SM OU Moth Into Flame

[1234hjkl]

Introduction​

Since my last team I made a lot of changes, from those changes I decided to make a Team using volcarona as the base. After a few decisions and lots of changes I decided this was my to go team and started to laddering with it and its been doing great since then. While I belive the team is good there always room for improvement so give me some suggestions for make the team better.

The Team​

Volcarona @ Life Orb / Firium Z
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Fire Blast
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ground]
​

Volca still do the same thing as it did on my last team, Nuke the opposing team after a 1+. Bug Buzz is not necessary since it would hit only Ttar an Latios for good damage while letting either Bulk waters or Heatran counter it with no problems. The choice between Firium and orb is though but Its up to your preference between extra damage or a powerful nuke.

Pheromosa @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- High Jump Kick
- Ice Beam
- Poison Jab
​

Phero helps against fast stuff like Gre, koko and M-Zam, it also helps againts dragons who can give volca some trouble like Chomp, Latios and Unboosted Mance and Nites. I though about giving it a Scarf just for faster scarfers like Latios, Chomp, Gengar and make a draw with opposing scarf Pheros, but the freedom to choose a move was more attractive.

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Mach Punch
- Bullet Seed
- Spore
- Rock Tomb
​

Breloom has a good match up against lot of annoying stuff like Greninja, Bulk Water types, Landorus-T Excadrill, Ttar, etc. When its not handling those threats Breloom acts like a Emergency Button for dangerous stuff, it lives a hit and it proceeds to Spore it or make it slower with RT so my team can pick it up or force a switch.

Tapu Fini @ Leftovers
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 192 Def / 16 SpD / 48 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Taunt
- Defog
- Nature's Madness
​

Tapu Fini is crucial for the team, Removing Hazards, weaking mons with NM and setting Misty Field, its a great support for the entire team in one slot. Moonblast was the prefered choice over scald or surf because it handles dragons and opposing tapus better, a set with both attacks could work at the cost of some utility.

Zygarde @ Leftovers
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Substitute
- Coil
- Toxic
​

Zyg just like Volca didn't change much from my first team. Get on the field, set up, poison something or set up, just like Volca it does a great job on this team stopping Stall and Slower teams without phazers very well.

Metagross @ Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ice Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
​

Meta was the mega of choice, BoltBeam with Meteor Mash and Equake hit a lot of the meta for gross damage (hahaha). The mons who can switch on M-Meta without taking heavy damage are either setup folder for volca or Zyg or have trouble against Fini, so meta is able to do some nice work after they are gone.

Threat List

Greninja: Both are very dangerous for the team, they are fast and one hits very hard after transformation and the other having to guess his moveset and making some smart switchs so it doesn't KO anything.

Mega Metagross: Its fast, bulk and hits hard, if Phero and my own Meta two are out of the picture better hope Volca survive the hit or loom make it sleep.

Dragon Types: Z-Flyers are a problem resiting my volca set and after 1 boost beign able to make a big dent before being taken out. Fast scarfers like Chomp and Latios can outspeed both phero and volca and hit very hard with their respectives stabs.

Replays

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-526353676
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-526355264
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-529123084
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-529138907
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-529143520
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-529689183

 

[ez]

Yo nice team. I notice your team lacked a Stealth Rock User. Also, your team has no ground immunity making mons like Excadrill, Garchomp and Double Dance Landours-therian a threat. Also, the team lacks a revenge killer making mons that have boosted speed or a choice scarf a problem. I have a few suggestions to help improve this team.

->

My first recommendation is for you to run Landorus-therian over Breeloom. Landorus-therian provides a stealth rocker for your team which allows you to get chip damage, punish switching and much more. Landorus-therian can also help you check offensive ground types like Excadrill, Garchomp and opposing Landorus-therian with the combination of Earthquake and Hidden Power Ice. Landorus-therian can also provide momentum and form a volt-turn core with pheromosa by using the move u-turn.

