Good but not great. 20th on leaderboard

[animenagai]

Hey guys. I'm going overseas for a month starting tomorrow so I'm not gonna get a chance to play for some time. Since I've been having a few problems tweaking the team, I figured I might as well post it now to see what you guys would change on it. It may at least give me some ideas next time I build a team.

By the way, this is a semi-stall/defensive-balanced team that got me to 20th on the leaderboard with 2 days of proper laddering.

Team at a glance:

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Team building process:

I actually built this team during the world cup. I saw earthworm beat legacy raider in quite an epic match using a spikes offence team so I decided to do the same. My team ended up being quite a bit more defensive than EW's, but it's been decent nonetheless. Anyways, for there to be spikes offence, I needed spikes and a spin stopper. I simply chose the two pokes I thought did this the best - skarm and rotom.

Since I wanted to have some offence on this team, I started thinking about what pokes would strive under spikes the most. I made a list of all the OU pokes that got hit by spikes and I realised that a lot of them were grounded steels and fighting types. I therefore decided to go with CB tar, so I can hit the counter with spikes on the switch.

There are a few threats that I pay special to attention to every time I build a team, 2 of those are luke and heatran. Scarftran is an absolute monster to fight against when using an offensive team, as most fire types can be worn down quite easily, therefore T-tar was not enough. I went with somehting that can deal with both problems - rest talk gyara.

Being quite counter minded, I still saw one big threat to my team - mence. There are only so many pokes can deal with mence reliably. Scarf jira happens to be one of them as it can deal with both DD and mixed variances. I also didn't want to rely on gyara being my only luke counter, so I added fire punch to it.

The last spot was up for grabs really. The only really worry I had left was having nothing to switch to mence's fire blast, as that would put my team under lots of pressure. I aslo needed a water resist with gyara being SR weak. Latias is a personal favourite of mine, so I decided to go with it in the final slot. I started off with a LO set, but soon realised that I was cune weak and hence changed it to a CM roar set. This set fits right into the team of course, as roar works well with spikes. It's also a set that can play aroound CB tar and scizor (especially if you have spikes up), so that's cool.

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The team in depth:

Skarmory (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP/24 Spd/234 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Whirlwind
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Roost
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Not everyone likes this set, but I definitely do. Having both SR and spikes is extremely useful as I don't need to waste another team spot for one move. I've tried using jira as the lead, but in all honesty, jira without SR is just not a good lead at all. People argue that I can just u-turn into skarm if I want to, but the thing about skarm is that it can SR when your opponent SR's and spikes on the switch, giving you instant advantage. If I lead with jira, I u-turn into skarm when they SR and just SR on the switch. The only advantage to using jira over skarm as the lead is using up sashes, and I find that advantage pretty minimal. I The only thing I don't like about it is that it loses to many other skarms, as they now carry taunt.

Rotom-h @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP/160 Def/100 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Will-o-wisp
- Thunderbolt
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
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Very standard spin stopper set. Counters anything that spins (bar starmie) and is also my main gyara counter. I run WOW to deal with incoming T-tars trying to trap me with pursuit. It can be annoying sometimes when the switch into heatran instead and catch a flash fire boost, but that's why you just t-bolt on the switch most of the time.

Tyranitar (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk/76 Spd/180 SDef
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Aqua Tail
- Pursuit
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As I said before, Tar just works well with spikes. The most common switches into tar are pert, scizor, gross, machamp etc. All of them get hit by spikes. That means that I can just spam crunch/stone edge and be guaranteed around 50% damage as long as spikes are up. I've tossed between the CB set and the jolly scarfed set. Scarftar is actually really cool as it can surprise leads and kill them before getting SR up (azelf for example pretty much always taunts against skarm), and it also deals with my horrible LO starmie weakness. However, I've found that it does make my team a lot more stall weak. In fact, I don't think I've won once against stall with scarftar, whereas I do very well with CB tar. I figured losing to one poke is better than losing to a whole team strategy, so I'm using the CB set again, hoping I can play around starmie. The EV's are made to outrun the slower skarms and anything around that speed. I'm open to different EV sets.

