A Retake At Rain

[chickenfroglegs]

Hi, all. I've made many teams and so far the only team I've liked and is actually able of doing well is my Sand team. While testing my Sand team, I've ran into a lot of Rain teams. They looked interesting, so I figured I'd give it a go. Without further adieu, here's my take at Rain.

Reed (Politoed) (F) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 HP / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Grass]
Such a happy little Pokemon. Look at her. She just looks so squishy. Don't let her cute appearance fool you, though. A Modest Choice Specs Hydro Pump in the rain hits like a train. That's really her only purpose. Set up the rain and click Hydro Pump. I've ran a more bulky set but I admired the power of the Specs set more. Focus Blast is strictly for Ferrothorn and HP Grass is strictly for Jellicent/other Water types. Otherwise, this set is pretty self explanatory.

Epiphone (Dragonite) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 76 Atk / 252 SAtk / 180 Spd
Mild Nature
- Hurricane
- Roost
- Thunder
- Earthquake
Mixed rain sweeper. It's been through a lot of changes from fully special, to Mono attacking physical, back to this. I'll update it later, though there isn't much of a reason to. Just a sweeper/Jirachi check.

Gibson (Scizor) (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 248 HP / 8 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Pursuit
Just look at that pose. A true warrior at heart, Scizor is a fantastic Pokemon. A STAB Choice Band Technician boosted U-Turn and Bullet Punch both hurt. With the priority of Bullet Punch, I can win many games. Superpower is for coverage and to be honest I've never used Quick Attack. I've never had to. This set is also pretty self explanatory.

Yamaha (Keldeo) @Choice Scarf
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
-Hydro Pump
-Surf
-Secret Sword
-Hidden Power Ice
"Adding Keldeo solves several issues at once: it easily takes out DD dragons and also removes any faster threats that are potentially threatening. Hydro Pump off Keldeo's good SpA stat coupled with Rain hurts like hell, and the Fighting STAB it provides allows you to easily smash through Ferrothorn and other Steels. Keldeo also has wonderful bulk, and can absorb Bullet Punches off Scizor easily." - Dcae

Fender (Celebi) @Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 236 SpD / 20 Spe
Nature: Calm
-Baton Pass
-Giga Drain
-Psychic
-Recover
"This set is a hard wall to Breloom, RP Landorus, and Scarf variants of Keldeo. Baton Pass allows you to switch out of Pursuit trapping, and easily switch out to Dnite to begin setting up. Psychic over Thunder Wave allows Celebi a move it can hit Breloom with, because Giga Drain is pitifully weak. Not weakening its defensive stat allows it to cover Terrakion as well, stomaching Close Combat easily, and Scarf Stone Edges as well." - Dcae

Ibanez (Forretress) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Spikes
- Stealth Rocks
- Rapid Spin
- Gyro Ball
Forretress, the classic hazzard setter. He does his job. He sets up one of the two kinds of spikes, spins if necessary, and gets out of the way. He's alright, I suppose. A superb physical wall, but I kinda want more out of him, y'know? He's pretty much set up bait. He has no offensive prowess whatsoever. He definitely needs some help for sure.

Well, that's my team. If you haven't noticed, they're all named after guitar brands. I love guitars. Anyways, back to Pokemon. This team is doing decent but I know it can be better. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[dcae]

Hey there! This is an interesting take on Rain team, employing some lesser used sets on certain pokemon. A quick look through the team, however, makes me see that you have an extremely hard time breaking through Ferrothorn, the number 2 most used pokemon in OU. The only thing that can even try to threaten it a bit is your Dragonite, which can be wrecked by Gyro Ball. To solve this problem, I recommend trying out SubRoost Dragonite. SubRoost Dragonite is an excellent physical sweeper, and can set up on a very high amount of defensive pokemon thanks to Substitute and great bulk with Multiscale. This set allows you to easily beat Ferrothorn, and provides a useful win condition to go for, as your team currently doesn't seem to have a win condition. The set is as follows:

Dragonite @Leftovers
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 60 SpD / 124 Spe
Nature: Jolly
-Substitute
-Roost
-Dragon Dance
-Dragon Claw

This set abuses Dragonite's extremely high bulk coupled with Multiscale to rack up a lot of boosts, then sweep with mono attacking Dragon Claw. It is very deadly when played right, and is one of the best sweepers to use.

Steels in general are a pain to handle with Dragonite, despite the fact that it can set up on a lot of them. To solve this, and provide you with an excellent revenge killer, I propose running Choice Scarf Keldeo over your Cloyster. Adding Keldeo solves several issues at once: it easily takes out DD dragons and also removes any faster threats that are potentially threatening. Hydro Pump off Keldeo's good SpA stat coupled with Rain hurts like hell, and the Fighting STAB it provides allows you to easily smash through Ferrothorn and other Steels. Keldeo also has wonderful bulk, and can absorb Bullet Punches off Scizor easily. The set I suggest is the following:

Keldeo @Choice Scarf
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
-Hydro Pump
-Surf
-Secret Sword
-Hidden Power Ice

Going along with your team, I notice the excellent Celebi, but I have a problem with your current set. Gentle nature makes it susceptible to physical attacks, and currently, with U-turn, your team gets torn apart by RP Landorus + CB Tyranitar cores. To patch up this problem, I offer a different Celebi set that can handle these problems better, as well as counter another huge threat in the meta, Breloom.

