Singing in the Rain

[aries54143]

so i want to start off by saying, i love my rain team :) however sometimes it falls short, mostly to dual wall teams or sandstorm teams, so i came here to look for some advice! :)

Lead:

Bronzong @ Damp Rock
Ability: Levitate
Evs: 252 HP/152 Atk/96 Def/8 SpD (also set ivs for Spe to 0)
Nature: Careful(+SpD,-SpA)
-Rain Dance
-Stealth Rock
-Gyro Ball
-Explosion

A pretty solid lead, only real trouble i have with other leads is taunting, and Infernape leads, either way i have other rain dancers, my sweepers just have to make up a little ground, usually not a huge deal. I have tried Azelf and a few others as leads, and i dont like any of them as much as Bronzong, having enough bulk to lay down rocks AND set up rain 90% of the time without dying, i even usually get off an explosion which if it doesnt kill a poke, usually puts a huge bend in them xD I thought of switching his ability from levitate to heatproof because most ppl expect levitate and will avoid ground attacks on him anyways, but it seems every time i do i get set up against a bunch of ttar leads that use equake on me... 0 speed ivs obviously to up the damage done by gyro ball if i decide to use that, he rarely goes first during a turn anyway. Any tips for a better lead let me know!

Sweepers:

Kingdra @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
Evs: 4 HP/252 Spe/252 SpA
Nature: Modest(+SpA,-Atk)
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-HP Electric
-Dragon Pulse

Kingdra is a BEAST!!! fantastic type coverage, amazing speed and special attack, not many ppl can deal with Kingdra while its raining, nothing really to change here, 100% happy with this guy! Surf and dragon pulse are obvious selections, STAB moves with 100 accuracy, i went with HP electric to cover water types, which can be a deadly counter considering they can take advange of my greatest advantage xD, and ice beam to deal with grass types, i used to use signal beam but surf usually hits anything that is weak to bug harder than signal beam does anyway. i have been told to make Kingdra a mixed attacker, which i will try, though i doubt i will like him as much as this one, but what do i know right?? xD

Kabutops @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
Evs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spe
Nature: Adament(+Atk,-SpA)
-Swords Dance
-Aqua Jet
-Waterfall
-Stone Edge

Not as happy with Kabutops as i am with Kingdra, he is very good dont get me wrong, but the accuracy of stone edge makes him unreliable when i am forced to use it, however, if i can get a swords dance off, waterfall and aqua jet are an almost unstoppable duo, waterfall to take out bulkier foes, aqua jet to take out pokes that might have priority moves. I need a physical attacker on the team, but not really sure if Kabutops is the best one out there. On top of what he already said, he has a 4x weakness to grass, which can be a huge problem for me... Any tips for this guy is appreciated :)

Ludicolo @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
Evs: 60 HP/ 196 Atk/ 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly(+ Spe,-SpA)
-Rain Dance
-Seed Bomb
-Waterfall
-Ice Punch

Ludicolo is a very versatile pokemon, i have made about 30 different variations of him and ended up with this guy xD I started using him for his resistance to grass, and he really helped a LOT! Blissey is always a problem for me so i turned him into a physical attacker, plus added rain dance so he can support the other sweepers as well, i maxed his speed over his attack because if Kingdra/Kabutops died, i am gunna need a little more speed than brawn. 60 hp just to add a little bulk so he can switch in if i know rain ended or i know its going to end. I tried swapping rain dance for swords dance and changing Kabutops to my rain replenisher/sweeper, but Ludicolo is was better at replenishing the rain. Any tips welcome for this guy as well.

Support:

Rotom-W @ Damp Rock
Ability: Levitate
Evs: 252 Spe/252 SpA/6 SpD
Nature: Timid(+Spe,-Atk)
-Rain Dance
-Hydro Pump
-Thunder
-Shadow Ball

I used damp rock on him in case i cant use rain dance with Bronzong. Otherwise just have him on the team for thunder basically, although shadow ball does come in handy a lot. Otherwise just a rain replenisher that fires off thunders until it dies, which usually doesnt take long. Could replace him with a lot of things, but it does make me feel a little better that i have an attacker that has a STAB ghost move for any Gengar that might show up. Let me know what you think of him.

