Introduction
Hallo, i'm a relatively new player, just started playing pokemon competitively a month ago. The goal of this team, as with most offensive team, is to counter opposing threats while keeping up pressure of my own.
The Team
Sunnies (Ninetales) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 16 Def / 8 SAtk / 220 SDef / 16 Spd
Calm Nature
- Roar
- Will-O-Wisp
- Flamethrower
- Sunny Day
Wouldn't be much of a sun team without the harbinger of the sun would it?
I run ninetales with the assumption that, overwhelmingly, its use involves leading, or switching in to induce a sunny day. This, in turn, usually boils down to switching in on politoed, hippodown (tyranitar has a nasty habit of KOing), and in rare cases abamosnow.
Accordingly, it's bulky, enough that under the rain, scald and hydro pump do not threaten the 2HKO.
Roar serves to phaze setup sweepers and substitute attackers that are often used as leads against sun teams.
Will-O-Wisp is a good tool for crippling opposing pokemon, or even just placing some damage on them. Dragon dancers can often be burned and then roared out, and burning opposing weather inducers on the switch in makes it much more difficult for them to keep coming back.
Flamethrower is simply a good stab. I don't expect ninetales to do big damage, so a solid option for that one forretress, scizor, or jirachi is superior to fireblast's lower accuracy.
Sunny Day helps me keep the sun up, and win wars with politoed.
I run ninetales with the assumption that, overwhelmingly, its use involves leading, or switching in to induce a sunny day. This, in turn, usually boils down to switching in on politoed, hippodown (tyranitar has a nasty habit of KOing), and in rare cases abamosnow.
Accordingly, it's bulky, enough that under the rain, scald and hydro pump do not threaten the 2HKO.
Roar serves to phaze setup sweepers and substitute attackers that are often used as leads against sun teams.
Will-O-Wisp is a good tool for crippling opposing pokemon, or even just placing some damage on them. Dragon dancers can often be burned and then roared out, and burning opposing weather inducers on the switch in makes it much more difficult for them to keep coming back.
Flamethrower is simply a good stab. I don't expect ninetales to do big damage, so a solid option for that one forretress, scizor, or jirachi is superior to fireblast's lower accuracy.
Sunny Day helps me keep the sun up, and win wars with politoed.
Quivers (Volcarona) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 128 HP / 142 Def / 96 SAtk / 144 Spd
Modest Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Roost
Ah Volcarona, perhaps the most terrifying sweeper in existence. Many people seem to discount Volcarona's ability to shrug off hits. With these defense and HP EVs, Volcarona safely escapes the possibility of priority revenge kill. After quiver dance, Volcarona becomes extremely specially bulky. It laughs at starmie's hydro pump or rotom-w's scald under the sun. Speed is mostly unescessary, as a single quiver dance has you outspeeding the entire normal metagame, 2 has you outspeeding the choice-scarfs.
Quiver dance is the reason volcarona is good. Even one quiver dance can set you up for a 2HKO for most pokemon.
Fiery dance- guarenteed accuracy and a chance for more boosts make this a solid stab that burns through most threats
Bug buzz- complements fiery dance nicely, making dragon-flying types the only truly irritating ones to deal with.
Roost- I firmly believe that roost is necessary on this set, and makes volcarona much easier to set up. While some would suggest substitute, roost is superior in most scenarios. It is much easier to set up in a random water type's face when your method of "recovering" hp actually recovers hp. In addition, you can stall out some physical attackers until flame body burns and cripples them.
Quiver dance is the reason volcarona is good. Even one quiver dance can set you up for a 2HKO for most pokemon.
Fiery dance- guarenteed accuracy and a chance for more boosts make this a solid stab that burns through most threats
Bug buzz- complements fiery dance nicely, making dragon-flying types the only truly irritating ones to deal with.
Roost- I firmly believe that roost is necessary on this set, and makes volcarona much easier to set up. While some would suggest substitute, roost is superior in most scenarios. It is much easier to set up in a random water type's face when your method of "recovering" hp actually recovers hp. In addition, you can stall out some physical attackers until flame body burns and cripples them.
Pudsy (Venusaur) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Growth
Venusaur acts here, essentially, as Volcarona 2. It is a secondary "quick setup" sweeper (by which i mean it requires relatively few turns to become dangerous). I considered making venusaur a physical sweeper, but decided that the only special walls capable of dealing with it (chansey and blissey) are utterly unable to cope with it (toxic does nothing, seismic toss does not matter in the face of +4 giga drains).
