ORAS OU Mega-Swampert Rain Team

[MKJump]

So I'm pretty new to competitive pokemon and decided I wanted to start out with a rain team. At first the team used the likes of a Rain Dish Stall Ludicolo and Klefki to get priority thunder wave and rain dance.

After some testing I realised these choices were fun but not quite optimal as I began to learn the current meta.

So here's my team as it stands and I'm after any possible improvements/suggestions but as far as testing is going the team is very solid.

Brinestorm (Politoed) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Toxic
- Encore
- Rest

This is my rain starter and normal lead pokemon. Its pretty self explanatory as you can imagine. Scald for the burn, toxic for poison, encore to lock the set-up sweepers and rest for that much needed recovery. He's mainly purposed to get the rain going and annoy my opponent.

Bigboy (Swampert-Mega) (M) @ Swampertite
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 8 Def / 248 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Protect

So this is the physical sweeper for the team. Swift Swim gives it enough speed to overcome most fast pokemon in the meta and the attacks provide broad overage to sweep most offensive teams. As for protect, that's there to make sure I don't get hit by any annoying status changers or by attacks that would normally hit first before mega-evolution grants Swift Swim.

Twinkle (Starmie) @ Life Orb
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Psychic
- Ice Beam
- Recover

Testing other Swift Swimmers, all of which failed to satisfy the role I was after, I tried out my favourite pokemon, Starmie. Acting as a glass cannon special sweeper, he provides a wide coverage of moves that can hurt most teams. Where Starmie really comes to light is switch-ins. Analytic, Life Orb and Rain together make Hydro Pump able to OHKO a wide range of threats if they are switched in. This therefore either punishes my opponent for keeping the pokemon which my Starmie is a threat to, or punishes them for tagging out. Either way, when used properly, Starmie can become a very useful and somewhat irritable sweeper on the team.

Antidote (Breloom) (F) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 12 HP / 244 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Seed Bomb
- Superpower
- Facade

Poison Heal Breloom not only has the ability to heal itself whilst being immune to other status affects, but she also acts as a powerful physical sweeper that doesn't really on the rain like Mega-Swampert. If used correctly, this one pokemon alone can sweep an entire team. Ferrothorn is mocked by a Sword Dance - Superpower and Facade gives wide OHKO possibilities against offensive and defensive teams and also acts as a means of removing grass-types the other sweepers would struggle to safely remove.

Neptune (Thundurus) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rain Dance
- Thunder Wave
- Volt Switch
- Taunt

Originally Klefki until I realised Thundurus can do the job so much better (as well as being able to volt switch). Most teams that run Thundurus go for an offensive build but this just wasn't necessary in the team. Instead Thundurus acts as a pivot switch-in against Special Sweepers to restart rain then volt switch for a sweeper. With access as well to priority Rain Dance, Thunder Wave and Taunt he's never moving second. Taunt is there to lock out annoying clerics and hazard setters who can slow the team's strategy down. It also stops other weather teams using their moves to cancel out my rain. Volt Switch allows Starmie to enter safely and without it I would probably look for a new sweeper. Thundurus is there to take hits and keep the team in momentum.

Cuddles (Ferrothorn) (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Gyro Ball
- Power Whip

Finally, what would the team be without a brick wall. A standard choice I think and sorry that it lacks innovation but a well timed Ferrothorn switch can make a physical recoil hit become an embarrassing suicide. Ferrothorn really ties the team together often forcing my opponent to bring out fire-types which lose all too easily to my Water Sweepers. Ferrothorn is there for the surprise volt switch target, regaining momentum over my opponent and generally slowing down physically offensive teams.

 

[celes]

Hey MKJump, the main issue I see with your team is that it struggles a lot with M-Venusaur, which is common for rain teams, but you don't really have a switch in for it either. Since your Ferrothorn doesn't have Leftovers it easily loses to it 1v1 due to no recovery + HP Fire, and the only thing you have to really dent it is Starmie's Psychic, which won't do much net damage when you factor in the health it will get back from Giga Drain OHKO'ing you and restoring back most of its health, meaning you can only realistically break it by either statusing it with Thundurus and hoping you get enough full paras to take it out eventually, or getting up a Swords Dance with Breloom as M-Venusaur switches in so you can dent it with Facade. The same also applies for Amoonguss. On top of that, your team barely abuses the rain support, is very slow, and can't keep up offensive pressure very well due to an excessive amount of defensive pivots rather than offensive ones. My rate will focus on getting around this while trying to improve your build.

First, Thundurus should only be used offensively due to its poor bulk and huge offensive move pool and stats that make it such a threat. Since Thundurus only augments your weakness to bulky grass types, I think you should run Latios > Thundurus. It also checks Zard Y for you, and picks off water resists with the combination of Electric and Dragon coverage. Surf allows Latios to beat both sand setters so you can win weather wars, and Thunder dents into Skarmory, Azumarill, and Assault Vest Tornadus-T to support your Swift Swim users.

