[OU, WiFi] Team Shabűtie

[The Business Man]

Hey there folks, the last team I built was fairly flawed but still worked alright. But, I still had not fully grasped the term 'counter'. I thought that a Jolteon could counter a Gyarados because it can outspeed it and KO with Thunderbolt. But, since Jolteon cannot switch in on many of Gyarados' attacks, it can't counter it and is only a good revenge killer against Gyarados.

After I grew to understand this concept, I started to develop a team that could counter a lot of the metagame. It's fairly standard, but why are these pokemon standard? Because they are the best at what they do. Or close to it. ;)

I'm going to build this team on WiFi so I could use all the help I can get so I don't have to re-do anything if someone stops performing well or whatever... I've tested a lot on Shoddy and this works well (but again it should as it's a standard team).

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AT A GLANCE:

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IN DEPTH:

Hippowdon

@ Leftovers
Sandstream
Impish (+Def, -Sp.Atk)
252 HP / 170 Def / 88 Sp.Def
~Slack Off: Basic recovery move. Helps for survivability and of course stalling. Recovery is always the most useful move in the arsenal of any wall/tank, IMO.
~Stealth Rock: Just lay rocks down the. Not much can KO this thing right off the bat, giving me a good opportunity to lay down an amazing entry hazard.
~Earthquake: The the always needed offensive move. Can't hit a lot of opposing leads (Bronzong, Azelf, Aerodactyl, Gengar...) but is good mid to late game VS. steels, electrics, etc.
~Roar: Phasing. It already walls a lot of the physical threats that like to set up (Lucario, 'Mence, Scizor) but really just getting rid of the boost is better for the rest of the team as I can't take down a 'Mence with +1 Speed.

Notes: Perhaps the best Physical wall in the game, IMO. A 108/118 Physical Defense spead is amazing, this guy just shuts down Tyranitar and any other Physical sweeper that doesn't fly or Levitate, and it can still just phaze them out.
Vaporeon

@ Leftovers
Water Absorb
Bold (+Def, -Atk)
252 HP / 230 Def / 28 Sp.Def
~Wish: Recovery that also can help the team out if I use good prediction and such. Obviously, works well with Protect.
~Protect: Amazing. Help activate Wish, scout the opponent. Such a good move!
~Hidden Power [Electric]: Replaced Toxic. Picked over it due to it's ability to avoid Restalking Bulky waters (except Swampert) who liked to Rest off my poisoning.
~Surf: STAB Water move. Scares off Infernapes (without Thunderpunch) and Heatrans as well as giving Donphan, Hippowdon, Gliscor, Tyranitar, and the many other Rocks and Grounds in the metagame a scare. Thanks to Vaporeons 110 base Sp.Atk it can be quite offensive.

Notes: Good ol' Vaporeon. My counter towards the many Rocks and Grounds and Bulky Waters that everyone likes to run (including myself). WishProtect is such a good combo, stalls like a king and can hold it's Ground against the likes of Tyranitar, Gyarados and Salamence, which I consider the 'big three' physical sweepers.

Zapdos

@ Leftovers
Pressure
Calm (+Sp.Def, -Atk)
252 HP / 220 Sp.Def / 38 Spd
~Roost: Recovery. Like I said before, always needed on a tank/wall. Roost is good, except I don't like being vulnerable to a Super Effective Ground attack, but it does remove my Rock and Ice weaknesses.
~Thunderbolt: STAB for opposing flyers and waters. Just a strong STAB attack coming off of a big 125 Sp.Atk stat.
~Heat Wave: Steel killer. Hurts grassers too. Just a good move that provides good coverage with an Electric/Fire/Grass combo.
~Hidden Power [Grass]: I had Ice originally, but Grass gives me the much needed coverage against the deadly Swampert, whom without HP Grass I had no answer to other than Toxic. But, Swampy liked to Rest of the poison as said before...

