My first Baton Pass Team (OU)

KarateF22

So, I've finally decided to try my hand at a Baton Pass team and from the games i've had so far it is a very fun and interesting playstyle. I believe my team is relatively balanced, but of course i always seek opinions on how to better it. Anyways....

Overview
--------------
291.png
235.png
251.png
134.png
472.png
448.png

(lead) Ninjask - Speed Boost - Leftovers
Smeargle - Own Tempo - Focus Sash
Celebi - Natural Cure - Leftovers
Vaporeon - Water Absorb - Leftovers
Gliscor - Hyper Cutter - Leftovers
Lucario - Inner Focus - Life Orb

In-depth Analysis
------------------
Ninjask (Lead/Scout) - Female 252 Def / 252 Spe / 6 SpD
Timid - Speed Boost - Leftovers
291.png

Protect
Swords Dance
Substitute
Baton Pass

I opted for a setup including both protect and substitute so i could scout for taunters and roarers. Being able to use protect behind a substitute is also great for squeezing out an extra turn of speed boost while under the threat of a priority move. This setup also gives me a decent chance of surviving a priority move that isnt ice shard if i am forced to do so. If i suspect the opponent will stealth rock initially, i lead with substitute. Otherwise... i lead with protect. I always try to switch him out before hitting 50% HP so i have a chance to use him later on for swords dancing even with stealth rock.

Smeargle (Sleeper/Trapper/Anti-phazer) - Female 252 Def / 252 Spe / 6 SpD
Bold - Own Tempo - Focus Sash
235.png

Spore
Ingrain
Spider Web
Baton Pass

If behind a substitute, i will often spider web before sporing so the opponent does not simply run away upon being put to sleep. Ingrain is of course used to make me immune to whirlwind/roar and for a little bit of healing. Focus sash is so if there is no stealth rock he can survive a priority attack if need be. I considered leftovers but opted to not use it due to the fact that he goes out as little as possible.

Celebi (Staller/Pseudo-sweeper) - Male 252 HP / 252 Atk / 6 SpD
Adamant - Natural Cure - Leftovers
251.png

Zen Headbutt
Seed Bomb
Recover
Baton Pass

If the opponent isnt careful Celebi can actually sweep the opposing team without me ever needing to get Lucario involved. Celebi can also stall virtually indefinitely for non-super effective moves. Celebi's main use is of course switching in on those fighting types and scaring them off. Both its STAB moves are pretty powerful, KO'ing many after a single swords dance and basically everything after two. Zen Headbutt is useful with its flinching, more than one curselax has gotten killed because it flinched on the turn it was meant to rest.

Vaporeon (Sub-passer/Healer) - Female 16 HP / 252 Def / 242 SpD
Calm - Water Absorb - Leftovers
134.png

Surf
Substitute
Wish
Baton Pass

Vaporeon is extremely valuable to my team, the only one able to withstand seismic tossing with its substitutes with its 405 hp (i went for one extra so it can do four in a row if required). Surf hits the ground types Lucario doesnt like very much and can put pressure on an opposing Skarmory but, sadly, not achieve the 2HKO. Wish is either for vaporeon itself or those in dire need.

Gliscor (Sword Dancer/Staller) - Male 6 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Impish - Hyper Cutter - Leftovers
472.png

Earthquake
Roost
Swords Dance
Baton Pass

Gliscor seems to be the best swords dancer as its attack cannot be cut by intimidators. Roost is useful for stalling or occasionally surviving an ice punch (the latter i only attempt after three iron defenses). Earthquake is of course to scare away those trying to mess with Gliscor, after a single swords dance its essentially death to anything not resistant.

Lucario (Finishing Sweeper) - Male 252 Atk / 6 Def / 252 Spe
Naughty - Inner Focus - Life Orb
448.png

Close Combat
Bullet Punch
Crunch
Ice Punch

Always try to pass it a sub from Vaporeon before passing in. Nothing can resist all of its attacks. Ice punch has the words "made for enemy gliscor" printed on it. Bullet punch has proved useful a few times to counter opponent priority moves. At +6 Attack nothing in OU or lower will survive a direct hit.

Overall Team Strategy
------------------------
Ninjask stalls for as long as possible. Unless im 75% sure of the opponent stealth rocking, i typically go protect to sub to swords dance or protect, etc. I try to switch out before hitting 50%. If they stealth rock i go Sub, Protect then if there is a priority move i immediately baton pass. If not, i continue. If the opponent is using an ice type move ill pass to vaporeon to try to get a substitute up. If Lucario is somehow killed before or during his sweep my Gliscor and Celebi can work together to sweep the opposing team.
 
