ORAS Ubers Don-tina-klef [peaked #9; 85,9 GXE]

[hublo]

proof of peak

Introduction​

Hi what's up, today I'm bringing to your attention a very solid team I had fun laddering with. I made a fresh alt some time ago to test some teams; xXxMLGrattataxXx was the way to go because lamborguineapig was already chosen.

Teambuilding Process​

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Arceus is a compulsory addition to any ubers team. When I first build the team it was Ekiller because in general I default my arceus slot to Ekiller, then I saw how little it did for the team and realized waterceus was a much better fit.

The face of ORAS Ubers. This was another brainless pick.

Giratina and klefki were added together. They complete the don-tina-klef core; it's not something I came up with, it's just a tried and true core that offers a lot of role compression in just three slots. Example of this core can be found in the sample teams.

So far LO yveltal and darkrai (especially if thunder) looked troublesome, xerneas was added.

Salamence rounds off the team. It is a good blanket check to physical threats (especially Ekiller) and can easily sweep mid-late game. Geoxern-DDmence is hard to handle for most teams.

The Team​

@

Ability- Multitype
EVs- 252 HP | 200 Def | 56 Spe
IVs- 0 Atk
Nature- Bold

Recover | Toxic | Ice Beam | Judgment
​

Here we have the latest addition to the team. It used to be an Ekiller but I found myself never bringing it in the action, it very little outside of shadow clawing random ghostceus and giratina. Going the defensive route really helped against opposing salamence, rayquaza, groundceus, diancie and even ho-oh. The latter though hits hard as fuck. I considered rockceus as an alternative but the ground weakness really kills it.

@

Ability- Drought
EVs- 168 Atk | 144 SpD | 196 Spe
Nature- Jolly

Stealth Rock | Precipice Blades | Stone Edge| Swords Dance
​

The first two moveslots are pretty much mandatory on any defensive primal groudon. Lava plume is not the best option on p-don I think, but it is useful for getting random burns and for trolling bronzong. It was kinda a toss up between d-tail and roar, eventually I went for roar just in case I really need to phaze a paralyzed geoxern if I can't risk precipe blades' accuracy.

The ev spread maximizes special bulk with a spdef boosting nature in order to take better the hits from xerneas and kyogre. Careful is an option if you don't care about the damage output of lava plume.

This is now an offensive rock setter groudon which reduces the passiveness of the team, suggested by Californium. This set has great offensive presence and can check xerneas in a pinch.

@

Ability- Levitate
EVs- 244 SpA | 252 Def | 12 Spe
Nature- Modest

Defog | Hex | Draco Meteor | Thunder Wave
​

This is the counterlead most of the time, thanks to its good matchup vs popular leads like groudon and deoxys. This is the physical defog set because it sports some handy dandy priority in the form of shadow sneak that allows giratina to check some psychic types, also it can pick off weakened threats. D-tail offers incredible utility and earthquake rounds off the set. I tried for some time shadow force for checking better ghostceus, but overall eq is nice to force p-don out and for smacking klefki and diancie if they are bold enough to switch on a predicted dragon tail.

Giratina has been changed to the special set as suggested by Hack.

@

Ability- Prankster
EVs- 248 HP | 8 Atk | 252 SpD
Nature- Careful

Spikes | Thunder Wave | Heal Block | Play Rough
​

Make this S-rank. Now. Prankster yellow magic is what makes this pokemon so good. Spikes and toxic generally pave the way for a geoxern sweep, and play rough allows klefki to 1v1 dark and dragon types with the assist of parahax and also hits a boosted geoxern for some decent damage, usually putting it in range of salamence's double edge after klefki has done sacking itself to twave xerno.
Heal Block has been suggested by Arii Stella, helps against resttalk geoxern and supportceus.

@

Ability- Fairy Aura
EVs- 184 HP | 28 Def | 252 SpA | 44 Spe
IVs- 1 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 SpD
Nature- Modest

Geomancy | Moonblast | Aromatherapy | Hidden Power [Ground]
​

This is your standard geoxern. I put aromatherapy over thunder because status hinders my walls/pivots/tanks, though thunder could be nice for ho-oh. Hp ground was originally focus blast, but I hardly ever clicked it, and most of the time it was against a primal groudon. Also hp ground hits...arceus-poison. No fun to play against, it stopped my win streak... :(

other options
​

I was thinking about rest talk geoxern, but is it good? can it work as a sleep absorber?

