first RMT ever!!!

[skiznod]

NOTE: i dont know how to post pics. and i don't have Platinum version...

no i dont have a long sob story for ya but i've been practicing on multiple sources, and when this team fails... it fails hard. I need some help getting over some of my weaknesses (typically anything faster than me) but i dont know how....

THE TEAM:

Abomasnow
item: leftovers
abillity: snow warning
Nature: timid
ev's: 4 hp, 252 sp.att, 252 speed
moveset:
substitute
leech seed
blizzard
focus punch

there was realy no real reason that i chose this guy other than to mess with the typical sandstorm, that, and to go with the, i guess you can call it the "drainage method"... corny, i know, but i don't have anything better to call it. so this is my lead... that or either...


Bronzong
item: leftovers
abillity: levitate
Nature: relaxed
ev's: 252 hp, 52 att., 204 def
Moveset:
gyro ball
trick room
stealth rock
explosion

something also of note: my team is very slow. Abomasnow is literaly my fastest pokemon. i guess i tried to compensate for my poor speed stats with trick room, which gives me the dilema of either stealh rock first or trick room first. in some situations i can't decide... and taunt hurts me. well after all is done ( and this giant blue bell is low enough on health) depending on my opponent at the time, i use the detonation switch (explosion).


Blissey
item: leftovers
abillity: natural cure
nature: calm
ev's: 252 def, 40 sp. att, 216 sp. def
moveset:
softboiled
aromatherapy
ice beam
thunder wave

the cleric strategy ripped straight from the strategy pokedex. not much else to say about this except it helped me in one battle in particular. this isn't the only support pokemon that i have on this team, i think that would be asking for too much if i had only one support pokemon. this one is for opposing statuses, for hp I use...


Vaporeon
item: leftovers
abillity: water absorb
nature: bold
ev's: 188 hp, 252 def, 68 sp. att
moveset:
toxic
wish
surf
ice beam

again, one support would be asking for much imo, and this kid can switch in on waters on the fly. toxic is the other part of my "drainage system", using other effects as well as attacking to drain my opponent of health. toxic is one of my favorite afflictions as it rarely misses in my matches. i think, if i counted correctly, toxic has only missed 3 times so far... i think...


Dusknoir
item: leftovers
abillity: pressure
nature: impish
ev's: 252 hp, 52 def, 204 sp.def
moveset:
will-o-wisp
thunderpunch
shadow sneak
pain split

this number 5 was another pokemon i've wanted to try for quite some time, he also comes in handy when there is a rapid spinner to spoil some of the fun. thunderpunch is for those waters that i mostly hit for neutral or "not very effective," damage. and unlike bronzong, he siphons energy rather than kamikaze, giving him the chance to fight again another day...


Arcanine
item: leftovers
abillity: intimidate
nature: bold
ev's: 240 hp, 168 def, 28 sp. att, 72 sp, def
moveset:
will-o-wisp
flamethrower
hidden power (ground)
roar

another pokemon ripped from smogon. somehow i realy like this guy cause after the meat of the battle is done, he can take that couple of hits and sometime stand majestic over the remnants of battle. will-o-wisp i forgot to mention is also one of the "drainage methods" and one of my least favorite afflictions, due to poor accuracy, i rarely use the move.

well... there you go. that is the team in a nutshell, and i know that most of my weakness is poor speed. anything with a speed stat of 240 (abomasnow speed stat) or higher can taunt me and proceed to kill. and the more i think about it, the problem seems to get bigger. i don't know, maybe its me. i've never been a fan of a team of sweepers... i dont know why (inner thoughts: my playstyle wont allow it...)

so thoughts, comments, help...?
(inner thoughts: I'm scared...!!!)

