SS OU Hyper Offense with Gardevoir and Milotic

[PlzHelpImDumb]

Hi guys first time posting. I've been trying to make a team with Gardevoir and Milotic work for a while now but I'm having trouble with priority attackers like Rillaboom, Dragon dance dragapult and tapu koko.

Baefish (Milotic) @ Leftovers
Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 244 HP / 228 Def / 36 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Scald
- Flip Turn
- Ice Beam
- Recover

I've been fiddling about with the ice beam moveslot, it's a good check for dragon/grass types and tornadus but toxic can be good against walls that lack steel typing or natural cure. I went with relaxed so that I can use flip turn to go into kartana and gardevoir against more mons while getting a little extra chip damage.

I mostly use it to tank hits and scald or pivot, the recover is nice for sustain and prevents me from sacking mons until later in the game.

Origami (Kartana) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword

I have run kartana banded in the past and I am considering scarfing it but the potential to swords dance into landorus switch ins and chansey are very nice. I'm using it as a wallbreaker with potential to sweep.

Pinky (Mew) @ Red Card
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Flare Blitz

The stealth rock and spikes are really nice and occasionally flare blitz cripples a sneazel kartana or ferrothorn but this one feels like it loses me as many games as it wins. I might just need to get better at reading my opponents team so they have fewer opportunities to setup against it.

Starfruit (Jirachi) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Cosmic Power
- Stored Power
- Rest
- Snore

This one often takes games for me and serves as a good late game sweeper, the snores can let it chip down dark types if they lose their leftovers and against slower teams it makes setting up a breeze. Mainly it needs me to get rid of dark types in the early game and a chance to setup before they bring in a fire or ground type attacker. Ghosts are also a big issue if they outspeed and hit hard enough to OHKO

Landshark (Garchomp) @ Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Scale Shot

Honestly just a strong boy, ground typing lets it check regieleki which otherwise sweeps this team and if it sets up against walls it can take out half a team, tends to be one of the earliest on my team to go down though and dragapult can really screw it if I don't predict it switching in with scale shot.

Waifumon (Gardevoir) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball

Good for cleaing up after jirachi, and baits out heatran for the milotic switch in but keeps getting wrecked by priority physical attackers. I've been fiddling about with shadowball but I'm not sure what else to use the fourth move slot for, I haven't been seeing many good opportunities to trick (Common counters don't really suffer from being limited to one move) or healing wish (Most of my mons go down too quick to really benefit from it and milotic can already heal).

 

[vinicius luiggi]

Hey, I am not a big brain pIayer, as got here trying to get help for my own team, but i think i can give u some, constructive insight.

So the team does look like hyper offense, the flare blitz on mew is a weird choice, I get ur reasons, but how often would u rather have a more flexible move to hit people with? like boom!!!

The thing that doesn't seem to make sense is milotic, she is basically 1/3 of a balance defensive core, and yeah she will give ur hyper offense switches into some things, but she doen't help the general game of the team, I can see 3 aIternatives:

1st. If u want a true catch all, there is a abomination called hyper offense blissey, if u wanna have 1 mon that counter as many things as possible blisseys is that mon, but don't even consider this very long.

2nd. Millotic gets competitive, wich is a great anty defog tool, slap some offensive EVs on that gril and put her in a sticky web team, and watch that pretty fish, destroy families, sitcky web isn't super hot atm because of boots but neither is defog, so it might break even.

3rd. U have many set up sweepers, Millotic gets screens, use screens! be it with miIlotic, grimsnarI, ninetales alola, tapukoko, ur pick.

 

[ironwater]

Hey there, I’m here to rate your team and help you improve it.

