Other Smogon Triples Rain and Gravity by rt206

[rt206]

Ever since Triples was created in Black/White, it was always my favorite format. I play on the 3DS Battle Spot, and was thrilled when Showdown brought Triples. I have created over ten teams with uniquely distinct strategies. This Swift Swim and Gravity team is the most successful. I have been able to get to the number one spot on the ladder twice with this team, and generally stay within the top twenty.

Barney (Politoed) (M) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Helping Hand
- Rain Dance
- Encore

Politoed is often thought to be useless except for setting up rain, but I have found it to be very useful overall. Helping Hand support is awesome for helping my sweepers, especially Kingdra and its Muddy Water. Rain Dance is great for use within a turn for predicting a weather switch and setting it back to Rain, because switching Politoed out and bringing it back in to reactivate Drizzle is inefficient. I gave Politoed max SpA so that its Hydro Pump hits hard; enough to KO anything that is weak to Water and even some things that have weak SpD thatnks to the boost from Rain. With Tailwind up Politoed can outspeed base 110s. Damp Rock extends the duration of rain from 5 turns to 8, which is necessary.

Encore is a great support move which can cripple opponents. I use it on pranksters so that they are locked into whatever support move they used, on Pokemon who used Protect last turn, forcing them into protecting over and over, and Fake Out users, forcing them into using Fake Out again, which would fail. This either forces a switch, or renders the opponent completely useless if the opponent has three or less Pokemon remaining, since they can't switch out. Encore is especially useful against Aegislash. It can lock Aegislash into King's Shield, or lock it into an attacking move, leaving it vulnerable in Blade Form.

Meowstic (M) @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Quick Guard
- Gravity

Meowstic is my favorite supporter of all time. Screens allow my kind of frail sweepers to survive some attacks, and allows everyone to survive some Super Effective hits. Quick Guard is so useful as it stops Fake Out, Talonflame's Brave Bird, Prankster Taunts/Encores/Swaggers, priority moves, and even the occasional Quick Claw.

Gravity is important. Smogon and Showdown's descriptions of the move simply say it takes away immunity to Ground and prevents jumping/flying moves. What most people don't know is Gravity lowers the evasion of all Pokemon by two stages.This essentially gives every Pokemon a 1.66x accuracy boost.For those of you who didn't know this, you're welcome. Here's Serebii's page on Gravity, which states the evasion decrease: http://www.serebii.net/attackdex-xy/gravity.shtml and I'm pretty sure an NPC in one of the Pokemon games talks about this. Anyway, Gravity makes all my Hydro Pumps have 100% accuracy, and also lets Swampert's Earthquake hit flying type Pokemon, so it now is super effective on a ridiculous amount of things.

Tornadus (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hurricane
- Tailwind
- Taunt
- Rain Dance

Tornadus is half supporter, half attacker. Even though my Swift Swimmers usually out speed everything already, Tailwind is necessary for use against other Tailwinds. The Tailwinds cancel out, which still leaves me with the speed advantage since I was faster to start with from Swift Swim. Tailwind also lets Politoed, Tornadus itself, and Swampert (on the first turn when it hasn't mega evolved yet) to out speed some opponents. Priority Taunt shuts down Trick Room users (sometimes) and opposing Prankster supporters who are slower (Meowstic, Klefki, Sableye, Murkrow, Whimsicott if I have Tailwind). Prankster Rain Dance stops Mega Charizard Y, a Ninetales switch in, or any other weather threat. And lastly is Hurricane, which has perfect accuracy in Rain and deals great damage, especially against Grass types, who resist Water.

Clair (Kingdra) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Muddy Water
- Rain Dance
- Dragon Pulse
- Protect

Kingdra is my first Swift Swim sweeper, and the strongest Pokemon on the team in my opinion. Muddy Water hits all opposing targets (unlike Surf which hits allies) and has perfect accuracy under Gravity. With Helping Hand from Politoed, Life Orb, and the Rain boost, it's extremely deadly. If an opponent survives, it also has a 30% chance to lower an opponent's accuracy to 75%, which can happen to all opponents hit by Muddy Water. Dragon Pulse is a secondary STAB which is super effective on Dragon types, who resist Water. It can also hit any target on the field the way Flying type moves do. Rain Dance deals with opposing weather and Protect is a great move in general in triples, for protection from lethal moves and stalling out opposing effects and more.

Luigi (Ludicolo) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Fake Out
- Hydro Pump
- Giga Drain
- Protect

Ludicolo is the next awesome Swift Swim sweeper. It has access to Fake Out, which is great for disrupting opponents. I find it most useful for stopping Trick Room, Pranksters, Talonflame, and other Fake Out users, since I'm faster with Swift Swim. Hydro Pump is killer with the Rain boost, and has perfect accuracy with Gravity. Giga Drain is a secondary STAB which knocks out opposing Water types, who resist my Water moves. It's particularly great for taking out Gastrodon, who has the evil Storm Drain (more on that later). And Protect works the same on Ludicolo as it does with Kingdra.

