Talonflame, Lucario and Friends

[HummingBird Heartbeat]

So I recently joined Smogon and i wanted to see what others think about this team so that i can improve it so this team focuses solely on Lucario-mega and Talonflame since i consider them to be the 2 hardest hitters in the OU Tier so here is the team

The Team~

Talonflame (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Return

So first off is one of the stars of the team which is Choice Band Talonflame which is pretty dangerous in the OU Tier. So i choose u-turn to go with Talonflame because i wanted to at least be able to use this pokemon more than not and not have this be a suicide bird. I choose return over steel wing because it tends to miss and because at 255 max happiness it works really wonders on the opponents team.

Lucario @ Lucarionite
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Flash Cannon
- Vacuum Wave

Next is the other main member of this team which happens to be Mega-Lucario. I have opted to go for the nasty plot due to it being uncommon in the OU tier. At first I had aura sphere over dark pulse and i noticed that whenever an aegislash was sent out lucario could not do anything to it so i changed it to Dark pulse so that after using a nasty plot that it will take it out or it will get it low enough that talonflame can knock it out with a flare blitz or brave bird.

Garchomp (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Fire Fang

Scarf Garchomp helps when it comes to late game sweeping pokemon due to it being scarfed it can outspeed other pokemon that would normaly be slower than it. The firefang is there due to the fact that genesect run rampant in the tier with u-turn so garchomp just comes out and kills them off with a fire fang so that they can no longer due great deals of damage to my team.

Heatran (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Lava Plume
- Earth Power
- Protect
- Stealth Rock

Next is Heatran who is one of my special defensive walls that helps when it comes to putting up rocks and at the same time when it burns pokemon with lava plume it can stall them out a little bit with protect to rack up some damage and then earth power is there for other heatrans that come in or to kill of other fire type pokemon with a reasonable amount of hp.

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Pain Split
- Will-O-Wisp

Next we have is rotom-w which goes great along with talonflame for the volturn combo but the usually work separate. The Wil-o-wisp is to stop some of the physical sweepers and to get residual damage on the other and the pain split is there for pokemon like clefable or blissey where i am at low hp and i need some so i go for pain split and i gain some of it back.

Sylveon (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Hyper Voice
- Toxic

Sylveon is here for a stall sorta on special walls the heatran can't deal with. the wish is to pass to other pokemon with low hp and i know they can take a hit. Hyper Voice is there because due to the new mechanic it can now go through protect and so it can stop pokemon like gliscor and scolopiede to stop them from setting up in its face and toxic is there for residual damage among the pokemon.


Importable:

Talonflame (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Return

Lucario @ Lucarionite
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Flash Cannon
- Vacuum Wave

Garchomp (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Fire Fang

Heatran (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Lava Plume
- Earth Power
- Protect
- Stealth Rock

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Pain Split
- Will-O-Wisp

Sylveon (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Hyper Voice
- Toxic

So all in all this team is pretty good and I have tested it on Pokemon Showdown and i am 3-0 on my Amber & Crystal alt. so if you have any comments, questions, or critiques i will gladly accept them and try to due my best to fix up this team.

Replays:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-82095191




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[Oranos]

I've actually run a team pretty similar to this, my biggest suggestion is to replace heatran with a physical wall. Sylveon already sponges up special attacks. Heatrans ability doesn't help you too much, since only lucario will be taking fire attacks and that's easy enough to manage. I think ferrothorn would work well here, actually. You would have a good rotom/greninja stopper, where now none of your pokemon want to deal with them. You can run stealth rock/thunder wave/leech seed/ power whip, it will probably be much more synergistic than heatran. For talonflame I would suggest swords dance over return (or u-turn) there are so many things that talonflame forces out that it isn't too hard to find an opportunity to swords dance, which can realllllly help a sweep. I like sylveon/chomp/lucario (I run outrage over stone edge on chomp in case I manage to get rid of all the fairies, the extra damage is significant). I'm of the opinion that choice scarf/specs variants of rotom are much better than the bulky pain split one (they're stronger, faster, trick is amazing for completely stopping a wall or support mon in its tracks). Hope this helps

 

[fragor87]

How do you handle hazards against your own team, in particular Stealth Rock? I would almost think that Defog/Rapid Spin support is a must if you're using Talonflame. Granted I've not critiqued a team before but that is something that stands out to me here. I also like the suggestion of swapping Heatran out for something like Ferrothorn.