Set the World on Fire [Peaked 2nd] - An OU Sun team By Captain

(From PO, Not "the Captain" on showdown...However great minds think alike I would assume)
And I'm here to bring you a pretty special team to me. This team has been one of my "go to" teams for some time now peaking 2nd on showdown and always staying consistently above 1500 on multiple alts on PO. I was using this team in the current POWC for Team Canada and was 3-0 until today, now 3-1 So thats not to shabby either for a team that most people have probably seen me using. Using this team has been effortless and extremely natural to me, something I havent experienced since gen 4. However all good things must come to an end and so I will be retiring this team as through this post.


I laddered under an alt named "Keys Woman Slave"
And Key if you're reading this <3 :o

Peak:http://imgur.com/euC3ZEP

The team building process was straight forward and only one change was ever made to this team in regards to a pokemon, It was just one of those teams where I made it and everything fell into place. And yes, while it isn't flawless and it has some weaknessess, there has never been a single pokemon or team type wich I wasn't able to play around or overcome.

So without wasting anymore time, if anyone actually reads this text. Onto the team.



Tales
Ninetales @leftovers (F)
Drought | Calm
EVS: 200 HP|196 Spdef| 112 Spe
Sunny Day
Will O Wisp
Flame Thrower
Roar


With Tales being the only pokemon to gain drought in OU its obviously a must on any sun team. Most people give ninetales a bad wrap saying its the worst weather starter or even useless. I used to think that aswell until i actually grew a pair and tried her out.
To be honest she isn't going to provide the same niche Tyranitar can but I think she can go above and beyond what other starters can. The given evs are simply to reach 263 speed and maximize special bulk. The move set is also standard. Roar and wOw are the most used moves, Nailing politoed and tyranitar (or anything not immune) with burns is always nice, and helps a ton when winning the weather war. Ofcourse missing sucks but theres nothing you can do about that. Roar is great for ruining set up sweepers, Ninetales often is seen as "set up fodder" and rightfully so, so roar is a must imo. Flamethrower is for stab and just ehh it doesnt miss. So it works for me. Sunny day was added last, It used to be painsplit for some recovery and while that worked for a period of time, as I got higher up the players got smarter as you would expect so I changed to sunny day to maintain sun over rain easier.

Tales is the heart of this team, without her Venusaur wouldn't be able to sweep as well, if at all. And she provides a great switch into defensive toeds and icebeams from random mons who want to hurt my ice weak mons. I love ninetales she does her job well.
"That'll do pig, that'll do"



Loki
Scizor @lum berry (M)
Technician | Adamant
EVS: 252 ATK| 184 HP| 72 Spe
Bullet Punch
Roost
Swords Dance
Bug bite


Well I'm sure some of you might think Scizor in sun is a bad idea, but tbh he dies to fire moves in rain anyways so I'm not really making anything worse. Infact his typing and just overall set is a great addition to my sun team. He sweeps more often than not mostly because all the mons who would otherwise stop a scizor sweep do not fair well in sun.
Things like skarm/tentacruel/Lando T etc won't do well in sun and thats where Scizor can come in and do work. I run lum berry to better deal with things like scald burns from tentacruel or the random twave ferrothorns. His evs are to hit 184 speed maximize attack and the rest in hp for some nice bulk. 184 speed lets me speed creep a ton of things that would assume the slow common sd scizor like defensive toed or tyranitar carrying fireblast.
Wich brings me to why i chose scizor in the first place, He deals with choice locked dragons, terrakions, tyranitars, some politoeds and just has great typing for a sun team. Any dragon resist is heavily welcomed in sun. Scizor also happens to have great synergy with Dragonite, and donphan helping them both perform their jobs to the best they can. Scizor is a great tool to use against gengar aswell who can really be a pain for my team if rocks are up.

Scizor is part 1 of my 3 piece priority core which allows me to "cheat" in a sense when dealing with dangerous pokemon for sun teams, Like terrakion or Landorus, the list goes on and on.
Never the less Scizor has never been a let down for me and has earned his place on my team without a doubt.



