SS OU The Best Team (Won’t regret using it)

[Specifical car]

Before I start talking about my team, I just want to say some things. I worked very very hard on this team. I spent a lot of time working on this project, winning battles, and testing it to get the best possible variation of it (which I hope to make better). I went through every set carefully did a lot of research, and used resources to build this team such as the viability rankings. If you are a RMT thief congrats. You are not going to regret this. I’m tired of people saying “Go to the Samples!” to people since, I’m gonna be honest, people can look at the team and I don’t think they are that good. Also, looking at other RMTs, some have things that are not very viable Those things inspired me to build this team. Anyways, thanks for clicking this post and welcome, to my RMT :)

​

Team building process:

I asked a lot of people of Pokémon showdown what is a good core and I find this core to be a common answer. I agree. Great defensive potential with offensive support. I started with toxapex since it was the easiest to start with, then corviknight, and then clefable who originally had fire blast and soft boiled.

Then I added dragapult with specs because I needed an offensive mon and because I thought it fit well.

I then added zeraora because I wanted to hit mons hard, get help with momentum, and cover weakness to my team.

I finally added scarf rotom heat to take down other zeras, trick, and check mons. Also to run as a scarfer.

But then I switched to dugtrio because rotom wasn’t really doing anything and zera still was annoying.

I then changed clefable’s set to wish protect to provide support since fire blast did nothing and I added rotom heat back with heavy duty boots and a different set which we will see in the in depth explanation.

Finally, I made dragapult scarf and modest because weather teams and zera was still annoying.

In Depth Explanation


Toxapex @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Recover
- Haze
- Toxic
Toxapex is an absolute monster. You can switch this thing into a cinderace, dragovish, and sometimes zeraora and still survive with its massive defense. You can also switch Toxapex into special attacking mons only under specific conditions such as aegislash. Scald is essential for any toxapex. If you don’t run scald then go do some research. I find toxic more useful than spikes because tspikes takes long to setup, cinderace, and I’d rather just use the toxic. Haze is there to stop step up mons like bisharp, aegis, cloyste, and some special attacking step up mons like clefable, and Hatterene.


Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 208 SpD
Careful Nature
- Iron Head
- Defog
- Roost
- U-turn

Next we have corviknight. Should be no surprise seeing this s ranked mon here. Best defoger in the game no doubt. Checks/counters mons like clefable, conkeldur (idk if I’m spelling these right), excadrill, sesmitoad , and hippowdon. Basic smogon set with iron head for clefable, u turn for momentum and pivoting, roost for healing, and defog for hazards. Hazards are incredibly annoying. Not much more to say other than pressure with can pp stall mons if you can’t hit them ig.



Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Stealth Rock
- Protect
- Wish
At one point I thought clefable was trash. Anyways, clefable basically for utility and I guess for dragons too. Switch into dragapult kinda easily. Magic guard is so use since you don’t have to worry about any burn or anything. Why not make it my rocker too? It’s my only mon that can learn stealth rock and switching into other mons is a good opportunity to get of rocks. Moonblast needs to be ran on every clefable and wish + protect is for healing. And of course you can heal other mons on your team with wish which is extremely useful.



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

The reason why this dragapult is scarf and modest because dragapult already outspeeds the entire tier with scarf, and I want extra attack on dragapult. Also, the main reason why dragapult is scarf and not specs is because of zeraora who kills everything, and weather teams. Dragapult of course, solves that problem venge killing, u turning for momentum, and just dealing damage in general. Fire blast hits corviknight and bisharp.


Zeraora @ Life Orb
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bulk Up
- Plasma Fists
- Knock Off
- Close Combat

Life orb zera is one of the hardest hitting mons in the game. (Dracovish.lolol.) Letme just look at the viability rankings to see what zera does. Clefable dies, corvik dies, aegis dies, pex dies, pult dies..Yea. Zeraora is an absolute terror in OU and the only counter is really hippowdown. Move set is standard. Shouldn’t have to explain but it’s in the rmt rules. Knock off takes off item, close combat is a fighting move, plasma fists is ran on every zera, and bulk up is for setting up when possible to obliterate everything.


