It's cold in here...

[teajello]

This is a remake of my first attempt at RMT. A hail team basically. I really need some help on this. So please rate and comment. Thank you!


Changes in red

My Hail Team!

Introduction

Well, it's still pretty rough but I've spent about a week on this team. (Probably because it's AP Week and I have a ton of homework and exams and stuff.) I finished and I'm fairly happy. There is alot of work that needs to be done on this team of course. It's basically UU. It's not strictly for competitive but of course, I hope to be able to compete competitively. UU and BL Pokemon are Abundant. One OU, if I'm not mistaken.

What does it do?

This team is a sweeping, stalling, and roaring machine. Now, you might be thinking... Sweeping and stalling are completely different. Well that's true of course but in my team, there are lots of opportunities for both. It's fairly flexible in that respect. (Of course, it's nowhere near perfect. It might not even be "good") The hail is a good touch for the stalling part of this team. I have entry hazards and phazers all about. I originall had toxic spikes but I took it out. Of course, I still want to have it in for stalling purposes but taking it out put a little more oomph in my team's sweeping abilities.

Please rate and help. I'd love advice but please don't flame. I'm pretty new to this team building deal so there are lots of holes in it. There are probably one or two great threats to me that are to many hail teams that are insufficient in covering those threats.

And ladies and gentlemen, without further stalling for time...



My Hail Team





The Lead
Rapid Spin, Toxic Spikes

Tentacruel
@ Leftovers
Liquid Ooze
Calm
EV 252Hp/6Def/252Spe
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes
- Surf
- Sludge Bomb

Claydol's type was an advantage but I switched it off to Tentacruel after its failure in testing. Tentacruel works quite well as a toxic spiker as it's rather fast and can (surprisingly) outspeeds a few of the common leads out there. It goes very well with my Stallrein and it almost always sets down the two layers it needs to set down.

The EVs are kind of non-standard but they've been doing great for me so I'll be keeping them for further testing. The surf and sludge bomb don't do very well but occasionally nets me a free kill or two if I'm lucky.



Hail Man
Staller

Abomasnow
@ Leftovers
Snow Warning
Timid
EV 252HP/6SpA/252Spe
- Leech Seed
- Substitute / Protect
- Ingrain / Blizzard / Grass Knot / Protect
- Ingrain / Blizzard / Grass Knot /Protect

Changed the Abomasnow set to a stall set. This was because the sweeping set didn't work well for me due to Abomasnow's 4x weakness to fire. I don't know about the last few moves. Ingrain might prove disadvantageous if the opponent switches out a fire type. Any ideas?

This set is working fine so far...



The Annoying Spike Guy
Annoyer, Spikes, Spin Blocker

Frosslass
@ Leftovers
Snow Cloak
Timid
EV 212Hp/96SpA/200Spe
- Spikes
- Substitute
- Confuse Ray
- Blizzard

I like Snow Cloak... Don't you like Snow Cloak? Frosslass' main goal is to set down 3 layers of Spikes. This is done by annoying the crap out of the enemy Pokemon. Evs are pretty HP oriented. I thought about building around its defenses but I decided not to. SpA is for Blizzard? One attack... I don't know if I really need it. It's SpA is pretty good to begin with anyways. Speed for setting down Spikes and so it can TWave, Confuse, or Spike better. It's basically to annoy the enemy with its Snow Cloak, Brightpowder, (Leftovers anyone?) and TWave (and maybe Confuse Ray) combination. Then substitute until the enemy miss or fail in attacking (which won't take too long) before you start spiking.

It's EVs are kind of weird in my opinion. Speed is important, Hp is important. (I'm VERY unconfident in its survivability despite the evasion stuff) SpA is only for one move though. Blizzard. A move I don't even know if I will have. Of course, I'll change the EV around if I get rid of Blizzard. But I might keep it in just because it's Frosslass' only attack move. (Not that an attack move is absolutely necessary, but hey, Hail + Blizzard + Decent SpA = Pretty Good Attack)

Also, my spin blocker. Pretty good spin blocker but not much retaliation against the spinning Pokemon...

And for items...

Brightpowder? Leftovers? Suggestions?



