SM OU Rate My Team!! Rain Dance OU

[Warpather]

Swampert-Mega @ Swampertite
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Superpower
- Ice Punch

The must include in every rain team. Heavy hitting sweeper/Wallbreaker. Those pesky grass types are this dudes biggest issue.


Kingdra @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Draco Meteor
- Hidden Power [Grass]

So I go back and forth between choice specs and choice scarf. Scarf is completely unnecessary in the rain, but its not possible to keep the rain up 100% of the time. I've had several surprise victories because of Scarf without rain. I do like both options though. Plus against another Kingdra I automatically win because of scarf. Ice Beam does a decent job of dealing with grass types and dragons. HP Grass does great against other water users.

Gyarados @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
- Bounce
- Dragon Dance

This guys is my favorite. Against other rain teams I can lead with him set up and sweep in one fell swoop. Sometimes it only takes one DD to set up depending on how fast their team is and with Moxie this becomes insanely powerful. Incredible coverage with bounce waterfall and earthquake. I set up with 2 DD's sometimes 3 if i'm greedy and then use my Z move to one shot just about anything. This powers me up again with moxie and at this point it is over. Everything gets one shot by a +3 Gyarados.

Pelipper @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
- U-turn
- Scald
- Roost
- Defog

Completely self explanatory. It is the essential key that allows this team to function and compete. Also wtf is this dudes dmg. In the rain this guy will pull out some surprising damage just with scald. U-Turn Is amazing on this dude. Keeps him alive through so much. Coupled with Roost and Defog this guy is the ultimate utility.

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Taunt
- Toxic
- Protect

You don't even know how much it pained me to put a fire type in my rain team, but this mon right here is insane. Incredible at taking out the enemy grass type. With leftovers you can always swap in to whatever grass type they are using and heal back to full. If they get greedy you can trap them with magma storm and whittle them down. This guy is also an incredible wall for a large number of mons. All around incredible addition to this team.

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Defog

Now this one here is just OP. Stealth rock setter/defog user. Earthquake cause stab and already ridiculous attack. Rocky Helmet with a defensive nature makes this guy an extremely hard hitting ground type that walls nearly all physical attacks. U-turn is op so I include it. It may be worth taking Rock Slide in place of either defog or U-turn. I just prefer to have another option for clearing hazards then pelipper who is already so crucial to this team.

 

[Arceus1989]

Warpather,your team has weakneses X4 to freezy dry(Kingdra Swampert),to grass(Swampert),to electric(Gyarados and Pelipper),to ground(Heatran)and to ice(Landorus Therian)

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Warpather,your team has weakneses X4 to freezy dry(Kingdra Swampert),to grass(Swampert),to electric(Gyarados and Pelipper),to ground(Heatran)and to ice(Landorus Therian)

Freeze Dry is super uncommon and covered by Heatran, Grass is also covered by Heatran, Electric is covered by Swampert and Lando, Ground is covered by Lando and Gyarados, and Ice is once again covered by Heatran. Having 4x weaknesses doesn't make a bad team. On the contrary, avoiding 4x weaknesses leads to passing up some of the best Pokemon in the tier.

 

[madman404]

Can someone please get rid of Arceus1989's posts? Taking up way too much space.

Anyway, I'm on mobile so I'm just gonna keep this short. Your team gets absolutely assblasted by ash greninja. Like, it's a total shutdown. Really easy to fix, though. Just replace heatran with a standard analysis ferrothorn.

I'm really not a fan of scarf kingdra at all, as it feels like you're trying to leverage the element of surprise in exchange for losing important damage on the likes of bulu and friends. If it's working, it's working, but I'd still be especially cautious of that set. If you still want that speed control, you could easily run rocks > superpower on mega swampert and change your landorus to scarf.

Finally, I'd consider the possibility of Tornadus-T over Lando-T if rocks are put on Swampert, because right now you get instantly 6-0d by mega venusaur and it's not a good look. Also gives you a Pokemon that can at least pivot through kartana's leaf blade, which is another Pokemon you cannot handle right now.

 

[Warpather]

Can someone please get rid of Arceus1989's posts? Taking up way too much space.

Anyway, I'm on mobile so I'm just gonna keep this short. Your team gets absolutely assblasted by ash greninja. Like, it's a total shutdown. Really easy to fix, though. Just replace heatran with a standard analysis ferrothorn.

I'm really not a fan of scarf kingdra at all, as it feels like you're trying to leverage the element of surprise in exchange for losing important damage on the likes of bulu and friends. If it's working, it's working, but I'd still be especially cautious of that set. If you still want that speed control, you could easily run rocks > superpower on mega swampert and change your landorus to scarf.

Finally, I'd consider the possibility of Tornadus-T over Lando-T if rocks are put on Swampert, because right now you get instantly 6-0d by mega venusaur and it's not a good look. Also gives you a Pokemon that can at least pivot through kartana's leaf blade, which is another Pokemon you cannot handle right now.

I agree Arceus1989's posts are obnoxious. Not sure how to delete them though! Also this was a great post thank you! I actually tend to bring in Gyarados against A-Greninja. He can take two or three hits and set up and sweep. (Assuming he isn't scarfed and he doesn't land multiple hydro pumps in rain) I used to run ferrothorn originally, but he never seemed to be useful other than a swap in for some walling.
I do go back and forth between scarf and specs kingdra. Probs gonna switch to specs again.
As far as the tornadus suggest now that i'm digging. I've been fucked so many times by both of those that you mentioned that I started running a stupid ass heatran. Maybe ill try the ferro/tornadus combo and see how that works.
Great input man its greatly appreciated!

