for ground slaying, 2HKOing or 1HKOing majority of them.

Rhyperior (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 132 HP/192 Atk/170 Spd/16 SDef
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
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Rhyperior is slowly becoming a forgotten threat, all the hype that Colonel M made when he created that Rhyperior thread has died down, and Rhyperior has almost fallen off the top 50, but it's still pretty scary as a sweeper. Substitute blocks against potential KOs from 4x weak things, and Swords Dance raises its attack to insane levels. In some ways it can even break skarmbliss, easily setting up on either and OHKOing Skarm with +2 Stone Edge. A real powerhouse. The EVs and moveset are thoroughly explained in this thread.

Why the hell aren't you using him yet? (Rhyperior Discussion)

Salamence (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
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Another great suggestion by tennisace. Salamence finishes off so many games for me, it's not funny. It's a wonder how so many people rely solely on their status user just to stop Salamence. All the TWaves just hit me as I continue DDing, then outraging the next turn. Earthquake is for coverage, and Roost is just great for healing when I've taken too much damage from SR and switching into random fighting pokes. Jolly because speed is everything, and it helps if I can win the occasional speed tie against Jolly Scarfed Flygon trying to revenge me.

That's it for now, will post threat list later. Please RATE!

 

[Solidus]

Alright nice team you got here. With the exception of a few spreads and team members, I use a team a lot similar to this. The only differences are that instead of Jolteon I use Zapdos, CB Tyranitar instead of Rhyperior, and Suicune instead of Kingdra. Anyways not to go on rambling I'll get along with the rate. Okay first off I believe that Scizor would greatly benefit from running Roost somewhere; his particular EV spread is meant to give Scizor decent offensive capabilities but mainly defensive capabilities which in turn, allow you to take advantage of his general bulk as well as exploiting his handy resistances due to his typing. It would work best over Superpower because your other moves have important purposes. Pursuit for taking care of fleeing Latias; U-Turn for scouting; and Bullet Punch which is obviously your primary STAB attack, so no way you can go without those. I'd also drop Choice Band for a Life Orb or Expert Belt because as stated earlier it's not meant to be locked into attacks and be completely offensive when it's using that particular EV spread. If you decide not to do any of those things, then that's fine, but amping more EV's into attack will really help CB Scizor at doing his job. For Salamence, dropping Roost for Fire Blast will be more beneficial because it takes care of one of two threats that always switch in expecting Outrages which are Steels. It obviously won't take care of the other threat that attempt to halt Outrages which are bulky Waters, but most of the time you'll get your opponent switching in Scizor that will Bullet Punch you to death while you're Outraging so with right prediction they can be banished from the battle field. That's not entirely necessary, but basically dropping Roost for an attack move takes full advantage of Salamences sweeping potential, maybe Stone Edge could even work. I know Heatran is specifically there for leading and setting up SR, but if he's brought back in later in the game then his Flamethrower will probably be hindered due to you setting up Rain Dance with Kingdra, similarly with weakening Salamence's Fire Blast, that is, if you decide to go with that previous suggestion on Salamence. Either way, Heatran will be suffering from a significanly weakened Flamethrower if he's brought out like right after a Rain Dance has been started. Other than that possible scenario, good job on Kingdra. I normally would oppose Life Orb on Jolteon, but coupled with Charge Beam it can and will be stronger than a Specs variant, so you did pretty good with him. Dry passing is always a nice thing to consider too, but dropping a move for Baton Pass in that given set will leave you without a way to boost your special attack/hurt Celebi (one or the other), so that's just an option that's better left as a last resort. Besides, most Celebi will try to switch in thinking that you don't have Signal Beam or Shadow Ball, and in this case, Shadow Ball, but since you have it there's nothing to fear. Rhyperior is more of the back up sweeper since Salamence is better at late game sweeping due to being much faster and such, so Megahorn may work over Swords Dance which highers your coverage a bit especially against occasional Bronzong along with Breloom, that and mainly cleaning up weakened threats. Just a possibility to consider.

Eh it's a bit late right now and I'm tired so I may have missed some things. These are just a few nitpicks and suggestions to consider. Hope this helps. =)

 

[IceTime]

Solidus you rock, that was a great rate.

Alright nice team you got here. With the exception of a few spreads and team members, I use a team a lot similar to this. The only differences are that instead of Jolteon I use Zapdos, CB Tyranitar instead of Rhyperior, and Suicune instead of Kingdra.

