SS OU Wasteland - Hex Dragapult Balance

[Fopo]

Intro

Welcome to my first RMT! This team is all about weakening the opposing team with status and chip and proceeding to sweep with Dragapult or Rillaboom. I've had decent success with this team, climbing to around 1500. The team features two cleaners, Rillaboom and Dragapult, paired with the classic fat mons Hippowdon, Corviknight, Blissey, and Toxapex. Rillaboom is the physical cleaner and Dragapult is the special one. Hippowdon is the rocker, Corviknight is the defogger, Blissey is the special wall and Toxapex is the physical wall. idk if this actually counts as a balance with all the walls

Set Explanations


Dragapult @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hex
- Draco Meteor
- U-turn
- Will-O-Wisp

Dragapult is the Pokemon the team is built around, and benefits from the many status spreading team members. I used Will-o-wisp instead of Thunder Wave because it can cripple physical attackers really easily and make them pretty much useless for the rest of the game. Infiltrator is better than Clear Body because Dragapult doesn't need to worry about Intimidate, and it has Heavy-Duty Boots for the rare Sticky Web. Heavy-Duty Boots is useful for hazards, but I'm unsure if I should use Leftovers instead for the recovery. The reason it isn't a Specs set is because I find having a fast status spreader is really useful, and it means I don't have to switch out to status something then come back in.


Rillaboom @ Choice Band
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Grassy Glide
- Knock Off
- Wood Hammer
- U-turn

I think banded Rillaboom is really good because of how much raw power it has, and paired with Dragapult it gives this team some pretty good cleaning potential. It also forms a nice U-turn core with Dragapult. Most of the time I just click Grassy Glide or U-turn, but Wood Hammer is great for weakened walls and Knock Off is useful for removing Heavy-Duty Boots and Rocky Helmet. Rillaboom also summons Grassy Terrain, which pretty much every team member likes.


Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 8 Atk / 248 SpD
Careful Nature
- High Horsepower
- Slack Off
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic

Hippowdon is the team's rocker and Heatran check. High Horsepower is there instead of Earthquake because of the halved power of it during Grassy Terrain. Toxic is great for defensive Pokemon and non-Corviknight defoggers that like to come in on Hippowdon. Hippowdon is essential against Hail teams other weathers too but hail seems most common, as resetting the weather is incredibly useful and means that once Ninetales dies the hail can never come back. Dragapult also really likes the Stealth Rock support as it lets it pick up those hard to get KOs.


Toxapex @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Recover
- Haze
- Toxic Spikes

Toxapex is the team's main Urshifu and Weavile check, greatly weakening them with Rocky Helmet and Knock Off. Toxic Spikes is also fantastic support for Hex, since it easily applies status to most of the opponents team. Haze great for set-up sweepers. I don't know if I should use Scald somewhere on this set as another way of applying burns to the opposing team, but none of these moves seem like they can be dropped.


Blissey (F) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Soft-Boiled
- Teleport
- Seismic Toss
- Thunder Wave

Blissey is OU's premier special wall, and for good reason. Not only a special wall, but Blissey is a great status absorber for the team thanks to Natural Cure. Teleport is essential and lets Blissey escape Heatran. Thunder Wave is great for slowing down the opponents for an easier Dragapult or Rillaboom sweep. Seismic Toss is so Blissey isn't complete Taunt bait, and is really Blissey's only hope at doing damage.


Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 168 Def / 88 SpD
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Defog
- Roost

Corviknight is the chosen defogger of the team. It is a provides the team with a Ground immunity, which is great for Toxapex. I think Brave Bird is more useful than Body Press because it's more useful against the Flying and Grass types Corviknight typically walls. U-turn is essential to any defensive Corviknight set, as is Roost. 88 Special Defense EVs lets it live two Shadow Balls from Dragapult and two Psychics from Tapu Lele.

Outro

As you could probably tell, this was built to be a team on the more defensive side of things. I usually play archetypes like Trick Room and Rain, which have pretty limited choices so some of my Pokemon picks for "normal" teams are subpar. I think I did pretty well with this team though, and I'd like to say it's one of my better teams.

