SV OU Specs Pult and Oger-C Balance (new builder, no peak ELO)

Builder Background
So I've only started giving Smogon's competitive scene some focus and got interested in SV OU after watching a lot of Jimothy Cool and Pinkacross' videos. To preface, I'm aware of competitive 'mons but I can barely call myself a casual player cause I just come by Showdown once every blue moon to play the current gen's OU and, when SV first came out, BSS and RandBats. The most I've played OU was back when gen 7 was the current gen, never touched gen 8 my whole life, but I've already been aware of Showdown probably as far back as gen 5. This little teambuilding effort of mine just started on the 26th of May but if I'm honest my quick gaming-related obsession does come and go so I might not be active when new big changes to the meta comes. I still greatly appreciate any input on this team I made cause I feel proud of having done it, even if I can't prove its strength with a decent ELO rank (currently at 1348 as of writing this post). Also, since this is a team made by a relatively newbie player, I hope you don't mind me talking a lot.

The most I want to get from this post is insight to make better teams: Explanations for changing the supporting Pokemon, from their moves or even a complete change of species. Would also love if insights to adjustments to EVs or Teras to deal with high to top-level threats are provided as well. What I don't want is to change the core duo, however I would concede if insight as to why the core is unviable at high-level is provided. I might be too optimistic but if I or someone better at the game shows OU that this team can go toe-to-toe with teams at 1800-2000s, I'd be incredibly happy. Else, even just a quick view of my RMT post or a response would make my day bright.

Team Overview

I've wanted to make a workable balance team with Dragapult as the focus and made this with the help of Pinkacross' teambuilding and battling guides as well as trying out some sample teams.
By the end of the short sample team testing period, I decided to use hellom's Specs Crown team as a base. I liked that it had a good offense while also having some incredibly bulky mons to lean into, although admittedly I wasn't a capable pilot of the team.
I've adjusted this team multiple times, sometimes with actual ladder testing, other times with just theory. The initial team I created kept hellom's supporting pokemons, with Pult and Arcanine-H taking Crown and Weavile's place, before this was expeditiously scrapped and became a core of Specs Pult and SD Oger-C, with support from Alo, Tusk, Skarm, and Gambit. Finally, I've made what I think is a fairly decent team with Tusk, Hamurott, Skarm, and Glowking providing all the support the duo needs to hopefully fight the rest of OU.





The Team

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Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Clear Body
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower / Thunderbolt
- U-turn

Reason for 'mon choice
Starting with the main 'mon I centered the build around on. Why Pult over other special attackers? Not much reason, I just wanted Pult to be the first one I have a serious build for. He's not the best, has a lot of weaknesses to the stronger specs users, and he's relatively restricted in terms of moves, but he's viable in the meta and that's good enough to start with. Can this be swapped with a Specs Contrary Enamorous? Absolutely! She might even do better with the strong Fairy type moves she has.
Reason for set choice
I picked the Specs set because of the immediate breaking power it has. The Band set makes Pult too Tera-reliant for my tastes while a Mixed Attacking set with Life Orb felt like it would make stall and hazard stack harder match-ups.
Standard EVs and Nature. I went for Clear Body to keep web teams in check. I stayed Tera Ghost because Shadow Ball is just that reliable of a move. I've entertained the idea of Thunderbolt for bulky Primarina and defensive Mandibuzz but generally I've just stayed with Flamethrower cause there's less 'mons immune to it.



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Ogerpon-Cornerstone (F) @ Cornerstone Mask
Ability: Sturdy
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Ivy Cudgel
- Horn Leech
- Low Kick / U-turn

