Hi all, I created/tested a new team about a week ago around jolteon, and although it seemed to work very well, and has about a 90% winning record so far, I was wondering if I could get some advice from the seniors around here over a couple issues.
A little background, for those who are interested. Physical sweepers are nasty. Almost all of the legendary pokes (580+stats) who have a strong stat up move are physical. Plus they get nasty priority moves like XTR3M3!!!speed and techBP. Thus that is why 90% of teams I built before this one were based around ddtar and ddmence (rotom/zapdos give me too much problems with lucario). However, I have always had a spot on my team for the raw power of specsjolt. I mean, what's not to like? He OHKO's half the OU metagame, and 2OHKO's another quarter, with one move and no setup. Electric types have only one weakness, which is predictable (though common), and only have 3 types resisting it, along with annhilating bulky waters which give ALL other setup sweepers problems. Thus I decided to build a team around them. Again, for those who aren't interested in the building part, just skip right down to the team synergy part.
Obviously, the start of this team is specsjolt:
Next, I wondered what stops jolteon from sweeping? Only a small list of things: ground types, grass, dragons, and blissey. Well, the only dragons are latias and the much less used flygon. Anyways, first to address the ground issue. The most efficient solution to groundies is toxic spikes. Instead of running a gimmicky ttar set or something to attract ground pokes, Tspikes also severely hamper blissey and celebi. Thus I needed a good toxic spiker. Tentacruel has always been unbelievably underwhelming, so I decided to role with roserade, since I've always had a soft spot for grass types anyways.
Alright, the next thing is to deal with blissey. Well the premier option is explosion gengar. This guy also baits scizor, which are a problem for jolteon anyways, and absorbs those ground attacks aimed at jolteon.
Having 1 guy for blissey is never enough (god she's so annoying), and having another powerful special sweeper to wear at those irritating walls is never a bad thing. Heatran was an obvious choice, since he also attracts blissey like mad, shuca heatran can beat those annoying scarftran (which isn't too common now thanks to resttalk gyara and latias), has huge move coverage, and fire is awesome (though not in pokemon. Screw you gamefreak!). Plus he can setup rocks, which are crucial.
Although I've had problems fitting in bulky waters in my teams in the past (not doubting their strength though), there was no problem in this team! I tried gyarados for a very very short while, but aside from jolteon his synergy was....pretty much nonexistant. Then I tried suicune, and MAN does this dog OWN. Life orb suicune it is (more description later). A big advantage is suicune baits, and severely beats, celebi and rotom, severely.
And of course the lynchpin, as he is to pretty much all my teams, was scizor. He gives me a third check to blissey, owns latias, and deals with all threats that I don't want to dedicate 3 separate pokes for.
I know this thread is getting long, but the team building process is almost over. jolteon was replaced with raikou, for a few very crucial reasons, and it has been a tremendous success. The speed difference is there, but not the most important thing in the world. The only things you'll be beating (most of which are speed tied) are dugtrio, weavile, starmie, and azelf. Azelf's rarely seen outside of a lead, starmie get beaten 1v1, as does weavile, and dugtrio wins 90% of the time regardless (you're choiced). The plus sides are significant: More power. This guarantees the ko on salamence, and is important for bulky variants, and in general is useful for finishing off heatrans, calm mind suicunes, etc. More importantly however is the bulk. Bullet punches, though resisted, do 65-70% to jolteon, and luc's xtreme!speed does a huge amount as well. After stealth rock bullet punch is only a 3hko on raikou. Huge difference, particularly if some odd team uses both. An important thing to note is that even though this team is built around raikou, 4 pokes on this team consistently for me sweep the opposing team. This, as shown in the analysis, is because they remove each other's counters very quickly. The final team!
Analysis:
THE LEAD
heatran@choicescarf
4hp 252spa 252spe naive
flash fire
fire blast
earth power
stealth rock
explosion
The set that's imho seeing a lot less usage since scarfrotom does a lot of the stuff it does better, since it's strong against latias, and trick is less risky. Still! this guy's a freaking beast, able to blast through lucario, scizor, zapdos, etcc You all know how strong he is. After the opponents counter has been eliminated (swampert, gyara, heatran, etc..), I have swept with my lead many, many times. First turn I do a variety of things, in which I go more in depth into in the threats list. But basically, I either fire blast roserade, sometimes blast metagross, switch to roserade against opposing heatran (lol funny I know), and SR against anything else, faking a standard heatran lead.
This guy has tremendous synergy with roserade as a tagteam duo to open a match. Many leads will use earth attacks against my defensive roserade, who can handle them. Fire and ice attacks aimed at roserade are easily manhandled by heatran. Heatran gained a scarf since scizor/gengar has been enough for blissey so far. His fighting weaknesses gives gengar/roserade to setup, and and his water weakness gives suicune/roserade chance to setup also. I also use heatran to test if guys have hp[fire] on scizor. Dragon pulse would be nice to have but latias/flygon is already dealt with in scizor, gengar and roserade and salamence/dragonite get beaten by suicune early game and raikou lategame.
