Bulky Offense

[alexpeng]

I've been playing pokemon for quite a while now, and lurked here most of it. My team making history has been pretty short, I've made about 10ish, one that was decent getting me up to about 1400 CRE. Recently I've gotten back into it and have been playing around with other peoples teams, but I decided to give making my own another shot. This is a development on my "good" team, in my natural style of bulky offence. I feel bulky offense is the most interesting style, as all out offense is too frail, and therefore gets owned by choice scarfers, whereas stall is too slow and uninteresting.

Team Building​

Normally when building a team, you don't choose the lead first, but when thinking about a creative lead, I went through the OU tier looking at which pokemon could learn both stealth rock and trick. Naturally I fell upon Uxie and decided I could use a trickscarf uxie lead, and chose yawn and U-turn for the other moves. Yawn is excellent in a lead to scout the opponents team, and U-turn creates the momentum that offensive teams require. I was so happy with my new and original lead, that when I found the "trickscarf" set on the Smogon analysis page I was quite disheartened.

My former team was bulky offence, with a late-game lucario sweep. It also had a bulkyDDgyara which I enjoyed, and has worked well on many of my teams, pulling off so many late game sweeps.

I knew I had to choose a scarfer, and as I'd be switching to it a lot, I thought I'd go for one with levitate/flying to avoid spikes. Naturally, scarfLatias was the obvious choice for its sky-high speed, and trick.

To draw in threats to a gyarados sweep such as rotom-a and thunderwave them, I used one of my own sets, max sp.def celebi. Max sp.def largely negates the ice, fire and ghost weakness, but intensifies the dark and bug weaknesses.

So, I had a very specially oriented team, with one physical poke, and no real physical bulk on the team, so I added Metagross. I didn't want a choice bander, as I prefer to switch attacks, I didn't want an all out tank, as it would do no damage. So I used a hybrid of the agiligross and tank set, EVing it with max attack, enough speed to outspeed nearly all of unscarfed OU after an agility (excluding ninjask and weavile), leaving me plenty of EVs to throw into HP and defense.

Looking at the team, I noticed a glaring bug/dark/ghost weakness, due to the three psychics on the team. I had a jolteon on to make up for this, but his frailty encouraged me to switch to a Machamp. I didn't use RestTalk as this would take away from the offensive momentum of the team, and I already had a status absorber. Being a little unsure of what set to use, I used the regular moveset with a sub to block status, seeing as I was running No Guard for the ability.



Details

Blue Fairy (Uxie) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/100 Def/152 Spd/6 SDef
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Trick
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Yawn

Against any lead I suspect not to be scarfed, I use Trick, often as they set up Stealth Rock. Then I Yawn as they switch to their counter. I then set up my own stealth rock and U-turn out. Due to its great defenses, Uxie is very useful for phazing with Yawn or U-turning later on in the game.

---

Machamp (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/6 Def
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Dynamicpunch
- Payback
- Stone Edge

The most recent addition to my team, it is used to soak up dark, bug and ghost hits directed at my psychics. It counters tyranitar and confuses the switch in, giving me a chance at some free hits. He doesn't totally cover the Rotom weakness, due to will-o-wisp. He's working out okay for me, but any reccommendations would be welcome.

---

Green Fairy (Celebi) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/6 Def/252 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Thunder Wave
- Grass Knot
- Earth Power
- Recover

A beast of a Pokemon, many of my opponents think, oh, Celebi, defensive, and run to their special attacker. I often see Latias, Empoleon, Heatran and Rotom-A switching in on this guy. Latias gets ThunderWaved and Recover-spammed until hax occurs, leaving me on full health. Empoleon sets up as I Earth Power it, until it finds out that its Ice Beam does 60% damage. Heatran fails to OHKO unless it has LO (which is less than half of the time if I'm at max HP) or Specs, and gets OHKO'd back. Rotom gets thunder-waved and recover spammed like Latias as it shadow balls, though I need to be careful of Trick.

The most powerful special typed attack possible on celebi is SpecsHeatran's Fire Blast, doing 109-130%.

Some other examples:

Lead Heatran / Scarftran's Fireblast: 64-77% (leftovers included on all calcs)
Tormentran's Lava Plume: 36-41%

Celebi rarely dies to Heatran because Thunderwave, Earth Power and Recover on the switch all prevent an OHKO situation. T-wave lets me hit first, Earth power KO's on the switch, and recover puts me out of its KO zone. Grass knot is the least used move on this set.

---

Gyarados (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 156 HP/72 Atk/96 Def/184 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Stone Edge
- Waterfall
- Taunt

Bulky DDdos, I use this late game, as if it has to switch out, stealth rock will wear it down too much. It's won me many games, even from 4-1 situations. It also comes in handy when I need to intimidate spam a physical threat. It also helps my team resist stall, as along with my other two levitators, spikes won't harm it, and it can trick or taunt the opponent. Once their Rotom-A is in KO range of a DD waterfall is generally when I feel safe to switch him in.

---

Metagross @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 116 HP/252 Atk/96 Def/44 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Agility

As explained earlier, this set is a bit of a mix of the tank and Agiligross set, with enough speed to get past the unscarfed OUs, and as much power and defense as possible. I used the defense calculator for the HP/Def EVs. Even against physically defensive Pokemon such as Forretress, I can wear them down as they spike, agility just before the kill, and explode, netting me two kills. It's also handy against Tyranitars and Scizors, although not the best switch in, as it's 3-4 hit KO'd by Crunch and U-turn.