Growth- what makes venusaur the titan he is. With chlorophyll boost, you have essentially shell smashed without the defense drop.
Sleep Powder allows for a free turn to setup 75% of the time, as well as decommissioning one of their pokemon. Though the misses chafe, 160 base speed sleep is just too good to pass up
Giga Drain is my stab of choice for 2 main reasons. 1: Health recovery. Life orb damage adds up over time, priority damage adds up over time. Damage Damage adds up over time. Giga Drain allows Venusaur to simply continue the sweep in most situations. 2: Solar Beam is not reliable. I don't care if this is a sun team, it could start hailing, or snowing, or sandstorming, and then you essentially lose your main stab. this is unacceptable in already tricky situations that come with facing down teams like rainstall.
HP Fire patches up most of the weaknesses in Venusaur's coverage (aka steel types), and the boost it gets from sun isn't shabby
Growth- what makes venusaur the titan he is. With chlorophyll boost, you have essentially shell smashed without the defense drop.
Sleep Powder allows for a free turn to setup 75% of the time, as well as decommissioning one of their pokemon. Though the misses chafe, 160 base speed sleep is just too good to pass up
Giga Drain is my stab of choice for 2 main reasons. 1: Health recovery. Life orb damage adds up over time, priority damage adds up over time. Damage Damage adds up over time. Giga Drain allows Venusaur to simply continue the sweep in most situations. 2: Solar Beam is not reliable. I don't care if this is a sun team, it could start hailing, or snowing, or sandstorming, and then you essentially lose your main stab. this is unacceptable in already tricky situations that come with facing down teams like rainstall.
HP Fire patches up most of the weaknesses in Venusaur's coverage (aka steel types), and the boost it gets from sun isn't shabby
POWERBALL (Forretress) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 240 HP / 8 Atk / 220 Def / 40 SAtk
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Gyro Ball
- Rapid Spin
- Volt Switch
Now, with a sun team, it was quickly becoming apparent that we are horrendously weak to stealth rocks. More accurately, Volcarona is.... awful against them. So i needed a rapid spinner. Additionally, both my setup sweepers have trouble with dragon flying types, and both of them are hit really hard by outrage. So, i found myself in need of the defensive pivot that is forretress. My forretress is here essentially to tank really hard physical blows, and to spin away hazards. Spikes are unescessary, and even harmful considering the amount of downtime a team with 2 setup sweepers (even though both only really need one turn) generate.
HP Ice serves as an "outrage me breeeh" dare. Coming in to KO salamence, garchomp, and dragonite is perhaps forretress's most valuable role, even more common that spinning away stealth rocks.
Rapid Spin gets rid of pesky stealth rocks that get in the way of such good fun as "i quiver danced volcarona twice haha i win".
Gyro Ball is the stab of choice, and hits suprisingly hard. Gyro ball allows you to win fights with tyranitar, terrakion (especially if he close combats), etc.
Volt switch allows you to maintain some momentum, especially when predicting they'll switch to another pokemon anyway. You could possibly run spikes here, but they just don't fit with this team's extremely offensive playstyle.
HP Ice serves as an "outrage me breeeh" dare. Coming in to KO salamence, garchomp, and dragonite is perhaps forretress's most valuable role, even more common that spinning away stealth rocks.
Rapid Spin gets rid of pesky stealth rocks that get in the way of such good fun as "i quiver danced volcarona twice haha i win".
Gyro Ball is the stab of choice, and hits suprisingly hard. Gyro ball allows you to win fights with tyranitar, terrakion (especially if he close combats), etc.
Volt switch allows you to maintain some momentum, especially when predicting they'll switch to another pokemon anyway. You could possibly run spikes here, but they just don't fit with this team's extremely offensive playstyle.
WtfIsThis (Kyurem-Black) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 84 Atk / 208 SAtk / 216 Spd
Hasty Nature
- Ice Beam
- Fusion Bolt
- Outrage
- Earth Power
From magical christmas land! From "we have an answer for your problems" ville! From "man, what is that even supposed to be anyway?" town! It's Kyurem-B, the pokemon with ridiculous base stats that i abuse! His, as it were, freaking ridonculous, 170 base atk means that running a mixed set doesn't even put his outrage below that of something like max attack dragonite. While it may seem strange running a mixed set, his SAtk is actually very respectable, 120 to volcarona's 135.
