It's Been Raining For Far Too Long!

[Dietcoke101]

It's Been Raining For Far Too Long!
-> A BW-2 OU Rain Team <-​

Hey guys. I'm back with another RMT. This is a rain team I've been working on for quite some time now. I never really had a chance to see how far I could get on the ladder, due to slight changes in my team, but what I do know is that it's won me every single battle I can remember after changing it. So without further ado, let's continue.

So, I started wanting to make a rain team, so the first member was Politoed. Next I wanted to try a new Scizor I was thinking of using, and try Thunderus-T as this is really my first BW-2 team (I never got into the BW-2 OU meta game). So with a Polizor-T core, I tested many different pokemon, and this is the best I could get it to by myself. So once you get to the best you can do, where else do you go? To the experts -> Smogon. And that's where you come in :)

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Politoed (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Encore
- Protect
- Toxic​

So, obviously since I'm doing a rain team there's gonna be a Politoed (with drizzle). This is my favourite set for Politoed. A somewhat standard set, using max defence and health for bulk. For the moves, it is just pure annoyance. Scald under rain for the STAB rain boosted attack with a fairly large chance for the annoying burn, which can really cripple the opponent's physical sweepers. Encore is there so no one can set up on me (unless I force them to in order to switch and go for the kill). Protect is a scouting move, as Politoed will be used near the start of the game to get up my weather, and also to take advantage of my Leftovers healing (1/16 = delicious). Since this is a weather team, majority of my game play is based on Politoed, although stuff can be done without weather, it's just tough. Politoed tends to die a lot when I play, whether it's just because it's a war to get up my weather and Politoed takes some hits, or just because when my weather's up for good his role is basically done. But honestly, once my weather is up, and if the opponent doesn't 'appreciate' rain, I have the battle in the bag.

Thundurus (Thundurus-T) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Volt Absorb
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Super Power
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Thunder​

Choice-Scarf Thunderus-T. What more do I have to say. But really, I love Thunderus-T. He's my main special sweeper. His ability is awesome, since people use electric moves in the rain, and a lot of my team is weak to electricity. Not only is it a free switch, it's a +25% HP free switch, just as long as it's predicted right. It's a really standard Thunderus-T set, which means it works, but people know about it. It can almost outspeed anything that's not scarfed. For the moves, it's full power, since he's choiced. Super power (thanks Kidogo) is for hard hits on T-tar, and Heatran. Volt switch is for getting the momentum going, which works well as a Volt-Turn pair with Scizor. HP-Ice is for those narsty dragons that rule OU. And thunder is a super powerful move that wrecks anything (except ground pokemon) and since it has 100% accuracy in rain it's one of his main moves.

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Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 232 SDef / 24 Spd
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Body Slam
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock
- Wish​

Jirachi...the master of spam and all things annoying. Switched Thunder with Body Slam (thanks Dcae and Kidogo) due to the unreliability of rain, and it's ability to hit ground type pokemon such as Landorus. Extra health and special defence for some more bulk, and a little extra speed. Iron head is for para flinching, and stealth rock is for entry hazards. Wish is to take advantage of Jirachi's relatively good health and share it around with others. And also expert belt is to add the extra 20% to super effective moves.

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Celebi @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 232 SDef / 24 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Baton Pass
- Recover
- Giga Drain
- Thunder Wave​

So, Celebi...yeah not sure if I love Celebi. He's decent at what I use him for, which is mainly sponging special attacks and status problems. Lefties for the extra health. The move set is pretty straight forward. Thunder wave is for crippling, giga drain is a nice STAB attacking move which also provides a bit of recovery. Recover, obviously to regain health, and B-pass (thanks Dcae) is to not get pursuit trapped. I've also found that Celebi isn't that bad of a staller. I actaully stalled out a Ferrothorn and many other stallers before, so Celebi could also go that route.

