Lucario and the Voice of the Forest [OU RMT]

[Jukain-Arashi]

Hey guys, I'm back with another team due to me no liking my previous HO team. And also because I wasn't sure how to play HO xD If anyone would be interested in teaching me HO, please PM me. So after failing miserably at HO, I went back to my usual style of playing using a mix of bulky and fragile Pokemon. This time I wanted to try out two Pokemon together: Lucario and Celebi. I would appreciate it if you read through the entire RMT as I explain the movesets for every Pokemon, plus I spent a long ass time preparing it for you guys. Also, keep in mind that this team will be used for WIFI ONLY, since that is where I do most of my battling, therefore I won't have to be concerned with certain things.

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Elemental/Residual Damage Weaknesses and Resistances

• 4 Toxic Spikes Immunities
• 2 Spikes Immunites
• 6 Stealth Rock Resistences and 0 Weaknesses
• 3 Sandstorm Immunities

Machamp (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 240 HP/248 Atk/4 Spd/16 SDef
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- Dynamicpunch
- Ice Punch
- Payback

Machamp is a beast. It's my favorite antilead other than Dragonite. It starts the battle off with a bang and gathers momentum for my team. Dynamicpunch allows me to get rid of annoying Aerodactyl and bulky leads that I can't really harm with my other attacks. Bullet Punch cleans things up against weakened foes. Ice Punch is my only way of handling Roserade, and thanks to Lum Berry I can KO it the next turn with Bullet Punch should it put me to sleep. Payback lets me hit Ghost types that can switch in predicting Dynamicpunch. It is my only way to combat Rotom-A who can cause a lot of problems for my sweeper, Lucario.

vs Top 10 OU Leads

Hide

Azelf
Payback should get it down to Sash, and then I can Bullet Punch for the KO. Psychic won't be able to OHKO
Aerodactyl
Dynamicpunch followed by Bullet Punch should take care of it.
Swampert
Dynamicpunch it on the first turn and then proceed with Payback. The confusion slows it down a bit.
Metagross
See Swampert.
Jirachi
This thing is a pain. I usually Dynamicpunch it to get the confusion, followed by Payback. If it U-turns, whatever comes in can be hit hard with Payback
Infernape
Take the Fake Out, then go for Dynamicpunch which should do a lot. If it doesn't KO, I can Bullet Punch to remove it
Machamp
It's only a matter of who wins the speed tie here. Normally I just Dynamicpunch and my Lum Berry will cure confusion if my opponent goes for the same move. But one of us will end up going down. I need a better plan for this guy.
Ninjask
Ice Punch followed by Bullet Punch will take care of it.
Roserade
Ice Punch it first turn, since Lum Berry will cure me of sleep. Then Bullet Punch for the KO. Not too worried about Toxic Spikes because all my Pokemon resist is except Celebi who can switch out and Machamp who I don't really save for later usage.
Tyranitar
Easily taken care of with Dynamicpunch + Bullet Punch. This guy isn't a big threat at all.

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Lucario (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Crunch
- Extremespeed
- Swords Dance

Lucario is probably my favorite sweeper in OU. It's almost unstoppable after a +2 SD boost, allowing it slice through a lot of the Pokemon in OU. It's got the strongest priority in the game that packs a punch after a SD boost. Close Combat gives it a 120 Base Power STAB move that puts major dents in most Pokemon, and it can dent Pokemon that are resistant to it after a SD boost. Crunch allows Lucario to take on Rotom-A that can be a pain if not taken care of right away. Lucario works nicely with Gengar. Gengar can lure in Scared Tyranitar who will most likely Pursuit and trap Gengar. Once Gengar is down, Lucario can come in and set up a free SD and proceed to sweep.
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Heatran (M) @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Earth Power
- Fire Blast
- Stealth Rock
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Heatran is no doubt my favorite Stealth Rock user. This is basically the lead Heatran set with a few changes. First, I'm running Lava Plume > Fire Blast. This is because of the better accuracy and the ability to burn foes on the switch. Second, I'm using Hidden Power [Grass] > Explosion, this allows me to hit Swampert for super effective damage without sacrificing Heatran. Shuca Berry allows me to get the 2HKO on Swampert. Earth Power is a great STAB. ScarfTrans and SubTrans usually switch in on my Heatran thinking they can scare me off, but since I'm holding a Shuca Berry, I don't bite and they don't get to set up on me. While I can KO with Earth Power, it's a nice surprise for my opponent.
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Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/220 Def/36 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Grass Knot
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Recover
- Thunder Wave

