My Sun Team: Help Please

[Tyrfing]

I'm new to competitive battling, and this is my first team in OU that involves sun (because I'm bored of rain), so please help it. It hasn't been used yet, so I can't say how effective it is as of yet.

Ninetales
Wide Lens
Drought
Timid
106 Speed EVs, 150 Sp. Attack EVs, 252 Speed EVs

Hypnosis
Energy Ball
Fire Blast
Will-O-Wisp

This guy is my (obviously) weather inducer, and his other job is to inflict status (Since the accuracy for those moves are shaky, I chose a Wide Lens), or if need be, dent the opponent with a boosted Fire Blast (Once again, Wide Lens) or Energy Ball (To hurt Politoed if need be).

Regice
Leftovers
Clear Body
Calm
126 HP EVs, 130 Defense EVs, 252 Sp. Attack EVs

Ice Beam
Hidden Power Fire
Thunder Wave
Rest

Before you complain, no Sp. Defense EVs because Regice's Special Defense is high enough for just a positive nature to do the job, therefore saving me EVs for my Special Attack. Thunder Wave is there so Regice has a chance of outspeeding things (You're not going to get anywhere with base 50 speed). Hidden Power Fire is its other coverage move, as it gets a boost in the sunlight. Rest is Regice's only healing move, so there you have it. I don't need to say why Ice Beam is there, do I?

Heatran
Expert Belt
Flash Fire
Modest
150 Defense EVs, 252 Sp. Attack EVs, 106 Sp. Defense EVs

Flamethrower
Earth Power
Dragon Pulse
Solar Beam

Heatran is intended to be my main offensive Pokemon, and a counter against opposing sun teams. It can switch in to, say, a Latios's Hidden Power Fire, and then strike back with Dragon Pulse ( I don't remember the last time I fought a Heatran with Dragon Pulse). Solar Beam is there because I'm in sun and Solar Beam kills waters.

Latias
Leftovers
Levitate ( So many Ls)
Timid

252 Sp. Attack EVs, 150 Sp. Defense EVs, 106 Speed EVs

Dragon Pulse
Calm Mind
Hidden Power Fire
Roost

Laitas is another special attacker and special wall. While not as offensive as Heatran or as bulky as Regice, Latias makes up for it with more balance, not to mention I needed a dragon on my team (and I'm bored of Dragonite).

Donphan
Leftovers
Sturdy
Impish
130 HP EVs, 126 Attack EVs, 252 Defense EVs

Rapid Spin
Fire Fang
Earthquake
Stealth Rock

This guy is my spinner and my Stealth Rock man. I guess he would have trouble against a spin blocker, but he looks to be useful. Fire Fang is there because it gets a psuedo-STAB boost in sun.

Venusaur
Black Sludge
Chlorophyll
Modest
252 Sp. Attack EVs, 151 (How ironic) Sp. Defense EVs, 105 Speed EVs

Giga Drain
Growth
Hidden Power Fire
Sleep Powder

And last but not least, our mandatory Venusaur, only this one plays a little differently in that he tries to be bulkier then the average Venusaur with Giga Drain and Black Sludge.

Constructive criticism is appreciated.

 

[slate]

regice isn't an effective wall in ou due to the abundance of steel- and fighting-types in the metagame; moreover, once it rests, it probably won't wake up because the sleep counter resets every time you switch out in bw2 and it will be extremely easy for your opponent to keep up the pressure and force you to switch. you don't have a viable means of trapping heatran, which is generally far more important than having a special wall for sun teams, so i'd recommend that you run dugtrio over regice, with stealth rock / earthquake / reversal / stone edge, sucker punch, or memento. cm latias is sort of an inherent issue that sun has to deal with and your team doesn't have any viable way of dealing with it, so i'd recommend using a more defensive set on ninetales which should theoretically help you deal with it: use 252 hp / 96 spd / 160 sdef with a timid nature, with the moves flamethrower / roar / protect / will-o-wisp.

as an alternative to dugtrio, i'd recommend changing your venusaur set to growth / hp ice / giga drain / earthquake. this obviously allows you to deal with heatran far better, though an unfortunate consequence is that you will have to split your evs i think? use 88 atk / 180 spd / 240 satk, @ life orb. this sort of renders dugtrio otiose, and you are free to replace it with something that you think would be viable in that slot. latias and latios are inherent problems to sun teams, so it might be best to have things that can deal with them? although it's an unconventional choice, i think a weavile would actually fit perfectly into your team, as it traps the lati twins and gengar, three pokemon otherwise capable of causing grievous injuries to your team. ice shard / pursuit / night slash / low kick would be the set i would recommend (give it a life orb btw!!). you could also try cb snorlax with return / pursuit / fire punch / superpower in that slot. just let me know what works best.

