ORAS UU UU Fighting Spam

[Mrbassman]

I'm somewhat of a casual player, I got into competitive play a few months ago, and I'm just looking to see how well a team I made stacks up. I've had some good experiences with it so far, and have gotten to the mid-1200s on the ladder. This is also my first RMT, so I apologize in advance for any errors in format on my part. Without further ado:

Heracross @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Facade
- Swords Dance

I wanted this team based around SD Guts Toxic Orb Heracross, which functions excellently as a cleaner, and even more excellently now that Mega Pidgeot is gone. With Guts, this mon is already a monster, but on top of that at +2 it can get at least a 2hko on basically the entire tier. I made it Jolly so that lack of speed doesn't hinder its ability to clean (looking at you, Mamoswine), and gave it Facade over Megahorn to reliably hit Fairy and Poison types.

Mienshao @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Reckless
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- High Jump Kick
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge

I love Scarf Mienshao because of how frequently it can come in and get a kill. It's great at revenge killing, and frequently is an alternate win condition to Heracross. It lures in many of the same checks as Hera, giving it an excellent ability to wallbreak, or Hera can wallbreak for it, depending on how things are going. This is basically the standard Scarf Shao set, not too much more to say about it.

Whimsicott @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
- Encore
- Stun Spore
- Moonblast
- U-turn

I thought Whimsicott would be a good addition to the Hera/Shao core as it can deal with set-up sweepers, and can paralyze anything that would outrun Heracross, making its job of sweeping easier. In particular, I didn't want stuff like Belly Drum Slurpuff, DD Gatr, and Shell Smash Cloyster to be able to set up and outspeed Hera. I decided on Moonblast so this could also function as a Dragon counter, and U-turn over Giga Drain so I can get chip damage and maintain momentum after an Encore.

Rotom-Heat @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 124 Def / 136 Spe
Bold Nature
- Overheat
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

So far the team had a serious bird weakness, and physically defensive Rotom-Heat is was my balm of choice. Crobat's Brave Bird, probably the biggest thing this team has to fear so far, is a dubious 4hko, and Volt Switch does a ton of damage. In addition, it also functions as a competent special attacker, capable of getting off decent damage on physical walls to make things easier for Hera/Shao. I obviously chose Will-O-Wisp over Thunder Wave, since I already have Prankster Stun Spore on Whimsicott.

Empoleon @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 240 HP / 252 SpD / 16 Spe
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Stealth Rock
- Defog
- Roar

Empoleon was my next choice, as I wanted Stealth Rock and hazard control. It also has pretty nice defensive synergy with Rotom-H, and its typing and decent defense stat mean it could take a Banded Brave Bird from Crobat and live to fire off a Scald. Stealth Rock helps Hera/Shao to win, while Defog stops pesky rocks from slowing my roll.

Umbreon @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Baton Pass
- Foul Play

Finally there's Umbreon, which provides nice wish-pass support so that my team doesn't lose too quickly to being worn down. Particularly, it means that if I have to bring out Hera early to deal with something, I can wish pass later to enable a later game sweep. I debated between Heal Bell and Baton Pass, and settled on the latter because I wanted Heracross to be poisoned anyway, so status was less of an issue anyway.

All comments are welcome, I'm eager to hear what you think.

Update:
I've been playing with some of the recommended changes, and having a fair amount of success. Here are some replays using Christo's recommendations. Pardon my sometimes horrible play decisions. More replays using the other recommended changes will be coming. I've made it into the 1300s, and I hope to keep climbing.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-254153024
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-255472912
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-255481961

And with Shiba's suggestions:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-255792609
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-256895856
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-256903180

 

[Christo]

Hello Mrbassman, cool team and welcome to smogon! Fighting spam is a very fun and effective play style in UU. My concern with this team, however, is how your only offense presence is in both of your fighting types. I do like the core you have with Empoleon and Whimsicott, it is one of my favorites in UU. I feel like Empoleon and Umbreon have repetitive roles and should be changed. Rotom-H being your fire resist concerns me as well since it is weak to Stealth Rock and can't do anything to a fire type anyway other than Volt Switch out on it. I can see Aerodactyl as well as Toxicroak giving this team big problems.

