Other ORAS OU Playstyles (Rain, Check Post #30)

[bludz]

I'm totally stealing borrowing this from another thread where ArchPhantom (I believe it was him) posted a sand team -- Seismitoad seems like a really solid teammate on sand as it boasts an immunity to water and doesn't take residual damage from the sandstorm. As mentioned before water weakness is a huge problem for sand teams as the main abusers are weak to it and this makes rain teams a serious threat, so any immunity to water is huge. It also makes a good Stealth Rock user if you opt for Scarf with your TTar (although Smooth Rock is often preferred to help Excadrill out).

Also as a water resist I like Ferrothorn, but I'd recommend pairing it with Hippowdon more than Tyranitar because of a shared weakness to fighting that Excadrill also shares. I do think more teams tend to use Tyranitar because of its offensive presence and ability to get rid of Psychics/Gengar, but there's something to be said for using Hippowdon. Bulkier sand teams can wear down opposing teams thanks to residual sandstorm damage, and this is especially helpful against Megas like Lopunny or Charizard X both of whom Hippowdon checks.

Since rain teams are a serious threat, I'd say any sand team needs an answer for Swampert. Rotom-W is great since it can Will-O-Wisp Swamp while resisting both of its STABs. Defensive Rotom-W is also great for Keldeo since Secret Sword hits physical defense. Another fun thing to do is run Zard Y since it helps alleviate pressure from rain giving you a 2nd weather inducer while also weakening water moves. Although it is not really a sand mon it has pretty good synergy with the playstyle since it allows you to break down common walls to Excadrill such as Skarmory.

EDIT: Latis are also solid teammates with immunity to ground and resistance to water, the ability to nuke physically defensive pokemon that check Excadrill and adding Defog support so that Excadrill can go full offensive. Latias also provides Healing Wish support for a 2nd opportunity to sweep

All in all I think sand is the most versatile weather since it gives both offensive boosts (Sand Rush) and defensive buffs (Rock type SpDef), while having 2 different weather setters that are solid pokemon in their own right even without Sand Stream.

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

One thing that hurts sand mainly excadrill is the extremely high usage of Lando-T, Rotom-w, Keldeo. They don't necessarily counter sand, but makes it life very difficult. All sand teams should have and answer to the above mons.

 

[astroshagger]

Just a very small nitpick involving Excadrill's spread.. If Excadrill is using a Life Orb (be it Adamant or Jolly) the HP IV should be 29 as that reches 359 at lvl 100.

 

[silver97]

let's talk about a mon that has always worked wonderfully with sandspam: mega char-y

This mon is really useful and synergizes really well with the sand core. In the first place, with new mechanics of weather limitated to 5-8 turns, it helps setting up the sand more reliably; in fact if ttar switches out and exca can't abuse sand in that moment you can use char to "clean" the field so that next time ttar have to come in it will be sure to set new sand. After that the mon itself takes benefits from the other two an at the same time gives them some help; latios and especially latias are two of the best checks of char-y, well you have on the team the premier counter for them which can easily switch on them and trapkill with pursuit, opening a hole in the opposing team for charizard to spam those insanely powerful fire blasts that will help a lot weakening and crippling the opponent, making the sweep really easy for exca. Furthemore charizard rapes nearly every common stop to sand, namely rotom-w, skarmory, chesnaugt, ferro and also breloom and azumarill with the right conditions. This is what made double weather a really effective archetype that proven to be really good when sandspam dominated
in mid-late xy, also because it is really easy to build as this core is almost autosufficient providing rocks (with the right ttar set), hazard control, wallbreaking power, a reliable wincon and a strong pivot.

 

[SketchUp]

There are many pokemon that can really annoy rain, especially grass types in combination with something that can take Hurricanes. The biggest threat for rain is Power Whip Ferrothorn, and every rain team should be prepared for it. But how?

Non-Mega's
**Keldeo: Choice Specs is a big threat in the rain because a Hydro Pump hits unbelievable hard. Ferrothorn avoids the 2hko from Hydro Pump, but gets OHKO'd if it uses the 252 / 88 spread.
**Thundurus: Thundurus can provide rain support with Prankster Rain Dance and abuse it himself with Thunder. It can also hit Ferrothorn with a nice LO Focus Blast which is a 2hko on Ferrothorn
**Magnezone: Magnezone can trap Ferrothorn but really wants the rain down. Magnezone also gets a 100% accurate Thunder from the rain and takes 2x less damage from fire attacks when rain is up
**Stuff like Landorus-I, Tornadus(-T) and Toxicroak also work

