I created this team a while ago, when latias was still uber and when there weren't like 5 rotom formes in the metagame. This is my first team that was succesful, according to my standards back then. It peaked at a rating of about 1400 at the ladder. I'm posting this team because:
-I have 2 OU teams that are now way better
-I want to improve this team a bit because I really like it since it was my first good team. I also like how it plays.
So let's get started:
Team RageBlast
Team building process (if you don't care, then skip this part)
It's been a while since I made this team, but it went something like this. I did not want to use legendaries nor blissey (since I hate it, but I create every team with special care to kill it, so it's never a problem lol) and I hated stall.
I decided to make a team around an awesome late game sweeper. Swords dance lucario was perfect, and is arguably the best for this role.
Since he’s a late game sweeper, he wants things to be weakened so he can finish them off with extremespeed. I decided to take a look at the highest attacking stats in OU, and found metagross and salamence at the top. These 2 also formed the metamence-combo.
I still needed 3 more. As much as I hate blissey, I decided to take another fighting type. Heracross was a natural choice.
As if that wasn’t enough, I picked another fighting type, mainly because close combat is such a great move and if my opponent doesn’t have a good fighting resistance or when it’s eliminated, they might just fall to close combat. I picked gallade for it’s enormous attack.
Now I needed a lead. Stealth rock is very important for my strategy, allowing all my attacks to more easily OHKO and 2HKO things. I wasn’t satisfied with the OU stealth rock leads, and I went with nidoking. It’s also my favorite pokemon.
Now I had to come up with some sort of sequence to put my team in. I decided to put them chronologically in the order they usually do their part of the onslaught.
edit: swapped gallade and heracross for flygon and starmie, because these 2 don't fit in todays metagame.
In depth:
Nidoking @ life orb
nature: modest
ability: poison point
EV's: 96 hp / 252 sp. atk / 160 speed
-Stealth rock
-earth power
-ice beam
-flamethrower
Comment: nidoking is a decent stealth rock lead, however sometimes it can't get rocks up and sometimes it's immediately killed, the reverse might very well be true. Nidoking is a bit tricky in OU, it's usually a win or lose.
The power of nidoking lie in the moves.
Earth power is good stab and KO’s heatran and metagross, even shucka berry ones, because it’s on the special side, which comes to most people as a surprise (and I attach a high value to surprise). Flamethrower is especially useful for the steels who are not hit by earth power. Ice beam is also useful against dragons who would see nidoking as set-up bait. Unimpressive stats, but with a modest nature and 252 special attack EV’s, a life orb and a good deal of super effective moves make nidoking fun to use.
With these 3 moves I can deal heavy damage if given the chance. It’s not rare that I literally KO half my opponent’s team with nidoking because they don’t know which moves I’m using. Stealth rock is sometimes almost filler. It outspeeds all non-scarfed tyranitar. Nidoking usually doesn’t survive long and dies before or in mid game, since I tend to play it suicidally (like I tend to play everything).
Metagross @ choice band
nature: adamant
ability: clear body
EV's: 248 hp / 252 atk/ 8 speed
-explosion
-bullet punch / changed it to pursuit
-meteor mash
-earthquake
Comment: Metagross is simply amazing. Every time I use it, it amazes me. It has an enormous attack, good bulk and bullet punch to make up for its low speed, combine this with a 120 base power stab move, earthquake for super effective hits and explosion to destroy whatever would give me a problem.
It's the first component of my wallbreaking combo metamence. Explosion really is important to beat stuff I would otherwise fall to. Pursuit gives me a new way to deal with latias, rotom and starmie, it's overall a better choice for the team.
It’s banded, because I don’t want life orb recoil on something as bulky as this, since it often survives for a long time, and I like choice items. EV’s are pretty self-explanatory. Bulk and power
Salamence @ life orb
Nature: rash
Ability: intimidate
EV's: 80 atk / 252 sp. atk / 176 speed
-draco meteor
-fire blast
-brick break
-roost
Comment: Not much to say about mixmence, since everyone knows it. Draco meteor is the most important move, fire blast hits steels and brick break makes sure I don't get walled by pink fat gay blobs. It's very good, but every good team has a way to deal with salamence, even then, he hurts a lot. Latias can revenge kill it nowadays, but at least it can't come in on it.
