Sharks & Birds Belong In The Ocean

Introduction

I have been playing competitively since Diamond and Pearl came out however I don't ladder too often because I don't have too much spare time to dedicate to Pokemon. I recently decided to make a Rain team since I've never built one before and thought it would be a break from the normal Hyper Offensive and Sandstorm teams I've been playing around with.


Team Building Process

I wanted to try Tornadus-T as part of my main Rain offensive core.



I then realized that Stealth Rock absolutely annihilates Tornadus-T even with Regenerator so spinning them away became a top priority. I decided to go with Forretress just because I've loved always loved him since I started using him in D/P.



Next up was a sweeper that benefited from the Rain but also functioned well in other weather. I ended up choosing Dragonite because Multiscale is an awesome Ability.



I now thought that winning the weather war was crucial if both of my sweepers were to function optimally so I chose Dugtrio to trap other weather inducers after some residual damage and since Earthquake wrecks Ninetails.



Lastly I wanted a specially defensive wall that could at least check both Lati@s decently so I went with Rotom-W.



After taking the team out for a spin it was doing alright except against Sun teams when I would lose the weather war or they manage to resolve a Drought successfully without losing their Ninetails and they were packing LO Venusaur / Victreebel. I also found that Dragonite served the same purpose as Tornadus-T so I considered changing it to a Physical Sweeper instead of a Mixed Sweeper that focused on the Special side, but then I remembered Garchomp just does that job way better.



Garchomp was a healthy addition to the team allowing me to check other weather inducers bar Abomasnow so I decided to remove Dugtrio in favor of something else. I noticed a huge weakness to Mamoswine so I decided to run Terrakion to handle him.



I needed another Pokemon that could alleviate my lack of fighting resists so I saw Gothitelle and thought she was perfect because she can also trap other weather inducers and kill them off after some previous damage.




The Crew



Politoed @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
IVs: 0 Attack
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Defense / 76 Special Defense
Nature: Bold
- Scald
- Perish Song
- Protect
- Toxic

Rain teams can't really exist without this man right here. He's designed to force switches because I don't have a way of adequately dealing with any defensive Pokemon like Sub Gliscor and Sub DD Dragonite. Scald hopefully lets him take hits from the physical side of things and the EV spread ensures that Genesect doesn't get to come in and get a Special Attack boost and start wrecking stuff.



Tornadus-T @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 4 Attack / 252 Special Attack / 252 Speed
Nature: Naive
- Hurricane
- Focus Blast
- U-Turn
- Taunt

Regenerator and U-Turn? Yes, please. This thing is awesome it just scouts like there's no tomorrow and it also possess the offensive power to threaten stuff with STAB LO Hurricane. Focus Blast is there to Steel or Rock types to try and ruin my fun. Taunt is there because I almost always lead with him to get momentum going with U-Turn, and crippling Pokemon that try to set up on me almost always forces a switch and using U-Turn on the switch just generates so much momentum.



Garchomp @ Choice Band
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Attack / 252 Speed
Nature: Jolly
- Outrage
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Aqua Tail

This thing is an absolute powerhouse, he just throws out moves and puts holes into stuff. Garchomp allows me to play a neutral game while trying to win the weather war, he also poses a threat to the opposing team if I do end up losing the war. Dragon Claw is there as to not get locked into Outrage if they still have Steel types or they have a Mamoswine to come in, and Aqua Tail to hit Skarmory in Rain for maximum damage as well as letting me eliminate Hippowdon with a 2HKO.



Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Study
EVs: 252 HP / 176 Defense / 80 Special Defense
Nature: Relaxed
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Volt Switch

One of my favorite Pokemon of all time, despite its awkward looks. Being able to drop every entry hazard in the game is so good, even better when you can also spin away the opponent's entry hazards. He's also my choice switch in for any Dragon types wanting to run rampant on my poor team. Volt Switch so I can scout for spin blockers and get out of Magenzone's death trap.



