SM OU First team I've ever made, pls help

[Dragon1277]

I am an okay battler but really bad at making teams, but I wanted to give it another try using some pokemon not seen all that often in ou. Anyways here is the team

Noivern @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Infiltrator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Draco Meteor
- Focus Blast
- Flamethrower

Noivern is faster than scarf kart, serp, and gren before battle bond and has coverage to kill all of them. Also deals with mega lop and medi with hurricane. Can be a good late game sweeper if everything is chipped but is typically my revenger. Stops hawlucha from sweeping even if it gets a sub up. Hurricane and focus blast are both very iffy moves due to miss chances. Also i never click focus blast but idk what else to put there

Gallade-Mega @ Galladite
Ability: Justified
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance
- Zen Headbutt
- Poison Jab

Gallade is one of my favorite pokemon and has a very good speed tier to deal with a lot of threats. Poison jab is to deal with tapus but ice punch could also be used for lando and chomp. Pretty normal set and gets the job done. Poison jab is almost never expected and often gets a KO. Close Combat hits hard and can break fairly easily. Zen headbutt for coverage and flinch chance

Greninja-Ash (M) @ Waterium Z
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Water Shuriken
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam

Gren is another fast threat with z-move as a nuke to break through walls. Not too much to say here as its a typical gren to late game sweep or revenge pokes. Sometimes z surprises people as most are choice but meh. Water Shuriken for priority, dark pulse for stab coverage, ice beam for grass and landos. Its Gren everyone knows what one does.

Tangrowth @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Giga Drain
- Knock Off
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Usually can take hits very well, however z-flying is fairly common and can OHKO often. Sludge for serp and fairies, hp fire for scizor and kart. This mon helps in rain match up a lot as swampert has to swich out on it. All-in-all i think a decent wall but there is prob a better one? I mistly play HO so defensive mons arent my forte. Never used this mon before so set might be bad :/

Mamoswine @ Focus Sash
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Ice Shard
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock

My Rocker and typical lead. Can 1v1 basically any normal lead with sash and ice shard. If played right both of no rocks will be up and you get ice shard chip. Really like this mon and its never really used. Ice Shard gets damage off when you otherwise wouldn't. Earthquake hits like a truck and Crash OHKOs lando. Rocks are up for sure and chip with mamo.

Rotom-Wash @ Iapapa Berry
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Defog
- Will-O-Wisp
- Volt Switch


Wil-O-Wisp for physical threats hydro to hit hard, volt for momentum. Defog to get rid of hazards. Could run leftovers but i prefer the burst heal compared to over time. Hydro is the best water coverage imo and i think that volt is better than thunderbolt. Defog is very important for letting noivern come in as much times as possible. Also who doesnt like killing things as a washer


All-in-all i thing this is a decent team but with lots of room to improve. I do know the mons are not exactly the most common but thats kinda the point in them lol. Thanks for any help :)

 

[TPP]

Welcome to Smogon! I'm locking your RMT for the time being as the forum rules require that you provide at least 3 lines of descriptions for each Pokemon to explain their roles. Please read the rules carefully and take a look at Team Showcase to see the level of detail we require. PM me with updated descriptions and I'll be happy to unlock this.

Edit: Unlocked!

 

[737373elj]

Mamoswine could be replaced by Suicide Lead Lando-T if you want rocks.

 

[YashGreninja]

Hey Dragon1277 , this is my first time ever rating a team on Smogon forums, but I'll try to cover all my thoughts based on the most major changes to the minor changes:

The main thing I wanted to point out is that in OU it's not really that smart to be redundant on damaging moves especially if more than one are the same type. Sure, each Pokemon/Team has different situations in which you can APPLY multiple moves of the same type, but OU essentially asks you to cover as many types as you possibly can. With that being said:

Like what 737373elj said, you could get rid of Mamoswine entirely and switch it with a more ambivalent Pokemon like Landorus-T, because you can play both an offensive style and let it truck teams, and you can also use it defensively, which is what seems like your Mamoswine is more leaned towards. By doing this, you are open to more coverage possibilities, and you can also create a more potentially offensive threat to your opponent. Landorus-T also being faster gives that extra bonus/reasoning as to why that's more of a better choice than Mamoswine seeing what you're using it for. The second one is Ash-Greninja. I like the touch of Waterium Z cause I've played OU in the past and Waterium Z Ash-Greninja is overpowered. However, I feel like getting rid of Hydro Pump would be more important here, because not only do you already have Water Shuriken which gives you the priority that you "lose (?)" with removing Mamoswine, but you could replace it with something else more built to your set for, again, the coverage argument. Another thing is that seeing Rotom-Wash with Hydro Pump kinda defeats the purpose of having it on ANOTHER Pokemon who already has their water move covered.

