From Earth's Crust to the Stratosphere!

[IbanezObsession]

How's it going, Smogon? It's the IbanezObsession back again for yet another RMT. I'm not a big OU player, but after playing in pretty much every tier besides OU (and LC), I decided to try it out. I've been playing it for about a month and after constantly failing at making a decent team, I finally have one here, which of course still needs work, but that's why I'm asking the smarter players of OU to help me out. There's no use trying to play a tier that I haven't been the best at if I don't even ask for some help along the way, right? So, without further ado, let's jump in!
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From Earth's Crust to the Stratosphere!
An OU RMT

Building the Team:
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I'm a big fan of sand, so I figured I would use Tyranitar to start the weather, seeing as how this is an offensive team, and Tyranitar's quite a powerful poke right from the get-go. Its special bulk in sand will also prove to be quite useful as well to take on stuff like Hydreigon and Heatran (mainly because you can also bluff the Earthquake to force switches, even though I only run Superpower and not Earthquake). It may be dirt slow in a tier with pretty fast Pokémon, but again, its ability to be used as hazards support and an attacker when I need it make it quite versatile.

I knew that I would need a powerful special attacker to be able to smash through walls such as Skarmory and Donphan (while not common, I still see it every now and then) that give Tyranitar a problem. Latios seems to fit the job perfectly, seeing as how it works well with Tyranitar to take down opposing fighting types and ground types with ease (well, except Gastrodon, but even that doesn't like taking a Specs Draco Meteor from Latios)

Heatran's the next special attacker on the team that can take care of pokes that Latios can't (Latios can't OHKO Ferrothorn with Hidden Power Fire, and even then, I have to predict to get the switch right). The key is to sub (yes, SubTran is amazing) up on an opposing Ferrothorn, Forretress, Skarmory, Magnezone, or any other Pokémon that doesn't enjoy taking Fire Blasts or Earth Powers, and proceed to either status or attack the incoming Pokémon.

It's fun to give teams a run for their money when you have two dragons on your team, so I decided to add Dragonite, and boy has it been an amazing choice. Dragonite's given me three 6-0 sweeps off of Dragon Dancing on Ferrothorns and other opposing walls that think they can take it on.

After I added Dragonite, I knew I would need a Rapid Spinner to blow away the Stealth Rocks so that they wouldn't tear apart Lance's beast of a dragon. It's also nice to be able to get rid of Spikes and possible Toxic Spikes too, seeing as so far, I have two pokes affected by the Toxic Spikes and three that'll take damage from Spikes. Also, Starmie can wreak havoc as an attacker, as well.

To finish the team off, I put on a Conkeldurr, seeing as how it's bulky, and can sweep when a couple Bulk Ups have been used. I'm considering replacing it with Breloom, mainly because Breloom's Grass attacks could be more useful than Conkeldurr's Bulk Up / Mach Punch combo, but I guess it's up to the RMT raters.

I seemed to be having a problem with pokes spamming Outrage (especially when Heatran was dead), so I added a Scizor for extra dragon-type defense and because choice banders are quite useful, indeed.
Main Threats to this Team:
I can't remember any other threats to this team other than Tentacruel (which can pretty much wall me except for Starmie and Dragonite, but that's about it. It's just annoying), but again, you should be able to pick them out, since I can't seem to. Anyhow, let's get into the movesets for these pokes!

The Sets:

Tyranitar (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Crunch
- Superpower
- Ice Beam


As I said earlier, Tyranitar can take special attacks all day. Now, I originally had him as a mixed attacker with 252 HP / 64 SpAtk / 192 SDef and Stealth Rock / Crunch / Fire Blast / Ice Beam, but seeing as I had a Heatran already and I needed to hit opposing Dark types with something more powerful, I replaced Fire Blast with Crunch and kept the Ice Beam (could be useful, just not sure). I'm open to any suggestions about the set.

Stratoclaw (Latios) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Trick

I originally had specs, but the extra speed was needed when I realized how slow my team was other than Starmie and Latios, but I needed extra speed to help deal with Dragonite (if the multiscale's broken, it's still going to be KO'd by Draco Meteor) and Trick is even more annoying if you can catch a Chansey or Blissey off guard. Thanks to Novaray for the suggestion on replacing HP Fire with Psyshock, seems to be working so far.

