Gen 4 My first OU team: Make Balance Great Again

Hey smogon and thank you for checking out my first DPP OU team! I started to learn the older gens since I'd like to expand my knowledge as a player and after looking over all the old, very detailed, analysis this is what I came up with. This team has been working really well for me on the DPP ladder but I am pretty sure that there is a lot of room for improvement & would love to get some advice from you guys :)


Make Balance Great Again

The teambuilding process:

I noticed pretty fast that picking a lead is very important this generation. Since I wanted to build a more balanced team, specially defensive Hippowdon is my lead of choice. It matches well against Dragonite and Jirachi which I've been seeing a lot of and can set up Stealth Rock immediately.


Next, I was planning to add a Rapid Spin user. Starmie naturally came to mind, however, I disliked the ghost weakness in the later stages of teambuilding so I switched to Tentacruel which forms a nice core with the next member of the team and provides Toxic Spikes.



Celebi was chosen as the next member. I really wanted to try this mon as it looks very solid on paper, forming a defensive core with Tentacruel by resisting Ground, Electric & Psychic and offering a variety of support options with good offensive pressure.



Aeorodactyl is my next member, trying to make full use of pressure, toxic spikes and sand. Its speed is phenomenal and combined with taunt it can annoy both offensive as well as defensively-oriented mons serving as the main win-condition.


Next I was looking for a Steel-type to add and Choice Band Scizor is obviously bringing a lot to the table. Besides offering very powerful priority, it is able to grab momentum for this otherwise clunky team and trap problematic mons such as Starmie via pursuit.


Last but not least Heatran got added as the Choice Scarf user of the team. Other options I considered were different forms of Rotom and Scarf Infernape but I believe Heatran to fit best as it is quite bulky and forms a fire-water-grass core which tend to be quite consistent.

The team in-depth:

Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Stealth Rock
- Roar
The lead of the team, Hippowdon. A specially defensive set got chosen so it can match up well against Dragonite/Jirachi and phase out special attackers such as Rotom and Gengar as well as beat electrics. This Hippowdon set has excellent mixed bulk and is a very reliable user of Stealth Rock against a wide variety of mons. It also summons sand, a very important part of this teams strategy.



Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 3 Atk / 30 SpA
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Electric]
Tentacruel is the hazard control of the team. Although it lacks reliable recovery its humongous special defense allows it to spin a few times quite comfortably throughout the match. The addition of Toxic Spikes + Sand allows Aerodactyl to be extremely annoying. This set is very standard for Tentacruel, however, I opted for Hidden Power [Electric] over Sludge Bomb since I believe hitting Gyarados, otherwise a huge problem to this team, and annoying water-types is more important than hitting Celebi and Shaymin in this case.



Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 Spe
Bold Nature
- Grass Knot
- Recover
- Calm Mind
- Baton Pass
Celebi brings a lot of useful resistances to the team and functions as a glue pokemon. It pairs really well with Tentacruel and can has solid offensive presence. It can grab some SpA boosts helping its teammates Heatran or Tentacruel as well as itself. The EV's are for outspeeding non Choice Scarf Jolly Tyranitar while maintaining maximal physical bulk.



Aerodactyl @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 120 Atk / 4 Def / 136 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Roost
- Taunt
- Rock Slide
This is the star of the team and a great partner for Hippowdon. Between sand, Toxic Spikes, Pressure & paraflinch shenanigans this mon can be incredibly painful to deal with. It boasts great speed and paired with taunt it makes for a very annoying threat for defensive pokemon to deal with. The EV spread allows it to outspeed base 115 pokemon such as Starmie, Azelf and Raikou while maintaining enough atk to OHKO Dragonite and Gyarados after Stealth Rock with two turns of sandstorm. The rest is put into HP and physdef.


Scizor @ Metal Coat
Ability: Technician
EVs: 208 HP / 252 Atk / 48 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
- Roost
- Swords Dance
Scizor is very valuable to the team. It has powerful priority, gains much needed momentum and serves as a win condition. Knock Off removes items for Aerodactyl to be even more annoying. It appreciates Hippowdon's ability to set up Stealth Rock and Aerodactyl forcing a lot of switches. The EV's are very straight-forward running max Attack with max HP since you have priority anyways. 48 (44 works as well) Speed EV's are used to outspeed base 70 pokemon.



Heatran @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Dragon Pulse
- Explosion
Choice Scarf Heatran is the revenge killer of the team. It has incredible power even without a damage boosting item and very solid bulk/typing. Dragon Pulse is chosen as 3rd move since it can revenge kill Kingdra and Dragonite without using Explosion. Speaking of which, Explosion is used in case you cant break the opposing team's core with other means or if it puts you in a very solid position as a nuke to kill stuff like Blissey and a Hasty nature doesnt weaken it.



