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ORAS OU First team.

Misty Mustard

Misty Mustard

Before we begin, I'll just let you know that it's my first post here and I am trying to understand how expert Pokemon battle work on a deeper level. My team is pretty much from measly info that I gathered around and comparing stats, etc; trying to cover as many gaps as I could.

Also the only catch to this team is I prefer to not have any megas.

Metagross @ Occa Berry
Ability: Clear Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Stealth Rock
Metagross is my usual lead, it allows me to set up Stealth Rock while dishing some damage with EQ and Explosion as last resort. Meteor Mash also covers most fairy threats for me if I need to switch back to him again. (this is my main hazard pokemon, i've been considering having ferrothorn otherwise though. i just feel i'd be sacrificing some damage for it as well.)

Breloom (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spore
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch
- Swords Dance
Standard Breloom, Spore is my first move and then 1 Sword Dance and I'm good to go. Quite a few threats outspeed me so this is sometimes a bit tricky to set up. It does let me cover grass/fighting which is quite helpful vs common ground or water types.

Weavile @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Icicle Crash
- Poison Jab
- Low Kick
Sweeper, I've been finding the ice and dark coverage quite useful while battling. Poison Jab lets me take care of Fairy types as well.

Talonflame (M)
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Acrobatics
- Roost
- Swords Dance
- Will-O-Wisp
This is my usual main sweeper, after 1 Swords Dance I'm usually good to go and can shut down many threats due to priority. I doubt I'll be switching this one, but maybe if it goes well with the strategy. I find the bulky from HP quite useful as I would've died many times on switch-in if I didn't have it.

Tyranitar (M) @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Ice Beam
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Crunch
I really liked having this Relaxed Tyranitar on my team; it lets me stop threats such as Dragonite/Latias/Latios and one shot it after. It just does so well vs common flying/dragon types. Pursuit is there too for when they switch out, maybe 2 dark moves is a bit too much. I had Smooth Rock on it but I can't find the usefulness of 8 turn Sandstorm if I'm not running a sand team?

Clefable (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Calm Nature
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Flamethrower
Self explanatory.

--------
Anyway, like I said this is my first time posting here so I apologize for any common mistakes.

I'm not sure if it's just my lack of battle experience or, but my main problem is I'm having a bit of a difficulty to set up some of those sweepers during battle. Maybe I'm just misplaying it, or perhaps there's a better fit for my team? I found that I'm having quite a bit of difficulty vs Steel types during battles, or anything/steel (Heatran specially).

Any suggestions that you wanna point out are welcome. I mainly wanna know about what's "open" on my team and how I can cover it, you understand? To make a more tight team.

I'll try them and follow back with results. Thanks!
 
So your team seems like a straightforward offense build except for metagross and clef. I'm gonna try to make it a full fledged offense team, rather than the weird attempt at balance you currently have. Furthermore, your lack of both hazards and hazard control is not good at all. Every good team needs SR and using talon without Defog/spin is not a good idea.

My first suggestion is gonna be to add sand rush exca in place of clerk. Give it swords dance, rapid spin, and dual STABs. Adamant or jolly is up to you; under sand you'll outspeed almost everything either way. However, jolly helps outside of sand and can surprise other excas.

My second suggestion is to replace Metagross with Scarf Latios. It's just rare enough to be unexpected. I'd recommend dual STABs, ice beam, and trick. Trick helps your matchup against stall, semi stall, and defensive balance.

Finally, ice beam on lati means you can run SR on TTar. Also, consider chople berry over shuca; it helps deal with threats to offense like MegaZam and FB gengar.
Hope I helped!
PS These changes also help deal with tran. Unless they're running my innovative ScarfTran with Dark Pulse, Latios is a solid switchin and exca can scare it out. Obvi dropping clef makes you less heatran weak.
 
lightninging said:
So your team seems like a straightforward offense build except for metagross and clef. I'm gonna try to make it a full fledged offense team, rather than the weird attempt at balance you currently have. Furthermore, your lack of both hazards and hazard control is not good at all. Every good team needs SR and using talon without Defog/spin is not a good idea.

My first suggestion is gonna be to add sand rush exca in place of clerk. Give it swords dance, rapid spin, and dual STABs. Adamant or jolly is up to you; under sand you'll outspeed almost everything either way. However, jolly helps outside of sand and can surprise other excas.

My second suggestion is to replace Metagross with Scarf Latios. It's just rare enough to be unexpected. I'd recommend dual STABs, ice beam, and trick. Trick helps your matchup against stall, semi stall, and defensive balance.

Finally, ice beam on lati means you can run SR on TTar. Also, consider chople berry over shuca; it helps deal with threats to offense like MegaZam and FB gengar.
Hope I helped!
PS These changes also help deal with tran. Unless they're running my innovative ScarfTran with Dark Pulse, Latios is a solid switchin and exca can scare it out. Obvi dropping clef makes you less heatran weak.
Click to expand...
Thank you. I assume you meant Clef on the bold underlined? lol

Either way, I appreciate your suggestion. I'll try the Excadrill + Latios combination and see how it goes in a few different matchups to test it out. I did feel like my team overall was a weird mix due to my lack of expertise, so that's exactly the point I was getting at. Thanks for pointing it out!
 
Just following up with results, your suggestions were really helpful! It has really making battling a lot easier and I just feel like my team is more viable overall.
Thank you.

I'll continue to try different things since I really wanna find which "style" fits me best. But great suggestions.
 
Misty Mustard said:
Just following up with results, your suggestions were really helpful! It has really making battling a lot easier and I just feel like my team is more viable overall.
Thank you.

