Winter wonderland [OU Hail Team]

[spiderpony]

Introduction ​

Probably the funnest type of teams to play I think are weather teams. I have made a Sun team that works pretty well and thought that I'd make a Hail team because it looked fun. It was a little difficult to make. Though the team does have its strong suits, it has some weaknesses that can hurt it quite a bit. Though it certainly packs a punch in some respects; certainly giving dragon types some issues. It can also give rain teams some trouble with Abamasnow's Wood Hammer. This team isn't without its drawbacks. Defensive walls like Milotic or can give it a lot of trouble. Kyurem-Black and other pokemon give it the team trouble as well with a somewhat disadvantaged movepool. There is also the case of the Hail weather condition in itself, not really providing many benefits besides 100% Blizzard accuracy and a small percentage loss of health each turn for non Ice types. I'm hoping to get some good feedback and some great tips to make this team really excel.

The Team ​

Abomasnow @ Leftovers
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Lonely Nature
- Blizzard
- Wood Hammer
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Ice Shard
Abomasnow is the big weather inducer of the team. Its strong attack gives Ice Shard a pretty hefty punch when facing dragon and grass pokemon, as well as make Wood Hammer a big threat to ones weak to grass type attacks. HP Fire, though not hard hitting, lets it keep steel types in check. It however has its weaknesses. It is a very bulky pokmon, letting most with fighting or steel type attacks one shot it. Ice Shard is a priority move, but it does nothing for those that are resistant to ice type attacks.

Cloyster @ Focus Sash
Trait: Skill Link
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Shell Smash
- Icicle Spear
- Rock Blast
- Ice Shard
I am a big fan of Cloyster in its success on my Sun team, so it seems like a no brainer that I'd add this powerhouse to my Hail one. Sashed Shell Smash gives it quite the stopping power with lots of enemies, even defensive walls like Blissey. Even without the Shell Smash, it carries a great defensive stat that lets me take on quick priority movers like Dragonite. From my experience in using it, the only problem it has is with status moves and entry hazards which make it lose Focus Sash. Other than that, it really is a great pokemon that has wracked up a lot of kills over the time I have been using it.

Chandelure @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Energy Ball
- Shadow Ball
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
Chandelure is an interesting pokemon. Ghost type for fighting and normal resistance, along with Flash Fire to abosrb fire attacks, it can be a bit tough to deal with. A pretty useful movepool and good special attack lets it take on many a foe. Choice Scarf gives it extra speed bump, but with the known drawback of only using one move. Even with Scarf it can be outspeeded by some. Rock and ground weakness certainly poses a big threat when facing quick opponents that know Stone Edge or Earthquake.

Donphan @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Shard
- Stealth Rock
Donphan is a pretty good spinner, setting up rocks and at the same time able to sweep entry hazards away. Sturdy can at least give it a move or two in when going up to type weaknesses and the Leftovers allow it to lose no health in Hail. Ice Shard allows it to wall dragon types. Much like Cloyster, Donphans big weakness is entry hazards and status moves, even more so with its lower speed.

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Body Slam
- U-turn
- ThunderPunch
When facing Jirachi, I always was amazed at how much damage could it could do. Using it, I see why it's such a popular choice. Serene Grace is a great ability when combined with moves with secondary effects (it gives them double the chance to effect the pokemon), it can easily stall pokemon with a barage of Iron Head attacks. Choice Scarf certainly helps, allowing it to usually move first and do some damage. The big problem for scarffed Jirachi is its limitation to only using one move, sometimes calling for it to switch out or merely using U-turn instead of using other stronger attacks.

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Poison Heal
EVs: 184 Def / 252 HP / 72 Spd
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Ice Fang
- Protect
Gliscor is an interesting staller in Hail. With a Toxic and Protect combo, it can slowly chip away health. This however is really it's only attribute, sporting a weakness to a lot of different attacks, along with slow speed and not being able to poison steel types. Sometimes it works well, other times it only survives a couple of turns before being one hitted by a Giga Drain or Ice Beam.

