ORAS OU Mega Heracross and a heavy team

[dingolino]

Hello, this is my first RMT and I've been playing on showdown for over a month now. This team is the first I've created (after a few tweaks) to try taking on the OU ladder and I think I've done well so far, peaking at 1430ish something yesterday before losing 3 in a row to sand teams. I think I can do better with more experience and with any help I can get here.

I just have one request if you're willing to help: no legendaries. Heatran, Keldeo, the Latis, genies and the whole gang. Anything else will be considered. Thank you.

So here we go!

Teambuilding

To start things off, I decided I wanted to use pokémon I liked or had some history from RBY or the cartoon. So I started with Slowbro and Clefable. These two being bulky and slow I decided to add speed and Jolteon was brought in mostly because he's my favorite eevelution but he's also fast and hits hard.

At this point I thought I needed a physical attacker. Sweeper or wallbreaker, doesn't matter what. So I went with Heracross and made him my Mega because his regular version was lackluster in tests.

Next I went with Specs Noivern + SpDef Defog Skarmory to assemble a Dragon/Fairy/Steel core. I think I wasn't experienced enough yet and hated using Skarmory even though I've always liked it and Noivern was incredibly fun to use but ultimately let me down on a few occasions. So I switched it up and picked up Defog/Roost Scizor and AV Goodra.
Scizor was extremely disappointing in his role so I slapped a Choice Band on him and things got better from there.

What I do with this team

Summing it up, it usually goes like this:

Lead with Jolteon if I think I can, kill something with HP Ice or Volt Switch for some damage.
Bring in Clefable for Stealth Rocks and TWave.
Proceed to play mostly safely with the occasional overprediction.
Heracross is a monster if he gets a chance to attack, Slowbro/Clefable/Goodra get switched in all the time, Jolteon gets 2-3 kills per game, Scizor takes care of fairies and other steel types not named Heatran.
Slowbro goes in and out all the time for sweet Regenerator.
Goodra surprises something with how bulky it is and does decent damage, taking care of any special attacking Dragon among other things.

Dude (Heracross-Mega) @ Heracronite
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Pin Missile
- Close Combat
- Bullet Seed
- Rock Blast

Mega Heracross is bonkers. His attack is through the roof and even on resisted hits he does good damage. EVs are standard, Adamant to hit harder. To be honest I think this set is pretty much what MegaMogwai ran in a video I saw. Main problem with this guy is I need to bring him in safely and make the right predictions. Moves are basically for coverage and STAB. When I first bring him in its usually to just Close Combat whatever wants to come in and get out. Rock Blast is here to kill the genies and Talonflame, Bullet Seed is insurance in case Jolteon doesn't kill the water threats and Pin Missile hits so many things very hard, not to mention people love switching their psychic types into this guy.

Dog (Jolteon) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Signal Beam

This dude is not a dog but he hits very very hard. EVs are standard, Timid to go faster. He is often my lead to catch Lando-Ts and Tank Garchomps with HP Ice or just Volt Switch out and do some damage. Thunderbolt for STAB and just doing damage if I'm in an unfavorable position. Signal Beam is for coverage but I'm thinking about going with Shadow Ball instead, since I rarely click Signal Beam.

Doofus (Slowbro) @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 176 Def / 80 SpD
Modest Nature
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Toxic
- Slack Off / Calm Mind

This dude is incredible. My switch in to Keldeo, Metagross, Medicham and a lot of other things and mainly the utmost douche that is Excadrill. EVs are standars, Modest to hit harder. I recently put in Toxic because the lack of status on my team was hurting me and have been testing him without Slack Off to try sustaining through Regenerator. I have no idea yet which is better. The lack of Slack Off lost me a game yesterday but Calm Mind allowed him to sweep another game.

Cofairy (Clefable) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Calm Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Moonblast
- Stealth Rock
- Soft-Boiled

I love this pink thing. Magic Guard laughs at Toxic, SR and stuff and allows me to switch this thing in and out without a worry. Thunder Wave is to deal with fast threats, mostly birds. Moonblast for STAB, Stealth Rock because its a must-have against bird spammers and is good damage in general, Soft-boiled for recovery and major annoyance. This is my safest lead, but I don't do it often.

Scyther (Scizor) @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Superpower

After I put a Band on this guy I went from hovering in the mid 1200s to low 1400s. Simple as that. EVs are standard, Impish to tank better. Great revenge killer, but people tend to switch out on him so I try to keep him for late game. I love using Knock Off but I'm tempted to use this guy as a Pursuit trapper. Bullet Punch for priority, which I lack greatly. U-turn for STAB and momentum, making this ideal to bring in Heracross safely and making a decent VoltTurn core with Jolteon. He also makes Diancie cry.

