Lucario Sweep

INTRODUCTION
Hello, I am fairly new to this forum and forums in general so please be aware that I may make a few errors in my post. I am also new to competitive Pokemon battling but I want to get better. I have played on Pokemon Showdown since November 2012 and I have constructed this team after much testing there. It is focused on Lucario sweeping mixed in with some ParaFlinching and other damage dealers. It has netted me many wins but I am unsure if it counters every possible threat to the team. I just want to know your guy's opinion to see if I can make improvements to the team. Most of the sets are based on what I have learned on Smogon.


Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 224 SDef / 32 Spd
Careful Nature
- Iron Head
- Body Slam
- Wish
- Protect
Before I knew anything about Pokemon Tiers or ParaFlinching(remember that I am new), I ran Togekiss with Thunder Wave and Air Slash. I loved how it could ParaHax enemy teams and I didn't know that it was due to Serene Grace. After finding out about tiers and abilities, I met Jirachi who I loved since it was to me a better Togekiss. Jirachi serves two purposes on the team. It can ParaHax many of the threats to Lucario and the rest of my team and at the same time provide Wish support to heal up my other pokemon. With its good typing it can tank some good physical moves even without the defense EVs, but the EV spread is designed for it to be my Special Wall.


Lucario @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- ExtremeSpeed
- Bullet Punch
- Swords Dance
While looking up some of the terms I was unfamiliar with, I learned what a sweeper was. After checking some of the sweepers on Smogon's OU tier, I came across Lucario who has always been a favorite of mine. I decided that I wanted Lucario to be my sweeper and he has done a phenomenal job ever since. I quickly became a big fan of priority so I gave him double priority with Extremespeed and Bullet Punch. STAB Close Combat nets in a lot of kills and many threats that out speed him or carry a scarf are taken out with Extremespeed. Bullet Punch gets rid of Gengar easily. Swords Dance is self explanatory to add extra power along side the LifeOrb. The only Pokemon that I have trouble taking out after a Swords Dance with Lucario is Jellicent as it is immune to two of my moves and resists the third.


Hydreigon @ Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Focus Blast
After taking an interest back into Pokemon, I met Hydreigon. My favorite Pokemon before had always been Charizard, despite how bad many people think he is. However this Pokemon ended Charizards long run and took the slot of my favorite so naturally I wanted to include him on the team. Before I ran a LifeOrb mixed attacking set with Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Superpower, and Earthquake/Roost but the stat drop from both Draco and Superpower were unappealing to me since I had to switch sometimes to bring its power back up. Also having two Pokemon with LifeOrb screwed me up some times. With a Choice Specs set switching was less of a waste and Hydreigon had much more success on my team. STAB Dark Pulse with Choice Specs gets rid of Jellicent easily and Fire Blast, Draco Meteor, and Focus Blast provide excellent coverage with good prediction. As most of my team is steal, Hydreigon's resistance helps him switch in to predicted fire moves and STAB Draco Meteor with a Specs boost hits ridiculously hard. Even Special Walls have trouble getting past this set so I personally really like it.


Heatran @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Spd / 4 Atk / 252 SAtk
Mild Nature
- Overheat
- Earth Power
- Stone Edge
- Hidden Power [Ice]
Before Heatran I noticed two problems with my team. It needed a good revenge killer and it had too much of a fire weakness. Heatran was able to provide me with a fire check and some good revenge killing. Overheat provides a good STAB to hit anything that doesn't resist it and the stat drop doesn't matter as I switch him out a lot. Earth Power has good coverage and Hidden Power Ice gets rid of most Dragons after entry hazards. I run Stone Edge almost exclusively for Volcarona who can counter most of my team with Fire and Bug STAB.


Scizor @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 8 Spd / 248 HP
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- U-turn
- Pursuit
Scizor is just an amazing pokemon in general. STAB U-turn helps him provide excellent damage before switching him out. Pursuit locks in Jellicent, Starmie and other threats to my team. As I said, I love priority and Scizor provides a great priority move with STAB Bullet Punch boosted by both Technician and Choice Band. Superpower is a great last move for its coverage with Scizors great stats and Choice Band. If Lucario fails to do his job, Scizor makes a great late game sweeper and revenge killer.