My first suggestion is to go for Sub Calm Mind Chandelure > over Rotom-H. Chandelure has Flash Fire as well as an offensive presence on the special side that your team really needed. I think Calm Mind is your best bet so you can match up better versus stall and bulkier teams. SD Heracross is your only wall breaker and it gets worn down very quickly with Toxic Orb. This also can help with your Toxicroak weakness since you can Substitute on predicted Sucker Punches. Here is your set:

Chandelure @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature / Modest Nature
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Flamethrower / Fire Blast
- Shadow Ball

A lot of people believe having a lot of HP investment is good on this set so Florges' Moonblast cannot break your sub, although you need a presence on the special side so maximum investment seems like your best bet. And Subbing on a Florges isn't even needed anyway since you can Calm Mind first and Substitute after you set up Calm Mind.

My next suggestion is to go for Thunder Wave Reuniclus > Umbreon. Your team was really weak to faster physical threats, namely Aerodactyl. Reuniclus can switch into any hit Aerodactyl uses and can cripple it with Thunder-wave. Reuniclus also helps with Toxicroak as well and having great synergy with Chandelure and Heracross since both thrive off Paralyzed pokemon. Here is your set:

Reuniclus @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Thunder Wave
- Recover

Good luck with your team!

 

[rs]

Hey man, cool looking team you have here. First thing I noticed about it was that it's kind of weak to Fighting Spam itself, a Heracross can come on and spam both of it's STAB's without worrying about anything. I'd like to recommend a couple of things to help this team out.

• So first off, I'd like to recommend Doublade > Rotom-H. This gives you a nice check to a lot of physical attackers and can also pick off a lot of set up sweepers with Gyro Ball. It also gives you a nice check to Mega Aero and Fighting Spam (bar knock off, so they'd have to predict), which this team was relatively weak to to begin with. I'd like to recommend a set something like this
  
  
  
  Doublade @ Eviolite
  Ability: No Guard
  EVs: 252 HP / 224 Atk / 32 Def
  Brave Nature
  IVs: 0 Spe
  - Shadow Sneak
  - Sacred Sword
  - Gyro Ball
  - Swords Dance
  
  
• Next I'd like to recommend Special Salamence > Umbreon. Although the WishPass is nice, this team really needs a Special Attacking threat. Special Mence helps give you a kind of gimmick and hit physical walls very hard on switch-in. It also gives you a nice check to some physical attackers with the use of Intimidate, which is always nice. This is the set I'd recommend that you use.
  
  
  
  Salamence (M) @ Leftovers/Life Orb
  Ability: Intimidate
  EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
  Timid Nature
  IVs: 0 Atk
  - Draco Meteor
  - Fire Blast
  - Hydro Pump
  - Roost
  
  

But anyway, this is still a very solid team and I hope you consider my recommendations, they would really help out. Good luck with your team!

 

[teal6]

So looking at the team, I notice that 4 out of 6 mons are VoltTurn/Passers. However, one weird thing is that you do not have a setup sweeper. Typically, a team that emphasizes VoltTurning has the one key mon that needs just a single free turn later in the game to finish it all off. In UU this can be something like Slurpuff, Salamence, Haxorus or Feraligatr. Any of these mons can take a that one turn and turn a fairly even game into a win. Other mons that benefit from such teams are wallbreakers that don't particularly want to take a hit before, well, breaking. You do have one of these in Heracross, which is good!

With this in mind, Christo's two suggestions are really top class. Both Chandelure and Reuniclus can use a single turn to really turn a battle on its head, while providing you key defensive resists that ease prediction and aggressive play on your end. Additionally, Shiba's two changes make a lot of sense from a defensive standpoint, giving you a more balanced overall team with a more general level of offense that will serve you well in ladder play where you will have to face all styles of opposing teams. Both address the fighting weakness of the team admirably, which was of course the first thing I noticed on my own (and I tend to build with fighting weaknesses too, oops), however the first mon that sprung to my mind was Toxicroak, who can legitimately 6-0 your original squad (mentioned already by Christo).

