OU hail team

Nich_Critic

The goal is to set up hail and spikes, shuffle the enemy around a little, and then go for the kill with Kingdra



Abomasnow @ Leftovers
Ability: Snow warning
EVs: 252 HP/252 ATT/6 SPD
Adament nature (+Att, -SAtk)
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Blizzard
- Focus Punch
Mainly to set up hail, but if he can set up sub-seed on a wall (blissy is a good choice. I don't know why people keep sending non-flamethrower blissy's to be focus punched to death) then he can really do some damage. Mostly though he just switches away from super effective moves. U-Turn is a pain



Steelix @ Leftovers
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 S.Def
Careful nature (+Def, -SP. Atk)
- Stealth rock
- Roar
- Earthquake
- Stone edge
Nice defenses means he'll almost always get at least a stealth rock in. While a fighting/fire weak pokemon seems to be a strange choice, he's my best bet against scizors who otherwise tear my team to pieces



Froslass @ Leftovers
Ability: Snow Cloak
EVs: 228 HP/ 248 Def / 34 speed
Timid nature (+Spd, -Att)
- Blizzard
- Substitute
- Spikes
- Protect

Mainly subs until the enemy misses in hail, then sets up two layers of spikes. The decent speed lets me revenge kill to an extent, Blizzard tends to do more damage to the enemy then they expect.


Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Water absorb
EVs: 252 HP/168 Def/88 Spd
Impish nature (+Def, -Sp.Att)
- Recover
- Encore
- Earthquake
- Blizzard

Makes walls who like to recover and pokemon that like to stat up uncomfortable. Blizzard might seem like an odd choice, but I've found it to do more damage in hail then ice punch, even coming off a -natured special attack. Always nice for physical walls like glisor who think they can wall this set.



Kingdra @ Leftovers
Ability: Sniper
EVs: 252 HP/200 Def/ 52 Speed
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Outrage
- Dragon dance

If the enemy can't ko it while it's asleep, it doesn't die. Even if outrage is never selected (1 in 3 seems like 1 in 100 when right down to the wire) hopefully hail is also doing it's thing. If I come in late and the steel types are gone, I can skip rest-talk entirely and just spam outrage, but that leaves me open to priority.



Hitmontop @ leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spd/6 Def
Adament (+Att, -Sp. Att)
- Foresight
- Rapid Spin
- Close combat
- Sucker Punch

My spinner, but also a threat to any ghosts that think they can block. Speedy enough to finish off pokemon with powerful close combats, or revenge kill them with sucker punch.


My choices of pokemon on this hail team might seem weird, since there are only two ice types who benefit from hail. The reality is that I need the resistances mostly to make up for Abomasnow's ghastly defensive powers. Fortunately, my pokemon don't mind the hail so long as the enemy is also taking damage. Also, it would be impossible to add another ice type without adding more rock and/or fire weaknesses, which I have enough of already.

Lead wise, Abomasnow can take on a couple of common ones, but I mainly waste a turn running from things packing hp fire or flamethrower (why can azelf learn that anyways?). Jirachi seems to be a problem, as well as bronzongs and Rosealias, who sleep powder me before I can 1 hit ko with blizzard. Interestingly enough, several leads die because they over predict my switch out.

My team seems to have a massive machamp weakness. None of my pokemon can take more then three dynamic punches, except for froslass, who gets ko'd by no-guard payback. Any suggestions on plugging that hole? I can beat him as long as the confusion doesn't affect me several times in a row, but winning and losing based on that isn't fun. Gyarados is another tough enemy to defeat, since he's usually bulky enough to set up. If he doesn't have stone edge abomasnow can take him, and if he does then Quagsire walls him and encores his dragon dances if he doesn't taunt. Brave bird skarmory has been a pain, but other sets are defeated by abomasnow.

I'd like to avoid hidden power if possible. Eventually I want to make this an in-game team, and I have no patience for breeding hidden powers and good EV's. Also, please don't respond with things like Swampert over Quagsire. Even though Quagsire is weaker, I like his water absorb, recover and encore options enough to justify him over swampy.
 
OMG a hail team with out its main asset: Stallrein. It abuses the rain and can stall for 32 turns effectivally killing 2 pokemon. Use it over hitmontop as it is not really helping your team. Next swap Steelix for Swampert as it can do exacually what your steelix does without a huge weakness to fighting, fire, ground etc.

Next run mammoswine over Kingdra as it can abuse the hail and provide a nice cleaner for your team. It can also use Ice Shard to beat Dragon Types.

Lastly you really need a spinner to stop SR so a Starmie can rapid spin while showing its offensive prowess to batter down members of your opponients team. Starmie can go over Quagsire which only seems to give you a water immunity which is not needed so much on a hail team.

Currently this team is NOT a hail team, it is only a team that runs abomasnow. With the above suggestions however, your team should be fine.
 
I largely agree with ginganinja. Walrein is usually the reason why you use a hail team. This team needs a complete rebuild really. Here is the set for Walrein:

Walrein @ leftovers
Ice Body
Bold nature
220hp 252def 36spdef
-Substitute
-Protect
-Surf
-Roar

The Evs allow you to substitute and then protect whilst maintaining your health. This effectively allows you 32 turns of stall. To take advantage of this, toxic spikes support is recommended.

Tentacruel is usually used to provide toxic spikes, though Forretress is viable. Both provide Rapid Spin support as well, eliminating the SR weakness of the ice type, though you have a Hitmontop for this at the moment. The advantage Tentacruel has is that it resists Abomasnow's fire weakness rather than adding to it, and that it is an excellent Infernape counter.