My team desperately needed a status absorber. Celebi was just the Pokemon for the job! It's able to draw in Flash Fire boosts for Heatran making Lava Plume's damage almost equal to Fire Blast's damage. Celebi also gives me a secondary check on Swampert and helps keep bulky ground types away. Hidden Power [Fire] helps eliminate Scizor, one of the two Pursuiters that Gengar hates. I have Thunder Wave > Leech Seed for one reason: most of my teams are Infernape weak, and if I can catch it with Thunder Wave on the switch, I've pretty much made it useless unless my opponent has a cleric. Recover works great when I'm at low health and I have just crippled my opponent with Thunder Wave. Also, this Celebi was able to take a +3 Outrage from Kingdra, so it truly is a great asset to the team.
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- Substitute
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Pain Split

My team has a sort of Fighting and Ground weakness to it, so I needed a Pokemon that could resist both. I considered Rotom-A for their bulk, but bulk came at the cost of power. I finally decided on Gengar as my Pokemon. I'm using Naive nature, because I IV bred a Gengar with HP Fire and that's the nature it had. Naive raises Speed, just like Timid, and since Gengar's defenses are already crap it the loss doesn't matter that much. Since Gengar forces many switches, I am able to get a Sub up without any problems. Substitute allows me to escape ScarTar and Scizor, the latter who gets KOed by Hidden Power [Fire]. Shadow Ball is a great STAB move to have on Gengar. Blissey normally walls Gengar, but not this Gengar! With 92 EVs invested in Atk, Gengar can 2HKO Blissey with Focus Punch if I get it on the switch the first time. I may switch Focus Punch to Drain Punch, what do you guys think? I am definitely not going to use Focus Blast as it's not as reliable with it's poor accuracy.
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Flygon (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Stone Edge
- U-turn

This team needed a revenge killer as well as a solid check to Infernape, even if Celebi can maim it with Thunder Wave. The set is pretty standard allowing me to revenge Pokemon like Infernape, SD Lucario, ScarfTar and the like. Flygon also provides another ground resistance which is greatly appreciated by Lucario and Heatran who get OHKOed by ground attacks. U-turn allows me to scout my opponents Pokemon and allow me to deal with them accordingly. Stone Edge let's me take care of Gyrados since once it sets up, it can screw over my entire team barring Celebi. I didn't need Fire Blast since Heatran usually scares it off and Gengar and Celebi can keep it at bay with Hidden Power [Fire].
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[ToF]

I like the makeup of this team. It's pretty solid resistance-wise, but I'm a bit worried about facing stall teams. You got stall-breakers on this team like Lucario and Machamp, but I feel a few tweaks would help out your team more.

On Heatran, replace Lava Plume with Fire Blast. The real reason to use Lava Plume is to burn like incoming Swamperts and Gyarados, but you already got both of them covered via HP Grass and Celebi. I mean sure you can use it for Tyranitar I guess, but I think Fire Blast's power will help you out a lot more against higher-level competition.

Skarmory can be a bit of an annoyance to this team, so maybe consider running Fire Blast or Thunderpunch over Stone Edge on Flygon to at least dent it a bit. Fire Blast does around 50% to special defensive variants, and Thunderpunch a bit less than 40%. Thunderpunch however will let you still be able to revenge-kill Dragon Dance Gyarados if Celebi somehow dies.

 

[Jukain-Arashi]

Stone Edge still hits Gyarados and Mence hard. And I have Heatran for Skarmory.

