Offensive Drought Team

Hrishi

Hello everyone. It's been a while since I made a team, having made a Baton Pass team a while ago. So without further ado, my Offensive Drought team!

TEAM BUILDING PROCESS :

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This time, I wanted to make a team themed around Moltres.

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Ninetales was a necessity, of course. Drought upped Moltres' sweeping capability tremendously.

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I needed another sweeper who could complement Moltres and take care of it's weaknesses. Venusaur fit the bill almost perfectly. With it's Dream World ability Chlorophyll, it is able to abuse the sun completely.

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Other weather inducers were going to be a problem. For this reason, I chose Machamp to completely counter Ttar.

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Due to Moltres as well as Ninetales' horrible weakness to Stealth Rock, I chose Forretress for Rapid Spin support. Of course, it is also capable of laying down my own entry hazards like Toxic Spikes of course.

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Finally, Espeon as a sort of anti-lead as well as a counter for status and entry hazards. It also provided Dual screen support.

TEAM IN DETAIL :

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Ninetales (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 92 SDef / 164 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- Will-O-Wisp
- Substitute
- Protect

Defensive set for Ninetales. Will-O-Wisp for status as well as to stop physical attackers. Substitute and Protect are used to stall the opponent when it's under Toxic or Burn.

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Forretress (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 176 Def / 80 Spd
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Toxic Spikes
- Spikes
- Gyro Ball
- Rapid Spin

Standard Rapid Spin supporter. It also sports Toxic Spikes. I'm not sure Spikes is too necessary as I've never actually used it much. Opinion on that slot? Gyro Ball for STAB.

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Venusaur (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 128 HP / 80 Atk / 168 SAtk / 132 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Energy Ball
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Growth
- Sleep Powder

Sweeper set for Venusaur. Due to Growth adding +2 in the sun, I would sleep on turn 1 and Growth to set up on turn 2 on the switch. With double speed in the sun, it has high sweeping capability.

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Espeon (M) @ Light Clay
Trait: Magic Mirror
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Psycho Shock

Dual Screen Espeon with Psycho Shock to get through Special walls like Blissey. I switch it in when I predict an entry hazard or a status effect to bounce it back.

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Machamp (M) @ Lum Berry
Trait: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- DynamicPunch
- Payback
- Bullet Punch
- Ice Punch

Standard Machamp set with as much coverage as possible. Creates hell with the opponent with 100% accurate Dynamic Punch.

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Moltres @ Life Orb
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Fire Blast
- Air Slash
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Roost

Sweeper set for Moltres. Roost is used to heal off residual damage off Life Orb or anything else. Hidden Power is for bulky water types. The other two are for STAB. I dislike Fire Blast to be honest, it always misses when it's important and considering taking Flamethrower instead.

THREATS :

Main issue is when I have another weather inducer. I cannot safely switch into another Weather inducer at all. A lot of my team is built around the sun so I need a way to address this problem. Especially politoed.

Volcarona and few others are able to set up and sweep sometimes, and I have no answer since my only disable is on Venusaur. Maybe I should include a Mischevious Heart user in the line up?

Can't think of anything else right off the bat, but I will edit as and when I come across major threats.
 
Okay, a few fixes for you and some suggestions. On tales both sub and protect make you setup fodder. Try either hp fight and sub to let you beat tran and safely burn switchins, protect and disable for better stalling, or try using another status over one.

For forry, consider that t-spikes will clash with wow and sleep powder, try sr over them to cripple volcarona etc. Also think about volt change if gyro ball isn't very useful to you, as it'll let you get tales in safely for instance.

Your saur's evs are very odd - you have 80 atk and no physical moves? Max spatk and run as much speed as you need, then put the rest in bulk. Also, since you have dual screens, you don't really need sleep powder to grab a boost, so run coverage in the form of sludge bomb, letting you sweep all but tran and chandy, rather than all the dragons walling you too.

Over machamp consider conkeldurr - mach punch gives you a nice stop to excadrill and the deadly blaziken, as well as the usual fighting duties.

Finally, I'm sorry to suggest a replacement for the mon you built the team around, but moltres is utterly outclassed in the present meta. Zard does the role you have it in better given his faster speed and solar power, though without wish support I'd try a chestorest or morning sun volcarona - with screens this monster should be able to boost a few times and decimate the opposing team.