Ho-Oh @ Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 184 Atk / 64 SpD / 12 Spe
Careful Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sacred Fire
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk
​

As suggested xerneas has been replaced with Ho-oh,I'm using Californium's spread that survives a boosted xerneas hp rock

@

Ability- Intimidate
EVs- 248 HP | 124 Atk | 136 Spe
Nature- Adamant

Dragon Dance | Roost | Double-Edge | Facade
​

Here's a brief description about salamence. Click double edge and watch things drop. Not much can survive its attacks in the lategame and often you don't even need to setup.

other options
​

I've been considering the bulky refresh set, but the power drop is significant. let me know what you think about this.

Salamence has been changed to the bulky facade set, suggested by Californium, see his post for info about the ev spread.

Conclusion​

Digging in the replays archive I found out that this team has already been used by californium as you can see in this replay here props to him roe coming up with this team.

Threatlist
​

Fast ogre: generally I pivot giratina/ waterceus and then go to groudon. Sometimes I tried to revenge it with salamence only to be ousped and destroyed by an ice beam...needless to say but keep pdon alive (shouldn't be hard unless you like to lead every time with it)

Geoxern: it wins if my way to deal with it (groudon and klefki) are gone. This scenario should never happen.

Darkrai: generally it's not that hard to work around but you have to be careful if it comes in on giratina. Will it click dark pulse,dark void or nasty plot? One wrong prediction means that something will go down to give free switchin to my klefki.

Mewtwo, deoxys attack, and AoA latios: klefki is the default switchin, be careful of coverage moves.

SD arceus formes: they are manageable, but they need to be worked around. SD ghostceus can hit with unresisted hits, groundceus can boost on groudon's face and hit everything hard with edgequake coverage, also it cannot be twaved.

Ho-oh: waterceus and mence are soft checks.

Importable

Arceus-Water @ Splash Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Recover
- Toxic
- Ice Beam
- Judgment

Groudon @ Red Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 168 Atk / 144 SpD / 196 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Swords Dance
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge

Giratina-Origin @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Def / 244 SpA / 12 Spe
Modest Nature
- Hex
- Draco Meteor
- Thunder Wave
- Defog

Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Thunder Wave
- Heal Block
- Play Rough

Ho-Oh @ Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 184 Atk / 64 SpD / 12 Spe
Careful Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sacred Fire
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 216 HP / 156 Atk / 136 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Facade
- Roost

 

[Cynara]

Hiya, this is a good skeleton for a balance team and good job with the ladder progress so far. At a glance, Stall teams seem like your hardest matchup and you highlighted the lack of sleep talker for this kind of build which is good. Going Rest Geomancy Sleep Talk Xerneas on paper can fix that both issues, though this still leaves a slight weakness to Mega Gengar variants like Hex Variants while leaving the concern of Deoxys-Attack.

My Suggestion would be to change Geomancy Xerneas to Choice Banded Ho-oh with sleep talk. This gives you a efficient sleep absorber, improving your matchup against stall builds, helping out against Deoxys-attack and Mega Gengar. I would also optimise the Mega Salamence set to help the team deal with SD Arceus better since you highlighted them as a threat, especially if you let Giratina-O get weakened too much, 248 HP / 124 Atk / 136 Spe EV spread with an Adamant nature, Jolly LO Extreme Speed only has a 12% chance to OHKO Salamence after Stealth Rock at +2, allowing a healthy Arceus water to safely revenge it, after a Double Edge. I would also now run Facade on Salamence over Earthquake since now the build doesn't really have a need for Earthquake coverage on Salamence, due to the presence of Ho-oh and Earthquake Giratina-O, Facade allows you to have an additional status sponge and prevents Salamence from being fully crippled by Status, this makes it easier for Salamence to deal with Balance teams that carry alot of status and do heavy damage with a 140 BP Stab Facade.

