Introduction: This is going to be my first RMT to post on smogon, I'm sorry for any mistakes made in spelling, grammar, etc. I haven't really peaked anywhere on the ladder since it's a little wonky on PS at the moment, but I have 20 wins and 6 losses under my belt with this team in particular. It's one of the funnest teams I've made so far, but I feel like it could use a lot of work still. Any help is appreciated!
First of all I love bears, that's why I have two of them on my team, Ursaring and Beartic. Both of these adorable bears pack a decent punch, but aren't the fastest Pokemon around so that's why I centered Beartic around rain for the most part. As for Ursaring I gave him quick feet to make up for his low speed stat, though I'm not sure if that's the best choice since it takes away a lot of his power. I threw in Liepard for that extra speed and I think it's a nice special sweeper once it gets in a Nasty Plot plus it has unburden which is extra nice! Swanna and Volbeat are my rain setters, and if I might add Swanna does some good work on her own with hurricane. At last is my rain sweeper Ludicolo, kind of standard for a NU rain team, but he works really well with the nice overall coverage and decent special attack.
At a glance
The Physical Thrasher
Beartic (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)
-Aqua Jet
-Icicle Crash
-Super Power
-Night Slash
This guy is my Physical attacker, he's got a base attack of 110 which is pretty decent in my opinion. He's sort of my change up after my rain is set up apart from Ludicolo who is my special sweeper. He hits things pretty hard, though it's kind of sad he can't KO a lot of things in one swing. At the moment, his primary job is to do as much damage as he can giving everyone else in the party except Volbeat the chance to finish things off.
His EV spread is maxed out attack to do as much attack as possible, his speed I admit is still a little slow losing to much of the tier that usually carries a scarf. I still have a good time using this guy he can come out swinging, or clean up when things are almost done if the rain is there. I have come to really dislike moves with less than 100% accuracy haha, this is because when I need icicle crash to hit it misses. I'm not sure if I want to trade it out for Ice Punch for the guaranteed hit.
The Other Bear
Ursaring (F) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Quick Feet
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Spa)
-Facade
-Close Combat
-Crunch
-Swords Dance
I picked this adorable little bear so I wouldn't have to rely on the rain if my setter got killed, she's really neat with Quick feet which boosts his speed 1.5x I believe. This is a good thing for me because she rapes things that slower than she, but also gets raped by choice scarfed sawk. I do wonder if I need to replace someone on my team to throw out some hazards on the other side since he loses out on a lot of his power with Quick Feet. This also loses to stall as well, which is really disappointing. However, if those things are gone and once I set up one SD I've pretty much just swept the other team. I haven't actually gotten to use her to her full potential because scarf usually ruins what I'm doing.
The set gives the most coverage as possible hitting ghosts, steels, rocks, and punishing everything else with facade.
Catty Shack
Liepard (F) @ Dark Gem
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spd
Nature: Modest(+SpA, -Atk)
-Dark Pulse
-Encore
-Nasty Plot
-Grass Knot
She is one fiesty feline! Boasting a blazing speed of 106 and the ability unburden which doubles her speed as long as she's in play. This pokemon works wonders for me to take out Psychic pokemon such as Musharna, Gardevoir. If I lead with her, I'm taking a huge risk, but a nice reward if all goes well. Whenever I lead with her, people don't usually attack they just set up rocks, that gives me a turn to use encore and nasty plot to destroy whatever is up there. Dark gem boosts dark pulse to a nice level, and activates unburden which allows me to spam dark pulse on everything that comes in doing a nice chunk of damage. Grass knot is somewhat of a filler move for Carracosta, golem, regirock, etc. Encore is a move to take out golem leads so they don't sucker punch me hard, and other things that boost up.
The only bad thing about liepard is the frail defenses and the really shallow movepool. There isn't much coverage for fighting pokemon or other things that make her cringe, she justs hits them with a dark pulse. T-T
The Swanster
Swanna (F) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 252 Spa / 252 Spd
Nature: Timid(+Spd, -Atk)
-Rain Dance
-Hurricane
-Surf
-Ice Beam
Alright, this is one of my rain setters Swanna, built with above average speed and access to Hurricane is my only counter for fighting pokemon( I know...). I love her so much though, she does over 50% damage to things with hurricane( bulky garbadors, alomamolas, miltanks). She totally owns Alomamola with her ability Hydration which removes status if rain is up, and takes on Amoongusses like a boss.
