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Choice Defense: An ORAS OU Team

ddrox13

ddrox13

Anti-Nonsense
1,650
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8
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    • Heey PC, decided to throw down an RMT of my current OU team for anyone else to steal and/or to get some help with some of my counters. This team is pretty... out there. It contains a number of unconventional sets and a number of unconventional Pokemon, and takes a bit of practice just to learn what things you can stay in on and what you need to switch out of. Outside of that, it's a lot of "spam x move to win" and Status shenanigans. Lets just get into it...

    Choice Defense
    A PO ORAS OU Team by ddrox13

    heatran.gif

    Heatron (Heatran) (M) @ Leftovers
    Trait: Flash Fire
    EVs: 252 HP / 52 Def / 124 SDef / 80 Spd
    Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
    - Ancient Power
    - Lava Plume
    - Will-O-Wisp
    - Earth Power

    Heaty is the most recent addition to the squad, added mainly as a Talonflame check. It's a standard SpDef build, except replacing the Stealth Rocks present elsewhere on the team with Ancient Power to deal with Talon and MY-Charizard. W-O-W gives me an 85% chance of burning an annoying Physical attacker, Lava Plume has a 30% chance and a good chunk of damage, and EP checks other Heatran. and any MX-Charizard that isn't carrying Earthquake. Lefties increases bulk and stuff. Heat provides a much needed Fire switch-in, but will be the first Pokemon that goes if I replace something (and I will).

    keldeo-resolute.gif

    Keledo-R (Keldeo-R) @ Choice Specs
    Trait: Justified
    EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
    IVs: 30 Atk / 30 SAtk / 30 Spd
    Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
    - Secret Sword
    - Scald
    - Hidden Power [Fire]
    - Hydro Pump

    Keldeo is the first Choice user on this squad, and the primary Special threat. EVs and Nature max SpAtk and Speed for Tons of Damage. HP Fire hits... I actually don't know. I need to replace that. Scald hits Physical Attackers for a good amount of damage and half their Attack stat, H-Pump is for when you need to really dish out the damages, and Secret Sword beats Steels.

    ferrothorn.gif

    Ferroflower (Ferrothorn) (F) @ Choice Band
    Trait: Iron Barbs
    EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Def / 84 SDef
    IVs: 0 Spd
    Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
    - Gyro Ball
    - Power Whip
    - Bulldoze
    - Explosion

    Yup, you read that item right. It's a Choice Band. I warned you about unconventional sets, did I not? Ferro hits hard. Power Whip is a 120 base power Grass STAB. Gyro Ball is usually a 150 base power Steel STAB. Grass/Steel is actually really good coverage, hitting everything that isn't Fire or Steel neutrally. Bulldoze is there to annoy unsuspecting Heatran, and Explosion is a 250 base power nuke. Ferro cleanly 2hkoes everything that doesn't resist and isn't named Chansey. Also, no one ever thinks it has a CB, especially when you lead with it.

    donphan.gif

    Don Phan (Donphan) (M) @ Leftovers
    Trait: Sturdy
    EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
    Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
    - Earthquake
    - Ice Shard
    - Stealth Rock
    - Rapid Spin

    SPIN TO WIN! Oh, you wanted an actual description? Fine. Don Phan is a huge Physical wall that as Rapid Spin and Stealth Rocks to provide team support. And for a Support pokemon, EQ hits hard, easily nuking MX-Charizard and Heatran and chunking everything on the ground. Plus, many of the common SR users (Lando-T, Garchomp, etc.) are 4x weak to Ice Shard, meaning you can safely switch in on said Pokemon. Shard is also the only Priority on this team. KEEP DONPHAN ALIVE FOR ARCEUS SAKE. Lefties provides some recovery, and Sturdy is good to avoid any annoying Special attacks.

    goodra.gif

    Goodragon (Goodra) (M) @ Assault Vest
    Trait: Sap Sipper
    EVs: 252 HP / 248 SAtk / 8 SDef
    Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
    - Dragon Pulse
    - Fire Blast
    - Sludge Bomb
    - Thunderbolt

    AV Goodra is just annoying. It hits over 700 SpDef with AV applied, making Special Attacks basically useless. Sap Sipper makes it a hard Serperior counter, rendering any variant not wielding HP Ice (or my legendary AV Mirror Coat set) completely useless. The 4 moves chosen basically don't matter. Dragon Pulse is the obligatory STAB. Fire Blast hits the Scizor people really like to switch into Goodra. Sludge Bomb hits the Fairies that also like to switch into Goodra. Thunderbolt hits Skarmory and not much else.

    breloom.gif

    Breboom (Breloom) (M) @ Toxic Orb
    Trait: Poison Heal
    EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
    Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
    - Spore
    - Substitute
    - Focus Punch
    - Seed Bomb

    What's that? DPPt wants their Breloom set back? Naw, that's no fun... Spore is really annoying to anything slower, rendering it helpless until I get my Substitute back up. Toxic Orb in combination with Poison Heal help limit the self-inflicted pain from Sub, and Seed Bomb provides secondary STAB for SPOOPYGHOSTIES and stuff. Focus Punch is the crux of this set, being a 150bp STAB nuke that works almost all the time behind a Sub. Just be wary of sound-based moves, which ignore Substitute in this gen.