I get that you want to use Milotic and Gardevoir , but unfortunately, they are both unviable in OU. This is because Gardevoir is just a bad version of Tapu Lele . The latter has better stats and a broken ability and even if Gardevoir has Trick and Healing Wish, it’s still way worse than Tapu Lele. Milotic is in theory a good bulky Water type, but in practice it is outclassed by the other Bulky Water types in OU like Toxapex , Slowking and Tapu Fini . Indeed, Toxapex and the Slowtwins have Regenarator which allow them to easily pivot on a lot of breakers. Tapu Fini has better stats and a better defensive typing as well as more utility moves. Milotic may have a little niche with Flip Turn, but in my opinion, it will still remain a worse Toxapex/Tapu Fini. Anyway, a defensive wall like Milotic doesn’t fit in an Hyper Offense, as in this kind of team you want to apply a constant pressure. As vinicius luiggi mentioned it, Milotic has access to Competitive and thus could have a niche in an offensive team with an offensive set that punish the opponent from Defogging Mew’s hazards. However, Milotic coverage is pretty bad, having only Hydro Pump/Surf and Ice Beam and Milotic lacks both of power and Speed to be a real threat, even after a boost. It is also unable to boost its Spa without Competitive, making it pretty useless if your opponent doesn’t click Defog mindlessly. Bisharp , while being a very different Pokemon on a lot of aspects, is probably just way better to deter the use of Defog while still being able to use Swords Dance to boost its Attack even when the opponent doesn’t activate Defiant. If you really want to use Gardevoir and Milotic, I think you should try them in RU and not in OU. I don’t know anything about RU, but as they are both in this tier it should be easier to make a team around them.

For the rest of the rate, I will assume that we stick to OU and will thus make suggestions and propose changes on the team in order to make a viable HO in OU. This means that I will remove Milotic and Gardevoir. So, going over the other Pokemon, Mew is a nice suicide lead as it has access to both Stealth Rock and Spikes and can even Taunt any Defogger to ensure that you will have some layer of hazards. Garchomp and Kartana are two deadly setup sweepers that appreciate a lot to see their answers weakened by the hazards previously laid. Lastly, Jirachi can be a good setup sweepers with this set, but you rather keep this kind of sets for Screens HO, as without Screens it’s hard to properly setup with Cosmic Power. In a Stack Hazards HO you want to have setup sweepers that needs very few turns to be efficient as you need to constantly pressure the opposing team if you want to keep your hazards up. To be fair, you can just make an HO by using a lead (like your Mew) and then stacking strong setup sweepers. I’ll propose you something like that as it works pretty well in the current OU metagame. Let’s dive into the suggestions!


Major Changes

-> : To replace Gardevoir, I suggest Tapu Bulu as it is an incredibly strong breaker that can bruteforce through a lot of bulky Flying types with both Swords Dance and Stone Edge. It also brings the support of Grassy Terrain to boost Kartana’s attacks and help its teammates. Use it carefully with Garchomp as you don’t want to setup Garchomp when the terrain is still up. Here is the classic Swords Dance set:

Tapu Bulu @ Life Orb
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge


-> : This slot is your anti Defog Pokemon. If Milotic could work with a Competitive set, but I feel like Bisharp is just better with Defiant and a nice priority move in Sucker Punch. This is the classic Swords Dance Bisharp set, keep in mind that it can take two Shadow Ball from Specs Dragapult if you need an emergency answer to it:

Bisharp @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

If you really want to try Milotic, you can maybe use this kind of set, but it is in my opinion a suboptimal choice over Bisharp:

Milotic @ Life Orb / Leftovers
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Toxic / Scald


-> : You need some Speed Control and instead of a Jirachi that will be very hard to setup, you can play Hawlucha who will active unburden with Tapu Bulu’s terrain. Try to keep Hawlucha alive and use it for a late game sweep if your opponent has fast threats that outspeed your other Pokemon. The set is just below, with the spread to take one Moonblast from Clefable and Stone Edge to hit Flying types like Zapdos (Taunt is an option to prevent Defog and Toxic):

Hawlucha @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 Atk / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge / Taunt
- Close Combat
- Acrobatics


Minor Changes

: I would just use Explosion over Flare Blitz as I find it better in more situations and it helps fulfilling your role of suicide lead better. Flare Blitz is still useful against a lot of Steel types that may come against this Mew so you can keep it if you rather do so.


: Not a big change here, you should just use Fire Fang over Stone Edge as Fire Fang helps you beating Corviknight which will then help all the other breakers and even if Stone Edge hits Mandibuzz really hard, you rather have something for Corviknight as it is way more common (and Tapu Bulu can switch-in easily on Mandibuzz).


Kartana’s set is fine and you can keep it without any change.


Yeah, I know, this is just five Swords Dance users with a suicide lead, but having only physical attackers is not really an issue as you can easily overwhelm the most common Physical walls. You just have to be cautious against fast breakers like Dragapult and Scarf Tapu Lele as you don’t have a lot of defensive answers and most of your Pokemon are slower.