You don't have any attacks except for Lucario, taunt shuts your entire team down.

Really nothing more can be done till you fix that problem.

You don't need to have 5 passers and 1 target, lucario isn't going to be stopped short of mach punch/vacuum wave (which are rare) with just speed and attack boosts.
 
Ok, taking your advice (which I had already realized somewhat, just needed a second opinion) I've decided to make my umbreon have psychic in its movepool because it allows it to fend off the fighting types which often plague it as well as gengar. only dark types are immune, and they typically can't hurt umbreon enough til taunt wears off and I counter-taunt. I can't decide whether to drop torment or wish though.
 
You definitely suffer catastrophic failure against the early game Taunt users. Gyarados, Gliscor, Aerodactyl, and Azelf will all utterly destroy your team. Swampert and Skarmory beat you as leads too, since you probably won't dry pass to Mr. Mime on your first turn. (He needs speed) You lack anything that protects against Intimidate, so Salamence and Gyarados can mass switch in and destroy Lucario's chances of actually doing damage.

My biggest issue with the team, though, is that you use Smeargle for trapping when you have Umbreon on your team. Umbreon's bulk makes it ideal for Mean Look, whereas if you happen to Spore a sleep talker, Smeargle is going to die. Smeargle can only safely come in with a Substitute, and if you use Spore off of a speed boost then you will end up trapping whatever they send in to respond. This will more often than not be something you don't want to have standing in front of you. (Salamence, Gliscor, Taunt Gyarados, etc)

Another thing. You will never, ever get +6 attack on your Ninjask if the enemy team is even remotely competent. Against the most common leads, you will be beaten. Anything with priority will force you to switch immediately with only a +1 speed bonus. Even with that, most of your team is slower than the enemy. You need something that can early-game counter these big threats, otherwise you will fall apart before even seeing any part of the enemy's team besides the lead. Lucario is good for that with immunity to Toxic Spikes and its capacity to beat most of your threats. You will probably need another sweeper, though, likely overtaking the slot of your Mr. Mime (since you use Ingrain-Smeargle and Calm Mind passing is silly for physical sweepers). Anything works to your preference, but things like Rhyperior and Marowak get great type coverage, hit extraordinarily hard, and love speed boosts that Ninjask is great at providing.
 
Wait a second, Acid Armor and Aqua Ring on Vaporeon? If your passing +6 Speed and at least +2 Att to Lucario, do you really need Acid Armor. Replace it with Surf to get at least one attacker besides Lucario, and replace Aqua Ring with Wish/Toxic. Also, just a nitpick, move 4 EV's from HP to SpD, as you only need 404 for the 101 HP Substitute.

I don't really see the point of Umbreon on this team, or for the matter Mr. Mime. Smeargle takes care of your Roar/Whirlwind weakness with Ingrain, so Mime is useless, and there are better wish passers and Tormenters around. As for suggestions, maybe replace Umbreon with Gliscor.

Gliscor @ Leftovers/Lum Berry
Jolly
252 HP / 60 Att /136 SpD / 60 Spe
-Baton Pass
-Torment
-Earthquake
-Roost

This set keeps Torment and Baton Pass on your team, while giving you another attack and the ability to stall, if need be.

As for Umbreon, replace it with Celebi.

Celebi @ Leftovers
Jolly
252 HP / 80 Atk / 176 Spe
-Baton Pass
-Seed Bomb
-Zen Headbutt
-Recover

Try these suggestions out, and let me know how they work.
 
I have updated my Umbreon (from torment to mean look), my mr. mime (from encore/calm mind/sub/baton pass to thunderbolt/energy ball/encore/Baton pass and leftovers to life orb), my vaporeon (from acid armor to roar), and my smeargle (spider web to belly drum and focus sash to leftovers).

More comments would be appreciated.
 
You're still not getting the main point we're trying to make: out of your six pokemon, now only two of them have attacks, and one of them (Mime) is mediocre at best. You have to have something besides Lucario to pass too.
 