If you consider the Ho-oh change, an alternative change is that you can consider a more offensive Primal Groudon such as Jolly Swords Dance + Stealth Rock set to provide the team with more offensive presence and give you an additional breaker against balance and stall teams. Though if you do opt for this change, it makes your team somewhat weaker to Geomancy Xerneas and a Bulkier Ho-oh set will need to be considered as it would be the primary Xerneas check, a Ho-oh EV spread of 248 HP / 184 Atk / 64 SpD / 12 Spe with a Careful Nature means Ho-oh lives a +2 Hidden Power Rock from Xerneas 100% of the time at full, while still having a considerable amount of power when coupled with a Choice band.

Summary of rate

• Change Xerneas to a Choice banded Ho-oh
• Optimise the Salamence set to make dealing with Extreme Killer easier.
• Consider a Jolly SD + SR Groudon set with a bulkier Ho-oh set

Ho-oh + Salamence sets

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 216 HP / 156 Atk / 136 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Facade
- Roost

Ho-Oh @ Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sacred Fire
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk

Jolly SD Groudon and Bulky Ho-oh alternative sets

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock

Ho-Oh @ Choice Band
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 184 Atk / 64 SpD / 12 Spe
Careful Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sacred Fire
- Earthquake
- Sleep Talk

Good luck with team

 

[Stevan's Sceptile]

If Giratina is ur lead, then I would give it 118 hp, 248 att, 130 def, 12 spd. This ev spread helps u to take a hit from psycho boost deoxys and also serves the purpose of taking down certain physical attackers like u mentioned before.

252 SpA Life Orb Deoxys-A Psycho Boost vs. 118 HP / 0 SpD Giratina-O: 380-448 (80.8 - 95.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Groudon Stone Edge vs. 118 HP / 130 Def Giratina-O: 118-139 (25.1 - 29.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252+ Atk Groudon Dragon Claw vs. 118 HP / 130 Def Giratina-O: 188-222 (40 - 47.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Spooky Plate Arceus-Ghost Shadow Force vs. 118 HP / 130 Def Giratina-O: 392-464 (83.4 - 98.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Arceus Shadow Claw vs. 118 HP / 130 Def Giratina-O: 330-390 (70.2 - 82.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That's all. good luck.

 

[Arii Stella]

Hai hai, congratz on your peak. This seems to be a decent balance which looks pretty nice at first glance. (I love balance teams<3)
Since I got sniped by this weeb Californium character I don't really have to suggest any more replacements as his suggestions are very good although I consider the team fairly solid and I wouldn't replace anything on it. :}

Anyway, some movesets optimizations are always good to improve any team and in this case I highly recommend you to use Rest Talk Geomancy Xerneas as it a great set that works amazingly in balance teams, it's a great status absorber and it also gives you the opportunity to have an excellent late game sweeper thanks to its great all-around stats alongside the good offensive synergy with Mega Salamence.
Lastly, consider Heal Block instead of Toxic on Klefki as it prevents the dangerous Rest/Sleep Talk opposing Xerneas from having its way and also the recovering from some support Arceus variants which are very annoying.

Rest/Talk Xerneas set~

Xerneas @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 248 HP / 160 Def / 56 SpA / 44 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Hope I helped a bit, good luck with the team!

 

[hublo]

First of all thanks everybody for your input!
Californium Ho-oh slipped through my mind when looking for a darkrai check on this team for the SR weakness, thanks for recommending it.
Stevan's Sceptile Welcome to Smogon! I'll implement your giratina spread. Probably I'll tweak it a little since Deo-atk usually runs a rash nature if this benchmark doesn't require an heavy ev investiment.
Arii Stella I'm glad that you like rest talk geoxern, I tried it once and it was crucial to win the game.
I also feel like implementing rockceus is the right choice for the bird-checking need...but it would make the matchup against kyogre and groundceus even worse. I'll test the changes whenever I can and see how it goes, then I'll post my thoughts. c ya! :]

 

[Hack]

This team is weak to Ho-oh. Luckily it is more about set choices than the overall team composition so changes are possible.

Making Salamence Facade > EQ is the first option to go. EQ is a very limited move for Mence anyway.

