First RMT (4th gen OU)

[jedyobidan]

I just recently got into competitive pokemon battling, and this is the first team I've come up with. looking for some general comments/suggestions. :)

Heatran @ Lum Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
Evs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Nature: Naive
-Stealth Rock
-Earth Power
-Fire Blast
-Explosion

Bubbly suggested switching heatran to the lead position, which has been working quite nicely. Unless there is an immediate threat to Heatran that it can take out (such as EQ metagross or opposing Heatran), it will put up rocks, then begin attacking the opponent with Earth Power and Fire Blast. There are a couple problems though, such as Attacking lead Machamp with Dynamic Punch and Lead Dragonite. However, Explosion is always an option to take out these threats, although its unlikely that i will be able to get up rocks in that case. :/

Dragonite @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly
- Dragon Claw
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch

Dragonite is one of my main sweepers, and given the chance to set up properly, it can take out several pokemon without breaking a sweat. The challenge, then, is to make sure the sweep goes on for as long as possible by killing off opposing steel types and revenge killers like Flygon. Cresselia with Ice beam can also be a problem, and some Bulky water types can be an issue as well. If the team functions as it should, these threats will be taken out as soon as possible. Dragon Claw is the Default STAB move, and Earthquake helps take out steel types. Fire Punch gets past Skarmory and Bronzong, which usually assume I carry Extreme speed instead.

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 244 Spe
Nature: Adamant
- Bullet Punch
- Pursuit
- Superpower
- U-turn

Scizor is particularly helpful in letting me pick off weakened pokemon. With a great Attack stat and choice band, Bullet Punch's priority makes Scizor a good revenge killer and a good counter for Dragonite's common counters, Flygon and Cresselia. Superpower helps cover Magnezone and Heatran, two of Scizor's common switch ins, and Uturn is good for scouting. U-turn also forms an interesting combo with Flygon's U-turn (thanks to B-Zard for this idea).

Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spd/4 SpDef
Timid nature (+Spd,-Atk)
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Stone Edge
- U-turn

With Heatran gone from the revenge killer role, Flygon has become my new revenge killer (props to B-zard for this pokemon). It packs two very powerful STAB attacks in Earthquake and Outrage, taking out Steels and Dragons, with Stone Edge there to help out in taking out Gyarados. Stone Edge also completes an EdgeQuake moveset, which is quite reliable to hit most enemies. As before mentioned, Uturn works with Scizor, and is further complemented by Scizor and Flygon's type synergy.

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/252 Spd/4 SpAtk
Timid nature (+Spd,-Atk)
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin
- Surf
- Thunderbolt

After several suggestions and my own testing, I quickly realized how vulnerable my team is to Stealth Rock, so a Rapid Spinner was in high demand. Starmie fits the bill quite easily, and replaces Vaporeon as the water-type of my team. What Starmie lacks in defense it makes up in attacking potential. While it functions primarily as a Rapid Spinner, it has great offensive stats and can become an anti-lead or sweeper if necessary. With Ice beam, Thunderbolt, and the obligatory STAB Surf, Starmie can take out some of its common counters, such as Dragonite and Gyarados. However, it still has problems with Pursuiters such as Tyranitar and Scizor.

Zapdos @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SpAtk
Timid nature (+Spd,-Atk)
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power Ice
- Roost
- Thunderbolt

With Magnezone out of the team due to too much Ground-type weakness, my team needed a suitable member to take on the role of countering bulky water types. B-Zard suggested an offensive Zapdos, which I immediately took a liking to. Thunderbolt takes out the bulky waters, and the other moves give good type coverage, only resisted by Lanturn. Roost is also a great recovery move, allowing Zapdos to live much longer.

 

[bubbly]

Hi Jed. This is a reasonable team you've put together here but it does suffer from a lack of Stealth Rock as well as some very redundant type checking, giving you weaknesses to the likes of Heatran (even with Vaporeon and Dragonite, it will outspeed and OHKO three members of your team comfortably, and can set up pretty safely on ScarfTran too once it's locked in), Infernape (again, you have reasonable checks to it, but no safe switches to a physically based MixApe in particular), Breloom, Machamp etc. You also have a massive weakness to Ground type attackers such as Rhyperior, Hippowdon, Mamoswine, Flygon etc, all of which could break this team with little effort.

The main problem that needs to be addressed is the complete overabundance of Steel types. Heatran and Magnezone do extremely similar things typing wise, same for Scizor and Metagross. I want to try to stick to the general Dragon + Steel / anti-Steel structure you have. However, I don't feel like Vaporeon's Wish Passing adds a great deal to your team since it is generally too fast paced to benefit greatly from it. I would suggest replacing it with a Life Orb Starmie, and using some form of Gyarados (bulky DD with Taunt works fine, or a Thunder Wave variant since much of your team is fairly slow) over one of your Steel types - I would suggest over Metagross.

