I'd been out of competitive battling for years and had recently returned in the wake of pokemon X and Y, only to see the metagame was dominated by completely different pokemon as to what I had become accustomed to in Gen 4. Scanning high and low I saw a new world of pokemon, each appealing to me in different ways. My eye was caught by one in particular though;
Looking at bisharp, do I need to justify why I wanted to make a team based around it? No, I don't.
Keen in mind I am horrible at wording what each of the pokemon displayed below contribute to my team and how they play with each other.
Bisharp obviously has somewhat decent typing, but multiple unfortunate weaknesses that need to be addressed before it can even think about sweeping everything in sight.
This is my first attempt at creating my own team from scratch properly, as well as focusing in a tier i've barely played, however here was my best attempt;
After selecting Bisharp I knew that I would need an effective method to sponge fire, fighting and ground attacks so I decided to begin my search by selecting through the many ghosts of UU.
Originally Rotom-H was selected as it sported a fire resistance and levitate, however my brain was absent when the fact rotom wasn't a ghost type was presented and thus chandelure was added to the team.
I now had what I believed to be an effective duo whose typings and playstyles complemented each other, however I now had an even greater ground weakness and a new water weakness to compensate for. I was also required to begin searching for the defensive components of my type, seeking out two ideal defensive pokemon. At first these pokemon were chosen to be Milotic and Tangrowth. Unfortunately through testing these pokemon didn't fit the roles I had in mind for them and I ended up with Swampert and Altaria who simultaneously gave me stealth rock support and status curing as well as an effective method of dealing with the offensive Pokemon of UU.
At this point I had been playing around with Azelf as suicide lead, however after placing stealth rock azelf was offering very little to my team. I was stumped as to a good lead, and thus fell into old habits resorting to my favorite Gen 4 OU lead, roserade.
Any changes made will be in bold.
Roserade @ Focus Sash / Life Orb
Timid | Natural Cure
252 Sp.Atk | 252 Spe | 4 Hp
- Sleep Powder
- Hidden Power Fire
- Leaf Storm
- Toxic Spikes / Rest
Why do I like this set? Because I'm an asshole that's why. It obviously runs very simply, you sleep something because you're fast, if you're not fast enough you sash and sleep it anyway. If they switch spike away, even if they don't. Best case scenario I end up incapacitating their pokemon and setting up two sets of spike.
Leaf storm + Hp fire for a combination of STAB and coverage, which apparently comes as a surprise to most who switch in leaf types against rose and allows some defense against steels and the likes of abomasnow. Roserade is also a somewhat reasonable answer to the bulky waters that just aren't fans of bisharps sweeps and often feel very obligated to hand out scald burns like candy.
Absolutely hates ambipom (who ruins it) and fake out mienshao.
Bisharp @ Leftovers
Adamant | Defiant
52 Hp | 252 Atk | 208 Spe
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
- Low Kick
This pokemon is just beautiful, switch in on a resistance / force something out, put a sub up and dance. Nothing and I repeat nothing likes STAB 2x Sucker punch to the face and as a result bisharp walks over half of UU if it can set up (Exaggeration here.) Sucker punch is a beautiful move because of its reliance, the mind games that bisharp can play against many opposing set up sweepers makes it a very tricky pokemon to deal with. I don't know what more to write here other than what you would expect, bisharp is a powerful physical addition to this team that can force a lot of switches and power down a lot of threats if played right.
Bisharp works amazingly with chandelure acting as bait for fire moves and switching in on choiced walls to set up after chandelure has tricked specs onto them. Low kick obviously to fight steel pokemon who resist sucker or walls like snorlax.
Chandelure @ Choice Specs
Modest | Flash Fire
120 HP | 252 SpA | 8 SpD | 128 Spe
- Trick
- Hidden Power Fighting
- Shadow Ball
- Fire Blast
Chandelure is a great addition to any team, and a great pokemon to run with bisharp. He has two immunities and a great ability to boot (three immunities, whatever) allowing him to switch in on many of the attacks aimed at my other teams members and return fire with powerful spec'd moves. Chandelure is my primary duo pairing with bisharp as two of immunities happen to lie in bisharps weaknesses, meaning bisharp acts as a juicy little target for chandelure to switch in and take the fire and power up. Trick allows him to cripple walls horribly, shadow ball + fire blast act as STAB moves and coverage and HP fighting allows me to hit normal types on the switch as they predict a shadow ball.
Altaria @ Leftovers
Calm | Natural Cure
248 Hp | 8 Def | 252 SpDef
- Roost
- Roar
- Heal Bell
- Dragon Pulse
Altaria is an interesting little pokemon, sporting quite a nice special defensive stat as well as immunities to a few of the primary specially used moves. Altaria acts as you would expect, comes in on special moves, roosts off the damage and phazes the threat or if need be acts as a handy little cleric. Unfortunately for altaria stealth rock rips off a huge amount of it's health every time it switches in, and it carries the unfortunate burden of being murdered by ice types, and those who carry moves of the such (Raikou if its Hp Ice otherwise fuck you, Porygon 2, Porygon-Z, Abomanasshole, etc) who it could otherwise wall. Dragon pulse is an obvious STAB so that altaria isn't complete taunt bait, however majority of the time it needs to attacks it appears to be steels who are walling my ass.
