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ginganinja...that's what i was trying to say in the first place :) that hippowdon offers some nice utility in a metagame where dugtrio makes using tyranitar somewhat less attractive.
anyway, on to bigger and better things, eh? :)
That's why you use it with Heal Bell Celebi. Many stall teams carry clerics anyway, so it's not such a big deal. And RestTalk Shed Shell Trans place is only in stall or semi-stall teams.
On another note, TrickScarf Gothitelle with Calm Mind is simply amazing. I am using it with Rest and Psyshock, so i can set-up on anything that can't 2hko and is slower such as Gastrodon, Donphan, Chansey, Blissey, Tentacruel, Ferrothorn, Toxic Gliscor, Latias and many others. Also with Trick you are able to cripple a bazzilion of mons, even if you can't set-up on them, such as Ninetales, Jirachi, Starmie, Tornadus-T, Forretress and Skarmory, which don't appreciate a Scarf at all. So this set combines the CM + Rest combo to break through walls, and the TrickScarf combo to cripple many mons, which means that you can cripple a huge array of mons in one way or another. Give her some Volt-turn support and you are set!
I would like to add to bubbly's post that Resttalk Gyarados was also fun to use in BW1- I deemed it the only viable one to use because it could select Dragon Tail or Roar consistently while asleep and hold off attackers with Intimidate. I don't see the appeal of Shed Shell Resttalk Tran, sure it beats sun teams but Resttalk with no Leftovers to help keep it up in BW might as well just be no healing at all. It's really an inefficient use of the mon unless you need to counterteam sun with the slot.
i hate restalk as well and i agree that gyara, with dual phazing, is like the only really good restalker that remains from DPP/HGSS, but heatran's jobs in the modern era just keep getting harder, and it's tough to take on genesect+dugtrio with a single team slot. heatran really can't do the job without shed shell (as everybody already knows by now, genesect uturns as you come in, pops your balloon and drops you into dugtrio where you promptly get quaked to death). on the other hand if you run shed shell you lose leftovers which means you stop losing outright to dugtrio, but most teams can kill you by wearing you down and forcing you in repeatedly (heatran has to do SO much work to keep up vs a sun team, even with other premier anti-sun guys like latias in the picture), which is where rest comes in. there are other rogue sets like flame charge or magma storm (ew... magma storm heatran on weatherless?) that can beat dugtrio+genesect, but they're even more hopelessly specialized in my opinion. it's basically a choice between running standard heatran and risking an easy loss to genesect+dugtrio (xatu beats latias unless latias is subcm because you get toxiced/twaved, and nothing else can really do the job), or running shed shell heatran and freeing up other slots on the team. i don't really like the idea of giving lavos sun an easy win just because i'm too dumb to win weather wars and have to play weatherless... so shed shell heatran it is.
and yeah restalk tran pairs really well with heal bell celebi, i was actually doing it on a stall team for a little while but right now i'm testing poison heal breloom because of that sweet fighting typing (and because PSYCHIC SUX >_> jk but weaknesses to dark and bug get really really annoying if you're already running latias. your safe switches on tyranitar or scizor go down drastically and i think latias is more important to full stall than celebi right now). on full stall you should have some time to work towards heatran waking up. it still has the essential moves (lava plume and roar) for when you don't need restalk, but rest can be clutch as all hell - against many teams - when your team is getting backed into a corner.
my current full stall team was actually inspired by all the restalk sets in the creative set thread. i was originally running lanturn AND heatran as restalkers (obviously i was running heal bell celebi) but the ground weakness basically made it impossible. as i mentioned, running celebi and latias side by side also sucks because that means 2 mons on your team are basically auto lose to scizor/tyranitar, and not only is latias one of my absolute favorite metagame picks, but it's really really important for stall right now because of the great defensive roles it plays. latias also synergizes fairly well with heatran imo (if only it had heal bell...) but that meant i had to ditch celebi so i'm currently actually running restalk heatran WITHOUT a cleric (yeah i intend to rectify this problem soon... i wanted to try it without, but heatran is one lazy ass bastard once it goes to sleep). obviously though restalk is retarded on any non-stall team, no matter what mon is running it. this, i agree with unequivocally
Rain Dance Tornadus-T is another very viable way to combat Lavos Spawn's team. Not saying it is insta-win or anything, just that it can serioualy threaten it. Oh and TrickScarf Gothitelle is also very good at trapping and crippling Ninetales, Xatu, and Dugtrio (how does it feel to taste your own medicine, bitch?).
