OU Simple Questions, Simple Answers (Read the OP First!)

Do they still release dream world abilities? If they do, does anyone have an idea when Chandelure or Serperior will get their abilities?
 

dcae

plaza athénée
is a defending SCL Championis a Past SCL Champion
Yes, they are releasing a Serperior tomorrow, but the ability is not confirmed be Contrary. However, I think it will probably be it because why would they distribute a Serperior near Gen 6 release without DW ability. As for Chanedelure, no news.
 

Gary

Can be abrasive at times (no joke)
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What's the benefit of running Kyurem over Kyu-b? Especially in regards to a hail team
There a few reasons. First off, Kyurem has 130 base SpA, while Kyurem-B only has 120. This makes regular Kyurem a much more powerful user of Blizzard then Kyurem-B, so if you're looking for a powerful special attacker to abuse hail, then Kyurem is the way to go. Now the second reason is Kyurem's ability Pressure. Although Kyurem-B has an outstanding ability to bypass Sturdy from Skarmory and Forretress, and also being able to hit Rotom-W with Earth Power, Pressure is also an outstanding ability. Unlike Kyurem-B, Kyurem can use it's to stall out moves with low PP very quickly, such as Gyro Ball from Ferrothorn, Stone Edge for Tyranitar, and Hydro Pump from Politoed. This can be done easily with a Sub Roosting set. Although Kyurem-B can also pull off a decent Sub roosting set, he can't stall out the previously mentioned moves as quickly as regular Kyurem, thus forcing him to switch out. Stalling out moves like Gyro Ball, Stone Edge, and Fire Blast can be quite crucial to hail teams, since they're hit super effectively by those moves, but Kyurem can stall out these moves very easily.

It all depends on your personal preferences. Do you want an outstanding mixed attacker that can spam Blizzard and Outrage? Use Kyurem-B. If you want to take a more strategic approach while also firing off more powerful Blizzards, then regular Kyurem is preferred. Personally, I would go with regular Kyurem, but that's just me. Stalling out Gyro Ball, Focus Blast, and Stone Edge comes in handy later on in the match.
 

Halcyon.

@Choice Specs
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You get 10 more SpA, 40 lesser Atk, 10 less Def, and lose a good ability.
That last bit is very misleading. Pressure is a fantastic ability for Kyurem, since most of the moves that Kyurem fears (Gyro Ball, Stone Edge, Close Combat, Focus Blast, Rotom-W's Hydro Pump, etc.) can be stalled out with Substitue and Roost. It even helps against defensive Pokémon too, since they can only Roost/Recover half as many times as normal. Don't underestimate Pressure stall Kyurem, or you won't live to tell the tale.

EDIT: Ok, even if it doesn't stall out Recover/Roost, it still is a useful ability for the set Kyurem runs.
 

Arcticblast

Trans rights are human rights
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Pressure only has an effect on attacks that target the user of Pressure. Roost and similar moves are unaffected by Pressure.
 

Gary

Can be abrasive at times (no joke)
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Most people prefer Kyurem-B because of how offensively oriented he is. You bring him in, spam the respectable coveraging move, and watch everything die. A lot of players completely ignore regular Kyurem though, most of them not having the patience or the skill to successfully take advantage of Kyurem's wonderful stalling ability. A real shame...
 
I figured as much.

Now for some Team Building Questions. I'm attempting to put together a Sandstorm Team. I had a few ideas hit my head lately. This is kind of an important note, but I always assume Item Clause is on when creating teams (unless the holder states otherwise or it's Little Cup, but I don't see Little Cup Questions in an Overused Forum, now do I?)

1. Is it a relatively bad idea to run both Tyranitar and Hippowdon in the same team, or would it help with winning the Weather War against opposing Weather Teams?

2. What are the best spinners for Sandstorm Teams? I don't want to use Donphan and Hippowdon together (Leftovers and...WHAT ELSE? o.o ), but what else is there to use for a Sandstorm Spinner?

3. My most guaranteed Pokemon on the team is Landorus-I, as it can run a mean Sand Force Set. With this Pokemon, would it be wise to run Garchomp or is it typically a war between the two as to which one gets in the team?

4. I considered Sash Alakazam. Is that a good idea?

5. Ice-Type Attacks are going to be a pain to get over. What Steel-Type should I use? I considered Heatran and Jirachi so far, and I always thought that Magnezone would be a good Revenge Killer as my Steel-Type.