Rotom-Heat @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 232 HP / 24 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Volt Switch
- Nasty Plot
- Overheat
The final pokemon on my team is rotom heat. Will O wisp helps take down physical attackers/tanks like bulk up corviknight, zeraora, and hippowdon. Volt switch allows momentum and hits as an electric type move for damage. Nasty plot setups for high damage attacks and overheat takes down steel types and it is just a hard hitting stab move in general. Rotom heat can survive hits which is useful since the clef corv pex core has weaknesses and heavy duty boots is there because I don’t want rotom taking damage from stealth rocks.

https://pokepast.es/849c8b0ea9ff7c7d
We aren’t done just yet. Let’s move on to some viable threats because literally every team has threats and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Sub bulk up corvik is annoying.

Togekiss is very annoying since it can substitute and air slash my entire team.

Certain sets of clefables well played also are really annoying and extremely hard to deal with.

Weather ball and hurricane pelipper kills almost my entire team.
Anyways there’s my team folks. Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading and have a great day! Any suggestions to improve my teams helps oc. Thanks :).

 

[theotherguytm]

Ok... This team looks great, but...
Scarf Dragapult is an unset and you should never run it. Why? Because outside weather teams, every mon faster than Dragapult gets outsped by Scarf Hydriegon (who is wholly superior due to his much, much higher SpA) or can be adequately walled anyway (Scarf Gengar and Scarf Swords).

But that's not the point. Scarf Dragapult is claimed to be adequate counterplay against weather teams. But is it actually?
The answer is "no, it isn't". I've run loads of calcs on this several times, Modest and Timid, and I can sum up the results:
Sand
Modest is slower than Drill in sand and gets OHKOed by a +2 Drill, Timid misses the OHKO on Drill with Fire Blast even after rocks. Sand setters also switch into it for free.
Rain
There are two catagories of Rain abuser. The first is Water wallbreaker, which Scarf Dragapult sucks at dealing with compared to its harder-hitting cousins. The second is obviously the Swift Swim sweepers. And Scarf Dragapult loses 1v1 to all of them. Barraskewda (who no-one even uses) just outruns you even with the Scarf, Toad eats the hit and Knocks Off your Scarf before killing you, and Mantine uses you as setup fodder unless you have Thunderbolt explicitly for it (which is a terrible idea).
Sun
Probably Scarf Dragapult's best matchup. It forces out Venusaur as long as the sun is up (Venu lives Fire Blast outside of Sun lol), but then invites in a Sun wallbreaker like Darmantuan for almost free. And using Draco Meteor to try and outplay your opponent by nailing the switch-in risks your opponent leaving Venu in (as Draco Meteor misses the KO by miles). Plus Ninetales switches into you for almost free, Torkoal lives any hit from you... So it works, but there are far, far better ways of handling this one explicit niche matchup. It's like running Clear Body for Webs, except you lose far, far more than just screens and subs.
If you want to see the full gory details I can PM you the calcs.

So I would suggest Scarf Hydreigon instead.
Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Draco Meteor
- U-turn
- Flash Cannon/Fire Blast
Timid over Modest so you outrun Adamant Cloyster, DD Haxorus, Scarf Darmantuan and Modest Mantine. Flash Cannon in the last slot to dent Fairy switch-ins, Fire Blast to roast Steels. Either works.

Also, LO Zeraora is not a set I would recommended. Zeraora likes some longevity so it gets multiple setup opportunities, and it's not worn down while breaking. For instance, you lose the 1v1 with Bulk Up Corv badly if you have to take continuous Life Orb chip. So I would suggest either Expert Belt or Leftovers to increase longevity. Belt keeps most of your firepower, Leftovers lets Zeraora come in many times a match to Bulk Up and attack without worrying about hazard chip.

Hope you like these changes!

 

[Specifical car]

Ok... This team looks great, but...
Scarf Dragapult is an unset and you should never run it. Why? Because outside weather teams, every mon faster than Dragapult gets outsped by Scarf Hydriegon (who is wholly superior due to his much, much higher SpA) or can be adequately walled anyway (Scarf Gengar and Scarf Swords).

