Clear Skies - An OU RMT

Clear Skies – RMT with no weather involved

Hi! This is Epicninjabear, with my third RMT, which is actually has been extremely successful on PO. It has a very nice ratio – 17-1 as of yet, and I wanted to try out new things without jumping on the weather bandwagon. This is also nice, as almost all of the Pokémon sets are entirely originally me. This is meant for the OU tier. If you have paid attention throughout my Pokémonig days and have seen my PL teams, way back in the day, you can see that I reuse nicknames. All Pokémon here with the exception of venomoth have been on one of my previous teams (albeit with different sets and natures) and some might recognize them. I do use this often, and I might even in gym fights, and feel free to use this on your own and make edits. I know it’s really long, but I spent a long time making this, longer than it’ll take you to read (Over 2,000 words!), so please rate and make suggestions!

Progression of “Clear Skies”
Clear Skies was once a NU team, then a team with several members that depended on the rain –

Houndoom-Gastrodoon-Tropius-Linoone-Cradily-Swellow
My original NU team that I still occasionally use.

Houndoom-Gastrodoon-Tropius-Linoone-Gorebyss-Swellow
I kicked cradily out because she wasn’t doing enough and replaced it with shell smash gorebyss

Houndoom-Azumarill-Tropius-Nidoking-Gorebyss-Swellow
Gastrodoon and Linoone needed too much setup, and Linoone kept on getting walled. ‘doon was there for them both, so overall, it wasn’t worth 2 team spots.

Venomoth-Nidoking-Gorebyss-Politoed-Tropius-Swellow
I changed Gorebyss to a defense passing version, and needed politoed to support hydration.

Venomoth-Nidoking-Vaporeon-Lucario-Tropus-Swellow
I needed something to pass wishes, and had no use for Politoed once Gorebyss was gone, even though its old choice scarf did score Kos. Lucario worked well for me, and I decided to keep, it, but I didn’t like vaporeon.

Venomoth-Nidoking-Lucario-Gyarados-Rotom-W-Swellow
My current and final team. It does have a lot of common weaknesses, but work surprisingly well. Shockingly enough, Swellow is the only member of the original NU team.


The Lead –
Venomoth (Buzzer)


-Sleep Powder
-Quiver Dance
-Bug Buzz
-Baton Pass

Shield Dust/Tinted Lens
Timid, 252 Spe, 252 SpA, 4 Def
Focus Sash

Buzzer is a very good lead, and his main purpose is to incapacitate an opposing lead, Quiver Dance a few times, and then Baton Pass out. Sleep powder is the first move to use on this set. It has 75 base accuracy, a little shaky compared to the sleep powder of compound eyes butterfree, but unlike butterfree, venomoth can pass his boosts. I can usually get Quiver Dance 1-3 times, usually 1 or two, depending on whether Sleep powder hits first turn and if the opponent switches out after going to sleep. Even though Venomoth is not a special sweeper, Bug Buzz becomes extremely powerful after a Quiver Dance, and after two or three it isn’t bad at cleaning house. It is also conveniently supereffective against tyranitar, azelf, and uxie. I usually baton pass to Rotom or to Nidoking, depending on the switch in from the sleep or the lead I am facing as of then. Nidoking has the potential to sweep whole teams, and often does due to his monsterous power and coverage, though Rotom is more bulky and can tank shots like a pro from certain Pokémon, and doesn’t hit lightly with +1 STAB hydro pump and outspeeds every Pokémon in the game with its +2 speed. (except for things like scarf Deoxys and Jolteon, but who does that?)

Shield Dust is the primary option here, as it prevents fake out from flinching, a very important thing for a focus sash lead like Buzzer. It also prevents scald, Body Slam jirachi, and all those Pokémon from hurting you with secondary effects. Tinted Lens is another option, however, because this only has one attacking move, and can do some damage against other Pokémon such as Aerodactyl, but is generally not as good as Shield Dust. I originally started with a 252 Spe/252 Hp/4 Def spread with leftovers, but I got 0hko’d by a whole host of moves anyways, and after I started using a focus sash, which is extremely useful on a lead such as this, I moved the defense EVs into special attack to kill Tyranitar.

