Following the path that
MANNAT and
RufflesPro paved open here, i'd like to share one or two things that i found to be quite useful in the tier to help expand building options a bit. (just to break the monotony i'll be posting AFD sprites so that i can be annoying)
Raikou @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 40 Def / 216 SpA / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
- Calm Mind
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Aura Sphere
Boomers for sure know but newer players might not know about the raikou event back in the day and it's for sure something that was not utilized in ORAS at any point in time but it just happens that this meta is actually not bad for its tool-kit.
Shuca berry and calm mind pressures the hell out of ground types and mons like tyranitar, spdef tran and ferrothorn which are really annoying for the common electric types in a vacuum and can honestly open up a big hole in the early game for a cleaner like excadrill in sand while also ripping opposing sand offense a new one in return.
You "easily" trade with every ground in the tier and since you're +Spa u get to score a lot of 2hko's and ohkos at +1 and it also happens to sit in a great speed tier which is just above timid zard(s), manaphy etc so it's a great tool to have vs offense and it can punish BO very reliably.
Granted it's a bit tough to build with it, give it a go and i hope you won't be disappointed!
40 defense ev's lets you live weavile knock from full.
(And yes, shiny raikou sucks but you need it here sadly..)
Thundurus (M) @ Leftovers / Rocky Helmet / Magnet
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 96 HP / 156 Def / 4 SpA / 252 Spe / EVs: 64 HP / 4 Def / 100 SpA / 88 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 Def
Timid Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Volt Switch / Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
-
U-turn
This one might be controversial, focus blast sucks ass and sometimes u want to be able to consistently make progress vs grounds and have your funny button available to pull off at any time.
Enter one U-turn thundurus!
Bulky thundy is one thing that started to pop off first in vgc and many many years later here we are, this old man has infested his way into the modern oras ou metagame and is arguably one of the best pivots for offense without needing to go for nasty plot sweeps as it was expected when the tier first came into existence.
U-turn is a great way to pivot in mons like cb weavile, Kyurem-Black, Mega Medicham/Heracross, keldeo and the list goes on, anything that might abuse the common volt absorbers fits the bill here and i find it crucial so that u can keep momentum up on teams that can't afford to let rocks up early on(commonly found on mons that thundurus usually attracts like hippo, drill which is ev'd for focus blast now etc).
As for the spreads:
The first one is preferred to be used with leftovers imo and it lets u take a cb weavile ice shard after rocks and retaliate with a much needed twave back and the hp also lets u survive a mystic water boosted scald from keldeo after rocks and burn always(hence why u want leftovers) while also letting u take anything lopunny wants to throw at you(even adamant lopunny's return has a 12.5% chance to ko after rocks) at the cost of all of your spa evs.
The second spread on the other hand instead of weavile's shard lets u take mega alakazam's psychic and serperior's +2 hp rock(even if it's max spa)after rocks and also allows u to take adamant lopunny's fake out + quick attack combo after rocks(a very real scenario since lop would like to avoid getting thunder waved if it can help it).
Magnet is there as an option in case u need an extra boost vs stuff like weakened manaphy/keldeo as well as stuff that u need to reliably be able to chip down the line like clef or mega metagross since u can't afford to have max spa here.
Hope this helps someone down the line and i hope other people can chime in with their own sets and ideas here so that oras can evolve more and more!