Community Create-A-Team: Heracross (OU)

[mtr]

Well, if it means beating Latias, it's definitely useful.

So we've got so far...

Magnezone (deals with threats to Hera like Scizor, Lucario)
Heracross (the whole point)
Starmie (maybe, but LO Starmie is a lure for Latias, it can also deal with Heatran and Gliscor)

It's probably time to consider Starmie, how much good it is, and perhaps what we could use over it.

 

[ARandomDude]

Well, if it means beating Latias, it's definitely useful.

So we've got so far...

Magnezone (deals with threats to Hera like Scizor, Lucario)
Heracross (the whole point)
Starmie (maybe, but LO Starmie is a lure for Latias, it can also deal with Heatran and Gliscor)

It's probably time to consider Starmie, how much good it is, and perhaps what we could use over it.

Physical Infernape (UTurn CC Stone Edge Flare Blitz/Overheat) is the perfect lure to Latias, most people don't think twice about switching in when they suddenly get whacked by a UTurn, and then a counter comes in. Also fits in nicely with the hyper-offense thing.

 

[mtr]

Well, then, Infernape and Starmie should be marked as tentative. We can put in whatever we want after typing and synergy concerns have been accomodated, as both fulfill a similar niche.

I think we should start to agree on a lead. We don't really need a suicide lead, so maybe something like Metagross or Heatran can serve our purpose.

EDIT: 400 down, 600 to go...

 

[Kabuto Mushi]

Well, then, Infernape and Starmie should be marked as tentative. We can put in whatever we want after typing and synergy concerns have been accomodated, as both fulfill a similar niche.

I think we should start to agree on a lead. We don't really need a suicide lead, so maybe something like Metagross or Heatran can serve our purpose.

EDIT: 400 down, 600 to go...

Does Physical Ape always out speed Latias (or does it use a scarf)?
I'm glad we agree on leads... I thought something like meta was better too. What about a Swampert lead?

 

[RegalStar]

Ape is 108, and Latias is 110, so ape wouldn't normally outspeed Latias without a scarf, unless the Latias user isn't running max speed or max speed minus one (for HP Fire).

 

[mtr]

The idea is to strike Latias on the switch-in with a U-turn, weakening it for someone else to KO. Myself, I prefer a 2HKO with an LO Ice Beam, but it depends on the team. Infernape may very well suit our needs better.

Swampert is a defensive lead, whereas Metagross and Heatran are offensive leads. We want a lead that can start the momentum for our hyperoffensive team, and Swampert doesn't help us there just by setting up Stealth Rocks and doing whatever. Metagross and Heatran immediately put pressure on the opponent, and can serve as low-level wallbreakers, taking out any Hippowdons.

 

[sir_arthur]

So we've got so far...

Magnezone (deals with threats to Hera like Scizor, Lucario)
Heracross (the whole point)
Starmie (maybe, but LO Starmie is a lure for Latias, it can also deal with Heatran and Gliscor)

Para support is not a must but will for sure love hera.

As a lead what about Roserade? Will help with the momentum after sleeping a poke and setting up T-Spikes

 

[RegalStar]

I dunno about sticking three fire-weaks in an offensive team (aren't you supposed to come in via resistances?)

 

[ARandomDude]

I dunno about sticking three fire-weaks in an offensive team (aren't you supposed to come in via resistances?)

I'm pretty sure hyper offensive goes like, kill some shit and die. Next guy comes in. Kill some shit and die, etc.

 

[Stathakis]

I'm pretty sure hyper offensive goes like, kill some shit and die. Next guy comes in. Kill some shit and die, etc.

hyper offensive goes like this


use your lead to set up sr and get a free turn for the next guy. doing damage is optional but the rest of the team should do plenty

then bring in your first guy and kill some shit then die

bring your next guy and kill some shit then die

etc etc




in order to be able to do that you need two things: offensive synergy and defensive synergy. offensive synergy refers to your team's ability to make use of each sacrifice. what use is it for gengar to blow up on blissey if the rest of the team is physical? you need your pokemon to be walled by the same stuff mostly, so that when you sacrifice your guy to cripple the counter, it can no longer deal with the rest of the team, and your mons have a party. by defensive synergy, I mean the ability to come in after a guy has died and set up in order to do the damage necessary for you to... kill all 6 of the other pokemon before your own 6 are all dead. basically, just pack in as many resists and bulk as possible.

the lead is also very important. there are basically three really good ways to get that early free turn: setting up screens, tricking choice items, and encoring moves. stuff like trickscarf jirachi or metagross, ds azelf, and encoreape come to mind. damage and scouting are also good bonuses, especially scouting, since the more you know about the enemy team the earlier you can start longterm thinking, which is of paramount importance to the success of hyper offense.

