Gen 3 BelleonTail ADV NU

[prozac]

I made this team to specifically for the RoA adv nu tournament. I lost first round in a close match which is a shame because this team deserves some notoriety. When I first started to make teams for this meta I was struggling to make a well rounded team that would counter the 2 of the best sweepers in the tier SunnyBeam Tangela and Rain Dance Huntail. It quickly became a hard thought problem so I gave up trying to counter them, and I started to utilize them.



Flareon @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 60 Def / 60 SpD / 136 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Overheat/ Fire Blast
- Protect
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Wish

Choosing to lead Flareon happened purely because it ohko's glalie and can use protect to scout other leads, choice band and the like. I chose Flareon initially because his typing compliments Huntail's water and Tang's grass and his stats are through the roof for this tier. Overheat hits like a truck, ohko's almost anything thats weak to it even with a jolly nature and with 140 base power its not that bad with half sp atk. Flareon's ability flash fire also compliments SunnyBeamers nicely by absorbing any boosted fire attack and returning it in the sun for massive damage. Hidden Power Ground's coverage compliments fire attacks nicely and runs off Flareon's throbbing attack stat, allowing it to kill all opposing fire types (except Torkoal which takes ~32% damage and can return eq or rs). Wish is plain amazing and paired with Protect, Flareon becomes rather tanky.


Bellossom @ Leftovers
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 152 HP / 252 SpA / 104 Spe
Modest Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Sunny Day
- Solar Beam
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Plain ol Sunny Day Bellossom, http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/bellossom-nu-revamp.3501692/ . Originally I had Tangela in this spot but I opted for the bulkier Bellossom. Tang has slightly more phys bulk + sp atk at the cost of having the special bulk of a fly. Bellossom's extra special bulk allows it to compliment Flareon's defense on the special side, stand up to opposing weather users Tang and Huntail, and allows it set up opportunities against more opponents.


Huntail @ Leftovers
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 152 HP / 252 SpA / 104 Spe
Modest Nature
- Surf/ Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Rain Dance

This is your garden variety Huntail http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/huntail-nu-revamp.3501913/ Its awesome, it should be banned, and its half the reason I made this team. I went surf over hydro pump because there arent many walls that surf cant break with a bit of support.


Relicanth @ Choice Band
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 68 HP / 132 Atk / 220 SpD / 88 Spe
Careful Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Relicanth was actually the last pokemon added to this team but is by far from replacable. I had to add a rock type for my gaping weakness to flyers, and Relicanth has the best stats of them but she can do more than that. 68 hp 132Atk 220SpD and careful nature guarantee it will survive a rain boosted hydro pump from Huntail while rock slide does 40-50% back, survives thunderbolt from Haunter ohko's that back, and surprises those who use unstabbed grass/electric moves expecting to ko you only for stab boosted rock slide to make short work of them, Ie Chimecho. Swift swim and 88 spe evs allow me to outrun Huntail cut from recommended evs and is immensely complimented by own Huntail's rain dance. Rest/Talk is for longevity vs coverage moves that do not add coverage. It adds a surprising amount of time to Relicanth's life and helps vs trick/knock off. I would not use rest/talk on a choice band mon unless I had heal bell support, and it just so happens heal bell support resists Fighting and is immune to Ground giving many opportunities to switch in after choice locked into rest.


Chimecho @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 24 SpA / 116 SpD
Bold Nature
- Heal Bell
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Calm Mind

Chimecho is such a great poke and it fits onto nearly every team I make. Its a great cleric with resists and immunities to popular attacking types. It has just enough stats to be defensive and offensive with calm mind acting as a win condition vs weakened teams. Hidden power electric is so dark pokes (murkrow) cant switch in for free.


Sableye @ Leftovers
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP / 196 Def / 60 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Shadow Ball
- Recover
- Toxic


Sableye is so fat in this tier, with absolutely no weaknesses, and 32 recover pp this mon is king of stall in this tier. Knock Off is so important for this team as this team seems to gravitate to just missing necessary 3 hkos and 2hkos vs other stallers. I chose shadow ball over hidden power dark or seismic toss, because nailing Haunter and Chimecho is really important and for the normal types that are immune, toxic/recover handles very nicely.

Weaknesses: No glaring weaknesses, to an extent Huntail and Haunter. No matter what I do these pokes can almost always take down one poke with them. Im not sure there are more weaknesses than that, but I post it here looking for its weaknesses.