Conclusion ​

All in all it is an ok team, having some good strengths but also bad weaknesses. I am hoping to get some good helpful suggestions to turn this from an ok team to a great team. Thanks for reading everyone!

 

[starwarsfan]

Instead of Gliscor you might try Walrein. He heals more than Gliscor in hail, and plays similarly. This is just the standard smogon set; I have no personal experience using him:
Walrein @ Leftovers
Trait: Ice Body
EVs: 232 hp / 168 def / 108 spe
IVs: 31/0/31/31/31/31
Bold Nature
- Substitute
- Protect
- Blizzard
- Toxic

Abomasnow needs Grass Knot over Wool Hammer.

All your pokemon with no physical attacks should have 0 atk IVs for confusion and foul play.

The best IV spread for 70bp hp fire on Abomasnow is 31/2/31/30/31/30, hp fire cannot have max spa or spe with 70bp.

Chandelure should have 31/2/30/30/30/30 for hp fighting.

 

[NinTWFB]

Nice hail team you got there. I noticed one problem though, Keldeo. This thing has a super effective move for all your Pokémon and not much on your team can handle it.

I suggest replacing Chandelure with either Celebi or Jellicent. I would suggest Jellicent because many Keldeo run HP Bug.

Here is a good set:

Jellicent @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 216 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
Calm Nature
-Scald
-Recover
-Will-O-Wisp
-Ice Beam

This Pokémon is a solid check to Keldeo and some other Special Attacking Pokémon that threaten your team. In case the opponent is using a physical attacker, Will-O-Wisp will cripple them. 0 IVs minimize damage from Foul Play I guess.

Good Luck!

 

[spiderpony]

I'll be sure to try both of those. Also thanks for the tip on the 0 IVs thing. I didn't know about that. I'll be sure to post my finding on Walrein and Jellicient.

 

[ShootingStarmie]

Hi there, so I'm here to rate your team

So looking over it, it's a pretty cool Hail team, however I feel you're quite weak to Rain teams that can spam powerful water type attacks. However, there's an easy solution to this. Replace Donphan with Tentacruel. Using Tentacruel allows you to easily check rain teams nicely, while still offering a Fighting and Fire resist that Hail teams hate to face. Using Tentacruel also allows you to utilize Toxic Spikes, allowing your Gliscor to Protect stall easily without wasting a turn using Toxic. Here's the set.

Tentacruel @ Leftovers
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 244 Def / 248 HP / 16 Spd
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Rapid Spin
- Protect / Blizzard
- Toxic Spikes

So the EVs are used to take physical attacks like U-turn from Scizor and Close Combat from Terrakion nicely, while still taking hits like Specs Politoed and Keldeo nicely. Scald is STAB and has a great 30% burn rate, crippling common switch ins like Ferrothorn and Latias. Rapid Spin supports the team as it clears the field of hazards. Protect is used mainly for scouting purposes, but Blizzard can be used as it has decent synergy with Scald, hitting Grass and Dragon types nicely. Finally, Toxic Spikes are used to allow Gliscor to stall nicely with Protect and Substitute.

Now you'll notice you no longer have SR on your team, so I'm suggesting you replace your current Jirachi set with the SpDef set w/ Stealth Rock. I think having two Scarfers on your team is quite redundant and you need SR on your team. So here's the set.

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 216 SDef / 252 HP / 40 Spd
Careful Nature
- Wish
- Iron Head
- Body Slam
- Stealth Rock

So EVs are used to out speed Adamant Scizor, SpDef Celebi, and non Scarfed Tyrantiar. So Wish is used to heal your team mates back to full health, since it seems like you're generally stalling quite a lot on this team. Iron Head is STAB and has a great 60% flinch rate, which works really well with Body Slam, which also has a 60% chance of a paralysis. Together they form a nice Paraflinch combo, allowing you to get past even some of the best counters with a bit of luck. Finally Stealth Rock is used to inflict damage to your opponent every time they switch.

