Solar Flare

I think that Rotom-H is a good fit for your team. With a thunderbolt to kill gyarados, Trick to cripple Blissey, and a Sun-Boosted Overheat, the oven is a good fit. The problem is where to put it. Maybe in Heatran's Place?
I might also suggest Victreebell in Venasaur's Spot simply because it has Weather ball, and Hitmontop takes care of opposing Heatran anyways.

bobbyvaporeon said:

I think that Rotom-H is a good fit for your team. With a thunderbolt to kill gyarados, Trick to cripple Blissey, and a Sun-Boosted Overheat, the oven is a good fit. The problem is where to put it. Maybe in Heatran's Place?
I might also suggest Victreebell in Venasaur's Spot simply because it has Weather ball, and Hitmontop takes care of opposing Heatran anyways.

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Thanks for your suggestions.
However, I don't think that I'm going to replace Heatran, simply because it is my only way to deal with powerful special attackers and my only Steel-type.
Victreebel seems appealing but even with Max Spd, 110 Base + Scarf can outspeed it and I really need the extra speed and Earthquake that Venusaur provides as Hitmontop can't take care of Heatran by itself since it gets OHKOed by a sun boosted Fire Blast.

Have you considered sun utility lilligant in place of venusaur. Venusaur doesn't seem really needed on this team and lilligant can get a healing wish off much better than cresselia can get the lunar dance off. With lilligant you can get a sweeper in that can continue outside of the respective weather most likely victini or bulky volcarona as either will serve well.

Cool team DoomTrain, seems like you really put a lot of thought into it!

yeah, I don't mean to sound rude, but I just straight up disagree with Bobbyvaporeon. Rotom-H is great and all, but Heatran is definitely necessary if you want to deal with opposing dragons. However, I notice that your team is pretty dependent on the sun being up (Venusaur and Cresselia really need sun to perform well), so I would suggest switching your Heatran set to a Sunny Day Trapper set. This will help you win the weather war, and also quickly wears down common switch-ins to Heatran (Lati@s, Garchomp, Rotom-W, Jellicent [bulky waters in general], and others hate taking a sun boosted Magma Storm), making it easier for the rest of your team to sweep. This Heatran can also reliably deal with Politoed by trapping it with Magma Storm on the switch and then proceeding to Sunny Day and KO with Solar Beam.



Heatran (F) @ Air Balloon / Chople Berry
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- SolarBeam
- Sunny Day
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power

Obviously this Heatran isn't a defensive set, so sponging outrages and the like will be harder than normal, but I think this set supports your team better as a whole, because you shouldn't have too much trouble dealing with Dragons if the sun is up. Like I said before, this can trap and kill all sorts of threats like Lati@s (in the sun, Surf does about 30%, whereas your Magma Storm is a 2HKO after Magma Storm's residual damage), but most importantly, kills Politoed and Tyranitar, allowing you to maintain your sun. Chople Berry helps in killing Tyranitar, who can do serious damage with Choice Banded Superpower. However, this set makes you lose out on Stealth Rock, which is why I advise Stealth Rock Garchomp over your current Dragonite.



Garchomp @ Focus Sash
Trait: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP (SAtk if using Fire Blast)
Naive Nature (Jolly if using Swords Dance)
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance / Fire Blast
- Stealth Rock

This set gives you almost guaranteed Stealth Rock, as well as an excellent check to Tyranitar, as well as a strong lead if Ninetales isn't the best choice. Your choice between Fire Blast and Swords Dance really depends on what your team needs most. If you want to have something that can set up, then Swords Dance is your best bet. Fire Blast gives him a way to deal with stronger physical steel types like Bronzong and Skarmory, although your team doesn't really struggle to beat either of those, so I would advise Swords Dance. Either way, Garchomp gives you a way to deal with non-Choice Scarfed Kyurem-B, which you said can be a pain for your team to deal with.

Also, I would recommend using HP Ice on Venusaur instead of HP Fire, just because you already have plenty of fire moves on the team and HP Ice gives you a more reliable way of dealing with Garchomp/Dragonite/Salamence, who otherwise give you a bit of trouble.

I hope I was able to help you. I really like the team, good luck!