With this in mind, I tried to find an alternative to the two suggestions above to give you another option while still addressing Toxicroak and opposing fighting spam in general from an offensive perspective.

I thought you could try a bit of a rarer mon in UU, Tornadus, over Rotom-H

Tornadus @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Prankster / Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bulk Up
- Acrobatics
- Rest
- Superpower / Knock Off

After a bulk up, Tornadus is able to hit pretty high attack levels. Its great speed tier allows it to deal with a lot of the meta by outspeeding, while moderate bulk allows it to usually get a hit off and rest off damage. You can use Defiant as well, as you do not necessarily need a Prankster Rest or Bulk Up could be nice. Defiant will allow you to dissuade Defogs, which are important for a VoltTurning team as residual damage is frustrating to deal with when facing a team that presents a new mon in front of you every turn.

This, however, doesn't sold the problem with MAero, who continues to destroy the rest of the team. For this, I think you definitely need to switch Empoleon to a defensive variant, and would be defintely served by putting Reuniclus in place of Umbreon.

 

[jjoshcja]

As first teams go I cant help but feeling that this was a bit ambitious, spam teams take a pretty strong knowledge of the metagame to build and while you made a good effort it comes up short

The hard truth inc...

You seem to have built a semi standard team, slapped on 2 fighting types with no real overlap and called it fighting spam. While the composition of the team itself is alright you're kinda missing the point....

Typespam is a variation of overload offense, stacking mons with overlapping checks and counters who have no reliable recovery or are just not super common and punching through by overwhelming everything in the teams path. this is two fighting types on a balanced team. Additionally these teams tend to keep a trump in their back pocket to run teams that have overprepared for their core that can also act as part of their spam (aka slurpuff on a team with Mdoom+Chandy, or lure cloyster on birdspam)

I like fighting types, punching things is the best killing method imo, but as I said, this strat relies heavily on the checks and counters having limited recovery or distribution. Fighting spam in UU is the opposite of this, the mon's used to check and counter punchy things are both common and often come with reliable recovery. Plus with this team structure hera is not filling the sole job of breaking for scarfshao leaving it vulnerable to heavy wear and tear before it can complete its task. Scarfshao on the other hand.... overload does not enjoy running scarfs. It's very much a minimal swap foremat and when you have to lock yourself into HJK in a tier as spooky as UU to do the dew its already GG.

In short this team could efficiently reach your goal of a fighting spam UU team if you ripped out shao, empoleon, umbreon, and whimsicott and rebuilt from the ground up to force in and either remove or set up on the following.

Crobat (Bulky and offensive)
Salamence (Offensive defog, fatmence, Lum DD, LO, Choice Scarf)
Chandelure (Sub CM, sub LO and choice)
Doublade (SD)
Cresselia (Sub CM, LD Tank)
Reuniclus (CM, the rare OTR)
Jellicent (Physdef stallbreaker)
Slowking (all sets)
Whimsicott (Stun spore pivot)
Florges/Aromatisse/Granbull (fairy wow such fairy)
Scald
Mega Aerodactyle (Murder by death inc)
Slurpuff (Bellydrum)
Edit (Crap I forgot weezing and amoongus)

As is, the thing's you've managed for an efficent fighting spam team I'll mark in Bold text. As you can see the list of mons that threaten fighting types that your team removes via lures or checks and counters is... low. Though to be fair of all the possible typespams in the tier fighting has by far the longest list of mons to remove.

I like the effort and the idea I really do, but I feel that you should find more metagame information from the UU sample teams thread (try using one to get hands on experience on the mid/high ladder), the UU resources thread (Just useful stuff), and if you still struggle with those battling 101 can help.

Quick Fixes: The best quick fix is to simply jack a fighting spam team from a very good player and tweak it to your liking.

In Thread Quick Fixes: These will make the team work somewhat well but...it will no longer be fighting spam sorry.

