RMT, OU Semi-Batonpass team.

[h0llygh0st]

Ok, first off this is the first team I post on these boards and its one of the first I came up with myself. This team has given me quite a lot of wins on Shoddybattle but its also pretty easily countered by some other teams... Which is why I'm posting it here to see what needs improvement as I'm absolutely clueless on what to do with it =/

My team at a glance.

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My team:

Crobat (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 6 Atk/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hypnosis
- Air Slash
- Sludge Bomb
- U-turn

Yes I use a Crobat as a lead. Many people seem to dislike it as a lead but this one has granted me several nice wins though... When the game starts and I'm facing a weak suicide lead like Azelf or Infernape I tend to take them out immediately, they set up their rocks while I sludge Bomb or Air Slash them, than since I'm faster than Infernape and hopefully faster than Azelf I finish them off with a last attack and use Hypnosis with a untouched Focus Sash if it were to miss on the pokemon they send in. Its a quite unexpected move and it works most of the time. If I'm facing a lead like Jirachi with a choice scarf I switch to Empoleon or Blaziken. But wath I do most of the time is Hypnosis and U-Turn out.

Normally they switch and I can send in a counter after my U-Turn, but if they dont I'm really happy. Now I can send in my Zapdos, do a agility make a substitute and pass it on to my Smeargle.

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/134 Def/40 Spd/84 SAtk
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Agility
- Baton Pass
- Substitute
- Charge Beam

Zapdos's function is to give speedboosts and substitutes to Smeargle, and if hes down speedboosts to Blaziken or Empoleon. With Charge beam I sometimes up my SpA quite alot and when my Crobat's Focus Sash isnt broken I pass it on to him so he can do a little sweep of his own or my Blaziken/Empoleon. Other than that he makes a nice Gyarados counter.

Smeargle (M) @ Salac Berry
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 244 HP/12 Def/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Belly Drum
- Spore
- Substitute
- Baton Pass

Smeargle's only function is to pass max attack to Lucario, if he fails to do this my Lucario tends to be pretty weak... I sometimes find myself with this as my final pokemon which mean sthe end for me... But putting an offensive move on Smeargle seems pretty useless.

Lucario (M) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Crunch
- Extremespeed
- Ice Punch

My main sweeper, thats all. I dont like Life Orb since people will be able to finish me off with a Mach Punch or Vacuumwave pretty soon after I start sweeping... He can OHKO anything in the OU tier. if he doesnt receive a attack boost hes pretty slow and fragile, but still strong enough to get rid of stuff like Blissey. My main enemy due to all these Sp Attackers on my team.

Blaziken (M) @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 28 HP/228 Spd/252 SAtk
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Agility
- Baton Pass
- Flamethrower
- Substitute

My Blaziken... I normally send him in to a Blissey or another wall scared of fire or fight attacks, they usually run so that I get a chance to set up a sub. After doing that I use agility and go down to my Berry, than I hope that my flamethrower does enough damage and if not I pass it on to Empeleon who counters most of the pokes people send in against Blaziken.

Empoleon (M) @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 12 HP/234 Spd/252 SAtk/12 SDef
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Agility
- Substitute
- Surf
- Ice Beam

My Empoleon is somewhat of my clean-up sweeper, he receives speed boosts from Zapdos or Blaziken and if not he can agility himself, he can rip troughmost OU pokemon (except for walls like Blissey) and should have no problem to clean up after I finish off some of the walls on the enemies team.


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Well thats about it, there is still some work on this team... I tried scrapping my Lucario and Smeargle and going for a CB Scizor and a Petaya berry Glaceon (While replacing Ice Beam on Empoleon with Grass Knot) btu that did'nt go so well...

 

[Darkmalice]

I need to go to bed, so I'll post more on this either tomorrow or the day after
.

If you want to use a Crobat lead, you should have Taunt in place of Sludge Bomb. This will prevent opposing leads from using Stealth Rock, Hypnosis and many other attacks.

Empoleon is a poor receiver of Speed boosts, especially when considering it has Agility. It doesn't have the best type coverage or SpA. If you want a pokemon who works great with a Speed boost, use Metagross.

If you do this, change Lucario to a Special Set (Aura Sphere, Dark Pulse, HP Ice and Vacuum Wave), so Blaziken's SpA boost isn't wasted.


The main problem with this team is that the Baton Passers are completely stopped by pHazers - Hippowdon and Swampert have no problem Roaring them away.