Cool. =D

Anyways not to go on rambling I'll get along with the rate. Okay first off I believe that Scizor would greatly benefit from running Roost somewhere; his particular EV spread is meant to give Scizor decent offensive capabilities but mainly defensive capabilities which in turn, allow you to take advantage of his general bulk as well as exploiting his handy resistances due to his typing. It would work best over Superpower because your other moves have important purposes. Pursuit for taking care of fleeing Latias; U-Turn for scouting; and Bullet Punch which is obviously your primary STAB attack, so no way you can go without those. I'd also drop Choice Band for a Life Orb or Expert Belt because as stated earlier it's not meant to be locked into attacks and be completely offensive when it's using that particular EV spread. If you decide not to do any of those things, then that's fine, but amping more EV's into attack will really help CB Scizor at doing his job.

Interesting, I normally tend not to go in the direction of LO Scizor because I have the mentality that it's always better to hit the switch in hard on an offensive team and keep up the offense rather than roost and slow down the team. The idea of repeatedly being able to switch into Latias is cool, but I don't think Latias will be able to switch in many more times after a well timed U-Turn/Pursuit. The thing is, since Scizor is in an offensive team, he normally wouldn't need to switch that many times anyway, but if I ever have serious problems with Latias even after this, I will try Roost, thanks!

For Salamence, dropping Roost for Fire Blast will be more beneficial because it takes care of one of two threats that always switch in expecting Outrages which are Steels. It obviously won't take care of the other threat that attempt to halt Outrages which are bulky Waters, but most of the time you'll get your opponent switching in Scizor that will Bullet Punch you to death while you're Outraging so with right prediction they can be banished from the battle field. That's not entirely necessary, but basically dropping Roost for an attack move takes full advantage of Salamences sweeping potential, maybe Stone Edge could even work.

I understand your point about Roost hindering Salamence's sweeping ability, I think I'll change it to Stone Edge, since Scizor is pretty much covered by Tran, Jolteon, Rhyperior and Kingdra, who can take hits from it and deal back heavy damage.

I know Heatran is specifically there for leading and setting up SR, but if he's brought back in later in the game then his Flamethrower will probably be hindered due to you setting up Rain Dance with Kingdra, similarly with weakening Salamence's Fire Blast, that is, if you decide to go with that previous suggestion on Salamence. Either way, Heatran will be suffering from a significanly weakened Flamethrower if he's brought out like right after a Rain Dance has been started. Other than that possible scenario, good job on Kingdra.

Thanks! I haven't been in any of the mentioned circumstances yet, so that's good, but I don't think it's going to be much of a hindrance, since I won't be switching Kingdra out much anyway.

I normally would oppose Life Orb on Jolteon, but coupled with Charge Beam it can and will be stronger than a Specs variant, so you did pretty good with him. Dry passing is always a nice thing to consider too, but dropping a move for Baton Pass in that given set will leave you without a way to boost your special attack/hurt Celebi (one or the other), so that's just an option that's better left as a last resort. Besides, most Celebi will try to switch in thinking that you don't have Signal Beam or Shadow Ball, and in this case, Shadow Ball, but since you have it there's nothing to fear.

Actually, LO Jolteon wasn't my idea, I got the idea from PurpleWeezing, so credits go to him! I don't think I'll try dry passing on it, if any relatively strong pursuiter comes in, I'll just do as much damage as I can before I die.

Rhyperior is more of the back up sweeper since Salamence is better at late game sweeping due to being much faster and such, so Megahorn may work over Swords Dance which highers your coverage a bit especially against occasional Bronzong along with Breloom, that and mainly cleaning up weakened threats. Just a possibility to consider.

Well Bronzong is setup bait, and Breloom isn't very common, but I understand where you're coming from. +2 Stone Edge deals 70%+ to Gliscor and OHKOs Skarm, so I'd rather Swords Dance, since they're more common, and SD helps break stall and skarmbliss anyway, so I think i'll keep that.

Eh it's a bit late right now and I'm tired so I may have missed some things. These are just a few nitpicks and suggestions to consider. Hope this helps. =)

It did, thanks for your opinion!

 

[RainDance]

I would suggest t-wave on jolt over charge beam due to the fact you already have thunderbolt which is a really good stab and you can cripple more like to gyrados. Also since i see you are rain dancing add thunder over t-bolt for more power and more OHKO's. I also suggest fire blast on salamence over stone edge because rypherior had stone edge bcause you need the fire blast to kill steels and for a powerful hit to pokemon that don't resist against it.

