Lotus Sūtra

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Lotus Sūtra


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The Lotus Sūtra is a famous text in the Buddhist faith. It contains many aspects that Buddhism follows which show through in the team. Namely following a cycle to get to an endpoint; the Buddhists wish to achieve Nirvana, I wish to Achieve a sweep with Volcarona. It was once believed that simply by hearing these texts one could get rid of their negative karma. Anyways onto the team, I built this team around Volcarona since he's a top OU threat and most teams are fairly weak to him if he's played right. Not to mention I love the overall design of him he's really an awesome pokemon and one of my favorites from the new generation. I chose sand because I really hate any of the other weathers, Sun could work just as well boosting Volc's Fire type STAB, but sand is better imo for a balanced team like this. Not only that but Sun limits the spinners I have to choose from to support Volc. I chose the core of Skarm | Celebi | Latias since they work very well together and check a large portion of the metagame to allow Volc to gain an easier sweep. Between the Spikes and Stealth Rock along with the overall offensive presence of this team The opponents team often gets softened up and lets Volcarona set up and sweep lategame. Excadrill is easily the best offensive spinner to protect Volc so he can come in and set up with better ease. Excadrill also puts a ton of pressure on the opposing team with powerful coverage and incredible speed, and he lets me threaten almost all of Volcarona's checks.​

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Tyranitar @ Chople Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
Nature: Careful [+SpD, -SpA]
EVs: 252 Hp | 248 SpD | 8 Spe
-Stealth Rock
-Crunch
-Pursuit
-Superpower

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Well I originally had Choice band tar, but it was pointed out that I obviously didn't need him so I changed to this. This set lets me check some really annoying threats like gengar and Reuniclus which were gonna cause problems otherwise. This also means I can lay rocks with Tar and allow celebi to run Nasty Plot so it can take a more offensive role to check the other things Im weak too. With the given EVs I have maximum special bulk and chople berry ensures that I live a focus blast from reuniclus and gengar allowing me to trap and beat them. Fire Blast is to beat things I tend to lure in such as ferrothorn and skarmory. This also means I can more effectively trap lati@s, which also cause some problems for this team. All in all this was a perfect switch and helps the team out tremendously. thanks go to fried_rhys for this set and the new set for Celebi.

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Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
Nature: Impish[+Def, -SpA]
EVs: 252 Hp | 240 Def | 16 Spe
-Spikes
-Roost
-Whirlwind
-Brave Bird

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Skarmory is incredible to say the least. He checks so many physical threats its incredible. In fact he is one of the best checks to sand around, spiking on the majority of pokemon commonly found in sand. I can usually get up 3 layers of spikes with little trouble and proceed to whirlwind spam to wrack up damage on the opponents team so Volcarona can nab a quiver dance and sweep through cleanly. He walls one of Volcarona's best revengers and one of the top threats in the metagame: Excadrill. I love seeing Excadrill in team preview because everytime it comes in its a free layer of spikes for me. Among other things it walls landorus without hp fire. He checks scizor and is a perfect switch in to jirachi since he doesn't mind the paralysis, and can roost off the damage from the Iron heads. Spikes is an incredible move and the more layers the merrier since it softens the opponent's team up nicely and leads me that much closer to getting a successful sweep with Volcarona. Needless to say Skarm pairs really well with Latias in defending the team from a vast majority of the metagame.

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Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
Nature: Modest [+SpA, -Att]
EVs: 252 SpA | 180 Spe | 76 Hp
-Nasty Plot
-Recover
-Giga Drain
-Hidden Power[fire]

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Celebi is a really awesome pokemon, and checks rain pretty well. Its my main switchin to bulky waters because it shrugs off most of their attacks and doesn't mind the burn chance from scald thanks to Natural Cure. Thanks to nasty plot Celebi can boost its SpA stat to amazing levels. Giga Drain is obligatory STAB and does really well to heal off celebi against mons weak to it when I don't want to risk the recover. I was told to up the speed as lucario is a big threat to this team even though its not very common. I don't miss the bulk I lost because Latias takes the hits Celebi would be taking anyways. The speed also allows me to outrun things that aim for the 246ish area which means I have a good chance at beating them before they beat me. Not to mention it means I don't have to worry about the rare max speed scizor that sometimes runs around.

