SS UU UU Team

[sushiyuki]

Hello, this is my first post so I apologize if there are any spelling/formatting mistakes.

THE TEAM: https://pokepast.es/d816589421d96d26

Firstly, the lead Krookodile. His main goal is to taunt and set rocks, and also kill the other player’s lead if possible, or just chip some damage and remove its item with Knock Off. Intimidate is also useful if the other player leads with an offensive mon. For it to be able to deal some damage and also be fast, I gave him 252 evs in Atk and Spe. I wasn’t sure where to add the other 4, so I added them to SpD.

Then, Salamence. It has some sweeping potential with its moxie ability, plus dragon dance to add some speed and also gain attack. The EVS are the ones you’d expect for a physical attacker, 252 Spe and Atk. Outrage is an extremely powerful stab move, dual wingbeat is capable of killing pokémon holding focus sash, and earthquake is a great move overall.

One of Salamence’s main weaknesses is ice, which is countered by Nihilego, with its extremely powerful Power Herb meteor beam, plus its Beast Boost ability, also capable of snowballing. Grass Knot helps against ground pokémon who deal 4x against it, thunderbolt and sludge wave help for coverage. The EVs are useful for speed and dealing lots of damage.

Another way of countering ground is switching in with Rotom-W, who has levitate and the water type. Having defog in order to remove hazards if necessary (I’m not sure if defog is a good move, should I change it?), volt switch to keep momentum and toxic for the damage. Hydro Pump is also an incredible stab move capable of dealing huge damage before volt switching.

togedemaru is just a gimmick pokémon that I just added because aegislash was removed. Should I put another one in its place? It’s very useful against extremely bulky pokémon due to Endeavor and Spiky Shield to finish off physical pokémon, or toxic for special attackers. Encore is useful if the pokémon tries toxic, but I think it could be swapped out for something else.

Last but not least, Darmanitan with choice scarf can outspeed basically anything and get incredible damage thanks to the EVs plus its 140 base attack. U-turn can keep momentum if Darmanitan is just finishing off a low hp opponent, and its other moves are great for coverage against flying types and rock types. Darmanitan's sheer power can sometimes shred through teams and even sweep in a lucky matchup.

For a lot of these pokémon, I have added the leftovers 4 ev to SpD. Should I give them to other stats? Please let me know, thanks :)

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

togedemaru is just a gimmick pokémon that I just added because aegislash was removed. Should I put another one in its place? It’s very useful against extremely bulky pokémon due to Endeavor and Spiky Shield to finish off physical pokémon, or toxic for special attackers. Encore is useful if the pokémon tries toxic, but I think it could be swapped out for something else.

this pokemon is just such a hit or miss and 99% of teams have ample ways to deal with it regarding knock off, trick, status, and what does it even accomplish here that another breaker couldn't do..... yeah swap it out for smth else... ill post the entire thing later but yeah you shouldnt use togedemaru esp in a tier where there are better options + fear is unviable here

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Also what are you going for? is this HO cuz u clearly want to with lead krook + dd mence + meteor beam nihi.. but u also have defog rotom-w and scarf darm which dont fit on it

 

[sushiyuki]

this pokemon is just such a hit or miss and 99% of teams have ample ways to deal with it regarding knock off, trick, status, and what does it even accomplish here that another breaker couldn't do..... yeah swap it out for smth else... ill post the entire thing later but yeah you shouldnt use togedemaru esp in a tier where there are better options + fear is unviable here

what pokémon do u recommend I put in its place? and I'd also like to swap off Rotom-W because of ur other reply. What could I swap it out for my team to become HO? Thanks in advance :D

 

[justdrew]

Hey sushiyuki, cool team! I've tested it out on ladder and I'll make you some suggestions and then give you my version of the team. Dragon Dance Salamence is cool, however Skarmory is very good in this tier right now and it hard walls Salamence. Your team has no switch in to Body Press and no consistent way to break down Skarmory. Rotom Wash doesn't fit this team in my opinion. For one, without Pain Split Rotom has really no way of staying alive for long. Willow Wisp is a better status move for it as well. I would also advise never using a level 1 Pokemon as a gimmick if your goal is to create a competitive team. This kind of trick won't work very well versus a competent player. Lastly, Darmanitan really isn't very viable in my opinion as it dies very easily to Rocks and there are just way better forms of speed control. Here are the changes I made.