Flygon @ choice scarf
nature: jolly
Ability: levitate
EV's: 4 hp / 252 atk / 252 speed
-outrage
-earthquake
-thunderpunch
-U-turn
Comment: Flygon saves me from gyarados and dragons. The only problem is that it doesn't hit hard, besides with earthquake and outrage. EQ is easily avoided, and outrage usually puts me in a bad position, making flygon set-up bait, against empoleon for example.
Starmie @ life orb
nature: timid
ability: natural cure
EV's: 4 hp / 252 sp. atk / 252 speed
-surf
-ice beam
-thunderbolt
-recover
Comment: Starmie is decent, but it doesn't hit that hard either, but on the other hand, it can use recover and has natural cure to stop some status.
ghosts may appear troublesome to the team, but they really aren't, they usually die fast, even now that rotoms are common.
At first glance it appears to function similarly to heracross, and while this is partly true, they are used and EV’ed in a completely different way. Heracross is used for more a bulky role to take a hit or status with sleep talk and hp EV’s. gallade is more used as a revenge killer and might come in on a special attack with 115 base special defense, although it has low hp (68 base stat).
Lucario @ life orb
Nature: adamant
Ability: inner focus
EV's: 252 atk / 4 def / 252 speed
-swords dance
-extreme speed
-close combat
-crunch
Comment: Lucario is the one the whole team fights for. It would suck if he couldn't finish the game after the opponent is weakened, but he has no problems doing that.
i try to keep him out of battle as long as possible, or when I feel the time has come. If I bring him in too early, he usually falls quickly without doing anything good resulting in a loss for me.
EV’s are straightforward, the moves as well, swords dance on anything that doesn’t pose a large thread to it, extremespeed to finish, stab close combat to things it can’t KO with extremespeed and crunch is necessary for ghosts. Ice punch is a waste since most gliscor and salamence outspeed it and KO it. A boosted extremespeed should finish off a weakened gliscor and salamence. Everyone knows how this standard lucario works, but in the endgame where everything has been weakened due to the powerful attacks of the rest of the team, not many have enough power and hitpoints left to stop it, allowing me to win easily. The best support I can give this lucario is as much damage as possible and stealth rock. It doesn’t need anything else.
Overview:
The team plays as his name. I try to overwhelm my opponent, which almost always works to a certain degree. The feeling the word RageBlast gives is a good feeling for how this team plays. It also often plays with me like ah #@^{, I have nothing to beat my opponent, and then I win eventually.
I only have a few non-direct attacking moves, stealth rock, roost, sleep talk and swords dance, where only roost is a defensive move. I have 3 choice items, but it doesn’t bother me since I have the bulk, speed and power to come in and kill (thanks to the items).
So this is what I try to do to deal damage, when I'm not revenge killing, absorbing status or anything else, in this order and if everything goes perfect:
-nidoking as a suicidal lead
-metamence to break walls after that, since they have great synergy, even if I'm unsure about a counter to salamence, I can switch to metagross.
-Heracross and gallade help each other well and can hit hard once their fighting resistance is gone.
-lucario as the finisher.
Status is taken care off by heracross and thunder wave by nidoking. Spikes aren't a problem and toxic spikes are funny. Nidoking removes it, metagross, lucario and salamence don't mind it, gallade doesn't hate it either and heracross likes it.
I didn't create this team with looking at a thread list though. I try to play on surprise, hard hits, speed and resistances.
things I have encountered trouble with:
Basically water types, water attacks since only salamence can resist them, rain dance (kingdra and ludicolo) in particular is hard to beat, if not unbeatable.
Full stall and stockpile hippowdon especially give me problems since a whole bunch of walls is hard to break through. When I created this team nobody used a stockpile hippowdon though.
The not perfect accuracy moves backfire once in a while. This is usually not a problem, but twice in a row means I'm usually screwed against an intelligent player.
these are my biggest issues.
So to improve it, make it modern, I'm open to any suggestions, critisicm and opinions. It used to be good to my standards but it's not anymore, so I want to improve it.