Fat Bastard (Goodra) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sap Sipper
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Sludge Bomb
- Dragon Tail

This thing is incredible. EVs are standard, Modest to hit harder. A monster speciall wall. Sap Sipper makes grass types horrible, especially when combined with Flamethrower, which usually OHKOs Ferrothorn. Draco makes quick work of Dragon switch ins and dents most things. Sludge Bomb is for coverage and usually a desperate move to get some damage on Fairys before dying. Dragon Tail is for phazing, something I really missed when I took out Skarmory.

THREATS (or things that give me trouble that I can remember)

- Excadrill: as I mentioned, I lost 3 in a row to sand teams. Two of those teams had SD Excadrill to make things worse. I usually lose a few mons before taking the TTar+Drill duo down and by then I'm weak. This is by far the setup I've had most trouble with so far.

- Lando-T: if I don't OHKO it with Jolteon he is trouble.

- Mega Pinsir: by the time this thing comes out I usually have no decent answer. Jolteon is too frail to take him head on and Slowbro/Clefable aren't bulky enough to tank it well and don't do that much damage to it. TWave is my best friend here.

- Mega Metagross: too much damage. I need to lure this thing out while I have healthy mons to take him down.

- Heatran: fuck this guy, especially speed invested. He's not that much trouble if I have Clefable to TWave it or Slowbro, but fuck thig guy.

- Ground types in general: I have no birds, Scizor doesn't take them well and Goodra is a special wall. If Slowbro is down/weak this shit is hard.

- Hazard stacking: no defog/rapid spin. I haven't faced these type of teams in a while though.

 

[Thatwackycruton]

The first thing I would do is go with Adamant>Impish on Scizor. The slight increase in bulk isn't worth better attacking prowess. Next, you would want to go with LO Thunderus>Jolteon. Jolteon really isn't viable right now in OU, where Raikou, Zapdos, Thunderus, and Mega Manectric are better choices. On Heracross, I think that Jolly is better than Adamant. This is escpecially important to outspeed Bisharp, since your team is 6-0ed by it otherwise. Finally, go with Bold>Modest on Slowbro. Generally, if you're investing in a stat you want a nature to boost that stat.

I'm going to leave changing the structure of the team to other more expirianced raters, but I think I pointed out most of the obvious flaws.

Tl;dr- Life Orb Thunderus over Jolteon, Adamant Nature on Sciz, Thunderus over Jolteon, and Bold nature over modest on Slowbro.

Good Luck in future battles!

 

[dingolino]

Thanks dude, but as I mentioned, I don't want any legendaries. So no go for the LO Thundurus. But the other things seem pretty good, thanks for the pointers!

 

[Thatwackycruton]

May I ask why?

 

[dingolino]

Of course. Basically, in all games I've always stayed away from the cookie-cutters, the OPs and crowd favorites and went for what I thought would be good but not meta and whatever I thought was cool for different reasons. I'd build Battle Sages in Ragnarok Online, spam Gragas in LoL when nobody played him in early S3 or Olaf post-nerfs and shit like that. In Pokémon games for me that means never using legendaries. I think I used Articuno in Blue once and then never again with any legendary.

I saw your top 10 Megas video by the way, it was good.

 

[Thatwackycruton]

Thank You. I suppose I understand where you're coming from. My personal favorite Pokemon are actually mostly lower teir- I just like to stick to the standard ones on OU. Well, good luck in future battles anyway bro. :)

 

[Vincent210]

Your entire team being grounded is problematic. Yes, a healthy M-Hera comes in and beats Excadrill 1v1 with close combat (or scissor with superpower), but prior damage seals your fate. Your incessant need to feel different or special cuts out landorus because he's a legendary, but Skarmory exists, walls driller, gives you Defog (where is your hazard clearing?) adds spike stacking potential, and synergies with Clefable defensively.

I'd like to get more in depth, but you didn't do enough groundwork before skipping to testing to have a strong base team. That list of threats you have are all standard bullet points any OU team worth playing has to address before you even move on to testing, much less RMT. They're part of the standard woodwork. How are you going to take a team into OU that doesn't beat Landorus? Especially when a scarf variant out speeds your one feeble coverage attempt (HP Ice Jolteon)?

Rather than ask that you change a million things, it might be better I ask what the core is, and you build on community suggestions from there.

 

[dingolino]

I found that Skarmory gave me a defensive presence but my offense suffered and I didn't have much success with it. I also haven't felt that I absolutely need Defog/Rapid Spin having nothing significantly weak to SR. Life was definitely easier with Defog though.

