Pokémon Moltres

[SketchUp]

Base stats: 90 HP / 100 Atk / 90 Def / 125 SpA / 85 SpD / 90 Spe
Abilities: Pressure / Flame Body

All Moves

[01] Gust
[01] Leer
[05] Ember
[10] Safeguard
[15] Wing Attack
[20] Agility
[25] Ancient Power
[30] Incinerate
[35] Air Slash
[40] Roost
[45] Heat Wave
[50] Sunny Day
[55] Hurricane
[60] Endure
[65] Burn Up
[70] Sky Attack

Tutor:
Burning Jealousy
Dual Wingbeat
Scorching Sands

[TM06] Fly
[TM08] Hyper Beam
[TM09] Giga Impact
[TM11] Solar Beam
[TM13] Fire Spin
[TM19] Safeguard
[TM21] Rest
[TM24] Snore
[TM25] Protect
[TM30] Steel Wing
[TM32] Sandstorm
[TM33] Rain Dance
[TM34] Sunny Day
[TM38] Will-O-Wisp
[TM39] Facade
[TM40] Swift
[TM46] Weather Ball
[TM56] U-Turn
[TM76] Round
[TM92] Mystical Fire
[TM95] Air Slash

[TR02] Flamethrower
[TR12] Agility
[TR15] Fire Blast
[TR20] Substitute
[TR26] Endure
[TR27] Sleep Talk
[TR36] Heat Wave
[TR43] Overheat
[TR55] Flare Blitz
[TR66] Brave Bird
[TR89] Hurricane

Notable Moves:
Defog
Fire Blast
Flamethrower
Hurricane
Mystical Fire
Protect
Roar
Roost
Scorching Sands
Substitute
Toxic
U-Turn
Weather Ball
Will-O-Wisp

Potential Movesets:

Moltres @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body / Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 176 Def / 84 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Flamethrower / Mystical Fire
- Toxic / Scorching Sands / Will-O-Wisp
- Defog / Scorching Sands / U-Turn

Personal thoughts

Good defensive fire types are rare in OU and Moltres can definitely find a niche in the metagame thanks to its secondary flying typing and great 90 / 90 / 85 bulk. With the introduction of Heavy-Duty Boots Moltres can finally utilize this defensive niche without the need of massive team support in the form of mandatory hazard removal. I've always been a fan of bulky Talonflame in OU for its ability to check threats such as Rillaboom and Volcarona and to disrupt bulky cores with the combination of its speed, status spreading and Taunt. However, its bad defensive stats have always let me down so it was fairly difficult to fit into teams. Moltres' superior bulk allows it to perform in a similar role as bulky Talonflame but - in most cases - better.

Check to offensive threats
The Crown Tundra reintroduced us to some huge offensive threats along the likes of Genesect, Blaziken, Landorus and Kartana. On paper, Moltres is able to check all of these, as well as Magearna, Volcarona, Pheromosa, Tapu Bulu, Rillaboom, Melmetal and Aegislash, making it an incredibly useful defensive option on balanced teams. Flame Body allows Moltres to punish cheesy U-Turns and other weak contact moves. Moltres isn't without its defensive flaws though. Many of these offensive threats (Blaziken, Landorus, Kartana, Rillaboom) have access to Knock Off, making Moltres a shaky early game switchin, as losing its Heavy-Duty Boots makes it way more difficult to consistently check these threats. Strong rock and electric coverage by the likes of Melmetal, Magearna, Genesect and Tapu Bulu are able to lure in Moltres as well, though obviously ballsy predictions are often necessary and these moves are not extremely common. Lastly, without offensive investment, Moltres severely lacks immediate offensive pressure, allowing pokemon like SD Blaziken and QD Volcarona to keep setting up depending on Moltres' moveset.

