Insert-Pun-About-the-Sun Team.

[Bibbo]

Yo Bibbo here bringing you a Sun team that hopefully isn't the EXACT SAME THING you see on every other Sun team. I'll try to be as descriptive as possible. However, I do not know the OU metagame like other battlers and I would prefer to be playing UU or NU. Because the NU and UU tiers are not established yet I'm sticking with OU for now.

The team at a glance:
Ninetales | Claydol | Clefable | Rotom - H | Victreebel | Darmanitan


Ninetales:

N: Timid
A: Drought
I: Chesto
Ev: 248 Hp / 252 Spe / 10 Def
¥Toxic
¥Will-O-Wisp
¥Fire Blast
¥Rest

Ninetales is the core of the team as one would expect. The ability to make the sun shine is a great ability. I chose
Chesto Rest set as to be able to throw around a bunch of status to make it easier for my mon's to sweep. Fire Blast is a great STAB move and can take out most 4x Weak mons such as Forretress and Ferrothorn.

Claydol:

N: Careful
A: Levitate
I: Ligt Clay
Ev: 252 Hp / 80 Def / 176 SpD
¥Stealth Rocks
¥Light Screen
¥Reflect
¥Rapid Spin

I originally chose Bronzong as my Tank pokemon because Steel is a great defensive typing and he can also set up the Stealth Rocks. However it was pointed out to me that Bronzong is extremely weak to Fire so I opted for a pure supporting Claydol. Claydol can set up Stealth Rocks and Dual Screens. Stealth rocks are extremely awesome are definitely helpful in winning. The dual screens protect my fragile sweeping pokemon. And rapid spin is there to be rid of pesky entry hazards.

Clefable:

N: Calm
A: Magic Guard
I: Leftovers
Ev: 252 Hp / 120 Def / 136 SpD
¥Encore
¥Protect
¥Wish
¥Seismic Toss

Tentacruel was originally my special wall/support/rapid spinning pokemon. When I opted for Claydol as my support pokemon. The need for tentacruel went by the wayside. I chose Clefable for his ability to Encore and pass Wish. Encore a boosting move allows safe switch ins for either Victreebel or Darmanitan or Rotom according to what is being boosted. Wish stalling is pretty evil considering how many statuses Nintales throws around.

Rotom - H:

N: Timid
A: Levitate
I: Choice Scarf
Ev: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
¥Thunderbolt
¥Overheat
¥Hidden Power (Rock)
¥Trick

I know that Rotom - W is everyone's favorite go to Rotom form because it has great coverage and multiple uses however I can't shake the feeling that an Eletric Fire Pokemon that is immune to it's 4x weakness of Ground doesn't has some potential too. It's a basic Trick/choice Scarf set that has some neat tricks. I went for Hidden Power Rock over Volt Switch for sake of coverage and Benlisted's suggestion of being able to hit balloons. Because of the abundance of ailments I'm spreading around I'm using T-bolt.


Victreebel:

N: Naive
A: Chlorophyll
I: Life Orb
Ev: 80 Atk / 174 SpA / 252 Spe
¥ Growth
¥ Leaf Blade
¥ Hidden Power (Ground)
¥ Weather Ball

Victreebel is what most consider a not-as-good-as-Venusaur Pokémon. I however think that since he has Weatherball as a 100 Bp fire attack has a small little niche. When Victreebel comes in i hope to scare away what ever i switch in on so I can Growth. The idea behind a chlorophyller is pretty self-explanatory. Be faster because of the Sun then sweep.


Darmanitan:

N: Jolly
A: Sheer Force
I: Choice Scarf
Ev: 4 Hp / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
¥U-Turn
¥Rock Slide
¥Superpower
¥Flare Blitz

Darmanitan is powerful though coupled with a choice scarf and with a non-attack boosting nature he is not as powerful as he could be. The sun however will boost his flare blitz considerably and help darmanitan outspeed and faint opposing pokémon. His movepool is the basic choice Darmanitan set. Good coverage all around.


So that is the basic team. All help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[Charge]

I really like the concept of the Sucker Punch for Victreebell. Unsuspecting Psychics like Reuniclus will suffer pain from it. And, since Ninetails has WoW, why put Scald on Tentacruel?

 

[Benlisted]

Hey, decent Sun team here. As always a few suggestions to give.

