I made this team because I wanted to use heracross. I was really fascinated by its potential power, and by the necessity of teamwork that goes along with it. Heracross with poor support has really plagued shoddy and as a result its usage has steadily decreased over time, but with the right help, he's a pokemon to clearly be feared due to his raw power and coverage. So naturally, he was the first pokemon I chose for my Team.
Heracross plays interestingly depending on how you roll with him, so I felt like effectively choosing a set was the first step to success with the team. I wanted flame orb for the immediate Guts boost and didn't want to run choice because there are so many better options. I also wanted substitute, which I felt would help me eliminate some of heracross's checks, so I went for a simple sub + 3 attacks set.
Heracross @ Flame Orb
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
-Substitue
-Megahorn
-Close Combat
-Stone Edge
I maxxed out my HP in this case because I wanted stronger Subs so I could set up more easily on choiced resisted attacks, paricularly behind screens. The essential problem here is that I simply run out of HP very quickly due to burn, sandstorm and subs; almost any attack will OHKO after a single sub is broken. Therefore I'll need all the help getting KO's that I can get, which means I want spikes, rocks and screens, and status support where possible.
Uxie was my second natural choice, I haven't considered anyone else for the role. Dual screens and psychic pursuit bait is just an amazing combo and is too hard to pass up. Since heracross can easily sub up and ohko pursuit-locked T-tars looking for some scmookuns, he was the man for the job.
Uxie @ Light Clay
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
-Reflect
-Light Screen
-Thunder Wave
-Momento
Uxie here has a lot riding on his shoulders. I always set up refect first turn, and then usually thunder wave something and switch out to scout their team while not taking much damage. Timing is everything. Momento helps prevent Mence from setting up on me and allows me to get some easy kills on my enemies. Really there's not much to say, but oftentimes heracross finds himself setting up on a paralyzed physical attacker behind a reflect.
So now I'm in a stable spot. I've got my sweeping setup core, now I need a second core of pokemon that sets up hazards, shuffles well and weakens threats. I have several pokemon in mind;
Tentacruel, Blissey, Skarmory, Scizor, Flygon, Umbreon, Heatran, Forretress, Swampert, Rotom and Gliscor all apear to stand out.
Spikes is a priority for me, and I'd like to avoid toxic spikes so that I can abuse other status moves. That leads me to skarmory and forretress, and of the two I select forretress for its stronger movepool and fewer weakness.
Forretress @ Leftovers
Relaxed | Sturdy
252 HP / 112 attack / 144 Def
-Spikes
-Payback
-Gyro Ball
-Rapid Spin
In general people see Forretress as setup bait, so first turn in I'll throw a Gyro Ball hoping to catch a Salamence, Gengar or Infernape for a chunk. Payback is an all-around useful attack on this guy as well, hitting a lot of pokemon super-effective that would switch in, but the combiation leaves this forretress as fodder for lucario and SD Scizor, and to a lesser extent Gyarados. Otherwise my goal is to force a few switches and rack up rocks damage.
Now, at this point I'm looking for a bulky, consistent stealth rock lead. Heatran and swampert fit the bill, and Swampert feels all-around better in the lead position. Roar is important for this team as well, allowing me to phaze most sweepers before they get to steamrollin me team, even if its only once, and rack up hazard damage. Ill need a spin blocker as well, and for this, after strongly considering Rotom, I'll be using spiritomb. With one last slot to fill, I need a strong supporter that can revenge non-specific threats, come in on a variety of attacks and deal effective damage while staying healthy, so I'm leaning towards scarf flygon.
So the team right now is, Swampert, Spiritomb, Forretress, Flygon, Uxie, Heracross. Ugliest team I ever did make, haha. After some testing, I decided it was good to lead spiritomb over swampert, to save swampert for later and because swampy can't handle fast taunt leads and get rocks up, plus spiritomb handles machamp and azelf beautifully.
Spiritomb @ leftovers
Careful | Pressure
252 HP / 180 Atk / 76 SDef
-Sucker Punch
-Will-o-Wisp
-Shadow Ball
-Pain Split
Spiritomb is used over rotom/dusknoir as my lead for several reasons. First off all, as a lead it isn't pursuit weak and has an effective priority attack. It also avoids Azelf's psychic, is slower than machamp (50 BP Payback does next to nothing, helps w/ pain split). I really wanted will-o-wisp on the team, and the most important thing this guy does is come in later and sucker punch weakened attackers and block spins. Sucker Punch is such a good answer to revenge or force switches from frailer sweepers. Pain split keeps on giving late into the game, allowing tomb a lot of free chances to re-up on HP.