Skarmory @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 232 Def / 252 HP / 24 Spd
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock
- Whirlwind
- Roost
Seeing as entry hazards are so common in the current metagame, I decided to add one. Ive tried many Pokemon including Bulky Heatran, Mixed Ttar, Hipowdon, Forretress, and Ferrothron but known has given me as much success as Skarmory. Its excellent defense and typing make it an excellent physical wall. I use to run Brave Bird and Stealthrock but barely found myself using Brave Bird so I decided to add Spikes for more entry hazard damage. Roost heals up any damage he receives and Whirlwind makes him rack up damage. I also greatly despise Substitute and whirlwind helps me get past that as well.

CONCLUSION
I really like this team but I know its far from perfect. Having so many steal types, the team has a heavy weakness to fire which I have somewhat countered with Heatran and Hydreigon. Strong fighting types like Terrakion and Conkeldurr do provide problems but I have been able to manage them well with Scizor and revenge killed them well with Heatran. Volcarona is the single most threat to this team but StealthRock damage and Heatran have been able to counter that effectively. Again, excuse me if I didn't do this right as this is my first time. I know I didn't list every possible threat but that is because I do not know them all yet. I hope that I can get some good advice from this community. Thanks in advance.

Hello.

That's a really cool weatherless team you got there, and a great use of Lucario as a late-game sweeper. Anyways, this team is really well put together, and hopefully with this rate, it can become even better. So, without further adu, let's get into the rate! First up, I see your team is extremely weak to Keldeo, as it can run right through your whole team with a Rain-boosted Hydro Pump and Hydreigon falls to it's STAB Secret Sword. To remedy this situation, I suggest replacing Jirachi with a Special Defensive Rotom-W. Special Defensive Rotom-W easily resists Keldeo's Hydro Pump and takes less than half damage from an LO Secret Sword. Rotom-W can also heal off damage it suffers with a fabulous move in Pain Split. I also recommend using a Timid Nature on Heatran over your current Mild Nature. With a Scarf and a Timid Nature, Heatran will be able to outspeed Max Speed Dragonite at +1 and be able to KO it with HP Ice (if Multiscale is broken). Well, that's all I have to say for now. I hope my advice helped. Have fun and good luck with your team!


~Dr Ciel~ (The doctor is OUT)

Thanks a lot guys, I am very open minded so ill give these changes a try.

TheWaddleDeeKing said:

Well, first off, just by taking a passive glance the over abundance of weaknesses to Fire, Fighting and Ground are all off putting. Seeing as how the latter two are very common in the Metagame I can already foresee some troubles. ScarfKion easily overpowers most of your team and knocks them out, and any team carrying Dugtrio or Magnezone/Magnetron will cause you trouble. For starters, I recommend replacing Heatran's current set with a Specially Defensive set and replace Jirachi's set with a Choice Scarf Set in order to better counter some of your counters. Your Skarmory does not do you many favors, as it can not take repeated Close Combats from any common threat, so I recommend replacing it with a Utility Jellicent in order to ruin many Physical attackers. Lastly, Hydreigon can shift the battle in your favor due to immediate power, but his weakness to Fighting is, once again, unfavorable. Instead, I recommend you instead use a Choice Specs Latios over Hydreigon. This change is almost necessary so you don't get completely swept by Conkeldurr. Also, just so you know, it requires two Choice Specs Dark Pulse's from Hydreigon to KO a Max S. Def Jellicent. Two consecutive Draco Meteors nets the same result.

Sets

I recommend you go look at their respective Smogon pages if you feel the need to shift around moves and such.

Latios (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Psyshock

Jellicent @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spd
Bold Nature
- Surf
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Taunt

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Fire Punch
- Ice Punch
- U-turn

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SDef / 8 Spd
Calm Nature
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Protect
- Toxic/Roar

Click to expand...