Gyarados (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP/144 Def/12 Spd/100 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Waterfall
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Roar
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Rest roar is becoming my favorite gyara set. Gyara is a great pokemon in that it is rare to have both a fighting and fire resist, which are very useful. The bad thing about it of course is the horrible SR weak, making most gyaras relatively frail. Since gyara doesn't get roost, rest talk is a great option on it as it can then survive multiple switch ins. Roar works wonder with spikes too, giving me another option to do damage with.

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Trick
- Iron Head
- Fire Punch
- U-turn
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Probably the most broken poke in all pokes. As I said before, there are only so many good mence counters, and jira is one of them. I know that iron head doesn't always flinch mence, but it's good enouugh. The other moves are just too good to touch imo. When I run scarftar, I use ice punch over fire punch as tar can check luke. I don't like this thing as a lead btw. I've tested it over skarm and tbh, the only things motivating it being the lead are empty pokemon norms. It's much better to keep your revenge killer secret till mid game.

Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 148 HP/252 Spd/108 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Roar
- Recover
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Blame pana for this one. How he can constantly popularise sets is beyond me. Another good phaser for my team, and perhaps the only reliable counter to crocune on my team. However, now that I'm writing this stuff out, it looks like it may be the weakest link to my team. Hmmmmm... I'll be open to hear any suggestions. Starmie instead maybe?

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The biggest threats to my team right now are taunt skarm/gliscor and LO starmie. I often need to keep latias alive in order to deal with gliscor. If it gets pursuited, I'm in big trouble. LO starmie is just an overall bitch to this team. It basically rapes everything. I have to set spikes up and roar it out on the switch to rack up residual damage in order for me to even have a chance against this thing. The other option is just to spam iron head, but that's not very reliable. As I said before, I've tried scarftar before and it solves that problem but makes me very stall weak. Suggestions please.

Anyways, hope you've enjoyed this team. Rate away.

 

[panamaxis]

On Gyarados, I personally (though it is debatable) think Careful, 100 Sp. def 144 Def 252Hp, 12 Spd is better then what you have currently. You're switching into heatran *Empoleon* <--(this is the main reason why it's probably better, latias needs to CM too many times to take it and honestly I don't like using laitas to beat it because one way or another you have to give them a fair few chances to freeze/crit you before you can properly take it, but maybe that's just me), plus some other miscellaneous stuff like mixmence much better, and I think you have sufficient defense anyway.

Hmm yeah I can't think of anything else, it's a good team, nice job nagai.

Have fun in Hong Kong, I know you will :P.

 

[KnightoftheWind]

Best suggestion I can give is use ThunderPunch over U-turn over Jirachi, it gives it an option of smashing Starmie in exchange of being slightly weaker to Magnezone, who is 2HKOed by Fire Punch after the hazards have been laid.

What a coincedince, I'm off on holiday tomorrow too! (for a week though, and still in Australia)

 

[Setsuna]

Hello animenagai, it's been a while since you posted a team here. But well, talking about the current, at a first glance it seems to be a very solid team that has some issues with a couple of pokes. Although I can't see that tremendous weakness to LO Starmie you mentioned to have; as you may know, every team has always problems with some poke/s in specific and in your case LO Starmie only means non-risk prediction against Gyarados, Jirachi (trapped in a FP/IH) and probably Skarmory if you haven't set the proper Spikes yet. The rest of your team members can deal somehow with the star and wear it down thanks to residual damage and incoming attacks (Jirachi's U-turn does great at this combined with Spikes).

Before continuing, I want to do a few suggestions. On Tyranitar you can consider replacing Aqua Tail for Earthquake in case you don't want to add another move on which Starmie can proceed to spam Hydro Pumps and LOed moves, but I know how important is for you to hit Gliscor in the change, so I just mention it ;). Although between Gyarados and Latias Gliscor has a hard time, only the Toxic+Taunt user can fight Gyarados 1vs1 but that's a really close battle.
Second, take Latias and move all those SpA EVs to the HP (252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd), that will help you to take hits betters.

In one hand, against Starmie the best solution I can see without twisting the team, is to play around it always looking for the possibility of taking out Tyranitar to defeat it, as you made that spread exactly for it in my opinion.
You can also convert Rotom in a bulkier version, with 248 HP / 224 Def / 36 SpD (or even more) and that'll help with Starmie too.