Swampert @ Leftovers
Relaxed | Torrent
240 Hp | 16 Atk | 252 Def
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
Swampert fills the place of my physical defense, acting as a handy physical tank who can not only switch on many of the blows my other team member would rather not take but also set up the ever needed stealth rock (helping to prevent those fucking fire types from frequently switching *shakes fist*) and has roar for handy phazing to boot. Scald is there because scald is just a great STAB move, the ability to burn many of the physical pokemon it switches into makes swampert that much more threatening and Earthquake adds another handy STAB move with extra coverage. Overall swampert works nicely with the weaknesses of the team however the lack of reliable recovery does hurt his reliability mid to late game a large amount and I often find him dead when I reach late game.
Mienshao @ Choice Scarf
Hasty | Regenerator
252 Atk | 4 SpAtk | 252 Spe
- Hi Jump Kick
- Stone Edge
- U-Turn
- Aerial Ace
Yeah, lets give this decently strong pretty fast sweeper the ability to regenerate 1/3 of its health every time it switches in that sounds like a good idea (it was a good idea thank you gamefreak.) Mienshao is my revenge killer, STAB Hi jump kick just hurts everything and allows mienshao to smash any of the pokemon that give my team trouble. Stone edge acts as the other half of the great fight / rock combo and allows mienshao to hit flying pokemon (and heracross that ass) decently hard. U-turn to keep things flowing speedily and hidden power ice to hit pokemon like gligar and flygon if need be.
Testing pokemon:
Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
- U-turn
- Outrage
Testing Flygon in place of Altaria.
As far as threats that have provided a problem to my team so far go;
Nidoking - Fuck do I hate this asshole, he just always works his way onto the field mid to late game and destroys everything. Usually 2HKOs swampert on the switch with earth power or hits the already weakened bastard before he can earthquake back. He outspeeds most of team and just is a nuisance. The only way I really deal with him is predicting lucky and trying to get in the position to sucker punch him hard from behind a sub.
Heracross - Fuck off, I don't like you. Hits a lot of my pokemon hard, has trouble with altaria if he doesn't run stone edge but if it does I can't do much back except try to revenge with mienshao.
Bronzong - I just thought I'd mention I really don't like you here. You're not threatening but fuck you, I hope you read this.
Raikou - Can be an issue if it's faster than mienshao and runs hidden power ice, if not altaria can usually switch in and force it out or phaze it out if needed. If it's choiced into thunderbolt swampert can switch in, however I am wary of Hp grass variants, although rare.
Looking at bisharp, do I need to justify why I wanted to make a team based around it? No, I don't.
Keen in mind I am horrible at wording what each of the pokemon displayed below contribute to my team and how they play with each other.
Bisharp obviously has somewhat decent typing, but multiple unfortunate weaknesses that need to be addressed before it can even think about sweeping everything in sight.
This is my first attempt at creating my own team from scratch properly, as well as focusing in a tier i've barely played, however here was my best attempt;
After selecting Bisharp I knew that I would need an effective method to sponge fire, fighting and ground attacks so I decided to begin my search by selecting through the many ghosts of UU.
Originally Rotom-H was selected as it sported a fire resistance and levitate, however my brain was absent when the fact rotom wasn't a ghost type was presented and thus chandelure was added to the team.
I now had what I believed to be an effective duo whose typings and playstyles complemented each other, however I now had an even greater ground weakness and a new water weakness to compensate for. I was also required to begin searching for the defensive components of my type, seeking out two ideal defensive pokemon. At first these pokemon were chosen to be Milotic and Tangrowth. Unfortunately through testing these pokemon didn't fit the roles I had in mind for them and I ended up with Swampert and Altaria who simultaneously gave me stealth rock support and status curing as well as an effective method of dealing with the offensive Pokemon of UU.
At this point I had been playing around with Azelf as suicide lead, however after placing stealth rock azelf was offering very little to my team. I was stumped as to a good lead, and thus fell into old habits resorting to my favorite Gen 4 OU lead, roserade.
Any changes made will be in bold.
Roserade @ Focus Sash / Life Orb
Timid | Natural Cure
252 Sp.Atk | 252 Spe | 4 Hp
- Sleep Powder
- Hidden Power Fire
- Leaf Storm
- Toxic Spikes / Rest
Why do I like this set? Because I'm an asshole that's why. It obviously runs very simply, you sleep something because you're fast, if you're not fast enough you sash and sleep it anyway.
Leaf storm + Hp fire for a combination of STAB and coverage, which apparently comes as a surprise to most who switch in leaf types against rose and allows some defense against steels and the likes of abomasnow. Roserade is also a somewhat reasonable answer to the bulky waters that just aren't fans of bisharps sweeps and often feel very obligated to hand out scald burns like candy.
Absolutely hates ambipom (who ruins it) and fake out mienshao.