I really like your Heatran idea, and ill it out. Latios has always been a strong Pokemon and always presents a challenge to my Hydreigon, however as I said before Hydreigon is my favorite Pokemon and I am reluctant to take him out. That being said, I will give Latios a test run to see how it works out.

Dr Ciel said:

Hello.

That's a really cool weatherless team you got there, and a great use of Lucario as a late-game sweeper. Anyways, this team is really well put together, and hopefully with this rate, it can become even better. So, without further adu, let's get into the rate! First up, I see your team is extremely weak to Keldeo, as it can run right through your whole team with a Rain-boosted Hydro Pump and Hydreigon falls to it's STAB Secret Sword. To remedy this situation, I suggest replacing Jirachi with a Special Defensive Rotom-W. Special Defensive Rotom-W easily resists Keldeo's Hydro Pump and takes less than half damage from an LO Secret Sword. Rotom-W can also heal off damage it suffers with a fabulous move in Pain Split. I also recommend using a Timid Nature on Heatran over your current Mild Nature. With a Scarf and a Timid Nature, Heatran will be able to outspeed Max Speed Dragonite at +1 and be able to KO it with HP Ice (if Multiscale is broken). Well, that's all I have to say for now. I hope my advice helped. Have fun and good luck with your team!

Set

Rotom @ Leftovers Lv. 100 -- Levitate

Nature: Calm - EVs: 248 HP / 28 SAtk / 232 SDef

- Hydro Pump
- Thunder Wave
- Pain Split
- Volt Switch

~Dr Ciel~ (The doctor is OUT)

Click to expand...

Ill give it a try, Rotom-W has been in and out of my team several times and I didn't know he had the option to use pain split. Thanks for the compliments on the team and for the advice.

Hi, cool team. I noticed you built the team around a Lucario sweep, however you lack the Pokemon needed to take care of it's most common counters. With the set you are currently using, those would include Jellicent, Gliscor, Landorus-T and Bulky Support Gyarados. These Pokemon easily take anything from your +2 Lucario and since Lucario is also frail, they can easily put an end to it's sweep. Another thing I noticed is you are very weak to rain. You only have one resist and it doesn't have recovery except the Wishes it can recieve from Jirachi. The easiest way to counter all three of these Pokemon along with rain, is a Specially Defensive Rotom-W. Not only does a Specially Defensive Rotom-W remove the heavy rain weakness, but it also delivers a blow to the Pokemon that danger Lucario. Any Gyarados variant get obliterated by STAB Thunderbolt and Jellicent takes a chunk as well. Gliscor is easily walled by Rotom-W while it can OHKO back with Hydro Pump. Hydro Pump nails Landorus-T as well. Rotom-W also has great synergy with Scizor. Scizor decimates the Lati twins and Celebi, who Rotom-W would have trouble with. In return, Rotom-W eliminates Jellicent and Skarmory, who give Scizor troubles. The reasoning behind Thunderbolt over Volt Switch, by the way, is so you don't have to worry about Gyarados with a Substitute up already. Overall, Rotom-W is a very good fit into your team as it patches up all these threats and makes facilitates Lucario's sweeping capabilites. The only other major threat I found to your team is Bulk Up Conkeldurr. For smaller recommendations, I definitely think you should try switching Protect to Stealth Rock on Jirachi and then Stealth Rock to Brave Bird on Skarmory. Brave Bird is actually quite useful since your team has a tough time with SD Breloom that carry Low Sweep. Other than that, solid team bro.

Hope I helped and here is Rotom-W.