I'll continue to try different things since I really wanna find which "style" fits me best. But great suggestions.
Click to expand...
Glad i could help!
 
Hm, no megas eh? Well, fair enough.
I like the idea of Sand Rush Exca to some degree as it works pretty well with T-Tar. However, if the sand isn't up, Excadrill is a pretty slow Pokemon and doesn't have great bulk.

I think lightninging's suggestion of Latios isn't a bad idea but I'd swap it for Life Orb Latios with Defog for utility.

latios.gif

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Surf/Roost/Ice Beam
- Defog

This will give you a consistently fast hazard control option. Yes, it gets rid of your own hazards, but the added speed (over non sand rush exca), utility, and offensive prowess will help you a little more overall in my opinion. Ice beam is again another option of course to hit things like Lando-T on the switch and non scarf Lando-T as a whole.

The downside to your team right now though is you have nothing to really tank hits, so the suggestion of Metagross to Ferrothorn is a really good idea.

ferrothorn.gif


Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 168 SpD
Relaxed Nature
0 Spe IVs
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip/Protect/Thunder Wave
Leech Seed+Leftovers and Protect gives Ferrothorn a really capable way to recover while Power whip helps deal with water types that it can't otherwise deal with.
Personally, I like running Leech Seed, Stealth Rock, Protect, and Power Whip, but you're currently weak to fairies so Gyro Ball would serve you a little better overall I think. Plus, it'd give you something to switch to if you need to take a powerful hit and get momentum back. If the fairy weakness wasn't so extreme, I'd have suggested a fully physically defensive set as T-tar in sand can tank a lot of special hits. Also, thunder wave is a great option for your team to slow down things so your offensive guys can hit them before getting hit.

It's more passive than Metagross, but due to the great bulk, it can set up SR several times during the match, which in conjunction with Latios, is a godsend since you'll need to set them up again.
 
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Just to say Ferrothorn did indeed make my team a little more tanky, or at least a nice switch-in to tank some hits. I'll keep trying a few extra combinations and even maybe a new team based on this later on when I feel more confident, but thank you for the suggestions! <3.
 
✧✧✧Hello, Anime_Fan here✧✧✧

Great job on creating the team! When I first took a look at your team, it looked similar to a Hyper Offensive team (as it has so many wall-breakers!). I think this play-style would really suit your team just fine, so I'll be making recommendations based on Hyper Offensive. Wow! Is that Mega-Nothing I see (lol)? Going without Mega's is certainly brave, and it could work. However based on the nature of your team, I believe its members will benefit with a Mega on board. After all, you're practically giving yourself a handicap by not using them (lol). That said, it seems you've really give the team some though, so I'll try to give some advice (as best I can). Without any further ado, let's begin!

Here are some pointers on the team:
  • It will have difficulty in breaking through stall (Stall-Teams are overly bulky and difficult to crack).
  • Offensive pressure can really overwhelm this team (especially from powerful wall-breakers).
  • The team is vulnerable to weather teams, as well as the dreaded Stealth Rocks.
  • The team is vulnerable to Ground-types, many of which carry Stone Edge.
Here are some changes that I thought might help:

Tyranitar @ Chople Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Ice Beam

I recommend this set for Tyranitar as it's provides Stealth Rock and better-supports its teammates. I replaced the previous berry with the Chople berry, this is because most of the Pokemon Tyranitar traps carry fighting types moves. This will allow Tyranitar to weaken or KO dangerous ghost and psychic type Pokemon e.g. Gengar and Alakazam. Since you have Weavile on the team, Tyranitar's Crunch isn't useful (because Weavile has a useful, and stronger dark type move).

[Replace Metagross]
Excadrill @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin

To use a Tyranitar without an Excadrill is blaspheme to our lord and saviour, Arceus! Excadrill makes an excellent Rapid Spinner for the team, as well as a great late game-cleaner. Excadrill's role in the team is to revenge kill and remove Stealth Rocks for Talonflame (because losing 50% of your HP to SR is not ideal). With Excadrill, you'll be able to out speed and KO fast threats that the rest of the team cannot e.g. Keldo, Mega Manetric, Mega Alakazam, and more!

[Replace Clefable]
Manaphy @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Tail Glow
- Rain Dance
- Scald
- Psychic

Since the team lacking a saving grace of beating Stall Teams, I recommend Manaphy for its ability to scald those bulky pest away! Manaphy can summon rain, this boosts the power of its water type moves, as well as allowing it to act as a status absorber for the team. The niche of removing sand is also benefical for some of your member who don't appreciate sandstorm wearing them down e.g. Weavile.

[Replace Breloom]
Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Roost
- Thunderbolt / Defog

Latios helps the team by not only checking, but also counter some of their threats! It's access to roost increases it longevity, so makes a consistent hazard remover as well. It's typing and power also benefit an offensive team like yours. Thunderbolt is great option if you decide to remove Breloom. The Australian-Mushroom doesn't accomplish much for the team as it's easily KO'd. Some of the threats it beats, are KO'd by its teammates in one way or another. Latios is a great replacement because it brings so much to the table e.g. it can even take on Mega Charizard-Y for the team, and beat Quagsire.

With these changes in mind, I believe your team will perform better in battle. Best of luck!

PS: I recommend replacing Talonflame with something else. Alternatively you could replace Manaphy, and give Talonflame the move Taunt. This will allow it to act as a stall breaker for the team (please bare in mind that Foul Play users such as Mega Sableye, will give Talonflame a hard time).
 
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