Blue Skies (OU-ish Sun Team)

MudcrabDL

MudcrabDL

I've been playing with this team for a fair while, and it has been serving me very well due to its versatility and surprising ease at countering enemy weather teams. There are a couple kinks I'd like to work out, though; I haven't been able to integrate a rapid spinner particularly well with this team. Entry hazards in particular are a big problem for these guys. A lack of strong priority can also hurt this teams performance, so I've decided to throw it up here just to work out a couple of these factors.

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NINETALES @ Wide Lens
Timid Nature
252 SpAtt/252 Speed
Ability: DROUGHT

- Fire Blast
- Hypnosis
- Pain Split
- Energy Ball

This is obviously the core of this set, to set up sun and give the sun sweepers all of the fun little bonuses. I chose to go with Wide Lens just to give Hypnosis a bit better reliability, and due to Wide Lens already being there, I switched out Flamethrower just to kind of mitigate the obvious power loss I have from doing that instead of a Specs or Life Orb set. This Ninetales hits very hard with STAB sun-powered Fire Blast, and uses Energy Ball mostly just to punish Politoed when he switches in, over Solarbeam. Ninetales' fast Hypnosis is also particularly useful in situations where someone's trying to kill my weather, and fast Pain Split gives surprisingly reliable recovery.

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VICTREEBEL @ Leftovers
Modest Nature
252 SpAtt/252 Speed
Ability: CHLOROPHYLL

- Giga Drain
- Growth
- Sludge Bomb
- Weather Ball

This guy hits hard. If he's given even one turn to Growth up, he will more than likely sweep an entire team. Giga Drain lets him heal off surprisingly potent amounts of damage, it lets him Growth in the face of some attackers that are just slightly not good enough and then heal off all damage as he cuts holes in the other team. Sludge Bomb is mostly there for neutral STAB coverage on threats like Dragonite and Salamence, though I've been considering switching it out for a Hidden Power. Weather Ball functions as a third STAB in sun, which is the only time Victreebel sees the light of day. He's also just slightly faster than most Venusaur in sun, which is also the reason why he ISN'T a Venusaur.

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JUMPLUFF @ Flying Gem
Adamant Nature
252 Att/252 Speed
Ability: CHLOROPHYLL

- Acrobatics
- Sleep Powder
- Seed Bomb
- Swords Dance

Yeah, laugh it up. Despite Jumpluff being horrendously weak on paper, with a couple of Swords Dance boosts she becomes an unexpectedly awesome sweeper. I generally save my Flying Gem boosted Acrobatics for a wall that needs to be punched through like Forretress or Ferrothorn, and it does that job particularly well; possibly because the opponent is too busy laughing to stop me from Sleep Powdering him and Swords Dancing up. Seed Bomb is there for another STAB option, it's a pretty self-explanatory set. Jumpluff's incredible speed just means she can't be stopped bar a strong Bullet Punch or any Ice Shard, really. And once Jumpluff gets to two or three Swords Dance boosts, people stop laughing pretty quickly.

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ZOROARK @ Life Orb
Timid Nature
252 SpAtt / 252 Speed
Ability: ILLUSION

- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power Ice

I'll lead with this guy most of the time, usually pretending that he's a Victreebel. He's there entirely to counter a lot of common leads and walls. Dark Pulse 2HKOs Deoxys-D and generally 1HKOs Magic Bounce Espeons that switch in on Turn 1, along with putting a huge dent in Focus Sash Alakazams, usually killing him if he starts out with a Psychic or Psyshock to target Victreebel's Poison typing. Similar situation with the Lati@s. Flamethrower ruins Ferroseed and Forretress, and Scizor and Skarmory...Plus it puts a nice dent in grass types trying to use the sun. Focus Blast breaks down steels, plus Zoroark is just slightly faster than Hydregion which falls very quickly. Hidden Power Ice is there for Gliscor, the Kami Trio and...well, the rest of the plethora of things that are wrecked by ice.

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LANDORUS-T @ Choice Scarf
Adamant Nature
252 Attack/ 252 Speed
Ability: INTIMIDATE

- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- U-Turn

Lando takes care of pesky fire types who could KO my sweepers. He also absorbs a lot of common Fighting attacks, by virtue of both his typing and ability. U-Turn is for scouting, Superpower is for coverage...Once again, very self-explanatory. People don't expect a Choice Scarf Lando-T as often as they really should with stats like that. I don't really like Choice items, though, they're very easy to circumvent, so a better set for Lando would be nice.

