[OU]Help Me with a Serperior Team :c

[Heartdust]

hello everyone, I made a team to accompany my pvp reward serperior, I tried to think a lot, see guides and ended up making a composition of rain and even so it does not convince me, if someone could help me I would greatly appreciate it, or even If you could give me different cores I would appreciate it, the important thing is that I want it to have Serperior, I like it a lot.

 

Serperior @ Leftovers
Ability: Contrary
-Leaf Storm
-Hidden Power Fire
-Substitute
-Leech Seed

 

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
-Scald
-Ice Beam
-Toxic Spikes
-Rapid Spin

 

Pelipper @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
-Scald
-Hurricane
-Roost
-U-turn

 

Kingdra @ Choice Specs
Ability: Swift Swim
-Dragon Pulse
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Draco Meteor

 

Jolteon @ Life Orb
Ability: Volt Absorb
-Volt Switch
-Thunder
-Hidden Power Ice
-Wish

 

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
-Gyro Ball
-Protect
-Leech Seed
-Stealth Rock

[Ramallero]

Hi! First of all I didn't know that the PVP Reward Serperior has his HA :O. If not and your are planning on use an Ability Patch on him please don't, just breed a 5x31+nat.

Now going back to your team, some points:
 

• You have 5 special attackers and a ferro, so Chan/Bliss will wall you hard.
• You only have 1 Rain abuser (Kingdra), 2/3 is prefereable. The most common Core is Peli/Kingdra/Kabutops.
• The ability on Tentacruel should be Rain Dish to abuse rain.
• Ferrothorn walls you hard, HP Fire in Rain is not enough to deal with it, even at +2 vs a 4 Sp.Def Ferro:
  +2 252 SpA Serperior Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 4+ SpD Ferrothorn in Rain: 76-92 (41.9 - 50.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
  
  Yes you can win the Serpe vs Ferro match but is very shaky, T.Wave, Toxic or a Crit Gyro Ball could screw you.. If the ferro is Sassy with Sp.Def you are probably losing.
• All rain teams must have an electric immune pokemon (to avoid being Voltswitched to the death) but I think Jolteon is not very good right now (may be wrong).
• You don't have a priority move, this may be an issue.

This could be a replacement:
https://pokepast.es/8086840381395dd8

I just used the main Peli/King/Kabu Core, Serperior and filled the 2 last slots with Garchomp+Scizor (the 2 strongest mons in the game in my opinion) with their standards sets.

Garchomp replaces Jolteon in the role of the electric immune pokemon and sets rocks. Also helps with ferro, cause fireblast is a 2 shot even in rain and after leftovers recovery.
Scizor works great in rain whit his standard bulky band set (not much to explain here), CloseCombat destroys Chansey/Ferro, Bullet Punch STAB with priority boosted by technician, Pursuit to trap and U-turn for momentum.
Defog on Peli cause I removed Rapid Spin Tentacruel.
You could also go full standard rain and use Dry Skin Toxicroak with Drain punch/Sucker Punch/Bulk up/Substitute or something like that instead of Scizor and Mixed Seismitoad instead of Garchomp.

 

Is there a specific reason to use a rain team? I'm not saying is a bad thing, just curious.
I use Serperior myself sometimes (with the same build you have) and from my experience he can fulfill  1 of 2 roles depending on the match:

• Wallbreaker: his function is to spam powerful attacks (leaf storm) to punch holes in the enemy defensive cores, and weaken walls (Glare is good here). He is not winning the game, but is enabling a teammate to do it, his job is to "clear the path" so another mon can win.
• Sweeper: in this case is the opposite, you look at the enemy team and say "if pokemon A and B are gone Serperior just spams leafstorm and cleans". In this case you use your other mons to remove (or weaken) his counters to the point where he can enter the field and win.

I'm saying all this because maybe you just want to use Serperior and not a rain team, in which case you can just build a complete different team having in mind this concept of wallbreaker/sweeper.

