Playing with Trick Room + Rampardos

[Pocket]

Revised Team on Post #14

I've been trying to make a Rampardos team for awhile now. I found out that with LO and Ice Beam, not even its usual Ground counters can stop it. The first attempt I tried using Rock Polish and sweep with Head Smash, EQ, and Ice Beam, but I didn't realize about the 50% recoil, which pretty much screws its sweepage. I revisited this team yesterday and reconstructed it, with more support that'll hopefully make Rampardos more formidable. Support that I basically kept in mind were Wish, Trick Room, and always Stealth Rock.

Porygon2 @ Leftovers
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP/128 Def/92 SAtk/36 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Trick Room
- Ice Beam
- Recover

Trick Room #1. More Importantly, it's here for its awesome Gyarados / Heatran / Dugtrio coverage. It provides a relatively easy switch-in for Steels and Tyranitar, which isn't all that helpful, unfortunately...

Salamence (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 224 HP/208 Def/76 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Fire Blast
- Roar
- Roost
- Dragon Claw

I had an inferior spread for Salamence until I saw Justinawe's DDmence. So g2 say thanks for sharing your love, Justin! I don't like the "bulky" spread that smogon dex provided, because it was slower than SD Lucario, so I gave it a lot more Speed. Formerly I had Impish and dumped most of the EVs into Def, but Justin's spread lets Salamence take Special hits better thanks to the much needed HP boost.

I thought of making this BulkyMence one of the Wishers, but I thought that the accumulation of residual damage from Roar may be a lot better ... just like Suispikes worked in advance and Roar Zapdos work now. However, unlike Zapdos and Advance Suicune, the counters for Salamence is a bit more hazy, making predicting switch-ins relatively difficult. I may think of going fully special with Draco Meteor > Dragon Claw to at least hit one side hard and be able to predict more easily; or just scrap Roar for Wish / Toxic.

Vaporeon (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 192 HP/252 Def/52 SAtk/12 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Ice Beam
- Protect
- Surf
- Wish

Wisher; takes fire and water hits; and provides solid special offense for ground and steel.

Dusan (Dusknoir) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/44 Atk/76 Def/136 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Will-o-wisp
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Shadow Punch

I like this set, and his improved endurance is a welcoming change from my expert belt dusknoir x_x. I initially put this guy in for Heracross coverage, but that seems unnecessary with BulkyMence and Bronzong. It provides me with much needed special coverage, however, since he's pretty much the only one who can really take special hits. The Brn support is great, too, against some unaware physical sweepers. 247 Atk Shadow Punch hits just as hard as 200 Atk Shadow Ball of Adv Dusclops; totally irrelevant, but I just thought it was a good benchmark to aim for =P

Ram (Rampardos) (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 200 HP/144 Atk/164 SAtk
Lonely nature (+Atk, -Def)
- Earthquake
- Head Smash
- Ice Beam
- Stone Edge

My second attempt with Rampardos. With LO, Ice Beam should OHKO Yache-less (lol) Garchomp and Gliscor and 2HKO Hippowdon and Tangrowth. Even without running max Atk with LO, Rampardos' naturally high Atk, and Head Smash's insane power it packs physical punch. Head Smash as it's main offense sucks, so I replaced Rock Polish for Stone-Edge; I still want to rely on Head Smash's awesome power, though. Both rock moves having 80% accuracy is yucky at times ... I may switch Stone-Edge for Rock Slide for reliable knock outs. Dumped all former Spd Evs into HP, but didn't see the need to change its nature to Brave, because I want Rampardos to outrun Blissey in normal circumstances.

Hotah (Bronzong) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/16 Atk/240 Def
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Gyro Ball
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion

Absorbs Draco Meteor from Specs Mence, and a great switch-in for Garchomp and Tyranitar. This is the real-deal TR Set Upper. Originally, I planned on giving it Hypnosis, but I opted for the ever useful SR instead. Even though I cannot set up Rampardos with TR + Hypnosis, I still can set up for a mid / late-game sweep with TR + Explosion, followed by LO Rampardos swift assaults. The current discussions on suicide leads have inspired this.

I only played a dozen games with this team early in the morning, so can't really tell much about it. However, Gengar is a pretty hard pokemon to get into, because Dusknoir is my only real special tank. I mean, Porygon2 can switch-into a predicted Focus Blast, but my team can't do much otherwise about Gengar.

