SS OU How can I improve my team?

[mrquestion]

Literally the first team I've ever made, I'm new to competitive pokemon so this team might suck, and it probably does.


Hydreigon @ Leftovers

Ability: Levitate
252 SPA/ 4 SPD/ 252 Spe Timid
Nasty Plot
Draco Meteor
Flash Cannon
Dark Pulse

Basically supposed to be a high damager with moves Draco Meteor. Then recovering via usage of Nasty Plot, I did need a Dragon type because they're pretty strong, so I chose Hydreigon to fulfill the dragon-type role here. And there's also Dark Support which is nice


Gengar @ Leftovers

Ability: Cursed Body
252 SPA/ 4 SPD/ 252 Spe Timid
Shadow Ball
Sludge Wave
Focus Blast
Nasty Plot

Support to inflict the Poison status and decrease/increase stats. With great speed Gengar can use it's high SPA to its advantage, greatly damaging enemies, he can also increase his own stats for even more of a buff with his moves.


Metagross @ Rocky Helmet

Ability: Clear Body
252 HP/ 252 Atk/4 SpD Adamant
Body Press
Iron Defense
Iron Head
Earthquake

I think Metagross is probably the strongest on my team here, I tried to combine both offense and defense with Iron Defense, and Body Press which has their damage based on defense


Heatran @ Leftovers

Ability: Flash Fire
252 HP/ 252 SPA/ 4 SpD Modest
Lava Plume
Earth Power
Eruption
Flamethrower

Burn Support and Status decrease support. Meant to be one of the tanks on the team as well, with Eruption I think that'd be a nice combo to try out and test it. He also has ground support in case of a pokemon weak to ground.


Ninetales-Alola @ Leftovers

Ability: Snow Warning
252 SPA/ 4 SpD/ 252 Spe Timid
Aurora Veil
Blizzard
Moonblast
Freeze-Dry

Meant to be support for weather damage and defense with Aurora Veil. Thanks to Blizzard and Freeze-Dry it can also freeze enemies quite a lot of the time, and there's also Moonblast for Fairy Support in case I face a Dragon type or something else that's also weak to Fairy.


And last but not least,
Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet

Ability: Intimidate
252 Atk /4 SpD/252 Spe Jolly
Earthquake
Stone Edge
U-Turn
Stealth Rock

Mainly meant for stealth rock support. I needed a flying type on my team, and I see Landorus-Therian used quite often, so I picked him, he's meant to be a fast high-damage attacker with a variety of moves up to his disposal. He's also immune to ground, which is nice.


This team is probably bad I know, but it's my first team, I don't think I did that bad.

 

[ironwater]

Hi mrquestion, welcome to Smogon and to competitive Pokemon! I am locking your RMT for the time being as the forum rules require that you provide full sets (including EV spreads) and at least three lines of descriptions for each Pokemon to explain their roles. Please read the rules carefully and look at Team Showcase to see the detail we require. PM me with updated descriptions and sets, and I will be happy to unlock this. Also, feel free to PM me if you need help or have any question. Have a nice day! (reduced the image size because it was hard to read)

How to PM someone on Smogon

To PM someone on Smogon, go over their name on any of their post. It will display a little pop-up with a summary of their profile. Then, hit the "Start conversation" button and you will be able to write a PM just like you write a regular thread.

Tips to help get 3 lines of description

Why did you choose this Pokemon?
What do the EV spreads do and why do you have it?
What are all 4 moves for?

Edit: Unlocked! Thanks for the descriptions.

 

[Pyranitar]

