RMT PU Team: Top Of The Bottom

[Team Rocket Fan]

The Team:

Chimecho (M) @ Light Clay
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 208 Def / 48 SpD
Calm Nature
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Magic Coat
- Thunder Wave

This set offers great defence against most attackers, and also Chimecho's great ability, levitate offers ground immunity meaning that such common moves ilke EQ are useless. Dual Screens and Light Clay, a great lead combination supports the whole team for some turns allowing them to set up easier. Thunder Wave can force an opponent's switch out destroying their lead or giving Chim' the time needed to set up Light Screen/Reflect. Finally, a star of this set, Magic Coat offers the awesome ability to counter things like Stealth Rock, (Toxic) Spikes or Sticky Web. So, Ariados, Torkoal, Delibird and others get a taste of their own power.

Noctowl (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Insomnia
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Defog
- Toxic
- Night Shade
- Roost

Although Noctowl doesn't seem impressive and din't attract me so much eather, I really needed a Defoger and it proved itself to be an awesome staller, supporter and wall! She manages to take down about 3 pokemon every time alone! Insomania gives immunity against Victreebel's and Lilligant's Sleep Powder. Her defences are awesome! Leftovers and Roost are also a great combination! Defog is of course in case opposing leads manage to set up against us. We switch Cimecho out and this owl in that takes no effect from Sticky Web,Spikes or Toxic Spikes. Toxic and Night Sade are a must! They give Noctowl the chance to easily KO most pokemon. I'm surprisingly impressed by her!

Persian (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Hyper Voice
- Power Gem / Thunderbolt
- Water Pulse

My favourite pokemon ever!! Persian, while being outclassed in this generation can still be powerful in the lower tiers with his classic Nasty Plot set. Technician + Life Orb + Nasty Plot = Sweep. Hyper Voice strongest and STAB which hits behind annoying subsitutes. Water Pulse offers awesome coverage against common Rock/Ground types like Rhydon or Golem. it also hits the feared by many Pyroar. Persian's only problem is Soundproof Mr Mime although it's not as common as Filter Mr Mime and that's why smogon supports HP Ghost but since I don't see him a lot I prefer to counter the legendary PU Articuno with Power Gem that will OHKO it as long as it's in its standard PU set. Thunderbolt is another option against Pelliper and other common flying or water types. I support Power Gem a bit more but I'd like to know your opinion.

Gold (Flareon) (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Guts
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Flare Blitz
- Superpower
- Facade

The golden Flareon can be pretty strong if used right although not that great it has tremendous attack stat and after guts activation it becomes invincible with Flare Blitz a really powerful STAB which will cost some HP and along with bad poison it is really risky. On the other hand its use is not always a must since an even stronger move, Facade, unleashes great power with no cost at all! Superpower is also a coverage risky as well, so it's preferd as a last resort. Quick Attack could also work but no slot is free.

Kadabra (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Magic Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Energy Ball

Kadabra's amazing ability Magic Guard ignores Stealth Rock and status effects. Focus Sash gives him a chance to set up Calm Mind and KO 1-2 pokemon, at least. It also work good with his ability. Psychic his most powerful STAB with chance to lower SpDef. Shadow Ball handles opposing other Kadabras and Energy Ball is agin for Rock/Ground types or Marshtomps. MAX Speed in order to counter many fast pokemon.

Arbok (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Coil
- Gunk Shot
- Sucker Punch
- Earthquake

Arbok can easily sweep through most PU teams. This dangerous Cobra indimtates ruining physical attackers forcing switch outs and giving him a free turn to Coil. Then king Cobra becomes invincible with Max Speed and Life Orb attacks that give him coverage. Gunk Shot work great with Coil and destroys most opponents in one shot with poison STAB and status chance! EQ is awesome against most types and is overall a great balanced move. Sucker Punch gives Priority and KOs faster opponents threatening Arbok.

So, what do U think?? Thanx in advance!

 

[Scattered mind]

Hi TRF, great to see a PU team here. I haven't experienced much in this tier but that sure can motivate me to start
Anyway here are some points that I think can improve your team:

Noctowl: I think Whirlwind is a very important move on Noctowl if it is aimed to switch in on Lilligant. So you can actually stop it from setting up on you and potentially finish your Noctowl fast with HP Rock/Ice and Lum berry ( which Lilligant tends to carry ) to avoid Noctowl's Toxic.
Persian: Technician Persian can have a boosted Hidden power, which means you can have 90 BP Ghost move to destroy Ghost types which otherwise can easily set up on you with Sub.
Flareon: Toxic orb with the main attack being a recoil move is not recommended. Flareon would faint very fast after recoil and toxic damage. Choice band is a much better item for it as it's boosting all of it's moves ( Plus Guts already boost all of your moves if you get toxic or paralysis) and since Flareon doesn't like to stay in for long, the fact that you are locked into a move is not really bad when most of the times you will just hit and run.
I think that Facade can be replaced for Quick attack giving you priority in crucial times against faster threats.

