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"Volt-Turning Offense"

High Roller said:
It's great with no team preview, but then again almost everything is better without team preview.
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we would be banning things left, right and centre if team preview did not exist. but yeah the fact that even you know the opponent will volt switch/u-turn, youre powerless to control the pace of the game when it is your opponent who will have the last laugh that turn. u-turn was a gem to generation 4 battling and with volt switch around, its only getting better.

its not the most effective way of winning a game, but it gives you a real good chance to set yourself up for it.
 
I've been playing with the team posted on the first page (Shao, Rachi, ScarfGon, Wash Rotom, Xatu and Infernape).

It's a decent team, as Rachi and Xatu make great pivots and absorb attacks well, but Xatu is Taunt Bait. Also, I wish the team had something better to actually steamroll through teams. Rotom W is good, but mono-attacking is kinda lame (Volt Switch doesn't count, I'm talking attacks that don't force you to switch) especially as Hydro Pump doesn't have the greatest Accuracy ever. I'm glad Infernape can barrel through teams with Banded CC, though it's kind of a suicide run.

Still, nice team, and I can't deny that TrickScarf Rotom is still one of the best Pokemon at shutting down set up sweepers.
 
Treadshot A1 said:
I've been playing with the team posted on the first page (Shao, Rachi, ScarfGon, Wash Rotom, Xatu and Infernape).

It's a decent team, as Rachi and Xatu make great pivots and absorb attacks well, but Xatu is Taunt Bait. Also, I wish the team had something better to actually steamroll through teams. Rotom W is good, but mono-attacking is kinda lame (Volt Switch doesn't count, I'm talking attacks that don't force you to switch) especially as Hydro Pump doesn't have the greatest Accuracy ever. I'm glad Infernape can barrel through teams with Banded CC, though it's kind of a suicide run.

Still, nice team, and I can't deny that TrickScarf Rotom is still one of the best Pokemon at shutting down set up sweepers.
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How is Xatu taunt bait? :p
 
ToF said:
Since I basically posted this kind of team recently, I guess I'll chime in. First off, Volt-Turn teams do not lose to hazards. Why? Because the idea of the team is to prevent them from getting up in the first place. In a metagame plagued with hazards, my team not only prevented them, but took advantage of not having them through crushing offensive force. Stall teams are damn hard pressed to even get a single layer up without a magic mirror user because of the constant switching these U-turn teams put. Oh, by the way, one single misprediction by the stall user usually means GG against a U-turn type team. You're talking to a stall user by the way, and I can tell you from experience that even the best stall teams I've created struggle immensely against U-turn teams.

This Volt-Turning idea might be overrated since it's hyped so much, but it's damn potent, so I wouldn't say something like "it works against certain teams and not others." Certain players are more skilled than others, that's how this game works (or we'd like it to be that way), and a U-turn team in the hands of a skilled player works wonders against all team-styles, most notably Sand and Rain. This playstyle has a lot of trouble with Sun, however, simply because typical Sun-team Pokemon like Venusaur get a speed boost that makes it a lot easier to roll through U-turn teams.
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I think this type of team is most notable against stall, and having faced you myself with full stall I can say it was not pleasant at all.

There is very little opportunity to recover and 0 opportunity to lay hazards unless you put it on surprise 'mons or are running sand stall with sr on ttar (which if it is only running pursuit can be shit on by dual screen xatu).

I actually think the second biggest advantage to these u-turn teams, after the addition of volt switch, is the addition of magic mirror, and by serendipity the fact that a user of it, xatu, gets u-turn.

That being said I would like to add that is an amazingly fun playstyle and blew my mind the first time I saw it in action; I thought that BW OU was bland!
 
High Roller said:
It's great with no team preview, but then again almost everything is better without team preview.
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Team preview doesn't negatively impact volt switching teams. Set up sweepers generally have an easier time against momentum teams as the only (or at least best) way to block them is to not let them set up, which is far easier with team preview.
 
dSapper said:
How is Xatu taunt bait? :p
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It runs T Wave, Dual Screens and Roost. It's got no offensive moves to speak of. Unless there's something about Magic Mirro I'm not aware of, Xatu is complete Taunt bait.

