Team Stratagem: another Spiny Team

[Spiny]

Another one of my teams. this is one of my better ones, but I'd like some suggestions please.

Spiker - Skarmory @ Shed Shell

Adamant
Keen Eye
252 SpDef/ 127 HP/ 127 Spd/ 4 Atk
~ Spikes
~ Roost
~ Whirlwind
~ Brave Bird
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This set combines several of the Smogon Sets. The Moveset is obviously for spiking, which it is. You all know how Spiking works so I won't go on about it. The Adamant Nature and Extra 4 Attack EV's are there to put an extra little kick behind Brave bird, which I use more often than most people think I should, but It works. The 252 Special defense is to hold out against Electric and Fire type Special attacks such as Thunder or Fire Blast, which Skarmorry normally loses too. The Speed is for always getting Spikes in first, so I at least have a lityle input if someone comest at me with something really strong, which isn't likely anyway thanks to Skarmory's defences, so mainly it just makes up for the ammount of time Spikes needs to be set up. Shed Shell is for hopping out if things look bleak for Skarmory, say Magnezone and Probopass with their Magnet pull and Advantage over Brave bird.

Ace - Salamence @ Life Orb

Naive
Intimidate
252 Atk/ 252 Spd/ 4 SpAtk
~ Dragon Dance
~ Earthquake
~ Fire Blast
~ Dragon Claw
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Your Average Dragon Dancer Salamence but with just one modification. The Rash nature and 4 SpAtk EV's are for Fire blasts power, to take down Ice types. Earthquake hurts electric and rock types, effectively covering all of my Weaknesses, except maybe Zapdos or Aerodactyl. Dragon Claw is for straight out murder and with a Dragon danc boost, I'm unstoppable!Salamence also acts as a wall buster for Specs, my Yanmega (see below). this baby can destroy a Metagross in a matter of seconds, oh yeah...

Vista - Porygon-Z @ Life Orb

Modest
Download
252 Spd/ 252 SpAtk/ 4 HP
~ Tri attack
~ Psychic
~ Nasty Plot
~ Recover
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The Special Sweeper, through and Through. Vista is a great Special Sweeper with insane SpAtk power and some crippling moves. Tri Attack is very dangerous with or without Nasty Plot boost, crippling even Blissey. Psychic puts hurt on risky fighting types or the ghost types that I can't hit with tri attack. Nasty Plot boosts the power to dangerously high levels, enough to kill an ARMY of Blisseys, muahahahaha! Recover makes up for Poor defenses, in the Immortal words of terminator, "asta la vista, baby!"

Sky Bolt - Swellow @ Flame Orb

Adamant
Guts
252 Spd/ 252 Atk/ 4 HP
~ Brave bird
~ U turn
~ Facade
~ Protect
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should Salamence meet an unfortunate end at the frosty hands of Blizzard or Ice punch, in comes Swellow to save the day! This one starts with protect, stalling Fake out leads lke Ambipom and Weavile, also letting Flame Orb take affect. Then, we give the opponent a taste of STAB, Boosted, Guts Boosted, Life orbed, Max Attack EV Facade. BANG! and the dirt is gone. U turn is for hopping out if things looks bad and Brave bird is for finishing something off before the strategy starts. It's a pity Swellow is un UU. In my opinion it's really underrated.

Specs - Yanmega @ Life Orb

Modest
Speed Boost
252 Speed/ 252 SpAtk/ 4 HP
~ Protect
~ Bug buzz
~ Hidden power ground
~ Air Slash
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Much like Swellow is for salamence, Yanmega acts as Backup should Porygon-Z use recover just a little too late. i always come backed with a Backup Plan. Detect shields whilst Speed boost takes affect, giving me an edge for faster pokemon who would just take advantage of Yanmega's low defences. Bug Buzz is like what Dragon claw is for Salamence, the killing tool. Hidden power ground takes care of Lucario, Heatran and Mgnezone who would otherise use Stone Edge, or a fire/electric attack. Air Slash 2HKOs Gyrados and Salamence, both powerful sweepers who would otherwise do serious damage to the rest of the team. Although Specs is walled easily, Ace the Salamence (see above) can come i as my wall buster too. Double trouble baby!

Currently, I got nothing for a sixth slot member. Maybe a Wall? Perhaps some Team support? place your suggestions plz :bounce:

 

[SharKing]

For the 6th slot, put a wall. Not Blissey or Cresselia, 'cause some people will be angry.

