Rain Offense

[gaddster03]

Hello so this is my rain team i have been working on, it has been doing quite well but i feel that it can be improved so i decided to make this RMT to get your opinions on it.

Team Building Process:

Well the first pokemon is obviously going to be a politoed

I decided to give with a specs set as a rain and specs boosted hydro pump in rain obliterates so much

252 SpAtk Choice Specs Politoed (+SpAtk) Hydro Pump vs 252 HP/252 SpDef Jirachi: 49.01% - 57.92%
Entry hazards damage: 25
After entry hazards: 223 - 259 (55.2% - 64.11%)
2-3 hits to KO (with Leftovers) So without leftovers it can ko and most spedically defensive jirachi don't carry max SpDef ev's anyway.

Next i used all rains favourite mixed attacker Torandus - T

Pretty standard life orb set with u turn to help get back some hp with regenerator

After seeing scizor reclaiming it's top spot i decided to try it out.

A great priority technician abusing physcial attacker whose major weakness has a reduction in the weather i try to keep up, yes please. Scizor is my physical attacker and gives a psuedo Volt turn core with Tornadus - T.

Now i have nether tried out a garchomp before, and i needed a physcial scarfer, i was toying between this and terrakion but since i have little coverage on dragons in chose this beast.

Pretty standard scarfChomp

Finally i wanted something that could rid me of those annoying statuses, i also needed a special wall and something that could pass status as well, i was toying between rest hydration vaporeon and eviolite chansey, i ended up chosing chansey as it can pass huge wishes and act as a cleric for my team.

Next i needed a physical wall and a way to tank dragon thunder and other physical attacks. As well as set up entry hazards. I chose Ferrothorn. I chose him over forretress as he could spread paralysis and hit hard with 91 base attack gyro balls with a lower speed. Although it suffers from no rapid spin but tornadus is really my only stealth rock weak pokemon. Chansey helps me getrid of toxic spikes poison and restore health sapped by leech seeds and other hazards.

In depth look

Politoed @ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 Spd
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Focus Blast

Politoed gets me rain and hits incredibly hard with 270 base power hydro pump boosted by specs of his respectable 90 base SpA. Hidden power grass is his best option for hitting the likes of jellicent and gastrodon. Hydro pump is for obscene power. Ice beam and focus blast offer good coverage for my team as a whole.

Tornadus-Therian (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Mild Nature
- U-turn
- Heat Wave
- Hurricane
- Superpower

The standard set. NO wonder this is in the suspect test, it hits so hard and is so annoying to deal with, u turns coming off a base 121 speed means people generally have to resort to scarfers to hit this thing and stop it uturning and regenerating the damage away.

Scizor @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 248 HP / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Pursuit
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Bullet Punch

Scizor is a good phsycial attacker. U turn helps ease prediction and keep momentum and avoid being locked into the wrong move. Pursuit is to hit any pokemon who might want to swtich out, as well psychic and ghost types. Superpower fro coverage and a strong move in general. Bullet punch for one of the strongest priority moves in the game, and can sweep weakened teams near the end of the game.

Garchomp @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naughty Nature
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Fire Blast

My choice scarfer. I chose him because he adds a pokemon with a rock type move to hit volcarona and flying/ice types etc etc. Outrage and Earthquake hit pretty hard to anything that doesn't resist him. Fire blast helps to deal with steel types while also offering a way to dent physical walls that lack SpDef investment. Considering changing to scarf mence but not sure.

Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Toxic
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Counter

This thing tanks special attacks so hard it is unbelievable. It can also take physical attacks fairly well and retaliate or even KO with counter. Wish and heal bell offer great team support. Toxic to cripple annoying walls and other weather starters.

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Def / 76 SDef
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Gyro Ball

Although not as bulky as fortress defensivly it has good special bulk too allowing it to tank all hits. I love how it can thunder wave and actually hit hard with gyro ball. He sacrifices rapid spin for a way to cripple opponents fast sweepers.

I am still very new to competitive battling so if this team is shit don't worry about telling me i need all the criticism i can get. Alhtough constructive criticism only please

 

[Electrolyte]

Hey, nice team

It looks pretty solid, so nice job on that. It's pretty standard, so I don't too many changes are abaolutely necessary, as you cover most Rain-weaknesses pretty well. Since your team is pretty offensive, I think Chansey's moveset can be changed a bit. Chansey really drags your team back, as it can't hurt Substitute sweepers / special attackers / poison types at all, making it easy setup bait for your opponent. For this reason, I would definitely use Seismic Toss over Counter, since it hurts all pokemon equally, preventing them from setting up on you. It also gives you at least some offense for Chansey, letting it still hurt opponents despite being so defensively oriented.