6. Gastrodon sounds like a good Pokemon to use because of the amount of Rain Teams I've been seeing. Combined with Heatran, would they make good Weather Counters for my team?

7. (Swear this is the last question) If I employ a Terrakion, would a Band or Scarf set be more effective?

Sorry if the bombardment of questions is bothering you, but I needed to get these questions out so I don't continuously post anymore o.o
1. T-tar and hippo can work on the same team. You are compounding some weaknesses that you'll need to cover, and your team becomes slightly more defensively slanted. These aren't necessarily problems, just things to keep in mind building the team.

2. Starmie works fine as a spinner in sand. It can check the fighting types that prey on t-tar and gives a water resist. I wouldn't use donphan for the reasons you said. Really any spinner can be fit on a sand team, you don't need to make much special consideration. As such, forretress and even tentacruel or hitmontop can work.

3. It is not actually bad to run two sweepers walled by the same things if they are powerful enough. One of them weakens the checks/counters, and then the other punches through and takes down the rest of the team. That's the basic concept of rain offense, 4drag2mag and hyper offense. That being said, be careful of that ice weakness, make sure you don't just lose to mamoswine.

4. It can be if that's what you team needs. You need a reason beyond just "revenge killer that's immune to sand", make sure it does what you need better than anything else!

5. Heatran and Jirachi are good choices for sure, and can fill a number of different roles. OU is full of quality steel types to pick from, consider scizor and ferrothorn as well. If you just need an ice resist, then there are also a lot of good water type to consider too (rotom-w, starmie, keldeo, etc)

If you use magnezone, usually it's because you really want magnet pull. If you forsee steel types being a big problem for your team, then go for it. But if you want to stop mamoswine or fast rain sweepers, then magnezone probably won't cut it.

More importantly, don't just slap an ice resist on a team and call it a day. Figure out what pokemon and sets you are losing to, and edit your team to deal with those. This may mean adding an ice resist, but it may mean something entirely different.

6. Gastrodon and heatran used to be used a lot in bw1 as an anti-weather core. After thundurus was banned, gastrodon usage has dropped a lot though. I don't know how effective it is nowadays, my suspicion is that it simply isn't bulky enough, but try it out and see.

7. Depends entirely on what you need.


With all of these questions, just put together a team and try it out! Your own experience will be far better than relying on someone else's. If you're worried about rating, just use an alt.
 
Running a classic sunstall. Ninetales/Dugtrio/Heatran/Jellicent/Cress/Forry

I'm having trouble with other stall teams, specifically Blissey/Gliscor, as well as Reuniclus/Alakazam. I'm new so I'm not sure if I'm playing it wrong or just have a bad matchup. Against the former, I just PP stall but against the latter I've got no idea what to do.
 
I noticed in the ou analysis for Alakazam it says to run Psyshock/Focus Blast/signal beam/hidden power of choice. would it be a good idea to run shadow ball over signal beam because it still hits psychics and has perfect coverage with focus blast?
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
it's optional, but signal beam is generally the preferred choice because of its ability to easily 2hko specially defensive celebi, which is a prominent special wall that zam can't beat when running shadow ball. besides, all sball really does for you is allow you to hit stuff like latios just a little bit harder than signal beam.
 

BurningMan

fueled by beer
it's optional, but signal beam is generally the preferred choice because of its ability to easily 2hko specially defensive celebi, which is a prominent special wall that zam can't beat when running shadow ball. besides, all sball really does for you is allow you to hit stuff like latios just a little bit harder than signal beam.
More specifically you get a 30% chance to OHKO Starmie after SR and will always 2HKO OTR Reuniclus everything else is completly neglegible/situational and given how popular SDef Celebie is i would say that Signal Beam is by far the superior choice in the current metagame.
 
Lads I'm looking for a good scarf pokemon that can revenge dragons,take ground attacks and revenge Thund - T. Any suggestions?
 
Lads I'm looking for a good scarf pokemon that can revenge dragons,take ground attacks and revenge Thund - T. Any suggestions?
Scarfed Keldeo works for this but it can't ground attacks well. Mamoswine is the premier Dragon killer in OU but it doesn't normally run Scarf instead it has priority ice shard to get around that sadly for your case it wont take Ground attacks well at all. Scarfed Latios works as you can kill of most dragons with a Draco Meteor and it has Levitate so ground attacks aren't an issue there.
 
