Sun means fun !

[Kinglypuff]

~SUN MEANS FUN ~

Introduction

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Hello, Smogon !

I started competitive battling at the begginning of the fith Generation. At that time, my teams were an assemblage of pokemons, without any idea of what the team should be, or should do. I was far from being a confirmed player. But little by little, I grew up, and I realized I needed a team, a real team I could play and be proud of. However, I didn't really know what to do. And one day, after having faced one, I thought "Why not making a Sun Team ?"

This time, I was really involved in the development of this team. When I made this team, Sun was not played a lot. I wasn't sure about its competitive potential. How could I win against Sand, or Rain, and their dangerous sweepers so dangerous for Sun ? I was not really confident. I started by making a quite mediocre team. But I started to make changes, lots of few changes, little by little. And after some times, I realized - I was quite surprised - that Sun worked, and worked pretty well. I came to the point that I didn't want to play something else, seeing how it was effective to me. More than that, I enjoyed it ! And I think it's the most important if you want to ladder : play something you like !

I think this team can be really effective. I'm not the best player in the world, but I managed to go pretty high in the ladder. But I'm sure changes can be made, to make this team even better, and that's why I'm posting it. :)

Feunard (Ninetales) (F) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 88 SDef / 168 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Fire Blast
- Will-O-Wisp
- Toxic
- Hidden Power [Fighting]

To make a Sun Team, you (of course) need the obvious Ninetails, who makes this team possible. And because she makes this team possible, she has to stay alive.
That's why I won't expose her too much, especially against Sand and Rain team. The spread is made to add some bulkyness, but also to use the decent speed Ninetails has. The decent speed she has access to allows her to be one of the best check to Excadrill with Fire Blast, wich has a decent power in sun.

Air Balloon give Ninetails some interesting free switches - and free switches are important in a weather war ! WoW and Toxic are here to cripple the other weather inducer, but can be useful against other threats you face. HP fighting is in the same idea : it allows Ninetails to kill weakened Ttar.

Ninetails usually won't stay long. It just don't have to die, so I'm not letting him on the battlefield in weather wars. Against non-weather team, losing her will not be the end of the world, as she's not really useful other than bringing Sun, but WoWing ot Toxicing a threat is always a good thing.

Darumacho (Darmanitan) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sheer Force
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Rock Slide
- Superpower

An awesome ~150 Base Power Stabbed Sun boosted attack coming from a 416 Attack. Nobody will like this. Flare Blitz will 2HKO the majority of the metagame, even resisted. But what makes it even more awesome, it's really U-turn, added to the Scarf. Scouting the team and being able to place even easier your sweeper, forcing swiches, with you Entry Hazards, wich can makes you win a weather war...
Darmanitan is really an wonderful Pokemon, that you can use as a lead, as a scouter, or as a sweeper, a revenger... an undispensable member of my team.

Foretress (Forretress) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SDef
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Gyro Ball

In a Weather War, Entry Hazards may be one of the most important thing to lead you to the victory... of the defeat. Due to the huge number of switchs I'm gonna do to bring the weather, and because of half your team having a SR weakness, I will need a spinner. And because your opponent will do the same number of switches, laying the hazards would be good...

Forretress is the perfect pokemon for this, while procuring a great resistance to the omnipresent Dragon Stab. The doubled fire weakness, doesn't matter, it would die to it anyway. It's only good things, because now it resists Water; it's also a great answer to the annoying Rock Polish Terakkion. Laying and Spinning, that's all I need.




Haydaim (Sawsbuck-Winter) (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Double-Edge
- Nature Power (Earthquake)
- Horn Leech
- Swords Dance

With Venusaur, Sawsbuck is one of the best user of Chlorophyll. Its already decent 95 base speed allows him to reach the amazing number of 578 Speed under the Sun with an Adamant nature. Basically, it means that nobody will be able to outspeed him : it's a good answer to things like Scarf Latios or Terrakion, for example. After one SD, Sawsbuck will be able to pierce many holes in the opponent's team.

The STABs attacks perfectly complete each other : one with recoil, the other with Leech. The extra-power is needed to OHKO things like offensive Volcarona or Latios.





Florizarre (Venusaur) (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Energy Ball
- Growth
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Sludge Bomb

Venusaur is probably one of the most famous Sun Abuser, and for good reasons.
His perfect mix of bulk, power and speed added to the great boosting move Growth makes him one of the deadliest sweepers in this metagame. He fits perfectly well in the team. You got rid of Heatran ? So let Venusaur shine. The Grass/Fire/Poison moves let him it everething in OU at least neutral, bar Chandelure and Heatran. After one boost, It will be able to sweep entire team, more times you could even dream of.

Pyrax (Volcarona) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Quiver Dance
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Morning Sun

Volcarona is a pokemon wich really benefits from Sun. More effective STAB, halfed weakness to Water, but also a sky-boosted Morning sun. This leads us to the fantastic Bulkyrona. Playing with it is not really complicated : Take the hits, boost, heal and sweep. While being 4x weak to Stealth Rock, it doesn't matter that much since he will be able to heal himself (and I have spinner too) The spread allows Volcarona to take lots of physical hits, even being able to take an Outrage from Band Dragonite, while having a 30% chance to burn it, and make it a serious set-up fodder.

