ORAS UU Float like a Bee, Sting like a Bee (Offensive UU Team)

[Ninja-persian]

Ninja-Persian's UU RMT: Float like a Bee, Sting like Bee

Hi my fellow Smogoners. I am Ninja-Persian, and this is my first RMT thread. This Team is a result of my recent curiosity towards the UU Meta, having started to play around with it towards the end of the Suspect Test. This is an offense-based team, with the aim of hitting the opponent hard with the variety of attackers present, and hopefully being able to pick the opponent off with the Priority from Mamoswine, and the deadly speed found in Scarfed-Hydreigon and Mega-Beedrill. I have had some relative success with this team, peaking at around 250 on the UU ladder, and have since been hovering around the 1400 Ladder points. This being my first ORAS UU team, I come here with the hope that you guys can help me transform this team into something better and that will truly shine!

Without further ado, off to the analysis of each Pokemon:

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- U-turn

Scarf Hydreigon is an extremely dangerous Pokemon. The fact that it outspeeds most of the Tier often makes it my go to Lead. The set is pretty self explanatory: Draco Meteor hits hard other Dragons and Neutral Pokemon, in addition to Dark Pulse being there for the STAB and to take on Ghost and fast Psychic threats. Fire Blast causes it to act as a Check to many Steel Pokemon. However, if I lead with Hydreigon, I tend to go with U-turn, with the aim to get some momentum towards my Team. Also, as it resists a wide variety of Special-centered types, Hydreigon will often switch in these kinds of attack.

Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake

Mamoswine is my Stealth Rocker and one of my main Dragon check, together with Hydreigon. I normally attempt to bring it in after predicting a switch with U-turn and attempt to set up Stealth Rocks. After SR is up, the aim is to hit hard with Earthquake and Icicle Crash, and depending on the opponent’s team, save it until later and spam Ice Shard on weakened Pokemon.

Gligar @ Eviolite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Defog
- U-turn

Gligar is the defensive pivot in this team and my Hazards remover. As this team tends to put pressure right from the early game, I tend to use Defog only as a failsafe if Hazards could not be avoided to being set up. Gligar’s main role is to sponge Physical attacks and gain momentum with U-turn, with Earthquake hitting Fire-types, namely Infernape and Entei, pretty hard. Gligar must always be played carefully, as loosing it means that my team will suffer against the strong Physicall attackers in the tier.

Salamence @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Outrage
- Iron Tail

Salamence is my main Wallbreaker. This set can do massive damage to unprepared teams, as they normally do not expect Draco Meteor and Outrage on the same set. With this, I tend to immediately use DM with the aim of luring Special Walls, and go on to use Outrage, or if it is a Fairy type, normally Florges, pummel them with Iron Tail. Fire Blast is there to eliminate Steels that would Wall or Check Salamence.

Entei @ Choice Band
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Flare Blitz
- Extreme Speed
- Stone Edge

Entei is my Second Wallbreaker. Scared Fire is the main Attacking option, being able to seriously dent any Pokemon that comes in, in addition to crippling physically-based Pokemon with Burn. Extreme Speed is also an important move, being able to revenge kill or clean up the opposing team during the later stages of the match.

Beedrill @ Beedrillite
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Protect
- Poison Jab
- Drill Run

Last but not least, there is Beedrill. Beedrill is a crucial part of the team, due to its amazing prowess to gather momentum to my side. I will normally put Beedrill in after loosing a Pokemon, or in a weak Neutral or Resisted attack. With this, the aim is to Mega transform, and to proceed with U-turn to gain momentum, or hit hard with Poison Jab. Drill Run is there for coverage, in addition to having a useful bonus of lowering the opponent’s speed. If Beedrill is up against slower teams, I may choose to save it for later in the game, in order to pick off weakened Pokemon. Against faster, more offense based teams, I tend to abuse U-turn to gain the greatest amount of momentum possible.


Well, this was my first RMT and I hope you guys enjoyed using this team. Any kinds of criticism and recommendations are welcome!


