RMT - Who Needs Talonflame? [OU]

Talonflame is one of the most common Pokémon in the OU metagame and nearly every team has some sort of check or counter to its Priority Brave Bird thanks to its ability Gale Wings...what people seem to forget however is that Talonflame is not the only threatening Flying type that haunts the halls of the OU tier. Ladies and Gentlemen allow me to introduce you to the highly underrated and harder hitting Flying type known as Staraptor.



Staraptor @ Choice Band
Ability: Reckless
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- Double-Edge
- Close Combat
- U-turn

Talonflame hits super hard and only has a base 81 Attack (reaches 287 with Adamant) which honestly isn't all that spectacular...Staraptor on the other hand comes in with a VERY solid base 120 Attack (reaches 339 with Jolly). Not only does the extra 39 base attack allow it to initially hit harder it also has an amazing ability in Reckless causing both of its STAB moves to hit 1.2x harder than normal making it that much more offensively threatening. Not only does it have a powerful Brave Bird but its coverage moves actually allow it to plow through the normal Pokémon used to check Talonflame since it is the only Flying type that crosses peoples mind when they are team building. Double Edge allows it to plow through Defensive Rotom-W while CC utterly annihilates Ttar/Heatran and U-turn is a very nice move for scouting and forcing switches. Also works very nicely since I have 2 Pokémon with Volt Switch on this team as well.

252 Atk Choice Band Reckless Staraptor Double-Edge vs. 248 HP / 216+ Def Rotom-W: 235-277 (77.5 - 91.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Staraptor Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Tyranitar: 500-592 (124 - 146.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Choice Band Staraptor Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 352-416 (91.1 - 107.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

-1 252 Atk Choice Band Reckless Staraptor Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 180+ Def Landorus-T: 183-216 (48 - 56.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

Those numbers alone are pretty bloody impressive if you ask me.



Magnezone @ Choice Specs
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 172 HP / 252 SpA / 84 Spe
Modest Nature
- Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Flash Cannon

Specs Magnezone is pretty much the perfect partner to Banded Staraptor since it can trap or put offensive pressure on the 2 Pokémon that give Staraptor the most problems, Skarmory and Ferrothorn. Skarmory is bulky enough to take repeated hits while simply being able to Roost of the damage while Ferrothorn has Iron Barbs causing Staraptor to deal even more damage to itself and causing it to go down that much faster. Both Pokémon also tend to carry Rocky Helmet meaning Staraptor would be dealing more damage to itself than it would either of these two...That being said Specs Magnezone has nothing to fear from either of them. It can easily trap them and KO with Volt Switch/Tbolt and HP Fire respectively. It also forms a decent VoltTurn core with Staraptor since it resists the Rock, Electric, and Ice attacks that plague Staraptor while it is immune to the Ground attacks that riddle Magnezone.



Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 44 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

With my offensive core of Staraptor and Magnezone I needed something to handle both Mamoswine and Mega Pinsir who would otherwise have a field day against those two so Defensive Rotom-W was an obvious addition. Instead of running the normal speed investment to outspeed Jolly Azumarill I opted for dumping the rest of my EV's into Sp Def just so I could take hits from Keldeo, Greninja, and Landorus a bit better without losing the ability to safely check Mamo, M-Pinsir, Talonflame, and most Garchomp. 0 Atk IV's just for the least amount of damage as possible from Foul Play.



Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin

Next up I figured I needed a spinner/defog user and to keep up with the more offensive nature of this team I went with Excadrill. Air Balloon in particular lets me get free switches into choice locked Pokémon like Landorus-T and Garchomp letting me have a free turn to either deal as much damage as possible, spin away hazards, or set up rocks of my own. I originally had Rock Slide over Stealth Rock just so I could offensively check M-Pinsir but I have been running into a lot of them using CC over Earthquake meaning I have no chance against them either way...I may change back to Rock Slide if Stealth Rocks doesn't work out great but honestly in any situation I would use Rock Slide I can pretty much just use Iron Head instead.



Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 248 HP / 244 SpD / 16 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Synthesis
- Leech Seed

I noticed that my team was a bit Breloom weak and if Mangezone went down then I really wouldn't have much special offense at all so I threw in Mega Venusaur since it is such a great Pokémon and can work on pretty much any team. It also forms a pretty decent defensive core with Rotom-Wash and Defensive Volcarona. Giga Drain and Sludge Bomb for Dual STABs, Synthesis for instant recovery, and Leech Seed to attempt to give my other team members a bit of extra recovery from time to time. I honestly was super close to using Earthquake over Leech Seed just to deal a solid 70-84% to Heatran who thought they had nothing to fear, which most don't, from it (would have used Sassy nature in that case, moves the 12 Spd EV's to Def, and not dropped the Atk IV's). I also chose a specially defensive set since Specs Keldeo pretty much OHKO or 2HKO'd my entire team and running specially defensive at least gives me a chance against it as well as being able to take hits better from Ladorus-I.



Volcarona @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Def / 16 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Roost
- Quiver Dance

Lastly, I saw Scizor possibly causing some issues if something happened to Magnezone and I hadn't used Volcarona in a long time so I thought why not use a defensive set? Max damage from Mega Scizor is 42% with Knock Off and even then it has a 30% chance to get burned and become dead weight. Banded Scizor hits a bit harder at 57% with Knock Off but it is then locked into Knock Off meaning its next hit would do a max of 38% letting me heal off the damage easily with Roost. Quiver Dance honestly is used very little so I have been thinking about trading it out for Substitute just to be able to stay in against Pokémon that normally force it out and get some chip damage on them....also since it is a bulky variant it can live a LO Draco Meteor from Latios letting it get off some heavy damage with Bug Buzz dealing between 77-93% so with a LO recoil hit and rocks up it has a decent chance to OHKO Latios even without any investment.

Well that is just the quick run down of the team I have been using here lately for fun just so I can abuse Staraptor since it is a very good and highly underrated Pokémon that needs to be used more or dropped to UU so I can abuse it there >.>

Any thoughts or ideas about my team or how I could improve it?

 

The only reason Talonflame is even remotely viable is because of Gale Wings so I will agree with you fully on that.

The whole idea behind using Staraptor is bringing it in on something that HAS to switch out and dealing constant damage to any checks that are switched in until they are taken down. It plays nothing like Talonflame who can simply come in on anything weakened and revenge kill it.

Staraptor plays as a Wall Breaker as its sheer offensive force is more than enough to punch large holes into teams allowing teammates to clean up. You don't even have to predict all that much when using it since whatever it hits will take quite a lot of damage regardless if it resists or not (Specially Defensive Heatran takes around 50% from a BB and any TTar not invested in Defense takes at least 40% from B which is something Talonflame simply cannot do since it lacks the raw power.

Now by no means am I saying Staraptor is better than Talonflame as it is a very good Pokémon in it's own right. I am simply saying that Staraptor is an equally threatening Pokémon when utilizing it's strengths and can easily muscle past the Pokémon commonly seen to counter the more common Flying types in OU. I will admit that this probably isn't the best team I have made to showcase it with due to the lack of Sticky Web or paralysis support but it is still a pretty solid team...just a bit slow.