Balanced-OU. New to Metagame, New to Forum

[Cloudesley]

Hey all,
So yea, like most here I've played with the pokes for years (personally its been about 15), but my friend showed me this PokemonShowdown stuff and it has been rockin my world lately.
After building my fair share of different teams, using experience and my honed forum lurking ability (you smogon folks are real class acts btw), I've finally decided to reach out to the community in order to improve my current team and get some insight as to how to work on my synergy.
So recently I've been trying to incorporate some of my favorite pokes into teams to try and give myself some added pleasure by running through the sim forever and always. This team in particular is preforming fairly but I can't seem to break the 1500s on the ladder...
This team features three classics in Arcanine, Scizor and Gengar. I guess I'd consider them the core. The other two regulars are Latios, Ferrothorn, with the highly variable final position going these days to Greninja.

Arcanine (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- ExtremeSpeed
- Close Combat
- Morning Sun
Arcanine is the most OU thing in the world, but nobody can resist this guy's puppy dog charm. And also that extreme speed. I life orb this guy mostly to give that the most power I can for revengeeeee. I also run flash fire to absorb those predicted fire moves; but I'll get into that more later obviously. I also really like the traditional flare blitz on this guy; recently discovered an ff boosted fb OHKO czard-Y in the sun. which I like. I also run Morning Sun to recover the life orb and blitz dmg. Final slot goes for coverage with close combat... It was between this or wild charge.. when it came down to it I need the fighting alot more so I went with that.

Scizor-Mega (M) @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Swords Dance
- Bug Bite
- Roost
Scizor happily takes up my mega slot on this team and works well as a bulky offensive presence. Bullet Punch gives me that priority that everyone (+me) loves so much. Bug bite kills them darkies and psychs and gives awesome neutral damage with technician. Swords Dance is here too. Roost takes up the final slot to allow my mega to hang around for a little more; maybe give it an opportunity to set up as some don't expect it.

Gengar (M) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 248 HP / 8 SAtk
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Destiny Bond
- Shadow Ball
- Will-O-Wisp
Gengar is awesome. It was excellent to see that the intro to pokemon that everyone saw in episode one did not steer wrong. A competitive behemoth. The mega even gets banished to ubers. Wonderful. Anyway, after much experimentation I've decided to go with a more utility style gengar with Sub, WoW, Destiny Bond and Shadow Ball. the sub gets set up easily enough whenever I don't feel like shooting some fire at a switch poke. Then of course there's the heavy shadow ball that does great damage with ghost type... Finally is one of the quickest destiny bonds in the bizz. Has gotten me out of more then a few choice situations, most notably unsuspecting sucker punch users or generally stacked pokes. Although I am beginning to consider alternatives to this poke for this team.

Latios (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Thunderbolt
Latios is one of those cool legendaries that you had to play the game passed the Elite Four in order to catch. And then good luck. As far as offense goes, I like this guy alot. I used to run a scarf on him which really screwed with chomps and others, but I decided a life orb works better for the coverage spam. Draco Meteor obviously for my super nuke, Psyshock is good for the stab dmg and hits the def if I really need that... I like thunderbolt for coverage. Works well enough on waters. The last spot here has been through the course but I'm back to using Surf for the water coverage after nixing Vaporeon.

Ferrothorn (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Leech Seed
- Power Whip
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock
Ferrothorn is... wow.. I mean just... Grass and Steel bro? yo. tank. This guy is super special cuz of his iron barbs with the rocky helmet. Dragons locked in on outrage are my favorite if I can keep this guy alive through the match. Stealth Rocks works on this guy who is generally also my lead poke for lack of a better one. He also works as a great lure for those fire moves I mentioned earlier. I run gyro ball as my attacking move, does well. I like it better then power whip I guess. Thunder wave fills the last spot and works to cripple some of those fasties that I need it to.