 

[stormtrooper]

take off bronzong for a spiker like skarmory or fortress to add some more residual damage. this team could become more of an stall team for the better and there is no need for trick room without sweeper abusers

 

[Malfunction]

Well, first of all, I would like to welcome you to Smogon.
I would just like to point out that by no means this team is a team. Basically, a team is a group of Pokemon that work together to work out some form of strategy and beat your opponents Pokemon. Unfortunately, throwing six random Pokemon with no well-thought strategy is not going to net you any win.If you look at the team, there is basically no form of strategy it can do. Hail doesn't benefit any of your Pokemon. Trick room won't be helping you either. Blissey and Vaporeon don't really need speed to use Aromatherapy and Toxic. Dusknoir, too, is not benefiting from it.
Since I'm not really sure of whether you want to run a stall team or a standard team, I can't help you rebuild this team. I will, though, give you advice.
First, if you want to run a stall hail team, you should be changing your team to Pokemon that can actually benefit from it. Things like Walrein, Tentacruel, and Mamoswine are very helpful. Tentacruel can set up toxic spikes and rapid spin enemies' Stealh Rock and/or Spikes. Walrein can stall like very well with its helpful ability, Ice Body. Mamoswine can be great to revenge kill these Salamence with Ice Shard and can effectively use hail to fire strong, stabbed, and 100% accurate Blizzards. Having a ghost on your team would be helpful, too, to stop your opponent's rapid spinner's attempt to spin away your spikes. If you like the idea of hail stall, you might want to read the on-site guide, The Art of Hail Stall.
If you, however, would like to run a standard team, you should revise your team and choose the right lead, sweepers, and supporters. Just don't put any pokemon, think of Pokemon that can benefit each other, cover each others' weaknesses, and provide good type coverage.

So, good luck with building a successful team, and I hope you enjoy your time at Smogon!

Sincerly,
Yours Truly

 

[Foresaken Justice]

On your Abomasnow, change the Ev spread to 252 HP, 40 SpA, 216 SpD Abomasnow's purpose on a hail team is to wall the ever-common Water / Ice or Electric/Ice combinations used by the likes of Suicune, Starmie, Cressilia, Magnezone, Raikou and a counter to the metagame's many walls. The current Ev spread you have does not allow you to accomplish that.If you use 252 HP, 40 SpA, 216 SpD, change Abomasnow's nature to Sassy as it allows it to wall the mentioned Pokemon with greater ease. Sassy also allows you to overcome Sandstorm because Sassy lowers your speed allowing Hail to overcome Sand at the start of the match.

Since yiu have Abomasnow to start the Hail, you need Pokemon that can take full advantage of Hail. Since you mentioned that you do not like Offense, I am going to introduce you to one of the best walls under Hail, Walrein. Under Hail conditions recovers amazing amounts of health due Ice Body + Leftovers. Restoring 12% health each turn is quite a massive advantage over these other walls, who would otherwise be 0% as hail cancels out their leftovers, or only 6% in typical circumstances. If you are interested in using Walrein, I would suggest the following set:

Walrein @ Leftovers
Ability: Ice Body
EVs: 220 HP/244 Def/46 Spd
Nature: Bold(+Def, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Roar
- Protect
- Surf

With the above EVs Walrein will outspeed Skarmory and Swampert allowing you to Roar them away before they phaze you away. With the magic HP EVs listed above, Substitute will cost you 104 HP per turn, while Leftovers will give you 26, and then Ice Body will give you 26 more per turn. Substitute can be used to protect yourself from status and to help with the stalling process. Protect can be used to scout for the opponents move and Blizzard is for those pesky Salamence's running around. Just so you know how to use Walrein, I will explain it to you. Basically, the idea is to switch Walrein on something slower that cannot harm Walrein and then set up a Sustitute. After that, you use Protect and continue with the combination of Protect+Substitute.

