Raining in the tiers an OU team with Concerns

[Psycho_Sunshine]

After not battling at all in gen 5 (and only a little in gen 4) I decided to rediscover a Rain team that fit my style of play. With Drizzle Swim being legal I wanted to see how that would fair in the current meta, and while I have laddered this team quite a bit there are some holes that I don't really know how to address and the team itself has gone through many iterations.

This is where the team started, the enabler and the swimmer, I tried others but kabutops just had the most raw power out of any swimmer, especially when the rain was down as well as some other perks I will mention in set Descriptions.

The offensive pivots then enter, I wanted a fighter and a special attacker. These two are who I settled on after trying a few out, for various reasons, like speed tiers or the pokemon that they check etc...

The defensive engine was added to accomodate some other problems I wanted to address up front, giving me a strong pivots and hazard usage.

Politoed @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Perish Song
- Hypnosis Toxic
- Rest
- Scald
​

Politoed is the rain enabler. He is here cause he needs to be and the rain amplifies the power of the rest of the team by a lot. Since he is primarily being used to pivot into the rain every 8 or so turns I use a defensive set to be able to bring him in as much as possible. Every move on the set eases pivoting and can hopefully generate a free switch as they are used.

Kabutops @ Lum Berry
Ability: Swift Swim
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SAtk
- Aqua Jet
- Stone Edge
- Waterfall
- Swords Dance​

This is the rain sweeper and the most impressive one I have come across. The highest attacking stat out of any swift swimmer (bar omastar) and the existance of aqua jet are his primary selling points. This allows him to finish teams that thought all they had to do was stall at the rain or check him with priority. He is difficult to revenge kill making him a solid late game threat as well as possessing deceptive bulk to tank almost any physical hit. I am not sure about the hold item and kind of want it to be leftovers or focus sash as I constantly find his bulk underestimated.

Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 28 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Poison Jab
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance​

One of the team members that is very swingy hes either very good or very bad and requires me to play him well. Adamant, life orb, max attack gives him a few key ohkos and 2hkos he would other wise not have, mostly involving sucker punch. Swords dance is the move I am most unsure about as I already have a very strong setup sweeper and the dance may be better off as a different move. I find I use him as a check to many water pokes as well as a nice way to catch most tyranitars. The EVs allow him to outspeed every Azumarill variant to which he can almost always come in on. I want to run either knock off/taunt/ or thunderpunch to further his roll as a bulky water killer but I don't see which moves could be compromised. Breloom, conkeldurr, and lucario have all sat in this spot but I was not very happy with many of them when taking the rest of the team into consideration, Breloom was probably the closest to getting this spot out of any of the ones I tested.

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SDef
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Power Whip
- Knock Off
- Leech Seed​

One of the best defensive pivots in the game and with rain becomes very difficult to get through. He pivots very well and provides a lot of disruption in the form of Knock off and leech seed as well as reseting rocks in a defog filled world. I had Thunder wave on the set originally but just found my team has a very odd speed tier set and doesn't benefit from t-wave all that much.

Noivern @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature
- Flamethrower
- Draco Meteor
- U-turn
- Hurricane​

This thing is a monster and was a very late addition to the team. When the Rain is up almost nothing wants to take a specs hurricane. I can also use it as a pivot when I want to offensively absorb things like grass and ground attacks. Flamethrower is good coverage when the rain is down to allowing me to catch genesect, ferrothorn, and scizor by surprise as fire coverage on a rain team is very odd, but affordable since his STAB coverage hits so hard and is so good.

Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Defog
- Recover
- Thunder
- Mist Ball​

This thing is weird and I keep going back and forth on it and Mew. The biggest thing is I wanted to remove hazards as stick web is a big deal to the team (the other hazards not so much). I also wanted a SDef pivot and latias just gives me the most bang for my buck in terms of resistances as well as giving me another option of coverage against bulky waters. Mist ball is experimental right now in place of psyshock but latias is a nice bulky pivot that can tank a wide variety of hits. I kind of want to put in HP investment but if I am using max speed to revenge kill things then I may as well back it up with max SAtk.

Now that the teams there I have a bunch of problems I want to address.
THREATS:

Mega Lucario. I can check this thing no problem; Kabutops in the rain, as well as Toxicroak do a fine job of guaranteed ohkos living any possible rebuttal. However if he switches into my Ferrothorn I pretty much have to sac a guy or gamble on Noivern and it was one the reasons I was using mew (will-o-wisp and being able to tank any 2 Lucario attacks)

Rotom-w and bulky waters in general. Toxicroak and Latias are meant to deal with these things but sometimes they aren't enough. Its one of the reasons I have to put thunder on Latias and its a difficult switch in general. Special mention to Slowbro which is very difficult for me to work through due to its typing, bulk, regenerator, and potential slack off. I am not exactly threatened by bulky waters but getting through them so that I can sweep is a pain, especially since they can draw strength from my rain. Another side note is mew was a phenominal switch to rotom-w with heal bell, synchrnoize he was an excellent status absorber and could basically tank hits forever.