Notes: Ah, Zapdos. One of the most versatile tanks (or even pokemon?) in the game right now. Zapdos can be physically defensive, specially defensive or an offensive force with those great base stats. I chose a specially defensive version so it can keep Skymin in check, along with special and mixed versions of some great sweepers (MixMence, SpecsLuke, MixApe, etc.). Bold is good for countering Scizor, but this way I can also bluff that it is Bold, thus forcing the Scizor switch. Zapdos is a great counter to two of the most potent forces in the metagame: Skymin and Scizor.
Heatran

@ Choice Scarf
Flash Fire
Hasty (+Spd, -Def)
6 HP / 252 Sp.Atk / 252 Spd
~Fire Blast: STAB and extremely powerful alone and even more so if I happen to switch in on an opposing Fire move that is often aimed at my Scizor or Lucario.
~Earth Power: Meh. Hits other Heatrans, good coverage but also kind of weak and easy for Levitators and Flyings to switch into.
~Hidden Power [Ice]: Hits the irritating Dragons, Zapdos, Gliscor, etc. that like to come in and ruin my fun. Ice is always a great move, especially paired with Fire. Only other Fire types (covered by Earth power) and Water types can resist Fire/Ice.
~Explosion: Big finish. Kills Blissey (!) who like to come in and wall my Zapdos and Heatran like no tomorrow. Weirdly, I have amazing predicting with this and Explode at the perfect times. Could just be fluky, but whatever. :)

Notes: This this the most used Pokemon in the OU metagame for a reason. Can come in and dominate so many pokemon, especially in the late game once it's counters are out of the way. I chose Hasty because really, I'm going to die from any Physical attack that is thrown at me (Fighting, Water, and Ground) and from my experience people like to use Special moves against Heatran, even if they are neutral. Thunderbolts, Earth Power from opposing Heatran, etc. Just my choice :) I don't really think I need to explain the role of Heatran any more than I did, but its just a great Special Sweeper and Revenge killer that can switch into a lot thanks to it's plethora of resistances.

Scizor

@ Choice Band
Technician
Adamant (+Atk, -Sp.Atk)
6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
~Bullet Punch: DUH. Technician + CB + STAB + 130 base Atk = the reason priority moves have become used so much and a big reason why Scizor is one of the most used pokemon in the game. Tears through teams late game.
~Brick Break: Break screens is the main reason I chose BB > Superpower. That and the stat drops from Superpower. 75 base power isn't great, so I might switch for Superpower but for now Brick Break is staying as my Steel hitting attack. ;)
~U-Turn: Scout the counter, switch to my own counter. Still hits hard thanks to STAB. X-Scissor is good too, but the ability to scout n' switch is my choice for now.
~Pursuit: Ghosts and Psychics (Gengar and Azelf) who will usually switch get hit hard. This also just still hits hard if they don't thanks to Technician. But, most like to stay in and predict the Pursuit, only to hit Scizor with either a nice Flamethrower or Hypnosis as Scizor is obviously slower.

Notes: 591 Attack! With a STAB/Technician/Priority move. Scizor is a huge threat, and as said before it works well with Heatran. Most everyone packs a Scizor counter, but luckily I pack a counter for their Zapdoses and Heatrans :) Not much to be said here; Scizor is just a huge threat and anyone who has faced one knows the damage he can cause.

Lucario

@ Life Orb
Inner Focus
Adamant (+Atk, -Sp.Atk)
6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
~Swords Dance: The basis of this set. Most people will fear my attacks, as they know I can OHKO them, thus giving me a free Swords Dance and a chance to sweep with ExtremeSpeed.
~Close Combat: STAB and 120 base power. Hits all the steels and etc, threatens Tyranitar, scares off ScarfTran... usually I can switch him in and everything gets scared of Close Combat so I can just SD up.
~ExtremeSpeed: Priority! This + Swords Dance is great, switch in on one of it's many resistances, SD up, and then you can pretty much OHKO everything but Ghosts or bulkier pokemon with an ExtremeSpeed.
~Crunch: Cressy, Dusknoir, Rotom, and other various Psychic/Ghost pokemon killer. Crunch > Ice Punch just because I already have a few ways on my team to rid myself of Gliscor. I can usually get rid of him before I even atempt to sweep with Lucario.

Notes: I pretty much said everything already about him above. Strikes fear in the hearts of many. My favourite Pokemon and an awesome late game sweeper and another great revenge killer with ExtremeSpeed. Lucario and Scizor are fairly similar, except Scizor creates imidiate fear while Lucario can create it once it SDs. They serve similar roles, but Scizor is much better during the mid game.
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CONCLUSION:

Alright, so that's my team. As you can tell, I worked fairly hard on this team and it's only the fourth or fifth team I've built. Remember, I'm going to using this on WiFi and shoddy so it would be awesome to get lots of advice and help. Constructive critisism is welcome, but please don't be a total asshole.

