Turn the Tides (Volturn Rain Team)

[Lolyness]

There is a tournament coming in my country so I'm making a team to participate. The thing is: I need some help. I know the game and I consider myself good (not pro, but good)

Here is what I've accomplished with the team:

A quick look at the team:

The members one by one:

Scizor @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Superpower
- U-turn
- Pursuit
- Bullet Punch

I wanted to make a Volturn team so Scizor was an obvious choice for me. Choice Band Scizor its working very good against some of the important threats in OU like Deo-D and T-tar.

Rotom-Wash @ Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SAtk
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Trick
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Rotom-W completes my Volturn strategy going for pure power in a double choiced partnership with Scizor. Trick to annoy stallers that come to sponge him like Blissey or Ferrothorn and HP Grass for the eventual Gastrodon and other Water/Groundies (The tournament will have a lot of unpredictable rookies, so anything may come up)

Politoed @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Hydro Pump
- Focus Blast
- Ice Beam

Politoed comes to provide a much appreciated rain to stop fire attackers like Heatran and Volcarona. Also, being Scarfed it becomes an incredible revenge killer in a lot of situations. Surf and Hydro Pump together are weird (i know it) but sometimes I need to hit, other times I need the power. Could have more coverage with HP Grass but most pokemon hit by it are bulky enough not to care for it. Vaporeon and Jellicent come to mind.

Magnezone @ Choice Specs
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 SAtk / 144 HP / 112 Spd
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Sleep Talk

This magnezone I got from here so credits go to The Great Mighty Doom. Specs magnezone has all the power in the world. His Volt Switch dents everything that doesn't resist it and HP Fire does over 50% damage to most ferrothorn while under the rain and will leave forretress at 1 HP. The spread also ensures you can survive to +1 Genesect's Flamethrower in rain, even after SR, while taking over 80% of his HP with Volt Switch. Sleep Talk helps countering Breloom as I can absorb the spore and proceed to random one of my 3 attacks. 2 of them 1HKO it and the other takes me away from his reach.

Damage calc against Genesect:
252 +1 SpAtk Life Orb Genesect (+SpAtk) Flamethrower vs 144 HP/0 SpDef Magnezone: 73,19% - 85,8% (2 hits to KO)
252 SpAtk Choice Specs Magnezone (+SpAtk) Hidden Power Fire vs 0 HP/0 SpDef Genesect: 93,29% - 110,25% (56,25% chance to OHKO) - 100% after SR.

Against SpDef Ferrothorn:
252 SpAtk Choice Specs Magnezone (+SpAtk) Hidden Power Fire vs 252 HP/252 SpDef Ferrothorn (+SpDef) : 46,59% - 55,68% (2-3 hits to KO)

Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Trait: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Stealth Rock
- Superpower

Mamoswine its a huge help in a Rain team as thick fat plus a defensive spread ensures he can take any fire attack and laugh at it. He won't counter everything but the ones he does counter are forced to run away, giving me chances to set up SR. All dragons and Jolteon come to mind. Earthquake + Superpower kill those pesty pink bloobs which otherway give me some trouble. Being immune to T-wave also helps.

Dragonite @ Leftovers
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Dragon Tail
- Hurricane
- Roost
- Thunder Wave

The last member of the team and the pillar of everything. Dragonite can even survive +1 Ice Beam from genesect with Multiscale up. I've been in countless games where Dragonite paralyzes everybody becoming an annoying unkillable beast. When Dragonite dies things suck for me. But thankfully, the opportunities for him to come in and roost SR damage to regain multiscale are just enough. Dragon Tail to take away set ups and Hurricane as an obvious choice in a rain team.