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
Evs: 248 HP/252 Atk/8 SpD
Nature: Adament(+Atk,-SpA)
-Bullet Punch
-Pursuit
-Superpower
-U-Turn

Scizor is a tank! His bulk along with his bullet punch, a super powerful priority attack, he is a serious threat if you dont have a Heatran. Rain dampens his greatest weakness, which is a huge help, u-turn for scouting, pursuit to send him out into a Blissey and hopefully kill her before she runs away, and superpower for a powerful type coverage move. Choice Band to further increase his attack, however only allowing for one move, 90% of the time im going to use bullet punch anyway so it doesnt matter much.

So like i said, i love this team, its speed/power in the rain is overwhelming to most teams! Thanks in advance for any comments, tips, or anything else anyone has to say :)​

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

Finally, a good team! Jesus, takes forever to run across good teams nowadays.

Anyway, most common leads nowadays (either those with Taunt or if they're Heatran) will give Bronzong trouble, so it's not really a good lead. Most Rain Dance teams use Azelf in the lead spot, although I have also seen Jolteon used as a Rain Dance lead. Anyway, I think you'll really find Rain Dance Azelf better than Bronzong. Something like this should work well:

Azelf @ Damp Rock
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Rain Dance
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion

I'm not sure about the EVs or the moveset itself, but that's what I managed to pull out of my ass. You can set up Rain Dance, use Taunt to prevent other Taunts, set up SR, and use Explosion when you don't need Azelf anymore, so that's basically how it works out (in theory at least). Aerodactyl can out-Taunt it, but Aerodactyl is not common anymore.

Other than that, there's not much else to say. You're using the three best Rain Dance sweepers, plus Scizor who also benefits from having its Fire weakness reduced. However, I do have just a few nitpicks. I would recommend running Waterfall over Ice Beam on Kingdra, and changing the EV spread to 208 Atk / 136 SpA / 164 Spe, with a Rash nature. Ice Beam won't hit much that Surf/Dragon Pulse can't, and Waterfall prevents Blissey from just coming on in and walling you all day. As for Scizor, I'd recommend simply changing its EV spread to 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe. This gives Scizor more opportunities to switch into Stealth Rock, as running max HP makes Scizor's HP divisible by 8.

Hope this helped. Have fun!

Also, just a quick suggestion, you may wanna expand the descriptions of Kingdra and Scizor. They seem a bit short.

 

[aries54143]

honestly i kept the description for kingdra short cuz i didnt plan on changing him at all, but sure i will expand on him, and as for scizor, 1 i figured most ppl see this scizor before so it didnt need much explaining, and 2 after doing the other 5 pokes i was a little lazy xD

 

[aries54143]

so i tried out Azelf, so far LOVING IT!!!!! tried a mixed Kingdra, not so much... ima stick with my SpA Kingdra. What do you think about replacing my Rotom-W with the Bronzong with the same set as listed?? or what changes would you make to Bronzong to make him a midgame replenisher instead of a lead dancer??

 

[michael]

Uh, Ludicolo absolutely needs max Attack, an Adamant nature and Swords Dance to make a physical set viable. It otherwise seriously lacks power with relatively weak attacks off base 70 Attack. If you must run Rain Dance on it, use a specially inclined set with Energy Ball, Hydro Pump and Ice Beam.

If you don't use Rain Dance on Ludicolo, you could use a LO, Damp Rock or Iron Plate Scizor with Rain Dance over either Pursuit or Superpower to keep another rain starter available.

Other than that, a great team (even for a rain team :P)

 

[aries54143]

good call on the rain dance over superpower, and as tempting as it is to put a life orb on him i am very leery about it... i like the power and the fact that i dont lose hp with choice band, although being able to use more than one move per send out would be nice... i will give it a try and see how i like it, i have already been corrected about what i do and dont like xD and about ludi, ya i might sacrifice some speed to keep the bulk, with swift swim he should still outspeed most stuff anyways :)

 

[aries54143]

oh and for your 'even for a rain team' comment, idk why everyone hates them!! xD honestly kabutops is one of my favorite pokes from 1st gen, always has been since i was a little kid, and kingdra was one of my favs from 2nd gen, thats the reason i made this team, i had no idea at the time that it was one of the best 4th gen teams out there xD

 

[michael]

Hahaha, I don't actually hate rain teams, it's more of an running joke in 4th gen that only newbies use rain teams.

Maybe Iron Plate could be a useful item on Scizor, boosting its Bullet Punch (which is its greatest asset) while allowing it to bluff a Band, which lets it get some surprise KOs.

Ludicolo should definitely use a moveset with special attacks unless it's a pure Swords Dance variant - it's just too weak with base 70 Attack.