On Tornadus and Garchomp, I think it would be better to give them a Naive nature instead of what they have already. Max speed is cery important for both as their high speeds are their biggest assets and without it they won't be able to function nearly as well. Since Breloom looks as if it could be a bit troublesome, I would try Sleep Talk over Heatwave on Tornadus. This gives you a good Sleep absorber that can defeat a majority of Sleep inducers- Breloom, Venasaur, etc. This will help a lot against opposing weather teams.

Other than that, your team looks great. Good luck!

 

[Shining_Latios]

Hi, cool rain team. The team is quite solid overall, however, I did find one crucial weakness. If you lose the weather war against an opposing sun team carrying Special Growth Venusaur with 3 attacks, you are in huge trouble. Venusaur sets up on your Chansey, while your pink blob cannot do anything about it. Venusaur then advances to absolutely decimate your team, with nothing to stop it. The easiest way to fix this weakness is to use Thunder Wave over Toxic on Chansey. Now if Vensaur even dares to set up, it'll be punished by a severe speed reduction. This will allow you to roast it with Tornadus-T's Heat Wave. Even if Venusaur gets a Growth up on something like your Scizor locked into Superpower, Chansey will survive any attack at +2 and cripple it back with Thunder Wave. Also, I suggest using Dragon Claw instead of Fire Blast on Garchomp. First off, if you need to revenge a Pokemon but cannot do so with Earthquake and Stone Edge, you really do not want to be locked into Outrage and for them to then send out a steel-type. Dragon Claw gives you that coverage without being locked in for 3 turns and is very helpful. Also, keep in mind that fire-type moves's power are decreased by 50% under rain, so Fire Blast isn't too useful. With this change, you also want to switch to a Jolly nature, to maximize your revenging capabilities. For example, with a Naughty nature you would not be able to outspeed Salamence at +1, but with Jolly you are able to do so. +Speed nature always makes a difference on a Scarfed Pokemon. My final recommendation is to use a Naive Nature on Tornadus-T over Mild. With max speed, you are able to outspeed a chunk of the metagame and is more important than the added power Mild brings you with. Other than that, solid team and hope I helped.

 

[Mr. Green]

Hi, there

Good team, no known major weaknesses, apart from not having a Rapid Spinner you are a bit 'weak to Sunny Day, with Dugtrio / Gothitelle (Scarf) + Ninetales that can kill Politoed By removing forever the Rain during the battle.
To resolve this problem could insert of Rain Dance Tornadus-T as well as he enters the field Ninetales uses it and you gain a Hurricane free and not just because it will make him very badly. So the moveset of Tornadus-T would change the nature of first removing the Mild for Naive and putting Rain Dance> Heat Wave. This is because the speed of Tornadus-T is used to the maximum to avoid being outpaced by Scarf Tyranitar as well as you will be forced to change because you're slower Pokemon Pursuit he will kill you, instead of having 375 in the Speed ​​kill you with Superpower.
Then I would like Seismic Toss> Counter on Chansey, since it hurts the same way to all Pokemon, can give an offensive move to Chansey to annoy a little. As a last change, I suggest you change the evs and nature to Politoed, with evs and nature you've done you can not outrun Breloom, Landorus-T bulky, bulky Rotom-W (which resulted in the KO phase can still kill), all Pokemon that you may very well defeat, then I suggest you put Timid> Modest and move the 252 evs in HP and speed.
so even with Timid nature, with Choice Specs and 252 evs in special attack you still have a huge offensive capability. That is all.
Good luck, with your team!

tl;dr

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Naive > Mild (for Tornadus-T)
Rain Dance > Heat Wave (for Tornadus-T)
252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP (for Politoed)
Seismic Toss > Counter (for Chansey)

 

[tab]

This isn't a bad team, but it can certainly be improved a lot without too much work. Certainly, you've got a lot of the right ideas in place. The main problem that you have is that your team seems to be lacking a real idea of what it's trying to do - half of your team is built to be an offensive team, while the other half is based around letting it take hits well, which isn't really the right way to do things - every time you switch into a wall, you're giving up all of the momentum you've gained through offensive play. The other real problem that you have is that, despite the fact that you've tried to build an offensive team, the only two pokemon you have with real offensive presence are Politoed and Tornadus, which means that you're going to struggle to wear down more defensively-minded teams.