Terrakion @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Attack / 4 Special Defense / 252 Speed
Nature: Jolly
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- X-Scissor
- Toxic

This is my own Speedy Gonzales, he's my counter to Mamoswine and Genesect. If Genesect doesn't have a +1 to its Special Attack then I can definitely take 2 Ice Beams and 2HKO back with Close Combat as it does 71% - 84% and has a small chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and one layer of Spikes. Toxic might seem a little bit odd because it is but it allows me to nail defensive Pokemon who think they can just walk in to resist stuff except for Toxic Heal Gliscor.



Gothitelle @ Choice Specs
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Special Attack / 252 Speed
Nature: Timid
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Signal Beam
- Trick

Yeah she's definitely a bit odd but I like her she as she eases the weather war for me, and helps me take out opposing Water and Grass types thinking they're safe from my team. Trick lets me trap annoying stall Pokemon and just shut them down completely.


Closing Comments

Thanks for reading and I hope my first Rain team isn't too odd or niche for anyone. So far I haven't really encountered too many problems aside from Genesect, losing the weather war against Sun. But then again what's a few hundred or so battles going to teach me about my team.

HI, just a little fix. Nothing on your team would like to take a Choice band terrakion other than forretress, but you actually cant do anything to it with forretress. I dont think that Spikes here are so important, so i would change it for Gyro ball. Gyro ball also does damages to dragons locked into outrage. Another problem i see is that specially defensive rotom-w can volt-switch easily your politoed, laugh at Tornadus and forretress, and your terrakion and garchomp cant really switch in on it, because hydro pump does a lot of damage and will o wisp can make them useless for the rest of the battle. For this reason i think that Specslatios instead of garchomp here can help. Not only it can fix your sun weakness, since a lot of sunny teams has problem against Specslatios, but also can revenge kill effectively Keldeo and Terrakion, as well as opposite Garchomp. The last thing that i would change is the Gothitelle set. I think that Hidden power fight is a great move to use, it does some great damage to tyranitar that thinks it can easily setup stealth rock and then pursuit you. 317 Atk (+1) VS 328 Def (+1) and 404 HP (70 Base Power): 200 - 235 (49.5% - 58.16%) This si the damage that Tyranitar will take. I know a lot may carry chople tar, but since crunch doesnt ko you you can do 2 hp fight. You can use it instead of Signal beam, since it only hits Celebi for great damage, and you dont have problem with it. Also celebi is faster and has u-turn, so its useless.
Anyway, this is my rate, i hope i helped!
Summary:
Gyro ball>spikes
Garchomp<Latios
Hidden power Fight>signal beam

Set:

Yeah, Banded Terrakion is really annoying to deal with. I normally have to ensure they don't want to switch anything out of my own Terrakion after sacrificing one of my other team members. So I'll give Gyro Ball a shot.

Rotom-W is a little annoying but I usually try to just get the Toxic from my Terrakion and the Stealth Rocks up so he can't just keep coming in and threatening with Hydro Pump. I'll give SpecsLatios a shot though because he does seem to ease the Sun fight a lot and deal with other offensive threats.

I only needed the Signal Beam so I could hit Grass types because only Tornadus-T could actually do anything to them. Being able to effectively remove Tyranitar holding Chople Berry is really cool though and would let me hit other Steel types like Jirachi and Heatran.

Thanks so much for the rate and I'll be sure to test these changes thoroughly :)

Hi, nice team.

