ryan
Jojo Siwa enthusiast
cinema
intro
This is a team I made after I got some inspiration from ium to try out Choice Band Flareon with Healing Wish support. Healing Wish is one of my favorite moves in the game, and with the introduction of Flare Blitz to its movepool, Flareon seemed like a really fun Pokemon to use in NU this generation. Basically, this is my attempt to make a fun team that is still successful and doesn't use bog standard shit.I haven't peaked anything with this team because laddering makes me nauseated, but I have played quite a bit with the team in various PS tournaments and against friends, including against tennisace earlier today where he haxed me with a trash set. Anyways, I'm sharing the team now so that other people can try out some of these Pokemon and appreciate them as much as I do.
the team
Flareon @ Choice Band
Ability: Flash Fire
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
Flare Blitz / Superpower / Quick Attack / Baton Pass
I could watch you for a lifetime
You're my favorite movie
You're my favorite movie
NU has a ton of really powerful Fire-types, from Magmortar to Typhlosion to Pyroar, and I'd never even considered using Flareon before ium suggested it to me. But Flareon is really incredible. With Flash Fire, it offers up a fantastic immunity to Fire, which helps check the aforementioned Fire-types of NU, and with the addition of Flare Blitz to its movepool, it finally has a spam-able STAB move to break through opposing teams.
Everything on Flareon is really straightforward. Flare Blitz rips through pretty much everything, including things that resist it. To give you an idea of its power, particularly after a Flash Fire boost, here are some cute calcs:
252+ Atk Choice Band Flash Fire Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Seismitoad: 209-246 (50.4 - 59.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Flash Fire Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Feraligatr: 242-285 (77.5 - 91.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Flash Fire Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 240 HP / 0 Def Dry Skin Parasect: 2908-3424 (905.9 - 1066.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Superpower covers Rock-types, but you'll pretty much never click it because it loses so much momentum if you mispredict, while Flare Blitz does loads to most resists not named Regirock or 4x resists anyways. It doesn't really need (or get) any other coverage, so Quick Attack is used for some nice priority and to help finish off Slurpuff after it takes a hit setting up. Baton Pass helps grab some momentum if the opponent has a counter to Flareon but you need to pivot it in against a Fire-type. Sleep Talk is fine in this slot as well.
Mesprit @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
Psychic / Healing Wish / Energy Ball / Ice Beam
I never know what's comin'
Forever fascinated
Having already added Flareon to my team, it was time to add the Healing Wish support. The most common—and pretty much only—user of the move in NU is Scarf Lilligant, but I really don't like that set because Grass is a terrible type of move to lock into and it already outspeeds the shit it needs to anyways. So instead, I went with Life Orb Mesprit, which is incredibly powerful and has the coverage to take on the things that Flareon hates to.Forever fascinated
Aside from Psychic and Healing Wish, which are obligatory moves for this set, I'm running Energy Ball and Ice Beam. These two moves pretty much have the best coverage out of Mesprits movepool. Energy Ball takes on all the things that Flareon hates—bulky Rock- and Water-types, including Seismitoad, Omastar, Carracosta, etc. Meanwhile, Ice Beam hits things such as Xatu which resist the rest of the set. Mesprit is an interesting "replacement," if you will, for Sigilyph, as a powerful offensive Psychic-type with killer coverage, and it really should see a lot more usage than it does.
Kricketune @ Focus Sash
Ability: Swarm
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
X-Scissor / Knock Off / Sticky Web / Taunt
Hope you don't stop runnin' to me
Cause I'll always be waiting
Cause I'll always be waiting
When I decided to use offensive Flareon with Healing Wish support, I knew immediately that I needed some way to compensate for Flareon's low Speed. Offensive teams don't have much liberty to switch around, which is a problem when you're using something as slow as Flareon. Having realized this, I decided I wanted to use Sticky Web support, and I really don't think there's a better Sticky Web setter in NU than Kricketune.