Thanks for viewing, now leave a comment/rate too!

 

[Imran]

Yeah, a grass movw would be useful lol, umm I'd go with Hidden Power Grass on Zapdos. I always run HP Grass on my Zapdos and for this reason. The removal of Garchomp from th e metagame means you can hit all dragons not named Flygon hard with Thunderbolt anyway, Dragonite and Salamence will take a good chunck, and if youre running physical defese then you needs not worry about them dding up too much, even if they do KO you with outrage you have Scizor and Heatran there to clean up, so that shouldn't be a problem. In fact I made the transition from HP Ice to HP Grass sooo easily (Swampert :@)

You say you're building a team for wifi, now throughout my wifi career (100 or so mathces) I never really saw too many Stall teams, I think people get really REALLY bored of Stall seeing as Wifi takes a lot longer than Shoddy does anyway. So I think trying add a Rapid Spinner in somewhere you will alos lose some of the coverage that your team holds. Remember that you dont have to "counter" everything, in fact that is a bad idea as you are always one step behind them, some pokemon you willk always have to play around a bit, but that should be no problem, Lucarios ExtremeSpeed is just one example of being able to do this.

I know Smogon can be elitist, but just my post count is low it doesn't mean I don't deserve respect. >_>

I find that also to be a common misconception, people think Smogon are elitist because the philosophy is completely centric around winning, meaning that most people here will use top tier OUs, well... the best Pokemon for the job, I know that Bologo has a soft spot in his heart for Lanturn. So don't worry if some dick comes along here and starts flaming you, Taylor, Lee, TAY will all be able to infract and move on etc...

If you really want to put all of your Vaporeons EVs into Defenses then run the spread of 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD, this will allow Vaporeon to Maximise his Physical Defese and pretty much keep it on a par with his Special Defense, allowing him to take hits on both sides of the spectrum. Consider the alternative EV spread: 188 HP / 252 Def / 68 SpA which will allow you to take physical and special hits only slightly worse and hit a little harder with STAB Surf. 118 is in HP as it is already high and it is more profitable to invest more in actual defenses.

Although you are not using Ice Punch I THINK I am going to reccomend you make your Lucario Jolly, simply so you have a chance of Speedtiing with other Lucario, they will opt to CLose Combat you as there is a much higher chance of that paying off than extremespeed, especially if you are going to Close Combat, I dont think you want to lose one of those Speed ties. As for the synergy of the team it all seems cool, I mean if you want to build this on wifi, test it on shoddy first, and see how that goes, anything else you have large problems with do feel free to come back and ask =D

 

[twash]

I would honestly run Hidden Power Electric over Toxic on Vaporeon. It makes playing against Dragon Dance / Waterfall / Earthquake / Taunt Gyarados much easier. Currently, if Gyarados uses Dragon Dance as Vaporeon comes in, then Taunts, it will get another boost as you go to Zapdos. Zapdos takes a minimum of 75% from an Adamant 108 Atk +2 Gyarados with Waterfall, an OHKO with Stealth Rock. Using Hidden Power Electric over Toxic allows Vaporeon to successfully counter this Gyarados, as well as be better prepared to handle more offensive versions! Calm Mind Suicune will just Rest off the Toxic damage, and some Swampert carry Rest too. I would also at least consider Ice Beam on Vaporeon to help against Salamence.

As Goldfan previously mentioned, Hidden Power Grass would be very nice on Zapdos. With 0 SpA EVs (albeit a 30 SpA IV due to Hidden Power Grass), Zapdos would manage 48.51% - 57.43% to 252 HP / 216 SpD Swampert with Hidden Power Grass, the standard EV spread for Curse / Waterfall / Rest / Sleep Talk Swampert that would be most damaging to this team. Other forms of Swampert should be relatively handled by Vaporeon's Surf. Thunderbolt will deal 53.96% - 64.36% to 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune, which means you can force it to Rest. If it is CroCune you can just send in Vaporeon as Suicune's only attacking move will be Surf. 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune with Rest but no Sleep Talk will be slightly more worrying; you will have to predict Rest, bring Lucario in. You then get two "free" turns, and another where you outspeed, on the turn Suicune will wake up. Two Swords Dances mean you will easily OHKO Suicune, it also gives Lucario a decent chance at sweeping the rest of the opponent's team easier.

Finally, you should be using Speed EVs on Lucario, not Special Attack EVs.

