Gen 3 Rain RMT




Introduction
Welcome to the RMT for my Generation 3 Rain team. Yes you are probably thinking to yourself: 'Is this even viable?'. I decided that, because I adore rain teams and just water-type pokemon in general, I would give something like this a shot. This is something I have tested pretty well. I have been making slight changes in order to get a rain team like this to work in ADV OU. Despite the fact that generation 3 does not have a proper effective physical rain attacker (For example, Kabutops) due to water type moves being all special, this team can still win games. I'd say my win/loss ratio is negative but only slightly with this team (About 50 wins/70 losses). So here we go:
Note:
Before I start with any analysis, I should inform you that I have made this a challenge and restricted myself in multiple ways. First off, I have banned legendaries (including mythic pokemon although I count them as legends) from entering my 6 man squad, so that means sadly that the likes of zapdos will not be making an entrance as a rain dance setter/lead for my team. Secondly, I have restricted myself to only using pokemon that are available in Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen (I suggest looking up all those pokemon that are available before starting to rate or try to talk about changes in the team). This excludes the likes of trading, so pokemon available in ruby/sapphire/emerald are unable to make an appearance here, unless they are in firered/leafgreen too of course.

The team



Electrode @ Leftovers
Ability: Static
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Rain Dance
- Taunt
- Thunder
- Explosion

You may know this guy from being a rain/explosion lead in Generation 4 teams. I thought I'd bring him here along for the ride. The main reason for choosing electrode is for his blistering pace. The goal for him is simple: Try to get rain up first turn, or second turn if I have to taunt against stallers, then explode the next turn and give my good old friends kingdra and omastar a chance to finish what's left of the pokemon I exploded on (Although they may have been ohko'd by explosion) and proceed to sweep. His thunder is there for another option if I feel I can deal some decent damage (most likely to water-types barring swampert).



Kingdra @ Leftovers
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 3 Atk / 30 SpA
- Surf
- Rain Dance
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Kingdra is the bulkier of my two sweepers, and his resistances and only 1 weakness make him ideal as a great all-round rain dance sweeper. He works really well too as a rain dance setter mid/late-game because of this bulk. Surf is my main move here and can deal some serious damage to most pokemon in ADV OU. It can get the OHKO on Gengar for example before it can throw a thunderbolt at him. He also synchronizes well with Omastar, my other sweeper as he takes earthquakes and other moves that Omastar is particularly weak to. This makes him pretty useful when my Skarmory is down and out. Ice beam is for the likes of Salamence and can help in getting rid of opposing Celebi (Deals just under 50% damage to Celebi with ice beam most of the time) Hidden power electric deals with opposing waters, especially water absorb users. Note that hidden power electric struggles against bulkier waters such as Milotic and Suicune.



Heracross @ Leftovers
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Brick Break
- Rock Slide
- Megahorn
- Focus Punch

There is one big reason this guy is here: not to sweep, but to remove the annoying walls of snorlax and Blissey. Blissey can take STAB Surf all day long while inflicting status and causing havoc for my team. Similarly, Snorlax will just curse up on me and prove to be a very dangerous force and end up sweeping my team to pieces. Heracross can force Blissey out and then hit hard with focus punch when they switch. Snorlax tends not to switch as much and therefore I sometimes need to predict when they are going to use curse or attack. Brick break is there as backup to focus punch in case Snorlax decides it wants to be offensive towards Heracross. Rock slide is useful when I know they are switching to Salamence or Gyarados. Megahorn is the move I rely on to hit hard against threats such as Celebi and Ludicolo which can stop Kingdra/Omastar in their tracks. His weakness to fire is also prevented in rain which gives it a great way to survive flamethrowers.



Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Calm Mind
- Wish
- Rain Dance

Blissey's main job is to prevent electric-types (and their moves) from giving the team a hard time. By switching Blissey into special attackers, it gives me an opportunity to set-up rain again. Wish ensures that Omastar and Kingdra are kept healthy (excluding status) so they can take extra hits if needed in order to 2HKO some of the bulkier sweepers (Such as Heracross). The valuable EVs invested in defense try to give it a chance to survive some physical attacks (The occasional earthquake and a few non-STAB fighting-type attacks) One of the most important things about Blissey here is that it is the only member of the team that can challenge Suicune, as I can calm mind with it, and get the kill on it with Thunder. Similarly, it also tries to stop vaporeon from walling my team. I rely on Blissey heavily mid-game to provide rain to the team and find it a great asset. I didn't have the space for ice beam on Blissey, but since Kingdra and Omastar have ice beam this does help to fill that hole.