The rest seems fine to me except maybe Kadabra which has Calm Mind - I don't know how good it is for setting up as it is very fragile and in general you already have better set up sweepers on your team so you might want to change that to another coverage move.

 

[thegrovylekid]

Lilligant is NU, and therefore is not a problem to have to switch into, unless this team is to be used in NU.

 

[Scattered mind]

Oh thanks. I didn't bother to check since he has mentioned it in the description.
Well that's good because I really had no idea what move he could replace for it.

 

[Team Rocket Fan]

Yeah, if Liligant was PU it would destroy everyone. She is really good at sweeping. Do you think Mightyena could replace Flareon? It's pretty good with Moxie. So you're saying HP Ghost over Power Gem / Water Pulse?

Also, you could give PU / NU a try. It's were peoples favourite NFE / Weaker pokemon get a chance to shine. I mean, Arbok is grbadge in OU wihle he is litterally a King in PU. At least smogon says it and it's proved.

Mightyena (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Sucker Punch
- Play Rough
- Fire Fang

Instead of Flareon? It does fairly well...But i guess neither of them is great.

 

[AlexanderTheAwesome]

Persian (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Hyper Voice
- Power Gem / Thunderbolt
- Water Pulse

My favourite pokemon ever!! Persian, while being outclassed in this generation can still be powerful in the lower tiers with his classic Nasty Plot set. Technician + Life Orb + Nasty Plot = Sweep. Hyper Voice strongest and STAB which hits behind annoying subsitutes. Water Pulse offers awesome coverage against common Rock/Ground types like Rhydon or Golem. it also hits the feared by many Pyroar. Persian's only problem is Soundproof Mr Mime although it's not as common as Filter Mr Mime and that's why smogon supports HP Ghost but since I don't see him a lot I prefer to counter the legendary PU Articuno with Power Gem that will OHKO it as long as it's in its standard PU set. Thunderbolt is another option against Pelliper and other common flying or water types. I support Power Gem a bit more but I'd like to know your opinion.

Switch Hyper Voice to Swift, it is not a sound move, it does not check accuracy, and it has the same power as Hyper Voice. The only way this could be a bad idea is if something using skill swap or entrainment. that should help handle Mr. Mime.

 

[Team Rocket Fan]

Hyper Voice will hit behind Sub so it's more reliable while accurassy doesn't count much in competitive battling. If that's the thing I prefer HP Ghost.

 

[Scattered mind]

It's hard for me to say because I'v never played PU before, but I think Flareon with Choice Band works better for the team as it is your only Pokemon with great offensive power on the start and so it can put high pressure on your opponent in early to mid game.
CB Flareon can also be a great wallbreaker and it is very good to OHKO Avalugg after Stealth Rock- which you don't have, so here is one of the many good reasons why you should.

252+ Atk Choice Band Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Avalugg: 374-444 (95.1 - 112.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Avalugg: 374-444 (95.1 - 112.9%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Avalugg Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Flareon: 248-294 (91.5 - 108.4%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

Unless Avalugg is not in PU sorry I just don't know much about it
But even so, Stealth Rock can help your team to turn many hits into OHKO's instead of X% to OHKO or even 2HKO.

 

[Team Rocket Fan]

It's hard for me to say because I'v never played PU before, but I think Flareon with Choice Band works better for the team as it is your only Pokemon with great offensive power on the start and so it can put high pressure on your opponent in early to mid game.
CB Flareon can also be a great wallbreaker and it is very good to OHKO Avalugg after Stealth Rock- which you don't have, so here is one of the many good reasons why you should.

252+ Atk Choice Band Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Avalugg: 374-444 (95.1 - 112.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Avalugg: 374-444 (95.1 - 112.9%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Avalugg Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Flareon: 248-294 (91.5 - 108.4%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

Unless Avalugg is not in PU sorry I just don't know much about it
But even so, Stealth Rock can help your team to turn many hits into OHKO's instead of X% to OHKO or even 2HKO.

Avalugg is PU indeed and he is very common. Stealth Rock is countered back at the opponent with Magic Coat. Torterra and Feroseed are common users. I'll also try CB Flareon now that you mention it. But Mightyena is doing better than Guts Flareon anyway.

