Moltres has always been a cool pokemon in GSC OU to me. With its potentially nuclear power, rest talk for longevity and allowing it to absolutely dump on exeggutor, and being another flying type which is always nice in gsc to beat pokemon like steelix and not be worn down by spikes, I've always wanted to use this pokemon and have it feel truly great. Unfortunately, the couple moltres teams I've built myself in the past and seen in replays have all felt unsatisfying for various reasons, but a large part was that due to being offensive teams with tbolt raikou (the natural partner) and moltres, they tended to have pretty large gaps defensively imo. So, here I present moltres semi-stall, a moltres team I am finally happy with.
Note: Very long post, but I do recommend reading all the way through if you can. Thank you.
Original Paste: https://pokepast.es/e3eb1bcad8c7d90b
Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Immunity
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Rest
- Sleep Talk OR Curse
After moltres, I started with this pokemon, because all half decent gsc teams have a snorlax or make you want to rip your eyes out as you play blissey stall for 300+ turns (and these are still rare + generally not great). In the lead, snorlax is able to take on a wide variety of other common leads like zapdos, raikou, nidoking, jynx, and sometimes even other snorlax. Double edge is chosen for power, earthquake to hit the rock types moltres struggles with as well as not necessarily having to use raikou to handle gengar, and rest for recovery. The last slot is very pivotal. Generally, sleep talk is superior to take pressure off of raikou from having to handle threats like jynx and zapdos as well as being better into nidoking than a snorlax without sleep talk, but curse is also excellent for lax to be its own threat and especially be able to force a lot more damage on key targets like tyranitar. Snorlax is snorlax, it'll always be great (though monolax certainly doesn't feel great at times).
Cloyster @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Spikes
- Surf
- Toxic
- Explosion
Just like snorlax, pretty much every half decent gsc team has a spiker, and for this team, I chose cloyster primarily to help with non-nidoking grounds, but it also has decently strong surfs and a better explosion compared to forretress. Standard toxic stuff, mainly for other cloyster. Generally, you should bring it in on snorlax and non-nidoking ground types and from there click spikes, unless you already have spikes up, then go wild. You can scout for thunder snorlax with golem if you want, or you can just lay down the spikes. Attempt to save boom for snorlax and assassinating raikou and waters. Against stall or teams that you suspect have a spinner, try to preserve cloyster's hp and not explode unless you really have to or if exploding will open up a clear win path for one of your other pokemon, mostly raikou and moltres.
Raikou @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
IVs: 14 HP / 28 Atk / 26 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Water]
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
When I first attempted to build a moltres team several months ago, of course I immediately went to the analysis of it. Raikou was listed as the ideal partner, with thunderbolt over thunder for more accuracy in general and especially under sun, and hidden power water since moltres was there to deal with exeggutor and water is better than ice for pokemon like golem, steelix, and tyranitar. Raikou does normal raikou things, it dumps on zapdos, prevents other raikou from making progress, helps vs jynx and gengar, and very importantly is great into the waters, being cloyster, vaporeon, and suicune. Cloyster is not really a roadblock for moltres but surfs that 3hko skarmory and explosion that can do 90+ to snorlax is really annoying. Kou doesn't really stop cloyster from exploding but you can bait it, and if they explode into your skarmory or even raikou you still have your snorlax + you can now spin their spikes easily. As for vaporeon and suicune, suicune is really fat and can even dodge 3hko from snorlax, while vaporeon is a massive threat to this team, being able to come in on 3 of the 6 pokemon and boost up. Raikou is very important to this team, so try not to take unnecessary risks like leaving it in on a tyranitar you think is gonna roar or whatever.