Your team really lacks synergy and has a lot of overlap, and since you’re new I don’t really blame you but Im gonna give my two cents either way. First off, your perception of Alolan Ninetails and Landorus’s roles are a bit off. Alolan Ninetails is pretty much exclusively used for veil support on hyper offense teams and hail in general on the rare hail teams, other than that, their other attributes aren’t all that great, stats are pretty mediocre and its typing is kinda meh too. Landorus however, while being versatile enough to be able to do almost anything you want it to, is mostly used as a defensive utility pokemon and a pivot with U Turn, although it can certainly run offensive sets if thats what your team needs. I don’t like having both Metagross and Heatran on the same team. In most cases, you don’t really need more than one steel type on the same team. At that point, you’re just overlapping on weaknesses. Metagross also isn’t very good in OU and if you wanted to use an iron defense body press set on your team, Ferrothorn or Magnezone are better picks. Also, you should run some more defensive EVs on your Heatran. I notice your team is rather lacking in anything that has really any defense EVs. The standard Heatran EV spread is 252HP/232SpDef/24Speed, give that a try. I also think Gengar and Hydreigon, what I view as the two main offensive pieces of your team, don’t mesh well together. Try pairing two pokemon that cover eachothers weaknesses, ie a dark type who beats psychic and ghost types paired with a fighting type, who beats the dark and in previous generations, steel types that would resist dark. Thats just one example of team synergy, and do the same with defensive mons too. Don’t go about teambuilding thinking “This pokemon is strong and can do this”, think or it like “this pokemon is strong and can so this, but struggles vs this, what pokemon can I add to cover that weakness”.

 

[mrquestion]

Your team really lacks synergy and has a lot of overlap, and since you’re new I don’t really blame you but Im gonna give my two cents either way. First off, your perception of Alolan Ninetails and Landorus’s roles are a bit off. Alolan Ninetails is pretty much exclusively used for veil support on hyper offense teams and hail in general on the rare hail teams, other than that, their other attributes aren’t all that great, stats are pretty mediocre and its typing is kinda meh too. Landorus however, while being versatile enough to be able to do almost anything you want it to, is mostly used as a defensive utility pokemon and a pivot with U Turn, although it can certainly run offensive sets if thats what your team needs. I don’t like having both Metagross and Heatran on the same team. In most cases, you don’t really need more than one steel type on the same team. At that point, you’re just overlapping on weaknesses. Metagross also isn’t very good in OU and if you wanted to use an iron defense body press set on your team, Ferrothorn or Magnezone are better picks. Also, you should run some more defensive EVs on your Heatran. I notice your team is rather lacking in anything that has really any defense EVs. The standard Heatran EV spread is 252HP/232SpDef/24Speed, give that a try. I also think Gengar and Hydreigon, what I view as the two main offensive pieces of your team, don’t mesh well together. Try pairing two pokemon that cover eachothers weaknesses, ie a dark type who beats psychic and ghost types paired with a fighting type, who beats the dark and in previous generations, steel types that would resist dark. Thats just one example of team synergy, and do the same with defensive mons too. Don’t go about teambuilding thinking “This pokemon is strong and can do this”, think or it like “this pokemon is strong and can so this, but struggles vs this, what pokemon can I add to cover that weakness”.

Yeah, I'm not that good on teambuilding at all, I tried making a team with Metagross though since he's my fav pokemon

 

[Pyranitar]

Yeah, I'm not that good on teambuilding at all, I tried making a team with Metagross though since he's my fav pokemon

Building with off meta pokemon is certainly something you can do, but you really need to have a solid grasp of what you’re doing to make it work. If you want to use Metagross, try playing RU, I hear its pretty great there.

 

[Mada]

Hi! I will try to help you with your team. There are many improvements you can do and i saw some errors so i will try to explain everything so that you will be able to understand better. Unfortunately you will need to make many changes to make this viable, and i also reccomend you to look at the sample teams and try some of them so that u can learn the metagame before building yourself.

Major changes:
> Gengari is a cool mon altho it is outclassed by other special attackers such as Dragapult. Ghost is one of the best offensive types when it comes to resistances and immunities. Gengar has a good spatk and speed but so does Dragapult, which is one of the fastest mons in the metagame and usually runs Choice Specs as his Spatk isn't really that good, but he is still able to 2hko many Pokemons that don't resist its stab, and pivotting with U-turn. Gengar can easily get walled and revenge killed by Choice Scarf and i would really change it with Dragapult.

Hydreigon isn't really used in OU and his set isn't really that good. Nasty Plot should be used before attacking, so that u can deal as much damage as possible and u usually want to use it in safe situations and this is way hydreigon also runs substitute along nasty plot in many sets. I would suggest to remove him and to try a Choice Scarf user as the team is lacking Speed Control. Tapu Lele can be a good choice but so are Urshifu-R and Kartana. Blacephalon could also be used to make a sort of Ghost-spam team with Blace + Dragapult.