Dr. Heater (Heatran) (M) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Toxic
- Substitute

SubTran is probably one of the best sets out there for Heatran, mainly because it's nice to get up a free sub on a Ferrothorn as it switches out, and then you can just attack the Pokémon that comes in to take the "predicted" Fire Blast. But nope, just Substitute. If you're wondering why Air Balloon and not Leftovers, it's nice when you can also come in on something that's choice locked into Earthquake and force it to switch while setting up a sub. Toxic is a useful move to status Pokémon like Politoed that Heatran can't really hit (that's why I run Toxic over HP Ice).

Lance (Dragonite) (M) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake


Again, a Pokémon that, with the help of the rest of the team, can become a late game sweeper and finish off the rest of the opponent's team when it's been weakened by my plethora of offensive Pokémon. Most people expect the usual Adamant nature, but Jolly allows me to outspeed Jolteon after one Dragon Dance, and even though you might be thinking that it's not worth it to change the nature just to cover one Pokémon, it also allows me to outspeed just about any scarfer in the tier at +2 Speed and start wrecking with an Outrage. Lum Berry's an even bigger bonus as it heals my confusion (and paralysis from pokes like Ferro), as well as any other type of status. Again, most people run Roost with this set, but with Stealth Rocks gone because of Starmie's Rapid Spin, I'll save Dragonite for late-game and Fire Punch at +1 easily OHKO's Ferrothorn and it can do some huge damage to Skarmory as well (but again, I'll probably have taken it out already to prevent being whirlwinded). Earthquake deals with Jirachi, Tentacruel, Toxicroak, and Tyranitar, and Outrage is the ultimate stallbreaker after a Dragon Dance.

Pearl (Starmie) @ Life Orb
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Rapid Spin
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt

Hit 'em with that Life Orb Rapid Spin, Starmie! Yes, while it is a reliable rapid spinner, Starmie can also do some major damage to the opposing team with its great type coverage of Water / Ice / Electric. Natural Cure is also a great ability because it allows you to switch in on predicted status moves and switch back out, no problem at all. Life Orb of course adds the extra power that you'll need to score some key KOs.

Pinch Ya! (Scizor) (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Pursuit


Originally was a Conkeldurr, but I was having problems with Dragon Dance Outrage spammers and needed something to help cover this, so I chose Scizor because of its massive power and priority (which Conkeldurr also had, but Bullet Punch with Technician is far more powerful). It's been a great change from Conkeldurr to Scizor so far. Pursuit's a great move for trapping pokes choice locked into moves resisted by Scizor and KO'ing them easily. 8 Spd EVs is useful mainly because of speed creep.


Some Last Words:
I hope you all enjoy the RMT I have posted here today, and I also hope you will be able to help me improve my first good OU team that I've ever built. Oh, and if you ever want to see me battle in action, you can always check my Youtube, which of course is IbanezObsession as well. Have a great day everyone! :)

Edit: Looking back on the team, I realize I don't really have anything to take physical attacks on this team, any suggestions on that?
2nd Edit: I've replaced Conkeldurr with Scizor and the team seems to be working better, but I guess we'll see.

By the way, here's a Pokemon Online video of me battling with this team!
http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-IbnzSwag-vs-Dallasboi1992--2012-02-15

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[Nova]

I would go Psyshock over HP Fire as you already have several checks for Ferrothorn and Heatran. Getting rid of HP Fire means that will at least tie with other non-Scarfed Latios and not be automatically outsped

 

[dcae]

I think you should consider a more bulky Heatran variant, the Physically Defensive one to be specific. This allows you to wall all dragons lacking Earthquake, which is recently more and more removed from Dragonite sets. As you still have Latios, Special Attacking is not a major issue. About the Scizor set: all Scizors run 8 speed, you are not speed creeping anyone XD. Otherwise, it is a well made offensive team.

 

[PkmonTrainer Grey]

Thats a really nice team actually, and Banded Scizor pisses the living shit out of me (excuse the language it had to be said) recently however, what if you ended up facing a Magnezone who;d threaten ur Scizor and POSSIBLY Heatran, being if you end up facing Magnezone and can predict the sub, they'll break it and switch off into an Arcanine maybe (with CC, ExtremeSpeed, Flare Blitz and Wild Charge), it could mean a couple of problems. My suggestion, try using something can completely wall Arcanine other than Heatran (being you have a Sub out and Earth Power the living Light out of it). I'm trying to think of the right pkmon to try and add into your team over Heatran, but try some alternates, there are people who really try to play around your team and trick you in many situations.

 

[-Tsunami-]

Hey there.

Volt-Turn cores and powerful Water-type attackers are major threats to this team. Nothing on your team can really take Water-type moves outside of Starmie and Latios, both of which will die quickly because of their relative frailty and lack of a recovery move. An easy way to fix this is to run a Latias over Latios. Latias retains the same type synergy as Latios does, but is also bulkier, which is very helpful considering you have two other special sweepers as is.

