Is there such thing as a good hail team?

[xBLUEx]

a hail team could work but it depends on the user.

 

[Madcat]

Clefable is always a good choice for a Hail team, but only with Froslass because of its ever-common fighting weakness.

 

[astrohawke]

i've haven't lost yet to a SS team, the closest one was me winning 3-0

ttar doesn't scare me much, glaceon's blizzard hits so freaking hard, it's not even funny, but that's only if the ttar isn't running dragon dance, if he is, then i'm a little worried, but that's when i send in my ttar counter

sandstorm teams are much more versatile, cause you can choose from three types that won't take damage from SS, hail has only one type but also, SS gives rock pokes a boost in sp.def, hail goes in and takes it away

and since almost every rock poke has below average sp.def (cradily and regirock are exceptions), they'll take massive damage

just infernape and weavile don't take much from ice attacks and can carry a move that is SE against most of your team, hence why i feel they're the most threatening to a team (pretty much, they're the only pokes i lose to)

also, abomasnow maybe a lead, but he will become a late sweeper because if you lose him, you're done

SS teams are harder to counter w/o weather, but fail to other weather teams because the best pokes in SS mostly are rock due to the boost, w/o that boost, they'll die incredibly quick

That's not true at all. In fact, if anything is true, it's that rocks are the least used out of the 3 sandstorm immune types. The only common ones are tyranitar obviously and cradily. Some people just replace cradily with blissey anyway. Then there's less common ones like regirock and rhyperior. So that's 4 rocks and you will never see all 4 on the same team.

Yes sandstorm teams are more versatile because they can choose from 3 types. And like hail teams, they are also allowed to bring in a few non-ss immune pokemon to cover weaknesses.

To say that sandstorm teams die without their weather is untrue. The only thing sandstorm gives to a sandstorm team is leftovers negation for the other team and the sdef boost to rocks. Maybe some sand veil hax if you rely on that sort of thing. Speaking of rocks, the only ones that actually need the boost are cradily and regirock. Tyranitar gets sandstorm whenever its in anyway and rhyperior dies to special hits whether it has the boost or not. So typically, these teams can work just as well without the leftovers negation, the sdef boost or the hax.

Now for hail teams, what does hail give you? 100% blizzard accuracy and leftovers negation. If you use stallrein then it gives it recovery. Maybe snow cloak hax as well. You lose the hail and suddenly your blizzards are no longer hitting and stallrein can no longer operate at all. And from what I've seen on hail teams, a large number of their attacks require power coming from that 100% accuracy blizzard including those of abomasnow, glaceon, froslass, walrein and regice. So if anything, hail teams lose when their weather is gone because they lose their most powerful attack that they pretty much rely on.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Not to mention that you don't seem to grasp the concept that just because it is a Sandstorm team, that every Poke is immune to the storm. Just as Hails team don't have all 6, why are you assuming that SS teams have 6 ground/steel/rocks? And even if it was a mono Rock/Steel team, I'd be sure as hell worried considering most Hail teams have four or so ICE pokes, so CBMeta is plowing through, a Scarf/Band/DD/Sub Tar is raping shit, and Dugtrio is picking off things one by one, with Heatran just blowing up w/e with FBlast.

 

[Dragontamer]

The primary advantage of hail that I've seen is that only 1 type resists hail.

Everyone must have a ground / rock / steel type on their team. Skarmory, Swampert, T-Tar, the Hippo... just about everyone uses a steel type who can absorb the sandstorm.

But what about ice? There are so few OU pokemon that are immune to ice that your biggest weakness during team building suddenly became one of your greatest strengths. The only OU pokemon that can outstall you in a hailstorm is weavile, and thats if you don't decide to smack it.

Another massive advantage is how great of an attack combo Ice is. Ice / Fighting is resisted only by froslass, tentacruel and surskit. Ice / water is resisted only by water pokemon and many pokemon get double stab bonus from this. Ground / ice is resisted by surskit. Bolt / Beam is resisted only by Magnezone and Lanturn.

And of these, there are plenty of pokemon to choose from for each combo. Abomasnow gets blizzard / focus punch, Weavile gets ice punch / brick break. Ice / Water is just about everyone. Ground / Ice is by the massive 130 Atk Mamoswine, but Walrein also gets Quake / Blizzard. Bolt/Blizzard is offered by enough non-ice pokemon, but for pure ice you got froslass, lapras and probably a few others.

Not to mention that you don't seem to grasp the concept that just because it is a Sandstorm team, that every Poke is immune to the storm. Just as Hails team don't have all 6, why are you assuming that SS teams have 6 ground/steel/rocks? And even if it was a mono Rock/Steel team, I'd be sure as hell worried considering most Hail teams have four or so ICE pokes, so CBMeta is plowing through, a Scarf/Band/DD/Sub Tar is raping shit, and Dugtrio is picking off things one by one, with Heatran just blowing up w/e with FBlast.

Just wanna point out a few things. CB Meta does not plow through Walrein. In fact, I kill it as it dies to the hail with sub/protect. You are forced out. Tar is not so friendly with the double-stab water / ice moves that should be taken advantage of, CB dugtrio is slower than weavile, and CS Dugtrio can't even kill Abomasnow with Stone Edge. Nor can it stand a switch in to the obvious blizzard comming in.