First, a word on SolarBeam. Don't use it, especially not on Tales. Your most valuable mon risking locking itself in and being subsequently OHKOd by TTar or Politoed is not something you want happening, and as all your Grass moves are SolarBeam, you are essentially crippling yourself against Rain in particular by not choosing a different alternative. The surprise factor will work only once, then you're essentially down a moveslot until you remove their inducer - it simply isn't worth it. The only time I recommend it is when something has no alternatives and is so reliant on Sun anyway that it may as well be used - like Zard or Typh.

That out of the way, Tales looks alright as a defensive mon, however I'd try out ChestoRest since it is excellent at spreading status rather than dealing damage and has excellent survivability. Fire Blast/WoW/Toxic/Rest with 248 HP rather than SpA (be sure to make your Fire mons HP odd so they can switch into SR one more time) is the set. Toxic may seem obsolete with T-Spikes, but it's incredibly useful to be able to cripple Politoed at the earliest opportunity as it switches in (as you don't want to be giving most Rain teams 2 turns to setup as you throw down T-Spikes), and can also help with some Levitators if T-Spikes are up. CR is still an option for you however, but I would advise Toxic.

I appreciate you wanting to deviate from the norm with your team, but sadly Bronzong does not do too well on a Sun team, especially one without a Flash Fire user to mitigate his exacerbated weakness. You even already have a Levitator in Rotom-H, so his Ground immunity is doing little for you. I'd recommend using a different SR user, with one of a few things. Since you have several very frail sweepers (Vic and Darmanitan) I'd think about using either something to help them get in and deal damage easier - a U-Turn user, or a Dual Screener. Claydol can both set SR and Dual Screen, making it an option for you, and I'd recommend Forretress for Volt Change, and helping to tank Water hits in Rain. The latter also lets you Spike as well, which is always helpful, as well as maintains the Dragon resist.

Tentacruel looks alright, but my main concern is it being somewhat of setup fodder. There's not an immediate way to solve this with its movepool really, but Knock Off could have some utility over Ice Beam or the incredibly weak Scald, since your team deals with Dragons okay with Darm and Vic.

Rotom-H looks fine, consider HP Rock so you can hit things with Balloon, and go for Thunderbolt since with T-Spikes you'll be wanting to spread another status, making Para worthless. Volt Change could be considered to help other mons get in easier too.

Now, for Victreebel, the only reason to use it over another Chlorophyller is to make use of its unique assets - namely Weather Ball (100BP Fire attack in Sun) to allow him to utilise a different Hidden Power than the other Cholorphyllers are forced to use. Sucker Punch sets are outclassed by Shiftry, so no point using that if you want to keep Vic. Essentially I'd go for Leaf Blade/Energy Ball, Weather Ball and Hidden Power as your attacks. The main things that wall the combination of Fire+Grass in Sun are Flying Dragons and Heatran/Chandelure, so use either HP Ice to utterly maim the former or HP Rock as a compromise for damage between the two.

Darmanitan looks okay, but if you're going with max Spe then I'd definitely put U-Turn in there over EQ probably (redundant coverage with Superpower) to give you better switchin oppurtunities and potential setup chances for your hazard layers or Vic.

Good look, nice to see Rotom-H and Vic getting some love!

 

[Bibbo]

Hey, decent Sun team here. As always a few suggestions to give.

First, a word on SolarBeam. Don't use it, especially not on Tales. Your most valuable mon risking locking itself in and being subsequently OHKOd by TTar or Politoed is not something you want happening, and as all your Grass moves are SolarBeam, you are essentially crippling yourself against Rain in particular by not choosing a different alternative. The surprise factor will work only once, then you're essentially down a moveslot until you remove their inducer - it simply isn't worth it. The only time I recommend it is when something has no alternatives and is so reliant on Sun anyway that it may as well be used - like Zard or Typh.

That out of the way, Tales looks alright as a defensive mon, however I'd try out ChestoRest since it is excellent at spreading status rather than dealing damage and has excellent survivability. Fire Blast/WoW/Toxic/Rest with 248 HP rather than SpA (be sure to make your Fire mons HP odd so they can switch into SR one more time) is the set. Toxic may seem obsolete with T-Spikes, but it's incredibly useful to be able to cripple Politoed at the earliest opportunity as it switches in (as you don't want to be giving most Rain teams 2 turns to setup as you throw down T-Spikes), and can also help with some Levitators if T-Spikes are up. CR is still an option for you however, but I would advise Toxic.

