Hey everybody! I've been laddering with a team that I really like recently and I wanted feedback in order to make it even better. I'm relatively new to Ubers but I used to play DPP OU back in the day, took a long break, and got hyped to play again with the release of ORAS (and realized that I had never made a Smogon account until making this RMT, oops). Overall I think Ubers is a pretty cool tier, but it's very explosive and there's so much power that it's a bit intimidating. That being said, I tried to get accustomed to the tier by using a team I threw together and once I hit the 1200s, I decided to use what I learned to make a more solid team which lasted until 1400ish. The problem was that I kept getting swept by Xerneas so I decided to change up that team a little bit and the result is what I'm about to post. Hopefully you can help me correct sub-optimal stuff since I'm sure there's bound to be stuff! Since I'm starting to get up with the big boys, I want to perform well with them of course!
*I'm going to try and explain my teambuilding process within the descriptions if that's cool*
M. Soleil (Groudon) @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 236 SpD / 16 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Precipice Blades
- Rock Slide
- Roar
Lil Bill (Yveltal) @ Black Glasses
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 248 HP / 248 Def / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Foul Play
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
- Roost
This right here is probably one of my favourite pokes ever made and is the second member of the core. I find it to be a pretty "anti-meta" pokemon because it can take on some really threatening pokes such as the dreaded Ekiller, which annoys my team otherwise, especially Silk Scarf variants since they don't widdle themselves down enough for my Ditto to revenge kill reliably. This guy fixes that very problem since a +2 Extreme Speed can never kill if they are max Atk and Black Glasses snags the OHKO back if they are LO (and if they aren't, they do even less to me, letting me roost on them a bit before finishing them off with Sucker Punch. Taunt is a very safe move and let's me stop stuff from setting up on the switch, which is helpful because of how annoying Geomancy and Calm Mind Xerneas are for this team. Without being able to set up, it suddenly becomes much less threatening to my team in general. Yveltal also checks Mewtwo forms pretty well and I really appreciate that because powerful wall-breaker type pokemon like both forms of M-Mewtwo really hurt balance-ish teams such as mine. I love this set and think that it performs very well, but with that being said, I'll definitely tweak is based on suggestions.
Keshas Skirt (Latias) (F) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 212 HP / 120 SpA / 176 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Defog
- Roost
This member rounds out the core by providing me with both an offensive and defensive defog user, thanks to Soul Dew. Latias is another one of those pokes that I have such trouble replacing on a team. It's just given me such great results, though as usual, feel free to make suggestions. This is another P-Don check on top of Mence, since the combination of SR, Psyshock, and Draco kills him even if he's specially defensive. For some reason a lot of people like to switch their SpDef P-Dons in on this guy since that's what they are EV'd for, only to be taken out before they get rocks up, which is great. Roost of course let's me continually check the monster as well as check Ice Beam variants of P-Ogre (does anyone even run Blizzard??) which is nice because that thing hurts. Latias also helps keep my SR on the field by threatening Giratina-O before it can defog and I generally make a lot of double switches in order to pit myself against it so that I can KO with Draco. This set works very nicely along with Ditto since they become much more hesitant to set up in my face after the SpA drop. My biggest question whether I should replace Roost with Healing Wish in order to keep my M-Mence, Ditto, P-Don, or Xerneas healthier during a match. While I love Roost, I do find myself using this gal pretty offensively since the free +1 SpA is delicious. Defog is really nice because for some reason I'd much rather no rocks on the field instead of both of us, especially since Yveltal and M-Mence are so key to this team performing well.
Geomancy (Xerneas) @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 184 HP / 28 Def / 252 SpA / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Thunder
- Focus Blast
This is the standard Geomancy Xerneas set that everybody runs. I decided that I wanted this to be my other sweeper in case M-Mence died because it hits hard, fast, and so many teams are weak to it and only have P-Don as a check (like I did before) so I wanted to take full advantage and use this when I knew I could win games quickly. This used to be my scarfer until I tweaked this team, but it was definitely underwhelming in that role, other than being a nice Darkrai counter so I switched it to this set. It's nice because it highly appreciates the support from my core in aiding its sweep. getting rid of those powerful priority users and all. I'm not sure what else to say other than the fact that I really just threw this on my team in order have have it, so if you guys and gals can think of any other pokemon that compliment the rest of my team well, I'm all ears. I usually play it pretty conservatively so that I can beat P-Don late game and wreck the remaining members of the opponent's team.
