Drizzle team (~143 on PO)

[Red Alert]

Sup smogon, just came for some criticism on my drizzle team. I managed to peak at around 200 on the server, but I've hit a wall trying to go above that.

UPDATE: After making a couple changes, I've managed to get up to 143 and seem to be slowing moving up. Thanks for the help! Here's the new team, comments/criticism welcome:

Politoed (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Scald
- Toxic
- Protect
- Encore

After taking out tentacruel, politoed has become quite a bit more useful. He's a decent special wall and can switch into ninetails without fear, making sun teams much easier to deal with. If I can predict a set up move, encore is great at shutting down baton passers or sweepers. It can't really do much to tyranitar unless he's in rain, which never happens against t-tar. Oh well.


Toxicroak (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Dry Skin
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Sucker Punch
- Ice Punch

I like this guy. Dry skin outheals life orb damage and tyranitar wouldn't dare switch into him to cancel out dry skin. Resistances to fighting and rock are both nice, though the 4x psychic weakness is a bit annoying as I only have 1 psychic resist. I haven't found it to be much of a problem, though, as most psychic types fall to sucker punch before they have a chance to do anything. If I can get a sub up, focus punch + sucker punch is almost guaranteed to take something out.

Thundurus (M) @ Life Orb Trait: Prankster
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunder
- Nasty Plot
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]


Standard thundurus rain abuse. Very strong. Initially I had him with choice specs, but I added Latios to the team and having two spec'd attackers seemed redundant. I noticed a lot of opponents were foolishly protecting first turn vs my thundurus, so this partially aims to take advantage of that. People also love to switch into a ground type to absorb the spec'd thunder and force a switch, so this makes those people feel silly as well. After a nasty plot boost, only a couple pokemon can survive a hit from him. Scarf users and non-resisted priority users can be problematic, so I generally save him for later or pull him out at the first sign of the above.

It's either life orb or expert belt for thundurus, as leftovers could potentially be too revealing on a switch. I can win games if they think I'm choiced.


Ferrothorn (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SDef
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Protect


SR user and mixed wall. Gyro ball over power whip for better bp and coverage, leech seed + protect for heals and stall. In the rain I can actually stall out fire attacks with leech seed + protect, assuming they aren't coming from a fire type pokemon. It's pretty funny watching a mix mence switch in and not kill after landing 2 flamethrowers. Fighting types have become less of a problem since I gave ferrothorn a more defensive spread. Protect stops hi jump kick users very well. The only fighting types that give him trouble are infernape, machamp, and conkeldurr. Luckily, latios can switch in on any of their moves an OHKO with draco meteor, so I've got that covered.

Scizor (M) @ Choice Band Trait: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Pursuit


Standard CB scizor, great dark/psychic counter and revenge killer. SteelPokemonFan recommended a bulky SD variant, but I've found this one to work very well, as he never stays in for long anyways. If I am up against a sand team, I lead with him and immediately u-turn into politoed. If t-tar stays in and tries to stealth rock / fire blast, he loses 80% of his hp and scizor is usually faster so the toad gets a free switch in, getting rain in and threatening to kill with scald. If t-tar switches out I get some damage on their switch and get rain in. Against sun teams he isn't quite so useful, but sun teams in general have been relatively easy to shut down with politoed/ferrothorn.



Latios (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Surf
- Thunder
- Draco Meteor
- Trick

The beastly Latios, hopefully this guy doesn't get knocked into ubers anytime soon. Draco Meteor is pretty much a OHKO on anything that isn't steel, and levitate lets me switch in on a lot of sand teams for free. The one problem is that specially defensive t-tar can take a draco meteor and trap me with pursuit, so I sometimes have to be careful and stick to surf. Trick hasn't been so useful though; I'm thinking of changing it to Psyshock or hidden power fighting (for tyranitar).

The poke graveyard:

Hide

Tentacruel (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 HP / 64 Def / 176 SDef / 16 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Toxic Spikes
- Scald
- Rapid Spin
- Sludge Bomb


Rapid spinner and special wall. Considering getting rid of him because of how useless toxic spikes have proven to be, but I have 2 flying types so I still want to have a rapid spinner. A ground type to compliment him would be nice, as most electric attacks are special, and tentacruel cannot wall special electric attacks, so I have to switch into ferrothorn. If ferrothorn is dead, I'm pretty much screwed.

Gyarados (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Bounce
- Taunt

Rain sweeper. After a DD there isn't much that can take a waterfall in the rain from this guy, and taunt prevents walls from doing anything funky. Another stealth rock weakness, which tentacruel compliments nicely. Not really sure I need 2 flying types on the team, but when looking for a good water type sweeper to put on this team, I couldn't find anything that performed as well as gyarados. I could switch him with a yache sd garchomp to take electric attacks, but having 2 water types on a rain team just feels weird.

Switching out tentacruel and gyarados as totally eliminated my electric problem and I have no need for a ground type anymore. The new problem I'm having is with heavy stall teams. T-tar + skarmbliss + jellicent can play cute switching games and force me to switch into entry hazards constantly, eventually losing my power hitters and being unable to kill anything that's left.

