OU Rain Dance

technomancer

I wanted to focus this team on speed, power and consistency. zapados is my slowest pokemon, barring empoleon w/o agility, at base 100 speed, and toxicroak is my weakest, checking in at a little over 340 attack. The core of the team is zapados, who attracts the ice/rock attacks that empoleon resists while setting up rain dance. Empoleon is my big gun, dealing silly damage with rain dance life orb stab surf, and outspeeding almost all ground types to ko with grass knot. Empoleon fears fighting which zapados and toxicroak don't, allowing me some easy failsafes. Kabutops is my backup, and also runs stab priority that's faster and as powerful as scizor in the rain.

Gengar fits into the shadows well and can force many switches while easily switching in to cover empoleon. Hp fire is something I'm considrring replacing with explosion. Ps this is all from my phone so please excuse typos and formatting, I think you'll like the team.

OU -
Infernape @ focus sash
jolly 252 atk / 252 spd / 4hp
-close combat
-fake out
-overheat
-stealth rock

Infernape is a favorite of mine. He's able to 2hko most leads without a problem and will get easy stealth rocks against any slower lead. He's chosen for this team to protect my guys from stealth rock damage and to get an early lead. Fake out gives infernape a few chances to revenge kill and keep on denting things, but mostly stealth rock is scaries. This set really only fears sandstream.

toxicroak @ choice scarf 252 hp / 252 atk / 4 spd
Adamant
-cross chop
-sucker punch
-earthquake
-stone edge
well hey its a toxicroak? Has a lot of useful resistances (fighting) and great coverage, hitting most everything supereffectively, and going a long way to solving my gyrados problem (which isn't a real problem). Heals in rain and absorbs the occasional water attack, which helps sponge various sources of passive damage, and allows me to heal if a weak opponent tries to stall out my sucker punch. Stone edge covers flying, sucker punch for ghosts and psychics, cross chop stabs everything else in the grill, and earthquake hits many things supereffective. Great for absorbing trick as well.

Empoleon @ life orb
Timid 252 satk / 252 spd / 4 hp
-surf
-Ice beam
-grass knot
-agility

Empoleon is extremely threatening under rain even without a torrent boost. Stab surf against a RESITING opponent still hits for 112% base damage in the rain, and if torrent activates it hits for 168% base. In the rain empoleon also resists the famous dragon/fire combo. Empoleon is left with weaknesses to electric, ground and fighting, and is neutral to grass. After 1 agility you outspeed basically every single unboosted pokemon in the game, including your biggest threat, big +1 speed jolteon, and usually hit for around 225 damage, or 325+ after torrent. With a bit of weakening, many of empoleon's counters are ohko'd by surf.

Zapados @ damp rock / pressure
Bold
252 hp / 152 sdef / 100 def / 4 spd
-roost
-rain dance
-thunder
-toxic

Hidden power zapados is problematic to catch legitly, so I chose toxic instead to status bulky grounds immune to thunder and try to stall them out with roost or switch. STAB Thunder off of 125 sp attack is no joke, resisted only by ground and volt absorb pokemon, and does about 190 to 80 defense pokemon (scizor, lucario, steels), and can ohko a few squishies. The 30% chance of paralysis helps a ton if you get lucky. However, once rain dance is up, you're well ahead.

Tyranitar gives this set the most problems and can steal my rain dance, but is taken care of by my water types, both of whom resist stone edge and take no damage from sandstorm. Local threats that I know of include mamoswine, donphan with ice shard, and swampert. Infernape and max speed empoleon can switch in on ice beams and often outspeed them, and kabutops in the rain is a faster answer as well.

gengar @ life orb / timid / 252 satk 252 speed. 4def
-hp fire
-shadow ball
-thunderbolt
-will-o-wisp
Coverage life orb gengar. Thunderbolt hits waters and flying, hp fire kills scizor and most steels and non-bulky grass, shadow ball for everything else, and burns standard pursuit users to disable them. Infernape and toxicroak usually cover my fighting requirement (kabutops covers blissey also), so no need for focus blast and its 90% miss chance. Easy switch-in on earthquakes and fighting attacks aimed at empoleon.

Kabutops @ 252 atk / 252 def / 4 spd
-aqua jet
-stone edge
-superpower
-swords dance

aqua jet reaches a respectable 90 power in the rain, and kabutops is almost always the last poke I send in, unless its to revenge kill something really weak, so I prefer to rely on superpower to break through grounds + swampert because it hits steels too and I have no trouble with most of the pokemon that resist it. Stone edge hits most everything else nasty hard after a swords dance. Not much to this kid. Evs went into defense to help it switch in on phtsical attacks.
 