 

[tropicalnixon]

i think your team is good
but i got rid of noctowl for articuno cause it still has defog and roost but can pull its wait to

 

[Celever]

It's really neat seeing a PU team posted here since it's not the most popular tier in the world. I actually play it quite often, so let's see if we can improve a thing or two. n_n This team is quite old now so I don't know if you still have any interest in it. Maybe this rate will make you pick the tier back up, @Team Rocket Fan? <3 I'd like to note that I already wrote up almost the entirety of this post before I noticed the timestamps on when it was actually posted, so it's probable that there have been some metagame changes between the time this team was posted and when I'm rating it now.

The first thing I notice about your team is the use of some very outclassed Pokémon, which I shall go into in more detail further down the post. Before then, I would like to do some analysis of your actual team structure. You currently have 3 win conditions. A win condition is a Pokémon which can win the battle for you if you play your cards right with your other Pokémon and save it for later on, and the most common form of win condition is a set up sweeper (which is all 3 examples on this team). This means that you are missing out on several other roles, however. You lack a special type nuke, for example. Flareon is a good wallbreaker on the physical side, but a Vullaby could stall your team out for days with its impressive physical bulk and you wouldn't have a good way to counter it, especially given your lack of any actual coverage to hit a Dark/Flying-Type Pokémon with besides a slashed move on Persian.

I think you should change Chimecho into a Grumpig. Grumpig outright outclasses Chimecho because it can do everything Chimecho can and better. It has 80 / 65 / 110 bulk compared to 65 / 70 / 80 (in the format HP / Defense / Special Defense), and it can learn all of the moves on that Chimecho set. While you lose an immunity to Ground-Type attacks, you gain a resistance to Fire- and Ice-Type attacks through Thick Fat. I also don't think that Chimecho's, or now Grumpig's, moveset isn't very viable, because it's Taunt bait, meaning that if Taunt is used on Grumpig, all it can do is use Struggle. For this reason, I think you should replace Light Screen or Magic Coat with Psychic or Psyshock. Light Screen is more expendable than Reflect because your primary win condition, Flareon, already has stellar special bulk. I also think you should replace the item Light Clay with Leftovers to give Grumpig more longevity. Both of the Psychic-Type Pokémon lack any form of reliable recovery (i.e. not Rest), so Leftovers is very useful for this. You could also replace Magic Coat with Protect so you can stall for Leftovers recovery, which can be very important in many situations, and Magic Coat is a very situational and therefore oftentimes ineffective move.

Noctowl is... not very good. Its typing is poor defensively; it's weak to Electric-, Ice- and Rock-Type moves (all very common) and only resists Grass- and Bug-Type moves, of which only Grass-Type is ever really seen, and even then all of the common users are physical attackers besides Roselia and some Simisage sets, which still can beat Noctowl quite handily. Grass- and Bug-Type moves are never run as coverage in PU, either. Having a Defog user is very useful, but also not necessary on this team at all; it's not very weak to hazards. Besides Noctowl, only Flareon is hit for super effective damage by Spikes or Stealth Rock, though in this case it happens to be hit super effectively by both of them. If you want hazard control, I would recommend Cryogonal for this team. It has similar special bulk and slightly worse physical defense, but the primary reason why it's better is because it keeps up offensive pressure and momentum. Ice-Type isn't particularly good defensively, but it gives your team some much needed coverage, and helps you fight Flying-, Water- (because of Freeze-Dry), Ground- and Dragon-Type Pokémon, none of which you can actually hit super effectively in your current team except the first two with Persian's coverage in Thunderbolt. Having a powerful STAB move to use against those types will be very useful. Cryogonal also has a lot of utility besides that: after Freeze-Dry, Rapid Spin and reliable recovery in Recover, you can fill the final moveslot with Reflect, Knock Off or Toxic, so it leaves you with a level of customisation still.