Rain Dance Tornadus-T is another very viable way to combat Lavos Spawn's team. Not saying it is insta-win or anything, just that it can serioualy threaten it. Oh and TrickScarf Gothitelle is also very good at trapping and crippling Ninetales, Xatu, and Dugtrio (how does it feel to taste your own medicine, bitch?).
Yeah, Rain Dance Tornadus-T is a pain. Zero Flying resists means my only "check" to it is Ninetales, so if it sets up Rain as I switch in, I've lost the game. Once I know it has Rain Dance, I can try to play around it with Genesect, but that hardly ever works once the opponent figures out I don't have an answer to Torn-T. Gothitelle is also annoying, but I never faced one in all my 400+ games of using Lavos Sun, go figure.
obligatory "sand veil chomp being suspected smh" post
Yeah, Rain Dance Tornadus-T is a pain. Zero Flying resists means my only "check" to it is Ninetales, so if it sets up Rain as I switch in, I've lost the game. Once I know it has Rain Dance, I can try to play around it with Genesect, but that hardly ever works once the opponent figures out I don't have an answer to Torn-T. Gothitelle is also annoying, but I never faced one in all my 400+ games of using Lavos Sun, go figure.
obligatory "sand veil chomp being suspected smh" post
Huh. Good to know. I have a new weapon against all the imposters. Beauty of a team by the way.
Something I've noticed is a spike in the usage of Lapras on Rain teams, and I'm baffled why you would use it. Its typing is redundant with Politoed's, and the weirdest thing is that they're all DD Lapras. Why would you run Lapras when Kingdra exists? Its typing isn't flat out redundant, it has Dragon STAB, etc.
Alkinesthetase said:
my current full stall team was actually inspired by all the restalk sets in the creative set thread. i was originally running lanturn AND heatran as restalkers (obviously i was running heal bell celebi) but the ground weakness basically made it impossible. as i mentioned, running celebi and latias side by side also sucks because that means 2 mons on your team are basically auto lose to scizor/tyranitar, and not only is latias one of my absolute favorite metagame picks, but it's really really important for stall right now because of the great defensive roles it plays. latias also synergizes fairly well with heatran imo (if only it had heal bell...) but that meant i had to ditch celebi so i'm currently actually running restalk heatran WITHOUT a cleric (yeah i intend to rectify this problem soon... i wanted to try it without, but heatran is one lazy ass bastard once it goes to sleep). obviously though restalk is retarded on any non-stall team, no matter what mon is running it. this, i agree with unequivocally
Latias is a really good poke right now. I for one use an offensive Latias for the surprise value. A disturbing number of players switch their Ferrothorns, Scizors, and Genesects into Latias, hoping to set up on it or scare it out, only to instantly lose as Latias lights them up with HP Fire. Boom, Latias check is down, and it can begin to smack around other members of the opposing team. Its a lot of fun to use as well.
Latias is a really good poke right now. I for one use an offensive Latias for the surprise value. A disturbing number of players switch their Ferrothorns, Scizors, and Genesects into Latias, hoping to set up on it or scare it out, only to instantly lose as Latias lights them up with HP Fire. Boom, Latias check is down, and it can begin to smack around other members of the opposing team. Its a lot of fun to use as well.
i am a LONG time fan of latias but i will say that not once in my life have i ever run hp fire on latias. i always go with pure support sets because i feel like latios heavily outclasses all the offensive ones and you only really win with them if you catch stuff by surprise - never something i've liked on any team member but that's just me. my latias almost always looks like this:
- dragon pulse (no duh)
- recover (no duh)
- calm mind (excellent way to abuse free turns, makes you a late game threat, and lets you win one-on-one vs almost any special attacker that doesn't 2hko or pack a status move)
- roar/reflect/substitute (in order of how willing i am to use them. i used to use reflectCM in BW1 because reflect was good for the rest of my team at the time, but right now i am running phull stall and 3 phazers is phreaking phazetastic. i run latias alongside roar heatran and they can phaze on different mons which is sweet. subcm is the ultimate sweeper but fails against offensive teams who break its sub too easily, and i've never really liked substitute.)