Hide

Latias @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
-Dragon Pulse
-Calm Mind
-Hidden Power Fire
-Recover

Latias can stick around for an extremely long time thanks to its solid bulk and Recover, allowing it stop Volt-Turn cores all day long with HP Fire. Calm Mind Latias is also a good late-game sweeper, and will give you another answer to sun teams.

Also, run Leftovers over Life Orb on Starmie. Rapid Spin support is very crucial to your team, and with Life Orb, sandstorm, and no recovery move, Starmie will be dead in a couple of turns. Leftovers will negate sandstorm and allow Starmie to live longer; it can still hit hard with its coverage moves and STAB Hydro Pump.

Now, a physical wall would be extremely helpful for your team. Tyranitar and Latias wall special attackers very well, but physical attackers can make your life extremely difficult. A wide variety of threats become problems because of this,so an easy way to fix this is simply to run a Slowbro over Heatran. Heatran isn't really doing too much for your team, especially since Latias and Dragonite both check sun teams. Scizor also serves as a Dragon-type resist, and Pokemon such as Dragonite that Heatran could take on can be easily walled by Slowbro. Slowbro can also defeat a wide variety of physical attackers, such as SD Gliscor and Terrakion.

Hide

Slowbro @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold nature
-Scald
-Ice Beam
-Psychic
-Slack Off

Ice Beam lets Slowbro obliterate the likes of Dragonite and Gliscor, while Psychic is very helpful for letting Slowbro nail Fighting-types, especially Conkeldurr, who can otherwise be a major threat to your team.

Solid team. Hope I helped, and good luck!

 

[IbanezObsession]

Hey there.

Volt-Turn cores and powerful Water-type attackers are major threats to this team. Nothing on your team can really take Water-type moves outside of Starmie and Latios, both of which will die quickly because of their relative frailty and lack of a recovery move. An easy way to fix this is to run a Latias over Latios. Latias retains the same type synergy as Latios does, but is also bulkier, which is very helpful considering you have two other special sweepers as is.

Hide

Latias @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
-Dragon Pulse
-Calm Mind
-Hidden Power Fire
-Recover

Latias can stick around for an extremely long time thanks to its solid bulk and Recover, allowing it stop Volt-Turn cores all day long with HP Fire. Calm Mind Latias is also a good late-game sweeper, and will give you another answer to sun teams.

Also, run Leftovers over Life Orb on Starmie. Rapid Spin support is very crucial to your team, and with Life Orb, sandstorm, and no recovery move, Starmie will be dead in a couple of turns. Leftovers will negate sandstorm and allow Starmie to live longer; it can still hit hard with its coverage moves and STAB Hydro Pump.

Now, a physical wall would be extremely helpful for your team. Tyranitar and Latias wall special attackers very well, but physical attackers can make your life extremely difficult. A wide variety of threats become problems because of this,so an easy way to fix this is simply to run a Slowbro over Heatran. Heatran isn't really doing too much for your team, especially since Latias and Dragonite both check sun teams. Scizor also serves as a Dragon-type resist, and Pokemon such as Dragonite that Heatran could take on can be easily walled by Slowbro. Slowbro can also defeat a wide variety of physical attackers, such as SD Gliscor and Terrakion.

Hide

Slowbro @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold nature
-Scald
-Ice Beam
-Psychic
-Slack Off

Ice Beam lets Slowbro obliterate the likes of Dragonite and Gliscor, while Psychic is very helpful for letting Slowbro nail Fighting-types, especially Conkeldurr, who can otherwise be a major threat to your team.

Solid team. Hope I helped, and good luck!

The Latias idea is considerable, the only problem with it is that I originally had Specs Latios but then changed it to Scarf because I needed the speed since I needed a fast revenge killer (special), and although Starmie is good as a fast special revenge killer, Hydreigon will start to get on my nerves as scarf Latios was able to outspeed and KO with Draco Meteor. Adding Slowbro to the team won't help with my Hydreigon problem, either, seeing as how I'll have 3 psychic types and only 2 dark resists on this team. Hydreigon can literally wreck me if my Tyranitar's out of the battle. The fact that I'll have a psychic wall if I add Slowbro is nice, but the synergy I had between Heatran and Latios / Latias (if I do decide to add it) will be gone and again, I'll have another dark weakness. However, I did change Starmie's item to Lefties, and it's a much better choice, but the others you suggested I really can't work with, since this team was of course supposed to be more offensive, and I'll be moving more onto the defense by adding Slowbro. But thanks for your help anyways :)

