Hyper Offensive Sawsbuck Sun RMT

[relaunched]

Hi all! I really like sun so I made a sun team. I’ve been playing this team for about a month. Like a lot of sun teams, it’s very frail and offensive. It is my best team I’ve made so far and isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either, so I wanted to post it to RMT and see what I could do to improve it. I won’t talk too much about moves chosen because these sets are just straight from the Smogon analyses. I’ll mostly talk about the reason for choosing the set. So here is the team.

Teen Snail: Ninetales @ Leftovers
Ability: Drought
EVs: 136 HP/252 SpA/120 Spe
Nature: Modest
Flamethrower
Solar Beam
Will-O-Wisp
Sunny Day

Pretty standard Sunny Day Ninetales. Because Ninetales isn’t a great Pokémon, I may as well make it optimal at keeping sun up. Politoed hates this Ninetales. Tyrannitar isn’t a fan either, though it’s tougher to play with because of Lum Berry and better bulk.

Back, Wuss!: Sawsbuck @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 112 HP/248 Atk/148 Spe
Nature: Adamant
Swords Dance
Return
Horn Leech
Nature Power

Sawsbuck is a cool Pokemon. This set outspeeds opposing Chlorophyll Pokémon and can own a lot of stuff if given the chance. Nature Power goes over Jump Kick because it doesn’t have the drawback and also covers more stuff. Sawsbuck effectiveness depends on the team matchup – against some teams I find myself pretty much sacrificing this guy. Some teams he rips apart.

Tan Hare: Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA/4 SpD/252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Fire Blast
Dragon Pulse
Earth Power
HP Grass

I had Chandelure here for awhile, but I don’t really know why. Balloontran is a great Pokémon. It is the bulkiest Pokémon on my team, and also has great coverage.

Nome Swami: Mamoswine @ Focus Sash
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spe
Nature: Adamant
Endeavor
Earthquake
Stealth Rock
Ice Shard

What a great Pokémon. Mamoswine is a great lead that almost always gets something useful done. It’s good for either SR up or a kill. Sometimes both. I used have Donphan/Tornadus instead of Mamoswine/Starmie, then I realized how good Mamoswine was, and I didn’t look back.

Tense ECG: Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Abliity: Download
EVs: 4 Atk/252 SpA/252 Spe
Nature: Hasty
U-Turn
Flamethrower
Ice Beam
Thunderbolt

This guy kills things and scouts, as he does on any other team. Pretty standard set.

Mister A: Starmie @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA/4 Spd/252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Rapid Spin
Ice Beam
Thunderbolt
Psyshock/Psychic

Again, pretty standard. No Life Orb because I find that has terrible synergy with Rapid Spin. Psychic seems like the better move for its power. The main advantage of Psyshock is OHKOing offensive Tentacruel, but I don’t think this is enough to use it over Psychic. Neither attack can 2HKO Blissey.

How the Team Works: The early game plan is pretty straightforward. Usually I go to Mamoswine to get up rocks or hurt things. Usually it dies early, but sometimes I switch it out to something if Mamoswine still has health and is worth saving (for revenging dragons, say). Usually I try to get up my sun next, or soon after, often going to Genesect as a pivot to Ninetales. Starmie spins away early and usually performs its job well. This is its main job, and it often dies afterward. Trying to spin more than once usually doesn’t work very well; this team plays fast and loose. Heatran is a great midgame pokemon, as it can take a couple hits and fire back. Sawsbuck and Genesect are the main cleaners.

So that’s the team. Please, do add suggestions for how to improve it! Also, since I feel I haven’t done a very good job expositing it, please leave comments about how I might improve the writing, or write later RMTs better.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

 

[ganj4lF]

Hi. Your team is nice, however there's still room for improvement.