EDIT: Ninja'd by Dr Ciel

TheWaddleDeeKing said:

Well, first off, just by taking a passive glance the over abundance of weaknesses to Fire, Fighting and Ground are all off putting. Seeing as how the latter two are very common in the Metagame I can already foresee some troubles. ScarfKion easily overpowers most of your team and knocks them out, and any team carrying Dugtrio or Magnezone/Magnetron will cause you trouble. For starters, I recommend replacing Heatran's current set with a Specially Defensive set and replace Jirachi's set with a Choice Scarf Set in order to better counter some of your counters. Your Skarmory does not do you many favors, as it can not take repeated Close Combats from any common threat, so I recommend replacing it with a Utility Jellicent in order to ruin many Physical attackers. Lastly, Hydreigon can shift the battle in your favor due to immediate power, but his weakness to Fighting is, once again, unfavorable. Instead, I recommend you instead use a Choice Specs Latios over Hydreigon. This change is almost necessary so you don't get completely swept by Conkeldurr. Also, just so you know, it requires two Choice Specs Dark Pulse's from Hydreigon to KO a Max S. Def Jellicent. Two consecutive Draco Meteors nets the same result.

Sets

I recommend you go look at their respective Smogon pages if you feel the need to shift around moves and such.

Latios (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Psyshock

Jellicent @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 Spd
Bold Nature
- Surf
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Taunt

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Fire Punch
- Ice Punch
- U-turn

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SDef / 8 Spd
Calm Nature
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Protect
- Toxic/Roar

Click to expand...

After giving this a few test runs, I noticed that I am still having trouble with rain teams. Heatran is taken out easy, and the lack of bulk makes Jirachi susceptible to a lot more. I am at a loss of who I should open with on Politoad since scarf variants take a huge chunk off of Latios and Jellicent cant do much to it in terms of damage. Maybe I am using the team wrong. I still like it, it definitely helps in some aspects but I don't know how to combat this problem without altering the team.

Shining Latios said:

Hi, cool team. I noticed you built the team around a Lucario sweep, however you lack the Pokemon needed to take care of it's most common counters. With the set you are currently using, those would include Jellicent, Gliscor, Landorus-T and Bulky Support Gyarados. These Pokemon easily take anything from your +2 Lucario and since Lucario is also frail, they can easily put an end to it's sweep. Another thing I noticed is you are very weak to rain. You only have one resist and it doesn't have recovery except the Wishes it can recieve from Jirachi. The easiest way to counter all three of these Pokemon along with rain, is a Specially Defensive Rotom-W. Not only does a Specially Defensive Rotom-W remove the heavy rain weakness, but it also delivers a blow to the Pokemon that danger Lucario. Any Gyarados variant get obliterated by STAB Thunderbolt and Jellicent takes a chunk as well. Gliscor is easily walled by Rotom-W while it can OHKO back with Hydro Pump. Hydro Pump nails Landorus-T as well. Rotom-W also has great synergy with Scizor. Scizor decimates the Lati twins and Celebi, who Rotom-W would have trouble with. In return, Rotom-W eliminates Jellicent and Skarmory, who give Scizor troubles. The reasoning behind Thunderbolt over Volt Switch, by the way, is so you don't have to worry about Gyarados with a Substitute up already. Overall, Rotom-W is a very good fit into your team as it patches up all these threats and makes facilitates Lucario's sweeping capabilites. The only other major threat I found to your team is Bulk Up Conkeldurr. For smaller recommendations, I definitely think you should try switching Protect to Stealth Rock on Jirachi and then Stealth Rock to Brave Bird on Skarmory. Brave Bird is actually quite useful since your team has a tough time with SD Breloom that carry Low Sweep. Other than that, solid team bro.

Hope I helped and here is Rotom-W.

Hide

Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 28 SAtk / 228 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Pain Split
- Will-O-Wisp

EDIT: Ninja'd by Dr Ciel

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, you are the second person to recommend a Rotom W to me so ill give it a try. You didn't state who I should replace, but judging from my team, I would say the best is Heatran. Dragon types faster then Hydreigon may present a problem though. If so do you think Hidden Power Ice would be of good use on Rotom? Thanks again for the advice.

If you are going to change Heatran, then you should consider slapping a scarf on Hydreigon for the revenge killing.