 

[Justinawe]

hyper offensive goes like this


use your lead to set up sr and get a free turn for the next guy. doing damage is optional but the rest of the team should do plenty

then bring in your first guy and kill some shit then die

bring your next guy and kill some shit then die

etc etc




in order to be able to do that you need two things: offensive synergy and defensive synergy. offensive synergy refers to your team's ability to make use of each sacrifice. what use is it for gengar to blow up on blissey if the rest of the team is physical? you need your pokemon to be walled by the same stuff mostly, so that when you sacrifice your guy to cripple the counter, it can no longer deal with the rest of the team, and your mons have a party. by defensive synergy, I mean the ability to come in after a guy has died and set up in order to do the damage necessary for you to... kill all 6 of the other pokemon before your own 6 are all dead. basically, just pack in as many resists and bulk as possible.

the lead is also very important. there are basically three really good ways to get that early free turn: setting up screens, tricking choice items, and encoring moves. stuff like trickscarf jirachi or metagross, ds azelf, and encoreape come to mind. damage and scouting are also good bonuses, especially scouting, since the more you know about the enemy team the earlier you can start longterm thinking, which is of paramount importance to the success of hyper offense.

Looking at the team though, Hera wouldn't work on a HypOff team due to its speed not being too great. It needs para support for the late game, as their will be too many threats sweeping if it doesn't have it. T-Wave support has to be the number one concern for this team, and playing off of resists. Magnezone and Starmie are the top 2 teammates not only for their great synergy with Heracross, but the support they provide with T-Wave. This team is going to have to lean on the Bulky Offense side, or else it will not be as successful as it can be!

 

[Witnessed]

Why is Magnezone critical to a team like this? Lucario and Scizor pose no threat to Heracross at all. Only Lucario's Extremspeed can KO Heracross, and then you are just bait for a Scarf Rotom to come in and screw you up with Overheat. Plus, Magnezone sucks at trapping Lucario because all Luc has to do is Close Combat and Zone is dead. Of course, we could run a Scarf variant. Scizor can't do shit to Heracross, because it resists every single move Scizor can throw at him.

Heracross doesn't need Magnezone support. Most Steel's like Skarm and Forry run a Shed Shell anyway, so it's pointless now trying to trap them.

Rotom is better than Magnezone on this team in every way for a status spreader. We could use a set along the lines of this.

Rotom-H@ Lefties
Levitate
Bold
252 HP/252 Defense/4 Speed

Thunder Wave
Will-o-Wisp
Shadow Ball
HP Fighting/Thunderbolt

There you go. Now I am not the greatest at making EV Spreads, but I think max defense and possibly a larger investment in Speed or Sp. Defense is an option. It can be a status spreader to burn and paralyze, the two biggest threats for physical attackers like Tyranitar. This will scare them away from switching into Rotom.

To eliminate random Scarfer's out there, we could use Choice Scarf Starmie who can elimate most Choice Scarf users bar Magnezone or Flygon, to an extent.

Because SD Flame Orb Heracross is going to be killing Skarms, its important to eliminate faster users who resist CC and Megahorn, like BulkyMence.

 

[Stathakis]

to be honest there are two ways to play this team

1. to use him as a wallbreaker on a team built specifically to beat other offensive teams... stuff like those 3-4 scarf teams

2. to use him in a very defensive paralysis spreading team as a sweeper... though in this department there are better pokemon for the job anyways

 

[Justinawe]

Why is Magnezone critical to a team like this? Lucario and Scizor pose no threat to Heracross at all. Only Lucario's Extremspeed can KO Heracross, and then you are just bait for a Scarf Rotom to come in and screw you up with Overheat. Plus, Magnezone sucks at trapping Lucario because all Luc has to do is Close Combat and Zone is dead. Of course, we could run a Scarf variant. Scizor can't do shit to Heracross, because it resists every single move Scizor can throw at him.

Heracross doesn't need Magnezone support. Most Steel's like Skarm and Forry run a Shed Shell anyway, so it's pointless now trying to trap them.

Rotom is better than Magnezone on this team in every way for a status spreader. We could use a set along the lines of this.

