No legendaries (RMT)

stringer

I wanted to avoid using legendaries when making this team, as well as avoid items that locked me into one move. (Such as choice specs, choice band, choice scarf) I've won a majority of my matches so far with this team, only losing a few due to poor choices move-wise. So any help on improving would be much appreciated.

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Infernape (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Earthquake

My main lead. Flare Blitz does a lot of damage to ghosts and psychic leads, while close combat takes care of aerodactyl (considering most aerodactyls either taunt or stealth rock first)



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Porygon2 @ Chople Berry
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP/216 Def/40 SAtk
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Trick Room
- Hidden Power [Ground]

Porygon2 is here to take out dragon dancers and choice scarf users. I took the defensive duck route, but modified it so that it better suit the OU environment. As such, recover was replaced with trick room as porygon2 is usually defeated in two hits and is slower than most pokemon so recover was a wasted move. Trick room allows him to outspeed pokemon so he can stay in longer, or turn the tables on a pokemon that is faster than my others due to choice scarf or stats.
Hidden power ground was added instead of tri-attack due to type coverage. The chople berry was added as Porygon2's only weakness is fighting, and as I stated before... he only lasts 2 turns so leftovers would be a waste.


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Blastoise (M) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/6 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet

Blastoise role is to take on the heavy hitters. He's enough of a tank to survive at least one hit... and his aqua jet is then boosted due to torrent and stab. I made him physically offensive so that he can take on special walls like Latias and Blissey.


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Lucario (M) @ Occa Berry
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP/254 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Extremespeed
- Ice Punch
- Crunch

I went a different route than the usual with Lucario. Jolly is used instead of adamant, because landing the first blow is very critical.
Jolly allows him to take out other Lucario and non-jolly Salamance.
The occa berry is used so that he can survive Jirachi's fire punch and choice scarf Heatran's fire blast (provided it doesn't do the maximum 220.6% damage)


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Togekiss (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP/20 Def/238 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Air Slash
- Roost
- Thunder Wave
- Aura Sphere

The flinch and status user. Thunder wave is used over body slam to guarantee paralysis (so no turns are lost) and air slash is to flinch. The guaranteed paralysis also helps crippling choice scarf, agility/dragon dance and bulky pokemon.

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Gengar (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Explosion
- Focus Blast
- Thunderbolt

I choose Gengar for its speed and ability to absorb toxic spikes. Life orb is used since I didn't like the situation of being locked into one move that I got with using choice specs. It also boosts Gengar's explosion as there's no investment in ATK EV-wise.


Well that's my team.
 
Thank you for your suggestions in the shadows, but those changes leave me with some problems.

With a utility Blastoise, Latias easily wails on me as only Gengar can stop him. I'm also weak to agiligross without earthquake+aqua jet provided it has a lum berry.


Using your Blastoise and Infernape, I'm left without earthquake, so I can't take out electric or poison types.

Lastly, without Porygon2 I'm easily susceptible to a gyarados/salamance sweep as I don't have ice shard or an electric attack. (Gengar isn't fast or vital enough to survive a +1/+2 gyarados)
 
Infernape is alright except flare blitz and focus sash are not a good match up. Make it a mix ape and use fire blast. Also, earthquake is utterly worthless except for the occasional tentaucruel so get rid of that and replace it with fake out to break focus sashes or maybe grass knot to take down swampert leads.

Porygon-2 is extremely weird on this team. Trick room? How is recover a wasted move while trick room is not? Porygon-2's defenses are plenty good enough to properly utilize recover and it allows it to toxic stall better. I can't even think of a situation where trick room would be useful. Countering dragon dancers like Gyarados and Mence? They'll attack you as you trick room and then you kill them next turn. If you don't use trick room then they'll attack you and you'll kill them on the same turn. Also, why Chople Berry? you have nothing to hurt fighting types so why even bother? Don't underestimate the value of leftovers recovery. Personally I think Porygon-2 is a mediocre pokemon and I would not use it on a team but if you do use him go with toxic and recover over hp ground and trick room.

Blastoise - why are you using blastoise? what pokemon does it counter? how does it help your team in any way? If you want a water type to use as a tank, use Gyarados. Its overall defenses are comparable but it has intimidate and nice fighting, ground and bug resists to allow it to act as a great counter to pokemon like Lucario and Scizor, something that blastoise cannot claim. In addition it is much more powerful and is a great sweeper to boot.

