I made an okay pokemon team; let's make it better

[Matthew]

Hello! I'm trying to play pokemon again but it's hard making teams so I'm asking you guys to help. It's probably just a (bit too) standard Drought team but I'm sure there can be little improvements here and there that can make life easier on the ladder. I'll give you guys the run-down here.

@ Life Orb
Trait: Drought
EVs: 116 Spd / 252 SAtk / 140 HP
Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Sunny Day
- SolarBeam
- Will-O-Wisp

Sunny Day Ninetales which is the coolest Ninetales set ever. Enough speed to beat the other weather starters, barring Choice Scarf. I think I should replace Will-O-Wisp with Hidden Power Ground or something but I don't know. Ninetales is often my switch-in to Politoed, as counter productive as that sounds. I usually don't lose the weather war if that's something I can brag about.

@ Focus Sash
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock

The only pokemon I lead with. Always gets Stealth Rock down, always can get a Taunt off to hinder Stealth Rock. He's a good dude. Unfortunately he's usually KOed by the third turn of the match, but he does his job real well!

@ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Growth
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Ground]

Venusaur is my back-up sweeper if Volcarona doesn't have an opportunity to set up. The problem I have is that he's super priority weak and can't really fuck up Scizor, Forretress, and Ferrothorn because I'm running Hidden Power Ground. But if I don't run that then I'm completely walled by Heatran. So not sure if there's a better set that would give more coverage or if I should switch to Sawsbuck or something.

@ Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 184 Spd / 252 Atk / 72 HP
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Seed
- Rock Tomb
- Mach Punch

I know, I know, "you should run Spore." I really don't want to. I can just bluff Spore and run Swords Dance, it's great. Also I'm running Rock Tomb because fuck:
Volcarona
Dragonite

EVs might be a little wonky, I did enough speed to outpace 252 Tyranitar I think. In retrospect I don't know if that actually helps anything since I'm going to be Mach Punching Tyranitar. Should I switch the EVs to something more bulky like 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd? I'd lose to other Brelooms more often then and I'd have less of a chance against Scizor.

@ Life Orb
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Hidden Power [Rock]

Volcarona!! This guy is my favorite. I think I should probably be running a Timid nature but the analysis that I probably didn't look at might have suggested Modest. Or a better set. I like how this guy works so far, I am still really walled by Terrakion but if I don't run Rock then I can't hit the flying Dragon-types and still get neutral damage on Heatran. I had the bulky chestorest set here earlier but I hate Heatran and I switched to this more offensive variant, it's been working out decently. The issue is that even Bullet Punch and Mach Punch do about 20-30% on a hit, which kind of limits the amount of time I can sweep.

@ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Rapid Spin
- Seed Bomb

Elephant! He's here to spin, deal damage to Dragonite, and generally be a nice dude. I think I should probably run Roar instead of Seed Bomb, but Seed Bomb has been useful against Rotom-W in the sun. Roar would make it so set-up sweepers have more of a hassle I guess.

Anyway I'll just list some of the threats I've noticed to my team:
Scizor
Volcarona
Dragonite w/o Donphan around

and it's hard for me to keep momentum with a sweep due to poor coverage, but maybe I'm just trying to sweep to early or something.

Anyway thanks for the rates (if you choose to do so!)

 

[Shurtugal]

Hey! I saw none of the TR badge users pick this up, shame on them, so I thought'd I do it instead.

OK so there a few issues I have with this team. For starters, Heatran looks annoying (I believe SpD variants live unboosted HP Ground from Venu. Also, Dragonite also looks annoying if only because they can outspeed a Fire punch your Breloom. Also god forbid Politoed successfully get rain and force Tales out -- nothing is switching into Ice / Water coverage safely...

However, I see some easy fixes to this team so let's go!

1. Firstly, I think you need to adjust a few of your sets -- which is what "point one" is going to address; all the minor issues. Donphan should really be using Head Smash over Seed Bomb as you can OHKO the Gengar switch ins since they will usually try to spinblock you. Atlas, Ninetales's job in BW2 OU is really to live rather than dish out damage -- I'd run maximum hp investment, hit 286 speed (use whatever speed evs necessary to hit it; luring out Jolly Mamoswine is pretty rad) and put the rest into SpD. Ninetales will want to opt. out from Solar Beam and instead use Roar to phaze out common set up sweepers like Volcarona or Dragonite. Please use Leftovers over Life Orb on Ninetales wth is Tales doing with LO you ruin its longevity that way! The power on Tales really isn't worth it. I would replace HP Rock for HP Ground on Volcarona to successfully set up on Heatran and OHKO Terrakion after SR damage. On Venusaur, since it's last coverage move can be freed up, I'd replace HP Ground for either HP Fire or Sleep Powder depending on your preference. Personally, I'd convert to Timid Venusaur with maximum special attack investment, hit 265 speed, and invest the rest into bulk since hitting 265 plus Chlorophyl outpace Scarf Lati@s and below.

2. Now that those are out of the way, I want to formally say that your Breloom set is terrible. Firstly, most people run maximum speed on Breloom so that, when facing opposing Breloom, they can win the priority war; or spore war depending. Anyway, I feel that Breloom is so lackluster and can't really do it's job to it's fullest extent -- both Dragonite and Volcarona have no issues just KOing Breloom instead of setting up on it and so puts you in a 50 / 50 situation which is really unnecessary imo. Honestly, you should use Choice Band Dragonite instead. CB Nite checks Volcarona and opposing Dragonite better. Additionally, with Donphan's Ice Shard; or Head Smash depending on Donphan's health, and Ninetales's Roar, I think you can check Dragonite well enough. CB Dragonite is a better switch into Heatran and can utilze Earthquake to OHKO, as well as Superpower. Dragonite can also break teams easier since nothing on your team can break stall teams hard without initial set up, which isn't always easy to get vs. stall archetypes.