 

[The Business Man]

Yeah, a grass move would be useful lol, umm I'd go with Hidden Power Grass on Zapdos. I always run HP Grass on my Zapdos and for this reason. The removal of Garchomp from th e metagame means you can hit all dragons not named Flygon hard with Thunderbolt anyway, Dragonite and Salamence will take a good chunck, and if youre running physical defese then you needs not worry about them dding up too much, even if they do KO you with outrage you have Scizor and Heatran there to clean up, so that shouldn't be a problem. In fact I made the transition from HP Ice to HP Grass sooo easily (Swampert :@)

You say you're building a team for wifi, now throughout my wifi career (100 or so mathces) I never really saw too many Stall teams, I think people get really REALLY bored of Stall seeing as Wifi takes a lot longer than Shoddy does anyway. So I think trying add a Rapid Spinner in somewhere you will alos lose some of the coverage that your team holds. Remember that you dont have to "counter" everything, in fact that is a bad idea as you are always one step behind them, some pokemon you will always have to play around a bit, but that should be no problem, Lucarios ExtremeSpeed is just one example of being able to do this.

If you really want to put all of your Vaporeons EVs into Defenses then run the spread of 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD, this will allow Vaporeon to Maximise his Physical Defese and pretty much keep it on a par with his Special Defense, allowing him to take hits on both sides of the spectrum. Consider the alternative EV spread: 188 HP / 252 Def / 68 SpA which will allow you to take physical and special hits only slightly worse and hit a little harder with STAB Surf. 118 is in HP as it is already high and it is more profitable to invest more in actual defenses.

Although you are not using Ice Punch I THINK I am going to recommend you make your Lucario Jolly, simply so you have a chance of Speedtiing with other Lucario, they will opt to CLose Combat you as there is a much higher chance of that paying off than extremespeed, especially if you are going to Close Combat, I dont think you want to lose one of those Speed ties. As for the synergy of the team it all seems cool, I mean if you want to build this on wifi, test it on shoddy first, and see how that goes, anything else you have large problems with do feel free to come back and ask =D

Thanks a lot for help! Since both yourself and Twash suggested HP Grass > Ice, I do think I'll make the change. I already have some Ice coverage and zero grass coverage so the switch couldn't hurt. I'll test it first :)

I think I'll leave out the Spinner as not many Spinners could fill the hole that would be created if I removed a team member. Thanks for the advice!

Enemy Lucario can usually be handled easily by Hippowdon, Zapdos, or even Vaporeon. So I don't know if Jolly would be good just to beat the speed ties... But thanks anyway I'll still keep it in mind.

I would honestly run Hidden Power Electric over Toxic on Vaporeon. It makes playing against Dragon Dance / Waterfall / Earthquake / Taunt Gyarados much easier. Currently, if Gyarados uses Dragon Dance as Vaporeon comes in, then Taunts, it will get another boost as you go to Zapdos. Zapdos takes a minimum of 75% from an Adamant 108 Atk +2 Gyarados with Waterfall, an OHKO with Stealth Rock. Using Hidden Power Electric over Toxic allows Vaporeon to successfully counter this Gyarados, as well as be better prepared to handle more offensive versions! Calm Mind Suicune will just Rest off the Toxic damage, and some Swampert carry Rest too. I would also at least consider Ice Beam on Vaporeon to help against Salamence.

As Goldfan previously mentioned, Hidden Power Grass would be very nice on Zapdos. With 0 SpA EVs (albeit a 30 SpA IV due to Hidden Power Grass), Zapdos would manage 48.51% - 57.43% to 252 HP / 216 SpD Swampert with Hidden Power Grass, the standard EV spread for Curse / Waterfall / Rest / Sleep Talk Swampert that would be most damaging to this team. Other forms of Swampert should be relatively handled by Vaporeon's Surf. Thunderbolt will deal 53.96% - 64.36% to 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune, which means you can force it to Rest. If it is CroCune you can just send in Vaporeon as Suicune's only attacking move will be Surf. 252 HP / 0 SpD Suicune with Rest but no Sleep Talk will be slightly more worrying; you will have to predict Rest, bring Lucario in. You then get two "free" turns, and another where you outspeed, on the turn Suicune will wake up. Two Swords Dances mean you will easily OHKO Suicune, it also gives Lucario a decent chance at sweeping the rest of the opponent's team easier.

