OU ADV OU Metagame Discussion

[Redless]

I was working on this video which goes over a lot of the sensible default spreads I wish I knew about as a newer player, which I think should be common knowledge but aren't.

Here is a paste with the spreads from the video for your quick reference:
https://pokepast.es/bae920a48ce2f457

 

[vapicuno]

It is good that it is updated I guess it just takes time.

Yeah I don't mind making custom sets/spreads myself but it's more when you're just trying to throw a team together and the recommended spread on smogdex looks like it's from 2007. Saving past spreads would be a good idea though yeah.

Actually, every OU set except Charizard (which used to be BL) has been mostly updated, but even the forum thread to Charizard is linked at least. It will take quite a while to get the non-OU sets going though.

Sets off the top of my head that are not present are CurseBoom Lax, Impish Meta, Tpunch Grass Meta, RS Agilimeta, RestTalk Zapdos, heavily SpDef Gar, Curse (and generally more bulky) OffPert, Thief Skarm, DEdge DDTar, Ghost Gyara. There are probably others that I've forgotten. But this is not a lot and many utilize the same EVs as the present sets.

 

[vapicuno]

Would you mind sharing which of these run different EVs? New to ADV

Anything above where I mentioned defensive spreads. For those there are no specific EVs, just trends that have evolved.

 

[Padeli]

Hi all. As of this post, I've topped the ladder #1 with a bulky offense TSS, using sub-liechi aero. Within a day of using it I shot straight up to #1, and as oppose to my last BO TSS team with offmie (with I don't think is that good...), I am confident this is a strong team.

This post is just to bring further attention to sub-liechi aero, which seems to be all over the ladder at the moment. Below is the team and its pokepaste, but I'm not going to discuss the team as a whole in a ton of detail, just aero and some things I've noticed about it and why I think it's excellent (this is prompt 1 and 2 that vapicuno has listed at the start of this thread). This sub liechi aero isnt news to people of course: just posting my thoughts about it (and also my achievement because I like to come out of hiding and make a post when I make #1 haha.)

https://pokepast.es/7b9655e822fd5bf5.

The question behind the team: what is the best spikes-sand cleaner? Ignoring DD'ers, we have options like agil-gross, agil-zap, aero, jolt, starmie, and other niche things. After thinking hard about the question I think that it's aero but not the CB set.

On a sand/spikes team with an inclination towards offense (bulky offense, because I want to still make use of reasonable use of spikes), one wants a cleaner which is strong into sand immune walls such as jirachi/skarm/meta/tar/pert, as well as levitators. The electrics don't work great as cleaners due to the choice of hidden power, starmie hydro pump never hits, and agility gross is completely blanked by skarm and needs too much support in my opinion if you already commit to using Tyranitar Skarmory Gengar. Or, maybe it's fine but for me, I prefer to have something faster out of the box because my team is going to be offensive and otherwise we will be run over by offmie, jolt, aero, etc.

Then at a glance CB aero is perfect: comes on the field easy, flinches everything, fastest in the tier with jolteon. But in my opinion CB aero is overrated and it feels like people on the ladder understand this more and more now.

(1) using a physical cleaner without clear body is annoying especially when you only have 105 base attack. being choice banded magnifies this weakness even more.

(2) of course the main idea about sub liechi aero: you dont have enough defense on your offensive team to lock yourself into a move. It's completely terrible on a team with no defense, DD'ers and agility users will run you straight over.

(3) CB aero isnt even that strong! 50% to ohko off gar, misses the KO on things like starmie, etc. Frustratingly weak to me.

Simply by running sub-liechi we resolve 2/3 of these issues. Sub lets us play around intimidate and not lock moves. It also is a super strong bluff: you can revenge kill something early with aero and switch out to bluff CB and completely win the game a few turns later when revealing sub on a switch.

Also, on such a team as mine, you really want something that can reliably revenge kill certain pokemon like magneton, starmie, gengar, etc. Since aero is immune to sand and spikes, it excels at this especially when you dont lock yourself. So actually it's extremely useful mid game too (as oppose to something like Raikou or whatever).

To support it, just need spikes and strong pert lures (by the way, toxic on pert wins you the end game with sub if it comes down to a 1v1), and pick pokemon that provide the bulk in the right places (such as BKC tar for 1-2 zap switchings, modest zapdos with spdef to take on some suicunes, etc). Also, one wants pokemon with ice/fire/grass coverage like mixed tar, mix mence, or gar, on sand of course to break cores that utilize rachi/pert etc. So its off gar and bkc tar. I've experimented with mix tar but its not what I want for this team, I find that BKC tar with FP is still able to sufficiently chip pert and skarm without running fire blast and hp grass and all.

So that's my take which again I know is nothing new! : sub liechi aero = amazing.

some other notes about the team: I've tried D-bond on gar but its too specific to me. explosion has more general utility, plus sub aero isn't terrible into claydol because we aren't CB anymore (obviously you want to heavily chip that, though). I've also considered agility gross but I find this team struggles with skarmory if you dont have more breaking power. I've also considered hp ice toxic on zap because like I said, toxic on pert is sufficient to beat it in the end game with aero if you have health for like 3 subs (of course I would keep roar on spikes, so twave would go).

Anyways, I am pretty new to ADV, so I'm happy to hear criticism or whatever the more experienced playerbase thinks about this team and its success on the ladder, and sub-liechi aero overall. I would also want suggestions on the above possible tweaks to the team if people are willing to give feedback.

Thanks for reading, see you all on the ladder!

-Padeli

UPDATE 2/4: 1832 after three more wins, team is still performing very well.

 

[Ziggmiceter]

Hi all. As of this post, I've topped the ladder #1 with a bulky offense TSS, using sub-liechi aero. Within a day of using it I shot straight up to #1, and as oppose to my last BO TSS team with offmie (with I don't think is that good...), I am confident this is a strong team.

View attachment 600570

This post is just to bring further attention to sub-liechi aero, which seems to be all over the ladder at the moment. Below is the team and its pokepaste, but I'm not going to discuss the team as a whole in a ton of detail, just aero and some things I've noticed about it and why I think it's excellent (this is prompt 1 and 2 that vapicuno has listed at the start of this thread). This sub liechi aero isnt news to people of course: just posting my thoughts about it (and also my achievement because I like to come out of hiding and make a post when I make #1 haha.)

View attachment 600573View attachment 600574View attachment 600575View attachment 600576View attachment 600577View attachment 600578

https://pokepast.es/7b9655e822fd5bf5.

The question behind the team: what is the best spikes-sand cleaner? Ignoring DD'ers, we have options like agil-gross, agil-zap, aero, jolt, starmie, and other niche things. After thinking hard about the question I think that it's aero but not the CB set.

On a sand/spikes team with an inclination towards offense (bulky offense, because I want to still make use of reasonable use of spikes), one wants a cleaner which is strong into sand immune walls such as jirachi/skarm/meta/tar/pert, as well as levitators. The electrics don't work great as cleaners due to the choice of hidden power, starmie hydro pump never hits, and agility gross is completely blanked by skarm and needs too much support in my opinion if you already commit to using Tyranitar Skarmory Gengar. Or, maybe it's fine but for me, I prefer to have something faster out of the box because my team is going to be offensive and otherwise we will be run over by offmie, jolt, aero, etc.

Then at a glance CB aero is perfect: comes on the field easy, flinches everything, fastest in the tier with jolteon. But in my opinion CB aero is overrated and it feels like people on the ladder understand this more and more now.

(1) using a physical cleaner without clear body is annoying especially when you only have 105 base attack. being choice banded magnifies this weakness even more.

(2) of course the main idea about sub liechi aero: you dont have enough defense on your offensive team to lock yourself into a move. It's completely terrible on a team with no defense, DD'ers and agility users will run you straight over.

(3) CB aero isnt even that strong! 50% to ohko off gar, misses the KO on things like starmie, etc. Frustratingly weak to me.

Simply by running sub-liechi we resolve 2/3 of these issues. Sub lets us play around intimidate and not lock moves. It also is a super strong bluff: you can revenge kill something early with aero and switch out to bluff CB and completely win the game a few turns later when revealing sub on a switch.