On the other hand, I saw you mentioned the possibility of losing Latias because of a Pursuit coming from Scizor or Tyranitar, but you just have to worry about the second as Scizor will get really damaged by entry hazards and incoming attacks once he sees Latias and tries to get in and trap you. I have played a lot of times with this set of Latias, and I can tell you that probably your best move the first time you reveal her would be Roar and see if the opponent tries to get his T-tar/Scizor out. Anyway, Latias cannot die unless Gliscor/CroCune have already been sent to the grave.

I still have a couple of ideas that I want to try out, so if their work I will get back to you. Though in a first instance I don't see the necessity of changing important things in the team.

Good luck.

 

[Maci12]

Hey Animegai, it's a solid team; I have a soft spot in my heart for offensive (or semi-offensive) Spike teams. Anyways, onto the rate.

I'd reccommend running 252 HP/168 Def/88 Spe if your not going to invest in SpD for your ResTalker. You don't sacrifice too much bulk while outspeeding a lot more pokemon (anything with Max Speed Neutral Nature under Base 65; Tyranitar, Scizor, etc). By outspeeding these pokemon, you get to use Will-O-Wisp on them. With their physical damage output effectively halved, you're taking less damage.

You're Latias set is great, but I see a more support oriented DS Latias benefitting the team more.
(F) @ Light Clay
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/4 Def/252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Wish / Recover
- Roar / Dragon Pulse

With this set, you're whole team takes hits much better. Many of your pokemon lack reliable recovery, so the boost from these moves is a huge help. Wish can further help these pokemon, giving them an extra 50% to come back and fight with. Alternatively, if you want to want to focus more on Latias' survivability, Recover is the better option. The final move depends on what you want Latias to do: Roar racks up the entry hazards, and Dragon Pulse can keep opposing Dragons (and a lot of pokemon) away. Latias doesn't need to be dealing damage for you; you have 3 fairly strong pokemon that benefit more from the entry hazards.

Good luck -- I hope I was of some help.

 

[ThePatriot]

you could try taunt, toxic, stall breaker gliscor over latias.
Doing so means you can drop fire punch on your jirachi and change it to thunderpunch for starmie. Here is the set
Gliscor @ Leftovers
jolly 216speed 252hp 40def
earthquake
taunt
toxic
roost

Good luck!

 

[animenagai]

Thanks for all your rates.

Pana: I've now changed the gyara to your set. Thanks buddy ;)

KOTW: Thunderpunch doesn't really solve my starmie issues. U-turn only does around 50% and t-punch isn't much stronger. The only difference is that I'll have to stay in with t-punch, which isn't necessarily a good thing as LO hydro pump really hurts. Have fun on your holiday!

Setsuna: Yeah, that's exactly what I do with latias. I play extremely cautiously with her, often roaring on the first turn I bring her in. Still, I'm not a perfect prediction machine so they can often still kill latias after racking up a bit of spikes damage. On T-tar, I really want to keep aqua tail as it does hit those bulky grounds, especially gliscor, which I have issues with. Putting sp.def EV's on rotom may be a good idea though. How much does it take from a LO hydro pump with those EV's?

Maci12: That set looks good, only I would be crocune weak if I got rid of the latias set I have now.

ThePatriot: Same as above really.

 

[Maci12]

You wouldn't be CroCune weak at all; you simply would use Roar over Dragon Pulse. That means you are Taunt weak, but there aren't many midgame Taunters faster than Latias, and Jirachi deals with almost every useful one (Gyarados, Azelf, Skarmory, some Tyranitar. The only one it has trouble with is Gliscor, who is dealt with by spamming Iron Head / Gyarados). Meanwhile, Latias gets up a screen against all of them (except Azelf), and with a screen up they are much easier to deal with by the rest of your team. By Light Screening, you also make LO Starmie much easier to deal with, because it doesn't damage you much while you Recover up enough to Roar it out.

 

[animenagai]

Eh, even then I would be reliant on jira's trick to beat last poke crocune.

