Exnecross's OU team.

[exnecross]

Intro.

Greetings. I am new to the forums here, but by no means new to competitive battling. This is a team that has undergone much alteration since it first was put together. Only two of the Pokemon in it today have been with it since the creation. I am looking for criticism, and I want you to be strict when giving insight.



The team.

Metagross @ Lum Berry
EVs: 248 HP / 240 Atk / 20 Spe
Nature: Adamant
- Meteor Mash
- Bullet Punch
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion

This is the standard metagross lead with slightly altered EVs. He is here to put up rocks, then proceed to either explode or switch out to be used later. He nearly KO's (and sometimes does) Aerodactyl with Bullet Punch, but is rendered useless by any other taunt user.


Possible changes: None.

Vaporeon @ Leftovers
EVs: 188 HP / 252 Def / 68 Spe
Nature: Bold
- Surf
- Wish
- Toxic
- Protect

Standard Wish support Vaporeon with Toxic to prevent stalling. Counter to fire which plagues Metagross and Breloom, and all around takes hits like a champ. Physical bulkiness provides surprisingly good resistance to all forms of attack. Protect works to either buy another turn of Leftovers or to stall off for a Wish.

Possibles changes: Bulky Gyarados.

Jolteon @ Choice Specs
EVs: 252 Spa / 252 Spe / 4 SpD
Nature: Timid
- Thunderbolt
- Shadowball
- Signal Beam
- Hidden Power Ice

Jolteon is an absolute beast. He always 1-hits Salamance/Garchomp/Dragonite/Flygon/Gliscor with Hidden Power Ice. Shadow ball is a must due to a limited movepool, and allows him to outspeed and destroy common threats such as Gengar or Azelf. Thunderbolt STAB is absolutely devastating, either KOing or leaving a huge dent in the unfortunate recipient. Signal Beam is for Celebi and the rather uncommon Shaymin. Also used as a safe switch-in to electric moves used on Vaporeon.

He outspeeds everything in the OU metagame with the exception of Jolly + max Speed EV Ninjask.

Possible changes: None.

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Pursuit
- Stone Edge

This is now my 4th Tyranitar. He has gone for the Scarf build and I'm liking it so far. With the majority of the team relatively slow, the much needed speed and Pursuit can work wonders. Stone Edge is the obligatory STAB, with Earthquake for better type coverage.

Possible changes: None.

Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 12 Hp / 252 Atk / 244 Spe
Nature: Adamant
- Spore
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Seed Bomb

After a bit of consideration, I've decided to go ahead and make this guy a standard mainstream Breloom. With Salamence out of the way, he feels much safer to play than he once did.

Possible changes: None.

Gliscor @ Life Orb
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 60 HP / 220 Atk / 228 Spe
Nature: Jolly
- Swords Dance
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Aerial Ace

This set works as you'd think it does, being a fighting counter and a good physical sweeper, able to Roost off Life Orb damage as well as having great resistances and speed.

I have given this Gliscor 20 extra HP EVs and 12 extra Speed at the cost of reduced attack. This is solely for a little bit of extra survivability.

His role is mainly an earth counter, with 3 of my team members being weak to it, Gliscor provides that much needed resistance. He works great as a revenge killer and counters the fighting types that plague Tyranitar. Lucario and Infernape immediately come to mind.

Possible changes: Replacing Aerial Ace with Fire Fang, due to having no other fire type attacks to deal with Scizor. Please Let me know what you think about this change!!


Conclusion.

I am overall happy with the way this team performs. It triumphs over most opponents I come up against. It's not without its weaknesses, though. I'm very grateful for any advice and criticism that the Smogon community might have to share.

 

[Percussionist]

Personally, I think Blissey's out of place on an offensive team like this. If you want a Special Wall, I would suggest either Vaporeon or Suicune. These guys can take hits and hit back hard. Salamence and Garchomp are no longer OU, so HP Ice on Jolteon is rather uneccesary. I'd switch it to HP Grass to hit Ground types that switch in to you. Singal Beam isn't doing much for you either. I'd suggest Baton Pass over it. And for Gliscor, I would suggest changing it to Rotom-A. Any form should work fine for what you want, and it has lovely immunities to those Ground and Fighting types you hate so much. Hope I helped, and good luck.

