Improved since last RTM (OU)

Hello, it's Kaede with his new team. I played with it for a while and it works pretty well, but I would like to read the opinion of other people because it's always a great way to see weaknesses you didn't spot or possible improvements that you weren't aware of.

Recent changes will be in Bold

-- The Team at a glance --

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-- Evolution of the team --

This team is an improvement of a team I made a lot of time ago, which was also posted as a RTM. Let's se the changes.

First try:

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I wanted a team with a surprise starter, so I went with a Scarfed Venusaur.

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When the starter was decided, I wanted something to put up rocks and heatran came to my mind. It was odd, because I hadn't seen any Heatran using stealth rock, but I was going to give it a try because he was also was a good scizor counter and could absorb fire attacks directed to Venusaur.

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Then I wanted two sweepers. Gyarados has always liked me, but I had never tried it, so was selected. Then I looked for something to cover Gyarados weaknesses, and electivire with his motordrive came to my mind.

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To complete my team I decided to use my favourite special wall carrying flamethrower and a double priority revenge killer. However, blissey did not stay there for a long time, because when Latias became OU, I wanted to test her, so she replaced the pink ball.

Second try:

After testing the team for a while I realised that it didn't work very well. Gyarados was too slow and Electivire didn't do his job well. He failed at 1HKOing a lot of things that I wanted to KO. At that point, I decided to put the team to revision here, so I made a RTM

Before RTM:

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After RTM:

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Three of my pokemon got their EVs Changed. Gyarados became Jolly, outspeeding Jolteon after 1 DD and I replaced Lucario with Scizor. Some somgon guy suggested me to replace Electivire with mixed Flygon and I gave it a try. I have to say that a lot of people also suggested replacing Venusaur with Roserade, but since I always failed (and still fail) sleep powder, I prefered Venusaur defenses.

Third Try and Actual team:

After that I left pokemon for a long time. I started playing again 1 or 2 months ago and I started to use that team. After some battles I realised that Suicune owned all my team most of the time, as did some Swamperts. Flygon did well his job, but he wasn't shining, so I thought about a replacement to get the two water dogs out of the way and finally the team became what it is now:

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I finally replaced Venusaur with roserade and Flygon was replaced with an offensive Zapdos, who carries HP Grass and Thunderbolt to take care of those hated Swampert and Suicune.

-- Depth Look --


-- The starter --

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Roserade @ Choice Scarf
Nature: Timid
44 HP / 212 Speed / 252 Sp. Attack

- Leaf Storm
- Sleep Powder
- Shadow ball
- HP ice

So here you have the starter. This Roserade is basically a better copy of what my old venusaur was. It's main use is putting to sleep the rival's starter with Sleep Powder (if it doesn't fail -.-) and then switch to Heatran. I wanted to invest some Evs on HP to provide her of more durability to survive if sleep powder failed but I'm not sure of this spread. Anyway, since now it worked really well against a lot of common starters. Taunt starters like aerodactyl usually expect a slower Roserade Starter and they use taunt to avoid the sleep powder, while they receive a Leaf Storm in the face.

She's also useful for the lategame, when things have been weakened, and is one of the pokemon able to take out my most feared pokemon: Suicune.

-- Stealth Rock User --

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Heatran @ Leftovers
Nature: Bold
244 HP / 248 Defence / 16 Sp. Attack

- WoW
- Fire blast
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock

He is normally second in battle. After sleeping the rival's pokemon, Heatran comes out and puts rocks up. I use him on a defensive way, spreading random status and crippling some physical sweepers every now and then. The special attack evs provide a 1HKO to gengar, so I find it useful. He's also my main switch if I predict an explosion because he takes them very well.
Earth power is there for coverage in case it is needed.

-- The Sweepers --

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Gyarados @ Leftovers
Nature: Jolly
88 HP / 252 Att / 168 Speed

- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

The first of my sweepers, and always useful, Gyarados. There is not much to explain here, it's a simple Dragon Dancer.
I choose Jolly and those EVs because this way I can outspeed modest Jolteon after 1 Dragon Dance, which gets a lot of Jolteon users off-guard. Also Intimidate is really useful when fighting Salamence, and Stone edge can KO him after, but it has shaky accuracy.
He usually takes 1, 2 or even 3 pokemon before going down and forces a lot of switches with intimidate, I really apreciatte this one. Intimidate must be one of the best abilities in the game.