Rubber (Moltres) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Sunny Day
- Flamethrower
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
THE rubber chicken. The pokemon I built this team around and that has been fascinating me for months. I think I already explained enough why I wanted to use this pokemon, so I'll purely focus on what it can actually do. Moltres is possibly the hardest counter to all exeggutor sets there is, or at least as close as you can get to an exeggutor counter. HP fire beats skarmory, giga drain beats tyranitar, and explosion beat most other things. Explosion still beats moltres, but as much as moltres is the star of the team, it is still expendable as the core 5 of lax + cloy + kou + skarm + golem can function near perfectly by itself, and if they explode on moltres, they can't explode on snorlax or raikou. Moltres makes excellent use of its typing and rest + sleep talk to come in on exeggutor throughout the game and use it as an opportunity to launch nukes at the opponent. Under sun, moltres flamethrower can 2hko a whole lot of pokemon. You don't even need to use sunny day, simply by clicking flamethrower you are already launching an attack as strong as zapdos thunderbolt. Moltres of course as is very evident by its UUBL status has large issues, but that is what the teammates are for. The other main issues this pokemon has are its electric weakness and inability to do anything against most fire resists, primarily tyranitar, vaporeon, starmie, and suicune. Raikou and snorlax solve moltres' weakness to zapdos, vaporeon, starmie, and suicune, while tyranitar can be worn down with spikes and switching around it until you've discovered its moveset, and if it reveals rest you will likely be able to wall it with skarmory/golem. The best way to use this pokemon is to use it late game as a cleaner or a midgame wallbreaker when snorlax/tyranitar is unable to take its hits or any of the pokemon that wall moltres are not present, and on the handful of pokemon moltres is able to use its typing and bulk to effectively shut down, such as exeggutor (which I've made very clear), skarmory, and steelix. Lastly, two bonuses of sunny day are weakening the accuracy of thunder (which I alluded to with raikou), which helps snorlax, raikou, and even moltres itself dodge the damage and potential paralysis, and weakening water moves, which can also help snorlax and raikou take those hits as well as make something like skarmory coming in on and poisoning cloyster more feasible.
Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Curse
- Drill Peck
- Toxic OR Sleep Talk OR Whirlwind
- Rest
The mon that makes this team a semi-stall team and not a more regular offense, skarmory does the normal skarmory things of cursing up and walling a whole bunch of crap endlessly, primarily snorlax. It's also like the only thing that can deal with machamp (lmao [I will talk about this pokemon later, hold your horses]) which is very appreciated because that pokemon is a threat. Speaking of machamp, it is by far the main reason for running drill peck on this team, and it also deals chip damage to gengar and nidoking which is always good because those pokemon are two of the best progress makers in the tier. Toxic meanwhile does normal toxic things, most importantly weakening cloyster rather than letting it in for free as well as weakening tyranitar, who would otherwise wall moltres and be a nuisance to snorlax. Toxic of course also weakens other pokemon who do not use rest and are vulnerable to poison, such as starmie, miltank, golem, and rhydon. Toxic can be dropped for sleep talk in order to deal with lovely kiss snorlax, while whirlwind can provide phazing to spread chip damage.
Golem @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion
- Roar
At first glance, spikes not seem like an issue for this team with 2 flyers (1 more than most gsc teams) and just how resilient snorlax and raikou are. However, sometimes these pokemon can get overwhelmed, and so can cloyster and golem itself with their lack of non-leftovers recovery, and so removing spikes when given a free turn is always a nice thing. Explosion is here to do big burst damage to potentially dangerous setup sweepers, such as machamp or snorlax, and generally be a nice breaking tool, especially against vaporeon, starmie, and suicune if you expect them to come in. Primarily, this pokemon is the fire and thunder lax check of the team, with skarm taking the earthquakes and golem taking the fire blasts, the flamethrowers, and the thunders. Roar is standard, as it helps phaze out pokemon that can't significantly hurt it, primarily eq-less snorlax and tyranitar, preventing them from becoming a threat if packing a setup move and gathering spikes chip.
Important Notes:
1. As with any stall-ish team, make sure to scout moves before you keep in your walls, otherwise you could have something like skarmory eating a fire blast happen.
2. Attempt to weaken their moltres answers by baiting them in with something like snorlax or golem and, in the case of snorlax, launch your earthquake, and in the case of golem, explosion or roar.
3. Attempt to preserve the hp of cloyster and golem as much as you can when facing an opposing stall team, as they are very pivotal to the spikes war.
4. If facing a vaporeon, starmie, or suicune, try and poison starmie with cloyster on the switch, even if it ends up giving free entry to gengar or other, and try to explode on them with your cloyster and if need be golem, though only try to explode on starmie if you setup spikes before it enters battle.
