The Team At A Glance:
Team-Building Process:
Team-Building Process:
I. I began with politoed. I knew I wanted him on my team (or rather, needed him) for rain and because he's just a cool poke in my opinion.
II. Next, I picked Dragonite because he's one of my favorite pokemon of all time and he's a great physical sweeper. I took the purely offensive route with him.
III. I had my lead/ weather support and a physical sweeper. I wanted something that would cover politoed's weakness to electric attacks so I thought a ground type would be good to have. I also needed someone to set up entry hazards and a spinner as well so I thought: Why not donphan?He's been my most used spinner since gen 4 anyway so I figured I'd try him out on the team, though putting him on a rain team where water attacks become stronger was questionable for me.
IV. With my physical wall out of the way, I wanted to finish off my defensive side with something that could synergize with what I already had. I picked blissey because of the monster of a special wall she is and how much support she brings to the team with aromatherapy. Her only weakness is fighting, which dragonite scoffs at, especially with multiscale still up and running. Switching in on a choiced close combat could set up a sweep with a single dragon dance. Most electric and grass attacks are specially based as well, so blissey could help donphan take the hits aimed at politoed and dragonite.
V. After finishing off my defensive side of the team, I moved more towards offense. I was unsure of what special sweeper to use, so I decided to pick my revenge killer first. With the bad luck I've been experiencing with scarf, I decided to take scizor for the priority, stab, techni-boosted bullet punches and pursuits it's notorious for. Also for the great scouting ability it has with u-turn and how well it takes advantage of the rain, making it able to take fire attacks a bit better. Scizor is also good for revenge killing terrakion, who always gives me a lot of trouble.
VI. With everything else out of the way, only the special sweeper/ damager of the team was left to be chosen. I had originally placed volcarona in this spot and it worked fine, but I found myself having a lot of trouble with CB terrakion and took Expert Physic's advice to replace it with Tinkerbell Celebi to take a hit or two from things like terrakion or tyranitar and KO them afterwards. So far she's worked great and helps put a more defensive spin on the team.
In-Depth Team Analysis:
Politoed@ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
Modest Nature
252 SpA/ 252 Spe/ 4 HP
-Hydro Pump
-Ice Beam
-Perish Song
-Hidden Power [Grass]
Choice specs politoed is often unexpected by most of my opponents. Most people expect a scarfed variant or a toxic/ scald version and don't see a massive STAB, rain-boosted, 450 + special attack (with specs) hydro pump coming at their face. It does immense damage and most people usually just try setting up on the first turn anyway, so it usually nails something with huge damage or kills. This variant has worked the best for me so far, but I'm open to the idea of changing the set if needed.
Dragonite@ Lum Berry
Trait: Multiscale
Adamant Nature
252 Atk/ 252 Spe/ 4 HP
-Dragon Dance
-Waterfall
-Extremespeed
-Outrage
The main physical sweeper of the team. Most of the time I send dragonite in mid or late game (after removing entry hazards whenever possible) on something I know it can take at least one hit from and set up a dragon dance and proceed to sweep. The only thing this guy really hates is ferrothorn and skarmory, and some choice scarf users, which are outsped after a second dragon dance. In the rain, waterfall does 50% more damage. The recommended move in its place is fire punch, but it's got low base power and the fact that I'm using dragonite in the rain doesn't help either, even if it does hit ferrothorn and scizor extra hard. Extremespeed has been useful to me a lot. It comes in handy most often when I'm about to get killed by a scarf user that outspeeds me. It usually won't kill on a typical, full-health scarf user in the OU tier, but I usually only try to sweep if they're weakened so Dragonite can finish them off with +1 extremespeed. I run an adamant nature because I rely on extremespeed to help me against revenge killers I know are faster than me. If I get off a second dragon dance, then I outspeed pretty much everything they can possibly switch in, bar chlorophyll users in the sun (who aren't much of a problem anyway on account of my typing and multiscale). Lum berry is there to help me set up against more pokemon such as bulky water types with scald and status inducers like ninetales, jellicent, blissey, etc.. It also cures my confusion should I still have it after an outrage.
