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Hail: More Than Anti-Metagame Idealism

I use a Hail/TR team(uber-hipster) with a mix of TR reuniclus/victiny with forry abomasnow, urugamosu and scarf raikou. Scarf raikou is a beast in this metagame, it outpaces basically any common scarfer and hits hard. It is a good check to some common steel moves and air moves(hurricane/bullet punch) so its a good pivot switch, with scarf it outspeeds Tornadus-T and the cheery on the cake: Forget HP ice, you can now use weather ball ice with 150 BP aggaisnt dragons, OHKO'ing even the most sturdys of them(except multiscale on Dnite)!

All in all, if you have a rock resist, fire mon and hail sinergize pretty well, try it!

A very good/interesting set i use is a mixed abom that wrecks weather teams in general:

-Sub
-Blizzard
-Giga Drain
-Focus punch

The blizzard giga drain combo, with 252 modest is just a hassle to most rain based teams, as you can check most common toads with no focus blast. The sub on the switch to TTar is very good as a surprise Fpunch OHKO will win you the weather wars!
 
Hey Bubbly congrats on the peak!

Anyway i have been having quite good succes with

Abomasnow/Heatran/Jellicent/Forretress/Gliscor/Conkeldurr

The things i have learned from using hail especially more defensive hail teams is you don't even need alot of Ice-Types because quite frankly ice is a shit defensive type and having alot of ice types makes your team have bad synergy.

@Mr.Improv your Hail team actaully looks quite nice however on your Rotom-W i would go with Will-o-Wisp>Toxic because Toxic is rather redudnant with Toxic Spikes on Tentacruel and Will-o-Wisp lets you cripple a vast majority of Physical attacker in OU. I also don't like the idea of Substitute on Heatran if only because with Hail Damage cancelling leftovers you will find Substitute to be wearing you down. Earthpower>Substitute helps you against Sun teams a bit being able to hit Heatran, and Ninetales hard. I hope i helped you a bit :)
 
So I have been using hail for a long time now. I have loved it ever since its introduction and the addition of Abomasnow only made it better. I prefer myself to use Hailstall and in particular Walrein, whom I have have named Stallrein. Here is the set I like to use =)
Walrein (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Ice Body
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Def / 76 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Aqua Ring
- Protect
- Blizzard
- Yawn


Why I use this set you may ask. Well its quite simple. More then 50% HP recovery (I think its somewhere around 60% or so....) in two turns while still being able to attack, either twice or once if you want to use protect. With the combination of Ice Body, Leftovers, and Aqua Ring recovering your HP, and the ability to use Protect for a free turn of healing, other then badly poisoning Stallrein it is almost impossible to kill it. Blizzard is there for a great stab and the signature move to be used during hail. It also has enough power to kill many pokemon after 3 to 4 hits.
 
bubbly said:
Finally got to #1 on Beta! This was my first time at the top of any ladder in 5th gen, and I'm really happy it was with Hail. Main team I used is here http://pastebin.com/9UcsCnCw for reference, might RMT it if I have time. Thanks all the guys in this thread who've been really positive and enthusiastic about using Hail in OU :)
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When was this? I have never seen this team on the Beta ladder, and the #1 spot has been occupied by me (alt = omylord) and Saammyy, which is using hail but it's definitely not the one you posted here.
 
I don't know how much you want to consider it Hail, but I have been using a TR team with Scarf-Turn and offensive Aboma for a bit. 1400 on beta dw, nothing special obv, although it did beat the top 3 ranked players there at the time. Giving it another spin.

Abomasnow (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Blizzard
- Wood Hammer
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Spam Blizzard, Wood Hammer does insane damage on Tar/Toed, EQ hits Rachi and Tran, HP Fire is for Ferro.

Conkeldurr (M) @ Expert Belt
Trait: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Drain Punch
- Fire Punch
- Ice Punch
- Mach Punch

Other sweeper, reasonably standard.