And Trick-locking a Volcarona into Quiver Dance just feels so damn good. :)
 
Treadshot A1 said:
It runs T Wave, Dual Screens and Roost. It's got no offensive moves to speak of. Unless there's something about Magic Mirro I'm not aware of, Xatu is complete Taunt bait.

And Trick-locking a Volcarona into Quiver Dance just feels so damn good. :)
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Taunt is bounced back. If anything, he's set-up bait for a Ground-type, but lol Dual Screens, now I can set-up on you and wreck your whole team.
 
I used a Volt Turn team a while back just for fun and to experiment. Expert Belt Hydregion was the crux of the team; I could spam a Draco Meteor or Dragon Pulse, then destroy the Ferrothorn switch in with Fire Blast. Then, as they brought in their next Pokemon, just U-turn out to a counter; beating their Ferrothorn allowed my Rotom-W to cause crazy amounts of damage late game just by spamming Hydro Pump. Hydregion could also scare off any Jellicent's with Dark Pulse, so that was always helpful too.

Slap on a Scizor just to glue the team together and cause damage to Lati@s and you have a pretty decent U-turn team.
 
Since it was mentioned as a Xatu weakness by Mario with Lasers, as Xatu is often used on Volt Switch teams, it seems perfectly appropriate for this thread.

I think I might actually try that Hydreigon soon. It sounds pretty good, and faking a Choice Item has always been one of my favourite things to do. :)
 
When I run Volt-Turn offense, I actually find Forretress with SR / Spikes / Volt Switch / RS to be quite essential to maintain hazard control. I also run Deoxys- S as it allows me to clean up after my Volt-Turners basically take the rest of the opposing team to <50% HP.
 
ssbbm said:
When I run Volt-Turn offense, I actually find Forretress with SR / Spikes / Volt Switch / RS to be quite essential to maintain hazard control. I also run Deoxys- S as it allows me to clean up after my Volt-Turners basically take the rest of the opposing team to <50% HP.
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forretress' steel-typing and full hazard control with the chance to attack at least once (no matter the circumstance) does prove to be very useful. against rain stall, however, it gets tedious dealing with tentacruel spamming scald and rapid spin. i like using gengar under screens + sub to keep the game at a speedy pace, as the opponent shuffles around hopelessly.
 
Hydreigon is amazing on U-turn teams. He's an excellent momentum grabber and wallbreaker, especially with Specs. That Modest Specs Draco Meteor causes so many switches, and Fire Blast + U-turn take advantage of it perfectly.

He's quite good defensively as well. The decent bulk + resistances + two immunities make give him loads of easy switch ins, which easily forces the opponent out again. He pairs quite well with Scizor and Rotom-W, both offensively and defensively.

Although, is U-turn a real team archetype? It seems like you can just whack a few select U-turners on almost any team and do fairly well, it's not like most where you have to base your entire team around it, like stall or hyper offense. You can blend it with other styles, and stuff. It's really versatile.
 
I think U-Turn (and by extension, Volt Switch) would count as an Archetype. It is flexible, but then again so is every other Archetype. And also, there's U-Turn Offense and even U-Turn based balanced and stall teams (admittedly the last one is kind of gimmicky). And it would really depend on your definition of Archetype. Sandstorm is an Archetype, yet can run Offense or Sand Stall, and even has a choice of weather starter in TTar and Hippo (who are basically the only real "necessities"). The equivalent to that in U-Turn would probably be Rotom W and Scizor.

But to stay on the topic of Offense Volt Switch, is it actually wise to run a Cleric? Or at least, something that doesn't mind/can heal Status? I've been using that team on the first page, but aside from a well-timed switch to Infernape to take a WoW, status seems to be a problem. I'm thinking that actually the ability to use priority status (so, basically whoever steps up to take Thundurus' old place) would screw up this team badly. Mienshao gets stopped by Paralysis, and a Burn weakens U-turn's power (along with any other physical moves your Pokemon may have). To be fair, Xatu does the same job to the opposing team, but still, if status should hit another team member (again, priority from Mischievous Heart), then it really hurts the core. What's the best cleric to run, or is it just better to plop through the opponent's team before you actually need a cleric in the first place?