Mega's
**Mega Heracross: Mega Swampert might be the best mega in the rain, but Mega Heracross is also worth a mention. Mega Swampert has a few flaws and because of this you don't lose that much for going for another mega. However, if you go for another mega, Mega Heracross is one of your best options. Close Combat OHKO's Ferrothorn
**Mega Swampert: Mega Swampert is arguably the best mega for rain teams. With Superpower or Low Kick it can 2HKO Ferrothorn, but it fears Power Whip, so it has to predict. With Mega Swampert on rain in ORAS Ferrothorn becomes much easier to handle though
**Mega Scizor, Mega Metagross and Mega Pinsir: All 3 pokemon have 2 things in common: They benefit from rain because they make the fire weakness an neutrality (2x weakness on Scizor) and they all have a fighting coverage move to 2HKO Ferrothorn (Superpower Scizor, Hammer Arm Metagross, Close Combat Mega Pinsir)

EDIT: I'll make a bigger post about setters, abusers and threats in the rain later

 

[gnr61]

We all know what swift swimmers do, so I'll refrain from talking about Lord Helix here and how much more rad he is than Swampert and instead talk a bit about non-water types that just lu da rain.

Tornadus-T (AV or LO): big bird is a huge asset to rain, providing a switch-in to grass types with Hurricane nukes to scare them off, as well as a reliable way to beat Chansey (Taunt+Knock Off or Superpower) and smack around balance with its insane coverage and refusal to die. It has exceptional defensive synergy with rain abusers by hyper offense standards and thanks to its speed and coverage does huge work against all playstyles. 70% accurate Hurricane is the only thing keeping Tornadus-T from like A+ rank so you can see how terrifying it is with rain support. U-turn AV is also useful for somewhat checking the latis when rain suddenly ends and you have nothing to take a draco meteor.

Klefki: this fuck pivots into so many pokemon it's not even funny. With prankster rain dance, spikes and thunder wave the SpDef set makes a dope lead for HO. It's not even a suicide lead, it just hazards, dances, takes some damage and gtfos to pivot back into Lati@s or whatever. Hazards are extremely tough to fit onto really offensive rain teams, and sometimes a layer of spikes is all you need. Magnet rise is also a neat trick for turning SD rocks Garchomp into spikes fodder, but doesn't do a whole load else better than Foul Play/Play Rough.

Celebi: Celebi makes pointy stones appear on the opposing side and switches into Rotom-W, Venusaur, Azumarill, Mega Lopunny and non-Spikes Ferrothorn with impunity. This alone is literally enough to put this thing on your rain team, but where it really shines is its moldability to whatever the fuck you're running: you can do offensive LO with lure-type coverage if you just want a bulky attacker who beats waters, or you can use NastyPass to make omastar/keldeo/kingdra completely borked, or my personal favorite, Seed Bomb SDPass into 4Attacks LO Kabutops, whose only issue is not having any chances to set up and simply mows down every team in existence at +2 by midgame. I've mentioned this elsewhere but imo celebi is way better on rain teams than most fast electrics (well raikou/manectric basically) because of its utility and the fact that it isn't (redundantly) only good against offense and birdspam (which you should have checks for between a Water/Rock and politoed).

Azelf: way better than klefki for two turns (because rocks and explosion and taunt) but then it dies and they defog on your Scald-locked Lord Helix :(

Mega Charizard X: I've played around a bit with sort of rain bulky offense with like 3 hard-hitting tanks w/ good defensive synergy + politoed and two abusers, and bulky Xard functions surprisingly well. Fire/Dragon complements rain teams *perfectly* defensively, handling p much every grass, electric and water type out there. It sucks not having the brute force of flare blitz, but if you want to actually damage ferrothorn in rain it's still more than enough. SD/DClaw/EQ/Roost works fine as well, just include Zor or Gengar in your core for fairies and you're set.

Mega Metagross: dude's kind of common on rain now, for good reason: it is strong, physical, can hit water types with grass knot, and as long as rain is up is a full stop to clefable which otherwise does a ton with flamethrower on the switch. Without Metagross rain actually struggles quite a bit with cm clef, since the only things you carry to break it are usually specs hydro pumps, and it will just stall out rain turns or missfish after a calm mind on the switch. Gross is good insurance here on top of everything else it does so stupidly well in this meta.

 

[AM]

Rain has become a very threating force in the OU metagame since Mega Swampert was released. It made Rain much more of a valuable playstyle from its time in X and Y.

Rain was a good play-style even then, if not arguably one of the best one to this day. Anyways....

Generally when I build rain I have a basic foundation that I start off with and go from there.

Rain Setter (Politoed)/ Swift Swimmer x2 / Grass Check / Electric Check / Extra (Offensive Utility, Defensive Utility, Secondary Rain setter)

This is a really basic concept and obviously is more elaborate in the building process but generally I make sure to include each of these as part of the bare bones of my rain team. Some examples listed below of Pokemon who fall under these categories among others, please note this pertains to what generally can fit on the rain play-style, not including concepts such as dual weather. I might be missing some, perhaps a lot that I haven't tried out yet or just missed by accident, but more or less this is to just give you an idea with basic information of what you should take into account when building for rain, either as a full rain team or as part of a rain core added to a team.