BUT DAD (Ditto) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Transform
When looking at my team, I realized that offence really hurts my team. My core can only take so many threats at once (I mean, dear God, Yveltal can only counter the meta-game 1-2 threats at a time, man) so I decided to see how Ditto does. It turns out that this thing works pretty well on my team. It gives me a bit of leeway in dealing with Xerneas since my P-Don could roar out Geomancy Xerneas, OR hit it to about 50ish% where my Ditto can become the deer and OHKO it and possibly the rest of my opponents team. I honestly feel as though this thing is an absolute monster in the right hands and it really helps my core do its work because nothing likes to set up (and if they do, they get to deal with this thing). Now that I'm at a semi-respectable place on the latter, I don't bring this thing out as much as I used to, but the fact that my opponent sees him at team preview makes the job easier for the rest of the team. I'm not sure what else to really say about this guy, but he's always been one of my favourite pokemon due to being so unique and I'm happy that he seems to have a place on my team. (Oh yeah, and he helps me beat the Sticky Web team that's going around on the ladder, so there's that). I contemplated using Klefki instead of Ditto, but my team becomes much more passive with it and it gets overwhelmed too easily in my opinion.
I'm pretty bad about saving replays, so I only have one at the moment, but I'll edit in more. This doesn't exactly show off the complete capabilities of my team, but it's a good match against some big threats: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-221081149
EDIT: My most recent match vs. Mega-Mence: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-221799693
*I'm going to try and explain my teambuilding process within the descriptions if that's cool*
The Team
MOM NO (Salamence) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 192 HP / 136 Atk / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Double-Edge
- Refresh
- Roost
- Dragon Dance
MOM NO (Salamence) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 192 HP / 136 Atk / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Double-Edge
- Refresh
- Roost
- Dragon Dance
This is the member that I wanted my team to be built around. I really like Mega-Mence's design and stat distribution and I know that he is super good in the current meta. One of my friends passed me this spread and I've grown to really love it, though from what I've seen it's a typical bulky DD Mence. I ultimately decided to stick to a mono-attacker with DD, Roost, and Refresh because I've found that most of the pokes that resist flying are ones like Klefki that I can refresh and set up on (and if they have Heal Block instead of Toxic, P-Don handles him just fine). My general game plan is to use Intimidate throughout the match to help check stuff like EKiller and more defensive variants of P-Don and then mega-evolve and sweep like you'd expect. I'm having a bit of a hard time thinking of what else to say since all of you guys know what he does. What I'm specifically looking for is maybe a better tailored EV spread (/moveset if needed) based on the rest of the team since this is what I've always defaulted on when using M-Mence on any team I run.
M. Soleil (Groudon) @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 236 SpD / 16 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Precipice Blades
- Rock Slide
- Roar
Since I'm a balance player at heart, I knew that I wanted a good, but not passive, defensive core in order to check a lot of threats in the meta-game. Groudon is the first member of this core. I remember that I first started using this core because I saw it successfully used on the ladder on certain teams so I decided to try and make it myself, based on what I knew from facing it. Later I found the Good Cores thread and stole the sets and slightly modified them. Anyways, on to P-Don...
Since I was using a bulkier version of M-Mence, I knew that I absolutely needed rocks. And who sets up rocks better than P-Don? Nothing, really. I decided to run the specially defensive spread that I found in the thread, but I tweaked the EVs in order to speed-creep other SpDef P-Dons. I honestly think that this spread is not at all optimal, so some help there would be appreciated!!! Overall, this set is great for checking Geomancy Xerneas because I can either roar it or weaken it enough to revenge kill it with my Ditto before it takes me out. Of course it also checks things like Kyogre if it switches in since I beat it to the KO with Precipice Blades. Other than that, it's nice to have for the occasional weird Arceus form or less common threats.
