RMT for Last days of gen 5 - A Classic Balanced Team

[Sarpyn]

Hello everyone, it is last days of gen 5, so i wanted to post my team here that i used pretty much the entire year as a casual competitive team. (casual competitive means, i only play once in a while, but i try to climb up the ladder) I went up to 2000 rating in showdown with this team so i always believed that it was my skill that is lacking. But now i want to ask all of you, what is the problem with my team, and what could be improved. I don't want this team to be left without an improvement before the gen 5 ends.

Team Preview

Team Details

Uxie @Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/64Def/192SpDef
Bold Nature
-Trick
-Psychic
-Memento
-Thunderwave
Uxie is my favorite pokemon of alltime and my usual lead with trick or thunder wave depending on which pokemon comes up, a trick on a substitute sweeper that think they can come in, or a support pokemon means almost a gg. Also with wish support it will continue popping out during the whole game. With the chosen EVs and nature the mixed defenses it posses makes it pretty easy to heal up with wish. Psychic is there for not being completely taunt fodder, and also can be counter to Conkeldur, Kaldeo, Terrakion, Toxicroak and Breloom that has used it's spore. The last slot memento is for my sweeper to get in and boost for late game.

Vaporeon @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP/ 252Def
Bold Nature
-Scald
-Toxic
-Protect
-Wish
My wish passer and mixed wall, also a great staller, perfect for any game, love him deep from my heart.

Jolteon @LifeOrb
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Spa/252 Spe
Timid Nature
-Thundebolt
-Hp Ice
-Substitue
-Batton pass
I started using him as choice specs jolteon, but i discovered this set was much easier to use, and great at scouting which my team needed desperetaly. Now i can start as jolteon lead and pass substitute. Also with volt absorb i can jump into thunderwaves and thundurus-T easily.

Note: These 3 pokemons till now were core of my team, and have never changed them since i created the team, so i have some emotional connection to them.

Skarmory @ LeftOvers
Ability Sturdy
EVs: 252HP/252 Def
Impish Nature
-Stealth Rock
-Spikes
-Roost
-Whirlwind
My phaser, physical wall and hazard setter. I don't really play hazard game but having one layer of spikes and a stealth rock is pretty useful. Whirlwind is there for phasing out substitute sweepers, i wish pass him also in some conditions. Shutdown completely by taunt, but i don't mind it. I generally don't use him as a lead.

Chaldelure @ChoiceScarf
Ability Flashfire
EVs: 252Spa/252 Spe
Modest Nature
-Overheat
-Energy Ball
-Shadow Ball
-Sleep Talk
This is my revenge killer for non scarfed pokemons, a counter for sun team in general and Breloom, i had lots of problems with Venesaur sweep so i came up with this one. Also with choice scarf being rare on him, i can get alot of surprise 2HKO on pokemons switching on my shadow ball, thinking i will use a fire move. Pokemons that think they can out speed him get shredded apart with 2 shadow balls in a row. Sleep talk is there for venesaur and breloom. In addition, it acts as a risky spin blocker, since it is weak against starmie, tentacruel and donphan, but it can block forretress pretty well. Also it can check scizor pretty well, which almost every single team on OU consists of one. Maybe i could use hidden power ground instead of energy ball, since heatran completely walls this set, but lack of energy ball misses some nice 2OHKO like politoed

Lucario @LifeOrb
Ability Justified
Evs: 252 At/ 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
-Swords Dance
-Extreme speed
-Bullet Punch
-Close Combat
This is my main sweeper, i come in after a substitue pass from Jolteon or after memento from uxie. If there are couple of layers of spikes i can sweep entire teams easily. Only problems are Landorus-T, Gliscor, Hippowdon, Intimidate Gyarodos, and jellicent, but i can take care of them with my team. I need bullet punch since i think revenge killing a Terrakion is more important than killing a wall. Also walls are usually crippled by my Uxie's trick so i have easier time playing around them, or setting up in front of a choice locked wall.

Team Strategy and Additional Comments
My general strategy is to, constantly swap pokemons and check the oponents, with various defensive pokemons i have almost perfect walling coverage. Spreading paralysis, scald burns and acceptable damage from hazards, scalds, psychic, and denting oponents with substitute chandelure or jolteon.

I constantly try to create the perfect situation for my lucario to get in, so i have to take down all of its counters first, which substitute jolteon and chandelure can do it perfectly.

Since vaporeon can wall many neutral hits, even thunderbolts from scarfed latios it has alot of chance for getting in. With wish support vaporeon provides, uxie and skarmory are generally in good shape through out the game. In chandelure's case a well predicted wish pass will result in a full hp chandelure even if there are 3 spikes and a stealth rock on the field.

I don't know what my biggest problem is, i usually lose game against players that have played better than me, but one thing that annoys me would be sand teams, which i believe my win rate is low against them. Losing skarmory against a sand team means a lose to me in most of my cases. Another thing i sometimes have trouble is tentacruel under rain, since i don't have any earthquake user, it gives me a lot of problems.

I tried using different sweepers instead of lucario but never had the results that i expected, Dragon dance dragonite wasn't strong enough, same as agility metagross, Sword dance scizor was a nice choice, but lacked the coverage, so it needed multiple boosts to sweep teams. The best one besides lucario was volcarona, which had the resistances to all priority moves, but the stealth rock weakness forced it to stay for late game sweeping, while lucario can revenge kill pokemons in mid game without any consequences.

