Sooooo I lost an absolute ton of ELO doing this (currently net loss 200 after having lost 400 total). I'd like to say rain stall isn't viable but I think my conclusion is better reached that Goodra is just garbage on full stall, even in rain (However goodra is amazing vs Volcanion, especially if goodra goes rest/rain dance so it can never be statused). There have been a few successful variants (one that actually started winning me games before the massive goodra streak) so I'll focus on them.
So I actually think the sets having been used in the past are kinda garbage. Currently, I think Scald/Rapid Spin/Toxic Spikes/Knock off is the standard set. I tried two variations: Acid Spray > Toxic Spikes alone and then Acid Spray >Toxic Spikes + Dazzling Gleam > Knock off. Both sets are kinda focused at destroying Sable harder or taking Keldeo better. I settled for the former, since it also wrecked chansey. Obviously Rain Dish > Liquid Ooze gives you fantastic passive recovery. TL:DR: Acid Spray is a must, toxic spikes too easy to clear.
Overall, Tentacruel is really bad vs offensive teams. In theory it has fantastic special bulk but in practice you're against thundurus, Torn-T in rain, Keldeo in rain, and Volcanion in rain. You do take Keldeo/Volcanion, but I ended up reverting to chansey because you just don't have the straight up special bulk. Vs Slower teams, he's actually really good. He beats most ghosts in tier and disables a lot of items. Setup sweepers risk burns and long attrition fights end up at .25 Spdef from acid spray. He also absorbs a lot of status no questions asked.
Strategies Used:
So rain stall naturally uses 2 waters. You NORMALLY want to go double water+Grass here but in fact, you have to use different water types from normal. It is really weird to say, but Rain stall currently has 'power windows' where you're more a really bulky balance team than a stall team. I tried abusing Rain in two ways: First off, I dedicated a mega to swift swim (swampert) and sweep on through as a wincon. It was incredibly efficient, actually. Secondly, I didn't take any real counters to fire mons in the tier. Instead, I focused on mons that would carry hurricane, electric types and other waters. These are much easier to cover anyways.
The second team I tried took Sableye-Mega over Swampert and Goodra replaced by Chansey. This was an attempt at full-stall which was basically attempting to see how rain hazard control went. Overall, this team was slightly less successful because you weren't able to completely dominate in those small windows. You did, however, neutralize Heatran, who I've longed believed to be the most annoying mon for a Sable team. It has really nice control but sometimes low pressure. Hyper Offense is generally screwed but bulky offense can normally slug it out.
Semi-Stall Team Building Process:
Politoed+Tentacruel (due to project) is a must on rain stall. Politoed has a real interesting niche in being able to handle both Zards to a relatively decent extent, so I gave him a physically defensive spread and toxic. Rest was his only real recovery due to damp rock being really nice. Rain was too short to operate in use Chesto Berry here. Grass types cut the two weaknesses of water, so I took Tangrowth to cover grass (mainly loom/ferro) and Electric (kinda rare for physical electrics since I wanted to use lefties Tangrowth). Due to the bulk distribution, I went weird and allowed my mixed wall in the Waterx2+Grass to be Tentacruel. Luckily, Tangrowth is really good vs Keldeo so it was one last threat.
Due to the nature of the physical core, there was 0 way to take the three stall breakers in the remaining three mons. I attempted Jirachi for a few games by Medicham shafted me multiple times. Eventually, enter Doublade. I did end up abusing his ability to take Latios super hard so I could take on Goodra as my special wall. This team had 0 heal bell, but two status absorbers (four, if you count rest on doublade and politoed). Goodra takes almost nothing from most special attacks and hydration gives goodra super reliable recovery in those powerful windows. I was between Kabutops and Swampert-M to finish off the team, but made the choice for Swampert because I also needed rocks. The team has no wish, but every mon has incredibly strong recovery. No heal bell but Goodra doesn't care about statuses. Overall, this team had a few of the standard rain issues (ferro, rotom-w) but both were actually handled really nicely by Goodra. In this team, I think Goodra was the best mon I could've taken on.
It IS ground weak. I have double ground weak and Goodra can't take a physical hit for it's life. However, Tangrowth doesn't give a shit and ground mons are fine to leave up since Swampert can tank and sweep right through them. The fun thing about this team was letting Swampert go wild for a few turns under rain and then pulling back to stall. Goodra is actually a fantastic TornT and Thundy-i counter if you can control the weather periodically. I kept rain dance on Goodra to allow me the ability to continue this. Because of the set, I rarely had to deal with Ferro in the late game. One fire blast and I no longer had to really worry about Ferro stopping Swampert's reign. Even under rain, 40% of ferro's HP was missing.