Anyway, that’s all for the suggestions, here is the new team. Feel free to try it out if you want to test an HO in OU:

The past

Mew @ Red Card
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion

Garchomp @ Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Scale Shot

Kartana @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword

Tapu Bulu @ Life Orb
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

Hawlucha @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 Atk / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
- Close Combat
- Acrobatics

Bisharp @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

I tested the team at ~1600 on the ladder and here are some replays that shows a bit of this kind of team works:

Against some kind of Bulky offense (I didn’t clicked Earthquake at the end because I wrote Earth Power instead in the builder x):
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1384347288-zcfhf8rc9g194fi5hj6heam8v8ma9bopw

Against a very defensive team:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1384354191-0tkymcdw53qmlo5tyljvcj31oe7dd6vpw


Hope this was helpful, have a nice day!

 

[skyhigh981]

Hey there, I’m here to rate your team and help you improve it.

I get that you want to use Milotic and Gardevoir , but unfortunately, they are both unviable in OU. This is because Gardevoir is just a bad version of Tapu Lele . The latter has better stats and a broken ability and even if Gardevoir has Trick and Healing Wish, it’s still way worse than Tapu Lele. Milotic is in theory a good bulky Water type, but in practice it is outclassed by the other Bulky Water types in OU like Toxapex , Slowking and Tapu Fini . Indeed, Toxapex and the Slowtwins have Regenarator which allow them to easily pivot on a lot of breakers. Tapu Fini has better stats and a better defensive typing as well as more utility moves. Milotic may have a little niche with Flip Turn, but in my opinion, it will still remain a worse Toxapex/Tapu Fini. Anyway, a defensive wall like Milotic doesn’t fit in an Hyper Offense, as in this kind of team you want to apply a constant pressure. As vinicius luiggi mentioned it, Milotic has access to Competitive and thus could have a niche in an offensive team with an offensive set that punish the opponent from Defogging Mew’s hazards. However, Milotic coverage is pretty bad, having only Hydro Pump/Surf and Ice Beam and Milotic lacks both of power and Speed to be a real threat, even after a boost. It is also unable to boost its Spa without Competitive, making it pretty useless if your opponent doesn’t click Defog mindlessly. Bisharp , while being a very different Pokemon on a lot of aspects, is probably just way better to deter the use of Defog while still being able to use Swords Dance to boost its Attack even when the opponent doesn’t activate Defiant. If you really want to use Gardevoir and Milotic, I think you should try them in RU and not in OU. I don’t know anything about RU, but as they are both in this tier it should be easier to make a team around them.

For the rest of the rate, I will assume that we stick to OU and will thus make suggestions and propose changes on the team in order to make a viable HO in OU. This means that I will remove Milotic and Gardevoir. So, going over the other Pokemon, Mew is a nice suicide lead as it has access to both Stealth Rock and Spikes and can even Taunt any Defogger to ensure that you will have some layer of hazards. Garchomp and Kartana are two deadly setup sweepers that appreciate a lot to see their answers weakened by the hazards previously laid. Lastly, Jirachi can be a good setup sweepers with this set, but you rather keep this kind of sets for Screens HO, as without Screens it’s hard to properly setup with Cosmic Power. In a Stack Hazards HO you want to have setup sweepers that needs very few turns to be efficient as you need to constantly pressure the opposing team if you want to keep your hazards up. To be fair, you can just make an HO by using a lead (like your Mew) and then stacking strong setup sweepers. I’ll propose you something like that as it works pretty well in the current OU metagame. Let’s dive into the suggestions!


Major Changes

-> : To replace Gardevoir, I suggest Tapu Bulu as it is an incredibly strong breaker that can bruteforce through a lot of bulky Flying types with both Swords Dance and Stone Edge. It also brings the support of Grassy Terrain to boost Kartana’s attacks and help its teammates. Use it carefully with Garchomp as you don’t want to setup Garchomp when the terrain is still up. Here is the classic Swords Dance set:

View attachment 361127
Tapu Bulu @ Life Orb
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge


-> : This slot is your anti Defog Pokemon. If Milotic could work with a Competitive set, but I feel like Bisharp is just better with Defiant and a nice priority move in Sucker Punch. This is the classic Swords Dance Bisharp set, keep in mind that it can take two Shadow Ball from Specs Dragapult if you need an emergency answer to it:

View attachment 361128
Bisharp @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

If you really want to try Milotic, you can maybe use this kind of set, but it is in my opinion a suboptimal choice over Bisharp:

View attachment 361130
Milotic @ Life Orb / Leftovers
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Toxic / Scald


-> : You need some Speed Control and instead of a Jirachi that will be very hard to setup, you can play Hawlucha who will active unburden with Tapu Bulu’s terrain. Try to keep Hawlucha alive and use it for a late game sweep if your opponent has fast threats that outspeed your other Pokemon. The set is just below, with the spread to take one Moonblast from Clefable and Stone Edge to hit Flying types like Zapdos (Taunt is an option to prevent Defog and Toxic):

View attachment 361129
Hawlucha @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 Atk / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge / Taunt
- Close Combat
- Acrobatics


Minor Changes

: I would just use Explosion over Flare Blitz as I find it better in more situations and it helps fulfilling your role of suicide lead better. Flare Blitz is still useful against a lot of Steel types that may come against this Mew so you can keep it if you rather do so.


: Not a big change here, you should just use Fire Fang over Stone Edge as Fire Fang helps you beating Corviknight which will then help all the other breakers and even if Stone Edge hits Mandibuzz really hard, you rather have something for Corviknight as it is way more common (and Tapu Bulu can switch-in easily on Mandibuzz).


Kartana’s set is fine and you can keep it without any change.


Yeah, I know, this is just five Swords Dance users with a suicide lead, but having only physical attackers is not really an issue as you can easily overwhelm the most common Physical walls. You just have to be cautious against fast breakers like Dragapult and Scarf Tapu Lele as you don’t have a lot of defensive answers and most of your Pokemon are slower.

Anyway, that’s all for the suggestions, here is the new team. Feel free to try it out if you want to test an HO in OU:

The past

Mew @ Red Card
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion

Garchomp @ Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Scale Shot

Kartana @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword

Tapu Bulu @ Life Orb
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

Hawlucha @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 Atk / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
- Close Combat
- Acrobatics

Bisharp @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

I tested the team at ~1600 on the ladder and here are some replays that shows a bit of this kind of team works:

Against some kind of Bulky offense (I didn’t clicked Earthquake at the end because I wrote Earth Power instead in the builder x):
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1384347288-zcfhf8rc9g194fi5hj6heam8v8ma9bopw

Against a very defensive team:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1384354191-0tkymcdw53qmlo5tyljvcj31oe7dd6vpw


Hope this was helpful, have a nice day!

Hey there, I’m here to rate your team and help you improve it.

I get that you want to use Milotic and Gardevoir , but unfortunately, they are both unviable in OU. This is because Gardevoir is just a bad version of Tapu Lele . The latter has better stats and a broken ability and even if Gardevoir has Trick and Healing Wish, it’s still way worse than Tapu Lele. Milotic is in theory a good bulky Water type, but in practice it is outclassed by the other Bulky Water types in OU like Toxapex , Slowking and Tapu Fini . Indeed, Toxapex and the Slowtwins have Regenarator which allow them to easily pivot on a lot of breakers. Tapu Fini has better stats and a better defensive typing as well as more utility moves. Milotic may have a little niche with Flip Turn, but in my opinion, it will still remain a worse Toxapex/Tapu Fini. Anyway, a defensive wall like Milotic doesn’t fit in an Hyper Offense, as in this kind of team you want to apply a constant pressure. As vinicius luiggi mentioned it, Milotic has access to Competitive and thus could have a niche in an offensive team with an offensive set that punish the opponent from Defogging Mew’s hazards. However, Milotic coverage is pretty bad, having only Hydro Pump/Surf and Ice Beam and Milotic lacks both of power and Speed to be a real threat, even after a boost. It is also unable to boost its Spa without Competitive, making it pretty useless if your opponent doesn’t click Defog mindlessly. Bisharp , while being a very different Pokemon on a lot of aspects, is probably just way better to deter the use of Defog while still being able to use Swords Dance to boost its Attack even when the opponent doesn’t activate Defiant. If you really want to use Gardevoir and Milotic, I think you should try them in RU and not in OU. I don’t know anything about RU, but as they are both in this tier it should be easier to make a team around them.