there are only 3 attacking moves that i personally ever condone on latias: dragon pulse (basically mandatory), psyshock (beats other cmers, especially keldeo, and lets you kill off chanseys and blisseys before they status you), and, least of all, hp fire (beats scizor and a few other steels that can slow you down... but except scizor, unless they carry status, they're usually setup bait)
i think doughboy said it earlier in this thread: full stall really needs both roarCM latias and shed shell heatran right now. together they take on some of the most uncounterable threats in OU which is what matters the most for full stall. if you're a good player you can handle things like specs latios because you lure it into choice locking on the wrong move, but there are mons that hit hard and yet are not crippled by their choice lock. this is what full stall must be the most afraid of, and latias and heatran excel at being able to take those on (eg genesect, tornadus-T - it can't beat heatran if you have restalk which means your team can safely go to work on it, volcarona, sd and np users in general). having three phazers is excellent when you have to switch in on boosting threats a lot and my toxic tentacruel also does a ton of work.
there is another important similarity between these mons, which is that they both function very well against sun (latias suffers against genesect and status cripples it but really that's about it, and NOTHING on sun can break through shed shell heatran except by surprise, such as eq venusaur). i think sun is by far the most dangerous weather to any weatherless team, because sun has always been a big game of risk and reward - if you win the weather war, hell do you ever win big, but you lose the weather war easily because ninetales is goddamn useless. against weatherless, weather war winning is not a problem and you have to go head on against a laundry list of murderously powerful sun threats (darmanitan and victini are typically choiced so they can be checked with good play, but genesect is murderous, and hp ground offensive volcarona is unstoppable - with lum berry, that set has NO counters and can only be checked by scarfers like terrakion, which don't fit well into full stall).
as for rain i run protect+toxic tentacruel as lavos mentioned earlier, which is really a great mix if you don't run the rain yourself (in which case sub toxic kinda sucks ass because you only have sludge recovery with which to restore your subs). it's a sick mon and cmon it's tentacruel, what else is there to say? i once beat an NP thundurus-t thanks to that toxic, it messes up guys who want to set up on you like crazy. i was running celebi before - we all know how well it synergizes with heatran - but i think celebi really suffers from being psychic on the same team as latias. latias already invites scizor like the damn plague and running celebi means that two mons on my team can be checkmated by strong pursuits/uturns - way too many mons losing to genesect/scizor/tyranitar for a single team. i switched to poison heal BU breloom as a result, mainly because although it doesn't support the team very well, the fighting type is sorely appreciated, and it can switch in on scalds all day long (running 252 hp / 252+ sdef like a boss). in addition breloom resists edgequake which means you can come in on a lot of stuff, like dugtrio (hah shed shell heatran bitches!). breloom is a surprisingly good stallmon (typing is useful both offensively AND defensively thanks to that sick edgequake+water+electric resist, and poison heal is awesome... unless you switch it into twaves like me, in which case you're retarded) except that it doesn't do very well as a team player and i find it tough to set up right now. virizion is a good anti meta mon in general but it lacks breloom's staying power, bulk (due to its weak physical defense) and late-game threat potential, while still not offering much more in the department of support.
the problem with that lineup is that there's not enough physical defense and god did it ever show when i had to deal with goddamn terrakion. my other two mons right now are sdef skarmory (secondary counter to tornadus-T - with the sdef, it can handle it easily) and wish/SR chansey. i'm not really liking how chansey performs (it's overloaded right now - i need twave or toxic on it, i need heal bell on it because my team is vulnerable to paralysis, and yet i need stealth rock even more than any of those) and it opens up too much fighting weakness on my team. but jellicent overlaps with tentacruel, gengar is not bulky enough and dusclops is lol dusclops, it's bulky but accomplishes like nothing.
i must say though that designing weatherless is a lot of fun even though i know i have some gaping holes. this shit is why i play pokemon
oh and as for lapras. the reason people run lapras is simple: hydration. if you win the weather war as a rain team, lapras is basically instant gg. if the opponent can't ohko it, lapras can rest stall almost any move, and by the time you win the weather war the opponent will often not have anything strong enough to crack lapras's solid natural bulk. this means you can easily rest+dd or rest+curse your way to a sweep, making it by far one of the most reliable rain-backed sweepers... if you win. lapras is useless off of rain because it has no recovery and is easy to wear down with toxic or hazards and so it is very dependent on weather wars being won. the only other good hydration user in OU is vaporeon which has no real way to abuse rest for a sweep. also bear in mind that ss kingdra is uh... kind of illegal on rain teams lol. sniper kingdra is not especially good even in the rain and is outclassed by a broad variety of other things like surf latios or keldeo.