Reason for 'mon choice
Ogerpon-C is here to make a good breaking core with Pult. The reason I choose her over Woger is because of a dumb idea I had of using the showdown One vs All calculator to see which standard OU sets can avoid a guaranteed 2HKO from Dragapult, then using the All vs One calculator to find what commonly breaks each of the sets. The top three were Choice Band H-Arcanine (guaranteed 2HKO and up on 21 of the 22 'mons), Choice Band Weavile (19 out of 22), and a tied third spot with SD Blaziken, SD Ogerpon-C, and AV Slither Wing (18 out of 22). Having 2 Choice-locked mons was too much for me to handle and any team with Knock Off would cripple both of my breakers, AV Slither Wing is cool but I felt it doesn't fit outside the recommended sun team, and Blaziken was a little too frail for what I wanted the team to be, so I chose Ogerpon-C.
Reason for set choice
Set choice was the standard SD set as it's the one that won my stupid excel game. No EV changes. For moves, I went for Horn Leech 100% to abuse Sturdy whenever possible. I was considering U-turn to make both my breakers great at pivoting but I've started to value killing Gambit and Tera Normal ESpeed Dnite more and to mitigate putting too much of the pressure on the rest of my team, especially Skarm.



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Great Tusk @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Headlong Rush
- Ice Spinner
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off

Reason for 'mon choice
Having made this team off the back of hellom's Specs Crown + AV Alo team, I naturally wanted to keep some of the 'mons that were there, especially that devious AV Alo build with Mirror Coat. Sadly, Tusk was the only survivor from that team and for good reason, my breaking core doesn't like hazards being set up on my side of the field. While I could've gone for Defog Corviknight cause I don't mind having minimal hazards either, Corv doesn't have a good way to threaten hazard setters outside of Brave Bird-ing a Great Tusk. I also considered Magic Bounce Hatterene and Cinderace but that isn't addressing the actual problem of taking away hazards when I inevitably get matched up with hazard stacking teams. So Rapid Spin Tusk it was for me.
Reason for set choice
I deviated from hellom's Great Tusk set cause while I like the more offensive variant that really hones in on killing most of the common hazard setters, I realized that more often than not, my amateur game sense leads me to losing Tusk and that leads to a huge disadvantage. I picked the standard defensive set, with no change to the EV spreads. I did opt for Knock Off over Stealth Rock cause I would like to preserve his health early on by not having him needlessly be out the field to set Rocks. Boots over Helmet for the same reason, Skarm just takes both those roles. I'll probably change to a more offensive utility set when I get better at the game, but for now, I'm enjoying that my Tusk has decent bulk and it gives him some leeway to just click Knock Off after spinning and leave hazard setting for Skarm and Hamurott.



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Samurott-Hisui @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Ceaseless Edge
- Razor Shell
- Sucker Punch
- Flip Turn

Reason for 'mon choice
The idea of Hamurott came from me previously having Tusk + AV Alo + Skarm + Kingambit as support mons and absolutely hating how my two physically bulky mons just crumple to sun offense and Cinderace. This isn't a physically bulky 'mon like gambit but since I had to adjust the aforementioned team and lose the bulkiest special wall I had, I've had to have each of my supporting 'mons share the burden somehow. My previous team relied on AV Alo providing special bulk and a nice pivot for me to use and I had my own Gambit because I appreciated it being the speed control my team was sorely lacking from all the booster energy speed or scarf mons that scared away my breakers, basically I'm saying Hamurrot is their child and I'm not sorry for this mental flashbang.
While I did say I don't mind setting minimal hazards, having Hamurott made it so that I can still opt in to stacking hazards while having a strong priority and a decent pivot, helping me somewhat check stall and also getting back against HO.
Reason for set choice
Much like Tusk, I opted for the more defensive AV set. I'm just copying the Smogon spread cause I don't have a good idea what to do with it, the page says the speed investment is to outspeed Gliscor but sadly this is where my inexperience cripples me. Move choices are Sucker Punch over Aqua Jet for the harder hitting priority, Flip Turn over a second Knock Off cause I like having two pivots (either way I'm not doing anything impactful to Woger), and Razor Shell over Aqua Cutter in case I can leave Hamurott in for offensive pressure.




