A guide about how to counter Rain

[Mawouel]

 

 

As an user of rain myself, and since a lot of people seem to struggle a lot against rain teams, I'd like to give my 2 cents about the diverse options that are actually good ways to counter rain based teams :

 

I/ The infamous frog, drizzle Politoed.

 

The way to recognise a rain team in one second is by his most common lead and mandatory weather inducer, Politoed. At the moment you see a drizzle Politoed, you know with a 100% certitude that the opposing team is going to be abusing water typed pokemons, and swift swim users. Some good ways to threaten a Politoed lead are :

 

1) Gyarados dragon dance

 

Gyarados, while being a very good physical sweeper on itself, can be a very good asset against rain teams : Politoed is either forced out instantly since he can't kill effectively gyarados, or might try to land a Hypnosis on him. Getting a lum berry on your gyarados lead gives you all the room you want to setup him and start sweeping with him. Since Gyarados uses rain quite well itself, he can threaten rain sweepers and bulkies as effectively as the rain user's sweepers do for yours.

A moxie Gyarados that got one DD setup can be able to sweep an entire unprepared rain team, so he is one of the most threatening lead a rain team can face.

 

2) Weavile

 

Since Politoed is OHKOed by weavile's beatup, you can be sure to force him out on the first turn of the game no matter what. The only reliable check I've found to weavile as a rain user is Azumarill, since Azumarill will take about 50% of his hp on Weavile's beatup and then be able to OHKO him with a prioritary Aqua jet. Forcing an Azumarill to switch in this way can still be a very good thing, preventing any future belly drum. The only thing to do is to not let Weavile after the first beatup turn and to switch to some bulky pokemon that will be able to check Azumarill and force him out.

 

3) Breloom

 

Breloom typing and speed allows it to hit rain teams very hard and very fast, with not much reliable checks available for rain users.

 

Other good leads to be added

 

II/ Stalling the rain.

 

A big drawback of the present rain teams is their heavy reliance on special sweepers and walls, such as kingdra or Slowbro. Being able to kill the main physical sweeper(s) of a rain team will most of the time mean the game is won if you got a huge special wall in your team, such as :

 

1) Blissey

 

The N°1 Blob stands his place, being a major threat to rain teams. The simple fact of playing a Blissey in your team forces the opponent's rain teams to considerably slow their playstyle, as Blissey will check every single special user of rain teams. Be wary of not throwing your Blissey in too carelessly, as it could mean a free setup for any physical setup sweeper such as bellydrum Azumarill, sword dance kabutops, or even non water type sweepers like sword dance Scyzor.

 

2) Milotic

 

Milotic being a very good special wall with access to pseudo hazing in the form of dragon tail, and good offensive options as well, is a very viable asset to run against anyone, rain teams included. The only thing to remember is that dragon tail will NOT work on Azumarill being dragon typed, and that a belly drummed Azumarill can very well OHKO Milotic with aqua jet if his DEF side is too weak. That sounds ridiculous, and that actually is.

 

Other good walls options to be added

 

III/ Cutting the rain.

 

A good way to shut down rain user's team synergy is to simply... Shut down the rain itself. As simple as it may seem, few Pokemon have actually access to weather inducing abilities, and fewer are those that can do well against rain teams. Ninetale and sun teams are naturally countered by rain teams, and Tyranitar has a hard time staying on the field against all the water typed. The only threatening weather inducer I had faced so far was Abomasnow, which typing is terrible in standard condition but becomes excellent against rain teams : Unlike most grass types, he is not weak not all the ice beams ran by rain teams, and he can hit them back very hard with wood hammer, his main sweeping limit being set by the recoil damage.

 

IV/ Playing it smart.

