Heavy Offense

[Anachronism]

For anyone interested, here is the team I am using:

Azelf @ Light Clay
Timid
252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
-Taunt
-Stealth Rock
-Reflect
-Light Screen

Salamence @ Lum Berry
Naive
252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
-Dragon Dance
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Flamethrower

Dragonite @ Lum Berry
Jolly (EDIT: I use Jolly to outspeed Heatran so I can Outrage/Earthquake it at least once before going down)
EDIT: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 236 Speed (Hits 280 to outspeed Heatran at +0, Scarftran at +1, and Adamant Lucario at +0. I didn't add the last EV to HP because it would just be eaten up by SR and this spread causes you to lose one less HP every time you switch in than one with an extra EV)
-Dragon Dance
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Fire Punch

Lucario @ Life Orb
Adamant (will test Jolly to beat other Luke)
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
29 HP IV (yields HP stat of 279 to minimize LO recoil)
-Swords Dance
-Close Combat
-Crunch
-Extremespeed

Scizor @ Life Orb
Adamant
152 HP / 252 Atk / 16 Def / 88 Spe (152 HP yields 319, which minimizes SR and LO, 88 speed is an arbitrary stat that gives me enough to beat most Metagross. 168 evs allow you to beat 0 speed Rotom if you are interested in that)
-Swords Dance
-Bullet Punch
-Bug Bite (OHKOs pretty much everything other than Heatran at +2)
-Superpower (used over brick break because it does more damage to Blissey, Skarmory, Magnezone, and incoming Heatran.)

Tyranitar @ Babiri Berry
Jolly
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe (EDIT: I did research into the spread, and you need full speed to outspeed scarftars obviously, and the hp is fine the way it is)
-Dragon Dance
-Stone Edge
-Crunch
-Fire Punch (I'm gonna test Aqua Tail and EQ here just to encourage more scizor's to attempt a revenge kill)

This team essentially tries to make life hard on steels (and so-called dragon counters like swampert) by hitting hard with Outrage until something dies or can be picked off with priority. Pretty nasty really. The lum berries on the two dragons allow me to absorb status from stupid stuff like Breloom, Roserade, Rotom, or T-Wavers in general, and also allow me to get rid of the confusion if I live through an Outrage cycle. Usually surviving an Outrage cycle from both Dragons is game if I am not confused, so the lums are awesome. In case you were wondering, I use Scizor over Metagross because a second priority user is nice and also people think it is a good idea to priority kill it with Scizor, which means Scizor takes another 40-45%, so that is good. Also, scizor/luke have good synergy in general and can sweep if heatran/ magnezone are wasted by an outrager. Anyway, it works well, and frequently gets 4-0s. I encourage you to try it out.

 

[blasphemy1]

Why not run Adamant on Dragonite? It allows you to do a shit ton to Skarmory with fire punch (2hko) and other pokes as well. Also, I prefer Haban Berry when running both of the dragons, but on Dragonite. This way, you can guarantee Scarf Latias and Flygon go down, so Salamence can sweep freely.

 

[Anachronism]

I like Jolly on Dragonite so that I can outspeed Heatran and either ko with Earthquake or hit it once with Outrage so that something else can kill it later. It is also nice to get over 394 so stupid stuff like aerodactyl and jolteon don't become more of a problem.

Haban berry is something that I am willing to test. The thing is that Dragonite usually comes in under the screens, which accomplish the same thing as the haban. Lum berry also ensures that rotom and celebi are setup fodder. It is also nice to be able to sweep equally well with either Mence or Dragonite Outrage.

 

[Mikey229]

lol. anyway, on a more serious note,



Isn't the whole point of HO to NOT use bulk at all if it detracts from its offensive capabilities? In the case of most Pokemon, their speed and respective attacking stat is maxed out with the lats 4 in HP or DEF. For a few Pokemon this isn't neccessary, but for the majority of Pokemon it is.

Then I guess my team is my take on Heavy Offense. Heavy offense in my mind is overwhelming the opponent to a point where you just win. OFFENSE does not mean speed in my eyes.

 

[mtr]

Lum Berries can be useful on Dragon-type sweepers due to easily dealing with Outrage and avoiding Life Orb recoil, but I would prefer Life Orb on at least one, simply because it is easier to cripple walls with it. A boosted Outrage from Salamence/Dragonite with Lum Berry does about 53% to a Hippowdon, not enough to cripple it. With a Life Orb, it does around 70%, easily enough to cripple the wall.

 

[XxJohny2haixX]

Could one utalize a Breloom to success on a HO Team, especially since Spore almost gerantees a free Sub, or SD?

 

[Sheshi]

Then I guess my team is my take on Heavy Offense. Heavy offense in my mind is overwhelming the opponent to a point where you just win. OFFENSE does not mean speed in my eyes.

Offense is overwhelming the opponent to a point where you just win. Not fully true. You need to be able to outspeed certain Pokemon in order to secure that victory. EG Salamence, Tyranitar, Gyarados etc.

When I see offense, I really worry about speed. Bulkiness on a HO team is not exactly the point as all the Pokemon are meant to be sweepers.