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Skarmory @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Whirlwind
- Roost
- Stealth Rock

Reason for 'mon choice
Skarm is here for his much needed physical bulk on my balance team and ability to just shoo away set-up sweepers, especially the dragon dancers that will run around my team once I lose speed control. The reason I run him over Gliscor or Ting-Lu is to avoid stacking an Ice weakness, sadly Skarm isn't an ice resist nor is his Tera helping but that's better than having four ice weak mons at team preview on a meta where Weavile, Kyurem, or another fast mon holding ice coverage can sometimes pop up on the ladder. He's admittedly a little more passive than the rest of the team but he makes up for it by being my main check to HO teams.
Reason for set choice
As per usual, it's the standard smogon set. Brave Bird and Whirlwind over the IronPress set because I can trust my more offensive leaning 'mons to deal with normally fighting weak 'mons and have Skarm be able to handle opposing Tusks and phaze set-up sweepers. I picked Stealth Rock over its old Spikes set from my previous setup cause I saw someone on Smogon Discord talk about how Skarm really likes SR more cause it frees his turn for Roost or Iron Defense, which I honestly agreed after giving Spikes Skarm a go and this ultimately gave me a chance to get Hamurott into the team.



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Slowking-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Def / 240 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Future Sight
- Chilly Reception
- Sludge Bomb
- Toxic

Reason for 'mon choice
Glowking is what Alo was for hellom's team but a little less passive against stall, which to be granted wasn't Alo's exact role in the Crown team. The role of HO check has been relegated to Skarm and spread around the other supports, so Glowking is added to soften walls for the core wallbreakers. That doesn't mean to say that Glowking can't slow down a potential sweep though.
Reason for set choice
The Defensive Pivot set was utilized with no changes to EVs. Future Sight is used over Psychic Noise because of the amount of damage my breakers can deal would help more than Slowking slowly chipping away by himself. I've opted for Toxic over Thunder Wave to give special attacking setup sweepers a timer and hopefully stop them from damaging the team further after they're done with Glowking.




Team Threats
Sadly, this is another reason why I wanted to create this post. I have troubles identifying big, specific threats to the team.
Generally speaking, I've outlined what my 'mons can have troubles with such as:
1. The core's weakness to hazard stacking,
2. Three 'mons having a shared Ice weakness (2 from the core, only 1 resist)
3. There's also a shared Fairy weakness
4. having only Pult and Hamurott as speed control means that any decent HO team can possibly rip through Skarm or Glowking and set up unimpeded.

I tried keeping the core guidelines from Pinkacross' teambuilding guides in mind, but threat detection is hard without more experience, which If I hadn't said enough, I'm sorely lacking. I also didn't want to wait to send this post because I want to learn a bit more while I'm still playing the same meta.





Here's the pokepaste link in case someone wants to try the team out: https://pokepast.es/7f18aadfceea63b8

If you've read everything, thank you. I spent my Sunday creating this post but it feels good to gush a bit. Thanks in advance for the feedback and I hope whoever's reading this has a good day/night ahead.
 
Hey, really glad you got to gush. Seems like you put it a ton of effort here. To be honest I thought the structure looked solid enough, and you explaining things to such detail helped as well. I used the team a bit and went 6-0 in ~1700-1800


Cornerstone fits well for more than the reasons you mention. The biggest issue for Choice Specs Dragapult imo, is that it just falls flat into Ting-Lu, Assault Vest Alomomola, and somewhat vs Garganacl. You can U-turn as they switch in and Cornerstone will get a free hit. I usually really like Wellspring over Cornerstone to do this, but Cornerstone can be harder to wall thanks to its Ivy Cudgel hitting Dragonite, Kyurem, and Raging Bolt. The team itself I felt struggled into opposing Dragapult, Gholdengo, and Darkrai:

:Gholdengo: Whenever you use non Knock Off Cornerstone this will be an issue. AV Samurott-Hisui helps a bit in this regard, but once you do that, you should avoid adding more Pokemon weak to it. Skarmory is just walled by it, so it will always give it a free entry point. Slowking-Galar can take one Shadow Ball, but it does not do anything in return. Great Tusk can take one hit, but it can not switch in at all. This last part is the main issue for me, that many things let it click Shadow Ball for free, so it will be a lot of pressure for Samurott-Hisui to take on.

