SS OU Rain team

[Quinnsp]

Hello! This is my first time making a team with the intention of doing anything competitively, and I've not been doing super well so far. Anyone have any advice for a newcomer?

Dracovish @ Choice Band
Ability: Strong Jaw
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fishious Rend
- Psychic Fangs
- Crunch
- Dragon Rush

Dracovish, as I'm sure we all know, is a great physical attacker. Especially on a rain team, with a boost to Fishious Rend, it can tear through a good number of Pokemon. Unfortunately, the relatively large number of dragons and fairies can be a problem if not dealt with quickly.

Pelipper @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Hurricane
- Scald
- Tailwind
- Ice Beam
Another staple in the current generation, Pelliper brings the rain. I was thinking of switching Tailwind to U-Turn to give Pelipper a way to get out while dealing damage to dark and psychic types. This also synergizes with Rotom's Volt Switch.

Dragapult @ ???
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- Thunder
- Protect
Here's one I'm not particularly attached to. I don't know what item to give Dragapult and they already have quite a few common weaknesses. Clear body is helpful to avoid dynamaxed Pokemon lowering stats.

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Flash Cannon
- Substitute
- King's Shield
My first instinct with Aegislash is to switch them to a physical attacker. I was thinking Iron Head and Shadow Claw over the current moves. Leftovers work well with substitute, especially if Ludicolo dynamaxes and uses max overgrowth to further restore health.

Ludicolo @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Muddy Water
- Energy Ball
- Ice Beam
- Protect
Ludicolo with Swift Swim is solid with speed and has a pretty good resistances. Usually I'll bring them out first with Pelipper to get some early faints. The Life Orb helps ensure the faints, especially combined with a dynamax.


Rotom-W
Item: Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Will-o-Wisp
- Thunder
Rotom's wash form comes with Hydro Pump, which works well with the rain. Thunder is 100% accurate with rain, and volt switch helps switch into Pelipper if the rain gets cancelled. Choice specs help to make them hit stronger.

Obviously I've got room for improvement, and I appreciate everyone who helps!

 

[Dole Duck]

Good day, mr/mrs. Quinnsp!

I'd like to start off by saying that Dynamax is officially banned in the Gen8 OU-metagame ;)

For your first time making a team i'd say you did pretty good, though of course there will always be some rough edges in the beginning ;)
My tip for you there is to not focus too much on what each individual pokemon do for themself, but more as to what the team does, how the playstyle for the team will work, that you can beat the threats that are present to your playstyle and team buildup and how each pokemon will back each other up.

So for my rate; Rain teams often focus on three things; get up rain, abuse the boost to watertype attacks and abuse the swift swim ability.
For this to be an effective playstyle, a few threats need to be dealt with.
To name a few; sand-teams, priority users, resistances to water, certian potential scarf users such as Dragapult and defensive walls capable of countering rain abusers.

Your team is built around band Dracovish in rain to break opposing walls and go from there.
Dracovish is a strong wallbreaker, and in rain it is mostly impossible to wall it completely without being immune to fishous rend. In rain, it can break through most common defensive walls with ease, such as; Corviknight, Clefable, Toxapex, Corsola-galar and Ferrothorn. This benefits your other pokemon; Aegislash, Dragapult and Ludicolo for later. A decently solid rain-offense core, but as i will now talk about it faces some challenges.

First; sand is very problematic for this team, and i see the Sand-playstyle as the biggest threat to rain teams in this meta because of the rain getting taken down. Along with this, rapid spin excadrill is equally troublesome because of mold breaker. Sand setters as ttar and hippowdon doesnt have problems getting in aginst Dragapult, and even if you u-turn, getting in Pelipper isnt always going to be ideal, because of the possibility the ttar is running scarf or band or even a set that can take a rain-boosted scald from pelipper, as that would let them go for a free stone edge that your team doesnt take.

Onto the next problem; certain scarf users. Some Dragapults do run scarf, as do some Hydreigons, and these are quite difficult for your team to deal with because ludicolo is simply too slow even in rain to outspeed scarf Dragapult, and if you run modest Ludicolo, timid scarf Hydreigon will also outspeed. Regardless of outspeeding, hydreigon lives a life orb ice beam, even after rocks.
-> 252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Hydreigon: 239-283 (73.5 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Next up is opposing Dracovish. The problem with this is that your opponent can also use the boost from rain, making it so whenever he/she can get out their Dracovish, they get a kill. This problem is big, as many of your pokemon cannot check it without previous chip damage, a luxury highly skilled players will most likely avoid.

Next is the annoyance of certain bulky pokemon; Seismitoad, Jellicent and Gastrodon.
Dracovish cannot hit these with rain-boosted Fishous Rend, and that makes it hard for it to beat them at all, and just the mere existence of them makes it impossible to spam Fishous Rend. Of course, you have Dragapult and Ludicolo which threaten these, but Ludicolo struggles with not-too-great base defensive stats, paired with potential entry-hazzard-damage and life orb recoil, weakening it quickly. Any team that fits on Gastrodon or Jellicent is also likely to have a form of Dragapult counter; as you typically see these pokemon on bulkier or balanced teams. Many offense teams today also runs various checks or counters for Dragapult as its such a threat to offense.

Lastly is the threat that is priority users. Specificaly Aegislash, Bisharp and Mimikyu. Rain abuses swift swim to gain speed, but that is useless against priority users, making it nessecary to have a defensive backbone that can take on these.



Now i know this may sound like a lot, but really these arent too big issues, and i'll show you next how i propose you deal with them ;)
Here are the changes i suggest:

Dracovish:
Not much to be said here, its a solid pokemon all around.
The only thing i suggest is swap Dragon Rush -> Outrage. This is to deal more damage to Seismitoad.