Swat
Volcarona @Lum berry (F)
Flame Body | Modest
EVS: 40 HP| 252 SPatt| 216 Spe
Quiver Dance
Bug Buzz
Fiery Dance
Hidden power [Ground]


Volcarona, one of the most broken pokemon I have ever used. Half of the reason I built this team and part 1 of my 2 piece sun abusing core. My lord is this thing powerful... And bulky on the special side. Volcarona was chosen for one reason, to bait kill heatran. Wich it does flawlessly. (not anymore since you all know now)
For a period of time it was incredibly rare to see hp ground on volca because of gigadrain. I decided i would take advantage of giga drain by not using it and allowing volca to make room for the venusaur sweep. Not only does Volcarona bait kill heatran really well, it also becomes a pain for sand/rain teams to face. Politoed doesnt appreciate taking a +1 bug buzz to the face and certainly doesnt help him win the weather war. Tyranitar is in the same boat infact if its not a spdef tyranitar you can kiss it good bye. Fiery dance keeps this moth dangerous even without quiver in the mix giving me immediate offensive presence with a fire move and still potentially boosting for me. Broken. Hidden power ground is the crux of this set though killing all heatrans that arent ballooned but thanks to volcas bulk there isnt much heatran is doing back so breaking that balloon wont be an issue for her. The evs are to reach 290 speed outpacing Banded kyurem Black by 1 and maximizing special attack, the Hp evs are a small cushion giving me a tad bit more bulk and keeps her hp at an odd number for stealth rocks if the worst happens.

Volcarona beats most things venusaur cannot, and weakens the opposing team significantly.
Not to mention its a giant threat in general. It also provides this team a great way to kill the Lati twins with a bit of smart play and is a great magnet for dragons like dragonite to come in and revenge me, risking the burn for one and two losing multiscale as I'm faster and can live and Espeed. This makes venusaurs sweep 10 times easier and some times can guarentee the venu sweep. I love this broken ass moth, So great.



Chubs
Dragonite @ChoiceBand (M)
MultiScale | Adamant
EVS: 252 ATK|252 Spe|4 SPdef
Outrage
Extreme Speed
Fire Punch
Super Power


This is the only slot that has ever changed on this team. It was Originally Scarf Mence, wich turned into DDMence, and finally Banded Dragonite. I wouldn't change this slot ever again.
Dragonite is a monster when choicebanded. An absolute godsend to this team and a great pokemon in general. He has some key immunities and resistances that this team apprechiates dearly, as well as filling countless roles for this team.
His move set and Evs are all standard except perhaps the use of superpower over earthquake.

I made this decision for a few reasons;
1.) Superpower kills balloon trans
2.) Superpower KOS tyranitars
3.) hits ferrothorn/jirachi/toed all for safe and reliable damage

Fire punch is probably the most replaceable move on this set as I rarely find myself clicking it.
Outrage is amazing, just eats teams up once the steels are gone, Wich is easy for a sun team to accomplish and outrage 2hkos heatran after rocks in most cases wich is an added bonus.
Extreme speed was what made me go with dnite over salamence, because by this point RP lando was a nightmare to face.
Dragonite is part 2 of the 3 part Priority core and the only choice mon I have.
He resists water wich is great and takes a load off of venusaur and tales when facing politoed.
his ability in Multiscale is the icing on the cake in being able to shrug off normally lethal hits and retaliate with pure power.
The amount of times this guy has saved me I cannot count. Good Ol' reliable Dragonite.



Dingo
Venusaur @Lifeorb (M)
Chlorophyll | Timid
EVS: 72 HP| 252 SPatt| 184 Spe
Hidden Power [Fire]
Growth
Giga Drain
Sludge Bomb

Venusaur was the reason I made this team. Its a great pokemon under sun, even outside of sun. Checks keldeo well, helps alot vs rain teams, and works so well with ninetales.
Venusaur is the focus of the teams efforts and the main go to guy for sweeping.
By now everyone knows what his Evs accomplish but for those who do not, the speed and nature is to outpace scarf Latios reaching 530 speed, maximizing power and the hp for added bulk. The move set is also bog standard, I haven't made the change to weather ball and hp ice mostly because I'm more active on PO and it hasn't been updated into wifi OU iirc. Oh well Sludge bomb is a great move regardless and hits like a truck. Gigadrain is the best thing venusaur could have gotten in Bw2 because now life orb recoil is whatever. Hidden power fire rounds out the coverage and does a ton under the sun (epic rhyme).

Venusaur Kills things that Volcarona otherwise wouldnt be able to kill such as bulky waters, Keldeos, Scarf terrakions and alot more. Despite all this I find it funny and Ironic that i barely use venusaur in comparison to my other offensive mons. However he is unreplacable and has also earned his spot on this team, saving the day and being super clutch whenever I needed him too. There isn't much else to say about this guy that hasn't already been said.
Amazing mon, truely a beast.


