Headaches Pt.1, Regionals GA Team

Introduction
So, this is my first Rate My Team I've made, so if there are some novice mistakes in the creation, please just try to bear with me. I apologize in advance.
Anyways on to the actual team, I used this team at the Athens, Georgia regionals and did better than I thought. They achieved a 5-3 W/L record, though it didn't rank too high (Below Top 32). The most positive ratio the team had was a 4-1 record at the end of Round 5. Regardless, I'd just like some opinions on what to fix. So let's get started then.

The Team has had many edits now, the original team started off as:



The current team is:



Teambuilding

Purpose of the Team: I wanted initially to have a kind of goodstuffs sort of mixed team. In the end, I mostly wanted something to be almost anti-metagame and to be very controlling of battle.



Originally what inspired me to start the team was the Murkrow + Rampardos combination. From there I based the rest of the team on things that would help counter against things.




After getting some criticism, I decided that Tornadus worked much better than Murkrow to set up Tailwind due to Tornadus's higher offensive prowess. Abomasnow did the job of Kingdra + Gardevoir to eliminate weather, except instead of wasting a turn to set up Abomasnow does it as soon as she's out on the field. Gastrodon was used to fill in the empty slot when Gardevoir was removed, and works well to absorb water type attacks and has an immunity to discharge as well as overall bulk.


The Team Itself


Tornadus / Tornadus ♂
Item: Flying Gem Ability: Prankster Nature: Jolly
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Acrobatics
~Tailwind
~Taunt
~Protect

Description: One of the star members of the team, the flying genie Tornadus. His ever useful Tailwind support allows Rampardos to function and helps the whole team in general. His Acrobatics is always a nice asset to hit anything with, and help alleviate some of the pressure of Spore Amoonguss. His team synergy is strong, working well with almost every member, while catering to Rampardos's strengths and weaknesses. Immunity to Rampardos's Earthquake is essential as a partner and Flying Gem boosted Acrobatics works well in conjunction to hit Fighting Types that would otherwise threaten Rampardos. Tornadus also works well with Infernape as the Fake Out support helps Tailwind go up more easily.



Kris P. / Infernape ♀
Item: Life Orb Ability: Blaze Nature: Naive
EVs: 116 Atk / 140 SpA / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Heat Wave
~Close Combat
~Fake Out
~Protect

Description: The basic Infernape set, but what's wrong with the basics? Fake Out is benicial when paired with Tornadus as it helps Tailwind get up with relative ease. Not only that, but due to her quick speed Infernape can outpace common Fake Out users for her own Fake Out. She adds great coverage with STAB Heat Wave and Close Combat taking down Ferrothorn, Scizor, Metagross, (After eliminating Occa Berries) and anything weak to fighting. She adds useful synergy to the team and works well with most Pokémon on the team. (Although she is best paired with Tornadus and Gengar to set up Tailwind and cover their weaknesses respectively)



Nightwalkr / Gengar ♂
Item: Ghost Gem Ability: Levitate Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Shadow Ball
~Thunderbolt
~Destiny Bond
~Protect

Description: One of the most changed members of the team, this ghost has always been a force to be reckoned with. His typing and ability adds some much needed immunity to the team, being immune to Fake Out, Fighting Type moves, and Earthquake. (Although Rampardos's Earthquake will unfortunately go through Levitate) Gengar serves a much needed role in dealing with Latios if given the chance to as it speed ties and can OHKO him with Ghost Gem boosted Shadow Ball. Thunderbolt also adds some much needed Electric coverage that was lacking in the team. Destiny Bond is a lesser used choice to catch some opponent's off guard and land a free KO before he goes down. His synergy is overall strong as he works well as a goodstuffs, but Gengar is usually best paired with Infernape to cover each others' weak points.