The Fire Eater, The Special Sweeper
Special Sweeper, Phazer

Ninetales
@ Leftovers / Life Orb
Flash Fire
Timid
EV4Hp/252SpA/252Spe
- Flamethrower
- Nasty Plot / Energy Ball / Dark Pulse
- Nasty Plot / Energy Ball / Dark Pulse
- Roar

Fragile... Thinking of changing the moveset around w/o Roar? Maybe Bulky Arcanine as replacement.

Eat up the fire attacks. Kill a few things along the way. It can Roar away the fire Pokemon after eating it's attack as Ninetales doesn't have many suitable attacks against fire types. The Pokemon that comes in will take damage from Stealth Rock, Spikes, and if we're lucky, from Ninetales herself. Ninetales has a fairly nice movepool with a fairly SpA special attack. That's where nasty plot comes into play.

Though I'm leaning toward using nasty plot and one of those two attack moves, I still don't know whether type coverage or power is more important. Flamethrower is the given STAB and roar is for phazing and entry hazard abuse. I'm probably being stubborn by not using Heatran just because I don't really like it but I think Ninetales plays its role fairly well anyways. If anyone thinks otherwise, by all means, HELP!

EVs are standard Special Sweeper

Life Orb or Leftovers anyone? I didn't consider Choice Specs because I wanted flexibility in being able to roar away anyone I don't want to fight.


Testing a bunch of Pokemon for this role (including Heatran). Don't want to list them all...



The Stallrein
Staller

Walrein
@ Leftovers
Ice Body
Bold
EV 252HP/178Def/88SpD
- Protect
- Substitute
- Roar
- Surf

Oh, I love you, Stallrein. This is a rather non-standard Stallrein with... what? Roar! Surf has fair type coverage and Roar for phazing and promoting entry hazard damage. Protect and Substitute for Stalling. Defensive EVs all around. Leftovers for even better stalling action! I'm probably going with Substitute because of it's stalling abilities but Rest also has its perks since I might be going around roaring things, it would help to some degree.

Not much to say, stall, roar (entry hazard damage), stall, roar. Roar also helps get rid of things it might be scared of (considering Stallrein doesn't get OHKO'd).


The Late Game Sweeper
Physical Sweeper

Weavile
@ Life Orb
Pressure
Jolly
EV 40Hp/252Atk/216Spe
- Night Slash
- Ice Shard
- Brick Break
- Poison Jab / Shadow Claw / X-Scissor

Very non-standard for Weavile. I don't want to risk Weavile's fragility with Swords Dance and I want the additional type coverage no matter how small it happens to be. Comments? The last one is sort of a surprise thing. This set has worked pretty well for me as a revenge killer so I'll keep it until I reach more problems.

My Late Game Sweep! Weavile... Overall, pretty good OU Physical Sweeper in my opinion. (One of my favorite Pokemon too. ^-^ So maybe I'm biased) Pretty standard late game Weavile. Swords dance helps in its own way. Night Slash and Ice Shard are good for Stab. I don't know if I should go with Life Orb actually. Weavile's kinda a wimp. If the opponent pops out a Scizor or something, I'm pretty dead. I want to promote its survivability with Shell Bell since Weavile will be blowing stuff up basically at the end with its high Atk and SDance. But I don't know how much that would help in actuality...

Standard Weavile EV. Of course, that doesn't mean it's bad in any way. Standard Weavile Moveset. Of course that doesn't mean its bad in any way. LOL Actually, when I was going for late game sweeper, I considered Mismagius and Gengar for better type coverage. If you guys have any opinion on that, I'm very open to opinions and suggestions.



And that's it. As I've said in the introduction, it still needs lots of work and I'd really appreciate advice of any kind. There are four Pokemon that share the ice type on my team and I realize that might be a bit overkill but I think it balances out decently so far.



Team Building Process

I'm not gonna have rows and rows of sprites for this because I actually find it somewhat annoying when people do that in this section. Mine's gonna be pretty brief and to the point.

1) Abomasnow

Well duh, no hail team is complete without this guy right? Though it took till I finished the entire team to adjust and complete his moveset and EVs.

2) Frosslass

Yep, I love Frosslass. One of my favs! ^-^ Like Abomasnow, I started it out with a completely different moveset. It didn't have spikes, to begin with, and it was mostly special sweeping.