:Darkrai: Similar issue to Gholdengo. While it cant switch into Skarmory like Gholdengo does, it makes up for it by outspeeding Great Tusk, Ogerpon-Cornerstone, and can come in after Dragapult locks itself into Shadow Ball.

:Dragapult: Same story, Hex + Darts + Wisp has no real switchins, so something is likely to get Thunder Waved or Will-O-Wisped. Thats just how it goes with teams with Skarmory and not Ting-Lu or Garganacl, and its way worse on paper than in practice, but its still very annoying. You can accept the burn and click Knock Off with Great Tusk for example; something you could try is Tera Fire on Samurott-Hisui.

:Kingambit: This guy is annoying cause you have Slowking-Galar and Choice Specs Dragapult. Great Tusk can handle it for a bit but it will get chipped overtime, so you have to be really careful to not let it get too weakened. Skarmory can usually handle Kingambit okay by running a spread with 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Speed and a Bold nature, and Iron Defense. This spread lets Skarmory outspeed max Speed Adamant Kingambit. However, it would mean you losing on Brave Bird and Whilwind, which I did click fairly often.

......

Overall something I would try is keeping the first 3 Pokemon and trying different ideas from there. Maybe for the 4th Pokemon you could look for hazard removal that arent weak to Gholdengo. In this case a Cinderace or even a bulky Iron Treads could work. I really like Cinderace, but Iron Treads has the benefit of it being a Ground-type, aka a check to Raging Bolt. A few other Pokemon I thought about:

:primarina: Specially with Assault Vest or Heavy-Duty Boots, is usually good in these kinds of offenses as it can soft check Iron Valiant, unboosted Iron Moth, and most importantly in this case, Hex Darts Dragapult and Darkrai.

:landorus-therian: If going with the Cinderace route, Landorus-T gives you a Ground immunity, a Kingambit check, it is not super scared of Gholdengo, a Ground-type to check Raging Bolt, and has Stealth Rock.

:Ting-Lu: Could so something similar to Landorus-T and it handles special attackers way better, but no Ground-immunity. An okay compromise could be something like Ting-Lu + Air Balloon Kingambit, and understand that Ting-Lu will likely have to trade blows with Great Tusk and other Ground-types if it comes to that.

...

Thats all I had in mind. The tldr is I think the team works okay, but Skarmory opens a few holes that arent very easy to fix. Hope some of what I mentioned helps, if anything, to help figure out the team's holes. Ty for the team!
 
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Hey, really glad you got to gush. Seems like you put it a ton of effort here. To be honest I thought the structure looked solid enough, and you explaining things to such detail helped as well. I used the team a bit and went 6-0 in ~1700-1800


Cornerstone fits well for more than the reasons you mention. The biggest issue for Choice Specs Dragapult imo, is that it just falls flat into Ting-Lu, Assault Vest Alomomola, and somewhat vs Garganacl. You can U-turn as they switch in and Cornerstone will get a free hit. I usually really like Wellspring over Cornerstone to do this, but Cornerstone can be way harer to wall thanks to its Ivy Cudgel hitting Dragonite, Kyurem, and Raging Bolt. The team itself I felt struggled into opposing Dragapult, Gholdengo, and Darkrai:

:Gholdengo: Whenever you use non Knock Off Cornerstone this will be an issue. AV Samurott-Hisui helps a bit in this regard, but once you do that, you should avoid adding more Pokemon weak to it. Skarmory is just walled by it, so it will always give it a free entry point. Slowking-Galar can take one Shadow Ball, but it does not do anything in return. Great Tusk can take one hit, but it can not switch in at all. This last part is the main issue for me, that many things let it click Shadow Ball for free, so it will be a lot of pressure for Samurott-Hisui to take on.

:Darkrai: Similar issue to Gholdengo. While it cant switch into Skarmory like Gholdengo does, it makes up for it by outspeeding Great Tusk, Ogerpon-Cornerstone, and can come in after Dragapult locks itself into Shadow Ball.

