SV OU Help Me.

Alright so buddies, listen up. I haven't played this game in so long that I'm washed, the metas different, and I'm absolutely stuck. I made a team a couple of days ago and have been playing it on and off to achieve a peak of 1400. It feels absolutely ass against every team and I just have no clue what I should be doing to fix it. I don't really have a vision for what this team is supposed to be or what its supposed to play like, I just threw a bunch of mons that caught my eye.
Without further ado, I present my Circus.

Scizor @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Close Combat
- Knock Off

I like scizor just in general, I think he's cool and I like the amount of damage u turn does while giving me slow uturn. evs maximize damage and bulk. put heavy boots since i think its just good in general and I don't want to overwork my tusk. uturn for pivot and big damage, bullet punch for beating iron valiant, kyurem after some chip from landorus/darkrai and other unexpected speed boosting threats, close combat for king gambit and skarmory, knock off since its knock off. weak to gliscor, moltres, moth, corviknight. good against pretty much everything.


Clefable @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Protect
- Thunder Wave
- Moonblast

i play by like throwing my mons at the enemy so i always end up having all of my mons having chip in some way. so I got rid of primarina and replaced her with clef for wish support. thunder wave to relieve pressure from my landorus and darkrai and especially to iron moth (im wrecked by it). protect because i did an oopsie and forgot to get rid of it after i swapped leftovers for boots (its now reflect since I don't want to deal with ogerpon). moonblast since I'm too passive without it. I tried to make clef able to tank at least one sludge wave from iron moth while being able to provide my team with valuable hp I can use to switch my mons around more comfortably.


Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock

I think scarf landorus is funny. its won me multiple games purely by being a surprise factor that many people don't account for. It helps a lot in pretty much every matchup since I can use landorus in tandem with scizor for fun offensive plays. adamant max attack so I can hopefully do as much damage as possible to great tusk who think they can switch in for a ice spinner. I also went tera ground so I could potentially sweep the opponent. stone edge is to hit mainly flying types and just as a last case scenario. stealth rock against occasional stall matchups. landorus is weak against every ground immunity ever so I solve this problem by clicking uturn at breakneck speeds and switching to some other mon on my team. it is strong against every non ground immunity ever. I click earthquake.

Raging Bolt @ Magnet
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 240 HP / 124 Def / 144 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 20 Atk
- Thunderclap
- Dragon Pulse
- Calm Mind
- Thunderbolt

I love this pokemon. It's so silly and so adorable and I love watching it on my showdown screen. it also kills most of the ground immunities that destroy landorus so that's cool I guess. to tank more hits from enemies while pivoting, I gave bolt a bit more bulk since I know I'm going to click thunderbolt on the stay or thunderbolt/dragon pulse on the switch 80% of the time anyways. no need for speed. I gave it 144 modest since it makes 380 spatk and I like round numbers and 400 is a bit overkill smile. I should probably put boots on bolt but 84 bp thunderclaps so much damage. weak against kyurem, ting lu. strong against basically everything.

Great Tusk @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Rapid Spin
- Headlong Rush
- Ice Spinner

god I hate glimmora.

I like how flexible the standard fast tusk set is. originally I tried out moves like taunt, stealth rock, knock off, temper flare but they all seemed fairly redundant compared to how much damage and consistency headlong rush and close combat have together. rapid spin because even without having to clear hazards, the speed boosting aspect of the move allows for easy sweeps by great tusk. ice spinner because I hate gliscor.

Darkrai @ Focus Sash
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Taunt
- Focus Blast

focus sash is so rarely used except for cheese mons like blaziken and ceruledge, I thought it would give me another surprise factor that would give me an advantage for games. allows me to easily deal with setup sweepers like iron valiant, kingambit (if I don't miss focus blast), roaring moon (if I particularly need to conserve scizors hp). also helps in most support mon matchups like gliscor, sinstcha, tinkaton, alomomola, and slowking. this mon struggles the most against primarina and ogerpon wellspring. I usually just tend to click taunt, then darkpulse and sac it. its a nice pokemon against most teams since it can work as clean up in messy games.

I think a core of scizor, tusk, and darkrai work well offensively so I'd like to keep that intact. If someone has any suggestions (especially for movesets and evs) that would be super awesome :3
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Good start! Its my first rate in a while so bear with me but here are some suggestions:

Switch Scizor over to Choice-Band :Choice-band:. While having a free pivot is nice, the power the CB offers is much better. This is because it can not only revenge more things, but can also force them out more reliably (like Ting-Lu) The extra from CB pressures alot of mons in the tier, chipping them for the rest of your team. I also went ahead and made Scizor just max max Adamant, hitting 229 speed. This is just enough to speed creep Moltres, and no speed Gliscor. Although you might not have bulk, Landorus' Intimidate can help Scizor switch into more things, and realistically Scizor will only be taking a hit or two a game (most likely) into a resist.

Swapping Clefable for Gholdengo would be my next suggestion, because Clef is a rather passive mon when not running CM sets. Gholdengo lets you pressure Corviknight more, keeping Rocks up as well as can switch into Rapid Spin attempts. I just chose a generic bulky set, but you could experiment more if you want. Twave offers support but you could easily run NP or something else. Also helps check Kyurem a bit more.

