At A Glance
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Old things slashed out, new ones bolded in.
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Salamence, my second favorite Pokemon, (look at my username and take a gander as to why this OU team isn't based around my favorite Pokemon) has gone from Uber in Gen 4 to largely outclassed in Gen 5 OU - and because of Dragonite, his long time inferior brother. Why is this? Short answer: Multiscale. Long answer: Multiscaaaale. With his new Dream World Ability, Dragonite's bulk rises to among the best in the game when it is at full health. However, Salamence still has a few things going for him, such as Moxie and higher attacking attacking and speed stats. With that in mind, I centered the team around him and began to build.
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Scarfed Terrakion is an auto-include in pretty much any team I make nowadays because it is the best counter/check to Volcarona, and frankly I despise Volcarona. He also has decent synergy with Salamence as his most common weaknesses (Water, Ground, Fighting, and Grass) are all resisted or ineffective against Salamence. He can also take Stone Edges and take out threats that outspeed Salamence such as Latios, Latias, Alakazam, and various slower Choice Scarfed Pokemon.
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Now I needed something to resist Salamence's other weaknesses, Ice and Dragon. Steel is an obvious choice because its the only type to actually resist Dragon, and Steel types are also resistant to other weaknesses on my team such as Rock, Psychic, and Grass, The most prominent Steel types were Skarmory, Forretress, Ferrothorn, and Scizor. Skarmory and Ferrothorn didn't actually resist Ice so they weren't as useful to me. That left me with Forretress and Scizor and since most of the hits I needed my Steel type to take were special I chose specially defensive Scizor.
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Now I needed a Pokemon to learn Rapid Spin because of Salamence's weakness to Stealth Rock. The ones that jump to mind are Donphan, Forretress, Starmie, and Tentacruel. Donphan would bring me more Water, Grass, and Ice weaknesses which wouldn't be very good. I'm not a fan of Forretress at all because besides from setting up hazards and Spinning it feels like dead weight, and no healing hurts as well. This leaves me with Starmie and Tentacruel. In the end, I pick Tentacruel because it has better defensive stats as well as access to Toxic Spikes.
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At this point I had two specially defensive Pokemon, Scizor and Tentacruel, but no physically defensive Pokemon. I also had a weakness to the EdgeQuake combo, and more specifically Terrakion. Unfortunately, nothing resists both Rock and Ground, but Gliscor is a very good physically defensive Pokemon that is immune to Ground, currently the worse of the two types, and takes only neutral damage from Rock while resisting Terrakion's powerful Close Combats. With that, he earned a place on the team.
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Now I only had one spot left on my team and I was missing something very important-Stealth Rock! My team appeared fairly balanced with no obvious weaknesses but there were a few types that I was afraid my team would become weak to depending on the Stealth Rock user I decided on. Eventually I came across Swampert, who can fill the spot of my Stealth Rock user as well as second physically defensive wall without adding any weaknesses besides Grass to my team. Grass really wasn't an issue because I had two 4x resists and the only users of Grass moves are Ferrothorn and Celebi, who get obliterated by my other Grass weakness, Terrakion, anyway. With that the team was complete.
Pokemon Analysis
| Pokemon: | Swampert | Item: | Leftovers |
| Ability: | Torrent | EVs: | 240 HP / 216 Def / 52 SDef |
| Nature: | Relaxed | Moves: |
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Swampert generally serves as my lead due to being the designated Stealth Rock user on my team and beating Tyranitar, which seems to be the most common lead I've faced with this team. As it is primarily a physical wall, most of the EVs went into HP and Defense with a few in SDef. Ice Beam is to kill threats such as Dragonite, Salamence, Gliscor, Celebi, Landorus, and more. Earthquake is an excellent STAB move that allows it to hit many Pokemon for super effective damage such as Tyranitar, Terrakion, Ninetales, and more. Those two moves provide the best coverage Swampert can get in two moves. Roar allows it to check almost any threat such as Volcarona or Gyarados.
| Pokemon: | Terrakion | Item: | Choice Scarf |
| Ability: | Justified | EVs: | 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd |
| Nature: | Jolly | Moves: |
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A very standard set for Terrakion. Jolly Choice Scarf allows it to outspeed +1 Timid Volcarona and OHKO back with Stone Edge. Earthquake rounds out the perfect coverage and Close Combat provides powerful STAB capable of ripping through teams. X-Scissor is a coverage move to hit Celebi, Latios, Latias, and Reuniclus a bit harder since Terrakion doesn't really have any better options to use besides Jolly Scarfed Quick Attack (lol). The last 4 EVs are placed into Special Defense so that any Porygon-Z or any other Download users will get an Attack boost instead of a SAtk boost, which is usually good for me. There really isn't a whole lot else that 4 EVs can do.