 

[The Plant]

Offense is overwhelming the opponent to a point where you just win. Not fully true. You need to be able to outspeed certain Pokemon in order to secure that victory. EG Salamence, Tyranitar, Gyarados etc.

When I see offense, I really worry about speed. Bulkiness on a HO team is not exactly the point as all the Pokemon are meant to be sweepers.

I don't really agree. At some point you are going to switch. Going Stat-up Attack/send next pokemon won't work a lot of the time. I ran all sweepers but I had sucess by trying to run as much bulk as I could (Gyra/Sala/Tyranitar/Scizor/Meta) can all take a hit. I don't see why defense ev's would nescessarily be bad.

I think people need to experiment. I think a scarfer might be fine as long as its stab was hard to set up on (Heracross for example). Banders are definitely worth testing and so are mixed attackers. Test everything you think might work.

 

[blasphemy1]

I don't really agree. At some point you are going to switch. Going Stat-up Attack/send next pokemon won't work a lot of the time. I ran all sweepers but I had sucess by trying to run as much bulk as I could (Gyra/Sala/Tyranitar/Scizor/Meta) can all take a hit. I don't see why defense ev's would nescessarily be bad.

I think people need to experiment. I think a scarfer might be fine as long as its stab was hard to set up on (Heracross for example). Banders are definitely worth testing and so are mixed attackers. Test everything you think might work.

The whole point of HO is to prevent shit from setting up, right?

Either way, choicers are a bad decision on HO since there is almost always going to be a resist set-up sweeper to take advantage of it(in Heracross's case there is Gyarados, Salamence, Latias, Scizor, and Lucario, depending on the move).

 

[Stathakis]

the plant is right, choice items CAN be used on rare occasions where the resisting type doesn't have an easy time with the team. for instance, if you are smashing steel types with 3-4 outraging mons, you can, in theory, run a specslatias to just bomb everything into oblivion with endgame dragon pulses since there won't be anything left able to stop it. the only ho team I have posted has a choicer, in fact.

 

[GoldDraconian]

@Sprinkles: I would probably use DD/Taunt/Stone Edge/EQ @Lum or Leftovers on a Taunt Tyranitar. Crunch is better vs. Rotom and Latias, but Taunt shuts Rotom down anyway, and the difference vs. Latias is not that big a deal. I think the better coverage is pretty good justification. Chance of two Wisps hitting consecutively is .75*.75 = .5625, which is favorable for the Wisper but not by that much. (Multiplying events implies "and", so for any situation where you want event A and event B to both occur, you just multiply their probabilities together.)

@blasphemy: Adamant Dragonite seems like a generally better option, but Ana's build can't really exploit Scarftran locking into Dragon Pulse effectively. A team with Agiligross would be able to switch that in, take the hits well, and outspeed Heatran after an Agility and threaten the KO with Earthquake whenever Heatran comes back. Neither Lucario nor Scizor has this ability, so Jolly is probably preferable in this case (but would not necessarily be so if you had Metagross or something else that beats Scarftrans well).

@The Plant: Scarfers are really hard to work in because you don't have any kind of power boost (LO, Choice Band/Specs boost, or setup) to make them threatening to things that resist their moves, so you'd need to be pretty careful to select something that isn't going to become a liability. Heracross in particular strikes me as a bad one because you don't even 2HKO 0/0 Gyarados or Salamence (after SR damage on them and Intimidate vs. you, and assuming Adamant Hera) with CC or Megahorn, so you are forced to permit them a DD.
Choice items aren't impossible to use, but it's difficult to do, and you're probably going to have to accept that any Choicers aren't going to be viable options for the whole game- you need to scout and possibly eliminate dangerous resists before you lock yourself into things. Band and Specs seem a lot more promising than Scarf in general, because they help make life difficult for things intending to absorb your hits.

 

[Anachronism]

While 53% isn't enough to cripple some things, the fact is that the only thing Hippowdon can do back is roar, which means that the 53% will stick. Skarmory is in the same boat. I don't need to do upwards of 70% if all they can do is phaze. People soon realize that their hippo/skarm/pert will essentially have to roar/ww until it dies.

I really do need to try out agiligross, but it seems that the pokes I have now are much better for wearing down steels while still keeping good resists. Metagross is walled by swampert more than almost everything on the team, and while Tyranitar is walled to the same extent he has important resists. Perhaps I should use Metagross over Scizor, but use some new set that has no problem with Swampert/Rotom but lacks coverage against steels? This would make my team quite cohesive on the whole. I need suggestions here.

 

[mtr]

What I was wondering about was how you guys reconcile the fact that Sand Stream can be a bitch for Offensive DDGyara, DDMence, DDNite, whatever with the fact that you need something to absorb Thunder Wave and special attacks and whatnot. I mean, Tyranitar is a really solid special tank. Can you build a HO team without him if you aren't a fan of Sand Stream prematurely ruining your fun?

 

[Nitzleplick]

I attempted to play Little Cup HO, and to no avail as things hit so hard, there are very few if no bad matchups. I messed around with stuff like Rock Polish Gligar, and DD Dratini with ExtremeSpeed. It was difficult to sweep teams mainly due to stuff like Croakgunk or Buizel priority just raping it.