And Skarmory can't have Blaze.

 

[Troggy]

For the 6th slot, put a wall. Not Blissey or Cresselia, 'cause some people will be angry.

And Skarmory can't have Blaze.

Why would anyone be angry? It's not illegal to have 2 walls, lol.

I am pretty iffy on that Skarmory spread and nature. If you really want to try to survive Electric / Fire attacks, you should be using a Careful nature. You still are going to die to STAB'd attacks either way, but it would help you as a general multipurpose wall. I don't think max speed is necessary, try to find a place you can sit that allows you to spike on things, but isn't wasting EVs. So basically, you'll want to use an Impish or Careful nature, max out HP EVs first, then allocate the rest as necessary. You could do 252 HP / a little atk / 0 def / 0 spa / some spD / some speed. I would just test out a few variations and see what fits best. I think you could improve on your current version.

On Salamence I'd do Naive > Rash, the speed is pretty important nowadays with so many +100 Pokes out there to tie.

Tri Attack / Psychic does not have very good coverage. I'd recommend changing the second attack on Pory-Z. If you want straight up coverage, you'd want to do Normal/Water, but Pory-Z doesn't get any water moves besides Hidden Power. I'd just do Dark Pulse to hit all Ghosts for SE damage. Good luck getting time in to Recover/setup in OU though...

Swellow is not that underrated, he is a nice force in UU. He just isn't going to be dominating OU anytime soon. The attacks are fine but you need Jolly > Adamant.

For Yanmega you just need to use Protect > Detect. It has more PP and is a no brainer.

The first thing I notice about this team is that if Skarmory is gone, your whole team is extremely weak to strong priority attacks. Choice Band Scizor can easily dispatch Pory-Z, Yanmega, and Swellow with Bullet Punch (It'll also get Mence if you already intimidated something else and Stealth Rock is in play). If you give Lucario 1 turn to set up (Which could easily happen since he walls Pory-Z), he could kill those four with Extremespeed. You have an insane Stealth Rock weakness that will hurt your sweepers even more.

Typewise, you need resists for Rock and Ice, you don't have any. Those two attacks are VERY common, and will destroy this team given the chance.

Right now you are asking way too much of your Skarmory. Not to mention you have a stall-esque Pokemon leading, and nothing but sweepers behind it. You need to take a look through what Pokemon are commonly played, and see how you stack up against them. I can tell you right now this team has a LOT of bad matchups, even given that you need a 6th member. What if a team has Infernape and Scizor? How would you stop that given that those are only 2 members out of 6, and they already have all your Pokes in Checkmate?

I would take some time to do some reading and find new members that support each other better with enough different types to avoid weakness to Stealth Rock or any one Pokemon.

 

[PlatinumDude]

Porygon-Z: It's better off as Timid (Nasty Plot makes up for the Sp. Attack loss)
Try this set instead:
-Nasty Plot
-Tri Attack
-Dark Pulse/Ice Beam
-Hidden Power (Fighting)/Thunderbolt

Skarmory: You're better with this nature and EVs:
Impish, 252 HP / 96 Atk / 140 Def / 20 Spd

You have a pretty big Stealth Rock weakness, so use a Rapid Spinner (like Starmie):
Starmie
Nature: Timid
Item: Leftovers
-Rapid Spin
-Recover
-Surf
-Ice Beam/Thunderbolt
EVs: 172 HP / 216 Spd / 120 SAtk

 

[SSJ4Jesus]

I've got to agree with Troggy on the skarmory. I did some damage calcs on a 252HP/252SpD, careful skarmory...DD mence can still 2HKO you with fire blast (assuming he hits), so you would need to choose between roosting every turn and stalling fire blast, or letting your skarmory die and getting an extra spikes in (maybe worth it). Stab tbolt (electivire, magnezone) will 2HKO skarmory, so you've got same problem as DD mence, but with more accuracy and PP. Stab fire blasts (magmortar, heatran) will still OHKO it.

How would a Curse snorlax do in the 6th slot, switching skarmory to a more defensive set? Snorlax can take the attacks aimed at skarmory pretty well, and curse on the switch. After curse, snorlax can survive a superpower from CB scizor and a close combat from physical infernape, and OHKO them both with fire punch and earthquake respectively.