I haven't gotten the whole "setting up TR for the sweep" strategy down, but I believe it'll work great if I get used to it. You might notice that I have Discharge on Porygon2, and the 30% paralysis effect may not be beneficial for the TR sweep. However, I can't take TR for granted, and paralysis is a great crippling condition against sweepers. I think Rampardos can benefit both from the small par support and the timely TR. If they switch into a paralyzed Pokemon in the middle of Rampardos' TR rampage, he would have to halt, but I will hopefully be able to put up TR some other time. If Discharge doesn't seem to help me out in general, I'll take it out for Tbolt.

Not having a solid answer to problematic Water and Steels, such as Milotic, Jirachi, and Metagross, may be problematic. I may also have to provide more special coverage to this team...

Yea, the team is still rough, primarily because I am abusing Trick Room for the first time. However, I think the strategy can work. Open to any suggestions =].

 

[MetaNite]

Salamance doesn't real fall into the trick room aspect of the team at all.

I'd switch it for a slower Pokemon just incase trick room is around, maybe another trick roomer? Uxie?

Also, Dusknoir is better at Physical tanking with Will-O-Wisp, so I'd make Bronzong a special tank, able to OHKO Gengar with Gyro Ball.

Not much else to say... Looks like an interesting team! Mind rating myteam?

 

[MKDSJedi]

If you want a Special Trick Room sweeper, you could try Clamperl. With a Deepseatooth it is amazingly powerful.
Clamperl@Deepseatooth
252 SpAtk / 252 HP / 6 Def
Quiet nature
Surf
Ice Beam
HP Electric/Ground
Fillar (Toxic, Protect, Waterfall, Hyper Beam)

Otherwise, what MetaNite said.

 

[Age of Kings]

^Clamperl is also way too fragile....

Hey, I led with P2 too! But honestly, Thunderbolt > Discharge because you never know when it'll need the extra damage. Anyways, in my experience, Rampardos is terrible for a Trick Room team. Outside of Trick Room, it will die easily, and there you have a wasted team slot that cannot hold its own otherwise. I kept losing when I ran it (although I ran CB instead of LO, but I also ran a purely physical set with the crude 252 HP/252 Att) because even if you predict and make a good switch-in, the opponent can still murder it with priority moves (I don't know much about OU, but I know Lucario and Metagross run them?) and a mere touch of a feather if whatever it's attacking survives. Along with double recoil, Rampardos dying early before it completes its sweep is a reality. And my testplaying was in BL, where there is no Bronzong, etc, so most players made do with bulky waters/Regis/Torterra that are faster in TR.

If you're still adamant about using it and want to prove me wrong, by all means use it. I just want to dissuade people from using really, really fragile things that do almost nothing outside the TR.

(I replaced Rampardos with Marowak afterwards, and had very happy results. If the recoil is just too much for you, I would explore trying it out.)

 

[MKDSJedi]

I tried Magnezone on a TR team once, it's less fragile but suffers from immense ground weakness. You could try that too possibly?

Magnezone @ Choice Specs / Life Orb / Expert Belt
Quiet
252 SpAtk 128HP 128Atk (All-Out Attacker EVs with Speed EVs split between Attack and HP - you could put 84 into SpDef to help stop SpecsMence)
Thunderbolt
HP Ice
Flash Cannon
Explosion

Bring it in on Skarmory, Bronzong, Starmie, etc. It is quite effective with base 130 SpAtk. Also, Salamence teams up well with its weaknesses (I seem to remember that being mentioned somewhere) so that would be a boost for the team.
I would keep Salamence, backup for after TR goes down is never a bad thing. Possibly put Zone/Clamperl/other over Bronzong?

 

[Pocket]

yes, I definitely need an electric Pokemon to hurt Waters and Steel better. I was thinking of Magnezone, too. Another option is Electivire, which has EQ for Steels. But Magnezone kills Steel, and an additional Steel / low Speed Pokemon is great. It's also the easiest pokemon to add into my team. As ipl mentioned, possibly over Bronzong (I'll be losing Garchomp counter / SR + TR support) or Dusknoir (special wall / sleep talk).