Hello

First of all you need more Rain Dancers then just Zapdos. Sandstorm is very common in OU and even hail wanders around so be prepared that you Rain isn't going to stay up long. A great lead for Rain Dance teams is Jirachi:

Jirachi @ damp Rock/ timid/ serene grace
252 HP / 80 SpA / 176 Spe

- Rain Dance
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Water Pulse/ Thunder

Jirachi can set up both Stealth Rock and Rain Dance so there is no need to run Infernape. After both Rain and Rocks are set up Jirachi can U-turn out to a sweeper of yours. The last moveslot is up to you. Both Water Pulse and Thunder can abuse Serene Grace to fullest.

Next you must have more then one sweeper in a Rain Dance team. There are plenty of pokemon that can use their Swift Swim ability to pose a huge threat to your opponent. Kabutops is one of them indeed. But others like Ludicolo, Gorebys? Omastar, Qwilfish, ... they all work. But probably one of the best Rain Dance sweepers is Kingdra. With only one weakness, high speed and STAB Water type attacks it can sweep at both ends the spectrum. Perhaps a mixed attack will benefit you the most.

Kingdra @ life orb/ naughty/ swift swim
252 Atk / 240 SpA / 16 Spe

- Waterfall
- Draco Meteor
- Hydro Pump
- Outrage

When using a Rain Dance teams be prepared to counter opposing weather teams. Dugtrio could work well here as it can take out Tyranitar with Earthquake and Abomasnow with Stone Edge. Hippowdon will die to the Water types as well eventually.

Hope this helped and good luck with the team.
 
Needs more Rain Dancers.

lead Zapdos @ focus sash
thunder wave/ rain dance/ thunder/ Hidden Power Ice
Your EV spread is fine, but hp ice allows more damage on ttar than thunder. This speedy lead will ensure rain dance, and @ focus sash, crippling the other lead. swampert is the only threat to this, so HP grass is an option too.

Next issue: too many fast, frail attackers. Empoleon is a nice choice, but after he's gone its going to be tough to wall those thunder attacks. i recommend a special wall, such as

Ludicolo @ lefties
Calm, Rain Dish. 252 HP/ 252 spec def/ 6 Def
Leech Seed/ Toxic/ Rain Dance/ Substitute
This set allows full use of great typing and decent stats. Leech Seed+Toxic do amazing damage to the opponent, and with lefties and rain dish, ludi's HP will be quite full. Several options are available for the last move slot. Protect is a good choice for guaranteed blocking. Dive can be used for STAB, boost from rain, and an extra turn for lefties/toxic/leech seed to work.
Threats for this ludi are mainly Crobat, which can taunt and then sludge bomb or brave bird, both for s.e. damage. Zapdos is good against crobats, so try and keep it around just in case.

Solid strategy, gl and hf
 
You certainly need another Sweeper, most likely Kingdra. Also, If Zapdos falls, then you're out of rain (TTar and Hippowdon bring in infinite sand). You should probably stick Rain Dance on Kingdra.
 
Ultraskydive, I only run one rain dance because my pokemon don't all rely on it. Kabutops uses mostly his rock attack and occasional superpower, I really don't care if toxicroak dies from stealth rock damage, and empoleon relies on rain dance only for the +damage to water type moves; he's as good as ever after an agility.


Thewaft, blastoise is basically empoleon without the chewy goodness of steel type :( cool story though.


Delco, that's a pretty solid post of advice. Unfortunately I can't take any of it. Infernape is a better lead than jirachi because he prevents stealth rocks and often scores a kill. He also kos jirachi in almost all cases, barring a scarfed flinch, in which case empoleon can switch and set up. Kingdra, unlike empoleon, is straight mediocre without the rain, and er... empoleon sweeps also, and has many useful resistances. I have gengar, toxicroak and infernape all backing him up and chipping. Your dugtrio is basically my toxicroak and dugtrio is squishy.
 
Yay Birthday rate for me!

If this is a rain team it needs at least 3 (maybe 4) Rain Set-upers (or supporters) and generally the rest of the team are sweepers. Your team is not a rain dance team by any stretch of the imangination since it does not abuse the rain much at all.

Infernape is a stupid lead for a rain tea msince he is a fire type which have their main STAB reduced and water attacks are boosted to hit fire types harder (not that it maters to infernape since its already dieing to water moves anyway, authough it can now (argueably) fall to a luvdisk water gun. Azelf makes for a good rain lead since it can prevent other leads from setting up SR via taunt, can set up SR and it can get your rain sweepers in quickly via U-Turn or Explosion.

You have 2 pokemon that are just begging T-tar to come in on (Gengar dies to Pursuit and Zapdos to Stone Edge). Therefore I suggest a Rain Supporter Scizor since it can handle 2 of the main weather changers (T-tar and Abomasnow) with STAB Bullet Punch, it also brings in your rain sweepers for free via U-turn.
Scizor can go over Gengar (who is not benfiting your Rain team anyway) and Delko's MixKingdra can go over Zapdos. Next your Kingdra wants waterfall over Aqua Jet and its speed maxed out over its defense. The reason is that in the rain Kabutops outspeeds most of OU anyway so their is little point in running aqua jet. Superpower is not good since your are lowering your attacks, I suggest X-Scissor since it handles Celebi and most of the Grass and Psychic types in OU.