:Dragapult: Same story, Hex + Darts + Wisp has no real switchins, so something is likely to get Thunder Waved or Will-O-Wisped. Thats just how it goes with teams with Skarmory and not Ting-Lu or Garganacl, and its way worse on paper than in practice, but its still very annoying. You can accept the burn and click Knock Off with Great Tusk for example; something you could try is Tera Fire on Samurott-Hisui.

:Kingambit: This guy is annoying cause you have Slowking-Galar and Choice Specs Dragapult. Great Tusk can handle it for a bit but it will get chipped overtime, so you have to be really careful to not let it get too weakened. Skarmory can usually handle Kingambit okay by running a spread with 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Speed and a Bold nature, and Iron Defense. This spread lets Skarmory outspeed max Speed Adamant Kingambit. However, it would mean you losing on Brave Bird and Whilwind, which I did click fairly often.

......

Overall something I would try is keeping the first 3 Pokemon and trying different ideas from there. Maybe for the 4th Pokemon you could look for hazard removal that arent weak to Gholdengo. In this case a Cinderace or even a bulky Iron Treads could work. I really like Cinderace, but Iron Treads has the benefit of it being a Ground-type, aka a check to Raging Bolt. A few other Pokemon I thought about:

:primarina: Specially with Assault Vest or Heavy-Duty Boots, is usually good in these kinds of offenses as it can soft check Iron Valiant, unboosted Iron Moth, and most importantly in this case, Hex Darts Dragapult and Darkrai.

:landorus-therian: If going with the Cinderace route, Landorus-T gives you a Ground immunity, a Kingambit check, it is not super scared of Gholdengo, a Ground-type to check Raging Bolt, and has Stealth Rock.

:Ting-Lu: Could so something similar to Landorus-T and it handles special attackers way better, but no Ground-immunity. An okay compromise could be something like Ting-Lu + Air Balloon Kingambit, and understand that Ting-Lu will likely have to trade blows with Great Tusk and other Ground-types if it comes to that.

...

Thats all I had in mind. The tldr is I think the team works okay, but Skarmory opens a few holes that arent very easy to fix. Hope some of what I mentioned helps, if anything, to help figure out the team's holes. Ty for the team!
Absolutely love the input, the replays were amazing as well. Seeing the team do well at 1700, seeing each of the members be effective at their roles, and just the overall lack of wasted turns imo gave me a huge confidence boost.

Yeah, Oger-C was a fun surprise of a 'mon, fitting snugly with Pult as a breaking core. Notable sets that wall both of the core 'mons are Chansey and both Okidogi sets btw, Tusk can somewhat handle them for the two. I wasn't able to talk about this more cause I didn't feel confident enough to give an in-depth comparison to Woger and I couldn't explain it like you did with all the specific 'mons it counters outside of just the walls, but yeah I realized I hit gold with it. I admit I'm a little too hopeful thinking I can let it come in and abuse Sturdy in more games, letting it kill anything Pult wasn't comfortable with.



I completely forgot to talk about the general issue I had with my team only having one Ghost type resist. This has been one of the biggest concerns I had since the first few drafts (apparently not big enough to remember to add to the post). This was what led me to having added Gambit on the previous iteration, and what made the Hamurott addition so needed.

I want to take the time to respond to each of the specific threats you noted, what I thought I could get away with. This isn't to undervalue them because I know for a fact that if you're saying you they would struggle with them with your experience, I would 100% die to them. I arranged them based on how confident I felt about the answer

I honestly thought for Darkrai and opposing special attacking Pults, the team could probably play around by defensively Tera-ing Glowking to avoid the first big hit (I know it's Tera Water but it's at least not Super Effective) and pivoting to Tusk/Hamurott to soften them enough for OgerPult or go back to Glowking to further annoy them with Toxic so your insight on why I shouldn't be complacent is much needed.