3) Cloyster

I put it in because I wanted a Toxic Spiker and Spinner. Didn't work out just because it's Cloyster and Cloyster is kind of a noob.

4) Walrein

Oh my Stallrein! I don't really like Walrein as a Pokemon so it took me a while before I got used to it. It's an acquired taste? I don't know, but I love it now! Stallrein all the way! I had its moveset at the start with Roar and everything.

5) Weavile

Weavile actually went in and out of my team a couple of times. I love Weavile! Another one of my favs! Its moveset, whether I kept it or took it out, stayed the same though.

6) Mamoswine

Originally for Stealth Rock, but I "meh'd" it away. It was just because I had too many ice types. Of course, Mamoswine is a very respectable Pokemon. I don't like it very much per se, but it's good. I took it out because it was too OU and just for the ice thing.

7) Gengar

At this point, I took out Weavile and replaced him with Gengar! Gengar is strong! Gengar is fast! Gengar is OU OU OU OU OU!!!

8) Ninetales

I put in Ninetales as my fire eater and adjusted its moveset and EV so it could use Roar efficiently. At least to a certain degree...

9) Claydol

Now, I took out Cloyster but wanting to keep a spinner, I implemented Claydol. Claydol was good and it could Stealth Rock. I got rid of Mamoswine at this point because Claydol could Stealth Rock and I had an extra Pokemon on my team... = =

10) Weavile

I took out Gengar and replaced it with Weavile, not much to say about it. Just because Weavile is great and I already had a Ghost. (Frosslass)



Conclusion

Well that's it for my team. Thanks for reading! Please rate and help me with comments and suggestions. I'm too lazy to post a threat list and I'm not really good at identifying counters and such so I won't.

Thanks for reading. Rate and comment!​

 

[Random Pizzaman]

First, I'm not so sure about Claydol over Aboma as a lead. You'll want hail up ASAP and there's nothing that makes Claydol an exceptional lead over the fast hail.

My main concern with the team though is Ninetales. First off, Ninetales is nowhere near sturdy enough to be a phazer with raor since it'll be taking two hits max. Plus, you already have roar on Walrein and that's more than you'll need. Second, as both a Flash Fire and NP poekmon she's outclassed. Heatran is usually the first choice for a flash fire pokemon in an OU hail team, and is a better choice as a flash fire pokemon because of it's steel typing and much higher Sp.Atk. And if you want a FF, Nasty Plot pokemon Houndoom is better IMO since it has much better Special Attack, and is only a tad slower.

 

[teajello]

Thanks for the comment and suggestions.

I know that Ninetales isn't the best of choice. Although it is one of my favorite Pokemon... I have been considering bulky Arcanine for the role with its good defensive stats suitable for phazing.

I understand the Claydol over Abomasnow is kind of strange but it is good in creating a false impression of the nature of this team. (Non hail team) In addition to that, slow hail is preferred over fast hail because of the enemy's possible use of sand stream, drought, etc etc. Unfortunately, I invested lots of speed to Abomasnow's EV making him decent in speed. I need him to put in hail later than other weather effects. All these factors are in play along with the fact that having Claydol do his job before Hail is put up saves him a few slivers of health that might be helpful later in the battle.

Of course, it's not that there are no benefits in putting Abomasnow first. Usually its speed would not be so high though in that case. I just feel that with my moveset and EV investment, the benefits of putting Claydol first outweigh those of putting Abomasnow first.

Of course, it's not final at all and I'll take what you say into consideration because I really actually do hate the fact that a crappy little Claydol that can easily get blown away by any OU sweeper is my lead. Abomasnow is more reliable in that sense of course.

 

[d2m]

If you want a phazer, consider a bulky Suicune or (if you like Flash Fire) a Heatran. If you replace Toxic with Roar, you have a phazer with Flash Fire who's much sturdier than Ninetales, more powerful than Ninetales, and checks your Scizor weakness.

 

[Derek(PUK)]

If you want a phazer, consider a bulky Suicune or (if you like Flash Fire) a Heatran. If you replace Toxic with Roar, you have a phazer with Flash Fire who's much sturdier than Ninetales, more powerful than Ninetales, and checks your Scizor weakness.