Skully
Donphan @leftovers (M)
Sturdy | Impish
EVS: 192 HP| 88 ATK| 228 DEF
IVS: 24 Speed
Rapid Spin
Stealth rock
Earthquake
Ice Shard


The MVP the Star of the show, and no I'm not kidding. Donphan you amazing little elephant tire thing you. Without donphan this team would honestly fail and suck so bad. It spins, it sets rocks, it checks terraks, deals with physical dragons, threatens tyranitar, helps revenge RP Lando and Just fills every single hole I've ever come across.
Wow,try saying that all in one breath.
Anyways I LOVE this thing, I mean I used to think donphan was mediocre and to be real it probably is, but for my team its the best. Sure he cannot spin against ghosts and offers no way of beating Jellicent or gengar, but for what he does he does it well. Hes the teams only rock resist thankfully as rock attacks generally only come from 1-3 pokes, terrakion and tyranitar being the most common. But he sponges those rock attacks all day long. He also completes the priority core allowing me to be a tad lazy when dealing with set up mons, mostly dragonites or garchomps.
The evs accomplish alot actually. Maximizing my bulk and giving me a good Hp number. The atk evs are for a bit of bang for my buck and help alot when dealing with the 4x weak ice mons. Between donphan and scizor this team has no issue with terrakion and dragons.
Sturdy is also a great ability for donphan, lets me spin easier and Lets me ensure 2 iceshards Vs those 4x weak mons. The last relevant thing I can say about donphan is with him in the mix my team is essentially immune to all status other than sleep with proper prediction and switching, allowing me to scout thunderwave on things like chansey wich could ruin my venusweep if not toxic.
Donphan I love you bro, you always pull through. Too strong, too reliable, too good.


In conclusion:
Yes. the team has flaws, No I will most likely not change very much about it. And all flaws can be played around.
I love this team, It's been a blast and my most favorite team I've ever made and have used to great success.

Shout outs!!!

In no order;
Gr8astard
Shards
Zodiak
CTC
John

You guys all helped me with this team over the course of its duration and I thank you all for that.



Importable:


Please Keep the nicknames if you wish to use this team, Thanks.
Leave a Luvdisc, comment, Hate, rate, etc below.

Thank you for reading ~ Cheers

Oi Capt!

First off, very creative approach to sun. It takes some balls to use SD zor in Sun when you can instantly be down a poke from random HP Fires ;)

Secondly, I think this will be stated again and again, but your team is completely destroyed by SR (2/6 mons will be severely crippled). As such, rocks + a spinblocker, or just rocks + straight up attacking will cause your team serious damage.

Try this Hitmontop over Donphan. You lose Stealth Rocks, but I'm pretty sure your powerhouses can rampage through a team without it.

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

Hitmontop does the same thing Donphan does against physical dragons, but adds the benefit of ForeSight Rapid Spin, which guarantees a spin so that your Volc, Nite or Ninetails can come in without fear.

If you find yourself not using Fire Punch, you could use Dragon Claw to save you from locking yourself into Outrage. This could actually save you on Occasions, and its not like you don't have enough fire power on the team anyway. Well played Balloon tran can really screw you, To aid this you could try HP fight on Tales purely to break the Balloon, because a Fire Blast in the Sun vs Volc will wreck and then you are left with 5 mons who are shat on unless they lack something to hit Dnite. Who knows, this HP Fight could pick of a weakened Ttar and win you the game when your opponent doesn't expect it. Just my thoughts, cool team man.

ThatsMyLatios said:

If you find yourself not using Fire Punch, you could use Dragon Claw to save you from locking yourself into Outrage. This could actually save you on Occasions, and its not like you don't have enough fire power on the team anyway. Well played Balloon tran can really screw you, To aid this you could try HP fight on Tales purely to break the Balloon, because a Fire Blast in the Sun vs Volc will wreck and then you are left with 5 mons who are shat on unless they lack something to hit Dnite. Who knows, this HP Fight could pick of a weakened Ttar and win you the game when your opponent doesn't expect it. Just my thoughts, cool team man.

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I see what you did there ;)
Hey doesn't sound like a bad idea, might give it a shot.
Thanks Tml

Try this Hitmontop over Donphan. You lose Stealth Rocks, but I'm pretty sure your powerhouses can rampage through a team without it.

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While I can't speak for the creator of the thread he did say that the Rocks allowed DNite to 2HKO Heatran w/Outrage which IMO is pretty important.

Very good team, I like it a lot and will definitely try it out. Scizor is really a nice touch ;)

Hey captain!

Its great to see that you use the elephant!
,One question tho. why dont you use choice band on scizor and a dd set on dragonite?

GOthee said:

Hey captain!

Its great to see that you use the elephant!
,One question tho. why dont you use choice band on scizor and a dd set on dragonite?

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Well, SD scizor relies less on spinning therefore isnt at risk of losing its sweep if I dont spin early enough, and choicebanded dragonite provides the immediate power I wanted, mostly for extreme speed.
Also because DD nite lacks the coverage banded nite brings.

Hey cool team !
I did a similar build in the past so i think i can give you some suggestions.