Rotom-H@ Lefties
Levitate
Bold
252 HP/252 Defense/4 Speed

Thunder Wave
Will-o-Wisp
Shadow Ball
HP Fighting/Thunderbolt

There you go. Now I am not the greatest at making EV Spreads, but I think max defense and possibly a larger investment in Speed or Sp. Defense is an option. It can be a status spreader to burn and paralyze, the two biggest threats for physical attackers like Tyranitar. This will scare them away from switching into Rotom.

To eliminate random Scarfer's out there, we could use Choice Scarf Starmie who can elimate most Choice Scarf users bar Magnezone or Flygon, to an extent.

Because SD Flame Orb Heracross is going to be killing Skarms, its important to eliminate faster users who resist CC and Megahorn, like BulkyMence.

We already decided that ScarfZone is Hera's #1 teammate for taking out its 2 biggest revengers, Lucario with ES and Scizor with BP. Rotom could work as well, I am all for it being on the team, as then we have a solid spinblocker, status spreader, and status absorber.

Lol at us posting at the exact same time as well. oO

 

[scorchedsky]

Scizor can't do shit to Heracross, because it resists every single move Scizor can throw at him.

I wouldn't call 68.11% - 80.73% (with priority no less) "can't do shit," didn't we already discuss how CBscizor's BP is an issue?

 

[Objection]

I think a general rule should be to have at least as many resists to one type as weaknesses. In other words, where we currently have two pokes weak to fire, we should have two pokes that resist it.

 

[faggot]

obviously...you need magnezone and you also need something that can eliminate faster pokemon like mence zapdos and latias that will destroy the sweep. Something like a vaporeon could be advantageous to a team that focuses on setting up one pokemon for a sweep.

edit: everyone who said rotom is needed is 100% correct rotom+vappy defensive core sounds decent

 

[Olliert]

I think you are all falling in to a trap here in as much that you want Hera to sweep every single team you encounter and to be able to beat every single opponent you face with a few pokemon to support it. This is hard to do with a top 5 pokemon, let alone a pokemon that is very rarely used and for the most part, outclassed. I agree with Stathakis, you should use Heracross as a sort of wall breaker, utilising the Toxic spikes put down through the guts ability and hitting any switch in really hard. Most pokes on Stall teams can't outspeed Heracross, with the exception of Latias who fears Heracross anyway, so you should be able to at least get a couple of kills against a stall team allowing your other pokes to take advantage. On top of this, Gliscor is very rarely seen on stall and so shouldn't give Hera too many problems, Skarmory takes a ton of damage even without an SD and Hippowdon too. The only trouble may be Rotom and a pursuit user can take care of that. This leaves a lot more slots free as the other pokemon aren't burdened with having to support Heracross. Of course they should have good synergy with him, things such as LO Starmie w/ rapid spin can lure in Rotom and kill it and is brilliant when used with Hera but it is not necessary to remove all of Heracrosses counters on every possible team for the team to win. I know the team is supposed to be based around Heracross but at the moment the strategy is very hit and miss.

 

[ARandomDude]

@seven: Heracross isn't necessarily good on stall because he is going to be taking burn damage+probable sandstorm damage+entry hazard damage. This means that he could die in a matter of a few turns, good stall players will be able to dance around it.

 

[The Plant]

I think heracrosses major benefit is that he is very hard on stall. I don't see why we need the flame orb when SD LO beats stall just as well without being as fragile. They still can't switch in anything on him.

 

[RegalStar]

Life Orb cost HP too and it isn't really much lighter than a burn. With burn though Heracross has a deadly Facade to kill things with.

 

[frogbandit]

I love the idea of a Flame Orb set. Thats an unbelieveable amount of attack.

Anyways, if we use that set, we need something to take out Rotom-H and Dusknoir, who both have fire moves. Maybe a TTar?

 

[Yanma024]

I love the idea of a Flame Orb set. Thats an unbelieveable amount of attack.

Anyways, if we use that set, we need something to take out Rotom-H and Dusknoir, who both have fire moves. Maybe a TTar?

Houndoom can get the Flash Fire Boost and hit with Dark Pulse.
I didn't calculate or anything.

Edit- TTar would dwindle Hera's HP quicker along with Flame Orb.

 

[Witnessed]

Tyranitar is a cool option to work with Heracross.

 

[Objection]

Tyranitar is a cool option to work with Heracross.

Auto-sandstorm when Heracross is not immune to sandstorm means Tyranitar is not a good option to work with Heracross. The same is true of Hippowdon and, for hail, Abomasnow.