You do mention that Persian is one of your favourite Pokémon in its description, but unfortunately in PU it is quite outclassed. If you want a Normal-Type late game cleaner, Purugly is the better choice because it straight up better Persian's stats, however it can only attack physically, and you already have two physical win conditions on this team in the forms of Arbok and Flareon. I think that if you want to maintain a powerful oftentimes unresisted special Normal-Type STAB while not suffering due to poor stats, Chatot would be a very worthwhile replacement. Defensively it struggles with the same match-ups described with Noctowl, but that's genuinely irrelevant given Chatot's role on the team: a wallbreaker. Compared to the 90 BP Hyper Voice, Chatot uses the 140 BP Boomburst. Compared to Persian's 65 base special attack stat, Chatot has 92. For reference, this power difference can be found in the below damage calculations:

252+ SpA Life Orb Persian Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Audino: 107-126 (26 - 30.7%) -- 4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Chatot Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Audino: 235-277 (57.3 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
A 96% chance to get rid of Audino in 5 hits compared to a guaranteed 2HKO really emphasises the point of difference here. The Chatot uses a Choice Specs and the Persian uses a Life Orb to better express the roles each would play on the team, but the Persian actually has a modest nature in this calculation, whereas yours is timid. In a timid nature, Persian will usually 5HKO Audino, but sometimes only 6HKO it. After a Nasty Plot boost, it's still only a 3HKO. Sorry if I'm being verbose here; oftentimes people aren't very receptive to the idea of taking their favourites off of their teams, but Chatot is a lot more competitive. Besides Boomburst, Chatot gets a STAB Flying-Type attack in Chatter which, while marginally weaker than Air Slash, has the bonus of a 100% chance of confusion. This means that Chatot isn't dead weight against hyper offensive teams which lack any walls for it to break, which is an issue a lot of wallbreakers find. While it's slower than Persian, 95 base speed is still a very respectable speed tier, and since they fulfil different roles, too much comparison isn't necessary anyway.

Going onto more minor changes, your sets on Arbok and Flareon are actually totally perfect, so kudos to you for that! It's possible that you could replace Thunderbolt with Energy Ball to have another answer for Flying-Type walls such as Vullaby, though Energy Ball is useful against the very common Golem, so it's sort of your choice.

Here is a tl;dr and specific sets:

Chimecho

-->

Grumpig

Spoiler: Grumpig Set

Grumpig @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Psychic
- Protect
- Reflect
- Thunder Wave

Noctowl

-->

Cryogonal

Spoiler: Cryogonal Set

Cryogonal @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
- Freeze-Dry
- Rapid Spin
- Recover
- Toxic / Knock Off / Reflect

Persian

-->

Chatot

Spoiler: Chatot Set

Chatot @ Choice Specs
Ability: Big Pecks
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Boomburst
- Chatter
- Heat Wave
- Sleep Talk

Kadabra

Energy Ball --> Thunderbolt

 

[Team Rocket Fan]

It's really neat seeing a PU team posted here since it's not the most popular tier in the world. I actually play it quite often, so let's see if we can improve a thing or two. n_n This team is quite old now so I don't know if you still have any interest in it. Maybe this rate will make you pick the tier back up, @Team Rocket Fan? <3 I'd like to note that I already wrote up almost the entirety of this post before I noticed the timestamps on when it was actually posted, so it's probable that there have been some metagame changes between the time this team was posted and when I'm rating it now.

The first thing I notice about your team is the use of some very outclassed Pokémon, which I shall go into in more detail further down the post. Before then, I would like to do some analysis of your actual team structure. You currently have 3 win conditions. A win condition is a Pokémon which can win the battle for you if you play your cards right with your other Pokémon and save it for later on, and the most common form of win condition is a set up sweeper (which is all 3 examples on this team). This means that you are missing out on several other roles, however. You lack a special type nuke, for example. Flareon is a good wallbreaker on the physical side, but a Vullaby could stall your team out for days with its impressive physical bulk and you wouldn't have a good way to counter it, especially given your lack of any actual coverage to hit a Dark/Flying-Type Pokémon with besides a slashed move on Persian.

I think you should change Chimecho into a Grumpig. Grumpig outright outclasses Chimecho because it can do everything Chimecho can and better. It has 80 / 65 / 110 bulk compared to 65 / 70 / 80 (in the format HP / Defense / Special Defense), and it can learn all of the moves on that Chimecho set. While you lose an immunity to Ground-Type attacks, you gain a resistance to Fire- and Ice-Type attacks through Thick Fat. I also don't think that Chimecho's, or now Grumpig's, moveset isn't very viable, because it's Taunt bait, meaning that if Taunt is used on Grumpig, all it can do is use Struggle. For this reason, I think you should replace Light Screen or Magic Coat with Psychic or Psyshock. Light Screen is more expendable than Reflect because your primary win condition, Flareon, already has stellar special bulk. I also think you should replace the item Light Clay with Leftovers to give Grumpig more longevity. Both of the Psychic-Type Pokémon lack any form of reliable recovery (i.e. not Rest), so Leftovers is very useful for this. You could also replace Magic Coat with Protect so you can stall for Leftovers recovery, which can be very important in many situations, and Magic Coat is a very situational and therefore oftentimes ineffective move.