Thing is, nothing can switch into Band Terrakion. Even Forretress gets 2hko'd by either Close Combat or Stone Edge. Revenge killing it isn't that much of an issue for your team so its not that much of a threat. Scarfed Keldeo destroys your team, while, as Neliel Tu Oderschvank mentioned, non choiced Rotom-w can Volt Switch/Hydro Pump on your team all day. Now i'd suggest switching Gothitelle > Life Orb Latias. This grants you a solid answer to Keldeo while still having a solid answer to Grass/Water type and Skarmory (If you run Thunder). Latias can easily find a switch in versus Sun and destroy and Heatran-less sun team. Why I think you should choose Latias > Latios is because the higher base Sp Def allows you to live two scarfed Hydro Pumps in rain, while Latios gets 2hko'd. Seeing as Gothitelle was your way of dealing with Skarmory, running Thunder on Latias still gives you a way of ohkoing it. Running Latias gives you a solid answer to Rotom as well. I'll explain the evs on the Latias set I posted below. The speed evs are for outspeeding non scarfed Keldeo. With the HP and SpDef investment you'll be able to live two Hidden Power [Ice] from Landorus as well as two specs Icy Winds from Keldeo. The rest is put in attack so you can do 90 % to keldeo with either Psyshock or Draco Meteor. You're also really weak versus opposing rain offense. Tornadus-T / Latios can just come in and spam Hurricane / Draco Meteor. You do have enough means of revenge killing Tornadus, but every time it comes in you have to sack something to Hurricane. A solution could be running Jirachi > Garchomp. With Latias and Terrakion, Garchomp feels redundant. Everything your Garchomp is supposed to do can be taken care of by the other team members. Jirachi would help versus rain offense while it can take hits from both Latios and Tornadus-T being able to Wish its HP back after. Only specs Surf Latios from will be able to 2hko Jirachi in rain, but then you can just switch out to Latias which has god defensive synergy with Jirachi. With this change, opposing Jirachi can become quite a problem. Therefore I'd run a Calm Mind set with Wish. This way, you can just set up on any Jirachi set in rain, while Wish allows you to win versus Substitute Calm Mind sets. Terrakion can KO bulky Jirachi sets from half HP as well. Lastly, Toxic on Scarfed Terrakion doesn't work. Locking yourself into Toxic gives the opponent opportunity to set up on you. Instead, you could choose to go with Rock Slide. Using Rock Slide gives you a little more accuracy than Stone Edge while stil getting the KO's it's supposed to on things like Volcarona and Tornadus. Hope I helped. Good luck.

~Sets:

Politoed: Nothing for me to mention here

Tornadus: Try running Superpower>Focus Blast. It doesn't miss, works better against the pink blobs, and the downside is mitigated by U-turn.

Chomp: Has ferrothorn troubles. Find a way around this. I'd say use fire fang, but this is a rain team.

Foretress: MAYBE switch volt switch with gyro ball so you can reliably kill scarf terrakion.

Terrakion: Toxic on scarf terrakion? srsly? I recommend earthquake for coverage.

Gothitelle: see politoed

Just want to post explaining the use of Toxic on Scarf Terrakion, since some users don't understand when/how its used. Terrakion rarely uses its 4th move (Earthquake is really only used for like Jirachi and Toxicroak), and Toxic is an interesting alternative to random Rock Slide/EQ. Toxic is really useful when playing a bulkier team and you are fairly certain they are going to send their wall in (read: Hippodon/Jellicent/Quagsire) so you can quickly neuter them for the rest of the match, possibly letting Terrakion break through later. When facing a HO team Terrakion isn't going to be using Toxic so it being setup bait isn't too much of an issue. It is almost always used against slower teams which Scarf Terrakion has trouble breaking through.

Hey guys thank you for the rates, unfortunately I haven't been able to test them out until today as I have been preoccupied with exams and studying. I only managed to get some testing in today with my friend against his HO team, and it's become prevalent that I don't have a way of getting rid of Deo-D at all and I still don't have a reliable way of killing of Rotom-W that isn't a bulky version.

@Eranu, Yes in my previous team I usually just had to resort to revenge killing CB Terrakion it was just annoying that I needed to fodder something off to get rid of him. Rotom-W is tough to deal with and I just needed to get the jump on it on the switch and either have something deal significant damage to it like Tornadus / Garchomp enough to neuter it from just coming in to take hits or Toxic + SR slowly kill it off.