For physical Pults and Gambit, my plan was pretty much the same as above but with Skarm instead of Glowking. Without a pivot, the Whirlwind would let me stop their momentum, hopefully letting me safely switch into Hamurott/Tusk and tackle the problem from there. The only problem I have with this is that if they're the threats, I need to deal with them mid-game, never at the later stages, to avoid the nightmare scenario of whirlwind becoming useless.

For Mixed Pult, I honestly felt that Glowking to Tusk/Hamurott was a good enough answer. If it was scouted out first with Glowking, I can get by with having someone but the cores get the status like you said. If it's twave, Tusk, if it's wisp, I can get by Hamurott. Ofc Tera Fairy will make both options less ideal but I'm amateurishly hoping the core threatens the opponent enough that they put less focus on Hamurott/Tusk.

The insight on Gholdengo being a huge threat was greatly needed, I already didn't feel good seeing him be a common addition to hazard stacking teams and your input helped me realize why he's even more of a concern than just "oh he makes it harder for me to take the hazards out with Tusk and that slows down my core mons". I have Hamurott and Tusk like you said to soften Gholdengo but yeah, having a team so hell bent on letting Gholdengo come in and set up shop isn't great.



Skarm honestly became the support 'mon I struggle to let go of the most, Tusk is a close second. It might be because they provide strong immunities while their roles fit somewhat to what I expected the team to have. I'm probably overvaluing their roles here but to really describe it, Skarm lets me have a phys def to handle physical set up sweepers that can't be hindered by hazards, which those sweepers could take advantage of by slowly waiting til their physical check is just left to spam recovery moves more than actually do anything.
Tusk is such a struggle to take out as well because of the reasons I already noted in my post, Cinderace doesn't necessarily solve the hazard stack problem my core has but Tusk does while also dealing with most of the mons that are out to do what he does as well.

I figured Corv could somewhat do a bit of what they both do but I end up with what I think is a worse match-up to HO. Corv also felt passive and momentum-draining which is such a wild take when it could also serve as a pivot for me.

Ting-lu was the best option to replace Skarm with, it having Ruination is such a nice move in general but it meant I might be more ice/fairy weak or become a little too passive depending on if I choose a spinner or a defogger for hazard removal. Also there's what I said about Skarm, with Rest being his only form of recovery move and Lefties making him somewhat prone to hazards, this got me to pick Skarm.

Gliscor and Landorus I could have fit the same role defensively and utility wise, but the fear of getting bulldozed by Weavile/Kyurem or an Iron Valiant depending on the next mon I add is hopefully understandable. I also didn't like the idea of putting two good immunities into one mon I can't always defend for when threatened.

I'm building around the playstyle of balance still, my team's leaning offense but my gameplan feels a little too cautious I admit. If I can avoid temporary items that might serve a more offense leaning team better to avoid a disadvantage against bulkier teams, I usually lean towards that for this team.



As an abrupt aside, for the current iteration of the team, would changing Glowking's Tera to Dark be a somewhat good stopgap? He still doesn't do much vs gholdengo but he can somewhat at least mitigate the other checks you've noted. Sadly, I wouldn't really know how this would affect match-ups vs when Glowking is still Tera Water but I don't think losing Water is going to be that bad. I would also be changing Hamurott's Tera to Fire as the anti-wisp tech does fit well with Tusk blocking Twave.

While I did put my reasons to why I'd stick to the same supports and the response above isn't helping the case, I would like to say that I'm partially leaning more towards the opinion that I might be overvaluing my current support team. Maybe I would like to change to Cinderace because he does resist both ice and fairy. The possibility of Treads over Tusk has always been there for me. The Primarina honestly is such a good catch that I don't have a thought-out response to it lol. Maybe even my focus on vanilla balance should be scrapped to improve the team for top ladder.

I will explore swapping the 'mons around the big threats you've noted and especially the suggestions you gave, but it's the weekdays and I've used my limited time for this response. Again thanks so much, you've put time to testing the team yourself and create an insightful response as well and I hope my reply shows nothing but respect to you.
 
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I do agree letting go of Skarmory is very hard. Even when I am not the biggest fan of this set in general, it did a lot for me. Even things that you dont think about while building, like Brave Bird letting it pop Gholdengo's Air Balloon helped a fair bit.