And my last suggestion would be to change Chandelure to Heatran. I feel you don't need to extra Fighting resist thanks to Tentacruel and Gliscor, and Heatran is generally a much better Pokemon, as it's not weak to SR, has much better typing, and isn't Pursuit weak. I suggest still keeping it as your Scarfer though.

Other than that, I really like this team. Good luck with your team, and I hope my suggestions helped you.

 

[Yuttt]

I just looked over your team a bit, and I'm wondering, why do you need Hail? The only 'mon with Blizzard is Abomasnow, and everything else but cloyster is taking damage from the hail. Donphan (or tentacruel) and Gliscor especially do not appreciate the residual damage on them. So I would suggest using Mamoswine over Abomasnow. It gives you another dragon and steel killer, and can set up SR, if you don't run that on Jirachi. Then you'd prbably want to change the sash on Cloyster to King's Rock or Life orb. You can also change abomasnow to something else, but basically, if you don't run something that benefits from hail (like Kyurem of Stallrein), don't use abomasnow, as he is completely outclassed by other things otherwise.

 

[spiderpony]

Ok so, I tried Walrein and Jellicient. Walrein has worked out well for the most part, despite its speed hindering it from being a big hitter, using its defense to stall anyone through hail, so I think I'll use that. Jellicient didn't work out as well for me as much since I'd have three water pokemon on my team and could get wrecked by grass or electric moves. I've tried a lot of combinations that have gotten various success (Ferrothorn and Infernape were added for a little while that sort of worked, as well as a Magic Bounce Espeon to function as a reverse spinner). I'll give Tentacruel a try since he has been a good spin wall.

I have been thinking of trying to work in a Pokemon like Alakazam or Reuniclus. Not sure how they will fit though. If anyone has any ideas feel free to chime in. My biggest issue in trying to make the team work is compensating for stat weakness. If I lack defense, I'll put more bulky pokemon but get outran buy everyone. I try to go for speed, they aren't strong enough to do any damage. I think Hail is a very tricky team to put together because you need to have a good balance as well as some that can benefit from Rain. Here is the team I'll be currently trying out if anyone has any suggestions:

Walrein @ Leftovers
Trait: Ice Body
EVs: 232 HP / 168 Def / 108 Spd
Bold Nature
- Substitute
- Toxic
- Blizzard
- Protect

Cloyster @ Focus Sash
Trait: Skill Link
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Shell Smash
- Icicle Spear
- Rock Blast
- Ice Shard

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 244 Def / 248 HP / 16 Spd
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes
- Protect

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 216 SDef / 252 HP / 40 Spd
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Body Slam
- Iron Head
- Wish

Heatran @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Abomasnow @ Leftovers
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Lonely Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 SAtk / 30 Spd
- Blizzard
- Ice Shard
- Giga Drain
- Earthquake

 

[spiderpony]

Well with the current line up I have, though they have some good defenses, the team is very bulky. I usually get outran by most and, while I can certainly stall an opponent, I cant exactly deal any heavy blows and take home the gold. I would welcome two or maybe three speedier pokemon to round out the set. Any suggestions?

 

[Soulfly]

Hail is indeed hard to work in OU. The weather inducer is incredibad and can be killed by everything :/
Anyways to try and make it work you need an answer to fire, heatran is good for that , make him special defensive tho and give him an air balloon.
You also need an answer to rain, for this i'd try a starmie over tentacruel as a spinner; Analytic hydro pump in the rain is devastating.
Walrein + Heatran is an OK core. Now i would decide on a physical sweeper, Cloyster is ok however if you keep him give him white herb, i find that to work better.
Heatran has SR so you could change jirachi if you want. I feel like a latios would work allright here, as would alakazam but zam has no bulk where as latios can take a hit from most weather sweepers;

Good luck with the team, i tested around and its really hard and frustrating to make hail work in OU :/

 

[spiderpony]

I agree that Hail is very challenging. I like the way you are thinking with Starmie as well so I'll totally do that. I might try White Herb Cloyster, though I haven't had the best of experiences with it. I'll replace Jirachi with Latios as well. I agree with Alakazam in that he has some good striking power, but is terrible defensively.