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CINCCINO @ King's Rock
Jolly Nature
252 Att/252 Speed
Ability: SKILL LINK

- Bullet Seed
- Rock Blast
- Tail Slap
- U-Turn

And my final Pokemon, for the assorted problems that the rest of my team just can't overcome. Cinccino is blisteringly fast independent of Sun and sports moves which let it beat down most other weather inducers. King's Rock also gives it a 41% chance to flinch or so, which is incredibly useful (and frustrating for the person on the receiving end.) I used to run T-Wave instead of U-Turn, but Cinccino can take like, half a hit, so it's better to just rely on the 41%, or U-Turn out if you're worried.

And that's it. Thoughts? Hate?
 
Hello there,

First of all, welcome to Smogon! Speaking about your team, I see that you haven't neither of the two, Stealth Rock user which is very very important to deal threats such as Dragonite, Salamence, Thundurus-T and Volcarona more easily and Rapid Spin or Magic Bounce user which would help you to avoid the opposing Stealth Rock that is quite problematic for your team since it hits hard Ninetales which is your weather summoner. Therefore, I suggest you to use Donphan replacing Landorus-T because it has Stealth Rock, Rapid Spin to spin the opposing Stealth Rock and because it's a good check to dragon-types too with Ice Shard. An EV spread of 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def with a moveset of Earthquake, Stealth Rock, Rapid Spin and Ice Shard, with Adamant nature and with Leftovers should work fine on your team. Now your team lacks a revenge-killler and that's pretty bad because revenge-killers are really important in the current bw ou metagame since they allows to outspeed many threats such as Dragonite and Volcarona after their setup move. You have Victreeebel and Jumpluff which are very fast when sun is up but the sun can't be up all the battle so they aren't reliable revenge-killler, so I suggest you to use Choice Scarf Terrakion replacing Cincinno which seems the weak line here, I'd use an EV spread of 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 HP with a moveset of Close Combat, Stone Edge, X-Scissor and Earthquake, with Jolly nature and with Choice Scarf of course. Choice Scarf Terrakion also would help you against Volcarona which seems very problematic for your current team. After that, I suggest you to change Ninetales' EV spread into 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 Spe because this EV spread allows Ninetales to tank more hits during the matches which is really important to win the weather wars against sand and rain teams more easily. I'd use also a moveset of Will-O-Wisp, Sunny Day, Fire Blast and Protect because Will-O-Wisp and Sunny Day must be used always on Defensive Ninetales in my opinion since they would help you a lot to win the weather wars against rain and sand teams since Will-O-Wisp allows Ninetales to burn Politoed, Tyranitar and Hippowdon and since Sunny Day makes useless their switch in. Protect is good in 4th slot because it helps Ninetales to recover some HP and allows you to scout choice item user's move but Hypnosis is a nice good too even if it has 60% of accuracy so it's a risky move. If you want to have a recovery move, I suggest you to use Rest with Chesto Berry since it allows in one turn to recover all the HP, otherwise Pain Split isn't a reliable recovery move because if you use it on a pokemon which hasn't much HP, you won't recover much HP. As last thing, I suggest you to use Life Orb instead of Leftovers on Victreebel because it allows to hit harder.

Good luck.
 
Thank you very much for that. I'm trying out your ideas and it's seeming a lot stronger than before, I'm glad to get an outside perspective.
 
I agree with the decision to use Donphan, but I'd also advise against using Victreebel over Venusaur. Venusaur is actually faster with base 80 speed, 10 higher than Victreebel, and he tanks hit much better. Cinccino has base 115 speed? Wow, but still I advise against using it as it's much too frail and as you lose Landorus-T as a scarf user, you're better off just adding a scarf using for those revenge kills. Hydreigon resists Tyranitar's Pursuit, unlike Latios and can also hit back with Superpower. The only thing he can't beat is scarfed Terrakion, but to be honest, Hydreigon has no other hard counters.

Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Timid Nature
4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Trait: Levitate
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power/Dark Pulse/ HP Grass/ Super Power
- U-Turn
 
Hmm, the only issue I have with taking Venusaur instead is that he can't run Weather Ball alongside Chloro; I mean, all that means is that I'll need to run Hidden Power Fire, but base 100 + 50% looks a lot more attractive than base 70 + 50%, particularly if he's running off one Growth boost. However, I will admit, if you're using it to target down Ferrothorns and Scizors, they're pretty much toast anyway, so I'm going to try it out to see if the drop in base power is at all noticeable. Choice Scarf Hydregion? I hadn't really thought about that; if Zoroark stops pulling her weight, I'm going to switch that in there, but for the vast majority of the games I've played nobody seems to expect a Zoroark lead, so she usually cripples at least two of their 'mons straight off the bat. I'll keep testing though, and if higher up the ladder the element of surprise stops being useful I'll probably switch her out.
 
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