Special Sweeper –
Nidoking (Panzer)


-Earth Power
-Ice Beam
-Thunderbolt
-Flamethrower

Encourage (Sheer Force)
Timid/Modest, 252 Spe, 252 SpA, 4 Def
Life Orb
Panzer is true to his name – he hits hard, and is my favorite Pokémon on this RMT (Ren is a close second though) After an encourage boost and a life orb (1.69x, better than specs), he mows things down like there is no tomorrow. After he is passed a spA boost and some speed from Venomoth, he kills quite a few Pokémon. His average amount of kills per game is about 3. One boost means that the opponent will lose one or two of their Pokémon, and three boosts is basically game over, as there is nothing that can survive the raw power of this other than Pokémon wearing focus sashes (Blissey takes over 50% always from this, and up to 65%, plus the occasional spD drop. Immune to toxic, easy 2hko). Earth Power has great OU coverage, and Ice Beam and Thunderbolt give him the Beambolt coverage. Flamethrower hits Ferrothorn and Scizor both. It hits almost anything for super effective damage. I go for Timid because of his disappointingly average speed when he does not get the boost from Buzzer. My main problem with Panzer is his poor defenses. For example, choice band scizor gives me 70% damage from bullet punch, and his ground typing unfortunately makes him weak to aqua jet and ice shard. Life Orb is important because it gives him a 1.3 boost to everything with the ability to change moves. He can help both Karisa and Ren out, taking electric attacks, and some fighting attacks, though Panzer doesn’t like any damage.

Bulky Phazer –

Gyarados (Karisa)


-Rest
-Sleep Talk
-Waterfall
-Dragon Tail
Intimidate
Adamant, 248 Hp/252 Def/8 Hp
Leftovers

Karisa is very good at what she does. She acts as a status absorber, taking toxic and will-o-wisp easily, and counters things like Roopushin (I forget the English name, something like cockledoo), scizor, breloom, among other things. She is very bulky, and can take many hits. One of my favorite things to do is to phaze out bulk up Roopushin with her. I don’t have stealth rocks, which would help her cause much, much more damage, but I really like my venomoth and how nicely it works with nidoking and Rotom, so it doesn’t seem like I’ll be replacing it anytime soon. Intimidate is used to weaken physical attacks, and can often put a stop to dragon dancers at +1 that would otherwise wreak havoc or dismantle the attacking force of things like haxorus. Karisa can then dragon tail them out, forcing them to re-set up. I usually bring her in on a ground immunity from nidoking and lucario/other weaknesses/resists they share. They work very well together, Karisa tanking the water, ice, and ground moves aimed at nidoking, while nidoking stops thunderbolt from killing Karisa. Karisa can also switch in on a fighting, ground, or fire for Ren. She is one of the most useful Pokémon, and I am sorry I had not discovered her tanking abilities earlier.

Physical Sweeper

Lucario (Ren)


-Swords Dance
-Close Combat
-Ice Punch
-Extremespeed/Crunch
(Essentially any the abilities, their all kind of stupid, but no inner focus)
Adamant, 252 Attack/252 Spe/4 Def
Air Ballon

Ren is a useful (and also very cute in my opinion, as I like wolves/dogs) Pokémon. He is my main physical sweeper, and works very well. Swords dance is his main thing, doubling his already high attack, and allowing him to go crazy on all sort of Pokémon with his STAB close combat. Ice Punch is important now with all gliscor running around, and with an air ballon, Ren becomes a wonderful counter to one of the Pokémon that did the same to lucario last generation. Gliscor now must hit it before it can touch Ren with earthquake, while it is killed by ice punch. The same happens to garchomp, which must attack with dragon claw before using the super effective move. Extremespeed is the standard lucario system to prevent revenge killing, but Crunch prevents Jellicent and the now-rare Shanderra from utterly walling this. Adamant is to maximize power completely. Lucario absolutely murders Ferrothorn, and uses it as set-up bait. The most ferro can do is leech seed, then get absolutely smashed by close combat, or try to power whip to knock Ren off his balloon, by which time lucario has gotten a SD in or two. He can 0hko multiscale dragonite after a SD with ice punch, a very useful landmark. Like panzer, Ren is a high risk-high return Pokémon, he hits hard, but has very little defensive bulk at all.