KarateF22 said:
If i remove Mr. Mime, how do i counter the more common roar phazers?
Click to expand...
You carry Ingrain on Smeargle. I recognize that if Swampert/etc. are already in against your Pokemon, then passing to Smeargle for the Ingrain isn't going to work, but you've got to make sacrifices somewhere to get another sweeper in there, otherwise you have absolutely nothing against the numerous Taunt users.
Slyguy46 said:
You're still not getting the main point we're trying to make: out of your six pokemon, now only two of them have attacks, and one of them (Mime) is mediocre at best. You have to have something besides Lucario to pass too.
Click to expand...
The other problem is that your Mr. Mime is specially oriented and you're passing around SDs.

If you want to work with special Pokemon, consider a CMPassCelebi alongside Mr.Mime. That will boost Mime's special defenses, make him hit harder, and so forth. That introduces another dark and ghost weakness, though, so you may consider screen support or something else to beat them. (Iron Defense/SD Scizor, potentially)

What you really need is to focus on either special or physical attacks and getting some secondary killer in there. The likelihood of successfully passing both types of boosts is astronomical considering the current OU metagame.
 
Updated... replaced Mr Mime and Umbreon with Scizor and Gliscor. Made smeargle a trapper again. Gave Vaporeon an attack (surf). Ninjask and Lucario are unchanged.
 
Your rmt is Imformative but a bit boring to read, sorry for the criticism there, maybe if you added some pictures it would make your rmt more interesting to the reader and compel them to read on some more
http://www.pokemonelite2000.com/sprites.html

thats a perfect place for you to get Sprite pictures for your rmt's just copy and paste them in

Now as with your team when slyguy46 said add gliscor and celebi, he had a good idea
his celebi set will give you something else to pass to other than Lucario which is always nice, and his gliscor will stop your opponent from setting up to much.

Also Lum berry maybe good over your Life orb on Lucario, the reason being should your lucario get slept it could be KO'd easily Lum berry will just be a perverbial Middle finger to any pokemon that may manage to sleep confuse or paralyze you, its rare that a pokemon could do that should your chain be pulled off properley but it still could happen meaning you have a chance of losing the match after all that hard work and if your chain is pulled off properley and you get all those sd's from your ninjask, you've pretty much made life orb redundant
 
Ok, made my post look "nicer", also im aiming for a physical team... so Celebi isnt useful to me. I need physical team suggestions
 
The Celebi set I posted earlier is a physical set, and would work better for your team than the Scizor your using. Scizor is fine and all, but you don't need Iron Defense for your team since your team consists of a)fragile boost-passers who protect themselves, b)bulky boost/wish-passers who don't need the Defence Boost, and C) Lucario, who has 2 different priority moves and gains a speed and attack boost from your pokemon.

One thing: if you run a team solely physical (and without Fire Fang/Punch in sight), Skarmory is gonna wreck your team.
 
Ninjask will most often than not lose out to most teams at the very beginning, as smart players will immediately go to their phazer or with certain leads like Gliscor, Metagross, and Azelf, will just attack or Taunt you, forcing a switch, while they set up Stealth Rock. A Baton Pass team needs something immediately threatening at the lead position, something that doesn't immediately come across as a BP passer, but is offensively threatening. My suggestion would be to lead with either Zapdos or your Gliscor, with a different set if using Gliscor. Zapdos poses an immediate threat to all phazers bar Swampert and Hippowdon, and can pass speed and a Substitute quite easily while your opponent cannot safely bring in Suicune, Skarmory, and them without fearing for their lives. Gliscor can also lead, having access to Taunt to prevent that annoying Taunt or phaze with your own. Gliscor can pass two different stat boosts at once using Rock Polish and Swords Dance, capitalizing on your intent of using a physical team.

Well, the other 12 rates or so would probably suffice for your immediate troubles, it seems your team is pretty solid now, just make sure you keep practicing the art of of Baton Pass, as it takes some skill to play around an opponent using multiple phazers. Good luck with the team, hope I helped. =)
 
I've been trying out the Celebi. Its a nice one, good replacement for scizor. However, thus far its recovery move has been used only once in about twenty games.... perhaps i need another attack of some sort instead of recovery.
 
something you might consider is Blaziken>Lucario. Blaziken has a bit more attack, a bit less speed, but those two won't worry you since you're getting all these boosts up. The reason you want to use Blaziken is Baton Pass. It can learn baton pass itself, so if you're getting tons of intimidate switch-ins, you can baton pass back out to grab some more attack. The other option that has baton pass is Medicham, but Blaiken can probably do the job better
 
Ok, i believe my team is essentially complete. I would appreciate anyone willing to tweak my EVs to maximum effectiveness (just provide reasoning why your EV's are better please).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top