Shellshock / Gastrodon ♀
Item: Leftovers Ability: Storm Drain Nature: Bold
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Moves:
~Muddy Water
~Earth Power
~Blizzard
~Protect

Description: Originally the main menace of the team, she somehow managed to sneak into it. Gastrodon's immunity to Surf and Discharge and access to Muddy Water is what mainly did it for me. Blizzard is nice in conjunction with Abomosnow so there's more than one thing on the team that can hit Dragons and birds. The much needed immunities this slug has to offer is really just sort of a glue in the team to help deal with some otherwise very threatening forces. (Zapdos, Thundurus, Opposing Gastrodon, Swift Swimmers, and ZapChomp)



Headache / Rampardos ♂
Item: Rock Gem Ability: Mold Breaker Nature: Adamant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Sp.D / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Rock Slide
~Earthquake
~Head Smash
~Protect

Description: My now staple Pokémon for this and future VGCs, good 'ol Rampy. With an absolutely monstrous Attack, and a speed usable with Tailwind I was beyond eager to try him out. STAB Rock Slide and Earthquake are the definition of bread and butter, hitting everything that doesn't resist it (And even some who do) very hard. Head Smash hits through Wide Guard and works well as general powerful single attacking STAB. The main reason I even considered using Rampardos was purely for its power, so I made sure to try to maximize it. Rock Gem adds a kick to his Rock Slide and makes Head Smash ludicrously powerful even hitting 61% min on a Specially Defensive Cresselia. Its Mold Breaker ability proves useful, 2HKOing standard Bronzong with Earthquake. Rampardos has great team synergy with Tornadus giving Rampardos all the oppurtunities it needs to pull of Earthquake and gaining an almost guaranteed Tailwind boost. Also, Tornadus can cover some of the Fighting weakness Rampardos has. With the rest of the team, he works overall well being a hard hitter and striking down anything that doesn't take him down first. Overall, his huge power, great ability, and perfect movepool for his purpose allow him to be a great Tailwind sweeper. Be it on Wi-Fi or at the VGC, some teams literally get devastated by this beast if they come unprepared for it. He caught some people by surprise, and he was definitely a lot of fun to use.



HailYeah / Abomasnow ♀
Item: Choice Scarf Ability: Snow Warning Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Blizzard
~Energy Ball
~Ice Shard
~Focus Blast

Description: With its ability in Snow Warning and low amount of Hail Teams, Abomasnow serves as the anti-weather Pokémon of the team setting up permahail. The addition of perfect accuracy Blizzard backed with Choice Scarf serves a very useful purpose in eliminating the once very threatening ZapChomp combo. Not only that, but being able to fire off constant Blizzards helps to have some constant damage always going on. Giga Drain is used as STAB and Gastrodon counter and Ice Shard is for last attempt attacks. The last slot is still not completely decided on. For now I've decided to use Focus Blast; however, its shaky accuracy is still somewhat troublesome. If another move comes about that could work better, I'll look into it, but for now she'll be running Focus Blast to hit opposing Ice and Rock types.


Threats


Tyranitar
Nothing on my team can really OHKO Tyranitar. Not only that, but he pretty much has STAB supereffective on at least half the team. The only real counters available on the team are a Focus Blast from Abomasnow, Close Combat from Infernape, and as a last resort: Gengar's Destiny Bond. Overall, this thing is just annoying to the team.


Cresselia
Despite Gengar's power, this bulky lunar Pokémon proved to be quite a nuisance to the team. With majority carrying Icy Wind, it renders all speed boost attempts from my side useless. Add on to the fact that it can OHKO two of my Pokémon, and brush off hits from my side if I don't dual target her, she is a real pest on the field.


Trick Room
Although being equipped with Fake Out and Taunt, as most Trick Room setters tend to be ghost types carrying Mental Herbs, Trick Room can be rather difficult to avoid. Fortunately, most of my Pokémon carry Protect so stalling it out is the best option; however, it still poses a threat to the team.


There are other threats, but those are really the only specific ones worth mentioning that I recall right now. If there are any more, please do say so and I'll update it.


Conclusion

Original Conclusion
Overall, very satisfied with this team. I had some practice with it on PO, but I only actually got maybe 2 or 3 matches in prior to the VGC on Wi-Fi. Sadly, that actually did account to some problems as Infernape should have gotten more usage, and some other mistakes. It seems as if with some changes I actually might have ended up 6-2, but that's just me being overly confident in my team.


After adding some much needed changes, this team seems very solid. It offers some of the more underrated Pokémon a chance to shine and Rampardos works as a very nice gimmick with his ridiculous Attack stat. Overall, I'm very satisfied with the results. The team also entered the 2012 Spring Friendly and ranked in 84th place with 43 Wins and 5 Losses.

But regardless of all the changes I've made, what could I improve on? Thanks for reading.
 

Everstone

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is a Contributor Alumnus
I don't know what happened in your other losses but having battled you in Athens here are a few things I noticed.

