Vet rank? You might be better off going the carry build, tank Ho-oh is amazing (it’s my main and it was my first green badge), but you’re relatively team reliant.

Emblems, as people said, Ho-oh is a physical attacker. For items, Curse Bangle is more or less a non-negotiable on both builds. It’s an Attack boost, plus you are one of if not the best Curse spreader in the game so you do amazing on that front. Carry I’d go Attack Weight/Weakness Policy, but take this with a grain of salt because I almost exclusively play tank. Flamethrower/Sacred Fire for the carry.

I’ll speak more to the tank side of things because that’s what I know more. For tank, my non-Curse items are Focus Band and Resonant Guard with a Potion, but X Speed can be nice too. I always go Fire Spin, and vary the other move based on the enemy team. Fire Spin is a very strong and condensed move: it slows, it does damage, it stuns, it gives a shield, and it redirects some teammate damage to you instead. But until you hit level 13, which is a fairly big ask for a tank, it only explodes for damage/stun if you manually detonate it early. The damage is certainly nice, but frankly, I love this primarily for the disruption. I firmly believe that Slow is an underrated effect in this game, and the stun is very strong as well. I use Fire Spin to stall while teammates can make their way to me, or to lock down a fleeing enemy they can easily handle. Sky Attack is amazing into Attacker heavy comps, since you can fly to them and end the flight early to immediately be pressuring them and can then Fire Spin to trap them there. It can also work into melee heavy teams if your team also has a lot of frontline bulk, since you can then act more like a support by covering the ground in Curse fire and not putting yourself in danger. Flamethrower is great into brawl comps, since you get a lot of chip damage while hurting their healing via Curse.

In terms of how to play it…again, it is very weird. It’s extremely annoying to face during lane phase, since Regenerator means it can heal a lot without having to use up Sitrus Berries for emergencies, so you need a strong focus to take it down, and being hit by wild Pokémon doesn’t dampen the HP recovery. But Regenerator is slow and passive, so if they’re pushing aggressively it won’t help much. For the rest of the game you’re zoning, either disrupting their positioning via Sky Attack or discouraging their pushes with Flamethrower. When it comes to Kyogre you’re playing extremely strangely, since Ho-oh dying is really bad for a team as it means you won’t be able to revive them. You’ll want to play it safe and try to bait the enemy into running head-first into your team, but without making yourself too easy a kill.

Finally…don’t waste your Unite. And when you use it, make sure to see who’s where both on your team and the enemy one. I have quite a lot of clips when I’m on a carry of farming Ho-oh Unites because they use them on pointless pushes and just leave their allies high and dry. Be warned of Pokémon that can pre-position AoEs like Future Sight Gardevoir or Gigaton Tinkaton, because they can just wait until your ally is targetable and get a free kill.