Because this team has 0 issues with hazards, I adjusted Tentacruel to come out with a far more offensive set. This Dazzling Gleam/Acid Spray/Scald set was actually kinda scary for a lot of teams if they got sprayed coming in. Because the pressure from the other mons was high and rain was almost always available, Tentacruel was able to actually exert reasonable pressure when in. I would say Goodra, Doublade killed some pressure (but Doublade had pursuit trap so it was fine) and Swampert/Tangrowth/Tenta generated a lot of it back. Politoed mainly was kept away from fights to continue generating rain and mainly turned into a talonflame/ZardX catch if they existed. It actually allowed me to run toed like quagsire (having haze) to keep enemy setup sweepers nonviable.
Really, I only dropped this variant for another because I wanted to go full Stall at least once. This team probably had me a 70% WR.
Team Building: Rain Stall
So this team ignores the back half (Goodra/Doublade/Swampert) of the last team and attempts full stall. I decided that Sable in rain would be a monster, keeping a steel was huge and that goodra was trash when I had no sweeping threat. This team didn't feel as good, and it wasn't because there wasn't a lot of support for Sable. Sable actually liked the rain constantly being up so he could basically prevent heatran from bothering him. The issue was this team had even less ability to sweep out ground types. Toed was the only remaining threat to killing them and Tangrowth could wall them, but they're also rock carriers. If Lando-i or Chomp got burned, it was fine. However, otherwise you were taking too much health with low retribution and spinning with a ground weak.
What I'm trying to say is Lando was annoying, even with full defensive skarm. This team also got a taste of Hurricane knock off torn and was not happy. Sable isn't paid to put up with that. If you could get away from Torn-T and neutralize landorus just a bit to stop him from wearing sable down with u-turn momentum, the team is actually surprisingly solid. What I ended up doing was just ignoring rock blocks if Landorus was in the game until later and allowing tentacruel just so spin off. This set was also the trash-chansey set and was pretty good to me in doing a bit of stallbreaking (cleared sable, chansey relatively easily, and could threaten burns pretty well on amoongus/quag).
Final Thoughts
Overall, I was actually kinda impressed with Tentacruel on the first team. The full stall probably would've prefered skarm just to take defog duties EVEN WITH Sable there. However, it did allow the niche of clearing rocks for me and forcing the opponent into some awkward situations.
Tentacruel really appreciates rain for the 12% recovery per turn. Your recovery rate is deceptively high and if the opponent needs to switch, you've got 25% between attacks. The scald+rain gives him legitimate power, acid spray adds to that pressure. I think I preferred knock off even if having a way to crush sable outside of rain was really nice. He's not a good stall mon and shouldn't be seen on stall teams. However, his speed/power combination allows a more defensive rain team to open up with his usage.
I don't think the meta is great for tentacruel. Fast defoggers and ground types just below his speed tier when he's going defensive means his spinning can be rough. However, he is deceptively strong over long fights in neutral/neutral matchups. Rain is really kind to him and I think he fits on a balance/bulky offense style of rain better than Latias/Starmie/Skarm due to his ability to recover faster, take rain boosted keldeo and take advantage of acid spray. The team doesn't really need to support him since he does have speed enough to find at least one mon to reliable spin on and his coverage doesn't invite many switchins outside Ferrothorn.
Also Bulky Rain seems SUPER underrated. I think the archtype in general just wasn't touched due to it being tested in XY with rain mechanics and never focused on again. With Swampert-M having bulk and being able to do so much damage in so few turns with no setup, I think there are a great deal of options for bulky rain if it were to be explored. One of the huge advantages bulk rain has over HO rain is you have the time to wear down Ferrothorn and Rotom-wash to kill points. Neither are as good in long fights vs rains because Rotom's SpA isn't that great vs your own bulk on hydro pump and both are eventually getting burned down.
Lastly, Terrakion. needs to honor his debt in writing at least once.
So I actually think the sets having been used in the past are kinda garbage. Currently, I think Scald/Rapid Spin/Toxic Spikes/Knock off is the standard set. I tried two variations: Acid Spray > Toxic Spikes alone and then Acid Spray >Toxic Spikes + Dazzling Gleam > Knock off. Both sets are kinda focused at destroying Sable harder or taking Keldeo better. I settled for the former, since it also wrecked chansey. Obviously Rain Dish > Liquid Ooze gives you fantastic passive recovery. TL:DR: Acid Spray is a must, toxic spikes too easy to clear.