Notes
-Your setup is a bit slow. You mainly set up Rain Dance and started paralyzing things, but they could have done a lot of damage by then, and most of your team is frail. You focused a lot on paralyzing my Zapdos, even using up your Murkrow's turn to Quash it to make sure it'd get paralyzed. One of the people I was with used Murkrow also and she said Quash never worked out for her.
-I think you're trying too hard to cover everything. There's always going to be something that can beat even the best teams, and some things you might never encounter, wasting moveslots, for instance, I never fought a Trick Room team.
-Maybe decision making could be better? I think I told you this already, but I was thinking the following in team preview:
You saw my team and obviously knew it was rain, so I figured you'd probably lead with Kingdra to get the boost and do some damage. I saw Kingdra as the biggest threat so I elected to not lead with Politoed to prevent it from getting a boost, instead using Tailwind to make sure I outsped it in rain. Basically think about what your opponent might be thinking to get the advantage.

Suggestions
-Try out Reflect/Light Screen to have more turns to set up
-Get rid of Quash and run something else like Thunder Wave on Murkrow, or use Tornadus it also has Prankster Tailwind
-May want to get a Steel type to switch in to Dragon moves, or another Pokemon that can comfortably deal with Dragons
-Musharna is overall bulkier than Gardevoir and also has Telepathy and can run the same set, use that instead.
-Abomasnow is popular for a reason, it cancels weather by just coming in, you might want to fit that in and change a few members.
-Imprison seems useful only for shutting down Trick Room, if Trick Room isn't an issue replace it with something like Helping Hand or an attack. If you want Imprison Protect is a better choice to shut down since it's a LOT more common than Trick Room

You might want to tell us what Pokemon you absolutely want to keep in your team so we can tweak it. Also, did you fight other rain teams? How did the team do against those? Don't forget by setting up rain with Gardevoir, you may have helped Kingdra, but you also helped the rest of my team.
 
If you do decide to not run Quash on Murkrow I would suggest using a different Pokemon. You could use a Thundurus for priority Thunder Wave and it also can pose a threat to teams offensively, possibly giving Rampardos the opening it needs to do some damage. Thundurus also works pretty well in rain and has good speed.
 
One suggestion I can offer is to find a place for Ferrothorn. It can take out three of the four pokemon you listed as giving you problems.
Other than that, I love the idea of a team based around Rampardos. Shame you couldn't go very far.
(Yay! 50th post!)
 

Pocket

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I agree with Everstone - I think the weakest link to this team is Gardevoir and Murkrow; you're effectively cutting your offense in half by having these mons that does not attack. It is somewhat contradictory the offensive nature of your other mons.

I also support Tornadus > Murkrow. Partner Tornadus with Infernape, and you can stop Trick Room teams (Infernape Fake Out the non-Trick Roomer while Tornadus Taunts the Trick Roomer). Tornadus also possesses Tailwind to boost Rampardos's Speed. Even more Tornadus is a faster mon that can OHKO Latios (with Flying Gem) before it can retaliate. It actually pairs well with Rampardos, since it is immune to EQ and removes Fighting-types with Acrobatics. You could possibly remove Zen Headbutt for other options, like Head Smash to bypass Wide Guard and have a move to inflict 61% min on specially defensive Cresselia.

Tornadus @ Flight Gem
Trait: Prankster
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SAtk)
- Acrobatics
- Taunt
- Protect
- Tailwind

Unlike Murkrow, Gardevoir has some useful Special Offense, so I would use it. I would give it Psychic over Imprison. I would also consider experimenting with other interesting support options over Thunder Wave, such as Ally Switch, Helping Hand, or even Heal Pulse, all of which may allow it to function better with other partners.

That Gardevoir is a rather awkward mon, though. You can always pair Kingdra with Gastrodon, which would rack up Special boost from opponent's and Kingdra's Water moves and can retaliate with its fueled special offense. Alternatively, you can replace Kingdra's Surf for Muddy Water which hits both enemies and leave Kingdra's ally unscathed. The 85% accuracy is slightly off-putting, though.
 
I don't know what happened in your other losses but having battled you in Athens here are a few things I noticed.

Notes
-Your setup is a bit slow. You mainly set up Rain Dance and started paralyzing things, but they could have done a lot of damage by then, and most of your team is frail. You focused a lot on paralyzing my Zapdos, even using up your Murkrow's turn to Quash it to make sure it'd get paralyzed. One of the people I was with used Murkrow also and she said Quash never worked out for her.

