OU Offensive Healing Wish Team (first attempt at competitive team building)

[Shiny Arcanine Trainer]

I've been trying to build my first serious competitive team, & Arcanine is my favourite Pokémon, so I'm always going to have him in my team. As much as his most powerful set is exactly that, all the recoil damage he takes means he's not around for long. So I wanted to come up with a strategy that meant I could use him for as long as possible, & this is what I came up with. It's a little experimental, & it's not without it's risk, but if played correctly, IMO this could be a devastating team.

@ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 176 Spe
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)
- Flare Blitz
- Wild Charge
- Extremespeed
- Close Combat

It's a pretty standard Arcanine I guess. Flare Blitz is the STAB move, Wild Charge covers the weakness to Water, Extremespeed for revenge killing, & Close Combat is to cover his weakness to common Rock types. The EVs & Nature are there just to boost it's quick attacking prowess, the Life Orb gives him the obvious extra attacking power, & Intimidate let's him perhaps get an extra turn to do his thing. He's basically a kamikaze fighter, getting in as much damage as possible as soon as possible. Once he's down to low life, I'll switch him out with…

@ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Dragon Pulse
- Healing Wish

Again, another (mostly) standard set with a twist. When Latias is switched in, my tactic will basically be to boost my Special stats with Calm Mind, & Recover when necessary to make her a tank with the ability to punch big holes in teams with Dragon Pulse STAB. The HP Evs are there to give her as much HP to withstand the hits to get her to that stage where she can start using Dragon Pulse to sweep opponents. With the Leftovers, it should make her a complete pain to KO. Here's where the whole point of this tag team comes in: When I feel Latias hasn't got much left in her, I use Healing Wish to bring Arcanine back into the game on the next turn, rejuvenated & ready to fight like brand new. The EVs in Speed coupled with her base 110 Speed stat should get the Healing Wish in before she can be KO'd more often than not.

Now Arcanine can start sweeping opponents again in typical fashion. Once Arcanine has done his thing & is back on low life again, I can keep using this strategy to bring in a new Healing Wisher & repeat. This essentially gives me much more 6 Pokémon on my team &, if run correctly, could be near impossible to survive against. These are the other Healing Wishers;

@ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 64 HP / 96 Def / 96 SpD / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Leaf Storm
- Healing Wish

Celebi will do pretty much the same role Latias does. Leaf Storm is the STAB, & after 2 Calm Minds, it can be used twice until it becomes less powerful than usual. The EVs & Nature is to give a boost across the defences, & still be as fast as possible for when it's time to use Healing Wish.

@ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 80 HP / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Grass Knot
- Healing Wish

Psychic for the STAB, Grass Knot will cover Arcanine's weakness to Ground & take care of popular Water & Rock types, & after a Calm Mind or two, Jirachi will hit hard. It's typing & Leftovers will make Jirachi bulky enough to be a real threat itself.

@ Iron Ball
Ability: Synchronise
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Nature: Quiet (+SpA, -Spe)
- Calm Mind
- Trick Room
- Psychic
- Healing Wish

This is my last Healing Wisher, but it plays different to the others because Gardevoir doesn't have the speed for it. So this set utilises Trick Room to make Gardevoir hit first. The hindering Nature & Iron Ball make Gardevoir's Speed stat atrocious so it's sure to hit first after Trick Room. After a couple Calm Minds, Psychic will be devastating with it's STAB bonus. Then on the last turn that Trick Room is in effect, Healing Wish will bring the main sweepers back into play.

I know that this team does rely on luck, in terms of not being knocked to be able to switch out to a Healing Wisher. If Arcanine does get KO'd, I'll use my back up sweeper in his place;

@ Expert Belt
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Modest (+SpA, -Atk)
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Surf
- Flamethrower

Hydreigon will do the same job as Arcanine, but play differently. He's more of a typical sweeper than a kamikaze fighter so there's less risk of him being KO'd before he can be switched out. The main reason for choosing him as the second sweeper is that my Healing Wishers have weaknesses to Ghost, Fire & Dragon types. Hydreigon is more than capable of covering all of those weaknesses to great effect. Draco Meteor is the Dragon STAB move, & the recoil of the SpA reduction is only temporary once he's been switched with a Healing Wisher. Dark Pulse is the Dark STAB, & will be used to cover the Psychic types. Surf will cover the Grass types in the team, & Flamethrower will cover for any Ice types who try to take Hydreigon out. The only weakness this set does not cover is the Fighting-type one, which the Psychic-type Healing Wishers can make up for instead. The EV spread & Nature are simply to make Hydreigon fast & powerful. The Expert Belt is the best item for this set because he's all about covering weaknesses & hitting hard.


Although this team does rely on luck, it's not all doom & gloom if Arcanine is KO'd. I have a back up sweeper, & also the Healing Wishers are all perfectly capable of sweeping themselves. Although Healing Wish is the main strategy for this team, it's more of a last resort move because it will only be used once their HP is low. If i feel that the HW strategy isn't going to work in a certain match, I can resort to using them as typical sweepers, but the beauty of this strategy is that there's no real reason for it to not work against any team. When it pays off, the opponent will practically have to battle against 10 Pokémon so it's basically a case of stamina, which will be very difficult.

On Pokémon Online, it has had some success. Opponents had to put in the extra effort to knock out the team, although a couple of times the strategy failed because of some hax. The Gardevoir was especially effective once Trick Room was utilised. A Sableye with Substitute & Recover completely stalled me though, & a Sturdy Aron that kept using Endeavour & Sandstorm completely ran through the team. A team of Ubers were decimated by the Arcanine-Latias combo though. Scrafty was another problem opponent. I think if I can get the Healing Wishers to have a bit more attacking options, & once I get to know the team a lot more, I'll be able to use this team to it's full effect.

