[OU] Hazards + Roar

[jamis]

Hey all. The past few days, I've been working on my first competitive team. I think what I've got should work, but there are some glaring weaknesses that can hopefully be shored up. The EVs listed are just a rough guide at the moment. Likely a few of the 252/4 or 128/128 splits will be move toward values like 188/68 once I figure out which attacks from which pokemon will do how much to each of my pokemon. If anyone has advice on this, I'm all ears, though my primary goal right now is just to finalize which pokemon I'll be using and their movesets. Once that's figured out, I can work on fine-tuning EV spreads on my own.​

Skarmory @ Sitrus Berry
Sturdy
Impish
252 HP/128 Def/128 SDef

• Stealth Rock
• Spikes
• Whirlwind
• Roost

This is the team's lead and the basis of the strategy. The idea being to lead with stealth rock, hopefully get all 3 layers of spikes, then switch out. Roost helps ensure Skarmory can last long enough to set up, and Whirlwind lets Skarmory attack, though ideally that's left to the Dragon Tail users.​

Dragonite @ Draco Plate
Multiscale
Careful
252 HP/4 Def/252 SDef

• Thunder Wave
• Dragon Tail
• Substitute
• Roost

Dragonite is my special wall. Ideally, Skarmory loads the field with hazards, then Dragonite comes in to spread paralysis, and force through damage with STAB Dragon Tail. When a pokemon Dragonite is favorable against is switched in, this is hopefully enough time to lay down a substitute, Roost back to full health then between Multiscale and the substitute, wall the opposing team.​

Aggron @ Shell Bell
Rock Head
Careful
252 HP/ 252 Def/ 4 SDef

• Thunder Wave
• Dragon Tail
• Stealth Rock
• Head Smash

The other Dragon Tail user. Like Dragonite, Aggron also wants to spread Paralysis, but serves as a Physical wall rather than a special wall. If the Stealth Rocks Skarmory set up leave, Aggron can re-set up.​

Cloyster @ White Herb
Shell Armor
Impish
252 HP/ 128 Def / 128 SDef

• Spikes
• Rapid Spin
• Shell Smash
• Ice Shard

Like Aggron, who can re-apply Stealth Rock, Cloyster is there to re-apply spikes or finish the job Skarmory started. Also can spin away opposing hazards. Shell Smash and Ice Shard allow for a potential sweep.​

Mismagius @ Leftovers
Levitate
Calm
4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SDef

• Thunder Wave
• Perish Song
• Heal Bell
• Pain Split

My spin blocker. In addition, Mismagius also continues Dragonite and Aggron's plan of paralyzing the other team. Heal bell is nice coverage, and perish song acts as a delayed Roar. I was debating between Pain Split and Shadow Ball, but gave Pain Split the nod, as even with 252 EVs, Shadow ball was not a guaranteed OHKO against Starmie, and I think Pain Split is better vs the other spinners.​

Riolu @ Focus Sash
Prankster
Adamant
252 Att / 4 SDef / 252 Speed

• Roar
• Copycat
• Feint
• Protect

Riolu is the combo finish. For those not familiar with how Prankster + Roar + copycat work, this video shows it off. This is just to make it so I don't have to manually go through Dragon Tail, Roost, Dragon Tail, Roost, rinse, repeat. It can also just randomly save me in games I have no business winning. The last two moves really don't matter. I chose Feint just because it was +2 priority, so if I combo out with Riolu, and they're left with one last pokemon, Riolu can get that last point of damage in. Some people use Toxic or Drain Punch instead, but I think it should just be assumed everything will 2HKO Riolu anyway, so if he KOs everything but the last Pokemon, he's done his job, and the rest can be left to Cloyster and Aggron.​

So, that's the team. It's weak to special attacks, leaving only Dragonite and Mismagius to be able to handle a special sweeper. The team is also weak to Taunt, which forces Skarmory and Mismagius into Struggle, and also harms the other four to varying degress - Aggron is only mildly affected, where Riolu is for the most part just as shut down as Skarmory. An easy fix might be to give Skarmory Brave Bird instead of Spikes, and Mismagius Shadow Ball instead of Pain Split, and call it a day, but that comes with its own disadvantages. The only Pokemon I have so far are Skarmory and Aggron, so I'm fairly open to suggestions of non-listed pokemon if they'll do a better job. I'll have to wait until Dream World re-opens, anyway, to get Dragonite, Mismagius, and Riolu.

