SS UU Trying to make folks hate me as much as possible, a UU Stall team

[phoenixwright7]

Hi, It's been.... Awhile, actually. I wanna say the last time I posted on smogon was back when Legend of Korra aired it's first season. Haven't done much competitive battling in years and kinda missed it, so what better way to return than with a degenerate stall team!

Skarmary 2.0 (Celesteela) @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Heavy Slam
- Flamethrower

If you wanna blame anything for why I'm doing stall, blame coming across this thing, seeing that it has leech seed of all things, and going "Huh... Neat..." Celesteela here was the first pokemon I decided to add and made it one of my special walls. Steel's always been a great specially defensive typing and it's great bulk means that it generally does do it's job of tanking special hits, even super effective ones, and it's offensive moves are usually pretty nice, especially heavy slam for dealing with fairies and the sorts. Leech Seed is also... Fun when I can get it off, but... I'll be honest, I've had mixed feelings about Celesteela unfortunately. Like, sometimes it does it's job marvelously, but other times it's a bit awkward. I'm probably the most open to replacing Celesteela, even though it's basically the whole reason why I made this team in the first place.

Luna (Cresselia) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Toxic
- Moonblast
- Moonlight

Psychic is my favorite typing, so I'll almost always try to find a place for it on my team. So, when I decided to make a stall team, I originally was considering a Hatterene as a bulky psychic 'mon... But then I remembered the monster that is Cresselia exists (or still exists, rather ) And I have wanted to use Cresselia since I basically got into competitive battling late gen 4 and just never got around to it. So far, I've been pretty happy with her. She tanks all sorts of physical attacks as well as expected and can even check Keldeo as long as it ain't running Hydro Pump. Psyshock and Moonblast are great stabs when used for a super effective hit (psyshock has a 52% chance to 2hit specs Keldeo, which I'm pretty sure is really important at the moment ) and Toxic is necessary for stall. Add some extra self healing and max bulk and you have degeneracy.pokemon... Hopefully.

Punchy Dragon (Kommo-o) (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Bulletproof
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Body Press
- Earthquake
- Roar

I really wasn't sure who to run as a rocker when building this team. Scrolled through all the 'mons that get rocks these days and decided to try Kommo-o. So far, pretty glad I did. Great defensive typing, bulletproof is hilarious for noping stuff like shadow ball using aegislash. Body press is a cool as Hell stab move, and I'm a big fan of running Roar on my rockers for phasing (even though phasing ain't as good as it once was in a world where boots exists... And sound proof Kommo-os which I saw one of tonight ). Earthquake rounds out the set about as well as a ground coverage move can.

Gen 1 Queen (Chansey) @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Seismic Toss
- Protect

Can't have a degenerate stall team without a wish passing cleric. Chansey basically rounds out my defensive core by walling basically everything and keeping my team healthy. I was actually pretty shocked that the sample set on site isn't a wish passing set. I dunno. The set's been working about as well as it always has. I have considered maybe changing her for an Umbreon or a Sylveon for better typings while still doing the cleric thing, but I'm not sure that they'd actually tank hits as well as, well, the Gen 1 queen does. Kinda curious about y'alls thoughts on this one.

Good boi (Zygarde-10%) @ Choice Band
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Outrage
- Thousand Arrows
- Iron Tail

Okay, so I got my hopefully impenetrable wall, now I needed something fast to attempt cleanups and closing out games. Band Zygarde-10% is who I decided on 'cause he does hit hard, he is fast, and the nickname don't lie. He's usually, a pretty dang good boi. 99.9% of the time I throw him out, I click on thousand arrows to chunck or kill pretty much everythang. I don't think I ever have used any of his other moves other than Extreme Speed which either says something about a ground move that nothing's immune to, or me being bad at the game any more. Really, not sure which, lol. With that said, I do wonder if there's something better for this slot. I kinda just... Saw that he could hit Rotom forms and thought that was cool as Heck and so I ran him.