I agree with her, it only rarely works very well. It sounded good on paper being able to make priority users like Scizor and Conkeldurr that threaten Rampardos move last, but in the end it didn't help too much.

-I think you're trying too hard to cover everything. There's always going to be something that can beat even the best teams, and some things you might never encounter, wasting moveslots, for instance, I never fought a Trick Room team.

I tend to get carried away with that, sorry about that. I actually did fight a Trick Room Sandstorm Team, which I won but I see what you're getting at. Gardevoir shows this especially, wasting half the slots for something I only encountered once.

-Maybe decision making could be better? I think I told you this already, but I was thinking the following in team preview:
You saw my team and obviously knew it was rain, so I figured you'd probably lead with Kingdra to get the boost and do some damage. I saw Kingdra as the biggest threat so I elected to not lead with Politoed to prevent it from getting a boost, instead using Tailwind to make sure I outsped it in rain. Basically think about what your opponent might be thinking to get the advantage.

I agree, I'm still trying to get comfortable with this team and sometimes I tend to make some stupid decisions. I'll try to work on it.

Suggestions
-Try out Reflect/Light Screen to have more turns to set up
-Get rid of Quash and run something else like Thunder Wave on Murkrow, or use Tornadus it also has Prankster Tailwind
-May want to get a Steel type to switch in to Dragon moves, or another Pokemon that can comfortably deal with Dragons
-Musharna is overall bulkier than Gardevoir and also has Telepathy and can run the same set, use that instead.
-Abomasnow is popular for a reason, it cancels weather by just coming in, you might want to fit that in and change a few members.
-Imprison seems useful only for shutting down Trick Room, if Trick Room isn't an issue replace it with something like Helping Hand or an attack. If you want Imprison Protect is a better choice to shut down since it's a LOT more common than Trick Room

I forgot Musharna existed back when team planning, and by the time I remembered it was too late so bad mistake on my part. Abomasnow seems like a viable option. Scarf'd Blizzard seems like it could really help my team. Tornadus also pretty much outclasses Murkrow for what I'm using it in. As for Reflect/Light Screen, it seems like a possible option, but I need to find out what I'm going to replace first.

You might want to tell us what Pokemon you absolutely want to keep in your team so we can tweak it. Also, did you fight other rain teams? How did the team do against those? Don't forget by setting up rain with Gardevoir, you may have helped Kingdra, but you also helped the rest of my team.

Rampardos is really the main thing I don't want to remove. I'd like to keep Gengar and Infernape as well, but I can remove them if there are better options. (And I'm probably going to change Gengar's nature to Timid after I run some damage calculations) I fought one Drizzle Team, and Gardevoir + Kingdra did very well against it. My opponent ran Politoed, Suicune, Ludicolo, and Kingdra. They ran pretty much all special (Except Kingdra, he ran Adamant) so Gardevoir lasted for a long time and Kingdra lasted the whole battle dealing constant damage. Also, I did notice that Gardevoir helped some of my opponents teams (Mainly the battles I lost minus the first), which is really troublesome.

If you do decide to not run Quash on Murkrow I would suggest using a different Pokemon. You could use a Thundurus for priority Thunder Wave and it also can pose a threat to teams offensively, possibly giving Rampardos the opening it needs to do some damage. Thundurus also works pretty well in rain and has good speed.

I like the idea, but I don't think I can really coordinate that with this team without changing a lot of it. And I prefer the Tailwind boost for now, but I'll keep this in mind when making my next team, so thanks for the advice.

One suggestion I can offer is to find a place for Ferrothorn. It can take out three of the four pokemon you listed as giving you problems.
Other than that, I love the idea of a team based around Rampardos. Shame you couldn't go very far.
(Yay! 50th post!)

Congrats on 50. Anyways, Ferrothorn seems pretty good. The problem I see though is that if I have Ferrothorn and Abomasnow I have 2 Pokémon with 4x Weakness to fire and only one that resists. Even if I add another Pokémon that resists (This is assuming we're replacing Gardevoir, Kingdra, and Murkrow) would that really be enough or would the two 4x Weak to fire be too overwhelming?

I agree with Everstone - I think the weakest link to this team is Gardevoir and Murkrow; you're effectively cutting your offense in half by having these mons that does not attack. It is somewhat contradictory the offensive nature of your other mons.