I'd also consider getting rid of the double fairy in some way. This can either be done by Xerneas (scarf sleep talk)+Ferrothorn or by keeping Klefki and adding CB Ho-oh over Xerneas.

That gives you kinda a solid and standard team with pretty decent sets. Additionally you could experiment with SD SR Pdon sets due to the passiveness of the team should you choose the Ferro+Xerneas route. Giratina-O might as well go special if you adopt the Klefki+Ho-oh route, due to sneak being kinda trivial in that composition (you have klefki for deo-a etc). Keep phys gira if you are going with the Xern+Ferrothorn adoption though

Good luck!

 

[hublo]

I tested the changes on shoddy and I was about to make the final adjustments but then I saw hack's post and I'm still wondering about some team options.
First I'm sold on rockceus: it gives a good matchup vs ho-oh teams, especially diancie-ho-oh balance. Resttalk geoxern is not a bad set at all and actually I'm a big fan of it, and a +2 moonblast when coupled with the added longevity and stealth rock support takes care of its checks. Problem is its reliance on good sleep talk rolls, picking rest twice can be fatal. Scarf is really weak in my opinion but it fixes the low speed of the team and fixes every darkrai/deoxys issue. Heal block klefki puts in the finest work, it's really good. Now concerning the ho-oh change: I'm no big fan of it especially with a more offensive groudon bc I will need to defog quite often and groudon needs to come in and reset them. Groudon doesn't have the bulk I'm used to. I agree on the mence set being much better with facade>earthquake.

This team is weak to Ho-oh. Luckily it is more about set choices than the overall team composition so changes are possible.

Making Salamence Facade > EQ is the first option to go. EQ is a very limited move for Mence anyway.

I'd also consider getting rid of the double fairy in some way. This can either be done by Xerneas (scarf sleep talk)+Ferrothorn or by keeping Klefki and adding CB Ho-oh over Xerneas.

That gives you kinda a solid and standard team with pretty decent sets. Additionally you could experiment with SD SR Pdon sets due to the passiveness of the team should you choose the Ferro+Xerneas route. Giratina-O might as well go special if you adopt the Klefki+Ho-oh route, due to sneak being kinda trivial in that composition (you have klefki for deo-a etc). Keep phys gira if you are going with the Xern+Ferrothorn adoption though

Good luck!

Why is klefki+xerno bad? Also If I were to include ferrothorn, wouldn't that make the team extremely weak to focus blast geoxern?

 

[Hack]

It adds very little synergy wise. Klefki is essentially a bad pkmn that happens to check a lot of things pretty ok. Ferrothorn has the ability to stone wall things, altho it doesn't check nearly as much it does shit on things klefki would hang loose vs. The type synergy of klefki+xern is something I dislike. Ferros match vs ho-oh is much better with arc water in the back due to leech. I also happen to like ferro a lot so keep that in mind. Klefki+xern isn't necessarily bad but it doesn't provide as much good stuff either. But yes, it is weaker to fblast xern, altho klefki is weaker to the more popular resttalk geoxern.

I think rockceus on the team is definitely a no-go, it makes the team way too weak pogre while providing little flexibility

 

[Ash and Charizard]

Congrats man , The Suggestions gave by Hack , Arii stella and Californium are nice and I loved it. So my Suggestion is Changing your WaterCeus to RockCeus.

Arceus-Rock @ Stone Plate , Ability: Multitype , EVs: 236 HP / 20 SAtk / 252 Spd , Timid Nature , Moves : - Calm Mind - Judgment - Will-O-Wisp - Recover

You have Enough checks for Primal Don and Other stuffs so Try this RockCeus set. It have a Nice Decent Speed and can set up CM and work as a Late Game sweeper . Also it have nice Combination with Mega Salamence. Facade Mence is v gud but There are some Better Mence sets for Balanced team like this.Try this one

Salamence (M) @ Salamencite , Ability: Intimidate , EVs: 248 HP / 136 Def / 124 Spd , Impish Nature , Moves : - Dragon Dance - Refresh - Return - Roost

This can work as a Tanking Set up sweeper and can Absorb all the Status. But Facade is more fun to use , You can try this if you Want. This one can work well in Balanced teams.

Nice team :) Keep it up , Looking forward for Battles with you :)