Magnenite - a bulky offensive team

[Ruscour]

Hello everyone, I'm Ruscour, and this is my first RMT. I've put a bit of thought into this team and it looks pretty strong from my end, however I'd love some input to make it better. The team revolves around bulky offense and offensive synergy.

Team Building Process

Well, I wanted to build a team based around my favourite 'mon, Dragonite. I think mixed Dragonite is a really strong set at the moment, and I wanted to build a team around this monster of a set. However, Dragonite can have some trouble, so I needed to build a team to remove his counters.

And the best at that is Magnezone. The bane of steels and bulky waters alike, Magnezone is a great answer to Dragonite's problems. Scizor locked into anything that isn't Superpower simply gets OHKO'd. Dragonite also has trouble with entry hazards, so I could either go with a lead that prevents Stealth Rock, or I could run a spinner. I went with the former.

One of my favourite 'mons, Crobat. I chose Crobat for three reasons; his speed allows him to Taunt, thus preventing Stealth Rock, his STAB Brave Bird really hurts the majorly common Machamp leads, and all four of his type weaknesses (Rock, Electric, Ice and Psychic) are resisted by Magnezone. I know I needed a sweeper and a Ghost to block Rapid Spin and Explosion, and both of these roles are well covered by...

Gengar's main peril, Ghost and Dark-type moves, are resisted by Magnezone. Substitute Gengar is really strong, if he can get a Substitute up, it's not easy to stop him. Mixed Dragonite is great for breaking stall, and with special walls out of the way by Dragonite, and Steels cleaned up by Magnezone, with a Substitute up, Gengar is not going to have much trouble sweeping. I still needed a Stealth Rock user, a tanky Pokemon, and some sort of pseudo-haze. And a Pokemon that fits all those roles is...

Oh, yes. Swampert's use has been somewhat diminished lately due to the revival of Grass Pokemon, such as Celebi and Shaymin. Nevertheless, Swampert is the only Pokemon in this lineup that is actually bothered by these attacks, so the weakness means little. Swapmert's bulk allows for Stealth Rock to be easily setup, and Roar allows for the removal of problematic stat boosters, or Baton Pass chains. And finally, I needed a revenge killer that complement's the current team's typing, which led me to...

Choice Scarf Heatran is an old set. It's been a popular set for a very long time, and counters very muchly exist to nullify it. At the same time, it's still very, very powerful. Three Pokemon on the team are immune to Ground-type moves, and Water-type moves can allow Dragonite to nicely switch in. Heatran has the ability to destroy Grass-types, which are the bane of Swampert. Overall, I felt that Heatran was the revenge killer that best fit the lineup.

The team in-depth

Crobat

Leftovers
Jolly
104 HP / 152 Atk / 252 Speed

Brave Bird
Taunt
Roost
U-turn

Crobat was a very common lead, but then it went away, probably due to Azelf. I've noticed a growing trend of unfamiliar leads, with the exception of Machamp, which is in every second match I play. Because of this, Crobat is a solid counter to everything. It deals with Machamp very well due to a STAB-boosted Brave Bird, and other leads are unable to setup due to Taunt. Stealth Rock is a major pain in Dragonite's behind, and Crobat, a blindingly fast Taunt user, is a great response to this. I consider U-turn to be a troll move, it is annoying as hell to play against and does well when it comes to the mindgame side of things, so that's why I run it, plus Dark and Psychic types hate it.

Magnezone

Leftovers
Magnet Pull
Naive
40 Atk / 252 SpA / 216 Speed

Substitute
Thunderbolt
Hidden Power Fire
Explosion

Magnezone is one of my two Substitute users, and one of my two Explosion users. Magnezone is very good at destroying Steels that bother Dragonite and Gengar, so that's why it's here. Thunderbolt also dents Bulky Waters which this team could have trouble with, and Hidden Power Fire is an easy OHKO onto Scizor. Explosion is for when things go bad, as they often do. Once I've done enough scouting to know there won't be another Steel, it's generally safe to Explode onto a major threat. Maggie has great synergy, and is just an all-around great Pokemon.