Defog
A ground immunity and key resists to fighting, steel, and fairy alongside fire type STAB enable Moltres to dominate a decent portion of the metagame's hazard setters. Ferrothorn, Skarmory, Clefable, Excadrill (non-Rock Slide), Landorus (non-Rock Slide) and Hippowdon all fail to immediately threaten Moltres, while Moltres threatens all of them with the exception of Clefable with a strong Flamethrower. Again, there are some huge drawbacks to Moltres' reliance on Heavy-Duty Boots and lack of immediate power. For example: Clefable can Knock Off Moltres early in the game. The next time Clefable comes in you are pressured to switch in Moltres to Defog away the Stealth Rock immediately, allowing the Clefable user to bring in strong offensive threats Moltres doesn't wall like Tapu Koko and Latios for free (similarly, the Clefable user can also immediately double switch to these threats on the obvious Moltres switch.) If Moltres doesn't switch in right away, it has to take 50% Stealth Rock damage before it’s able to Defog. For this reason, I can see a core of Excadrill + Moltres to control hazards work pretty well, as together they cover most hazards setters in the tier.

Other
On more offensive teams, Moltres can also run U-Turn to grab momentum. The immediate threat of a OHKO against huge offensive threats like Genesect and Pheromosa give many opportunities to U-Turn without too many risks. Roar or Whirlwind also takes advantage of Moltres’ ability to force switches and can also work in a pinch against setup sweepers like CM Clefable, SD Blaziken and QD Volcarona. Unfortunately, Moltres does not learn Taunt, which is undoubtedly the biggest disadvantage it has when compared to Talonflame. Without Taunt, Moltres is unable to disrupt defensive cores like Hippowdon + Toxapex, which makes it quite easy for balanced teams to pivot around it.

Moltres @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Choice Specs
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Hurricane
- Weather Ball
- Roost / U-Turn

Personal thoughts

I haven’t tested this set yet but I can definitely see it working on rain teams. Rain gives it 100% accurate Hurricanes and a 100 BP Water-type move that hits Heatran, Rotom-Heat and Rock-types super effectively. Moltres faces huge competition Zapdos and Torn-T, which both also take advantage of 100% accurate Hurricane. Moltres’ biggest advantages over Torn and Zapdos are that it is able to take out Ferrothorn easily even when the rain is up and that it is able to shrug off a +2 Grassy Glide from Rillaboom (single biggest threat to rain) a lot better.

Other Options
SubRoost with Pressure

tl;dr
Moltres is an excellent anti-meta pick in a metagame filled with strong offensive threats that can't consistently break it. Once the meta has settled a bit and pokemon like Genesect are gone, Moltres will obviously drop in viability a bit. It has some glaring defensive weaknesses even with HDB and can't act as a great wallbreaker without giving up said HDB. I expect it to be a uncommon sight in OU, but with its unique combination of typing, bulk, and movepool it definitely has a niche on some bulky offensive teams looking for a defensive backbone to take advantage of some big offensive threats and U-Turn spam.

 

[TURBODERP]

IMO Substitute (with Pressure) deserves a slot or even a set when paired with Roost, Scorching Sands, and Flamethrower. Moltres can PP stall Heatran and beat it in the 1v1 easily (unless it's carrying...Edge, which can be PP stalled). Substitute blocking stuff like Toxic from Hippo/Mandibuzz is really nice since that just gives Moltres more time to spread status and be annoying.

 

[SketchUp]

IMO Substitute (with Pressure) deserves a slot or even a set when paired with Roost, Scorching Sands, and Flamethrower. Moltres can PP stall Heatran and beat it in the 1v1 easily (unless it's carrying...Edge, which can be PP stalled). Substitute blocking stuff like Toxic from Hippo/Mandibuzz is really nice since that just gives Moltres more time to spread status and be annoying.

I thought about adding SubRoost with Pressure but I'm not totally convinced it will put in a lot of work. The reason Kyurem works so well with a similar set is because it's generally much more difficult to wall so it's able to PP stall the one mon on the opposing team that can comfortably switch into it (there's also the 101 HP sub argument which is huge in a Blissey 1v1). I added it as an honourable mention because I do believe it can be very nasty when it starts snowballing with Toxic + fast bulky subs especially because common switchins like Clefable and Heatran can't break your subs in return. I would personally use Toxic over Scorching Sands because the main target of Scorching Sands (Heatran) will get stalled out anyway.