Omastar @ Leftovers
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Ice Beam
- Rain Dance

Omastar is arguably the best rain dance user in ADV OU (possibly tied with gorebyss) as it hits slightly harder than kingdra at the expense of less bulk. This gives it higher potential to get more OHKO's on it's opponents. One thing Omastar needs to look out for though is any super-effective moves against it as it is an automatic kill. The main reason for hidden power grass is to deal with Swampert and the very occasional Quagsire. Ice Beam, of course, is for Salamence and Dragonite (Not that dragonite is used that much in ADV OU) but can also try to take on Celebi and possibly get the 2HKO. Rain Dance is only used if I predict a switch, otherwise I will switch myself to prevent earthquakes and thunderbolts from getting rid of him.




Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 24 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Metal Sound
- Toxic
- Spikes
- Protect

Skarmory acts as my spikes setter/toxic staller. Spikes allows me to negate the slight decrease in strength with kingdra in comparison to omastar. It also takes earthquake from pokemon trying to get rid of omastar. Again, similarly to heracross, skarmory can get a slight boost in protecting against fire-types under the rain. Metal Sound is a particularly odd choice. The reason for using it is to try and make sure my sweepers can get over the line with one hit on certain pokemon that would otherwise hit back for the OHKO on them. Metal Sound/Toxic also helps with snorlax. Protect is simply there to maximise the potential of toxic and scout for moves.


Threats to this team

Breloom with substitute really gives my team a hard time. It's access to spore shuts down my sweepers and gets rid of blissey. Exploding with electrode on breloom is an option but normally only if they switch it into electrode early on or if electrode is still alive mid-game.


Once blissey is gone, a calm mind suicune completely stops me. It also benefits from my rain with surf. It means that I need to toxic with skarmory and hope for the best with hidden power electric or hidden power grass.



Celebi isn't quite as good against my team as suicune since I can ice beam it with omastar/kingdra or use megahorn with heracross. However, celebi does tend to win wars against my sweepers and will normally switch out when it sees heracross. This makes it a bit of a pain to deal with.


Vaporeon is great against my team in that it benefits from the rain like suicune, but it's access to water absorb means it will just switch into my sweepers and regain health from my surf. It's surf normally wins against hidden power electric and hidden power grass from kingdra and omastar respectively under rain.


This is a nightmare of celebi and breloom rolled into one. It gives my team a bad time with sleep powder while taking ice beam really well (If not better than celebi at times).


A normal heracross is pretty easy to stop. It's the reversal/substitute variant that causes the problems. None of my pokemon can take reversal when heracross is at 1% hp. Again, electrode is an option with explosion but it will normally be gone by the time heracross is deployed (This tends to be late on in the game)


If heracross is down, it is almost game over for me when blissey comes into play. Kingdra and Omastar can hardly touch it. If it has thunder wave, I am in even more trouble.

Conclusion
A team like this is always going to be second to your usual teams, but overall I found it enjoyable and fun to use. It always sprung a surprise to some opponents who weren't prepared for a team like this and who rely heavily on sweepers of their own. Despite the fact that suicune and sleep users wipe the floor with this team if I am not careful, it still works well against anyone else. I hope to hear what you guys have to say about this team and any changes you want to suggest to me.
Thank you for reading this!

I also want to thank anyone who helped and made changes while this team was under construction.
 
Last edited:
IronBullet

It is difficult to rate a team that obviously is unconcerned with general viability and instead is interested in being as viable as possible within its gimmick. So I will try to make a few changes keeping the rain gimmick in mind, but personally, I don't think that it's one that will ever approach the viability of a more standard team.

I think this team needs Dugtrio somewhere. You struggle SO much against Blissey, Tyranitar resets your rain so often, things like Celebi can be a nightmare, opposing Heracross even can be quite tough (you can't setup rain on them at all). Dugtrio at least gives you a passable chance to sack -> remove threat -> reestablish rain a few times. I'd put a really simple Choice Band set over Skarmory, it's the most expendable I guess on your current build and Duggy at least gives you a half-heart check to rocks.

If you're intent on keeping Heracross bulky, at least try this EV spread, which will give you a bit of a better Suicune matchup:

Heracross
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 188 HP / 252 Atk / 68 Spe
Adamant Nature

Suicune just murders your team, especially RoarCune. So if at all possible you want to outspeed some variants of it. I recommend either SD with your leftovers set or just switching straight to a CB set.
 
Thanks. I always felt skarmory was the odd one out on this team and was considering scizor until I saw it's shocking movepool. I'll try out dugtrio and see how it goes. And yeah suicune is always the biggest problem for me.
 
To add on to what teal said, I don't think setting up rain outside of your sweepers is super important. Rain in ADV is more of a set up move than a team wide theme sort of thing generally, and the rain set up by things that don't abuse it will probably just end before you can accomplish anything with it. You can probably afford to drop electrode in favor of something like explosion gar who can more effectively lure special walls. More importantly though you can definitely afford to drop rain dance on blissey for Ice Beam. Having just thunder means bliss just gets trapped by dugtrio for free which is pretty bad. I'd probably also use softboiled instead of wish. If you want to use wish, i'd probably go for a set that can afford the moveslots for protect or softboiled just because otherwise it's going to be difficult to keep Blissey's HP up.
 

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