Donphan@ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
Impish Nature
252HP/ 252 Def/ 4Atk
-Stealth Rock
-Rapid Spin
-Earthquake
-Roar
Donphan is the main physical wall of the team, as shown by the EV spread used. He's good at taking stone edges aimed at volcarona or dragonite and can take a physical hit from pretty much anything not over +1. Sturdy ensures I either get up rocks, spin, or roar the target out in time. Roar has often been questioned by people I've showed the team to. Some say that Ice shard is the superior move but I really think that sturdy gives him the perfect chance to phaze out ANYTHING attempting a sweep, assuming entry hazards aren't around yet. Ice shard can be useful for dragonite and salamence, but even then it won't always kill. I'd have to wait for life orb damage to take it's tole first. Still open to the idea of changing it to ice shard or something else anyone has to offer. After all, that's the point of this thread :).
Blissey@ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
Bold Nature
252 HP/ 252 Def/ 4 Sp D
-Aromatherapy
-Seismic Toss
-Softboiled
-Toxic
Ah Blissey. The best of the best when it comes to special walling. Chansey is also really strong, but I'm used to blissey and am unsure of what chansey could really offer over blissey other than some more defense. I'm maxing defense to ensure I can live some +1 hits from some physical pokes and then switch out to come in later and either heal up with softboiled or just be death fodder. Blissey takes special hits like a monster without any special defense investment anyway, though again, any feedback and suggestions are welcome. I've thought about running thunder wave over toxic to cripple the opposition's sweepers more but toxic seems to be the more consistent option. Aromatherapy has proven to be handy to heal burned allies mostly, but it also works great for waking up someone from the rare spore sleep induction.
Possible change?: Running wish and protect over softboiled and aromatherapy.
Scizor@ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
Adamant Nature
248 HP/ 252 Atk/ 8 SpD
-Bullet Punch
-U-turn
-Pursuit
-Superpower
Scizor is the team's revenge killer and sometimes physical sweeper late game. In the right situation, a series of bullet punches can end the game swiftly. Not much to say about this one. Standard scizor set to kill after someone dies. Superpower is there for tyranitar and ferrothorn while bullet punch takes out a lot of offensive threats after residual damage. U-turn isn't used too often but it helps scout out switches sometimes. Pursuit's main target is gengar and jellicent. Espeon can get caught be pursuit. All of these usually die from a single pursuit. Unsure about jellicent if it's at full health, but it will do a very significant amount of damage to it. Scizor's checks can usually be beat by dragonite or blissey.
Celebi@ Life Orb
Trait: Natural Cure
Modest Nature
240 SpA/ 36 Spe/ 232 HP
-Leaf Storm
-Earth Power
-Recover
-Thunder Wave
Celebi has replaced volcarona, and with good reason. Celebi allows me to cripple opponents with thunder wave, allowing me to set up sweeps with dragonite more easily. Celebi also lets me check/ counter things like CB terrakion, tyranitar, and heatran, all of which are often on sandstorm teams together. This allows me to keep my rain up as much as I like after killing tyranitar and also force switches when people fear the Hidden Power fire that's common on the set. I don't run HP fire because it's weakened a lot by the rain. The only problem is that I have a harder time dealing with ferrothorn, but he can't do damage to celebi or leech seed her. Recover is useful for healing up on slower opponents/ when people switch out for free healing.
That's the team. I hope you guys have some suggestions on how to improve the team, as I'm really liking the team right now and am having great success. I can only see it getting better from here. This is my first real RMT on smogon, so forgive me if I've done something wrong or justified something improperly. Still somewhat new to gen 5.
Changelog:
[3/10/12]: Volcarona replaced by Celebi (Tinkerbell set). Celebi provides more safe switch-ins and also forces more switch-ins/outs than volcarona because of how threatening it is even without a boost. Life orb stab leaf storm dents a lot of pokes and kills anything it's 2x effective on. She also adds a more stallish feeling to the team, which I think is good, since the team was so offensive.
[3/10/12]: Volcarona replaced by Celebi (Tinkerbell set). Celebi provides more safe switch-ins and also forces more switch-ins/outs than volcarona because of how threatening it is even without a boost. Life orb stab leaf storm dents a lot of pokes and kills anything it's 2x effective on. She also adds a more stallish feeling to the team, which I think is good, since the team was so offensive.