Also, on such a team as mine, you really want something that can reliably revenge kill certain pokemon like magneton, starmie, gengar, etc. Since aero is immune to sand and spikes, it excels at this especially when you dont lock yourself. So actually it's extremely useful mid game too (as oppose to something like Raikou or whatever).

To support it, just need spikes and strong pert lures (by the way, toxic on pert wins you the end game with sub if it comes down to a 1v1), and pick pokemon that provide the bulk in the right places (such as BKC tar for 1-2 zap switchings, modest zapdos with spdef to take on some suicunes, etc). Also, one wants pokemon with ice/fire/grass coverage like mixed tar, mix mence, or gar, on sand of course to break cores that utilize rachi/pert etc. So its off gar and bkc tar. I've experimented with mix tar but its not what I want for this team, I find that BKC tar with FP is still able to sufficiently chip pert and skarm without running fire blast and hp grass and all.

So that's my take which again I know is nothing new! : sub liechi aero = amazing.

some other notes about the team: I've tried D-bond on gar but its too specific to me. explosion has more general utility, plus sub aero isn't terrible into claydol because we aren't CB anymore (obviously you want to heavily chip that, though). I've also considered agility gross but I find this team struggles with skarmory if you dont have more breaking power. I've also considered hp ice toxic on zap because like I said, toxic on pert is sufficient to beat it in the end game with aero if you have health for like 3 subs (of course I would keep roar on spikes, so twave would go).

Anyways, I am pretty new to ADV, so I'm happy to hear criticism or whatever the more experienced playerbase thinks about this team and its success on the ladder, and sub-liechi aero overall. I would also want suggestions on the above possible tweaks to the team if people are willing to give feedback.

Thanks for reading, see you all on the ladder!

-Padeli

UPDATE 2/4: 1832 after three more wins, team is still performing very well.

I'm very new to ADV and actually understanding how to play in general (I've played on and off for years but never really "got" a lot of team building and gameplay until recently)
I'm having a hard time switching into water STAB and thunderbolts with this team. How do you typically deal with something like lead Zapdos here? I also know you talk about offpert being dealt with with toxic+spikes+aero but I have a hard time getting into it without taking significant damage. I understand that a lot of the issues I'm running into playing this team probably have to do with my lack of knowledge to actively pivot properly, especially without baton pass on the team to get free advantages

 

[Padeli]

I'm very new to ADV and actually understanding how to play in general (I've played on and off for years but never really "got" a lot of team building and gameplay until recently)
I'm having a hard time switching into water STAB and thunderbolts with this team. How do you typically deal with something like lead Zapdos here? I also know you talk about offpert being dealt with with toxic+spikes+aero but I have a hard time getting into it without taking significant damage. I understand that a lot of the issues I'm running into playing this team probably have to do with my lack of knowledge to actively pivot properly, especially without baton pass on the team to get free advantages

Really awesome to see people taking interest in my team.

The answer to your question - you don't! Lol. That team is very offensive there's not a strong answer to the likes of Zapdos, Gengar. The primary way you try to answer zapdos with the above team is to use your BKC tar to switch in 1-2 times per game, and otherwise apply enough pressure so that you need not switchin further. But indeed you are right there's no real special wall. The key is to apply offensive pressure so that you don't have to worry about it.

One question you may ask from here is how can you fit a special wall like that. One easy answer is to just use BIG5 and drop metagross, this is a standard build. If you prefer to go a different route... you may be interested in Jolteon ;)

Just a quick note - I was just posting that team for fun cause I topped the ladder with it, I don't think it's particularly amazing. Really fun to play though.

-Padeli

 

[CD56]

So I’ve been getting back into ADV OU recently, and I’ve taken inspiration from SPL and began running roselia on the ladder as a decent utility grass type spiker.
This is my set:
Roselia @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 28 Def / 232 SpD
Calm Nature
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Giga Drain/Stun Spore/Hidden Power Grass
- Aromatherapy
This set is honestly not an awful spiker. It’s pretty hard to use on balance because of its frailty so its really at its best when paired with spikers abusers like Mixed Salamence, Standard Moltres/Zapdos, CB Aerodactyl, and similar offensive teams that enjoy spikes to push their checks into range of a 2HKO. I’ve found from ny testing that this thing is pretty decent into defensive variants of starmie and suicune, as well as completely sitting on most milotic variants. The choice between Giga Drain and stun spore is team preference. Stun Spore can really help as a last ditch effort to paralyze any threat, but Giga Drain allows you to directly threaten ground types like swampert and especially claydol, who threatens to spin spikes away, giving you a bit of breathing room in that matchup. Hidden Power Grass has merit as well, as 44 SpA investment will OHKO Dugtrio, who is a huge problem, as well as reliably break substitutes from electric types like jolteon or other pokemon neutral to grass that sub on you, giga drain is unreliable at doing this. Spikes + Leech Seed is a great combination, forcing opposite counterplay and putting your opponent into a bad position very quickly. Aromatherapy can be super clutch to win games and no pokemon gets both spikes + Aromatherapy EXCEPT roselia, making it unique. It can notably switch well into most common zapdos sets and set spikes, and it can even shrug off thunder wave thanks to natural cure which is awesome. Drill Peck Zapdos ruins your fun and so does psychic claydol/starmie variants, so watch out for those. It also does not enjoy taking ice beams from water types, especially offensive starmie. So using it requires a bit of finesse but it usually does something of great value once or twice per game, but ive had quite a few games against very slow bulky teams relying on water types with status and boosting to win, where roselia lasted all game long and laid spikes many times in their face while healing with leech seed. It has issues but I think it might actually rise up to become a niche spiker pokemon similar to glalie but more useful in the midgame instead of having the huge threat of explosion. I’m into this mon for sure and it’ll be no metagame shaker but I expect to see at least 1 battle with another roselia every 20 battles or so. Happened to run into another one myself with a slower approach to it and it was neat. This thing has real merit in the metagame in my opinion and can actually do a lot of stuff decently well, though the flaws are still extreme like really bad physical bulk and low speed hurting it a lot.
EDIT: After testing with this thing, 28 Defense EVs along with max HP allows you to always survive skarmory drill peck, allowing you to at least spike trade in the matchup. You could also invest a little bit into speed to outspeed it, or special attack to OHKO bulkless Dugtrio with HP Grass, but this cuts into your bulk a lot and is generally not worth it. Just focus on what it can do while also trying to mitigate really bad interactions like the Drill Peck OKHO.

 

[Veexliat]

I've been playing Magtrap Porygon for a couple of days after seeing the Jimothy Cool video on how Blightbringer did it in 2018. I think it should be banned and I believe many of my opponents think it should be banned. Maybe in the form of banning accuracy lowering moves.

Here is the team:

https://pokepast.es/de19009027f26eca

So the team is a sub-optimal CM spam team, but the trick is that when enemy kills Skarm with Mag, P2 comes to trap and PP stall Mag, then switch to Gardevoir, setup and get to salac berry either by sand or mag hitting struggles, then sweep. Same can also be done on Dug if Dug is locked into earthquake. The cheese is not necessary to win games, as Suicune is a potent win condition at least in low ladder games anyways. But I am a bad player and I can't say how viable the team actually is.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2061549285
Here is a replay of me trapping mag

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2061556506
Here I have trapped this players Mag before and now he is unwilling to kill Skarm. I'm bad so I lose anyways xd

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2061583239
Here is a replay of me getting to my peak rank :3 No evil trapping in this one though

My current elo. I'm not usually in 1500, rarely even close. Maybe I've gotten better but I don't think this team is a good thing for the metagame.

The team can be stopped. It can't trap a Mag that runs Substitute and even +6 Gardevoir is walled by Claydol. But I don't think its reasonable for every Mag that doesn't want to get trapped to run Substitute.

 

[DkKoba]

I've been playing Magtrap Porygon for a couple of days after seeing the Jimothy Cool video on how Blightbringer did it in 2018. I think it should be banned and I believe many of my opponents think it should be banned. Maybe in the form of banning accuracy lowering moves.