Oddly enough I've never come across a single Rain mirror in my games with this team so I've never actually experienced the threat that Keldeo poses, however I do see that it's very problematic and will sweep my team outright. As dragonuser said Toxic is very rarely used, it's very helpful in those rare cases and I don't feel like Rock Slide is all that necessary but I am testing it out nonetheless.

@Aquasition, I am giving Superpower a shot at the moment and it seems okay most of the time I'm pressing U-Turn and Hurricane anyways. Garchomp doesn't really have trouble with Ferrothorn as I think it was a 86-89% chance to 2HKO after SR and Lefties with the standard 252/88 defensive spread and I've been fairly fine against them.

I'll give Gyro Ball a shot since Volt Switch is a pretty rare use to begin with. As dragonuser said Toxic is fine Earthquake might be helpful to deal with CM Jirachi so I'll be testing these changes as well.

@dragonuser, Thank you for that :D

Hey man i got your request!

Looking at your team it seems like apposing rain teams look quite threatening your team only has one Water-type resist in Politoed leaving the rest of your team threatend by the boosted Scalds, Surfs and Hydro Pumps that rain teams tend to carry. Cloyster also looks quite threatening because after a Shell Smash it can outspeed your whole team and ohko Tornadus-T and Garchomp with Icicle Spear. Terrakion, Gothitelle and Forretress won't exactly like taking a rain boosted Hydro Pump or Razor Shell from a +2 Cloyster either. As Neliel Tu Oderschvank said your team is quite weak to Choice Band Terrakion as only Forretress can take a hit and even then Forretress can't do much back. Although Mamoswine can't outright sweep your team it does check two of your main offensive pokemon with Ice Shard (Tornadus-T and Garchomp) While Terrakion can beat it it doesn't want to switch into a Superpower or Earthqauke.

To help your team with Terrakion and Cloyster as well as give you a much needed Water-type resist i suggest Choice Band Breloom>Choice Band Garchomp With Mach Punch Breloom can effectively outspeed and revenge kill these two pokemon hitting them super effectively. Breloom also provides a Water-type resist to your team and although he cant keep wall these Water-types due to his low bulk he can at least switch in and dish out some real damage with Bullet Seed, Low Sweep and Mach Punch and if sleep clause isnt activiated cripple a pokemon with Spore. The loss of Garchomp isn't really to bad because Breloom takes his role as a Choice Band user, has acces to priority and helps your team with some of its threats.

After this change your team still has a few problems with Mamoswine. So to help with this and give you a secondary check to Terrakion i second Neliel Tu Oderschvank's suggestion of Gyro Ball>Spikes on Forretress. Gyro Ball hits Mamoswine and Terrakion super effectively and ohko's them both iirc. With Forretress having to already set up Stealth Rock and Rapid Spin for your team i think having Spikes on it will overload it with jobs, possibly making Forretress to weak to Rapid Spin hazards off your field.

Good luck with the team i hope i helped!

Sets
Tl;dr


~Superpowerdude

Your team is incredibly vulnerable to set up sweepers. you have 3 choice pokemon and a forretress with only volt switch as its attacking move. Genesect can easily come in on Forretress set up a rock polish and proceed to dismantle your team with Giga Drain/Ice Beam/ Flamethrower. I'm going to have to agree that adding in Gyro Ball over Spikes would help you deal with those set up sweepers better (though Genesect would still be able to walk all over your team).

Additionally, I would immediately replace Gothitelle on your team as offensive teams have no problem dealing with that. Your team doesn't have problems dealing with other weather and you put too much emphasis on winning the weather war when only your Tornadus really benefits from the rain. Sure Garchomp gets a boosted aqua tail, and Forretress gets to take fire moves a bit better, but with its poor spdef, any fire move will be able to take it out. I suggest you replace Gothitelle with CB Azumarill. Although its another choiced pokemon, all of its move will hit really hard and after a gyroball from Forretress, Aqua Jet in rain will be able to take out genesect. Volt switch with Stealth rock damage also gives you a high chance of taking it out with Aqua Jet.