Additionally, there are a few things you can try with CB Dragonite. I recommend using 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 SpD as the effort value spread of choice. However, while Adamant would be the best nature to use per say, you could use Jolly to outpace Adamant Dragonite and lure those in and effectively remove them. Anyway, I'd go with Adamant as the nature of choice since the power is pretty much indisputable but you could test Jolly since it might work with this team. Additionally, Dragonite's bulk makes it a better asset against rain.

Good luck getting back into OU! Adios!

 

[MCBarrett]

Hey Matthew, pretty decent Sun Team you have here. First off I'll just say that I agree with Shurtugal's moveset changes that are listed above in the first bullet point. Those sets are nice tweaks to the ones you are currently running and should help those pokes perform just that much better.

Now what I'm seeing with your team at this point is that, like Shurtugal said, Breloom isn't helping you at all and that you have quite the weakness to setup threats such as Dragonite and Volcarona and these are two threats that aren't going to be stopped by have Roar on Ninetales alone, especially since you can't rely on it being around late game too well especially against weatherless teams where it is usually used as Death Fodder early on. To remedy these problems, and to add some physical sweeping power to your team, I would recommend using Scarf Garchomp over Breloom. ScarfChomp is a fantastic revenge killer of Dragonite and Volcarona, being able to OHKO and outspeed each of them even after they setup once. Not only that but Garchomp can easily dispose of Heatran which can be a pain for your other two sweepers, and he provides excellent type coverage with EdgeQuake and Outrage. Also since he forces so many switches you can easily double switch into a better setup opportunity for Volcarona or Venusaur. Since you have plenty of Fire Type coverage on your team you can opt for Dragon Claw/ Dual Chop over Fire Blast in the final spot so you don't have to lock yourself into Outrage when you don't need to. Lastly not having another SR weakness is always a good thing on a Sun Team so that will be much appreciated as well.

Finally with those pesky setup sweepers being handled much more easily, you may want to consider using Sunny Day on your Ninetales to limit your switches and to keep the rain away as much as possible.

Hopefully my suggestion helped! Let me know how it works and good luck with the team!

 

[Hydreigon1998]

I agree with shurtagal on using sleep powder over Hidden power on your venasaur set because through expeirences I have seen that if my venasaur is facing a foe that has the power to OHKO it then one sleep powder will give me the free turn to set up with growth and gain the power to sweep for the rest of the game. On your Ninetales I would choose toxic over willo-wisp because of the power increase in toxic later on in the game. Also if you chose willo-wisp over toxic because toxic cant hit steel types remember that your ninetales can outspeed many OU steel types with 100 base speed and kill them with a STAB fire blast. Nice sun team though

 

[Bryce]

Lati@s stand out as huge threats to this team,getting OHKO or near OHKOs on everything,outspeeding everything except venu in sun and your lack of reliable methods to revenge kill it.Mamoswine is another big problem.I also see offensive rain teams hard to face,pressuring you with powerful water attacks while your sweepers fail to put similar pressure in return since they get revenge killed rather easily.Same goes for offensive sand teams running Keldeo(Venu gets 2HKOed by HP Ice with rocks)due to lack of a dugtrio.Dragonite pretty much shits on you with Donphan gone and due to this team's frail build,keeping Donphan alive will result in a lot of saccing or loss of momentum.Some of your sets are also kinda medicore.

Your Volcarona set is too frail to sweep constantly,but it could act as a good wallbreaker for Venu.So I suggest using Fire Blast over Fiery Dance and HP ground over HP Rock on Volc and HP Fire over HP Ground on Venu.Also change Venu's spread and nature to Timid Max SpAtk,enough speed to hit 265.This changes Volcarona into a solid wall breaker as nothing can safely wall it.+1 LO Fire Blast OHKOs Dnite,Mence,Gyara so HP Rock is no longer needed.HP Ground lets you lure in Tran and OHKO it allowing Venu to sweep.HP Fire gives Venu the superior coverage making it a much better sweeper.

Next to fix the Lati and Nite weakness,I suggest running Scarf Heatran over Breloom.Breloom looks pointless in this team,only adding to the Dragon weakness and being to frail to serve as a water sponge.A set of Fire Blast/Earth Power/HP Ice/Solar Beam is suitable for ScarfTran allowing you to switch into most Dragonite and Latis dealing good damage to Lati twins and OHKOing Dnite.Also I agree with the suggestion of a bulkier ninetails,since ninetails is required to stay alive for as long as possible for Sun.

Finally,the water weakness looks pretty ominous and I think sun teams require too much support to afford to run a dedicated lead who's only Job is to lay rocks.This suggestion seems weird but I believe a SpDef Rotom-W over Terrakion will let you combat rain and sand team as well as Mamoswine much better,you can even run Twave on it since Lati's like to switch in on Tom.Next you can move the rocks to Donphan.Seed Bomb seems pretty situational imo and you really don't require to run it.A bulky Rotom-W matches up very well vs most of the common pokes that usually lead such as SR Chomp/Donphan/Politoed etc so the loss of a dedicated lead shouldn't be too much of a problem.In my experience,Terrakion has trouble doing it's job anyway losing to Donphan,Forretress,Tentacruel,Starmie etc.Although it makes the pink blobs harder to kill,Venusaur and Volc should beat it 1vs1 anyway.Good luck.