Now, with the potential Pokemon switches out of the way, I wanted to address your Noivern. You said it in the description and I 100% agree, Focus Blast is a terrible idea on Noivern. I looked through its moveset and seeing your description of what you wanna use it for, I'd recommend Boomburst. While Boomburst won't be super effective against any Pokemon, and it's also vulnerable to Ghost type switch in's by your opponent especially with it being scarfed, Boomburst packs a huge amount of damage and would probably become more useful early game rather than end game.

The next change I'd make if this were my team is to change Gallade's Zen Headbutt to Psycho Cut. Seeing that any psychic physical gives you that STAB bonus is great, but the fact that Psycho Cut has a really high critical hit ratio makes it unbelievably scary, especially if you also set up 1 or 2 Swords Dance's. The fact that it has 100% accuracy is also way more important, cause under clutch situations, you don't want your Pokemon missing moves, and Zen Headbutt is a huge risk during endgame, for just 10 more Base Power.

On your Ash-Greninja, I've already addressed the potential problem that can come in with running two water type moves, so my suggestion is to replace either one (preferrably Hydro Pump cause Rotom Wash has it + Water Shuriken has priority which you lose from Mamoswine if you replace it with Landorus-T) with either Extrasensory or Grass Knot. I've always found myself running Grass Knot because I personally don't run a Tangrowth on my team, but seeing that you have Tangrowth to stop the Mega Swamperts and Quagsires (just any Water & Ground types), I'd run Extrasensory. If someone pulls out a Mega Lopunny or Keldeo or Hawlucha or some sort of threatening Fighting type, you could easily use Ash-Greninja's speed to your advantage and hit them with an Extrasensory to chip off their damage if you are in a tight situation OR if the respective Fighting-type Pokemon is low on HP.

Your Rotom-Wash and Tangrowth seem fine, and I've already addressed the Mamoswine switch possibility. My final tip is that you might wanna run a balanced defensive and offensive Pokemon that can learn Toxic, cause Toxic does more impact wise on the game than Burn does, as it does more damage. Other than that, you've got a pretty balanced team coverage wise.

Sorry if this is a lot/doesn't follow the RTM guidelines. I tried condensing from largest issue to smallest issue, so hopefully that helps :3

 

[737373elj]

Hey Dragon1277 , this is my first time ever rating a team on Smogon forums, but I'll try to cover all my thoughts based on the most major changes to the minor changes:

The main thing I wanted to point out is that in OU it's not really that smart to be redundant on damaging moves especially if more than one are the same type. Sure, each Pokemon/Team has different situations in which you can APPLY multiple moves of the same type, but OU essentially asks you to cover as many types as you possibly can. With that being said:

Like what 737373elj said, you could get rid of Mamoswine entirely and switch it with a more ambivalent Pokemon like Landorus-T, because you can play both an offensive style and let it truck teams, and you can also use it defensively, which is what seems like your Mamoswine is more leaned towards. By doing this, you are open to more coverage possibilities, and you can also create a more potentially offensive threat to your opponent. Landorus-T also being faster gives that extra bonus/reasoning as to why that's more of a better choice than Mamoswine seeing what you're using it for. The second one is Ash-Greninja. I like the touch of Waterium Z cause I've played OU in the past and Waterium Z Ash-Greninja is overpowered. However, I feel like getting rid of Hydro Pump would be more important here, because not only do you already have Water Shuriken which gives you the priority that you "lose (?)" with removing Mamoswine, but you could replace it with something else more built to your set for, again, the coverage argument. Another thing is that seeing Rotom-Wash with Hydro Pump kinda defeats the purpose of having it on ANOTHER Pokemon who already has their water move covered.