Here is the team:

View attachment 605436View attachment 605437View attachment 605438View attachment 605439View attachment 605440View attachment 605441
https://pokepast.es/de19009027f26eca

So the team is a sub-optimal CM spam team, but the trick is that when enemy kills Skarm with Mag, P2 comes to trap and PP stall Mag, then switch to Gardevoir, setup and get to salac berry either by sand or mag hitting struggles, then sweep. Same can also be done on Dug if Dug is locked into earthquake. The cheese is not necessary to win games, as Suicune is a potent win condition at least in low ladder games anyways. But I am a bad player and I can't say how viable the team actually is.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2061549285
Here is a replay of me trapping mag

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2061556506
Here I have trapped this players Mag before and now he is unwilling to kill Skarm. I'm bad so I lose anyways xd

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-2061583239
Here is a replay of me getting to my peak rank :3 No evil trapping in this one though

View attachment 605450
My current elo. I'm not usually in 1500, rarely even close. Maybe I've gotten better but I don't think this team is a good thing for the metagame.

The team can be stopped. It can't trap a Mag that runs Substitute and even +6 Gardevoir is walled by Claydol. But I don't think its reasonable for every Mag that doesn't want to get trapped to run Substitute.

This is clearly a benefit to the metagame as evidenced by the council's insistence on keeping it unbanned /s

 

[ImposterOCE]

I'd like to start a discussion and share thoughts on a specific part of the ADV OU metagame.
Forretress.
First of all, I'm going to talk about the roles that Forretress performs and it's uses, talk about the sets. Then I'm going to talk about forre's weaknesses. Then common partners/forre team structures. Then matchups where it's good and or bad. And general thoughts on how to use it. The best, absolute best part of Forretress is that it can set spikes. It can spike on a lot of the metagame, turn passive pieces into setup fodder, provides checks to some ttar sets, metagross, a normal resist to deny aero from spamming double edge and turn aero into a setup angle for spikes, spike on most blisseys, spike on enemy claydol in its face as it spins and then chip it. Not only this, but because of its typing it can 1v1 the main rapid spinners in the tier comfortably: claydol and starmie. With hidden power bug, it can beat them out by itself and force them to switch as you get a spike up. So forretress teams can consistently rely on always having a spike up. This is also because forre isnt mag weak, it can quake and ohko mag either on the switch or if mag comes in to trap it it eqs as it tbolts or has a 31% to live hpfire and eq it. Often skarm teams rely on having a spike to beat stuff like suicune and lax on magdol structures, which is why they lose so hard to them. Forre teams don't have this weakness because their spike is much more assured. Forretress can ensure that it gets spikes up versus every team, it has lots of entries to spike on, it can pressure out spinners by itself. It's great offensively for this reason. The second best part of Forretress, is how it can spin on skarmory(and other stuff).

Skarmory versus the other spinners(claydol and starmie) it can toxic them, either permanently crippling claydol or forcing starmie to take chip and recover/switch out, eventually getting its spike up and winning tempo by making use of the time starmie spends not spinning.
Forretress is a steel type. This means that Forretress, if it wants, can just sit on enemy skarmory and spam rapid spin and it will never get its spike up. (assuming no gengar).


Because forretress can spin versus the predominant spiker in the tier(skarmory) and spike on/threaten out all of the relevant rapid spinners, isn't as mag weak as skarm, it can single handedly deal with all three aspects of the spike war (skarmory setting them, spinners spinning them, and mag trapping the spiker to limit its spikes).
So forretress's HUUUUGE upside is that it single handedly wins a spike war
...Barring gengar.
Versus skarmory + gengar, skarmory can get its spike up and then switch to gengar as you rapid spin. Skarmory won't be able to get up multiple layers versus you easily, but it can get the spike.
Forretress even without this gengar weakness would be paired with tyranitar like 100% of the time because it appreciates tyranitar's sand chipping the enemy team with spikes, and is sand immune itself(part of why it's such a good spiker/spinner, you can use free turns to switch it in and recover it up with leftovers).
Also, forre gives up free turns versus fires(mixmence, charizard and moltres) which are very scary and threatening attackers, which tyranitar checks(less so mixmence but the others).
Forretress is almost always paired with pursuit tyranitar for this reason - it alleviates some of the fire weakness by pursuit chipping moltres and focus punchless zard, can suit gengar and help win the 2v2 spike war of forre tar vs skarm gengar.
And yeah, forre just wants sand up anyways.
There are options where you run forretress with a different tyranitar set and a different pursuit user like umbreon or houndoom, but they're gimmicky and if you're someone newer/less experienced in the meta and you want to get a feel for forretress, I wouldn't recommend looking into them too much.
So forre's evs are almost always 252hp252+spdef, so it can spike on the most things. It has better rolls to live versus enemy magneton, it can spike comfortably on defensive swampert, blissey thunderbolts, etc.
Also living hits more easily from starmie so it can beat it out more comfortably.
And just help it spike/spin on the vast majority of the metagame.
For its moves, it will basically always run spikes and rapid spin in the first two slots, otherwise you'd probably get more mileage out of a different mon. Forre's big claim to fame is its access to spikes and spin coupled with its unique defensive profile and offense in STAB hpbug vs spinners
The last two slots get a little more customisable.
You want hidden power bug to pressure enemy rapid spinners like claydol and starmie 1v1, and you want earthquake to hit magneton and help you check metagross.
So a standard set might look like:
Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature

• Spikes
• Rapid Spin
• Earthquake
• Hidden Power [Bug]

However, there are other solid options for its last two slots:
You can run counter over earthquake, as this still works on magneton's hidden power fire(hidden power base is normal so counter works on it), it still lets you check metagross(arguably even better), helps versus aero and ttar and is generally better than quake. The main downside is that if you see your opps team and you're expecting a mag, you can quake as it switches in and just completely own them.
However, counter has upsides over earthquake that can justify it if your team doesn't rely as much on forre consistently getting 3 layers up/removing layers(which it probably shouldn't, that's a lot of jobs to expect of the poor basketball)
So yeah, spikes/spin/hpbug/counter is a valid and real set.
You can also slot zap cannon over hpbug, because forre can use it to cripple gengar on the switch without having to switch to ttar under spikes, and it midgrounds literally every forre abuser. It also lets you own skarmory harder, by permanently crippling it with paralysis, spread paralysis on the enemy team by clicking it on free turns as a midground, help you versus ddmence by giving you a dubious out vs it(at least doesn't let ddmence sit on forre) and generally make it less passive.
So you can run Spikes/Rapid Spin/Earthquake/Zap Cannon.
Dropping hpbug does suck in that you dont singlehandedly pressure out claydol/starmie anymore, but if your team comes with solid balance crushers that can punish claydol bulky teams and defensive starmie teams by themselves then you can justify the zap cannon slot
Then you can also run explosion on forretress if you really suck versus setup mons in endgame like calm mind suicune, curselax etc, explosion helps in offense matchups where you dont want to be sticking around and spiking 3 times and spinning and relaying - you just want to spike, check something and then trade it off.
So again, if your team is packing good options into defensive teams, you can justify explosion over either earthquake or hpbug
You pretty much always want one of earthquake/hpbug so you can still emergency check agility metagross/tyranitar(ttar spamming focus punch into you is a SIN and should never be allowed to happen lol).