Lucario - Lucario's a great choice for pretty much any team, but I don't think you're using him to his full potential. With no boosting item, no swords dance, and a jolly nature, he just doesnt hit hard enough to be an effective sweeper. Occa Berry is an interesting item choice. I'd go with life orb mainly because people are going to use ground attacks to take out Luke just as often as fire attacks so occa's isn't going to be consistently useful, but you can stick with occa if you want. I'd go with swords dance over ice punch because most gliscor and salamence outrun you anyway

Togekiss - alright I guess, paralysis is nice for this team

Gengar - good but Gengar doesn't absorb toxic spikes due to levitate, and with a timid nature your explosion is too weak to be useful. go with hasty and maybe some attack evs as well

The main problem with the team though isn't just poor sets, its a complete lack of synergy. Like right now you have 2 electric weaks but nothing on your team can take electric attacks aimed at them. A Jolteon or Zapdos sweeps your entire team with no effort. To be honest I'm not sure how to help with this. I think the entire team needs a revamp. I'll think about it and get back to you
 
in the shadows... said:
Gliscor would have earthquake and he could stone edge gyarados and salamence:-) and gengar could stop latias:-) There problem solved:-)
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Ok. That works. I'll look into it. My mistake on the toxic spikes

@cmurph:

There's no OU Pokemon that cannot 1-2KO Porygon2, and Porygon2 is slower than pretty much every OU pokemon. There's no reason to have recover whatsoever as he can't survive two rounds in an OU environment. Speaking from experience, he can however, survive a +3 dragon dance gyarados' waterfall, a +1 dragon dance dragonite's dragon claw, or a +1 dragon dance salamance outrage. I'll explain why I went with trick room below.

I haven't had any issues with Lucario sweeping as there's few pokemon that his moves aren't super-effective against, and they all KO anyway. Being Jolly allows him to take out out a +1 swords dance Lucario. Life Orb is more of a liability as Lucario is frail enough.

Zapdos isn't a problem. Lucario can take it out with ice punch+extreme speed as heat wave won't KO Lucario due to Occa berry. Even Blastoise can take out Zapdos with Ice Punch+aqua jet. Jolteon is the reason why I use trick room/hidden power ground porygon2... as it'll allow Blastoise to earthquake it or Gengar to shadow ball/explode.

Getting back to Porygon2, trick room not only takes care of Jolteon's speed, but also rain dancers.
 
Why not put avalanch on Blastoise instead of ice punch? In the OU metagame he's a little slow, so forcing you to go last with avalanch wont be so much of a change. And since he's slow avalanch will have 120 power, if they hit you.
 
BlakBlastoise said:
Why not put avalanch on Blastoise instead of ice punch? In the OU metagame he's a little slow, so forcing you to go last with avalanch wont be so much of a change. And since he's slow avalanch will have 120 power, if they hit you.
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A wondrous idea. Thank you.

Oh, and thanks to in the shadows, seven7xenon and cmurph. I appreciate the time you took to help me out and fixing my errors. Even though I initially disagreed with your posts, I'm still going to take your suggestions and advice to heart. I'm going to continue working on this team and other ones, so any and all advice is much appreciated.
 
stringer said:
@cmurph:
I haven't had any issues with Lucario sweeping as there's few pokemon that his moves aren't super-effective against, and they all KO anyway. Being Jolly allows him to take out out a +1 swords dance Lucario. Life Orb is more of a liability as Lucario is frail enough.
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He needs life orb because hes frail. You don't seem to understand how a sweeper works. Frail sweepers like, Infernape, Lucario and Gengar aren't supposed to take hits, they circumvent their frailty through speed and power, by killing the opponent before it has a chance to attack. That's why they need life orb. Why you aren't using Swords Dance is beyond me. Lucario gets tons of chances to set up and it turns him into quite possibly the most formidable cleaner in the game.

stringer said:
Zapdos isn't a problem. Lucario can take it out with ice punch+extreme speed as heat wave won't KO Lucario due to Occa berry. Even Blastoise can take out Zapdos with Ice Punch+aqua jet.
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Lol you have got to be kidding me. Lucario is outsped and OHKOd by offensive Zapdos and only stands a chance against defensive versions. Blastoise, on the other hand, is outsped and OHKOd by every Zapdos set in existence.

stringer said:
There's no OU Pokemon that cannot 1-2KO Porygon2, and Porygon2 is slower than pretty much every OU pokemon. There's no reason to have recover whatsoever as he can't survive two rounds in an OU environment. Speaking from experience, he can however, survive a +3 dragon dance gyarados' waterfall, a +1 dragon dance dragonite's dragon claw, or a +1 dragon dance salamance outrage. I'll explain why I went with trick room below.
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stringer said:
Jolteon is the reason why I use trick room/hidden power ground porygon2... as it'll allow Blastoise to earthquake it or Gengar to shadow ball/explode.
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You know I actually forgot about Porygon-2's ability to trace volt absorb. Yeah Porygon-2 actually makes one of the best Jolteon counters in the game so you aren't as weak to it as I thought you were. That said, it makes the logic behind using trick room even worse than it already was. Porygon-2 walls the crap out of Jolteon. You don't need trick room or even hp ground to take it out, just cycle between ice beam and recover. BTW this is one of those scenarios that Recover is very valuable. Other opportunities for Porygon to recover include: Heatran (thanks to trace making you immune to fire attacks), pokemon like Swampert or Vaporeon, choiced ghost attacks from things like rotom or gengaand against things like MixMence or Latias that just let off a Draco meteor and no longer have the special attack to hurt you. I'm sure there are quite a few other examples too. So yeah to reiterate, recover is invaluable on a defensive pokemon and P2 gets plenty of chances to use it.
My other beef with trick room is that your team isn't designed around it. What I mean is, you have pokemon like Lucario and Gengar that really need their speed, and trick room screws them over. There's a reason why trick room teams almost exclusively use very slow pokemon.