Noctowl is... not very good. Its typing is poor defensively; it's weak to Electric-, Ice- and Rock-Type moves (all very common) and only resists Grass- and Bug-Type moves, of which only Grass-Type is ever really seen, and even then all of the common users are physical attackers besides Roselia and some Simisage sets, which still can beat Noctowl quite handily. Grass- and Bug-Type moves are never run as coverage in PU, either. Having a Defog user is very useful, but also not necessary on this team at all; it's not very weak to hazards. Besides Noctowl, only Flareon is hit for super effective damage by Spikes or Stealth Rock, though in this case it happens to be hit super effectively by both of them. If you want hazard control, I would recommend Cryogonal for this team. It has similar special bulk and slightly worse physical defense, but the primary reason why it's better is because it keeps up offensive pressure and momentum. Ice-Type isn't particularly good defensively, but it gives your team some much needed coverage, and helps you fight Flying-, Water- (because of Freeze-Dry), Ground- and Dragon-Type Pokémon, none of which you can actually hit super effectively in your current team except the first two with Persian's coverage in Thunderbolt. Having a powerful STAB move to use against those types will be very useful. Cryogonal also has a lot of utility besides that: after Freeze-Dry, Rapid Spin and reliable recovery in Recover, you can fill the final moveslot with Reflect, Knock Off or Toxic, so it leaves you with a level of customisation still.

You do mention that Persian is one of your favourite Pokémon in its description, but unfortunately in PU it is quite outclassed. If you want a Normal-Type late game cleaner, Purugly is the better choice because it straight up better Persian's stats, however it can only attack physically, and you already have two physical win conditions on this team in the forms of Arbok and Flareon. I think that if you want to maintain a powerful oftentimes unresisted special Normal-Type STAB while not suffering due to poor stats, Chatot would be a very worthwhile replacement. Defensively it struggles with the same match-ups described with Noctowl, but that's genuinely irrelevant given Chatot's role on the team: a wallbreaker. Compared to the 90 BP Hyper Voice, Chatot uses the 140 BP Boomburst. Compared to Persian's 65 base special attack stat, Chatot has 92. For reference, this power difference can be found in the below damage calculations:

252+ SpA Life Orb Persian Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Audino: 107-126 (26 - 30.7%) -- 4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Chatot Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Audino: 235-277 (57.3 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
A 96% chance to get rid of Audino in 5 hits compared to a guaranteed 2HKO really emphasises the point of difference here. The Chatot uses a Choice Specs and the Persian uses a Life Orb to better express the roles each would play on the team, but the Persian actually has a modest nature in this calculation, whereas yours is timid. In a timid nature, Persian will usually 5HKO Audino, but sometimes only 6HKO it. After a Nasty Plot boost, it's still only a 3HKO. Sorry if I'm being verbose here; oftentimes people aren't very receptive to the idea of taking their favourites off of their teams, but Chatot is a lot more competitive. Besides Boomburst, Chatot gets a STAB Flying-Type attack in Chatter which, while marginally weaker than Air Slash, has the bonus of a 100% chance of confusion. This means that Chatot isn't dead weight against hyper offensive teams which lack any walls for it to break, which is an issue a lot of wallbreakers find. While it's slower than Persian, 95 base speed is still a very respectable speed tier, and since they fulfil different roles, too much comparison isn't necessary anyway.

Going onto more minor changes, your sets on Arbok and Flareon are actually totally perfect, so kudos to you for that! It's possible that you could replace Thunderbolt with Energy Ball to have another answer for Flying-Type walls such as Vullaby, though Energy Ball is useful against the very common Golem, so it's sort of your choice.

Here is a tl;dr and specific sets:

Chimecho

-->

Grumpig

Spoiler: Grumpig Set

Grumpig @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Psychic
- Protect
- Reflect
- Thunder Wave

Noctowl

-->

Cryogonal

Spoiler: Cryogonal Set

Cryogonal @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
- Freeze-Dry
- Rapid Spin
- Recover
- Toxic / Knock Off / Reflect

Persian

-->

Chatot

Spoiler: Chatot Set

Chatot @ Choice Specs
Ability: Big Pecks
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Boomburst
- Chatter
- Heat Wave
- Sleep Talk

Kadabra

Energy Ball --> Thunderbolt

Thanx a lot for all these! I'll consider everything! It's really being a while since the last time I played pokemon. I'm looking forward for the night that I'll miss it that much that I'll start over again!