Halcyon of Light said:

Cool team DoomTrain, seems like you really put a lot of thought into it!

yeah, I don't mean to sound rude, but I just straight up disagree with Bobbyvaporeon. Rotom-H is great and all, but Heatran is definitely necessary if you want to deal with opposing dragons. However, I notice that your team is pretty dependent on the sun being up (Venusaur and Cresselia really need sun to perform well), so I would suggest switching your Heatran set to a Sunny Day Trapper set. This will help you win the weather war, and also quickly wears down common switch-ins to Heatran (Lati@s, Garchomp, Rotom-W, Jellicent [bulky waters in general], and others hate taking a sun boosted Magma Storm), making it easier for the rest of your team to sweep. This Heatran can also reliably deal with Politoed by trapping it with Magma Storm on the switch and then proceeding to Sunny Day and KO with Solar Beam.

Heatran (F) @ Air Balloon / Chople Berry
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- SolarBeam
- Sunny Day
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power

Obviously this Heatran isn't a defensive set, so sponging outrages and the like will be harder than normal, but I think this set supports your team better as a whole, because you shouldn't have too much trouble dealing with Dragons if the sun is up. Like I said before, this can trap and kill all sorts of threats like Lati@s (in the sun, Surf does about 30%, whereas your Magma Storm is a 2HKO after Magma Storm's residual damage), but most importantly, kills Politoed and Tyranitar, allowing you to maintain your sun. Chople Berry helps in killing Tyranitar, who can do serious damage with Choice Banded Superpower. However, this set makes you lose out on Stealth Rock, which is why I advise Stealth Rock Garchomp over your current Dragonite.

Garchomp @ Focus Sash
Trait: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP (SAtk if using Fire Blast)
Naive Nature (Jolly if using Swords Dance)
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance / Fire Blast
- Stealth Rock

This set gives you almost guaranteed Stealth Rock, as well as an excellent check to Tyranitar, as well as a strong lead if Ninetales isn't the best choice. Your choice between Fire Blast and Swords Dance really depends on what your team needs most. If you want to have something that can set up, then Swords Dance is your best bet. Fire Blast gives him a way to deal with stronger physical steel types like Bronzong and Skarmory, although your team doesn't really struggle to beat either of those, so I would advise Swords Dance. Either way, Garchomp gives you a way to deal with non-Choice Scarfed Kyurem-B, which you said can be a pain for your team to deal with.

Also, I would recommend using HP Ice on Venusaur instead of HP Fire, just because you already have plenty of fire moves on the team and HP Ice gives you a more reliable way of dealing with Garchomp/Dragonite/Salamence, who otherwise give you a bit of trouble.

I hope I was able to help you. I really like the team, good luck!

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Hi Halcyon of Light, thanks for your rate!

I tested the sets you recommended to me and I found that Garchomp doesn't fit well in my team as I desperately need a form of priority to deal with certain threats like Alakazam who otherwise would give some troubles, I really missed Dragonite's ExtremeSpeed and raw power.
On the other hand, I haven't tested Heatran's trapping effectiveness very much due to Magma Storm's shaky accuracy, giving me 2 misses out of 3. I don't think I want to play with a "coin toss" move, however I'll keep testing this set 'cause Sunny Day has been really helpful so far.

Hey DoomTrain!

Just some considerations about your team. First of all, I always found Toxic quite useless on Ninetales because you can hit anyway Politoed with Will-O-Wisp, which doesn't appreciates a burn, and because you haven't problem against both Latias and Jellicent since you have a solid switch into Latias called Heatran and since you can setup on Jellicent very easily with your Venusaur, in general your team doesn't fear any bulky Pokemon in my humble opinion. Therefore, you should try Sunny Day instead of Toxic on your Ninetales, which would allow you to make pointless the switch in of Politoed, Tyranitar and Hippowdon and as you know, it's always useful. You should also try Superpower instead of Earthquake on your Dragonite, which is usually a better move than Earthquake on Choice Band Dragonite since it allows to hit Ferrothorn under rain and Heatran too, you would only lose a stronger move against Jirachi but you have Heatran which is its best counter in the game so you shouldn't worry about it. After that, I think that you should try Thunder Wave on your Cresselia, probably replacing Hidden Power Fire which doesn't seem really useful for your team since Scizor isn't a threat for it anyway so Hidden Power Fire on Cresselia replaced; Thunder Wave would help you against both Kyurem-B and Gyarados, which are big theats for your team, as you already said and against fast setupper too, such as Terrakion, Volcarona, Keldeo and so on, so you should sometimes try it and see how it works on your team. Finally, for a small nitpick, you should also always use only 248 EVs on HP on Heatran to take less damages from Stealth Rock and Spikes, which can be somewhat useful if you can't spin for some reason, you may use the remainder EVs on Speed just to have a speed tie with the other Special Defensive Heatran.