Edit: I'm fully aware I can switch, how else would I use a Banded Infernape's Overheat? Just let it die afterwards?

Anyways, I'm just saying, that the team I'm working with (which I'm not trying to discredit) has a few problems with status, and as such when I switch predicting a status move from Whimsicott/Volbeat/whatever else, that only works once before a smart opponent catches on an smashes my Pokemon for a huge amount of damage. It's just a matter of deciding whether it's worth taking the status, or for instance running Gliscor (basically, anything that doesn't mind stat using itself to render all other status null and void, and come to think of it Gliscor might not be the best for the job, but you get the idea).
 
If Whimsicott or Volbeat want to paralyze you, then don't use U-turn/Volt Switch...just hard switch to Volbeat. A U-Turn/Volt Switch team doesn't mean you can't switch normally.
 
even though this is a little late, most of these strategies are destroyed by this combo + rain as it weakens scizors fire weakness. Especially if the team packs a spinner like starmie or tentacruel.
 
I have used jolteon + infernape as my volt-turn core and it was pretty effective. Specs jolteon's speed late game sweeps easily and infernape's flare blitz and Close Combat punch hard holes early game. Infernape breaks walls, and at the time thundurus was allowed, so jolteon COUNTERED him all day, my jolteon has not lost to a thundurus (there is no such thing as a +2 focus blast against jolteon as jolt outspeeds and KOes with HPice, and a 0 focus blast does 75% but that means they will fear setting up next time so once again jolteon's job is done. You can argue this if you want but i won't respond to it)

Rotom-W and Scizor core works well, but like many people said its quite easy to punch through. Celebi stops this team hard with STAB giga drain for rotom-w and Hpfire for scizor. Even a +2 Psychic cripples Scizor hard, hard enough to kill after a layer of SR and Spikes with luck. Specs Draco meteors ate the core alive, as scizor typically can't take attacks on its weaker defense side, even if its a resistant.

The core itself is very solid though, as if i didn't pack celebi or hard draco meteor spammers, or my own volt-turn team (specs jolt and bandednape does well against that core) it would run over my team. Landorus makes a nice switch from Scizor, but several attacks then become easy to muscle through like STAB psychic/dark/grass attacks.

Its sad but only rotom-w and jolt are really worth mentioning as volt switchers. Jolt may have fallen off the radar due to thundurus but it still packs a hard punch, and is amazingly fast itself. Many other pokemon can u-turn effectively filling different roles, but i think the weaker side of this combo is the predictability that comes from the volt switcher.
 
Sun teams eat Volt-Turning for breakfast if well played. Scizor can't come in ever, and half of the potency of the core is completely ruined when Rotom-
W's STAB is cut in half. Also any relatively fast Grass type carrying HP fire (Or Weather Ball under Sun) can crush the Scizor/Rotom core pretty well.

BTW I have been using Raikou, and it also does a pretty beast job at killing of this strategy.
 
I will attest to that claim, not because I have used sun much, but because I used to DREAD facing Drought with my Scarf team for the very reasons you stated. The best solution to this was Scarf Terrakion (regardless of whether you're using all Scarf) which ruins Fire-types including Ninetales, Scarf Darmanitan, and especially +1 Timid Volcarona. Its only problem is outspeeding Chlorophyllers and to a lesser extent Stone Edge's (or even Rock Slide's) shitty accuracy. Volt-Turn, much like any strategy, just cannot survive without support, and you HAVE to have at least one sun counter.
 
I've got to say I hate this stuff. I've been using a lot of rain stall lately with Tentacruel as my spinner and it just gets absolutely taken apart by 1. Deoxys-S and get 2 layers, 2. spam Volt / Turn.
 
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