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Zapdos @ Life Orb
Nature: Modest
4 HP / 252 Speed / 252 Sp. Attack

- Thunderbolt
- HP Grass
- Roost
- Heat Wave

Zapdos found a place in my team with the main objective of taking down Swampert & Suicune.
I did choose an offensive Zapdos because I really wanted to take them out as faster as possible, and I also needed something to hit hard with some durability, that's why Roost is his last move.
He's my most recent team member but he has done well until now.

Sadly I fought a Swampert and I failed to 1HKO with HP Grass, I don't know if the rival invested EVs in Sp.Defense or HP grass is not enough to deal with it, so I would like to see what do you think about it.

I also would like to know if you think that a defensive version would be better for my team.

-- The Pseudo-Special Wall --

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Latias @ Leftovers
Nature Timid
204 HP / 252 Speed / 52 Sp.Attack

- Dragon Pulse
- Calm Mind
- HP Fire
- Recover

When Latias became OU, I replaced my blissey by her, because I wanted something that could take special hits while having some offensive potential.
Her main job is to take special hits and boost with Calm Mind. I often use HP fire when latias is sent out because lots of scizors appear when she is shown and it works pretty well.
I also like that she outspeeds salamence if not scarfed and can 1HKO most of the time if the rocks are up and salamence hasn't invested in special defense.
She can also be used to sweep most of the rival team if I get 3 or 4 calm mind's up and she tends to be bait for exploding rivals, perfect for switching to Heatran and getting a free KO.

-- The Revenge Killer --

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Scizor @ Life orb
Nature: Adamant
32 HP / 252 Attack / 224 Speed

- Bullet Punch
- Quick Attack
- Swords Dance
- SuperPower

And the last one, my double priority revenge killer. I love double priority, so I doubt I'm going to change it if you don't like to, because it proved useful to me.

Finally I decided replacing Pursuit with SuperPower. Double priority proved to be very useful a lot of time while pursuit wasn't as effective. It really destroyed Latias and gengar if they were leaving the scenario, but bullet punch will do a lot of damage to the next pokemon Anyway.

He basically comes when one of my pokemon goes down and the foe is with low HP to get the revenge kill. Also perfect for getting ride of Blisseys or Latias, trapping them with pursuit / bullet punch.

If revenge kill has not been needed, I try to keep him hidden until the lategame and then when everything is weekened he pops out from nowhere, gets the SD boost and starts a sweep that basically means: win.

He's the most loved bug and he deserves to be.

-- Threats I had problems with --

Dusknoir: Only faced one, but it crippled all my team.

Suicune: I still don't know if Zapdos will be able to counter it efficiently because I had a lot of battles, but none of those had Suicune as protagonist.

Snorlax: Fought one. Scizor's Superpower failed to KO, as expected, and he autodestructed in my face. So Scizor failed.

Tyranitar: Scizor failed at getting Ttar out of the way. Only fought one, it was a dragon dancer. After the DD, he could outspeed my scizor and owned all my team.

Machamp: Everytime restalk Machamp appears, he keeps dinamicpunching to death all my pokemon, and they love to destroy themselves while confused.

Red are my main fears, while orange are the ones that gave me problems in some battles. Green are threats I have made a change in my team to take care of, but haven't had the opportunity to test it yet.

Well, and that was all. Thank you for your attention, any help will be appreciated.

Kaede11
 
You should remove Hidden Power Fire from your Latias, since you already have Gyarados to counter scizor, and using HP fire will reduce your speed IV by 1 meaning other Latias' can come in and draco meteor/dragon pulse you. And, in my opinion, if your lead roserade is just there to sleep and get out, Crobat is generally better at the job since it is much faster and can use hypnosis (if you are lucky enough to handle the accuracy), and more importantly can u-turn to your heatran. However using that recommendation would give you 3 pokemon weak to ice attacks, and your team would be weak to swampert, so if you go with that, maybe add HP Grass to heatran or something.
 