Revenge Killer/Sweeper

Swellow (Eden)


-Brave Bird
-Façade
-Protect
-U-Turn
Jolly, 252 Attack, 252 Sp, 4 def
Toxic Orb/Flame Orb
Guts
Eden is the veteran of this team, and the only member to withstand the scores of battles I have fought. She even showed up back in the day when PL was alive and was part of my first team there, with this same set. As you see, Eden and I are old time partners. I picked her out of the pokeball instead of Pikachu. Swellow is NU this generation, so why has she stayed this long? Swellow hasn’t even gotten any new moves either. The reason is because she is fast, very fast, and hits extremely hard, and because absolutely no one brings a Pokémon to act as a swallow check or counter. I use protect instead of the smogon quick attack because the moves are so powerful in OU, that essentially anything with 0hko her. This allows her toxic orb to activate and give her guts and 140 base power STAB façade. Brave bird vanquishes gengar and ghosties, while Façade hits like a truck. U-turn allows it to escape steels. She is very useful, and kills or damages many Pokémon for hefty damage after her 406 attack and 383 speed assails the foe. She is invaluable for dealing with whimsicotts. She can Façade them until they get tired of substituting and leech seed, then U-turn out and make the whimsicott waste a turn until it is dead.


Scarfer

Rotom-W (EnergyStar)


-Hydro Pump
-Volt Switch
-Hidden Power (Fire)
-Trick
Levitate
Modest, 252 spA, 252 Spe, 4 Def
Choice Scarf

EnergyStar is mainly a revenge killer, but can often do some damage early game when passed boosts from Buzzer, and unlike practically every member of the team and my own offensive style, has good defenses. It can take quite a beating, and can be passed the boosts against many foes safely because of this. I usually just spam hydro pump because of its sheer power when passed the boosts until I meet something I absolutely can’t kill or it runs out of pp. Unfortunately, hydro pump has very weak accuracy and often misses, but packs so much power that it is often worth it, Volt switch scouts switch ins, such as blissey, but it is important not to try to voltswitch on a garchomp or something it does not affect. If I manage to get a volt switch on a blissey, then I can easily get a free swords dance with Ren. Star has several nice ressistances such as an immunity to ground and resistances to water, fire, steel, among other things, and who’s revenge killing and power is crucial to my team.

Overall – I really like my team, and more-or-less purposefully made it so that there are representatives from every tier – Eden/NU, Ren, Panzer, and Buzzy/UU, Rotom-W OU (or BL) and Gyarados/OU or BL. The most glaring thing to me is an electric type weakness, and the team I lost to packed a zapdos and a jellicent, with nidoking taken out before it could kill zapdos. Please offer suggestions!

0 posts.... Someone please help edit...

I wouldn't really be worried about no posts. This is actually a very nice team, and I think the lack of replies only implies that others think the same. I've read through it, and honestly, I can't really find much wrong here. The one thing that stands out is that you have a bit of a weakness to Sand Rush Excadrill, so unless you are able to pass enough speed boosts to a mon that can OHKO, you can say bye to some of your team, although I could see Gyara being able to take a Rock Slide fairly well, and fortunately Rotom-W has Levitate to deal with EQ. Gliscor completely walls Excadirill, so maybe you could try it over Swellow. Not only will it wall Excadrill, but it also provides you with another Electric immunity. Just a thought.

Something else you could try is a Volt Absorb bulky Zapdos over Rotom-W, just so you can have your electric weakness covered up. Overall this is a pretty neat team. Good job.

I might even play a Scarfed Nidoking. They are maximum rapage.

I actually like the nido with a life orb because the ability to change moves in invaluble during a battle and nidoking usually gets speed boosts from venomoth.

@Buck It's LightningRod, not Volt Absorb.

What might be interesting is a Calm Mind Raikou. If I'm not mistaken, it did get Volt Absorb as it's DW ability, and that would pair well with Gyara. And why. Does no one. Use. NASTY PLOT LUC T.T

Lucario is a bit slow.. with the SD set you get access to extreeme speed. So if you can kill most frail sweepers that are faster than luc with that. =p