 

[h0llygh0st]

Taunt could be usefull, although against leads like Areodactyl or Jolteon it wont make much difference since it'll be a coinflip to see whos faster anyway and I might as well try Hypnosis than.

But to shut down walls it could be pretty usefull, or other pokemon trying to set up against me... Thanks for the advice :)

Empoleon isnt the best attacker, I know. But its typing is unique and has loads of usefull resistances...

A Metagross could be usefull though, but if I switch my Lucario to Special than I'd have to remove my Smeargle since giving a special Lucario an attack boost is rather useless, unless I give it to Metagross but he doesnt have the nice coverage that Lucario can provide.

Also yes I do have a large problem with Phazers, but there arent many who'd be willing to take a boosted Surf or a Ice Beam or maybe even a Flamethrower from Blaziken in order to Roar or WW them out...

I could use a nice wallbreaker perhaps, to crack the game wide open so its easir for me to set up my sweep, be it a Empoleon sweep or a Lucario one.

 

[wildfire393]

The problem I see here is too many agilities and not enough to do with them. If you're dead-set on having a baton passer where Blaziken is, try Baton Pass/Nasty Plot Togekiss. He can make use of the speed that Zapdos can send to load up on Nasty Plots and attempt a sweep himself with Air Slash, or he can pass it off to someone else.

 

[SmokingBomber465]

be ready to have someone to threaten swampert, who can come in and roar away your boosts.

 

[h0llygh0st]

The problem I see here is too many agilities and not enough to do with them. If you're dead-set on having a baton passer where Blaziken is, try Baton Pass/Nasty Plot Togekiss. He can make use of the speed that Zapdos can send to load up on Nasty Plots and attempt a sweep himself with Air Slash, or he can pass it off to someone else.

I tried a Togekiss but it only enhanced my electric weakness. Besides I dont like to use moves that can miss when I want to sweep... I'm pretty unlucky most of the time =/

be ready to have someone to threaten swampert, who can come in and roar away your boosts.

Well if I replace Agility with Grass Knot on my Empoleon I have a counter, but thats the only thing coming close for now...

 

[Shizzle]

well, if you are passing speed boosts, maybe a octillery or cradily? I am not sure about octillery, but i do know that cradily is a beast

 

[Safe_Kid]

Hypnosis isn't reliable, Taunt would be better. And swampert would cause this team some problems, you may want grass knot on Empoleon. Your crobat isnt bulky so it wouldnt last very long, an Infernape would tear your team apart, even if Crobat was alive, Infernape would take down at least 1 poke, and switch out when you send in Crobat, meaning it can KO Another poke. I recommend you use a bulky gyra instead of maybe Blaziken. The BP might actually help gyra out. Stopping SR leads with Taunt from crobat, is vital.

 

[Darkmalice]

Ok. Here's my full in-depth rate.

First of all, I will assume that you want to keep this team a sem-Baton Pass team instead of one whole baton pass chain team. You want to spend only a little time preparing your 2 Baton Pass chains instead of spending the whole match preparing one super Baton Pass chain.

If that is the case, then you'll want two physical sweepers instead of one special and one physical. The advantage of this is then you can Baton Pass to either one of them in a scenario where Passing to one would be ineffective e.g. passing to Empoleon against a Blissey. Physical sweepers > special sweepers, because Smeargle can quickly pass +6 more easily than other Baton passers, whilst other sweepers would rely on their defensive potential and perhaps a recovery move.

This would mean to say, remove Blaziken. We don't need the Petaya Berry boost. Replace it with Pure Baton Passer Gliscor. He can easily force a switch against Choiced pokemon thanks to his Ground and Electric immunity, then set up Rock Polish. Taunt ensures that pHazers and statusers won't stop him. With a Yache Berry, nothing will OHKO him, ensuring that he gets a SD boost, and he can finally Baton Passer to Metagross. Gliscor is recommended as your first Baton Passer in place of Smeargle, for Smeargle can be shut down by priority users and pHazers, whilst Gliscor won't. Hopefully, Metagross will take them down, so Smeargle and Lucario can clean up the rest of the team. Also, Lucario can OHKO all of the OU metagame with +6 Atk boost, whilst Metagross cannot. Metagross is better for just a one SD and Rock Polish boost than Lucario, for it has better defenses, and Lucario can compensate has a priority move should the opponent be faster.