 

[_Flygon_]

What I was wondering about was how you guys reconcile the fact that Sand Stream can be a bitch for Offensive DDGyara, DDMence, DDNite, whatever with the fact that you need something to absorb Thunder Wave and special attacks and whatnot. I mean, Tyranitar is a really solid special tank. Can you build a HO team without him if you aren't a fan of Sand Stream prematurely ruining your fun?

my ho teams all dont run tyranitar but more priority to beat things like specsjolt where you otherwise need to run tyranitar, because ss is so annoying for the likes of ape gyara and mence

 

[mtr]

I attempted to play Little Cup HO, and to no avail as things hit so hard, there are very few if no bad matchups. I messed around with stuff like Rock Polish Gligar, and DD Dratini with ExtremeSpeed. It was difficult to sweep teams mainly due to stuff like Croakgunk or Buizel priority just raping it.

Well, priority is a pain, but keep in mind that in LC, there are no good dedicated walls to handle your assaults like there are in OU. Besides, having Wynaut to use to beat scarfers and stuff is useful. I'm not too great at LC, but I'm more worried about the teams with 4-5 Choice Scarfs than teams with Croagunk/Buizel, although Aqua Jet is annoying.

Back to the point about OU: I tried SD LO Gliscor on a HO team, and the power output, even with a Life Orb, was disappointing. But I needed something to check my Zapdos weakness and absorb random Thunder Waves. Maybe I could try a LO Mamoswine somewhere along the line. Or maybe Electivire, but his power output is even more disappointing.

 

[Anachronism]

The best replacement for ttar is kingdra. Kingdra is also a fantastic status absorber with a sub lum set, as anything tring to status it will give it two free turns. It has good synergies with both Rotom-walled teams like Scizor/Metagrosss/Gyarados as well as Dragon teams. It can set up moderately well on zapdos, but that isn't much of a concern for dragon ho at least, unless it used hp ice over grass. Honesly I worry a lot less about Zappy now that Rotom has taken its job.

 

[Nerdling]

Could one utalize a Breloom to success on a HO Team, especially since Spore almost gerantees a free Sub, or SD?

Probably not. I guess that it could somehow be pulled off, but that's highly unlikely. Breloom lacks the speed/powerful priority that things like AgiliGross or Scizor have. Look at your standard HO team, almost nothing will have a base speed below 80 bar scizor with it's SD LO tech bullet punch. STAB mach punch is useful for the random tyranitar, but it lacks power, and cant do shit to rotom or latias, two huge problems to HO.

 

[PerfectBlue]

I saw Stathakis' earlier Greek Team, but I'm wondering, is a special oriented heavy offensive team still viable in standard with all the latias running around(and no manaphy too i guess)?

 

[akarias]

Yeah, but not his team though lol. Latias really gives it a hard time. You'll need a dedicated special wallbreaker that can get through blissey, latias, and celebi. Hmm I wonder who fits the bill....

 

[The SPrinkLer]

Gengar can do that somewhat, if it's a weird set with Focus Punch, or you don't mind Exploding on Blissey and losing Gengar. If you lose Gengar too early, you might lose to late-game Latias. That's why thinking ahead is so important.

 

[GoldDraconian]

Blissey is not at all the problem for you, since you can easily run 3-4 pokes that kill her outright (Heatran, Azelf, Gengar, Infernape come to mind), plus you have access to Calm Minders who will kill her in the long run. Beyond that there are options like Toxic Spikes and Pain Split to run her out of Wishes/Softboils. Latias is a tougher problem, but you can still beat her pretty solidly with Raikou, or worst case scenario, tie her with your own Gengar/Latias. Or you can cheat and run a Pursuiter, which moves away from being "pure" HO but might make your life easier.
Honestly I'm not sure that either of those two is the biggest problem you face, though they both need to be addressed. Scarfed Rotoms are a much bigger nuisance in my experience, because so many of the Pokemon you want to run are vulnerable to it.

 

[blasphemy1]

You could just use a SubCM Jirachi with Flash Cannon to handle Latias/Blissey/Celebi.

 

[ultimifier]

i know this goes against every rule about HO, but why not use a CB infernape on a special heavy offense team. He can come in after your lead dies and just spam CB U-turn to start. Many people immediately switch in latias/starmie into infernape and this deals a siht load of damage to each of them. This is what i used on my special offense (although it wasnt heavy offense per se) team that worked pretty well.

 

[Game Freak201]

i know this goes against every rule about HO, but why not use a CB infernape on a special heavy offense team. He can come in after your lead dies and just spam CB U-turn to start. Many people immediately switch in latias/starmie into infernape and this deals a siht load of damage to each of them. This is what i used on my special offense (although it wasnt heavy offense per se) team that worked pretty well.

Using a choice item doesn't exactly go against every rule about HO, it's just strongly discouraged unless there is a very good reason for it. In your example, a CB Infernape does wonders for the team since it allows you weaken the likes of Starmie, Latias, and Blissey. Personally, I prefer CB Scizor due to his bulk and STAB U-Turn when using a CBer in this fashion.