For the rest of the rate, I will assume that we stick to OU and will thus make suggestions and propose changes on the team in order to make a viable HO in OU. This means that I will remove Milotic and Gardevoir. So, going over the other Pokemon, Mew is a nice suicide lead as it has access to both Stealth Rock and Spikes and can even Taunt any Defogger to ensure that you will have some layer of hazards. Garchomp and Kartana are two deadly setup sweepers that appreciate a lot to see their answers weakened by the hazards previously laid. Lastly, Jirachi can be a good setup sweepers with this set, but you rather keep this kind of sets for Screens HO, as without Screens it’s hard to properly setup with Cosmic Power. In a Stack Hazards HO you want to have setup sweepers that needs very few turns to be efficient as you need to constantly pressure the opposing team if you want to keep your hazards up. To be fair, you can just make an HO by using a lead (like your Mew) and then stacking strong setup sweepers. I’ll propose you something like that as it works pretty well in the current OU metagame. Let’s dive into the suggestions!


Major Changes

-> : To replace Gardevoir, I suggest Tapu Bulu as it is an incredibly strong breaker that can bruteforce through a lot of bulky Flying types with both Swords Dance and Stone Edge. It also brings the support of Grassy Terrain to boost Kartana’s attacks and help its teammates. Use it carefully with Garchomp as you don’t want to setup Garchomp when the terrain is still up. Here is the classic Swords Dance set:

View attachment 361127
Tapu Bulu @ Life Orb
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge


-> : This slot is your anti Defog Pokemon. If Milotic could work with a Competitive set, but I feel like Bisharp is just better with Defiant and a nice priority move in Sucker Punch. This is the classic Swords Dance Bisharp set, keep in mind that it can take two Shadow Ball from Specs Dragapult if you need an emergency answer to it:

View attachment 361128
Bisharp @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

If you really want to try Milotic, you can maybe use this kind of set, but it is in my opinion a suboptimal choice over Bisharp:

View attachment 361130
Milotic @ Life Orb / Leftovers
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Toxic / Scald


-> : You need some Speed Control and instead of a Jirachi that will be very hard to setup, you can play Hawlucha who will active unburden with Tapu Bulu’s terrain. Try to keep Hawlucha alive and use it for a late game sweep if your opponent has fast threats that outspeed your other Pokemon. The set is just below, with the spread to take one Moonblast from Clefable and Stone Edge to hit Flying types like Zapdos (Taunt is an option to prevent Defog and Toxic):

View attachment 361129
Hawlucha @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 Atk / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge / Taunt
- Close Combat
- Acrobatics


Minor Changes

: I would just use Explosion over Flare Blitz as I find it better in more situations and it helps fulfilling your role of suicide lead better. Flare Blitz is still useful against a lot of Steel types that may come against this Mew so you can keep it if you rather do so.


: Not a big change here, you should just use Fire Fang over Stone Edge as Fire Fang helps you beating Corviknight which will then help all the other breakers and even if Stone Edge hits Mandibuzz really hard, you rather have something for Corviknight as it is way more common (and Tapu Bulu can switch-in easily on Mandibuzz).


Kartana’s set is fine and you can keep it without any change.


Yeah, I know, this is just five Swords Dance users with a suicide lead, but having only physical attackers is not really an issue as you can easily overwhelm the most common Physical walls. You just have to be cautious against fast breakers like Dragapult and Scarf Tapu Lele as you don’t have a lot of defensive answers and most of your Pokemon are slower.

Anyway, that’s all for the suggestions, here is the new team. Feel free to try it out if you want to test an HO in OU:

The past

Mew @ Red Card
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion

Garchomp @ Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Scale Shot

Kartana @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword

Tapu Bulu @ Life Orb
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

Hawlucha @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 Atk / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
- Close Combat
- Acrobatics

Bisharp @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

I tested the team at ~1600 on the ladder and here are some replays that shows a bit of this kind of team works:

Against some kind of Bulky offense (I didn’t clicked Earthquake at the end because I wrote Earth Power instead in the builder x):
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1384347288-zcfhf8rc9g194fi5hj6heam8v8ma9bopw

Against a very defensive team:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1384354191-0tkymcdw53qmlo5tyljvcj31oe7dd6vpw


Hope this was helpful, have a nice day!