Even in other weather Bulkyrona is a threat to be recognized : if you don't immediatly react, you just risk your entire team to be sweeped.

Previous members

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Deoxys-Vit (Deoxys-S) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Ice Beam

Without help, Ninetales will lose against the other weather inducers. I think Entry Hazards are the best way to win : there will be lots of switches, so it's better to have rocks or spikes.
Deoxys-S is one of the better spiker in the game, thanks to his stellar base speed. Ice Beam is here to kill some Garchomp which set-up on it. It can also punish Xatu, who can come on him and bounce all the spikes.
Taunt is to avoid people setting up on him.






Kapoera (Hitmontop) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Sucker Punch
- Rapid Spin
- Foresight

Entry Hazards makes me win, but also can makes me lose. Needed a viable spinner. Hitmontop is bulky and can come on physical attackers thanks to Intimidate.
Foresight allows him to spin even on ghosts, and that's really useful. He's also bulky enough to stand against strong attackers like Terrakion and kill them with a Close Combat.



These two pokemons, made to spike and spin, were finally removed : Foretress do the same thing, but use just one slot. Thanks to this, I could use Darmanitan

Threatlist

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soon

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That's all. I'm sorry if I did some grammar errors : I did my best. There are lots of things that I wanted to say but I don't really now how. I don't know english very well, so sorry. x)
But if you have questions or want precisions, feel free to ask ! I'll try to answer. I'm not really good at explaining things but I will do my best again.

Thanks for reading ! :)

[Benlisted]

Decent Sun team, the fact you identified hazards usefulness to wear down opposing inducers means you have decent insight into Sun, which is promising! Anyway, some suggestions for you.

On Tales, you say you want survivability as utmost important, but you use Balloon as its item and attacks as most of its moves. If you want to put survivability first - use ChestoRest, without a doubt. If survivability is important but you'd like to be able to take on TTar and Tran, use Sub and HP Fight with Lefties - with a few SpD moved to SpA. WoW the first time TTar comes in (probably from behind a Sub to be sure) then the next time HP Fight it to death combined with residual damage. Tran, simply sub up and proceed to 3HKO as it fails to get past you thanks to Lefties.

Aside from that, use Toxic if you don't want to be setup fodder to a large extent for special mons, and to cripple Toed more than WoW does (as well as forcing it out for more hazard damage). Also, use 248HP so you can switch into SR once more.

Deo-S looks cool, nice job picking him, consider Magic Coat over Taunt to prevent enemy Deo-S hitting you with either hazards or Taunt though.

Hitmontop really doesn't need Sucker Punch imo given you have 3 incredibly fast mons to revenge with. Gengar tends to run Sub a lot nowadays, and he hits so weak with it that against most other things it's gonna be useless, and may even turn you into setup fodder. Use either Mach Punch, SE or Toxic imo - Mach Punch for the utility revenging things, but since you don't invest it may not prove too useful; SE to hit Flying Dragons etc; and Toxic to cripple things trying to setup on you.

Volc looks cool, I love the Bold set, but I'd have to recommend ChestoRest over Morning Sun so you can take status and laugh rather than being crippled by it (your team also has nothing that really wants to eat status either). Since you have less starting power, consider Fire Blast over Flame Dance too so if you have to come in and use it off the bat you aren't using a weak attack (if you get to +3/4 the lesser SpA boosts shouldn't really matter.)

Sawsbuck looks good, but you're wasting the Spe EVs imo - he beats everything he needs to at 188 Spe letting you invest the rest into HP so you can D-E more, but feel free to invest more since there seems to be a Sawsbuck speed creep going on.

For Venusaur I would advise Modest since it is incredibly helpful to let you OHKO SR'd Latios at +2 with Sludge Bomb, where Timid fails (maybe Mence too). However the other benefits of Modest (killing grounded things at +2) will be mitigated if you can consistently get and keep your hazards up, so I just offer this to you as a warning more than a "you must do this" thing.

Finally, SolarBeam doesn't net any significant OHKOs on things it wouldn't otherwise with Energy Ball, so I'd switch to that so you can actually do damage to TTar and Politoed whom you will otherwise have trouble with. But since I use Modest the power may be needed to deal with Gliscor - check if Energy Ball at +2 with Timid OHKOs it, and if it does then I'd swap to it if you still wanna use Timid (as this is the most significant thing you need to beat with EB). Since you may need Venu out to take on a Ferrothron etc if SR is down and Volc can't come out, I cannot stresss enough how useful it is to actually be able to use your STAB in SS.

[Kinglypuff]

Lots of good ideas there, thanks ! Going to make some little changes on Venusaur, Ninetales and Hitmontop :p

[Kinglypuff]

Abyssal bump ! I made lots of changes to the team, and I thought it was better to edit and bump it than make a new one. Feel free to comment !