Swampert @ Leftovers
Relaxed / Torrent
252 HP / 128 SDef / 128 Def / 4 Spd
-Stealth Rock
-Roar
-Earthquake
-Ice Beam
A fairly average bulky water pokemon whose main job is to check heatran, set up early rocks, and take hits. Ice beam at good health allows me to revenge +1 outragers, earthquake because its a damn good move with stab. Swampert also serves as an answer to scizor looking to finish stuff off with buller punches, electric attackers without grass backup, and a sponge for general neutral attacks. Mostly just there to live for a while and can cause several pokemon to switch while taking fire type attacks aimed at forretress and heracross.
Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Jolly / Levitate
252 Atk / 252 Speed / 4 HP
-U-turn
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Fire Blast
This cute little bugger is the final piece of the puzzle, designed to pick off weakened pokemon and wear down the opposing team with repeated U-Turns. Jolly allows me to revenge +1 Adamant Mence after a DD, and any scarfed neutral natured pokemon around the same speed, though I'd love a bit more power i cant afford to risk flygon to a speed tie.
Earthquake forces switches from Jirachi, Heatran and others, and Fire Blast gives me a special attack to burn through scizor, bronzong, forretress, metagross and others. 90% percent of the time its U-turn time, though, often forcing a switch to protect a pokemon, resulting in more residual damage. Flygon also functions as a solid backup sweeper after priority users are eliminated, even at low health Outrages or Earthquakes can ruin a weakened team.
----
So there's my team so far. Right now I'm really suffering from a lack of offense as a consistent problem; Flygon and Heracross have trouble finishing off 3-4 pokes without some superior prediction, and swampert rarely does much damage that's not residual. Spiritomb has been really successful for its purpose, but Forretress rarely gets more than 1 layer of spikes. I've considered combining the two into Skarmory and using an aggresive, bulky wallbreaker like Infernape or rosting Mencein the last slot.
That said, when it works, it works amazingly. Heracross behind a sub and dual screens can run over anything slower than it or paralyzed, but the team needs some tweaking to make it more consistant. Spiritomb has come back and swept with sucker punch, Forretress has won me games with a 22-HP gyro ball into flygon sweep, and uxie does ok but could I wish momento didn't kill him.
Anywho, thanks for the rate and sorry bout the formatting, I'm on my phone. I'm open to testing any suggestions you guys have.
Heracross plays interestingly depending on how you roll with him, so I felt like effectively choosing a set was the first step to success with the team. I wanted flame orb for the immediate Guts boost and didn't want to run choice because there are so many better options. I also wanted substitute, which I felt would help me eliminate some of heracross's checks, so I went for a simple sub + 3 attacks set.
Heracross @ Flame Orb
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
-Substitue
-Megahorn
-Close Combat
-Stone Edge
I maxxed out my HP in this case because I wanted stronger Subs so I could set up more easily on choiced resisted attacks, paricularly behind screens. The essential problem here is that I simply run out of HP very quickly due to burn, sandstorm and subs; almost any attack will OHKO after a single sub is broken. Therefore I'll need all the help getting KO's that I can get, which means I want spikes, rocks and screens, and status support where possible.
Uxie was my second natural choice, I haven't considered anyone else for the role. Dual screens and psychic pursuit bait is just an amazing combo and is too hard to pass up. Since heracross can easily sub up and ohko pursuit-locked T-tars looking for some scmookuns, he was the man for the job.
Uxie @ Light Clay
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
-Reflect
-Light Screen
-Thunder Wave
-Momento
Uxie here has a lot riding on his shoulders. I always set up refect first turn, and then usually thunder wave something and switch out to scout their team while not taking much damage. Timing is everything. Momento helps prevent Mence from setting up on me and allows me to get some easy kills on my enemies. Really there's not much to say, but oftentimes heracross finds himself setting up on a paralyzed physical attacker behind a reflect.
So now I'm in a stable spot. I've got my sweeping setup core, now I need a second core of pokemon that sets up hazards, shuffles well and weakens threats. I have several pokemon in mind;
Tentacruel, Blissey, Skarmory, Scizor, Flygon, Umbreon, Heatran, Forretress, Swampert, Rotom and Gliscor all apear to stand out.
Spikes is a priority for me, and I'd like to avoid toxic spikes so that I can abuse other status moves. That leads me to skarmory and forretress, and of the two I select forretress for its stronger movepool and fewer weakness.
