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Hey so this is my sun team, it started with me just wanting to run sun but i found i needed certain things. I chose torkoal because of his more defensive stats compared to ninetails. I wanted some classic pokemon so i threw charizard and venasaur on there, excadrill was always a favorite of mine and he helped with immunities and overrall hes always been a hard hitter for me. Clefable with teleport was all over thr meta but i wanted something different that could trap people setting up. Hydreigon used to be pyukumuku but then i found hydregon tanks everything i needed pyukumuku to and also can comfirm kills.
Venasaur: After sacking torkoal when its safe you can flat out win you have so much coverage and damage after 1 growth.(Corvinight, Zeroara, Excadrill, Chandelure, Tyranitar, Togekiss, and even Rotom-Heat with some chip can all be killed at one growth). Weatherball may seem weaker than giga drain sometimes but its deceivingly strong.
Torkoal: Never has let me down, keep on eye on his health at 25% rocks will kill him amd he WILL NOT set up sun. He tanks so many seismitoads i dont even think theyre a threat anymore. He has big coverage. I used to use rapid spin instead of body press but i have the stats to OHKO tyranitar on switch in with body press. I used him to chip Rotom-H, Conkeldurr, Dragapault. I never lead with him if i see another rain team, i try amd force them in my weather especially when its alola ninetails.
Hydreigon: I needed flue for this team and he works like a charm, if you can get a nice read like forcing in a fairy type this can allow torkoal in which helps the team alot. Hydreigon tanks like everthing and when he sets up it can sometimes even be game over. Draco is too strong and suprises me all the time but its easy to over estimate him amd lose him over some stupid fairy move.
Charizard: pride and joy of the team. He hits insanely hard and can almost OHKO Rotom-Heat in the sun with Overheat. Air slash shreds kommo-o and chips most kf thr general ou great. Solar powers life drain sucks but the damage output lets you Overheat as if you were at +1 and then again as if you just came out because of the sun (50% more damage)
Clefable: Really good pivot and IMO the best mon in the ou. I didnt wana take alot of overused mons but its clef, a true classic. I run psych up to reverse sweep other clefs and mews, sometimes sigilyph too. No one ever sees it coming. Great support for getting charizard and venasaur in
I basically only either lead with Torkoal or Excadrill and find a good time to set sun up and try and sweeep, i have trouble with Conkeldurr, Bisharp, Mimikyu, and SOMETIMES Weather Setters (Most of them)
Lemme know what you guys think i didnt steal this like i just made it first post ever.
It's pretty interesting you are running solar beam on 2 different mons, ontop of Venusaur having Giga Drain. Having the same move between 2 different mons is generally not a good idea as you're limiting your team's flexibility.
Your current Torkoal set doesn't take full advantage of being a lead, or a support mon. You're sacrificing the opportunity to set up stealth rocks for minimal damage. You pretty much have hindered its' ability to switch in to set up sun. 85 SpA is not worth utilizing at all. I would recommend this set. Setting up stealth rocks is a great help to your team as it can limit the number of switch ins, and put some rolls into your favor. Rapid spin would really help your team with hazards. If you plan on leading with Torkoal, you can rapid spin away the hazards on Turn 2, thus wasting a turn for their lead. Body Press is not needed when running Lava Plume as everything Body Press is effective against, Lava Plume is just as effective. Yawn is a great deterrent for any lead or mon trying to setup in-front of Torkoal. Finally, Lava Plume > Fire Blast. While it is less damage, Torkoal's job is to not deal damage. The 30% burn chance will cripple many physical attackers, and can add a nice timer onto certain mons. Plus 100% accuracy is a nice bonus.
Venusaur Adjust
Sludge Bomb > Earth Power. Modest Nature EV Spread, and other moves are fine.
Venusaur is fine, but I would run Sludge Bomb over Earth Power. I understand the reason for Earth Power, but Sludge Bomb is much better. Sludge Bomb annihilates every fairy type on switch in especially after a single growth, and Hydreigon would appreciate Clefable/other fairies being gone. If you're running Earth Power, Clefable can literally stall out your sun turns which are already very precious. Also if it's Life Orb Clef with flamehrower, you just lost your sun sweeper for no reason. You don't need more speed under sun, YOU'RE ALREADY AT 518. What you need under the sun is more firepower. A sun team is supposed to use the sun turns to maximize the amount of damage you can output in those turns.