Pelipper
Pelipper @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Def / 28 SpA / 68 Spe
Bold Nature
- Hurricane
- Scald
- U-turn
- Roost

Now this is an awfully specific EV-spread Pelipper as im sure you've noticed ;)
The reason for it is (as you will see on the calcs below) that this spread lets you take one rain-boosted Fishous Rend from Dracovish (Waterfall is set to Fishous Rends base attack, was easier to be sure i calced the right attack this way.) and also a life orb rock slide from adamant Excadrill after Steal Rocks damage. This helps with two of the offensive threats to the team as i mentioned earlier, and i believe this set has much more purpose than the max sp.atk set. Pelippers job is mainly to set up rain, so using it offensively is risky. 28 spA lets pelliper ohko Excadrill with scald in rain 100% of the time, sort of checking it if you really need to.
The moveset now has roost and u-turn, as u-turn chip and switch priority is VERY good for your rain team that needs to get the right matchup and make moves while rain is up. Roost is for keeping pelipper alive. Also crucial for rain.

-> 28 SpA Pelipper Scald vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Excadrill in Rain: 366-432 (101.1 - 119.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
-> 252+ Atk Choice Band Dracovish Waterfall vs. 248 HP / 176+ Def Pelipper in Rain: 204-240 (63.1 - 74.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Dragapult
Dragapult @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Thunder
- Shadow Ball
- U-turn

This set it quite simple to explain. This gives your team a much-needed fast pokemon and revenge-killer. Scarf Dragapult cancheck and revengekill scarf / sub np Hydreigon (thanks to infiltrator), Dracovish, Dracozolt and specs dragapult. Thunder abuses rain and threatens Corviknight. U-turn is for gaining offensive momentum and switch advantage. Again, very good for rain teams.

Ludicolo
Ludicolo @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Giga Drain
- Ice Beam
- Focus Blast

With this i mainly just changed the moveset. Ludicolo is not a particularily strong pokemon, so having the damage output from Hydro Pump over Muddy Water will be crucial. Focus Blast is so Ferrothorn cant come in and stall out rain whilst abusing its resitances to get up entry hazzards. I'll get back to this later, but i do recommend trying Barraskewda over Ludicolo, but i dont like swapping too many pokemon on a team i did not make out of respect for you and your team. ;)

Now here comes a few changes.
First; i recommend switiching
Aegislash -> Corviknight
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Mirror Armor
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Impish Nature
- Body Press
- Roost
- Brave Bird
- Bulk Up

This pokemon is here to help you deal with your problem with Sand-teams and Excadrill. It also is a pivot against Dragapult and Hydreigon, but do note! it is not a counter most of the time, so its job will be to pivot out into something that can check or revengekill these two. It's been EV'd to be able to take 1 +2 LO throat chop from Adamant Bisharp. This is so you can kill it in return with Body Press. This pokemon also helps against Mimikyu. Bulk up is a good set for this pokemon, as it can let you clean up late-game, but you may also want to try Iron Head instead if fairies become an issue for you to deal with.

Next switch is;
Rotom-wash -> Seismitoad
Seismitoad @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Grass Knot / Toxic

This switch is to better deal with Sand, the priority users i mentioned earlier and to give the team a better way to weaken Seismitoad, Gastrodon and Jellicent. This set has the option of running eitehr Grass Knot or Toxic. Toxic will allow you to weaken Gastrodon and Jellicent better, as they have reliable recover in Recover (and Jellicent has Strength Sap), but Grass knot will let you deal more immediate damage to Seismitoad. Whichever you find more usefull will be fine, but using Toxic often forces you to stall out a bit and that is not goo for your own seismitoad if you need it later and for your team in general.



That's all the changes i really recommend you make, but lastly, as mentioned, i do wanna say a little about Ludicolo .

Ludicolo really doesnt have a lot of offensive presence in this meta, and it also doesnt have very good defenses or speed either. All it really has going for it is its good typing for a rain team and its movepool.
I do therefore recommend you try swapping it out for a Barraskewda, but as i said, i dont really like swapping more than 2 pokemon on someone elses team in a RMT. Barraskewda is a naturally fast pokemon with quite a decent attack stat and a good offensive movepool. It can do things Ludicolo cannot, like ohko hydreigon with Close Combat and it has priority in Aqua Jet for opposing priority users. It's a pokemon that doesnt nessecarily need rain to be up to function well, thanks to its great speed. I recommend you try it out, this is the set i recommend, but you can of course play around with it a bit;

Barraskewda @ Life Orb / Choice Band
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Liquidation
- Ice Fang
- Close Combat
- Psychic Fangs

I also wanna say that you can try out this Aegislash set over Dragapult. This set lives a Life Orb Excadrills Earthquake with its Shuca Berry, allowing you to kill it in return with Close Combat. It is also great against slower teams. The speed evs lets you outspeed no-investment Corviknight, and most LO clefables that are EVd to just outspeed Corviknight. Using this will loose your team some speed, but its definetely a great potential addition to the team.

Aegislash @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 184 HP / 252 Atk / 72 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Iron Head
- Shadow Sneak
- Swords Dance


Lastly; note that the team might still struggle with certain playstyles like Trick Room, so you will need to play a bit around those kinds of teams.

Here is the finsihed team i recommend;

(With Ludicolo and Dragapult)

Importable: https://pokepast.es/39cdb2a6a4f2954d

(With Ludicolo and Aegislash)

Importable: https://pokepast.es/bcfe5a43b81e8043

(With Barraskewda and Dragapult)

Importable: https://pokepast.es/d14b28f35968fc88

(With Barraskewda and Aegislash)

Importable: https://pokepast.es/19206978f313419b

I hope this helps!
Have fun laddering, and i hope to see many more of your teams in the future ;)