Gen 3 Rate My Gen 3 OU team

[Rikelek]

I've made some attempts in the past at an ADV OU team but this is the only one that looks like it could pose a huge threat.

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
- Protect
I chose skarmory for want of a pokemon that could set up spikes well and skarmory fit the bill perfectly. It's the best defensive wall in the game and therefore provides me with crucial time while it walls and stalls the opponent. The strategy is simple, set up spikes, scout with whirlwind, cripple with toxic and avoid getting damaged with protect while the enemy pokemon get damaged by poison. This set really dissipates the heat of some of the most powerful attackers in the OU metagame.

Dugtrio @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Aerial Ace
- Hidden Power Bug
After I chose Skarmory, the second pokemon I needed became clear, Dugtrio. The reason I chose Dugtrio is because it traps and OHKOs skarmory counters like magneton. If I can predict a thunderbolt and switch in with dugtrio and retaliate with a STAB earthquake, the opponent will be on the back foot.
Arena trap and high speed makes dugtrio the most efficient revenge kiler in the game. A valuable asset to my team with its other coverage moves as well.

Gengar @ Leftovers
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Giga Drain
- Fire Punch
Gengar was chosen by me because of the fact that my team primarily revolved around physical attackers. To threaten physical walls, I included Gengar as it is arguably the best special attacker in the game. High Speed and Special Attack stats as well as a great movepool make Gengar an excellent all-out attacker. This set sacrifices support moves such as Will-O-Wisp and Hypnosis to gain the widest possible coverage against common Pokemon. With perfect neutral coverage, this is an anti-metagame set that is effective against teams that play off resistances.

Swampert @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SpA
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Hydro Pump
- Roar
I chose swampert because it can act as both a wall and a wallbreaker. It is a counter to common and dangerous OU threats like salamence, metagross, flygon, aerodactyl, tyranitar, etc. As opposed to being an offensive threat itself, this set aims to act as a solid utility counter and defensive pivot; it is excellent at forcing switches. Earthquake is a strong STAB move that threatens many Pokemon that Swampert counters, such as Metagross and Jirachi. Ice Beam provides excellent coverage and, in conjunction with Earthquake, enables Swampert to hit everything in OU for neutral damage. Ice Beam takes a decent chunk out of any Celebi switching in and forces it to Recover, which in turn allows a teammate to switch in without fear of Leech Seed or Psychic. Hydro Pump is the primary option in the third moveslot because it takes a good 50% out of standard Skarmory, stopping Skarmory from setting up on Swampert; it also deals good damage to Gengar.

Salamence @ Choice Band
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Hidden Power Flying
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
I chose Salamence because I wanted a pokemon that was one the most powerful physical sweepers in the game. Banded mence fits this description perfectly with its 130 base attack and 100 base speed. The closest thing to a 100% counter to this set is Ice Beam Suicune. Standard counters, such as Weezing, Milotic, Swampert, and Claydol, will not be able to withstand the Choice Band-boosted assault nearly as well, and will be 3HKOed in most cases. Again, the fourth moveslot is a toss-up; each of the moves has its obvious merits. Brick Break does huge damage to Tyranitar and helps a lot against Curse Snorlax. Fire Blast, however, can 2HKO Skarmory and can OHKO some Forretress.

Celebi @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 Spe
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Hidden Power Grass
- Psychic
- Recover
Finally, I chose Celebi beacause my team was weak to gengar, suicune and milotic so far and Celebi counters all of them. It also counters swampert. Psychic and Hidden Power Grass let it do some damage of its own. The former is stronger against Heracross and Zapdos, whereas the latter OHKOes Dugtrio and screws up Tyranitar that try to set up Dragon Dance boosts on Celebi. I feel that celebi completes my team and fills up its gaps.


Well, it looks like a great team to me. One thing I'm not sure of is whether I would fare better with a rapid spin user like Starmie or my Swampert.
Please advise me on that and provide any criticism that you think will make my team better.
I hope my thread was descriptive enough.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

Hey cool team, I just have a couple suggestions.

On dugtrio I suggest using the following ev spread, 32 HP / 228 Atk / 20 SpDef / 228 Spd with a jolly nature. the HP and special defense evs allow you to survive Raikou's HP grass/ice 100% of the time, and this spread optimizes the amount of physical bulk you get for that amount of EVs by putting as much into HP as possible It also guarantees survival of attacks such as CB tars rock slide. Max speed on dug really only gets you a speed tie with opposing dug, which I don't think is too worth it in comparison to this.

On Gengar I might consider using a more defensive set with some sort of status move. The 4 attacks gengar is cool but a bulky gar will be able to support your team better by helping keep spikes down. The status also allows it to cripple opposing pokemon which makes it far more dangerous and a better spikes abuser. I usually opt to try and survive +1 Mence's hp fly, an easy way to do that is 252 HP / 44 Def, this leaves you with enough evs to still outspeed +natured base 100s, with a tiny bit left over for special attack. Max SpA gar is good on certain teams but I think a bulky set fits better with your team.

Finally, Im not a huge fan of the heracross set, it's pretty useless vs any team with a tyranitar (which is over half of all adv teams). If you keep hera I might use substitute over endure. This allows you to activate salac while still having a few turns to do damage in sand stream. To be honest though, I think heracross should probably be replaced, it doesn't get much support on this team. Your team seems a bit weak to opposing gengar, as well as snorlax should skarm go down (lax is paired with mag a lot of the time). Stuff that can help with these problem are celebi and jirachi. Celebi has the added bonus of taking on some variants of suicune which is another tough mon for you, but tends to give opposing spikers a field day. Jirachi will give you a harder time vs cune but with tbolt it can scare off skarmory.

