RMT: Attempted to Optimize with Math

[NovaAsterix]

Hey everyone,

I decided to use my modelling background to come up with an integer program to try to optimize a team. I used all the OU analysis to determine who counters which Pokemon and then used the January usage rates to try to make a team with the most counters to the most popular Pokemon. Obviously the consistency of each analysis is questionable (some list many counters/checks, some list few; they also might be out of date) but I think this team came out well and has been really effective at handling the teams I've tried it against.

The one constraint I put on the model was to have at least one check/counter to each OU Pokemon. Since many teams were generated (as an Integer Program of this magnitude is very hard to optimize globally), and since having Pokemon with different kits is hard to do for this (ie: SD Gliscor vs Stall Gliscor) there is always room for improvement.


So here it is:

The name of the game is offensive and defensive coverage with good speed, bulk, and really strong priority moves. The only major type of attack that I lack is Electric; while the only major type of defence I lack is Ghost. Gengar has been a big consideration (especially full offensive with Shadow Ball, Thunder Bolt, Focus Blast) but I struggle to find a place for him. The main weakness I see is against bulky-special sweepers as I have limited switch-ins against them.

@ Leftovers
EVs: 248 HP/252 SpD/8 Spe
Nature: Calm
Ability: Flash Fire
Move Set:
Lava Plume
Stealth Rock
Protect
Will-O-Wisp
​

Purpose:
Heatran makes a flexible lead and solid special tank pivot. I don't always lead with him because of potential Terrakion leads or Deoxys-D, stuff like that, but I find he can reliably set up Rocks, do some decent damage, or status a switch in if I find a favourable lead match up. Protect let's me scout and stall a bit against a burnt or poisoned enemy. I do think another set up might work here but I've been happy with what Heatran has brought to my team. Together with Gliscor, he forms my defensive core.

@ Toxic Orb
EVs: 252 HP/184 Def/72 Spe
Nature: Impish
Ability: Poison Heal
Move Set:
Earthquake
Taunt
Protect
Toxic
​

Purpose:
Gliscor functions as a complement to Heatran adding extra status, a very useful Taunt, and a ton of bulk on the physical side, especially with Poison Heal and Protect. Gliscor can come in and stall out defensive tanks while providing good coverage with STAB Earthquake. The reason I am ok with my core having a common Water weakness is that I pack 3 water resists (2 of them being somewhat bulky) to mitigate this. Again, with Gliscor flexibility, there might be a better way to use Gliscor but so far this has been very useful.

@ Choice Scarf
EVs: 252 SpA/4 SpD/252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Ability: Levitate
Move Set:
Hydro Pump
Volt Switch
HP Ice
Trick
​

Purpose:
Rotom-W provides essential type coverage on both defense and offense. With a scarf equipped, Rotom-W is a great revenge killer and still being naturally bulky to a bit of a pivot for team. Trick has worked great to cripple some switch-ins while keeping the scarf has let me revenge kill many threats. I don't really have a reliable scarfer outside of Rotom-W so I am hesitant to change it's function.

@ Life Orb
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spe
Nature: Jolly
Ability: Technician
Move Set:
Mach Punch
Low Sweep
Spore
Bullet Seed
​

Purpose:
Breloom adds some great offensive coverage to get passed a lot of threats while also being a good late game cleaner (along with Scizor). Breloom does a lot of things for my team. First, he adds my third status (which might be excessive); second, he complements Latios as my physical, mid-game wall breaker; third, he works as a late game cleaner with Mach Punch. He can also slow faster switch-ins, making them potential KOs for Breloom himself or crippled against any switch in I bring. Breloom does have other potential kits (I've been eyeing the Swords Dance kit) but so far, Breloom has been extremely useful.

@ Life Orb
EVs: 4 HP/252 SpA/252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Ability: Levitate
Move Set:
Draco Meteor
Surf
Psyshock
HP Fire
​

Purpose:
Latios is an all in mid-game damage dealer. Usually I like to add some recovery to a Life Orb wall breaker, but I feel like the extra coverage is worth it; especially since Psyshock is a reliable STAB which hurts specially defensive walls a lot. Latios basically goes all-in and keeps hitting until it dies. That being said, it still works as a good switch in due to it's decent special bulk without investment. Stealth Rock does limit this, but like I said, usually Latios just goes down swinging. I don't think I'd change his function but I might change his moveset somewhat.

@ Choice Band
EVs: 248 HP/252 Atk/8 Spe
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Technician
Move Set:
Bullet Punch
Pursuit
Superpower
U-Turn
​

Purpose:
Scizor is great on this team bringing a second steel type; another revenge killer; another late game cleaner; and mid-game scout. Scizor is the most used Pokemon for a reason and I love him on this team. He works as a great complement with Breloom for late game cleaning and Latios due to his typing. I don't think Scizor can be replaced on this team but since I lack a stat-boosting sweeper, specially defensive SD Scizor has been something I've considered.


As usual, I appreciate all feedback this great community can give. I think I have a winner here though, between the offensive and defensive coverage this team has; the natural speed and bulk; and the very strong priority, I feel I cover almost everything the standard OU metagame can bring.




As a side note, some other things I came up with doing this analysis: the usage rates reflect well on which Pokemon counter a lot of things according to the guides; Lucario might be underrated; rain teams may be overused; Latios might be the best Pokemon in OU; Dragon + Steel is likely really good (duh!).

