Sets
Special Sweeper
- Item Held
- Choice Specs / Life Orb / Expert Belt
- Nature
- Modest (+Special Attack, -Attack)
- Effort Points
- 252 Sp. Attack – 200 Speed – 58 HP
- Flamethrower / Lava Plume
- Earth Power
- Dragon Pulse
- Hidden Power Electric / Overheat / Dark Pulse / Flash Cannon / Explosion
An all-out sweeper set with the held items adding more power. Dragon Pulse OHKOs Salamence and Garchomp and Earth Power 2HKOs Tyranitar and Rhyperior even during a Sandstorm. Flamethrower is there for more power and is more suitable for this set but Lava Plume’s 30% chance of burning the foe is really cool. The fourth move is just a filler and you won’t be using it much. Choose whichever is better for your team. Hidden Power Electric (if you can get it) hits Gyarados and is what I’d suggest, Overheat works better than Flamethrower/Lava Plume in the early game stages (especially with Choice Specs), Dark Pulse is mainly for Dusknoir and Alakazam, Flash Cannon gets STAB and Explosion can be used for a final KO.
Magma Trapper
- Item Held
- Salac Berry
- Nature
- Mild (+Special Attack, -Defense) / Rash (+Special Attack, -Special Defense)
- Effort Points
- 252 Sp. Attack – 200 Speed – 58 Attack
- Magma Storm
- Explosion
- Lava Plume
- Earth Power / Dragon Pulse
A set that makes use of Heatran’s signature move, Magma Storm. Trap a Pokémon with weak Defense and explode in its face. It can kill Blissey and other Special Walls easily and can actually deal some severe damage to other Pokémon too. Lava Plume is here for burning slow Physical Sweepers like Snorlax and Dusknoir, Earth Power for hitting Rock-types and Steel-types that resist Explosion and Dragon Pulse is for Garchomp and Salamence again. Salac Berry is here to give you the Speed you need to attack first with Explosion. Beware of Magma Storm’s low accuracy and low PP though. If it fails, your opponent will probably switch to a counter and you’ll end up trapping the wrong Pokémon.
Team Supporter
- Item Held
- Leftovers / Shed Shell
- Nature
- Modest (+Special Attack, -Attack)
- Effort Points
- 200 Speed – 180 Sp. Attack – 130 HP
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Earth Power / Dragon Pulse
- Explosion
Set Stealth Rock and then try to burn as many Pokémon as you can using Lava Plume. Earth Power is here again for damaging Tyranitar and Rhyperior and Dragon Pulse is for the well-known Dragon-types. Use Explosion when Heatran’s supporting job is over. Shed Shell gets mentioned in this set and can be chosen over Leftovers for avoiding being trapped by Magnezone and, more important, Dugtrio.
Other Possible Options
There aren’t really many other options for Heatran other than those mentioned in the sets. Rest and Sleep Talk could be used for more survivability if you want but with so many great offensive moves, it’s like wasting two move slots.
Will-O-Wisp can be used on Heatran but only if you are good at predicting switches. Burning an incoming Gyarados or Metagross is always helpful but burning a Guts Heracross or a Milotic because you didn’t predict the switch will give you a lot of problems.
Counters
Milotic and Vaporeon are probably the best switch-ins as they can absorb Heatran’s moves with their huge Special Defense and KO it with Surf. Other Water-type Pokémon like Swampert fear Lava Plume’s 30% burn chance so they can’t counter Heatran easily.
If you sacrifice something, Dugtrio can come in and kill it (unless it holds Shed Shell) but otherwise, it can’t switch in effectively.
Cresselia can wall Heatran for a really long time but she’s not gonna do anything in return. Blissey can wall him as well, but she is afraid of getting a nice Explosion.
Any Guts user that can switch in and get burned without being killed can counter Heatran but that’s too difficult to pull off. Especially for Pokémon weak to Fire like Heracross. Thick Fat Poliwrath could come in a Fire-type move and KO Heatran with a Water/Fighting-type STABed move, but a burn from Lava Plume makes it still think twice before doing so.
Opinion & Notes
Heatran is a great Special Sweeper due to its typing, even if it makes it 4x weak to Ground. There aren’t many Special Sweepers immune to Sandstorm out there and with Infernape becoming more and more famous, it can abuse its Flash Fire ability. It can switch really easily into many OU Pokémon, and most notable, Salamence (especially in the Choice Specs variant). Azelf, Choice Specs Alakazam and Gengar won’t like Heatran too. The only disadvantage that makes Heatran OU instead of Uber is its weaknesses to some very common types, namely Water, Ground and Fighting. But with some good team support and prediction skills, Heatran won’t have much problems dealing with most OU Pokémon.
Also note that Heatran is one of the very few Pokémon that resist a really common offensive combination, both Fire-type and Dragon-type moves. That makes it a quite good counter to Pokémon using this combo like Salamence and Dragonite.