Hope this helps!
 
I gotta stop agreeing with everything you say Ben.

I have little to add as far as criticism goes. The forry could do without the speed EVs. Run 248 EVs on Ninetales instead of 252, as the even number of hp will mean that you won't be able to switch into SR as much.

If you're gonna stick to using Moltres (the conspiracy of fire types is that the whole thing is a ladder. Most of them do similar things), I wouldn't recommend hp grass. Bulky waters aren't as important to hit as things like dragons. I'd actually go for hp ice here. Even then, moltres is slower than lati@s and garchomp.

If you can, slap sunny day on espeon as it tends to attract Tyranitar in. This helps keep the weather up for you, while removing T-tar's dumb special bulk.
 
Thank you for the suggestions. I will give all of these a try. But yes, I do kinda want to run Moltres over anything else even if it's less effective, sorry. Just one of my favourite pokes.

My big question is how do I deal with Politoed+Drizzle. I'm NEVER able to keep weather under control with it around and it never stays in the field long enough to kill it. It just switches into Tales whenever I change the weather.

It's late now, but I will make the edits in the OP tomorrow morning, as well as a more detailed response to the changes.
 
Try out VC on Forry - it means it can lead against Toed, scout for its item with the damage caused, and get Tales in safely and/or get SR up against Toed.

Toxic on Tales is always good to cripple Toed, and a Disable abuse set (with Sub/Protect) would let you beat Scarf and Specs Toed against Tales when it comes in. The trick against Rain is to force the opponent into a position where they lose Toed or another mon - Sawsbuck is epic for this, OHKOing Toed and outspeeding in Rain, and being able to OHKO all of Rain's common members but Ferrothorn, who you can typically get with HP Fire on Saur. Predicting Ice Beams and Surfs from Toeds lets you switch into it quite easily, and you can use Forry as fodder to get someone else in off of a VC/death if need be.

Since Espy is somewhat obsolete with Forry spinning, you could try something like Wobbuffett in its place to easily take out opposing weather inducers and net setup for Forry, Venusaur etc. Finally, on Moltres try out a stallish set with Pressure if you want to use it, since that's quite a nice nice for it. Sub then Sky Drop may work nicely if something slower comes in to wall you, for instance. This capitalises on her unique aspects whilst retaining a powerful Fire attack if need be.
 
I agree, you may as well use SolarBeam, because Venusaur is very nerfed outside Sun, and you shouldn't be attempting a sweep with it if there's a chance that the weather will change.
 
SB's a pretty bad move. Lets the other team set up out side of the sun, and if you're having trouble keep sun up, you definitely don't want SB.
 
I'm trying a new Sun team myself, and I find it extremely useful to have a grass lead when you see your opponent's team is sandstorm or rain. I took the idea from the Prelude of Light team, which has a Leaf Storm Lilligant. I use Specs Rotom-C since I find it more offensive and can mess things up with Trick and has Volt Switch, but I'm testing so replace Machamp (which is your Anti-Weather lead) with any powerful grass type you can, especially with cloropyll (not venusaur because he's an important sweeper and you shouldn't risk losing it). That should help in winning the weather battle.
I agree with lostaurora. Venusaur is hopeless without sun, so you should just replace EB with SB, and if you lose weather, then switch or let it die.
I think that rather than taking out Espeon since you have Forry, you should take out Forry. Espeon already deflects SR just by being there, but it also sets double screens AND deflects status, something Forry can't do, so it's more useful IMO as it successfully fills many roles at once.
 
lostaurora said:
I agree, you may as well use SolarBeam, because Venusaur is very nerfed outside Sun, and you shouldn't be attempting a sweep with it if there's a chance that the weather will change.
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Well his speed is nerfed - but not his SpA, you can still easily fire off an Energy Ball to kill a Toed or Hippo, which oh guess what, you may well often need to do, and cannot if using SolarBeam. The added power is pretty much entirely unecessary when at +2, so the the only time its power would benefit you is outside of weather, which is exactly when you cannot use it.

SolarBeam is only worth using when the pokemon with it is literally crippled outside of Sun, or has almost no other options for the moveslot. As it is very few pokemon are in this situation, and Saur is certainly not one of them.
 
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