The role of spin blocker is usually carried out by Rotom-F, though Frosslass as you have now can work reasonably well too. Rotom is recommened as it provides an important counter to Scizor, while also having much greater bulk.

The rest of the slots are more open, but you still need to make sure that you can counter large OU threats like Tyranitar, Salamence, Gyarados (if running Frosslass) and Lucario. Putting Ice shard on Abomasnow can help it to revenge-kill Salamence, though I would recommend a steel type that can beat Salamence after it has locked itself into Outrage, such as Heatran. Tyranitar is usually dealt with by Swampert or Gliscor, though I suppose your current Steelix can do this too. All three of the aforementioned pokemon can set up SR. I would personally recommend the use of Gliscor however, since it counters Lucario perfectly.

I'm afraid all hail teams look the same for a reason, so I'm sorry for the large number of suggested changes.

Good luck anyway.

edit @ cost - no, you don't need a Walrein as such on a Hail team. Generally, though, for a beginner with Hail, a Walrein is recommended. You see many hail teams that have dropped Walrein that work fine, but this may simply be a sign that Hail is not really viable in today's metagame, and that they are merely shifting away from hail, rather than truly taking advantage of it. Certainly if you do create a hail team without Walrein, you have to base it around the merits of Abomasnow, or by using powerful Blizzards, but this is not truly the case here either.
 
yo cost, the two posters above u r exactly right, and i agree with them entirely, please enlighten us to why you believe this, as it would help us all

thanks,

Bartman101
 
Perhaps adding a walrein would be a decent suggestion for this team, but a good hail team can be made without the use of walrein. It's not essential at all; it's just a common, almost naive option. The best hail team I've seen here on Smogon, Lady Bug's, doesn't utilize a walrein.

edit @ jc - Or maybe it's a sign that walrein isn't that good lol. You're always going to be somehow basing a team around Abomasnow's merits, and walrein doesn't help with that.
 
Ginja ninja, your suggested changes would seem to give me a large weakness to lawn mower rotom, replacing most of my pokemon with ones weak to grass.

Stallrein looks good, but I don't really want to add him. Mainly because hail usually negates leftovers, without doing any permanent damage. What would I do against steels who are immune to toxic, or flying pokemon that avoid my spikes? It seems like most of OU is taking advantage of leviators and flying types, so toxic stalling sounds great on paper, but I don't think it will win me many matches. Currently his role is filled by kingdra, who can stall for as many turns as I have rest pp, who is only weak to dragons, and can sweep effectively. Mammoswine would just be another fighting and fire weakness; he seems to have a lesser version of Abomasnow's typing syndrome. With all the blizzards being tossed around, dragons aren't really a concern.

In the first paragraph, you say that hitmontop isn't really adding to the team, but then you follow that up by saying that I should add starmie as a spinner? Hitmontop is nice in that he scares away most blockers after foresight goes up. Starmie would be blocked and killed by most gengar, or rotom.

Thanks for the suggestions, but they don't seem to address the issues I'm having with my team. Currently I have no way of defeating machamp (lucario to a lesser extent, although steelix can survive even boosted hits from him and 1 hit ko back with earthquake). The pokemon I would usually use to check him die to confusion.

I guess you're right in saying that this isn't a hail team, but I'm not upset about that conclusion. Hail provides the function of negating leftovers, making spikes more of a threat and adding that 6% extra damage. It defeats sub-pinch berry sweepers. It wears down pokemon that think that they can use sandstorm with impunity. Pokemon that rely on sandstorms's extra defense die easier in hail. But, at the end of the day I could just replace abomasnow. I think that's an asset. I would hate to have my team crippled because tyranitar switched in.

I have read the art of hail stall guide. This team focuses more on having hard resists to Abomasnow's many weaknesses. Steelix for X4 rock and x2 bug, Kindgra for X4 fire, froslass for fighting immunity. The other two, quagsire and hitmontop, resist the many stone edges that get tossed around. In addition, many of the weaknesses of my party are resisted by abomasnow.

I don't want to sound ungrateful. I'm happy that I got such insightful responses. However, the sweeping changes seem to suggest I should just start from scratch and make a hail team clone, or else scrap hail and make an OU team clone, and I don't really want to do either.
 
If you're having trouble with Machamp and Lucario try using an offensive Gyarados with Bounce, like so.

Gyarados @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
252 Atk/ 4 Def/ 252 Spe
-Dragon Dance
-Waterfall
-Earthquake
-Bounce

I hope it helps but I honestly don't have a good understanding of hail teams, maybe you should try a Rain Dance team instead, though I know that that's almost an entire revamp.
 
That would make it more difficult to set up spikes. One of froslass' main boons on this set is recovering in hail while her opposition isn't.

Is there any particular reason other then aesthetics that I shouldn't run 6x leftovers?

Gyarados is an interesting option though. Is there an alternative to bounce though? I'm concerned people will just switch to a counter while I'm up in the air.
 
Nich_Critic said:
That would make it more difficult to set up spikes. One of froslass' main boons on this set is recovering in hail while her opposition isn't.

Is there any particular reason other then aesthetics that I shouldn't run 6x leftovers?

Gyarados is an interesting option though. Is there an alternative to bounce though? I'm concerned people will just switch to a counter while I'm up in the air.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if it learns any other flying type attacks. Gyarados is just one option though, I was just trying to think of Pokemon that are water/ice types that learn flying moves.
 
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