SM PU Storm Season - A PU Rain Team

[AxelTheTactician]

I made this team a few years back, wanting to make a rain team and mostly playing PU, and it performed pretty well! I'm still relatively new to team building, so I might be missing some major weakness that more experienced players are aware of.




Swanna @ Charti Berry
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Scald
- Defog
- Roost

Full investment in Special Attack and Speed for optimal sweeping potential, with the remains in Defense just in case. A Modest nature boosts that Special Attack up to an even 300. Hurricane has perfect accuracy in the rain, and is an extremely powerful STAB move that can clear up Fighting and Grass threats with ease. Scald is always a powerful, reliable move that can take out Fire, Ground, and most importantly Rock types. The Charti Berry is meant to help Swanna survive attacks from said Rock types, securing a kill with Scald. Defog clears hazards, and Roost can help restore health and remove weaknesses from that Flying type. You might be wondering why I focused so much on the Rock weakness, when Electric is much more threatening. That's where the next Pokemon comes in.


Manectric @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Flamethrower
- Signal Beam

Manectric's Lightning Rod allows for a free switch against those Electric moves that scare Swanna so much. With Swanna's Ground immunity and Manectric's Electric immunity, they play off each other well. A Special Attack boost from Lightning Rod plus a Choice Scarf with full Special Attack and Speed investment makes Manectric an incredibly fast and effective sweeper with Thunder. HP Grass can get rid of any pesky Ground types that can force a switch, Flamethrower can cover Ice types and Signal Beam covers Psychic and Dark types.


Ludicolo @ Leftovers
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Toxic

For when the opponent is having too much fun. Ludicolo can constantly heal large numbers every turn, and can drain enemies with ease. Full HP and Special Defense investment allows for plenty of hits to be taken, with a Calm nature increasing those numbers. Leech Seed, Leftovers and Rain Dish give plenty of health each turn, with Toxic helping take out enemies and Giga Drain for even more healing. Protect gives a free turn of Toxic damage and healing.


Relicanth @ Damp Rock
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rain Dance
- Stealth Rock
- Head Smash
- Yawn

Relicanth comes with Sturdy, allowing for the use of a Damp Rock-boosted Rain Dance without the need for a Focus Sash. Stealth Rock is always a good tool for crippling enemies, while Yawn can force a switch if needed. Investment in Attack and Speed over Defense allows for the best possible usage of Head Smash if Relicanth survives whatever the opponent has in stock. Head Smash's recoil can give an opening for Swanna to come in, if- for whatever reason- the enemy doesn't want to beat up Relicanth.


Volbeat (M) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Rain Dance
- Encore
- Thunder Wave
- U-turn

Is anyone surprised? Volbeat is always important for weather teams, with a Prankster-boosted Rain Dance. Investment into HP, Def and SpD is good for keeping the little bug alive. Encore and TWave are good options for crippling the enemy, also boosted by Prankster. A Relaxed nature and 0 IVs in Speed give Volbeat a nice, slow U-Turn for safe switches.


Armaldo @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- X-Scissor
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Stone Edge

Finally, Armaldo. I chose this guy because I noticed a massive weakness to Freeze-Dry, and needed coverage for Grass and Ice types. Full investment into Attack and Speed, naturally, with an Adamant nature to increase damage. I chose Adamant over Jolly because Swift Swim should be a sufficient boost. X-Scissor cuts the Grass (pun completely intended), Earthquake is Earthquake, Brick Break takes out screens and is a more accurate option for Ice types, and Stone Edge is a gamble if I can risk the accuracy, but pays off with massive power.


The overall strategy is to open with Relicanth and set up rain, get a free switch to Swanna once Relicanth faints. Swanna deals as much damage as possible until the Electric type comes out, Manectric absorbs the attack and cleans up the rest. Ludicolo can stall out anything that can't kill it quick enough, Volbeat can set rain back up once it runs out, and Armaldo can take care of dangerous Grass and Ice types.

 

[ShuckleDeath]

Hello AxelTheTactician,

Rain is a semi-common build in PU as it can be used to blow past unprepared teams with it's combined speed control and power. Unfortunately, this rain build is very heavily flawed in a lot of ways. The biggest one that you should really worry about is lack of speed control, which is the main reason you would be running Rain in the first place. Your only Swift Swim abuser is Armaldo, who is naturally just really slow at only base 45 speed. Even at +2 all the common Choice Scarf users will be outpacing it, this makes it very hard to achieve a sweep. Ludicolo is a fantastic abuser of Swift Swim in it's own right but you are running quite a subpar set on it. Swanna seems out of place as well, and you struggle greatly against Aurorus, which should have been a top priority on a Rain team, such as this. I feel this team could be improved with a quite a bit of set changes as you have a lot of core ideas with Rain it is just that you didn't put them together in an optimal way.

Set Changes:

Set

Swanna @ Charti Berry ---> Waterium Z
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest ---> Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Scald
- Rain Dance
- Rest

While Z-Rain Dance Swanna might not be incredibly effective it does give your team a cool win condition that can set Rain. Defog is hard to fit on weather teams as you kinda need every move slot to achieve the goal of breaking and cleaning, and a few to help check some key threats like Gurdurr and Aurorus. Rest actually helps in beating Gastrodon 1v1 which can defiantly factor in to the success of this team.

Set

Ludicolo @ Leftovers ---> Life Orb
Ability: Rain Dish ---> Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Calm ---> Modest Nature
IVs: 29 HP / 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Leech Seed ---> Hydro Pump
- Protect ---> Focus Blast
- Toxic ---> Rain Dance

On Rain teams you really want to just be hitting as hard and as fast as possible as you will find it really restricts support for balanced teams, which is what the feel of this team seems like you were going for. You would just find a balanced team with out weather would be much more effecitve, besides Hail teams which actually can run balance really well as it needs much less support to function and it's two main users, Aurours and Alolan Sandslash, actually fulfill balance roles pretty well by themselves. Offensive Ludicolo will serve you well here, you really want Focus Blast to help deal with Ferroseed and the modest nature will help with wallbreaking in general.

Pokemon Changes:

--->

Set

Hitmonchan @ Assault Vest
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 156 HP / 224 Atk / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Rapid Spin

You have much better speed control now with these suggestions so having a way of dealing with Aurorus reliably and easily will be very beneficial to you. I was thinking Crabominable would be great in this slot as it deals with Aurorus quite a bit better then Hitmonchan, but Hitmonchan also helps in checking Alolan Sandslash so honestly I feel this would be the better pick over all. Choice Specs Aurorus is dealt with by your team offensively so it's only really Choice Scarf Aurorus that would be the big threat and Hitmonchan switches into Choice Scarf variants pretty well. Also this gives you a bit of hazard control, even if most of the time it might be better to opt not to use it.

--->

Set

Kabutops @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 29 HP
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
- Liquidation
- Superpower

Kabutops is another Rock-type Swift Swim user but is much faster and can abuse STAB Water-type moves. Aqua Jet helps with Choice Scarf Aurorus but not much else while Superpower allows Kabutops to hit Ferroseed very hard. Superpower also hits Poliwrath but you have a Swanna so thats not as important, being able to hit Ferroseed with both of your Swift Swim abusers actually makes this team quite solid with these suggestions.

Team Changes <--- Click for importable