Reuniclus (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Trick Room
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball

OTR Reun, again standard


Bronzong @ Normal Gem
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Explosion

Because Rocks + Trick Room + Normal Gem Explosion is insane and it does like 45% to Ttar to give you an example.

Thundurus (Thundurus-T) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Infernape (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- ThunderPunch

Dual Scarfers, pretty standard stuff.

From what I've seen playing it, Aboma absolutely massacres other weathers and, while normally I don't try to win the weather war, Aboma hits so goddamn hard on half the metagame and it can KO Weather after some residual damage (even Tales after Rocks + Residual since you have EQ). It's a nice team and it certainly jumps people, and I think it's a good team because it doesn't rely on anything in particular and uses a myriad of things in order to win (Trick Room but not relying on it since you have 2 scarfers, Aboma as a counterweather but not having any Hail abusers, Voltturn but not relying on it because you dont have Spin/Spikes, etc.)
 
TR Hail is pretty nice. I've used that exact Aboma / Bronzong / Reuniclus / Conk core on a team (from memory I lent it to Magma and some other PO guys; I ended up switching out Conk though) and it really is great at stealing momentum. I haven't seen dual Scarfers used on TR before and I feel like your team needs a better defensive pivot (which will help you abuse the residual damage as well as do better against Tran and so on) but I'm sure it works well:) The other nice TR mon on Hail is Slowbro, since it already gets pretty nice defensive synergy with Abomasnow, and even Chandelure works if you don't mind being "outsped" by Ferrothorn and co.

Paralysis abuse is another nice strategy on Hail and it's somewhat similar to TR. TR accomplishes a lot more, quickly, and particularly as a defensive strategy to kill a sweepers momentum, but paralysis fits incredibly well with common Sub-abusing Ice types.
 
Has anyone tryed knock off on a hail team? I've been theorymonning about knock off with hail, since I saw a person using knock off on a sand team to get residual damage. Knock off is great when paired with Abomasnow and a Scarfed pokemon that runs rampant through teams. With the advent of Knock Off being released as a tutor move, there are more pokemon than ever that can learn it. Unfortunately, none of them use it well :P. There are a few pokemon that can use Knock off exceptionally well, 2 being great sets, and the other being kinda gimmicky, since it fills other roles better.

Tentacruel - Tentacruel is already a staple on most hail teams, so it is a perfect fit.Covering most of abomasnow's weakness's and knock off leftovers so the opponent has no way of recovering the hail damage. He also takes away the scarf from the opponent, so your scarfed dragon can clean a team with much more ease late game, as the hail damage piles up and the scarfs are gone. The best Knock Off user for hail by far, since it an also rapid spin, set toxic spikes, and burn those who can't be poisoned with scald. Like most knock off hail abusers, pair this with a Scarfed Dragon and maybe a Steel trapper?

Mandibuzz Unlike tentacruel, Mandibuzz does not help out with Abomasnow's weaknesses. The only niche Mandibuzz has over Tentacruel is a slightly better bulk spread and an amazing ability in hail, Overcoat. Along with having Overcoat, Mandibuzz has access to U-turn and Roost, allowing it to prolong its stay on the battlefield much longer than Tentacruel in some instances. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover any of Abomasnow's weakness with resists, and only takes it's hits neutrally, and even sharing the SR weakness. On another bright side, Mandibuzz has access to taunt, which stops all most recovery moves, like recoer, roost, and wish, before they even happen. Pair him with a Scarfed Dragon and a Metal trapper of sorts.

Scizor- Now the gimmicky one. He is usually used as an offensive pokemon, so a defensive set with knock off and roost could really be surprise to the opponent. Although sharing the same 4x fire weakness with abomasnow, he has a great defensive typing, especially paired with Dragons. Also, if you pack some Attack EV's, he can take out the pokemon that have been weakened by all of the hail damage, and take them out while they are at low health. Also, with access to u-turn, he can quickly leave the situation if it provide unfit, or if you are predicting a switch, and don't know what to. Scizor easily keeps the most momentum out of the three users, so if your team is more offensive, a bulky set with Roost, Knock Off, Bullet Punch, and U-turn could really help you keep your momentum, while ruining their best scarfers and walls with Knock off and roost.
 