 

[OvertoneSeries]

I think Moltres's passive ability to distribute burns via Scorching Sands and Flame Body makes using will-o-wisp a little bit redundant. I could understand it on Pressure sets, though.
Also, I'm slightly skeptical of Timid nature on defensive sets. I assume that the speed is for neutral base 80s, especially unboosted Blaziken and Dragonite, but I don't think it's that necessary - Blaziken will generally need to SD turn 1 to have much of a chance of 1v1ing a Scorching Sands Moltres (unless it's Stone Edge or Thunder Punch but those are comparatively rare), and after that boost it outspeed you, and while you aren't able to do much other than status and u-turn on a Dragonite, it can't immediately threaten you very hard either with Stone Edge and Thunder Punch being even less common. There aren't that many other viable things between base 80 and base 60 that I think are particularly important to outspeed, apart from Adamant Bulu, which isn't the most common and doesn't always run Stone Edge. I'd personally argue that it only needs 20 speed EVs on a neutral nature for Modest Magnezone. I might be forgetting something that's important to outspeed, though, so let me know.

 

[escarlata]

I thought about adding SubRoost with Pressure but I'm not totally convinced it will put in a lot of work. The reason Kyurem works so well with a similar set is because it's generally much more difficult to wall so it's able to PP stall the one mon on the opposing team that can comfortably switch into it (there's also the 101 HP sub argument which is huge in a Blissey 1v1). I added it as an honourable mention because I do believe it can be very nasty when it starts snowballing with Toxic + fast bulky subs especially because common switchins like Clefable and Heatran can't break your subs in return. I would personally use Toxic over Scorching Sands because the main target of Scorching Sands (Heatran) will get stalled out anyway.

Despite the similarily in set concept, SubRoost Moltres does completely different things from Kyurem. SubRoost Moltres does 1 of 2 things depending on what kind of teams it is used in. On stall, Moltres fills the rolls of a Defogger that is able to sit on most of the relevant hazard-setters, easily PP stalling out coverage moves used like Stone Edge in the process. On balance, SubRoost is a fantastic Toxic staller, especially in a Steel/Grass/Fire-centric metagame. However, if the metagame shifts to be more Electric-centric, the Toxic variant of SubRoost Moltres will certainly lose a lot of its value.

 

[SketchUp]

I think Moltres's passive ability to distribute burns via Scorching Sands and Flame Body makes using will-o-wisp a little bit redundant. I could understand it on Pressure sets, though.
Also, I'm slightly skeptical of Timid nature on defensive sets. I assume that the speed is for neutral base 80s, especially unboosted Blaziken and Dragonite, but I don't think it's that necessary - Blaziken will generally need to SD turn 1 to have much of a chance of 1v1ing a Scorching Sands Moltres (unless it's Stone Edge or Thunder Punch but those are comparatively rare), and after that boost it outspeed you, and while you aren't able to do much other than status and u-turn on a Dragonite, it can't immediately threaten you very hard either with Stone Edge and Thunder Punch being even less common. There aren't that many other viable things between base 80 and base 60 that I think are particularly important to outspeed, apart from Adamant Bulu, which isn't the most common and doesn't always run Stone Edge. I'd personally argue that it only needs 20 speed EVs on a neutral nature for Modest Magnezone. I might be forgetting something that's important to outspeed, though, so let me know.

The EV spread is simply what I've been using on my team because I was paranoid of some of the Adamant base 80s that were very threatening to my team (mainly Mamoswine and Sub Blaziken, which are both frankly extremely rare). Realistically speaking you can go as low as 16 Speed EVs to outspeed Magnezone and Aegislash and as high as 220 EVs with Timid for Genesect, Rilla and Urshifu. It simply depends on what you're team is weak to. Same applies to whether to run Def or SpD investment, as SpD Moltres can pull off crazy things like avoiding the 2HKO of Modest Lando's Sludge Wave, potentially beat offensive QD Volc with Toxic and survive any hit from the likes of Specs Latios and Specs Magearna.

 

[Twilight]

I've been using a fair amount of Moltres and I do think Mystical Fire is pretty useful on the bulkier set to help make foes like Latios, Naganadel, Hydreigon, etc. a lot easier to pivot into. Given its main role is to just pivot into things with the utility of its typing and Flame Body I don't think the drop in power is a big downside. I would also always run Scorching Sands because being walled by Heatran really does hinder its viability completely imo. U-turn also being the better option over Defog too personally.