The obvious change that you can make to try and fix that is to replace Chansey, as a dedicated wall isn't really necessary (Ferrothorn doesn't count as it has more of a support role), but I'll get back to that. First of all, I'm going to suggest that you change your Scizor to a Sub CM Jirachi for a number of reasons. Firstly, it'll help deal with your problem of the team in general not really being threatening enough offensively, as Scizor doesn't really perform as well as it used to in the current metagame, and Jirachi is a pretty scary sweeper on rain teams. Secondly, it helps you deal with probably the number one threat at the moment, Tornadus-T much more easily, as well as helping pick up the slack when it comes to sponging special hits once Chansey is gone. I'd suggest you use the SubCM set from this analysis.

Now, on to Chansey. As I said, you don't really need a dedicated wall on this kind of team - you'd be much better off with a reasonably bulky pokemon that also offers an offensive contribution. At the moment, outside of going to Politoed constantly (which is a surefire way to get it worn down and lose the weather war), you're going to struggle to take out pokemon like specially defensive Hippowdown. There are two immediate choices that leap out as being well-suited to a rain team: Latios and Keldeo, both of which could give you an extra weapon against sun teams, which could be a bit annoying at the moment. You could either add a Specs Keldeo or a LO Latios and keep the rest of the team the same, or add a Scarf Keldeo and change Garchomp's set. If you're willing to make that many changes, I'd probably lean towards the latter - Keldeo lets you outspeed modest Venusaur in the sun (only relevant if you have HP Ice), and is a pretty scary lategame sweeper on rain teams, whereas Garchomp isn't really a great scarfer anymore. Keldeo also deals with Volcarona almost as easily as Garchomp does.

As for other small changes, I'd probably give Ferrothorn a more specially defensive EV spread, especially now that Chansey is gone, so that you can take boosted water moves a bit more easily. For a similar reason, you're going to want Leech Seed on it, which makes it much harder to kill. I'd replace Spikes, as you're probably better of just focusing on one kind of hazards with Ferrothorn. If you want to keep spikes, you could replace Stealth Rock, and use a Rocky Helmet SR Garchomp set (provided you use a Scarf Keldeo). If you'd like a bit more bulk and better weather control, you could also look at changing Politoed to a physically defensive set. Now that you've got a bit more offense, the loss of damage shouldn't be such a big deal, and Scald is always a useful thing to have.

Hopefully you'll find some of my suggestions useful, good luck!

 

[Leftiez]

Hi there.
It is an very interesting offensive team, I appreciate a lot your team,But I see that you have counter on Chansey, I suggest you swap Counter with Seismic Toss because even if Chansey has eviolite it is not a very good physical stall, then it is generally OHKO by good physical sweepers, with counter you can not do anything against Volca Sub/Zone Sub, now you can come easily with seismic toss and you can break the substitute,then I noticed that you possess Fire Blast on Garchomp, but with the rain fire attacks are reduced, I suggest you put Dual Chop, with this move you can break substitute of Dragonite and kill him or Gengar. Then I suggest you Sleep Talk on Substitute for Tornadus-T because you are very disadvantaged against Breloom, Breloom has Spore and he can asleep Tornadus-T to kill, now you can come on Breloom easily and kill him with Sleep Talk and put Naive nature on Tornadus-T too, you can outspeed Starmie/Alakazam/Tyranitar Scarf/Magnezone Scarf/Dugtrio/Keldeo/Latias/Latios/Terrakion.


Tl;dr

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Tornadus-T--->Sleep Talk and Naive Nature
Chansey--->Seismic Toss
Garchomp--->Dual Chop

Hope i Helped and Good Luck with your team.

 

[Prinz]

Hi there.

First of all, welcome to Smogon!

Speaking about your team, as already said, on Chansey I'd use Seismic Toss, replacing Counter. Chansey can't tank strong physical hits like Terrakion's Close Combat so in many chances it isn't a useful move. Seismic Toss otherwise break Volcarona and Special Attacker Landorus' Substitute for example and it's always useful to make some damages. Then, on Garchomp I'd change Fire Blast into Aqua Tail. Fire Blast can't make a lots of damages when it's raining so I think that it isn't a very good move in this team. Aqua Tail otherwise hits hard pokèmon which can be problematic for Garchomp, like Bronzong and Air Ballon Heatran. Anyway, I think that Aqua Tail is simple a better move than Fire Blast in a rain team so I suggest you to use it. Finally, on Tornadus-T I'd change Heat Wave into Taunt. Heat Wave can't damage hard anything when rain is up, is the same reason to don't use Fire Fang Garchomp. I'd use Taunt because your team is quite weak to Entry Hazards and Taunt can prevent the setup of them. Your team has a weakness Entry Hazards because you have three Choice item users and they'll do a lots of switch and they'll take damages from Entry Hazards, they also are annoying for Chansey and Ferrothorn.

That's about your team. Good luck, I hope I helped!