 

[Towelie]

heatran has no recovery and is usually sacing 60%~ from staying in on other trans taking the hit with shuca, so yes, skarmory still gives you trouble.

 

[c.falcon-arrgh]

I don't really think his team is weak to skarmory, since half his pokemon have hp fire and skarmory doesn't like that.

This is a pretty good team. You have resistance to a lot of stuff, and your pokemon holds diversified items. Your lead is also very good, coming on top most other leads. However, i believe that your team may be a little weak to gengar. Say tyranitar pursuits your stuff, you switch in lucario and swords dance, but in comes a gengar. What would you do in this situation? You can either risk having focus blast miss, or you can go ahead to celebi, but what can celebi really do to gengar other than getting outsped and killed by shadow ball?

My point is you don't have a solid wall that can take special attacks, and so special sweepers such as starmie, gengar, special infernape can hurt your team pretty badly.

I suggest you tweak your celebi a little such that it is able to deal with starmie to a small extent. Give celebi some special defense so that it can attempt to stall starmie out by using thunder wave, recover and grass knot (216 sp.def allows celebi to always take less than 50% from 252sp.att timid starmie with expert belt using ice beam, while 100EV is enough to ensure that 252sp.att timid starmie with expert belt does an average of 50% to celebi with ice beam)

Also, a surprise for opponent gengar would be to use bullet punch over extremespeed on lucario. Although there is a 20 decrease in power, it allows you to always KO 0hp/0def gengar after stealth rock damage after a swords dance boost. This also means that you are not stopped by scarf tyranitar or any rock type faster than you that think they can survive your +2 extremespeed.

 

[Lucien Lachance]

I did a type analysis, and by switching Celebi to Jirachi, your type coverage improves, a lot. Instead of have 8 types hit 2 of your pokemon for SE, only 4 will now. You could use the SuperRachi set if you wanna keep Champ as lead, or you can use Rachi lead and keep Champ for later and have it look like this...

Machamp (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 248 HP/252 Atk/8 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dynamicpunch
- Ice Punch
- Payback
- Thunderpunch
ice punch for dragons and lifting weight off of Flygons shoulders, Thunderpunch for flyers, Payback for ghosts and well... 100 damage and DP for STAB and annoyance. HP give max Leftover recovery while 8 Spe lets you outspeed other Machamps. Max attack for obvious reasons. I used it on Shoody and it works amazingly well as it counters a whole lot of different offensive and defensive threats in the OU metagame.

Hope I helped!
-Lucien Lachance

 

[Jukain-Arashi]

I'm very reluctant to get rid of Celebi, because like I stated in my OP, I wanted Celebi and Lucario on this team. Another reason is that I'm trying not to use Jirachi, because I've had it in most of my previous teams XD

 

[Doctor Who?]

Just a fun suggestion. Use Rest on Celebi>>Recover. Natural Cure means that you don't worry about waiting to wake up.

Lucario needs Ice Punch>>Crunch to deal with Gliscor which is something this team could have problems with. It checks Heatran and Lucario and can U-Turn for massive damage on Celebi. Sure you can easily predict it but Lucario makes the best lure to it and Ice Punch KOs. Quite a lot of Gliscor are run as a lead these days so you know it will be there straight away and then you can smash standard Gliscor on the switch in for a OHKO.

 

[Jukain-Arashi]

Just a fun suggestion. Use Rest on Celebi>>Recover. Natural Cure means that you don't worry about waiting to wake up.

Lucario needs Ice Punch>>Crunch to deal with Gliscor which is something this team could have problems with. It checks Heatran and Lucario and can U-Turn for massive damage on Celebi. Sure you can easily predict it but Lucario makes the best lure to it and Ice Punch KOs. Quite a lot of Gliscor are run as a lead these days so you know it will be there straight away and then you can smash standard Gliscor on the switch in for a OHKO.