Thanks! I've been leaning towards HP Electric recently, as I've met some irritating Restalker Suicunes and Swamperts amongst other bulky waters, and the Toxic doesn't do anything at all... I'll test it also :)

Finally, you should be using Speed EVs on Lucario, not Special Attack EVs.

>_> Oops. That was a fairly stupid misprint...

I find that also to be a common misconception, people think Smogon are elitist because the philosophy is completely centric around winning, meaning that most people here will use top tier OUs, well... the best Pokemon for the job, I know that Bologo has a soft spot in his heart for Lanturn. So don't worry if some dick comes along here and starts flaming you, Taylor, Lee, TAY will all be able to infract and move on etc...

The only reason I put forth that comment as I have been and know people who were taunted and such on not only the forums but the shoddy battle server, etc. It is a common misconception, thus why I used can. I've seen stuff like "Oh whatever n00b you only have 50 posts what do you know?" but I suppose this is, of course, common on every message board in the existence of video games/any activity imaginable...

But of course, such is life. Thanks for the comments guys! Hope I can get some more, I gotta put the final touches on my team before I take it from paper to DS. :)

 

[The Business Man]

Oh, I know. But you see, this will be in the process of building for a while. I can wait for Platinum to come out west as I'm not in a super hurry. I'll obviously play this on Shoddy for a while while still building the non-platinum parts (soft-resetting for a HP Ice with hopefully power 68 or 70 Heatran, same with Zapdos and HP Grass). The soft-resetting alone should take a while, so I don't think I'll be chomping at the bit for Platinum to come out for while.

 

[nyczxjay]

Bullet Punch on Scizor is a Platinum move, so you can't have it on a WiFi team.

Nice team but with regards to this comment:

You can easily have Bullet Punch Scizor on a Wifi team nowadays (clearly this person doesn't play WiFi much >_>). All you have to do is get someone who has the Jap/Eng patched version for Platinum to teach your poke the move and then just trade it back.

Anyways, a small nitpick is that I would suggest putting Superpower on your CBScizor because the extra power is welcome and since you're Choiced, the Atk/Def drop won't matter since you'll be switching it out after 1 turn usually anyway.

 

[Kabuto Mushi]

~Pursuit: Ghosts and Psychics (Gengar and Azelf) who will usually switch get hit hard. This also just still hits hard if they don't thanks to Technician. But, most like to stay in and predict the Pursuit, only to hit Scizor with either a nice Flamethrower or Hypnosis as Scizor is obviously slower.

I use a scizor like this too. Just a tip. You mentioned how Gengar and them like to stay in a predict the pursuit late game. You know I'm pretty sure BP is a OHKO for Gengar once he takes SR damage, and Azelf dies from like 60% as I remember... so you could use BP to kill it without taking damage or status...

 

[The Business Man]

Nice team but with regards to this comment:

You can easily have Bullet Punch Scizor on a Wifi team nowadays (clearly this person doesn't play WiFi much >_>). All you have to do is get someone who has the Jap/Eng patched version for Platinum to teach your poke the move and then just trade it back.

Anyways, a small nitpick is that I would suggest putting Superpower on your CBScizor because the extra power is welcome and since you're Choiced, the Atk/Def drop won't matter since you'll be switching it out after 1 turn usually anyway.

Thanks! :D

I was thinking Superpower of course along with Brick Break, but I'm actually quite torn between the two. I could use Superpower just for the extra 'oomph' or what have you, but I'm not sure. I'm definitely test it out more.

~Pursuit: Ghosts and Psychics (Gengar and Azelf) who will usually switch get hit hard. This also just still hits hard if they don't thanks to Technician. But, most like to stay in and predict the Pursuit, only to hit Scizor with either a nice Flamethrower or Hypnosis as Scizor is obviously slower.

I use a scizor like this too. Just a tip. You mentioned how Gengar and them like to stay in a predict the pursuit late game. You know I'm pretty sure BP is a OHKO for Gengar once he takes SR damage, and Azelf dies from like 60% as I remember... so you could use BP to kill it without taking damage or status...

But late game I more mean 'last 2 or 3 pokes left!' usually people would want to save their Gengar by switching, thus I Pursuit. But, they stay it expecting a Bullet Punch and I get Hypnosis'd or KO'd if my health is low enough. But that's just my skill level, as I need to get better at analyzing the situation and perdicting what would have the least negative outcome...

Thanks for the help! Again, hope I get some more comments and such!