This set is kinda bad as in general there aren't many viable Body Press users. Metagross can probably only run Band as a set in OU but that still doesn't make it viable at all. As we are weak to mons such as Weavile and Urshifu-R, i would try Clefable which is a really solid mon. Alternativaly, with Tapu Lele also Melmetal can be a great option that can soft check Weavile. Clefable usually runs some utility moves such as Trick + Sticky Barb or Thunder Wave + Knock Off or Aromatherapy/Stealth Rock, but is also able to run a Calm Mind set to threaten some teams after checks such as Melmetal and Heatran are gone.

Screens are for sure great but when using Screens u most likely want to a run an (Hyper) Offensive team where you like to have setup sweepers that actually abuse the screens to boost themselves so that they can start sweeping, or you can also run some Hail abusers such as Arctozolt. You don't have any of those so i would just replace it with some utility mon like Rotom-W or Tornadus that can pivot arround and help vs some annoying mons such as Melmetal.

Minor changes:
Heatran is a good mon and can help vs fairies while also providing utility like trapping defensive walls such as Toxapex or setting up hazards. We are running too much Spatk investments tho, as we want to be bulky to be able to switch on mons like Zapdos/Tornadus/Ferrothorn more easily and to have a longer longevity. Eruption is a nichy move that can be tried on some sun teams / Scarf sets but usually those are fishy styles / sets in OU.
We can use a trapper set with Rocks and Toxic, something like this:

Tran set

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 248 HP / 216 SpD / 44 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Toxic

Lando is a staple of the metagame and altho it can be a good offensive mon with a crazy base attack and a decent speed, its most used set his SpDef. It is an important Electric immunity and can act as a defogger or a switch-in into Ground/Electric moves. We do want max Spdef to take hits better. As we are using rocks on Heatran, we can run Defog as we are also lacking an hazard removal. Stone Edge can be easily replace by Toxic or Knock Off. Knock Off can remove important items such as HDB from zapdos/tornadus-T while Toxic can wear down opponents such as Slowbro and Hippowdon.


We made many changes and with some of my suggestions you could make a team similar to this: https://pokepast.es/a54490a30527012c

I gave you some choices and examples and i tried to explain everything so that you can understand some choices. This team should be pretty standard and solid and for sure more viable. I hope this helps and feel free to ask any question!

 

[rczg]

Hydreigon isn't really used in OU and his set isn't really that good. Nasty Plot should be used before attacking, so that u can deal as much damage as possible and u usually want to use it in safe situations and this is way hydreigon also runs substitute along nasty plot in many sets. I would suggest to remove him and to try a Choice Scarf user as the team is lacking Speed Control. Tapu Lele can be a good choice but so are Urshifu-R and Kartana. Blacephalon could also be used to make a sort of Ghost-spam team with Blace + Dragapult.

I kinda disagree with the narrative that Hyderigon isnt used in OU, he makes a great breaker into things like heatran and the slow bros

 

[Mada]

I kinda disagree with the narrative that Hyderigon isnt used in OU, he makes a great breaker into things like heatran and the slow bros

Hi! Hydreigon being not used a lot in OU isn't deniable as usage stats are open to everyone and it has 3% usage in low ladder and 2% in high ladder, which aren't much. Altho this doesn't mean it does have to be bad, it for sure can be an interessing breaker as you said but it just gets outclassed by other mons or offers less utility/help to the team than other Pokemons in the tier

 

[rczg]

Hi! Hydreigon being not used a lot in OU isn't deniable as usage stats are open to everyone and it has 3% usage in low ladder and 2% in high ladder, which aren't much. Altho this doesn't mean it does have to be bad, it for sure can be an interessing breaker as you said but it just gets outclassed by other mons or offers less utility/help to the team than other Pokemons in the tier

can't argue with statistics, my bad lol. I guess I tend to just see a disproportionate amount on ladder. appreciate the heads up.