​

Genesect, and to a lesser extent scizor and ferrothorn. Due to the rain fire attacks dont go quite as far against these things. Heatran was on the team for a while as he annihilates these problems but the competition for a spot is fierce. Pivoting into these things is just a nightmare as well as the loss of momentum I am bound to suffer. (another problem rotom-w gives me)

Stick-Web. The only reason I have a dedicated defogger, the other hazards could be ignore due to the offensive nature of the team, but stick web JAMS my ability to abuse speed tiers and must be removed.

Finally...
One thing worth noting is every member of this team other than ferrothorn is UU legal (Drizzle is banned though). I was wondering if there was a way to port this team into that tier. I would assume empoleon would probably make the cut as a bulky steel rain setter hazard monstrosity and then from there I can address the other spots that open up to a revamped defensive/pivot core due to the hole ferrothorn creates (and politoed but hes the least exciting member here anyway). So I am looking for suggestions on that front as well.

 

[RoyalBlue]

First off, very nice and solid rain team. I haven't rated/done anything in a LONG time so excuse me if I'm a bit rusty.

Well, anyways, I'd suggest you run Toxic>Hypnosis. Sure, you lose the sleep inducement, BUT, you're also relying on a really inaccurate move. Since your team seems to depend on Rain so much, a miss could mean you're Toed taking unnecessary damage. Toxic helps you break down troublesome Pokemon like Slowbro and Mandibuzz while putting offensive threats on a timer.

Just to throw it out there, but have you ever considered running CB Crawdaunt over Kabutops? Although it isn't really a sweeper, it can be a very threatening wallbreaker with Adaptability and doesn't rely on Rain as much. Plus, it isn't weak to Scizors BP and also resists Aegislash's Shadow Sneak. It still maintains Aqua Jet which can be used to clean up late game. An SD or DD set could also be used (not so much the latter).

Next, I'd replace Noivern with Thundurus-I. It has Prankster T-Wave so you can easily cripple fast threats (Lucario, Genesect, Latios etc) for the rest of the team to handle. It's electric typing means it resists BP and priority flying moves, something Noovern doesn't have. Plus, it has a strong STAB Thunderbolt to help deal with Bulky waters. AnotherI feel stall takes a lot of skill. Since you are always (well...) on the defensive, you need to constantly scout sets and predict what they are going to do. thing to consider is Tornadus-T. It too has powerful Hurricanes, but also has Heat Wave, Superpower and Taunt. Regenerator means you can recover HP and it sits in a respectable speed tier as well.

That's all I really have for now. I might be back (no promises). This was probably a crappy rate but sorry :|

EDIT: Conpletely forgot, make sure all your HP numbers are odd so you can switch in on stealth rocks an extra time

 

[Psycho_Sunshine]

Thanks for the suggestions they are in line with things I have thought about/forgot.

I originally had toxic over hypnosis in an earlier version of the team, that also had thundurus-i and t-wave ferrothorn with the idea of paralysis compensating for speed out of the rain. What happened was sometimes multiple different status would come back to bite me but sleep is just the best status so I went with that. Now that the team has changed to the point where speed isn't as essential I think I'll take your suggestion and go back to toxic.

As I mentioned Thundurus was here at one point, Tornadus too actually they werent hitting the damage numbers with the life orb sets I was trying, I may go back to using Tornadus with a specs set. It hits harder than noivern, at the cost of being a worse switch to elemental attacks which may be big. Also slower than greninja zz. It basically came down to draco +infiltrator vrs fighting coverage+regenerator and given how often people set subs against ferrothorn I had favored infiltrator. May go back to change that, if sticky web wasnt a big deal Tornadus would definately get the nod for being way better against sr and allowing me to not necessarily need a defog. Its close Im not really sure at all, If I made a UU version of this team Id almost certainly use tornadus-t to some extent (probably a bulkier rain setter thing with life orb). If thundurus(-t) got like any flying move to OHKO mega saur I would use that but alas...

Kabutops isn't weak to bullet punch. He also is like 10% 2 hkod by banded talonflame bravebird so he will almost always live the switch and is my best answer to flame. He has merits for sure mainly that dark typing being something I want but cant afford with 2 fighting weaks already present and he lacks the bulk to work endgame which is what the kabutops spot is. My ability to combat aegislash is also poor and needs to be improved (this team really wants a ground type but at the same time it doesnt its kinda weird, like I want to use excadrill or donphan but they dont give me the resists or wide offensive range I need like another grass weakness...)

Less important but I updated IVs and Hp numbers except croak cause custom spread stuff.