Rain Team

S

Smeargle

.
Member
I have everything except the politoed so far.

[animate]politoed[/animate]
Politoed @ Wacan Berry
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 HP
Nature: Modest | Trait: Drizzle
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Encore
-Protect

This is my primary rain stater. I use it to start the rain and then hit hard with this. Surf is my main attack and ice beam is for dragons, Encore it for disruption and protect is... well for protect.

[animate]ludicolo[/animate]
Ludicolo
Timid
Ability: Swift Swim
@ Absorb Bulb
252 SpA/252 Speed/4 HP

-Giga Drain
-Protect
-Ice beam
-Surf

This gets HUGE attacks off. Absorb Bulb is to take a Surf and not take damage while raising it's own Special Attack.

[animate]musharna[/animate]
Musharna @ Leftovers
Ability: Telepathy
Nature: Calm
EVs: 252 Sp / 4 HP / 252 SpD
- Trick Room
- Psychic
- Helping Hand
- Imprison

Use Trick Room to cancel out an active Trick Room, removing the effect from battle and allowing your Kingdra and Ludicolo to sweep at full potential. Psychic is to damage things. Helping Hand provides a power buff to your main attackers. You can use Imprison to completely shut down Trick Room teams. Leftovers is there befause... well it's leftovers and I couldn't think of a better place to put it and it's too good not to use.

[animate]kingdra[/animate]
Kingdra
Modest
Ability: Swift Swim
@ life orb
252 SpA/252 Speed/4 HP

-Ice Beam
-Hydro Pump
-Dragon Pulse
-Surf

This thing has monster speed, following the trend. It has lots of options and can deal with many things. It hits hard with life orb.

[animate]dragonite[/animate]
Dragonite
Rash
Ability: Multiscale
@ Yache Berry
252 SpA/252 Spe/4 HP

-Dragon Pulse
-Thunder
-Protect
-Hurricane

Both Hurricane and thunder have 100% accuracy in rain which makes me able to abuse them a ton. It is mixed to deal with many threats and is my main sweeper once rain is up. All and all it's amazing. Yache berry is there because dragonie has a x4 weaknes to ice and my primary sweeper can't be one shotted by one of the most used moves (ice beam). Multiscale really lowers the damage taken to this by a ton, which is amazing.

[animate]gastrodon[/animate]
Gastrodon
Ability: Storm Drain
Item: Rindo Berry
Nature: Timid
EVs: 200 Speed, 252 Sp. Atk. 56 HP
Muddy Water
Earth Power
Recover
Rain Dance

This is in there to absorb surfs and become more powerful from them and become a sweeping monster. Rain dance is there in case I lose the weather war which is unlikely because the only two real other weathers are sun and sand, both weak to water.
 
Politoed: Change Shell Bell to a Wacan Berry so you can possibly survive an Electric hit. Also I'd recommend removing Hyper Voice and adding Surf for STAB. plus it hits every pokemon in play.
Ludicolo: Change Lefties to Absorb Bulb (when it is hit with a water move, like Politoed's Surf, the holder SpA will increase by 50%.) Grass knot won't do much to most TR Pokes, so let's change it to Fake Out.
Starmie: Speaking of Trick Room, your team is heavily weak against it, I'd prefer you cut Starmie and go for somet
 
Do you realise, that this team is like 60% weak to electric, with only 1 resistance, and a single immunity??

Remove Starmie, and add in something ground that you like. Maybe Donphan, so you can still rapid spin.
 
On Dugtrio, Jolly lowers special attack, both of its attacks. Timid ups speed and lowers attack so that would be better.
 
Long post incoming! First of all, if you know any EV spreads for your Pokemon, can you please provide them? It makes rating your team much easier. The more we know about your Pokemon, the better rate we can give. :)

Politoed
Modest
Ability: Drizzle
@ shell bell

-Hyper voice
-Perish song
-Ice Beam
-Swagger
Click to expand...

Quite a few problems here. First of all, where's the STAB attack? Politoed's Water-type attacks are very difficult for many Pokemon to take, since they're backed by both Drizzle and STAB, yet you don't have any. Surf is excellent on any VGC Water-type Pokemon, and I would put it on Politoed for that reason. Perish Song is okay, as is Ice Beam. But I don't understand why you're running Swagger. Having more coverage moves is awesome on a Pokemon like Politoed. Including Focus Blast or even Protect would be much more helpful than Swagger. A third offensive attack expands what Politoed can beat, and the more stuff it beats, the better shape you're in. I would also change the item to Leftovers for more reliable recovery.

Ludicolo
Timid
Ability: Swift Swim
@ Leftovers

-Grass knot
-Protect
-Ice beam
-Scald
Click to expand...
Ludicolo is an offensive Pokemon in VGC, so I've got a few tweaks to your set to make it better. Changing the item to Life Orb allows Ludicolo to start hitting hard right off the bat. While the 10% health you lose after each attack may seem bad, you can make it better by using Giga Drain instead of Grass Knot. Protect is okay here, as is Ice Beam. Surf is a better option than Scald for the reasons I've provided above: it hits harder and it hits both opponents.