Bottom line is, certain sets are standard for a reason. Everybody who uses physical lucario uses life orb for a reason. Everybody who uses defensive Porgyon-2 uses recover for a reason. Blastoise is UU for a reason. It's one thing to think outside the box and be creative and another thing to handicap yourself by using sub par movesets and pokemon.
 
cmurph said:
Blastoise, on the other hand, is outsped and OHKOd by every Zapdos set in existence.
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I made a mistake earlier that I didn't realize until I recently fought a zapdos with my blastoise. Waterfall+aqua jet. I used the smogon calculator just now, and only offensive life orb Zapdos can OHKO blastoise. Also, because zapdos gets the first hit and does so much damage torrent activates which boosts waterfall and aqua jet by 50%. Blastoise can KO all but offensive Zapdos.
 
Overall:

Your team looks like 6 Pokemon thrown together. I don't really see any connection between the six Pokemon. And it's not just that your Pokemon don't help each other, but they are actually detrimental to whatever your team's focus is. Trick Room on Porygon2 hinders Togekiss, Lucario, Gengar, and (if it's still alive) Infernape. I have no idea why Blastoise is on your team. If Blatoise's job is to take on heavy hitters, why does he have absolutely no way to recover? Porygon2 shouldn't be staying in on Fighting attacks anyway, so Chople Berry is pointless. It's also the only Pokemon keeping you from getting swept by Tyranitar, Salamence, and Gyarados, so leaving Recover off of it is Good Game right there if they take it down and have one of the above Pokemon in the wings. You're going to have to do a much more thorough job explaining how your team members work together as a team before anyone can really help you. Otherwise people are just going to recommend Pokemon to supplant yours for their individual tasks.


For my reference:
Infernape

There are a few problems that I see with this Infernape. First of all, the key to LeadApe's success is Fake Out, a move that gives it the upper hand against other Sashers because it starts the battle with a clear advantage. The opposing lead then only has one turn (if they are faster) to act before they are KO'd. Earthquake is redundant on this set because Fire + Fighting already gives you excellent coverage and will hit anything that Earthquake will for better damage (Heatran is OHKO'd by Close Combat already). A neutral Fire Blast (180 bp) will be hitting for almost as much as a SE Earthquake (200 bp), and once Blaze activates, it will be your strongest neutral move. Swapping Earthquake for Fake Out is probably your best option.

Flare Blitz is an inferior choice on this Infernape for several reasons. Most importantly, its recoil means you will either lose your valuable Focus Sash, or you will die if it has already activated. Swapping it out for Fire Blast will allow your Infernape to live longer. For instance, if you use Flare Blitz and your opponent swaps in, say, a Scarf Flygon, the recoil will break your sash and give you no chance at beating Flygon. However, if you had used Fire Blast, your would be able to survive the impending Earthquake and KO back with Close Combat.

Your EV Spread should also change to:
Naive
64 Atk / 252 SpA / 192 Spe

Porygon2

If you say your Porygon2 is not surviving more than 2 hits, why don't you swap it out for something? If its purpose is to take out things such as Salamence and Gyarados, why not try Scarf Latias?

Latias @ Choice Scarf
Timid Nature
252 SpA / 252 Spe / 6 HP
Draco Meteor | Thunderbolt | Surf | Trick

This Latias will outspeed any +1 Salamence and even +2 Adamant Gyarados and can easily KO back with the appropriate move. Be aware that switching Latias directly into Salamence would be suicide unless you can bait an Earthquake with a steel type or you're sure they are going to use Dragon Dance that turn.
 
stringer said:
I made a mistake earlier that I didn't realize until I recently fought a zapdos with my blastoise. Waterfall+aqua jet. I used the smogon calculator just now, and only offensive life orb Zapdos can OHKO blastoise. Also, because zapdos gets the first hit and does so much damage torrent activates which boosts waterfall and aqua jet by 50%. Blastoise can KO all but offensive Zapdos.
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alright so ignore all the points I made and focus on a tiny aspect of my post that is incorrect. Offensive Zapdos rapes your team. You need an electric resist, or immunity preferably. This is especially useful against thunder wavers. Also thank you dark talon for backing me up on a lot of this stuff.
 
cmurph said:
alright so ignore all the points I made and focus on a tiny aspect of my post that is incorrect.
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I didn't argue any of your other points because there was no need to. You had good points. I'm listening to you. Don't worry.

@Dark Talon
Ok, I get what you're saying. I'm going to take cmurph's and in the shadow's advice and work on having better synergy.

I like your infernape suggestion, but I'd rather not use latias as it's legendary.

I am going to change and rethink Porygon2's moveset though.


Thanks everyone. I'm going to go experiment.
 
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