SS OU Triple Steel Core bulky offense

[Fenghuang]

• Introduction

This is a team that I've been building over the course of the past two and a half weeks. It uses three bulky steel types with lots of resistances and few overlapping weaknesses to force switches, which it can punish well. I peaked at about 1600 with it, but with some more skill and game knowledge I should be able to break 1700 with it.

• The Team

Tapu Koko @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Dazzling Gleam
- U-turn
- Defog

Tapu Koko is almost always going to be your lead. It's got the speed and power to check common threats like Weavile, Urshifu-s, and Tapu Fini as well as damaged Lando, Garchomp, and Dragonite. None of these mons are impossible to deal with when Koko is gone, but all become much easier to position around with a fast u-turn and the threat of STAB Dazzling Gleam and STAB terrain-boosted Tbold. And speaking of positioning, Koko is an excellent pivot, with fast u-turn and defog for hazard removal. Tapu Koko is also an integral part of another mon's strategy:

Celesteela @ Electric Seed
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 152 HP / 128 Atk / 228 SpD
Brave Nature
- Acrobatics
- Leech Seed
- Toxic
- Substitute

Celesteela is bulky. Very bulky. With seed and SpD investment, Celesteela can take hits like nothing. You'll be shocked at what it can survive. This thing has taken heat waves from Zapdos and Tornadus while below half health. It can take anything from Band Kartana. And with a 297 base attack 110 base power STAB Acrobatics, it can return the punishment. Beast Boosted Attack helps it pick up momentum, and toxic helps it kill anything that survives leech seed/acrobatics, such as Blissey. I tried running flame charge to counter Magnezone and Ferrothorn, but it only actually helps after a beast boost, which isn't even guaranteed because leech seed kills don't count for beast boost. I've tried Corviknight in this slot, but Celesteela's superior bulk and general unpredictability seems more useful than bulk up, u-turn or defog.

Heatran @ Choice Specs
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Eruption
- Flash Cannon
- Dark Pulse
- Earth Power

This mon has four moves, but make no mistake: Choice Specs Eruption is the star of the show. Earth Power is also very useful for checking opposing Heatran and Pex, Dark Pulse is often necessary when you have to kill a Dragapult and your other counters are dead, and Flash Cannon is good STAB. But 150 base power 394 Special Attack Specs-Boosted STAB is insane. This thing kills Slowbro in two hits. I've killed Leftovers Blissey in two hits. It kill Toxipex in two hits. Switch Heatran in on Melmetal or Magnezone or Ferrothorn and watch the opponent piss their pants. Offensive Lando-T dies in one hit to this monster, and Defensive Lando-T is severely crippled. It also cures the teams otherwise-allergy to fire, which is very nice. I've gone back and forth between Modest and Timid, the latter being very nice for checking opposing max-speed Heatrans, but the ability to output more firepower has, on average, proven to be more useful.

Landorus-Therian @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 8 SpD / 248 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Explosion
- Swords Dance

The latecoming star to my team. I went through a lot of variations for this slot, from Volcarona to Hippowdon to Toxipex, but offensive Lando turned out to be the best option. Checking opposing Heatran with a guaranteed-outspeed ground attack is very nice. Explosion is a neat gimmick, a surprise attack to take out the opposing Lando, which often ends in a sweep as they struggle to deal with the rest of your team without it. Swords Dance lets you kill physically defensive Lando-T from full health, but Toxic also works on that move slot. A great pivot alongside Tapu Koko, the two of them together give the team a lot of maneuverability.

Ferrothorn @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 148 HP / 96 Atk / 132 Def / 132 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Body Press

This is another slot that has changed around somewhat, but the ground neutrality and power of mixed-defense bulky sweeper Ferro is too useful to pass up. A safe switch-in to Tapu Fini, but more importantly hard-counters Kartana, which otherwise poses a bit of a sweeping threat. A +1 banded Kartana always 2HKOs, and barbs + helmet + body press is enough to take it out. Rocks are a very nice asset in switch-heavy matches, which happen with regularity on this team.

Weavile @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Triple Axel
- Ice Shard
- Low Kick

A pretty standard revenge-killing Weavile that patches up holes in the team quite nicely. I've played around with the item a bit, but HDB have been useful more often than I expected, and being choiced is too cumbersome to be worth either more speed or more power.

• Conclusions and Cautions.

This team can, with good switching, very frequently put the opponent in a lose-lose situation where switching and staying in are both bad options. In particular, leading with Tapu Koko and u-turning on Lando into Celesteela is really strong, and difficult for most teams to counter with taking holes. Celesteela is also a great switch-in on Weavile, Garchomp, and bulkies such as Blissey and Pex. However, teams with lots of strong ground attacks and Heatran can often place you in 50/50 situations where you either read correctly with your Heatran and win and or you don't and you lose. When the opponent has Magnezone, you have to be very careful how you play your steel types, and it can often make ordinarily easy choices very difficult.

 

[Colin]

I'm not an official rater nor a high ranked player, but I have a few suggestions and critiques.

My easiest suggestion is that you change your Heatran set to an offensive air balloon set (moveset is magma storm + earth power + eruption / misc offensive move + stealth rock / misc offensive move with the same spread and nature as yours. Balloon Heatran is both an amazing thread and the best stealth rock setter rn, losing only to Rotom-Wash and the random odd defog dragon/water with the provision you maintain air balloon for Lando. it also allows you to fit spikes on Ferrothorn, and alleviates your rough Heatran matchup.

My other suggestion is with the inference that you want a pivot offense focusing on the core of Tapu Koko and Weavile. This core fits best on either pivot based BO where the tanks you do have either pivot or have offensive power of their own, hazard stack with Ferrothorn, or more rarely a completely offensive pivot strat. your team has difficulty doing any of the above, as it is very difficult for your team to gain momentum w/o a double switch, lacks spikes, and Celesteela and Ferrothorn will always sacrifice momentum when you bring them in. I would suggest restructuring your team with the traditional SpDef Lando while taking out Celesteela and Ferro (if you are not going hazard stack), and replacing them with pivots such as AV tornadus or more aggresive tanks such as AV / lefties Melmetal.