OU - DDTar

[Cantus]

Hello, Smogon. I have played Pokémon for many years, but this is my first time making use of your forums.

Recently, myself and a friend began talking about one of the things that seems to have disappeared altogether in the shift to Gen V - Dragon Dance Tyranitar.

This was one of my favourite sets to run in Gen IV, and we wanted to see if we could make it work to a reasonable extent in Gen V.

After much deliberation, this is the team that we came up with:

Tyranitar (F) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Fire Punch

The centre of the team. Lum Berry is my preferred item, allowing me to safely set up at least one Dragon Dance against foes who attempt to nab Scald burns, such as Politoed and Vaporeon. Jolly is used to ensure that it outspeeds Starmie after one Dragon Dance. After said Dragon Dance, the number of pokemon that can handle T-Tar drops to a mere handful - fast Scarfers, those with super-effective priority, and perhaps Gliscor. Two Dragon Dances, and you can count the Scarfers and Gliscor out too. The main problem with this strategy is the prevelance of Scizors in usage - it is impossible for Tyranitar to sweep until the big red menace has been eliminated.

Scizor (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Pursuit
- Superpower

Speaking of which, this team has one of those things too. His position on this team is mainly for the purposes of team synergy, as well as the fact that CB Scizor can pull one out of many a sticky situation (and has done so already).
Banded Bullet Punches allow for the destruction of faster foes, such as Choice Scarfed Terrakion, that would threaten Tyranitar even after a Dragon Dance. This is doubly useful in light of the fact that Terrakion resists all of the offensive moves employed by my particular Tyranitar. In addition, his resistance to Grass and Tyranitar's resistance to Fire make for a nice, solid defensive pairing.

Gastrodon (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Toxic
- Recover

The Team's special wall, Gastrodon serves to sponge the Flamethrowers, Scalds and Hydro Pumps aimed at Scizor and Tyranitar. Scald is a solid STAB attack, also useful against foes such as opposing Scizor, Terrakion - any physical attacker without Guts, really. Earthquake affords solid dual STAB when twinned with Scald as well as the ability to hit annoying things such as Calm Mind Jirachi. Toxic allows for the wearing down of other bulky water-types such as Politoed and Suicune. Finally, Recover is employed to increase Gastro's longevity. This is a nice upgrade from my previous choice, Vaporeon, as it now possesses reliable recovery and a precious Electric immunity, allowing me to stop dastardly Rotoms.

Gengar (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Disable
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball

Gengar complements the existing pokemon in this team exceptionally well, providing immunities to Normal, and more crucially Ground and Fighting. Substitute allows Gengar to scout the actions of the opponent whenever he forces a switch, such as against Gliscor without Ice Fang. Disable abuses the fact that many pokemon only carry one move capable of harming Gengar, and forces more switches because of it. Shadow Ball and Focus Blast provide perfect type coverage, and so are no-brainers.

Heatran (F) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock

-The team's only Stealth Rocker, Heatran provides essential support with its ability and typing. Air Balloon gives it a prized Ground immunity, easing prediction and opening up opportunities for the use of Stealth Rock. It also provides the team with a strong counter to sun teams, as it can take on most Volcarona and Venasaur with ease. Flamethrower is preferred, as my luck is poor and a missed Fire Blast could allow Venasaur to survive when I absolutely need it to die. Hidden Power Ice allows Heatran to take out Dragonite and Gliscor (although it is preferable to attack these on the switch-in due to Heatran's not-so-stellar Speed), whilst Earth Power allows for the destruction of opposing Heatran.

Landorus (M) @ Expert Belt
Trait: Sand Force
EVs: 228 Atk / 28 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- U-turn
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Landorus was added because of our desire to make some use of the weather that Tyranitar would bring. We have opted to run a Naive Expert Belt set, because I greatly enjoy feigning Choice Scarf against slower opponents. Earthquake and Stone Edge provide solid neutral coverage on everything sans Levitate Bronzong, U-Turn allows for scouting as well as providing a means of reliable damage against Celebi, and Hidden Power Ice takes Dragonite and Gliscor out cold when they switch in, thinking that I'm locked into Earthquake.