Yes, I do have Gyarados to counter siczor, but HP fire worked well along with Dragonpulse to sweep after some Calm Minds... Anyway, what should I use in it's place? What do you suggest?

I had thought about Crobat, but Hypnosis has shaky accuracy and Roserade Works pretty well taking out things in the lategame.
 
Alright, you have no Rock resist. This presents a problem in Choice Band Tyranitar, because he can survive most of the super-effective hits you throw at it. Leaf Storm iirc fails to OHKO the standard bulky CB EV's, and Bullet Punch without Choice Band on Scizor also fails to kill.
Now, to solve this problem I would suggest adding in a Mixed Infernape. This will scare away Tyranitar every time, as well as help you handle Snorlax, which you say you have a problem with. Another thing, it will help with Blissey, whom also looks like it would give you a bit of trouble, especially Thunder Wave variants.
The standard:
Infernape@ Life Orb
Blaze
Naive

64 Atk / 192 Spe / 252 SpA
  • Fire Blast
  • Grass Knot
  • HP Ice / HP Electric / ThunderPunch
  • Close Combat
Fire Blast, Grass Knot, and CC are all standard, but the last slot you may want to play around with. With Gyarados, Zapdos, Scizor, and Latias, I think you have Salamence covered pretty well, but opposing Gyarados may give you a hard time, so HP Electric would solve that. You could also go for ThunderPunch for the extra 5 Base power, but after Intimidate Hidden Power is the better choice. I've used it before, and I can't TELL you how many times people bring in Gyarados thinking they can get a free DD as you Grass Knot, and then proceed to be owned by Infernape.
To make room for this new pokemon, what I would do is make Zapdos a defensively bulky set with HP Ice and Roar, to eliminate Suicune and Salamence. I'd go with this set:
Zapdos@ Leftovers
Pressure
Bold

248 HP / 252 Defense / 8 SpD
  • Thunderbolt
  • Roar
  • Roost
  • Hidden Power [Ice]
So basically the point of this set is to have as much defense as possible, to take physical attacks, while being able to Roar out your opponent if you feel you're just being set-up fodder. Like it says in the analysis, 248 HP is so you can switch into SR 5 times, rather than 4. the 8 Special Defense EV's are just there as leftovers, but you can put them in to speed.. if you want.

The only other thing I would say to switch is to add Taunt somewhere. Preferably on Gyarados, because he's faster than Heatran, but just something to stop the setup that your team seems prone to. (Snorlax especially) Now keep in mind, these are just suggestions. I'm not an official team rater, so my advice isn't as perfect as most people's, but I know my way around movesets and whatnot.
 
Infernape Could be a great asset to my team, sure... getting out of the way blissey and Snorlax, but which pokemon should I replace?

And what about Gliscor... Maybe he could replace Heatran as a stealth rock user and counter Tyranitar... but I'm not sure about getting rid of heatran because it has been a key pokemon on a lot of battles.
 
Infernape Could be a great asset to my team, sure... getting out of the way blissey and Snorlax, but which pokemon should I replace?

And what about Gliscor... Maybe he could replace Heatran as a stealth rock user and counter Tyranitar... but I'm not sure about getting rid of heatran because it has been a key pokemon on a lot of battles.
Burn support Heatran is a great pokemon, but yeah, I think you should replace it for a different Stealth Rock user. Not nescessarily Gliscor, because then you'd have 4 Ice weaknesses, which isn't good. Swampert possibly, and then you could keep Zapdos offensive.
 
Either use Surf or Thunderbolt over HP: Fire on Latias so that Heatran doesn't wall you all day. I prefer Thunderbolt so that you can beat CM Suicune if it doesn't have Roar (which you said you fear :P).

Give Gyarados at least 224 speed EVs (though I would just max it out to tie with other Jolly Gyarados). This lets it outspeed Timid Scarf Heatran after 1 Dragon Dance so that it can't explode on you. Those HP EVs aren't going to save you from any KO's as far as I know. Also try Taunt over Earthquake. This will let you set up on things that would normally p-haze you, such as Swampert and Skarmory.