    And THATS IT KIDS! I am a lot worried about MX-Charizard and Skarmory, so if you have any recommendations for beating them, tell me. I'll include an importable of the team if you want to test it on one of your fancy simulators, so do so. I only ask that you keep my nicknames intact.

    IMPORTABLE:
    Spoiler:
     
    Nah

    Nah

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    idk, I kinda think that the overall low speed and general lack of recovery (outside of Breloom) is gonna be a big problem. Hyper offense is kinda just smashes you down pretty quickly because of that, or you'll just get worn down.

    Keldeo's Hidden Power type is basically to snipe or lure in specific problem 'mons, since Water+Fighting covers a lot of ****. Fire does hit Ferrothorn/Scizor pretty hard but its kind of unneccessary since Specs Secret Sword slashes out huge chunks of health from them anyway. Bug is for Celebi, Electric for Gyarados, Ghost for the Latis and Starmie, Flying for Mega Venusaur, etc.
     

    PlatinumDude

    Nyeh?
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    • Ice Shard coming from an uninvested Attack is rather weak, and it's not strong enough to pick off things. For instance, it does jack squat against Tank Garchomp:

    4 Atk Donphan Ice Shard vs. 252 HP / 164+ Def Garchomp: 112-132 (26.6 - 31.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

    What does Heatran's defensive spread let it survive? What do the 52 Defense EVs do for it? The better spread in that case is 248 HP/192 SDef/68 Spe. This lets it outspeed things up to 0 Speed Mega Venusaur and Mandibuzz. Lava Plume has a decent chance to burn things, so using Will-o-Wisp is redundant. While it's true that Ancient Power is a way to let Heatran hit Charizard Y and Talonflame, it doesn't do much to specially defensive variants of Talonflame. Giving Heatran Taunt stops Skarmory from setting up and allows you to bring it down or force it to switch:

    0 SpA Heatran Ancient Power vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Talonflame: 200-236 (55.7 - 65.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

    Yes, it's still a 2HKO, but Talonflame can simply stall out Ancient Power with Roost:

    0 SpA Heatran Ancient Power vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Talonflame: 100-118 (27.8 - 32.8%) -- 75.6% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

    As weird as this sounds, Stone Edge has a chance to OHKO both Talonflame and Charizard Y, despite running off of its weaker Attack:

    0- Atk Heatran Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard Y: 292-344 (98.3 - 115.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

    0- Atk Heatran Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 316-372 (106.3 - 125.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

    0- Atk Heatran Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 316-372 (88 - 103.6%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

    Tl;dr:
    -Lava Plume
    -Toxic
    -Taunt/Protect/Roar/Stone Edge/Earth Power
    -Stealth Rock/Stone Edge/Earth Power
    Nature: Calm
    EVs: 248 HP/192 SDef/68 Spe
    Item: Leftovers

    Heatran can handle Skarmory just fine; why would that be a problem? Goodra can also hit it with Fire Blast. Heatran can also check the Charizard X that lack Earthquake, but I can see it being a problem if Heatran goes down. I dunno man, I don't think Donphan is a good Pokemon to use in OU, but if it's working for you, great. Admittedly, Donphan can take unboosted attacks from Charizard X.

    Also, have you considered putting a Mega Evolution on this team? You don't seem to have one, unless you don't have room for them. Breloom is the weak link of this team, IMO, since it stacks weaknesses with both Keldeo and Ferrothorn. I'm going out on a limb here and suggest Mega Altaria in place of Breloom. It deals with Charizard X very well and covers for Ferrothorn's Fighting weakness:
    -Dragon Dance
    -Return
    -Earthquake
    -Fire Blast/Roost
    Nature: Adamant/Jolly
    EVs: 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spe
    Item: Altarianite

    or
    -Dragon Dance
    -Return
    -Earthquake/Heal Bell/Substitute
    -Roost
    Nature: Impish
    EVs: 248 HP/136 Def/96 SDef/28 Spe
    Item: Altarianite

    or
    -Return/Hyper Voice
    -Earthquake/Flamethrower/Draco Meteor/Roar/Perish Song/Toxic
    -Heal Bell
    -Roost
    Nature: Impish/Bold/Relaxed
    EVs: 248 HP/104 Def/156 SDef
    Item: Altarianite

    or
    -Hyper Voice
    -Fire Blast
    -Heal Bell/Earthquake
    -Roost
    Nature: Modest
    EVs: 248 HP/168 SAtk/92 Spe
    Item: Altarianite

    But then again, half the team is weak to Ice, especially to Weavile, but you do have ways to handle it, right?
     