 

[Spiny]

So the main problem here is that I have too many Flying types, creating a BIG Stealth Rock weakness. Skarmory can be edited, So can Salamence, I don't want to get rid of Porygon-Z or swellow, but Yanmega is completely interchangeable. BTW, Salamence is my Wall buster, so things like Lucario would just go down in Fire Blast, Heatran might be able to hit Yanmega if Fire Blast doesn't do it, but Yanmega still has HP-Ground to help him along (in double battles).

EDIT: Skarmory has split Speed EV's to make room for a bit more HP. Salamence now has Naive nature. Yanmega has Protect what else could I change?

 

[Troggy]

So the main problem here is that I have too many Flying types, creating a BIG Stealth Rock weakness. Skarmory can be edited, So can Salamence, I don't want to get rid of Porygon-Z or swellow, but Yanmega is completely interchangeable. BTW, Salamence is my Wall buster, so things like Lucario would just go down in Fire Blast, Heatran might be able to hit Yanmega if Fire Blast doesn't do it, but Yanmega still has HP-Ground to help him along (in double battles).

EDIT: Skarmory has split Speed EV's to make room for a bit more HP. Salamence now has Naive nature. Yanmega has Protect what else could I change?

Agreed, you need to address the type combo first. If you replace Yanmega with something not weak to Rocks, that will help significantly. If your sixth member is also not weak, that will be for the best. Even with 2 SR weaknesses, you can still consider Rapid Spin if it fits.

I think you need to decide on what this team's goal is. If it is to lay down entry hazards and win through indirect damage, I think you have too many sweepers and not enough walls/support/stall/hazards. If Skarmory is just a lead and defensive backup, then you just need to balance your sweepers strengths and weaknesses, and add a Pokemon that can compliment Skarms defenses.

Lucario may be KO'd by Fire Blast, but consider this. A +1 Lucario Extremespeed (Used Swords Dance the turn you switched in Salamence so +2 for SD - 1 for intimidate) does 60-71% to an offensive Salamence like yours. Factor in Stealth Rock damage and that is now 85-96%. If you have taken any prior damage, you will be dead, otherwise it would be a one for one trade since you will almost certainly faint due to Life Orb recoil / Sandstorm damage after attacking.

Yanmega can KO Heatran 1 on 1, but keep in mind you may be facing a Heatran with Substitute. Heatran completely walls your Pory-Z, Swellow, and Skarmory. He could easily setup a Sub against one of those. Not to mention, you could never safely switch Yanmega in against a Heatran since its Fire moves will easily OHKO.

I think you are moving in the right direction on Skarmory EVs, but simply splitting those in half is pretty sloppy. You need to find the correct speed you are trying to hit, not just allocate a random number of EVs. That will allow you to properly balance Skarmory's bulk and speed. Also, change the nature to a defensive one. You get the most stat points out of Impish.

 

[Our Wasted Years]

For the 6th slot, put a wall. Not Blissey or Cresselia, 'cause some people will be angry.

Horrible advice bro. Just because SkarmBliss is frowned upon doesn't mean he can't use it. Plus people should have things on their teams to worry about Skarm or Bliss...seeing as their really good and popular walls.

 

[Troggy]

Horrible advice bro. Just because SkarmBliss is frowned upon doesn't mean he can't use it. Plus people should have things on their teams to worry about Skarm or Bliss...seeing as their really good and popular walls.

Also this:

and

and

 

[SSJ4Jesus]

@ Spiny:

Are you using the swellow as a lead? Also, is this a single or a double team?

 

[Spiny]

^Swellow is offensive backup for Salamence.


What should I replace Yanmega for?

 

[SSJ4Jesus]

Salamence and Swellow share 2 weeknesses (rock and ice), and the latter has really poor defences. Most, if not all of the pokemon that counter (or revenge kill) Salamence will make short work of swellow. I know you don't really want to get rid of swellow, but I think it will really hold your team back in OU.

 

[Spiny]

^Hmmm...I see. Perhaps I can use Swellow if i come across some noob who thinks that Scizor should be coupled with hyper Beam (Yes, i've seen a special Scizor, and IT SUCKED!)

Would Kingdra do as a sixth slot member? I have a god one, who can destroy rock types with Hydro Pump an afterall he only takes neutral damagefrom Ice types...