Celebi @Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 236 SpD / 20 Spe
Nature: Calm
-Baton Pass
-Giga Drain
-Psychic
-Recover

This set is a hard wall to Breloom, RP Landorus, and Scarf variants of Keldeo. Baton Pass allows you to switch out of Pursuit trapping, and easily switch out to Dnite to begin setting up. Psychic over Thunder Wave allows Celebi a move it can hit Breloom with, because Giga Drain is pitifully weak. Not weakening its defensive stat allows it to cover Terrakion as well, stomaching Close Combat easily, and Scarf Stone Edges as well.

A minor nitpick I have left is with Scizor's EVs. I suggest going for 248 HP EVs, because then it takes minimal damage from Stealth Rock, and instead dump the extra EVs into SpD. Since Scizor switches in and out a lot, this is a useful switch that only helps. Overall, this is a really cool team, and I hope I helped improve it. Good luck!

Tl;dr

tl;dr

SubRoost Dnite > Rain Attacker Dnite
Choice Scarf Keldeo > Cloyster
New Celebi EV spread and minor moveset change in Psychic > Twave
248 HP EVs in Scizor

 

[Penguiin]

Hey there, awesome rain team! Not bad for your first one at all. I'm on my phone so this will be rather short and ghetto aha. I like the use of cloyster, he is difficult to use though. He doesn't have much synergy with this team anyway so I think replacing him with a keldeo (preferably scarf) would be great. As for your scizor, you said you never se quick attack. Why would you, you have stab bullet punch! Replace quick attack for u-turn to keep up your momentum while adding a stab bug attack to your set. Also the dragonite set mentioned above works wonders, I'd say test it out to abuse his great physical attack and bulk. I know this was short but I hope I at least helped a little!

 

[chickenfroglegs]

Ah, you both helped so much, thank you. I'll make changes in purple (usually done in red but purple is my favorite color) as soon as I get back. Another thing I question, is my Forretress problem. I need the spinner so Dragonite can keep his Multiscale up, but Forretress is currently setup bait as he's too weak. Should I make the transition to Donphan? Is it worth losing my hardcounter to physical dragons?

 

[Penguiin]

Ah, you both helped so much, thank you. I'll make changes in purple (usually done in red but purple is my favorite color) as soon as I get back. Another thing I question, is my Forretress problem. I need the spinner so Dragonite can keep his Multiscale up, but Forretress is currently setup bait as he's too weak. Should I make the transition to Donphan? Is it worth losing my hardcounter to physical dragons?

I would definitely not switch to Donphan. forretress is great at what he's made for: utility. He will usually set up his hazards, spin the oponents hazards, and from then on hes kind of used as death fodder to take hits. If you want an offensive spinner, Starmie is the obvious choice.

 

[chickenfroglegs]

After trying it, I'm having much more problems with Steels than I normally would when I ran Special DNite. Mono attacking DNite just doesn't seem to be working for me. Keldeo's Secret Sword doesn't often OHKO the Steels I need it to, and after Keldeo goes down my whole team cannot hit Steel types very hard. ESPECIALLY Jirachi. I'm hopeless against it. Someone help pls

 

[tetrislame]

Nice Team you got. Both Keldeo and Celebi in a team together wins the cuteness match.
As for your Scizor: If you dont use Quick Attack try Bug Bite or Pursuit. While Pursuit gives you the opportunity to apply damage on switch out Bug Bite is a threat to Deoxys-D. Trying to kill him with only U-turn can be quite the pain.

Also like you said, you have a hard time against Jirachi and probably Skarmory too. DD-DC DNite may be a good sweeper, but not having a move against Jirachi and Skarmory is simply not worth it. I suggest that you go for a rain attacker DNite.

TL;dr

Bug Bite/Pursuit > Quick Attack on Scizzor

Rain attacker DNite > DD-DC Dnite
Dragonite (M) @ Life Orb Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 76 Atk / 252 SAtk / 180 Spd
Mild Nature (+SAtk, -Def)
- Hurricane
- Roost
- Thunder
- Earthquake

 

[AeroNightmare]

Rocks over toxic spikes on forry.

 

[chickenfroglegs]

Nice Team you got. Both Keldeo and Celebi in a team together wins the cuteness match.
As for your Scizor: If you dont use Quick Attack try Bug Bite or Pursuit. While Pursuit gives you the opportunity to apply damage on switch out Bug Bite is a threat to Deoxys-D. Trying to kill him with only U-turn can be quite the pain.

Also like you said, you have a hard time against Jirachi and probably Skarmory too. DD-DC DNite may be a good sweeper, but not having a move against Jirachi and Skarmory is simply not worth it. I suggest that you go for a rain attacker DNite.

TL;dr

Bug Bite/Pursuit > Quick Attack on Scizzor

Rain attacker DNite > DD-DC Dnite
Dragonite (M) @ Life Orb Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 76 Atk / 252 SAtk / 180 Spd
Mild Nature (+SAtk, -Def)
- Hurricane
- Roost
- Thunder
- Earthquake

Thank you. I ran the exact same set on DNite except for Surf over EQuake. I'll try that. Maybe that will give me the Offensive drive I'm lacking.

 

[hathater]

Is dragonite gonna be a lead, it shouldn't be with stealth rocks. This team is quite standard. Multiscale sounds cool, but it is hurt by stealth rocks.