Dragonite

Life Orb
Mild
116 Atk / 200 SpA / 192 Speed

Superpower
Draco Meteor
Thunderbolt
Roost

Oh, Dragonite. Dragonite is a Pokemon that's long been a favourite of mine, but has never seen much use. Because of its 4x weakness to Ice, as well as being thoroughly outclassed in nearly every role by Salamence, Dragonite never saw much play, because it was too strong for UU, but not strong enough for OU, and BL is a really bad place to see your favourite Pokemon. I suppose it's better than NU, but anyways.

With Salamence and Latias out of the way, Mixed Dragonite absolutely wrecks stall. Superpower is an advantage that Salamence never had, and Draco Meteor just hurts everything. I don't run a Fire move with my Dragonite like many do, and the reason for that is because Steels are knocked out by Magnezone, and anything which needs Flamethrowering is just bait for Heatran. Physical walls eat Draco Meteor, Special walls eat Superpower, pesky Waters eat Thunderbolt, and anything that has difficulty denting Dragonite gets outhealed by Roost. Plus, he's just so goddamn cute.

Gengar

Leftovers
Timid
4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Speed

Substitute
Shadow Ball
Focus Blast
Hidden Power Fire

I personally hate moves with a low accuracy, but it's hard to argue with Focus Blast when Gengar doesn't have access to Aura Sphere. Focus Blast and Shadow Ball give unresisted coverage, which is what you want as a special sweeper, and Hidden Power Fire is there for Steels that Magnezone didn't get a chance to take out, or Grass-types, or whatever. It's just a good move to have, y'know? Ghosts are quite the necessity with Explosion and Rapid Spin running around, and Rotom is pretty unmanly, so Gengar takes the cake for the best fit, and Substitute + 3 Attacks makes for a great offensive set.

Swampert

Leftovers
Relaxed
240 HP / 216 Def / 52 SpD

Stealth Rock
Earthquake
Ice Beam
Roar

Swampert pretty much defines Bulky Water. He's tanky, he can easily set up Stealth Rock, very little OHKOs him (and Grass moves can be lol'd at by Heatran), and he can get rid of Pokemon that try to set up with Roar. I felt like Swampert was a necessity because the team is very offensive, and while Swampert isn't quite a wall, he can answer well to things that piss an offensive team off, while providing good type coverage for the team. Swampert deserves some delicious .

Heatran

Choice Scarf
Naive
252 SpA / 252 Speed / 4 SpD

Fire Blast
Earth Power
Explosion
Hidden Power Grass

Heatran is a great revenge killer. Everybody loves to launch a Fire-type move at Magnezone, and Heatran can then find the perfect opportunity to switch in and cause some hell. As a revenge killer, he has near-perfect coverage, a crazy-strong STAB-boosted Fire Blast, Earth Power for killing the likes of Infernape, Empoleon, other Heatran, etc, Explosion is for things that are just out of hand, and Hidden Power Grass gives some nice coverage seeming as Grass is a type that no other 'mon in the team has an attack for; mainly for getting rid of Bulky Waters, because the only Water resist on the team is Dragonite, and Bulky Waters often run Ice Beam, which is scary. I think Heatran is a solid addition to the team.

Summary

Well, that's my team. I really need input on it, because I'm hoping that this team will be my general team for the cartridge games until Generation 5 comes around, and I want it to be solid overall before I go out of my way to make that happen. Any input you guys can offer is very well, on the team, and on my selection process. I want to learn more, so any and all advice is appreciated.

I can see some problems myself. I think this team would have a hard time against DD Gyarados and not have a huge answer to that, likewise with Crocune and other offensive bulky waters. I also have no physical attacks outside of Brave Bird on Crobat, Explosions, Superpower on Dragonite, and Earthquake on Swampert, so perhaps I should switch a Special sweeper for a Physical, or something. Suggestions suggestions!