Greninja (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Hasty Nature
- Ice Beam
- Scald
- U-turn
- Dark Pulse

Greninja. So we're here yet again... Not that I have anything against this, or any, poke I just seem to have some serious trouble when filling out my teams' sixth spots and this is no different. At the beginning of this post, I was running a Vaporeon, and then an Umbreon, but I guess I felt that I was still missing some more offensive coverage to get through teams... So with this guy I can get some speed obviously. Scald is more of a utility move, picked over hydro for the accuracy and the burn chance. Ice beam for coverage and so is dark pulse. U-Turn is here over something else, such as extrasensory so that I can try and build some momentum in certain situations.

Well, that will have to wrap up my first post. If you've taken your time through this guy, thanks. And if you have any comments that might help out, I'd appreciate it so... please! and thankies :3

 

[thundershock1234]

Hi there! When I first looked at this team... Wow. It's pretty solid. It's got a nice balance of special and physical attackers and it's even got a wish passer and everything! I picked up a few things and just wanted to share them with you though.
1. Teams got a huge Ghost weakness. Not only have you got two pokemon weak to that type (Latios and Gengar) but you also have no pokemon to counter them (Steels resistance to ghost was unfortunately nerfed this gen :P ). So this may seem like to worst idea in history but I'm going to have to recommend Umbreon > Vaporeon. Unlike Vaporeon, Umbreon has a nice resistance to ghost types and can end up wacking them pretty hard in the face. It also has stunning defences and the same access to wish (and heal bell). If you want to give it a try here is the moveset I recommend:

Umbreon @ Leftovers
Synchronise - Calm nature - 252 HP/ 252 sp. def/ 6 def
(smogon is still insisting that the EV's of a pokemon add up to 508 but I did a calculation on my in game Kangaskhan and it had 510.)
- Foul Play
- Heal Bell
- Wish
- Protect
Umbreon is just your everyday cleric. It has access to Wish (so it can switch out and heal your other pokemon) and Heal Bell so it can remove burns from your Mega Scizor. It can even take those burns intended for Scizor and give it to the opponents pokemon as well thanks to Synchronise( Then next turn you can heal it with Heal Bell). Protect is mandatory on wish passers so they can heal themselves and the final moveslot is Foul Play, the strongest dark type move Umbreon can get it's hands (paws?) on.

If you want to play Umbreon over Vaporeon you might want to remove energy ball on Latios for Surf since it does more damage (on the top of my head) and fire pokemon are more commonly used over water. You still have plenty of fire counters also for Ferrothorn so sacking Vaporeon won't upset your teams typing balance.
2. I would use Choice Scarf > Life Orb on Latios for a number of reasons. Firstly, Many people run choice scarved Garchomp these days to outspeed common life orb Latios and KO them before they can do anything. Secondly, You have no status moves and an increase in speed won't harm anyone (but the opponent). Lastly, Latios already has an incredible 130 special attack stat so the life orb drop won't really matter much.
That's pretty much a basic overview of your team. I hope I helped and good luck getting up the ladder!

 

[Cloudesley]

Thundershock! Thanks for the comment man, seriously. The Ghost weakness hasn't bothered me much since aegislash can be handled pretty fairly by this team most of the time, but nevertheless I took your advice on the Umbreon switch and I gotta say it has been feeling alot better just having the dark type to switch to.
I also changed the latios set back to what I was running before, as per your rec, and it rarely disappoints.
The ladder is still unforgiving but what can I say. We'll get it eventually lol.
Thanks again.

 

[Stardust Dragon]

First off, make changes in BOLD, so I can read easier. First off, Ferrothorn generally runs a specially defensive set which has more use these days... Gyro Ball and Thunder Wave seems very counter productive also. I'd recommend changing one of those to protect for some leech seed stalling, or after taking in this Latios change, Power Whip instead of Gyro Ball. Also now that Latios has a Choice Scarf and great speed, running Modest would seem like a better idea. Surf also covers the same as Grass Knot but is usually the better option for base power, reliability and covers Fire. Your team doesn't have a problem with Water types because of Ferrothorn. That's all!