But that's not the point. Scarf Dragapult is claimed to be adequate counterplay against weather teams. But is it actually?
The answer is "no, it isn't". I've run loads of calcs on this several times, Modest and Timid, and I can sum up the results:
Sand
Modest is slower than Drill in sand and gets OHKOed by a +2 Drill, Timid misses the OHKO on Drill with Fire Blast even after rocks. Sand setters also switch into it for free.
Rain
There are two catagories of Rain abuser. The first is Water wallbreaker, which Scarf Dragapult sucks at dealing with compared to its harder-hitting cousins. The second is obviously the Swift Swim sweepers. And Scarf Dragapult loses 1v1 to all of them. Barraskewda (who no-one even uses) just outruns you even with the Scarf, Toad eats the hit and Knocks Off your Scarf before killing you, and Mantine uses you as setup fodder unless you have Thunderbolt explicitly for it (which is a terrible idea).
Sun
Probably Scarf Dragapult's best matchup. It forces out Venusaur as long as the sun is up (Venu lives Fire Blast outside of Sun lol), but then invites in a Sun wallbreaker like Darmantuan for almost free. And using Draco Meteor to try and outplay your opponent by nailing the switch-in risks your opponent leaving Venu in (as Draco Meteor misses the KO by miles). Plus Ninetales switches into you for almost free, Torkoal lives any hit from you... So it works, but there are far, far better ways of handling this one explicit niche matchup. It's like running Clear Body for Webs, except you lose far, far more than just screens and subs.
If you want to see the full gory details I can PM you the calcs.

So I would suggest Scarf Hydreigon instead.
Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Draco Meteor
- U-turn
- Flash Cannon/Fire Blast
Timid over Modest so you outrun Adamant Cloyster, DD Haxorus, Scarf Darmantuan and Modest Mantine. Flash Cannon in the last slot to dent Fairy switch-ins, Fire Blast to roast Steels. Either works.

Also, LO Zeraora is not a set I would recommended. Zeraora likes some longevity so it gets multiple setup opportunities, and it's not worn down while breaking. For instance, you lose the 1v1 with Bulk Up Corv badly if you have to take continuous Life Orb chip. So I would suggest either Expert Belt or Leftovers to increase longevity. Belt keeps most of your firepower, Leftovers lets Zeraora come in many times a match to Bulk Up and attack without worrying about hazard chip.

Hope you like these changes!

So I read your response and tried your changes on the ladder. I agree with you on the scarf dragapult part. You can have the exact same moves on dragapult like hydregion and hydregion has 1. Better typing 2. Better abilities 3. Better defense 4. Better attack. Also the fact that the calcs actually show dragapult doesn’t do very much to weather teams also makes hydregion better. Hydregion is working fine for me. Also , expert belt zeraora is a great idea. You are keeping zeraora’s hard hitting potential but not killing its hp. This helps a lot with rh ferrothorn, sub corvik, toxapex, and just teams in general. Thanks for your suggestions! :)

 

[Andrew Loh]

This is a very standard gen8 ou team so nothing major to nitpick on, so instead of making changes in team, I would like to address a few threats for the team(in theory) to add-on and I will briefly explain why:

Threats addition

Bisharp clicks Knock Off almost every turn against your team after switching into your Corviknight that attempt to Defog. Everything except Toxapex gets destroyed by Knock Off+Iron Head.


Excadrill, especially the Mold Breaker ones, break thru your team with ease after a Sword Dance/Rapid Spin. The only check to it being Corviknight that is non-Body Press and ended up being a setup fodder for later Earthquake spam.


Substitute Metronome Mantine under rain is no joke. Setting up on Toxapex/Corviknight and starts clicking Hurricane/Surf on everything.

 

[zbr]

Heyyos! Nice team you've got here! As with what earlier raters have mentioned, your team looks like it centers on the Corviknight/ Zeraora/ Clef core and is pretty standard in the current metagame. Your team is pretty balanced and taking into account the compiled threat list that was already mentioned by Andrew Loh and yourself, I will try to come up with some changes that help you ease up your games against the threats.