Her only drawbacks I've seen are dealing with rotom-fan, and stealth rocks otherwise I found her to be one of my core pokemon for the team.
Buzz Lightyear
Volbeat (M) @Damp Rock
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
Nature: Bold(+Def, -Atk)
-Rain Dance
-Encore
-Tail Glow
-Baton Pass
My other rain setter, Volbeat was blessed with prankster given the ability he can set up rain whenever he likes cause he doesn't give a lick! Usually my lead, but often will get snuffed out by a lot of things that's why sometimes I choose liepard or swanna to lead it off. He's my bread and butter to my rain team. Setting up rain, passing off tail glows like no joke to Swanna or Ludicolo depending on who's gonna get hit with what. Encore is one of the best moves to use if something sets up rocks or tries to set up power ups and what not. Taunt is the enemy here, though he ignores that hah and gets something off before he has to switch out. I can count on him all the time to make it rain.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a pineapple duck thing!
Ludicolo (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spd
Nature: Modest(+Spa, -Atk)
-Focus Blast
-Hydro Pump
-Ice Beam
-Giga Drain
One of the best sweepers when paired with volbeat in my opinion. After one tail glow gets passed to him the opponent either gets swept or forfeits because they know he's a monster to deal with. A superb typing with nice amounts of coverage along with it. Hit things extra hard with a hydro pump in the rain, use ice beam on amoonguss to take him out, giga drain to recover lost hp from the life orb, and focus blast as a filler move. I've had lots of success using this set, which probably many other people have used already. I was thinking about replacing focus miss for rain dance since focus miss isn't really reliable.
Threats
Choice scarf Sawk(maybe fighting pokemon in general)- Well since I don't have any hazards to set up to remove the sturdy he completely destroys my team aside from Swanna, but then he'll just switch out and come back with a SE or something.
Hazards- Stealth Rocks, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, these are pretty dangerous for my team since it makes my team frailer than it already is. I don't have a spinner, and I'm not sure if I want to use Armaldo.
Conclusion
Any help regarding my team would be greatly appreciated! I'm looking for replacements if possible that counter threats that I might face. Again thanks for taking the time to read this thing.
Here is an importable text for the team if you wish to use it: http://pastebin.com/tMm5pUjx
First of all I love bears, that's why I have two of them on my team, Ursaring and Beartic. Both of these adorable bears pack a decent punch, but aren't the fastest Pokemon around so that's why I centered Beartic around rain for the most part. As for Ursaring I gave him quick feet to make up for his low speed stat, though I'm not sure if that's the best choice since it takes away a lot of his power. I threw in Liepard for that extra speed and I think it's a nice special sweeper once it gets in a Nasty Plot plus it has unburden which is extra nice! Swanna and Volbeat are my rain setters, and if I might add Swanna does some good work on her own with hurricane. At last is my rain sweeper Ludicolo, kind of standard for a NU rain team, but he works really well with the nice overall coverage and decent special attack.
At a glance
The Physical Thrasher
Beartic (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)
-Aqua Jet
-Icicle Crash
-Super Power
-Night Slash
This guy is my Physical attacker, he's got a base attack of 110 which is pretty decent in my opinion. He's sort of my change up after my rain is set up apart from Ludicolo who is my special sweeper. He hits things pretty hard, though it's kind of sad he can't KO a lot of things in one swing. At the moment, his primary job is to do as much damage as he can giving everyone else in the party except Volbeat the chance to finish things off.
His EV spread is maxed out attack to do as much attack as possible, his speed I admit is still a little slow losing to much of the tier that usually carries a scarf. I still have a good time using this guy he can come out swinging, or clean up when things are almost done if the rain is there. I have come to really dislike moves with less than 100% accuracy haha, this is because when I need icicle crash to hit it misses. I'm not sure if I want to trade it out for Ice Punch for the guaranteed hit.
The Other Bear
Ursaring (F) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Quick Feet
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Spa)
-Facade
-Close Combat
-Crunch
-Swords Dance
I picked this adorable little bear so I wouldn't have to rely on the rain if my setter got killed, she's really neat with Quick feet which boosts his speed 1.5x I believe. This is a good thing for me because she rapes things that slower than she, but also gets raped by choice scarfed sawk. I do wonder if I need to replace someone on my team to throw out some hazards on the other side since he loses out on a lot of his power with Quick Feet. This also loses to stall as well, which is really disappointing. However, if those things are gone and once I set up one SD I've pretty much just swept the other team. I haven't actually gotten to use her to her full potential because scarf usually ruins what I'm doing.