---

Latias (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 80 HP/176 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Draco Meteor
- Trick
- Surf
- Thunderbolt

And finally my scarfer and anti-dragon, EV'd to just out speed Jolly DD Salamence, as I don't need to out speed +2 Gyarados, Celebi handles it fine. The spare EVs go to HP, helping its already decent natural defenses. Standard set here.
---

Threats

Against U-Turn teams I generally have to sacrifice one Pokemon (Usually Uxie) as a "U-turn fodder", soaking up the damage, and letting me U-turn out to a hard hitter. The bug attack dents quite a few of my Pokemon.

Rotoms presence always haunts this team, but it's dealt with quite well with Celebi. If I can sacrifice one pokemon to bring it down to around 60%, I can sweep with Gyarados late game and it becomes irrelevant.

Dark type attacks in general are annoying, and although handled somewhat by Machamp, still manage to piss me off.


annnnd done.

Well, thanks for reading, if you've read all the way down to here, you may as well post some advice. =] Personally in the battles I've played with this team, I feel Metagross and Machamp are the least effective in their roles.

 

[Snorlaxe]

Hello. The first thing that I notice about this team is that it lacks a resistance to Ghost type moves. This could hurt you in multiple ways, as a Life Orb Gengar can easily ravage your team. Rotom-A is also a concern but not quite as bad as depending on the set it can be played around with your Pokemon. Life Orb Gengar is currently a very large, very real threat to this team however, as really no member of your team can safely switch in on its powerful STAB Shadow Balls. I think that in order to fix this weakness you might want to consider a standard Choice Band Scizor in Machamp's place. The main thing that Machamp does for you is "check" ghost types as well as absorb Dark and Bug type attacks. Machamp also counters Dragon Dance Tyranitar marvelously (who would otherwise easily sweep this entire team after a Dragon Dance). Scizor is just as capable of covering the Dark and Bug type attacks as Machamp is, but it also sports an important resistance to Ghost type move. It can also counter Tyranitar well, and is helpful thanks to its powerful priority. Use this set:

Scizor @ Choice Band | Technician
Adamant | 248 HP | 252 Attack | 8 Speed
Bullet Punch | U-turn | Pursuit | Superpower

Bullet Punch is marvelous priority that helps this team check fast, frail sweepers such as Latias, Choice Scarf Flygon, and most importantly Gengar. U-turn is great as it allows Scizor to easily scout the opposing team, as well as bashing the opponent with a powerful STAB Choice Band U-turn. Generally, unless Scizor is sent out against a Pokemon like Dragon Dance Salamence with one or two boosts or Gengar, Scizor will want to start U-tuning right away if only to scout for switches and hit the opponent hard. Pursuit is a nice move for trapping Pokemon like Rotom-A, who this team does struggle with. Scizor won't be able to trap Rotom-H due to its weakness to Overheat, but other formes of Rotom are handled nicely. Superpower is a great weapon against Steel-type Pokemon that enjoy switching in on Scizor, as it can easily OHKO most of them, including Magnezone and Heatran. The EV spread is standard for Choice Band Scizor, and maximizes bulk and power.

This is pretty minor, but have you ever considered Occa Berry on Celebi? Leftovers is very useful, but I kinda get the feeling that your Celebi set is more of a "lure" kind of Pokemon. Occa Berry will especially help in dealing with Heatran and Infernape, as while Celebi is still more than capable of surviving the Fire Blast of these Pokemon, no defensive Pokemon like Celebi will want to be left standing with about 40% of their HP left intact, as it just isn't enough to keep on taking repeated hits. With Occa Berry and Earth Power Celebi can easily take out Fire-type Pokemon, which will eventually make the game easier for your Scizor (assuming that you decide to use Scizor) and your Metagross. Also, if you feel like Infernape is a big threat to your team, you could try moving 92 of Celebi's HP EVs into Special Attack so that it is guarenteed that Celebi can OHKO Infernape after Stealth Rock damage and one turn of Life Orb recoil. Latias covers Infernape nicely, however, so this isn't like a must; just a small suggestion based on what you think your team needs.

I might want to think about using Life Orb on Metagross. Life Orb allows Metagross to net some important OHKOes that it otherwise could not, such as against standard Calm Mind Latias, as well as Dragon Dance Salamence (after Stealth Rock damage). Leftovers is good for survivability, but on a more offensively oriented Pokemon like Metagross power is generally more important than survivability. It's your call, though.

Hope I helped, and good luck with your team! ;)

 

[alexpeng]

I can see what you're saying about scizor, but having played two matches in a row just then where Machamp won the game for me, what do you think about putting Scizor over Metagross? This further reduces my aforementioned weaknesses, and still has the speed of Agiligross with bullet punch. It doesn't increase my fire weakness, as meta was already weak, and gives me two options in case Machamp goes down early in the game. What do you think? I'll test both though

Thanks for your suggestion about Occa Celebi, but I feel that in PPstallwars and handling ice and ghost special attacks, Occa would be an inferior option to leftovers, especially considering my team only has one fire weakness apart from Celebi.

Will test life orb on meta, thanks very much for your rate!