I also support Tornadus > Murkrow. Partner Tornadus with Infernape, and you can stop Trick Room teams (Infernape Fake Out the non-Trick Roomer while Tornadus Taunts the Trick Roomer). Tornadus also possesses Tailwind to boost Rampardos's Speed. Even more Tornadus is a faster mon that can OHKO Latios (with Flying Gem) before it can retaliate. It actually pairs well with Rampardos, since it is immune to EQ and removes Fighting-types with Acrobatics.

Tornadus @ Flight Gem
Trait: Prankster
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SAtk)
- Acrobatics
- Taunt
- Protect
- Tailwind

With my team, yeah you pretty much nailed it. Tornadus would probably work better, so I'll look into that. But how would Tornadus rank up in comparison to Crobat for this team? I haven't used either, but Inner Focus seems kind of nice, just not sure if it's really worth losing Prankster and Tornadus's power for.

Unlike Murkrow, Gardevoir has some useful Special Offense, so I would use it. I would give it Psychic over Imprison. I would also consider experimenting with other interesting support options over Thunder Wave, such as Ally Switch, Helping Hand, or even Heal Pulse, all of which may allow it to function better with other partners.

I have actually found a few instances where Ally Switch screwed some people over, but it seems kind of difficult to run with this sort of team. Helping Hand seems nice, and Heal Pulse could work well on my team if I'm running Abomasnow, but even still Gardevoir seems a bit lacking. I'd have to test it out.

That Gardevoir is a rather awkward mon, though. You can always pair Kingdra with Gastrodon, which would rack up Special boost from opponent's and Kingdra's Water moves and can retaliate with its fueled special offense. Alternatively, you can replace Kingdra's Surf for Muddy Water which hits both enemies and leave Kingdra's ally unscathed. The 85% accuracy is slightly off-putting, though.

I'm kind of thinking of changing both Kingdra and Gardevoir for something else, but this idea doesn't sound too bad. Unfortunately, Kingdra won't get rain this way. (Unless Gastrodon is running Rain Dance, which kills a move slot) I think I'll save those options if I ever want to make a Drizzle team for VGC instead.

You could possibly remove Zen Headbutt for other options, like Head Smash to bypass Wide Guard and have a move to inflict 61% min on specially defensive Cresselia.

I actually forgot about Wide Guard when I was making the set, but after some opponents using that this would probably work very well. However, if I run Head Smash should I just switch Infernape's and Rampardos's items around or should Rampardos run a Rock Gem (Or Infernape run Fire Gem)? (Note: this is assuming I slap Abomasnow on the team.)
Anyways thanks for all the recommendations and comments, I can more easily see the flaws in the team. Now to fix them, so here are some Pokémon I'm thinking of replacing:


Replacing Murkrow

Tornadus / Tornadus ♂
Item: Flying Gem Ability: Prankster Nature: Jolly
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Acrobatics
~Tailwind
~Taunt
~Protect


Replacing Kingdra

Abomasnow / Abomasnow ♂/♀
Item: Choice Scarf Ability: Snow Warning Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Blizzard
~Giga Drain
~Ice Shard
~Light Screen / Hidden Power (Fire) / Focus Blast


Edits


Kris P. / Infernape ♀
Item: Life Orb / Fire Gem / Focus Sash Ability: Blaze Nature: Naive
EVs: 116 Atk / 140 SpA / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Heat Wave
~Close Combat
~Fake Out
~Protect



Headache / Rampardos ♂
Item: Life Orb / Rock Gem Ability: Mold Breaker Nature: Adamant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Sp.D / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Rock Slide
~Earthquake
~Head Smash
~Protect


As for Gardevoir, I'm very willing to replace it but I'm not sure with what exactly. I could change it to drop Imprison and Rain Dance to run it with stuff like Heal Pulse, Encore, Thunder Wave, Helping Hand, or Ally Switch I'm just not sure if it's really worth keeping Gardevoir for that.

Thanks again for all the support. Assuming I make these edits and I drop Gardevoir, what do you all think would work well to compliment the rest of the team? Some other attacker or a supporter?
 