One final comment about serpe: choosing between HP Fire and HP Ice is to decide if you want to be walled by Dragon or by Steel respectively, thats why some people run Leaf Storm/HP Fire/Dragon Pulse/Glare-Sub

Edited July 11, 2023 by Ramallero

[Heartdust]

I sincerely appreciate your help, believe me, I'm bad at this type of planning, it's what I find most difficult.

 

And yes, I already put the patch on the serperior, I couldn't resist it, it was the first pvp poke that I had won.

 

And no, there wasn't a specific reason why I was rain teaming, other than to believe that it would help it be superior to fire damage. I just wanted a team that would help Serperior 

[caioxlive13]

11 hours ago, Ramallero said:

I use Serperior myself sometimes (with the same build you have) and from my experience he can fulfill  1 of 2 roles depending on the match:

• Wallbreaker: his function is to spam powerful attacks (leaf storm) to punch holes in the enemy defensive cores, and weaken walls (Glare is good here). He is not winning the game, but is enabling a teammate to do it, his job is to "clear the path" so another mon can win.
• Sweeper: in this case is the opposite, you look at the enemy team and say "if pokemon A and B are gone Serperior just spams leafstorm and cleans". In this case you use your other mons to remove (or weaken) his counters to the point where he can enter the field and win.

I'm saying all this because maybe you just want to use Serperior and not a rain team, in which case you can just build a complete different team having in mind this concept of wallbreaker/sweeper.

One final comment about serpe: choosing between HP Fire and HP Ice is to decide if you want to be walled by Dragon or by Steel respectively, thats why some people run Leaf Storm/HP Fire/Dragon Pulse/Glare-Sub

Nice comment. I also use serperior on the same way, as Wallbreak/Sweeper. Like for example, if on a match the opponent has a Weezing and only chansey to stop Special Attacks, Serp can't sweep but my volca can if i manage to kill Chansey. Just trick my opponent to let her on field "Walling" Serperior when in reality i'm draining Chansey's Softboiled(Even if leaf storm is special, it deals a *** ton of dmg after 2 attacks.). If he doesn't had wish as backup he loses. I trap chansey actually. If she doesn't heal she can't come back later. This is the clearly example of my favorite Overload Tactic, when you Overload a defensive mon in a way he can no longer wall what he is supposed to wall. Sometimes you can overload a mon because other mons can't help. For Example: Opponent has Calm Milotic + Chansey(Soft-boiled/Protect + Wish + Rocks + Teleport) vs your Serperior and Volca. Serp has Leaf Storm and Volca Giga Drain and Quiver Dance to resist special attacks a little bit. Milotic can't enter so he has to deal with help of Chansey against two Special Attackers, one able to drain all Recovery PP from her. She is overloaded so you can go and win.

My team as a HO, i'd prefer to analyze which mons has less threats. If two mons is potential threats to Dragonite, 3 are to Volca but only one is for Serperior, then i will try to Sweep with serperior and use the other mons as backup.

Edited July 12, 2023 by caioxlive13

[Ramallero]

21 hours ago, Heartdust said:

I sincerely appreciate your help, believe me, I'm bad at this type of planning, it's what I find most difficult.

 

And yes, I already put the patch on the serperior, I couldn't resist it, it was the first pvp poke that I had won.

 

And no, there wasn't a specific reason why I was rain teaming, other than to believe that it would help it be superior to fire damage. I just wanted a team that would help Serperior 

I was saying to not use the A patch on a reward pokemon because they can not be traded and spending a 900k-1M item on a semicomp is not great.. but in the other hand if you really like this pokemon for personal reasons (your first reward one!) I get it, is a game and as long as is fun for you is fine. In the future if you really want you can breed a 5x31 and buy another A Patch.

 

I think that a rain team is fine 🙂

I use mine in a Hyper Offensive team with 5 of the other most used pokemon in OU (Garchomp, Scizor, Dragonite, Volcarona, Starmie), is fun and helps me to win games quickly (or lose them really fast xD). I think this team has a lot to improve so, but I mostly use it for fun so is Ok for me.