Zapdos > Salamence would provide me a good solution for Milotic, Jirachi, Gengar, and somewhat Metagross, but then SDLuke would be much harder to deal with. I suppose I can make Zapdos more Defense-oriented with T-Wave and Bronzong more special-oriented to absorb hits from Gengar.

Also, ipl, I felt the same way at first - no real sweepers other than Rampardos. However, Rampardos needs all the support that it needs, as I've realized when I first had a test run with it. But then again, all it really needs is TR / par support; I thought Wish support would provide the endurance it horribly lacks, but it's much too frail to switch in to receive Wish. Perhaps what I really need is a one-package support Pokemon like Jirachi, with Screens and Wish. Clefable, and Gardevoir can do this, too. Or Sandstorm to atleast boost its Sp Def.

Nice; I will be tweaking a good deal with this team. Thanks for all the ideas thus far, guys =]

 

[monkymeet]

I personally think that both Head Smash and Stone Edge is completely redundant. You could go with Crunch for ghosts (though Gengar and Azelf are OHKO'd easily with EQ) and psychics, which is always helpful... or maybe even Zen Headbutt for fighting types... Hammer Arm for normal types (not as recommended). As for Ice Beam, I do believe that Stone Edge is more than enough for dragons, though I guess it's useful for Gliscor and GRass types.

But I definitely suggest something else there instead.

 

[Dexterity]

You should probably run thunderbolt over discharge. Paralysis is counterproductive with trick room.

 

[RobertM]

Don't worry too much about your guys being piss poor slow. I've used TR jirachi and it's base 100 speed well. Just set it at a negative nature and set its IV to 0. That alone can make most pokemon slower than the lightning fast pokes that rule the metagame.

Also, be sure to have a pokemon or two that can function with or without TR. I wouldn't rely on Rampardos and I personally would use Rypherior.
But this team seems to be based around him so....

I used to love my TR team before Deoxys-S made everyone pack bulky stuff.

 

[Kloud]

AWESOME team!!! not much to say here except to take salamence off especially with those speed EVs usualyl in a trick room team have -50spped EVs so ya...But I love rampardos so good job <3

 

[RobertM]

AWESOME team!!! not much to say here except to take salamence off especially with those speed EVs usualyl in a trick room team have -50spped EVs so ya...But I love rampardos so good job <3

No no no no no. A mixed sweeper with good speed is a GOOD backup plan in case you can't get TR up for some reason.

 

[pokecollector493]

I love rampardos so good job <3

Join the club! =D

 

[Pocket]

Ok, I did my tweaking, and here is the remodified team.

Porygon2 @ Leftovers
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP/128 Def/92 SAtk/36 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Trick Room
- Ice Beam
- Recover

After, I understand a bit more about this P2 spread and its defensive capabilities, I think I find it much easier to use. For instance, it has enough defense to take a SD EQ from Garchomp w/o a LO. And yea, Discharge paralysis is too confusing to handle, mine as well stick with Tbolt to actually hurt Skarmory and Water pokemon. Recent battling reflected P2 using Trick Room to good use, and it has swept for me a couple of times. A very useful pokemon that have redeemed itself!

Salamence (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 224 HP/208 Def/76 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
- Dragon Claw

Since this dragon struggled inflicting damage with Roar and mixed offense, I decided to go DD. The rising notoriety of DDmence really nudged me to add DD for the sweeping power, and it is great!

Gardevoir (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP/112 Def/80 SAtk/64 SDef
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Wish
- Psychic
- Reflect
- Light Screen

Another fun tracer to play with =]. I gave it enough speed to survive a Sucker Punch from a CBTrio and enough SpAtk for an OHKO retaliation after SR damage is taken into account. I wanted Hypnosis over Light Screen for a free switch-in opportunity for Rampardos, but it really can't Wish pass without both screens, thanks to its thinly spread EV distribution, and the screens actually turned out to be a great benefit. Sometimes this will die quickly, leaving behind a Wish or a Screen. Other times it sticks around to do some support. Psychic really hits hard, too, it's cool.

Magnezone @ Leftovers
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Magnet Rise
- Metal Sound

Max Spd to outspeed Adamant Metagross, because they are troublesome when I lost my reliable Vaporeon's Mash resists. Magnezone + DDmence work great as noted by many of you guys, and it's nice to have solid offenses that I can rest my shoulders on when Rampardos fails to do enough damage. It has been useful for not only capturing Bronzong + Skarmory, but also Jirachi's, Metagross, and other Magnezones that give me problems. Crunch and Shadow Ball resists are nice when dealing with Ttars and Gengars, and the electric offense is most welcome to deal with water pokemon.