IMO, Hail needs to be buffed. Either introduce a new Hail inducer or increase the power of Ice type moves in the snow to compete with Rain and Sun in that regard. I've tried Hail and it's fun but just doesn't compete. It also doesn't help that Abamasnow is awful.
 
TheArchangle said:
IMO, Hail needs to be buffed. Either introduce a new Hail inducer or increase the power of Ice type moves in the snow to compete with Rain and Sun in that regard. I've tried Hail and it's fun but just doesn't compete. It also doesn't help that Abamasnow is awful.
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Kyurem's Blizzard hits insanely hard with its 100% accuracy in hail. Think Outrage, with better typing, and no need to get locked/confused.

I don't think the problem lies in power moreso than Ice being a crappy typing that has compounding weaknesses with steel types.
 
TheArchangle said:
IMO, Hail needs to be buffed. Either introduce a new Hail inducer or increase the power of Ice type moves in the snow to compete with Rain and Sun in that regard. I've tried Hail and it's fun but just doesn't compete. It also doesn't help that Abamasnow is awful.
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Initially you might think that Abomasnow is an awful pokemon due to his 7 weaknesses, but he is in NO way terrible at all. For one despite him having 7 weaknesses he resists water, electric, and ground 3 common types in OU. His grass-type stab helps him against the ever present rain teams while his Ice-type stab helps him with all those dragons roaming around, Gliscor, and the newly introduced Therians. So his typing isn't as bad as it is made out to be. Secondly you can argue that Abomasnow gives of the best weather effect for stalling with only Ice-type not getting 6.25% of their health taken off. Ice-types are both less common then steel, rock and ground but with sandstorm not effecting three relativly common types sand has a much harder time providing residual damage. Abomasnow also has amazing coverage and the ability to hit all other weather inducers super effectively with just Wood Hammer/Blizzard/Earthqauke. This makes Abomasnow exceptionally deadly with Hidden Power [Fire] to lure in and ohko Scizor and the newly released bitch of ou Genesect. This is not the only viable set for Abomasnow either a set of Ice Shard/Wood Hammer/Leech Seed/Protect is also good. Abomasnow has great longetitvity with Protect+Leech Seed while his stab Wood Hammer does huge amounts of damage to your opponent and makes your opponent scared to switch in their weather inducer unless it is a Ninetales. Ice Shard is great to revenge kill dragons and pick off weakend threats as well.

I am not trying to have a go at you i am just pointing out that i have had a lot of succes with Abomasnow and it is a great pokemon despite most peoples initial thoughts.

@Ambicrow yes i have tried Knock Off before on a hail team. I used it on Tentacruel and it worked great. It does much more then just knock of peoples Leftovers it is also great knocking of Choice Bands and Scarfs from your opponent. Although on Tentcaruel i traditionally prefer Blizzard in the last spot.
 
The main problem with hail is this, the effects of it and the pokemon it affect are counter intuitive, opposites. Hail provides residual damage obviously meant to stall out opponents. This is reinforced by the fact that hail related abilities restore Hp and raise evasion. But Ice is a horrible defensive typing and it's the only type immune to hail. Mono ice is simply non viable and aside from stallrein or maybe ice body regice when it's released ice can't stall in it.

On the flip side ice is amazing offensively, it's often 4x effective on dragons and it's easy to attain great coverage with it. Hail does near nothing to help this. No power increase, no speed boosting abilities, all it has going is 100% accurate blizzard. While the ability to use blizzard reliably is a big plus it hardly carries a team.
 