Lads I'm looking for a good scarf pokemon that can revenge dragons,take ground attacks and revenge Thund - T. Any suggestions?
Landorus-I and Latios both fit your requirements although scarfed landorus only speed ties scarfed thunderous. Latios has the added benefit of taking out Venusaur but this comes at the cost of being a liability against most tar teams, Landorus-I excels against said sand teams but won't like being locked into earthquake (not that you use it that much anyway though).
 

Gary

Can be abrasive at times (no joke)
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How do I know if my team is good enough? What differs a good team from a normal one?
Well, that's kind of an impossible question for anyone to answer but yourself, unless we know your team. If you find a LOT of success with it, then it's probably a really solid team. If you notice that you're losing a lot to a particular kind of play style, then you may need to change up a few things. A team is only bad if you feel like it has no synergy, weak to a lot of common threats, and rarely win. It's still hard to gauge just by looking at it on paper. You have to test it out in the field before you can call it "good" or "bad".
 
Well, that's kind of an impossible question for anyone to answer but yourself, unless we know your team. If you find a LOT of success with it, then it's probably a really solid team. If you notice that you're losing a lot to a particular kind of play style, then you may need to change up a few things. A team is only bad if you feel like it has no synergy, weak to a lot of common threats, and rarely win. It's still hard to gauge just by looking at it on paper. You have to test it out in the field before you can call it "good" or "bad".
Sounds logical. I'm having difficulty testing my team though. I never know if, when I lose, it's because of my team, or because of how I use it. Choosing the last member is always so hard. I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, because it's kind of the sketch for an entire unfinished team (except for that one last Pokemon), but I'm going to go ahead anyway (keeping it short) and pray I didn't break any rules. So far it's:

- Offensive Gyarados
- Bulldoze 192 Atk EVs Ferrothorn
- Scarf Latios
- Air Balloon offensive Heatran
- CB Scizor

I kinda want to put in a Rapid Spinner to support Gyarados (so I can use Life Orb and it will actually be strong enough to be used outside of rain), but if I put in a Starmie I don't really have anything to counter Terrakion with. Is there any advice you could give me regarding this?
 
Faster Sprites?

Where do people get the animated sprites that seem to be sped up? I get all of my animated sprites from Pokecheck, and I want to know where the faster ones are from because I think they are cool.

Sprite from Pokecheck: (the ones I use)




Faster sprite: (ones I am looking for)

 
I noticed Cresselia is a UU pokemon, but it has those amazing defences. is it useful on a stall team in OU?

also, is Alakazam a viable revenge killer on a stall team, or is a bulkier revenge killer smarter?
 

BurningMan

fueled by beer
I noticed Cresselia is a UU pokemon, but it has those amazing defences. is it useful on a stall team in OU?

also, is Alakazam a viable revenge killer on a stall team, or is a bulkier revenge killer smarter?
Cresselia is only really good on Sun Teams because it gets a 66% recovery move and handles common weaknesses of Sun Teams quite well (Landorus-I , Terrakion) on normal stall teams it usually is outclassed by Latias because it got a better typing and can do 99% of the stuff Cresselia can.

I wouldn't see why you couldn't use Alakazam on a Stall Team as its ability to stop most set-up sweepers is quite handy, however a bulkier revenge killer might be better sometimes since Alakazam can't really switch into anything due to its bad typing and non exsistant defenses and thus can't really provide your team with any defensive synergie.
 
Hi Smogon,

I haven't played Pokémon competitive since DPPt, and didn't play Pokémon since early BW. Well, I want to get started again. I redownloaded Pokémon Online, but before I start into teambuilding, I will need your help.

In DPPt, I won a fair amount of games using Hippowdon's and Cresselia's stall power. Chances are pretty big, that this won't work this gen. How is the meta now, and how do I succesfully build a counter-meta stall-team?
 
Hi Smogon,

I haven't played Pokémon competitive since DPPt, and didn't play Pokémon since early BW. Well, I want to get started again. I redownloaded Pokémon Online, but before I start into teambuilding, I will need your help.

In DPPt, I won a fair amount of games using Hippowdon's and Cresselia's stall power. Chances are pretty big, that this won't work this gen. How is the meta now, and how do I succesfully build a counter-meta stall-team?
The meta game now is mainly offensive, Stall can work but its much harder to pull off successfully. As for what works and what is being used you can lurk in the RMT SubForums to get a feel of that people are using. Also take a look at the Viability Ranking Thread and see what are the top threats in the current meta.

Hope this helps
 

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