Try Iron Plate on Scizor. After a Swords Dance, you're going to be getting the same KO's as Life Orb, but without the recoil damage from Life Orb. This lets Scizor survive longer. Definitely drop Pursuit for Superpower to deal with incoming Heatran/Magnezone.
 
I would make your scizor choice band scizor because it helps you a lot more with snorlax blissey and especially tyranitar all problem pokemon.

Scizor@ Choice Band
Adamant
248 Hp/ 252 Atk/ 8 Spe
U-turn
Bullet Punch
Superpower
Pursuit

Im pretty sure you know the set but basically spam u-turn and use bullet punch for revenge killing, pursuit for trapping and superpower for hitting steels on the switch.
 
Superpower over Quick Attack on Scizor, for sure.

If you're not setting up Toxic Spikes with Roserade, have you considered running a Scarf Breloom? Fast Spore, or a fast Seed Bomb/Mach Punch or whatever on Taunters you can't outrun.
 
Burn support Heatran is a great pokemon, but yeah, I think you should replace it for a different Stealth Rock user. Not nescessarily Gliscor, because then you'd have 4 Ice weaknesses, which isn't good. Swampert possibly, and then you could keep Zapdos offensive.

I had thought of Swampert, but I will miss the steel type pokemon... because I don't think Scizor will work as well blocking explosions. Anyway, I'm going to test Swampert and see what happens.

Either use Surf or Thunderbolt over HP: Fire on Latias so that Heatran doesn't wall you all day. I prefer Thunderbolt so that you can beat CM Suicune if it doesn't have Roar (which you said you fear :P).

Give Gyarados at least 224 speed EVs (though I would just max it out to tie with other Jolly Gyarados). This lets it outspeed Timid Scarf Heatran after 1 Dragon Dance so that it can't explode on you. Those HP EVs aren't going to save you from any KO's as far as I know. Also try Taunt over Earthquake. This will let you set up on things that would normally p-haze you, such as Swampert and Skarmory.

Try Iron Plate on Scizor. After a Swords Dance, you're going to be getting the same KO's as Life Orb, but without the recoil damage from Life Orb. This lets Scizor survive longer. Definitely drop Pursuit for Superpower to deal with incoming Heatran/Magnezone.

I'm not sure about changing the HP type... sure Heatran walls me, but it gets off guard a lot of things. Also, Latias takes pretty well Heatran attacks (except Explosion) after CM and I can recover the damage while getting more CM.

I will test the EV spread suggested for gyarados and see if it works, thanks.
Not sure about the taunt thing... having three attacks worked very well until now.

Iron Plate on Scizor? I never thought about that. Maybe I'll give it a try... And Superpower must go in, It's decided.

I would make your scizor choice band scizor because it helps you a lot more with snorlax blissey and especially tyranitar all problem pokemon.

Scizor@ Choice Band
Adamant
248 Hp/ 252 Atk/ 8 Spe
U-turn
Bullet Punch
Superpower
Pursuit

Im pretty sure you know the set but basically spam u-turn and use bullet punch for revenge killing, pursuit for trapping and superpower for hitting steels on the switch.

Hmmm... It's effective, sure, but I think I'm gonna stick with the SD version.

Superpower over Quick Attack on Scizor, for sure.

If you're not setting up Toxic Spikes with Roserade, have you considered running a Scarf Breloom? Fast Spore, or a fast Seed Bomb/Mach Punch or whatever on Taunters you can't outrun.

What I'm not sure about is if I should replace Quick Attack or pursuit for Superpower.

I have considered running the Scarf Breloom, but he is rather slow, isn't he?

Thank You all very much, I will be testing some of your suggestions and I'll let you know :)
 
Okay, let me help you to eliminate this Machamp weakness and also improve a bit each set of your pokes.