5. The skarmory moveset is a bit of a give and take, as with moltres instead of something else like sleep talk umbreon, it's harder to handle both lovely kiss snorlax (sleep talk) without dropping toxic (which you really want).
Other Options:
1. Drop rapid spin for fire blast or toxic on golem. Generally rapid spin is very nice for the reasons I already mentioned, but with two flyers, it's not the worst thing you could do. Advantages: Helps preserve explosion or let you use the famed fire + toxic combo seen on snorlax and forretress in this gen and other miscellaneous pokemon in future gens. Disadvantages: Snorlax, cloyster, raikou, and golem itself are now more easily pressured.
2. Drop cloyster for forretress.
Moveset would be spikes + explosion + toxic + hp fire or giga drain. Advantages: extra normal resist, toxic immune, doesn't get one shot by thunder, better into AoA snorlax and nidoking. Disadvantages: worse into grounds, especially marowak, as while forretress can chip them nicely, it can't deal significant one or even to an extent two turn damage, while cloyster is able to do a lot immediately. Also one shot by every relevant fire blast and nearly one shot by flamethrower from snorlax.3. Drop golem for tyranitar.
If you do not desire spin, explosion, or a powerful stab earthquake, then tyranitar is your guy. Moveset would be rock slide + probably pursuit idk + roar + rest. Rock slide does normal ttar rock slide things, and same with roar doing what it normally does. Pursuit removes gengar and misdreavus, who aren't major threats to this team, but can be annoying, especially with gengar being able to explode. If you're daring you can also drop earthquake on snorlax with suit tar but I really don't think you should considering moltres is on the team. Rest for recovery. Advantages: stab rock slide off base 134 attack, pursuit for annoying misdreavus and gengar meaning they are much less of a threat, much specially bulkier, not instantly shattered by water and odd grass moves, and better into hp fire eggy. Disadvantages: loss of explosion, loss of rapid spin, much more pronounced machamp weakness, can still lose to perish trap missy and dynamic punch gengar.4. Drop golem for umbreon.
Moveset of charm + pursuit + rest + sleep talk. I referenced this in the important notes section, and the logic behind this pick is that umbreon handles fire lax just like golem and tyranitar and provides pursuit support just like tyranitar. However, with rest and sleep talk, it's more forgiving to run non-sleep talk skarmory as umbreon can now handle lovely kiss snorlax. Advantages: Allows skarmory to run non-sleep talk and snorlax to run curse more forgivingly, reliably handles jynx, gengar, exeggutor, starmie, nidoking, and tyranitar. Disadvantages: Roughly similar to tyranitar.Threat List:
Preface - I know this looks like a long list, but a lot of these pokemon threaten a lot of other stall teams, not every team is perfect anyway, and I wanted to cover everything I could, so yeah. Also this isn't really ordered. I could if I wanted but it would be messy and I don't feel like it.
1. Machamp. I referenced this mon a lot, and for good reason. With curse, cross chop's nasty 25% critical hit rate, and rock slide, this pokemon is able to threaten the team quite a bit. However, drill peck skarmory, swapping to moltres on a cross chop and launching a flamethrower, some favorable miss/crit dodge rng, and explosion can all help with this.
2. Cloyster. Without a gengar or misdreavus, it's kind of hard to stop this mon from exploding on any team, so the best thing you can do without either of these pokemon is poison it and bait an explosion into skarmory or golem, as many other gsc teams do. If you have umbreon, it can also come in on cloyster and weaken its booms with charm and spam pursuit for chip, although the usual benefit of umbreon getting exploded on by cloyster before a charm allowing golem to spin spikes away permanently is not present here because you have to choose between golem OR umbreon.
3. Marowak. Again, like many other stall teams, this one does not particularly like marowak, especially if it has fire blast or skarmory has been paralyzed. Try and preserve cloyster, explode on it with golem, use moltres if need be, and use rest on skarmory in front of snorlax and anything else it may wall often to remove paralysis.
