First Team - Rain Dance (Offensive)

[Shotgun Rain]

Azelf (Lead) (Special Attacker)

Azelf @ Damp Rock –
Stealth Rock / Rain Dance / U-Turn / Psychic

Nature: Timid

EV’s: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe

Azelf is my lead, and has the great speed and power to do her job.

Azelf will begin by setting up Stealth Rocks, and since she is likely to survive the first turn she will set up her rain dance, and give me a good seven turns to work with it.
Azelf U-Turns out, into somebody more suitable.
Psychic is there for a STAB attack which gives me the opportunity to use her later on in an offensive role.

Kingdra (Sweeper) (Special Attacker)

Kingdra @ Life Orb –
Hydro Pump, Dragon Pulse, Ice Beam, Yawn

Nature: Modest

EV’s: 36 HP / 252 SpA / 220 Spe

Kingdra is my main special attacker, and will enter the battle through Azelf/Scizor's U-Turn.
Hydro Pump gives him a powerful STAB attack in rain to give him valuable sweeping power.
Ice Beam and Dragon Pulse give me greater type coverage, such as grass (which is good to put on Kingdra since he is not weak to it), flying and dragon.
Yawn is useful incase I hit a special wall, where he will use Yawn and they will either have to switch or fall asleep, and limit their use.
　

　



Kabutops (Sweeper) (Physical Attacker)

Kabutops @ Life Orb –
Waterfall, Swords Dance, Stone Edge, Aqua Jet

Nature: Adamant

EV’s: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 216 Spe

Kabutops is my main physical attacker, and will enter the battle through Azelf/Scizor's U-Turn.
Waterfall and Aqua Jet give him powerful STAB attacks in rain to give him valuable sweeping power, and Aqua Jet can help if he needs to go first and he is slower than the opponent.
Stone Edge is another STAB options to destroy those pesky birds.
Swords Dance is there incase I get the oppurtunity to setup.

Bronzong (Rain Replenisher) (Tank)

Bronzong @ Damp Rock –
Stealth Rock, Rain Dance, Earthquake, Explosion

Nature: Sassy

EV’s: 252 HP / 84 Atk / 80 Def / 92 SpD

Bronzong acts as a supporter, and will be very hard to take down. With levitate, he is immune to ground type attacks and in the rain fire is weakened, making him very strong.
Bronzong has a similar moveset to Azelf, since he is a backup incase Azelf hits the road too quickly.
Earthquake will provide valuable damage for those electric and steel types, and once Bronzong is near-death, he will explode.
　

　
　
Zapdos (Support) (Special Attacker)

Zapdos @ Leftovers –
Thunder, Substitute, Roost, Roar

Nature: Timid

EV’s: 192 SpA / 64 HP / 252 Spe

Zapdos is of the SubRoost set, and with Rain Dance in effect, his Thunder has 100% accuracy and is very powerful to begin with.
Zapdos can sit back behind his substitute and roost off all of his damage.
Also, he resists the grass weakness and he can withstand electric attacks, giving him a use in terms of defense.
My Zapdos has roar, in case they use Zapdos as a chance to setup, I can roar them out into something else.

　
　
Scizor (Support) (Physical Attacker)

Scizor @ Choice Band –
Bullet Punch, Brick Break, U-Turn, Pursuit

Nature: Adamant

EV’s: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe

Scizor, like Bronzong, is a support pokemon. He has U-Turn like Azelf so he can pull off a scouting role to ensure safe switch-in's to offensive pokemon.
Bullet Punch, his main attack - this (and technician) will deal good damage to those weak to steel, not to mention it has priority.
Brick Break, this gives Scizor extra type coverage over fighting, steel and dark types.
I would use Super Power but I do not have access to the tutors in Platinum.
Finally, Pursuit gives Scizor the chance to deal alot of damage to the enemies who are switching into a better matchup, for example Psychic Types who are expecting a bug-type attack.

This is my first team, I don't expect it to be awesome xD.

Thank you in advance for any feedback and advice you give.

 

[chaosorb92]

your strategy with azelf should be to set up rain first instead of stealth rock and you should probably give it just a focus sash because it is somewhat frail (although you will lose 3 turns off your rain but it's your choice)
ferrothorn will wall your team pretty well so i would recommend a volcarona somewhere even though there rain, fire blast should kill ferrothorn or at least put a major dent in it and also dont forget about hurricane
with zapdos, roar is kinda useless and you will probably be walled by gastrodon and the same goes for the rest of your team
with your bronzong, explosion isn't really needed because bronzong is meant to be a wall not a suicider although i can see how you can use explosion to your advantage in some situations, gyro ball would be better in more situations
apart from these mistakes, your team is pretty good for your first and has a lot of potential

 

[Shotgun Rain]

your strategy with azelf should be to set up rain first instead of stealth rock and you should probably give it just a focus sash because it is somewhat frail (although you will lose 3 turns off your rain but it's your choice)

That's a good idea, and it would be less risky - however by using Stealth Rocks first, and Rain Dance second, gives me 7 other turns to make use of the Rain Dance before I have to replenish the rain.
If I put up Rain Dance first, i'd be wasting a turn on the rain and when I U-Turn out I'll only have 6 turns to make use of the rain, and 3 less without a damp rock.