 

[Cloudesley]

Hey Stardust, thanks for the time I appreciate the comment. I'm really liking the idea of giving ferro the whip and am currently seeing what that, and the EV changes do in greater detail before I perma them. I really can't see putting protect on him simply because I have such use for all three of the other moves (bsides leach seed), but of course the value there is obvious.
The other thing was with Latios, I was running the scarf particularly to get over scarf'd chomps, which id assume run jolly most of the time... If I switched to modest wouldn't that make me slower then them? But if they usually run adamant then that switch would seem a lot more viable, and would help with the loss in power from no LO.

 

[thundershock1234]

Dude, never put protect on a Ferrothorn in singles. I did that once, put it in a RMT and got hell for it. If you are going to change Thunder Wave to something I would go Power Whip (like Stardust Dragon mentioned). Since Latios got Surf you are missing a Grass type move so it would be better to go for coverage instead. Anyways, I'm glad you are loving Umbreon! I wish you the best of luck!

 

[Cloudesley]

I can't say I ever would... Personally just find so much more value in Ferrothorn sets with either two attacks (+Leech seed and stealth rocks), t-wave and an attack, or an attack and spikes lol. Plus if I'm running that rocky helmet like I should be, I'd almost rather tank the hit. While trying to keep him away from fire and special, he loves getting wishes and revenge killing with his barbs. Love this guy. Starting to begin considering alternatives to Gengar; I love this team but something is just feeling off. Maybe I'm missing some elec immunity or something? lmao.

 

[Stardust Dragon]

Hey Stardust, thanks for the time I appreciate the comment. I'm really liking the idea of giving ferro the whip and am currently seeing what that, and the EV changes do in greater detail before I perma them. I really can't see putting protect on him simply because I have such use for all three of the other moves (bsides leach seed), but of course the value there is obvious.
The other thing was with Latios, I was running the scarf particularly to get over scarf'd chomps, which id assume run jolly most of the time... If I switched to modest wouldn't that make me slower then them? But if they usually run adamant then that switch would seem a lot more viable, and would help with the loss in power from no LO.

Well seeing how the general benchmark for Scarfers to switch nature is about 95ish, Scarfchomps usually run Adamant. Also since specially defensive Ferrothorn does more work this gen., just switch Defense to Special Defense. Since you are considering to change Gengar, maybe a Kings Shield Aegislash or a Greninja. Message me for a set for the one you wanna use. (If you wanna use one)

 

[Cloudesley]

Oooooh I might try funking around with a greninja.... Might do some interesting things to coverage for my team. Certainly ups my weakness to fighting though... leaving my only resist Latios... Id consider running a set similar to this one:
Greninja (M) @ Life Orb/Focus Sash
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 Atk
Hasty Nature
- Ice Beam
- Scald
- U-turn
- Dark Pulse
Scald to maintain some burn chance on this team.. ice for coverage. Dark Pulse to give some heavy dark damage, replacement shadow ball I guess. U-Turn because u-turn?

 

[thundershock1234]

Cloudesley Greninja sounds like a good idea for your team! I personally love running it with extrasensory but I think for your team U-Turn may benefit more
@ Stardust Dragon I usually run jolly scarf Garchomp over adamant since I can outspeed so much more. I also come across lots more jolly scarfers then adamant but that may just be me.

 

[Cloudesley]

Off a thought to shift this team in a more offensive direction... I actually switched the Umbreon out for the LO Greninja set I posted yesterday. My team definitely hurts from not having a cleric, but having some fast coverage to switch into helps too. and my main wish receivers were Scizor and Arcanine, both have a healing move already and with better management and better switches, have been preforming well.
Still having Gengar on my team allows for that destiny bond to take advantage of an enemy switch, or down.. and a little offensive ghosty.

 

[Cloudesley]

Bump for changes to team. Would love to listen to any ideas about any changes to this team. I feel like its got a couple good things going for it, but still some issues. My latest thoughts are about nixing ferrothorn. Perhaps for a SR lando form or something like this:
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf/Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Superpower