Overall, Tentacruel is really bad vs offensive teams. In theory it has fantastic special bulk but in practice you're against thundurus, Torn-T in rain, Keldeo in rain, and Volcanion in rain. You do take Keldeo/Volcanion, but I ended up reverting to chansey because you just don't have the straight up special bulk. Vs Slower teams, he's actually really good. He beats most ghosts in tier and disables a lot of items. Setup sweepers risk burns and long attrition fights end up at .25 Spdef from acid spray. He also absorbs a lot of status no questions asked.
Strategies Used:
So rain stall naturally uses 2 waters. You NORMALLY want to go double water+Grass here but in fact, you have to use different water types from normal. It is really weird to say, but Rain stall currently has 'power windows' where you're more a really bulky balance team than a stall team. I tried abusing Rain in two ways: First off, I dedicated a mega to swift swim (swampert) and sweep on through as a wincon. It was incredibly efficient, actually. Secondly, I didn't take any real counters to fire mons in the tier. Instead, I focused on mons that would carry hurricane, electric types and other waters. These are much easier to cover anyways.
The second team I tried took Sableye-Mega over Swampert and Goodra replaced by Chansey. This was an attempt at full-stall which was basically attempting to see how rain hazard control went. Overall, this team was slightly less successful because you weren't able to completely dominate in those small windows. You did, however, neutralize Heatran, who I've longed believed to be the most annoying mon for a Sable team. It has really nice control but sometimes low pressure. Hyper Offense is generally screwed but bulky offense can normally slug it out.
Semi-Stall Team Building Process:
Politoed+Tentacruel (due to project) is a must on rain stall. Politoed has a real interesting niche in being able to handle both Zards to a relatively decent extent, so I gave him a physically defensive spread and toxic. Rest was his only real recovery due to damp rock being really nice. Rain was too short to operate in use Chesto Berry here. Grass types cut the two weaknesses of water, so I took Tangrowth to cover grass (mainly loom/ferro) and Electric (kinda rare for physical electrics since I wanted to use lefties Tangrowth). Due to the bulk distribution, I went weird and allowed my mixed wall in the Waterx2+Grass to be Tentacruel. Luckily, Tangrowth is really good vs Keldeo so it was one last threat.
Due to the nature of the physical core, there was 0 way to take the three stall breakers in the remaining three mons. I attempted Jirachi for a few games by Medicham shafted me multiple times. Eventually, enter Doublade. I did end up abusing his ability to take Latios super hard so I could take on Goodra as my special wall. This team had 0 heal bell, but two status absorbers (four, if you count rest on doublade and politoed). Goodra takes almost nothing from most special attacks and hydration gives goodra super reliable recovery in those powerful windows. I was between Kabutops and Swampert-M to finish off the team, but made the choice for Swampert because I also needed rocks. The team has no wish, but every mon has incredibly strong recovery. No heal bell but Goodra doesn't care about statuses. Overall, this team had a few of the standard rain issues (ferro, rotom-w) but both were actually handled really nicely by Goodra. In this team, I think Goodra was the best mon I could've taken on.
It IS ground weak. I have double ground weak and Goodra can't take a physical hit for it's life. However, Tangrowth doesn't give a shit and ground mons are fine to leave up since Swampert can tank and sweep right through them. The fun thing about this team was letting Swampert go wild for a few turns under rain and then pulling back to stall. Goodra is actually a fantastic TornT and Thundy-i counter if you can control the weather periodically. I kept rain dance on Goodra to allow me the ability to continue this. Because of the set, I rarely had to deal with Ferro in the late game. One fire blast and I no longer had to really worry about Ferro stopping Swampert's reign. Even under rain, 40% of ferro's HP was missing.
Because this team has 0 issues with hazards, I adjusted Tentacruel to come out with a far more offensive set. This Dazzling Gleam/Acid Spray/Scald set was actually kinda scary for a lot of teams if they got sprayed coming in. Because the pressure from the other mons was high and rain was almost always available, Tentacruel was able to actually exert reasonable pressure when in. I would say Goodra, Doublade killed some pressure (but Doublade had pursuit trap so it was fine) and Swampert/Tangrowth/Tenta generated a lot of it back. Politoed mainly was kept away from fights to continue generating rain and mainly turned into a talonflame/ZardX catch if they existed. It actually allowed me to run toed like quagsire (having haze) to keep enemy setup sweepers nonviable.
Really, I only dropped this variant for another because I wanted to go full Stall at least once. This team probably had me a 70% WR.
Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 28 SpD / 16 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Acid Spray
- Dazzling Gleam
Politoed @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Toxic
- Haze
- Rest
Tangrowth @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Knock Off
- Giga Drain
- Focus Blast
Goodra @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rain Dance
- Fire Blast
- Dragon Pulse
- Rest
Doublade @ Eviolite
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Iron Head
- Toxic
- Rest
- Pursuit
Swampert-Mega @ Swampertite
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Punch
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 28 SpD / 16 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Acid Spray
- Dazzling Gleam
Politoed @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Toxic
- Haze
- Rest
Tangrowth @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Knock Off
- Giga Drain
- Focus Blast
Goodra @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rain Dance
- Fire Blast
- Dragon Pulse
- Rest
Doublade @ Eviolite
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Iron Head
- Toxic
- Rest
- Pursuit
Swampert-Mega @ Swampertite
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Punch
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
Team Building: Rain Stall
So this team ignores the back half (Goodra/Doublade/Swampert) of the last team and attempts full stall. I decided that Sable in rain would be a monster, keeping a steel was huge and that goodra was trash when I had no sweeping threat. This team didn't feel as good, and it wasn't because there wasn't a lot of support for Sable. Sable actually liked the rain constantly being up so he could basically prevent heatran from bothering him. The issue was this team had even less ability to sweep out ground types. Toed was the only remaining threat to killing them and Tangrowth could wall them, but they're also rock carriers. If Lando-i or Chomp got burned, it was fine. However, otherwise you were taking too much health with low retribution and spinning with a ground weak.
What I'm trying to say is Lando was annoying, even with full defensive skarm. This team also got a taste of Hurricane knock off torn and was not happy. Sable isn't paid to put up with that. If you could get away from Torn-T and neutralize landorus just a bit to stop him from wearing sable down with u-turn momentum, the team is actually surprisingly solid. What I ended up doing was just ignoring rock blocks if Landorus was in the game until later and allowing tentacruel just so spin off. This set was also the trash-chansey set and was pretty good to me in doing a bit of stallbreaking (cleared sable, chansey relatively easily, and could threaten burns pretty well on amoongus/quag).
Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 28 SpD / 16 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Acid Spray
- Knock Off
Politoed @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Toxic
- Haze
- Rest
Tangrowth @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Knock Off
- Giga Drain
- Focus Blast
Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Soft-Boiled
Skarmory @ Shed Shell
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Stealth Rock
- Roost
- Spikes
Sableye @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 112 Def / 144 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Foul Play
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 28 SpD / 16 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Acid Spray
- Knock Off
Politoed @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Toxic
- Haze
- Rest
Tangrowth @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Bold Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Knock Off
- Giga Drain
- Focus Blast
Chansey @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss
- Wish
- Heal Bell
- Soft-Boiled
Skarmory @ Shed Shell
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Stealth Rock
- Roost
- Spikes
Sableye @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 112 Def / 144 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Foul Play
Final Thoughts
Overall, I was actually kinda impressed with Tentacruel on the first team. The full stall probably would've prefered skarm just to take defog duties EVEN WITH Sable there. However, it did allow the niche of clearing rocks for me and forcing the opponent into some awkward situations.
Tentacruel really appreciates rain for the 12% recovery per turn. Your recovery rate is deceptively high and if the opponent needs to switch, you've got 25% between attacks. The scald+rain gives him legitimate power, acid spray adds to that pressure. I think I preferred knock off even if having a way to crush sable outside of rain was really nice. He's not a good stall mon and shouldn't be seen on stall teams. However, his speed/power combination allows a more defensive rain team to open up with his usage.
I don't think the meta is great for tentacruel. Fast defoggers and ground types just below his speed tier when he's going defensive means his spinning can be rough. However, he is deceptively strong over long fights in neutral/neutral matchups. Rain is really kind to him and I think he fits on a balance/bulky offense style of rain better than Latias/Starmie/Skarm due to his ability to recover faster, take rain boosted keldeo and take advantage of acid spray. The team doesn't really need to support him since he does have speed enough to find at least one mon to reliable spin on and his coverage doesn't invite many switchins outside Ferrothorn.
Also Bulky Rain seems SUPER underrated. I think the archtype in general just wasn't touched due to it being tested in XY with rain mechanics and never focused on again. With Swampert-M having bulk and being able to do so much damage in so few turns with no setup, I think there are a great deal of options for bulky rain if it were to be explored. One of the huge advantages bulk rain has over HO rain is you have the time to wear down Ferrothorn and Rotom-wash to kill points. Neither are as good in long fights vs rains because Rotom's SpA isn't that great vs your own bulk on hydro pump and both are eventually getting burned down.
Lastly, Terrakion. needs to honor his debt in writing at least once.