Things I was thinking about to change were heracross and gallade, or giving one of them a choice band (heracross) or something, or completely remove them, since they sometimes disappoint me.
That's about it, hope you like it.
-I have 2 OU teams that are now way better
-I want to improve this team a bit because I really like it since it was my first good team. I also like how it plays.
So let's get started:
Team RageBlast
Team building process (if you don't care, then skip this part)
It's been a while since I made this team, but it went something like this. I did not want to use legendaries nor blissey (since I hate it, but I create every team with special care to kill it, so it's never a problem lol) and I hated stall.
I decided to make a team around an awesome late game sweeper. Swords dance lucario was perfect, and is arguably the best for this role.
Since he’s a late game sweeper, he wants things to be weakened so he can finish them off with extremespeed. I decided to take a look at the highest attacking stats in OU, and found metagross and salamence at the top. These 2 also formed the metamence-combo.
I still needed 3 more. As much as I hate blissey, I decided to take another fighting type. Heracross was a natural choice.
As if that wasn’t enough, I picked another fighting type, mainly because close combat is such a great move and if my opponent doesn’t have a good fighting resistance or when it’s eliminated, they might just fall to close combat. I picked gallade for it’s enormous attack.
Now I needed a lead. Stealth rock is very important for my strategy, allowing all my attacks to more easily OHKO and 2HKO things. I wasn’t satisfied with the OU stealth rock leads, and I went with nidoking. It’s also my favorite pokemon.
Now I had to come up with some sort of sequence to put my team in. I decided to put them chronologically in the order they usually do their part of the onslaught.
edit: swapped gallade and heracross for flygon and starmie, because these 2 don't fit in todays metagame.
In depth:
Nidoking @ life orb
nature: modest
ability: poison point
EV's: 96 hp / 252 sp. atk / 160 speed
-Stealth rock
-earth power
-ice beam
-flamethrower
Comment: nidoking is a decent stealth rock lead, however sometimes it can't get rocks up and sometimes it's immediately killed, the reverse might very well be true. Nidoking is a bit tricky in OU, it's usually a win or lose.
The power of nidoking lie in the moves.
Earth power is good stab and KO’s heatran and metagross, even shucka berry ones, because it’s on the special side, which comes to most people as a surprise (and I attach a high value to surprise). Flamethrower is especially useful for the steels who are not hit by earth power. Ice beam is also useful against dragons who would see nidoking as set-up bait. Unimpressive stats, but with a modest nature and 252 special attack EV’s, a life orb and a good deal of super effective moves make nidoking fun to use.
With these 3 moves I can deal heavy damage if given the chance. It’s not rare that I literally KO half my opponent’s team with nidoking because they don’t know which moves I’m using. Stealth rock is sometimes almost filler. It outspeeds all non-scarfed tyranitar. Nidoking usually doesn’t survive long and dies before or in mid game, since I tend to play it suicidally (like I tend to play everything).
Metagross @ choice band
nature: adamant
ability: clear body
EV's: 248 hp / 252 atk/ 8 speed
-explosion
-bullet punch / changed it to pursuit
-meteor mash
-earthquake
Comment: Metagross is simply amazing. Every time I use it, it amazes me. It has an enormous attack, good bulk and bullet punch to make up for its low speed, combine this with a 120 base power stab move, earthquake for super effective hits and explosion to destroy whatever would give me a problem.
It's the first component of my wallbreaking combo metamence. Explosion really is important to beat stuff I would otherwise fall to. Pursuit gives me a new way to deal with latias, rotom and starmie, it's overall a better choice for the team.
It’s banded, because I don’t want life orb recoil on something as bulky as this, since it often survives for a long time, and I like choice items. EV’s are pretty self-explanatory. Bulk and power
Salamence @ life orb
Nature: rash
Ability: intimidate
EV's: 80 atk / 252 sp. atk / 176 speed
-draco meteor
-fire blast
-brick break
-roost
Comment: Not much to say about mixmence, since everyone knows it. Draco meteor is the most important move, fire blast hits steels and brick break makes sure I don't get walled by pink fat gay blobs. It's very good, but every good team has a way to deal with salamence, even then, he hurts a lot. Latias can revenge kill it nowadays, but at least it can't come in on it.