4. Nidoking. If snorlax eats a thief and especially if it doesn't have sleep talk, it's gonna be a lot harder to stop nidoking with spikes on your side. If need be, use moltres or golem for nidoking, especially since moltres can use sunny day to turn thunder into dynamic punch and then rest up later on. However, with forretress, you can take advantage of this pokemon coming in to spike up, and umbreon can help to wall it.
5. HP Fire Exeggutor. If eggy is giga drain, great! Burn the sleep on moltres, and if you want to preserve it, go to skarmory, and if you want to launch attacks, stay in. However, if you want to preserve moltres in a match but they have hp fire eggy, you kinda have to go molt and risk an explosion when you switch it in. Eggy is a hard mon to wall anyways, similar to cloyster. However, if you are using tyranitar or umbreon over golem, exeggutor likely won't be an issue in almost any situation.
6. Lovely kiss snorlax. If you choose not to use sleep talk skarmory or umbreon, this pokemon is a major threat, as the two main sleep talkers on this team aren't exactly pokemon you want to switch into snorlax.
7. Fire move + toxic snorlax. With the fire moves trashing skarmory and toxic chipping golem fast, really the only safe ways to handle this thing are with your own snorlax as well as cloyster, as having golem be poisoned is extremely detrimental. Umbreon and tyranitar can handle this set if you opt to use them though.
8. AoA Snorlax. With earthquake hitting golem, fire blast/thunder hitting skarmory and the latter also smashing cloyster, and self destruct to bring another thing with it, this set is extremely deadly without a forretress or umbreon.
9. Vaporeon. If raikou is dead or your opponent is in a comfortable position to where they can eat a thunderbolt without caring too much and your raikou is weakened enough and spikes are up, vaporeon can kind of just casually kill the entire team. Handle with caution.
10. Sub + Nightmare Starmie. This can already quite easily come in on moltres and to an extent golem and cloyster thanks to substitute and recover. If raikou and/or snorlax and/or umbreon are sleeping, it's gonna be a bit rough with skarmory being 3hkod by surf, especially if skarm doesn't have phazing.
11. Whirlwind Zapdos. This mon is hard to deal with regardless but at least on more offensive teams you can kill it quick and usually have a better way to status it than one pokemon it's already scared of using thunder. Speaking of, that one pokemon is raikou, however raikou is not a rock sturdy answer. With spikes chip, the possibility of thunder paralysis, and thief support, zapdos can potentially muscle its way past raikou. Normal zapdos also threatens the team if raikou is weakened or dead, but zapdos poses a large threat to pretty much every non-blissey team if raikou is weakened, dead, or just not even present.
12. Rock slide + earthquake + fire blast Tyranitar. With earthquake dealing big damage to golem and raikou, fire blast 2hko'ing skarmory, and rock slide nearly 2hko'ing cloyster + being able to flinch past an unboosted snorlax, ttar can pose a threat. Luckily, this set is not very common, cloyster can still deal with it short term, rock slide flinch is (thankfully) luck reliant, especially if your snorlax has curse, and tyranitar hates toxic and your golem needs to be revealed before they try and earthquake it. Umbreon can also handle tyranitar quite nicely.
13. Gengar. To this team, gengar is able to threaten both explosion resists and take a massive amount of hp out of snorlax and raikou, as well as block cloyster's explosion and toxic while needing to be worn down with surf predicts long term. Thief can also be quite annoying. Even with tyranitar and umbreon, gengar can still have dynamic punch, which if it hits, will be a real issue for tyranitar, and it can explode on umbreon, opening up pokemon like jynx and nidoking that would otherwise be very annoyed by umbreon.
Replays:
I don't have any lol. I've only really used this team on ladder and in random friendlies and I don't really save those. Sorry lmao, you'll just have to take my word on this one ig.
I know this team isn't the greatest (made obvious by the massive threat list lol), but I've had a lot of fun using it and spontaneously decided today I wanted to make a post about it, even though I made it like 3 months ago. I highly encourage messing around with sets and mons until you find something you like, especially since a lot of my teams are tailored to my personal liking, or you can just take this unchanged and hop right into playing. Thank you for reading this unnecessarily long post, and have fun gsc'ing!
Original paste again: https://pokepast.es/e3eb1bcad8c7d90b
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