Your forre set is 8 times out of 10 just the one above the spikes/spin/earthquake/hpbug, if you're already good versus balance then you can drop hidden power bug for zap cannon or explosion, if you're already good versus magneton balances you can drop earthquake for counter or explosion.
So forretress teams usually end up being balanced teams - not dedicated stall per se, but more on the defensive end - teams that appreciate the progress making machine of spikes because they aren't super offensive without them and teams that use the rapid spinning utility of forretress to shore up its defenses.
Common partners for forretress and pursuit tyranitar are defensive swampert and calm mind blissey
This is because defensive swampert can alleviate the fact that forretress lets in offensive physical pokemon like dragon dance tyranitar and aerodactyl by completely sitting on them AND threatening them out.
Swamperts on these teams often pack roar and refresh as well, making them even more impenetrable for enemy physical offenses, dealing with statpass stuff with roar, giving you information about the enemy team(v important vs offense), punish switches by spreading spikes damage around more. Swampert is a really good friend of forretress.
Calm Mind blissey deals with the other side of pokemon taking advantage of forretress's passivity - suicune calm minding on it, jirachi calm minding on it, celebi calm minding on it, zapdos throwing out thunderbolts
It also provides a strong win condition versus enemy stall teams, in that if they only have one pokemon with toxic, you can come in and set up calm minds forcing them to toxic to force you out, until eventually they run out of toxics
It's a good spikes abuser in that ice beam + thunderbolt is hard to switch into under spikes, and superman structures(teams that run 4+ floating pokemon so they can deal with spikes by ignoring them) are often getting 6-0d by calm mind blissey because in order to facilitate their team structures they cant run good specially defensive mons into electric + ice attacks, often relying on spdef zapdos to deal with special threats, which doesnt like +1 ice beams at all, let alone +2.
So calm mind blissey helps offset the passivity of forretress by beating the specially offensive mons that abuse it for free turns, and also help offensively by providing a win condition versus teams built to not be weak to spikes and versus dedicated stall teams as well
Calm Mind blissey also has the added benefit of wrecking ZapDug special offense, in that their dugtrio drops to an ice beam after one layer of spikes goes up, and no longer is able to trap and remove Blissey, and as mentioned above forretress has lots of entry points to get one layer of spikes up. So calm mind blissey is defensively enabled by forretress's spike helping versus dugtrio, and swampert's defenses helping versus physical threats that come in on blissey. The issue would be that physical offense spam with aerodactyl + metagross + ddtar could break through swampert, right? Metagross booms swampert and then ddtar + aero wins? This is where the forretress itself comes in - forretress beats out metagross 1v1 either with earthquake or counter, thus alleviating some pressure on swampert. Defensive swampert can easily 1v2 ddtar and aero with rapid spin support, and forre helps versus metagross. For the rest of your team, you want something that can threaten progress versus spikes and help versus offensive teams in general to not get blown over, something that can deal with annoying pokes like leech seed celebi, more answers to special attackers that arent blissey(vulnerable to being chipped down), ideally some utility in the form of Wish in that all four pokemon already mentioned are huge enjoyers of wish, ideally another metagross check so in the matchup versus ddtar + aero + meta + skarm you dont have to use forre to deal with metagross, and you can keep using it to infinitely spin away skarmory's spikes.
Oh, and something to help deal with mixed attacking threats -> using physdef swampert and spdef blissey is well and good, but when mixed attackers come along they become tricky to pivot around.
And something to deal with fighting types - so far fighting types can spam fighting moves on our whole team and rip tons of damage
This is why Mixed Salamence and Wish Defensive Jirachi is a common way to round out this team - Mixed Salamence is a mon that can make progress with spikes and threaten the enemy team, make offensive progress(always good), defensively check fighters, defensively check some mixed attackers(enemy slower mixmence, blaziken, subpunch charizard).
Mixmence also provides a ground immunity to the team so that choice banded earthquake from metagross and aerodactyl isn't such a free click for the opp into us.
Wish Defensive Jirachi helps shore up salamence versus fighters, in that salamence is vulnerable to being worn down, it provides wish utility that Tyranitar and Forretress both heavily appreciate, it can lure Magneton sometimes for your forretress and beat it down with fire punches, use toxic to help versus enemy calm mind blissey forcing it out, its a metagross answer helping in the aforementioned matchup versus ddtar + aero + meta + skarm(very common team structure).
So a standard forretress team would look something like this:
Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Crunch
• Fire Blast
• Pursuit
• Ice Beam

Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature

• Spikes
• Rapid Spin
• Earthquake
• Hidden Power [Bug]

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Fire Punch
• Protect
• Wish
• Toxic

Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature

• Brick Break
• Dragon Claw
• Fire Blast
• Hidden Power [Grass]

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 228 Def / 28 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Surf
• Refresh
• Protect
• Roar

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 248 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Calm Mind
• Ice Beam
• Thunderbolt
• Soft-Boiled

You can change some techs around, tweak stuff, but this hits generally all the things a forretress team wants to do, defensively answers most of the metagame, has good offensive tools.
Happy hunting on the adv ladder loading the ball!

 

[EonDuoLatias]

How do I beat odd leads like Vaporeon, Smeargle, this one Torment Aerodactyl set that I came across, Glalie, etc, that have been popping up ever since ADV was promoted by YouTubers like Jimothy Cool?

 

[berry]

How do I beat odd leads like Vaporeon, Smeargle, this one Torment Aerodactyl set that I came across, Glalie, etc, that have been popping up ever since ADV was promoted by YouTubers like Jimothy Cool?

Lead matchup is one of the largest variance factors in adv, most simply summed up by admitting that you won't win every lead. It's pretty difficult on ladder when you have no idea who your next opponent is, let alone have any idea of what they're going to run, but can somewhat be tamed in a tournament setting with a scout and general knowledge of an opponent's tendencies. It's recommended by many top players and builders that your team has a "net positive opening sequence against all common leads", which doesn't mean that your lead directly beats every lead, but rather you plan the first 1-2 turns in advance if your lead doesn't have a direct positive matchup. I would recommend looking at zf's ADV OU Lead Viability and Matchup Data thread, as it helps explain what certain leads do and which ones just lose against certain others. This guide is a bit outdated, but it's still generally useful in helping determine what type of team you're up against and what each lead may do. Vaporeon loves setting up sweepers with stat boosts and subpassing, so roar or directly attacking it and breaking its sub has to be your gameplan going in. Since Smeargle and Glalie aren't on this list, I'll do my best to explain what they do and what teams they fit on:


Typically suicide spike setters, i see smeargle and glalie as two sides of the same coin as their job is just to set up as many spikes as possible and die so your opponent can continue to pressure your team. Whereas smeargle has access to spore and you almost need to dedicate a sleep sacrifice if your lead doesn't directly beat it (or isn't faster than 273), glalie just hits a bit harder with ice beam and explosion. As for how to directly beat them? It depends on your team- sometimes you'll have to sacrifice your opponent getting a spike up or getting one of your pokemon slept in order to get a better offensive position. Before I even load up a team, I almost always have a dedicated early-game sleep sacrifice in mind, but it can change on the fly. How do you predict when they're going to explode? Your opponent is directly trying to squeeze the final value out of smeargle or glalie, but your opponent can equally try and predict when you'll protect or swap in your ghost type or boom resist, so the sequence is never truly predictable.


As for torment aerodactyl? the name of the game is rock resist rock resist rock resist. The earlier you are into the game, the more unrevealed pokemon you have, and aerodactyl struggles in situations where it doesn't have a cut-and-dry path to victory. Without its choice band, it really doesn't do much damage to a giant handful of the tier- skarm, rachi, cune, pert, dol, and tar just to name a few- it really doesn't want to take any attacks in the first place, and doesn't have any real OHKO power against any of these targets. I really can't even see any utility that torment offers, especially in the lead slot.

 

[YubelVT]

So I just maybe cooked up the most evil set since whatever the most recent development for suicune was. Does anyone remember Flynite from gen 6 OU? Behold: FLYgon
Flygon @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Careful Nature
- Fly
- Earthquake/Toxic
- Substitute/Toxic
- Protect
The EVs could definitely be optimized, I just went with max bulk while splitting both defenses evenly. The idea here is to use this on a stall team and exploit Fly's invulnerability turn in sand to be the worst person anyone has ever seen.

DISCLAIMER: This set is completely untested I am not liable for any failures that may occur in usage user discretion is advised

 

[Eeveeto]

So I just maybe cooked up the most evil set since whatever the most recent development for suicune was. Does anyone remember Flynite from gen 6 OU? Behold: FLYgon
Flygon @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Careful Nature
- Fly
- Earthquake/Toxic
- Substitute/Toxic
- Protect
The EVs could definitely be optimized, I just went with max bulk while splitting both defenses evenly. The idea here is to use this on a stall team and exploit Fly's invulnerability turn in sand to be the worst person anyone has ever seen.