Swampert @ Swampertite
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Aqua Tail
- Earthquake
- Dynamic Punch
- Protect

Before ORAS, I didn't have a mega, but now I do, and it's awesome! Swampert is far bulkier than Kingdra or Ludicolo, and is physical instead of special. Aqua Tail is Swampert's strongest physical water move and has perfect accuracy under Gravity. Earthquake is a secondary STAB that hits Electric types super effectively, who are potential threats to my team, and also gets to hit flying types and levitators under Gravity. I do have to be careful about dealing damage to my teammates though. Dynamic Punch gets 83% accuracy under Gravity, which is a little shaky, and it doesn't find much use, so perhaps it could be replaced with Brick Break for getting rid of opposing screens. And Protect is the same old useful move.

Threats:

Trick Room: The majority of my losses are from Trick Room teams. Losing speed control is terrible since my team is pretty frail, even if I'm able to get screens up. Sometimes I can prevent Trick Room through Fake Out and Taunt, or be able to stall out the Trick Room turns, but I might have lost too much of my team by the time achieve those. Please respond with tips against Trick Room.

Opposing weather: Weather wars are not as hard as dealing with Trick Room, but they're still a threat. Sun is the most common other weather and the most hazardous to Rain. I used to have Rain Dance on Meowstic for weather wars, but it was replaced with Gravity, which it only got recently from the ORAS move tutors. So now I've got just Tornadus for prankster Rain Dance, Kingdra as the fastest on the team, and Politoed, which is bulky enough to survive and use Rain Dance, or switch out and come back (the former method is preferable though).

Storm Drain: This ability is evil. The Pokemon gets immunity to Water, gets a boost to its Special Attack, and redirects Water moves to itself, protecting its allies! Usually I can knock that Pokemon out through secondary STABs, but that means no water moves for that turn. Also, the ability still works when the Storm Drainer is using Protect. Muddy Water still gets to hit everyone though. The main headache that has Storm Drain is Cradily, since it takes all my non water moves except Dynamic Punch neutrally, non super effectively. Cradily is rare, but it exists.

Cloud Nine: Also very evil, this ability takes away all weather effects. That means no Swift Swim speed boost, no boost to the power of water moves, and no 100% Hurricane (not really an issue because of Gravity, but it was before I had Gravity). This is also a rare sight, but it exists. I've seen it on Golduck and Lickilicky.

Shedinja: The only move I have that is super effective on Shedinja is Tornadus's Hurricane, so I'm ashamed to say that my professional team has lost to the Sturdy Shedinja gimmick. Tornadus get KO'd by a Final Gambit. I stopped the "Sturdy" part with Fake Out/Taunt, but now I can't KO Shedinja...

These threats alone I can get around with good strategic play, but it gets even harder when the threats are combined. Particularly it's Sun/Trick Room that I run into from time to time, and it's terrifying. I've also seen Sandstorm/Cradily and that was nasty.

So that's a detailed explanation of my team! Please post suggestions to make it even better, especially against Trick Room.

 

[Ghoul King]

Swampert has Hammer Arm, which is just as strong as Dynamic Punch and 100% accurate in Gravity. Yes, it lowers your Speed one stage, but Mega Swampert will still usually outrun everything after 1 Speed loss -it's only a problem if you have to use it two or more times. It can also help you counter Trick Room potentially. More riskily, you might try Superpower. (Not a fan, but it's the hardest hitting Fighting move Swampert gets other than Focus Punch, which is essentially unusable in Triples without heavy support) Nothing else really stands out to me as a potential way to improve Swampert, alas.

The only thing I have to say about Kingdra is you might consider Icy Wind over Protect (Speed control/team support), or replacing Dragon Pulse with Draco Meteor for more consistent OHKOs when it counts. (No miss chance with Gravity up) Depends on how long Kingdra tends to stick around, doing damage.

Keep in mind that Politoed gets both Hypnosis and Focus Blast. If setting Gravity early is a pretty typical thing for the team, one of those might be worth running over Encore or Helping Hand -they both end up 100% accurate in Gravity, Hypnosis is a more thorough lock-up than Encore (completely shut down Cradily or Trick Room teams, even ones with Ghost and/or Mental Herb/Oblivious Trick Room setters), and Focus Blast is an enormous FU to non-Sand Cradily.

I'm not sure how you'd handle Shedinja better. All that comes to mind is replacing one of the three Rain Dances with Toxic. Maybe pay attention to how often you actually use Rain Dance with a given Pokemon and boot whichever Rain Dance is least useful for Toxic.

