My Rain Team - Standard OU, and the best I've made so far.

omnicloud7strife

This is, unfortunately, my first RMT. It is not my first team. It will likely not be my last team. However, it is, so far, the most effective team I've created. And, after having beaten people who had soundly beaten other teams, I've decided to post this. So, without further ado, let me introduce my Rain Team.

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Politode @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP, 252 SpA, 252 Spe
IVs: 30 SpA, 30 SpD
Nature: Modest
Hydro Pump
Ice Beam
Focus Blast
Hidden Power (Ground)

Essential to every 5th Gen team that uses Rain is Politode. The permanent weather is quite nice, and a 306 SpA score using STAB Hydro Pump in the rain is nothing to sneeze at if you're not rather specially bulky. I picked the moves myself, so feel free to tell me everything but Hydro Pump is worthless, though I do enjoy Ice Beam when I predict Gliscor. Overall, it hits fairly hard, has 358 speed (enough to be faster than a Timid Gengar, and more importantly, a non-scarfed Timid Latios), and can really move through a good deal of non water, non grass type Pokemon.

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Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP, 220 Def, 36 Spe
Nature: Bold
Leaf Storm
Thunder Wave (May Replace with Nasty Plot. Uncertain.)
Leech Seed
Heal Bell

After some bad experiences with some offensive Celebi, and some Dragonite that ran T-Wave, I decided to try out a variation of Celebi that I came up with, (though I did use the EV spread from AccidentalGreed's Defensive spread). Because I kept finding issue with status either crippling me beyond recovery, or slowing me down so much that I just couldn't regain pace, and would end up KOed frequently. Heal Bell solved that problem. T-Wave allowed me to hinder the opponents, Leech Seed for recovery, and Leaf Storm, for STAB. I might also drop Leech Seed for HP - Fire.

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Latios @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP, 252 SpA, 252 SpE
Nature: Modest
Surf
Draco Meteor
Thunder
Psyshock

Quagsire wasn't working out, and I felt some extra oomph might be needed, to help the team. I like what my Politode was doing, which was sweeping out things weak to Ice/Water, and sometimes Fighting (and now ground, with HP Ground...), and decided a similar approach may be useful with Latios. 394 SpA, with 400something speed has been working out, though the set does have some obvious weaknesses, and limitations. However, it does still resist Fire, which is good, and has some potent moves. I'm not sure if this is a good enough reason to use Latios, though. My team may need someone else. I'm still testing. I'm also considering EV Spread of: 82 HP, 252 SpA, and 176 Spe, for 300 Speed (then scarf, to I believe 450), and giving some added bulk, so it survives a bit longer. I know it's only 19 extra HP total, but, it might be worth it. I'm not sure. Ugh... Still working, still thinking, and still testing.

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Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP, 240 Def, 16 Spe
Nature: Impish
Spikes
Whirlwind
Roost
Brave Bird

An all around great Physical Wall, and one off three steel types on my team, it really enjoys the rain, helping it survive Hidden Power Fire fairly often. In fact, almost anything other than Fire Blast tends to not KO him in the rain. At least, for Fire attacks. Whirlwind for phasing, Spikes for damage, Roost to Heal, Brave Bird for Conkeldurr / Taunt... Skarmory is not very different now than he was in 4th Gen, and I don't think he needs to change much. Especially since my next Pokemon is...

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Forretress @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP, 4 Def, 252 SpD
Nature: Calm
Rapid Spin
Stealth Rock
Toxic Spikes
Volt Change

Ah, Forretress. The classic Bug/Steel typing that helps make Scizor so potent, with all those resistances, and only one weakness, coupled with your ability to set up hazards, spin them away, and be immune to poison make you one of my favorite Pokemon out there. The idea of running Volt Change occurs to me, because of Magnezone. If so, IVs go to 31 Spe, and Nature becomes Careful. Fantastic Spinner, and loves the rain to cover up its glaring weakness to Fire.

And, finally, we have one of my personal favorite Pokemon,

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Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP, 252 Attack, 8 Spe
Nature: Adamant
Bullet Punch
Super Power
Pursuit
U-Turn

My primary attacker. Hits hard, hits fast, and yes, runs exactly enough speed to be faster than the average Scizor, as seemingly pointless as that may be. Scizor is a potent threat, and has saved my ass more times than I can count. Potent Priority, great typing, wide move pool, and base 130 attack all make Scizor just as fantastic today as he ever was.