Since I was using a bulkier version of M-Mence, I knew that I absolutely needed rocks. And who sets up rocks better than P-Don? Nothing, really. I decided to run the specially defensive spread that I found in the thread, but I tweaked the EVs in order to speed-creep other SpDef P-Dons. I honestly think that this spread is not at all optimal, so some help there would be appreciated!!! Overall, this set is great for checking Geomancy Xerneas because I can either roar it or weaken it enough to revenge kill it with my Ditto before it takes me out. Of course it also checks things like Kyogre if it switches in since I beat it to the KO with Precipice Blades. Other than that, it's nice to have for the occasional weird Arceus form or less common threats.
Lil Bill (Yveltal) @ Black Glasses
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 248 HP / 248 Def / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Foul Play
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
- Roost
This right here is probably one of my favourite pokes ever made and is the second member of the core. I find it to be a pretty "anti-meta" pokemon because it can take on some really threatening pokes such as the dreaded Ekiller, which annoys my team otherwise, especially Silk Scarf variants since they don't widdle themselves down enough for my Ditto to revenge kill reliably. This guy fixes that very problem since a +2 Extreme Speed can never kill if they are max Atk and Black Glasses snags the OHKO back if they are LO (and if they aren't, they do even less to me, letting me roost on them a bit before finishing them off with Sucker Punch. Taunt is a very safe move and let's me stop stuff from setting up on the switch, which is helpful because of how annoying Geomancy and Calm Mind Xerneas are for this team. Without being able to set up, it suddenly becomes much less threatening to my team in general. Yveltal also checks Mewtwo forms pretty well and I really appreciate that because powerful wall-breaker type pokemon like both forms of M-Mewtwo really hurt balance-ish teams such as mine. I love this set and think that it performs very well, but with that being said, I'll definitely tweak is based on suggestions.
Keshas Skirt (Latias) (F) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 212 HP / 120 SpA / 176 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Defog
- Roost
This member rounds out the core by providing me with both an offensive and defensive defog user, thanks to Soul Dew. Latias is another one of those pokes that I have such trouble replacing on a team. It's just given me such great results, though as usual, feel free to make suggestions. This is another P-Don check on top of Mence, since the combination of SR, Psyshock, and Draco kills him even if he's specially defensive. For some reason a lot of people like to switch their SpDef P-Dons in on this guy since that's what they are EV'd for, only to be taken out before they get rocks up, which is great. Roost of course let's me continually check the monster as well as check Ice Beam variants of P-Ogre (does anyone even run Blizzard??) which is nice because that thing hurts. Latias also helps keep my SR on the field by threatening Giratina-O before it can defog and I generally make a lot of double switches in order to pit myself against it so that I can KO with Draco. This set works very nicely along with Ditto since they become much more hesitant to set up in my face after the SpA drop. My biggest question whether I should replace Roost with Healing Wish in order to keep my M-Mence, Ditto, P-Don, or Xerneas healthier during a match. While I love Roost, I do find myself using this gal pretty offensively since the free +1 SpA is delicious. Defog is really nice because for some reason I'd much rather no rocks on the field instead of both of us, especially since Yveltal and M-Mence are so key to this team performing well.
Geomancy (Xerneas) @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 184 HP / 28 Def / 252 SpA / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Thunder
- Focus Blast
This is the standard Geomancy Xerneas set that everybody runs. I decided that I wanted this to be my other sweeper in case M-Mence died because it hits hard, fast, and so many teams are weak to it and only have P-Don as a check (like I did before) so I wanted to take full advantage and use this when I knew I could win games quickly. This used to be my scarfer until I tweaked this team, but it was definitely underwhelming in that role, other than being a nice Darkrai counter so I switched it to this set. It's nice because it highly appreciates the support from my core in aiding its sweep. getting rid of those powerful priority users and all. I'm not sure what else to say other than the fact that I really just threw this on my team in order have have it, so if you guys and gals can think of any other pokemon that compliment the rest of my team well, I'm all ears. I usually play it pretty conservatively so that I can beat P-Don late game and wreck the remaining members of the opponent's team.