Flygon @ choice scarf
nature: jolly
Ability: levitate
EV's: 4 hp / 252 atk / 252 speed
-outrage
-earthquake
-thunderpunch
-U-turn
Comment: Flygon saves me from gyarados and dragons. The only problem is that it doesn't hit hard, besides with earthquake and outrage. EQ is easily avoided, and outrage usually puts me in a bad position, making flygon set-up bait, against empoleon for example.
Starmie @ life orb
nature: timid
ability: natural cure
EV's: 4 hp / 252 sp. atk / 252 speed
-surf
-ice beam
-thunderbolt
-recover
Comment: Starmie is decent, but it doesn't hit that hard either, but on the other hand, it can use recover and has natural cure to stop some status.
ghosts may appear troublesome to the team, but they really aren't, they usually die fast, even now that rotoms are common.
At first glance it appears to function similarly to heracross, and while this is partly true, they are used and EV’ed in a completely different way. Heracross is used for more a bulky role to take a hit or status with sleep talk and hp EV’s. gallade is more used as a revenge killer and might come in on a special attack with 115 base special defense, although it has low hp (68 base stat).
Lucario @ life orb
Nature: adamant
Ability: inner focus
EV's: 252 atk / 4 def / 252 speed
-swords dance
-extreme speed
-close combat
-crunch
Comment: Lucario is the one the whole team fights for. It would suck if he couldn't finish the game after the opponent is weakened, but he has no problems doing that.
i try to keep him out of battle as long as possible, or when I feel the time has come. If I bring him in too early, he usually falls quickly without doing anything good resulting in a loss for me.
EV’s are straightforward, the moves as well, swords dance on anything that doesn’t pose a large thread to it, extremespeed to finish, stab close combat to things it can’t KO with extremespeed and crunch is necessary for ghosts. Ice punch is a waste since most gliscor and salamence outspeed it and KO it. A boosted extremespeed should finish off a weakened gliscor and salamence. Everyone knows how this standard lucario works, but in the endgame where everything has been weakened due to the powerful attacks of the rest of the team, not many have enough power and hitpoints left to stop it, allowing me to win easily. The best support I can give this lucario is as much damage as possible and stealth rock. It doesn’t need anything else.
Overview:
The team plays as his name. I try to overwhelm my opponent, which almost always works to a certain degree. The feeling the word RageBlast gives is a good feeling for how this team plays. It also often plays with me like ah #@^{, I have nothing to beat my opponent, and then I win eventually.
I only have a few non-direct attacking moves, stealth rock, roost, sleep talk and swords dance, where only roost is a defensive move. I have 3 choice items, but it doesn’t bother me since I have the bulk, speed and power to come in and kill (thanks to the items).
So this is what I try to do to deal damage, when I'm not revenge killing, absorbing status or anything else, in this order and if everything goes perfect:
-nidoking as a suicidal lead
-metamence to break walls after that, since they have great synergy, even if I'm unsure about a counter to salamence, I can switch to metagross.
-Heracross and gallade help each other well and can hit hard once their fighting resistance is gone.
-lucario as the finisher.
Status is taken care off by heracross and thunder wave by nidoking. Spikes aren't a problem and toxic spikes are funny. Nidoking removes it, metagross, lucario and salamence don't mind it, gallade doesn't hate it either and heracross likes it.
I didn't create this team with looking at a thread list though. I try to play on surprise, hard hits, speed and resistances.
things I have encountered trouble with:
Basically water types, water attacks since only salamence can resist them, rain dance (kingdra and ludicolo) in particular is hard to beat, if not unbeatable.
Full stall and stockpile hippowdon especially give me problems since a whole bunch of walls is hard to break through. When I created this team nobody used a stockpile hippowdon though.
The not perfect accuracy moves backfire once in a while. This is usually not a problem, but twice in a row means I'm usually screwed against an intelligent player.
these are my biggest issues.
So to improve it, make it modern, I'm open to any suggestions, critisicm and opinions. It used to be good to my standards but it's not anymore, so I want to improve it.
Things I was thinking about to change were heracross and gallade, or giving one of them a choice band (heracross) or something, or completely remove them, since they sometimes disappoint me.
That's about it, hope you like it.
