SM OU Fairly Standard Hyper Offense

[ShinyManaphy]

Hey everyone, welcome to my first Smogon RMT. I've been a casual player since XY, and considering the growth of HO as a strategy, I thought I'd attempt my own.

The Team

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion
- Taunt
- Fire Blast
​

Azelf acts as a suicide lead, with a fairly standard set. Focus Sash allows it to get Stealth Rocks up and then either Explode or Fire Blast, depending on the opponent. Taunt allows it to prevent other leads from setting up. EVs and Jolly Nature maximise speed and allow Explosion to do as much damage as possible.

Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 92 HP / 252 Atk / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Superpower
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet
​

Azumarill is a wallbreaker. Play Rough is its most powerful STAB, and combined with Choice Band and Huge Power deals massive damage, in particular OHKOing Mega Sableye. Waterfall is its second STAB option, alongside Aqua Jet which is priority STAB to make up for poor speed. Superpower is to break walls like Magnezone and Chansey.

Gengar @ Choice Specs
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Wave
- Focus Blast
- Thunderbolt
​

Gengar is the second wallbreaker of the team, and, being immune to both Toxic and Seismic Toss, it completely walls Chansey. Shadow Ball is its main STAB, with most of the OU tier being hit for at least neutral damage. Sludge Wave is its second STAB, and Focus Blast and Thunderbolt are for coverage. Thunderbolt is particularly for Celesteela, which would otherwise wall this set. The EV spread and nature give Shadow Ball maximum power, and Gengar benefits more from Speed investment than Defense.

Talonflame @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Swords Dance
- Taunt
​

Talonflame is the first of my pair of Sweepers. Despite the nerf of Gale Wings in Gen 7, it still gives Talonflame the opportunity to use a priority Z-Brave Bird, at full health. Also, there aren't many Flying-resists in the tier. Flare Blitz is the secondary STAB, Swords Dance allows it to set up, and Taunt is for utility. Adamant is chosen over Jolly to allow Talonflame to hit as powerfully as possible.

Serperior @ Leftovers
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 56 HP / 200 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Substitute
- Dragon Pulse
​

Serperior is the second of the sweepers, having another standard set. Leaf Storm is its most spammable move, as it also gives a +2 SpA raise due to Contrary. Substitute is for utility, and the other moves for coverage.

Lopunny @ Lopunnite
Ability: Limber
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Return
- High Jump Kick
- Power-Up Punch
- Ice Punch
​

And, finally, Lopunny acts as the cleaner for this team. The set is, again, fairly standard, so I won't say too much about it. Return and High Jump Kick are STAB, Power-Up Punch allows it to raise it's Attack, and Ice Punch is for coverage.

So, there's the team. Any feedback is highly appreciated. In particular, this team seems to be countered by Weavile, which traps and deals huge damage to Serperior, Azelf and Talonflame.

 

[glebber]

First of all: An Azelf team can never be horrible!
Second of all: I like the team in general. But I have a few points that could improve it.

I'd personally run Taunt-3 Attacks Gengar over Specs Gengar for Stall matchups, Mega Venusaur and Magearna so it can't use Gengar as set up fodder if locked into Sludge Wave (And yes, I see that as a valid reason! :D). Thunderbolt is there for Celesteela obviously. It can be a pain to deal with. But it's hard to decide which move you want to get rid off, so you have these 2 options here.

Taunt-Gengar

Gengar @ Life Orb
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast/Thunderbolt
- Sludge Wave/Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball
- Taunt

Also I don't like Talonflame in this generation. I get your point since there are less Rotom-Ws being used, but Tyranitar, Zapdos, Toxapex and Heatran are still around, which stop Talonflame from being as good as it was last gen.
Sooo I would swap Zygarde for Talonflame since it checks Tapu Koko, Toxapex and Zard Y, which are problematic for your team. Coming to the moves, the first slot is a bit tricky. Substitute is nice for opposing Mews' Will-o-wisps, but E-Speed helps you with things like Greninja or Mega Pinsir...So it's up to you.

DD-Zygarde

Zygarde @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute/Extreme Speed
- Dragon Dance
- Thousand Arrows
- Outrage

The last point I have is about your Lopunny...I would change it to Fake Out > Power-Up-Punch. I recognized a little Mega-Pinsir weakness and Fake-Out would allow you to at least deal a little bit of damage...In the end still you can't let him set up a SD at all :')

These were my suggestions for the team. Of course I could miss something, if that should be the case: Tell me. Also: Do have some replays? Would be interesting to see how you play the team.