Ram (Rampardos) (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 200 HP/144 Atk/164 SAtk
Naughty nature (+Atk, -SDef)
- Earthquake
- Head Smash
- Ice Beam
- Stone Edge

It has actually pulled off some nifty kills in the recent matches.

Hotah (Bronzong) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/16 Atk/240 Def
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Gyro Ball
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion

I thought of adding Sleep Talk > Explosion, so it could absorb Hypnosis / Sleep Powder and still function, but Gyro Ball as its only move is MEH. And it contradicts with the whole suicide set-up / clearing-the-field strategy that it was designed for.

Problems: Gengars are troublesome, because there is nothing to take the sleep, and my best special wall that provides LS is weak to Shadow Ball. Without LO, Salamence should be able to stall it out if it has to. When it comes to putting pokemon to sleep, I usually end up putting either Magnezone or Bronzong to sleep.

Metagross is the worst of the Steel types, because after an Agility, I cant kill it with my Magnezone, and other pokemon can't really take it down cost-effectively. Gardevoir can sacrifice itself to put up a Reflect that lets Salamence to take MMashes for 40%ish without LO, allowing it to EQ it back. Porygon2 also should have enough Defense to survive a hit and Trick Room. Then Magnezone or Rampardos can finish it off. Usually I would explode Bronzong on Meta and then bring in Magnezone.

My team in general can't take status well, since it needs all the health it can get to cope with some of the threats out there. ToxiSpikes stall teams wear my team down irreversibly. My only hope here would possibly to do as much damage with Rampardos after Bronzong or P2 set up Trick Room, and then have DDMence + Magnezone to take care of the rest. I would need Gardevoir and P2 to deal with certain threats such as Mamoswine.

Thanks, again, guys. It's all because of the posts here that I was able to constructively analyze and revise my team. I doubt that it's still perfect, so I'll post my latest stage for you to examine. Thanks in advance for any further improvements you bring to this team =]

 

[Sebastien Loeb]

Bronzong?
Explosion > Rest

 

[Pocket]

One thing that struck me while I was reviewing this team...

At first, the 200 HP EVs were there for Speed, just enough to outrun ScarfHera after Rock Polish. However, now that I am using Trick Room, my first instinct was to put it into HP. I am wondering if that is really the best choice. Should I simply max out its Atk EVs? But then, would Head Smash recoil really take a toll on Rampardos? Do any of you have a suggestion as to where I should split the EVs between HP and Atk? Is there something I should particularly aim for either stats?

I'm also beginning to wonder if Lonely is a bad nature for Rampardos. If it had Naughty, perhaps it can survive some of the priority moves directed at him (the only special priority is vacuum wave, which would kill Ram regardless).

EDIT: With the HP EVs it has, it can survive a HSmash and LO recoil damages when taking down a Blissey with 688 HP. Doesn't mean much, since it rendered itself useless, but it's still something. I guess what I'm trying to say is that having HP EVs can somewhat compensate for the horrible side effects of HSmash (and Rampardos has an impressive HP for such a fragile Pokemon). I wish there is an analytical way to really find the balance between HP / Atk...

 

[sonicmark]

How about getting rid of Head Smash or Stone Edge for Zen Headbutt on Rampardos then?,as you have life orb for it.

Head Smash is massive on attack and gets it's boost from life orb,but then (providing the move hits home) comes the recoil from both the move and life orb.

Stone Edge however has no recoil effect on it,and also if you've got Zen Headbutt you might be able to stand a chance against Fighting or Poison types too.
Of course it's your choice but here's something to mull over.
Kudos to the team btw :).

 

[Pocket]

Initially, I don't find Head Smash / Stone Edge redundant, because Head Smash is more of a last-resort move than anything. And no Super-Effective move hurts more than a neutral Head Smash, and even if it is resisted, with LO it pretty much hits as hard as Giga Impact. So that's my reasoning for having two stone moves.

But then I see that your reasoning of removing Head Smash is because of the nasty recoil effect, and rather hitting everything hard by blindly Head Smashing, utilizing Super-Effective moves can allow me to hit nearly as hard as HSmash without the recoil. I am beginning to appreciate monkeymeet's post now.