Pocket

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Seeing how Steel-types can be a bitch to this team, I would consider adding mons like Garchomp, Zapdos, or Gastrodon over Gardevoir's slot. Garchomp and Gastrodon can both utilize Ground STABs to remove Steel-types, while Zapdos has Heat Wave. Gastrodon provides you another Pokemon to check Rain, so you can be more flexible with your teammates, rather than always tacking on Abomasnow when facing Rain teams. Garchomp can be useful when facing Sand teams. Zapdos can provide this team with another Tailwind support (although you may want to utilize 3 atks instead).

I think I will stick with Life Orb on Infernape and go with Rock Gem on Rampardos. You should test it out, though, and see which item fits better.

Since you lack Rain now, I would consider dropping Thunder for Thunderbolt or Substitute on your Gengar. I also highly recommend going Timid on Gengar, cuz it's a frail mon that depends heavily on its Speed to finish off the opponent before they can attack.
 

Everstone

Now 100% reliable
is a Contributor Alumnus
If you wish to keep Gengar I'd remove Focus Blast due to its unreliability, and use Destiny Bond instead to KO something that is giving you a hard time. Timid nature would be nice as you can speed tie Latios at worst and Ghost Gem Shadow Ball can still OHKO it I believe. Maybe Substitute over Protect as it can allow you to dodge Thunder Waves/Spores. If you don't plan on leading with it much I'd stick with Protect.

I'd also think back to your matches. Have you used or did you find yourself needing an electric move quite often? Keep in mind STAB Shadow Ball and Thunder have the same BP on Gengar. I might be biased but I haven't really found myself in that scenario much, as such I'd probably go with something else, like Energy Ball/Giga Drain or even Confuse Ray.

For the last slot I suggest a Water type that maybe has Blizzard to abuse hail? There's a lot of good ones so I can't really make a definite suggestion.
 
Seeing how Steel-types can be a bitch to this team, I would consider adding mons like Garchomp, Zapdos, or Gastrodon over Gardevoir's slot. Garchomp and Gastrodon can both utilize Ground STABs to remove Steel-types, while Zapdos has Heat Wave. Gastrodon provides you another Pokemon to check Rain, so you can be more flexible with your teammates, rather than always tacking on Abomasnow when facing Rain teams. Garchomp can be useful when facing Sand teams. Zapdos can provide this team with another Tailwind support (although you may want to utilize 3 atks instead).

I think I will stick with Life Orb on Infernape and go with Rock Gem on Rampardos. You should test it out, though, and see which item fits better.

Since you lack Rain now, I would consider dropping Thunder for Thunderbolt or Substitute on your Gengar. I also highly recommend going Timid on Gengar, cuz it's a frail mon that depends heavily on its Speed to finish off the opponent before they can attack.
Oh right, forgot to put that change on Gengar, although actually I think I'll change it to Energy Ball or Giga Drain. I'll be sure to do that, Thunder is way too unreliable outside of rain. Also, just to keep my options wide, would a Water Absorb Pokémon work OK too? It's not that I don't want to use the listed mons, I just want to look through everything I could have.

If you wish to keep Gengar I'd remove Focus Blast due to its unreliability, and use Destiny Bond instead to KO something that is giving you a hard time. Timid nature would be nice as you can speed tie Latios at worst and Ghost Gem Shadow Ball can still OHKO it I believe. Maybe Substitute over Protect as it can allow you to dodge Thunder Waves/Spores. If you don't plan on leading with it much I'd stick with Protect.

I'd also think back to your matches. Have you used or did you find yourself needing an electric move quite often? Keep in mind STAB Shadow Ball and Thunder have the same BP on Gengar. I might be biased but I haven't really found myself in that scenario much, as such I'd probably go with something else, like Energy Ball/Giga Drain or even Confuse Ray.

For the last slot I suggest a Water type that maybe has Blizzard to abuse hail? There's a lot of good ones so I can't really make a definite suggestion.
Focus Blast did cost me some trouble first match (Missed Scrafty) so I can see what you mean. Thunder hit some common things (Suicune, Drizzletoad, occasional Zapdos for decent damage) but overall I can see what you mean that Energy Ball/Giga Drain would provide better coverage. And as for water type that can abuse Blizzard, do they really need STAB Blizzard or would it be passable if they didn't get STAB on it?

Edits

Nightwalkr / Gengar ♂
Item: Ghost Gem Ability: Levitate Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Shadow Ball
~Energy Ball
~Destiny Bond
~Protect

I'm also wondering about Perish Song. I've seen some Drizzletoads have it, would it be worth trying out or would it be mostly useless? And how does the speed tie with Latios work exactly, like how does it determine who moves first?
 