I've tried Knock Off on a Tentacruel, and I love it. It's a troll move in general when it comes to Hail.

And even if Hail is supposed to be more of a stall team, it's no question that the offensive boosts are better than the stall aspects since, well, there aren't that many good hail abusers outside of 100% accuracy Blizzard from Kyurem. Thing hits like a truck, I swear.
 
SubRoost Kyu, SubSeed Aboma, SubDisable Frossy all have amazing potential to stall with residual damage. Not sure what you guys are talking about.

I do think Hail is becoming a lot less viable right now though :( I am talking about Genesect, and especially Genesect + Dugtrio. The only way I've found to beat it reliably is running RestTalk Hariyama as part of my defensive cores, and even then it's still a nuisance, to the point where I run Rocky Helmet Skarmory just to wear it down faster. Hopefully it gets banned soon, that's all I can say. If there's any way Hail can still succeed I think it has to be based around Protect.
 
I have tried lots of things to stop Sun, but it is impossible to neuter Sun completely with just one Pokémon. RestTalk Hariyama can't stop Victini, SubRoost Moltres (248 HP / 252+ Def / 8 SDef) has to choose between Toxic and HP [Ground] (for Heatran), Heatran needs Shed Shell and it has no recovery outside of Rest, but then it can't use Stealth Rock. Now I am using WishMence and Shed Shell Heatran, and it works quite well. I think you guys should try those two.
 
bubbly said:
SubRoost Kyu, SubSeed Aboma, SubDisable Frossy all have amazing potential to stall with residual damage. Not sure what you guys are talking about.

I do think Hail is becoming a lot less viable right now though :( I am talking about Genesect, and especially Genesect + Dugtrio. The only way I've found to beat it reliably is running RestTalk Hariyama as part of my defensive cores, and even then it's still a nuisance, to the point where I run Rocky Helmet Skarmory just to wear it down faster. Hopefully it gets banned soon, that's all I can say. If there's any way Hail can still succeed I think it has to be based around Protect.
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Since when does Genesect theaten Hail. Kyurem cannot be revenged by it. Genesect's +1 Flamethrowers can be pp stalled. Genesect wont live long in hail anyway. Abomasnow's leech seed + Protect takes away 37% of Genesect's hp. Dugtrio's sash is broken by Hail and it cannot revenge Kyurem reliably with Stone edge(or reversal due to hail).
252Atk Dugtrio (Neutral) Stone Edge vs 52HP/0Def Kyurem (Neutral): 42% - 50% (172 - 204 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO. 1% chance to 2HKO.
^LOL damage.
220SpAtk Kyurem (+SAtk) Ice Beam vs 4HP/0SpDef Dugtrio (Neutral): 268% - 317% (542 - 642 HP). Guaranteed OHKO.
 
Lol, please think. No one suggested Genesect counters Kyurem. What it does do is put Hail under an insane amount of pressure early game, and often completely stops it from achieving its objectives. Genesect + Focus Sash Dugtrio is almost a hard counter to Abomasnow + Heatran cores, which are by far the most popular Hail builds. That doesn't mean that when Hail's stalling strategy is up and running that Genesect beats it, because it doesn't; but Genesect makes it very difficult for the Hail to get any kind of momentum going.
 
bubbly said:
Lol, please think. No one suggested Genesect counters Kyurem. What it does do is put Hail under an insane amount of pressure early game, and often completely stops it from achieving its objectives. Genesect + Focus Sash Dugtrio is almost a hard counter to Abomasnow + Heatran cores, which are by far the most popular Hail builds. That doesn't mean that when Hail's stalling strategy is up and running that Genesect beats it, because it doesn't; but Genesect makes it very difficult for the Hail to get any kind of momentum going.
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Intentionally attempting to mock me, eh? Before saying something like this, you should have clarified this in your previous post. Do you expect everyone to be a mindreader? I really dont understand the part about Genesect. Protect to scout its move. If its the obvious U-turn, switch to Gliscor/Skarmory. I personally never had a problem with this tactic.
 