Exportable Version:

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- U-turn

Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake

Gligar @ Eviolite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Defog
- U-turn

Salamence @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Outrage
- Iron Tail

Entei @ Choice Band
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Flare Blitz
- Extreme Speed
- Stone Edge

Beedrill @ Beedrillite
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Protect
- Poison Jab
- Drill Run

 

[Vapo]

Hey Ninja-persian, cool team! I'd like to make a few suggestions that will improve your teams effectiveness overall:

• First thing I would do is change Outrage -> Roost on Salamence. I understand why it's there, but roost is a must on LO Salamence, as it allows it to remain in play much longer. Roost also allows you to check Entei and Mienshao better, as Intimidate Mence is usually a decent switchin to both (and atm, Mence is the only thing you really can switch into Entei).
• You seem to be rather weak to bulky waters, especially Suicune. I don't see your team breaking Crocune reliably, which is a bit concerning. Because of this, I would suggest changing Entei -> Toxicroak. I would run an EV spread of 252 Atk / 4 Spdef / 252 Spe with a Jolly Nature and a moveset of Swords Dance / Drain Punch / Gunk Shot / Sucker Punch with a Life Orb. While Entei is a really solid mon, it only makes your team weaker to Suicune. Toxicroak is actually really good in the current meta, as it basically shuts down Suicune and other bulky waters. With Toxicroak over Entei, you still retain the ability to break Steels and Fairies with Drain Punch and Gunk Shot, respectively. You also retain priority with Sucker Punch.

With those changes made, I feel like you can have a really solid team that accounts for the majority of the UU meta. I hope you take my suggestions into consideration! Good luck :]

Team w/ Suggestions

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- U-turn

Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake

Gligar @ Eviolite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Defog
- U-turn

Salamence @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Roost
- Iron Tail

Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch
- Gunk Shot
- Sucker Punch

Beedrill @ Beedrillite
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Protect
- Poison Jab
- Drill Run

 

[Christo]

Hey Ninja-persian, I like what you have going on here. A basic change I see is changing Beedrill's Nature to Adamant > Jolly as it is better in most scenarios and all that is at cost is not getting a speed tie with Sceptile, which is not a threat anyway.

I see you have a problem handling pokemon like Suicune, as well as Hydreigon and any strong Special attacker like Chandelure. I think changing Hydreigon to a Life Orb Taunt+Roost variant an help you versus pokemon like Suicune as it can usually shut it down quite well(You also wall Chandelure with Roost). The speed loss is not that bad since you have Beedrill to revenge kill most threats anyway.

My next suggestion is changing Gligar to a Special Defensive spread. You can still check fighting types and a lot of Physical attackers due to nature bulk and Eviolite. A Spdef spread will help Gligar become a pivot for more pokemon than it could with a defensive spread.

My last suggestion is changing Salamence to Slurpuff. Salamence seemed redundant as you already had Hydreigon, and luring in Florges is not a huge deal as both Entei and Beedrill are hard counters. As you were so weak to pokemon like Hydreigon and Salamence, I thought Slurpuff would fit perfectly as it can benefit from pokemon such as Hydreigon. What makes this even more of a perfect fit is that Slurpuff has amazing synergy with Beedrill as it lures in Steel types that Slurpuff would usually have a problem with. Not to mention you lacked a setup sweeper too.

Slurpuff @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 28 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Belly Drum
- Play Rough
- Drain Punch
- Return

Good luck with this team and i hope you test out these changes!

 

[Kink]

This team is odd since you attempt to to go offense with one random defensive Pokemon. I think you're aiming for an offensive type of team so I'll help you on this end. Your team has issues with ice types bar Entei, which can only switch in so many times. Your team is already built with a ton of speed, so double typing Pokemon such as hydreigon and salamence or gligar and mamoswine is more of a weakness than a strength. I'll focus on addressing these primary issues.

Obviously we'll want to keep Mega Bee and this team is supported well by salamence and mamoswine, and the wall breaking power of Entei is pretty unparalleled, so on with the RMT. We're getting rid of Gligar and Hydreigon, and giving Salamence some changes.

Replace outrage and irontail on Salamence for Defog and roost, acting as an effective Special Wallbreaker, with intimidate being able to effectively give Salamence staying power. As such Defog rounds out the set nicely, and also prevents your next attack from missing which is nice.

Whimsicott will act is the perfect pseudo bulky pivot, replacing gligar, giving you the necessary dragon coverage to prevent you from getting swept from opposing scarf mence and other Draco meteor abusers. 252 HP and 252 speed with a Timid nature with the moves Moonblast, Encore, U-turn and Stun Spore will give you the edge against all sorts of teams, especially opposing offense. Whims also gives you a necessary Scald check, although try not to rely on it too too much. Whims also addresses your weakness to common setup sweepers such as suicune and Reuniclus, safely using prankster encore.

Lastly, you absolutely need to address that ice type weakness by replacing hydreigon with offensive suicune. Tailwind in suicune will put Entei, mamoswine, and Salamence in favourable positions to Wallbreak and sweep. A timid max speed and special attacking set with hydro pump, ice beam, tailwind and roar/calm mind (former as an insurance against calm mind sweepers, and latter to become a calm mind sweeper w/ tailwind) will help you deal with many threats and will assist you in getting higher on the ladder. In general, Tailwind and Roar are interesting as it works well Encore+Pivot whims.