Yes, ninetails is a little too frail for competitive play, try one of these two.

Heatran @ leftovers
{modest}
evs: 252 hp / 56 spa / 204 spd
- Lava plume
- dragon pulse
- rest
- sleep talk

this guy would be great for soaking up fire and dishing it back out while remaining quite bulky. Try it.

 

[teajello]

Thank you for all your comments, they've been very helpful...

Can anyone give me opinions on this?

I'm thinking of switching out my ninetales with an umbreon. It can tank and phaze better.

Then, having umbreon as a dark type, I want to switch out Weavile for a Bellyzard as late game sweep.

Yes, no, just plain stupid?

This is sort of a risk I know and kind of non standard for a hail team which often means it won't function as well.

Any suggestions?

 

[Plush]

Hehe, I was thinking of making a hail team myself so I'll rate yours

Claydol: Interesting to see this on a hail team but I suggest replacing it for Tentacruel. Why? Tent gets Toxic Spikes and Rapid Spin and it takes fire attacks. Which only 2 of your pokemon on your team take respectively.

Abamosnow: I like this idea and band Focus Punch will dazzle infernape,scizor, tyranitar, and heatran possible switching in to kill it. Very awesome.

Froslass: I personally likes SpecsLass but your set is okay. It might be hard to set up with her. Always give her blizzard I think you should run

Blizzard
Confuse Ray
Substitute
Spikes

This way you can piss off your opponent while setting up.


Ninetales: Ninetales is good if you really wanna use him. Go Nasty Plot, Dark Pulse,Flamethrower,Dark Pulse and you should be fine.


Walrein: I would replace with Mamo if you are replacing tent with claydol. while your trying to stall things like scizor,which sweep this team can set up with SDs and Infernape will destroy you. Walrein can take hits but the fact that it gets neutral fire is bad for me. It's always been one of my favorites but if you are playing in OU then that's a no-no. UU it works fine.


Weavile: It never really gets a chance to set up, maybe replacing it with Rotom-H if you play shoddy. Rotom will increase scizor resitance and be able to kill counter ghosts if it survives. Fighting types wont be so much of a problem either..


i hope i helped!

 

[teajello]

Hey, thanks alot for the comment, it's really helpful...

I'll make changes to my team soon.

 

[mc2094]

I'd definatley go with tran over nintales. It is way too fragile to be on a stall team. You won't be able to phaze very much because your opponent will always get to go first and usually KO. Arcanine is in the same boat. Too easy to defeat and having him on a stall team just doesn't work. Being weak to sr and taking damage evry turn from hail will cause him to fall quickly and he can't do much damage without life orb which will take him down even quicker. Heatran on the other hand is very sturdy, doesn't mind rocks, can switch in very easily due to his typing and get wall quite a few of the metagames top threats.

You should really use Aboma as your lead and replace claydol with tent as mentioned before. i would prefer the standard aboma set with protect-wood hammer-blizzard-leech seed. I know your trying to have him be a sweeper but it just doesn't fit well and he can stall really well.

If your going to use stallrein properly then surf is needed. It helps it take down quitea few threats such as nape and is going to be more useful if you chooose to have the toxic spikes on tentacruel.

Give froslass t-wave and give him lefties. eing able to heal off damage is better overall than doging an attck occasionally. You also want ice beam over blizzard. The extran power isn't that seful and blizzards low pp doesn't help either.

Weavile just doesn't work well in stall. It is very frail and can be taken down quickly. Relace it with someone who will be able to handle any threats you can't deal with already. GL

 

[trantastic]

If you want Abomasnow to be more of a sweeper, I'd give him choice scarf over choice band, which puts him at 360 speed. He can out speed Infernape and hit with Earthquake, and can also outspeed Gengar.

I agree with everyone else that you should choose Heatran over Ninetails, because its defenses are better and has a whole lot of resistances.

And, if you still want weavile in your team, give it Focus Sash because its too fragile to set up.

 

[teajello]

I changed Claydol to Tentacruel.

I'm testing Pokemon for Ninetales replacement.

I changed my Abomasnow to a Staller set. (I might change back it it doesn't work well.)