Team Devil's Dance

[Rogan]

This is my first RMT, I had PMed a few raters for help beforehand and there have been changes to my team. One of the raters I asked suggested that I post my team so here goes nothing. (It would appear that I cannot post pictures, highly frustrating)

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This team is supposed to be very offensive, but not to the point of hyper offense. I really like to explode and refuse to use legends (cuz they're overused and boring). I'm floating around on pokemon LAB and shoddy where this team has been doing surprisingly well. Hugely defensive pokemon are a huge headache but i'm not sure if thats just me being unsure of how to play my team or what.


Lead:
Metagross:
Adamant @ Occa Berry
252HP/252Atk/4Spe
Bullet punch
Stealth Rock
Earthquake
Explosion


Lead metagross has been working wonders for me. It almost always gets up stealth rocks and if it doesn't another poke comes down with it thanks to explosion. If the opposing lead is something like azelf or areo who I think will taunt me I bullet punch instead of rocking. People keep trying to switch heatran or infernape into meta, Occa lets me survive its attack and earthquake kills offensive versions of heatran and all apes. Bulky heatran are setup fodder for nite, starmie kills them nicely as well. The only lead I need to switch out for is machamp who poses a huge threat to my team. I had lum berry and could beat machamp that way with explosion but meta didn't do much else when it had lum.



Spin blocker/ trickery/ Special sweeper
Rotom-H:
Timid @ choice scarf
4SpD/252Spe/252SpA
Thunderbolt
Shadow Ball
OverHeat
Trick


Surprised me with how effective it is. Rotom is still a nice spin blocker and choice scarfed Tbolts are fun to sling around, trick still stops things like swampert. It deals with other ghosts nicely thanks to scarf and handles machamp as well as gengar did, but without losing a member. No longer do I have to worry about a speed tie with starmie vs starmie, unless rotom has been weakened already. Its been working nicely for me.



Primary Sweeper:
Dragonite:
Adamant @ leftovers
252Hp/52Atk/204Spe
Dragon Claw
Aqua Tail
Dragon Dance
Roost


My favorite since gen one. I've never built a team without nite and I'm not starting now. Bulky DD set makes it stupidly easy to set up multiple dragon dances, although I stop dancing if I get three (is more than two necessary?). For some reason people won't switch out when they see nite. They just keep attacking, one of my favorite places to switch him in is when scarf Ttart pursuits something. Hes swept entire teams and thanks to his huge bulk can set up in a lot of pokes. Aqua tail over earthquake is because of how predictable earthquake is. Plus I hate being walled by skarm or zong if magnezone is dead. Aqua tail has also allowed him to kill things like hippo and gliscor who switch in expecting a quake and are promptly Oked. A safe attack and does more than acceptable damage to steels. I tried the offensive version but eventually stuck with bulky nite.


Steel killer/ Exploder #3
Magnezone:
Navie @ leftovers
40Atk/252SpA/216Spe
Thunderbolt
Explosion
HP Fire
Substitute


Magnezone has a simple job. Switch into steels and kill them. After switching in rotom for gengar I changed magnezone back to the leftovers set. I read that having two scarfer on a team was frowned upon and all the switching could make me vulnerable to entry hazards. Sub is fun allowing me to scout out something or get free damage. I've been debating thunderwave since my two sweepers aren't the fastest pokes before they set up and HP fire really only kills a few things. This is my counter to scizor. Zone tends to get at least one kill a game simply because of how popular scizor is.


Physical sweeper #2
Tyranitar
Jolly @ Lum Berry
252Spe/252Atk/4Hp
Dragon Dance
Crunch
Stone Edge
Earthquake


Ttar was added because I was having issues with rotom and zapdos. I replaced specs kingdra with it. After switching magnezone to my scarfer Ttar became a second dancer. If for some reason nite can't set up Ttar's might be able to. Ttar, Nite and zone are really my offensive core although they rely on starmie to weaken things like swampert and cune. Nite doesn't mind the sandstorm thanks to leftovers. Sandstorm plus rocks can help wear down my opponents team and my steel types don't mind it either.


Cleaner/Special Sweeper #2/spinner
Starmie:
Timid @ Life orb
4Hp/252Spe/252SpA
Rapid Spin
Hydro Pump
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam


Life orb starmie. I was running scarf but it wasn't able to spin reliably. I really hate things like spikes since only two of my members have levitate or fly. SR I don't mind so much. Starmie's job is to, simply put, raise hell. She does it very well. After nite or Ttar has gone on a rampage she comes in and finishes the job. Or if the opportunity presents itself she'll sweep the opposing team. Hydro pump was picked for power while thunderbolt and ice beam are for coverage. Zap waters and freeze celebi... or dragons I guess. Haven't had much trouble with them. I really only see flygon, who is admittedly a pest.

Noticeable threats:
Swampert: This thing was the reason I added enegry ball to gengar. It could kill or phazer either of my dancers. If gengar is dead or starmie misses with hydro pump I usually have to explode on it.
Hippowdon: No matter what I hit this thing with it won't die. If nite has a few dances it can 2HKO it with aqua tail but thats about it.
Calm mind Jirachi: This is where something like sleep would come in handy. If Ttar and meta are dead it kills me. Hates being tricked
Offensive Calm mind Cune: Same as Jirachi. I have no answer to this thing. I have to explode. OHKOs most of my team. Also hates being tricked

Replaced members:

Spin blocker/ Exploder #2/ Special sweeper
Gengar:
Hasty @ life orb
40Atk/252Spe/216SpA
Explosion
Shadow Ball
Energy Ball
Focus Blast

 

[sharkz]

Nice team, not a lot of problems. I do have a few suggestions though

You seem to be rather weak to water types in general, be it offensive or defensive. DD Gyarados in particular poses a huge threat to you, being able to set up on Magnezone locked in to the wrong attack, and to some extent even Dragonite to some extent thanks to Intimidate. It can then proceed to outspeed and OHKO your entire team, since Magnezone is also outsped at +1. Lead Machamp, as well as DD Chesto Rest Kingdra and most variants of Dragonite also give you a fair bit of trouble.

