Hi all. Recently, I’ve gotten back into competitive since dabbling in it when it first came out.
Naturally, one of the first things I did was scrap my old team, and start with a new one. I made it as standard as standard comes with a team of :justin2: / :happybrain: / :avatar: / :chaos: / :cloud: / :jump:, just to see what was what. Right away, I could tell that weather was a strong force. Mostly every standard team that I faced would be fairly easy to beat, while weather (and sometimes stall) was particularly hard to face.
Now I digress, I know everyone must not be using weather. Moreover, I know stall is a main opponent of it, but being the competitive hipster that I am, I try to stay away from stall. Given that, what are some of the individual pokemon, combinations, or strategies that you have used to take on this force?
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I can start off briefly based on what I have seen.
I have encountered a support Rotom-C which could be used to check rain teams:
Moving onto a more "standard" pokemon that you might encounter in OU, the classic starmie set that I was using:
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Both of these pokemon happen to work well in rain, as well as against rain, giving them an anti-metagame advantage; however, not every pokemon that works well in weather is going to work well against it. For instance, Venasaur is tremendous in sun, but it will do diddly squat when attempting to take on other sun based teams.
This thread can be used to cite some of the best anti weather pokemon, combinations, and strategies used against ALL weather conditions.
Naturally, one of the first things I did was scrap my old team, and start with a new one. I made it as standard as standard comes with a team of :justin2: / :happybrain: / :avatar: / :chaos: / :cloud: / :jump:, just to see what was what. Right away, I could tell that weather was a strong force. Mostly every standard team that I faced would be fairly easy to beat, while weather (and sometimes stall) was particularly hard to face.
Now I digress, I know everyone must not be using weather. Moreover, I know stall is a main opponent of it, but being the competitive hipster that I am, I try to stay away from stall. Given that, what are some of the individual pokemon, combinations, or strategies that you have used to take on this force?
---
I can start off briefly based on what I have seen.
I have encountered a support Rotom-C which could be used to check rain teams:
Rotom-C bolsters a type pairing that no other pokemon has: Electric/Grass; dual types that are both SE against water. With not one, but two STAB options for taking out pokemon that benefit from rain as well as bulky waters that would normally wall other electric types such as swampert and gastrodon, it offers one of the best answers to rain offense. It has great synergy with steel types like scizor (also good in the rain thanks to weakened fire moves) and can abuse volt switch to scout the opponent's team. It can also act as a revenge killer if you run choice rotom, as well as being able to trick your choice item onto incoming threats such as specially defensive heatran or chancey/blissey.@Leftovers
~ Leaf Storm
~ Volt Switch
~ Will-O-Wisp
~ Pain Split
Moving onto a more "standard" pokemon that you might encounter in OU, the classic starmie set that I was using:
fairs well against rain teams as well. Starmie's speed, power, and typing give it an advantage that rain teams will find hard to face. Politoed can't touch it unless it's running HP Electric, and other water types like Gyarados, Azumarill, and Vaporeon will have to worry about being KO'd by electric attacks like thunderbolt or thunder. Additionally, counters like Ttar and Scizor will find themselves pressed to show their faces so long as Starmie is shooting off STAB LO rain boosted Hydro Pumps (or even thunders), and defensive counters like Ferrothorn and Blissey can be dealt with using Trick if you're running a choiced set. The only thing starmie needs to worry about here is Rotom and faster electric types, such as Jolteon. Jolteon will still find it hard to switch in since one boosted Hydro Pump will be an OHKO.@Expert Belt
~ Hydro Pump
~ Ice Beam
~ Thunderbolt
~ Rapid Spin
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Both of these pokemon happen to work well in rain, as well as against rain, giving them an anti-metagame advantage; however, not every pokemon that works well in weather is going to work well against it. For instance, Venasaur is tremendous in sun, but it will do diddly squat when attempting to take on other sun based teams.
This thread can be used to cite some of the best anti weather pokemon, combinations, and strategies used against ALL weather conditions.