ferrothorn will wall your team pretty well so i would recommend a volcarona somewhere even though there rain, fire blast should kill ferrothorn or at least put a major dent in it

I was worried about Ferrothorn, and since I haven't encountered one yet I don't know whether Scizor's Brick Break will cut it, but I doubt Ferrothorn can outkill my Scizor.
A fire attack seems like a good idea to have somewhere, but i'm skeptical because of the Rain cutting it's power down to 50%.

and also dont forget about hurricane with zapdos, roar is kinda useless and you will probably be walled by gastrodon and the same goes for the rest of your team

That sounds better than what I have now, i'll try that.

with your bronzong, explosion isn't really needed because bronzong is meant to be a wall not a suicider although i can see how you can use explosion to your advantage in some situations, gyro ball would be better in more situations

I'll try Gyro Ball, and see how that works out.

apart from these mistakes, your team is pretty good for your first and has a lot of potential

Thank you, it means alot, and your advice is appreciated.

 

[Floatinghead]

Just wondering, why would you prefer to waste 2 slots to replenish rain while a Politoed can do the trick. Furthermore, politoeds are actually pretty good, high sp atk, high hp and high sp def. I know its because you want to use swift swim, but once the opponent realizes your running rain dance, they'll prey on the 8th turn where you lose rain and having both your rain dancer steel types doesn't help ( especially without rain, fire moves aren't suppressed by 50%. )

But if your team is built around swim swimmer, my reccomendation is switch bronzong with something else that has great type coverage along side azelf, just so you can switch in a take hits without the worry of a fire type completely abolishing your strategy. The choices are high, a water type would be awesome since azelf can take resist or neutral from their hits. If you really wanna risk it, you can in fact attach rain dance to a sweeper like Politwrath who'll get swift swim and just begin sweeping hard (dunno if that'll work since I never tried it).

Anyways, for effectiveness, switch to Politoed but if you insist, I would really like to see how this turns out because a rain dance team is rare these days and the surprise element plus swift swim may just turn out to be pretty scary and awesome. Goodluck.


Edit : I read the other comment and you should load up on some fighting types just so you can handle steels in the rain. A strong one should be able to handle even a neutral hit against bug/steel. Since this is the " Gen of Fighting", it'll be easy to find some fighting types like Conkledurr.

 

[aries54143]

on bronzong i would set spe ivs to 0 and switch equake with gyro ball, he gets stab from it and plus your almost always gunna be slower than the opponent

on kingdra i would lose hydro pump and add surf, a little less power but 100 accuracy, life orb and surf is, in my opinion, strong enough to be your main attack

and maybe lose kingdra for rotom-w, has access to rain dance, hydro pump, AND stab thunder, making him very versitile in the rain, and add shadow claw for another stab and type coverage

GREAT start, way better than my first attempt at my rain dance team xD

 

[blobman]

wait a minute is this a gen 4 team? cause if so it shud go here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=165

 

[blutrainer]

wouldnt this be breaking the item clause?
i also agree with Floating head, Politoed is a very good rain summoner and maybe trick room on your Bronzong? most of your party is pretty slow and would benefit from a chance to go first

 

[Emanresu]

do you guys eve know the metagame? you can't use a politoed because swift swim/drizzle is banned.

also, I would definitley give something rain dance other than azelf, becuase just 8 turns of rain won't be lasting a whole match. maybe give it to bronzong if bronzong gets it.

 

[Finchinator]

This team is interesting if you want more permanent rain, drop kingdra and go starmie, drop azelf and go poitoed (drizzle)

 

[PokeSprites]

Like Emanresu said, SS and Drizzle can't be used together in OU.

I was worried about Ferrothorn, and since I haven't encountered one yet I don't know whether Scizor's Brick Break will cut it, but I doubt Ferrothorn can outkill my Scizor.

Choiced Banded 252Atk Scizor Brick Break does 51-60.8% to a standard 252Hp 88Def so you should be fine if as long as their not packing protect and you get a min damage after the protect. The worse thing ferrothorn can do to scizor is Thunder wave anyways. Btw why are you running 216 Spe on kabutops? In the rain, Kabutops hits 550 Spe with 216 Spe which isn't needed since the fastest thing in OU is scarfed Latios that only hits 525 with a max speed and timid nature. Finally I suggest trying tornadus since it has access to prankster being about to summon the rain faster and has access to Hurricane. On a side note, yay first post.

 

[eccenditto]

I don't get why people run Brick Break on Banded Scizor. Superpower will always be the superior move because its is an Automatic base 120 attack which is stronger than Brick Break after the technician boost. The stat drops shouldn't be an issue because banded Scizor is a hit and run kind of pokemon anyways.
I also support switching your team over to a Politoed lead just because all other weather teams will crush this team if allowed the weather advantage which wouldnt be hard this gen at all. Sure you lose Swift Swim but you gain reliable weather and don't have to waste a turn setting it up or resummoning the rain.