To remedy these problems, I recommend the following changes:

I recommend changing your Magnezone to Choice Scarf Rotom-W makes for an excellent revenge killer to several of these threats, while still managing to deal with most of the threats that Magnezone previously dealt with.

Rotom-W @ Choice Scarf
Timid Nature(+spe, -atk)
4 hp, 252 spatk, 252 spe

Thunderbolt
Hydro Pump
Shadow Ball
Trick

Now, Gengar and Rotom-W are rather redundant together, so I recommend replacing Gengar with Mixpert to help patch up some slight issues your team has with DD Chesto Rest Kingdra and Dragonite.

Swampert @ Leftovers
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -spe)
240 HP, 216 Def, 52 spdef

Earthquake
Ice Beam
Stealth Rock
Roar

If you do choose to take my suggestion of Swampert, you would have an SRer in Swampert already, so by changing Metagross to the Attacking Lead Metagross set on site can help you deal with a wider range of leads.

Metagross @ Lum Berry
Adamant Nature (+atk, -spatk)
236 HP, 248 atk, 20 Def, 4 spe

Meteor Mash
Earthquake
Bullet Punch
Explosion

Lum Berry is chosen over Occa, since Swampert can deal with Heatran and Infernape leads relatively well already, and as said before, Lead Machamp is quite troublesome for you to face.

GL

 

[Rogan]

Thanks, I'll try these. I'm kinda shaky on getting rid of magnezone since its my only reliable steel killer.

 

[Aerrow]

Nice team.

Threats

• LO Gengar
• Lucario, Machamp
• Scizor
• LO Starmie
• Offensive Suicune
• Slight Empoleon Weakness

There's no doubt that you have a great team on your hands, Rogan, although I think that all of the threats I have mentioned give your team slight problems at the least, although the ones like Machamp and Scizor can easily wreak havoc among your team's ranks. The LO threats I mentioned can easily take down your entire team, worrying only about Magnazone, which also, can't switch into any of commonly used moves of the said Life Orb threats. Suicune falls into a similar vein although it is a bit esier to revenge kill. As you already know, Machamp along with Lucario can present serious problems to your team as simple their fighting type attacks will be able to plow through almost every Pokemon you possess, although they can be handled with a small amount of prediction allowing you to bring Starmie in which can deal a huge load of damage to Lucario and Machamp. Even with Magnazone on your team, you still have a large Scizor weakness, specifically the SD variant. Lastly, it seems as if you have a slight Empoleon weakness for obvious reasons concerning its commonly used moves.

Solutions

• Choice Scarf Rotom-H

[box]

Rotom-h @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd/252 SpAtk/4 SpDef
Timid nature (+Spd,-Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Overheat
- Thunderbolt
- Trick[/box]
Luckily a whole bunch of these threats can easily be dealt with a couple of changes to your team, the first being removing your current Gengar variant and replacing it with a Choice Scarf Rotom-h. Rotom-h can easily deal with all of the aforementioned threats, courtesy of its key resistances and its great move coverage allowing it to KO many of the Pokemon I mentioned including Starmie, Gengar, and Scizor among others. Also, although Rotom-h may not be able to freely change its attacks like Gengar, I honestly think that the additional support will out-weigh the ability to switch attacks. Other than that, there's not much left to suggest; you may find it beneficial to try out Earthquake on Dragonite and a Babiri Berry along with Fire Punch on Tyranitar, but that's about all I have to offer. I hope this helped, and good luck!

 

[Rogan]

Thanks for your help guys, I tried all your suggestions and the team has been updated. Still waffling over lead attacking meta but I'll decide soon enough.

 

[aVocado]

Ironically this team is threatened by opposite Dragon Dancers.

Tyranitar can OHKO all the members on your team with SE attacks, same goes to Gyarados who kinda has the same coverage, but it is less threatening because you can always revenge-kill it with your own scarf Rotom-H. Using Rotom-W with Hydro Pump > Overheat will let you revenge-kill Dragon Dance Tyranitar even if it's at 60%+ health, something Thunderbolt won't do. (39.4% - 46.4%)

Rotom-W @ Choice Scarf
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252
Timid
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball
- Trick

Scizor won't be so threatening because it doesn't like eating Thunderbolts nor Hydro Pumps anyway (Thunderbolt:46.6% - 55.4% to 248 HP Scizor), and Tyranitar IMO is a bigger threat.

I also highly suggest you use an offensive Dragon Dance Dragonite, since this team is offensive and doesn't really need any bulky sweepers. Plus you already have a spinner, making Life Orb a better item on Dragonite.

Dragonite @ Life Orb
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Outrage [Outrage is a must on this set]
- ExtremeSpeed / Fire Punch [depends on what you'd like, ES will leave you open to skarm+zong, but Fire Punch does a nice chunk on those.]