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Latias @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Timid [+Spe, -Att]
EVs: 252 Hp | 252 Spe | 4 SpA
-Calm Mind
-Roost
-Roar
-Dragon Pulse

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Latias is so good at what it does. It checks a huge amount of special threats that are bad for this team to face. Among them the 2 biggest are Reuniclus and Virzion both of whom Latias sets up alongside them then roars them out and threatens the opponents team immensely. She also works for switching into the threats that Tyranitar and Celebi can't and can revenge many of her dragon brethren. Calm Mind boosts her special bulk to insane levels and gives her dragon pulse a nice bite to go with it. Roar means not very many special threats will be able to set up on this team. She provides much needed insurance against a ton of mons and can shuffle the opponents team to rack up spikes+stealth rock damage which is really nice for softening up the team meaning Volc again gets a clean sweep ripping apart the remnants of the opponents team which is amazing. Roost is of course for instant recovery and means she can keep switching into bad threats. And thanks to celebi absorbing status Latias doesn't have to worry about getting poisoned which would keep her staying time down tremendously. Anyways Latias is super good for this team and is a key player for getting Volcarona a sweep.

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Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
Nature: Adamant [+Att, -SpA]
EVs: 252 Att | 252 Spe | 4 Def
-Swords Dance
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide
-Rapid Spin

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Excadrill, easily one of the best pokemon from the new generation. For good reason too, he sports a massive attack stat, good typing, and an ability that makes him a threat to so many teams. He is the revenge killer for this team and does an incredible job at it being outsped by nothing in sand and hitting well with the infamous edgequake coverage. Earthquake is so retardedly powerful and if I manage to nab a swords dance he just becomes that much more threatening able to rip through so many teams. Excadrill is also my answer to many things that threaten Volcarona namely the flying dragons, Terrakion, and Heatran. he can immediately threaten them all but must be wary of when he comes in. Rapid Spin is the main reason I chose Excadrill though, because any team that uses Volcarona is in need of a spinner so he doesn't get knocked for half his Hp each time he comes in. Rapid Spin is useful for the rest of the team too especially in keeping tyranitar alive so I can ensure that I get my weather as the dominant one in the end. Excadrill is also one of my powerful physical attacker to take out the ever annoying special wall known as blissey who walls Volcarona to hell and back. Excadrill is the crux of this team and the perfect partner to Volcarona.

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Volcarona @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Flame Body
Nature: Modest [+SpA, -Att]
EVs: 252 SpA | 160 Hp | 96 Spe
-Quiver Dance
-Rest
-Fiery Dance
-Bug Buzz

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Volcarona is one of the best pokemon in the metagame right now and for so many reasons. He is an insanely powerful sweeper and most teams have a bit of a weakness to him. I've been wanting to use him for awhile and this is the time I finally decided too. He needs a bit of support but if you play it right it can rip through opposing teams like nobody's business. I chose to use leftovers over life orb because I prefer the staying power over the extra boost since combined with sandstorm and possible entry hazard damage Volcarona needs as much help as it can get. His excellent offensive typing leads to few pokemon able to truly come in on it in OU. The few mons that do threaten are themselves immediately threatened by Excadrill and the other members of this team. Quiver Dance is the move that makes Volcarona so threatening, boosting its SpA, SpD, and Spe all in one turn which is amazing. It also means that Volc is that much harder to revenge thanks to its handy resists to common priority moves. Fiery Dance is chosen as its Fire STAB because I like the chance of getting a special attack boost more than the extra power since it tends to be better in the long run. Bug Buzz is the other obligatory STAB move and has plenty of power and the nice chance of lowering the target's SpD which is pretty cool. Volcarona is the reason I built this team and I haven't been sorry so far. It is truly a force to be reckoned with.


Thanks in advance for the rates I look forward to getting responses​
 
Hey there.
This is a really good team. On Volcarona though, I definitely think HP ground would be better than HP rock, as it lets you beat heatran easily. I can't really think of anything that you could ko with HP rock in particular; if you're worried about Dragonite, then you can always run Hidden Power Ice. The main thing that I see that could cause problems for your team is Trick Room Reuniclus, but Latias can take a shadow ball and Roar it, and you can always just play around it and eventually ko it with T-tar. This is a very well thought out team, and that is the only thing I can see wrong with it.
 
Hey there.
This is a really good team. On Volcarona though, I definitely think HP ground would be better than HP rock, as it lets you beat heatran easily. I can't really think of anything that you could ko with HP rock in particular; if you're worried about Dragonite, then you can always run Hidden Power Ice. The main thing that I see that could cause problems for your team is Trick Room Reuniclus, but Latias can take a shadow ball and Roar it, and you can always just play around it and eventually ko it with T-tar. This is a very well thought out team, and that is the only thing I can see wrong with it.


