First RMT, offensive rain, be critical please!

[invalio]

Hello all :).

I'm new here and have been testing some teams, having reached a peak of 1616 on the Pokemon Showdown Smogon OU ladder with 38 wins and 29 losses. I consider myself something of a noob so any help would be welcome.

The idea of this team is an offensive rain team which muscles past walls and relies on type resistance to sponge hits rather than dedicated bulk. I'm not bothering running Spikes or Toxic Spikes, although Stealth Rock is a given. Forgive me if the team is poor. Anyway, enough chit chat.

First glance:

Politoed @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Encore

The nobody from GSC got a real gift from the Dream World, we can all agree. Scarf Politoed is a bit of a troll, and I always let out a smirk whenever somebody comes in with what they believe is a fast Dragon type like Garchomp, only to get OHKOed with Ice Beam. I figured Scald would be plenty powerful in the rain and never misses, so I prefer it over Hydro Pump, and the Burn chance is always nice. Encore is a handy move for when the special walls inevitably turn up and start trying to set up on you. Toxic is probably the least secure move on this set, but it does help occasionally when Politoed wants to stick his middle finger up at the enemy in his dying throes.

Metagross @ Leftovers
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Atk / 160 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Pursuit

Metagross is a sturdy Pokemon whose goal is to set up some rocks. Espeon can't bounce them back because I'll just Pursuit trap her and other frail sweepers without fire moves, like Alakazam or Gengar. Then I just use either Meteor Mash or Earthquake depending on how good my prediction is, which is usually pretty poor.

Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Recover
- Psyshock

Tanking some hits with its nice typing, then launching a powerful coverage move is the name of the game here. Rain-boosted Surf hurts a lot, STAB Draco Meteor hits pretty much anything that resists that. Recover helps when predicting a switch to recover Life Orb damage. Psyshock is a fun option against Terrakion and means that you don't get walled all day long by Blissey or her fat younger sister.

Breloom @ Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Bullet Seed
- Swords Dance
- Spore
- Mach Punch

Breloom likes the rain because it's Fire counters aren't so useful here. This set's pretty standard and unexciting--Spore whatever you can, preferably the foe's most dangerous 'Mon. Swords Dance on the switch, then fire away with Bullet Seed and use Mach Punch to pick off the scraps.

Volcarona @ Leftovers
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast

Volcarona's a bit of a strange choice for a rain team, but I'm clearly not bringing it out against Water Pokemon. Hurricane at 100% accuracy in the rain is a fantastic move to spam and provides good coverage when Bug and Fire together can't cut it. Quiver Dance whenever I feel I can set up, then Bug Buzz or Fire Blast when necessary. If the foe has a Sun team, Volcarona doesn't even mind. Gets walled somewhat by Heatran, but if it doesn't have Toxic I usually just spam Hurricane until Confusion sets in.

Starmie @ Life Orb
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Thunder
- Rapid Spin

Finally, Starmie, much like Politoed but with a few cruical differences. Rapid Spin clears the way for Volcarona, and Thunder takes care of enemy Jellicent who might try to spinblock. Hydro Pump, Ice Beam and Thunder are nice coverage moves, and Hydro Pump is particularly good in the rain.

---

Pokemon I hate seeing:

Terrakion is a bit of a nightmare. Anything that switches in is going to take huge damage, and so I usually try to revenge kill with Poiltoed and Scald. If Terrakion is Scarfed, I'm in trouble.

Choice Scarf Haxorus is faster than my Ice attackers and able to takethem out usually.

If Cloyster gets set up with Shell Smash and has Ice Shard, I'm pretty screwed.

Enemy Lati@s with Calm Mind often find the time to set up, since the Ice Attacks aren't strong enough to kill them. By the time I switch say Starmie in, Ice Beam is doing nothing and they just Roost/Recover off the damage for a full sweep.

Thundurus-T can be a pain to deal with, since my only super-effective attacks come from Ice attacks from Water Pokemon. If it's on an opposing Rain team, Thunder and HP Ice can tear holes in my team.

---

Thanks for taking the time to read my first RMT!

 

[MCBarrett]

Hey invalio, you seem to have the right idea with this rain team but I think there are a few things that could really help your team out.