My next recommendation is for you to run Choice Scarf over Life Orb on Pheromosa. This allows your team to have better speed control and a revenge killer. Choice Scarf can help prevent a sweep and really helps you versus more offensive teams. Pheromosa is still as threatening as Life Orb, except you sacrificed some power for some speed.

I suggest you run Hammer Arm over Earthquake on Mega Metagross. With Hammer Arm you will still be able to hit Heatran but now you can also hit other steel types, specifically Ferrothorn. Without Hammer Arm, Ferrothorn can easily come in on Metagross and can prove annoying with it's move Leech Seed which can slowly widdle down your team.

Something you can consider would be to run Bug Buzz over Hidden Power Ground. This allows you to hit psychic types like latios and latias which can otherwise resist all your moves. I choose to replace Hidden Power Ground because all others members of your team already threaten out heatran. Also consider Passho Berry over Life Orb to allow set up to be easier.

With Breeloom removed I notice Bisharp is now a bigger threat. However you can play around Bisharp. Everything on your team can 2ko or oko Bisharp. This means that as long as you keep pressuring Bisharp it will not be able to sweep. You need to prevent giving Bisharp set up. Try to not lock your Pheromosa into Posion Jab. If you do, Bisharp can come in safely. Also try to lead off with something that can force out Bisharp turn one. This way, Bisharp cannot do massive damage turn one.

Importable to team with my changes

Volcarona @ Passho Berry
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Fire Blast
- Giga Drain
- Bug Buzz

Pheromosa @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- High Jump Kick
- Ice Beam
- Poison Jab

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 220 Def / 24 SpD / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Stealth Rock

Tapu Fini @ Leftovers
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 192 Def / 16 SpD / 48 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Taunt
- Defog
- Nature's Madness

Zygarde @ Leftovers
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Substitute
- Coil
- Toxic

Metagross @ Metagrossite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Ice Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Meteor Mash
- Hammer Arm

 

[Martin]

I disagree with ez about running Bug Buzz, but rather I think that your team would benefit more from running Firium Z>Life Orb. Hidden Power Ground is a complete necessity on a team where the only Heatran switch-ins either get mauled by Bloom Doom (Tapu Fini) or completely hate being hit with Toxic (Zygarde). In addition to this, getting worn down as you attempt a sweep is pretty bad imho, and a lot of Bug Buzz's key targets get mauled by Inferno Overdrive as is. To use the most obvious example, Latios just drops after Stealth Rock and 1-2 rounds of Life Orb recoil*: An amount of damage that is very easy to attain even if it carries Roost. In addition to this, in a lot of matchups where you are cleaning and the key targets of Inferno Overdrive have been eliminated, it can simply be used to ensure that you hit something that absolutely needs to be hit with 100% accuracy. In addition, running a team without a Z move is something that I think you need to have extremely good justification for in the current metagame climate simply because it can either act as a complete game changer or a means of just making your team that much harder to take on.

*+1 252 SpA Volcarona Inferno Overdrive (185 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Latios: 214-252 (71.5 - 84.2%)

As for some other suggestions (these are independent from ez's suggestions btw), I think that Bronzong>Mega Metagross is an option. It retains the ability to keep stuff like Tapu Lele in check, and beyond this it actually blankets a lot of Pokemon such as Landorus-T, Garchomp (important because Choice Scarf variants revenge kill +1 Volcarona), Latios, Tapu Bulu etc. It also provides Stealth Rock support, which is pretty much mandatory on any good team and is especially useful for helping Volcarona sweep. There are other reasons too, but the point is that it is support that this team generally appreciates a lot.