Major changes:

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So originally I changed Salamence to be a defensive Defog variant over Rotom Wash. However, this team seems to lose very hard to Azelf so I thought Mandibuzz would be better even though you're doubling up on Dark-types. Mandibuzz is very helpful in a matchup versus hyper offense as it is able to beat Dragon Dance Gyarados and Salamence in a 1v1. It has a nice speed tier and it gives your team a pivot as I took away some pivots it already had.

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So your original team lost so incredibly hard to Zygarde. Krookodile dies to two hits, Salamence is offensive so it dies to two, and everyone else dies to one and takes over 200% damage. This team desperately needed a pure Grass-type to resist Thousand Arrows and also something to switch into things like Keldeo, Primarina, Thundurus-T, even Slowkings Scald which unironically slowly chipped your team to death. Tangrowth fills in so many gaps in this team and makes it so much more solid. With Earthquake it is able to eat a hit from Nihilego and send it to the shadow realm in return.

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So like I said a gimmick like Togedemaru just doesn't work well in competitive play. It has no way to punish really anything. Cobalion offers your team speed, defensive utility, and a very valuable Scizor and Zarude check. By having Rocky Helmet, Cobalion is essential at chipping any threat that clicks U-Turn. With Swords Dance and moves like Iron Head and Megahorn, Cobalion can threaten Pokemon like Hatterene and Slowking which otherwise prove to be quite annoying vs your team. Cobalion is also much nicer vs an opposing Amoonguss which honestly acts as an offensive threat in so many games because of Spore and great Stabs chipping away at your core.

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My last major change is switching your Darmanitan into Zygarde. Darmanitan is just too weak to Rocks and ends up killing itself before doing work. Zygarde maintains both the speed, and immediate power Darmanitan brings while also bringing two great typings to the table plus a priority move in Extreme Speed, and a status move in Toxic. There's nothing wrong with doubling up on Ground-types because Zygarde doesn't so much act as a Ground-type defensively, as it really only serves as a prediction based switch in to Thundurus-T and Rotom-variants on occasion.

Minor changes:


All I did was switch your Nihilego's evs to speed boost which I find infinitely better. Now it can act as a sweeper.


The new team:



I like this team. It has all that you need on any UU team currently: it has rocks and removal, it has win conditions, it has defensive and special defensive walls, it has speed, it has immediate power, it has breakers, it has a ground and electric immunity. I tried to keep this team as integral to your version but ended up making quite a few changes. I really like Krookodile because it is able to counter lead Excadrill on offense. I wouldn't be opposed to adding a touch of bulk on Krookodile just to ensure it can survive two Earthquakes so that it is able to prevent rocks and get it's own in some scenarios.

I think this team can have a lot of variation so I'm going to suggest some things you can experiment with. So for one, Mandibuzz can take a Thousand-Arrows from Zygarde with ease. That means that you don't necessarily need Tangrowth on this team. You can experiment with Amoonguss, this just makes you weaker vs Thundurus-T, but it can give you a slightly better Scizor matchup. If you do end up going with Amoonguss, you can then switch Cobalion to another Steel-type. I would try Scizor just because it is just a very good. You can also put Salamence over Mandibuzz if you wish, however I don't advise this just because Azelf is very good. Azelf hardly every runs Dazzling Gleam, meaning that Mandibuzz walls it. Salamence, on the other hand, takes too much from Psychic, and if it's Heavy Duty Boots are knocked off, you have no switch in to Azelf and it slowly eats your team alive.

