Standart RMT-Hovering around ~44 on leaderboard

However, my team has some serious problems.
Most notable, is the complete lack of steel types.
This opens up several dire problems for this offensive team. The most notable of these is dragons (salamence). I can't switch into any of it's powerful dragon attacks (draco meteor, outrage).
Another pokemon with which I have tremendous problems (but thankfully it shows up relatively rarely when compared to salamence, but on an apparently increasing frequency) is yanmega. Steels resist both of yanmega's STAB, as well as some of the common hidden powers (but not ground). My lack of them is almost certainly behind my yanmega weakness.
Obomasnow is the third pokemon that gives me issues.
Gengar may also cause some problems, although I can revenge kill (but normally it is smart enoug to simply switch).

Another thing to note about my team is that not a single pokemon can set up. I don't have a single stat up move. This gives me greater speed and fluidity in attacking and switching around, but prevents me from ever being able to pull off a sweep.
Perhaps it is also interesting that I have three water types.
Neither of these notes is something I necessarilly want to keep, but something that simply happened through the team building process.

I also lack a sleep absorber.
Perhaps I have a toxic spikes weekness.

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 6 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Recover
- Rapid Spin
- Thunderbolt
- Surf

Perhaps this is another issue: I've been critisized for it in the past (when I played IPL, he laughed, for example). I do not use it as a typical rapid spinner however, but I utilize it more as a fast sweeper who can also counter most water types, and can spin on switches.
Aerodactyl, Infernape, Heatran, and Hippowdon leads are all leads that I have a good match up against.
Against Yanmega leads I t-bolt on turn one to note which abilitiy it has, and then struggle to respond accordingly no matter what ability it has. For tinted lens I'd switch to salamence and outrage, being faster (although I'd take ~67% switching in),

---
Salamence (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spd/6 SAtk
Naughty nature (+Atk, -SDef)
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower
- Outrage
- Stone Edge

Due to max speed evs I can revenge kill outraging salamences, and even those that aren't that assume they're faster because they have a DD. Assuming they didn't max speed themselves, in which case it is a coin flip.
It is also my gyarados counter, being able to come in on the DD and outspeed and nearly kill with outrage (KO with stealth rocks). I only use stone edge when I'm confident my opponent will switch, so as not to be locked into outrage (typical for when the gyarados didn't DD on the switch). Stone edge has missed far to often against gyarados.
Revenge killer.
Stealth rock hurts it tremendously.

---
Heracross (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Guts
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Megahorn
- Stone Edge
- Night Slash

Second revenge killer. Also serves as status absorber, something powerful to bring in on blissey, and something that normally can scare celebi's ugly face away.
I should really put pursuit on here, although I worry that I'd then have issues against gengar if I lose night slash. I haven't tested it yet so I can't determine which would have greater usefulness.
This replaced scizor.

---
Gyarados (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
- Stone Edge

CBdos. Counters bulky ground types (including swampert who takes ~40%), bronzong, and other physical tanks in general (skarmory takes ~40%; a flinch means it loses).
Does 75% to many zapdos coming in with waterfall.
Very powerful due to it's excellent attacking type, and can come in attack, and then switch freely due to the choice band not require any setting up.
Stealth rock hurts it tremendously.

---
Swampert (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 240 HP/216 Def/54 SAtk
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Beam
- Surf

The staple of the team currently, in that this is what I switch to if I don't know what else to do. Stealth rock is of course crucial. Mixpert is far superior to physical pert despite weaker earthquake due to the more powerful water and ice attacks that are, more importantly, aimed at the weaker defensive stat of their opponents from mixpert. Bulky grounds crumble much faster under pressure from surf then waterfall, skarmory can be scared away... Overall a great asset, although recently I've acquired a fear of metagross that makes me not want to switch this mud fish in on the metalic monster anymore; stealth rocking on the switch and then exploding seams like all to severe a loss (or worse yet, grass knot, leaving the metagross in tact).

---
Tyranitar (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 114 HP/252 Atk/88 Spd/56 SDef
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Earthquake

CBlax wasn't cutting it anymore, due to getting walled by the likes of celebi, vaporeon, and many other physical walls.
The irony was intentional in that Tyranitar is actually weak to the STABs of both these pokemon, to illistrate how much more powerful Tyranitar is. He can physically crush many walls, and thus often tears through things that let my faster pokemon sweep. Somewhat of a counter to slow things.
I'm considering more sp. def (and less HP) to provide greater durability against many of the special threats I try to bring it in on.

What sort of steels could I fit in? Metagross?
Though, that wouldn't really help the yanmega problem.
What sort of other modifications would be recomended?

Threat list:
Scizor: Gyarados, although salamence can serve as back up, and starmie can revenge kill (surf does 60%). Three water types means that it's bullet punch sweeping ability is limmited.
Heatran: Swampert is normally my first switch in (especially if I haven't set up the rocks yet), gyarados, tyranitar, salamence, starmie. Heracross can revenge kill.
Salamence: ...swampert is 2HKOed by mixed wall breaker salamence, but that is honestly the best I have. I can revenge kill with salamence, gyarados, and heracross.
Tyranitar: Swampert, gyarados as back up. Heracross can revenge kill.
Zapdos: Normally I play around to try and find out what hidden power it has, if at all. Without grass I can wall it with swampert. Tyranitar forces it to switch. Often zapdos has a somewhat hard time coming in against most of my pokemon, so this tends to work. With some health missing, starmie, salamence, and heracross can all revenge kill, while it can't come in on tyranitar or gyarados STAB attacks.
Blissey: Only walls starmie, which gives me a perfect oppurtunity to spin, recover, and then bring in heracross. Swampert walled somewhat, and I believe blissey wins one on one, but I can simply switch.
Infernape: Salamence, gyarados, swampert, starmie. Heracross can also revenge kill.
Lucario: Gyarados, salamence. This has in the past posed problems, although nothing major recently. If at much health heracross can revenge kill.
Rotom-A: Defensive rotom can be unbelievably bothersome, with will-o-wisp, but normally I can still damage it heavily with tyranitar. My normal status absorber in heracross can't really do much, and tyranitar doesn't outrun this as it does dusknoir.
Gengar: Causes problems; can't really switch anything into it; I normally try to bring salamence in if I think I can do so without getting it put to sleep.
Metagross: If one came up with thunderpunch/grassknot/meteor mash/ice punch I'd have severe problems. Thankfully none have such a moveset. I have a fairly hard time switching around it, due to it's immunity to intimidate. I used to switch to swampert, but not I favor gyarados, followed by salamence.
Swampert: Gyarados, otherwise takes huge beatings from the rest of my team lacking resistances to most of my team, and lacks a recovery move, so it doesn't cause problems.
Bronzong: Hypnosis is annoying, otherwise it can't do anything effective. Gyarados can quickly finnish it, especially as bronzong normally appears early. If a lead, starmie can take significant chunks off. Natural cure can then also help my try and take advantage of hypnosis's poor accuracy.
Celebi: Very annoying, due to t-wave (I have no absorber other then swampert which I wont bring near that grass type) and recovery move. Can come in on the three water types and scare them away, cripple salamence with t-wave and then stall with recover, perhaps even come in on tyranitar stone edge if it predicts well enough, and has been known to come in on heracross close combats (or stay in on a heracross I brought in by predicting my prediction of a switch to a fighting-weak pokemon like they did earlier in the game), and proceede to cripple it. I have only two ways of dealing with it, which is predicting it's switch with gyarados and ice fanging, or trying to revenge kill with tyranitar (who takes ~52% from grass knot).
Jirachi: Swampert; salamence can revenge kill, and depending on the set (presence of t-bolt or iron head) I can respond with other pokemon accordingly.
Azelf: Potentially annoying; against leads I surf and then rapid spin, hoping to win the speed tie, and spinning away the rocks before it explodes. Otherwise a third of my team is faster, and can OHKO (although can't necessarilly come in that well), tyranitar can resit most everything it throws at it (even surviving explosions), and starmie gets at least the coin flip.
Vaporeon: Potentially very annoying, due to my high number of water types. Especially if it has HP: electric. Starmie can do significant damage with t-bolt, normally scaring it away, tyranitar always wins one on one, and heracross can sometimes scare it (at least, if it has absorbed status). Discouraging the use of gyarados's waterfall, and being able to easily come in on any of swampert's attacks, make it potentially very annoying in theory, although normally I can deal with it. I still fear this more then other non-bold pokmeon.
Machamp: Other then confusion hax, it can't do to much normally. Gyarados takes of 60%, and I can play around with switches between swampert and gyarados, eventually forcing a switch due to intimidate.
Suicune: T-bolt from starmie is normally significant. Sometimes I get scared if it pulls off a rest, but normally powerful cb hits can do enough to wear it down so that I can bring tank dow.
Kingdra: Unless its raining or it has a couple of DDs salamence can revenge kill. Gyarados does over 50% with earthquake, and cuts off an attack boost while coming in.
Gliscor: Half of my team can easily dispatch it (the three water types). Can come in on heracross with impunity, and can scare tyranitar away, but that normally isn't bothersome as swampert is very easy to bring in and gliscor really can't do much other then stealth rock.
Breloom: This may be an offense team, but this is still very annoying when it first comes in (typically on swampert). That forces me to switch (in fear of seed bomb), as it isn't worth the risk to keep swampert in. If it spores, then I have to switch again, giving it a substitute. Normally I switch to gyarados first (hoping it spores), and then to salamence. Generally this forces it to switch (-2 attack, and salamence resists both stabs), but if it instead substitutes imediately, and outspeeds gyarados (as is typical) and spores, it only has -1 attack when I bring in salamence, and has a sub up. Although I can still force it to switch. Breloom has a really hard time doing much after that due to already having slept something. This all falls apart if I'd already lost salamence early. Most importantly, no matter the scenario, I lose a pokemon (to sleep).
Togekiss: Flinch hax can be annoying, swampert is my best answer, but is still very vulnerable to flinch hax, not taking special hits very well. Especially if it has roost. No really good answer.
Skarmory: Can't really do anything other then come in on resisted attacks from choice item users. Heracross is the only pokemon that can't beat it one on one if they come in together.
Weavile: Many lack ice shard, so they lose even to salamence. Swampert comes in easily, and gyarados doesn't have to much of a problem. Heracross also easily beats one on one.
Magnezone: I lack steels, so it can't really do anything other then come in on an outraging salamence. Even starmie can revenge when around 50% health, as it outspeeds even scarf variants. Heracross and salamence do a good job revenge killing as well.
Electivire: Swampert comes in, however, if swampert is gone, I have a much harder time. Normally I have to resort to pivoting to get something in safely so that I can threaten to outspeed and OHKO. Heracross isn't weak to any of it's attacks on the "it's supereffective" set, but I've seen a flamethrower before.
Flygon: Swampert normally comes in. Lacks the frightening power of salamence, so gyarados can also normally come in.
Mamoswine: Can be annoying, but normally not to bad, other then killing salamence after it outrages. All the waters can hit it for supereffective with their STAB, as can heracross (but it did take 52% from an ice shard once, so I have to be at high health).
Snorlax: Heracross cannot come in on CB variants, so I normally have to switch to gyarados, which has the benefit of intimidating. If I can switch something in safely heracross can threaten CC.
Hippowdon: I have three water types that can each scare it, so it is normally incapable of doing to much. Even a heracross can do over 50% (if poisoned).
...I think that should be enough threats for now.

Opinions?
Suggestions?
 
You could switch you swampert or tyranitar for a weavile with a set similar to this:

Weavile @Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
Nature: Adamant/Jolly
-Swords Dance
-Ice Punch/Shard
-Night Slash
-Brick Break

This covers every your weakness except the vaporeon. use Adamant if youre using shard and jolly if punch.


You could also switch you gyarados for ee-vire to get ahead of vaporeon

8/10
Hope this was helpful
Cheers!
 
Ok 4/6 of your team is choiced. I am not sure if this was by design or not, but its not a good idea in general to have so many pokes choiced even when you have a rapid spinner. I would make tyranitar or gyrados or salamence for that matter a dragon dancer. This would give you at least one set up sweeper on your team.

Alternativly, you could replace 1 of said pokes for a bulky CB or SD scizor to give you a steel type. This would help you against the dragons you said you hate, as well as giving you a potent set up sweeper. I would use 252 hp 76 atk 176 sp. def as your spread with brick break, bullet punch, swords dance and roost. This spread is very bulky, and can take on weak attackers and set up on them all day with roost.

For the CB set, you could run max hp/max attack adamant with the standard moves, but I really recommend the SD set because your team is so choice heavy I think it's un-healthy.

Finally, I would put leftovers over life orb on starmie at least, if not change it to a full blown rapid spin set. If you're set on your offensive spread, I highly recommend leftovers, as losing hp when spining is undesireable as well as not being bulky enough to come on in threats, spin, and switch out again.

Hope I helped, and a good team albeit choice heavy,

chaos 9
 
You could switch you swampert or tyranitar for a weavile with a set similar to this:

Weavile @Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
Nature: Adamant/Jolly
-Swords Dance
-Ice Punch/Shard
-Night Slash
-Brick Break

This covers every your weakness except the vaporeon. use Adamant if youre using shard and jolly if punch.


You could also switch you gyarados for ee-vire to get ahead of vaporeon

8/10
Hope this was helpful
Cheers!

Weaviles are very fragile. It seems somewhat contradictory to the theme of being able to flexibly switch around and hit hard, in that I can't really bring weavile in more then once with focus sash.
Vaporeon isn't really all that large an issue, and, while I haven't personally tested electivire, it doesn't seem like I'd have a very easy time making much use out of it.

Ok 4/6 of your team is choiced. I am not sure if this was by design or not, but its not a good idea in general to have so many pokes choiced even when you have a rapid spinner.

Yes, I realized entry hazzards are the primary problem with so many choiced pokemon.
I just have a hard time deciding what I could take a choice item off of, as with the team's current build it seems like losing that instant power/speed on these pokemon would really change the dynamics of the team.

I would make tyranitar or gyrados or salamence for that matter a dragon dancer. This would give you at least one set up sweeper on your team.

I'll try testing some of these as dragon dancers later, after the scizor.
Any recommended sets that you believe may fit in well?

Alternativly, you could replace 1 of said pokes for a bulky CB or SD scizor to give you a steel type. This would help you against the dragons you said you hate, as well as giving you a potent set up sweeper. I would use 252 hp 76 atk 176 sp. def as your spread with brick break, bullet punch, swords dance and roost. This spread is very bulky, and can take on weak attackers and set up on them all day with roost.

I'm not sure which I would like to drop, but perhaps tyranitar would be that pokemon, as it's role would be most similar. I'll test the SD scizor.
Adamant nature? Or a sp. def boosting nature?

For the CB set, you could run max hp/max attack adamant with the standard moves, but I really recommend the SD set because your team is so choice heavy I think it's un-healthy.

Yes, and scizor makes an exceptional late game sweeper as well.

Finally, I would put leftovers over life orb on starmie at least, if not change it to a full blown rapid spin set. If you're set on your offensive spread, I highly recommend leftovers, as losing hp when spining is undesireable as well as not being bulky enough to come on in threats, spin, and switch out again.

48.84% - 57.56%
Damage from my life orb starmie to the scizor spread you mentioned (assuming adamant nature), versus:
37.50% - 44.19%
without life orb. If scizor switches in on surf, and doesn't switch out imediately, it is dead if I have life orb. Otherwise I'm forced to switch out. For cb variants using u-turn, it is the difference between me gaining free turns as my opponent switches in and is forced to switch out again imediately (or sacrafice their scizor), and my opponent gaining the initiative with u-turn as I'm forced to switch.
Perhaps I'm exagerating the difference with scizor.
Damage against calm 252/220 zapdos:
35.42% - 41.67%
With stealth rock and sandstorm, this is a potential 2HKO, especially if the zapdos is more typical and runs less sp. def.
While the likes of metagross (252/0):
51.10% - 60.16%
Or 6/0 heatran:
100.62% - 118.21%
Or 252/136 bold rotom-a (from rotom-h analysis rest talker):
47.04% - 55.26%
2hko with stealth rock...
I feel a lot more comfortable when trying to do a clean up sweep with starmie about being able to take things down when I have life orb.
When I'm playing I'll start running damage calculators to try and determine whether or not the life orb is making much of a difference while I'm playing.
And yes, you provided some help.

I'm listed as 39 now (as of writing this post); hopefully I'll be able to rise higher.
 
Thank you for reading/taking to heart my comments. I also appreciate the effort you must have put in to get all those calculations. For scizor, I would go with an adamant nature always, becuase scizor really needs the extra pop that comes with 394 atk.
 
choas 9 is right, you should have at least one of them be a DDer.

I generally don't think that Life Orbers on a team with Tyranitar work that well. In turns that you aren't Recovering with Starmie you'll be taking 16% damage. Is it really worth it to take 16% just to blow away Rocks?

Your team looks like it could handle some status with Heracross, but still its kind of frail and doesn't exactly like taking damage from Sandstream.

Metagross/Jirachi could be put in place of Tyranitar and would be a much better lead than Starmie in my honest opinion (they work well with Salamence as they resist each other's weaknesses). This would help with dealing with Grass moves as well.

Your biggest team's weakness seems to be durability and it doesn't seem that you have much defense.

If you want a solid way to deal with Yanmega use Blissey, Togekiss, or Zapdos.

Be weary of using Stone Edge on that many of your pogeys, I usually prefer using Rock Slide because of the PP and accuracy risks.

Overall though this does seem like an above averge team that would be interesting to battle against. Keep on pluggin'.
 
I generally don't think that Life Orbers on a team with Tyranitar work that well. In turns that you aren't Recovering with Starmie you'll be taking 16% damage. Is it really worth it to take 16% just to blow away Rocks?

If your complaint is life orbers, I'm not sure if I'd really want to make anything other then tyranitar a DDer, as a DDer without life orb to me seems as though it is a little lacking compared to a choice user in that I have to spend a turn every single time it comes in to get the same sort of power. I'll state some issues with not having CB tar later, but this is fine.
Although, leftovers should really work fine, it seems as though it is a little lacking in it's ability to break through walls.

As for taking 16% to blow away rocks, that 16% would save countless damage as my sweepers switch in and out as they always do.

Your team looks like it could handle some status with Heracross

But not sleep!

but still its kind of frail and doesn't exactly like taking damage from Sandstream.
Yes, it is fairly hard to bring in compared to some of the other pokemon, but I can bring it in on switches, grass attacks (aimed at swampert), and seismic tosses from blissey without to much difficulty. Sandstorm doesn't help it, but it generally hurts most of it's opposition just as much.
Close combat is an excellent move for a finnishing sweep, something much better then bullet punch in a metagame as steel heavy as this one. Heracross can often cleen up very well, and with scarf, out runs such things as random infernapes and some slower scarfed pokemon (magnezones, for example) and dispatch them.

Metagross/Jirachi could be put in place of Tyranitar and would be a much better lead than Starmie in my honest opinion (they work well with Salamence as they resist each other's weaknesses).

Starmie isn't the best lead; the only time it really shines is against aerodactyls and infernapes were the people decide to leave them in, stealth rock on the turn of starmie's surf, and then get KOed by rapid spin.
Metagross could also provide explosion, which my team is lacking. What sort of moveset would you recomend that I try?
One issue though is that Tyranitar can often bust games open with his tremendous power; random crits from stone edge can also often simply end many walls (OHKOs skarmory when its a crit), and can also take down things like vaporeon one on one. Metagross seems relatively lacking in it's ability to do that, as well as absorb special hits.
If I put in jirachi or metagross, can they really come in on zapdos and scare it away?
Can they really smash walls?

As RaikouLover's thread states, there probably aren't any better CBers then Tyranitar, so it seems only natural that I'd have one in a team as heavy in choice users.


This would help with dealing with Grass moves as well.

Salamence and heracross both resist.
Although removing something for metagross (and it's explosion) would be helpful.
If I take out starmie, then I'd need to do a lot of modifications to the rest of the team, as I could no longer take advantage of the tremendous benefits the choice items provide.
Swampert is the staple of the team as it is...but, metagross can also take hits like a champ with its 140 base defense...
I'm really not sure.

Your biggest team's weakness seems to be durability and it doesn't seem that you have much defense.

If you want a solid way to deal with Yanmega use Blissey, Togekiss, or Zapdos.

Of those an offensive zapdos sounds the best, but I don't want to lean to heavily specialy. As it is, my only pokemon without powerful physical attacks is starmie, meaning I only have one pokemon walled by blissey, and that one pokemon, while the impotent blissey is in against her, is then free to clear rocks. And, once I get rid of my opponents physical walls, then everysingle one of my pokemon (accept for starmie) can then procede to dish out tremendous damage.

Be weary of using Stone Edge on that many of your pogeys, I usually prefer using Rock Slide because of the PP and accuracy risks.

Overall though this does seem like an above averge team that would be interesting to battle against. Keep on pluggin'.

Rock slide is lacking in power; on salamence I'd just much rather use outrage at that point (150 when super effective with 90% accuracy vs. 100% accuracy 180 base power STAB outrage) and never even bother with a rock attack. If my opponent switches to a steel, it would resist both rock and dragon anyway.


I'll go ahead and test whatever it is you guys recomend here.
-Haven't gotten around to testing the first batch; I was testing for UU. I should work on it tomorrow.

Chaos 9, no problem. I made this thread because I wanted advice; I'd only be hurting myself by ignoring and not testing what you and others recomend.

The ev spread you recomended didn't involve max attack, but only 76 attack evs, so it wont have 394 attack.

EDIT:
Swampert is my only ground type. Shouldn't take that out.
 
Your whole team is primarily based on all out offense. Using so many Choice items isn't entirely a good idea because you'll find yourself trapped in moves a lot. First off, I'm concerned with getting you a lead that's going to get you somewhere. Leading with a Spin Starmie isn't a good idea. Move it to the back, and change it up a little; Drop LO for Leftovers, run Rapid Spin / Surf / Thunderbolt / Recover and use the standard Spinner EV's of 136 HP / 156 Def / 216 Spe. As for your lead, place Gyarados in that spot. You really don't need CB on Gyarados. Go for Life Orb instead, and run the standard set of Dragon Dance / Waterfall / Ice Fang / Earthquake. I see Gliscor being a better replacement over Salamence. This will cover your Metagross, Togekiss, and Breloom weakness, along with countering a few Mence sets:

Gliscor @ Life Orb
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SAtk)
~ Swords Dance
~ Earthquake
~ Stone Edge
~ Fire Fang / Ice Fang

Gliscor won't have to worry about being Paralysed, and a Sword Danced Stone Edge will easily OHKO Togekiss. As long as Metagross isn't running Ice Punch, you can safely switch in and nearly OHKO him with EQ, and Breloom is 2HKO'ed by an unboosted Fire/Ice Fang. Speaking of which, Fire Fang will allow you to pose a threat against Bronzong, but Ice Fang can hit all those common Dragons and still hit Grass types like Celebi, and as previously stated, Breloom. Heracross looks fine but the only nitpick I have is to run Pursuit > Night Slash so you have a higher chance to eliminate those annoying Ghost types on the switchout. Maybe alternating to a Choice Band variant may help you counter Celebi along with Rotom appliances better. Continuing with MixPert, run Roar > Surf for phazing since Earthquake + Ice Beam will hit everything SE that Surf does. On Tyranitar, I'd just use 176 HP / 252 Atk / 80 Spe EV's, which are for the standard CB Tyranitar.

Hope this helps, and good luck with your team! =)
 
Your Salamence wants Fire Blast>Flamethrower. Flamethrower can't even 2HKO Bronzong, a common mence switch in, making it pretty much worthless.
 
Testing results of scizor>tyranitar.
Game 1:
I won without much problem; I never even sent scizor out.
Game 2:
Loss. Scizor completely failed me.
Couldn't take on a weakened gliscor one on one.
Partially my fault; misclicked, and couldn't cancel in time to roost rather then swords dance.
Bullet punch missed, leading to gliscor winning.
Game 3:
My opponent had lead yanmega.
Stone edge missed from gyarados, leading to yanmega taking that down. I brought scizor in, it lost 1 on 1.
Did not go well...loss.

Already 1-2; my win record is far better then this with my real (non-testing) account.
I have no idea what my win-loss ratio is, however with that account.

Game 4:
Loss.
Scizor didn't do much.
Again I didn't use it well, so I can't blame it.
Misclicked, hitting brick break rather then bullet punch, leading to a sweep by a 1 hp lucario.

Game 5:
My opponent had lead aerodactyl, which starmie took out (while clearing rocks at the same time).
After a period of random switching, I brought scizor in, set up on my opponent's donphan, and then swept the remaining 5.
Apparently +4 lo bullet punch (with lo), even with the small amount of ev investment in attack, can OHKO infernape.

Game 6:
Zapdos problems. Thankfully lacked HP grass, and starmie missed the KO when it was at 50% because...it had bright powder? Seriously, surf missed.
When it came back in surf did 57%, so it was a easy 2HKO with stealth rock.
Scizor failed to leave any impression (other then that left by a pokemon not doing anything).
Win.

Game 7:
Scizor switched into lead focus sash weavile and took it down one on one, leaving it at 7%. Swampert normally does a much better job then that.
My opponent did decide to bring in a lucario and swords dance, allowing me to nearly KO with brick break (another sasher; I doubt this was a very good player; he surrendered after I stone edged his gyarados using mine as it dragon danced).
Win.

Game 8:
Opponent had heatran (but left it in on starmie..); should have helped scizor use, but my opponent had a rotom-c, making me realize a large weakness to this once salamence falls.
Starmie managed to 2hko rotom c, doing 56%, saving me. I'm mentioning this as this is a clear time the life orb and ev spread was crucial.
Resulted in a loss.
Scizor failed to do anything.

Game 9:
Opponent had a dusknoir (although tyranitar can't switch into it anyway).
Opponent had zapdos and heatran.
Scizor dead weight. Never sent out through the entire match.
Win.

Game 10:
Opponent had yanmega. Scizor didn't do anything to threaten it (simply put to sleep).
It swept my entire team (all 6).
If I had tyranitar sandstorm would have killed yanmega, so it wouldn't have done worse.

Record in this test: 5-5.
Decision: No question; scizor, if at all placed in my team, will not replace tyranitar.
Likelyhood of me putting any life orb variant of scizor into this team is slim to none. Perhaps a choice band variant.
It simply fails to fit into the team at all. Predictability is extreme; everyone has at least half a team of scizor counters, except for certain random individuals.

The scizor build you recomended was a pokemon meant to come in and set up on special attackers, thus I replaced the pokemon meant to do that to some extant already (tyranitar); gyarados and salamence are for physical threats.
Scizor failed to be satisfactory at all.

I am under the impression that if a team is to include a set up pokemon, that pokemon should be able to function well without set up (which that scizor spred isn't exactly capable of, due to relatively poor offense, week attacks, and predominance of counters), or, better yet, has a team built around supporting it.
That is not at all something I looked at, so I really shouldn't blame scizor.
If I were to put it in, I should probably remold the team around it so that it may be able to take out it's counters.

Because the latias vote is now just around the corner, I really need to come up with some steel to add in.

Bogmire, I almost never use a fire attack; in fact, I most commonly use it when it gets whirldwinded in on a skarmory, or when I switch it into a breloom with a sub up and don't feel like outraging, and therefore opt for flamethrower.
I'd then be forced to outrage against brelooms; not sure if the potential 2hko on bronzong is worth being forced to lock myself into outrage so early in the game.

I've completed my first test.

I only have enough time for maintaining the standard deviation of my rating account, and doing one test each day.
What do you recomend that I test next?
Metagross in place of somehing?
Jirachi in place of something?
Salamence as a DDer?
Gyarados as a DDer?
Tyranitar as a DDer?
LO SD Scizor in place of something else?
CB scizor in place of something?
LO gliscor?
Standard rapid spin starmie?
Zapdos in place of something (considering the catastrophies above with yanmega, I think I was just lucky with how little yanmega I've seen with this team).
Some combination of the above?
Something else?

When I remember I'll drop night slash for pursuit. The only issue is then that I don't have anything to hit ghosts with; normally they don't run expecting me to have pursuit. That should be fine, however.

As for roar v. surf on swampert, I will test roar.
Surf does enough damage so that I can easily force the likes of hippowdon out (thanks to STAB it does well over 60% rather than less than slack off restores) and generaly be much more threatening, however, not against all to much.
The likes of gyarados love coming in, and sending it out to take 25% more (especially if it dragon dances) from stealth rock sounds very enticing, and hippowdon would flee from ice beam anyway.
Definately something that deserves testing.

EDIT:
Perhaps I'll try rebuilding a team from scratch using the same methods I used for this, only aiming in a slightly different direction, and see where I end up.
 
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