UU Hyper Offensive Team

[PTJon7]

The Team

A little while ago I threw together some random offensive pokemon for a casual battle against a friend. I enjoyed using the team so much that I decided to start laddering with it. After gradually making improvements to the team I resulted with the team I have now, and I'm extremely happy with it. The team is completely offensively based, and is the most successful team I've made. Here it is:

Arcanine

Item: Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature

• Close Combat

• Flare Blitz

• Extreme Speed

• Crunch

Arcanine has become one of my favorite physical attackers in the tier. Intimidate is always useful to have, as it will force a lot of switches on Arcanine. It also gives Arcanine the ability to switch in on hits much easier than the rest of the team. But switching in, stealth rock damage, and various forms of recoil usually mean that it will often be easily taken out. This is ok most of the time however, as Arcanine can do a lot of work in a short amount of time. Extreme speed is the most used of Arcanine's moves, for obvious reasons. Crunch sees little use, Wild Charge may be a better option.​

Medicham

Item: Life Orb
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 176 Spd
Adamant Nature

• Drain Punch

• Bullet Punch

• Thunder Punch

• Ice Punch

Medicham may seem like an odd choice in general, but I've found that this set can be extremely effective. The elemental punches give Medicham great coverage, and most importantly, the ability to take out a lot of walls that would other wise bother this team (bulky water-types, and Gligar). Drain punch is a very powerful stab, and helps regain health from the life orb recoil. Bullet punch gives this team another priority attack, which is always useful. In general bullet punch isn't used much, but it is still useful to have around. The given speed EVs are enough to out-speed any regular wall, and Medicham's impressive attack enables it to 2HKO any wall in the tier. Medicham can absolutely thrash slow teams, but is unable to take any powerful neutral hits. I usually keep Medicham out of the way of fast threats, and wait for a good time to let it take down a wall or two.​

Nidoqueen

Item: Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 96 HP / 252 SAtk / 160 Spd
Modest Nature

• Earth Power

• Flamethrower

• Thunderbolt

• Stealth Rock

Nidoqueen is usually my lead, as it can handle a lot of common leads and set up rocks. In general Nidoqueen is the first team member that dies, due to her usually being at around or below half health after setting up rocks. If Nidoqueen does stick around however, she is great for taking fighting type or bug type attacks that can cause the rest of the team problems.​

Zoroark

Item: Life Orb
Ability: Illusion
EVs: 52 Atk / 204 SAtk / 252 Spd
Hasty Nature

• Dark Pulse

• Flamethrower

• Hidden Power (Fighting)

• Sucker Punch

Zoroark is often not a huge factor in most battles, but can often net a KO with the help of Illusion. Zoroark is also useful to take out bulky ghosts, as it won't mind getting burned or hit with ghost type attacks. Often the most useful thing about Zoroark is Sucker Punch, which a lot of people don't expect to come from a special attacker. Zoroark does have the problem of being easily revenge killed, especially by fighting types. I often wonder if Extresensory would be worth it, I think it could possibly replace flamethrower.​

Sharpedo

Item: Life Orb
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamanant Nature

• Protect

• Waterfall

• Crunch

• Earthquake

Sharpedo is my most recent change to the team, and in general it gives me mixed feelings. On one hand I can sweep entire teams as long as they're weak to his attacks, but neutral attacks will most likely not manage to KO anything at all, and due to Sharpedo's terrible defenses it will most likely die. It can function well as a clean up sweeper however, outspeeding and then taking out weakened pokemon. Of all the pokemon on my team this is the one I'd be most willing to change.​

Flygon

Item: Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature

• Outrage

• Earthquake

• U-Turn

• Fire Punch

This is a plain old standard Flygon build, and I like it a whole lot. Most of the time I use it to gain momentum with U-Turn or clean up in the end of a game with Outrage. Having such a fast scarfed pokemon is very useful, the only thing that really threatens it is another Jolly Flygon, or scarfed Meinshao. I almost always keep Flygon around in a battle, as most of the time it outspeeds everything on another person's team. Fire Punch is almost never used though, and I wonder if there's a better move to have there.​

Well, that's my team. I'd love any input on it, I'm open to any criticism or changes that people think will help it out. Thanks!

 

[Osharlock]

May I suggest cutting down on the life orbs? For example, Medicham may benefit from an Expert Belt due to the amount of weaknesses it covers. Also, a choice banded flare blitz from an Arcanine will hurt A LOT. But then again, those are just my initial thoughts :D I like how hyper offensive it is, but the moment you get someone faster then you or someone who can take a hit and strike back, you're in trouble. Hyper offensive or not, you need something bulky.