>>>

Firstly, I can't stress enough how much better Hydreigon is for your team compared to Dragapult if you require a scarfer. However, another interesting scarfer that you might want to give a try and resolves your immediate threatlist is to use Scarf Jirachi. This isn't a popular option that people suggest because right now Dugtrio is still in the metagame, however, Jirachi is able to best tackle your problematic mons while providing you with a good pivot mon to deal with the current problems of your team. Scarfrachi is actually really good in general to deal with these threats and it's really fun to use. Thunder can be used in place of Thunder Punch if you want to secure kills on rain offense teams but in general, Scarfrachi gives you both a fast u-turner and a Healing Wish user, allowing you to breathe life into damaged / statused mon, giving you more leeway into playing more aggressively

252 Atk Jirachi Thunder Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mantine: 368-436 (118.3 - 140.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Jirachi Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Togekiss: 228-270 (73.3 - 86.8%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Jirachi Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clefable: 282-332 (71.5 - 84.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

>>>

Next, I think that despite toxapex being a very strong defensive mon, we should use a mon here that can amply deal with threats like Bisharp and Excadrill and not detract momentum from your team. Furthermore, I think it's fine for your team to utilize another mon in this slot which is Phys Def Kommo-o. Now this change is really good because it gives you a good switch in to threats like Bisharp and Drill and also gives you access to Stealth Rock and Taunt. These two combined allows you to force out defensive threats that like to come in on you and gives you a chance to set up rocks on their switches.

Now that you got your stealth rock slot freed up by Kommo-o, you can opt to not run rocks on Clef. Since Kommo-o and Rotom-Heat likes wish support, I think we can opt to run standard Wishtect but instead of running Teleport, we will run Aromatherapy to maintain status support for the rest of your team. I will also recommend running 252 HP / 120 SpD / 136 Spe for your EV spread because I think it is necessary to outspeed neutral max speed Conkeldurr as I forsee it might be an issue and you may need to juggle between Clef and Kommo-o to properly dismantle it.

I think that, if you are having problems with Sub BU Corvi, a viable optional change for this mon is to run Discharge over Wisp as it still provides you the 30% chance to paralyze foes which is still good and doesn't force you out of your nasty plot boosts which I think is your issue with regards to Sub BU Corvi.

Alright! Hope you enjoy the rates and changes here that I suggested. Stay safe amidst the pandemic and take care!

recommended sets

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 120 SpD / 136 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Wish
- Protect
- Aromatherapy

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- U-turn
- Healing Wish
- Thunder Punch

Kommo-o @ Leftovers
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Def / 176 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Body Press
- Protect
- Taunt

Rotom-Heat @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 232 HP / 24 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Discharge
- Volt Switch
- Nasty Plot
- Overheat

 

[Specifical car]

This is a very standard gen8 ou team so nothing major to nitpick on, so instead of making changes in team, I would like to address a few threats for the team(in theory) to add-on and I will briefly explain why:

Threats addition

Bisharp clicks Knock Off almost every turn against your team after switching into your Corviknight that attempt to Defog. Everything except Toxapex gets destroyed by Knock Off+Iron Head.


Excadrill, especially the Mold Breaker ones, break thru your team with ease after a Sword Dance/Rapid Spin. The only check to it being Corviknight that is non-Body Press and ended up being a setup fodder for later Earthquake spam.


Substitute Metronome Mantine under rain is no joke. Setting up on Toxapex/Corviknight and starts clicking Hurricane/Surf on everything.

Heyyos! Nice team you've got here! As with what earlier raters have mentioned, your team looks like it centers on the Corviknight/ Zeraora/ Clef core and is pretty standard in the current metagame. Your team is pretty balanced and taking into account the compiled threat list that was already mentioned by Andrew Loh and yourself, I will try to come up with some changes that help you ease up your games against the threats.

>>>

Firstly, I can't stress enough how much better Hydreigon is for your team compared to Dragapult if you require a scarfer. However, another interesting scarfer that you might want to give a try and resolves your immediate threatlist is to use Scarf Jirachi. This isn't a popular option that people suggest because right now Dugtrio is still in the metagame, however, Jirachi is able to best tackle your problematic mons while providing you with a good pivot mon to deal with the current problems of your team. Scarfrachi is actually really good in general to deal with these threats and it's really fun to use. Thunder can be used in place of Thunder Punch if you want to secure kills on rain offense teams but in general, Scarfrachi gives you both a fast u-turner and a Healing Wish user, allowing you to breathe life into damaged / statused mon, giving you more leeway into playing more aggressively

>>>

Next, I think that despite toxapex being a very strong defensive mon, we should use a mon here that can amply deal with threats like Bisharp and Excadrill and not detract momentum from your team. Furthermore, I think it's fine for your team to utilize another mon in this slot which is Phys Def Kommo-o. Now this change is really good because it gives you a good switch in to threats like Bisharp and Drill and also gives you access to Stealth Rock and Taunt. These two combined allows you to force out defensive threats that like to come in on you and gives you a chance to set up rocks on their switches.

