Entry Hazards and Selection

GrassBlade

Hello. I am fairly new to this forum. But enough with introductions. What I have noticed about OU, is, generally, pokemon are chosen by how they fit on a team and whether they are immune/highly weak to a hazard.

Briefly, the hazards are Toxic Spikes, Spikes, and Stealth Rock. Toxic Spikes poisons all non-steel types that are grounded. Spikes does damage according to the number of spikes on the field. This also only affects grounded pokemon. Stealth Rock does damage to all pokemon based on their weakness/resistance to Rock.

Of these hazards, Stealth Rock is arguably the easiest to set and most effective at breaking sashes. It is also very influential in team building, as using a stealth rock weak pokemon like Volcarona requires a spinner on the team.

While team building, most teams would like to have hazards. Stall teams almost need hazards. Some pokemon are horribly crippled by hazards, making them seem less appealing. For instance, Volcarona is affected by all 3 hazards and is Stealth Rock weak. When team building a sun team with Volcarona, you must consider the impact of hazards on your poor moth.

Like many things, hazards can be avoided. However, the only way to avoid Stealth Rock is to have Magic Guard. Spikes and Toxic Spikes can be avoided by having Levitate, or being part Flying type. A Balloon grants you the ability to avoid these as well. Being part steel type protects you from Toxic Spikes. Grounded poison types absorb the Toxic Spikes.

Now, looking at the pokemon that get abilities/typing that helps them in OU. For Magic Guard we have Alakazam and Reuniclus. Alazakam loves the free Life Orb and as well as the ability to safely carry a Sash. Reuniclus uses Magic Guard to make it a lethal Stallbreaker. Levitators including Rotom-W, a very popular OU pokemon, the Lati-Twins, Gengar and Hydreigon. Pokemon who have good sets with Air Balloons consist of Heatran and Metagross. Finally, Flying types consist of Gyarados, Salamence, Dragonite, Skarmory, Gliscor, Tornadus, and Landorus.

Now only about half of those take super-effective damage from stealth rock. The ones that do include: Gyarados, Salamence, Dragonite and Tornadus. The first three have exceptional stats and abilities that make them worth the trouble of being weak to Stealth Rock. Many would argue that is a burden. Yet think of it this way; Would any of those (besides Gliscor)like to be poisoned. It would drastically cut their sweeping potential and arguably make stall's life much easier. With Dragonite, having Multiscale temporarily broken would be much better than the toxic poisoning it would suffer if not for it's part flying type.
149.png
373.png


So think about it. How do hazards affect your team building? Do you think that the flying type is a burden or a godsend?
 
Unless it is an easy fit (skarmbliss core, etc) I tend to avoid spikes as the consistant damage and easy setup that rocks bring help more imo than, after three turns, doing 1/4 damage to some pokes...

I simply avoid tspikes like the plague.

I love it when people spend time setting them up... yet only one member of my team is affected and it doesn't care

Affects verrry view things, can be absorbed, etc

definitely not worth it
 
Recently I have been making a team that is specifically tailored to take as little hazard damage as possible. It's very effective, since not only will your opponent waste turns setting up hazards, but your opponents will wear down much faster than yours. Using this type of team makes much easier to beat VoltTurn considering switches do not have much of a penalty.

On this note, the most hazards resistant Pokemon are those with Magic Guard or Levitate+Resistance. Flying typing can be good, but that's dependent on the secondary typing its paired with. For example, Landorus, although flying type, has one resitance to SR, making him a very hazard resilient Pokemon. Taking a 25% of your health on the switch in the breaking point for being a blessing, making your KO range a quarter (possibly more) for free is pretty huge.

IMO, if you really want to make a hazard resilient team, these would be your best guys to pick from:
Flygon
Landorus
Rotom-W
Skarmory
Gengar
Brongzong
Gliscor
Reuniclus
Alakazahm
Latias
Mienshao
Your pool of pokemon is certainly slimmed down, but having your opponent be utterly helpless when they rely on their hazards so much is great. It really eases the time with Stall, Volt-Turn, and Balanced Teams.