Despite being a terrible gimmick Pokemon in past generations, in XY, Kricketune has a great niche—barring Smeargle, which is OU, it is the only Pokemon with access to both Taunt and Sticky Web. This allows offensive teams to prevent hazards from coming down early game, which can offer some pretty huge momentum when the opponent goes to set up hazards later on. Knock Off is the best move in the game, and it offers you a way to hit Xatu hard. Swarm-boosted X-Scissor is still pretty weak, but it can actually deal damage in the rare situations where you have a spare turn. You can try out Endeavor as well, but I rarely find myself wishing I had it. Defensive Pokemon can rarely bring Kricketune to its Sash immediately, and offensive Pokemon outspeed it.
Sandslash @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
Stealth Rock / Earthquake / Knock Off / Rapid Spin
You are my cinema
I could watch you forever
With two Rock weaknesses, I knew I wanted a Rock resist, but I also kind of wanted Rapid Spin support for Flareon, whose switches would be limited if hazards were ever set. I was really hesitant to use Cryogonal because it clashed a ton with my team and didn't offer a Rock resist, but instead yet another Rock weakness. Armaldo and Torkoal fell in the same boat, even though I don't care for them anyways. So I decided on Sandslash, who offered all of a Rock resist, a Stealth Rock setter, and a Rapid Spin user. You won't utilize Rapid Spin too often, but having that support is really nice.I could watch you forever
The Armaldo of XY, Sandslash has a pretty bad reputation as a Rapid Spin user that carried over from BW RU. That's because it was shit. It had no way to beat spinblockers, and the only important resist it offered was Rock, which wasn't that hard to cover with other things. But as an offensive Rapid Spin user in XY, it's great. With Knock Off, the most broken move in the game, it can finally take out the Ghost-types that blocked its Rapid Spin previously. The EVs on this set are to outrun Jolly Sawk after Sticky Web, but you can use more bulk if you want to rely on Sandslash to take hits a bit better.
Spiritomb @ Leftovers
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Atk / 16 Spe
Adamant Nature
Shadow Sneak / Will-O-Wisp / Sucker Punch / Return
Action, thriller
I could watch you forever
The set is pretty straight forward. It's standard offensive Spiritomb but with Return instead of Pursuit. As Pursuit support really isn't necessary at all for this team to do well, I wanted a more reliable move to click. Shadow Sneak is fairly weak against neutral targets, and spamming Sucker Punch is really unreliable, so I went with Return, which, while not extraordinarily powerful, gets the job done. Return also allows me to do solid damage to Slurpuff if it tries to set up on me, which can make the difference between winning and losing a game to it.
Lilligant @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
Giga Drain / Nature Power / Sleep Powder / Quiver Dance
You are a cinema
A Hollywood treasure
A Hollywood treasure
At this point, I added Specs Pyroar to the team because I hadn't used it and thought it might be fun for a Fire spam style of team. But after playing a couple games with it, I realized that my team had three Water weaknesses with an impressive no resistances. So I decided I'd try out Quiver Dance Lilligant for a few reasons. One was that I figured people would probably think it was a Scarf variant with Healing Wish while playing against me considering the Flareon and my team structure. Another was that I hadn't used it yet, and it sounded like a lot of fun! Also, it outspeeds even the obscure Jolly Feraligatr, which helps me check it more easily.
The set for Lilligant is pretty straightforward. I wanted to run Timid, again, for the rare Jolly Feraligatr, which outspeeds Modest Lilligant by one point, as well as to help out against Choice Scarf Pokemon that were immune to Sticky Web, including Rotom-F, Rotom-S, Mesprit, which I really didn't want revenging Lilligant at +1. Plus, with Life Orb, you don't really need Modest anyways. Nature Power is really cool because it's not Hidden Power, which is weak as fuck and always misses out on shit. You miss out on Steel-types and like Gourgeist and Haunter with this set, but that's basically it. You also get to dodge Shiftry's Sucker Punch with Nature Power, which is sick.
Love you just the way you are
My cinema, my cinema
My cinema, my cinema
threatlist
- Hax
- Misplays
summary
This team is really fun, and you should mess around with it a bit. As an offensive team, there are some things that you have to play around a bit, but as long as you focus on keeping up momentum and keeping your Sticky Web set, you should do relatively fine with it. Importable can be found here.