 

[Oglemi]

This is a pretty solid team but that Relicanth is just too weak for me. The spread is cool to survive those hits like Haunter, but I would seriously consider moving the Speed EVs to Attack and going with a +Atk nature. I would also consider replacing Sleep Talk on it with something like Hidden Power Bug, since ideally you're going to be using Rest then curing it with Chimecho, and Relicanth should really not be switching into anything with Sleep Powder.

Weather is very potent but I think this team would be more solid if you were to focus on just one of the sweepers and fill some of the holes this team has with the other. It's totally up to you which sweeper you want to keep, both are great, though I think with the dynamics of this team you'll get more mileage with Huntail. Replacing Bellossom with just a defensive version suddenly gives you a far more solid answer to stuff like CB Piloswine, as well as a defensive measure to getting counterswept by an opposing Huntail, which you're only method of preventing that from happening right now is hope you win the Speed tie with your Huntail, or barely survive with Chimecho and pray your opponent didn't specifically need it out of the way. You lose almost no team synergy, and fits the more defensive nature of the team on the whole.

Finally, definitely go with Fire Blast over Overheat on Flareon. The best thing about defensive Flareon is its consistency, and you're not losing that much power by going with Fblast, particularly considering the major target is going to be Glalie and sometimes Roselia or Cacturne.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

I might also consider replacing rest as well with another coverage move or even toxic. You have wish from flareon to help keep relicanth healthy, and being forced to sleep and wait for a heal bell in order to recover health seems like too much of a drawback to be worth a moveslot. Otherwise though, I've definitely seen this team work well in action, hope to play again soon :)

 

[Disaster Area]

if I wanted a fire type to anti-lead glalie I'd probably go with charmeleon since it speed ties and is guaranteed to OHKO with fire blast, or even potentiallly magby since that outspeeds and OHKOs. Otherwise if I were running flareon I'd prefer to either run the CB set or the bulky clerical set (which counters mawile other than CB) - I have a nice custom spread for the cleric, all u have to do is OHKO mawile with flamethrower, outspeed max speed on mawile I think? and also survive CB rock slide mawile.. and then the rest into SpDef to help check chime, haunter, sunnybeamers, etc. ... 252 HP / 52 Def / 56 SpA / 12 SpD / 136 Spe Jolly ;) try it out if you ever run the set, btw it's onkly ~6HKOd by tangela so it handles those really nicely, especially if you can get a different teammate slept.

 

[prozac]

Thanks for the advice Oglemi, Cowboy, Piexplode. Relicanth may be too specially defensive than is optimal. Relicanth was the last addition to the team for flyings and I needed it to at least stand up to Huntail. The fact that it was so specially bulky made it take hits better so I made it a rest talker because what are hp bug or ghost going to hit better than eq or rs? Ah but toxic is a sound alternative an will be great vs those defensive switch ins vs Reli. I think what Ill try next is what Oglemi suggests, more atk because it would be nice to hit a bit harder perhaps ill define a sp def value based on how hard haunter hits with tbolt. If I take down special bulk and add to atk, I was thinking of rest vs coverage, perhaps hp bug or body slam. I like sp def on relicanth but if i scale it back, the question is how much? Increasing Reli's atk at the cost of its special bulk becomes more attractive when considering running a defensive Bellossom. It seems as though a defensive spread, but still SunnyBeam Bell would be the hardest counter to Huntail, being able to take the weather from it and ohko back with very little (none?) sp atk investment and still hitting cb piloswine for decent damage with hp fire. Can there be a better defensive bell vs hunt&pilo? Nobody likes Overheat on Flareon, and I know its for good reason, however fireblast does not hit the damage threshold for it to be worth having an 8pp move with an 85% hit rate (overheat hits 90%) and the extra damage from overheat allows a lot of one-two knock outs from overheat followed by either overheat again or hidden power ground. In contrast Piexplodes suggestion of flamethrower with slightly adjusted evs is something that I think fits really well in relation to the whole team, with its consistent hit rate and higher pp. I am reforging a team with these suggested changes, I cant wait to test these changes. If anyone wants to add anything I am all ears, I deeply treasure your criticism. If anyone wants to help test the changes send me a message or find me on po or in the old gens room on ps. My handle is prozac1620.