Kill scarfshao and heracross, as the team is 2/3 Standard XY TrapCune Balance you can honestly just slap on a CM Roarcune and a LO Mixed Dugtrio in that spot and have a functioning mid/high level balance team.

Come back and try your hand at fighting spam after gaining some knowledge and don't be too discouraged by this long rip. It's still a promising first effort, it's just not efficient fighting spam.

 

[Mrbassman]

Thank you all for your suggestions. Christo, Shiba, and teal: I'll definitely try those changes and see how it works out for me. jjoshcja: I apologize if my inexperience offends you.

 

[Mrbassman]

Updated with replays using Christo and Shiba's suggestions. Now working getting replays using Tornadus + something that doesn't get rekt by MAero.

 

[Mrbassman]

For teal's suggestion I decided to try to remodel the team a little bit more to help handling MAero:

Blastoise @ Blastoisinite
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Dark Pulse
- Dragon Pulse
To aid Tornadus, I replaced Umbreon with Mega Blastoise, which is able to eat up any hit from MAero and force it out due to the threat of a scald kill. Furthermore, it's a potent special attacker able to get some nice damage off to make life easier for Shao and Hera. I opted for Scald over Water Pulse because there are only a few times that the difference in power might be an issue, and I prefer burn hax to confusion hax. I also opted for Dragon Pulse because the only Pokemon hit harder by Aura Sphere not otherwise handled by Blastoise's coverage or my two physical fighting mons is Mega Aggron, which still fears scald, and the only Pokemon better handled by Ice Beam are Crobat and Honchkrow, and Blastoise can't switch into a Brave Bird anyway. To compliment Blastoise there's also:

Nidoqueen @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Modest Nature
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Stealth Rock
- Sludge Wave
I put on Nidoqueen as my rocker over Empoleon, as it's ability to hit pretty hard makes it pretty easy to force a switch and get up rocks. Nidoqueen is also a nice Electric immunity, so it can switch into attacks aimed for Tornadus or Blastoise. Also, I like having a rocker that isn't rekt by Galvantula, because there's not really ever an excuse for Galvantula to rek anything. I chose Sludge Wave over Toxic Spikes because I wanted a way to force Fairies out.

Obviously the team is at this point essentially Bulky Offense, so I suppose the title is just misleading. I've found good replays hard to come by low on the ladder so far, so I'll climb a bit and come back with some good ones.

 

[Caliber]

Hi good team you have there :). Here are a few changes:

Forretress over Empoleon since Forretress can act as a better bird check, and you'd have a solid answer for Slurpuff. Furthermore, with Forretress you can have slow Volt Switch, which would give a safe switch-in to frail Mienshao and Heracross. Next up I'd like to use Hydreigon over Umbreon, because your team desperately needs a powerful Special Attacker over Wish+Protect. Next up, I'd run Shaymin over Whimsicott, I know you're gonna miss out on Encore, but Shaymin can wallbreak, have great coverage, and the main reason I'm suggesting is because of Healing Wish, which would be perfect in an offensive team such as yours. Finally, I'd run Mega Ampharos over Rotom-H as another Slow Volt-Switcher which checks Flying-types and not get bopped by Mega Aerodactyl. Also, run Flame Orb instead of Toxic Orb on Heracross as it helps you in the long term by reducing less damage than Toxic Orb.

Here are the sets:

Forretress

Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
- Volt Switch
- Gyro Ball

Hydreigon

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf / Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe or 56 Atk / 200 SpA / 252 Spe [Life Orb]
Timid Nature
- U-turn / Iron Tail [Life Orb]
- Dark Pulse
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast

Shaymin

Shaymin @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Seed Flare
- Psychic
- Earth Power
- Healing Wish

Ampharos

Ampharos-Mega @ Ampharosite
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 232 HP / 252 SpA / 24 Spe
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Dragon Pulse
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

 

[DoesntKnowHowToPlay]

Also, run Flame Orb instead of Toxic Orb on Heracross as it helps you in the long term by reducing less damage than Toxic Orb.