Make Balance Great Again
Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Roar
- Stealth Rock

Aerodactyl @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 120 Atk / 4 Def / 136 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rock Slide
- Taunt
- Roost
- Substitute

Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Grass Knot
- Recover
- Calm Mind
- Baton Pass

Scizor @ Metal Coat
Ability: Technician
EVs: 208 HP / 252 Atk / 48 Spe
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
- Roost
- Swords Dance

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 3 Atk
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Heatran @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Explosion
- Dragon Pulse

 
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Triangles

Big Stew
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I used to have a really similar team with specs zapbird in the lead over aero, and SD sciz instead of band. Cele had EP over recover, storm over knot, and a more aggressive spread. Both these variants are Stronk. Consider sticking some speed into Tenta because a fast boy is nice.
 
I really enjoy the mons you've selected on this team. Without changing the structure, a few ideas:

Balance needs a set-up sweeper. Aerodactyl is a nice idea, but Balance ends up being worse than both stall and offense if there is no mon to win the match for you.

An ideas is to replace HP Fire & Thunderwave with Calm Mind + Baton Pass on Celebi. Celebi already forms a nice core with Heatran and Tentacruel, who will appreciate the boosts.

An alternative to that idea would be to forgo Substitute on Aerodactyl for Curse, and shift the Attack EVs to Special Defense. With one Curse, Aero will gain some bulk while still outspeeding an entire stall team. Even with two Curses, you'll still outspeed Skarmory. To protect your team against status, you could change Celebi to Perish-Turn version with U-Turn, Perish Song, Heal Bell, Recover. This will give the team a more reliable answer to Gyarados (you can Perish on Bounce turn and get out of there), Substitute Users, and defeat a last man set-up dude that is tough to beat. Paralysis is counterproductive on a team centered on a fast toxi-stall Pokemon, especially one that already has Scarf Heatran to defeat steel types.

I'm not sold on Specially Defensive Hippowdon simply beacuse you have no way to actually hit Gengar and Rotom. Scizor handles Gengar easily enough if you shift some Attack EVs over to Special Defense. Electric types aren't really a threat since your team is already using Toxic Spikes, and Aerodactyl beats Zapdos.
 
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I know I'm extremely late in posting this, but I just wanted to say this is an extremely strong team and I like it a lot.

That said, I agree with what everyone has said above. Every idea that has been suggested has been good. I have made some changes, trying as best as I can to maintain the structure that you have established. But before I get into my changes, I'd like to give some useful pointers and advice after messing around with the team and building off the ideas that have been stated above.

I don't think Tentacruel is a reliable Gyarados check at all. Offensive Gyarados that have earthquake will both outspeed and OHKO Tentacruel as it comes in. Tentacruel's defense, even with your investment, is poor and in my opinion the standard spread does not maximize Tentacruel's capability and niche in the OU metagame. The new Tentacruel I came up with has enough speed to outpace jolly Breloom and OHKO with sludge bomb (also giving sludge bomb more power to handle Gyarados and other grass types). I wanted to invest as much physical defense as possible in the Tentacruel to make it overall a more reliable switchin vs a variety of threats.

Scizor with some special defense and SD feels like a superior option. U-turn > bug bite on SD will suit the team nicely, maintaining the U-turn that you had on the banded set. If you choose to run band, I highly recommend taking 4 EVs away from speed and putting them into SpD to always live a LO starmie hydro pump after rocks. If you want more speed, you can take some EVs away from HP and put them into SpD to maintain surviving mie's LO Hpump.

Gyarados will always be tough for this team because Heatran is the scarfer, that's naturally the case. The inclusion of Celebi is a great choice to help with Gyarados trouble. I suggest max speed on Aerodactyl to outspeed adamant Gyarados at +1. The speed control and the backup will be very useful, I feel. At the least, if you don't want max speed, I would suggest 144 EVs in speed to reach 365 speed, outspeeding Tyranitar after a dragon dance (DDtar can be threatening too, because Heatran is your scarfmon). The most difficult Gyarados to handle will likely be jolly taunt bounce Gyarados. Baiting out the bounce with Celebi, then switching into Hippowdon and roaring the Gyarados is a good tactic to force Gyara to take rocks again.

Leech seed > Twave is a solid option on Celebi for the reason stated above that paralysis support might not be necessary for the team. Also the leech seed will be nice for sub Aero to abuse.

I agree that SpD Hippo is not a necessary investment. I have used a well-rounded Hippowdon spread that can deal with both MixNite and DDOutrage (CB lead Dnite outrage as well). This will both add fortification vs physical attackers and stay in tune with your goals for Hippowdon. That spread will be included below in my revisions. If you want, investing 4 EVs from SpD into Atk and running Ice Fang for dragons is an option.

After the changes I mentioned above, I did some nuanced EV-adjusting. The final version I came up with is below.

Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 236 HP / 32 Def / 236 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Roar

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 248 HP / 184 Def / 60 SpA / 16 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Surf
- Sludge Bomb

Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 8 SpA / 36 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Grass Knot
- Recover
- Leech Seed
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Aerodactyl @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 136 HP / 120 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Roost
- Taunt
- Rock Slide

Scizor @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
EVs: 220 HP / 56 Atk / 220 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Roost

Heatran @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Dragon Pulse
- Explosion
 

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