On the subject of rapid spin, it might be a good idea but don't really know how to fit it. doing things like adding taunt on skarm and maybe fire blast on mence can help prevent spikers from setting up on you though.

 

[Rikelek]

Hey cool team, I just have a couple suggestions.

On dugtrio I suggest using the following ev spread, 32 HP / 228 Atk / 20 SpDef / 228 Spd with a jolly nature. the HP and special defense evs allow you to survive Raikou's HP grass/ice 100% of the time, and this spread optimizes the amount of physical bulk you get for that amount of EVs by putting as much into HP as possible It also guarantees survival of attacks such as CB tars rock slide. Max speed on dug really only gets you a speed tie with opposing dug, which I don't think is too worth it in comparison to this.

On Gengar I might consider using a more defensive set with some sort of status move. The 4 attacks gengar is cool but a bulky gar will be able to support your team better by helping keep spikes down. The status also allows it to cripple opposing pokemon which makes it far more dangerous and a better spikes abuser. I usually opt to try and survive +1 Mence's hp fly, an easy way to do that is 252 HP / 44 Def, this leaves you with enough evs to still outspeed +natured base 100s, with a tiny bit left over for special attack. Max SpA gar is good on certain teams but I think a bulky set fits better with your team.

Finally, Im not a huge fan of the heracross set, it's pretty useless vs any team with a tyranitar (which is over half of all adv teams). If you keep hera I might use substitute over endure. This allows you to activate salac while still having a few turns to do damage in sand stream. To be honest though, I think heracross should probably be replaced, it doesn't get much support on this team. Your team seems a bit weak to opposing gengar, as well as snorlax should skarm go down (lax is paired with mag a lot of the time). Stuff that can help with these problem are celebi and jirachi. Celebi has the added bonus of taking on some variants of suicune which is another tough mon for you, but tends to give opposing spikers a field day. Jirachi will give you a harder time vs cune but with tbolt it can scare off skarmory.

On the subject of rapid spin, it might be a good idea but don't really know how to fit it. doing things like adding taunt on skarm and maybe fire blast on mence can help prevent spikers from setting up on you though.

Dear Cowboy Dan,
Thanks a load for the suggestions, I really appreciate it.
For the dugtrio I think I'll retain the given EV spread because I want to hit as hard and fast as possible. Raikou's hp ice isn't a problem because Dugtrio is a revenge killer, meaning it doesn't usually switch in on attacks and a 252 atk ev dugtrio OHKOs a raikou with earthquake amongst many other pokemon weak to dugtrio.
However, for the gengar, I'll take your suggestion. I changed its moveset and EV spread to the following:
Gengar @ Leftovers
EVs: 172 HP / 148 SpA / 188 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Giga Drain
- Will-O-Wisp
Not exactly what you suggested but similar.
And you were absolutely right about my team's weakness to gengar and suicune. Another pokemon which my team fears is milotic. Celebi, however is a counter to all of these and would be very useful on my team. If you notice, I've edited my team to exclude heracross and include celebi.

Just one question, with these modifications, do you think my team is a force to be reckoned with in the OU metagame?

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

the team has a few holes in it, but in the hands of a good player I think it can perform well enough to pick up wins, so it's be a force to be reckoned with in the hands of the right player. I might add leech seed somewhere on celebi, either over calm mind or HP grass. One of the main reasons to use defensive celebi imo, and allows it to counter snorlax. On the subject of dug evs, I do suggest you try them out, the attack loss is barely noticeable at all, and speed loss as i mentioned earlier will only be noticable in the instance where your opponent is desperate enough to go for the dug on dug speed tie. While dugtrio is useful as a revenge killer its most useful when you use your prediction to get it in without having to sacrifice another pokemon on your team, and the tiny extra bulk investment helps with this a ton. In general, once you start getting experienced in the metagame it's best to try and veer away from smogon ev spreads, they're usually more of a vague generalization of where evs should go and often don't involve specific calculations which is important in good ev spreads. A lot of them are pretty outdated too.

Edit: turns out you can also go 48 hp / 4 sp def for the same result in special bulk but more physical bulk due to having more hp.

 

[Rikelek]

the team has a few holes in it, but in the hands of a good player I think it can perform well enough to pick up wins, so it's be a force to be reckoned with in the hands of the right player. I might add leech seed somewhere on celebi, either over calm mind or HP grass. One of the main reasons to use defensive celebi imo, and allows it to counter snorlax. On the subject of dug evs, I do suggest you try them out, the attack loss is barely noticeable at all, and speed loss as i mentioned earlier will only be noticable in the instance where your opponent is desperate enough to go for the dug on dug speed tie. While dugtrio is useful as a revenge killer its most useful when you use your prediction to get it in without having to sacrifice another pokemon on your team, and the tiny extra bulk investment helps with this a ton. In general, once you start getting experienced in the metagame it's best to try and veer away from smogon ev spreads, they're usually more of a vague generalization of where evs should go and often don't involve specific calculations which is important in good ev spreads. A lot of them are pretty outdated too.

Edit: turns out you can also go 48 hp / 4 sp def for the same result in special bulk but more physical bulk due to having more hp.

Thanks Cowboy Dan, I really appreciate your help and advice.