Calculation against genesect:
252 +1 SpAtk Life Orb Genesect (+SpAtk) Ice Beam vs 252 HP/255 SpDef Multiscale Dragonite (+SpDef) : 78,24% - 92,23% (2 hits to KO)

Thanks for any help

 

[Jirachee]

Hi

Your team gets absolutely wrecked by entry hazards. Stealth Rock alone is an absolute pain for you to deal with as most of your Pokemon are choiced so they'll switch often, and they don't have recovery, meaning that you take extra damage pretty much every other turn which is fairly... bad. Dragonite takes 25% damage upon switching in, meaning that it won't be very reliable to take special attacks since without multiscale its bulky is fairly... average. Things only get worse with Spikes, as then most of your Pokemon will lose a huge amount of HP when switching, so that'll break your Volturn core pretty quickly. You could try using Starmie over Dragonite to fix that issue. Starmie gets Rapid Spin which removes the entry hazards from your side of the field, and since the only spinblocker than can block it effectively is Specially Defensive Jellicent, you shouldn't have issues getting rid of them against most teams. Volturn teams are very effective when they don't have hazards on their side of the field so your team will be much more efficient that way.

You might wanna use 248 HP on Scizor instead of 252 since it reaches a number where you can switch into Stealth Rock more often. You lose 1 HP which isn't big deal.

I think you should use a different spread on Mamoswine. While HP investment might be cool, Mamoswine usually likes having more Speed; it's often used as a good check to things like Breloom since its priority can outspeed Breloom's and OHKO it. Use a Jolly nature with maximum Speed investment as it allows you to outspeed any Breloom and random things like max Speed Heatran, which are always cool to outspeed and OHKO with Earthquake. Mamoswine isn't very good at taking hits anyway as it doesn't have many useful resists.

Lastly, use a Timid nature on Politoed. Modest might seem like a cool bonus since Choice Scarf already boosts your Speed, however it is not. A Timid nature allows you to outspeed things like +1 Adamant Dragonite, Tornadus-T, and the likes, something that Modest doesn't let you. If you're using Scarf Politoed you're probably using it as a revenge killer meaning that you need all the Speed you can get, otherwise it's a waste of an item if half of OU outspeed you anyway. Timid Politoed is still nearly as powerful as Modest so you won't instantly lack a lot of power.

That's pretty much it, here's the set you should use:

Starmie

Starmie @ Life Orb
Natural Cure
Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
~Hydro Pump
~Thunder
~Ice Beam
~Rapid Spin

You can use a bulkier set if you feel like it dies too fast, however, given the offensive nature of your team I think that this set might be better.

Good luck!

 

[spooky96]

-Too many choice items, which I would never really recommend.
-As you have choice items, you'll switch a lot, I mean Stealth Rock/Spikes won't allow you you much to switch much. So I suggest a Rapid Spinner, Politoed and Starmie would be great Pokemon paired up, well kind of. This will also not let Multiscale of Dragonite get destroyed.
-I'm suggesting you to change your Politoed's nature to Timid as it will further out speed more Pokemon, plus usually you'll be using a Water move, which will already be boosted by the rain. Plus I would say just keep one - Surf or Hydro Pump (Both hid quite hard), and use Hidden Power Grass instead.

 

[Goutland]

4 choice users is quite heavy, I agree that you're going to get wrecked by entry hazards. I imagine stall teams would be a nightmare to face because of this.

One thing I immediately see is that your team is very weak to Keldeo, and Thundurus-T kinda ruins your volt-turning and threatens most of your team if you're not able to get your rocks up early, as ice shard doesn't KO at full.

I also don't really see the point of running Magnezone on this team, as nothing really needs steels gone to function, except maybe Dragonite, but I think the above suggestion of replacing it with Starmie might not be too bad of an idea. Running your own Thundurus might be a better option, as its speed can really help your volt-turn core by actually forcing a lot of things out. HO teams won't really be phased by slow volt-turning, as they often won't even be pressured to switch.

I don't think you need 4 choice users, and especially not 2 specs users that fill almost redundant roles, so I'd probably unchoice Rotom and Politoed in favor of more defensive sets, maybe physically defensive Politoed and specially defensive Rotom as bulky pivots. If you do decide to run Thundurus, I would scarf it, as it can revenge a lot of the things Politoed can with a better speed tier, while being a great offensive pivot. The LO Starmie set above can provide your fast rain boosted water spam, so scarf Toed doesn't seem as necessary.