DISCLAIMER: This set is completely untested I am not liable for any failures that may occur in usage user discretion is advised

Aerodactyl does this better with STAB Fly and Rock Slide flinching + higher speed + Pressure.

 

[YubelVT]

Aerodactyl does this better with STAB Fly and Rock Slide flinching + higher speed + Pressure.

Use FLYgon and Flyodactyl on the same team to become even worse of a person. don't ask me what the answer to skarmory is that's not my problem

 

[H!kari]

So I just maybe cooked up the most evil set since whatever the most recent development for suicune was. Does anyone remember Flynite from gen 6 OU? Behold: FLYgon
Flygon @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Careful Nature
- Fly
- Earthquake/Toxic
- Substitute/Toxic
- Protect
The EVs could definitely be optimized, I just went with max bulk while splitting both defenses evenly. The idea here is to use this on a stall team and exploit Fly's invulnerability turn in sand to be the worst person anyone has ever seen.

DISCLAIMER: This set is completely untested I am not liable for any failures that may occur in usage user discretion is advised

I think this set might have a lot of difficultly against defensive Gengar that can switch in on a fly and threaten back with ice punch. But honestly I'm not the biggest fan of Flygon for this reason. Hp Ice Zap will also be significantly more threatening than if you had the standard rock slide instead of fly.

So I think the set is overall less splashable than a standard Flygon and needs more support from its teammates to handle Gengar and Zapdos. I think a bulky wish Salamence with a mixed pursuit and rock slide Tar could be a good build route to consider.

 

[jaemoo]

I'd like to start a discussion and share thoughts on a specific part of the ADV OU metagame.
Forretress.
First of all, I'm going to talk about the roles that Forretress performs and it's uses, talk about the sets. Then I'm going to talk about forre's weaknesses. Then common partners/forre team structures. Then matchups where it's good and or bad. And general thoughts on how to use it. The best, absolute best part of Forretress is that it can set spikes. It can spike on a lot of the metagame, turn passive pieces into setup fodder, provides checks to some ttar sets, metagross, a normal resist to deny aero from spamming double edge and turn aero into a setup angle for spikes, spike on most blisseys, spike on enemy claydol in its face as it spins and then chip it. Not only this, but because of its typing it can 1v1 the main rapid spinners in the tier comfortably: claydol and starmie. With hidden power bug, it can beat them out by itself and force them to switch as you get a spike up. So forretress teams can consistently rely on always having a spike up. This is also because forre isnt mag weak, it can quake and ohko mag either on the switch or if mag comes in to trap it it eqs as it tbolts or has a 31% to live hpfire and eq it. Often skarm teams rely on having a spike to beat stuff like suicune and lax on magdol structures, which is why they lose so hard to them. Forre teams don't have this weakness because their spike is much more assured. Forretress can ensure that it gets spikes up versus every team, it has lots of entries to spike on, it can pressure out spinners by itself. It's great offensively for this reason. The second best part of Forretress, is how it can spin on skarmory(and other stuff).

Skarmory versus the other spinners(claydol and starmie) it can toxic them, either permanently crippling claydol or forcing starmie to take chip and recover/switch out, eventually getting its spike up and winning tempo by making use of the time starmie spends not spinning.
Forretress is a steel type. This means that Forretress, if it wants, can just sit on enemy skarmory and spam rapid spin and it will never get its spike up. (assuming no gengar).


Because forretress can spin versus the predominant spiker in the tier(skarmory) and spike on/threaten out all of the relevant rapid spinners, isn't as mag weak as skarm, it can single handedly deal with all three aspects of the spike war (skarmory setting them, spinners spinning them, and mag trapping the spiker to limit its spikes).
So forretress's HUUUUGE upside is that it single handedly wins a spike war
...Barring gengar.
Versus skarmory + gengar, skarmory can get its spike up and then switch to gengar as you rapid spin. Skarmory won't be able to get up multiple layers versus you easily, but it can get the spike.
Forretress even without this gengar weakness would be paired with tyranitar like 100% of the time because it appreciates tyranitar's sand chipping the enemy team with spikes, and is sand immune itself(part of why it's such a good spiker/spinner, you can use free turns to switch it in and recover it up with leftovers).
Also, forre gives up free turns versus fires(mixmence, charizard and moltres) which are very scary and threatening attackers, which tyranitar checks(less so mixmence but the others).
Forretress is almost always paired with pursuit tyranitar for this reason - it alleviates some of the fire weakness by pursuit chipping moltres and focus punchless zard, can suit gengar and help win the 2v2 spike war of forre tar vs skarm gengar.
And yeah, forre just wants sand up anyways.
There are options where you run forretress with a different tyranitar set and a different pursuit user like umbreon or houndoom, but they're gimmicky and if you're someone newer/less experienced in the meta and you want to get a feel for forretress, I wouldn't recommend looking into them too much.
So forre's evs are almost always 252hp252+spdef, so it can spike on the most things. It has better rolls to live versus enemy magneton, it can spike comfortably on defensive swampert, blissey thunderbolts, etc.
Also living hits more easily from starmie so it can beat it out more comfortably.
And just help it spike/spin on the vast majority of the metagame.
For its moves, it will basically always run spikes and rapid spin in the first two slots, otherwise you'd probably get more mileage out of a different mon. Forre's big claim to fame is its access to spikes and spin coupled with its unique defensive profile and offense in STAB hpbug vs spinners
The last two slots get a little more customisable.
You want hidden power bug to pressure enemy rapid spinners like claydol and starmie 1v1, and you want earthquake to hit magneton and help you check metagross.
So a standard set might look like:
Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature

• Spikes
• Rapid Spin
• Earthquake
• Hidden Power [Bug]

However, there are other solid options for its last two slots:
You can run counter over earthquake, as this still works on magneton's hidden power fire(hidden power base is normal so counter works on it), it still lets you check metagross(arguably even better), helps versus aero and ttar and is generally better than quake. The main downside is that if you see your opps team and you're expecting a mag, you can quake as it switches in and just completely own them.
However, counter has upsides over earthquake that can justify it if your team doesn't rely as much on forre consistently getting 3 layers up/removing layers(which it probably shouldn't, that's a lot of jobs to expect of the poor basketball)
So yeah, spikes/spin/hpbug/counter is a valid and real set.
You can also slot zap cannon over hpbug, because forre can use it to cripple gengar on the switch without having to switch to ttar under spikes, and it midgrounds literally every forre abuser. It also lets you own skarmory harder, by permanently crippling it with paralysis, spread paralysis on the enemy team by clicking it on free turns as a midground, help you versus ddmence by giving you a dubious out vs it(at least doesn't let ddmence sit on forre) and generally make it less passive.
So you can run Spikes/Rapid Spin/Earthquake/Zap Cannon.
Dropping hpbug does suck in that you dont singlehandedly pressure out claydol/starmie anymore, but if your team comes with solid balance crushers that can punish claydol bulky teams and defensive starmie teams by themselves then you can justify the zap cannon slot
Then you can also run explosion on forretress if you really suck versus setup mons in endgame like calm mind suicune, curselax etc, explosion helps in offense matchups where you dont want to be sticking around and spiking 3 times and spinning and relaying - you just want to spike, check something and then trade it off.
So again, if your team is packing good options into defensive teams, you can justify explosion over either earthquake or hpbug
You pretty much always want one of earthquake/hpbug so you can still emergency check agility metagross/tyranitar(ttar spamming focus punch into you is a SIN and should never be allowed to happen lol).