Edit: This is the second time I've done it in a week, :p but this RMT introduced me to the concept: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3454459
 
I currently run a sun team.

As you all know, sun teams HATE hazards, specifically SR. I have to run a spinner in order to effectively get my main sweepers out.

I have been thinking of replacing Volcrona with aomething like Infernape or Arcanine....
 
Sun has three fantastic rapid spinners. They are Forretress, Donphan, and Claydol, each which has their own merit. The first, and most popular method, is also capable of using every combination of entry hazards in the game. A Swiss army knife if you will. The second provides a useful Rock resist, and can guarantee a Spin using Foresight. The last, and my personal favorite, provides both a Ground and Rock resist, checks Sand teams, and is immune to both Spikes.

Of course, your team archetype goes a long way into how you adapt your team to hazards. If you're using a stall team, for example. You want a way to get rid of Toxic Spikes, or at least have as few Toxic Spikes weak Pokemon as possible. If you're using a Hyper Offense team, though, unless you've got a Dragonite or something, you wont be too worried about them. It is very important for a Hail team to dispose of hazards, while a Sand team, which usually has very few Stealth Rock weak Pokemon, is not required to employ Rapid Spin. As well, every team archetype has a different means of adapting to hazards. Sun has already been discussed. A Rain stall team, for example, uses Tentacruel most of the time, while a Rain offense team uses Starmie.

Essentially, various factors weigh in on how much you let entry hazards dictate teambuilding. What Pokemon you have on your team, what type of team you're using, what your team's general strategy is. Depending on these various factors, you will pay more or less attention to entry hazards.

I'd also like to see some people discuss how people attempt to include entry hazards onto their own teams. Stealth Rock, of course, is universal, if not just to check Dragonite and Volcarona. However, something like Spikes or Toxic Spikes is very interesting when building your team. Stall teams employ these as their primary means of dealing damage. However, many Offensively oriented teams love to employ Spikes to grab their sweepers extra 2HKOs and OHKOs. Toxic Spikes can also be abused Offensively by something like SubCM Jirachi, who would love to Sub up, CM, and wait it out until the opponent is within KO range. Fire away guys.
 
New World Order said:
I'd also like to see some people discuss how people attempt to include entry hazards onto their own teams. Stealth Rock, of course, is universal, if not just to check Dragonite and Volcarona. However, something like Spikes or Toxic Spikes is very interesting when building your team. Stall teams employ these as their primary means of dealing damage. However, many Offensively oriented teams love to employ Spikes to grab their sweepers extra 2HKOs and OHKOs. Toxic Spikes can also be abused Offensively by something like SubCM Jirachi, who would love to Sub up, CM, and wait it out until the opponent is within KO range. Fire away guys.
Click to expand...
I know one of my favorites for offensive teams has to be Forretress. Not only can Forretress set up SR and Spikes (fairly reliably too), it can also spin for your Dnite or Volcarona and even get one of your frail mons in unscaved with its extremely slow Volt Switch. Forretress has to be one of the most helpful support mons to have on offence, as that's pretty much all you need and he only takes 1 team slot.
 
Like many teams out there, Hazard(s) are nearly a must on my team as they help me wear my opponent down, especially against defensive walls and threatening pokemon such as Dragonite and Volcarona. Most of the time, it is easy for me to fit Rocks and Spikes on my team thanks to my love for Ferrothorn, but Hazards severely drain some of my defensive core's versatility overall, despite being a godesnd when I fight the two aforementioned pokemon.
 
SR has changed the game so much since it's introduction in gen 4 that to not run it is pretty much a bad idea unless your team is so focused that running SR doesn't aid it.

the ability to always deal damage to any switch-in pokemon in the game that doesn't have magic guard is just so good.

and it pretty much restricts the usage of rock weak pokemon allowing the other hazards to see more use has the days of the gen 3 team that's 4-5 members immune to hazards is dead thanks to gen 4 giving us SR
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top