Gyarados: I am not so sure if you are really needing to be Jolly while being Adamant you acquire more power after 1 Dragon Dance and people like a weaken Celebi will not be able to do Recover to counter you after. Also with this EVs spread you should consider Taunt instead of EQ for sure! and you still have the option of make Gyarados bulkier.
Remember that, in front of a trapped Jolteon (Thunderbolt for example), Latias starts her CMs kingdom so it won't be more than an issue.

Zapdos: Now is when I am going to fit someone who is going to stop Machamp and Agility Metagross that otherwise is kind of dangerous for the team:

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Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Bold nature.
EVs: 248 HP / 168 Def / 92 SpD
- Thunderbolt / Discharge
- Will-o-Wisp
- Sleep Talk
- Rest

You can use the 'h' form too. So, you have here a solid counter to those threats that I previously mentioned, and also a valuable Sleep absorber, something you were lacking and something that can open a gap on the team.
Against Machamp your first move will be WoW, if it is under a subs that would be troublsome but don't worry, play around him with intelligence, Machamp does not like to recieve WoW after repeated t-bolts.

Latias: if you are going to use so many HP investment then apply only 202 EVs, so your HP isn't divisible by 4.
Also replace HP Fire by Surf, you are actually countering pretty well any Scizor's variant and Surf will work much better in this set. You just have to check Scizor and Tyranitar from the beginning and be careful of getting trapped.

The sinergy is now better and you forget about that important Ice weakness.

Hope to have helped, good luck.
 
Just as a quick comment on your statement that Zapdos failed to OHKO a Swampert, here's a calc on your Zapdos' HP Grass vs. the normal MixPert (no Sp.D EV's, 240 HP EV's, neutral nature)
383 Atk vs 216 Def & 401 HP (70 Base Power): 360 - 424 (89.78% - 105.74%)
Which means that you'll actually just be OHKO'ing it 74.36% of the time with SR (28.21 without).
On the other hand, against the most Specially bulky Swampert in the analysis (ResTalk Cursepert, [252 HP EV's, 216 Sp.D EV's Positive nature, in this case Careful])
383 Atk vs 297 Def & 404 HP (70 Base Power): 260 - 308 (64.36% - 76.24%)
Which is merely a 2HKO.

So don't rely to much on Zapdos' HP Grass to take out Swampert.
 
Okay, let me help you to eliminate this Machamp weakness and also improve a bit each set of your pokes.

Gyarados: I am not so sure if you are really needing to be Jolly while being Adamant you acquire more power after 1 Dragon Dance and people like a weaken Celebi will not be able to do Recover to counter you after. Also with this EVs spread you should consider Taunt instead of EQ for sure! and you still have the option of make Gyarados bulkier.
Remember that, in front of a trapped Jolteon (Thunderbolt for example), Latias starts her CMs kingdom so it won't be more than an issue.

Zapdos: Now is when I am going to fit someone who is going to stop Machamp and Agility Metagross that otherwise is kind of dangerous for the team:

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Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Bold nature.
EVs: 248 HP / 168 Def / 92 SpD
- Thunderbolt / Discharge
- Will-o-Wisp
- Sleep Talk
- Rest

You can use the 'h' form too. So, you have here a solid counter to those threats that I previously mentioned, and also a valuable Sleep absorber, something you were lacking and something that can open a gap on the team.
Against Machamp your first move will be WoW, if it is under a subs that would be troublsome but don't worry, play around him with intelligence, Machamp does not like to recieve WoW after repeated t-bolts.

Latias: if you are going to use so many HP investment then apply only 202 EVs, so your HP isn't divisible by 4.
Also replace HP Fire by Surf, you are actually countering pretty well any Scizor's variant and Surf will work much better in this set. You just have to check Scizor and Tyranitar from the beginning and be careful of getting trapped.

The sinergy is now better and you forget about that important Ice weakness.

Hope to have helped, good luck.

The thing is that my team is used on shoddy, but it should also be able to compete in wifi matches, that's why I can't use rotom formes.

Latias with HP fire gets scizors out of the way when they pursuit.

Don't know what to do now that Zapdos can't 1HKO Swamp 100% of the time... gonna edit the post, because I have tested more.
 
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