sub sweepers

[brenden34ton]

hey watsup guys i’m new to OU, and I made this OU subs team (idk if that’s even a thing but it is now) and would like some pointers. can get to around 1400 but at some point it’s blind luck.


Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Teleport
- Thunder Wave
- Foul Play
- Recover

Porygon2 is one of my usual starters, really just like to get off the t-wave and teleport out and set up with someone else. Only thing i’m having a hard time taking advantage of is, foul play. I’m not even sure if there is a better move for him tho.


Clefable @ Choice Specs
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Fire Blast
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam

next up I have my unconventional nuke, really works well as a lead and a wall breaker. one of the biggest threats is Melmetal who will obviously obliterate him, but if you predict it, which is pretty easy, fire blast will 2hko. Ice beam knocks any flying type down pretty far. thunderbolt is alright, will 2hko pex which is okay. nothing crazy with that. and moonblast is just a bomb. hits anything that doesn’t resist, really hard.

Primarina @ Leftovers
Ability: Liquid Voice
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Moonblast
- Substitute
- Calm Mind

next i have one of my sub sweepers. Primarina is actually really annoying with max speed and spdef. outspeeds many mons that don’t put stats into speed. people really enjoy going into magearna on primarina i’ve noticed. substitue will tank a volt switch after one calm mind. Get a couple calm minds off and you’re golden pony boy. biggest threat is regieleki and koko. especially if it’s a electrain terrain team, prima will be close to useless.


Hydreigon @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot

next up we got another subs sweeper, again a pretty unconventional set. subs is lethal on switches and can allow you to get a nasty plot off if you’re faster than the incoming mon. him not being conventional works out to his advantage. seems almost everyone expects choice hydreigon. has fun with toxapex, if they predict nasty plot and use haze, but you really draco them. they do not have fun. has obvious trouble with fairies but is really a lot of fun.

Nidoking (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Sludge Wave
- Substitute

my last subs sweeper is nidoking, stole him and porygon2 off a blunder vid. just hits hard and one hits a lot of flying types. along with having sludge wave for fairies. again subs works well with u turns and switches. sheer force life orb combo is nothin to play around with. not a lot to say about him besides gtfo before any ground moves. go to hydreigon and set up, if you predict eq or whatever.

Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Unseen Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Surging Strikes
- Close Combat
- Bulk Up

last but not least is my one physical hitter on the team. heavy duty boots is nice because it’s heavy duty boots. bulk ups on switch ins and surging strikes whatever you can, if you can’t do that. cc will do a bunch of damage, aqua jet for the priority.

Team has a lot of trouble with electric terrain teams and weather teams. but if you get good use out of porygon2 and can control the speed. you have a very good chance of winning. I save urshifu for last, only because he’s the only physical attacker. i should put another physical guy on the team. what would you change but still keep the unpredictableness (which is the reason i win most games with this team) and i know i need a defogger. how would you fit it in? thanks

 

[Fc]

Hi, welcome to smogon. I'm going to try and rate this the best as possible, but the meta is still fairly new with more bans happening slowly. I'll go over a few set fixes of what I see, and a few slots to change to help improve the team in certain mu's.

Porygon-2 hasn't been seen a lot afaik and as of now doesn't seem to have a discussion thread, so I'll keep the sets the same while slashing a few other moves that might help a lot. Ice beam might be good instead of foul play for harder hits on a lot of things, while Toxic might be useful to catch things like Zapdos which the base team somewhat struggles with.

Set

Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Teleport
- Thunder Wave / Toxic
- Foul Play / Ice Beam
- Recover

Choice specs Clefable isn't a great set, as clef really likes having its utility and ability to heal off damage while being offensive if that's the route you choose to go. Offensive Clefable however is in a tough spot rn, with it being hard to have coverage for both Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Heatran on the same set. That said, you can use either depending on what the team can deal with if you choose to go offensive. I'm using the sets from the strategy dex which are a little outdated since the meta is new but are still solid, and can be altered a bit later. I'll paste both the offensive and defensive sets here. Both have their uses, but I'm assuming you wanted to use offensive here so that'll be in the final paste.

Sets

Clefable @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Flamethrower / Thunder(bolt)

OR Defensive

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Moonblast
- Soft-Boiled
- Stealth Rock
- Knock Off

From there I want to make a major change, and that is changing Primarina to Moltres. This may seem like a weird change, but it keeps quite a few roles of Primarina while giving hazard control to the team. Primarina doubled up on cm fairies with clef if you go offensive, and doubles up on offensive waters with Urshifu-RS, so I think it's fairly changeable. I was looking at Tapu Fini as an option for a more defensive type Primarina, but the team became failry weak to certain things like Kartana and Poison Jab Pheromosa. Moltres still resists fire and fighting to stop Blaziken and Cinderace since they don't really run coverage for this, and it keeps the way to deal with Heatran but this one has recovery and can hit hard with Scorching Sands if you run it which will help the team imo.

Set

Moltres @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body / Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 176 Def / 84 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Flamethrower / Mystical Fire
- Toxic / Scorching Sands / Will-O-Wisp
- Defog / Scorching Sands / U-Turn

With Hydreigon, I'd make the suggestion of changing Hydreigon to Dragapult. Right now Hydreigon isn't seeing much usage, and while pult's has dipped a lot, I think it's still a stronger option for a sub dragon Pokemon. It doesn't have the same sweeping power, but has the ability to abuse status + hex for a strong combo behind a sub threatening out Pokemon for it to heal with leftovers over time. The set is just the old one on the strategy dex but with Naive Nature as an option over a Special Attack boosting one, because it allows Dragapult to outspeed Pokemon like Spectrier that way. The ev's may become off then because of the nature change but I think it's generally worth it, but will slash both.

Set

Dragapult @ Leftovers
Ability: Infiltrator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 68 Atk / 188 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature / Mild Nature
- Hex
- Substitute
- Dragon Darts
- Will-O-Wisp

Next up is Nidoking, which I wanted to keep the same to keep the general team comp similar to the original, but did find electric types did hurt the team, as well as just physical attackers in general that can break clef like a well played melmetal were really annoying. So the last change I'm recommending is changing Nidoking to Landorus-T. It's a much more defensively sound Pokemon, being able to cover quite a few of the current threats. This set is taken from its discussion thread.

Set

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 248 Def / 8 Spe OR 252 HP / 112 Def / 144 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock / Defog
- U-turn / Toxic
- Stone Edge / Toxic / Knock Off

Finally, I'd change Urshifu-RS to the standard Choice Band set. Boots on a set without pivoting is fairly underwhelming especially since the pokemon isn't weak to stealth rock naturally. It hits as hard as with 1 bulk up naturally but also can pivot around.

Set

Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Choice Band
Ability: Unseen Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature / Jolly Nature
- Surging Strikes
- Close Combat
- Aqua Jet
- U-turn

So that's it for the changes I'd recommend. I played a few games just to test the team out, and it performed pretty decently for a new team I was making adjustments to as I went. I'm not super high on ladder since I don't ladder a ton, but it works and I think these changes help the team. Ik it's a lot of changes, but I just tried to target mons that could have options similar to their role but fit better overall. Moltres and Primarina cover a few of the same things but moltres fit better imo while giving you the defogger role you were looking for, pult is just a sub dragon like Hydreigon but with a more utility based set, and Landorus-T is a more defensive ground which helps in those electric spam mu's you thought were an issue. Here's a link to the full updated paste with some of what I was using as filler moves, but you can sub in and out some things from the movesets listed above, hope I helped. https://pokepast.es/4d7e2177050eed8c