First of all, you're very weak to Fighting attacks. Your only resistance is Starmie, which is frail and doesn't carry Recover, thus it can be worn down quite easily. Pokemons like Terrakion or Choice Specs Keldeo can do a lot of damage to this team, simply because once they got a safe switch-in, you don't have anything that can take the attack reliably. I'm sorry to say so since you even named your RMT after it, but the best way to fix this is to remove Sawsbuck and use Venusaur instead. Sawsbuck is cool and all, but Venusaur is just better in the current OU meta: 80/83/100 defenses are much better than 80/70/70 that Sawsbuck has, and Venusaur's typing allow it to not care about common Fighting attacks, like Mach Punch, that completely screws Sawsbuck (it also has another good amount of advantages, for example neutrality to U-Turn). It also has better coverage options, usually being walled by 1-2 pokemons depending from its moves, and can always get rid of those with Sleep Powder. Sawsbuck, instead, is completely shut down by things like Bronzong, Skarmory and Forretress to a lesser extent.
However, if you decide to keep Sawsbuck, please alter your EV spread to run at lease 236 Speed EVs. This allows you to outrun Timid Venusaur and smack it with Return; it would otherwise outspeed and OHKO with HP Fire.

Venusaur

Venusaur @ Life Orb | Clorophyll
Timid | 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Growth
- Giga Drain
- HP Fire
- Sleep Powder / Sludge Bomb / Earthquake (consider a neutral nature if you use EQ)

Now, the other thing that is better to fix is your absolute weakness to Ground attacks. Your only resistance is Sawsbuck (or Venusaur, whatever) which is very frail, and Heatran, which is rendered useless in this regard by U-Turn or similar things. Now this may seem a weird idea to a team so offensively oriented like yours, but I think a creative, and good way to fix that would be swapping Genesect for Cresselia, and use Scarf Heatran instead. Cresselia is incredibly bulky in Sun, and can act as a general panic button against many things that could have went wild with boosts or something similar. It's immune to Ground and takes relatively low damage from Rock too (another type you don't like too much), Moonlight heals a huge amount of HP, and Cresselia can provide support for your Mamoswine with paralysis or Reflect, as you choose. ScarfTran replaces Genesect as cleaner, is very good at doing so in sun, and can also surprise those pesky Dugtrios that try to outspeed and OHKO with Earthquake (Sash is hopefully broken by hazards or on the switch).

Cresselia

Cresselia @ Leftovers | Levitate
Bold | 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
- Reflect
- Ice Beam
- Psyshock / Psychic / Thunder Wave
- Moonlight

Heatran

Heatran @ Choice Scarf | Flash Fire
Timid | 242 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
- Flamethrower
- Overheat / HP Grass (discouraged, but if you can't really play without...)
- Dragon Pulse
- Earth Power

Hope my rate was useful somewhat. Good luck.

 

[relaunched]

Thanks a lot for the input, ganj4lF. I will try these suggestions out and see how they work.

 

[undisputed]

Hey!

As solid a Sun team as there is these days. I don't think your Fighting weakness is as bad as ganj4lF makes it out to be. Basically every sun team is weak to a lot of moves, but it focuses on KOing the other team before they can attack.

Biggest suggestion I have for you is changing your Heatran a little. In my opinion, it'd be way better if it were the Magma Storm trap set. It will allow you to beat Politoed and Tyranitar much more easily. Basically Magma Storm when you expect Politoed to come in and try to counter you. Magma Storm traps it, you use Sunny Day, and then Solar Beam to finish it off. Essentially the same deal with Tyranitar. Magma Storm is ridiculously powerful in the Sun, so aside from accuracy, you've got everything to gain by switching sets.

Definitely use Recover on Starmie over Psyshock. Psyshock is pretty useless for your team in my opinion. Recover will allow you to have a much longer presence in the match, and since Stealth Rock ruins Sun teams, you need Starmie around.

Finally, for your consideration, think about Dugtrio instead of Mamoswine if Pokemon like Terrakion become too much of an issue. Heatran and Dugtrio are a great trapping pair, and they will likely give you the upper hand weather-wise. Dugtrio doesn't have the same bulk that Mamoswine does, but it's pretty good at beating otherwise annoying Pokemon (like a Terrakion that figures out Starmie can't actually kill it. Most importantly, Dugtrio still provides Stealth Rock, albeit in a slightly limited capacity.

Good luck!