i do have a number of nitpicks though, now that the major changes have been broached: choose either a specially defensive heatran or a flame charge one. the set that you have now isn't as effective as either of those (flame charge heatran is flame charge / fire blast / solarbeam / hidden power ice @ air balloon, by the way; sdef heatran should use toxic / protect / lava plume / roar or earth power). flame charge heatran is very capable of demolishing weatherless offense mid-to-late game: with its fire/ice/grass coverage, it often steamrolls offense if it gets a flame charge up after lati@s/breloom/scarf fighters are gone. change your evs to either 252 spd / 252 satk / 4 sdef timid for fc tran or 248 hp / 64 spd / 192 sdef calm for sdef heatran). 252 hp/252 def/4 sdef on donphan; a good rule of thumb is to max hp on defensive pokemon unless there is a very specific purpose for not doing so: they take hits from both physically defensive and specially defensive pokemon. 252 hp / 4 def / 252 spd timid on latias.

overall nice team. i like cm latias on sun.

so, in short:

option 1:

change venusaur's set to growth / hp ice / earthquake / giga drain with evs of 88 atk / 180 spd / 240 satk hasty
weavile or snorlax over regice

option 2:
make no changes to venusaur's set (72 hp / 248 satk / 188 spd over your current spread tho)
dugtrio over regice

either way:
use sdef tran or flame charge tran over your current set (fc / hp ice / solarbeam / fire blast)
change donphan's evs to 252 hp / 252 def / 4 sdef
change latias' evs to 252 hp / 4 def / 252 spd
change ninetales' evs to 252 hp / 96 spd / 160 sdef timid

 

[Tyrfing]

regice isn't an effective wall in ou due to the abundance of steel- and fighting-types in the metagame; moreover, once it rests, it probably won't wake up because the sleep counter resets every time you switch out in bw2 and it will be extremely easy for your opponent to keep up the pressure and force you to switch. you don't have a viable means of trapping heatran, which is generally far more important than having a special wall for sun teams, so i'd recommend that you run dugtrio over regice, with stealth rock / earthquake / reversal / stone edge, sucker punch, or memento. cm latias is sort of an inherent issue that sun has to deal with and your team doesn't have any viable way of dealing with it, so i'd recommend using a more defensive set on ninetales which should theoretically help you deal with it: use 252 hp / 96 spd / 160 sdef with a timid nature, with the moves flamethrower / roar / protect / will-o-wisp.

as an alternative to dugtrio, i'd recommend changing your venusaur set to growth / hp ice / giga drain / earthquake. this obviously allows you to deal with heatran far better, though an unfortunate consequence is that you will have to split your evs i think? use 88 atk / 180 spd / 240 satk, @ life orb. this sort of renders dugtrio otiose, and you are free to replace it with something that you think would be viable in that slot. latias and latios are inherent problems to sun teams, so it might be best to have things that can deal with them? although it's an unconventional choice, i think a weavile would actually fit perfectly into your team, as it traps the lati twins and gengar, three pokemon otherwise capable of causing grievous injuries to your team. ice shard / pursuit / night slash / low kick would be the set i would recommend (give it a life orb btw!!). you could also try cb snorlax with return / pursuit / fire punch / superpower in that slot. just let me know what works best.

i do have a number of nitpicks though, now that the major changes have been broached: choose either a specially defensive heatran or a flame charge one. the set that you have now isn't as effective as either of those (flame charge heatran is flame charge / fire blast / solarbeam / hidden power ice @ air balloon, by the way; sdef heatran should use toxic / protect / lava plume / roar or earth power). flame charge heatran is very capable of demolishing weatherless offense mid-to-late game: with its fire/ice/grass coverage, it often steamrolls offense if it gets a flame charge up after lati@s/breloom/scarf fighters are gone. change your evs to either 252 spd / 252 satk / 4 sdef timid for fc tran or 248 hp / 64 spd / 192 sdef calm for sdef heatran). 252 hp/252 def/4 sdef on donphan; a good rule of thumb is to max hp on defensive pokemon unless there is a very specific purpose for not doing so: they take hits from both physically defensive and specially defensive pokemon. 252 hp / 4 def / 252 spd timid on latias.

overall nice team. i like cm latias on sun.

so, in short:

option 1:

change venusaur's set to growth / hp ice / earthquake / giga drain with evs of 88 atk / 180 spd / 240 satk hasty
weavile or snorlax over regice

option 2:
make no changes to venusaur's set (72 hp / 248 satk / 188 spd over your current spread tho)
dugtrio over regice

either way:
use sdef tran or flame charge tran over your current set (fc / hp ice / solarbeam / fire blast)
change donphan's evs to 252 hp / 252 def / 4 sdef
change latias' evs to 252 hp / 4 def / 252 spd
change ninetales' evs to 252 hp / 96 spd / 160 sdef timid

Thanks for the help. I'll go with Flame Charge Heatran, the set you advised for Ninetales, and replace Regice for Weavile (could you also help me with the ability? Pressure sounds more useful, but Pickpocket sounds just as viable...), but could you explain why Latias would have those EVs? Wouldn't you want some Special Attack EVs? My Latias is also offensive. Once again, thank you for the help.