Your forre set is 8 times out of 10 just the one above the spikes/spin/earthquake/hpbug, if you're already good versus balance then you can drop hidden power bug for zap cannon or explosion, if you're already good versus magneton balances you can drop earthquake for counter or explosion.
So forretress teams usually end up being balanced teams - not dedicated stall per se, but more on the defensive end - teams that appreciate the progress making machine of spikes because they aren't super offensive without them and teams that use the rapid spinning utility of forretress to shore up its defenses.
Common partners for forretress and pursuit tyranitar are defensive swampert and calm mind blissey
This is because defensive swampert can alleviate the fact that forretress lets in offensive physical pokemon like dragon dance tyranitar and aerodactyl by completely sitting on them AND threatening them out.
Swamperts on these teams often pack roar and refresh as well, making them even more impenetrable for enemy physical offenses, dealing with statpass stuff with roar, giving you information about the enemy team(v important vs offense), punish switches by spreading spikes damage around more. Swampert is a really good friend of forretress.
Calm Mind blissey deals with the other side of pokemon taking advantage of forretress's passivity - suicune calm minding on it, jirachi calm minding on it, celebi calm minding on it, zapdos throwing out thunderbolts
It also provides a strong win condition versus enemy stall teams, in that if they only have one pokemon with toxic, you can come in and set up calm minds forcing them to toxic to force you out, until eventually they run out of toxics
It's a good spikes abuser in that ice beam + thunderbolt is hard to switch into under spikes, and superman structures(teams that run 4+ floating pokemon so they can deal with spikes by ignoring them) are often getting 6-0d by calm mind blissey because in order to facilitate their team structures they cant run good specially defensive mons into electric + ice attacks, often relying on spdef zapdos to deal with special threats, which doesnt like +1 ice beams at all, let alone +2.
So calm mind blissey helps offset the passivity of forretress by beating the specially offensive mons that abuse it for free turns, and also help offensively by providing a win condition versus teams built to not be weak to spikes and versus dedicated stall teams as well
Calm Mind blissey also has the added benefit of wrecking ZapDug special offense, in that their dugtrio drops to an ice beam after one layer of spikes goes up, and no longer is able to trap and remove Blissey, and as mentioned above forretress has lots of entry points to get one layer of spikes up. So calm mind blissey is defensively enabled by forretress's spike helping versus dugtrio, and swampert's defenses helping versus physical threats that come in on blissey. The issue would be that physical offense spam with aerodactyl + metagross + ddtar could break through swampert, right? Metagross booms swampert and then ddtar + aero wins? This is where the forretress itself comes in - forretress beats out metagross 1v1 either with earthquake or counter, thus alleviating some pressure on swampert. Defensive swampert can easily 1v2 ddtar and aero with rapid spin support, and forre helps versus metagross. For the rest of your team, you want something that can threaten progress versus spikes and help versus offensive teams in general to not get blown over, something that can deal with annoying pokes like leech seed celebi, more answers to special attackers that arent blissey(vulnerable to being chipped down), ideally some utility in the form of Wish in that all four pokemon already mentioned are huge enjoyers of wish, ideally another metagross check so in the matchup versus ddtar + aero + meta + skarm you dont have to use forre to deal with metagross, and you can keep using it to infinitely spin away skarmory's spikes.
Oh, and something to help deal with mixed attacking threats -> using physdef swampert and spdef blissey is well and good, but when mixed attackers come along they become tricky to pivot around.
And something to deal with fighting types - so far fighting types can spam fighting moves on our whole team and rip tons of damage
This is why Mixed Salamence and Wish Defensive Jirachi is a common way to round out this team - Mixed Salamence is a mon that can make progress with spikes and threaten the enemy team, make offensive progress(always good), defensively check fighters, defensively check some mixed attackers(enemy slower mixmence, blaziken, subpunch charizard).
Mixmence also provides a ground immunity to the team so that choice banded earthquake from metagross and aerodactyl isn't such a free click for the opp into us.
Wish Defensive Jirachi helps shore up salamence versus fighters, in that salamence is vulnerable to being worn down, it provides wish utility that Tyranitar and Forretress both heavily appreciate, it can lure Magneton sometimes for your forretress and beat it down with fire punches, use toxic to help versus enemy calm mind blissey forcing it out, its a metagross answer helping in the aforementioned matchup versus ddtar + aero + meta + skarm(very common team structure).
So a standard forretress team would look something like this:
Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Crunch
• Fire Blast
• Pursuit
• Ice Beam

Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature

• Spikes
• Rapid Spin
• Earthquake
• Hidden Power [Bug]

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Fire Punch
• Protect
• Wish
• Toxic

Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature

• Brick Break
• Dragon Claw
• Fire Blast
• Hidden Power [Grass]

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 228 Def / 28 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Surf
• Refresh
• Protect
• Roar

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 248 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Calm Mind
• Ice Beam
• Thunderbolt
• Soft-Boiled

You can change some techs around, tweak stuff, but this hits generally all the things a forretress team wants to do, defensively answers most of the metagame, has good offensive tools.
Happy hunting on the adv ladder loading the ball!

What do you do against substitute Pert with this structure? They outspeed Mence after berry, and if I switch Pert into it to roar, I tank hydro pump. I also find I just lose to crits when I CM on Blissey against Rachi or Celebi, esp when I fight seed cm Celebi variants.

 

[H!kari]

I'd like to start a discussion and share thoughts on a specific part of the ADV OU metagame.
Forretress.
First of all, I'm going to talk about the roles that Forretress performs and it's uses, talk about the sets. Then I'm going to talk about forre's weaknesses. Then common partners/forre team structures. Then matchups where it's good and or bad. And general thoughts on how to use it. The best, absolute best part of Forretress is that it can set spikes. It can spike on a lot of the metagame, turn passive pieces into setup fodder, provides checks to some ttar sets, metagross, a normal resist to deny aero from spamming double edge and turn aero into a setup angle for spikes, spike on most blisseys, spike on enemy claydol in its face as it spins and then chip it. Not only this, but because of its typing it can 1v1 the main rapid spinners in the tier comfortably: claydol and starmie. With hidden power bug, it can beat them out by itself and force them to switch as you get a spike up. So forretress teams can consistently rely on always having a spike up. This is also because forre isnt mag weak, it can quake and ohko mag either on the switch or if mag comes in to trap it it eqs as it tbolts or has a 31% to live hpfire and eq it. Often skarm teams rely on having a spike to beat stuff like suicune and lax on magdol structures, which is why they lose so hard to them. Forre teams don't have this weakness because their spike is much more assured. Forretress can ensure that it gets spikes up versus every team, it has lots of entries to spike on, it can pressure out spinners by itself. It's great offensively for this reason. The second best part of Forretress, is how it can spin on skarmory(and other stuff).

Skarmory versus the other spinners(claydol and starmie) it can toxic them, either permanently crippling claydol or forcing starmie to take chip and recover/switch out, eventually getting its spike up and winning tempo by making use of the time starmie spends not spinning.
Forretress is a steel type. This means that Forretress, if it wants, can just sit on enemy skarmory and spam rapid spin and it will never get its spike up. (assuming no gengar).


Because forretress can spin versus the predominant spiker in the tier(skarmory) and spike on/threaten out all of the relevant rapid spinners, isn't as mag weak as skarm, it can single handedly deal with all three aspects of the spike war (skarmory setting them, spinners spinning them, and mag trapping the spiker to limit its spikes).
So forretress's HUUUUGE upside is that it single handedly wins a spike war
...Barring gengar.
Versus skarmory + gengar, skarmory can get its spike up and then switch to gengar as you rapid spin. Skarmory won't be able to get up multiple layers versus you easily, but it can get the spike.
Forretress even without this gengar weakness would be paired with tyranitar like 100% of the time because it appreciates tyranitar's sand chipping the enemy team with spikes, and is sand immune itself(part of why it's such a good spiker/spinner, you can use free turns to switch it in and recover it up with leftovers).
Also, forre gives up free turns versus fires(mixmence, charizard and moltres) which are very scary and threatening attackers, which tyranitar checks(less so mixmence but the others).
Forretress is almost always paired with pursuit tyranitar for this reason - it alleviates some of the fire weakness by pursuit chipping moltres and focus punchless zard, can suit gengar and help win the 2v2 spike war of forre tar vs skarm gengar.
And yeah, forre just wants sand up anyways.
There are options where you run forretress with a different tyranitar set and a different pursuit user like umbreon or houndoom, but they're gimmicky and if you're someone newer/less experienced in the meta and you want to get a feel for forretress, I wouldn't recommend looking into them too much.
So forre's evs are almost always 252hp252+spdef, so it can spike on the most things. It has better rolls to live versus enemy magneton, it can spike comfortably on defensive swampert, blissey thunderbolts, etc.
Also living hits more easily from starmie so it can beat it out more comfortably.
And just help it spike/spin on the vast majority of the metagame.
For its moves, it will basically always run spikes and rapid spin in the first two slots, otherwise you'd probably get more mileage out of a different mon. Forre's big claim to fame is its access to spikes and spin coupled with its unique defensive profile and offense in STAB hpbug vs spinners
The last two slots get a little more customisable.
You want hidden power bug to pressure enemy rapid spinners like claydol and starmie 1v1, and you want earthquake to hit magneton and help you check metagross.
So a standard set might look like:
Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature

• Spikes
• Rapid Spin
• Earthquake
• Hidden Power [Bug]

However, there are other solid options for its last two slots:
You can run counter over earthquake, as this still works on magneton's hidden power fire(hidden power base is normal so counter works on it), it still lets you check metagross(arguably even better), helps versus aero and ttar and is generally better than quake. The main downside is that if you see your opps team and you're expecting a mag, you can quake as it switches in and just completely own them.
However, counter has upsides over earthquake that can justify it if your team doesn't rely as much on forre consistently getting 3 layers up/removing layers(which it probably shouldn't, that's a lot of jobs to expect of the poor basketball)
So yeah, spikes/spin/hpbug/counter is a valid and real set.
You can also slot zap cannon over hpbug, because forre can use it to cripple gengar on the switch without having to switch to ttar under spikes, and it midgrounds literally every forre abuser. It also lets you own skarmory harder, by permanently crippling it with paralysis, spread paralysis on the enemy team by clicking it on free turns as a midground, help you versus ddmence by giving you a dubious out vs it(at least doesn't let ddmence sit on forre) and generally make it less passive.
So you can run Spikes/Rapid Spin/Earthquake/Zap Cannon.
Dropping hpbug does suck in that you dont singlehandedly pressure out claydol/starmie anymore, but if your team comes with solid balance crushers that can punish claydol bulky teams and defensive starmie teams by themselves then you can justify the zap cannon slot
Then you can also run explosion on forretress if you really suck versus setup mons in endgame like calm mind suicune, curselax etc, explosion helps in offense matchups where you dont want to be sticking around and spiking 3 times and spinning and relaying - you just want to spike, check something and then trade it off.
So again, if your team is packing good options into defensive teams, you can justify explosion over either earthquake or hpbug
You pretty much always want one of earthquake/hpbug so you can still emergency check agility metagross/tyranitar(ttar spamming focus punch into you is a SIN and should never be allowed to happen lol).

Your forre set is 8 times out of 10 just the one above the spikes/spin/earthquake/hpbug, if you're already good versus balance then you can drop hidden power bug for zap cannon or explosion, if you're already good versus magneton balances you can drop earthquake for counter or explosion.
So forretress teams usually end up being balanced teams - not dedicated stall per se, but more on the defensive end - teams that appreciate the progress making machine of spikes because they aren't super offensive without them and teams that use the rapid spinning utility of forretress to shore up its defenses.
Common partners for forretress and pursuit tyranitar are defensive swampert and calm mind blissey
This is because defensive swampert can alleviate the fact that forretress lets in offensive physical pokemon like dragon dance tyranitar and aerodactyl by completely sitting on them AND threatening them out.
Swamperts on these teams often pack roar and refresh as well, making them even more impenetrable for enemy physical offenses, dealing with statpass stuff with roar, giving you information about the enemy team(v important vs offense), punish switches by spreading spikes damage around more. Swampert is a really good friend of forretress.
Calm Mind blissey deals with the other side of pokemon taking advantage of forretress's passivity - suicune calm minding on it, jirachi calm minding on it, celebi calm minding on it, zapdos throwing out thunderbolts
It also provides a strong win condition versus enemy stall teams, in that if they only have one pokemon with toxic, you can come in and set up calm minds forcing them to toxic to force you out, until eventually they run out of toxics
It's a good spikes abuser in that ice beam + thunderbolt is hard to switch into under spikes, and superman structures(teams that run 4+ floating pokemon so they can deal with spikes by ignoring them) are often getting 6-0d by calm mind blissey because in order to facilitate their team structures they cant run good specially defensive mons into electric + ice attacks, often relying on spdef zapdos to deal with special threats, which doesnt like +1 ice beams at all, let alone +2.
So calm mind blissey helps offset the passivity of forretress by beating the specially offensive mons that abuse it for free turns, and also help offensively by providing a win condition versus teams built to not be weak to spikes and versus dedicated stall teams as well
Calm Mind blissey also has the added benefit of wrecking ZapDug special offense, in that their dugtrio drops to an ice beam after one layer of spikes goes up, and no longer is able to trap and remove Blissey, and as mentioned above forretress has lots of entry points to get one layer of spikes up. So calm mind blissey is defensively enabled by forretress's spike helping versus dugtrio, and swampert's defenses helping versus physical threats that come in on blissey. The issue would be that physical offense spam with aerodactyl + metagross + ddtar could break through swampert, right? Metagross booms swampert and then ddtar + aero wins? This is where the forretress itself comes in - forretress beats out metagross 1v1 either with earthquake or counter, thus alleviating some pressure on swampert. Defensive swampert can easily 1v2 ddtar and aero with rapid spin support, and forre helps versus metagross. For the rest of your team, you want something that can threaten progress versus spikes and help versus offensive teams in general to not get blown over, something that can deal with annoying pokes like leech seed celebi, more answers to special attackers that arent blissey(vulnerable to being chipped down), ideally some utility in the form of Wish in that all four pokemon already mentioned are huge enjoyers of wish, ideally another metagross check so in the matchup versus ddtar + aero + meta + skarm you dont have to use forre to deal with metagross, and you can keep using it to infinitely spin away skarmory's spikes.
Oh, and something to help deal with mixed attacking threats -> using physdef swampert and spdef blissey is well and good, but when mixed attackers come along they become tricky to pivot around.
And something to deal with fighting types - so far fighting types can spam fighting moves on our whole team and rip tons of damage
This is why Mixed Salamence and Wish Defensive Jirachi is a common way to round out this team - Mixed Salamence is a mon that can make progress with spikes and threaten the enemy team, make offensive progress(always good), defensively check fighters, defensively check some mixed attackers(enemy slower mixmence, blaziken, subpunch charizard).
Mixmence also provides a ground immunity to the team so that choice banded earthquake from metagross and aerodactyl isn't such a free click for the opp into us.
Wish Defensive Jirachi helps shore up salamence versus fighters, in that salamence is vulnerable to being worn down, it provides wish utility that Tyranitar and Forretress both heavily appreciate, it can lure Magneton sometimes for your forretress and beat it down with fire punches, use toxic to help versus enemy calm mind blissey forcing it out, its a metagross answer helping in the aforementioned matchup versus ddtar + aero + meta + skarm(very common team structure).
So a standard forretress team would look something like this:
Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Crunch
• Fire Blast
• Pursuit
• Ice Beam

Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature

• Spikes
• Rapid Spin
• Earthquake
• Hidden Power [Bug]

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Fire Punch
• Protect
• Wish
• Toxic

Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature

• Brick Break
• Dragon Claw
• Fire Blast
• Hidden Power [Grass]

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 228 Def / 28 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Surf
• Refresh
• Protect
• Roar

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 248 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

• Calm Mind
• Ice Beam
• Thunderbolt
• Soft-Boiled

You can change some techs around, tweak stuff, but this hits generally all the things a forretress team wants to do, defensively answers most of the metagame, has good offensive tools.
Happy hunting on the adv ladder loading the ball!