Now, with the potential Pokemon switches out of the way, I wanted to address your Noivern. You said it in the description and I 100% agree, Focus Blast is a terrible idea on Noivern. I looked through its moveset and seeing your description of what you wanna use it for, I'd recommend Boomburst. While Boomburst won't be super effective against any Pokemon, and it's also vulnerable to Ghost type switch in's by your opponent especially with it being scarfed, Boomburst packs a huge amount of damage and would probably become more useful early game rather than end game.

The next change I'd make if this were my team is to change Gallade's Zen Headbutt to Psycho Cut. Seeing that any psychic physical gives you that STAB bonus is great, but the fact that Psycho Cut has a really high critical hit ratio makes it unbelievably scary, especially if you also set up 1 or 2 Swords Dance's. The fact that it has 100% accuracy is also way more important, cause under clutch situations, you don't want your Pokemon missing moves, and Zen Headbutt is a huge risk during endgame, for just 10 more Base Power.

On your Ash-Greninja, I've already addressed the potential problem that can come in with running two water type moves, so my suggestion is to replace either one (preferrably Hydro Pump cause Rotom Wash has it + Water Shuriken has priority which you lose from Mamoswine if you replace it with Landorus-T) with either Extrasensory or Grass Knot. I've always found myself running Grass Knot because I personally don't run a Tangrowth on my team, but seeing that you have Tangrowth to stop the Mega Swamperts and Quagsires (just any Water & Ground types), I'd run Extrasensory. If someone pulls out a Mega Lopunny or Keldeo or Hawlucha or some sort of threatening Fighting type, you could easily use Ash-Greninja's speed to your advantage and hit them with an Extrasensory to chip off their damage if you are in a tight situation OR if the respective Fighting-type Pokemon is low on HP.

Your Rotom-Wash and Tangrowth seem fine, and I've already addressed the Mamoswine switch possibility. My final tip is that you might wanna run a balanced defensive and offensive Pokemon that can learn Toxic, cause Toxic does more impact wise on the game than Burn does, as it does more damage. Other than that, you've got a pretty balanced team coverage wise.

Sorry if this is a lot/doesn't follow the RTM guidelines. I tried condensing from largest issue to smallest issue, so hopefully that helps :3

Just replying to the comment, I feel that Ash-Gren ought to have Extrasensory, BUT you should not use it against Fighting-types. Extrasensory doesn’t give KOes, and you run the risk of being KOed back by their STAB Fighting-type moves.

 

[YashGreninja]

Just replying to the comment, I feel that Ash-Gren ought to have Extrasensory, BUT you should not use it against Fighting-types. Extrasensory doesn’t give KOes, and you run the risk of being KOed back by their STAB Fighting-type moves.

Yeah I get where you're coming from. However, I specified ES over HP not for the purpose of KOing, but to finish off Pokemon who take super effective damage from a psychic type move.

 

[Dragon1277]

Hey Dragon1277 , this is my first time ever rating a team on Smogon forums, but I'll try to cover all my thoughts based on the most major changes to the minor changes:

The main thing I wanted to point out is that in OU it's not really that smart to be redundant on damaging moves especially if more than one are the same type. Sure, each Pokemon/Team has different situations in which you can APPLY multiple moves of the same type, but OU essentially asks you to cover as many types as you possibly can. With that being said:

Like what 737373elj said, you could get rid of Mamoswine entirely and switch it with a more ambivalent Pokemon like Landorus-T, because you can play both an offensive style and let it truck teams, and you can also use it defensively, which is what seems like your Mamoswine is more leaned towards. By doing this, you are open to more coverage possibilities, and you can also create a more potentially offensive threat to your opponent. Landorus-T also being faster gives that extra bonus/reasoning as to why that's more of a better choice than Mamoswine seeing what you're using it for. The second one is Ash-Greninja. I like the touch of Waterium Z cause I've played OU in the past and Waterium Z Ash-Greninja is overpowered. However, I feel like getting rid of Hydro Pump would be more important here, because not only do you already have Water Shuriken which gives you the priority that you "lose (?)" with removing Mamoswine, but you could replace it with something else more built to your set for, again, the coverage argument. Another thing is that seeing Rotom-Wash with Hydro Pump kinda defeats the purpose of having it on ANOTHER Pokemon who already has their water move covered.