Steel Hate (Rotom-Heat) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Overheat
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp

Originally, I had a Tentacruel here 'cause I wanted to run a Toxapex but can't because, y'know, UU tier, so I figured I'd go with the next best thing + being able to spin away opposing hazards. I liked the thought, but he was useless. I needed a fire 'cause Steels are a pain, I decided I kinda wanted some momentum, still needed away to remove hazards, and... I'm describing Rotom-Heat, ain't I. So, that's how ol' Rotom found his way on the team. I went with a bulkier EV spread and nature 'cause while I need him to smash Grass and steel 'mons, I also wanna be able to defog several times if needed. He's done ok so far, kinda have mixed feelings with him like Celesteela though not quite as bad. I'm kinda thinking of changing WoW to Toxic and maybe trying a bit more offensive spread but I'm not sure yet.

Threats that I've noticed so far are opposing stall teams (if my walls break first, I'm in danger ), Keldeo might be a bit problematic since it can hit so hard and fast, bulky scissor and offensive Celeseteela's given me problems before, and spore. Not Amoongus. Just Spore. There's probably other things that I struggle with but I forget.

That's the team though. I'm posting it 'cause maybe it's just the low jank part of the ladder, but I feel like it's got potential and I've been enjoying it. I'm curious about what y'all think and might suggest.

 

[pokemonisfun]

phoenixwright7,

Thank you for posting this team. Before I rate your team, I’d like to mention that stall teams generally are completely defensive. While they may have a few Pokemon with offensive presence, stall teams in the metagame need every member to play a defensive role. So I’m skeptical Zygarde-10% will you much good. Additionally, a clever way to use stall is not just making pure defense, but also including important utility moves.

With these comments in mind, let me make three suggestions:

1) Cresselia has rather poor use, at least your set, because most teams have Steels that force you out. You don’t have enough solid counterplay vs Scizor for example to justify two completely free switch ins for Roost Scizor (Cresselia and Chansey). Perhaps a better choice would be Assault Vest Slowbro-Galar or Reuniclus. You gain the utility of Knock Off for Reuniclus or the ability to absorb Toxic Spikes for Slowbro Galar. The more important point though is that with Regenerator, you can last longer against opposing stalls and don’t have to spend time using Moonlight (which has bad PP anyways). Both options would also be very helpful to be a Keldeo switch in. AV Reuniclus and Slowbro-Galar would run similar EV spreads for your team - nearly max HP and SpDef with a Calm Nature.

2) Zygarde again doesn’t offer enough defensive use for you to spend a slot on it. All it does is block Volt Switch and revenge a few threats - but you rarely want to be in that position anyways, as revenging implies you have to sacrifice something. Perhaps you can use Quagsire? Haze Unaware Quagsire in particular can defeat Stored Power users like Mew which currently run through your team. More importantly, it’s a solid Scizor counter.

3) Rotom-H does provide Defog but it doesn’t really beat any important threats for you apart from Scizor, which Quagsire covers. I’d consider Defog Salamence which also can combat Conkeldurr, Buzzwole, and Gyarados to a significant extent which is important right now for your team. Since you no longer need Wish for this, you could even consider making Kommo-O rest so none of your team needs Wish support and you could replace Wish Protect with Softboiled Toxic on Chansey. As it is, you’d struggle to beat CM Draining Kiss Primarina.

Overall, you do need some heavy changes for it to be a competitive team but you demonstrate enough metagame knowledge to be capable of making these changes.

I rate it 5/10.

Let me know if I can be if any help.
Pif

 

[phoenixwright7]

pokemonisfun,

I appreciate your comment and suggestions. I haven't played using my team in a few days do to work, helping a friend with his own team, and getting caught up on youtube but I'll consider your suggestions and try to get around to testing them later this week. I gotta admit, I believe this is the first time I've ever built a stall team since my playstyle usually leans more towards a bulky balance rather than purely defensive so I'm happy to have at least gotten somethings right with it, lol. I could have sworn stall teams tended to have 1 clean up 'mon which is why I added Zygarde 10% to the team. I'd honestly hate to remove him since he does usually do his job, but I do get your meaning, I think. The poor thing is so fragile that I need to keep him in the pocket as long as I can in order for him to do his job, so having something tankier for that spot to give me more switchins does make sense to me, I think. I think I'm most interesting in trying your quagsire over zygarde suggestion. The only thing I do worry about adding him is having an even bigger amoongus problem since now not only do I have to worry about spore, but I have something that's actually weak to grass type moves.