Maybe i could use heatran instead of chandelure, but occasional spin blocking and fighting immunity is far more useful since i already have 2 steel types in my team.

Latios can run the same set as uxie, but uxie barely gets 2HKO'd by neutral moves, while latios is far less bulkier. Also having an ice weakness is not a good thing, when uxie can jump in front of bulky waters without a second thought.

Some replays showing my play style
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-55885042
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-55887448

 

[Typhlito]

Nice team you have there. When I frist noticed uxie on a ou team I was like what is he thinking but after noticing its movesets potential its actually pretty good as a anti lead. As for chanderlure, I think you should switch it out for Jellecent. That way it can do both vaporeons job of stopping water attacks and chandelures job of being a spin blocker. Thats hitting 2 birds with one stone. :P Heatran can take that available spot now.

Also, even though it does the job, skarmory without an attack of its own scares me. If its your last pokemon vs theirs, theres almost nothing you can do. So I recommend switching spikes for brave bird. Stealth rocks are better than spikes and the other 2 moves are a must. B bird still does pretty decent damage even with no investment.

As for jolteon, I dont think you should use it as a sub passer. Its hp is too low so its subs will almost aways break after the first hit. Maybe you can switch baton pass for signal beam. That way you can hit alakazam that still has its sash since alakazam can do pretty decent damage to the team.

Another poke that might give you trouble is a defensive rotom. Yea lucario can beat it at +2 but its way too risky setting up on it cuz of wilo wisp. It can t bolt vapor and hydro pump jolteon. Skarm gets hit by t bolt too and since its defensive, it doesnt really mind being paralyzed by uxie. So maybe celebi can find some use in your team. It can sub pass much bulkier subs if thats what you want or you can give it stealth rocks and let skarm do spikes. Its pretty versitile.

Anyway, hope you find this useful. good luck!

 

[Sarpyn]

The main reason i use vaporeon over jellecent is the wish support vaporeon provides, it would be too hard for me to give that up after getting used to it so much, so i would like to keep vaporeon. Also i think kicking vaporeon and chandelure for heatran and jellicent would bring back the breloom and venesaur problem back, which is a back step instead of a forward step.

Brave bird is something i used, but lacking a spike change OHKO of +2 lucario into 2HKO, i think scarf garchomp was something like this, not pretty sure. But i will definitely go back to brave bird and give it another try. Because sometimes i really wish i have an attacking move on skarmory, but usually shuffling with ww has better overall damage, so i'm not sure about it.

Uxie used to have stealth rock back than, but lacking psychic wasn't good. On the other hand passing on trick or memento would make it a inferior jirachi. That's why skarmory is the one who has both spikes and stealth rock.

I liked shadow ball on jolteon before, with the neutral coverage it gives it eased prediction. But never tried signal beam, i'll give that one a shot. The subsitute set was something i changed recently, and i got pretty much good results out of it, even if the sub dies after a pass, it means a free switch for my chandelure. But my chandelure is a scarf version which is the surprise factor that gets KO's after that pass.

You are correct about Rotom-W, it is usually a prediction game about switching to jolteon or vaporeon, even if i succeed to predict the hydropomp vaporeon can't do anything afterwords, so it generally ends up with jolteon switch against thunder or voltswitch. But if my uxie is alive, i have easy time against it, after a thunder wave and psychic my jolteon or chandelure can take care of it later on. If it's a scarf variant, a nice memento will be a good oppotunity for lucario to come into play. Still it is one of harder pokemons to play around out there. Switching jolteon to celebi will be a hard decision (since i'm attached to jolteon :P), but it is something worth thinking on it.

Thank you very much for your comment :)

 

[Soulfly]

Hey, i got your request to rate your team so here i am.

Overall this team is rather balanced however your defensive core has a shared electric weakness. You have jolteon to absorb those but a misprediction can make you lose him early in the game.
Therefor i advise getting Ferrothorn over Skarmory. Ferro can take dragon attacks from both physical and special attackers where as skarmory doesn't like draco meteors that much (specs latios can 2HKO). The downside of this is that you now only have uxie to resist ground attacks, however ferrothorn can take some of those aswell so thats ok. This also solves your Rotom-W problem.

Jolteons set is a bit gimmicky, it could work but i suggest getting Volt Switch, Thunderbolt, Signal beam and HP ice, with choice specs or life orb, up to you. Or you can replace him with Thundurus-T but you seem to like jolteon so will leave it at that:)

ferrothorn

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 208 SDef
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Leech Seed/Stealth Rock
- Spikes/Stealth Rock
- Protect
- Gyro Ball

 

[Sarpyn]

Actually ferrothorn was my team member before i exchanged with skarmory, it is true that it solves most of my problem that i have right now, but the thing is it doesn't have a phasing move, so substitute dancers like gyarados, toxi croak, or bulky sweepers like conkeldur and latias swept away my team with ease. But now that i think of it, i might replace toxic with roar on vaporeon, so i can use him as a phaser, which i never tried it before. I'll definitly give another chance to ferrothorn.

I don't know about jolteons current set that much, since it was a recent change, i might go back again and see which one works better for my team. I generally dislike volt switch since i have a good defensive strategy and don't mind switching that much.

Thank you for replying :>