If you do go for my Azumarill suggestion, Garchomp loses a bit of utility on your team as Azumarill will usually hit harder and not be as prone to set up as Garchomp would. I suggest you replace it with Rotom-W. You dont have many pokemon to take boosted water moves, (politoed is only going to be able to take so many), and Rotom-W would be the only pokemon capable of taking hurricane on your team.

Additionally, if you're going to run a naive nature on Tornadus make sure you put 12 spdef EVs on it so you don't give genesect that spatk boost.

@Superpowerdude: Hey thanks for the rate man, hope your exams are going well. Cloyster seems impossible to check because when I ran through damage calculations if it got a Shell Smash up and was using Mental Herb, I fail to guarantee an OHKO with Mach Punch even with rocks up. I definitely need to find a way around this monster though I suppose anything with Thunder that is bulky enough could hold it down. I am screwed if it's carrying Ice Shard after a Shell Smash though.

Gyro Ball on Forretress has been pretty good on testing with the other variants, so I'll definitely make that change, but yeah Mamoswine and Terrakion can be problematic as well.

@Chimpakt: I originally considered CB Azumarill as part of my offensive core, however I felt that it would place greater reliance on my winning the weather war. Genesect is annoying though and my only way of dealing with a scarfed one is usually to get 1 round entry hazard damage on it along with a little bit of damage so I can guarantee an OHKO with my Terrakion.

Rotom-W is cool and I originally had him on the team but he was kinda out of place however he does seem beneficial in the mirror match so I'll give him another shot. I actually run 28 Def IVs on Tornadus-T so that it ends up getting a lower defense stat.

Also I only place emphasis on winning the weather war as if I can have Tornadus-T come in after all it's resists have been removed then I can usually just clean up with STAB LO Hurricane spam, it's even easier if I have either Terrakion or Garchomp left.

I have two suggestions to keep the momentum on your team up and apply more pressure on the opponent, which definitely is a helpful factor in games. First off, Forretress is definitely out of place in the metagame, and it's even more out of place on an offensive rain team. While it lays Stealth Rock and Spikes for you, I doubt you ever have a chance to get a significant amount of hazards down, and Rapid Spin seems like the only tangible thing that it will provide in a game against another offensive team. Starmie seems like a much better fit because it provides offensive pressure, lots of coverage, and Rapid Spin. I'd recommend a set with Hydro Pump / Thunder / Recover / Rapid Spin with a Timid nature and a spread of 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe. Leftovers works best in this case because Starmie wants as much longevity as possible. Hydro Pump is optimal because it allows you to keep the tempo up against Tyranitar, which is promptly 2HKOed by Starmie. Thunder provides some coverage, but if you want to, you can run Ice Beam in its place. It doesn't help against most Dragon-types it's aimed at though, considering they boost their Speed higher than Starmie's own Speed.

This suggestion leaves you with a bit of a problem: you no longer have Stealth Rock on your team. Looking at your team, you seem to pack plenty of power already. Gothitelle removes counters to Terrakion and Tornadus-T efficiently, and I think that Choice Band Garchomp is overkill in this case. However, I think you can keep Garchomp and use a different set instead. A set with Stealth Rock / Dragon Tail / Earthquake / Aqua Tail would help out because it can lay Stealth Rock pretty easily, thanks to the offensive pressure it provides. A spread of 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe with a Jolly nature and Leftovers (and Rough Skin, of course) are what I'd recommend. It can come in easily on Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge, which is a definite pro for your team. You can always try Thunder over Thunderbolt on Gothitelle, but that's mostly a preferential change and isn't necessary. Also, I'd definitely use Earthquake on Terrakion to hit Toxicroak, Jirachi, and other threats harder, especially because locking Terrakion into Toxic, even if it's desperate, can forfeit a ton of momentum. There's not much else to say; the team is pretty solid. Good luck, I hope I helped.