I would put Air baloon over leftovers on your ninetales because honestly i've never felt the need to switch out on politoed more than twice, and i had dragonite and venusaur too, so i think its the same for you. What you get with air baloon is a somewhat good switch in for special landorus, or at least it cant ninetales so that you can roar it, as well as being a good switch in for mamoswine which can be troublesome, koing dragonite, venusaur, donphan with an ice move and hurt scizor and volca with eq. Of course you can play around those two things but i think leftovers its just a poor choice here and you can benefit from air baloon, a ground immunity its always good for a sun team. If you do so i would also think about increasing its speed to outspeed jolly mamoswine.

Second thing is your donphan spread. While i do understand that you want it to be bulky to take hits, i dont think you have to stay alive that longer because afterall this is an offensive team. To give you an example you only do 54.38 - 64.04% with ice shard to a scarf salamence, which is ridicolous imo. So what im suggesting here its a more offensive spread with Adamant nature ,20 Hp / 252 Atk / 236 Spe. I know it may seem strange but ill tell you why its good here. First of all, max atk is max atk. You know have chance to ko salamence after stealth rock, and its damage output its generally better. An another thing you can now 2ko, which pretty vital, is jellicent. This, in combination with air baloon ninetales, would also solve your weakness to sandstall teams with Hippowdow and jellicent, were hippowdown can setup stealth rock easily and jellicent prevent your donphan from spinning the sr. Now, you may ask whats that speed for right? In my opinion you relie too much on hp ground volcarona to deal with special defensive heatran, which can also scout dragonite's move with protect. Now, with that speed you can outspeed and ko standard heatran and get a surprise kill, eliminating this annoying threath. The speed also comes in handy to outspeed Cb tyranitar, Bulky politoed, and also Jellicent.

This is everything i can tell you, if i was you i would have used fire blast on volcarona because it is much stronger, but thats a minor change and it depends on the paranoid about misses. Gl!

Neliel said:

Hey cool team !
I did a similar build in the past so i think i can give you some suggestions.

I would put Air baloon over leftovers on your ninetales because honestly i've never felt the need to switch out on politoed more than twice, and i had dragonite and venusaur too, so i think its the same for you. What you get with air baloon is a somewhat good switch in for special landorus, or at least it cant ninetales so that you can roar it, as well as being a good switch in for mamoswine which can be troublesome, koing dragonite, venusaur, donphan with an ice move and hurt scizor and volca with eq. Of course you can play around those two things but i think leftovers its just a poor choice here and you can benefit from air baloon, a ground immunity its always good for a sun team. If you do so i would also think about increasing its speed to outspeed jolly mamoswine.



Second thing is your donphan spread. While i do understand that you want it to be bulky to take hits, i dont think you have to stay alive that longer because afterall this is an offensive team. To give you an example you only do 54.38 - 64.04% with ice shard to a scarf salamence, which is ridicolous imo. So what im suggesting here its a more offensive spread with Adamant nature ,20 Hp / 252 Atk / 236 Spe. I know it may seem strange but ill tell you why its good here. First of all, max atk is max atk. You know have chance to ko salamence after stealth rock, and its damage output its generally better. An another thing you can now 2ko, which pretty vital, is jellicent. This, in combination with air baloon ninetales, would also solve your weakness to sandstall teams with Hippowdow and jellicent, were hippowdown can setup stealth rock easily and jellicent prevent your donphan from spinning the sr. Now, you may ask whats that speed for right? In my opinion you relie too much on hp ground volcarona to deal with special defensive heatran, which can also scout dragonite's move with protect. Now, with that speed you can outspeed and ko standard heatran and get a surprise kill, eliminating this annoying threath. The speed also comes in handy to outspeed Cb tyranitar, Bulky politoed, and also Jellicent.

This is everything i can tell you, if i was you i would have used fire blast on volcarona because it is much stronger, but thats a minor change and it depends on the paranoid about misses. Gl!

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Hi Neliel, Thanks alot for the in depth rate.
I'm glad you like and appreciate the team.

I read over your suggestions and none of them seem bad at all, infact Im kind of liking the idea of being able to 2hkos jellicent with eq, I will give it a shot and see how it goes. As for tales, balloon seems alright but it'd require me to take a different approach at playing tales, again ill give it a shot though, Thanks for the rate!

Hey buddy, aside from the fact that I love this rmt I was a bit sad to see you actually put it out there :[. It was such a fantastic and reliable team for the both of us, and you worked hard on it no doubt. Tbh it's funny how fun it was to actually read through this, even already knowing the team. Must just be the nostalgia of it. Anyways, outstanding job, you allllllreaadddy know imma hit dat luvdisc, and a pat on the back for you.

To making numerous more teams together in the future,
Cheers,
your babiri berry terrakion loving friend, Shards. :]