 

[exnecross]

Personally, I think Blissey's out of place on an offensive team like this. If you want a Special Wall, I would suggest either Vaporeon or Suicune. These guys can take hits and hit back hard. Salamence and Garchomp are no longer OU, so HP Ice on Jolteon is rather uneccesary. I'd switch it to HP Grass to hit Ground types that switch in to you. Singal Beam isn't doing much for you either. I'd suggest Baton Pass over it. And for Gliscor, I would suggest changing it to Rotom-A. Any form should work fine for what you want, and it has lovely immunities to those Ground and Fighting types you hate so much. Hope I helped, and good luck.

Thank you for your post. For the HP Ice, I allow my opponents to use Salamence and Garchomp, I've never felt they were too powerful for OU, and still don't. I would love to use a Rotom form, but I can't due to the fact I don't hack and don't have any programs to hack with either. I will do more tests with Vaporeon.

I wish Rotom forms could be used on Wifi without having to hack.

 

[Faladran]

I'd like to second the suggestion of Vaporeon. An EV spread of 188 HP / 252 Def / 68 SpD should work quite well, along with the standard moveset. However, the last moveslot is your choice to fill, as Hidden Power Electric may not be necessary since you're using Jolteon. Other good options include Toxic, Ice Beam, and Roar.

Whether or not you decide to use Vaporeon, both it and Blissey do a great job of absorbing Fire attacks aimed at Metagross. Therefore, Occa Berry is not necessary, and I would definitely recommend switching to a Lum Berry to deal with enemy sleep leads and Anti-Lead Machamp. Here is the set:

Metagross @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Atk / 16 Spe
Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)
- Bullet Punch
- Earthquake
- Meteor Mash
- Stealth Rock

The EVs are quite similar, so using the ones you have posted should be fine. Explosion can be used if your prefer it to take out any major threats, but the other moves are often very valuable in dealing with opposing leads. You also seem to have most threats covered, so it may not be completely necessary.

Good luck with your team!

 

[Smith]

Instead of a rate, I'm just going to give you some tips on team building. "You can give a man a fish..." Your team building process confuses me somewhat. Did you just think, "well, I need a lead, special wall, physical sweeper, special sweeper, have used Breloom, and I need a counter to fighting types"? I'm going to assure you this is never going to produce the kind of team you want. Firstly, never start the team building process with the lead. The lead should be based around the team and its synergy, and should probably be your 4th-6th Pokemon chosen. Really, try basing your team around a sweeper or something you like, and then choosing teammates. For example, if I started with a Lucario, well, he likes Gengar because he can set up on pursuit, and he likes Gyarados to take out Gliscor, etc. Secondly, not every team needs walls, especially an offensive team. You can throw a Bissey in later if you feel weak to Starmie/Jolteon and friends, but he shouldn't be the first Pokemon you pick. The same goes for having a physical sweeper and a special sweeper for the sake of diversity, many great teams use only one and if your team needs both (which is likely), your team building process will take you there. Generally, focus on having a core and Pokemon that support it.

That all said, I'm actually going to give you a small rate anyways lol. Like I said, Blissey is somewhat out of place on a offense team like this. Looking at your weaknesses and resistances, fire, water and ground stand out as prominent to me. I'd replace Blissey with DD Gyarados, because you have all the quintessential Gyarados teammates already in place- Jolteon and Tyranitar work famously well with Gyarados, and luring in all of those bulky waters is perfect set up fodder for Breloom.

I'd also change Tyranitar to Scarftar, because the ability to trap and kill Starmie is really going to help Gyarados. Also you're a bit weak to Gengar. :/

That's all the advice for now, hope this all helps.

EDIT: Also, I neglected to mention to either run Lum Berry or Eathquake on Heatran. The main selling point of Occa Berry is to survive a fire blast and kill Heatran with Earthquake. Since you can't currently do that, it's sort of a waste. Out of the two options, I'd run Lum Berry because honestly sleep leads are trickier than Heatran leads.

 

[exnecross]

I'd like to second the suggestion of Vaporeon. An EV spread of 188 HP / 252 Def / 68 SpD should work quite well, along with the standard moveset. However, the last moveslot is your choice to fill, as Hidden Power Electric may not be necessary since you're using Jolteon. Other good options include Toxic, Ice Beam, and Roar.

Whether or not you decide to use Vaporeon, both it and Blissey do a great job of absorbing Fire attacks aimed at Metagross. Therefore, Occa Berry is not necessary, and I would definitely recommend switching to a Lum Berry to deal with enemy sleep leads and Anti-Lead Machamp. Here is the set:

Metagross @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Atk / 16 Spe
Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)
- Bullet Punch
- Earthquake
- Meteor Mash
- Stealth Rock

The EVs are quite similar, so using the ones you have posted should be fine. Explosion can be used if your prefer it to take out any major threats, but the other moves are often very valuable in dealing with opposing leads. You also seem to have most threats covered, so it may not be completely necessary.