Now, with the potential Pokemon switches out of the way, I wanted to address your Noivern. You said it in the description and I 100% agree, Focus Blast is a terrible idea on Noivern. I looked through its moveset and seeing your description of what you wanna use it for, I'd recommend Boomburst. While Boomburst won't be super effective against any Pokemon, and it's also vulnerable to Ghost type switch in's by your opponent especially with it being scarfed, Boomburst packs a huge amount of damage and would probably become more useful early game rather than end game.

The next change I'd make if this were my team is to change Gallade's Zen Headbutt to Psycho Cut. Seeing that any psychic physical gives you that STAB bonus is great, but the fact that Psycho Cut has a really high critical hit ratio makes it unbelievably scary, especially if you also set up 1 or 2 Swords Dance's. The fact that it has 100% accuracy is also way more important, cause under clutch situations, you don't want your Pokemon missing moves, and Zen Headbutt is a huge risk during endgame, for just 10 more Base Power.

On your Ash-Greninja, I've already addressed the potential problem that can come in with running two water type moves, so my suggestion is to replace either one (preferrably Hydro Pump cause Rotom Wash has it + Water Shuriken has priority which you lose from Mamoswine if you replace it with Landorus-T) with either Extrasensory or Grass Knot. I've always found myself running Grass Knot because I personally don't run a Tangrowth on my team, but seeing that you have Tangrowth to stop the Mega Swamperts and Quagsires (just any Water & Ground types), I'd run Extrasensory. If someone pulls out a Mega Lopunny or Keldeo or Hawlucha or some sort of threatening Fighting type, you could easily use Ash-Greninja's speed to your advantage and hit them with an Extrasensory to chip off their damage if you are in a tight situation OR if the respective Fighting-type Pokemon is low on HP.

Your Rotom-Wash and Tangrowth seem fine, and I've already addressed the Mamoswine switch possibility. My final tip is that you might wanna run a balanced defensive and offensive Pokemon that can learn Toxic, cause Toxic does more impact wise on the game than Burn does, as it does more damage. Other than that, you've got a pretty balanced team coverage wise.

Sorry if this is a lot/doesn't follow the RTM guidelines. I tried condensing from largest issue to smallest issue, so hopefully that helps :3

Thanks for the input, I made the gallade and Noivern changes. The reason i have mammo is because it beats every normal lead 1v1 excluding azelf. Thought it was a cool gimmic kinda thing, may test with lando though. On to the gren issue, hydro pump is there because of the z-move. z-shuriken has a lower BP than hydro without z. With rotom looking at the moveset i have no clue what i could even replace hydro with... maybe hp ice?

 

[ahbelew]

I find that waterium Z on Gren is a bit of a waste for your Z-Move slot. A Specs hydro pump does nearly the same amount of damage, especially on neutral and resisted hits. I'm sure the factor of being able to switch moves may net you a surprise KO, but if you pop the Z and don't get that KO, Gren will miss the added power of specs.

You also have no steel type, which puts you at risk against the common Psychic spam, and toxic will eat your team up with absolutely no possible switch in.

Replacing focus blast on Noivern with defog and replacing Rotom with a Z move steel type seems the simplest and best bet to me. Although Noivern isn't the best defogger
Magearna would fit that steel type Z roll perfectly and help with your LeleZam matchup, while also giving you a late game cleaner, but Magearna isn't exactly a niche pick like you want your team to be. Magearna without assault vest also doesn't outright stop psychic spam either, only slightly helps the matchup.

Consider this set for replacing Rotom, but only if you add defog to Noivern

Magearna @ Fairium Z/ Steelium Z/ Electricium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shift Gear
- Calm Mind/Thunderbolt
- Fleur Cannon/Flash Cannon
- Focus Blast


At the very least, please consider trying a different Z-mon, or make your Greninja a physically based protean set with Z-Dig or Z-Gunk Shot, as Z-hydro pump is basically a one shot version of specs hydro pump with only slightly more power.