Whether a Pokémon is viable or not depends on how the user crafts the move set and the synergy the mon has with its teammates. I’ve seen people sweep using a Comfey and other traditionally ‘unviable’ pokemon in OU to great effect. You play either according to the Pokémon’s strength or the surprise element. For instance, I use Flame Orb Milotic as a physical wall to great effect in OU and has hit 1.8k before. So I cannot agree with the cookie cutter selections of pokemon - everyone should get a lil creative!

 

[ironwater]

Whether a Pokémon is viable or not depends on how the user crafts the move set and the synergy the mon has with its teammates. I’ve seen people sweep using a Comfey and other traditionally ‘unviable’ pokemon in OU to great effect. You play either according to the Pokémon’s strength or the surprise element. For instance, I use Flame Orb Milotic as a physical wall to great effect in OU and has hit 1.8k before. So I cannot agree with the cookie cutter selections of pokemon - everyone should get a lil creative!

Thanks for reading my rate and making a comment about it. I will address the point you raised about using uncommon/underrated Pokemon in OU first in the context of the team and then with a more general scope as I feel that you want to raise a more general point.


This team is designed to be some sort of Hyper Offense and thus, the first thing that come in mind is that both Gardevoir and Milotic are not great choices in this kind of team regardless of their viability in OU. In particular, defensive Milotic has nothing to do here as it will only make you lose the offensive pressure and offensive momentum. As for Gardevoir, it doesn’t hit hard enough with a Choice Scarf set (and is way to slow with a Choice Specs one). Now, Milotic could work with an offensive set because Competitive pairs well with Stack Hazards. However, and this is what I explained, you will struggle to be as efficient as something like Bisharp. This is because Milotic coverage is rather bad, its offensive stats are not the greatest and you really rely on getting Competitive activated if you want to put any kind of pressure on the opposing team. Bisharp has Swords Dance to boost its Attack anyway and can use Sucker Punch to compensate its middling Speed, something that Milotic can’t do. Of course, I’m not saying that Bisharp is a strictly better version of Milotic as these Pokemon have a lot of differences, but my point is to say: why would you use Milotic in this particular context when a Pokemon like Bisharp does a similar job but better and with way more tools. It is not only about a Pokemon being unviable and another one being viable in the tier but rather about this Pokemon brings more to the team. Now, about Gardevoir, it is an example of why I don’t agree with your first sentence: “Whether a Pokémon is viable or not depends on how the user crafts the move set and the synergy the mon has with its teammates.” This is not completely false, but also not completely true. I’ll go more in depth about it in the second part, but going back to Gardevoir, I think it is a great example of why some Pokemon are unviable not because they are fundamentally bad but rather because they are suboptimal choices over another Pokemon. Thus, how can you justify a Gardevoir in your team if you are playing in a tier where Tapu Lele exists. They both have the same typing and a very similar movepool, but Tapu Lele has strictly better Stats being bulkier, hitting harder and being faster. Moreover, Tapu Lele has an ability that makes him hits even harder and brings much more than Gardevoir’s abilities. Am I saying that Gardevoir is bad because it’s not written “OU” in front of it? No. What I am saying is that it’s really hard to justify such a Pokemon when you can pick something that will do the same job better 90% of the time.