By running a scarfed, mixed set, we have what is essentially a hardcounter to everything my team had problems with before. While forretress is a decent counter to dragons, it lacks any special bulk, or real threat of damage on switch-ins, and is therefore relegated to absorbing predicted outrages. Kyurem-B, however, serves to OHKO anything from Dragonite to Garchomp to Tornadus-T with ice beam preemptively, and also serves as an extremely effective lead against most rain teams and some sand teams.
Ice beam OHKOs most ground types, especially considering most (all of the ones in the meta) of them are specially squishy. Of course, every dragon and flyer gets OHKO'd also.
Fusion Bolt serves as a massive physical electric STAB. Which is funny, because those pesky water types are usually squishier on the physical side.
Earth Power covers most things my stabs dont (cough steel types cough)
Outrage makes sure that kyurem never occupies a dead slot, because in the absence of threats my other pokemon can't really deal with, i just press the button and watch a bunch of hp disappear on my opponents.
Now, i feel a comparison must be made to a choice scarfed physical kyurem with dragon claw in place of ice beam, and something random in place of earth power. First off, while you benefit from guaranteed OHKO of even the bulkiest of bulky politoeds, that is your only benefit. Every other poke is dealt with equally well by mixed. You lose all the coverage that ice and ground bring for the ability to one-shot politoed, who, in all honestly, won't take a fusion bolt in high level play. In this team, Kyurem's role, as a threat counter, is much better served by a mixed set
By running a scarfed, mixed set, we have what is essentially a hardcounter to everything my team had problems with before. While forretress is a decent counter to dragons, it lacks any special bulk, or real threat of damage on switch-ins, and is therefore relegated to absorbing predicted outrages. Kyurem-B, however, serves to OHKO anything from Dragonite to Garchomp to Tornadus-T with ice beam preemptively, and also serves as an extremely effective lead against most rain teams and some sand teams.
Ice beam OHKOs most ground types, especially considering most (all of the ones in the meta) of them are specially squishy. Of course, every dragon and flyer gets OHKO'd also.
Fusion Bolt serves as a massive physical electric STAB. Which is funny, because those pesky water types are usually squishier on the physical side.
Earth Power covers most things my stabs dont (cough steel types cough)
Outrage makes sure that kyurem never occupies a dead slot, because in the absence of threats my other pokemon can't really deal with, i just press the button and watch a bunch of hp disappear on my opponents.
Now, i feel a comparison must be made to a choice scarfed physical kyurem with dragon claw in place of ice beam, and something random in place of earth power. First off, while you benefit from guaranteed OHKO of even the bulkiest of bulky politoeds, that is your only benefit. Every other poke is dealt with equally well by mixed. You lose all the coverage that ice and ground bring for the ability to one-shot politoed, who, in all honestly, won't take a fusion bolt in high level play. In this team, Kyurem's role, as a threat counter, is much better served by a mixed set
Angry (Terrakion) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
Terrakion serves a similar role as Kyurem, dealing with the variety of threats that can still be annoying, like shell smashing cloyster, and rounding out the team. It is also fantastic at cleaning up weakened teams, a very effective lead against sand teams, and a good stealth rock user. Originally, i had this as a choice scarf, however, i felt like my team was too constricting with 2 choice scarf users. In addition, Terrakion's 4th moveslot lacks a really good move (earthquake is pretty much redundant coverage) if i'm choiced. Focus sash provides a similar effect (i get at least one hit in after all, which is all i need on the threats i'm switching in on) while allowing me to utilize terrakion's full diversity to deal massive damage. Also, at higher levels of play, i can bluff a scarf set against pokemon already slower than terrakion, then come in with "suprise tyranitar, close combat B*****"
Close Combat- Stab 1, does very very very high damage.
Stone edge- stab 2, does very high damage, super ultra kills enemy volcarona. yaaaay
Taunt- prevents entry hazards altogether from something i can't just OHKO like ferrothorn or forretress
Stealth rocks- good to toss up when possible.
Close Combat- Stab 1, does very very very high damage.
Stone edge- stab 2, does very high damage, super ultra kills enemy volcarona. yaaaay
Taunt- prevents entry hazards altogether from something i can't just OHKO like ferrothorn or forretress
Stealth rocks- good to toss up when possible.