I did this rate on my phone so when I get home I'll provide sets and a couple replays.

 

[jjoshcja]

As Insanely fond as I am of classic mixedmence its just not as effective as it could be in this metagame.

King UU's rate is pretty damn strong here so I'll just add a few minor tweaks onto that.

Entei @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Extreme Speed
- Stone Edge
- Natural Gift

While mence/whimsi/cune is a really solid offensive core it does not take repeated beatings well at all and one wrong move vs a mpert can cost games and lives.

Natural gift with a leichi berry becomes a 100 BP grass move and can help gut out defensive cores weaking suicunes checks and counters, and lure Mpert to its grassy grave. Even if you don't chose to burn the liechi it can still be triggered with rocks switchins giving Entie a cool bit of synergy with tailwind suicune.

A non choice locked Entie in general is also a reasonably good lure for other fire types for some reason, so that can also help to reduce Suicune and mence's load on this team and give Mbee's Uturns a little more freedom.

When playing the modified team keep in mind that you do not take repeated beatings from rock type moves such as stone edge well at all, MAero in particular is going to give you hell, but its a Mbee team so, that's somewhat unavoidable. However Adamant Mamoswine can give you an out to this by threatening an ohko with LO ice shard. It also functions better in TW in general.

Finnaly this team HATES empoleon even after the changes and does not particularly mind Doublade, Megron, whimsicott, or Cobalion. I can see keeping earthquake > fire blast on mence just for that.

0 Atk Life Orb Salamence Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Empoleon: 270-320 (72.5 - 86%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery.

 

[teal6]

So pretty much everyone nailed it right on the head, you can't really break Suicune very easily at all with this team. Essentially 1 CM and it will run you over, which is quite easy to get especially on Entei or Gligar. I like Vapo's first suggestion of Roost over Outrage, basically because an LO Salamence isn't likely going to need a non-invested Outrage at any realistic point that I can think of. However, I do disagree with Toxicroak suggestion, at least over Entei to be honest. Entei is probably my absolutely favorite mon on offensive UU teams in need of a wall breaker because Sacred Fire is really that good and his banded attack is that strong. I would keep it.

Christo's suggestion of Taunt/LO Hydrei is probably the number one change I'd make to the team, so if you make one change at all have it be that one. That set is probably the reason that Hydreigon is S Rank at the moment, as with good typing, bulk, ability and SpA Hydrei can last a long time against more passive mons/mons that necessarily need to set up to sweep. Suicune is of course one of these, and with Taunt/Roost you will have no problem eventually wearing it down. If you make this change you will not need to necessarily use jjooshcja's suggestion of lure Entei, though that is a very cool set and you might want to keep it just for the weakness I will mention a bit later.

To be completely honest, I hate Gligar on this team. I hate Gligar in general, because he provides far too many mons free turns to do what they need considering a pitiful attack and generally passive moveset. If you insist on keeping him I guess I would say change EQ to Knock Off for more general utility, because honestly what are you actually hitting with EQ?

One difficult I still see at this point is Mega Swampert, especially the offensive Rain Dance setter. Because MSwamp can carry Superpower or Ice Punch in its coverage slot, or if it has another rain setting partner could potentially have both, you are actually 6-0d by this thing. With an RD up it legitimately runs over your entire team, hitting everything SE or OHKOing anyway. King UU did not mentioned Swampert when suggesting Whimiscott (likely because he also suggested Suicune with Tailwind right after) but it can still act as an emergency check to it (if you decide not to go the Suicune route), either by switching in on a resisted move (waterfall, eq) or coming in after swamp nabs a kill to encore it into something less than optimal. Though I like that, and to be honest offensive teams often have a lot of trouble against rain, Whims is not a perfect answer against Swampert. This is why I like lure Entei a lot here, but I am of two minds at the moment. A player that recognizes that Swampert 6-0s his opponent (as it currently looks possible of doing) will never be silly enough to switch it into an Entei no matter what. If he sees non-KO damage on another mon (say an E-Speed on Hydrei) he can calc that it isn't banded and take precautions, especially if he manages to get a hit in the same turn and determine it's not the awful Assault Vest Entei variant. So I do not know, this is not necessarily a great answer, though it will catch unaware players easily. (Lure Entei does work well against defensive Swamperts and Quagsires and the rare Seismitoad, the latter of which I've used a lot as an Entei check so keep that all in mind). For these reasons I really like King UUs suggestion of Offensive Suicune, as it happens to nicely patch up all of these weaknesses (while providing an ice type check which is vital considering the rest of the team can be trainwrecked by Mamoswine)

Apologies for not adding necessarily too much in this rate, however I thought it prudent to mention a major threat that I see to your team that wasn't brought up earlier. I hope that this helps you in deciding which changes to commit to the team permanently, as there are actually a lot of very good ones in the post above me.