Thanks for the rate I think I'm going to keep hidden power rock because it gets better coverage and heatran isn't a big problem when I have excadrill and tyranitar to beat it pretty easily. I'll try it out anyways to see how it does.
 
A really well designed team with a solid concept.

However, you need better checks to Heatran. Excadrill can't switch into any fire move and can only threat tran once its Balloon is popped and Tyranitar is forced to use Superpower. Even though its going to hit hard on what ever switches in, -1 Atk and -1 Def (pretty much forcing you to switch) can shift the match. Your opponent will see that 4/6 of your team can't hurt Heatran in team preview and save tran.

Aside from that. I would consider investing 40 Spe in Ttar. It allows it to outspeed standard Jellicent (it runs 44 Spe) and hit it hard with a Crunch before it can WoW you or burn you with Scald. Take some of your SpD EVs and move them to Spe.
 
Nice team. You have most of the metagame covered nicely so good job on that. Gengar looks like a real problem for you. It can OHKO or 2HKO every member on your team rather easily. Volcarona is your best bet but banking on Stealth Rock being down when Gengar comes out is pretty unreliable. Excadrill's Rock Slide doesn't do nearly enough damage while Skarmory can't take Focus Blast well at all. The rest of your team is just outright OHKOd. Nasty Plot Lucario is also going to be able to do a lot of damage, uncommon as Lucario may be. After a Nasty Plot it can OHKO every member of your team with the appropriate attack. Excadrill will die to a boosted Vaccum Wave, and Volcarona is taking around 85% from Dark Pulse meaning it can't be relied on reliably either.

I'll start by suggesting Chople Tyranitar over Choice Band to help with the Gengar problem. You don't really need to eliminate Jellicent in order to spin as Excadrill can just 2HKO with a little prediction, and Jellicent aren't inclined to switch in a lot of the time anyway. Jellicent also isn't a great stop to Volcarona, and variants lacking Toxic allow you to nab a couple more Quiver Dances, if anything. With a Celebi and Spikes, Jellicent already has trouble coming in. Opposing weather also isn't too much of a problem with Celebi/Latias for Drizzle, and Volcarona putting huge pressure on Drought. Another neat thing is reducing the need to play guessing games with Trick Room Reuniclus. I'm sure you know the Chople Tar set so I won't list it. This helps with Gengar but the Nasty Plot Lucario weakness still stands. It's a fairly uncommon Pokemon so I'll just suggest bumping Celebi's speed up to outrun Lucario(180 EVs) and running a Nasty Plot set with Leftovers now that Tyranitar can Stealth Rock. The speed also comes with the advantage of outrunning opposing Celebi, Jirachi, Rotom-w, and anything else hanging around that area of 246ish speed. The loss of bulk isn't too detrimental with Latios to take pretty much the same attacks you'd rely on Celebi for, and Leftovers helps Celebi take hits better anyway. I think these suggestions will greatly help your team, particularly against the threats I mentioned.

Thanks for the rate bro I'll definitely use those changes they seem to help the team a lot!
 
Hi

This looks like a well build and solid team so good job with that. I'll still try to give you some suggestions though.

i notice that Water pokemon and Rain teams particular can be a bit annoying for your team. Starmie can deal heavy damage to all your guys and your only way for dealing with it is by getting up Sandstorm. Unfortunately Tyranitar does likes taking a couple of Hydro Pumps. The common Volt Switch Rotom-W + Pursuit Tyranitar also gives you trouble as Rotom-W lures in Celebi and Latias who can in return are trapped and killed by Tyranitar. Your team doesn't like taking Rain boosted Water types attacks altogether. That's why I suggest a Gastrodon instead of Celebi on your team. Celebi and Latias both covers the same things so having both is a bit redundant. Gastrodon will be really helpful against Rain teams who are really common these days, thanks to it's superb ability Storm Drain. It will also give you an easier time against opposing Rotom-W, Starmie, Heatran, Thunderus, etc ... A moveset of Ice Beam / Earth Power / Recover / Toxic will fit perfectly. You can choose to use Scald as well if you feel that move work better. Max HP and SDef is preferred. After a Storm Drain boost Gastrodon hits pretty hard as well.

Hope this helped and good luck with the team.
 