If I replace Cresselia with one of your two suggestions, I think I'd probably go with Reuniclus since at least so far, toxic spikes hasn't seem like that big of a problem so knock off sounds more attractive to me. Of course, removing the floating Cresselia might make free toxic spikes removal more attractive than I expect. Cresselia's been an amazing wall so far so replacing her kinda hurts me, but I have gotten wrecked by a bulky (or at least I assume it was bulky ) roost swords dance Scissor though so I dunno. I may have to beat back my own bias for this one.

My only question about replacing Rotom with Salamence is rather or not that'd give me a weakness to Moltres. I dunno how important it is currently to cover Moltres, but I've seen my friend get wrecked by him so I wanna make sure I don't end up in the same position.

I do find it interesting that the member that I personally felt was the weakest link on the team, Celesteela, was one of the few 'mons you didn't suggest to replace. It's typing is great, but any time it's performed well has been exclusively because of that I feel. Which makes me wonder if it's worth keeping, if the set needs to just be changed, or what? Maybe some of your suggestions will help Celesteela feel a bit better on the team.

... Remind me when I get back on Showdown myself that the first think I need to do actually is change earthquake to flamethrower on Kommo-o. I misunderstood Body press which led me to being dumb thinking that picking flamethrower would require me to run a bad nature. Oops.

 

[pokemonisfun]

phoenixwright7,

I quoted your post and put responses to your points in bold red text.

pokemonisfun,

I appreciate your comment and suggestions. I haven't played using my team in a few days do to work, helping a friend with his own team, and getting caught up on youtube but I'll consider your suggestions and try to get around to testing them later this week. I gotta admit, I believe this is the first time I've ever built a stall team since my playstyle usually leans more towards a bulky balance rather than purely defensive so I'm happy to have at least gotten somethings right with it, lol. I could have sworn stall teams tended to have 1 clean up 'mon which is why I added Zygarde 10% to the team. Having a clean up mon is certainly possible but they need to have defensive purpose too. Basically, the easiest way for me to conceptualize stall is you're trying to counter the metagame. Counters need to be able to switch in by definition and that requires defense. Clean up mons were popular starting with Scarf Tyranitar in a 4th generation ou stall team but they always had defensive purpose. And often, they tried to trap with Pursuit (CB Weavile, Scarf Tyranitar, Pursuit Mega Aerodactyl, etc.). Zygarde serves minimal defensive purpose and of course Pursuit trapping is no longer legal in gen8 so that's why I suggest there's no need for Zygarde. I'd honestly hate to remove him since he does usually do his job, but I do get your meaning, I think. The poor thing is so fragile that I need to keep him in the pocket as long as I can in order for him to do his job, so having something tankier for that spot to give me more switchins does make sense to me, I think. I think I'm most interesting in trying your quagsire over zygarde suggestion. The only thing I do worry about adding him is having an even bigger amoongus problem since now not only do I have to worry about spore, but I have something that's actually weak to grass type moves. I suggest you should be more worried about Venusaur than Amoongus because Amoongus cannot boost and sweep your walls (Venusaur can overpower Chansey and heal too much with Giga Drain). That said, the Assault Vest Psychic type should help immesnely with this.

If I replace Cresselia with one of your two suggestions, I think I'd probably go with Reuniclus since at least so far, toxic spikes hasn't seem like that big of a problem so knock off sounds more attractive to me. Of course, removing the floating Cresselia might make free toxic spikes removal more attractive than I expect. Cresselia's been an amazing wall so far so replacing her kinda hurts me, but I have gotten wrecked by a bulky (or at least I assume it was bulky ) roost swords dance Scissor though so I dunno. I may have to beat back my own bias for this one.

My only question about replacing Rotom with Salamence is rather or not that'd give me a weakness to Moltres. I dunno how important it is currently to cover Moltres, but I've seen my friend get wrecked by him so I wanna make sure I don't end up in the same position. You shouldn't be weak to Moltres because Chansey and Assault Vest Psychic types are solid counters.