 

[xxxslayer3000xxx]

This won't work as Roar and Whirlwind have -7 priority, so they'll always go last. Trust me, I tried that Riolu thing, it doesn't work very well.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Skarmory would probably be better off with 252 special defence, and only 4 physical, and careful nature, since this is the best way of getting balanced defences, still with slightly higher physical. It also probably wants an attack - I'd personally drop stealth rock, and add on drill peck. Brave bird is the more popular choice because it's stronger, but it seems completely counter-intuitive to me to use a recoil move on a defensive pokemon.

Dragonite and Aggron seem pretty nice, though Aggron could do with more reliable recovery than a shell bell. Spreading paralysis is a decent idea, though I'm not sure how far it'd benefit your plan. Or is it just to interfere with other pokemon, which could pose a threat?

You're probably better off just re-equipping Cloyster as a sweeper, possibly mixed, since you don't have any other sweepers on this team. Defensively, its permanently stuck with no special defence, no matter how much you EV it. So, as a sweeper, if you're using ice shard, you'll probably want 252 physical attack, and then maybe 128/128 for special attack and speed? I'm not especially familiar with its stats, but something like that might be a good idea. Maybe.

Mismagius probably would benefit from taunt instead of thunder wave, since that would force switches on some pokemon and you've probably got enough paralysis coverage with Dragonite and Aggron. And also, it would work very nicely with perish song, as you could force something to switch out, and then perish song whatever it switched to. It's also important to not that this sort of team is vulnerable to set up sweepers, so taunt would save you from that as well.

Riolu may be difficult to set up, since you need a safe switch in, with no entry hazards, and even after that, it's vulnerable to priority. You'll want probably want quick attack instead of feint, since it is a little more powerful, but you can't really count on this Riolu doing any direct damage anyway. If you can get set up properly, though, it'll probably work.

Consider Forretress for this team. Its good as a physical wall, and can set up all forms of entry hazards.

Otherwise, you probably need a little more flexibility, rather than a fixed plan which could be countered. Since taunt is a major problem for stopping your set ups, you should get some sort of strong attacker, with either a choice band or choice specs. That way you can smash something right off the bat without getting obstructed. The hard bit is anticipating ways your plan can go wrong, and then editing the team to find ways around it.

Hope this is helpful.

 

[GliscorMan]

As with what LK said, I'd go with Forretress or Ferrothorn instead of Aggron. While Aggron's defenses are wonderful, the fact that it has a 4x weakness to Ground and Fighting (2 common offensive types in the current metagame). The downside would be that neither of those two have a move which forces a switch. Despite this, I feel that Ferrothorn has a lot of synergy for this team; physical threats need to switch out or suffer Iron Barbs/Rocky Helmet, allowing your entry hazards to take effect.


My suggestion:
Ferrothorn @ Rocky Helmet
Iron Barbs
Adamant
252 hp/48 def/208 SpD

-Thunder Wave
-Leech Seed (?)
-Power Whip
-Stealth Rocks

Your team appears to be incredibly vulnerable to Taunt, as well as slow setup sweepers such as Conkeldurr. While Taunt on Mismagius would help, I agree that you might want to consider a full-on attacking Pokemon instead of Mismagius. Maybe Moxie Scrafty in order to capitalize off of the total paralysis of the other team?