 

When facing a rain team, the first thing to be considered is since they will probably play a water heavy comp, electric typed moves will hit exceptionnally hard. However, every rain team user will play an electric absorber of some sort. This is when you have to outsmart your opponent : If you throw in a gengar or a starmie, your opponent will probably wait for a thunderbolt to come, and try to counter it with his own electric absorber. While it may be smart to just throw in thunderbolt in order to check who is your opponent's lightning rod, it can be devastating as well. Giving a +1 speed to an eventual electivire could mean he could be very hard to stop, while giving a free setup to some other could just ruin your momentum.

 

In this aspect, nothing is decided in advance, you have to make a choice in wether or not you will take the risk to try to read the lightning's rod switch in. For exemple, a surf under rain or a shadow ball from a gengar could very much ohko some of the squishier electric absorbers, or ruin their switch in by chunking a lot of their hp, but a fail read could mean certain death to your own electric type user.

 

Work in progress

 

 

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I know there is still a lot more to be added, and since I am not a PRO veteran some things i said might be inaccurate. If anyone could give their own thoughts on things to add/remove to this guide, I'd be very happy to hear any argument.

If there are typos/non english sentences feel free to tell me, as I am not and English native speaker.

[Psylo]

Thanks for the guide! I've learnt a lot, especially in the 4th part :y: .

[Barney]

Thanks for the guide :y:

 

Unfortunately, it came too late for me and had to experience rain teams head on :Cry:

 

just a little add on which is necessary to consider:

 

Be careful with Blissey and other special walls. In my oppinion many rain dance team user know that Blissey is a great threat to their team.

So they have and will adapt to that. I saw a kingdra which was spamming dragon dance and then using iron head. :Nervous:

[Mawouel]

What i said about not throwing blissey too carelessly is true for every physical setup sweeper a rain team could use, Azumarill being the most knowned one. Of course, others exists, like kingdra DD (even if it could be waaay more devastating with the proper move pool), or even swords dance kabutops. Rain teams can use non water typed Pokemons as well that are complemented by the fire dmg reduction, such as Scyzor, so a Sword dance Scyzor got the same kind of window when Blissey pops up.

 

I will be less specific about this chapter and just say to be careful about physical setup sweepers.

[Mooncheater]

azurrill is a good option against swift swim pokes like kingdra or floatez

[Imnotmark]

88767 What i said about not throwing blissey too carelessly is true for every physical setup sweeper a rain team could use, Azumarill being the most knowned one. Of course, others exists, like kingdra DD (even if it could be waaay more devastating with the proper move pool), or even swords dance kabutops. Rain teams can use non water typed Pokemons as well that are complemented by the fire dmg reduction, such as Scyzor, so a Sword dance Scyzor got the same kind of window when Blissey pops up.

 

I will be less specific about this chapter and just say to be careful about physical setup sweepers.

 

how to teach kabuto swords dance here in pro? pls teach me how sir

[Tyano123]

Thanks for the guide , I am really struggling how to encounter rain teams.

[Guest eethan]

when you are being defeated by Rain Team the best way to counter it is report it to GM as a bugged team... that's what top pvp players do. when a lowbie beat them in pvp they always reason out that they are beaten by a bugged pokes. :Cry:

[Mawouel]

95732 when you are being defeated by Rain Team the best way to counter it is report it to GM as a bugged team... that's what top pvp players do. when a lowbie beat them in pvp they always reason out that they are beaten by a bugged pokes. :Cry:

 

I was ranked top 25 pretty much the entire season, and when the weather bug was noticed i just changed my comp from rain to standard. Rain will be fixed soon and will still be very strong with the correct amount of dmg from water-type moves. I think everyone that does pvp and got 300+ pts has got defeated from a "lowbie" as you say, because there are a lot of factors to take into account, like rng procs, unusual comps that can be hard to deal with for a balanced comp, missplays can happen too. Saying that the top pvp players only win because they report everything they lose against is everything but true.

 

Anyways, i'll get back to completing this guide when rain teams will be allowed again as i need to do more testing.

[Utsu]

What about Gastrodon/Vaporeon/Quagsire as counters/checks?

 

SD Ludicolo could also be a threat like Kabutops I guess.