The set gives the most coverage as possible hitting ghosts, steels, rocks, and punishing everything else with facade.
Catty Shack
Liepard (F) @ Dark Gem
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spd
Nature: Modest(+SpA, -Atk)
-Dark Pulse
-Encore
-Nasty Plot
-Grass Knot
She is one fiesty feline! Boasting a blazing speed of 106 and the ability unburden which doubles her speed as long as she's in play. This pokemon works wonders for me to take out Psychic pokemon such as Musharna, Gardevoir. If I lead with her, I'm taking a huge risk, but a nice reward if all goes well. Whenever I lead with her, people don't usually attack they just set up rocks, that gives me a turn to use encore and nasty plot to destroy whatever is up there. Dark gem boosts dark pulse to a nice level, and activates unburden which allows me to spam dark pulse on everything that comes in doing a nice chunk of damage. Grass knot is somewhat of a filler move for Carracosta, golem, regirock, etc. Encore is a move to take out golem leads so they don't sucker punch me hard, and other things that boost up.
The only bad thing about liepard is the frail defenses and the really shallow movepool. There isn't much coverage for fighting pokemon or other things that make her cringe, she justs hits them with a dark pulse. T-T
The Swanster
Swanna (F) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 252 Spa / 252 Spd
Nature: Timid(+Spd, -Atk)
-Rain Dance
-Hurricane
-Surf
-Ice Beam
Alright, this is one of my rain setters Swanna, built with above average speed and access to Hurricane is my only counter for fighting pokemon( I know...). I love her so much though, she does over 50% damage to things with hurricane( bulky garbadors, alomamolas, miltanks). She totally owns Alomamola with her ability Hydration which removes status if rain is up, and takes on Amoongusses like a boss.
Her only drawbacks I've seen are dealing with rotom-fan, and stealth rocks otherwise I found her to be one of my core pokemon for the team.
Buzz Lightyear
Volbeat (M) @Damp Rock
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
Nature: Bold(+Def, -Atk)
-Rain Dance
-Encore
-Tail Glow
-Baton Pass
My other rain setter, Volbeat was blessed with prankster given the ability he can set up rain whenever he likes cause he doesn't give a lick! Usually my lead, but often will get snuffed out by a lot of things that's why sometimes I choose liepard or swanna to lead it off. He's my bread and butter to my rain team. Setting up rain, passing off tail glows like no joke to Swanna or Ludicolo depending on who's gonna get hit with what. Encore is one of the best moves to use if something sets up rocks or tries to set up power ups and what not. Taunt is the enemy here, though he ignores that hah and gets something off before he has to switch out. I can count on him all the time to make it rain.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a pineapple duck thing!
Ludicolo (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spd
Nature: Modest(+Spa, -Atk)
-Focus Blast
-Hydro Pump
-Ice Beam
-Giga Drain
One of the best sweepers when paired with volbeat in my opinion. After one tail glow gets passed to him the opponent either gets swept or forfeits because they know he's a monster to deal with. A superb typing with nice amounts of coverage along with it. Hit things extra hard with a hydro pump in the rain, use ice beam on amoonguss to take him out, giga drain to recover lost hp from the life orb, and focus blast as a filler move. I've had lots of success using this set, which probably many other people have used already. I was thinking about replacing focus miss for rain dance since focus miss isn't really reliable.
Threats
Choice scarf Sawk(maybe fighting pokemon in general)- Well since I don't have any hazards to set up to remove the sturdy he completely destroys my team aside from Swanna, but then he'll just switch out and come back with a SE or something.
Hazards- Stealth Rocks, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, these are pretty dangerous for my team since it makes my team frailer than it already is. I don't have a spinner, and I'm not sure if I want to use Armaldo.
Conclusion
Any help regarding my team would be greatly appreciated! I'm looking for replacements if possible that counter threats that I might face. Again thanks for taking the time to read this thing.
Here is an importable text for the team if you wish to use it: http://pastebin.com/tMm5pUjx
