If it ain't broke, improve it. (Doubles)

[StarmanXL]

My doubles rain dance team is quite possibly the best team I've ever made and, while it does pretty well, it had a few problems and could always stand for a few improvements. With that in mind, I made some changes I believe will be beneficial and hopefully you guys can help me more with it.

LEAD 1

Starmie@Damp Rock
Natural Cure
Timid-216 Spd, 252 Sp. Atk, 40 HP
-Rain Dance
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Thunder

My first lead is the ever-reliable Starmie. Usually, it can set up Rain Dance first turn without too much trouble then do some serious damage with Surf coming from base 100 Sp. Atk, with Ice Beam and Thunder--with its helpful 30% paralysis rate--to round things out for a combo only Lanturn and Shedinja can resist, IIRC. I chose Starmie as my lead over Kingdra or Ludicolo who can arguably abuse rain more because the star hits 352 speed with this set, allowing me to outspeed leading Gengars and Froslasses before they screw me over with Shadow Ball, Taunt, Hypnosis, or Confuse Ray.

LEAD 2

Floatzel@Focus Sash
Swift Swim
Adamant-252 Atk, 72 HP, 64 Def, 104 Sp. Def, 16 Spd
-Taunt
-Waterfall
-Crunch
-Brick Break

I originally had Weavile in this spot and, while he did well, he gave my team too many bug weaks (which I realized when a Yanmega gave me hell) and also didn't particularly benefit from Rain Dance aside from the reduced fire weak, so I figured I try out everyone's favorite inner sea weasel --besides, I've been looking for an excuse to put her on here, anyway.

The idea is simple: use Taunt to shut down potential threats such as Trick Roomers, other field effect users, Shuckle, and pokemon that generally rely on support moves such as Bronzong and Dusknoir. She then benefits from the massive speed boost from Swift Swim and abuses boosted STAB Waterfall to put the hurt on the opponent. Since three members of my team already had Ice Beam, I figured I'd forgo it in favor of Brick Break, mainly to help against Abomasnows that screw up the weather for me.

As for the EVs, I really want to use the Dancezel set since 252 Speed EVs seems like overkill with Rain Support, although I'm not sure how it'll work out; if it doesn't, I'll go with the CBFloatz EVs. Oh, and the Focus Sash prevents it from getting screwed from Explosion, Thunderbolt, etc. It worked on Weavile, so I might as well try it out here.

Ludicolo@Leftovers
Swift Swim
Modest-252 Sp. Atk, 104 Spd, 152 HP
-Rain Dance
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Energy Ball

My second Rain Dancer, Rain Offense Ludicolo performs very well. The set is pretty much self-explanitory, and the 4x water resist allows me another pokemon to abuse Surf with.

Toxicroak@Life Orb
Dry Skin
Adamant-252 Atk, 252 Spd, 6 HP
-Cross Chop
-Sucker Punch
-Fake Out
-Stone Edge

Toxicroak is damn good in the rain. I can easily pair her with Starmie or Ludicolo and spam Surf all day long. The rain also nullifies the Life Orb damage at the end of each turn.

Fake Out is a useful surprise that can buy me some time, whereas Sucker Punch's priority helps with her mediocre speed. Cross Chop is great: it helps me take down Tyranitar and Abomasnow that try to change the weather, Snorlax and the occasional Regice or Blissey that don't take too much from Surf, or just about any other fighting-weak pokemon that gets in my way. The toxic frog has frequently carried me to my victory.

Blissey@Leftovers
Serene Grace
Calm-252 Def, 216 Sp. Def, 40 Sp. Atk
-Aromatherapy
-Thunder
-Ice Beam
-Softboiled

Incongruous as she may seem, Blissey has actually served the team well. With her massive special defense and HP, she can take Surfs from Starmie or Ludicolo and Softboiled off the damage. Since status totally screws all of my team, Aromatherapy allows me to recover the burn on Toxicroak or paralysis on Ludicolo, which has saved me before. I ditched Thunder Wave for Thunder and Serene Grace, allowing me to do damage with a 60% chance of paralysis.

Mismagius@Wise Glasses/Leftovers
Levitate
Timid-252 Sp. Atk, 252 Speed, 6 HP
-Shadow Ball
-Thunder
-HP Fighting
-Pain Split

Your standard Explosion resist. Originally I had Gengar here, but I tired of having it on 75% of my teams, and I figured Mismagius wouldn't be OHKO'd by my partner's Surf (she's 2HKO'd with this spread, but whatever, I don't know how to fix that), although I do lose my only reliable way of dealing the ever-helpful sleep.