Ah, my team. Love em. But, I feel like I'm missing something.

I can't put my finger on it. Either it's Fire, or it's Dragon, or maybe Electric? I swear, if I knew, I'd fix it. But, I cannot figure it out. If you like the team, though, feel free to say so, and offer suggestions. If you hate it, tell me why. And, if you love the team so much, you just have to? Go ahead and use it, and tell people that I made it. But, I doubt that last one's going to happen. :P

Thanks for your input in advance.

~omnicloud7strife~
PS: I'm Omni on the Smogon PO server.
 
Definitely get volt switch on forry, it can give you some hilarious musical chair tactics if you switch between forry and scizor. Also volt switch would be helpful against hp fire users
 
It seems to me like this "Rain Team" is really just meant to create a shield to protect your teams overwhelming Fire Weakness. However, you can't trust things to Politoed if it gets killed by a Heatran with HP Grass/Elec. as part of a core that could easily tear a big hole in this team. You need at least ONE rain-abuser, like Dry-Skin Toxicroak or RestDance Hyrdation Lapras.
 
I'm not sure who to swap out for either of those. I'll try switching Quagsire for RestDance Lapras, but I don't really know if that'll help. Scizor is really functional, and I don't want to lose my SR/Spinner... Grr... You are right about HP Grass / Electric, though, I can typically predict that, switch to Celebi, and then Paralyze them with T-Wave. Still, I'll try it out, let you know how it goes. Thanks for the input.
 
Hey there. Cool team.

On Politoed, run Perish Song over Focus Blast and Hypnosis over Scald. Perish Song will help stop Baton Pass teams, and also stop other pokemon from sweeping you. Focus Blast is really only useful on the Specs set where you can do major damage to Ferrothorn and ohko Tyranitar. Hypnosis should be chosen over Scald, as despite it's shaky accuracy, it can be very useful in allowing Politoed to put common counters such as Rotom-W to sleep. Scald should really only be used on defensive sets.

Run a spread of 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Speed on Skarmory. Special defensive Skarmory really isn't that good, while a defensive version can help against heavy-hitting pokemon such as Terrakion and Excadrill. 16 speed allows you to outspeed standard offensive Breloom, and while rare, it will definitely help you more in the long run compared to a couple of extra defensive points.

Instead of the Lapras that you plan to switch Quagsire for, run a Swords Dance Toxicroak instead, as it can destroy other rain teams and do some major damage to others.

Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Speed
Nature: Adamant
-Cross Chop
-Swords Dance
-Sucker Punch
-Ice Punch

This Toxicroak can destroy Gliscor, which will help your Scizor greatly. Cross Chop is chosen over Drain Punch as it does much more damage, and can ohko standard specially defensive Jirachi. Adamant is the preferred nature as you do not really outrun anything major with Jolly.

Since you now have no real special wall, I would replace Celebi with a Gastrodon. Gastrodon would help you fill the void of stopping pokemon like Thundurus that Quagsire left behind, while also helping your Fire weakness even more.

Gastrodon @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP, 4 Def, 252 SpD
Nature: Calm
-Toxic
-Recover
-Scald
-Ice Beam

Scald gets boosted by rain, and would allow you to have a chance of burning common switch-ins such as Ferrothorn. Ice Beam is chosen over Earth Power because this is your Thundurus counter. Ice Beam also helps against pokemon such as Dragonite and MixMence.
 
If you want your Skarmory to be a physical tank reinvest the SpDef EV's to Def, otherwise you'll find he will get overpowered quite easily by for example a sand team with both Excadrill and Terakion. Your forre already takes the place of a spd steel. I also recommend Recover over Leech Seed on Celebi just for a more stable recovery. He seems to be your main check to over rain teams. Also if you want a dragon I can recommend a Para-shuffling Dragonite over Celebi.

Dragonite @ Leftovers
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Nature: Impish
-Substitue
-Thunder Wave
-Dragon Tail
-Roost

It's surprising effective. Anyway hope this helped, its quite a good time mate congrats :)
 
Hey, omnicloud, cool team you have here!