You're right about Lando-T and everything else, but that's how the cookie crumbles. As I mentioned, I'm not experienced yet to the point where I look at a team and just know everything I'm weak to. I like to learn taking a beating so to speak, learning from every mistake and getting better with every game. That's why I came here for help.

That being said, I put this team together knowing I wanted to use Clefable and Slowbro.

Thatwackycruton, I changed natures and they're definitely better, thanks.

 

[dingolino]

So if I were to be open to using egendaries, what would you suggest?

 

[Vincent210]

Plenty come to mind for building your team up. Thundurus is a better option over Jolteon. Not only is it a bigger offensive threat, but he provides priority Thunder Wave in order to assist your slow team in dealing with fast threats. M-Hera, Slowbro, Clef, Goodra, Scizor... your team is molasses and being able to neuter set-up sweepers like Mega Metagross, Zard X, Mega Gyara, and all other kinds of scary offensive pokemon allows M-Hera to do work against pokemon it'd other lose to, and generally improves your team vastly.

Defensive Landorus-T is also a no-brainer, since it flies (the less of your team touches the floor, the better, but I understand the issue), walls all Excadrill and Offensive Talonflame variants, frees your Stealth Rock slot on Clefable so that you can run Magic Guard Calm Mind (improving what I'd call your "win condition problem"). It is the meta standard for a reason, and that reason isn't a lack of creative people doing creative things. Some things just can't be replaced so easily. Alternatively Garchomp exists for similar walling though, if we're looking for alternatives.

But moving away from the Legendaries subject, let's circle back to that after identifying the elephant in the room. A Clefable + Slowbro core isn't even an offensive core; it's a defensive one.

If you'd like to use those Pokemon in tandem, I'd recommend a Mega Sableye stall team. There is a whole article on it. Things may have changed some with the passing of Shadow Tag, but the main man M Sab is still alive and kicking, and if you feel like making those pokemon team up, you're going to have a better time being defensive as opposed to offensive.

As of what we're currently working with, that being the point of thread, it's too defensive. Too many slow, grounded, bulky pokemon with middling offensive presence that, in this unfortunate combination, suffer in the OU world of hard-hitting, fast moving monster mons.


You might consider all sorts of ways of fixing that: instead of M-Hera and Jolteon, consider the more practical offensive core of Mega Pinsir and Magnezone, who would work well alongside Clefable and, after you test with them, would provide a much easier-to-understand set of offensive and defensive needs. Mag supports Clefable and Pinsir by drawing away dangerous steel-types and trapping them for his fury with Magnet Pull, while M-Pinsir is just naturally great, and wins games by clicking Swords Dance at a good entry point.

In short, M-Pinsir, Clefable, and Magnezone as a starting point would probably be a simple enough team structure for you to figure the rest out on your own through testing, and fixes a massive number of the current problems in your team even if you just make those subtitutions, since AV Goodra can take on Fast Electrics (an immediate problem the new core would've otherwise introduced).

 

[dingolino]

I've tested everything that has been brought up here and let me tell you I have not had success with LO Thundurus. This dude dies every time I get a Prankster Twave off.

I know the problem here, I didn't build this team with a specific (or meta) core in mind. The only thing I did was trying to make a Fairy/Dragon/Steel core after getting Clefable, Slowbro, Jolteon and MHeracross, hence the prior combo of Noivern+Skarmory and now Goodra+Scizor. I came here to see if this could work somehow and how I can improve.

With that in mind, I guess what I'm saying is my core would be Clefable+Dragon+Steel or a combo of this with a Slowbro thrown in somewhere.

 

[superninjadillo]

I've tested everything that has been brought up here and let me tell you I have not had success with LO Thundurus. This dude dies every time I get a Prankster Twave off.

I know the problem here, I didn't build this team with a specific (or meta) core in mind. The only thing I did was trying to make a Fairy/Dragon/Steel core after getting Clefable, Slowbro, Jolteon and MHeracross, hence the prior combo of Noivern+Skarmory and now Goodra+Scizor. I came here to see if this could work somehow and how I can improve.

With that in mind, I guess what I'm saying is my core would be Clefable+Dragon+Steel or a combo of this with a Slowbro thrown in somewhere.

I've tested everything that has been brought up here and let me tell you I have not had success with LO Thundurus. This dude dies every time I get a Prankster Twave off.

I know the problem here, I didn't build this team with a specific (or meta) core in mind. The only thing I did was trying to make a Fairy/Dragon/Steel core after getting Clefable, Slowbro, Jolteon and MHeracross, hence the prior combo of Noivern+Skarmory and now Goodra+Scizor. I came here to see if this could work somehow and how I can improve.