    Last edited:
    gimmepie

    gimmepie

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    • With Heatran as your lead you'd be much better off running it with Rocks. Ancient Power really isn't worth it on Heatran so that's what I'd recommend replacing. As another note, I prefer Air Balloon on Heatran so you can't get caught by surprise by thinks like Earth Power when switching into things like Celebi/Other Heatran. A lot of people disagree with me on that one though.

    Hidden Power Fire is pretty redundant on Keldeo, HP Bug is a much better option since it hits a lot of things that will try and switch in on it (Lati@s, Celebi, Starmie for example).

    I'd say Ferrothorn works much better as a defensive pokemon and that you're wasting a lot of its potential trying to use it as a choicemon. I'd say invest in defensive EVs and go with leech seed, spikes, thunder wave, gyro ball/power whip. Then give it either leftovers for recovery or a rocky hemet to further punish anything stupid enough to make contact.

    Donphan is going to get murdered by Weavile, Serperior, Keldeo and so forth. Landorus-T is a much better ground-type for the tier since it usually runs U-Turn and can make good use of a choice scarf. I'd even feel more inclined to run mamoswine or eviolite pilo over donphan and those are far from being great choices.

    No complaints on Goodra.

    There's nothing really wrong with your breloom but I'd recommend finding something else. Maybe chuck in a powerful mega-sweeper like the aforementioned altaria or something. Mainly because Talonflame is going to cause you a lot of problems, you don't need another pokemon weak to it.

    Edit: Losing donphan would lose you your hazard control, so you might want to consider switching Keldeo for Starmie which can fulfil a similar role without the glaring Talon weakness and can provide the hazard control that you lose if you axe Donphan.
     
    BigPaws

    BigPaws

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    • gimmepie said:
    Donphan is going to get murdered by Weavile, Serperior, Keldeo and so forth. Landorus-T is a much better ground-type for the tier since it usually runs U-Turn and can make good use of a choice scarf.
    Click to expand...

    Landorus-t gets murdered by everything that you mentioned there :C
     
    ddrox13

    ddrox13

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    • Nah said:
    idk, I kinda think that the overall low speed and general lack of recovery (outside of Breloom) is gonna be a big problem. Hyper offense is kinda just smashes you down pretty quickly because of that, or you'll just get worn down.

    Keldeo's Hidden Power type is basically to snipe or lure in specific problem 'mons, since Water+Fighting covers a lot of ****. Fire does hit Ferrothorn/Scizor pretty hard but its kind of unneccessary since Specs Secret Sword slashes out huge chunks of health from them anyway. Bug is for Celebi, Electric for Gyarados, Ghost for the Latis and Starmie, Flying for Mega Venusaur, etc.
    Click to expand...

    I only have problems with HO when they are running my stacked weaknesses ie Talon or MX-Charizard. I really struggle against teams weak to set-ups, simply because I don't have any.

    PlatinumDude said:
    -snip-
    Click to expand...

    I think the Heatran EVs let it survive more Talon. I forget. I swear I had a reason for that. I'll probably change it though

    M-Altaria doesnt have spore :(. Yea, Ill try it. I never considered the fluffball of death, I've never really had a positive experience with it before.

    I can deal with most Weavile sets no problem, its the silly King's Rock Beat Up bs that I can't stand...

    gimmepie said:
    -snip-
    Click to expand...

    Heaty is very rarely used as my lead. I usually lead with Ferrothorn, sometimes with Donphan. I only lead Heat when I think they will lead Skarmory. And I tried AB. I suppose I could retry it with my current sans-Derpsire team, but I think I like Lefties for now.

    Believe me, I know how to run Ferrothorn "properly". I also despise the thing and would just replace it with an offensive pokemon that wasn't absurdly weak to Fire rather than making it defensive. Band punishes teams who don't run Fires and/or unsuspecting taunt leads. The situations where Bandthorn fails to get at least a 1-for-1 trade are few and far between, and are far outnumbered by the places it takes down at least 2 with it. Also I really like it.

    EVERY GROUND TYPE GETS MURDERED BY THE 3 POKES YOU MENTIONED! Yes Lando-can Scarf-Turn out of dodge, but it also doesn't have access to Rapid Spin, which is why Donny is here to begin with.

    Replacing Keld with Hazard control removes about 40% of this team's damage. Not feasible.

    TL;DR: Imma throw Altaria in over Breloom for now and see what happens. I might put Quaggy back in for Heatran too, but that may have to wait...
     
    BigPaws

    BigPaws

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    • gimmepie said:
    It can ScarfTurn though and is just generally a better mon for the OU tier.
    Click to expand...

    It may be a better mon, i am not saying it isn't. donphan is rubbish in ou, but that does not change the fact that your statement is wrong.
    This team already has enough choice locked mons, which is gonna hinder its capabilities against stall big time esp with the scarf. And not to mention it cannot switch into any of those mons, so its not changing how the team handles the mentioned threats
     
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