 

[slate]

Thanks for the help. I'll go with Flame Charge Heatran, the set you advised for Ninetales, and replace Regice for Weavile (could you also help me with the ability? Pressure sounds more useful, but Pickpocket sounds just as viable...), but could you explain why Latias would have those EVs? Wouldn't you want some Special Attack EVs? My Latias is also offensive. Once again, thank you for the help.

thanks for replying. i don't think weavile's ability is too crucial to its success either way, since both are extremely situational; however, i could foresee pressure being the more useful ability. the evs are generally intended to maximize latias' overall bulk while outspeeding things such as garchomp, keldeo, terrakion, etc. you can also use a set with 252 hp / 224 def / 32 spd bold, which enables you to deal with fighting-types significantly better, though it doesn't outspeed the aforementioned pokemon. while getting outpaced by terrakion isn't the *worst* thing in the world, given that latias on the whole will not be doing much to it, outspeeding things like garchomp, keldeo, and the rare virizion is extremely important. you can alter the spread to 4 hp / 252 spd / 252 satk for an offensive set with grass knot over recover, which allows it to lure in and damage opposing tyranitar, an imposing threat to sun teams, but generally calm mind latias isn't really aimed for immediate offensive power, but is more so intended to set up a few cms late-game when everything on your opponent's team is weakened. since that's the case, you won't really need many special attack evs on it. hope i helped.

edit: you might want ice shard over fire fang to better deal with dragons, somehow i didn't mention that, apologies.

 

[Tyrfing]

Thanks for the help. I'll go with Flame Charge Heatran, the set you advised for Ninetales, and replace Regice for Weavile (could you also help me with the ability? Pressure sounds more useful, but Pickpocket sounds just as viable...), but could you explain why Latias would have those EVs? Wouldn't you want some Special Attack EVs? My Latias is also offensive. Once again, thank you for the help.

thanks for replying. i don't think weavile's ability is too crucial to its success either way, since both are extremely situational; however, i could foresee pressure being the more useful ability. the evs are generally intended to maximize latias' overall bulk while outspeeding things such as garchomp, keldeo, terrakion, etc. you can also use a set with 252 hp / 224 def / 32 spd bold, which enables you to deal with fighting-types significantly better, though it doesn't outspeed the aforementioned pokemon. while getting outpaced by terrakion isn't the *worst* thing in the world, given that latias on the whole will not be doing much to it, outspeeding things like garchomp, keldeo, and the rare virizion is extremely important. you can alter the spread to 4 hp / 252 spd / 252 satk for an offensive set with grass knot over recover, which allows it to lure in and damage opposing tyranitar, an imposing threat to sun teams, but generally calm mind latias isn't really aimed for immediate offensive power, but is more so intended to set up a few cms late-game when everything on your opponent's team is weakened. since that's the case, you won't really need many special attack evs on it. hope i helped.

edit: you might want ice shard over fire fang to better deal with dragons, somehow i didn't mention that, apologies.

Thank you for telling me about the Latias EVs. I think I'll go for a mixed EV spread of 120 Sp. Defense, 252 Speed, and 136 Sp. Attack and a Timid nature to gain max speed, meaning it can hit hard and maintain lots of bulk, or is this just going to where my roughdraft Latias was? (By roughdraft, I mean the draft on the original post.)

 

[slate]

Thank you for telling me about the Latias EVs. I think I'll go for a mixed EV spread of 120 Sp. Defense, 252 Speed, and 136 Sp. Attack and a Timid nature to gain max speed, meaning it can hit hard and maintain lots of bulk, or is this just going to where my roughdraft Latias was? (By roughdraft, I mean the draft on the original post.)

i think your rough draft was 252 satk / 148 sdef / 108 spd. i'd counsel against running special defense evs, though - latias doesn't really need them since it already takes hits very well on the special side and you really want the extra physical bulk the extra hp provides you. here are a two examples of why putting those evs in special defense instead of hp isn't an optimal decision:

252 SpA Alakazam Shadow Ball vs. 120 HP / 0 SpD Latias: 144-170 (43.5 - 51.35%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Alakazam Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 120 SpD Latias: 132-156 (43.85 - 51.82%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

It takes special hits marginally worse with your spread than it would if you sublimated all the SDef EVs into HP.