I ran a similar structure to this, but found that it was too reliant on cm Blissey to make progress against a lot of bulkier teams. Rest Zapdos can sit on everything besides Blissey and if the Zap has roar then Bliss can't effectively 1v1 it. While Roar Suicune walls the entire team. The team was also super reliant on a Jirachi burn to handle CB metagross and taunt or drill peck Skarmory could be annoying to handle. As your only response to force Skarm out once Forre is taunted without taking spikes chip is to go Mence. Which lets Blissey in, and depending on Blissey's set you can lose massive amounts of momentum. Your own Blissey isn't a reliable switch into an enemy Blissey as they can force you out with toxic, while you have to set up cms; while Jirachi and Forre risk getting paralyzed and hit by a surprise fire blast.

I think toxic or EQ on swampert over roar improves your match-ups against standard ice-beam, seismic toss Blisseys, and Metagross. Which can be paired with explosion Forre for Suicune. But I think that cm Bliss is better for more offensively focused teams, as you lose long term to opposing TSS teams with a standard toxic Blissey as I mentioned above. That's why I think that Gengar is better for this type of team than Jirachi as with explosion over HP bug on Forre, Gengar helps you keep spikes up against the rapid spinners, gives you an easy Skarm switch in if it has taunt or drill peck for Forre, and helps wear down Blissey with taunt and wisp or explosion. Gengar fills the same role on a Forre TSS team that it does on a big 5 team and I'd argue makes Forre teams more consistent for the same reasons it makes big 5 teams more consistent. (I like to think of Forre TSS teams as just being big 5 teams that choose to role compress their spiker and spinner into 1 slot so that you have the freedom to not run a spinner in your 6th slot).

Charizard can also be a great alternative to Salamence as the sub punch sets can sub on a Skarm switch and then have the coverage to answer most common switch ins. Tar and Bliss commonly switch in on Zard but neither wants to stay in and take the focus punch to break the sub, while if your opponent decides to preserve them by doubling to a roar user, you get a free focus punch plus a follow up attack all for the low cost of only 25% of your hp

 

[joshua]

Back after a long time. I've been messing around with Glalie and come up with this set

Glalie @ Choice Band
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Explosion
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Ice Beam / Spikes
- Earthquake / Spikes

Been using as a lead. Hidden Power Fighting is quite effective. Almost guarantees to 2HKO Fast DD Ttar sets (minimum 99.4%) and will 2HKO all other sets. Guaranteed 2HKO on Blissey. Earthquake and Ice Beam are decent as well (e.g.EQ is 2HKO on Metagross, Ice Beam is still a OHKO on Salamence etc).

Mainly the surprise factor, as most people expect to be dealing with spikes, taunt, ice beam or explosion and use Glalie. CB is effective at punishing safe switch ins. That's the plan. I can't get it to work, but I think that's just because I've not built a good team around it and I'm bad at predicting. Just thought I'd post here in case anyone wants to try it out

 

[YubelVT]

What's a good 2 mon core to build a team around? I have exactly one ADV OU team and it has a lot of trouble with milotic celebi balance teams (this could also be me using my choice band metagross wrong but I want to try something new) and I want to ask for advice on where to start with building it.

Side note: if one of those pokemon could be zapdos that would be fantastic but I can also just put zapdos on the team anyway

much love ADV community yours is the second best generation of OU

 

[Siglut]

trouble with milotic celebi balance teams

If you discover it for yourself the reward will be that much sweeter. As for zapdos (an electric and flying type) it's unfortunately not possible to make it good against celebi (grass) and milotic (water).

 

[YubelVT]

If you discover it for yourself the reward will be that much sweeter. As for zapdos (an electric and flying type) it's unfortunately not possible to make it good against celebi (grass) and milotic (water).

Did you know that Zapdos learns Drill Peck? In all seriousness Zapdos is just my roar button for lead electric types and the baton pass cheesers but I do enjoy how no investment thunderbolt just kills suicune in 2 hits

 

[berry]

Back after a long time. I've been messing around with Glalie and come up with this set

Glalie @ Choice Band
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Explosion
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Ice Beam / Spikes
- Earthquake / Spikes

Been using as a lead. Hidden Power Fighting is quite effective. Almost guarantees to 2HKO Fast DD Ttar sets (minimum 99.4%) and will 2HKO all other sets. Guaranteed 2HKO on Blissey. Earthquake and Ice Beam are decent as well (e.g.EQ is 2HKO on Metagross, Ice Beam is still a OHKO on Salamence etc).

Mainly the surprise factor, as most people expect to be dealing with spikes, taunt, ice beam or explosion and use Glalie. CB is effective at punishing safe switch ins. That's the plan. I can't get it to work, but I think that's just because I've not built a good team around it and I'm bad at predicting. Just thought I'd post here in case anyone wants to try it out

I like Glalie a lot and I personally was experimenting with it in my builder this past mushi league season, but I don't believe I ever got the chance to actually bring it. I came up with this lead-tailored set that I believe gives you good opening sequences against some very common leads, but I've been struggling to actually fit it on any teams, which I think may just be a symptom of Glalie being... not that great.


Glalie @ Leftovers
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 12 SpA / 92 SpD / 28 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spikes
- Ice Beam
- Explosion
- Earthquake / ???

VS
One of the opening sequences I tailored this towards was Zapdos. At the time I was prepping to face sheik who had decently high zapdos lead usage, and I found that glalie could be EV'd to always live two Timid Zapdos thunderbolts while always KOing with two ice beams.

252 SpA 30 IVs Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 92 SpD Glalie: 163-192 (44.7 - 52.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
12- SpA Glalie Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos: 173-204 (53.7 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

The opening sequence I anticipated was a turn 1 tbolt vs ice beam, in which the Zapdos user is forced to swap out or sac their zap, giving the glalie a turn to spike or explode against another enemy.

vs
This is the other opening sequence I had envisioned, EVing Glalie to always survive an Adamant Tyranitar's Rock Slide and be able to set up a spike, living sand damage as well to lead to an explosion turn or another spike if deemed necessary. 223 Speed also helps speed creep 252 neutral tar and mons that aim to speed creep it (like many base 70s). The unfortunate side of this set is that it always loses against bandtar, but considering glalie typically loses against Tyranitar anyway, I don't think that's much of a detriment. Outside of these two lead matchups, I think this set performs about as well as any other Glalie, maybe a bit weaker than hard physical sets like the one in the quoted post above or other sets that aim to use ice beam as a main attack.

252+ Atk 30 IVs Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 124 Def Glalie: 287-338 (78.8 - 92.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery

Before sharing the teams I built around glalie, I'd like to say that I'm still a novice builder and these should be treated moreso as ideas rather than fleshed-out ready-to-play teams.


https://pokepast.es/727fa7e7ee1ba749
On to the teams that I attempted to build around Glalie, first is this glalie physoff team. This team capitalizes on the fact that Skarmory is a primary switch-in to a lead glalie, and also benefits from a very unique opening line in the Glalie exploding on a Skarmory (or its protect), leaving it open to a magneton trap. Apart from this opening sequence, this is a standard physically offensive team, packed with members such as agiligross and curselax that really benefit from skarmory going down.


https://pokepast.es/be6f5ccb3630309f
I think this takes the shape of a more traditional HO team that glalie may be found on, with Charizard and Jolteon acting as offensive pressure towards Skarmory. Rather than an aggressive explosion opening line, this moreso benefits from the fact that the Glalie set is tailored to beat lead Zapdos, whose offensive and defensive power can check Charizard and Metagross. I had more success testing this over the prior team, but that may have to do with mixoff's ridiculous mu against the general ladder.

Glalie is definitely a mon that I think is worth experimenting with, as I think it has a lot of potential to fit on teams that don't necessarily represent its expected HO playstyle. As for best partners, I think Agiligross and offensive Swampert are incredible, as they can take advantage of chipped Skarmory and other mons that come in to soak up explosions like opposing Swamperts. Finally, one last mon that I've been trying to build around with Glalie is Pursuittar, as I think it can lead to some interesting guaranteed Gengar traps because of Glalie's telegraphed gameplan. The team structure I had in my head was Glalie / Pursuittar / Moltres / Starmie, but I think it needs some work to get off the ground.

 

[CriasDelSuperVasco]

explosion ban?

 

[YubelVT]

explosion ban?

why on earth would that happen