Something I've noticed is a spike in the usage of Lapras on Rain teams, and I'm baffled why you would use it. Its typing is redundant with Politoed's, and the weirdest thing is that they're all DD Lapras. Why would you run Lapras when Kingdra exists? Its typing isn't flat out redundant, it has Dragon STAB, etc.
Because Swift Swim + Drizzle is banned? lol. Lapras has a nice immunity to status and can fully recover its health with no drawbacks under the rain. Still obviously not an overwhelming threat but it can certainly catch you off-gaurd.
Huh. Good to know. I have a new weapon against all the imposters. Beauty of a team by the way.
Something I've noticed is a spike in the usage of Lapras on Rain teams, and I'm baffled why you would use it. Its typing is redundant with Politoed's, and the weirdest thing is that they're all DD Lapras. Why would you run Lapras when Kingdra exists? Its typing isn't flat out redundant, it has Dragon STAB, etc.
Because (coming from someone who has used Lapras extensively in BW1 and 2), Lapras has access to a 100% no drawbacks healing move, which, when combined with excellent bulk (seriously, its got nice bulk) makes it an utter bitch to take down. In addition, the sheer number of things it can set up on, is massive, and its really frustrating for a lot of teams to handle. Hydration + Rest + Drizzle support basically means that you cannot burn, paralyse, or poison Lapras, and Lapras is quite capable of Toxicing your revenge killer (say Rotom W), and then spamming rest, shrugging off Thunderbolts as it does so, and eventually winning. Tricky thing to handle.
Actually, ever since i added shed shell heatran, lavos sun is a 100% loss against me, i almost can't lose.
Also there's totally a drawback. I switch in my hippowdon, then... well,
you switch in later with rain up, but still. Stops your sweep cold. Unless you're bulky lapras, but i prefer vaporeon there.
Something I've noticed is a spike in the usage of Lapras on Rain teams, and I'm baffled why you would use it. Its typing is redundant with Politoed's, and the weirdest thing is that they're all DD Lapras. Why would you run Lapras when Kingdra exists? Its typing isn't flat out redundant, it has Dragon STAB, etc.
I can't remember the fourth move or the EVs/Nature, however I did read about this set somewhere on Smogon. I'd credit the inventor, but once again I can't remember it >.> Basically the set focuses on setting up a lot of DDs and then just resting up when you need to. With that set, I think the EVs are mostly in HP/DEF/SDEF, Lapras can get 3 or more DDs up pretty easily, and then in rain Waterfall is going to hurt. Even if it is only coming off an 85 base attack with a neutral nature and little to no investment.
I'd assume thats why you've noticed the spike, although I could be wrong
EDIT: Just noticed Ginga basically said the same thing I did, my bad :d
meh i dont get why you'd run shed shell heatran with resttalk. it totally sucks. i've had far more success pairing it with wish users (im using wishCM jirachi) but latias is also cool as heatran resists all her weaknesses and vice versa. mabye its just me though (i use a hail team)
Wow. That was a large response. I feel like a bit of an idiot not knowing about Hydration. Then again, I have never seen Hydration activate on Lapras before, never seen it use rest, nothing. Maybe I've just seen it being used by bad players.
On the ladder, bad players are a certainty. But seriously, I've played against Lapras, and it may be the most annoying Hydration abuser. I mean, it's a LAPRAS! When I first saw it, I was really confused. Then I remembered Hydration. Then I said "oh shit". And I lost. I leech seeded the damn thing, but it wouldn't DIE!
It was CursePras with Ice Shard.
Again; the easiest way to deal with hydration lapras is to pack a good bulky weather changer. And maybe a skarmory, and an amoonguss.
So just have like half my team, and really good prediction skills.
