Quote:This is a team I've been tinkering around with and have been having decent success with, but I'm looking for ways to improve it. I don't have any ratios because i don't keep track of that, but I do know that I win more than I lose with this team, but Genesect is a major issue at the moment.
My main lead whose purpose is to set up duel screens using Aurora veil. It also works to disrupt other weather teams. It can usually get Aurora Veil off twice a game, but lacks the ability to handle fire, steel and poison types even with sceens up. The remaining moves are just filler really, with Blizzard being its strongest ice stab and having perfect coverage in hail, moon blast for fairy stab, and calm mind to boost its middling spatk and spdef. I usually just swap out after screens are set up unless I know I can out speed and K.O. the opponent. Could defiently use some help with its move set and possibly its EV spread which I currently have designed to be fast bulky support.
Is a nice Physical Sweeper that can tank hits even better behind Aurora Veil. I was originally running break break over thunder punch to deal with dark types that might switch in on it, but decided on Thunder Punch to better hit flyers like Celesteala and skarm. Meteor Mash over Bullet Punch because of the predominance of Lele and lele is also on this team so it limits the usefullness of Bullet Punch compared to Meteor Mash which has a chance for an attack boost. Helps to counter steel and poison types that the fairies on this team would otherwise be weak to and Earthquake is mainly to take down magnazone and heatran.
Manaphy
Ability: Hydration
Item: Waterium Z
EVs: 252 spatk/4 spdef/252 speed
Nature: Timid
Moves:
Tail Glow
Scald
Energy Ball
Blizzard
My main set up sweeper and all around spatker. I'm using Waterium Z at the moment for Hydro Vortex though I'm not sure this is a good idea, since I really don't want to run rain dance. Maybe I should switch to leftovers to mitigate the damage done by hail?
Manaphy can take advantage of the duel screens set up by aurora veil to setup its tail glow and easily sweep whole teams if given the chance. I chose Blizzard over Ice Beam to take advantage of the perfect accuracy afforded by the hail that ninetails brings with it, as it is usually up when manaphy is out, it also has the benifit of having more power than ice beam. Energy ball is for coverage and scald is for stab plus a nice burn chance.
A nice wall breaker that prevents priority moves and is just a general monster to deal with. I built it bulky to take hits and hit hard back since there are a lot of mons out there that out speed it and can generally k.o. it if given the chance without that bulk. Physical attack Tapu Koko and spatk. Tapu Koko with electric terrain up comes to mind, but can be taken down pretty easily by lele, providing that lele hasn't taken any prior damage. Psyshock and Psychic are both on here to play mind games with since a lot of people with throw up a special wall to take hits, but Psyshock takes care of them easily enough provided that they aren't dark types. In general it provides a nice amount of support for the team.
Basic overall traper and counter to magnazone, and pretty much any steel, fire, and poison type. This guy puts in a lot of work and when his work is done he can memento and rest easy. Main problem is I don't like sending him out until after the hail has stopped, other wise his sash breaks and he becomes easily k.o.ed unless its a choice locked electric type using thunder bolt, volt switch, etc... Rock slide over stone edge because of accuracy and flinch chance. Dugrtio is mainly used to trap and kill threats to the whole team.
Mainly used to get rid of hazards and provides cleric support because toxic and burn are no fun and neither is stealth rocks. Synthesis is for longjevity and u-turn helps keep some slow momentum. Is able to tank a lot of hits and generally stall out life orb users. I think Toxic would work well with her, but I would have to give up either rapid spin (which is not going to happen) or u-turn which could work since she doesnt really deal any significant damage with it anyway. Mainly functions as a cleric with hazard removal. I would have prefered a defog user, but Tsareena provides some nice resistances with over all good bulk and can heal status ailments, finding all of these traits in one mon is pretty hard to do, but if there is a better mon for the job I would love to know
So thoughts and opinions are welcome, but improvements are even more welcome.
oh I just copied and pasted from a word document I wrote up. I've posted RMTs on some other sites and haven't had much luck with replies so I just saved it to a document after typing it up the first time so I wouldn't have to retype it every time.
This is a very fun team from my perspective. It functions well offensively, though defensively it leaves much to be desired. Manaphy will be forced to switch into most of the incoming hits and since it doesn't have any reliable recovery, it goes down rather quickly unless the momentum is in your favour the majority of the time
Specs Tapu Lele hinders this team more than helps it. Due to the existing wallcores in the tier, mons like Heatran, Krookodile, Metagross, just to name a few, make it hard to use this set effectively. I will admit its damage output is way above average, however, Tapu Lele appreciates being able to switch between her moves. TwistedSpoon (or its Arceus plate twin) and Life Orb are good options for increasing Tapu Lele's damage output without locking it into one move
Keep Waterium-Z on Manaphy. It's very clutch for taking on thicker walls like Skarmory and Jirachi among others. Replace Blizzard for Ice Beam as Ninetales' Hail ends too quickly for Manaphy to exploit the weather condition and spam Blizzard. If you so wish to run Icy Rock on Ninetales over Light Clay then Blizzard can stay
High Jump Kick or Trop Kick would be better on Tsareena. Fighting coverage is good for hitting the Steel and Dark types in the tier as well as hitting Chansey for good damage which is vital since this team does struggle with stall archetypes. Trop Kick is good for STAB!