Also going to shamelessly promoting my thread in Stark relating to a different, more strategic style of tournament play, the thread can be found here.

 

[Ruscour]

Bump, lots of views but no-one saying anything :-(

 

[Fungal Paranoia]

This is actually quite an interesting team that doesn't rely on T-tar/Scizor/Rotom, which I like to see. Only possible thing I think you are missing is the lack of surf on swampert or lack of a spinner because if you get outsped by a scarf lead. It really spells doom for your Nite. Something you may want to change is the speed on Magnezone, is there a specific pokemon you are trying to outrun? Since Magnezone is slow as it is and is coming usually on the switch a locked bullet punch on scizor makes the speed useless. Maybe convert the speed to Magnezones defence so it takes VERY little dmg from Scizor.

 

[Ruscour]

I was very flattered by the VM I was sent, everyone seems to think the team is pretty solid (I posted this RMT in other places). Thanks for your ideas Fungal Paranoia, much appreciated. I don't really know where to fit in a spinner, and I did think about it. I want to keep Magnezone's speed EVs because he also serves as a counter to bulky Waters. I ripped the EVs off the analysis, I'll look at what that's designed to counter and make a decision accordingly.

I do have some questions I'd like answered. Although that's not why I chose them, pretty much every set I've used is the top of the analysis page for each respective Pokemon. Hence, all the sets are likely very predictable. How big of an issue is this. And also, am I fine without a dedicated physical sweeper?

 

[Fungal Paranoia]

Most dedicated physical sweepers are easily countered. I'd use one that is either unpredictable or a mixed. D-nite serves well, but can easily be countered. I'm going to try out a variant of this team on shoddy battles to test out crobat mainly.

 

[afterburn]

Hi.

Threats
Bulky DD Gyarados
Offensive Suicune
Offensive Starmie


So this looks like a solid team overall, but it seems that Gyarados can easily switch on Heatran locked into the wrong move, and even Swampert (with Taunt). It can then do huge amounts of damage to your team between +1 Waterfall and Stone Edge. Your best bet after its set up is exploding with Heatran, meaning you're losing a valuable revenge killer to a number of threats. Other offensive water type threats such as Suicune and Starmie look like they can harass this team; Suicune can set up on Heatran locked into Fire Blast, and at +1, it seems it can land a hefty hit on every member with +1 Hydro Pump/Ice Beam. Your chance of survival against it is again exploding with Heatran, and pHazing with Swampert, the former can only come in after Suicune kills something, the latter loses a huge chunk from +1 Hydro Pump. Starmie is also a pain to face for this team by coming in on Swampert's Ice Beam or Heatran after it kills one of its team mates with Fire Blast. From there it can fire off Hydro Pump that only Dragonite resists, but is dealt with a swift KO with LO Ice Beam.

I personally think Magnezone is the weakest link of the team. I really don't see what it's helping with; You say that it helps take down Steel- types that bother Dragonite and Gengar, but really Steel- types don't like switching in on Mixed Dragonite or even a Gengar wielding HP Fire. My main suggestion to solving your problems is adding Vaporeon and Roserade into the mix; Swampert should go in the lead slot, your basic reason of having Crobat is that it handles other leads, and thats it. With Swampert in the lead spot, I think you can move in Vaporeon to handle Bulky DD Gyarados with Hidden Power Electric, while gaining a great switch-in to Infernape and Heatran. Vaporeon also has great synergy with Dragonite and Heatran. Dragonite tends to attract Ice Beam/Ice Shard, which Vaporeon can take on, and Heatran attracts the common Surf/Hydro Pump which Vaporeon can take to replenish its health. 60 HP/216 Def/232 SDef and a Bold nature is a good spread, with Surf/HP Electric/Wish/Protect. HP Electric makes it easier in handling Gyarados, as well as being a check to Suicune and Starmie, even more so, with the following suggestion. Have you ever thought about Specially Defensive Roserade over Magnezone? It seems to me that Toxic Spikes can aid this team in handling offensive water types, and stall much much better. Offensive Water types with Ice Beam, switch in on Dragonite at -2, you go to Vaporeon, and stall them out. This means next time Dragonite comes in, it's going to have a field day with the opponent's team. Gengar becomes even more deadly, Substitute+Toxic Spikes means you'll be giving any grounded non-steel type hell. I think this set will allow you to handle Suicune and other specially based offensive threats very well:

Roserade @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/120 Def/136 SpD
Calm nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Toxic Spikes
- Sleep Powder
- Grass Knot
- Hidden Power Fire - better insurance against Steel types. Rest also isn't an absolute necessity thanks to Vaporeon's wish.

Also, I think Subsplit Gengar is a great Pokemon with Toxic Spikes. Keep yourself healthy with Pain Split, Hit hard with LO Attacks, and leech the foe's health with accumulating poison and Pain Split. Same spread as you're current Gengar, but with Life Orb, and Pain Split over Hidden Power Fire. You may also want to try Fire Blast over Thunderbolt on Dragonite, because Water types have become much easier to handle, and Toxic Spikes don't hit Steel- types.

Other than that, GL!

 

[Ruscour]

Thanks for your response, The LegendKiller. I tried your suggestions and I am both pleased and displeased, in a sense. Ultimately, the purpose of Crobat as a lead was to prevent Stealth Rock, and rather often, it did. Not only that, but a quick Taunter was very useful in general. Moving Swampert to the lead position means that Stealth Rock always goes down on both sides, plus there are a lot of Grass-types about, which is why I think Swampert shouldn't be a lead.

Even with Specially Defensive Roserade, she still dies really quickly. While she's great for getting Flash Fire on Heatran (and a Flash Fire boosted Fire Blast is an OHKO on Infernape after Rocks, which I found out the fun way), it can be difficult to get two stacks of Toxic Spikes, which are rarely effective because there are lots of Steel-types and things that just flat out resist them. The team wasn't designed to stall, and the semi-stall that it currently is isn't as strong as I'd like it to be.

If something does happen to get Toxic'd, Vaporeon stalls very well. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen as often as I'd like, but still. I'll rethink the team a bit. Pain Split Gengar went okay, I didn't really mind missing out on the extra attack, but I don't really have any trouble beating the likes of Blissey anyway, because it's an OHKO with Superpower.

Requesting more input!

 

[Ruscour]

Obligatory bump.

 

[Siegrin]

Your Dragonite set doesn't really need the superpower, I mean, you could replace that with Extremespeed, Superpower gives you 100% chance in losing attack and defence, so why would you even want that?

 

[Aerrow]

Hi there, it seems like you have assembled a great team here. Despite that, this team has a couple of weaknesses which could quite possibly limit its performance in battle; these threats include dragon dance Dragonite, agility Empoleon and bulky dragon dance Gyarados as well as smaller threats including Infernape and swords dance and agility Lucario. Luckily it doesn't take much to help check all of these aforementioned threats, but firstly, I suggest a change to your current Dragonite set. I recommend changing it to the standard dragon dance variant as not only will this change help against the aforementioned threats, it will also give your team a Pokemon that can benefit from the various support the Pokemon in your team are giving, namely Magnazone eliminating steel types and the Heatran/ Swampert duo punching major holes in the opponent's team. The set is shown below for easy reference.