 

[PTJon7]

May I suggest cutting down on the life orbs? For example, Medicham may benefit from an Expert Belt due to the amount of weaknesses it covers. Also, a choice banded flare blitz from an Arcanine will hurt A LOT. But then again, those are just my initial thoughts :D I like how hyper offensive it is, but the moment you get someone faster then you or someone who can take a hit and strike back, you're in trouble. Hyper offensive or not, you need something bulky.

Hey thanks for the quick reply! Yea the abundance of Life Orbs is a thing I noticed recently. Medicham probably could do fine with an expert belt, and since I wouldn't have to worry about life orb recoil I'd feel more comfortable using High Jump Kick over Drain Punch. Did you have anything in mind when you said something more bulky? Because I often find scarfed Meinshao is a big threat to my team.

 

[Osharlock]

No problem, and exactly! Well, obviously if a scarfed Meinshao is a problem to your team, you'll want something bulky that can either resist or avoid fighting all together. If you're just trying to tackle Meinshao, may I suggest...

Crobat
Nature: Jolly
EV's: 176 HP, 136 SpE, 98 ATT, 98 Def
Item: Black Sludge
Moveset:
-Roost
-Taunt
-Brave Bird
-U-Turn

This set will provide Crobat with some power yet focus mainly on it's bulk, and since it has a 4x resistance to fighting it would benefit greatly when defending against Meinshao. If need be, you could put Protect on instead of U-Turn to stop those pesky Thunder or Ice moves, or to scout what is happening, or to stop those whom are foolish enough to use Hi Jump Kick - But Super Fang is also just as good for breaking walls (In case your hyper offensive pokes can't handle it). Generally it's bulk will hopefully prevent physical super effective moves from OHKOing it, giving you chance to either Roost or U-turn, but when against a special pokemon you should either U-Turn or switch all together.

I would generally swap this pokemon with either Sharpedo or Zororak, but out of the two I would say Zoroak due to Sharpedo having more coverage. Zoroak is also incredibly frail, and even though I wouldn't have life orb on it in the first place (personally), since it is holding one it becomes even more death fodder. However, if you're someone who is able to pull off successful mind games with your opponent, keep Zoroak and bin Sharpedo instead.

Hope this was helpful, if you need any more help just ask!

 

[PTJon7]

Crobat sounds like a great idea, thanks! In your opinion what do you think it should replace? I'm thinking Sharpedo, but I'm not sure.

 

[Osharlock]

I would honestly say Zororak due to how many people catch on with it's mind games because of it's limited move-set and also how frail it is - It can die to a pebble, and with the combined damage from life orb it just isn't worth it. Sharpedo is your best bet (In my opinion). If you would like to test your team out, PM me, and I'll throw together a UU team and we can try it out on Pokemon Showdown if you like.

 

[cim]

disclaimer: i don't have the mental capacity right now to rate your whole team's ability to respond to threats, so i'll just make suggestions for your movesets.

that medicham set is terrible. medicham is never taking hits, don't delude yourself into thinking this is a pokemon that needs to recover HP. medicham is too slow to sweep and too wimpy to take hits, so the best you can do in UU is hit hard fast. HJK over Drain Punch, and get rid of Bullet Punch. The entire reason to use Medicham over any other Fighting type in UU is to get simeltaneous coverage of ghost types, gligar, and everything already affected by Fighting STAB. Psycho Cut -> Bullet Punch.

Those HP EVs are worthless. Max Speed so you beat Honchkrow and tie Chandelure (HP Fighting Chandelure loses the tie every time).

Why are you running Thunderbolt on Nidoqueen? A Sheer Force and STAB Earthquake does almost as much and by not running an ice move you're walled by Gligar of all Pokemon! Other Pokemon like Zapdos also wall you. Ice Beam -> Tbolt

What is Sucker Punch even for on Zoroark? What can it beat that isn't beaten by your myriad of other priority and Choice Scarf users? Not much!

Have you put any thought into what you will do when various threatening Pokemon come in? If you don't want to, start with Crobat, since it covers so many threats in one Pokemon you won't have to think as hard about many matchups. Then, make sure the top tier (S and A tier Pokemon) are at least all checked by something on your team. "Heavy Offense" doesn't mean "pick six good attackers".

 

[PTJon7]

Hey Cim thanks for the reply.

Yea I've already changed the Medicham to have an expert belt and high jump kick, but I'll try psycho cut on it as well.

I run t-bolt over ice beam because I find that bulky water types are more commonly brought in on Nidoqueen, I guess you have a point about zapdos and gligar though, so I'll try out ice beam.

I actually think sucker punch works really well with Zoroark. It can easily finish off weakened threats that may be choice locked or not expecting a sucker punch coming their way.

I'll definitely look at the viability ranking soon and do a big evaluation of my team. I've managed to get into the top 80 on the ladder, but I'm having trouble getting past there and have dropped a fair amount.