Forretress @ Leftovers
Relaxed | Sturdy
252 HP / 112 attack / 144 Def
-Spikes
-Payback
-Gyro Ball
-Rapid Spin
In general people see Forretress as setup bait, so first turn in I'll throw a Gyro Ball hoping to catch a Salamence, Gengar or Infernape for a chunk. Payback is an all-around useful attack on this guy as well, hitting a lot of pokemon super-effective that would switch in, but the combiation leaves this forretress as fodder for lucario and SD Scizor, and to a lesser extent Gyarados. Otherwise my goal is to force a few switches and rack up rocks damage.
Now, at this point I'm looking for a bulky, consistent stealth rock lead. Heatran and swampert fit the bill, and Swampert feels all-around better in the lead position. Roar is important for this team as well, allowing me to phaze most sweepers before they get to steamrollin me team, even if its only once, and rack up hazard damage. Ill need a spin blocker as well, and for this, after strongly considering Rotom, I'll be using spiritomb. With one last slot to fill, I need a strong supporter that can revenge non-specific threats, come in on a variety of attacks and deal effective damage while staying healthy, so I'm leaning towards scarf flygon.
So the team right now is, Swampert, Spiritomb, Forretress, Flygon, Uxie, Heracross. Ugliest team I ever did make, haha. After some testing, I decided it was good to lead spiritomb over swampert, to save swampert for later and because swampy can't handle fast taunt leads and get rocks up, plus spiritomb handles machamp and azelf beautifully.
Spiritomb @ leftovers
Careful | Pressure
252 HP / 180 Atk / 76 SDef
-Sucker Punch
-Will-o-Wisp
-Shadow Ball
-Pain Split
Spiritomb is used over rotom/dusknoir as my lead for several reasons. First off all, as a lead it isn't pursuit weak and has an effective priority attack. It also avoids Azelf's psychic, is slower than machamp (50 BP Payback does next to nothing, helps w/ pain split). I really wanted will-o-wisp on the team, and the most important thing this guy does is come in later and sucker punch weakened attackers and block spins. Sucker Punch is such a good answer to revenge or force switches from frailer sweepers. Pain split keeps on giving late into the game, allowing tomb a lot of free chances to re-up on HP.
Swampert @ Leftovers
Relaxed / Torrent
252 HP / 128 SDef / 128 Def / 4 Spd
-Stealth Rock
-Roar
-Earthquake
-Ice Beam
A fairly average bulky water pokemon whose main job is to check heatran, set up early rocks, and take hits. Ice beam at good health allows me to revenge +1 outragers, earthquake because its a damn good move with stab. Swampert also serves as an answer to scizor looking to finish stuff off with buller punches, electric attackers without grass backup, and a sponge for general neutral attacks. Mostly just there to live for a while and can cause several pokemon to switch while taking fire type attacks aimed at forretress and heracross.
Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Jolly / Levitate
252 Atk / 252 Speed / 4 HP
-U-turn
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Fire Blast
This cute little bugger is the final piece of the puzzle, designed to pick off weakened pokemon and wear down the opposing team with repeated U-Turns. Jolly allows me to revenge +1 Adamant Mence after a DD, and any scarfed neutral natured pokemon around the same speed, though I'd love a bit more power i cant afford to risk flygon to a speed tie.
Earthquake forces switches from Jirachi, Heatran and others, and Fire Blast gives me a special attack to burn through scizor, bronzong, forretress, metagross and others. 90% percent of the time its U-turn time, though, often forcing a switch to protect a pokemon, resulting in more residual damage. Flygon also functions as a solid backup sweeper after priority users are eliminated, even at low health Outrages or Earthquakes can ruin a weakened team.
----
So there's my team so far. Right now I'm really suffering from a lack of offense as a consistent problem; Flygon and Heracross have trouble finishing off 3-4 pokes without some superior prediction, and swampert rarely does much damage that's not residual. Spiritomb has been really successful for its purpose, but Forretress rarely gets more than 1 layer of spikes. I've considered combining the two into Skarmory and using an aggresive, bulky wallbreaker like Infernape or rosting Mencein the last slot.
That said, when it works, it works amazingly. Heracross behind a sub and dual screens can run over anything slower than it or paralyzed, but the team needs some tweaking to make it more consistant. Spiritomb has come back and swept with sucker punch, Forretress has won me games with a 22-HP gyro ball into flygon sweep, and uxie does ok but could I wish momento didn't kill him.
Anywho, thanks for the rate and sorry bout the formatting, I'm on my phone. I'm open to testing any suggestions you guys have.