Well here we go (RMT)

[ZaneTheGuardian]

My Team:

This is the Team that I want you to help me make better. This is a team I just threw together, BUT I did not stop there. I battled and tweaked and changed. Even scrapping entire Pokemon to make it work better. Now I am asking you to help me.

The Players:

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Poison Heal
EVs: 40 Def / 244 HP / 224 Spd
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Baton Pass
- Swords Dance/ Agility

Gliscor, my lead. Plenty useful to me. This is a basic pass the sub set. Substitute, well if I wanna pass one I need one. Baton pass, Also needed if I want to pass a substitute. Earthquake, good damage and also so I don't become set up fodder or crippled by taunt. Now for the hard part. Swords Dance or Agility. I'm not really sure which one to use. If use Swords Dance I can only pass the bonus to Cloyster and Salamence. Granted the 2x attack boost on a moxie mence sounds redundant, but it helps get the ball rolling. Passing it to Cloyster allows me fire off the boosted Icicle Spear or Rock Blast quickly and without wasting a turn. Agility on the other hand allows me to past it to Gengar or even Heatran if needed. The EVs allow me to outspeed more threats to set up a substitute. The Hp gives me a total hp that is a multiple of 8 to allow for maximum poison heal recovery and the rest are in Def. With Gliscor at the lead I can set up either a boost, or a defense, sometimes both and pass it off to another team mate to sweep or punch a few holes.

Cloyster @ White Herb
Trait: Skill Link
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SAtk
Jolly Nature
- Icicle Spear
- Shell Smash
- Rock Blast
- Hydro Pump

The next member of my team is Cloyster. With a shell smash or an SD boost Icicle Spear or Rock Black can smash a hole in a lot of threats. The white herb is to heal my defenses after shell smash. Granted I would much rather have a Shell smash boost than an SD, but it works either way. Hydro pump is for pokemon that resist ice and rock, I choose power over accuracy because the boosted power has won more than a few times. EVs are pretty simple. Max Speed and Attack and then a small SpA boost. Works as a physical sweeper or at least tries to. Usually is taken down, but will bring at least one down with it.

Gengar @ Blacksludge
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Giga Drain
- Protect

Gengar is the next team member up to study. Focus blast to take care of normal and pesky ice types to clear the way for salamence. Giga drain for healing, granted not reliable, but better than nothing. Protect goes in the last slot to scout out moves and to see if a Pokemon is locked into a move. EVs are one of a sweeper, speed special attack and the leftovers in hp. The black sludge give me a little bit more survivability. Works as a special attacker. Not exactly meant to sweep, but to pound away at a teams special defense. Plus easy to switch and offers a few resistances.

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Earth Power
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]
-(Unsure what to put here, maybe sunny day?)

Heatran a tank with ease of switching. The massive amounts of resistances and wonderful defenses allow for easy switch ins. This is my dragon stopper. HP ice and a resistance to dragon moves. I had the EVs set up for offence because He doesn't have very reliable recovery outside of leftovers. The forth move is a problem for me. I am unsure of what to run. I was told sunny day by some, others stealth rock. I am running stealth rock right now, but its not working to well. I am running into a few problems with water types. Any help?

Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Trait: Trace
EVs: 74 SDef / 252 HP / 184 Def
Bold Nature
- Recover
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Toxic

My defensive little ducky. xD. This can tank a few hits pretty well and then heal them back with recover. Toxic to wear down, and also to kill the pink blobs known as Blissey and Chancy. Trace helps with using certain moves against the opponent. Helps a little, which is better than the other abilities. As far as I have seen. I wonder if there is a better tank than this (ferro?) but I mean this helps with the bulky water types and dragons.

Salamence @ Leftovers
Trait: Moxie
EVs: 252 Spd / 62 Atk / 194 SAtk
Hasty Nature
- Outrage
- Draco Meteor
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast

And finally my mixed salmence. Used for late game sweeps and to turn the tide when things look bad. Also used for ground attack switch ins. I have a question, If I keep swords dance on gliscor (which I might) wouldn't it be better to trade fire blast for fire fang?. This way I can use draco meteor and not lose firepower on my other moves.

Thanks in advance for the help and I will try to get back to you as soon as I can​

 

[Alfalfa]

Minor nitpick on Heatran. That Heatran is a little funny. It prefers having speed rather than HP to outspeed threats like Scizor and KO them.

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spe
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Stealth Rock

Your team lacks an entry hazard user, which is a necessity on pretty much every team. Heatran can lay them down rather easily.

 

[Plus]

Hello.

First off, I agree with changing Heatran to the above spread for the same reasons; there's no reason not to run Stealth Rock on a team where you have Air Balloon Heatran. You do want max speed on Heatran so you can outspeed things like Jirachi and Celebi as well as SD Scizor.

Now to the rest of the rate. This team is a bit on the slow side, so things like Latias, Latios, and Starmie will have their way with this team as they can put immense pressure on the majority of your team, and too much of that burden is placed on Porygon2. In the case that entry hazards are up, Porygon2 will have a bit of a tough time keeping up with the heavy hitters of OU. This is especially true with Rain teams, where Hydro Pumps hit like trucks. If Cloyster and Salamence are your water resists, then it could be a bit problematic. Ferrothorn over Porygon2 helps you against Starmie, Latias and Latios, and has great synergy with Heatran. In the case that Lati@s packs HP Fire, you have Heatran to back you up since nearly every Latias with HP Fire chooses to forgo Surf. Lastly, this provides Spikes support to help kick off a Salamence sweep easier, as Spikes will weaken the defensive core of your opponent's team.

My next concern is that of Salamence, in which a lack of a spinner can prove to be very detrimental to how long it can last. Salamence benefits very well off of having a spinner, and I think using Starmie over Cloyster is a good idea of maintaining an immediate offensive presence while giving you the ability to spin rocks away to keep your teammates healthy. Having Starmie on here will help check fast pokemon such as Gengar and Keldeo, both of which are very troublesome for this team due to its relative lack of speed or priority. Starmie can take down opponents easily because of its instant offense, and probably provides more uses to your team's goal than Cloyster.

For nitpicks, use HP Fire over Giga Drain on Gengar. HP Fire + Protect allows you to reliably beat CB Scizor by scouting its moves, and allows you to beat Forretress, Ferrothorn, and sometimes Skarmory without having to rely on Focus Blast. HP Fire OHKOes most Breloom, and damages Jirachi for decent damage on switch ins, as Specially defensive Jirachi is always a common switch in to a Black Sludge Gengar. Next, use Naive over Hasty on the Salamence because priority is almost always physical in OU. The last thing you need is a Dragonite, Lucario, or Scizor use ExtremeSpeed or Bullet Punch to end your sweep abruptly, so protect yourself against those by running a -SDef nature instead of -Def.

Starmie@Life Orb
Natural Cure Timid 252 Spe / 252 Satk / 4 HP
Hydro Pump/Ice Beam/Thunderbolt/Rapid Spin

Ferrothorn@Leftovers
Relaxed 252 hp / 168 spdef / 88 def
Power Whip/Spikes/Leech Seed/Gyro Ball

HP Fire>Giga Drain, Naive>Hasty Mence

Good luck with this team, hope you find more success with it.

 

[ZaneTheGuardian]

Thank you both for the advice and I will test this as soon as I can. I still have one question: Agility or Swords Dance on the Gliscor?