Next, I would just go with Landorus on a utility set. While getting suprise kills is fun, it renders you defensive backbone rather frail. Being not choiced lets it set rocks and pressure more easily and taunt lets you prevent the opponent from healing or defogging you rocks away. I did make it 309 Speed Lando, which is a preference of mine because it gets the jump on Tusk, and can taunt a wider variety of things. Earth Power is to threaten Great Tusk and Zamazenta, which have higher Phys Def.

With Raging Bolt, you can't really go wrong with its set, but I would just recommend using Booster Energy because Darkai already weakens alot of your checks. I made it the standard Modest set, because the speed it gives is just the most consistent, and Landorus' Intimidate should be enough to let Bolt take a hit.

Last change is swapping Tusk with Zamazenta. Scizor really pressures Zamazenta's checks, and just fits well as a Weavile soft check. I gave you the standard IDBP set, with Stone Edge > Roar.

I made Darkai the standard set with Boots, to have a better matchup vs Webs teams, can't go wrong with the standard set. You could swap the set you currently have to an wisp utility one as well, which is just swapping Plot and Sludge for Knock and Wisp. This lets you cripple checks like Ting-Lu, Clodsire and Kingambit.

Darkrai @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Knock Off
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Will-O-Wisp

Thats all! The changes I made might have made the team be played in a bit of a faster pace, but I hope you enjoy!
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2294428056-bkjlh3hlhp9xu6d90yqbtlgpi55qqlcpw here is an example game around your ELO range, for an idea on how to play the team and how Scizor pressures to help open up your Zamazenta/Bolt/Darkai wincons.
:scizor::gholdengo::Landorus-Therian::raging-bolt::zamazenta::darkrai: <-- click here for new team paste
 
Good start! Its my first rate in a while so bear with me but here are some suggestions:

Switch Scizor over to Choice-Band :Choice-band:. While having a free pivot is nice, the power the CB offers is much better. This is because it can not only revenge more things, but can also force them out more reliably (like Ting-Lu) The extra from CB pressures alot of mons in the tier, chipping them for the rest of your team. I also went ahead and made Scizor just max max Adamant, hitting 229 speed. This is just enough to speed creep Moltres, and no speed Gliscor. Although you might not have bulk, Landorus' Intimidate can help Scizor switch into more things, and realistically Scizor will only be taking a hit or two a game (most likely) into a resist.

Swapping Clefable for Gholdengo would be my next suggestion, because Clef is a rather passive mon when not running CM sets. Gholdengo lets you pressure Corviknight more, keeping Rocks up as well as can switch into Rapid Spin attempts. I just chose a generic bulky set, but you could experiment more if you want. Twave offers support but you could easily run NP or something else. Also helps check Kyurem a bit more.

Next, I would just go with Landorus on a utility set. While getting suprise kills is fun, it renders you defensive backbone rather frail. Being not choiced lets it set rocks and pressure more easily and taunt lets you prevent the opponent from healing or defogging you rocks away. I did make it 309 Speed Lando, which is a preference of mine because it gets the jump on Tusk, and can taunt a wider variety of things. Earth Power is to threaten Great Tusk and Zamazenta, which have higher Phys Def.

With Raging Bolt, you can't really go wrong with its set, but I would just recommend using Booster Energy because Darkai already weakens alot of your checks. I made it the standard Modest set, because the speed it gives is just the most consistent, and Landorus' Intimidate should be enough to let Bolt take a hit.

Last change is swapping Tusk with Zamazenta. Scizor really pressures Zamazenta's checks, and just fits well as a Weavile soft check. I gave you the standard IDBP set, with Stone Edge > Roar.

I made Darkai the standard set with Boots, to have a better matchup vs Webs teams, can't go wrong with the standard set. You could swap the set you currently have to an wisp utility one as well, which is just swapping Plot and Sludge for Knock and Wisp. This lets you cripple checks like Ting-Lu, Clodsire and Kingambit.

Darkrai @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Knock Off
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Will-O-Wisp

Thats all! The changes I made might have made the team be played in a bit of a faster pace, but I hope you enjoy!
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2294428056-bkjlh3hlhp9xu6d90yqbtlgpi55qqlcpw here is an example game around your ELO range, for an idea on how to play the team and how Scizor pressures to help open up your Zamazenta/Bolt/Darkai wincons.
:scizor::gholdengo::Landorus-Therian::raging-bolt::zamazenta::darkrai: <-- click here for new team paste
ooooo. tysm for the suggestions. I have like 2 questions about the suggestions if you don't mind answering :3

first question is, is there a need to speedcreep moltres with scizor of all things? like even if scizor is faster than moltres, I think I'd still be terrified of flame body to click any move like knock off or uturn to properly do damage to it.

the second question is what booster energy does. this isn't just like a random bash or anything, I'm just genuinely curious what booster energy does. I always tend to use booster energy on hyper offensive teams where I'm going for the kill one, sac one approach. But most of the teams I see on the forum tend to use booster energy on raging bolt, walking wake, and sometimes great tusk. Do these mons change their role from wallbreakers to sweepers if you give them booster energy?

anyways I know I said this already but thank you so much for the suggestions, I really appreciated the amount of explanation you put into it <3
 
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