Drop Sucker Punch on Dugtrio for Stealth Rock. Hazards are vital for Metagross, Tapu Lele and Manaphy to pressure the opponent and pick up more KOs plus Sucker Punch isn't good when you have Psychic Terrain cancelling it out
Aside from that, this team is brick solid for laddering in Pokebank OU :D
(Dec 23, 2016, 07:43 AM)Marcusube Wrote: This is a very fun team from my perspective. It functions well offensively, though defensively it leaves much to be desired. Manaphy will be forced to switch into most of the incoming hits and since it doesn't have any reliable recovery, it goes down rather quickly unless the momentum is in your favour the majority of the time
Specs Tapu Lele hinders this team more than helps it. Due to the existing wallcores in the tier, mons like Heatran, Krookodile, Metagross, just to name a few, make it hard to use this set effectively. I will admit its damage output is way above average, however, Tapu Lele appreciates being able to switch between her moves. TwistedSpoon (or its Arceus plate twin) and Life Orb are good options for increasing Tapu Lele's damage output without locking it into one move
Keep Waterium-Z on Manaphy. It's very clutch for taking on thicker walls like Skarmory and Jirachi among others. Replace Blizzard for Ice Beam as Ninetales' Hail ends too quickly for Manaphy to exploit the weather condition and spam Blizzard. If you so wish to run Icy Rock on Ninetales over Light Clay then Blizzard can stay
High Jump Kick or Trop Kick would be better on Tsareena. Fighting coverage is good for hitting the Steel and Dark types in the tier as well as hitting Chansey for good damage which is vital since this team does struggle with stall archetypes. Trop Kick is good for STAB!
Drop Sucker Punch on Dugtrio for Stealth Rock. Hazards are vital for Metagross, Tapu Lele and Manaphy to pressure the opponent and pick up more KOs plus Sucker Punch isn't good when you have Psychic Terrain cancelling it out
Aside from that, this team is brick solid for laddering in Pokebank OU :D
Thank you very much for your input, I found it to be very helpful and inlightining, I'll be swithcing Lele's item out probably for twisted spoon. I'll swap u-turn for High Jump Kick, and I love Trop Kick but I don't know if I should use that over synthesis or not, Aroma Therapy is a god send along with rapid spin support so I have a hard time justifying it.
I normally lead in with Ninetails, but should I start leading with Dugrio instead?
So I'm trying out Torcaoal as a rapid spinner instead of Tsarena, as much as I hate to get rid of her I just can't deal with grass and steel types like Ferrowthorn effectivly and they wall this team pretty effectivly. Is this a good idea?
Your lead option is supposed to be based on the matchup not on how fast you want to get up Hail or Stealth Rock. Say your opponent leads Kartana against your Ninetales and you get Hail up, if Kartana KOs Ninetales then sends in Pelipper, he gets Rain up which cancels out your hail which destroys your strategy so you have to think matchup-wise and not strategy-wise when leading
Torkoal's Drought conflicts with Ninetales' Hail which pretty much destroys the strategy. Alolan Sandslash does get access to Rapid Spin and is benefited by the hail due to Slush Rush so if you really need a Rapid Spinner then you can consider that
The problems you're having with Steel and Grass types are attributed to the fact that you don't have sufficient coverage options on your team. It doesn't mean you need to drop Tsureena but you certainly need to look into possibly changing other team members like Tapu Lele, Metagross or Manaphy
I should have mentioned that I was running white smoke on the torkoal and not drought.
The problem with running sandslash is that it gets a 4x weakness to both fire and fighting and while slush rush is good it isn't going to be out paceing anything without a scarf and even that isn't assured, I like A-sandslash, but I think it would hinder the team more than help it.
I don't really have trouble with regular grass types, even mega venasaur isn't much of a problem, its just the combination of steel and grass on one mon like ferrowthorn and Scizor causes problems to which is why I put torkoal in so that I won't get walled by them completely.
Which of those team members would you suggest dropping and what would you replace it with. Metagross is by far a great fit for the team with powerful physical attack, good bulk, and speed. Manaphy with tail glow behind Aurora veil (and even without) can sweep whole teams, and Lele is just a monster and eliminates priority...I honetly don't know which one I would drop and this isn't a hail team, the only reason I even have it is for Aurora Veil which works wonders.
Well to be honest, Hail hinders this team more than helps it due to the residual damage you take each turn from the weather condition. Moreover you're only using Hail for Aurora Veil which isn't necessary when simply running a Pokemon with Light Clay and dual screens does the exact same thing without compromising team synergy
I'd swap Tapu Lele for another special attacker that suits this team's needs because Lele and Metagross have overlapping coverage and Manaphy pretty much does Lele's job of being a powerful special sweeper and wallbreaker. Alternatively Marowak-A can be used to deal with Scizor and Ferrothorn as well as check Electric types with Lightning Rod or you can use Magnezone/Magneton to trap the Steel types and KO them so that Metagross has an easier time sweeping