Starmie
Rash
Ability: Natural Cure
@ Focus sash

-Ice Beam
-Protect
-Psychic
-Recover
Click to expand...
I'm not too sure why you're running Starmie on your team. You already have two good rain sweepers in Ludicolo and Kingdra, leaving Starmie to be pretty redundant. Instead, I would use a Trick Room Musharna with Telepathy in Starmie's place. While it may seem inferior to Cresselia, Telepathy allows Mushana to avoid taking damage from your own Surfs while its out in the battle, something that Cresselia does not have. You can cancel out an active Trick Room by using Trick Room again, and this is very helpful for your team since Ludicolo and Kingdra are dependent on their high speed to sweep. Finally, Helping Hand support is always nice to hit with a bit more power. Here is the set I suggest.

[animate]musharna[/animate]
Musharna @ Mental Herb
Ability: Telepathy
Nature: Sassy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
- Trick Room
- Psychic
- Helping Hand
- Protect or Imprison

Use Trick Room to cancel out an active Trick Room, removing the effect from battle and allowing your Kingdra and Ludicolo to sweep at full potential. Psychic is to damage things. Helping Hand provides a power buff to your main attackers. You can use Protect to avoid attacks, or you can use Imprison to completely shut down Trick Room teams. Mental Herb is a one use item that stops Musharna from being Taunted.
Click to expand...

Kingdra
Modest
Ability: Swift Swim
@ Life Orb

-Draco Meteor
-Hydro Pump
-Dragon Pulse
-Protect
Click to expand...
Once again, Surf should be the main STAB attack here. Hitting both opponents is both awesome and essential in VGC. Dragon Pulse is a good secondary STAB option, and I would use Ice Beam instead of Draco Meteor to hit more things for more damage, like Garchomp or Dragonite. Draco Meteor is inferior to Dragon Pulse in VGC metagames due to how difficult it is to switch out, and the special attack drop hurts incredibly in this metagame. To avoid breaking item clause, running Haban Berry gives Kingdra an opportunity to survive a Dragon-type attack that may otherwise eliminate it.

Dragonite
Rash
Ability: Inner Focus
@ Yache Berry

-Dragon Tail
-Thunder
-Fire Blast
-Hurricane
Click to expand...
This is good, but there are a few problems. Dragonite really wants to have the Multiscale ability, because the additional bulk is fantastic in a metagame that is so offensive such as VGC. If you can get this through the Dream World, definitely do it. The other thing is Dragon Tail. The switching effect isn't desirable in VGC because teams are so small. Running Dragon Pulse instead gives you a stronger move that doesn't have the negative priority of Dragon Tail.

Dugtrio
Jolly
Ability: Arena Trap
@ Passho Berry

-Tri Attack
-Earth Power
-Protect
-Substitute
Click to expand...
I like the idea behind running Dugtrio on your team :) That said, the set is really bad. Dugtrio's special attack is a measly base 50, and you're running two special attacks on it. Changing the two moves to Earthquake and Rock Slide gives Dugtrio better offensive presence due to the coverage both moves provide while also running off of Dugtrio's higher offensive stat.
 
A bit of advice by me here as well. Bippa has made a few excellent suggestions. Allow me to add one more.
As Bippa said, Musharna is a very good addition instead of Starmie. However, if for some reason you do not like it, you can also try running Gastrodon. Since it's a slow Pokemon, it will be able to play against Trick Room, which you most certainly don't want to face. This is a set I used successfully in VGCs; however other members may provide you with more advice on it if you want to try it, especially concerning the EVs, which I'm not very good with.
Gastrodon
Ability: Storm Drain
Item: Rindo Berry
Nature: Quiet
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Sp. Atk.
Muddy Water
Earth Power
Recover
Rain Dance
Click to expand...
As you might understand, Gastrodon is there to benefit from your team's Surfs as well as counter Electric types. Storm Drain can boost its Sp.Atk to ridiculous heights, allowing it to OHKO many opponents. Rindo Berry makes up for Gastrodon's only weakness, Grass types. The HP EVs combined with its already high HP stat and Recover give it good survivability. Rain Dance is there in case you lose the weather war; setting up rain again will give you the edge.
This set is just an idea; you can tweak it as much as you like, perhaps after taking advice from other, more experienced battlers.
 
Why does Dragonite have Fire Blast? it does half the damage in Rain. Also politoed having Hyper voice is pretty useless since it is not super effective on any pokemon. Also ludicolo should have Fake Out instead of Ice Beam since almost every other pokemon on your team knows either an Ice move or a Dragon move.
 
Even though I have no idea why this RMT didn't get approved, I have a few suggestions. First, Protect > Fire Blast on Dragonite, because Protect helps you avoid Ice Shards from Abomsnow/Mamoswine and the like, and is overall a useful move to sometimes preserve Multiscale. As ArticunoDude mentioned, Fire Blast's power is halved in the rain so I don't see much use in using it. Change Ludicolo's item to Absorb Bulb to benefit from Surf from Kingdra and eventually Politoed. Also, Politoed needs to be fixed up. Try this set:

186.png

Politoed @ Wacan Berry
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Nature: Modest | Trait: Drizzle
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Encore
-Protect

Also, your entire team needs EVs (Effort Values). You can learn about them in Rusticks' guide around here somewhere. Other than that, good luck with the team; it looks good.
 
Now that Ludicolo doesn't have Life Orb Anymore, Why not give it to Kingdra? His Sp.Atk is only base 95 and he needs to pack more of a punch.
 
After trying this team out, I find the only oddity is really Gastrodon's nature and EVs. Why is it Quiet nature (+SpA -Spe) and still EVs in speed?
Did you accidentally forget to change the EV set or is there a reason for this?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top