I do find it interesting that the member that I personally felt was the weakest link on the team, Celesteela, was one of the few 'mons you didn't suggest to replace. It's typing is great, but any time it's performed well has been exclusively because of that I feel. Which makes me wonder if it's worth keeping, if the set needs to just be changed, or what? Maybe some of your suggestions will help Celesteela feel a bit better on the team. I see your point with Celesteela, it doesn't beat many important threats. That said, if you do choose to replace it, make sure the replacement can deal with Nasty Plot Heal Bell Togekiss (rare but otherwise beats your team badly, especially if you don't choose Slowbro), Hatterene (CM variants can beat Chansey)

... Remind me when I get back on Showdown myself that the first think I need to do actually is change earthquake to flamethrower on Kommo-o. I misunderstood Body press which led me to being dumb thinking that picking flamethrower would require me to run a bad nature. Oops. I think Earthquake isn't too unreasonable actually because otherwise you'd be too weak to CM Substitute Chandelure. That's an uncommon Pokemon anyways though.

Feel free to show me another draft of your team after you make edits and I can give more comments.

pif

 

[phoenixwright7]

pokemonisfun,

Ok, so here's what I've been testing over my weekend. Basically, all of your current suggestions

Skarmary 2.0 (Celesteela) @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Heavy Slam
- Flamethrower

Blob boy (Reuniclus) (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Knock Off
- Psyshock
- Future Sight
- Shadow Ball

Punchy Dragon (Kommo-o) (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Bulletproof
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Body Press
- Flamethrower
- Rest

Gen 1 Queen (Chansey) @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Soft-Boiled
- Heal Bell
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic

Derpy (Quagsire) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 SpD
Bold Nature
- Earthquake
- Haze
- Scald
- Recover

Needs a nickname (Salamence) (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Defog
- Roost
- Flamethrower

I've also had a few games using this Galarian Slowbro set instead of Reuniclus

inferior slowbro (Slowbro-Galar) (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Sludge Bomb
- Future Sight
- Shadow Ball

I haven't really hated most of these changes, but I ain't in love with them either. Reuniclus' knock off hasn't been nearly as useful as I thought, oddly enough. I'm not sure if it's just a me thing though. At first I was worried that I'd lose some bulk by losing Cresselia but then I realized that the Salamence change means that I basically just swapped my physical and special wall slots around. I do like the increased offensive power the assault vest psychic's have over Cresselia. I'm not sure which between Galarian slowbro and Reuniclus I prefer. It might be Galarian Slowbro at the moment.

Rest on Kommo-o has been fine. I do like Flamethrower over Earthquake. This is probably how Kommo-o will remain, unless I go back to wish pass chansey or do something else with her.

I dunno if this will sound odd, but I kinda think Cresselia was better at spreading Toxic then Chansey. I haven't really cared for Toxic on her. I've also kinda missed having wish/protect on her to scout with, though as I'm typing this I have also been thinking of putting stealth rock on her and putting Toxic on Kommo-o or something. Kommo-o does a dang good job of getting rocks up for the most part, but considering what usually switches into him, I could spread toxic onto the bulky fairies minus Hatterne that wanna come in and Chansey can get rocks up after the special attackers switch outta her. Thoughts?

I've oddly been the least impressed with Quagsire. Like, I know he's a beast that does a lot for me thanks to great typing and amazing ability, but half the time he hasn't felt bulky enough to me. Part of it could be me being dumb and also having horrid crit luck, but I'm not sure. There's also been some times that I've wanted Toxic on him, but he doesn't really have the room for it.

I've probably been the happiest with Salamence. Having intimidate and a powerful special flying move is really great (until said flying move misses. Of course, I can't complain here much since almost every time it has hit, it's confused the opponent. ) I'm not 100% sure if he necessarily does his defog job better than Rotom-H, especially since I've had the opportunity to get some new found respect for it, but unless I need anther specially bulky 'mon in this slot, I think I'm keeping Salamence. I just need a nickname for him.

Good to know that I wasn't crazy about Celesteela being a bit of a weak link. Problem is that I have no clue who to put in it's place. Like, I need the steel typing both offensively and defensively I feel. Offensively to deal with fairies like the ones you mentioned (I suppose that's one point for picking Galarian slowbro over Reuniclus, but, uh... I don't know that he wants to be my only means to deal with Hatterne, who I'm pretty sure is Stall's worst enemy other than steel types, lol ) and defensively because, well, even though it got nerfed gen 6, it's still one of the best defensive typings in the game. Pretty sure not having a steel type on a defensive team like stall is against the law in some places. Hrm... I might have a couple ideas that I'm gonna have to mull over, but I'm definitely open to ideas here.