Keep all these things in mind and please don't hesitate to ask me questions if you have any! Good luck!

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

what pokémon do u recommend I put in its place? and I'd also like to swap off Rotom-W because of ur other reply. What could I swap it out for my team to become HO? Thanks in advance :D

k.... https://pokepast.es/06b21a7e85cc7e32 this is ur new team



Major changes:

-> LO CM keldeo i have seen on HO as its a dark resist for the team and gives counterplay to scarf hydreigon and can abuse bulky scizor easily. THis also allows you to have a way to abuse the skarm chansey cores that would otherwise wall this team and make progress a super pain in the ass to make. Keldeo also can force a lot of damage on slowking which can make it so celesteela / nihilego can have a much much easier time late game as its no longer roadblocking it. Keldeo also pressures skarmory and steels for salamence to break through them and can even force progress on even salamence as they may want to defog instead of attacking it.

-> Drew pointed it out already no need to explain why a lvl 1 mon with a little gimick is unusable... well celesteela provides double meteor beam on a team which i like a lot... it is able to clean late game or pressure mons to allow nihilego to clean late game since similar pokemon can check it. Celesteela also provides a shit ton of defensive value against pokemon such as krookodile, hydreigon, scizor, scarf rachi, tapu bulu, and zarude.

-> the speed control will be azelf on this team and not scarf darm.. it will not fit on a HO team and scarf is easily abusable. Azelf provides a NP sweeper that just can take advantage of slower pokemon that it forces out and get NP boosts on them. It can also threaten a team with its absurdly good coverage and only struggles to mandibuzz, hydreigon, and scarf krookodile.

Sooo.... the new team...

it functions like a LO team... set hazards up.. deny removal... and find your win condition and try to set it up... most of the time it will be nihilego and azelf so you gotta setup to get rid of its roadblocks such as forcing scizor to take a crap ton of damage to deal with salamence and then you can setup a good azelf sweep late game. Nihilego can be setup with pressure slowking with CM keldeo and auto steela which makes sure that slowking is low for nihilego to ohko it with tbolt.

 

[sushiyuki]

k.... https://pokepast.es/06b21a7e85cc7e32 this is ur new team



Major changes:

-> LO CM keldeo i have seen on HO as its a dark resist for the team and gives counterplay to scarf hydreigon and can abuse bulky scizor easily. THis also allows you to have a way to abuse the skarm chansey cores that would otherwise wall this team and make progress a super pain in the ass to make. Keldeo also can force a lot of damage on slowking which can make it so celesteela / nihilego can have a much much easier time late game as its no longer roadblocking it. Keldeo also pressures skarmory and steels for salamence to break through them and can even force progress on even salamence as they may want to defog instead of attacking it.

-> Drew pointed it out already no need to explain why a lvl 1 mon with a little gimick is unusable... well celesteela provides double meteor beam on a team which i like a lot... it is able to clean late game or pressure mons to allow nihilego to clean late game since similar pokemon can check it. Celesteela also provides a shit ton of defensive value against pokemon such as krookodile, hydreigon, scizor, scarf rachi, tapu bulu, and zarude.

-> the speed control will be azelf on this team and not scarf darm.. it will not fit on a HO team and scarf is easily abusable. Azelf provides a NP sweeper that just can take advantage of slower pokemon that it forces out and get NP boosts on them. It can also threaten a team with its absurdly good coverage and only struggles to mandibuzz, hydreigon, and scarf krookodile.

Sooo.... the new team...

it functions like a LO team... set hazards up.. deny removal... and find your win condition and try to set it up... most of the time it will be nihilego and azelf so you gotta setup to get rid of its roadblocks such as forcing scizor to take a crap ton of damage to deal with salamence and then you can setup a good azelf sweep late game. Nihilego can be setup with pressure slowking with CM keldeo and auto steela which makes sure that slowking is low for nihilego to ohko it with tbolt.

Woah! Thanks so much for the help :DD