I have no idea if this has been thought of before, or how effective is really is (I know a fair deal about the competitive scene, but I'm no expert), but I haven't seen anyone try this before anywhere so I'm hoping I'm onto something. Constructive criticism is more than welcome!

 

[SkyDriver]

Imo this is a very original playstyle. First thing I noticed is that you have a huge Dark-weakness. I suggest you swap Celebi for Virizion, who resists Dark, and takes advantage of it, by using Justified. With SD, Sacred Sword, Leaf Blade and Hidden Power [Ice].
It doesn't learn Healing Wish, but it does add a Dark resist, which you really need. Only Hydreigon can't keep taking hits. Also, I suggest Flash Fire > Intimidate on Arcanine, to power up Flare Blitz, after switching a Fire-type move, aimed at Celebi/Virizion and Jirachi. Good luck with your team

 

[ZigzagGama]

I definitely agree that you have a huge weakness to dark, so I'd suggest replacing one of your psychics and replacing it with a fighting type. I would also add a water or electric type for diversity. I don't have any idea what pokemon are OU at the time (I personally prefer mixed tier)

I'm not so sure about your Gardivoir because the rest of your team seems fairly fast. Having a trick roomer can end up being a bit of an issue. Playing off the whole Justified thing, how about a Justified Gallade? (i've never used it personally but it might help.)

Hm, my advice doesn't seem very good today. I hope this actually helps!

 

[redcharzard]

Wish could replace some of the healing wishes you have but I noticed something that you lack and thats a good rapid spinner. If someone manages to set up spikes, toxic spikes, stealth rocks or any combination of the three, Arcanine is screwed. Stealth rocks takes out a quater of its health on every switch and spikes simply adds to that toxic spikes can poision you or if two sets are up than it can badley(toxic) poision you and that could prove devistating for Arcanine. Forretress, Tentacruel and Donphan are the best rapid spinners in OU (best rapid spinner may be Excadrill if your just looking at the pokemon and not how it uses it but Excadrill is Uber for a reason.) Tentacruel can be helpful by setting up its own toxic spikes to help break down walls, Donphan and Forretress have Sturdy and both have access to stealth rocks(Donphan via a 4th gen tm and Forretress via breeding.) Forretress has access to all 3 entry hazard and rapid spin while Donphan has access to stab earthquake and a priority attack in ice shard(via breeding.) Lastly Tentacruel automatically absorbs toxic spikes when it enters the battle due to its poision type and Forretress has the bug steel type which is probably the best deffensive type combination in the game.

 

[Shiny Arcanine Trainer]

Well the reason for choosing Healing Wish over Wish is the fact that Arcanine has a very recoil heavy set, & i need all the HP i can get. Wish might not get me that every time. The Dark type weakness is a problem I should have addressed a lot better, I figured Arcanine's CC could deal with it but it won't be enough every time. I like the idea of using Virizion, but would Scraggy be a better choice seeing as it's typing is really good coverage for the Dark type weakness? I could make it offence-heavy, with Moxie it would become very powerful. the Justified Gallade is a nice idea too, rather than resisting Dark it capitalises on it, i like that. it might be something the opponent won't see. i'm definitely gonna look into all my options, whichever one i choose i probably will swap Celebi out, it was the weak link of the HWers. still good, but not as effective as the others.

A Stealth Rock/Spikes/Toxic Spikes option would be good too, using Sturdy to set it up, but i thought Ferrothorn only had Iron Barbs not Sturdy? I could possibly use a Tentacruel with Black Sludge. i've never come across a Toxic Spiker though so i'm not sure how common it really is, maybe i'm getting lucky lol. the reason i didn't consider using that tactic was that Arcanine isn't a set up kind of Pokemon. this is all about going in guns blazing. although if i used a Toxic Spiker, maybe when the HWers are setting up with Calm Mind, they'll still get damaged from the poison. would that be my best option?

Gardevoir might seem a bit of an odd idea but it actually worked to great effect. Nobody saw it coming & behind Latias, Gardevoir was my most reliable HWer.

bringing in someone to cover my Dark type weakness & a Toxic Spiker is gonna cut my HWers in half. but then again it's still giving the sweepers 2 extra chances to do their thing so i guess it's still a strong focal point of the strategy. i think i got too focused on HW alone & forgot to make it more stable, which a Fighting type & a Toxic Spiker would definitely do. tomorrow i'm gonna post a couple of revisions on the team but thanks for all the feedback, much appreciated!

 

[redcharzard]

sorry for double posting I hate doing this but it just hit me that a single pokemon can devastate your whole team. Dugtrio with focus sash stands a good chance at taking down Arcanine if it switchs in for a revenge kill Arcanine would be forced to stay in due to Arena trap and be forced to try to burn dugtrio with Flarblitz. If it fails to burn Dugrtio than Dugtio KOs it with stab earthquake and has moves such as Rock slide, return, sucker punch and reversal to attack the rest of your team. if it has reversal it can ko hydreigon and sucker punch can take out a huge chunk of Gardevior's hp as well as Celebi's hp. Jirachi can also be KOed by Earthquake. Dugtio is common this gen due to weather teams wreaking havoc every other match.

 

[ZigzagGama]

If you are seriously concerned with arcanine's health, try morning sun. I use it and it keeps it going for a long time.

 

[ROBO PIKA Tek 2]

Virizion would be a nice asset, though you shouldn't really worry about Dark moves as TTar is probably the only one who uses it.