What this gives you, without greatly altering the structure of your team, is a good check or counter to those threats I mentioned before. Your team, like nearly every good one, does need Stealth Rock, which it can abuse fairly well and will help to break down common defensive pokemon such as Gyarados which will be early switches against many of your offensive pokemon. The Scarf on Heatran isn't really needed since there aren't any threats its needed for which aren't already beaten, so you can replace that with a Shuca or Lum Berry Lead Heatran with Stealth Rock, Fire Blast / Flamethrower, Earth Power and Explosion.

 

[B-Zard]

Hi, this is a cool looking team already. The synergy is okay but some sets are kinda misplaced I think.

I will just start off with your lead. Metagross is a pretty good lead and I wouldn't recommend changing it. The only thing I can say I that you might want to try out Stealth Rock > Explosion and a slightly different EV spread: 200 hp, 232 att, 44 spdef, 32 speed so you're sure you can take lead Azelf's Fire Blast and don't need an occa berry. Lum Berry is fine to take on leads like Roserade and Machamp.

Dragonite is next. I don't really like DDers since it requires setting up. Setting up is not bad but most teams are prepared for it in the likes of phazers and revenge killers. Therefore I think it is a good thing to change Dnite to Flygon instead, so you still keep your dragon type. It has really good synergy with Scizor and forms a pretty good U-turn combo. This set should work:

Flygon set

Flygon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 hp/ 252 Atk / 252 Speed
Jolly Nature (+Speed/-Spatt)
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge/ Thunderpunch

About Scizor just change the item to Choice Band instead. Your main reason why you use Scizor is to revenge kill, but since most Flygon are still faster than you and you have priority, you def need the power to kill those. Pursuit could work with trapping Azelf, since with a Choice Scarf you could outspeed it, but you have Heatran who can take it on.

Next there is Magnezone. Yea.. I am not a huge fan of Magnezone. It works fine as a steel trapper, but your team doesn't seem to have problems with steel types at all. Therefore I think you're better of with something like Zapdos since that solves your ground weakness problem and still is part Electric type like Magnezone. Since your team is pretty offensively based I suggest an offensive Zapdos set:

Zapdos set

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Evs: 4 hp/ 252 spatt/ 252 speed
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power Ice
- Roost

About Vappy, I think it is best to change it to a Starmie since it has access to Rapid Spin so Dnite (not sure if you keep it) and Zapdos can come in safely. This set should work fine:

Starmie set

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 hp, 4 spatt, 252 speed
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Surf
- Thunderbolt
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam

Your Heatran def doens't need that Scarf. There are way better sets. Since your Meta prob has SR you won't need it on Tran anymore. There are a lot people nowadays who run a Shuca Tran set with SR so it might be good to just have SR on your Meta instead. I don't know with who you can replace it with, maybe Infernape or something. You might also want to keep it since I already made a lot of suggestions.

I hope I helped you. I know I have suggestions for every team member. You might also want to try out changing 2 of your team and see if it works and if you like the sets.

 

[IronBullet]

Please expand your descriptions, or I'll have to lock this. Make sure you read the RMT rules carefully before posting. Thanks

 

[jedyobidan]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Ive made some significant changes to my team, and its performing much better! Looking for maybe some more suggestions? Like, should I use Zapdos or Magnezone? I like magnezone's steel trapping ability, but Im afraid thats too much steel on one team....

 

[B-Zard]

Okay I see that you use a lead Heatran Bubbly suggested. How does that Lum Berry work for you, since I have never seen a lead Tran with it. You might also want to try out a more offensively based Tran so you can ohko Meta (even with occa berry), ohko Machamp and Dnite too. I am talking about this set:

Lead Heatran set

Heatran @ Life Orb
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 36 HP | 252 SAtk | 220 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock
- Hidden Power Ice
- Overheat

Earth Power is for opposing Tran leads and has about 50% chance to ohko. Hidden Power Ice is mainly for Dnite leads you have problems with and it ohko's for sure. Overheat is to ohko Metagross with Occa Berry and Machamp before it can Dpunch you in the face. Then you still have the opportunity to lay up rocks. You really need that Modest nature with max. spatt to do as much as possible damage.

Now something about my Flygon set. I meant using Flygon > Dragonite and not both on the same team. Dnite can be a great DDer but it shares almost the same weaknesses as Flygon, so therefore I recommend using DDKingdra > Dnite so you have one ice weakness less and still keep that dragon type DDer. This is the exact set:

Kingdra set

Kingdra @ Chesto Berry
Trait: Swift Swim
EVs: 144 HP | 160 Atk | 40 SpD | 164 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Att/-Spatt)
- Rest
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Waterfall

The EV spread might seem strange, but you'll find out it actually works when you use it. Kingdra nearly hits the same things as your Dnite, but only with 2 attacking moves. Losing EQ from Dnite is not that huge since you now have Flygon with STAB EQ which you didn't have before, and you always have Tran with Earth Power.

Good luck with your team!