[OU] my first RMT; Dual Intimidating monsters.

Hey all, haven't been on Smogon for a long time now and I feel quite rusty coming back into the pokemon scene. I used to be a big UU hardcore player but with the new pokes that came along I felt like I wanted to go into the OU scene for a bit. I kinda mashed these pokes together and they work pretty good to my surprise.
I have not been on the poke scene for a while, so I'll need help figuring out how to make this team stand strong.

-=THE TEAM=-


I wanted a no weather, dual Intimidation team right off the bat. Dealing with Physical threats while threatening them back with potential set-ups.


Force (Landorus-T) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 200hp/64atk/244def
Impish (+def / -spA)
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-U-Turn
-Stealth Rock

Credit to ShootinStarmie for this set. I was searching for a defensive Lando-T set and this is what I found. I haven't tested the Rockpolish+Swords Dance set yet, and it's in my plans, but for now this beast is pretty much the Terrakion stopper. Amazing atk stats that require few points invested in to do serious damage. HP evs to recover as much as possible via lefties and as much switch-ins into stealth rocks. Earthquake is his standard STAB, Stone Edge is perfect to nab the Flying types trying to dodge a predicted EQ. U-Turn to keep momentum when my opp switches out when I wall him and Stealth Rocks.


Ancient (Gyarados) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 56hp/248atk/204spd
Adamant (+atk/-spA)
-Waterfall
-Bounce
-Dragon Dance
-Substitute

My set-up sweeper and second intimidator. I feel like this is by far the best Gyarados set to set-up as it covers some of Gya weaknesses (status) with Sub, allowing him to set-up on anything defensive that cannot break the substitute. I had great success with Gyarados in my lifetime, so he will always get a spot on my team.


Smith @ Leftovers
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252hp/252sDef/4spd
Calm (+spD/-atk)
-Magma Storm
-Earth Power
-Toxic
-Protect

Replacement for Jirachi. This is my answer to Sun teams and walls. The combination of Magma Storm and Toxic make sure that any walls that tries to come in on Heatran regrets it. Protect make sure that I stay alive sicne it is a long process when my opponent has the ability to heal himself (Like Chansey). Also, if they decided to take Toxic instead of Thunder Wave, too bad for them.


Changes: Perhaps spD Heatran to deal with fire teams better instead. It would also give me more resistances overall but I would lose wish.


OneRule (Breloom) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Technician
EVs: 4hp/252atk/252spd
Adamant (+atk/-spA)
-Mach Punch
-Bullet Seed
-Spore
-Sword Dance

That monster win games by himself. I find myself leading almost all the time with him because he is so effective early game. Your opp will mostly always play predicting the spore first, allowing you to either Swords Dance or indeed Spore something. Even if you predict wrong and get hit, you have your sash allowing you to fire that Spore without problems. Then you can SD on the switch and go to town with Mach punches. Breloom will always get himself a kill, and even if he doesn't, he did his job putting another poke to sleep. He punches faces into oblivion and after a SD, even a physical wall will have trouble tanking. Even Gliscor can't switch on +2 Bullet seed or he'll risk the 2HKO.


Ten (Starmie) @ Expert Belt
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4hp/252spA/252spd
Timid (+spd/-atk)
-Hydro Pump
-Thunderbolt
-Ice Beam
-Rapid Spin

Starmie fills a bunch of roles that I found was required to fight in a weather-dominated tier. She is godly fast, access to Rapid Spin and a good special attack gives her a place in my team. Surf because I don't like missing Hydro Pumps. I replaced Hail with Ice Beam and psychic with Thunderbolt for coverage. She can now threaten every Weather pokes and 2HKO any of them with SR damage, though I'm not fan of Hydro Pump. Surf would 3HKO specially defensive Tyranitar and Ninetales otherwise. Tyranitar can then OHKO with Crunch and Ninetales can 2HKO with Fireblast or Solarbeam.


Auto (Rotom-W) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252hp/252spD/4spd
Timid (+spd/-atk)
-Volt Switch
-Hydro Pump
-Will-O-Wisp
-Pain Split

Switching into a specially defensive build works well with my dual Intimitade. Tornadus-T was quite a problem and without Rotom to wall his face off I had difficulties facing a good Rain team. Will-O-Wisp instead of thunder wave makes it so that I completely laugh at physical pokes and allows me to volt switch into my Gyarados to start setting up or into something else depending on what my opponent does.