Rain Setters

Defensive Rain Setters

Offensive Rain Setters

Swift Swimmers

Swift Swim Wall-Breakers

Swift Swim Cleaners / Revenge Killers

Hazard Setters

Stealth Rock Setters

Spikes Setters

Toxic Spikes Setters

Grass Checks

M-Venusaur / Amoonguss Checks:

Ferrothorn Checks:

Breloom / Chesnaught Checks:

M-Sceptile Checks:

Tangrowth Checks:

Celebi Checks:

Serperior Checks:

Electric Checks

Raikou / M-Manectric Checks:

Thundurus Checks:

Thundurus Therian Checks:

M-Ampharos Checks:

Zapdos Checks:

Hazard Removers

Rapid Spin

Defog

Momentum Grabbers

Volt Switch:

U-Turn:

Baton Pass:

Healing Wish:

Probably missing some stuff but you get the idea. The momentum grabber section was added to get Politoed in easily along with the usual momentum grabbing. Out of those options I give myself I'll also accommodate for the general threats you would take into account as well such as Talonflame, M-Metagross, M-Sableye, M-Slowbro, etc.

Sort of answered the first two questions with those options so the best way to capitalize on those 8 turns is definitely maintaining pressure in most cases your offensive back bone + hazard pressure. If you're using a more Balanced Rain team you'll want to focus using your pivots, stuff like Amoonguss for example, to provide easier switch in opportunities for your offensive team-mates. Rain is successful because of the amount of pressure it applies to various archetypes as such it's your job to maintain that consistency in order to succeed. You'll generally want to have a way to play around or have an answer some of the general Grass and Electric types in the tier so the above options can provide you choices to consider when building. Politoed is the most important piece of rain, so don't be one of those guys that sacks Politoed in like the first 2 to 3 turns of the match lol.

That's all I have for now. Maybe I'll make a post another time on stuff you can use to help you beat Rain. Anyone who is experienced in rain can elaborate more on this as well. Enjoy.

Edit: It's come to my attention I'm missing some stuff so if anything major that is relevant feel free to shoot me a PM with w/e and I'll update it during my free time.

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

I feel most rain teams need Lati@s. They give a grass elec resist. Can set rain, remove hazards and just be general good pokemon.

 

[I_am_A_Garchomp]

AM Why isn't Seismitoad listed as an electric check? It has the same type as pert and is a slight bit faster.

 

[SketchUp]

AM Why isn't Seismitoad listed as an electric check? It has the same type as pert and is a slight bit faster.

I don't know if there is something wrong with your sprites but I see Seismitoad under every pokemon in ''Electric Checks''

 

[Mur]

Since AM has the framework and what mons to use on rain down pat I'm gonna talk about what threatens rain.

Opposing weather setters can completely suck your momentum dry by taking away the rain and replacing it with their own to abuse. While hippowdon and tyranitar may not directly threaten mons on rain cores due to being weak to water STAB but nonetheless having to switch politoed in any extra times just lessens it's life span which is obviously not good for the rain user. Char Y is a whole different story. This thing not only takes the rain away but immediately flips the pressure back into the rain users face. The only mons commonly used on rain teams that can even think about switching into this are the lati's who die to dragon pulse take a solid 42-50% from fire blast. Having a mon on the team to handle char Y should be a necessity(as should all teams lol) along with attempting to pressure it with stealth rocks will help out the rain user in the long run against this threat.

While their frailness may prevent them from directly switching in, the fast electric types of the tier can threaten rain teams in a multitude of ways with the most obvious being their electric STABs to hit the water types of rain cores. Mman and raikou are both wickedly fast and can take away crucial momentum from the rain user with volt switch which can ultimately lead to recklessly sacking mons to regain momentum every time they make an appearance. Thundurus in particular should always be considered when building a rain team due to how easily a swift swimmer can be crippled from thundy's priority t-wave. Overall these mons are troublesome for rain to face and should always be taken into consideration when building a rain team.

(basically grass types you get the point)
Imo more threatening than electric types are the bulky/offensive grass types of the tier. Mvenu, amoonguss, and ferrothorn are pretty much the only mons capable of switching into a majority of the swift swimmers directly and threatening them with super grass STAB. Having a way to break through these mons is very important for all rain teams so you do not just get walled by these behemoths. Grass types such as Mscept and breloom also threaten rain teams from the offensive side of the spectrum. Mscept has an incredible speed tier and when given a free sub can abuse this trait further, usually doing massive damage to the rain core before being neutralized. Breloom's STAB mach punch can wipe out kabu+oma and can also put mons to sleep with sash+spore combo and just threatens rain cores with it's offensive capabilities in general.
Clearly these mons should all be taken care of during teambuilding due to how they all threaten rain in different ways. They don't have dedicated checks being run for them for no reason! I'm sure I missed a few things that can threaten rain teams so feel free to discuss anything I may have missed.