| Pokemon: | Scizor | Item: | Leftovers |
| Ability: | Technician | EVs: | 252 HP / 40 Atk / 216 SDef |
| Nature: | Adamant | Moves: |
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Specially defensive Scizor is a very useful Pokemon. It can switch in on a variety of special attackers and use Swords Dance to start a sweep or Bullet Punch
| Pokemon: | Tentacruel | Item: | Leftovers |
| Ability: | Rain Dish | EVs: | 252 HP / 240 SDef / 16 Spd |
| Nature: | Calm | Moves: |
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Tentacruel makes a very effective Rapid Spinner for this team because it can absorb Toxic Spikes on entry, therefore being immune to poison. It is also capable of laying its own entry hazards in case I don't need a spinner. Scald is a very standard move on any bulky water due to decent power as well as a very dangerous burn chance. Hail may seem like a rather odd move but it allows me to remove any weather once the opponent's weather inducer is KOed.
| Pokemon: | Gliscor | Item: | Toxic Orb |
| Ability: | Poison Heal | EVs: | 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 Spd |
| Nature: | Impish | Moves: |
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Physically defensive Gliscor works very well to cover Tentacruel's weaknesses and vice versa. Gliscor is also among the best Pokemon in the game to take on Terrakion, which is fairly common nowadays. Ice Fang and Earthquake provide good coverage while Toxic defeats almost any bulky Pokemon that tries to switch in. Protect allows him to abuse Poison Heal and Toxic damage more effectively. Gliscor also serves as an excellent Pokemon to use against Sandstorm teams in general, helping to ease the trouble off of Swampert, who lacks recovery.
| Pokemon: | Salamence | Item: | Leftovers |
| Ability: | Moxie | EVs: | 112 Atk / 144 SAtk / 252 Spd |
| Nature: | Hasty | Moves: |
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At long last, the star of the show. I took a good look through all of the sets that Salamence can pull off this generation and frankly this one seems best. Moxie allows it to quickly gain the attack necessary to rip through teams with only one boost while gaining speed at the same time. Dragon Dance is also handy because it allows Salamence to overcome Scarfed Terrakion if it gets off two boosts. Dragon Claw is the obvious STAB move since Outrage can't be used with Dragon Dance+Moxie, and EQ and Fire Blast grant it perfect neutral coverage as well as a decent mixed attacking spread and plenty of Pokemon that can be hit for super-effective damage. Max speed is obvious to speed tie with Volcarona and other base 100s that have the same amount of speed boosts, The mix of atk and special attack allows Salamence to OHKO Steels like Ferrothorn with Fire Blast while still having as much power behind Dragon Claw and Earthquake as possible.
Threat List
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Starmie can be a lot of trouble for any team, but mine in particular has a lot of trouble. Surf, Thunderbolt, and Ice Beam allows it to OHKO every Pokemon on my team except Scizor and Swampert, who get OHKOed by Hidden Power Fire/Grass respectively if the Starmie has it and can't do much back to Starmie anyway. Terrakion can check it by outspeeding and hitting it with X-Scissor but any good physical wall can take that with ease, and Terrakion can't switch in for fear of Surf or even Psyshock.
The best way I can think of to deal with it is to replace Swampert with specially defensive Gastrodon and fit Stealth Rock onto Gliscor, but I can't think of what to replace on Gliscor so far.
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Reuniclus is another really annoying Pokemon for my team to face, as my cousin (Blah on the forums) so kindly demonstrated to me. The only move that I have that can hit it super-effectively is Terrakion's X-Scissor, but max physically bulky Reuniclus appears to take somewhere in the 30% range, so that isn't working. My only real hope is to Roar it out with Swampert a lot and consistently pound it with powerful attacks as it switches in, but unfortunately for me there are a few Pokemon that can't hit Reuniclus very hard and make good set-up fodder for it.
Adding U-Turn or Bug Bite to Scizor might help deal with it better (something I'd considered anyway) but I can't figure out what to remove.
Added Bug Bite to Scizor. As I haven't yet had a chance to see how effective it is against Reuniclus I'm not crossing Reuniclus out quite yet.
There are probably other threats too but I haven't really had too many problems with any so far.
