(RMT) (OU)

[boredomisbliss]

I've been using this team for quite a bit, got 6 points from the top 50 but then it just went downhill from there :( Didn't see any glaring flaws so hopefully someone can suggest improvements/tell me what flaws there are, since I like to know why exactly I lost =/. Only thing i picked up is a rotom weakness, and i just tended to pound the thing into the ground.

Team RAWR
Overview:

Infernape@Focus Sash/Blaze
252 Atk/192 Spd/64 SpA-Naughty
Overheat
Close Combat
Stealth Rock
Fake Out

Standard Infernape lead, tailored to deal with several leads. Max attack yields about ~92% chance to KO aerodactyl with fake out+close combat, so either i keep my sash or he doesnt get his rocks out. win-win. 64 SpA yields 260 SpA, which is enough to OHKO metagross 100% of the time (or 2HKO if using occa). also 2HKOs azelf w/ fakeout/overheat. this also ends up being 300 speed, which just so happens to be enough to outspeed neutral base 100s. hmph.

Gengar@Choice Scarf/Levitate
4 HP/252 SpA/252 Spd-Timid
Trick
Shadow Ball
Focus Blast
Thunderbolt
Gengar is cool :). I really like when gyarados sets up 1 DD on my infernape only to get revenge killed by this. funny. it also revenge kills all sorts of stuff like latias that come into infernape, or if i think blisseys or some other stuff is coming then i trick. if not tricking life orbs onto blisseys works too if i guessed wrong.

Heracross@Choice Scarf/Guts
4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd-Adamant
Close Combat
Earthquake
Stone Edge
Megahorn
Heracross, revenge killer number 2. Also takes status like a man. 4 moves for coverage. Standard nothing to see here.

Zapdos@Leftovers/Pressure
252 HP/4 Def/252 Spd-Timid
Thunderbolt
Heat Wave
Roost
Substitute
This is the tank of my team, my main answer to scizor, metagross, and lucario. Subroost stalls, and heat wave covers all those nasty steels. If any kingdra or swampert comes in to stall i just trick my gengars scarf into them, eases prediction just a little :). Or waiting for the burn hurts too.

Zapdos is the one thing about my set that i cant really decide on. I went with the bulky ev spread but also made it fast, though maybe i should just have put enough speed in to outrun jolly lucario i think. Heat Wave/Thunderbolt also doesnt get the optimal coverage, ive also played around with HP Ice and Grass, but then i lose some OHKOs on some steel types.

Scizor@Choice Band/Technician
26 HP/252 Atk/232 Spd-Adamant
Bullet Punch
Superpower
U-Turn
Pursuit
Choice Band scizor. i used to run SDzor along with heatran on most of my teams, but losing a free turn on the swords dance didnt work out so well and i got tired of it. wierd ev spread, but the 232 spd allows me to outrun neutral nature tyranitar, as well as any non-scarf magnezone (not that it should be a problem given that i use u-turn most of the time anyways...) General moveset. Bullet punch for tyranitar and other revenge killing, also works as priority. Superpower OHKOs blissey and can revenge kill skarmory (although when is this ever gonna happen. U-turn for the easy switches or a STAB bug move, and pursuit for those gengar/latias/cresellia.

Latias@Choice Specs
4 HP/252 SpA/252 Spd-Timid
Trick
Draco Meteor
Surf
Recover
Another revenge killer, except much heavier special hitter. STAB+Specs pretty much cancels out the first attack drop so i can use meteor again if need be. Trick is for if my gengar missed the blissey. Surf/Draco Meteor provides the coverage only resisted by empoleon and shedinja. Latias can also soak up some special hits and use recover.

This is one of my more aggressive teams so say the least. Not appearing is DD Gyra which i cant decide the 3 moves for, and nasty plot mixape, another favorite of mine. My team is not really prone to entry hazard, and heracross even welcomes toxic spikes to a degree. Certain threats that hurt me the most were rotom like i said before, though most of my stuff can handle one. I dont really have a real swampert counter either, its just something else i pound into the ground. Suicune is tough if heracross is already gone/ I don't have a major problem countering blissey/skarmory/cressellia. Against most offensive threats ill just take them down with my own offensive stuff, which boasts some really fast stuff. My team is also more specially oriented at sweeping, since my GSC bugs are generally for hit and run anyways. Scizor can't really keep up a sweep with superpower at all.

So please rate my team, hopefully I'll make another shot at the top 50 :).

 

[boredomisbliss]

Aerodactyl: explained in infernape

Alakazam: scizor kicks him hard

Azelf: infernape takes out leads, and gengar revenge kills if necessary.

Blissey: scizor, heracross, and 2 trickers

*Breloom: scizor with u-turn or bullet punch, anything else is fast enough to hit it before it can move, zapdos may even get in a substitute to block the spore

Bronzong: zapdos walls this and then hits back with heat wave, subs if they explode

Celebi: scizor u-turn, gengar shadow ball, heracross megahorn, zapdos heat wave

Dragonite: choice banded bullet punch from scizor, or gengar and latias can revenge kill

Dugtrio: he cant really do much to my team, since they mostly dont have to worry about stab earthquake. heracross can beat non-scarf dugtrio unless he comes in after stone edge.

Electivire: heracross earthquake

*Empoleon: heracross earthquake, zapdos thunderbolt, scizor superpower, latias can take hits from the special spectrum and scizor can handle the physical ones

*Flygon: if locked onto outrage i can bullet punch, or if locked onto earthquake latias can kill it

Gengar: gengar kills it, since i dont see too many scarfers. scizor scares the hell out of it.