Cloud Nine actually seems a fairly survivable threat for your team with the backing of Gravity, though I'd have to see some matches to get a real sense of how heavily you're leaning on rain to win. It helps that Cloud Nine Pokemon are generally not very threatening other than their Ability throwing a wrench into weather teams.

 

[rt206]

Honestly, Swampert really doesn't need a fighting move. I just chose Dynamic Punch because it had low accuracy and would be cool to use with Gravity; it doesn't get used much. I don't like Hammer Arm or Superpower because of their stat drops. If Swift Swim is still active, there's no way Hammer Arm with slow Swampert down enough to beat Trick Room. I used to have Wide Guard on Swampert but it didn't really see much use, as attacking was just a better option than defending with Swampert. I have replaced Dynamic Punch with Brick Break already.

Icy Wind isn't necessary as speed control because I already have Swift Swim and even Tailwind.

Hypnosis is a great idea, thanks! Usually my lead is Politoed Kingdra Meowstic and I get Gravity up the first turn, so it works. Sometimes the lead is Tornadus Politoed Meowstic against threats. I'll be replacing Encore with Hypnosis because, as you said, it's a bigger bust. I found that Rain Dance is pretty useless on Politoed since it is slower than normal, so I'll replace that with Focus Blast. Thanks again!

Shedinja isn't a problem worth taking away a move. I just need to not lead with Tornadus.

The thing about Cloud Nine is I lose my Swift Swim. I get destroyed before I can move or do enough damage.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogontriples-190267832 Here's a loss to Cloud Nine.

Thanks for replying!

 

[Ghoul King]

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogontriples-190267832 Here's a loss to Cloud Nine.

Actually what I'm seeing is a mix of good predictions on their part (They did an excellent job of keeping Golduck contributing without being KOed, relying heavily on successful prediction to do so), some straight up bad luck (Low rolls, flinch, Burn), and psychological pressure from Golduck's existence on your plays -that is, you were treating Golduck as a high-priority threat (But then trying to hit it with stuff like Hydro Pump), rather than focusing on dealing with the real threats to your team, like Mega Lucario. I'm also not clear why you raised a Light Screen before you set Reflect, while using Earthquake and faced with a Talonflame. (Though to be fair Meowstic would've set the Reflect afterward -even so, more of the enemy team was a Physical threat than a Special threat, and Golduck is not a big offensive threat to Rain, even aside from this one being a set-up Golduck... which is what they usually are, actually) I'm also puzzled as to why you didn't have Ludicolo Giga Drain Golduck -even with maxed investment it would've been

252+ SpA Life Orb Ludicolo Giga Drain vs. +2 252 HP / 252 SpD Golduck: 127-151 (34.8 - 41.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

a clean KO, double Calm Mind or no, and then Ludicolo would've re-gained its Speed and been ready to laugh at Mega Lucario next turn, while Meowstic's Quick Guard would've ensured Mega Lucario couldn't spring any priority surprises on you.

tl;dr version: I don't think Cloud Nine really had as profound an impact on the match as you think it did. Different plays would've won the match, and bad luck was an important part of the loss.

Honestly, Swampert really doesn't need a fighting move. I just chose Dynamic Punch because it had low accuracy and would be cool to use with Gravity; it doesn't get used much. I don't like Hammer Arm or Superpower because of their stat drops. If Swift Swim is still active, there's no way Hammer Arm with slow Swampert down enough to beat Trick Room. I used to have Wide Guard on Swampert but it didn't really see much use, as attacking was just a better option than defending with Swampert. I have replaced Dynamic Punch with Brick Break already.

Fair enough. Screens-breaking is probably more useful than anything else in Triples anyway.

Icy Wind isn't necessary as speed control because I already have Swift Swim and even Tailwind.

It would help when dealing with Cloud Nine and other weathers, allowing you to retain the Speed advantage even with both sides have a Tailwind up and weather is turning against you. Half your team also lacks Swift Swim while being slow, and Mega Swampert is a pathetic 60 base Speed on its first turn -Icy Wind could make the difference. One Icy Wind can let Swampert outspeed up to base 100~ Speed Pokemon on that first turn, which is huge.

Hypnosis is a great idea, thanks! Usually my lead is Politoed Kingdra Meowstic and I get Gravity up the first turn, so it works. Sometimes the lead is Tornadus Politoed Meowstic against threats. I'll be replacing Encore with Hypnosis because, as you said, it's a bigger bust. I found that Rain Dance is pretty useless on Politoed since it is slower than normal, so I'll replace that with Focus Blast. Thanks again!

Glad to hear it!

Shedinja isn't a problem worth taking away a move. I just need to not lead with Tornadus.

Hopefully that works for you. I was just focusing on ways to possibly optimize the team without any radical alteration -the team is really quite good as-is.