This allows me to move to the second part, which is mainly about why you shouldn’t confuse creativity with making suboptimal choices. You raised an interesting point about creativity. No one can deny that creativity is part of building and we can even see that with the recent tournaments (WCoP, OLT) where new sets were used on some very common Pokemon and new Pokemon like Weavile went from almost never used to extremely popular choices. This emphasizes the fact that creativity is not only using lower tiers Pokemon in OU because they can have a niche. By “not only” I obviously don’t mean that using a non-OU Pokemon to have a more “creative” team makes it automatically bad. Of course, some Pokemon have interesting niche in OU while being in lower tiers. You have given the example of Comfey, which is not the best one but can still work because it’s the only Triage user and can thus be interesting in some matchups (even if sweeping with it is actually rather hard as a lot of Pokemon completely walls it like most Steel types and it’s still easier to sweep with something like Tapu Fini or Clefable most of the time). There are other examples like Shedinja is stall teams, Gastrodon or Umbreon in a defensive role, Alolan Ninetales as a Veil setter and so on. These Pokemon can work in OU while being in a lower tier because they bring something different then what their main competitors in OU can do. Of course, these underrated Pokemon still need to fulfill a very specific role which explain why their usages in OU are low, and most of the time they don’t fit in any team and need to be well supported by their teammates. Now if these are examples of Pokemon that can have a niche in OU, it’s clearly not the case for every Pokemon and that’s why I said that creativity shouldn’t be confused with making suboptimal choices. I talked about Gardevoir being a bad Tapu Lele above and it’s a great example of this, but they are plenty of examples like Politoad being a worse option over Pelipper or Raikou being a worse Tapu Koko… You took the example of Milotic and even if it isn’t a strictly suboptimal choice over an OU Pokemon, its niche is very limited because of how it struggles to compete with the bulky Water types in the tier. It has some nice tools like Flip Turn and Marvel Scale and can be justified on some specific teams. But most of the time it will still remain a bad choice over Pokemon like Toxapex and Tapu Fini that can regen their health passively instead of losing it (with Flame Orb) or bring a more interesting typing and movepool, and it’s actually really hard to make a team where Milotic is the best option. I don’t think more example are needed and this whole point can basically be summed up by saying that if creativity is important in building it’s not only about playing underrated or “unviable” Pokemon and you can’t use any non-OU Pokemon and make it viable with the right support as some Pokemon are just worse options over others.


I said I will make two points, but I just want to emphasize quickly on something. Building around underrated Pokemon and using specific teams that may make work an underrated Pokemon is way harder than sticking to the tier staples. Thus, and it is an advice we often give in the Trainer Academy room where a lot of teams are linked every day, if you are beginning in the tier/game (and they clearly are here), you don’t want to start with creative builds or teams, but you rather use solid and classic teams to get some experience in the tier without being stuck in low ladder because your team is too hard to use (and I’m not talking about bad teams that are completely unviable here, but rather more extravagant and ”creative” builds). Creativity in building, but also in the way you’re playing will come after and that’s why I’ve proposed something more classic and easier to use.


It is already a very long answer and I don’t want to make it even longer. I will just say as a closing word that the approach I took here was to keep the idea of an Hyper Offense and thus remove the choices that made no sense in this kind of team, because (and I detailed this enough) underrated Pokemon don’t fit in any team and are often way harder to use and to build around. Feel free, to propose a team or suggestions to build around defensive Milotic if you have ideas as it will give them something very different from what I’ve proposed (but please replace Gardevoir by Tapu Lele or something else). Now, I still think that if their goal is to use both Gardevoir and Milotic because they are their favorite Pokemon, RU is a more appropriate tier than OU.


I hope I’ve made my choices on the team and my point of vu about this topic clearer. Have a nice day!

 

[PlzHelpImDumb]

Hi thank you so much for the advice, I have been trying out a competitive on the Milotic (in line with the initial suggestion made by luiggi) and Ironwater has it pegged, it just doesn't do enough damage to be worth it, most of the time it was better to switch into garchomp or kartana and setup. I will be adjusting the hyper offense team based on their suggestions and using that to climb the ladder. At present I'm climbing back up to 1500 after dropping to the 1300s.

tbh coming in I'd been realizing that gardevoir was just not working, it's too slow and lacks any priority moves, Tapu lele is a strictly better than choice gardevoir. That said my thinking going into the team was trying to make gardevoir and milotic work in OU, being pretty inexperienced I basically packaged them with strong OU sweepers and called it a day. So if anyone does have suggestions for how I can build a solid team around them I'd love to hear them even if they're not hyper offense.

 

[vinicius luiggi]

While ironwater suggestions really are the ones to follow if ur goal is to make the best team, I feel like he did lose the heart of the team.

So PlzHelpImDumb sure Gardevoir is for a large part, a worse Tapu-lele, but it gets Expanding force, and Healing wish, and Will-o-wisp, Wish, so there are a few things gardevoir can do better than tapu-lele, if ur goal isn't to make the best most competitive team ever, but make a team that can win more often than not while using some of ur favorite mons, that is perfectly doable, usually if that is the goal I'd say pick just one mon to start, so either gardevoir or miloric, unless u have a core in mind like venussaur+torkal, and in the case of gardevoir try something lele can't do, like sub+calm mind+trace and make heatrans cry, if u put disable in there u can smack a few blisseys too , or do something like terrain extender lele + expanding force gardevoir, and u can even have healing wish in that set to maybe bring back one of ur breaker that might have gotten status, perhaps even that lele who maybe is a calm mind set, that might be fun huhn?