Gliscor: this is one of the harder stuff to counter, i mostly deal with them by tricking a choice item or heat waving with zapdos.

Gyarados: gengar revenge kills, nuff said.

Heatran: non-scarf, heracross beats it, scarfed-latias takes the fire blast heracross takes the earth power

Heracross: zapdos deals well with it, so does scizor and its bullet punch

*Infernape: cant really hurt latias unless it has ice punch or something wierd

Jirachi: heracross can break the sub with earthquake, or zapdos can heat wave it. if it has a calm mind up zapdos will go first, break the sub, die, and heracross can revenge kill.

Kingdra: latias revenge kills, or heracross can pound it nice and hard

Latias: gengar and latias can deal with it using STAB super effectives,
or scizor can bullet punch/pursuit/u-turn

Lucario: zapdos can heat wave and wall close combat, heracross can earthquake hopefully surviving the extremespeed, gengar can focus blast or thunderbolt depending on how risky with accuracy i want to be

*Machamp: dynamicpunch=ouch, but gengar can take it, or i can go to scizor on the payback and superpower or u-turn back to gengar on the d-punch

Magnezone: a pain if it catches scizor on a bullet punch, but it cant touch/gets destroyed by the rest of my team

Mamoswine: oh boy ice shard hurts. hopefully i can squeak a heat wave if it comes on zapdos while it has a sub, or scizor can bullet punch it. heracross can close combat provided it survives.

Metagross: zapdos, heracross earthquake

Ninjask: stealth rock, also i usually get to cripple the recipient since they dont break nape's sash most of the time

Rhyperior: surf, bullet punch, close combat, nuf said

Rotom-A: i said this was trouble, just pound it i guess

*Salamence: gengar revenge kills, scizor bullet punches, latias draco meteors, heracross stone edges

Scizor: zapdos

Snorlax: heracross, scizor, nuff said

Starmie: u-turn and megahorn, thunderbolt if zapdos is behind the sub


ill finish this later, bed now

 

[tab]

Hey, welcome to Smogon.

The main problem I have with this team is that it's using four choiced pokemon - that's not always a bad thing, as choice teams can and do work, but your choice of pokemon means that it's not going to be anywhere as effective as it could be. I think the simplest way to fix this up a bit would be to cut down on choice users a bit, which shouldn't be too hard, especially as you already have a couple that fill fairly similar roles.

The first pair of pokemon that I wouldn't use together is ScarfGar and Specs Latias. Both of them are Pursuit weak, and both of them are going to be inviting Scizor/Tyranitar switches, which means you're running a pretty big risk of losing an important member of your team early on. I think that the way to go would be to drop Latias, and keep Gengar as your Scarfer. Gengar would be preferable to Latias due to my next suggestion, as you want to avoid creating common weaknesses if at all possible.

Without Gengar/Latias providing the second Trick user, you're going to have a really difficult time beating stall/well played bulky offense. A fairly simple fix for this that fits well onto this kind of team would be to use a Mixed Salamence with a Rash nature, and EV spread of 84 Atk/252 SpA/176 Spe and Draco Meteor/Fire Blast/Brick Break/Roost.
Classic MixMence is fantastic at stall, and will give you a pretty good chance of beating it, as well as being at least as good as Specs Latias when it comes to playing against offensive teams.

I don't really like Heracross on this team, as you've already got revenge killing covered fairly well by Gengar. Currently, what the team is really lacking is a sweeper to clean up once you've weakened the opposing team, which is where Lucario comes in. Replacing Heracross with a Lucario using an Adamant nature, an EV spread of 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spe, and a moveset of Close Combat/Crunch/Extremespeed/Swords Dance would give you a a fantastic late-game sweeper, as well as letting you keep Heracross' ability to come in and Close Combat something earlier on if needed.

With Zapdos, I'd go with the bulky EV spread of 248 HP/224 Def/32 Spe and a Bold nature, as it's really needed for Zapdos to check the threats it needs to properly. In particular, your current spread still runs a fairly large risk of being OHKOed by a SD Lucario Extremespeed after Stealth Rock.
HP Grass might be worth considering over Substitute as a good way of dealing with any Swampert that tries to wall/set up on Zapdos, as currently Swampert looks like it could be pretty annoying to deal with.

On Scizor, I would suggest using the bulkier EV spread of 248 HP/252 Atk/8 Spe, which allows you to come in and U-turn out more easily, not to mention that I've never found the extra speed all that useful on Scizor.

I hope this helps, and good luck with the team!

 

[boredomisbliss]

thanks for responding, i tried out a bit and it worked pretty well

one of the problems i encountered was a weakness to a lot of special attacks, for example i used to use latias to counter t-bolts, flamethrowers, and surfs, though there isnt really anything to achieve that end on this team. (although that salamence did save me from a 4-1 deficit, thank god for x3 fire blast hits :)) it was a lot of the same old, and my infernape was able to fake out/CC/KO 2 aerodactyl leads just like it was supposed to. :) my worry i fought one guy twice in a row, he used a specs latias lead which killed my infernape, is it not really worth worrying about since its so uncommon? also how exactly is lucario meant to be used, its not fast enough to revenge kill a lot of things heracross did (jolteon especially), and generally when i left it to the way end it couldnt handle everything (gengar)