 

[slate]

sorry, i feel like this team needs some serious revision to compete at a reasonable level of play

your mismagius does nothing to potential spinners, especially starmie and tentacruel, outside of pain split. consider using shadow ball / taunt / will-o-wisp / pain split if you're set on using it—honestly, i'd just use subdisable gengar or jellicent and be done with it. draco plate on dragonite is a bad idea since with sand you'll never have multiscale up; consider leftovers over it. set is fine, though i've personally never been a fan of it. decide whether you want cloyster to be a support pokemon or an offensive one. rapid spin/shell smash/ice shard is bad and pointless. don't use spikes twice on a team when you could use a competent spinblocker and not have to worry about getting your hazards spun away. your team doesn't seem to have much of a backup plan if riolu dies (cloyster isn't a good spinner and sash riolu will get mauled by pretty much anything). i'd suggest replacing aggron since skarmory is a better defensive pokemon anyway; avoiding redundancy is of nonpareil importance in competitive pokemon.

i think this team needs too much revision for me to cover it thoroughly at the present moment, but i'd definitely counsel you to reevaluate why you've put specific pokemon on your team. i don't see what mismagius does that gengar or jellicent wouldn't do better, for example; you aren't perishtrapping with it (its only real niche, albeit an extremely situational and precarious one) and it doesn't buttress your team significantly from a defensive or offensive standpoint. all it seems to do is sit there and wait for tentacruel/forretress/starmie to kill it. it can get them low enough with pain split but you literally can't kill them with anything because aggron dies and nothing else can really hurt them before they get a spin off. why not use gengar, who can at least kill tent with dbond or thunder, or jellicent, which gets reliable recovery and can spinblock starmie with a little special defense investment? why use dragonite, aside from the 'special wall' thing? why would you really need a rapid spinner when you could just use eviolite or leftovers on riolu, thus eschewing the need for a spinner and freeing up a valuable team slot for, say, scarf tyranitar or even weavile (sand sucks w/ riolu actually), which goes a long way in eliminating reuniclus (which will probably 6-0 you if mismagius is dead, which isn't that hard to make happen) and starmie, which doesn't care about gengar at all?

sorry for any brusqueness, i'm ill right now
i agree with having a back-up plan, especially since you will have times where your opponent will be able to beat riolu (e.g. magic guard 252/252+ reuniclus, which your team can do pretty much nothing against if it comes in on cloyster)

try garchomp > aggron with sd/outrage/eq/fire fang, sr, or whatever @ yache and sub/dbond/shadow ball/focus blast gengar > mismagius. this takes the team in a more offensive direction which is probably not your intention, but it at least helps you to beat things that you'd otherwise have a lot of difficulty against. uh, but a rapid spinner at this point would probably be encouraged: idk what you want to use, but starmie might be good since it beats all common spinners and serves as a water resistance, which is invaluable in this metagame

sorry for any brusqueness/lack of clarity, v tired
just some possible suggestions, hope i helped

edit: also work on eving things: i'd run max hp/216 def/40 spd on skarm but that's just me. you could also try running taunt sdef skarm with like 52 spd which causes some stall a lot of problems and makes it very easy for you to lay down your hazards on those teams but it stomachs hits from terrak et al. a lot worse. max hp/112 def/96 sdef/52 spd on riolu w/ eviolite; you're going to want to invest in hp, i don't know why you need any attack???? uhhh, ditch mismagius but for the record 252 hp/236 def/20 sdef calm gives you better defenses than 4/252/252+; mismagius has terrible hp so it's generally better to invest in that. also idk if i'd keep dragonite since i feel like there's probably something that can give you better team support but i can't think of it off the top of my head.

for what it's worth i think your team has a good concept behind it, just not so crazy on its execution

e2:

This won't work as Roar and Whirlwind have -7 priority, so they'll always go last. Trust me, I tried that Riolu thing, it doesn't work very well.

you roar then copycat ad nauseam
prankster gives copycat +1 priority so you're generally free to spam copycat until your opponent dies
i'm not sure what you were doing, but was it that?

 

[jamis]

Thank you all for the help. This all completely overwhelmed me, but that's a good thing. I'm going to take a few days to go over your suggestions and rework the team with that in mind. I'll let you know how it shapes up.

 

[Focus58]

And above all, don't lose heart. Your team had a strong basis, but any team could be improved.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

If this is a gen VI thread, Copycat + Roar no longer works. Disregard if it's for Gen 5.

 

[jamis]

Yeah, this was for Gen V. I didn't know copycat + roar stopped working in the current Gen, though. Thanks for the heads up