Oh and btw, I can tell you from experience that gyara and jira does not beat taunt gliscor and here's why. Gliscor taunts on the switch, gyara gets hit by it. I can't do anything but just use waterfall and since I run sand on this team, I don't get any lefties gain. They bring in a counter, I have to switch out. Between SR, sand, and not being able to rest up, gyara gets worn out pretty eaily by taiunt gliscor. Heck, waterfall doesn't do that much either (around 50%), which they could roost off if they get the chance. Jira's iron head doesn't do enough to gliscor either just because it's so bulky. EQ also rapes me. I have the option to trick, but that can be often dangerous if they have something like mence up their sleeve. If anything, gliscor is a counter for jira, not the other way round.

 

[Setsuna]

Thanks for all your rates.
Setsuna: Yeah, that's exactly what I do with latias. I play extremely cautiously with her, often roaring on the first turn I bring her in. Still, I'm not a perfect prediction machine so they can often still kill latias after racking up a bit of spikes damage. On T-tar, I really want to keep aqua tail as it does hit those bulky grounds, especially gliscor, which I have issues with. Putting sp.def EV's on rotom may be a good idea though. How much does it take from a LO hydro pump with those EV's?

The spread that I want you to try out is the following: 248 HP / 160 Def / 100 SpD (Bold nature).

One of your Rotom's main purpose is to deal with DD Gyarados, so I'll make some calculations for you with both spreads and adding Starmie to the list:

The current spread (252 HP / 252 Def):
VS Gyarados (+1 LOed Waterfall): 574 Atk vs 344 Def & 304 HP (80 Base Power): 187 - 222 (61.51% - 73.03%)

VS Starmie (LOed Hydro Pump): 299 Atk vs 250 Def & 304 HP (120 Base Power): 201 - 237 (66.12% - 77.96%)

Now considering the spread that I suggested (248 HP / 160 Def / 100 SpD):
VS Gyarados (+1 LOed Waterfall): 574 Atk vs 319 Def & 303 HP (80 Base Power): 201 - 237 (66.34% - 78.22%)

VS Starmie (LOed Hydro Pump): 299 Atk vs 280 Def & 304 HP (120 Base Power): 178 - 211 (58.55% - 69.41%)

As you can see Rotom will never be OHKOed by a boosted Waterfall even with a previous SR damage and in exchange the damage inflicted by LO Starmie gets reduced "considerably". Furthermore, Gyarados has only two chances of setting up, and those are in Tyranitar's Aqua Tail and Jirachi. The rest of the team mates can deal with it by phazing it out or attacking. If happens that you're dealing with BulkyTaunt Gyarados then Rotom will receive less damage and that'll be great.
Basically what I try to say is that Gyarados is not a threat at all, but Starmie could be it, and whereas you can add options to reduce that "factor", do it ;)

 

[animenagai]

Hmmmm those calcs look good! I never knew the specifics to the damage calcs, so I often just go with generalisations as to what the poke has to counter. Thanks for that, I'll change it now ;)

 

[Myzozoa]

You told me that i should rate this, but this team is actually really well made. And you know I'm not really very familiar at the balanced spikes style of team represented here. Anyway, one thing that i think you should consider is not leading with skarmory. I know that you have played this team a lot and probably have plans for every lead, but i cant see a really good plan for your team if they lead with standard shuca heatran. Tyranitar really isn't that great a switch in on a turn 1 fire blast considering the small chance of it getting burned, imo (also some carry will o wisp, and even if they dont, you dont want to be set up fodder right at the very start of the match if you get locked into something). Latias will get exploded on, etc (don't say that you predict the explosion and go to rotom, because you know how i feel about that and this is me rating your team).

Now I don't want to change any pokemon on this team because it won't really function the way you want it to and changing a pokemon will probably bring about a slew of other issues for this team. So my main advice is to consider another pokemon already present on this team in the place of skarmory as the lead. I would probably just put a lum berry on tar and use the same moveset or put a lum berry on tar and throw stealth rocks on. You can also try scarf rachi lead, which is pretty popular but which will make me hate you forever.

Also, someone mentioned DS latias. I wouldn't go all the way if I was you, but you could throw on reflect to it somewhere. If you use reflect you can also add wish which is kind of interesting instead of recover. I don't know if thats really a great idea, but reflect opens up some options.

Good luck.

edit: i didnt mention gyarados when i talked about heatran as a threat because if it takes that fireblast in the beginning there are a bunch of sequences of events (involving magnezone and lucario) that lead up to your team getting swept by lucario because gyarados had to take a fireblast in the beginning and SR damage on the switch in later. And that sounds a lot like theorymon, but these things happen and gyarados is really important to your team anyway so make what you will of that.