Anyway, this is pretty straight forward. Shadow Ball for STAB, Thunder for rain abuse, HP Fighting for Hail teams and the unresisted Ghost/Fighting combo. Pain Split helps me restore some HP if she's on the verge of death or I did something stupid like switch her directly into a Surf. Wise Glasses or Leftovers, I've no idea.


The overall strategy is to set up rain as fast as I can then hit as hard as I can without giving the opponent a lot of room to set up. I don't have a complete threat list yet, but I foresee Abomasnow, no, Hail teams in general being a problem since they were a real bother before. Likewise, I'm thinking Lanturn, Snorlax, and Yanmega could also cause problems.


This has got to be the only team I've ever been optimistic about when posting it...

 

[StarmanXL]

Oh, come on, anybody?

 

[sonicmark]

You gain respect from me for Floatzel and Toxicroak.

I would say go with Aqua Jet instead of Taunt as it'll gain STAB,always strikes first and gains increased power in rain condition.

But other than that it's a great team lineup :).

 

[StarmanXL]

To be quite honest, I don't see a real reason to use Aqua Jet over Taunt. For one, I'll already be ridiculously fast in rain so, outside of beating other priority move users to the punch (perhaps an opposing Kabutops would be a consideration, but besides that, there's not much else that's really predictable), Waterfall covers things well. Second, if I ditch Taunt, I have no way of stopping the enemy from setting up, particularly Trick Room which would make rain cause Floatzel and Ludicolo more harm than good. It also helps against random stuff like Skill Swap, the ever-annoying Shuckle, and so forth.

 

[Mormino3]

It's kind of useless using an explosion resist. Actually, the only situation I would see use for one would be in singles. Replace it with another Swift Swimmer like Kingdra.

 

[Articanus]

what scares me is that should a team end up getting Trick Room, you have no way of stopping it. T_T

I like this team because of the lack of exploders and creative expansion of the movesets. Also, there is a big lack of protect. this is both good and bad: good, because your not dedicating a whole moveslot and you are, in fact, using everything to its full potential. On the other hand, in case a switch to Mismagius is too obvious(or your opponent runs the common Metagross + gengar starters which, while not devestating this team in particular, can Explode(Scarfed Metagross is even worse) and Gengar can randomly shadow ball and come up with the 50% chance of hitting Mismagius.

But then I'm probably missing something. Congrats on even having the patience to train in-game for this: you can expect me to start when a simulator comes for this! XD

If you would, I actually want to play doubles, so if you have anyway to contact you(AIM, MSN or something), please pop me a PM with it in it. I'd really like to play doubles, but my lack of patience/ experience keeps me from making an adequate attempt.

 

[Gymdude]

It's kind of useless using an explosion resist. Actually, the only situation I would see use for one would be in singles. Replace it with another Swift Swimmer like Kingdra.

Explosion is one the most common attacks in doubles, perhaps more than in singles since it kills two birds with one stone, so I would have to disagree. I think an explosion resist is always a good idea on doubles team.

Although I just said you would probably be better of with an explosion resist, I must say that Mismagius seems like a strange choice or it doesn't fit in well with the rest of the team. It just doesn't seem like it does anything for or is benefitting from the team, it's just kind of, there.

One of the reasons I say this is because all of the team members that Mismagius would be paired up with know surf, and since Mismagius doesn't have protect, there's no way you can avoid being KO'd quickly (that is unless you have some sort of "surf, then pain split with the enemy to get it's HP down low while restoring yours and then finish them off next turn with a first priority move" thing going on and I don't even know how well that would work). You do have the option of pairing it with Floatzel, Toxicroak, or Blissey, but then you have no rain dance D:

Maybe Shedinja would be a good choice? I'm not really sure on that either, since it's kind of frail, but it's the only thing I can think of at the moment. Maybe it's something you can toy around with. If mismagius works for you though, I guess you can continue to use it.

Also, I'm not quite sure how useful AromaBlissey is to this team. You might want to consider giving Blissey CM, Thunder, Blizzard, and Softboiled. You have the Boltbeam combo with a higher hax value and more power. I have experienced this twice and out of both times, they were a pain. I think AromaBlissey might not be the best because it just sits there rather than actually attacking anything. If they see that Blissey is just dead weight they're going to focus more on taking out the other Pokemon accompanying her, which could be a problem. If you're having a problem with status effects (which, actually, I don't see a lot in doubles) then you may want to consider giving someone a Lum Berry.

