First Smogon RMT take 2 (UU)

10fore

Put in a bit more description, because the first one got lock for not enough desc. Hope it's enough.

Ok, I figure this team has major problems in it. So far, I feel like it has worked pretty well in most situations, but against a couple things (rain dance teams, for one) it feels totally inadaquate. I'm wondering what to do to help ameliorate these weaknesses.

Lead: Jolly Ambipom @ silk scarf
EV's: 252 sp, 252 at, 4 hp
Fake out
Double Hit
U-turn
Fire Punch

Simple enough, fake out does nominal damage for free, u-turn brings in a counter and does more nominal damage, fire punch and double hit offer decent coverage. (maybe I should use thunderpunch for better coverage because then I'm only walled by rock/ground pokes and steelix, and I feel like the rock/ground type combo isn't common in the tier. However, from experience, people love to switch registeel into this, and this punishes that switch a little. I can't actually stay in without getting T-Waved, but the damage is nice.)

Timid Mespirit @ lefties
EV's: 252 HP, 64 Def, 92 Sp, 100 SpA
Calm Mind
Ice Beam
Thunderbolt
Light Screen

Mespirit is probably my team's weakest link, but provides a decent special threat with good coverage and stat-upping. Generally, I try to avoid using him as you'd use a typical psychic pokemon because he really doesn't do any better against fighting and poison pokemon than anyone else on my team. Instead, he usually gets to take on anyone with high physical defence, as the rest of my team doesn't so much do that. Light screen is a little filler, but on the bright side, it helps set up curse steelix a little bit. I'm seriously considering dropping timid for a more defensive nature, because I only ever outrun things I don't need to.

Adamant Absol @ Scarf
EV's: 252 At, 252 Sp, 4 HP
Superpower
Psycho Cut
Night Slash
Stone Edge

Revenge Killer. Generally a dedicated revenge killer, because the limitations of being scarfed and fragile. I don't really expect him to cover all revenge killing duties, just because he can't, but he does well against the threats I need him to. Super luck means that he can hit very very hard. Waiting on a crit isn't reliable, but when it works, it's terrific. And the unexpected crits are also terrific. (For some reason, I get a lot of crits on yanmega's switching into him. I haven't run calks, but it does a lot of damage, almost a KO.) Absol is fragile, and is almost never alive at the end of the battle, but he always does terrific damage.

Adamant Scrappy Kangaskhan @ Lefties
EV's: 212 HP, 80 At, 216 Def
Substitute
Focus Punch
Sucker Punch
Frustration

Sub-puncher. I feel like this set is really good. It's pretty bulky, its substitutes aren't very easily broken by weaker offensive forces. My only beef with this guy is that he's really prediction reliant against certain threats. When behind a sub, he isn't at all, thanks to the fair pairity of the attacks (iirc, STAB Frustration is 151 power, FP is 150, and SE sucker punch is 160). Generally, frustration is the attack of choice, unless you need SP's priority, or the super effective focus punch. I've thought about using hammer arm, but when I do have the speed advantage, I generally want to keep it, so I stuck with FP. Plus the big power is nice, so it's not a disaster when I mis-predict. Still bad, though.

Bold Blastoise @ Lefties
EV's: 252 HP, 128 Def, 128 SpD
Protect
Toxic
Yawn
Surf

Blastoise is just a generally neat pokemon. He's not the best bulky water, but he's about the most surprising, as nobody expects him to be this bulky. Toxic for general usefulness, yawn for more usefulness, surf for obligatory stab and for torrent synergy, and protect for more general usefulness, as well as pseudo toxistalling. I've been thinking about giving him a bit more SpD, but am not sure. Also, yawn might get replaced, because it's nice, but with no recovery move, blastoise often doesn't have the time to be yawning people.

Sassy Steelix @ Lefties
EV's: 252 HP, 252 SpD, 4 Atk. (Zero Sp IV)
Curse
Gyro Ball
EQ
Explosion

Cursing Steelix. Gyro Ball and EQ offer decent coverage. Explosion is there, but it's the least vital to the set. If I get in 2 curses or even 3 I'm good to go, because gyro ball becomes obscenely powerful, especially in the speed driven UU metagame. The SpD EV's mean that I can take neutral special hits, like a shaymin seed flare, and hit back hard as balls. EQ is supplementary STAB, but I honestly don't find myself using it much except against regirock or registeel. (I guess I'd use it against arcanine, but not plan on it, because a lot of them are mixed, and I don't see any of them too often.)
 
Fire Punch isn't really helping you a lot on Ambipom. You say it's for Steelix and Registeel, but neither will be taking a lot of damage from a non-STAB'd mediocre fire attack with their defenses. You're better off using Taunt in that spot since they you have some hope of stopping things that like to set up rocks at the beginning, and later you can use it to stop stat boosters. Life Orb is also generally more useful than Silk Scarf on Ambi. Generally, I say Crobat is infinitely more useful than Ambipom as a lead, since they do similar things, and Crobat offers more important resistances later, but it's your call.

I don't really like that Absol. If something has access to a STAB Sucker Punch and it's not using it, it seems like a waste. So I'd suggest Life Orbing and giving it Sucker Punch over Stone Edge. Still acts as a revenge killer thanks to Sucker Punch. Only you're not screwed if something comes in and you have to switch out due to move selection

Using Blastoise seems kind of a waste if you're not going to utilize it for Rapid Spin (which your team doesn't really need). I'd replace it with something like Milotic or Slowbro.

Curse Steelix seems impractical for several reasons. First of all, Crobat carries Taunt most times, and it's all over the place. It doesn't fear Steelix THAT much since most can only hurt it with Gyro Ball, so it doesn't have any problems stopping you. Secondly, Steelix doesn't NEED the extra defense, so using that many turns to boost your attack, when there's something coming in to Surf you on the next turn seems like a waste. Replace it with Stealth Rock. Every team appreciates Stealth Rock.

You should also note that four of your six Pokemon are weak to fighting attacks, and Blaziken probably has quite a field day because of this. In order to somewhat fix this problem, I'm going to recommend you switch your lead to Crobat (like I mentioned earlier) since it does essentially the same thing - Taunts if it needs to, and scouts with U-Turn. Not only does Crobat provide a good check to your fighting weakness, but it also provides another immunity to Earthquake, which you also kind of needed since only Mesprit is immune now.

Good luck with the rest of your team.
 
I agree with the above poster's suggestions. You won't feel original for using Crobat, but there's no denying that he is one of the most effective Pokemon in the current metagame, particularly useful on your team as you have both a glaring weakness to Shaymin (Seed Flare severely injures or kills every single member of your team) and Fighting attacks in general (your current team carries only one resist and 4 weaknesses). Drop Ambipom for him.

Also agreeing that you should replace Blastoise with Slowbro. Slowbro would be preferred over Milotic here because, once again, you have a big Fighting weakness and Slowbro helps to patch that up.

Steelix becomes redundant once you have Slowbro, both are physical walls whereas you don't have any special walls. Thus, for a bulky Steel that sets up SR, Registeel might work better on your team; Slowbro + Registeel provides any balanced team with a very reliable defensive core.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top