Good luck and Luvdisc'd =)

Hey, I got your request!

One of the main problems I see with your team is your lack of offensive power and capability that Sun teams need to maintain momentum against Sand and Rain. Sure, you have walls, but Heatran is the only one that can really stop opponents from setting up, and that is because it can phaze- not because it can hit hard. For this reason, nearly any setup sweeper that can defeat Heatran can deal massive amounts of damage to your team. This is why you are so weak to Gyarados, Garchomp, and many fighting types too. Once they set up, they can use their boosted moves to plow through Ninetales and Hitmontop, as well as take advantage of the fact that Heatran and Cresselia lack power / coverage to stop them. For instance, you really have no way of defeating SD Garchomp if Rocks are up, because it can set up easily and sweep pretty much unresisted. I think this problem definitely stems from a. Cresselia's lack of power and b. your lack of powerful setup sweepers.

Cresselia is shouldering a lot of the team's defensive pressure. It's your answer to most setup sweepers, but it needs to be able to not only take hits from sweepers but also dish out damage / crippling in return, as without it pokemon like Gyarados can easily just set up on you again and hit with more power to finally break your defenses. For this reason, I encourage you to try a moveset of Psychic / Thunder Wave / Ice Beam / Moonlight instead of your current moveset, along with a spread of 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA Bold. This change does a few things that enable Cress to fully stop all setup sweepers from being able to puncture your defensive back bone. First of all, it removes HP Fire, which is pretty useless as it counters a pokemon that your team only laughs at, ad replaces it with Psychic, a move that would be a lot more useful. Psychic not only hits Fighting types like Conkeldurr for 2HKOs, but it also hits a lot stronger in general, because it receives STAB boost. With the removal of HP Fire, you no longer require a SpA boost to KO Scizor, so maximum investment in bulk can be used. Lunar Dance is a pretty subpar move imo, because I don't see your team needing it very often. Venasaur is a self standing sweeper; it can do well on its own as long as it gets Sun, which Ninetales provides. It can heal itself with Giga Drain too, and is immune to Toxic status- so, it is of my opinion that Lunar Dance would not be as useful. Dragonite too has great bulk, and should only be used for cleaning / revenging with ESpeed, so it too probably doesn't need Linar Dance. Instead, I think you should give Cresselia Thunder Wave instead. This lets her cripple setup sweepers and allow Dragonite or Venasaur to pick them off later, and pretty much eliminates Gyarados or Kyu-B as threats if played at the right time. You can also try Reflect over Lunar Dance, as it boosts its defense to skyhigh levels- also giving its teammates a needed Defense boost. Both can be used, deoending on how you want to handle opposing sweepers. The point here is to give Cresselia more tools so she can cripple offensive setup sweepers or dampen their attacks.

Now, speaking of Dragonite, I think its set should also be changed. I think using Dragon Dance Dragonite would benefit you more as it has the ability to set up and clean late game, after Venasaur has used its speed and fast attacks to eliminate faster frail sweepers. Dragon Dance Dnite also does better against Rain in general, which this team might not like facing.

Dragonite @ Lum Berry
Adamant / 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Dragon Dance / Outrage / Fire Punch / Extreme Speed

What this Dragonite can do is set up on choiced locked pokemon and perform quick, damaging sweeps that either win the match for you or open up holes for Venasaur to clean. It has the bulk to do so easily too, and can be used as an offensive 'check' to opposing sweepers if you set up enough. It also has tremendous power and speed after a boost, KOing all dragon types with Outrage and denting massive holes in other non resistors as well. The reason why I don't think a Band is a good idea is because it leaves you susceptible to setup- which again I've stressed is a bad thing for Sun teams and for this team. Other than Dragon Dance and Outrage, the remaining moves are coverage. Fire Punch hits SpDef Skarmory, which can be a pain to deal with as it can tank a hit from Venasaur and KO with Brave Bird. Also, with the Sun boost, it hits harder than EQ too. ExtremeSpeed is extremely valuable prioirty that can be used not only to revenge but also to escape frail scarfers. In conclusion, Dragon Dance Dragonite will give you a powerful, fast sweeper that can obliterate special walls and KO opposing sweepers, aiding with the success of the team.

Other than that, there is one more minor tweak. I agree with Alexander that Toxic is probably not the best move on Ninetales- I think you should try Sunny Day too, to help beat TTar / Toed.

Good luck!