You are right in that with Tera Slowking-Galar can handle those threats, or at least, take a hit to then CHilly Reception out. I did think about Tera Dark, but I figured Water was good enough if I was willing to burn tera, plus it gives the team another Water resist against Walking Wake, and a resist to Kyurem's Ice Beam.

Something else I did not try but thought about was Thunder Wave > Toxic. My thought process is that this would cripple Dragapult and Darkrai harder, as well as not having to rely on several turns to check Iron Moth. This would make Slowking considerably worse against Raging Bolt, but between Great Tusk + two offensive Pokemon that resist Thunderclap in Dragapult and Ogerpon-Cornerstone, maybe its not the worst change. Part of what makes these special attackers scary for the team is their speed, but once paralyzed they are slower than Ogerpon and Great Tusk, which means less windows for them to fire off attacks. But I do understand why you might prefer Toxic.

You could try to experiment with Great Tusk's Tera-types as well. Its not he biggest deal but it does have several possible Tera-types I could see one of Steel, Ice, Fire, Dark, Grass potentially being better. Its not smething you will click often, just a quality of life.
 
I do agree letting go of Skarmory is very hard. Even when I am not the biggest fan of this set in general, it did a lot for me. Even things that you dont think about while building, like Brave Bird letting it pop Gholdengo's Air Balloon helped a fair bit.

You are right in that with Tera Slowking-Galar can handle those threats, or at least, take a hit to then CHilly Reception out. I did think about Tera Dark, but I figured Water was good enough if I was willing to burn tera, plus it gives the team another Water resist against Walking Wake, and a resist to Kyurem's Ice Beam.

Something else I did not try but thought about was Thunder Wave > Toxic. My thought process is that this would cripple Dragapult and Darkrai harder, as well as not having to rely on several turns to check Iron Moth. This would make Slowking considerably worse against Raging Bolt, but between Great Tusk + two offensive Pokemon that resist Thunderclap in Dragapult and Ogerpon-Cornerstone, maybe its not the worst change. Part of what makes these special attackers scary for the team is their speed, but once paralyzed they are slower than Ogerpon and Great Tusk, which means less windows for them to fire off attacks. But I do understand why you might prefer Toxic.

You could try to experiment with Great Tusk's Tera-types as well. Its not he biggest deal but it does have several possible Tera-types I could see one of Steel, Ice, Fire, Dark, Grass potentially being better. Its not smething you will click often, just a quality of life.
That's great! I'll try out those changes to the current team.
Tera adjustments on Glowking and Hamurott. I'm now aware that changing Glowking's Tera could lead to a harder Wake fight, but I think the core would be able to manage that and Kyurem with smart positioning.
I'll personally test through the possible Tusk Teras and see which helps qol the most.
A second speed check with Twave, I still have a way to deal with stall through Future Sight support and this lessens one of the core's weaknesses I originally identified.

Although even with these changes. I'm also preparing to make another iteration with Treads as the spinner, off the top of my head I could add in a Moltres to check physical sweepers but that hasn't been put to good thought or testing yet. Thanks again for the help!

Update: After some test runs with the current iteration, while the change to Tera Dark on Glowking proved effective, it really is just a soft check for a problem that needs a solid answer. The team got me up to 1417 but the inherent problem it has against Gholdengo, Dragapult, Darkrai, and Kingambit became very evident. A surprise set has the potential to take out whatever I try to answer the threat with and the four 'mons are very common so the recent session came out 3-3. It might have been very obvious with the advice provided but yeah, the team does need more improvement to shore up the issue and at my current level, even with a game plan in mind, it's difficult to slowly scrape back a win when I get blindsided. This was still a good and solid team imo, the first version I was proud to make a post of so it'll stay in my teambuilding folder.
Thanks again to SetsuSetsuna. I'll be redoing the team and will hopefully come closer to a better version. I'm thinking about changing Oger-C's fourth move slot to Knock-off but we'll see.
 
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