If I were ti use Ice Punch > Crunch, Lucario would have to be Jolly natured. But most Gliscor's are also Jolly natured, so I'd get outsped either way unless I actually predict it to switch in.

 

[c.falcon-arrgh]

Just a fun suggestion. Use Rest on Celebi>>Recover. Natural Cure means that you don't worry about waiting to wake up.

Recover is always better than rest unless you're choiced and you just want to recover to full health and get out.

There's no point in using rest at all. Stick to recover.

 

[Towelie]

Ok so I'm actually going to do a full rate this time. Any form of Salamence, specifically the MixMence and Dragon Dance sets murder you. Mixmence can come into Lucario, Heatran, AND Celebi, and it can proceed to toss out a Draco Meteor (which none of your team can take) Heatran can't do shit because Draco + EQ KO's through Shuca, and you obviously get outsped. Dragon Dance Salamence on the other hand, can come in on Heatran after a kill, get a DD, and KO with EQ through Shuca. Flygon isn't a reliable check because most Mence these days run max speed with a + nature. To try and help with this issue, I would put Dragon Pulse or Explosion on Heatran over HP Grass, (your team honestly doesn't have problems with Swampert) to limit the opportunity's that Salamence has to set up.
Now, on to Gengar. Please don't run Drain Punch; That's awful. If you really want Blissey gone, run a set called Sub Pain Split.

Gengar @ Life Orb
Timid
-Shadow Ball
-Focus Blast
-Substitute
-Pain Split

This set allows Gengar to throw up a Sub and pain split Blissey into Focus Blast's KO range. Hope I helped, and good luck with the team!

 

[Lucien Lachance]

Doctor Who - Most gliscors have 216 Spe EVs and a jolly nature, which is enough speed to outspeed all forms of Lucario, barring a scarfed one. Lucario is then OHKO'ed by EQ from Gliscor. So Lucario now makes a garbage Gliscor counter because of this.

 

[firecape]

Doctor Who - Most gliscors have 216 Spe EVs and a jolly nature, which is enough speed to outspeed all forms of Lucario, barring a scarfed one. Lucario is then OHKO'ed by EQ from Gliscor. So Lucario now makes a garbage Gliscor counter because of this.

Dude stop trashing others peoples suggestions when yours are god awful. You tell him to trash celebi, which is one of his teams main members judging by the title of this rmt (sorry if it isn't) and say giving Lucario ice punch doesn't let it counter gliscor. Theres this new thing called switching, you try to catch it on the switch it, he didn't say "Oh with ice punch you can switch lucario into gliscor and own it..."

Sorry if i dont have any suggestions to the owner of this thread i just wanted to address this.

 

[Jukain-Arashi]

Bump.

Due to me not having reliable internet access I have not been able to test any of my changes. I'll definitely try out the Gengar when i can Shoddy again. Though, would it not be better to use Leftovers > Life Orb since Gengar is running Substitute?

 

[Towelie]

No the life orb helps you recover more health from pain split, as well as putting Blissey in KO range.

 

[Lucien Lachance]

Dude stop trashing others peoples suggestions when yours are god awful...

I only brought it up because I don't want him think he has an easy kill by switching his Lucario into a Gliscor and being outspeed, and then OHKO by EQ. It's helpful if you research your topics before you post, much less bash other people. Here, lemme give you the link, look under dancing tank and be amazed on how I was right. I'm sorry for bashing, but I'm being helpful son.

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/gliscor

Know what, lemme just quote the page...

Quote: With many Lucario using attacks such as Hidden Power Ice and Ice Punch, slower, bulkier Gliscor are not the most effective solution. This Gliscor runs enough Speed to outrun all forms of Lucario, excluding the rare Choice Scarf variety, and get a clean OHKO with Earthquake. End Quote.

If you look it up, you can see the Gliscor has 216 Spe EVs and either a Jolly or Impish nature. 216 Spe EVs are on every single Gliscor set, barring the Pure Baton Pass set. In my reply to Doctor, I even stated almost the exact same as stated in the StrategyDex. So is my comment so dumb and awful now? Even though I've shown solid proof that I know what I'm talking about. Once again, I hate bashing, but honestly, I'm helping him out, which you don't seem to be doing.