Pocket

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Speed ties are totally random - both Gengar and Latios have an equal chance of going first - you just hope it's your Gengar! It's a coin flip.

Not too sure about the new Gengar set. If you want a good coverage move, I would certainly stick with Thunderbolt, which provides much better neutral coverage. Energy Ball is also weaker than Thunderbolt. I don't think your new team has much problems against Gastrodon, so the Grass-move may most likely be unnecessary.

I personally don't like how Water Absorbers are slow and mostly vulnerable to Electric attacks. They are also walled by Gastrodon, Amoonguss, and Ferrothorn for the most part. Not the best fit to an offensive good-stuff team, imo.
 
Speed ties are totally random - both Gengar and Latios have an equal chance of going first - you just hope it's your Gengar! It's a coin flip.

Not too sure about the new Gengar set. If you want a good coverage move, I would certainly stick with Thunderbolt, which provides much better neutral coverage. Energy Ball is also weaker than Thunderbolt. I don't think your new team has much problems against Gastrodon, so the Grass-move may most likely be unnecessary.

I personally don't like how Water Absorbers are slow and mostly vulnerable to Electric attacks. They are also walled by Gastrodon, Amoonguss, and Ferrothorn for the most part. Not the best fit to an offensive good-stuff team, imo.
I'm not sure about the Gengar set either. I think I'll test it with Thunderbolt or Focus Blast or something replacing Energy Ball and see if it functions well with the team or not. If not I can add in Energy Ball and replace Destiny Bond if need be.

Anyways, I was just kind of thinking of using a Pokémon with a Water Absorbing ability to abuse hail. I thought of these three this morning:



Gastrodon
Item: Rindo Berry / Sitrus Berry Ability: Storm Drain Nature: Bold
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Moves:
~Muddy Water / Surf
~Earth Power
~Blizzard
~Protect

Pros:
-Storm Drain is overall better than Water Absorb for an offense oriented team.
-Only 1 weakness
-Ground Type coverage and immunity to Sandstorm is nice, especially against Sandstorm teams not carrying Grass Coverage

Cons:
-No recovery outside of Recover or Sitrus Berry
-Doesn't really benefit from Tailwind too much
-Relies a lot on getting hit with a Water type move
-Receives hail damage if in hail



Lapras
Item: Water / Ice Gem Ability: Water Absorb Nature: Modest
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Sp.A / 4 Spe
Moves:
~Surf
~Blizzard
~Ice Shard / Thunderbolt / Sing
~Protect

Pros:
-Immunity to hail
-STAB Blizzard along with STAB Surf
-Thunderbolt or Sing are nice moves to mess with unsuspecting opponents

Cons:
-Ice is terrible for defense, making it another Pokémon weak to Fighting
-Water Absorb is somewhat outclassed by Storm Drain, forcing more investment in offense for EV spread
-No immunities besides Water



Lanturn
Item: Rindo Berry / Shuca Berry / Air Balloon Ability: Water Absorb Nature: Modest
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Sp.A / 4 Sp.D
Moves:
~Surf
~Discharge / Thunderbolt
~Blizzard
~Protect

Pros:
-Confuses opponents on whether it is safe to use Surf or Discharge since its abilities grant it immunities and receives health from the two respectively
-Electric/Water is great offensive and defensive typing in some cases
-Adds Discharge / Thunderbolt for a bit of Electric coverage

Cons:
-Overall lower defenses than the aforementioned two
-Overall weaker than the aforementioned two
-Weak to Ground
-Receives hail damage if in hail



If you have a set for Gastrodon or a Pokémon you think would work better, please do tell. But so far I've been kind of stuck on deciding which would work best for this team.
 
Interesting team, it's good to see some kind of non-standard stuff, esp. Rampardos. However, the team is reamarkably Tyranitar weak. If Infernape goes down, Tyranitar has STAB on most of your Mons. The new Water types you suggected could help, but none of them will OHKO Tyranitar in Sandstorm, and probably not outside either. Rampardos Quake will only be avoided by Thundurus, and from such high attack will really hurt your partner. Becuase of Mold Breaker, Gengar won't avoid it. A second Tailwind user isn't the most necessary thing in the world, but would be beneficial. Things other then Latios share too many weaknesses with the team, but that is really a matter of personal experience.
 