Good luck with your team!

I could easy switch the Occa Berry for a Lum Berry, but why EQ over Explosion? Both my Tyranitar and Gliscor already run it, and Explosion just comes in so much handy.

The Vaporeon I have now has max Def IVs and EVs & Bold, with Wish / Protect / Surf / Ice beam.

Again, thank you for your input.

I'd consider running my Dusknoir over Gliscor but Dusknoir seems to have a bad habit of switching into Crunch Lucario.


@ Smith, that was by no means the process of creating the team. It's just this team has gone through so much alteration over the years that I couldn't give a proper explanation.

I don't have a Heatran but I'm assuming you meant Metagross.

You seem to want me to rebuild my team from ground up, and while I appreciate all your advice, that's really not what I'm trying to do. Blissey and Gliscor seem to be in need of a replacement, but beyond that, I didn't just throw all of this together like it seems. I was stuck as whether to just leave out the overview part all together, as I figured it would cause this type of confusion. Maybe it'd be best if I just deleted that entire part?

 

[Smith]

No, I meant that I wanted you to use Lum Berry on Metagross because you don't have earthquake to beat Heatran.

And I think you've misunderstood me a bit, the first paragraph is entirely hypothetical and was an effort to explain team building process to you, you don't need Lucario or Gengar or anything. Although, since you clarified it a bit and wasn't your team building process, you can basically ignore the entire first paragraph.

Only changes I was suggesting were:
DD Gyarados > Blissey
Scarftar > Bandtar
Lum Berry > Occa Berry.

 

[exnecross]

No, I meant that I wanted you to use Lum Berry on Metagross because you don't have earthquake to beat Heatran.

And I think you've misunderstood me a bit, the first paragraph is entirely hypothetical and was an effort to explain team building process to you, you don't need Lucario or Gengar or anything. Although, since you clarified it a bit and wasn't your team building process, you can basically ignore the entire first paragraph.

Only changes I was suggesting were:
DD Gyarados > Blissey
Scarftar > Bandtar
Lum Berry > Occa Berry.

Thanks for the clarification. I could use scarf on TTar, but it would require making a whole new Tar for that. TTar has worked perfectly for me thus far and in all honesty was one of the least concerns that I had.

I do think either Dose or Vaporeon would be better than Blissey on this team, and I also agree about the Lum Berry. I have swapped the berries already.

I'm honestly leaning more towards Vaporeon than Dose though, but either should fit the role nicely. I'm most surprised by the fact that nobody really seems to see much of an issue with the Gliscor.

 

[iamLEGION]

IMO, Gliscor actually fits pretty well on this team. However, if you really want to replace him, then Dragonite, Celebi, or Gyarados would all be good options due to the fighting and ground resistances/immunities. 2 electric weaknesses (with Vaporeon and Gyarados) isn't so much of a problem since Ttar can easily tank a Thunderbolt and Jolteon is immune. Taunt Gyarados also can kill stall teams pretty much single-handedly once the Electric attacker has been taken out. Celebi has an electric resistance, but a ton of easily exploitable weaknesses. Offensive or tank, your choice. Dragonite has better coverage than the other two, but requires either setup or good prediction to use effectively. In the end, it's up to you to decide what fits your team best.

 

[exnecross]

I will replace Blissey with Vaporeon, at least for now.

This still leaves an issue with taking care of Fighting types, and leaves my team somewhat susceptible to ground, but then again there's no such thing as a flawless team.

Also just realized I now lack Thunder Wave, which is a huge deal considering all but one of my team are slowish.

 

[Dr.Slash]

One thing I noticed is that your team is very weak to LO Sceptile. It hits everything, bar Jolteon, for supper effective, if it has HP fire. I don't really know what you sould do about it. LO Sceptile isn't that common so you can most likely get away with it. Other than that very nice team.

 

[exnecross]

One thing I noticed is that your team is very weak to LO Sceptile. It hits everything, bar Jolteon, for supper effective, if it has HP fire. I don't really know what you sould do about it. LO Sceptile isn't that common so you can most likely get away with it. Other than that very nice team.

I'm not concerned about Sceptile :P

 

[exnecross]

Ok so after about 12 hours I've managed to hatch another perfect (well damn close to perfect) Jolly Larvitar with Pursuit and raised it up to a Scarf Tar. I've also reconsidered and taught Vaporeon Toxic and Breloom Substitute.