I appreciate you wanting to deviate from the norm with your team, but sadly Bronzong does not do too well on a Sun team, especially one without a Flash Fire user to mitigate his exacerbated weakness. You even already have a Levitator in Rotom-H, so his Ground immunity is doing little for you. I'd recommend using a different SR user, with one of a few things. Since you have several very frail sweepers (Vic and Darmanitan) I'd think about using either something to help them get in and deal damage easier - a U-Turn user, or a Dual Screener. Claydol can both set SR and Dual Screen, making it an option for you, and I'd recommend Forretress for Volt Change, and helping to tank Water hits in Rain. The latter also lets you Spike as well, which is always helpful, as well as maintains the Dragon resist.

Tentacruel looks alright, but my main concern is it being somewhat of setup fodder. There's not an immediate way to solve this with its movepool really, but Knock Off could have some utility over Ice Beam or the incredibly weak Scald, since your team deals with Dragons okay with Darm and Vic.

Rotom-H looks fine, consider HP Rock so you can hit things with Balloon, and go for Thunderbolt since with T-Spikes you'll be wanting to spread another status, making Para worthless. Volt Change could be considered to help other mons get in easier too.

Now, for Victreebel, the only reason to use it over another Chlorophyller is to make use of its unique assets - namely Weather Ball (100BP Fire attack in Sun) to allow him to utilise a different Hidden Power than the other Cholorphyllers are forced to use. Sucker Punch sets are outclassed by Shiftry, so no point using that if you want to keep Vic. Essentially I'd go for Leaf Blade/Energy Ball, Weather Ball and Hidden Power as your attacks. The main things that wall the combination of Fire+Grass in Sun are Flying Dragons and Heatran/Chandelure, so use either HP Ice to utterly maim the former or HP Rock as a compromise for damage between the two.

Darmanitan looks okay, but if you're going with max Spe then I'd definitely put U-Turn in there over EQ probably (redundant coverage with Superpower) to give you better switchin oppurtunities and potential setup chances for your hazard layers or Vic.

Good look, nice to see Rotom-H and Vic getting some love!

All of your suggestions make a lot of sense and I like them. I do wonder what Dual screener I should use. I'm trying out Claydol with Rapid Spin, Stealth Rocks, and the dual screens. I don't know what other pokemon I should use. Right now I'm using a Wish Stall Clefable. Do you have any suggestions? I took out Tentacruel for the Clefable btw.

 

[Lanxe]

IMO bronzong looks out of place because of it glaring weakness to fire, and the sun makes fire stronger

 

[Benlisted]

All of your suggestions make a lot of sense and I like them. I do wonder what Dual screener I should use. I'm trying out Claydol with Rapid Spin, Stealth Rocks, and the dual screens. I don't know what other pokemon I should use. Right now I'm using a Wish Stall Clefable. Do you have any suggestions? I took out Tentacruel for the Clefable btw.

The best Dual Screeners for Sun in my experience are Latias and Cresselia, who can both either Lunar Dance/Healing Wish to heal a sweeper fully. However you don't explicity need a Dual Screener, in fact if you can find room for a WishPasser as you have done it may work out better for you. If you want a Spinner who can Screen Claydol is the only real option, and no Spinners can WishPass.

Think about moving Dual Screens + Wish to something other than Clefable, who is somewhat setup fodder and not that good of a wall. Blissey could hande this, as could Latios for a more offensive role. This frees you up to use Donphan over Claydol, who unless you really need the Ground immune is imo better since he can actually hurt things, but maintains SR and Spin. If you don't want Dual Screens you could pick anything for Wish if you like it, which is a huge range of mons, it's really up to you.

Just for reference, I was actually wrong on the call about Zong not being very good for Sun, since a friend alerted me to the top set here which actually serves excellently on Sun, being able to deal with Dragons and TTar whilst having a more offensive presence than Forretress at the cost of less hazards. However you don't need to fit it onto your team if you want to pack other stuff, it's mostly just so I haven't misled you in future.

 

[Bibbo]

Alright. Here are the current updates. Again I ask for all help and stuff. I may try out the Cressalia thing if Clefable doesn't work out.