The Best of Clear Skies

[InfernoJesus]

The Best of Clear Skies
InfernoJesus​

Introduction
I've never really been a big fan of weather teams, mostly because I played a lot of 4th gen Wifi and I hated having to see weather animations every turn. Anyway, I took what I found to be the most universally good pokemon that don't rely on weather and have good offensive synergy and put together a team. Any criticisms or suggestions are greatly appreciated, as I feel a few tweaks could make my team top-of-the-leaderboard worthy.

The Team

Thundurus (M) @ Leftovers Life Orb
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power (Ice)
- Nasty Plot Taunt
- Focus Blast

My late-game sweeper. He cleans up whatever's left after my team is done its job. I put him first in the party, as it's usually pretty easy to tell which of my opponent's pokemon he'll use to counter it and I can just swap in my own counter to that. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a whole lot of use for him. Usually just ends up as an alternative check gliscor or excadrill after rotom-w or my own gliscor are down respectively. Also gets a few surprise kills on tyranitars. I almost never use nasty plot so I might switch it out for an attack and run expert belt or something.

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 224 SDef / 32 Spd
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Iron Head
- Body Slam
- Wish
- Stealth Rock

My Stealth Rock user. Jirachi is an unpredictable little guy. He's got such balanced stats and such a great movepool that noone really knows quite how to deal with him until they scout his set. Wish and stealth rock support, and a surprisingly strong para-flinch combo lets me come in to sponge most neutral special attacks early-game and retaliate with a body-slam or support move. This thing beats blissey every time. Body slam over t-wave for the chance to paralyze gliscor (before toxic orb is activated) or excadrill on the switch-in. I've gotten many an insult thrown at me for using this guy.

Scizor (F) @ Choice Band Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- Quick Attack Bug Bite
- U-turn Swords Dance
- Pursuit Roost

The best CB user in OU by far. I'm sure you know all about this girl by now. Revenge kill with STAB, technician-boosted bullet punch, scout with u-turn, kill quite a few threats with pursuit (starmie, gengar, latios, latias, and reuniclus to name a few), and quick attack to OHKO volcarona after stealth rock damage. I used to run superpower, but the only use it got was on predicted heatran switch-ins and I had more trouble with volcaronas. On blissey/chansey I virtually always u-turn to deal with their switch-in or to go to gliscor and wall them. Reuniclus is an absolute monster of a pokemon and scizor checks him hard. Without a scarfer, the priority is key and dual-scouting with rotom-w is quite effective as they cover each other's weaknesses and provide great coverage with each other.

Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 128 HP / 252 SAtk / 128 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch Pain Split
- Thunderbolt
- Will-O-Wisp

This guy counters swords-dance gliscor 100%. Almost every SD gliscor I've seen runs EQ and ice fang and this guy has levitate and can take +6 ice fangs all day. Threatens out with hydro pump and uses volt switch or will-o-wisp to check/cripple whatever comes in. Can be a defensive semi-wall, a sweeper, or a scout. With the right prediction, this guy can cause massive amounts of havok to entire teams. Also a great help against rain teams with water/electric STABs for obvious reasons.

Latios (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Hidden Power (Fire)
- Trick

Fastest dragon in the game, can effectively check any other non-scarfed dragon that isn't behind a sub. Draco Meteor can even OHKO some of the more offensive Multi-Scale Dragonites. It deals a fair amount of damage to pretty much anything that comes in, steel-types included. HP fire for ferrothorn and scizor, as it's the only fire-type move I have on my team. Trick for chansey/blissey and ferrothorn that has already seen HP fire (if they switch something in, it still gets crippled).

Gliscor (F) @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang Toxic
- Swords Dance Substitute
- Protect

Gliscor walls a ridiculous amount of pokemon in OU this gen. Protect lets her heal up pretty reliably, as well as scout scarfed special attackers. She sets up all day on walls that rely on status and beats jellicent, conkeldurr, scrafty, excadrill, and many, many others. Opponents' Rotom-ws flat-out beat this set, but the rest of my team handle him very well. Starmie gets scouted for ice beam, scizor gets brought in and OHKOs starmie with pursuit. Heatran without balloon gets OHKOd by earthquake and can usually only do around 75% with Fire Blast. With balloon, I have to switch out to rotom-w or latios to check him. This girl is probably the MVP of my team.

 

[InfernoJesus]

Thinking about swapping thundurus with nasty plot lucario for slightly better offensive synergy and priority. Not quite sure how this will change things for my team.