First of all, I would switch metagross to mamoswine. Mamoswine still has acces to stealth rocks and has stronger ice and ground attacks than metagross. Plus it's priority helps you against dragons and it forms a great offensive core with breloom.

Secondly, I would change latias to latios simply because it can hit much harder and you say you're looking to muscle past walls so that change would definitely help there. You could run the exact same set no problem.

Some move changes you may want to consider are low sweep over swords dance on breloom, Giga drain or fiery dance over fire blast on Volcarona, and recover over ice beam on starmie. However these would all be pretty minor changes and it's really personal preference what you run.

I think your team is really solid now since mamoswine deals with all of the threats you mentioned bar terrakion but he can be easily revenge killed be breloom's Mach punch so he really isn't too much of a problem. If it remains a problem though you could switch your scarf to latios and make politoed choice specs.

Anyways hope I helped and good luck with the team! Here is the mamoswine set

Hide

Mamoswine @ life orb
Adamant nature
252 att/ 252 speed/ 4 hp
Stealth rock
Ice shard
Earthquake
Icicle crash

 

[Dr Ciel]

Hello, invalio, nice team.

This looks like the standard rain team that I'm used to seeing, so I'll give you some props for that. Anyways, this team has some devastating flaws that I can see, and hopefully with my rate, it can improve, and hopefully iron out those flaws. With that said, let's get onto my rate, now shall we? Alright, first up, your Politoed set is flat out wrong, because you don't want to get locked into the wrong move, and basically you become setup fodder. To help out Politoeds problems, I would like to suggest running Surf and Hydro Pump over your current moveset choices of Scald and Toxic. Hydro Pump is an incredibly strong 120 Base Powered STAB move, that it does a ton of damage to those that even resist it, because it's also boosted by rain, which is always nice. Surf is another strong Rain boosted STAB is a great alternate to Hydro Pump where you can't afford to have Hydro Pump missing. Up next, I don't think that Metagross is pulling her weight on this team, so I suggest replacing it with a Specially Defensive Jirachi. Specially Defensive Jirachi would make an excellent addition to this team, as it does Metagross' job by being a good Tornadus switch-in and getting rocks up. But Jirachi's vital Wish support is what it sets away from all the others. Next up, I would definitely recommend moving those Special Defense EV's on Starmie into Special Attack. With 252 Special Attack EV's and a Life Orb, Starmie becomes an offensive powerhouse that can grab some key KOs. Well that's all I have to say for now. I hope my advice helped. Have fun and good luck in your future endeavours!​

Jirachi

Jirachi @ Leftovers Lv. 100 -- Serene Grace

Nature: Careful - EVs: 252 HP / 224 SDef / 32 Spd​

- Body Slam
- Wish
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock

TL;DR

• Politoed
  
  :
• Scald & Toxic -> Hydro Pump & Surf

Metagross

------------------------> Special Defensive Jirachi

• Starmie
  
  : 252 Special Defense EV's -> 252 Special Attack EV's

~Dr Ciel~ (The doctor is OUT)

 

[Decibelle]

I like Ciel's suggestions, but I might suggest not going with the Spec. Def Jirachi: I much prefer MCBarrett's suggestion of Mamoswine. Your strategy seems to be along the lines of constant all-out offense, and I think Wish Support might dent that strategy a bit.
I'd also say that having both Surf and Hydro Pump would destroy a lot of versatility while gaining very little: whether you want the extra power is up to you, I'd say. Personally, I'm in favor of Surf and being accurate. I also figure that if something survives your Scald, considering its defenses, that Politoed is going to wind up as a Frenchman's Breakfast. Also, how much do you use Encore at the moment, considering it's choiced?

 

[Shurtugal]

Hello!

You look quite weak to LO Starmie, as well as Specs Lati@s' Draco Meteor's (or even LO variants; Metagross can't tank too many special attacks as it is). LO Venusaur looks like it can easily get a sweep if you fail to win the weather war. DD Dragonite looks like it could get an easy set up on a non-SR team,

I would swap Metagross out for SDef Jirachi. Jirachi can switch into the Lati twins a lot better, as well as stopping most Dragonite cold for a clear check. It gets SR and paralysis support, which seems ideal for such a slow offensive team. I would use Stealth Rock / Iron Head / Body Slam / Wish, for those nice healing bonus' to Volcarona.