Now that you got your stealth rock slot freed up by Kommo-o, you can opt to not run rocks on Clef. Since Kommo-o and Rotom-Heat likes wish support, I think we can opt to run standard Wishtect but instead of running Teleport, we will run Aromatherapy to maintain status support for the rest of your team. I will also recommend running 252 HP / 120 SpD / 136 Spe for your EV spread because I think it is necessary to outspeed neutral max speed Conkeldurr as I forsee it might be an issue and you may need to juggle between Clef and Kommo-o to properly dismantle it.

I think that, if you are having problems with Sub BU Corvi, a viable optional change for this mon is to run Discharge over Wisp as it still provides you the 30% chance to paralyze foes which is still good and doesn't force you out of your nasty plot boosts which I think is your issue with regards to Sub BU Corvi.

Alright! Hope you enjoy the rates and changes here that I suggested. Stay safe amidst the pandemic and take care!

recommended sets

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 120 SpD / 136 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Wish
- Protect
- Aromatherapy

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- U-turn
- Healing Wish
- Thunder Punch

Kommo-o @ Leftovers
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Def / 176 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Body Press
- Protect
- Taunt

Rotom-Heat @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 232 HP / 24 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Discharge
- Volt Switch
- Nasty Plot
- Overheat

Alright. So since I was late on replying to Andrew Loh’s post, I’m going to act like zbr’s post didn’t even happen in the first paragraph, and then get into zbr’s post in the second paragraph after this.

Hi. Thanks for pointing out threats and taking the time to post on my RMT thread. I’m going to talk about the 3 threats you mentioned. So first of all with Bisharp, Bisharp is very annoying but I can usually play around it. I can usually get the +2 effects off when I defog with corvik but I do lose 1 mon. Because I need to sacrifice a mon to get Toxapex in to haze (which he lives), Bisharp is very very annoying but the problem weakens a lot with hydregion that theotherguytm mentioned. Secondly, I don’t really have any problems with excadrill. Most of the time it’s just rapid spin, which Corvik can handle easily but when it’s swords dance I do have to end up sacrificing a mon but I still end up winning the battle. (Most of the time). Now sub metronome manetine in the rain has an extremely low usage rate so I don’t consider it a threat, but if my opponent does end up using it, I have to sacrifice a mon, stall out the rain, and force it out which I may have to do multiple times. Again thanks for your post and I will make sure things like these dont have to happen again with future teams.

Hi. Thank you so much for your huge array of changes! I read your explanation carefully and tested out your sets. So starting off Hydregion is way better than dragapult which I mentioned in my reply to Theotherguytm. But jirachi has been working way better than hydregion. It covers weaknesses way better than hydregion and dragapult by killing fairies like togekiss, covering rain, killing less common mons like terrikion Hatterene and keldeo, and being a support factor. Healing wish can be a major factor especially when I need a certain mon and losing Jirachi doesn’t impact my chances of winning. The only thing negative about this change is that I have to play more carefully with dugtrio and dracovish. Now let’s talk about changing Toxapex to Komm-o . Again, the only bad thing about this change really is dracovish and that’s it since jirachi can cover most of Komm-o’s threats EX: Hatterene. Kommo deals with zeraora (who usually doesn’t run play rough) cinderace and breaks through HO and stall with taunt. Kommo also deals with Bisharp very well with body press and almost everything Toxapex and other physical defense tanks counter. Switching clefables EV’s to a more speedy type does help. Moonblast doesn’t OHKO conkeldurr but it is still very helpful rather than trying to contain it. Aromatherapy instead of SR because of kommo is very useful because having status on corvik and zeraora is not cool. Finally the last suggestion was discharge instead of will o wisp which is a good change since kommo checks zeraora. Again, thanks for your huge amount of suggestions. The suggested sets run a lot better than my original team. Thanks and take care!

Here’s the current team I am running.
https://pokepast.es/aaafa7fa3baa5c2f

 

[GodHeaven]

Why i can't learn knock off on my Zeraora?