The only alternative over Head Smash is Hammer Arm. Crunch, even when it is Super-Effective only does slightly more than Stone Edge, so mine as well use Stone-Edge. There's the icky accuracy, but I rather have this fourth move to make a difference in power. Zen Headbutt lets me hit the occasional Machamp and the rarer Hariyama really hard, but other than that, same boat as Crunch. Hammer Arm, however, lets me hit Blissey SE without the nasty recoil. The ability to OHKO Blissey without the nasty recoil is huge. And since most people would most likely switch into their Steel or Ground Pokemon to absorb what they expect to be a Rock move, this will allow Rampardos to leave a dent nearly as bad as a resisted Head Smash (assuming Hammer Arm isn't SE on their Steel). Being able to hit a Magnet Rise Magnezone that is so common now and a safe OHKO on the bulkiest Ttar is also a huge benefit.

With Hammer Arm, pumping Ram's attack to the max is the only way to go. Even with HSmash, I may max its Atk so its EQ would have an easier time knocking out monsters. I'm still reluctant to forgo Head Smash, since it's huge damage input from that move really sets it apart from Ttar, but I would just have to test Hammer Arm out to really say anything else about it. Thanks for making me rethink, sonicmark.

 

[sonicmark]

Thanks for making me rethink, sonicmark.

No problem :),when you've got everything sorted we'll have to have a game together :).

 

[Salem1]

Just wanted to chime on and say that having a Life Orb on Rampardos is a very bad idea, especially if you're going to use Head Smash. Put a Muscle Band on it instead. It's 20% instead of 30%, but you don't faint yourself and that extra 10% might prove fairly redundant.

 

[Eclypse]

No no no no no. A mixed sweeper with good speed is a GOOD backup plan in case you can't get TR up for some reason.

Quoted For Truth.

By the way, good team. Better than any ones I've put on paper...

 

[HD]

Your better off taking off Rampardos for Rhyperior (gasp) who isn't completely useless if trickroom isn't up because of his awesome defense and HP. It doubles up as an attacker with TR and a Physical wall without. He also has a great defensive ability and has most of the same moves as Ram.

 

[Pocket]

5-day bump =p

The team is producing more consistent results, but I notice some hardships when dealing with Gengar, because I have no Pokemon to absorb the sleep, and nothing takes Shadow Ball + Focus Blasts lightly, especially with the inevitable special drop. Perhaps buffing up Bronzong's Sp Def is all the fix I need? So far thinking of Calm Zapdos w/ Sleep Talk + Roost > Magnezone as the best fix, but then I lose my Crunch resist and lots of fire power in general. Jirachi / Metagross would also be even more annoying to deal with.

Any other suggestions not necessarily related to my Gengar problem is also welcome. The more dispensible Pokemon are probably Magnezone, Gardevoir (although, it has provided me with great support and was a successful Wish Passer), and even Salamence, as long as Lucario is still kept in check. Rampardos has to stay (it's cool when its saved for late game ^0^) but I'm open to any tip on its EV, moveset, or usage.

 

[surfingpika22]

How about getting rid of rampardos for marowak? It is more bulky (110 def and 80 sp.def) and has a higher attack and has an accurate stab attack as a miss with head smash means bye bye for rampardos.
I was thinking :
Marowak @Thick club
Evs: 252 Atk/ 252 HP/ 6 Def
Nature:Brave
Ability: Rock head
-Earthquake/bonemerang
-Fire punch
-Stone edge
-Double-edge
Earthquake for STAB, Fire punch for skarm and zong, Stone edge is good with earthquake and double edge has high BP and takes advantage of it's ability

 

[Pocket]

With Life Orb, Rampardos actually has a higher attack than Thick Club Marowak. I said that I wouldn't replace Rampardos anyways

I'm thinking of adding Nasty Plot Slowking > Magnezone and Light Screen / Reflect + Wish Jirachi > Gardevoir. That will improve my chances against Infernape, Lucario, Gengar, Metagross, and Tyranitar I think. Salamence would also be mixed, since Jirachi and Bronzong are already walled by Steels. I still want to retain its bulkiness, however, and outrunning Lucario would still be ideal. Does this sound any better?