These are just some things I saw that you might want to change. Other than that, I think it's a very solid rain dance team overall.

 

[Mormino3]

Explosion is one the most common attacks in doubles, perhaps more than in singles since it kills two birds with one stone, so I would have to disagree. I think an explosion resist is always a good idea on doubles team.

The only thing you're protecting is the said Explosion resist. You would need two to be completely protected. Nothing on his team is running Protect and almost everything dies to an Explosion.

If you really need something for Explosion, use Golduck. I'm sure it can make use of the rain.

 

[Arcaseven]

If you really need something for Explosion, use Golduck. I'm sure it can make use of the rain.

I'm really surprised it took so long to suggest a Damp Pokemon to counter Explosion on a Rain Dancing team as a replacement for Mismagius. >.<

Poliwrath has better stats overall, though, perhaps discounting Speed. He can't learn Thunder, though.

 

[Gymdude]

I'm really surprised it took so long to suggest a Damp Pokemon to counter Explosion on a Rain Dancing team as a replacement for Mismagius. >.<

Poliwrath has better stats overall, though, perhaps discounting Speed. He can't learn Thunder, though.

One of the reasons I didn't mention that is because if you have another water type on the team, half of the team is now weak to electric, with thunder being at 100% accuracy. The only option for avoiding that would be Quagsire.

 

[StarmanXL]

Wow, I can't believe I forgot about Golduck. Yeah, it'd probably go better over Mismagius since I'd have an actual resist to Surf and Explosion, as well as not having to ditch Hypnosis. The lack of Thunder, added Discharge weak, and mediocre speed is a bit of a pain, but it's probably better.

Oh, and Articanus, I use AR, so...

 

[Wolfie92]

Swampert might work well on this team with its STAB quakes, immunity to electricity, and access to stone edge which could help solve your yanmega problem. It also would work well with mismaguis thanks to levitate. It can also set up stealth rock or roar pokes away and makes a great physical wall. if you do use swampert, I'd give protect to a couple of your pokes. Even if you don't go with with stone edge, stealth rock destroys yanmega.

 

[StarmanXL]

I really don't think Swampert'd work well here, since it can't take Surfs worth crap, and I don't really need a physical wall. Not to mention SR and Roar aren't really that great in doubles. If anything, I'd run Quagsire instead for Water Absorb so I can heal instead of hurt from my own attacks...but who would I replace for him, anyway?

 

[Articanus]

Oh, and Articanus, I use AR, so...

LOL

either way your way more experienced than me.

Edit: In doubles

 

[StarmanXL]

I decided to switch Ice Fang back on Floatzel, seeing as Brick Break leaves me completely walled by Toxicroak and that most of the things I was using Brick Break to take care of would have been done in by boosted Waterfall anyway.

Also, I'm not particularly liking the added grass and electric weak Golduck brings to the team, so I'm thinking of switching Mismagius back in instead.

I've had some problems with Sunny Day teams. Is there a good way to fix this or does the problem lie in my playing?

 

[chaos 9]

Why not take a crack at the double absorbers? It is a VERY potent stratagy which employs 2 water absorbers that both fire off surfs to dent the opposition while constantly healing themselves. Lapras+Vaporeon are a good choice. While on the topic of choice.. A choice scarf or specs would work on them for more healing/outspeeding things.

 

[Gymdude]

I decided to switch Ice Fang back on Floatzel, seeing as Brick Break leaves me completely walled by Toxicroak and that most of the things I was using Brick Break to take care of would have been done in by boosted Waterfall anyway.

Also, I'm not particularly liking the added grass and electric weak Golduck brings to the team, so I'm thinking of switching Mismagius back in instead.

I've had some problems with Sunny Day teams. Is there a good way to fix this or does the problem lie in my playing?

I think it would depend on what kind of Sunny Day team it is. Is there something specific about the SD Teams that seem to be troubling you? Otherwise I wouldn't know.

 

[Arcaseven]

Why not take a crack at the double absorbers? It is a VERY potent stratagy which employs 2 water absorbers that both fire off surfs to dent the opposition while constantly healing themselves. Lapras+Vaporeon are a good choice. While on the topic of choice.. A choice scarf or specs would work on them for more healing/outspeeding things.

Hah! I used that strategy for a Battle Tower Doubles Rain Dance team once. The only problem is that there isn't much of a type coverage, and Discharge breaks it so very badly. If you can run with it, it's fun as hell to play.