 

[IceTime]

I won't need to cripple gyara as I can OHKO him with electric STAB. Thunder over Thunderbolt, i'll have to refuse, since this isn't fully rain based and i'm not counting on rain being up whenever I have to take an electric move. True, Fire Blast does work well over Stone Edge, but the argument for "your pokemon has move X, so don't put it on any other pokemon" isn't very valid considering Stone Edge is good on Salamence too for killing flyers without resorting to Outrage. I'll test both either way.

MORE RATES PLEASE hehehe

 

[superchompy]

Stone edge isnt needed on Salamence. iirc one DD OUtrage Ohkos most zapdos after stealth rock and thats the most significant flying type you want to take out. So Fire Blast > Stone Edge

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Hmm, I too am an accuracy freak and seeing a couple 'mons carry Stone Edge seems like a very heavy risk (especially for things 4x weak to stuff). Flamethrower or Roost might work fine for Mence or if you really want to keep a Rock move I'd opt for Rock Slide with the bonus of it potentially flinching something.

How well does this team do when it dealing with status? You'd have to predict every time someone launched some random status move to prevent getting crippled by it.

That Kingdra set looks a little odd on this team, it might even hurt Rhyperior from benefiting from opponents' Sandstreams. If it goes down while Rain is still active your team looks like it would have a very hard time switching into an enemy Water type. Giving Jolteon BP over Signal Beam (as Celebi will not be enjoying a +1 LO Shadow Ball). You might want to consider replacing Kingdra with Suicune or Vaporeon, a well played Blissey is going to be hard as heck for you to take down and I definitely could see your team getting worn down over time.

Having multiple Life Orbers seems very risky. If you're forced to switch a bit you're going to have your team get worn down by residual damage before you can do much to your opponent.

Be careful against enemy Infernape because there really doesn't seem like much that can happily switch in on something like MixApe.

This is an interesting team, I think I need to see how it works to give a better rate though, as a lot of it seems very situational.

 

[reyscarface]

I support what other guys are saying. Fire Blast over Stone Edge. Its not cool that Skarm tries to phaze you when you got your DD (Being hited by SR hurts a lot too) or Bronzong walling you complately.

Now, i think you have 2 Mayor problems.

1) Jolly DD Gyarados
2) Max Speed Adamant/Jolly Kingdra

Why?

DD Gyarados will set-up too damn easily on your Scizor. Bullet Punch does pitiful damage as all of your other moves. Maybe you want to try SD Scizor instead of CB, since you cover a hole to Magnezone there. (Magnezne can sub + magnet rise on a locked Bullet Punch scizor and then kill half of your team easily if played correctly)
Also, after the DD, Jolly Gyarados outspeed Jolteon which means he can enter the battle, set-up on scizor, sweep.
Kingdra is your "only answer" since EQ/Stone Edge does:

Raw damage: 218 236 257 Percentages: 72.67% 78.67% 85.67%

OOUUCCCHH!! That means if the other guy has Stealth Rock and 1 Layer of Spikes Kingdra has a tremendous chance of going down, and if it doesnt, will die of LO recoil!

If Kingdra is not on the battle, Mence will lower his Attack, but will die from a Stone Edge (always OHKO even without Stealth Rock)

Now, the other treat (Kingdra) will thanks you for the Rain, st-up subsitutes, use Dragon Dance, and then sweep your team.
Thats another reason to change to SD Scizor. (Bullet Punch WILL Allow kingdra set-up easier)

I like that you are using offense and not stall like most players are doing now. Kudos on that!

To fix those problems, maybe changing to Timid on Kingdra or giving the 252 Speed spread to force a speed tie vs Adamants.

Gyarados is a little bit harder to counter. Im always against using walls, but it seems that its the only solution here. Skarmory, Bulky Rotom or even a Bulky Gyarados can help you vs him.

If you want to keep the Offensive style, maybe a scarfer like... Flygon or Gengar can help you vs Gyarados. But the downside is you will become set-up bait agaaaaain to other threats.

Time to do HW, GL with the team!

 

[superchompy]

stone edge is needed on mence, as +1 stone edge ohkos 252/220 zapdos after stealth rock. Also, outrage fails to OHKO (no LO no boosting nature) so stone edge is necessary on +speed salamence. On a seperate note, you might want 12 more speed evs on kingdra to outrun timid scarf latias in rain.