[K´Genesis]

You have near zero defense(Forry can't recover itself from significant damage), especially against other Sun teams. I don't know how well you're doing on the ladders, but was that taken into account already?

Since a Sun team will be doing lots of forced switches, you need to be able to defend yourself from opposing threats or your mons will be picked on, one by one. I'd take off one of the sweepers(probably not Darmanitan, since he's your scouter as well) and add some defense. I'd also advise Heatran if you're having problems in Sun matches.

[MetaGross66]

Wow...okay. Why you don't have any rates for this team is beyond me, but what you have here is fantastic. Having fought this team several times, I pretty much know its weaknesses. The first one being heatran. If it comes in on forry or venusaur and forry isn't at full health you're taking a sun boosted fire blast. Worse yet, it can set up SR and prevent forry from coming in with the threat of a fire blast. For this reason, you could use excadrill. Excadrill gives you insurance against sand and a spinner, as well as a way to force out heatran. Problem is you miss out on hazards. Tyranitar is also a huge threat to this team so be wary of it and gl. ;)

Edit: K'Genesis, his Volcarona is incredibly difficult to deal with in the sun. If the conditions are right it can even use Heatran in the sun as set up fodder. The issue is a critical hit. lol, I saw someone post a calc of volcarona surviving a balloon excadrill's rock slide. That's how bulky it is. He just has to get rid of Terrakion first and it can't switch in repeatedly into Darmanitan's Flare Blitz.

[IronBullet93]

Hey,

I've seen this team in action plenty of times. Metagross is right when he says that Heatran is the biggest threat to this team. Your only way of dealing with it is Sawsbuck's NP, but Air Balloon versions shut down him too. What I'd suggest is replacing Sawsbuck with a defensive CM Latias. Latias is one of the best Heatran counters in the game, and provides you with an additional water resist and an excellent check to Rain. Furthermore, the three main switch-ins to this set are Tar, Scizor and Ferrothorn. Tyranitar is lured in and crippled by Ninetales' WoW and can barely scratch Latias, while Scizor and Ferrothorn are both destroyed by a Sun + CM boosted HP Fire. Maximising HP and Speed is ideal, and the moveset is Dragon Pulse | HP Fire | Calm Mind | Recover. This set is a great late-game cleaner and works especially well with your hazards. Another option is Roar over HP Fire. This makes Latias an excellent shuffler, and now instead of KOing Scizor and Ferrothorn it can simply keep roaring them out until they are in the KO range of a +1 Dragon Pulse, while also wearing down the opponents team by racking up hazard damage.

It might also be worth trying out Leftovers on Venusaur over the Life Orb. Rain teams are a huge threat to sun, and as Venu is one of only two Water resists it would definitely be worth the extra health so Venu can take resisted hits more easily.

Good luck!

[Tobes]

Very good team. Have you considered using a Fighting-type to deal with Heatran? Virizion helps to deal with rain, although another option is Terrakion. I'd suggest SD Virizion, who allows you to threaten out Blissey and Jellicent with smart double switches, building up hazard damage that eventually makes them unable to wall your special sweepers, while also providing a check for Drizzle and Tyranitar.

Virizion @ Leftovers
Justified
Jolly 4/252/0/0/0/252
- Leaf Blade
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance

I'd suggest this over Sawsbuck. Good team and good luck!

[Kinglypuff]

First, I must say thanks for all the ideas you posted. I must agree that Heatran can be an huge threat to the team (especially the SR + Roar version. Even if I can deal with it, it will often cost me a member of the team, and makes me lose th battle. but I'm not sure if I should remove Sawsbuck or not. It checks lots of things that are able to sweep me, while the solutions proposed are quite weak to them (+1 Volcarona, Latios, DDnite, and other I forget). Removing it would make me even more exposed to them, and that makes me think I should keep it.

I have to do something though, so I'll take in consideration what you said, so really, thanks for posting everybody :)

[Delko*]

Hi

I battled this team alot and it's actually pretty good.
But as others have stated, Heatran is a pain for you and you also have nothing that likes to repeatedly switch into Water-type attacks. To fix both these problems you could try Gastrodon. Gastrodon can easily take Water attacks and it even gets a SAtk boost from it. Gastrodon can also take on most Heatran sets. A moveset of Toxic / Recover / Ice Beam / Earth Power will fit your team perfectly. When you don't have the Sun up it even provides you with a solid check against Thunderus and the likes. The problem, what to replace Gastrodon with, all members of your team have certain roles to fulfill. I think the best option is to use it over Venusaur. You have another special sweeper in the likes of Volcarona so not much is lost in this case.

Albeit not much, I hope this suggestion helps and good luck with the team.

[Grimm70]

Hi Kingly !

I just want to say that some team can't be change because they reach their limit. Your different proposition about moving a Pokémon against an other should change the potential of this team.

Heatran is for sure one of the biggest threat of this team, Rainstall are too. But Kingly can't change his team as he said in the previous post :(

I don't know if you will understand :( It is hard to explain :d