Old description:


Conclusion
This is it for now. I admit that this team needs a lot of tweaks here and there and I accept any form of intelligent criticism as long as you offer a solution. Here are the things that will NOT change no matter what:
-Double Intimidation. I love that style.
-Gyarados and Breloom.
-I need a rapid spinner and a weather stopper. One to protect a mid-game Breloom Sash, the other to keep my opponent from having his weather.

Thanks a lot for reading, and I hope I'll find good people that'll help me strengthen this team.

Hey there,

This is a pretty solid non weather team and I really like the team concept. So this team seems to handle both Sand and Rain really well, but seems rather weak to Sun teams. A Venusaur under the sun looks really difficult to beat. While you do have Hail Starmie, this isn't the most reliable strategy, and it is best to have a check to Venusaur. So looking at your team, Rotom-W seems to be the odd one out. Rotom-W's job seems to be kind of superflous on your team and I think a Latias would work well in its place. Latias is a fantastic Sun check, while doing much of what Rotom-W did for you. With a Life Orb, it hits pretty hard and it has good coverage. Latias not only helps vs Sun teams, but also Keldeo in the rain who also looks slightly threatening.
The EV spread gives Latias a LO HP number, while giving it a little bit of bulk. The rest of the EVs are being put into Speed and Special Attack to maximize his offensive abilities. Cool team, gl.

dragonuser said:

Hey there,

This is a pretty solid non weather team and I really like the team concept. So this team seems to handle both Sand and Rain really well, but seems rather weak to Sun teams. A Venusaur under the sun looks really difficult to beat. While you do have Hail Starmie, this isn't the most reliable strategy, and it is best to have a check to Venusaur. So looking at your team, Rotom-W seems to be the odd one out. Rotom-W's job seems to be kind of superflous on your team and I think a Latias would work well in its place. Latias is a fantastic Sun check, while doing much of what Rotom-W did for you. With a Life Orb, it hits pretty hard and it has good coverage. Latias not only helps vs Sun teams, but also Keldeo in the rain who also looks slightly threatening.

Latias set

Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 72 HP / 184 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Recover

The EV spread gives Latias a LO HP number, while giving it a little bit of bulk. The rest of the EVs are being put into Speed and Special Attack to maximize his offensive abilities. Cool team, gl.

Click to expand...

I like Latias, but what about Heatran? He pretty much shit over Venusaurs that does not carry HP Ground and is a great anti-Sun in general, while also boasting a lot of resistance and great spA. It would also give me Ghost resistance (Which I don't have right now). With Latias on my team, I will have 3 pokes weak to Ice.

What do you think? Would Latias be a better choice than Heatran?

Hey, nice team, I used to love using Double Intimidate to shut down physical stuff, it works great!

Replacing Jirachi for Heatran

I do like your idea of using Sp.Def Heatran in place of Jirachi, who I feel is dead weight on this team. Here is a set I think you'll find useful:

Heatran @ Leftovers / Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Lava Plume
- Earth Power
- Toxic / Roar / Hidden Power Ice
- Protect

This set will definitely give Sun teams a lot of trouble, and is able to wall Tornadus-T somewhat effectively. The moves are pretty self explanatory. Toxic is always great on defensive Heatran to rack up damage on stuff like Politoed that loves to switch into Heatran. Roar is useful against Volcarona in particular, and Hidden Power Ice hits pesky Dragon Types. Air Balloon is an option as well, paired best with HP Ice to take out Landorus, Garchomp and Salamence.

Moveset Changes

For the record I am not a fan of Focus Sash Breloom, it is considerably weaker than Life Orb which can really screw you over in the wrong situation. You may find the added power to be useful.

Lastly, I would switch Starmie and Rotom-W's items. Specs Starmie is a very powerful pokemon, and gives you a nuke that can 2hko stuff like Tyranitar that otherwise gives it problems. Something like Surf or Hydropump/Ice Beam/Trick/Rapid Spin would work well. Rotom-W is a fine specs user, but on this team I feel he could be more useful with the Specially Defensive Hydro Pump/Volt Switch/Will-o-Wisp/Pain Split set. This along with Heatran gives you plenty of checks against Tornadus-T and will give you a very solid Rain check in combination with Gyarados, Breloom and Starmie. Will-o-Wisp is great because it will give Gyarados even more chances to get a Substitute up.