And that's the team. I have achieved modest success with it, reaching 1250 or so on the OU Ladder. I would, however, like to improve it. I have encountered particular problems with Rotom-W - The blasted thing has enough coverage to demolish this team if played correctly. Landorus is my best bet to counter Electric-type moves, and one mispredicted Hydro Pump will swiftly take care of him. It REALLY doesn't help that my special wall is weak to Electric. I have been contemplating Virizion as a possible replacement, but have not yet made up my mind.

Thank you for your time. Any help you can offer is appreciated.

 

[Asek]

Hey , Nice team
Does Starmie give you problems? Scizor aside he carries a super effective move for your whole team as well as being able to outspeed your whole team as well. Even though Scizor will not be hit super effectively, he will be getting hit hard on his weaker SpDef. This weakness stems from your teams weakness to Rain Offense as your Tyranitar is'nt built to switch in and out of battle constantly to change the weather back. Thats why switching Vaporeon for a Gastrodon would be a fine choice.

Hide

Gastrodon @ Leftovers
Nature: Sassy (+SpDef -Spd)
Trait: Storm Drain
EV'S: 252HP / 4SpAtk / 252SpDef
-Earthquake / Earth Power
-Scald
-Toxic
-Recover

A far better Specially Defensive poke then Vaporeon that counters most rain teams with ease. Just switch into a water type attack and from there obliterate the opposition with your combination of Bulk, Recovery and Powerful Attacks. Earthquake is the preffered move so you can hit both Specially and Physically Defensive pokemon and most importantly, beat Calm minders such as Jirachi. Scald gets burn on nasty Physical sweepers such as Gyarados and Toxic for everything else. Recovery is self explantory.
HOWEVER keeping Vaporeon also works just tweak the set a little. The ability to wish pass is something that your team would enjoy and Vaporeon also Has the bulk to pull it off well. Just replace Ice Beam with Wish and Roar with Protect and Vaporeon can now heal itself and its teamates. You allready have a Phazer in Skarmory so Roar is'nt that nessecary.

 

[Jirachee]

Hi

First of all I want to say I'm glad you could fix your e-mail issues. Also I really agree with what the user above me suggested, it's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw your team.

Unfortunately this team lacks a serious Volcarona / Venusaur (the basic Sun abusers) check. While you can do a pretty nice job keeping Stealth Rock on the field with Gengar and Skarmory, which completely kills Volcarona, some of them carry Morning Sun which helps it recovering from entry hazard damage. While you can probably handle one of them, the two on the same team is probably an easy match-up. Also I'd like to say that Skarmory is probably not the best pokemon on your team, as I'd say is more offensive than anything, and Skarmory has absolutely terrible offensive presence and gives easy momentum to opposing offense. To be fair, I think that Heatran would be far more effective on your team, as it is very powerful, switching into it is not forgiving, and it can check a lot of stuff Skarm checks too, in addition of beating both Venusaur and Volcarona on 1 on 1.

Heatran

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Timid
Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
-Fire Blast (I guess you could use Flamethrower if you're really afraid of missing Venusaur which could carry Earthquake)
-Hidden Power Ice
-Earth Power
-Stealth Rock

I also just thought about it, and I ran DDTar in gen 4 quite a lot. Since you're running Fire Punch you probably should try Babiri Berry as it allows you to bait and OHKO Scizor which is often gonna be a check on the opposing team.

Good luck!

 

[Cantus]

Gastrodon has been accounted for and added.

Heatran, however, I'm not so sure. I say this only because if I remove Skarmory, my team lacks a physical wall. Technically speaking one could run physically defensive Heatran - its physical defense i s equal to its special defense, and the special defense variety is very popular indeed.

However, I strongly dislike the idea of a physical wall that is weak to the two most common physical attack types in the game. So the options are: run an unreliable physical wall, or don't run a physical wall at all. I for one am not content to rely entirely on burns to incapacitate opposing physical attackers.

In any case, I will add Heatran and see how it turns out. Perhaps the lack of a dedicated physical wall isn't as big of an issue as I amke it out to be.

Regardless, thanks for all the input everyone!