Pokepaste

 

[cockadoodledooo]

I feel like your team needs a bit more offence. Like your toxapex is a sitting duck waiting to be set up on even with haze because of your sand chip (if the terrain isn't up) or it can just invite pokemon like an offensive electric or kyurem to come in for free. I also feel that t-spikes are too extra because you have 3 mons inflicting status. So maybe some more bulky offensive pokemon that can check urshifu and weavile is to be considered. Like maybe a nasty plot pain split rotom wash with a bold nature, suicune, keldeo (calm mind, specs, or scarf helps with your ferrothorn problem), tapu fini with the bold and calm mind (has misty terrain and goes against status though), urshifu with scarf (helps with your ferrothorn problem and can revenge), and tapu koko (can revenge urshifu and weavile).

 

[Fopo]

I feel like your team needs a bit more offence. Like your toxapex is a sitting duck waiting to be set up on even with haze because of your sand chip (if the terrain isn't up) or it can just invite pokemon like an offensive electric or kyurem to come in for free. I also feel that t-spikes are too extra because you have 3 mons inflicting status. So maybe some more bulky offensive pokemon that can check urshifu and weavile is to be considered. Like maybe a nasty plot pain split rotom wash with a bold nature, suicune, keldeo (calm mind, specs, or scarf helps with your ferrothorn problem), tapu fini with the bold and calm mind (has misty terrain and goes against status though), urshifu with scarf (helps with your ferrothorn problem and can revenge), and tapu koko (can revenge urshifu and weavile).

Thanks so much! I definitely haven't been using Toxic Spikes much, and a bunch of set up sweepers force Toxapex out (Garchomp, Dragonite) so it didn't pull it's weight in a majority of the battles. I think I'm going to try out Sub Calm Mind Keldeo in place of it, I really like how it takes advantage of switches and can pretty easily put the opponent in a bad spot if it gets behind a sub. I definitely was struggling against Steel types, and Keldeo will help with that.

 

[agentkeval]

Hey, this team looks a bit odd (not in a rly bad way). It's a bit too semi stall-like, as said before. Instead of having that strong defense to definite check mons like heatran, sometimes a team needs to have offensive pressure to allow those mons to come in less. For example, instead of hippowdon, run defensive, or special defensive (for tran) landorus. This will allow you to keep up momentum with the dragapult,rillaboom, and corviknight u turning, as well as the blissey teleporting. Now, dragapult and rillaboom dont have "amazing" synergy. They do work very well together, but defensive cores like pex,clef,corv or just a simple corv/torn + pult check (which is on every team), ends your game. I'd say run maybe dragapult + kartana, and instead of keldeo/pex, run urshifu (you don't need an urshifu, I just prefer it lol). This is a known breaking core that provides pressure and works very well overall.

 

[Fopo]

Hey, this team looks a bit odd (not in a rly bad way). It's a bit too semi stall-like, as said before. Instead of having that strong defense to definite check mons like heatran, sometimes a team needs to have offensive pressure to allow those mons to come in less. For example, instead of hippowdon, run defensive, or special defensive (for tran) landorus. This will allow you to keep up momentum with the dragapult,rillaboom, and corviknight u turning, as well as the blissey teleporting. Now, dragapult and rillaboom dont have "amazing" synergy. They do work very well together, but defensive cores like pex,clef,corv or just a simple corv/torn + pult check (which is on every team), ends your game. I'd say run maybe dragapult + kartana, and instead of keldeo/pex, run urshifu (you don't need an urshifu, I just prefer it lol). This is a known breaking core that provides pressure and works very well overall.

I was intentionally going for a much more defensive kind of team because a lot of my teams get worn down pretty quickly, but it probably is a bit too passive. The main reason I didn't use Landorus is the lack of recovery and Earthquake being weakened by Grassy Terrain, but I'll give it a try now that Rillaboom is switched. I definitely did feel like I was struggling with opposing Corviknight and other Steel types in general, so I'll try the switch to Kartana.

Would Band or SD be better for Kartana or does it not really matter? I'm thinking Band if I keep Keldeo and SD if I switch to Urshifu just so I don't have too many set-up sweepers.

Also, should I switch the Dragapult set? As much as I like spamming wisp there's a bit less status in the team now so Specs might be more reliable, and have more damage output. I was considering something that looks like this:

Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Draco Meteor
- U-turn
- Hex