 

[Rakan]

I would recommend switching Lefties for Life Orb on Thundurus due to the fact that its so frail and Lefties won't help it much anyways. The power boost is very nice I might add. Quick Attack is ridiculously weak on Scizor as it isn't STABed and won't do much damage to anything really... Superpower is the way to go as you are walled by Steels otherwise. On Rotom-W, Volt Switch isn't all that powerful without Choice Specs due to its low base power, so I would put Hidden Power Fire there to 2HKO those pesky Ferrothorn. So anyways, just a few suggestions and GL

 

[InfernoJesus]

I would recommend switching Lefties for Life Orb on Thundurus due to the fact that its so frail and Lefties won't help it much anyways. The power boost is very nice I might add. Quick Attack is ridiculously weak on Scizor as it isn't STABed and won't do much damage to anything really... Superpower is the way to go as you are walled by Steels otherwise. On Rotom-W, Volt Switch isn't all that powerful without Choice Specs due to its low base power, so I would put Hidden Power Fire there to 2HKO those pesky Ferrothorn. So anyways, just a few suggestions and GL

Thanks, I'll swap volt switch for hp fire on rotom and lefties for life orb on thundurus. Still considering lucario over thundurus but having 3 steel-types seems kinda iffy. Swapping nasty plot for dark pulse on thundurus and at the moment and I'm keeping quick attack for volcarona who otherwise sweeps my team.

 

[Eternal]

Actually, I don't know why you would replace Nasty Plot for Dark Pulse. Nasty Plot is a much better option. It will make sweeping much more easier. Especially when used with Life Orb.

For Rotom-W, I would replace Hidden Power Fire for Pain Split. Preserving Rotom-W's HP is very important. While you already have WoW to cripple Ferrothorns and Scizors, rendering them useless. No need for both WoW and HP Fire.

If you need more help and tips for your teams, you can should come over to the #ratemyteam channel. We're always there to help.

 

[awyp]

Hey InfernoJesus, pretty cool name and nice team, but I feel it can improve a little more so here we go.

If you're leading with Thundrus and Nasty plot isn't working for you, you might want to use it's ability "Prankster" as an advantage, Dark pulse isn't necessary since on most Dark-weak Pokemon it won't make that much of a difference especially on fragile Pokemons. So what I have came up to have a solution for this is Taunt if people want to get Stealth Rock up away you want to get Stealth Rock up away you might want to have this in one of your moves just to have the advantage and using your ability the plus can be used greatly for Deoxys speed, just ones of the many examples that can outspeed and be used as a suicide lead.

As a user said above on Rotom-W you don't really need Hidden Power fire since it makes you look very paranoid towards Ferrothorn, don't worry if you already have Hidden Power Fire on Latios it's fine you don't need any more. Will-O-Wisp will cripple it by time. Pain Split can be used well by gaining HP to protect yourself from Rain Dance team, which is possible to make a dent on your team. Something I've also noticed is that you have a Choice band Scizor, which isn't that popular in Gen 5 as it's Sword Dance counterpart so you might want to try Swords Dance since it's successful unlike just adding SR/Spikes damage and continue CB Uturning on many things in the common metagame that rule Gen 5, Skarmory, Gliscor, Jellicant, etc. So you might want to try the Swords Dance set which I feel will fit you late ingame.

Scizor (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Nature: Adamant
- Bullet Punch
- Roost
- Bug Bite
- Swords Dance

And for Scizor you might want to try the really annoying set which can get on peoples nerves unlike the one you currently have since it'll get out sped by a lot of things and it's uncommon to pull of a sweep so I feel it's a waste in the moveset so try out Protect, Earthquake, Toxic, Substitute. By that time, you'll just be stalling out a Pokemon with Protect easily and gaining the same amount of HP if you've subbed, so Substitute and protect again, very cheap and successful in my usage and other players.

Good luck in the future, and hope you do well.

 

[Eternal]

With that Volcarona weakness, you may also want to replace Jirachi with Chansey. Chansey can also set up Stealth Rocks. Your team doesn't really need Wish support much since you already have a lot of Pokemon that can recover pretty easily (i.e. Gliscor with Poison Heal and Protect, Rotom-W with Pain Split). Chansey is also much more bulkier. It will not only help you with your Volcarona weakness, but with other weaknesses like Thundurus, Rotom-W (Chansey has Natural Cure, so you can use it to take Will-o-wisp), Trick Room Reuniclus, etc.

Chansey @ Eviolite -- Natural Cure
Nature: Bold - EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
- Seismic Toss
- Thunder Wave
- Softboiled
- Stealth Rock

 

[InfernoJesus]

Took the advice and swapped dark pulse for taunt, CB scizor for SD scizor, hp fire for pain split, and SD gliscor for toxic sub gliscor. I'll swap out thundurus for lucario and jirachi for chansey after some testing with these guys.

Thanks a lot!