Support Lead
Roserade@black sludge
252hp 120def 136spdef calm
natural cure
sleep powder
stun spore
grass knot
toxic spikes
I...am astounded by how effective roserade works outside of a lead as support. I don't think I have ever not been able to bring roserade in safely, and once she's in she delivers better than UPS. Sleep powder the first switch in, stun spore the second, and toxic spikes while you laugh at the opponent. My problem with having a silly hp[insert type] is that you're practically begging to be set up on by heatran, mence, latias, anything. Roserade is really hard to 1ohko (generally only fire types do it, and they're really predictable, and almost welcomed), and thus stun spore is almost guaranteed. To make a point, life orb starmies only 3hko this seductive yet thorny vixen...plant...thing. Grass knot 1hkos.
As a team member roserade's irreplaceable. She consistently and fairly reliably paralyzes or sleeps pokes that counter raikou like latias, mence, and perhaps more importantly than all, heatran. Her spikes are critical to wear at swampert, hippowdon, suicune, etc.. that plague my choice sweepers. Grass knot owns gyara. Celebi's got nothing on this babydoll.
The Momentum Builder
Suicune@life orb
4hp 252spa 252spe
modest pressure
calm mind
hydro pump
ice beam
hidden power [electric]
I've finally gotten around to using a bulky water outside of starmie, and suicune may be one of the powerful pokemon I've ever used on shoddy. I don't think there's a single match where I haven't taken out 1 pokemon and severely damaged another. He is a solid salamence/gyara counter, and demolishes rotom forms, which is funny since teams generally only carry 1 electric attack for gyara, and thus suicune 75% of the time eliminates his own counter. He takes 60% from LO starmie and 1hko's back, as well as 1hko'ing all rotom, gyara, mence, heatran, magnezone, scarfrachi, and does MASSIVE dmg to ttar. Plus, when blissey's gone suicune has 5-0'd many a stall team. Suicune's funny in he has just enough speed to outspeed tanks and walls but plenty of bulk to survive around 3 hits from offensive teams. Oh, and he beats all latias also.
The Catchall
Gengar@choice scarf
4hp 252spa 252spe
naive levitate
shadow ball
thunderbolt
trick
explosion
Yeah, yeah, weird set, I know. Well gengar completes my core nicely, being my only solid earthquake absorber (something I wish I could fix, but I can't fit latias anywhere...), a fighting attack absorber (crucial for machamp...stupid machamp), and counter to blissey/latias/gyara if suicune's gone. What do I do against ttar? I cry. Lol well if an opponent is desparate enough to send ttar against a random gengar they don't know is scarfed then I'm not too worried anyways, it's just setup bait for suicune. Scizor's the same case as well, although most bullet punch fearing the usual hp fire. On the plus side this team cares very little about scizor, ttar as always hates toxic spikes, scizor, and suicune by default, and this gengar outspeeds other gengar with hp[fire], dd'ed mence and gyara, and beats latias. Can't beat everything, folks, that's why we have teams.
The Lynchkingpin
Scizor@choice band
252 hp 152 att 100spdef
adamant technician
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what he does, so I'm going to focus on what he gives to the team. Scizor is generally speaking a check against salamence, flygon, cresselia, gengar, azelf, jolteon, etc.. Just basically things I don't feel like dealing with. More importantly, Scizor absorbs the dark attacks on gengar, and u-turns to allow my apropriate sweeper to set up. More often than not his uturn hits either zapdos, gliscor, or heatran. The latter two are setup bait for suicune to start wrecking things, and zapdos is handled by heatran, who if they counter with their own heatran, is setup for suicune, and if they send in blissey, creates a cycle with scizor (with me having momentum). Plus he takes out latias, who while can't beat raikou 1v1, gets a little annoying sometimes.
THE MAN
Raikou@choice specs
4 hp 252spa 252 spe
timid pressure
This guy is my lategame cleaner. I've been down 1-4 sacrificing everything to get rid of blissey and swampert and setup SR etc.. to have this guy nuke everything to pieces. 1hko's mence, scizor, lucario, gyara, suicune, gengar, infernape, empoleon (aka the usual lategame opponents). 2hko's scarfrachi and survives iron head. 2hko's ttar switch ins after stealth rock, as well as rotom and zapdos. Takes <40% from scizor and lucario's priority.
THREAT LIST
Defensive Threats:
Offensive Threats:
Scarfrachi's are annoying as always but not terribly so on this team, since, I dunno, 5/6 of the team resists iron head. Suicune sets up and destroys jirachi, heatran obviously wins, raikou wins also, scizor u-turns all over scarfrachi.