Anyways, first off, you seem to have some major troubles against most strong special attackers in general, particularly stuff with Surf + coverage move that lets it hit Celebi. Latios and Hydreigon in particular are easily capable of ripping this team apart between Surf / Draco Meteor. Some hard hitting physical attackers an be a bit of an issue too if they can break past Quagsire and Skarm -- CB Haxorus and CB Terrakion in particular.

Anyways, to deal with this, first off, I'd change you Skarmory to a physically defensive spread, as TheMasterOfOz suggested, as it helps you handle a ton of stuff more easily, and specially defensive doesn't really have the same merits that it used to.

With this change, I'd also throw in a Specially Defensive Jirachi somewhere on the team, with a set of Thunder/IronHead/Wish/Protect, or something along those lines. You could also consider using a CM Wish or SubCM Jirachi, but it doesn't really help you against Latios and Hydreigon, and due to the defensive nature of your team, it seems like SpDef Rachi would work a bit better. I'd recommend running Rachi over Forry, who's sort of redundant with Skarm (other than spinning, but you don't really need a spinner that badly).

I would also consider a slightly more offensive Celebi set -- the defensive one is TWaving stuff but other than that, it isn't really doing anything, and its inability to hit Gliscor hurts you a fair amount, since Glis literally walls more than half your team. The set that IB93 ran on Fable seems like it would sort of fit, with Leaf Storm/Psychic/StealthRock/HPFire or something along those lines, or you could even go for a Nasty Plot set, which appreciates the hazard support from Skarm (although then you have to put Rocks onto something else).

Anyways, looks like an ok team, gl teambuilding!

edit: and @below post: he doesn't want to outspeed other Scizor -- if he does, then he U-Turns out before they do and the opponent gains momentum cause they get to see what he switches to.
 
try 12 speed evs on Scizor, I know its a speed creep lol but just to make sure you outspeed opposing scizor and perhaps some variants of tyranitar
 
TheMasterOfOz said:
On Politoed, run... Hypnosis over Scald.
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The rest of your advice isn't too bad. Though, I find I'm still rather weak to special attacks. But, Hypnosis has 60% accuracy, and it's never hit for me. Ever. Not even once. Maybe I'll give him a coverage move, but, not Hypnosis.

As for everyone else, thank you sooooo much for the advice, I'm trying it out, bit by bit. But, yes, I did change Skarm back to a Physical Tank build.

And, for the record? Heal Bell is so critical to my team, I'm having difficulty even getting 3 kills off without it. I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, but Jirachi, Dragonite, and a half dozen other Pokemon just status me and I die. Even if it's paralysis, it's too much for me to overcome. So, I need my Celebi. Or, at least, anyone that can cure status. Maybe Vaporeon, but then I've got three waters and three steels... makes me really weak... Grr...

I also find that Unaware Quagsire is more valuable than Gastrodon, as it walls off things like DDance Gyarados, or Dragonite, or Conkeldurr, or various other creatures that decide to utilize stat boosts. Still working, still thinking. But, I've been trying Gastrodon for a while, and it's less effective than Quagsire, so far.
 
Bump for an update to team.

Also, I was trying out a lot of the suggestions, and found that if I dropped Celebi, my team REALLY suffered. Terribly. Quagsire hasn't been missed too much... but, even so, I'm worried.

I want a ground type on the team, but there aren't many that do well against water, and I've tried Gastrodon, and that didn't work out AT ALL. :c Maybe I'm just awful with it, but I just didn't like it.
 
Your team looks kinda solid to me. Other then the fact u are using some legendary's in there , i do like it.
A replacement for celebi i believe is ehm ... the evolution of cotonee .. whimiscot i believe . After a coton guard he is at +3 defence ,wich will be hard to take down. And he has alot of possible and helpfull movesets.

For ground types with resistance to water , there arent many options.
As you allready threw off quagsire and gastrodon u have a choice :
Torterra (ouch for ice) , Seismitoad, Flygon ,Garchomp (banned tho) , Swampert , ... and i believe thats actually allready it.
With seismitoad beeing just the same actually as gastrodon and quagsire (slightly different moves i believe) , the last options are Swampert and torterra.
Swampert can be VERY nice on a team as it is a beast with nice attack AND defence AND hp , just no speed. Even a curse set works on him.
Torterra is a decent poke too but the ice weakness hurts and he has more then 1 weakness other then swampert.
 
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