Hey,

Very solid team. There's not much to change, you have almost everything in the metagame covered and you're not at a disadvantage against any form of weather. The Gastrodon suggested by Delko is an excellent choice since it pretty much counters rain by itself, but the loss of Celebi would make it very difficult to combat bulky Waters, especially those carrying Toxic. So I'd suggest keeping it. There are a few things you could try out regarding some of your movesets and EVs. Your current Volcarona set is easily worn down by status and has it's sweep completely stopped by bulky Waters, even after a couple of boosts. So, you could try a ChestoRest Volcarona over your current one. This set isn't bothered about status and focuses on getting as many boosts as possible before resting it off. The added bulk is very welcome, allowing Volcarona to set up on stuff like Gastrodon, and means that priority attacks such as Scizors Bullet Punch won't cut short your sweep. It also makes a much better TR Reuniclus counter, something your team could have trouble with:

Volcarona@Chesto Berry
160 HP | 252 Sp Atk | 96 Speed
Modest
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Quiver Dance
- Rest

Good luck!
 
Hi

This looks like a well build and solid team so good job with that. I'll still try to give you some suggestions though.

i notice that Water pokemon and Rain teams particular can be a bit annoying for your team. Starmie can deal heavy damage to all your guys and your only way for dealing with it is by getting up Sandstorm. Unfortunately Tyranitar does likes taking a couple of Hydro Pumps. The common Volt Switch Rotom-W + Pursuit Tyranitar also gives you trouble as Rotom-W lures in Celebi and Latias who can in return are trapped and killed by Tyranitar. Your team doesn't like taking Rain boosted Water types attacks altogether. That's why I suggest a Gastrodon instead of Celebi on your team. Celebi and Latias both covers the same things so having both is a bit redundant. Gastrodon will be really helpful against Rain teams who are really common these days, thanks to it's superb ability Storm Drain. It will also give you an easier time against opposing Rotom-W, Starmie, Heatran, Thunderus, etc ... A moveset of Ice Beam / Earth Power / Recover / Toxic will fit perfectly. You can choose to use Scald as well if you feel that move work better. Max HP and SDef is preferred. After a Storm Drain boost Gastrodon hits pretty hard as well.



Hope this helped and good luck with the team.

Hey Thanks for the rate the below rate explains why I think I'm gonna keep Celebi as bulky waters are really annoying for this team but thanks for the suggestion and I'll try gassy out it might just fit better than I think.

Hey,

Very solid team. There's not much to change, you have almost everything in the metagame covered and you're not at a disadvantage against any form of weather. The Gastrodon suggested by Delko is an excellent choice since it pretty much counters rain by itself, but the loss of Celebi would make it very difficult to combat bulky Waters, especially those carrying Toxic. So I'd suggest keeping it. There are a few things you could try out regarding some of your movesets and EVs. Your current Volcarona set is easily worn down by status and has it's sweep completely stopped by bulky Waters, even after a couple of boosts. So, you could try a ChestoRest Volcarona over your current one. This set isn't bothered about starts and focuses on getting as many boosts as possible before resting it off. The added bulk is very welcome, allowing Volcarona to set up on stuff like Gastrodon, and means that priority attacks such as Scizors Bullet Punch won't cut short your sweep. It also makes a much better TR Reuniclus counter, something your team could have trouble with:

Volcarona@Chesto Berry
160 HP | 252 Sp Atk | 96 Speed
Modest
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Quiver Dance
- Rest

Good luck!

Thanks for the rate, I was considering chestorest for my Volc set and I just chose the offensive set for whatever reason. I'll make that change as you have described why chestorest is the superior choice.
 
Pure BBZ i recommend switching out Volc and Celebi for magikarps so you can Splash attack..... obviously

Why Roost on Latias and not Recover?
 
I am kind of concerned with your Celebi. Although that is able to take out bulky Water-types such as the others have mentioned: Gastrodon & Jellicent, Celebi is rather frail (imo). It is able to outspeeded by Scarfed Hydreigon + Gengar and is able to suffer a Super-effective Dark Pulse from either of the two. You could change Celebi into a physical Jolly Virizion w/ Life Orb to take Celebi's place. But then Virizion would take Celebi's special role as a physical one.
 