Next up your Toxicroak is running a scarf, there are better scarfers but you do not need a scarfer since this is a rain team and out outspeed most threats anyway. I suggest a Bronzong in its place since you can replenish your Rain and Explode/Set up screans etc

Lastly we have Empoleon, sure it has extra powerful surfs in the rain but so do most water types. Agility basicaclly gives you a speed boost which brings you up to speed with other Rain sweepers but you lose a tunr of rain setting up. I suggest a Rain sweeper Ludicolo since it gets STAB on its water moves, has about the same speed as Empoleon after the Agility boost and also gets STAB on its Grass moves to hammer water types who are the bane of rain teams.

Well thats my rate, yes i am sorry that I overhauled your team but it did need to be done. I am also sorry that I appear harsh in this rate but, to be honest, I could be much much harsher when rating this team. If you don't like me or Delko's suggestions because "I don't want to abuse the rain", (even though that's what rain teams are for) then please change the title of this RMT since this team is NOT a rain team since it does not abuse the rain much at all.

Have a Nice Day!
 
technomancer said:
Ultraskydive, I only run one rain dance because my pokemon don't all rely on it.
Click to expand...

Huh?

Am I missing something or is this thread titled "OU Rain Dance." If your team is not reliant on the rain, then it's not a rain dance team basically. It just has pokes that are common on rain dance teams. Oh wait... It doesn't? All it has is Kabutops? Hmm...

You don't have a rain dance team and this makes it obscenely difficult for people to rate as people will try to rate it as if it was a (guess what?) rain dance team. Consequently, you just reject their ideas because you feel your team does not rely heavily on rain. Kabutops is rather worthless without rain as it is just a lamer Lucario, Scizor, or any dancing priority owner (Dragonite and Cacturne even? LOL).

LOL I also like how you say Toxicroak solves your nonexistant Gyarados problem. Yea-no. There are plenty of better scarfers out in the sea and seeing as you only have one Rain Dancer, he won't get the full benefit of the rain anyways.

Your reason for using Empoleon is no reason at all. Anything with surf gets a boost in the rain. LOL Your calculations are insane. What the heck are you hitting. For a "resting opponent?" That is so obscenely vague I don't know how to respond to that.

I honestly don't know how to rate your team without saying what other people have said. You need more rain inducers if you really want to make a rain dance team. If that's not your cause, then scrap Toxicroak, Empoleon and even Kabutops.

Kingdra is staple on almost any Rain Dance team for good reason. It's monstrous in the rain with Swift Swim and a mixed movepool. Hydro pump very easily 2hkos things that resist it even such as DDMence without SR damage. Kingdra is honestly a monster in the rain and its many resistances allow it to come in, scaring away a Heatran or other poke and dancing up a storm.

Sorry if I come off sounding caustic. I tend to sound like that sometimes when I don't intend to. Well good luck with your team and have fun!
 
"Resting" should be resisting, sorry. I played several games and I think I agree that toxicroak rarely feels the effects of rain, and he's likely going to be subbed out for a special sponge.

As far as infernape being a crappy rain dance lead, that's absolutely not true. Infernape has never failed to drop rocks for me against the local teams I face, and I usually pull ahead. ill be switching overheat for u-turn, and ill ipdate post 1 wth details shortly.
 
Hmm i feel like reiterating Tejello's post and bolding it since you seem to have missed it.

Your own reasoning as to why infernape is not a crappy rain lead is because it sets up rocks, wtf?

Most Leads can set up SR but the main issue is...

THIS IS A RAIN TEAM AND YOU HAVE A FIRE TYPE LEAD.

Rain teams require momentum early and a rain lead gives you this. Azelf can set up rocks and give you an advantage early on, in fact he can U-turn like Infernape does and set rocks up like infernape does and supports your team better than infernape does.

Here is an article written my Smogon experts on effect Rain pokemon, it might be good reading.

http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/rain_offense
 
Okay so you want it to be part Rain Dance team and part something else.
This is completely possible. But since you use this in OU you should consider the Bronzong + Kingdra combo. They resists each others weaknesses really well. The strategy is simple: let Bronzong sets up Rain Dance and perhaps (if you'd like) Dual Screens (Reflect + Light Screen) and blow up afterwards. Now Kingdra can start the sweep. It is suggested you use Kingdra as your RD sweepers since Kabutops and the likes might work well in OU but Kingdra's great typing and access to STAB moves that can hit most pokemon for at least neutral damage.
 
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