Next, you should run Choice Specs Omastar > Starmie since it hits much harder than Starmie does, is faster under the rain, and provides you with a Flying resist. With Hidden Power Grass it can also get rid of Gastrodon and Seismitoed which annoy rain teams due to them absorbing Water moves. With the addition of Latios you already have a Keldeo check, so you don't lose out on anything by dropping Starmie.

I think you should run Swords Dance Lucario > Breloom since it breaks through Skarmory much easier (it has a 75% chance to OHKO it with +2 Close Combat with Stealth Rock up) to support your M-Swampert, as well as sets up on M-Venusaur and Amoonguss rather than being checked by them, while also checking Bisharp much better, providing a priority move, and makes you a bit less weak to Scizor. You should also run Chople Berry > Rocky Helmet on Ferrothorn so you can take on Alakazam, Gengar, M-Gardevoir, and Weavile much more reliably, as well as stomach a High Jump Kick from M-Medicham if need be.

Lastly, you should run Superpower > Protect on Swampert since this allows you to dent into Ferrothorn as well as prevent you from being hard walled by Rotom-W, and run 44 Speed EVs on Politoed to allow it to outspeed defensive M-Scizor and be able to Encore or Scald it before it can go on the offensive.

Updated Team

Politoed @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Encore
- Toxic
- Rest

Swampert @ Swampertite
Ability: Damp
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Superpower
- Ice Punch

Omastar @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Scald
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Ice Beam / Knock Off

Ferrothorn @ Chople Berry
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 240 HP / 156 Def / 112 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Stealth Rock
- Power Whip
- Leech Seed

Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Tail
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Extreme Speed

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Draco Meteor
- Thunder

Hope i was able to help!

 

[MKJump]

I like your team, especially the omastar suggestion. Only issue is the lack of a second rain setter puts a lot of pressure on politoed. Any ideas?

 

[erz]

I do have an idea.
Just switch that vreloom to a latias. Latias is great for rain cuz it Takes on Mega venusaur and it Supports the whole team with healing wish.

Now that u have a defoger in latias u can easily take out starmie and replace it with a specs omastar just as celes mentioned. Specs omastar is a beast, i played it a lot recently and it goes ham on so many Teams.

And the two last things are hp ice > taunt on thundurus and power up punch > protect on Mega swampert. Hp ice helps u beat annoying things like tank-garchomp and landorus and Power-up-punch will get u some nice boosts to tear teams apart.

Hope i helped, gl. with playing it etc ^^

 

[MKJump]

I tested lucario didn't like it at all. Lati@s are nice choices, especially for the movepool. Also, I've been testing amoonguss out for ferrothorn which seems to work well either way. Amoonguss is a raindancer after all whereas ferronthorn is not.

 

[Aurious]

Hey man, interesting rain team you got there. The problem is like celes already said that all of your pokemon are walled by Mega Venusaur. I think the best idea for your team is trying out a Life Orb Tornadus-Therian over Thundurus. Tornadus-T is a very good 'mon on rain teams since its STAB move Hurricane has 100% accuracy in rain making it very spammable. It would also give you a good stallbreaker which is needed since ur team can't really do much against a good stall team at the moment so you should definetely run a set with Taunt.

I like celes' idea of trying out Omastar over Starmie which isn't really necessary now anyway since you don't need a spinner without Thundurus on your team. It gives you another strong breaker and flying resist which is needed for pokemon like opposing Torrn-T or Talonflame so it has the edge over Specs Kingdra here.

Your Breloom doesn't really make sense to me and I doubt this set will sweep lots of times simply because there are way to many counters for it in OU (Lati@s, Tornadus-Therian, Gengar, Amoonguss, Mega-Venusaur just to name a few but even if your opponent doesn't have any of these 'mons there are still a lot of checks around). The first thing which is coming to my mind here is trying out something more interesting such as SD Toxicroak. Toxicroak gives you a pretty interesting win condition while still being a Keldeo and Bisharp check who both look very threatening to your team at the moment.

I agree with cele on the changes on Mega-Swampert and I'd either play Chople Berry or Leftovers on Ferrothorn. Usually I'm always using Lefties on my Ferros since they're worn down pretty easily without them but on this team you can consider Chople Berry because that team isn't that defensive so Ferro doesn't have to stay around to long and it gives you a solid check to stuff like Alakazam, Keldeo or Mega-Gardevoir.

Finally here are the 2 new 'mons I talked about:

Hide

Toxicroak (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Gunk Shot
- Drain Punch
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance

Tornadus-Therian (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 76 Atk / 180 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Hurricane
- Superpower
- U-turn
- Taunt

Good luck with the team!