My updated version of the Team

Gengar @ Life Orb
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Sludge Wave
- Shadow Ball
- Taunt

Zygarde @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
- Thousand Arrows
- Outrage

Lopunny-Mega @ Lopunnite
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Return
- Ice Punch
- High Jump Kick

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Explosion
- Taunt
- Fire Blast
- Stealth Rock

Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 92 HP / 252 Atk / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Superpower
- Waterfall
- Play Rough

Serperior @ Leftovers
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 56 HP / 200 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Leaf Storm
- Dragon Pulse
- Hidden Power [Fire]

 

[ShinyManaphy]

Thanks for your advice! I'll make sure to test out these changes.

In terms of replays, I currently have none, but I will get some and update this post :)

 

[Webcamparrot]

TEAM OVERVIEW: Interesting team ShinyManaphy I think Talonflame is really underrated right now as a pokemon especially on ho teams like this one and it can seriously put in work as long as rocks are down. The ability to drop a priority Z move is a seriously powerful niche. Azelf ensures there is always at least one turn where rocks are down for Talonflame. I made a similar team earlier in the gen that I managed to climb to high ladder with, so I'd like to offer some advice. This team has the right idea but it has a number of places where it could use improvement. For one the short period of time that Azelf keeps rocks down for can often not be enough for Talonflame as it's not always a great idea to bring it in after booming. Furthermore something like choice specs Gengar tends to fail to keep up the level of pressure that HO thrives on. For this reason I am going to recommend 1 major change (1) and 4 minor changes (a,b,c,d)

1) Firstly I would swap out Gengar for something like Starmie. Specs Gengar can be a decent pokemon but unfortunately the tier is riddled with things like Greninja and Celesteela that rob it of all offensive momentum. Starmie is probably one of the only hazard removers worth mentioning for ho with the only other options being things like Latios/Latias and scarf Excadrill which frequently drop momentum unlike Starmie. Starmie works surprisingly well with Talonflame when it comes to keeping up pressure and keeping rocks down. It also out speeds Mega Pinsir and can survive a +2 quick attack to OHKO with ice beam or t-bolt.

set

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power Fire
- Thunderbolt
- Rapid Spin

a) Talonflames set is mostly spot on but taunt tends to be a bad idea as you'll want to throw out a powerful hit or sd most of the time. I would actually recommend overheat over taunt as it allows you to break Skamory's study without having to worry about counter which can be really great for the stall matchup.

b) I would recommend a small change of giving Azumaril knock off over superpower here. Superpower mostly hits Ferrothorn which isn't a huge deal for the team anyway and knock off gives it more of an opportunity to threaten switches as well as doing decent damage to things like Mew.

c) I agree with glebber on Mega Lopunny. Fake out is probably a better option over power up punch here to help with setup mons that may get out of hand as it gives you the ability to get some important chip on them.

d) Serperior would probably be better served using it's sub-seed set. Sub-seed can be infuriating to deal with as you basically need to outspeed Serperior to even hurt it meanwhile you are taking leech seed damage every round. I don't think dragon pulse is all that great right now on Serp as it pretty much only hits Latios.

set

Serperior @ Leftovers
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 56 HP / 200 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power Fire
- Substitute
- Leech Seed

I'm glad to see that someone else is trying to make Talonflame work in a generation where it's rarely used. Definitely a cool team. Here is an import with all of the changes I have suggested for your convenience.

importable

Talonflame @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Swords Dance
- Overheat

Serperior @ Leftovers
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 56 HP / 200 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Substitute
- Leech Seed

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Explosion
- Fire Blast

Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 92 HP / 252 Atk / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Knock Off
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet

Lopunny-Mega @ Lopunnite
Ability: Limber
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Ice Punch
- High Jump Kick
- Return

Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Rapid Spin
- Hidden Power [Fire]

 

[ShinyManaphy]

Thanks for the advice! I'll test out this variation of the team as well :D

 

[Sphinxx]

The other guys pretty much covered up improvements on your team. May I just suggest you try Skill Swap over Fire Blast on your Azelf. Skill Swap allows you to nullify magic bounce switchins and allow you to get rocks up. I run Azelf on my HO as well and found Skill Swap much more convenient, also now since Diancie's are out and about. Also, skill swap allows you to rip damp switchins after rocks, for your explosion btw.