Bronzong @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Hidden Power Ice
- Earthquake

The team generally looks overprepared for Ash Greninja just at a glance, given that you have all of Pheromosa, Breloom and Tapu Fini just to check it. As such, you could very easily afford to drop one of these in favor of something else to try and ease some other matchups. Like ez said, this team is irritatingly slow; Pheromosa doesn't cut it as a sole form of speed control given that any good Choice Scarf user or speed-boosting setup sweeper not called Gyarados (which walls it if it opts to not mega evolve anyway) is fast enough to outpace it at +1. In addition, if Thunder Punch Mega Charizard X or Volcarona comes out against Bronzong and Tapu Fini is down to around 50% or 60% respectively (this is very easy to do given its your switch-in for fucking everything), it gets to +1 and just cleans up on the spot. The team just generally has a headache dealing with Dark-types in general due to Tapu Fini being the teams only real switch in, and given the volume of stuff you use it to check it just gets worn down very quickly. As such, I suggest running Choice Scarf Terrakion>Breloom. This achieves a few extremely useful thing for your team:

• Revenge kills base 100 speed boosters
• Provides speed control
• Acts as an offensive check to a lot of Dark-types without being stuck with an extremely weak Fighting-type STAB
• Gives you an actual answer to +1 Gyarados regardless of whether it has mega evolved or not
• Allows you to run Naughty on Pheromosa
• Probably some other stuff, but the point is that it is extremely useful.

I hope I was helpful, and good luck with the team :)

 

[1234hjkl]

Sorry for the Late reply guys, been doing some testing.

ez

I tried some of the stuff you recommended, here is how it worked out.

Pasho Volca missed the power of the orb, most special water types most went down after 1 turn of set up and they couldn't do much back, unless they were Scarf, Specs or A-greninja, Physical water types were a issue but the relevants one are crawdaunt, Azul, Sharpedo, Gyarados and his Megas, all but azul are covered well by the rest of the team, and with the changes of the team, I got a big weakness to SSGyarados who could boost on volca, Fini, lando get a kill with the Z-move and sweep the team, I could pass by it by switchin lando and fini and take chunks of his health with NM but it wore them out, and if it made a right guess and did the right move I lost a crucial mon.

The Scarf Pheromosa nature was wrong, giving me a boost on even more speed rather than attack and even with the right nature I thought it was a little underwhelming. Against Stall it was bad because it couldn't pass Tox and M-sable, Balance had stuff like M-Venu, A-Wak, M-Scizor and some others it made life hard for it, The match up against offense was good though, unless they got a Strong resists, sash or priority I could save it for late game and spam HJK, and that be game.

Metagross with hammer arm gave me mixed feelings, While I could pass though Ferrothorn and Scizor, it left me on a bad match up against A-Wak and M-Meta, It wasn't bad but it made lando more even more overwhelmed with stuff to switch in.
Landorus-T did a good work for the team, whoever his typing stack up more shared weakness, makind Fini needed to switch in a lot more, it was bad especially if I needed it healty to stop a Strong Dark types like Bisharp, and the Greninjas. It also gave me mixed feelings because while my match up agains physical mons was better, It added a few more issues.

Martin

About Z-Volca I don't have to many stuff to say since it played like Volca who droped extra damage for a one time nuke. My preference goes for the Orb but I will put together the Firium, since It can help to break stuff who could give trouble.

Bronzong and Terrakion didn't went well for the team, sure bronzong was bulk, set rocks and and had a good match up against others setters but it was dead against stall, especially if they knocked the lefties, against offense it was too slow anything who could pass by Meta who wasn't ground type could pass by him, so my match upgot a little worse, while Terrakion did eat the Dark attacks launched at Zong, it wore him out a lot, this could pose a problem in case I need it healthy for pick up a boosted threat, also the only relevants dark types who aren't Megas can cause probrem for terrakion by taking his Item (Bisharp), or hitting it with Super Effective move (Hoopa, Ninjas, Crawdaunt), Also Lando is everywhere nothing stopped it from coming in taking the hit and U-Turn later for a better match up.

Anyway thanks for the suggestions guys, maybe I am being stubborn and using the suggestions you guys gave in a wrong, I gonna try to work with them a little more before I pass a verdict on the team. On another note do you guys think its good enough for the OU bazaar thing ?