Metagross should replace Empoleon; Empoleon isn't a physical sweeper, and he lacks the stats to sweep (plus he is far too easily walled to waste the time preparing a Baton Pass). Metagross' two weaknesses are Ground and Fire, both of which wouldn't be good moves against Gliscor (Fire pokemon wouldn't dare risk an Earthquake from Gliscor; when they work out it's a Pure Baton Passer, I doubt that Heatran or Infernape would be their switch-in). Here's my recommended set: Adamant, 32 HP, 252 Atk, 224 Speed - LO, Iron Head, Earthquake, Thunderpunch, Explosion. With a +2 Boost, you will outrun most 100 base pokemon with a +1 boost and a speed boosting nature (e.g. Scarf Jolly 176 Speed Jirachi; DD boosted Naive 176 Speed Salamence/Flygon). Iron Head > Meteor Mash for accuracy; +2 Iron Head still OHKOs Salamence without an item boost. Earthquake and Thunderpunch are for type coverage. Explosion is to go down with a bang; you won't be OHKOing physical walls like Hippowdon, Swampert and Suicune who can just Roar you out. Without their wall, Smeargle's job becomes much easier. They can wear your HP down. Explosion will quickly guarantee their death.

I would replace Extremespeed with Bullet Punch on Lucario. The simple reason for this is that Extremespeed doesn't hit Gengar, meaning Lucario can be shut down by Timid Scarf Gengar (who does outspeed Metagross). I also recommend Life Orb in place of Expert Belt. This ensures that you OHKO everything in the OU Metagame; Expert Belt doesn't e.g. Bulky Gyarados. Actually, Rest Talk Gyarados (252 HP / 252 Def) only has a 46.15% chance of being OHKOed by +5 (+6 - Intimidate) LO Close Combat. That's without Stealth Rock.

The main reason Crobat isn't used much is that Hypnosis' 60% accuracy is very risky. One of it's best qualities is a fast Taunt. However, Aerodactyl sports this ability too. And he has Stealth Rock. This will help Lucario and Metagross sweep the opposing teams. I recommend Aerodactyl over Crobat. You do give up U-turn, but you won't mind giving up Aerodactyl. Once SR is down, he's done his job. Very few teams carry a Spinner these days. If they do, that's a free opportunity for you to prepare your Baton Pass.

Finally, with no need for Baton Passing SpA, Zapdos can have Thunderbolt over Charge Beam.

 

[h0llygh0st]

I like most of our sugegstions except for the LO on my lucario part...
If I use a Life Orb than after 2 CC I could easily be stopped by a Mach Punce user... Or perhaps even a strong Bullet Punch from CB Scizor (I suck at calculations though) but Extremespeed is faster than any other priority move (except Sucker Punch I think) and its stronger, sure I wont be able to defeat a Timid Scarf gengar, but would he be able to KO me? with Focus Blast perhaps but the accuracy sucks. Also I'm not sure but if I give an agility to my smeargle and than he subs and Bely drums I'm giving a +3 speed boost to my Jolly Lucario... Is timid scarf gengar still faster than? =/

Anyway I'll make a team with your suggestions and I'll try it out for a while.

 

[Scepticallistic]

I like most of our sugegstions except for the LO on my lucario part...
If I use a Life Orb than after 2 CC I could easily be stopped by a Mach Punce user... Or perhaps even a strong Bullet Punch from CB Scizor (I suck at calculations though) but Extremespeed is faster than any other priority move (except Sucker Punch I think) and its stronger, sure I wont be able to defeat a Timid Scarf gengar, but would he be able to KO me? with Focus Blast perhaps but the accuracy sucks. Also I'm not sure but if I give an agility to my smeargle and than he subs and Bely drums I'm giving a +3 speed boost to my Jolly Lucario... Is timid scarf gengar still faster than? =/

Just a nitpick; all the attacking priority moves that people usually mention are all the same priority, so if something like Fake Out, Sucker Punch, Extremespeed, etc. were used by two Pokemon in a turn, the faster Pokemon would move first, even if it means a Fake Out doesn't get the flinch.

As for Life Orb of Lucario, I'm not too familiar with it, but how is Lucario performing for you? If it sometimes fails to KO, then maybe Life Orb will help. I don't think the extra health you save will help Lucario with Mach Punches much. If the enemy has any decent attacking ability at all, I don't think it would survive.

If you give Lucario +3 speed, you're faster than Timid Scarfgar.