 

[Jirachee]

Hi

Your team has a couple of issues so I'm posting this to help you fix that. First of all I think that you're putting too much pressure on Latios. Latios is the most reliable check on your team for all sort of dangerous threats such as Keldeo and Thundurus-T. However, the thing with Latios is that it's going to take a ton of damage from their attacks, meaning that it has to be kept healthy if you want to check them. Agility Thundurus-T will just run through your team if you have a slightly weakened Latios, and Choice Scarf Keldeo in Rain will 2HKO Latios with Hydro Pump after little residual damage, meaning that it might be very hard for you to deal with these threats. Another thing is that Latios is your only check against Sun teams with Dugtrio, as Dugtrio easily beats Heatran. One thing I think you should consider is using a Life Orb Latias instead of your current Latios. While it's a bit less powerful, it can still dish out huge amount of damage with Draco Meteor, but the extra bulk helps it deal with the huge amount of threats that you rely on Latios to deal with. With Recover, it's easy to keep Latias healthy so it doesn't get worn out by longer battles.

Secondly I think that your team is weak to entry hazard leads, Deoxys-D in particular. It's pretty easy for it to get 2 layers of hazards against your team, and then you're put at a great disadvantage since you have no Rapid Spinner to get rid of the hazards. Scizor will be much less effective as U-turning will cost it 25% every time, and Heatran will not be able to tank as many hits. One way to fix that would be to run a faster Gliscor spread. With Gliscor being 1 point faster than Deoxys-D, you can Taunt it before it Taunts you, so you force it out, making its entry hazard laying job more complicated.

Another thing is that I think you lack a bit of punch late game. When everything is weakened, your team will have a bit more difficulty than others to finish the opponent, which might result in a loss sometimes. I think that if you change Low Sweep for Swords Dance on Breloom, that issue will be fixed, as then, you get a powerful late game sweeper that can clean up weakened teams with a boosted Mach Punch. I've never found Low Sweep to be that useful anyway, especially since you have Scizor to trap things like Latios which would be the main target of Low Sweep.

Last thing is that I think your scarfer is too slow for this metagame's standards. While Rotom-W has decent coverage and power, it's unable to outspeed things like Salamence who will be able to clean your team late game after your Steel types have been weakened, making it easy for a Moxie Salamence to sweep you. I think that being able to outspeed at least Salamence is crucial since that Pokemon is usually pretty difficult to stop in the right conditions, without a faster revenge killer. I think that you could use a Choice Scarf Keldeo instead. Keldeo is much more powerful than Rotom-W and it's also much faster, allowing you to revenge kill pretty much all the viable threats in BW2 OU, except for Chlorophyll Venusaur. Being able to outspeed the opponent's scarfer is also pretty cool as there are many late game scenarios where the fastest Pokemon win, and given the popularity of things like Choice Scarf Jirachi, it's nice to be faster.

Here are the sets you should use:

Latias and Keldeo

Latias @ Life Orb
Levitate
Timid
EVs: 72 HP / 184 SpA / 252 Spe
~Draco Meteor
~Surf
~Psyshock
~Recover

Keldeo @ Choice Scarf
Justified
Timid
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
~Hydro Pump
~Surf
~Secret Sword
~Hidden Power Ice

Good luck!

 

[RoyalBlue]

Whoa, your team is has the same pokes with the same set as my volt turn team except for Latios and Heatran. Anyways, to solve that bulky special/ghost thing, you might want to try out a specially defensive jellicent. Not sure what you'd replace it for though since quite few of your team mates provide something essential for your team. It has good recovery and special bulk as well as being able to wall most keldeo sets, unless it has HP grass/electric which still doesn't a huge amount.
Jellicent@Leftovers
Trait:Water Absorb
252 HP/252 SpD/4 Def
-Scald
-Will-O-Wisp
-Recover
-Ice Beam

Something you might want to consider for your breloom set to help it sweep is to replace low sweep with swords dance so it helps with late game sweeping more easy and has a higher damage out put. That all I got for now! Gl!

 

[Myzozoa]

I feel that your team is a good example of a more defensive volt-turn team, but I also feel that your water resists are worn down far too quickly, Latios has no recovery and a Life Orb, and Breloom is very frail.

To remedy this issue I suggest Celebi over Breloom, which will also help your gaping Landorus-i weakness:

Celebi@Leftovers
Calm
252hp/236 special defense/ 20 speed
Giga Drain
Recover
Baton Pass
Hidden Power Ice/ Fire (I think Ice is the best choice for you personally, but thunderwave is a possibility

Now in changing Breloom to Celebi there are two problems:

1. You lose a priority move
2. Stall becomes more dangerous

I would like to add offensive presence to your team somehow, but not make it weaker to opposing offense. I think that your Gliscor is not very good in the current metagame, there is too much rain and fast special sweepers, and not much cares about toxic+taunt. I want a pokemon that can be good against stall and still be dangerous against offense and that pokemon is Landorus-i:

Landorus@leftovers
Adamant
100 hp, 252 attack, 156 speed
Substitute
Swords dance
Stone Edge
Earthquake

This can set-up on Ferrothorn, Forretress, and on pokemon that it forces out, such as Terrakion. Substitute allows you to be damaging against offensive teams that would outspeed you, while Swords Dance destroys slower bulkier teams. Intimidate helps you deal with pokemon such as Breloom that can set-up on Rotom-w when it gets locked into Hydro Pump and is just good utility in general.

Lastly, I would suggest changing Surf on Latios to Recover so that you can survive a bit longer against some things. Latios should not be changed to the weaker Latias because your team is Volt-turn and that means a lot of opportunities to get Latios in to fire off huge draco meteors.

If you do make the change to Celebi, consider adding Stealth Rock over Hidden Power to free up a moveslot on Heatran for Roar or Hidden Power Ice or even Earth Power.

This is a very good team, I feel it is slightly outdated and unprepared for Rain, which is the dominant style in this metagame.