DPP OU Revolutionizing the metagame in late 2007 (and rising (lol))

[anonsequitur]

First, I'll start off by saying that I'm a noob to battling. Second, I really like this team. It is through mimicking this team on Shoddy battle that I was able to learn how to battle and eventually create a team of my own. But after looking at some stats, I noticed something odd. Magnezone's base speed of 60 is less than Heatran's base speed of 77. This lead me to do some thinking. If Heatran has max speed EV's with a +speed nature, he will always be able to land a earth power on Magnezone before it gets a chance to attack. I am not yet very good at calculating damage, but I'm fairly certain that will kill it. And if it somehow survives and manages to land a hit, none of it's moves other than explosion seem like much of a threat to Heatran. So with that in mind, is shed shell really necessary against Magnezone? After all, the only way I see Magnezone as a threat to Heatran is if it was scarfed, with enough EV's in Sp. Defense or HP to survive a hit from Earth Power, or a STABed + Flashfired fire attack of your choice. If that is the case, wouldn't it be better to just give Heatran an item that will raise the damage he deals instead of shed shell which is essentially to guard against the 1 poke that can trap Heatran but is just slow enough to not be able to do much else?

I Have also been considering trading explosion for substitute, considering how most opponents switch out when Heatran switches in. Dragon Pulse generally does a little over 50% damage to most dragon types I encounter. So with substitute, I'm able to land 1 more hit than I would normally (at least, in theory, I haven't actually tried this out yet).

Is Magnezone really so much of a threat to Heatran that you need shed shell on it? If so, why? What exactly am I missing?

 

[Lol at 87]

You may have changed this team since the last post, but if you haven't, I strongly recommend giving Swampert the spread 240/216/52, with the 52 in either Sp.Atk or Sp.Def, because 240 brings its HP to 401, enabling it to survive 5 Blissey Tosses due to Leftovers, rather than being taken down on the 5th one. I'm not sure how useful this is, but if you still use this team it may happen sometimes where surviving 5 Tosses is very helpful.

 

[Raj]

Finally someone's using Hitmontop, and you're right, he is way underrated, but that's besides the point. I think this is a really solid offensive team.

From your initial post it would seem that you're content with all your team members bar Lucario, so I'll throw out some options.
1) You mentioned Gliscor being a nuisance to you... To keep to the Swords Dance set you could replace Bullet Punch with Hidden Power Ice. Even with Adamant nature Luke's special attack stat reaches around 270 with no EVs times 1.3 Life Orb power and you've got yourself an answer to Luke's most feared.
2) You can bypass the physical based Luke altogether for the special version. Since 95% of people on Shoddy are currently using the Swords Dance version they're likely to bring in their physical wall. I've been running the Specs Luke set with Life Orb instead and it's doing great. Why? Because the metagame right now isn't prepared for it. Even with a mispredict Aura Spere does upwards of 40% to Gliscor. No one is going to keep Blissey in on a fighting Poke regardless of being Special- Life Orb Aura Spere 2HKOs Blissey most of the time and will always with Stealth Rocks up, which you said you will always have up. I however have been using HP Electric in testing too for those pesky Gyarados switch ins and I prefer that over HP Ice since Gliscor isn't gonna take a Dark/Dragon Pulse after losing 40% from Aura Spere. Vaccuum Wave makes a good revnge killing move as I'm sure you're aware and also keeps up the priority like theme you had between Luke and Top.

Either way both of my proposals require max Speed if you wish to make the most of them.

Awesome team. Good luck!

 

[Aldaron]

Alright, I updated the OP with code tags for the initial team, the updated team, and then my explanation on what a good rmt should have: impact on the metagame. Posted what I felt were the main impacts as well.