How common is it exactly for status orb SD Heracross to stay in for 4 turns consecutively and not have either died or won the game for you by devouring the opponent's team?

 

[Caliber]

How common is it exactly for status orb SD Heracross to stay in for 4 turns consecutively and not have either died or won the game for you by devouring the opponent's team?

Still more worth than losing just 6% first turn

 

[Mrbassman]

Thank you for your suggestions, Caliber, I'll be sure to try them out. However, I agree with Doesn't Know that Heracross either shouldn't be staying in long enough that Flame Orb does less damage, or if it does it should be to demolish everything in its sight.

 

[Caliber]

Thank you for your suggestions, Caliber, I'll be sure to try them out. However, I agree with Doesn't Know that Heracross either shouldn't be staying in long enough that Flame Orb does less damage, or if it does it should be to demolish everything in its sight.

You're Swords Dance Heracross, you are staying in long enough on bulky teams to clean them.

 

[jjoshcja]

You're Swords Dance Heracross, you are staying in long enough on bulky teams to clean them.

There is a well defined 6 lane interstate running between a wallbreaker that uses SD and a SD Sweeper.

Orbcross is a pure breaker with no sustain used to overload cores and lure.

Bulky SD cross is a breaker/wincon/pseudo-pivot with long term sustain that is generaly paired with a cleric to allow balanced/semi teams to punish the shit out of other balanced/semi teams and 1 for 1 vs offense.

One of these things is not like the other.

 

[Caliber]

He does have SD on cross, and why would he switch a +2 monster against a team that he outspeeds and KOs everything??

 

[YABO]

Hey dude, at least in my opinion, fighting spam should be a style that relies on hitting hard and never relenting on the pressure and as such, I have a couple of suggestions. Keep in mind that I normally am awful at rating teams but I think my past experience with this sort of style will help me out here.

My first suggestion is a rather strange one, but I think it is one that will really help out the team and that is to switch Empoleon to an Agility sweeper set. Agility Empoleon is a really underrated set right now with the capability to just run through a ton of teams with just a bit of chip damage on your opponents pokemon. This is due to the fact that things like Doublade, Cobalion, Aerodactyl, Salamence, Suicune, and others are all really common. Empoleon has the ability to hit all of these Pokemon hard with various coverage moves. This is further beneficial as many of the typical checks to Agility Empoleon like Porygon2 and Umbreon are handled well by the fighing duo you have up front. In turn, Empoleon still fills in the role that it had by checking Flying types like Crobat.

Empoleon @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe / 4 Def
Timid Nature
-Agility
-Hydro Pump
-Ice Beam
-Grass Knot

This sets up on Aerodactyl's Earthquake no problem and also lets you set up on Mamoswine's Earthquake from full HP. Timid nature is needed to outspeed Jolly MAero after Agility but if you find yourself really strapping for power you can try a set with Life Orb over Shuca or Modest instead of Timid. The tradeoff is less set up opportunities.

Now after this change, you become even more susceptible to Florges just walking over your team, especially if they don't walk into Heracross' Facade. To alleviate this I want to recommend Nidoqueen over Umbreon. The set you have up there is fine but I feel you can run a bulkier variant of Nidoqueen with 92 Speed EVs. This eases the pressure that it has when dealing with Fighting types. When you stop investing in HP then you just get 2hko by all fighting types and no one likes that.

The last slot is tricky as at this point Umbreon is feeling really awkward with the rest of the team and you still don't have a mega pokemon. For these reasons, I would suggest Mega Sharpedo who is an awesome late game sweeper with the power to power through a lot of pokemon by mega evolving early. The combo of Sharpedo + Empoleon is a deadly cleaning team and with Heracross punching holes early I think it could work out.

Sharpedo @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
-Protect
-Waterfall
-Crunch
-Ice Fang

 

[Mrbassman]

Thank you for your suggestions, YABO, I'm definitely going to play around with them.
I already got a game that Sharpedo won on its own, so that's nice:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-258057971

Additionally, really, thank you to you all for your thoughtful advice. Since I only recently started, it is meaningful to me that so many experienced players are willing to share their expertise.