 

[ChaosZekrom]

i suggest that ferrothorn should have max hp and max spdef cuz ferrothorn natural defense shoukd keep it alive. and change tentacruel's item to black sludge to deter trick users who plan on getting your item and provide necessary recovery to tentacruel too

 

[Red Alert]

i suggest that ferrothorn should have max hp and max spdef cuz ferrothorn natural defense shoukd keep it alive. and change tentacruel's item to black sludge to deter trick users who plan on getting your item and provide necessary recovery to tentacruel too

At the moment, ferrothorn is my only physical tank, while politoed and tentacruel are both pretty specially bulky. Won't a sdef investment make me vulnerable to physical sweepers?

As for the black sludge, that's a good idea, I actually hadn't thought of that.

 

[SteelPokemonFan]

Ferrothorn should always have 252 HP, and you should probably have the majority of your EV's in Defense if it is your only physical wall.

I would suggest having Latios instead of Gyara, as Latios gets the strongest STAB Draco Meteor, which rips through almost all non-Steels, it has Surf and it gets Thunder. It also has good synergy with Toxicroak and Ferrothorn.

Having Latios would also allow you to change your Tentacruel, because you would only have one Flying type. Maybe it could be changed to a Bulky SD Scizor, who helps deal with Tyranitar or Abomasnow.

Perhaps you could run Perish Song on Politoed instead of Scald/Toxic

 

[Razza]

Hey great team I see that the only reason you need tentacruel is as a rapid spinner in that case I would recommend starmie who an rapid spin and also I think running a trick choice scarf starmie could be very handy for your team to cripple opposing enemy Walls particularly ferrothorn who is nearly indestructible under the rain it also gets a handy fighting resist and extra power on surf and hydro pump under the rain

 

[Red Alert]

Ferrothorn should always have 252 HP, and you should probably have the majority of your EV's in Defense if it is your only physical wall.

I would suggest having Latios instead of Gyara, as Latios gets the strongest STAB Draco Meteor, which rips through almost all non-Steels, it has Surf and it gets Thunder. It also has good synergy with Toxicroak and Ferrothorn.

Having Latios would also allow you to change your Tentacruel, because you would only have one Flying type. Maybe it could be changed to a Bulky SD Scizor, who helps deal with Tyranitar or Abomasnow.

Perhaps you could run Perish Song on Politoed instead of Scald/Toxic

Alright, I've changed ferrothorn to relaxed @ 252/128/128. You think that should be alright, or should I invest more in def? I like a bit of investment in special defense because most wall breakers like mixed mence still can't touch ferrothorn in rain.

Also - latios sound like he could be a useful addition (w/ thunder/surf abuse). I think if I were to use him, I'd want to replace thundurus right? Another choiced special attacker with 111 base speed?

I'll try out latios + scizor for a bit, thanks for the help!

 

[Minacciosa]

Starmie with HydroPump/Thunder/Rapid Spin/ Recover-IceBeam would better than Tentacruel, because I'm not sure how Toxic Spikes are really helping you out much. Other than Ferrothorn, and the needed Politoed, this is an offensive team, which benefits more from a sweeper rather than a mediocre staller.

 

[Red Alert]

I tried starmie - didn't work out to well for me. It always seemed to die way too easily, and it wasn't able to output as much damage as I would have liked vs sand storm teams.

Scizor + Latios worked great though, thanks for the advice steelpokemonfan!

 

[jle1076]

Life Orb Starmie with Grassknot, Surf, Psychic, and Rapid Spin destroys alot of pokemon on a SS team lol

 

[Red Alert]

Life Orb Starmie with Grassknot, Surf, Psychic, and Rapid Spin destroys alot of pokemon on a SS team lol

that's true, but ferrothorn resist all those attacks, and can throw up stealth rocks or spikes again as I switch starmie out, after losing 35% of my hp just switching in and rapid spinning. That's not even counting any damage taken from an attack.

 

[SmileZ]

I used this set for Toxicroak after reading Dezza La's previous RMT.

Toxicroak (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Dry Skin
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Bulk up
- Sucker Punch
- Drain Punch

Often team are forced to chip away at Toxicroak expecting to take it down while is Bulks up only to have it fully recover after a Drain Punch + Lefties + Rain. This set is also an absolute counter to any Conkeldur Bulk Up set. You both Bulk Up to +6 in general only for you to out damage and out recover with Drain Punch. I'll PM a log later demonstrating the power of this set. Try it.

 

[Red Alert]

I used this set for Toxicroak after reading Dezza La's previous RMT.

Toxicroak (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Dry Skin
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Bulk up
- Sucker Punch
- Drain Punch

Often team are forced to chip away at Toxicroak expecting to take it down while is Bulks up only to have it fully recover after a Drain Punch + Lefties + Rain. This set is also an absolute counter to any Conkeldur Bulk Up set. You both Bulk Up to +6 in general only for you to out damage and out recover with Drain Punch. I'll PM a log later demonstrating the power of this set. Try it.

I've always been a bit adverse to trying the sub/bulk up set because of lack of coverage, but I'll try it out. I think black sludge would be better than lefties, tho.