With that in mind, I guess what I'm saying is my core would be Clefable+Dragon+Steel or a combo of this with a Slowbro thrown in somewhere.

Thundurus has very little bulk, but it's still bulkier than Jolteon. If it dies, that means you either should've attacked and killed your opponent (it has way better sp atk than Jolteon), or you should've switched it out.

I used to dislike Thundurus as well, but after using him more I realized he's really good. So I think you should listen to the others who are telling you to use it.

I also used to hate legendaries, but what you learn after playing more is, there are non legend air that are equally, if not better than legendaries. Azumarill is equally as powerful as Thundurus, just in their different ways.

Tl;Dr: Use Thundurus, and use legendaries.

 

[Vincent210]

I've tested everything that has been brought up here and let me tell you I have not had success with LO Thundurus. This dude dies every time I get a Prankster Twave off.

I know the problem here, I didn't build this team with a specific (or meta) core in mind. The only thing I did was trying to make a Fairy/Dragon/Steel core after getting Clefable, Slowbro, Jolteon and MHeracross, hence the prior combo of Noivern+Skarmory and now Goodra+Scizor. I came here to see if this could work somehow and how I can improve.

With that in mind, I guess what I'm saying is my core would be Clefable+Dragon+Steel or a combo of this with a Slowbro thrown in somewhere.

Well for one, I imagine in a lot of those situations that you could've killed the opposing mon as opposed to using T-Wave, but that's not debatable without gameplay footage, so I'll drop the line. But more importantly, it's okay if he dies spreading paralysis if the target was picked well.

For example, if a DD Mega Gyarados had clicked Dragon Dance in front of you, and then you paralyzed it while dying to Ice Fang or something, that's a good play. Without that, their M-Gyara could've killed your entire team by outspeeding and OHKO'ing all your relevant offensive threats! But now that you've paralyzed it, Heracross can come in on the death, Mega, and be faster than the opposing M-Gyara, scoring the kill with Pin Missile and saving you from a 6-0 sweep.

Sacrificing pokemon tactically like that is a part of the game, and even if you lose a bunch of pokemon early, so long as you've weakened the right pokemon on the enemy team, all it takes is one strong pokemon to come in and sweep their team based on the chip damage their partners put in. It's not something to be too concerned about. You just have to make sure that when you apply that T-Wave, it's worth it. Prankster T-Wave Thundurus is only meant to use that button in emergencies, when an opposing pokemon is too fast and powerful for your team to shutdown in an all-out brawl. It instantly makes their pokemon slower than your available team, and introduces a negative RNG against your opponent. In short, it's damage control for situations where you'd lose or be severely put behind by 2 or more pokemon without it.

Outside of that, Thundurus can just be played like a better version of your Jolteon, being able to still do comparable, if not superior damage, and being able to choose it's move, as well as dodge Earthquakes.

Whenever you try something and find you're not getting the results you want, you should always ask yourself if you're using your tools to the best of their abilities, especially if their new. If Thundurus doesn't perform as well as Jolteon, despite being a more powerful threat with bonus options, the conclusion shouldn't immediately be "well Thundurus isn't doing the job, maybe I should pick another pokemon." It should really be "well I'm not getting the results I want with this pokemon, but am I using it correctly/effectively?"

At the end of the day, success isn't to do primarily with the pokemon you have. A good player, while unable to ever make anything work or completely make up for poorer team-building or pokemon choices, will have a lot more success than the inexperienced. And a new player can't just hope behind the seat of a pre-made meta team and collect strong results. You should be analyzing your play x10 more than you should be analyzing your team. While you should always try to make the best team possible, it's more important that you make yourself the best player possible.

Besides, if you wanna stand out, gameplay is the ticket. A player who makes daring, crazy, and cool plays, even using a cookie-cutter OU team, will be a lot more memorable, interesting, and fun to watch than someone who plays decently or meh with a team I've never seen before. Or in other words, someone who played Fizz as daringly as C9's Hai, even if it was in a meta DOMINATED by Fizz, is just much more interesting than the person who plays, like, old AP Sion just because that character doesn't come up often. It's never about the tools you use. Just how you use them.

 

[dingolino]

Thanks for taking the time Vincent210. I agree with your views, as I mentioned before I was not able to use Skarmory effectively because I was very inexperienced.

I've come to terms that I was being extremely biased towards Jolteon over Thundurus.

Now to a more specific question, if anyone is still willing to help: what would you change in my sets with the team I posted but with a standard LO Thundurus instead of Jolteon?