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Scizor (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Pursuit
- U-turn​

Scizor the bug...and that's really what he is, a pest...to the opponent. Scizor is one of my favourite members of this team. He basically does most of the work, and ends up taking out 2+ enemies each battle. Yeah, I chose to go with the choice banded set, just for that extra power. Since bullet punch is already a priority move, and one of his main moves, I decided band was better than scarf or life orb. My Scizor runs a super attack set, which works out well because many of the opponent's pokemon end up getting paralyzed and Scizor outruns them anyway. Super power is also a nice move. it can OHKO Ferrothorn after stealth rock, and OHKO T-tar, and is just generally effective against anything weak to fighting. U-turn is for switch advantage, and to escape bad match-ups. It also creates a good Volt-Turn synergy with Thunderus-T. And lastly Pursuit. It's really a great move if used effectively. Perfect for trapping the unsuspecting psychic pokemon. Scizor in general is 'mah main man', doing a ton of work and being a super awesome physical beast.

Gyarados (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 56 HP / 248 Atk / 204 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Bounce​

So Gyarados...not sure how I feel about Gyarados either. Some battles he just destroys. Others I feel like having 5 pokemon would be better than 6 with a Gyrados. I'm sort of undecided as to which ability to choose for him. Kinda had a little trouble choosing between Moxie and Intimidate, but chose Intimidate to keep Gyarados alive longer, making it more likely for him to be able to set up. Anyway, back to his set. I run a pretty normal sub-D-dance sweeping Gyarados. Really the best way to pull off a sweep is to predict a switch in which Gyarados has a perfect match up, and set up a free sub, in order to get up D-dances. Then it's just time to spam bounce and waterfall in rain.

Conclusion:​

So in conclusion, I have a fairly bulky offensively based team. I set up my weather and my stealth rock, and then take out the opponent's pokemon one at a time, usually trying to pull off a sweep with Gyarados, Scizor, or Thunderus-T, or get the quick revenge kills. I'm not sure how much I like Celebi, and I'm even less sure how I like Gyarados. I might change Gyarados for Keldo, but I'm not sure. Please make sure to leave comments and rates on the team (especially on Celebi and Gyarados).

Thanks :D

Note: Changes to the original will be noted in bold!

 

[dcae]

Hey there! This is a pretty cool Rain team. However, a few tweaks here and there can improve it as a whole. First of all, a quick look through your team strong synergy, and I like seeing Gyarados used, as it is a very underrated sweeper. The one pokemon jumping out to me as weird is your Jirachi. I would recommend replacing your nature from Naive to Careful. Since you are boosting your SpD EVs, why would you lower them with Naive? Careful helps your bulk and allows you to shrug off Draco Meteors and weak special attacks. For your moves, I advise Body Slam over Thunder, because it isn't weather reliant and also paralyzes stuff like Double Dance Thundurus T or RP Landorus who set up on you easily right now.

Moving right along, the other sets are pretty standard. The pokemon I would address here is Celebi. I propose using Baton Pass over U-turn, because Celebi is your main counter to Keldeo and Landorus, and since both are oftentimes paired with CB Ttar, Baton Pass allows you to escape Pursuit.

On your Politoed set, I would try Perish Song > Encore, because it is generally a better answer to set-up sweepers, and also try Toxic > Hypnosis, because Hypnosis' accuracy is very disappointing, and will often leave you helpless. Overall, this is a really nice Rain team, and I hope I helped! Good luck!

Tl;dr

tl;dr

Careful Nature and Body Slam > Thunder on Jirachi
Baton Pass > U-turn on Celebi
Perish Song > Encore and Toxic > Hypnosis on Politoed

 

[Kidogo]

Yeah this team seems p solid to me. I'll go through it mon by mon but it seems good overall.

For toed, exactly what dcae suggested. Toxic is better on defensive toed than hypnosis, and it's not fast enough to abuse encore well, so psong is a better option. Otherwise, looks good.

I'd totally suggest superpower > grass knot on thundy. As you said, grass knot doesnt have much usage, and superpower lets you hit ttar, terrakion, heatran, and many others hard. Change the nature to naive in that case.

Yeah, definitely use lefties on rachi, the passive healing is worth way more than the ebelt boost imo, especially since rachi isn't exactly a hard hitter. I'm not quite sure what your speed is for, I would probably just go ~24 speed to speed creep things beating adamant loom. Nature should be +SpD, -Def or -SpA or -Atk really, whichever you want. Bslam vs thunder is a personal choice but I definitely prefer bslam so you can get stuff outside of rain more reliably, as well as being able to paralyze landy, chomp, and the like. In that case you definitely want a careful nature (+SpD - SpA).