One final concern I have is with strong Thunders on rain teams as there are still very few switchins or really, appropriate plays to make if that were the situation (something like RD Swampert and Thunder Heliolisk) but I am unsure how to patch both in concise change. It is frankly quite rare to see, but a logical metagame option, so perhaps just something to be wary of I suppose. Otherwise, please let us know which changes you add to the team as I would like to see the finished product.

edit: If you decide to make absolutely 0 changes at all the one thing I would switch is Knock Off over EQ on Gligar because otherwise Shedinja will run you over lol (half joking but I swear it's relevant)

 

[jjoshcja]

Really solid post Teal, you put some serious thought into this, to be honest I'd totally forgotten that manual rain was still a thing x.x. With all due respect I still have to disagree with one point.

It actually pains me to disagree with your assessment of LO taunt hydra on this team. Yes its an amazing set vs bulky cores and has more than reasonable staying power, but this team in any form posted has a massive and systematic Maero weakness, while speed control and the addition of non passive bulk can help with this, the team can tank only so many stone edges and god help us all if Maero gets a hone claws up. While the team can outplay this with priority and giving Maero no free turns it still exerts huge amounts of pressure straight from team preview.

LO taunt Hydra is bulky Maero fodder, and at -2 it becomes complete MAero fodder, and while it can snuff out suicune it does nothing to prevent the arguably more dangerous snorelax from spreading para with body slam.

Suicune is a pain, it's existence on the other side of the field forces Entei to play conservatively with its Sfire count, the ever present risk of scald burns is just painful, and it can 6-0 the original team with just one free turn. it is a threat and does require countering I just feel that many players chose to over focus on cune, especially in this rmt.

 

[Christo]

After reading through the rest of these responses I can see that your team does indeed lose to Snorlax, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Life Orb Hydreigon helps with beating Snorlax and Suicune by forcing it to not Rest, but this huge weakness paired with your only check to Aerodactyl being Ice Shard is concerning.

When I initially rated this team, I also thought Gligar was out of place. After recognizing these weaknesses I think your best bet is Replacing Gligar and Hydreigon and Making Salamence fully Special with Defog and Roost.

I am at work and will think about this more later today and edit this post.

 

[jjoshcja]

I hear encore + roar feat offensive pressure and heavy momentum is a viable way to play around lax and cune. Passive threats choke hard against the combination of utility and muhmentum in general.

Maero weakness is mostly restrained by giving the fossil bird 0 free turns.

HO doesn't need to hard counter, it just needs to buy enough time to win the race with redundant soft checks. Building to suppress a threat and minimize pressure on your pivots while maximizing pressure on their core is the ideal.

http://pastebin.com/UdGYgvRX importable of kings base with tweaks. I cant call this optimal but it does seem like the most minimal route. this is just my preference below are more standard options.

Options:
Sash lead endeavor or LO superpower mamoswine, helps with snorelax if thats a big deal.
Fire blast over EQ on mence with a timid nature
A bulkier modest suicune (it needs only 88 speed in tailwind.
Band Entie

Assuming a different setup of the OP's base team is used I still cannot see LO hydrie, that would require a complete rebuild to function on par with the above.

Edit: to clarify I would consider the posted changes a B+ ladder team and a Cish tour team. It's got all the tools to stomp common ladder teams, mostly BO, garbobalance, and HO. However it does have a less than optimal semi-stall matchup and a mediocre passive stall matchup, which are much more prevalent in a tour environment.

 

[Ninja-persian]

Wow, did not expect this much of feedback! Very glad for all the help and advice taken! teal6 I can completely understand your distaste for Gligar, as I also do not like it that much within the team... Any recommendations for what can take its place in the team? I will be travelling today, so will probably have a chance to test all recommendations only tomorrow. I will come certainly come with some feedback regarding the changes. Regarding Maero, it certainly is a threat, but it can be played around, especially with SR up and keeping Mamo healthy until it is severely weakened.

And if I do change Mbeedril to another Pokemon? I was thinking on Mgrovyle... It resolves the issue with bulky waters, and can also use U-turn to keep the offensive momentum to my side... I still did not test this, so criticism is also welcome!