[box]

Dragonite (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 HP/52 Atk/204 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk,-SpAtk)
- Dragon Claw
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Roost[/box]
[box]

Rotom-h @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Spd/252 SpAtk/4 SpDef
Timid nature (+Spd,-Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Overheat
- Thunderbolt
- Trick[/box]

Along with the dragon dance Dragonite suggestion, I also think that another change would be beneficial to your team - replacing your current Gengar set with a choice scarf Rotom-h (the set is shown above for reference). Even with Dragonite's set being changed, Pokemon like Gyarados, Lucario and Infernape will still present threats to your team; scarf Rotom-h can take care of these problems. Both Infernape and Lucario are outpaced by scarf Rotom and are inflicted huge amounts of damage through Rotom's Overheat (for Lucario) or Shadow Ball (for Infernape) while Gyarados is also outpaced even after one Dragon Dance and is KOd by Thunderbolt. I hope this rate helped and good luck!

 

[Ruscour]

Your Dragonite set doesn't really need the superpower, I mean, you could replace that with Extremespeed, Superpower gives you 100% chance in losing attack and defence, so why would you even want that?

To beat Blissey, derp.

And thank you Aerrow, with the amount of setup I was giving Dragonite I was thinking it was a crime to not have him set up. I do prefer Gengar over Rotom, but I'll definitely try him out, and I'll probably have more success...but Gengar is just so badass.

 

[Cynth]

Great team.


I like the gengar, but as someone stated that all of your major threats are Bulky waters and LO Starmie. So instead of replacing too many pokemon, I would suggest changing Gengar's set into a Choice Scarf Gengar.

Someone suggested this in my RMT thread earlier, and would make a great revenge killer for DDGyarados, Starmie, and possibly Empoleon.

Gengar (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 Spe / 252 SpA
Timid nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Thunderbolt
- Trick


I would have also suggested Gengar would be a lead, but keep Crobat because Machamps are becoming too prevalent in OU anyway and Crobat's a natural check for it.

I hope this helps. I don't usually team rate, but I lurk other threads to see what's being used these days.


Roserade's pretty good, but even after the defensive EV spread, she's still pretty frail. You can use her, but you gotta be careful who you're switching into. But that's just me who's used to playing with LO and ScarfRose

 

[Faladran]

I think it would probably be better to keep Gengar the way it is on this team. Choice Scarf Gengar is generally inferior to Scarf Rotom, and Gengar's main purpose here is to team up with Magnezone to eliminate Steel-types, allowing Dragonite to have an easier time dealing damage. However, the weakness to opposing Water-types remains a big problem. I think this can be fixed quite easily by switching a couple of your Pokemon's sets. For Heatran, I would recommend trying out the PasshoTran variant, which functions as a great lure for opposing waters:

[box]

Heatran @ Passho Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 36 HP / 252 SpA / 220 Spe
Nature: Mild (+SpA, -Def)
- Explosion
- Fire Blast

- Earth Power
- Hidden Power Grass​

[/box]

Scarf Heatran is by no means a bad set, but it is rather outdated in the current metagame, making it very predictable and easy to play around. This set has the benefits of a large amount of power as well as the freedom to switch attacks. Fire Blast provides you with a powerful and solid STAB attack, and hits remarkably hard with a Mild nature. Earth Power can be used to take down opposing Heatran switch-ins, provided that you manage to predict correctly. HP Grass is useful for hitting Swampert as well as any other Water-types on the switch. Finally, Explosion works together with Passho Berry to fix up your water weakness somewhat. Heatran will be able to survive attacks even as strong as LO Starmie's Hydro Pump, and KO back with either Explosion or HP Grass, depending on how weakened the opponent is. As an added bonus, Explosion can also take out special walls such as Snorlax and Blissey, opening up opportunities for Gengar to sweep.​

One of the problems with making this change is that you are left more open to SD Lucario. This concern can be alleviated by simply switching Magnezone to the Choice Scarf set. I find Magnezone to be ideal for eliminating Steel-types quickly, so the Scarf set should be a good fit for your team. If you decide to go with these suggestions, it may also be a good idea to try out a Dragon Dance set for Dragonite, as brought up by Aerrow. This will allow you to take advantage of the absence of steels once Magnezone and Gengar have done their jobs, as you will be able to sweep with unresisted coverage using only your Dragon-type moves.​

Good luck with your team!​