My point is u can make the best team, or u can make the team you want, with the mon you want, sometimes those might even be the same every now and then a lower tier mon terrorizes OU.

When u do build a team with some weird mon, just keep in mind a few things, and right from the top of my head 2 big ones are:

What can this mon do that is unique to it?

What type of team does it fit?

 

[PlzHelpImDumb]

Oh certainly, I'm going to be spending some time trying to teambuild around each mon going forward but I am having fun playing with a team that's actually equipped for this meta and has some synergies. That said a Tapu-lele/Gardevoir core seems like a good idea for me to try building around if I want to make gardevoir work. Any suggestions for building around Milotic, I'm not really a fan of stall teams and I'm not sure where else it would really excel in ou.

 

[vinicius luiggi]

PlzHelpImDumb Milotic is a good balance mon, I am not sure if u are familiar but those are teams with usually 1-2 sweepers, 1-2 breakers and 3-4 mons that make up a defensive core, its not a bad idea to have milotic be in one of these, as part of maybe water/grass/fire defensive trio, on top of that ironwater mentioned that milotic gets flip-turn and if we know anything is that defensive mons, with u-turn/teleport/flip-turn are usually fine, I'd run marvel scale in a defensive milo, and prob run specially defensive, maybe tech mirror coat as that can blow a hole in tapu kokos if the rest of ur teams ends up loking for that kind of stuff, as for item definetly leftovers or heavy duty boots. I'd for sure pair her with u-turn/volt-switch users, and with 1-2 HEAVY HITTERS look for things that can capitalize on whatever is comming in vs milo, if ferrotorn is a common switch in specs eruption tran or blacephalon might be the way.

This first paragrah descibred my understanding of milotics best role, but I have a very hard time building arround defensive mons, if I pick a mon to use I usually want to see it be the star, so as I look trough milotics milotics move set and I see coil/hypnosis I think about something Iike this!


Milotic @ Leftovers
Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Waterfall
- Recover
- Coil
- Hypnosis

Or maybe I'd stick with the previus sugestion regarding sticky web and something like this.


Milotic @ Blunder Policy
Ability: Competitive
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Hypnosis
- Hyper Beam

 

[PlzHelpImDumb]

Thanks for this I think I might try building a balanced team with milotic as a defensive core, I did actually try to make a more offensive Milotic work in the past using dragon dance (Problem was that even after three dragon dances it coudn't OHKO anything), coil could work if I set up before zeroara or rillaboom but I am very interested in the idea of mirror coat blasting an overeager tapu koko.

So I have been working a bit on a gardevoir/tapu-lele offensive team, I'm thinking Gardevoir/tapu-lele for moonblast/expanding force attacks, Hawlucha and dragonpult to outspeed and punish counters with a suicide mew defiant bisharp package to set harzards. I haven't started running it yet but are there any immediate glaring issues?

Ajar (Tapu Lele) @ Terrain Extender
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 8 Def / 248 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Thunderbolt

Waifumon (Gardevoir) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Expanding Force
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Healing Wish

Bird King (Hawlucha) @ Psychic Seed
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 Atk / 92 SpD / 164 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
- Close Combat
- Acrobatics

Stealth Dragon (Dragapult) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Draco Meteor
- U-turn
- Fire Blast

Pinky (Mew) @ Red Card
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Explosion

Ranger (Bisharp) @ Black Glasses
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head

 

[vinicius luiggi]

PlzHelpImDumb yeah that is HO if ever saw one, maybe the sucker punch bisharp isn't the best under tarrain+extender, but not all antisynergy is a problem that must be delt with, and maybe as testing if ur terrain gets overwriten a lot, just switch back to specs lele as that will break perfeclty for gardevouir. There is nothing obviously wrong with it tho, not to me, if u ever engage with it more deepIy I sugest making a new thread.

 

[PlzHelpImDumb]

Good call I was running into lots of terrain overwrites. Also the Bisharps tends to do quite well as when opponents defog the get rid of the terrain anyway.