Interesting team, it's good to see some kind of non-standard stuff, esp. Rampardos. However, the team is reamarkably Tyranitar weak. If Infernape goes down, Tyranitar has STAB on most of your Mons. The new Water types you suggected could help, but none of them will OHKO Tyranitar in Sandstorm, and probably not outside either. Rampardos Quake will only be avoided by Thundurus, and from such high attack will really hurt your partner. Becuase of Mold Breaker, Gengar won't avoid it. A second Tailwind user isn't the most necessary thing in the world, but would be beneficial. Things other then Latios share too many weaknesses with the team, but that is really a matter of personal experience.
That's why I originally was running Focus Blast on Gengar, but even with Modest nature and a critical hit if the Ttar has Chople in sand it will bring it down to only red HP. A 2HKO from both of my attacking mons seem to be the best option, but perhaps I could run some form of Fighting type coverage on something else. If not I'll try Focus Blast on Gengar again and see what I can manage, but I just now noticed that you are right it is a problem.
As for Mold Breaker, it does have that problem which really makes it a double-edged sword. Being able to 2HKO standard Bronzong is really nice, as is hitting Levitate users and the lot, but at the same time forcing my Gengar to use Protect is very annoying. However, she's the only thing with Levitate (As if I choose to run Lanturn it will probably hold Air Balloon for this reason) so Mold Breaker isn't too much of an issue.
Although, I'm not sure about the damage calculation but would Timid Gengar with Focus Blast in hail OHKO standard VGC12 Tyranitar? (This is assuming it is running Chople Berry and not Focus Sash)
 

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Unfortunately, no, Gengar's Timid Focus Blast deals 64-76% to ChopleTar in Hail. This also means that Modest Gengar also fails to OHKO ChopleTar, so you shouldn't be trying to kill TTar with Gengar anyways (pair it with Infernape).

Lanturn is better off with Volt Absorb, since it already resist Water moves.
 
Unfortunately, no, Gengar's Timid Focus Blast deals 64-76% to ChopleTar in Hail. This also means that Modest Gengar also fails to OHKO ChopleTar, so you shouldn't be trying to kill TTar with Gengar anyways (pair it with Infernape).

Lanturn is better off with Volt Absorb, since it already resist Water moves.
Alright in that case I'll try to swap around Thunderbolt and other coverage moves on Gengar to see which work the best. I'll give Destiny Bond a go as well.

I'll make that change on Lanturn. I'm going to try Gastrodon first, then Lanturn, and last Lapras and see what works best for my team.

Thanks again for the help so far, everyone.
 
Sorry for the double post, but it's been a while. Anyways, after some testing I found that Gastrodon will work better on my team as Discharge is rather difficult to coordinate (as is Surf). Thus, these are the changes I've decided for:

Replacing Gardevoir

Gastrodon
Item: Sitrus Berry / Leftovers Ability: Storm Drain Nature: Bold
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Moves:
~Muddy Water
~Earth Power
~Blizzard
~Protect

Muddy Water is easier to coordinate and the accuracy lowering boost can help get some hax. In compensation to losing Discharge I've decided to change Gengar:


Nightwalkr / Gengar ♂
Item: Ghost Gem Ability: Levitate Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Shadow Ball
~Thunderbolt
~Destiny Bond
~Protect

Gengar will be carrying the Electric coverage with Thunderbolt now. Destiny Bond can actually help deal with Ttar as a well timed one against Crunch will dispose of it (Hopefully after Gengar has already done some damage) although I unfortunately will end up sacking my Gengar in the process. But I guess it's the price I may have to pay if things resort to that. Overall though, it seems beneficial since its high speed allows me to pull it off efficiently.

I also finalized the moveset on Abamosnow:


Abomasnow / Abomasnow ♂/♀
Item: Choice Scarf Ability: Snow Warning Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Blizzard
~Giga Drain
~Ice Shard
~Focus Blast

I'm still rather skeptical on Focus Blast, and I may end up changing it to a Hidden Power, but I just don't really like what Sheer Cold offers and Light Screen won't help the team too much. I'm leaning a bit towards Hidden Power Fire, but the speed drop is turning me away from it as it makes my Abomasnow slower than others'.


I'm going to make changes to the original post. If you have more criticism please post as I need as much help as I can get, but overall this team seems almost complete now. Thanks again for the help.
 

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