 

[SaveMeJebus]

I think you might wanna get rid of defog on Landorus. Give him Smackdown and enough speed to outrun at the very least the bulkier variants of Wash Rotom which can give this team some trouble from the looks of it.

 

[TheJ3estPenguin]

I think you might wanna get rid of defog on Landorus. Give him Smackdown and enough speed to outrun at the very least the bulkier variants of Wash Rotom which can give this team some trouble from the looks of it.

Smack down landorus is not viable, lando dies to rotom wash since it's a direct counter

 

[SaveMeJebus]

Smack down landorus is not viable, lando dies to rotom wash since it's a direct counter

You're not gonna be switching in on it. It's more of a prediction move and from the looks of it, just about the only thing they've got to give Rotom some trouble.

 

[Taptricity]

Smack down landorus is not viable, lando dies to rotom wash since it's a direct counter

Agreeeing with point made above. It’s a lure. You use the move on a prediction as your opponent brings in Rotom-W or Celesteela to you know lure them in and beat them in a 1v1 scenario. Nothing wrong with using lures to beat traditional counters anyway.

 

[curiosity]

Hey Warpather, you've got a pretty interesting rain team here! I've always like Kingdra rain and this team has the right idea when it comes to showcasing its strengths. However, I do think that there several incredibly notable flaws with this team that really hinder its capabilities, with the choice of sets coming to mind as the biggest fault of this team. I'll be honest when I say that a lot of these sets are rather lacklustre; they really don't capitalise on some of these mon's niches and thus makes a few of these mons really hard to work around with. Additionally, this team has an incredibly difficult matchup versus bulkier builds, simply because this team relies to heavily on Swampert to break in the majority of matchups. I also really dislike this team's matchup versus common rain checks such as Mega Alakazam and Ash Greninja, as this team really has no counterplay versus either whatsoever. Finally, this team really has trouble breaking down consistent water resists, such as Rotom-Wash, Tangrowth, Toxapex, Mega Latias and Chansey, which all have the ability to simply invalidate both Swampert and Kindgra. With that being said, here are my recommendations to try improve these issues:

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As I mentioned earlier, this team really has quite a difficult matchup versus bulkier builds (ie. balance and stall), so I wanted to address this issue by replacing Gyarados with an offensive Tornadus-T. This change vastly improves your overall matchup versus bulkier builds, through the use of Knock Off and Taunt, which allows you to easily cripple and remove defensive threats such as Celesteela, Assault Vest Magearna and Chansey, whilst also providing the team with a much more consistent method to break past bulkier grass-types such as Tangrowth and Ferrothorn. Additionally, this change also provides your team with a much needed (secondary) Grass resist, meaning that Scarf Kartana is no longer free to simply click Leaf Blade whenever it comes in. Now with this change, it means you're ironically weaker to Ash Greninja, which the next change aims to address.

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While Heatran certainly has an 'interesting' role to fulfil on this build, it doesn't really address the team's inability to break down bulkier grasses and only really magnified this team's terrible matchup versus Mega Alakazam and Greninja, so I believe that running Ferrothorn over Heatran is a much better option. This change provides the team with an improved matchup versus Ash Greninja and Mega Alakazam, whilst also forcing the likes of Rotom-Wash and Tapu Fini out, which is excellent for both pert and king, as the additional hazard damage is incredibly crucial in these matchups. Additionally, Ferrothorn provides this team with an additional pivot versus other notable threats such as Kartana, and Charizard Y, which is especially important considering that scarfed variants of the former can threaten Tornadus if it locks itself into something like Knock Off, which has no switch-ins on this build, while you can play around with zard's solar beams by pivoting it around with Pelipper.

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My final major suggestion is for you to replace Landorus with a Tapu Lele. This change primarily improves this team's overall balance and stall matchups, most notably removing some of Kingdra and Torn's most notable checks, including Magearna, Chansey and Ferrothorn, whilst also improving this team's matchup versus offence. This is particularly important, as is provides both Swampert and Kingdra protection from priority moves, making these mons considerably harder to revenge kill.

I would also recommend investing more into Pelipper's special defence to better take on the likes of Keldeo, which currently comes in and gets a pick for free. The spread I'll be recommending allows you to avoid the OHKO from a Rain Boosted Specs Hydro Pump from full. Additionally, I'd recommend replacing Scald with Hurricane to not only punish Tangrowth, but to also punish the likes of Lopunny and the aforementioned Keldeo, which can be incredibly annoying for this team to deal with.

Just some minor details here:

• I would also recommend running Stealth Rock over Superpower on Swampert, simply because Stealth Rocks are essential on every serious competitive build and Superpower is your most expendable move.
• I'd also make Kingdra specs here, simply because Scarf Kingdra is admittedly a really lacklustre set that doesn't really serve a purpose. Hydro Pump over HP Grass is also another change I would make, since you don't really need HP Grass here and Hydro Pump allows Kingdra to hit like a truck.

(Click for import)

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If you have any questions regarding this rate, please feel free to contact me on discord at curi#2758 or leave a message on my wall. Other than that, good luck with your team!