On Latias, take 72 SAtk out and put it into HP (72 Hp / 184 SAtk / 252 Spe) for better overall bulk and to hit a LO number. This also makes it a better check to LO Starmie.

Give Scarf Toed Hydro Pump over Toxic for a stronger STAB to spam.

Starmie will want Rain Dance and Psyshock over Thunder and Ice Beam. Jirachi can handle those dragons now while Breloom easily hits everything Thunder is. Rain Dance helps vs. those sun teams with Venusaur, and Psyshock makes it a decent check to Expert Belt Keldeo (which ruins you) and Terrakion.

 

[invalio]

Hey guys, thanks for your replies!

@MCBarrett:

Mamoswine looks like a nice option and, since a lot of other posters are suggesting replacing Starmie's Ice Beam, it would work nicely against Dragons. Other people have suggested SDef Jirachi, so I'll try both and post results hopefully later tonight. Latios over Latias seems like an almost obvious idea that I can't believe I didn't think of, but other people suggest keeping Latias, so again I'll test results and get back to you all.

@Dr Ciel:

Yeah, Politoed's moves were always a bit rough--Toxic was almost certainly going to disappear since it's only really useful against bulky 'Mons who are slower than 'Toed anyway. I'll run Surf and Hydro Pump, since they look like they'll be useful. As for Starmie's EVs... Dear God, I'm glad somebody noticed. Eesh, what a schoolboy error. Gotta fix those in Showdown. Needless to say, they SHOULD have been dumped into SAtk, not SDef.

As for it being a 'standard' rain team, I'm pretty new so I'm sticking to something a bit tried and tested. But yeah, there is nothing original here. Still, it's been working okay so far!

@Decibelle:

I'm leaning towards Mamoswine since, like you say, it's more offensively minded. Still, Shurtugal is a name I've seen more than a few times, so I'm going to give Jirachi a shot too. And like you say, I am somewhat reluctant to run both Hydro Pump and Surf. Would you say something like Surf, Ice Beam, Focus Blast, Encore?

As for Encore... Yeah, it's situational at best. I've used it to good effect once or twice, against say an enemy Starmie who I locked into Hydro Pump, then bring in my own with Thunder. Perhaps Perish Song or Hypnosis over that?

@Shurtugal:

LO Starmie... Yeah. Typically it'll be a case of absorbing their Ice / Water / Psychic attack with my own Starmie, then praying I win the Speed tie and unleashing Thunder. Lati@s are a pain, like you say, and Growth Venusaur is typically 'hope it doesn't use Sludge Bomb, then use Volcarona to Fire Blast in for the OHKO.' I haven't been up against DDance Dragonite, but that does seem problematic since it would outspeed and KO Scarfed 'Toed.

The Latias EV spread seems reasonable and Satrmie's moveset change seems pretty good. Forgive me if this sounds stupid, since I do understand the logic behind having Rain Dance on a Drizzle team, but I don't know how much it would help against Sun teams with Venusaur. I'm not going to switch in to Venusaur with Starmie, but if I did, let's say he gets a +2 SAtk boost. I'd just unleash Psyshock at this point, then probably flee when the revenge counter comes in. Anything that Starmie is comfortable switching in on, Politoed is too.

Psyshock seems like a nice idea, but I'd only use it if I'm replacing Thunder. Otherwise, Hydro Pump already kills Terrakion, and Thunder OHKOs no-defense Keldeo after SR.

Jirachi definitely sounds interesting. I'll try Mamoswine first, then Jirachi.

---

@All:

TL;DR: I'll iron out the obvious kinks like Starmie's EVs and Politoed's moveset, try out Mamoswine / Jirachi over Metagross, maybe make a couple move changes to Starmie with regards to Shurtugal's advice, maybe run Latios > Latias and let you all know how it goes.

As a side note, again, since I'm new to competitive 'Mons and this site, should I edit my original post to include updated movesets and Pokemon after I've tested them? This makes it easier for people to see the full team and get ideas for what is hopefully a decent team... but then the comments immediately afterwards will cease to make sense. However things work around here.

Thanks very much!

 

[Shurtugal]

It's because you force Venu out with Latias if he's +0 then rd on something else!

 

[invalio]

Ah, okay, thanks for clearing that up :).