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Darmanitan @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Rock Slide
I would run Darmanitan over Charizard as your choice scarfer. Darmanitan can put down ludicrous damage with Sheer Force + Flare Blitz + Sun. Also, it can learn U-Turn allowing you to pivot the mon in and out gaining momentum on your opponents switch outs. Another thing is it learns Earthquake. Running Earthquake opens up Venusaur to never needing Earth Power. Finally, it can learn Rock Slide which is very handy for crippling Mandibuzz or Togekiss. Also, as it stands 5/6 mons on your team are special attackers. Adding a physical attacker will help break walls like Clefable/Hatterene much easier.
Excadrill doesn't serve much of a use on this team. What Excadrill threatens, Venusaur already covers with Sludge Bomb, Weather-Ball, and Giga Drain. The only mon it can properly counter that Venusaur can't is Rotom-Heat which Rotom-Wash does perfectly, and Rock-Slide Darmanitan. Rotom-Wash would serve as a very great pivot for you to utilize, as well as completing a very solid Volt-Turn core (Volt Switch + U-turn). Hydro Pump works as a very effective way to remove ground/rock types that threaten Darmanitan, and can pressure fire types that can incinerate Venusaur. Utilizing Defog gives you a secondary method of removing hazards in case Torkoal is unable to Rapid Spin due to low health. Then, you can run Thunder-Wave, Toxic, Will-O-Wisp, Pain Split, Nasty Plot as your 4th move. T-Wave can cripple fast mons and help your team with speed control (not much of an issue with scarf darm + vena under sun). Toxic to put mons on a timer, Will-O-Wisp to cripple physical attackers, Pain Split for nice recovery, or Nasty Plot for extra power behind your moves. I'm leaving the 4th move slot blank for you to decide what works best for your play style.
Clefable Adjust
Calm Mind/Protect > Psych Up
Running Psych Up is a good laugh, but pretty useless. Clefable can't utilize Swords Dance, Rock Polish, Bulk Up, or Curse. You're only allowing yourself to utilize Shell Smash or Calm Mind, and by the time you can use Psych Up on Shell Smash Cloyster, you've lost Clefable and effectively wasted your special defensive wall. Why not just run Calm Mind in the first place? You're essentially wasting a moveslot for something you'll encounter very infrequently. Also, by the time you see anything use cosmic power, you should immediately switch into something that can pressure it out, or out right KO it. Protect would help stall out mons, and give you free recovery through left-overs or wish.
Hydreigon Adjust
Dark Pulse > Flamethrower
Hydreigon is a good dark type to pressure out ghost types that tend to run rampant, and Draco-Meteor is a good nuke. Switch it to 252 SpA, 252 Spe, 4 SpD. You already have weather-ball Venasaur, Lava Plume Torkoal (not great, but still a fire type move), and Flare Blitz Darmanitan. Half of your team has fire type coverage, and a third of your team has some serious fire type damaging moves under sun. Again this team has a lot of redundancy that is not needed. Dark Pulse allows you to spam out many mons, and ensure no ghost type will switch in or survive.
It's easy to build a team that has a lot of overlap to be "prepared", but in reality most mons are only good at one or two roles (maybe three). The goal is to build a team that can cover each other's weaknesses. Darmanitan and Rotom-Wash make a great pair as Darm can threaten grass and steel types that give Rotom a hard time, and Rotom can help threaten ground and rock types that give Darm a hard time, while switching into Earthquake attacks that would KO Darm (unless it's Mold Breaker Drill). It's best for each mon to fulfill one role at a time to optimize power/turns on the field.
hey man cool team. in the above rate they suggested making a few good changes but i disagree with some of them, but i will touch on that after. first of all this team gets absolutely destroyed by excadrill. sd excadrill or even band excadrill in sand is a huge threat and does major damage to pretty much everything w stabs and rock slide. dragapult is probably the biggest threat to this team as since you are running psych up, or i guess calm mind it does not appreiciate switching into pult hexs once statused and can easily be disposed of especially with no protect. dragon dance dragapult also just clean 6-0s with nothing to really deal with it at all. aegislash can be somewhat annoying as nothing can really switch into it so you kinda have to pick and choose what dies when aegislash comes in.
however from the above rate i do agree darmanitan is a great fit for this team and can be used over charizard as a scarfer and i suggest keeping the darm change helps a lot. also the torkoal set given above great too.