BUT DAD (Ditto) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Transform
When looking at my team, I realized that offence really hurts my team. My core can only take so many threats at once (I mean, dear God, Yveltal can only counter the meta-game 1-2 threats at a time, man) so I decided to see how Ditto does. It turns out that this thing works pretty well on my team. It gives me a bit of leeway in dealing with Xerneas since my P-Don could roar out Geomancy Xerneas, OR hit it to about 50ish% where my Ditto can become the deer and OHKO it and possibly the rest of my opponents team. I honestly feel as though this thing is an absolute monster in the right hands and it really helps my core do its work because nothing likes to set up (and if they do, they get to deal with this thing). Now that I'm at a semi-respectable place on the latter, I don't bring this thing out as much as I used to, but the fact that my opponent sees him at team preview makes the job easier for the rest of the team. I'm not sure what else to really say about this guy, but he's always been one of my favourite pokemon due to being so unique and I'm happy that he seems to have a place on my team. (Oh yeah, and he helps me beat the Sticky Web team that's going around on the ladder, so there's that). I contemplated using Klefki instead of Ditto, but my team becomes much more passive with it and it gets overwhelmed too easily in my opinion.
Threatlist
This thing is annoying, especially if its bulky since it can kill my Ditto before I can kill it. Also, Intimidate is irritating, causing me to have to play around it between a combination of pokemon.
Darkrai can annoy my team because I don't have a sleeptalker anywhere on the team. Partially band-aided by Ditto, but it's difficult to counter depending on the coverage move if it's NP.
Banded Ho-oh is super annoying if I don't get my rocks up or pressure it with rock slide on P-Don. It dents my team and causes me to waste turns Refreshing on Mence if it burns with Sacred Fire (and it will).
Very difficult to switch in to this thing, especially if it's life orbed, though Ditto can usually dent something back if it gets in safely. Takes a lot of prediction to get around and can handle the core pretty well.
This thing is annoying, especially if its bulky since it can kill my Ditto before I can kill it. Also, Intimidate is irritating, causing me to have to play around it between a combination of pokemon.
Darkrai can annoy my team because I don't have a sleeptalker anywhere on the team. Partially band-aided by Ditto, but it's difficult to counter depending on the coverage move if it's NP.
Banded Ho-oh is super annoying if I don't get my rocks up or pressure it with rock slide on P-Don. It dents my team and causes me to waste turns Refreshing on Mence if it burns with Sacred Fire (and it will).
Very difficult to switch in to this thing, especially if it's life orbed, though Ditto can usually dent something back if it gets in safely. Takes a lot of prediction to get around and can handle the core pretty well.
Lil Bill (Yveltal) @ Black Glasses
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 248 HP / 248 Def / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Foul Play
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
- Roost
M. Soleil (Groudon) @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 236 SpD / 16 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Precipice Blades
- Rock Slide
- Roar
Keshas Skirt (Latias) (F) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 212 HP / 120 SpA / 176 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Defog
- Roost
Geomancy (Xerneas) @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 184 HP / 28 Def / 252 SpA / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Thunder
- Focus Blast
MOM NO (Salamence) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 192 HP / 136 Atk / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Double-Edge
- Refresh
- Roost
- Dragon Dance
BUT DAD (Ditto) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Transform
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 248 HP / 248 Def / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Foul Play
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
- Roost
M. Soleil (Groudon) @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 236 SpD / 16 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Precipice Blades
- Rock Slide
- Roar
Keshas Skirt (Latias) (F) @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 212 HP / 120 SpA / 176 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Defog
- Roost
Geomancy (Xerneas) @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 184 HP / 28 Def / 252 SpA / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Thunder
- Focus Blast
MOM NO (Salamence) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 192 HP / 136 Atk / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Double-Edge
- Refresh
- Roost
- Dragon Dance
BUT DAD (Ditto) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Transform
Replays
I'm pretty bad about saving replays, so I only have one at the moment, but I'll edit in more. This doesn't exactly show off the complete capabilities of my team, but it's a good match against some big threats: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-221081149
EDIT: My most recent match vs. Mega-Mence: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-221799693
Thanks in advance for all the help everyone!
Attachments
Last edited:
