Hazardous Highway - An OU RMT

[FlapJack]

Hazardous Highway - An OU RMT​

I tried my hand at making an OU team the other day. This team focuses heavily on entry hazards as well as the VoltTurn strategy.

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Team Building Process

I really liked the offensive core of Rotom-W and Scizor because they cover each others weaknesses fairly well and can pull off the VoltTurn startegy effectively.

I needed a fast lead that can lay entry hazards since Rotom and Scizor both appreciate that damage. Deoxys-D fit the bill perfectly. It can lay down Spikes an Stealth Rock as well as Taunt the opposing lead preventing their entry hazards.

Now I needed a wall or tank that could take hits. Slowking seemed to work well in that area because it is a strong mixed tank and can phaze out the opponent the get entry hazard damage.

Since my team involves the VoltTurn strategy, I needed to have a Rapid Spinner to remove opposing entry hazards. Forretress was my choice as it can rapid spin as well as lay down Spikes and Toxic Spikes.

Because my strategy involves entry hazards, I needed a Spinblocker. After looking over my tema I decides that I needed a physically oriented Spinblocker because most of my Pokemon were specially based. I came up with Golurk. Golurk attacks physically and can set-up Stealth Rock and block Rapid Spin.

The Team at a Glance

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A Closer Look

Deoxys-D @ Mental Herb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Hp / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Night Shade

Deoxys-D is the premier fast spiker. It is bulky and can lay down two of the three entry hazards. Access to Taunt allows it to prevent opposing leads from using status moves, setting up, using Light Screen and Reflect, and most importantly, preventing them from laying their on entry hazards. Night Shade was chosen as the attacking move so that Deoxys can hit for a consistent amount of damage. Mental Herb is the item of choice so that Deoxys-D can recover from being Taunted and use Taunt on the oppoent or lay a layer of Spikes.

Rotom-W @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Hp / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power Ice
- Trick

Rotom-W is the first part of this teams offensive core. With Choice Specs, Rotom hits like a truck. Hydro Pump is the primary STAB move. Volt Switch is a hit and run and allows Rotom-W to scout. With Volt Switch and Scizors U-turn, I can effectively pull off the VoltTurn strategy. Hidden Power Ice hits the grass types Rotom-W is weak to and also hits dragons like Salamence. Trick cripples physical attackers by giving them Rotoms Choice Scarf.

Scizor @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 4 Hp / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SpA)
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower

Swords Dance Scizor is part two of my offensive core. Bullet Punch is boosted by Technician and also gets STAB and priority making it an effective move for revenge killing as well as just attacking. U-turn in combination with Rotom-Ws Volt Switch allows Scizor and Rotom to scout the opponents team and eliminate major threats. Roost supplies reliable recovery.

Slowking @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Hp / 200 Def / 56 SpD
Calm nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Dragon Tail
- Slack Off

Slowking fills the role of a mixed tank. Scald is the primary STAB attack of the set. It also grants a chance to burn which can potentially cripple a physical sweeper. Psyshock hits the opponents physical defense allowing it to break through special walls. Dragon Tail phazes out opposing Pokemon racking up entry hazards damage as well as removes stat boosts from sweepers. Slack Off supplies reliable recovery, greatly increasing Slowkings life span. Regenerator also recovers one-third of Slowkings health upon switching out.

Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Hp / 252 Def / 4 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spe)
- Gyro Ball
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Volt Switch

Forretress is my teams Rapid Spinner. Keeping enemy entry hazards out of the picture is essential. Forretress can also lay extra layers of Spikes on top of what Deoxys laid. Gyro Ball is a strong STAB move on Forretress since it only has 76 Speed at the max, much the basically the entire metagame. Volt Switch works with Rotom and Scizor to scout the opposing team.

Golurk @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Hp / 80 Atk / 176 Def
Impish nature (+Def, -SpA)
- Shadow Punch
- Ice Punch
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake

Keeping entry hazards on the oponents team is an essential part of my strategy. Golurk is the teams Spinblocker. Shadow Punch is a STAB is the primary STAB. Ice Punch and Fire Punch are coverage moves while Earthquake is the secondary STAB move of the set. You might be wondering how Golurk managed to find a spot on the team. Most of my Pokemon were special attackers so I went with Golurk to get some physical attacks into the mix.

Hope you guys like the team and please leaves suggestions.
(Changes in bold)

- FlapJack

 

[Prinz]

Hi there,

Nice team you have, I like a lot the use of Golurk. Anyway, speaking about it, I found that it has a big weakness to a lots of setupper like Dragonite, Salamence, Volcarona and so on because you haven't a Choice Scarf user. Otherwise, I suggest you to change Rotom-W's set into a Choice Scarf one. Choice Scarf allows to outspeed many threats and to revenge kill. I'd also Timid nature, replacing Modest nature because Choice Scarf Rotom-W doesn't need more fire power, it only needs speed to outspeed and revenge-kill stuff. Then, your team is weak to Rotom-W, it beats Golurk, Slowking, Forretress and burns Scizor. Otherwise, I suggest you to change Scizor's set in an Offensive Sword Dance one. An offensive evs spread allows to hit Rotom-W before it hits, so it's fine in your team. I will post Scizor's set in this rate later. Finally, I think that 2 Stealth Rock users are useless in the same team, otherwise on Golurk I'd change Stealth Rock into Shadow Punch which can be a useful STAB to hit something.

Hope I helped, good luck!

Scizor's set:

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Scizor (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower

 

[FlapJack]

Hi there,

Nice team you have, I like a lot the use of Golurk. Anyway, speaking about it, I found that it has a big weakness to a lots of setupper like Dragonite, Salamence, Volcarona and so on because you haven't a Choice Scarf user. Otherwise, I suggest you to change Rotom-W's set into a Choice Scarf one. Choice Scarf allows to outspeed many threats and to revenge kill. I'd also Timid nature, replacing Modest nature because Choice Scarf Rotom-W doesn't need more fire power, it only needs speed to outspeed and revenge-kill stuff. Then, your team is weak to Rotom-W, it beats Golurk, Slowking, Forretress and burns Scizor. Otherwise, I suggest you to change Scizor's set in an Offensive Sword Dance one. An offensive evs spread allows to hit Rotom-W before it hits, so it's fine in your team. I will post Scizor's set in this rate later. Finally, I think that 2 Stealth Rock users are useless in the same team, otherwise on Golurk I'd change Stealth Rock into Shadow Punch which can be a useful STAB to hit something.

Hope I helped, good luck!

Scizor's set:

Hide

Scizor (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower

This is my first OU team so its nice to see that there aren't too many flaws. I appreciate the feedback alot. Thanks!

 

[BlankZero]

Golurk for OU! That thing is such a fun Pokemon is this Metagame and is an amazing Jirachi counter.

I would swap out Toxic Spikes on Forry though. It is honestly not a great hazard and is often wasted on most teams with so many Steels, Levitate users, and Air Balloons. I would change it to Stealth Rock. The reason being that usually Deo D is a suicide lead and can't beat spinners. What happens if it goes down before the opponent's spinner goes down? No rocks, no spikes, etc.

 

[ganj4lF]

Hi,
nice team you got there, I really like that Slowking; however there are quite a number of things to be improved. The most evident one is the weakness to Tornadus-T: Scarf Rotom just doesn't work to check the now-suspect bird, since Hurricane from a Choice Specs version is a 2HKO (OHKO with 25-30% of residual damage, VERY easy to achieve, just U-Turn once on it...), and everything else is crippled beyond repair by repeated Hurricanes. You also run extremely redundant sets with two setters of Spikes and Stealth Rock, slots that should be used better without any doubt.

So, first of all, I'd change your Rotom set to a Specially Defensive one. That's a pretty much necessary change since Jirachi would let you open to Water spam (you need at least two resistances, and while Slowking is pretty great at doing that work, having a back up is almost required in this meta), and the pink blobs are easily forced to Softboiled and taken advantage upon via Breloom or whatever Fighting type the enemy is running. Rotom can easily annoy the enemy with status (yeah, Toxic Spikes would prevent that, but I'll suggest to remove Toxic Spikes, so no problem here) and has semi-reliable recovery with Pain Split. VoltTurn capabilities are still there, as usual. Rotom is also an awesome lead in most cases, so the need of a Deo-D is a bit lessened.

Now, we must find a suitable Scarfer to replace your own. As I just said, Rotom can be a quite good lead so a Deo-D is required only to a certain point. You can remove it and use a Scarf Latios instead. While most Latios are Specs or Life Orb, Scarf, albeit arguably "weak", can easily revenge things worn down by your hazards with its STAB Draco Meteor, or just Trick its Scarf onto annoying pokes like Jirachi that may try to stop it. Latios provides also useful resistances to Fighting, Electric, and Grass, that would otherwise look troubling for your team. Latios can also help somewhat in dealing with Starmie, which looks like a large problem for your team otherwise (it kills your Spinblocker easily, basically). The loss of hazards is not concerning, since Golurk and Forretress already cover most of your hazards needs anyway.

Now, those two changes should fix somehow your vulnerability to Tornadus and make your team a little more efficient somewhat. Most of the redundancy is also removed with the departure of Deoxys. Other little changes I'd do are: remove Toxic Spikes from Forretress to use Gyro Ball, and use a Physically Defensive set instead (it can't tank much from the special side even with those EVs without Rain support, and its physical bulkiness is quite reduced without full investment). Gyro Ball is invaluable to avoid making Forretress a set-up bait; also, Forretress will hardly ever be able to set up two different hazards, Spikes are already more than enough since it also needs to Spin. I also suggest using Earthquake over Shadow Punch or Fire Punch; you don't want to give up your best STAB attack for a sub-par attack in most cases.

Sets

Rotom-W @ Leftovers | Levitate
Calm | 248 HP / 28 SpA / 232 SpD
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Pain Split
- Thunder Wave / Will-O-Wisp

Latios @ Choice Scarf | Levitate
Timid | 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- HP Fire / Psyshock
- Trick

There's still a number of things that could be improved: Venusaur looks threatening if it's running Sludge Bomb, but that's as always tricky to handle, and Scizor can deal a good chunk of damage, KOing if Venusaur is adequatly weakened. Stallish teams are not really my favourite, so maybe there's a better way to distribute roles and improve the viability of your team; I tried my best, hope that it can work somehow. Good luck while playing it!

 

[FlapJack]

Golurk for OU! That thing is such a fun Pokemon is this Metagame and is an amazing Jirachi counter.

I would swap out Toxic Spikes on Forry though. It is honestly not a great hazard and is often wasted on most teams with so many Steels, Levitate users, and Air Balloons. I would change it to Stealth Rock. The reason being that usually Deo D is a suicide lead and can't beat spinners. What happens if it goes down before the opponent's spinner goes down? No rocks, no spikes, etc.

Thanks for the advice but I think I will keep Toxic Spikes Forretress because Golurk can both spinblock and hit common spinners like Tentacruel and Forretress for super-effective damage in the form of Earthquake and Fire Punch, respectively.

I also suggest using Earthquake over Shadow Punch or Fire Punch; you don't want to give up your best STAB attack for a sub-par attack in most cases.

Oh that was a typo I meant to remove Stealth Rock not Earthquake thanks for pointing that out.