252+ Atk Choice Band Stoutland Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latias: 250-295 (83.05 - 98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Stoutland Return vs. 120 HP / 0 Def Latias: 250-295 (75.52 - 89.12%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That's... a pretty marked difference, in my opinion. You not only take about the same damage from special attacks (even a little less!), but you also take significantly less damage from physical attacks if you run 120 HP instead of 120 SDef.

as you can see, 0 hp / 120 sdef latias takes both physical and special hits overall worse than 120 hp / 0 sdef latias. moreover, you're going to be boosting your special defense through calm mind anyway, so that really renders any investment accessory!

(Also, just as a little note that I might not have covered [I've got to stop doing rates on less than one hour of sleep]: in the future, make sure that all of your EVs are divisible by 4 and that you have 508 in total. I noticed in your RMT that you had a penchant for making strange EV spreads which sort of wasted stat points. Try consulting Smogon for EV spreads in the future, by the way — their analyses are typically comprehensive and explain why you should run a given EV spread, what a standard moveset accomplishes, etc.)

Edit: Also, feel free to experiment with my suggestions! You can try Snorlax > Weavile, SDef Heatran > FC Tran, or you might even find something more meritorious than one of the options I've suggested. It's really just about building a team that you're comfortable with. I've been top ~60 on PO using an average team, and I've also had difficulty getting above 1300 with teams that are putatively great because I have a lot of trouble figuring out how to play them.

 

[Tyrfing]

Thank you for telling me about the Latias EVs. I think I'll go for a mixed EV spread of 120 Sp. Defense, 252 Speed, and 136 Sp. Attack and a Timid nature to gain max speed, meaning it can hit hard and maintain lots of bulk, or is this just going to where my roughdraft Latias was? (By roughdraft, I mean the draft on the original post.)

i think your rough draft was 252 satk / 148 sdef / 108 spd. i'd counsel against running special defense evs, though - latias doesn't really need them since it already takes hits very well on the special side and you really want the extra physical bulk the extra hp provides you. here are a two examples of why putting those evs in special defense instead of hp isn't an optimal decision:

252 SpA Alakazam Shadow Ball vs. 120 HP / 0 SpD Latias: 144-170 (43.5 - 51.35%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Alakazam Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 120 SpD Latias: 132-156 (43.85 - 51.82%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

It takes special hits marginally worse with your spread than it would if you sublimated all the SDef EVs into HP.

252+ Atk Choice Band Stoutland Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latias: 250-295 (83.05 - 98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Stoutland Return vs. 120 HP / 0 Def Latias: 250-295 (75.52 - 89.12%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That's... a pretty marked difference, in my opinion. You not only take about the same damage from special attacks (even a little less!), but you also take significantly less damage from physical attacks if you run 120 HP instead of 120 SDef.

as you can see, 0 hp / 120 sdef latias takes both physical and special hits overall worse than 120 hp / 0 sdef latias. moreover, you're going to be boosting your special defense through calm mind anyway, so that really renders any investment accessory!

(Also, just as a little note that I might not have covered [I've got to stop doing rates on less than one hour of sleep]: in the future, make sure that all of your EVs are divisible by 4 and that you have 508 in total. I noticed in your RMT that you had a penchant for making strange EV spreads which sort of wasted stat points. Try consulting Smogon for EV spreads in the future, by the way — their analyses are typically comprehensive and explain why you should run a given EV spread, what a standard moveset accomplishes, etc.)

Edit: Also, feel free to experiment with my suggestions! You can try Snorlax > Weavile, SDef Heatran > FC Tran, or you might even find something more meritorious than one of the options I've suggested. It's really just about building a team that you're comfortable with. I've been top ~60 on PO using an average team, and I've also had difficulty getting above 1300 with teams that are putatively great because I have a lot of trouble figuring out how to play them.

Ok, I changed my EVs. Also, thanks for the Flame Charge Heatran recommendation: My Flame Charge Heatran DESTROYS everything. It has destroyed two teams and taken out half of one. That's pretty darn amazing. Also, I kind of like to defer from Smogon since I want to be "original", although I do agree with some of their spreads. I was suprised not to find FCtran on Smogon; its pretty effective. Also, what does Scheisskopf mean? I only know English. And congratulations for making it in the top 60.

 

[Karpi]

Do you have trouble with Volcarona? If you do, consider Roar on Heatran, which is basically a kill on it combined with Donphan's Stealth Rocks.

Also, a really great sun pokemon to use in place of your Regice is Cresselia, who not only has godlike defense stats like Regice, but has Moonlight which recovers more health in the sun than usual. You can also give it Thunder Wave just like your Regice had!

Source: my own sun team with Donphan + Roar Heatran + Cresselia