Hey there Puretrainer, nice team you have here. It's currently the featured team of the day at #ratemyteam. I really agree with Fried Rhys' suggestion about giving Tyranitar Chople Berry to handle opposing Gengar. That really fixes that problem up. I also agree with IB93's Chesto Volcarona suggestion, it really helps with Volcarona at sweeping in this Sandstorm team. Now, there is still a big problem I see with this team. There is no safe way of coming in on a Heatran and the only Pokemon you have on your team to beat Heatran is Excadrill. And even there an Air Balloon Heatran (very popular) can rip this team apart. Along with Roar and Stealth Rock up, your Volcarona is easily stopped. Not only that, your team has no way of coming in on an opposing Tyranitar. An opposing Tyranitar with Superpower can easily KO your Tyranitar and you can't send in Excadrill on that. Skarmory, Celebi, and Excadrill all can't come in Fire Blast. Latias and Celebi both despise Crunch. So you're left with using Volcarona to handle it, and a potential Stone Edge would easily end that. Since you're already not even using enough SpAtk EVs to deal with Skarmory and opposing Ferrothorn with Fire Blast, I suggest replacing Fire Blast for Superpower. Not only will Superpower give you a good option to stop opposing Tyranitars (especially with your own Chople Berry), but also help deal with the Heatran problem. Next, fix the Tyranitar EVs now to 252 HP / 248 SpDef / 8 Spe and Careful Nature.

Good luck!
 
Would Jellicent work better over Celebi? It surely helps more against Heatran than Celebi would, as well as take water moves exceptionally well obviously. You lose some Rotom-W coverage if you made this move, but you do gain one valuable quality:

Protecting your hazards.

You invest a lot in it and a simple opposing Forretress can just repeatedly come into Skarmory all day for a free Rapid Spin. Excadrill will do the same. Not that Jellicent is a good Excadrill switch in, but if you do get it in, you're able to play mind games later and get a free move as it anticipates and fruitlessly Earthquakes your Skarmory, for example.

Jellicent would also stop the Tyranitar issue a lot by being able to burn it if you're able to come in on one of it's 4 moves, or perhaps all 4 if it's running Pursuit and not Crunch.

But if Celebi is more important for something else or you just absolutely hate Rotom-W's than disregard this.

P.S. Remove 4 HP Evs from Volcarona. Odd number HP will always help.
 
@ dori
160 HP evs will give you an odd hp number.
Also, I agree with dori in Jellicent over Celebi, as a spin blocker is very important when you're setting up both Stealth Rock and Spikes. The standard stall breaker set should do.

Jellicent @ Leftovers
Ability: Cursed Body
Nature: Bold [+Def, -Att]
EVs: 252 HP | 220 Def | 44 Spe
-Taunt
-Recover
-Will-O-Wisp
-Shadow Ball
 
Hey there Puretrainer, nice team you have here. It's currently the featured team of the day at #ratemyteam. I really agree with Fried Rhys' suggestion about giving Tyranitar Chople Berry to handle opposing Gengar. That really fixes that problem up. I also agree with IB93's Chesto Volcarona suggestion, it really helps with Volcarona at sweeping in this Sandstorm team. Now, there is still a big problem I see with this team. There is no safe way of coming in on a Heatran and the only Pokemon you have on your team to beat Heatran is Excadrill. And even there an Air Balloon Heatran (very popular) can rip this team apart. Along with Roar and Stealth Rock up, your Volcarona is easily stopped. Not only that, your team has no way of coming in on an opposing Tyranitar. An opposing Tyranitar with Superpower can easily KO your Tyranitar and you can't send in Excadrill on that. Skarmory, Celebi, and Excadrill all can't come in Fire Blast. Latias and Celebi both despise Crunch. So you're left with using Volcarona to handle it, and a potential Stone Edge would easily end that. Since you're already not even using enough SpAtk EVs to deal with Skarmory and opposing Ferrothorn with Fire Blast, I suggest replacing Fire Blast for Superpower. Not only will Superpower give you a good option to stop opposing Tyranitars (especially with your own Chople Berry), but also help deal with the Heatran problem. Next, fix the Tyranitar EVs now to 252 HP / 248 SpDef / 8 Spe and Careful Nature.

Good luck!


Thanks for the rate I was noticing a little heatran problem myself thats a nice way to help fix it so thanks for the suggestion! And I'll have to stop by the irc sometime today to check out the other suggestions.
 
I suggest going specially defensive on Celebi. This will allow it to even take on offensive Water Pokemon (basically Starmie and Politoed), by swallowing an Ice Beam and Giga Draining off the damage. Calm Mind might be better off for this, too, over Nasty Plot for the same purpose of tanking special hits better. Latios can't touch Celebi either (other than Trick or CM + Psyshock). Celebi can also survive a +2 LO Dark Pulse from Lucario comfortably (79-93%).

This is the defensive Celebi I'm using. 252 HP | 76 Def | 176 SDef, Calm Nature. You may want to take off a few Def EVs and put it into Speed or SpA.
 
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