Now if you really want to build a team around Serpe the work process would be:

 

1-Pick a pokemon (serpe in this case) and decide what role is he going to fulfill (let's say wallbreaker/sweeper)

2-Look at the current metagame and find what are the threats/counters to your pokemon (Amoongus, Chansey, Weezing, Dragonite if you are running HP Fire without Dragon Pulse, Togekiss even with HP Ice, etc.)

3-Pick pokemon that are good against those threats (ChoiceScarf Chandelure resists both Stabs from Amoongus and destroys him with flamethrower and can cripple Chansey with trick. Mamoswine with Earthquake/Ice Shard beats Weezing, the dragons and Togekiss.)

4-Fill the gaps:

-Hazzard remover (Defog RotomW helps with the Ice/Flying weakness an gives momentum with voltswitch, RapidSpin Tentacruel cover the fire/ice/poison/bug weakess and can cripple with scald/toxic/toxic spikes. Etc)

-Rock Setter (Garchomp brings a lot of firepower to the table, Gliscor is immune to ground and to status after toxic orbs activates, Skarmory has sustain, a bunchof resistances and can be used as a phaser).

-Sweeper: Serperior sometimes can sweep but is safer to have a backup (D.Dance Dragonite, Quiver Dance Volcarona, D.Dance Gyarados, etc)

5-Test-Adapt-Overcome: experience is the best teacher, try your team in some battles and see what are the issues you face that were not considered during the teambuilding process, (bullet punch from CB Scizor is too strong? Maybe put flamebody on chandelure to switch in and burn him. Struggling with focus sashes? Maybe icicle spear on Mamoswine. Stall is too annoying? Maybe put Taunt on Serpe). You get the point xD

 

These are just some random ideas on the fly, if you recived a Reward Pokemon from OU you are by no means a noob so are more than capable to do it great at teambuiling 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

15 hours ago, caioxlive13 said:

Nice comment. I also use serperior on the same way, as Wallbreak/Sweeper. Like for example, if on a match the opponent has a Weezing and only chansey to stop Special Attacks, Serp can't sweep but my volca can if i manage to kill Chansey. Just trick my opponent to let her on field "Walling" Serperior when in reality i'm draining Chansey's Softboiled(Even if leaf storm is special, it deals a *** ton of dmg after 2 attacks.). If he doesn't had wish as backup he loses. I trap chansey actually. If she doesn't heal she can't come back later. This is the clearly example of my favorite Overload Tactic, when you Overload a defensive mon in a way he can no longer wall what he is supposed to wall. Sometimes you can overload a mon because other mons can't help. For Example: Opponent has Calm Milotic + Chansey(Soft-boiled/Protect + Wish + Rocks + Teleport) vs your Serperior and Volca. Serp has Leaf Storm and Volca Giga Drain and Quiver Dance to resist special attacks a little bit. Milotic can't enter so he has to deal with help of Chansey against two Special Attackers, one able to drain all Recovery PP from her. She is overloaded so you can go and win.

My team as a HO, i'd prefer to analyze which mons has less threats. If two mons is potential threats to Dragonite, 3 are to Volca but only one is for Serperior, then i will try to Sweep with serperior and use the other mons as backup.

 Ty! Really nice example 🙂

Edited July 12, 2023 by Ramallero

[Mauricio9]

Man Ramallero could u help me in my post 😞

[Ramallero]

41 minutes ago, Mauricio9 said:

Man Ramallero could u help me in my post 😞

Man I'll try for sure, but I'm not an expert.. just the only one reading the Competitive Assistance forum apparently xD
I didn't reply to your post cause I saw you was searching for some in depth advice from a veteran and I can't provide that kind of help (as I said I'm not a pro) 🙂

[Mauricio9]

😄

Edited July 12, 2023 by Mauricio9

[Mauricio9]

1 hour ago, Ramallero said:

Man I'll try for sure, but I'm not an expert.. just the only one reading the Competitive Assistance forum apparently xD
I didn't reply to your post cause I saw you was searching for some in depth advice from a veteran and I can't provide that kind of help (as I said I'm not a pro) 🙂

Any help is great to tell u the true, u know way more than me that's for sure so I would be so happy if u helped 😂

Edited July 12, 2023 by Mauricio9