Bisharp @ Leftovers
Adamant | Defiant
52 Hp | 252 Atk | 208 Spe
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
- Low Kick
This pokemon is just beautiful, switch in on a resistance / force something out, put a sub up and dance. Nothing and I repeat nothing likes STAB 2x Sucker punch to the face and as a result bisharp walks over half of UU if it can set up (Exaggeration here.) Sucker punch is a beautiful move because of its reliance, the mind games that bisharp can play against many opposing set up sweepers makes it a very tricky pokemon to deal with. I don't know what more to write here other than what you would expect, bisharp is a powerful physical addition to this team that can force a lot of switches and power down a lot of threats if played right.
Bisharp works amazingly with chandelure acting as bait for fire moves and switching in on choiced walls to set up after chandelure has tricked specs onto them. Low kick obviously to fight steel pokemon who resist sucker or walls like snorlax.
Chandelure @ Choice Specs
Modest | Flash Fire
120 HP | 252 SpA | 8 SpD | 128 Spe
- Trick
- Hidden Power Fighting
- Shadow Ball
- Fire Blast
Chandelure is a great addition to any team, and a great pokemon to run with bisharp. He has two immunities and a great ability to boot (three immunities, whatever) allowing him to switch in on many of the attacks aimed at my other teams members and return fire with powerful spec'd moves. Chandelure is my primary duo pairing with bisharp as two of immunities happen to lie in bisharps weaknesses, meaning bisharp acts as a juicy little target for chandelure to switch in and take the fire and power up. Trick allows him to cripple walls horribly, shadow ball + fire blast act as STAB moves and coverage and HP fighting allows me to hit normal types on the switch as they predict a shadow ball.
Altaria @ Leftovers
Calm | Natural Cure
248 Hp | 8 Def | 252 SpDef
- Roost
- Roar
- Heal Bell
- Dragon Pulse
Altaria is an interesting little pokemon, sporting quite a nice special defensive stat as well as immunities to a few of the primary specially used moves. Altaria acts as you would expect, comes in on special moves, roosts off the damage and phazes the threat or if need be acts as a handy little cleric. Unfortunately for altaria stealth rock rips off a huge amount of it's health every time it switches in, and it carries the unfortunate burden of being murdered by ice types, and those who carry moves of the such (Raikou if its Hp Ice otherwise fuck you, Porygon 2, Porygon-Z, Abomanasshole, etc) who it could otherwise wall. Dragon pulse is an obvious STAB so that altaria isn't complete taunt bait, however majority of the time it needs to attacks it appears to be steels who are walling my ass.
Swampert @ Leftovers
Relaxed | Torrent
240 Hp | 16 Atk | 252 Def
- Scald
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
Swampert fills the place of my physical defense, acting as a handy physical tank who can not only switch on many of the blows my other team member would rather not take but also set up the ever needed stealth rock (helping to prevent those fucking fire types from frequently switching *shakes fist*) and has roar for handy phazing to boot. Scald is there because scald is just a great STAB move, the ability to burn many of the physical pokemon it switches into makes swampert that much more threatening and Earthquake adds another handy STAB move with extra coverage. Overall swampert works nicely with the weaknesses of the team however the lack of reliable recovery does hurt his reliability mid to late game a large amount and I often find him dead when I reach late game.
Mienshao @ Choice Scarf
Hasty | Regenerator
252 Atk | 4 SpAtk | 252 Spe
- Hi Jump Kick
- Stone Edge
- U-Turn
- Aerial Ace
Yeah, lets give this decently strong pretty fast sweeper the ability to regenerate 1/3 of its health every time it switches in that sounds like a good idea (it was a good idea thank you gamefreak.) Mienshao is my revenge killer, STAB Hi jump kick just hurts everything and allows mienshao to smash any of the pokemon that give my team trouble. Stone edge acts as the other half of the great fight / rock combo and allows mienshao to hit flying pokemon (and heracross that ass) decently hard. U-turn to keep things flowing speedily and hidden power ice to hit pokemon like gligar and flygon if need be.
Testing pokemon:
Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
- U-turn
- Outrage
Testing Flygon in place of Altaria.
As far as threats that have provided a problem to my team so far go;
Nidoking - Fuck do I hate this asshole, he just always works his way onto the field mid to late game and destroys everything. Usually 2HKOs swampert on the switch with earth power or hits the already weakened bastard before he can earthquake back. He outspeeds most of team and just is a nuisance. The only way I really deal with him is predicting lucky and trying to get in the position to sucker punch him hard from behind a sub.
Heracross - Fuck off, I don't like you. Hits a lot of my pokemon hard, has trouble with altaria if he doesn't run stone edge but if it does I can't do much back except try to revenge with mienshao.
Bronzong - I just thought I'd mention I really don't like you here. You're not threatening but fuck you, I hope you read this.
Raikou - Can be an issue if it's faster than mienshao and runs hidden power ice, if not altaria can usually switch in and force it out or phaze it out if needed. If it's choiced into thunderbolt swampert can switch in, however I am wary of Hp grass variants, although rare.
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