 

[snorlax]

I second having a different pokemon as a lead compared to skarmory. While its true that you can easily take advantage of swampert, metagross, and hippo leads, heatran and infernape will prevent you from setting up to begin with. Azelf is another concern, as dual screen versions carry taunt and every other azelf carries fire blast. Jirachi makes a much better lead, since it can simply u-turn away from potential threats.

Its quite a good semistall team, but it does have a few weaknesses. With SR support, a LO gengar tears though everything with shadow ball/focus blast/thunderbolt. Only jirachi can really oppose it, and latias risks being KOed based on a speed tie. As you mentioned, starmie is also quite a problem. Ttar counters both very well, so you might want to alter his evs so that he can effectively take a hit in order to score the KO on them with pursuit.

One possiblity for handling your weaknesses is to swap out latias for starmie. Having hydro pump/ice beam/tbolt/rapid spin solves most of your problems that latias seems to cover. just an idea though so you might want to test it out first.

One last thing that bothers me is your ttar's current ev spread. I'm not quite sure what the 108 speed evs are for. It might be more useful to put those evs into hp or sp def to better take hits from starmie, but it depends on the reason for those speed evs. What pokemon does it beat with those evs?

Its a very good team though, so good luck editing it and making it into an even stronger team.

 

[animenagai]

Thanks lax, I appreciate it. As I said, this team was made during the WC, so I'm not surprised that the sets are a bit outdated. Tar's EV's was to outrun the stuff that rested on the 176 mark (or a few more) such as other T-tars, machamp, skarmory etc. Now that skarms run more speed, I have no idea how much other stuff run, so any suggestions for a better EV spread would be appreciated.

Does starmie beat suicune? I'll make the switch if it does.

Oh and due to popular demand, I'll switch jira to the lead position. Thanks guys.

 

[panamaxis]

Honestly I really think you're better off leading with skarm, as between itself and tyranitar you're already beating the majority of leads and (imo) revealing your revenge killer so early in the game just allows your opponent to prepare against you that much more. Switching from skarmory to jirachi and/or t-tar against azelf and aero may give you an advantage anyway as they are likely to taunt or fire blast and those two are the only reason why you would lead with jirachi.

 

[Olliert]

I think you need to keep that Latias set because without it, how else are you beating Bulky CM Jirachi and other similar calm minders. The reason that set works is it's ability to beat other Calm Minders 1 on 1 and you have nothing else to do that except tricking scarf on to them with Jira.

 

[animenagai]

Bumpity bump bimp

 

[MrIndigo]

I have always found Earthquake to be superior to Aqua Tail on CB Tyranitar; it nails most of the same common switch-ins as hard, or harder than Aqua Tail does.

 

[animenagai]

The thing about aqua tail is that it hits hippow and gliscor. It's not always how hard it hits stuff in general, but how many different things it hits. Aqua tail is a big reason I'm running this CB set as it can lure gliscor, which I otherwise have problems with.

I've tried running jira as the lead btw and pana's right. The advantages are not enough to cover its disadvantages. If I had another revenge killer, jira would be a fine option as a lead. However, it is here primarily as a revenge killer which makes my options much more limited if I use it as a lead. I can't trick early game or DDmence rapes me. Exposing that I have scarfed jira early also gives my opponent a lot of information to scheme with early game as they can then target it and plan a sweep.

Furthermore, how does jira put me in a better situation early game at all when compared to skarm? You guys say that I'm weak to lead apes and trans, which is true, but jira doesn't do any better either. Against taunters, my skarm lead is shut down completely, however, why on earth would I stay in on azelf and aero in the first place? Most of them just taunt first turn, so I can go to jira and absue some flinch hax, possibly stopping them from using SR at all.

Most importantly, skarm can give me an easy SR + spikes against gross, pert and hippow whereas jira can not. With skarm I SR when they SR and get up spikes for free next turn, with jira I u-turn when they SR and SR when they switch/roar etc.

I think there's a bit of pokemon paradigmns running around here, you know the old 'jira is a popular lead therefore jira is the better lead here' type of thinking. I can tell you that it's simply not true.