 

[IbanezObsession]

Thats a really nice team actually, and Banded Scizor pisses the living shit out of me (excuse the language it had to be said) recently however, what if you ended up facing a Magnezone who;d threaten ur Scizor and POSSIBLY Heatran, being if you end up facing Magnezone and can predict the sub, they'll break it and switch off into an Arcanine maybe (with CC, ExtremeSpeed, Flare Blitz and Wild Charge), it could mean a couple of problems. My suggestion, try using something can completely wall Arcanine other than Heatran (being you have a Sub out and Earth Power the living Light out of it). I'm trying to think of the right pkmon to try and add into your team over Heatran, but try some alternates, there are people who really try to play around your team and trick you in many situations.

Honestly, I'm not sure how a Magnezone could possibly threaten my Heatran. The attacking moves I have on my Heatran are both super-effective (EP being x4), and the most Magnezone can do to me is Sub/Charge Beam (as that is the typical set). Normally I'll play smart and avoid being locked into Scizor when he sends his Magnezone out, but again, not much I can do about that.

Also, most people don't predict the sub on Heatran. It's a set I found in an analysis in the forums, not Smogon's sets that they have on the website. If you watch the PO match I had posted in the RMT, you'll see how having a Heatran with sub really is useful, seeing as how I KO'ed 3 of the opponent's Pokémon (with the help of the fact he forgot I carried the balloon, which is also fun to run on SubTran).

I thank you for your post, but I'm not really sure if I can replace Heatran. It really helps break the opponent's team up so that Dragonite or Latios can come in late-game and sweep.

Best regards.

 

[Motagua]

To start with, I would like to back-up ShakeItUp´s recommendation of using CM Latias instead of Latios because Specs Politoad will easily OHKO/2HKO anything on your team, and also Turn/Switch cores ravage you easily. To be honest, Scarf Latios is too easily trapped by Tyranitar & Scizor due to the lack of power.

Heatran is your weakest link on this team, because Latias & Dragonite already deal spectacularly against Sun Teams, and you got Tyranitar to summon a sandstorm. My suggestion is to replace Heatran for a Scarf Infernape. Scarf Infernape revenge-kills a great number of fast threats like DD Salamence, Terrakion, Scarf Landorus, Chlorophyll Venusaur, etc... all thanks to his amazing coverage moves and stellar speed. U-turn gives you an excellent momentum considering Infernape forces a lot of switch-ins. As the last move, HP Ice will revenge-kill Dragons, Gliscor & Landorus.

Scarf Infernape

Infernape (M) @ Choice Scarf Trait: Blaze
EVs: 112 Atk / 144 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- U-turn
- Fire Blast
- Close Combat
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Hope my rate helps you out :) Nice team btw!

 

[IbanezObsession]

To start with, I would like to back-up ShakeItUp´s recommendation of using CM Latias instead of Latios because Specs Politoad will easily OHKO/2HKO anything on your team, and also Turn/Switch cores ravage you easily. To be honest, Scarf Latios is too easily trapped by Tyranitar & Scizor due to the lack of power.

Heatran is your weakest link on this team, because Latias & Dragonite already deal spectacularly against Sun Teams, and you got Tyranitar to summon a sandstorm. My suggestion is to replace Heatran for a Scarf Infernape. Scarf Infernape revenge-kills a great number of fast threats like DD Salamence, Terrakion, Scarf Landorus, Chlorophyll Venusaur, etc... all thanks to his amazing coverage moves and stellar speed. U-turn gives you an excellent momentum considering Infernape forces a lot of switch-ins. As the last move, HP Ice will revenge-kill Dragons, Gliscor & Landorus.

Scarf Infernape

Infernape (M) @ Choice Scarf Trait: Blaze
EVs: 112 Atk / 144 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- U-turn
- Fire Blast
- Close Combat
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Hope my rate helps you out :) Nice team btw!

Ah! A rate that finally grabs me! While adding bulk to my team, I'll still get to keep a scarfer in Infernape (as well as a fire-type of course), and my problem with Hydreigon will not be bad anymore! Thank you for the rate, Motagua. Much appreciated! :) Guess I'll try this out now.

 

[Motagua]

I would also like to suggest an Adamant nature on Dragonite and Extremespeed instead of Earthquake. Extremespeed is definitely a must on Dragonite as it will pick-off faster Scarfers like weakened Landorus & Rotom-w before they KO Dragonite. Once you lock into Outrage, you will not 2HKO Heatran if it managed to avoid Earthquake and this will hurt you in the long run.