Hail vs Sandstorm is not an advantage to either side in my experience, especially because of the surf / blizzard combo.

 

[astrohawke]

Hail vs Sandstorm is not an advantage to either side in my experience, especially because of the surf / blizzard combo.

I agree with that. They're not better than the other and it depends on the player. But the fact remains that sandstorm teams have more variety and hail teams are more predictable. You're not restricted to a few staple pokemon that are needed to make hail teams.

Although tyranitar alone poses a threat to hail teams whereas abomasnow does not do the same to sandstorm teams because of steels. The stab water/ice combo against ttar is a moot point. The only pokemon on a hail team that actually use surf are not sweepers (tentacruel, walrein). With the sdef boost ttar can take these attacks like a champ. With wish support from say blissey even better. Ice is a joke on ttar even with stab. Not super effective and totally shrugged off. Not to mention your main ice attack will be blizzard which starts missing as soon as ttar enters the field.

Which is why I think every hail team then needs to use up a slot for a specific ttar counter while sandstorm teams usually have a built in abomasnow counter already. This limits hail's versatility even more.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Dude, you're not getting it either. I'm not switching Meta and Tar into these random ass moves, once these pokes are you, your Pokes are the ones switching in, and from what I can comprehend, Meteor Mash does about 50% min to a Max/Max Walrein. Then you're probably goin to bicker about stalling out, but then I'll just counter argue that Storm will be out and not Hail, so at the end of the day, you are trying to defend your accessment opposite completely of what I said, as I no where say they will be switching in.

Not to mention, it doesn't matter if Dugtrio cant KO those few Pokes, what matters is that it does for one, take down Tentacruel, which for another thing, leaves the whole team considerably weak to Fire Blast on Infernape or Heatran all around. Run a Heatran yourself? There in goes Dugtrio again.

 

[Sunday]

The poll just screams "A team is only as good as its user"

 

[Dragontamer]

Dude, you're not getting it either. I'm not switching Meta and Tar into these random ass moves, once these pokes are you, your Pokes are the ones switching in, and from what I can comprehend, Meteor Mash does about 50% min to a Max/Max Walrein. Then you're probably goin to bicker about stalling out, but then I'll just counter argue that Storm will be out and not Hail, so at the end of the day, you are trying to defend your accessment opposite completely of what I said, as I no where say they will be switching in.

Where did I say walrein is switching in?

If you aren't switching T-Tar into these "random attacks", how do you expect that Sandstorm will be out? (T-Tar is weak against almost every single secondary move that should be paired with ice: water, fighting, and ground. The only exception is thunderbolt)

My point is this: the game essentially revolves around being the last guy to set-up his/her weather effect. In a sandstorm, sandstorm teams will win, but against a hailstorm, the hail team will win. That simple.

Not to mention, it doesn't matter if Dugtrio cant KO those few Pokes, what matters is that it does for one, take down Tentacruel, which for another thing, leaves the whole team considerably weak to Fire Blast on Infernape or Heatran all around. Run a Heatran yourself? There in goes Dugtrio again.

It can only take out tentacruel on the revenge kill, never on a blizzard or a surf. It simply isn't a safe switch in.

And if you are revenge killing me, that leaves me with an advantage too, as that means I killed one of your key pokemon as well. (Simple as this: if the pokemon I killed wasn't key, what was it doing on your team? :-p Every pokemon must be a key pokemon in the optimal team)

Momentum decides sandstorm vs hail. The advantage swings widely in favor of the guy who has his weather effects out. Even as Hippo / T-Tar switches into Blizzard, there is still a 70% chance you get hit by a base 120 Sp. Atk... chances are that it is stabbed as well.

 

[Tyranny of Tyranitar]

The poll just screams "A team is only as good as its user"

I agree.

Hail Teams do work. Like my mono-ice team :)

I made this team because at the time I felt more people were using sandstorm teams, I didn't want to join a crowd. I originally though of this team as a joke team, but after using it, I ended up using it rather than my regular team.

I've seen more people recently follow suit......

For instance, out of the ice pokemon you would have the choice of abomasnow, weavile, mamoswine, glaceon, froslass, walrein and regice.

Even though I use the ones described in this quote (except for regice), there's Cloyster, Lapras, Glalie, Articuno, and Jynx (assuming the team is mono-ice (these ones aren't so great though :'( )).

That seems to be the key. If they use 6 ice types, like most teams I've seen, I'll walk over them and their defensive typing woes. But just yesterday, someone that understood to mix other types in outplayed me.

Not necessarily. I have faced a few ice teams myself that needed work, perhaps it was what you faced.

If people are grinning with CS Heatran on their mind, I have found a few ways to beat one.

 

[astrohawke]

Even though I use the ones described in this quote (except for regice), there's Cloyster, Lapras, Glalie, Articuno, and Jynx (assuming the team is mono-ice (these ones aren't so great though :'( )).

The ones I mentioned are just the ones that are going to be used on a good hail team. The ones you list are not because frankly...they suck. Obviously I realize there are more ice pokemon out there...