Nah, seriously, hydration is a bitch, so if it's cursepras you'd better have, like, Cspecs thundurus-t. (I was about to say Cspecs keldeo, but secret sword hits phys def...)
Again; the easiest way to deal with hydration lapras is to pack a good bulky weather changer. And maybe a skarmory, and an amoonguss.
So just have like half my team, and really good prediction skills.
Nah, seriously, hydration is a bitch, so if it's cursepras you'd better have, like, Cspecs thundurus-t. (I was about to say Cspecs keldeo, but secret sword hits phys def...)
meh i dont get why you'd run shed shell heatran with resttalk. it totally sucks. i've had far more success pairing it with wish users (im using wishCM jirachi) but latias is also cool as heatran resists all her weaknesses and vice versa. mabye its just me though (i use a hail team)
i think it's an oversimplification to say this, but it might be the hail that's making the difference. weatherless needs the help against sun a lot more than any other team type. even though hail is the weakest weather in terms of what abusers it has, it can still actually change the weather, which at least gives you a workable out to sun.
on balanced/defensive weatherless though, if you lose your heatran while genesect is still alive, you're basically gonna lose the game. other standard anti-sun mons like latias and dragonite all get destroyed by genesect and xatu is SO hard for stall teams to kill (if you don't have a strong super effective attack for xatu, you basically CAN'T kill it. fast attackers risk coming in on a thunder wave and becoming useless so you have to do it with a slow and heavy hitter like cbtar that doesn't really care about paralysis) so you can't beat genesect via hazards. so shed shell heatran is really not optional. i'm willing to give up that one slot in exchange for a team that doesn't get disposed of by lavos sun. i'm really bad at playing offense (stall is like the only playstyle i can actually do semi-reliably) so i can't go for mons like RP special attacking landorus to solve the weakness, thus heatran is my most reliable answer. i guess you could also run flame charge but that set feels like even more of a gimmick than restalk if you ask me.
... i'm not saying i agree, but i'm starting to understand what BKC and yee were saying about team matchup
Another way is to use a Slowbro, it resists both of Lapras' STABs, and if you manage to gain weather control over rain, it can even use Scald to burn Lapras. The problem is when Lapras get 6 boosts of DD/Curse... Also, Techniloom is KOed by Ice Shard from DD Lapras since it moves before Breloom.
Still, this thing is devastating if you can't manage to mantain weather control, or if you are using Rain itself. or you can try to kill him with something that resist both of its STABs like Keldeo, but if you are too late, you are going to be teared apart.
I never said it dealt with it alone. But it can clear smog if it needs to. Skarm deals with boosted waterfalls pretty easily, because generally it's not invested in attack either.
But yeah, the weather change on rest is the best way to win.
Another way is to use a Slowbro, it resists both of Lapras' STABs, and if you manage to gain weather control over rain, it can even use Scald to burn Lapras. The problem is when Lapras get 6 boosts of DD/Curse... Also, Techniloom is KOed by Ice Shard from DD Lapras since it moves before Breloom.
Still, this thing is devastating if you can't manage to mantain weather control, or if you are using Rain itself. or you can try to kill him with something that resist both of its STABs like Keldeo, but if you are too late, you are going to be teared apart.
Edit: completely overlooked what you said about controlling weather.
Techniloom has mach punch and bullet seed. I'm sure Curse lapras doesnt run many attack EVs and breloom takes the Ice Shard pretty well
Ice Shard vs 4 HP/0 Def Breloom: 46.95% - 56.11%
while Lapras is not taking Breloom's hits that well.
Uhhh.... what? Lapras can't get burned under rain. Techniloom has mach punch and bullet seed. I'm sure Curse lapras doesnt run many attack EVs and breloom takes the Ice Shard pretty well
Ice Shard vs 4 HP/0 Def Breloom: 46.95% - 56.11%
while Lapras is not taking Breloom's hits that well.
That's why I said: If you manage to gain weather control over rain. I know that it can't be burned under rain, but outside of rain, it's a completely different history. Take out the rain and Lapras is much more manageable.
Also, in fact about the calculations... I didn't made the calculations to know if Ice Shard was going to KO Breloom... I assumed that it would since Techniloom is so frail that it gets a ton from even resisted hits, I know this because I've used one in the past, and at full health it was left with about 5-45% HP when hit by many rain-boosted Water-type attacks.