I have yet to have a problem with Genesect, actually.

Then again, I can usually predict the switch and kill the thing off before it can do damage.
 
Anikrahman1995 said:
Intentionally attempting to mock me, eh? Before saying something like this, you should have clarified this in your previous post. Do you expect everyone to be a mindreader? I really dont understand the part about Genesect. Protect to scout its move. If its the obvious U-turn, switch to Gliscor/Skarmory. I personally never had a problem with this tactic.
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Um. So, I said Genesect U-turning is a problem for Hail. You completely misconstrued me as saying that Genesect counters Kyurem. In any case, in the example you give, they still U-turn, you still lose momentum. Both Gliscor and Skarmory (and Gyarados, and Tentacruel, and Heatran, other extremely common members of Hail teams which can take U-turns) also lose to Rotom-W, the most common VoltTurn parter to Genesect; meaning you'll almost certainly still be a step behind after that switch. If the opponent has SR (and Genesect teams try to get it upas quickly as possible), this passage of play is awful for you because you're being worn down pretty quickly while posing no risk to the opponent. And you can't just argue that you should spin SR, because every common SR user combined with a Ghost can ensure Rocks are up in the early game at least.
 
Yes i have noticed Genesect to be quite a threat to hail even volt turn in general can be annoying because when you switch in a pokemon to wall the U-turner in comes the Volt Switcher :( Protect helps a little bit against Genesect to ease prediction. I have found that the best way to deal with Genesect is Expert Belt Abomasnow so you can lure in Genesect and hit him with Hidden Power [Fire]
 
Fully Special (no u-turn) Genesect is easy peesy, but Voltturn is the devil.

All you can really do is try and predict whether they'll go for Voltturn or if they want to stay and play and hope you chose right.
 
I think the best benifit about hail, is mamoswine. Mamoswine hits a lot of prevalent pokemon really REALLY hard, and with hail up he just gets better. He also has the benifit of setting up SR. A not so mentioned drawback to hail, is that almost all spinners take damage from hail. While this would seem minor, if you need to keep your spinner alive to spin those rocks away for your ice types, this can simply make your spinners die faster.
 
Danger Mouse said:
Wow, Abomasnow + Hippowodon sounds like a fantastic duo to try. There are lots of great ideas here...glad to see hail getting some love!
And I agree that Tentacruel water delivery los angeles and Heatran are both great partners for hail. Tentacruel's toxic spikes also add even more residual damage, while Heatran can comfortably put up stealth rock as it forces a switch, so there are your hazards.
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this sounds like an awesome combo that i'm going to try out too :)
 
So I've been playing hail and I found something I like a lot.

Donphan. A Specially defensive rapid Spin donphan with Knock off, to be specific.

I initially chose to replace the tentacruel in my team of aboma/kyurem/tentacruel/slowbro/skarmory/hariyama just to cut down on my massive electric weakness, but it worked out fairly well as a check to Suicide Deoxys-d.


Donphan @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Def
Careful Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rocks
 
I find hail to be really useful in general in a lot of my teams, instead of leaving them completly weatherless I'll add aboma in for insurance against weather teams. Its great because it is pretty rare for the opposing team to have a way to abuse hail in any way, and lots of weather teams don't prepare for aboma since its a pretty rare threat. The great thing is, aboma is really good pokemon atm in general, Ice Shard + EQ + Wood Hammer can gurantee me weather war wins in a lot of situations, and also lets me revenge kill dragons, especially with a CB equipped. In my eyes dragons and weather are the 2 biggest threats of BW2 in a general view so having a good answer for them in one pokemon is really cool. and tbh I find hails best spinner is still starmie, as aboma wood hammer smacks jellicent aside, and gengar loses to starmie anyway, and starmie gets rid of heatran for abomasnow as well as gaining blizzard if you want it from hail
 
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