Unfortunately, you got PWNED firecape.

 

[Enygma]

ah i see. i understand that you'd like to use Celebi, but your team benefits defensively overall if you use Jirachi.

I disagree with this suggestion. Without Celebi, he would have to rely solely on Heatran to deal with Swampert. On top of that, Jirachi would just simply add to his Ground weakness, meaning that a +1 Mence would be able to rip through his team via EQ. And he specifically mentioned that his team's theme was Cele-Cario. A good team rater will never mess up a team's theme/purpose unless it is ABOLUTELY necessary, and Jirachi > Celebi is not necessary.

And it doesn't seem to me that Machamp is providing much for your team other than being an annoying lead. I wanna suggest using Heatran as your lead and having Gyarados > Machamp. Gyarados will act as your Gliscor counter, since you have little answers to it. Gyarados also adds another ground/fire resist that CeleCario would love to have. So your core can be CeleCarioGyara, which looks like a decent synergy core.

You don't really lose much with Gyara > Machamp, but I still see a stall and DD Mence weakness. I can't really suggest anything without ruining your team's synergy/theme, but I can suggest that you use Taunt Gyara should you decide to take my suggestion. Taunt Gyara can stop stall Pokemon from setting up, but it can't really break stall. I am also going to suggest a Gliscor on your team as well, should you opt not to go with Gyara. Gliscor does a great deal against stall, depending on its moveset. A set with Taunt/Roost/Ice Fang/EQ can do the same thing as Taunt Gyara, but it can kinda deal with Mence and other stall Pokemon. Toxic is also an option over Ice Fang to cripple stall walls, but Ice Fang > < Toxic is just preference on dealing with Mence or stall.

Other than that, I hope I helped.

 

[Kujoshan]

first off your judgements of the top 10 leads:
Aerodactyl: just BP should be enough but if you want to use ice punch as well that is your call.
Infernape: after fake out your in 2HKO range of CC or Fire Blast which means infernape will definitely outlast you unless you want to risk it's confusion because dynamic punch only deals a max of 87% then BP deals a max of 11% so the only way for you to survive is the confusion working, so i would come up with a better plan.
Ninjask: That works but you better be able to predict the baton pass so you can BP it before it does. usually after 3 subs. and if it makes it out alive then put out SR as fast as you can to prevent it's return.
Tyranitar: Dynamic punch is all you need :)

second: it's true you do have a mixmence or ddmence weakness. I know that one of the main pokemon of the team is lucario but a SDweavile will definitely be able to provide a better coverage to your team's weakness try this set:

Weavile@Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP, 252 Attk, 252 Speed
Nature: Adamant/Jolly
Ice shard
night slash
low kick/brick break
swords dance

this provides a stab plus more effectivly covering priority and a high-crit dark type along with tyranitar's old pal, fighting type. weavile is faster so even running adamant will still outspeed on comming lukes and KO them with BB or low kick (preferably bb for dual screen abusers) and ohko them before they ohko you. Weavile can easily scare off scarfgons and mencemeat and set up SD then become a naughty terror. this is just a suggestion but it would be a real benefit to the team.

***EDIT: Jolly will outspeed max +nature speed mence fyi not that it matters cuz of ice shard but just saying :3

****2nd EDIT: Jolly also outspeeds max +nature speed azelf so you can night slash it to death hoping it doesn't have sash and flamethrower/fire blast.

 

[Jukain-Arashi]

Sorry for not being on much guys, been having connection problems.

As soon as I can get shoddy to work again, I'll test out these suggestions, until then I have to wait :/ unless someone can help me out

 

[Jukain-Arashi]

Update: I really don't want to replace Lucario with Weavile because the team isn't for Weavile. Also this if for WIFI ONLY and there isn't much stall being used on wifi. I have updated the OP.