/ -> rotom-wash is honestly just very bad in the meta and definitely does not fit on a sun team weakening its own hydro pumps and taking a more than it needs too from fire moves. i suggest changing rotom-wash to mandibuzz as mandibuzz can retain the momentum from u-turn, provides defog for your fires, but most importantly provides you for a way to deal with dragapult and aegislash. fat mandibuzz completely eats any move from special dragapult and stomachs a +1 dragon darts extremely well too. the threat of foul play is always there so u-turning out on for example a clefable switching in can provide you a chance to bring in your darm/venu. it also gives this team a pretty solid way of dealing with excadrill as you are immune to earthquake, can eat a +2 iron head and kill with foul play but is also immune to earthquake. this is one of the best things you retain as mold breaker excadrill just clicks earthquake vs this team and its hard for you to switch into it without mandibuzz. also i like to run 176 speed on mandibuzz to outspeed adamant bisharp which you can hit with foul play, giving you a reliable way to click defog without fear of bisharp.
a small change i have is to change psych up/calm mind to protect. protect has an abundant amount of uses. protect can help you stall out pp, scout choice locked users into trying to u-turn/volt switch, scout coverage moves, but most importantly it lets you use wish as a reliable healing option. without protect clefable cannot wish to itself reliably and can get pressured out after taking a hit, and then something like aegislash coming in to scare it out. this means clef is forced to take that hit, but with protect you are able to recover reliably and scout on what the aegislash is doing.
also i think running dark pulse / flamethrower / draco meteor / nasty plot works a lot better here as sun boosted flame does a lot to those annoying steels / faries especially at +2. this lets you completely demolish ferrothorn and corvinkight without having to play for flinches.
Mandibuzz (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 252 HP / 80 SpD / 176 Spe
Careful Nature
- Roost
- U-turn
- Foul Play
- Defog
I am curious as to why you have focus sash on excadrill. If he is your spinner wouldn’t rocks/spikes take the sash effect away? I love the torkoal set!!! Never change it bruther <3 let them think their toad/tar beats you lolz
Damn this team gets dunked on by Calm Mind Sub-Primarina with Psychic or Nasty Plot Sub-Togekiss with Air Slash. Mandibuzz is a good edition to counter dragapult, but without rotom there is no breaking subs with volt switch or coverage for rock types when the sun is down. Scarf Darm with EQ works well but can't take Stone Edges from Ttar or EQ from Hippowdon/Drill.
I think both rotom-wash and mandibuzz can work on this team. Try them both out and see which one works best for the mons your facing. Dragapult is much more common to encounter, but scarf Darm can seriously crush Dragapult once it has taken some chip damage.
Damn this team gets dunked on by Calm Mind Sub-Primarina with Psychic or Nasty Plot Sub-Togekiss with Air Slash. Mandibuzz is a good edition to counter dragapult, but without rotom there is no breaking subs with volt switch or coverage for rock types when the sun is down. Scarf Darm with EQ works well but can't take Stone Edges from Ttar or EQ from Hippowdon/Drill.
I think both rotom-wash and mandibuzz can work on this team. Try them both out and see which one works best for the mons your facing. Dragapult is much more common to encounter, but scarf Darm can seriously crush Dragapult once it has taken some chip damage.
/ 
-> 
rotom-wash is honestly just very bad in the meta and definitely does not fit on a sun team weakening its own hydro pumps and taking a more than it needs too from fire moves. i suggest 
a small change i have is to 
also i think running 