Yeah I agree with BP > uturn, celebi isnt doing much damage anyway and escaping from pursuit is really nice. I'd also suggest considering psychic > giga--bulky waters and the like can't do anything to celebi anyway, so it's fine if you need to chip away at them. Meanwhile, psychic is great to hit dangerous attackers like breloom, keldeo, terrakion, and a variety of fighting-type threats much harder than giga. Otherwise, bi looks good.

Scizor and gyara look completely fine, nothing to add other than that I would defintely go with intimidate on gyara, as often getting the time to set up is the most difficult part and often more than +1 or +2 atk is really just overkill.

Alright, solid team man, hope my comments helped and GL!

 

[Dietcoke101]

Ok, great thanks guys.

I'll probably end up changing Jirachi to a body slammer, but I'll have to test him out. And yeah I will fix his nature and IVs.

Politoed, again I'll have to test it out but I'll probably run toxic, just not sure if I wanna let Encore go.

Gyarados is staying Intimidate.

And Celebi I'll switch U-Tuen for BP, as it doesn't do any damage anyways. For Psychic vs Giga Drain, I'll test out which one I like better.

I'll update the changes once I test them. Thanks for the rates :)

 

[Dietcoke101]

Been thinking I might change Gyrados with Keldeo. Any opinions on whether I should stay with Gyarados or change to Keldeo or sets?

 

[Superpowerdude]

Hi nice team!

Stealth Rock does look very annoying if put up against your team. You have no rapid spinner and it takes of 25% of Thunderous-T and Gyarados's health. Also Thunderous-T is scarfed and had volt switch therefore it will be switching often and Scizor is quite the same having U-turn and having to constantly switch anyway due to being choice locked into a move. Politoed will also be switching in often to re-activate drizzle. What I am getting at here is that with your teams stealth rock weak Pokémon and the fact that your team needs to rely on switching to gain momentum I think you really need to find a way to ensure stealth rock and entry hazards in general can't stay up against your team.

That is why a Defensive Starmie>Celebi could be a good idea. Starmie provides you with rapid spin so you can remove those annoying hazards from your side of the field. Starmie also has a few common traits shared with Celebi making it an easy fit to your team. Its a Fighting and Water-type resist and it is a status absorber due to natural cure. Scald is great to spread burn and psyshock is used to beat Fighgint-types like Breloom. The problem with Starmie is that it makes you more weak to stuff like Rotom-W and opposing Thunderous-T so it is up to you which one you want to pick although I think your team would like rapid spin support. You could also drop Gyarados for a more offensive Starmie set. I suggest you just play around with these ideas.

Good luck, I hope I helped :)

Edit: Keldeo>Gyara sounds good I may elaborate more on this rate if I have time

Sets

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Starmie @ Leftovers | Natural Cure
Timid | 252 HP / 40 Def / 216 Spe
Scald| Psyshock | Rapid Spin | Recover

TL;DR

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Play around with Starmie

~Superpowerdude

 

[Dietcoke101]

Thanks for the rate. I'll have to test out some stuff. I'm not sure about starmie. It does give good rapid spin support, but it also makes my team even MORE weak to electric. I'll have to test out starmie.

Thanks again :)

 

[deadflame]

I'm going to go ahead and second Superpowerdude. Especially when using Substitute on Gyarados, Stealth Rock is no good for your team. Toxic Spikes and Spikes, while less common, are also quite annoying. Toxic Spikes in particular is terribly for your sweepers and for winning the weather war. So yes, definitely add either a Starmie, a Forretress, or a Tentacruel to your team for Rapid Spin support. Tentacruel has excellent Special Defense, but Starmie is so earthshatteringly fast, and ultimately I would go with offensive Starmie.

Starmie (Natural Cure) @ Life Orb: Timid Nature. Full SpA and Spe.
Rapid Spin, Hydro Pump, Thunder, Ice Beam. Seriously man, just play around with this set. It puts much more offensive pressure on the opponents side, especially when they use Waters, in which case you can spam Thunder. Thunderbolt is an acceptable replacement if you aren't positive you can keep the rain up.

 

[Dietcoke101]

Ok, I tested out a little. Gonna do some more, but I like Starmie so far :)

Thanks for the rate :D