Your team is a tad slow but you can effectively combat the faster pokemon in OU. Terrakion loses to Lando-T, Tornadus-T is covered, Keldeo is beaten by Gyarados/Starmie, the Latis take massive damage from a Specs Ice Beam from Starmie, and the scarf Dragons can be defeated by your Intimidate combo as well as Heatran. With those changes you can effectively check every single weather.

Well, I hope I helped you out a bit. Best of luck with your team!

Alright, here's the results:

Latias doesn't work without HP Fire. I got destroyed by Ferrothorn. Otherwise, with HP fire she did fine.

I also tried Swords dance/ Rock polish Lando and it didn't work as well as I though it would. The need to set up 2 times and the lack of U-Turn make me lose too much momentum with this team, so either I make a defensive Gyarados instead or I keep everything this way.

I also tried your set ala and I haven't lost since (No sun team yet though). Choice specs Starmie didn't work so well, so I might gave it a Life orb instead and remove Hail for Thunderbolt for some good old BoltBeam coverage.(Because right now rain teams are still annoying). I'm also weighting the good and the bad about removing surf and getting HP Fire instead. I don't like having no STABs but I already cover Fire and ground types quite well, and Ferrothorn/ Scizor would get a nasty surprise trying to wall/ Pursuit me. Still not sure though because no STAB on my main special attacker is bad (Not to mention Timid nature).

Any other ideas? I'm testing a lot of stuff and I like the help.

Hi, your team is already very solid. The biggest problems I see are the one already pointed out, so I strongly support ala's suggestion of a Specially Defensive Heatran; refer to its post for the set and the description. I'm a fan of Roar on it, especially since it can phaze away dangerous things like SubDD Dragonite that looks a bit problematic otherwise.

The only other flaw that I can see is that you lack an effective revenge killer; Breloom, lacking Life Orb, doesn't have an overly powerful Mach Punch, and still misses out many potentially dangerous threats. However, your defensive core already works extremely well to absorb almost any attack, especially with the previously suggested Heatran, and thus the usefulness of a revenge killer can be questionable. Still, some extreme cases look dangerous, like Offensive Volcarona with HP Ground, that has a chance OHKO everything after SR in Sun (and if it carries LO, the chance becomes 100%). I suggest at least testing a revenge killer in the slot of Rotom-W, to avoid similar problems; Choice Scarf Garchomp looks a reasonable choice, since it outspeeds Volcarona and many others even at +1 Speed, and can take them down with its outstanding STAB coverage plus Stone Edge. It even has useful resistances to Rock, and Fire, that your team will sorta appreciate. Again, this is not an absolute necessity, but I'd surely at least try it out.


Hope I helped somewhat. Good luck.

Removing Rotom-W without Jirachi is a big no. Rain teams are a pain to deal with if I lose him now. Also Putting Garchomp on the team would give me 2 pokes 4xweak to ice, which I try to avoid.

What do you think of expert belt for starmie instead of Lifeorb (To avoid needless damage from RapidSpin)

Water + Psychic has bad super effective coverage, so in my opinion Expert Belt won't help much. If you want to avoid LO recoil, you can just use Leftovers, and/or you can use a bulkier set with Recover, maybe something like Rapid Spin | Scald | Recover | Hail / other coverage. Also, Psyshock tends to be better than Psychic if you want to use it, since it lets you hit harder Tentacruel, Keldeo (if it uses CM), can OHKO Gengar easily with only 8 SpA EV investment, and gives you an (albeit very weak compared to others) chance to go "mixed".

I can see why you don't want to remove Rotom-W; although Water attacks shoudn't be a probem with Stamie + Gyarados + Breloom, Tornadus-T can hurt the team without the resistance provided by Rotom. Another idea could be to use a Scarf set for it, to retain the useful resistances and to add a bit of speed, that your team otherwise lacks.

Actually, the expert belt on starmie would be on the second set with bolt/beam that I was talking about in my 3rd post. I'll go edit to prevent confusion.