I like the idea of an arcanine on your team. Arcanine makes a great Scizor counter with its great defenses with Intimidate backing it up. It can also scare away Scizor with Flamethrower. However, I do feel that this team needs a bit of offense. An offensive Pokemon will allow you to finish of your opponents once you have weakned their team. Arcanine is a cool Pokemon but I would suggest using an EV spread of 228 Atk / 92 SpA / 188 Spe with a Niave nature. I would also suggest using a moveset of Extremspeed, Fire Blast, Hidden Power Ground and Flare Blitz. That set serves as your Wall breaker. Since this team has a hard time dealing damage to opposing stall teams, Arcanine will serve as a good wall breaker and a good Scizor counter Arcanine scares away Celebi, Skarmory, Forretress, and Blissey alot of pokemon who are found in stall. I would use either Expert Belt or leftovers. I do not suggest Life orb because the Hail+Life Orb recoil will eventually wear Arcanine down.

On Bronzong, I would use the standard spread of 252 HP / 86 Atk / 80 Def / 92 SpD. With those EV"s, Bronzong will OHKO Scarfed Gengar and Weavile and 2HKO Tyranitar with Gyro Ball. The Special Defense and Defense EVs maximize provide overall bulkiness, allowing Bronzong to survive a Flamethrower from MixApe. I would use something like Trick over Trick Room and giving it a Macho Brace. With Trick, Bronzong is able to disable oppsosing walls such as Skarmory who think they can juts come and and freely set up only to get a suprise in Trick. You can Trick Macho Brace onto sweepers such as Infernape who tend to switch in on Bronzong often and Infernape will not like getting its speed reduced signifacantly from the effects of Macho Brace.

I suggested alot of things, however, I encourage you to explore a little more. I would suggest taking a look at The Hail Team Guide made by Legacy Raider and O_OWNAGE. That guide will allow you to explore different kinds of pokemon that work on Hail teams and will give you great explanations on what each indivisual Pokemon is capable of doing.

-------------------------------
Hope I helped and good luck
-------------------------------

 

[skiznod]

...
....
.....
not exactly the positive feedback that i expected... Amre. almost like you were trying commit a verbal homicide(it was that brutal...). ow.

thanx FJ.i like me a good arcanine myself... i was thinking, instead of macho brace (giving opponents to still get a chance of a kill), could i use something like sticky barb just to tack on more pain on top of hail damage to bronzong?

i will take into concideration everything stated and probably start over... using this as somewhat of a learning experience, but please continue to keep me posted. i just wish that this would have went a little better, but beggers can't be choosers....
please dont stop giving me your opinions,
anyone else...?

 

[Valantaro]

I don't see the point of Bronzong really. Trick Room on a team full of walls seems a little silly to me. And if this is supposed to be a stall team, then it will get eaten alive by offensive/foe stall teams in due time. I would first implore you to remove Bronzong from your team, and either add something such as Skarmory or Forretress, or even Hippowdon if you don't mind Sandstorm. Hippowdon is a magnificent physical wall and can also grant some nice Sash breaking ability to the team.

Other than that, the team seems pretty good. Spikes can be considered if you're looking for hardcore stall.

 

[Cattle]

You should use shoddy battle. There are way more battlers, and you don't need to worry about screwing up on a team. Just google it.

 

[skiznod]

after milling it over, reading and rereading the hail guide(inner thoughts: Yeah!! LIKE 3 TIMES!!!!) i've decided to go with the hail team, but now i cant finish it... i'm inundated with ideas. currently im going to use the abomasnow spread, the stallrein set, and the arcanine sets suggested.... im still missing,

1. a stealth rock guy
2. a status absorber
3. wish support
4. spiker / toxic spiker
5. and a plan b (just in case...)

wish support i can give to vaporeon, which can help my arcanine out of a pinch (except on ground attacks). but that leaves 2 spots and 4 roles... my brain hurts.
ideas plz...

 

[Yuko]

for the status absorber i would suggest you a Lanturn, he's usable in both OU and UU, takes little damage from Grass Knot and can use ResTalk + STABed moves. Maybe this one:

Lunturn @ Leftovers
Calm
Volt Abssorb
40 HP / 136 SpA / 252 SpD / 80 Spe
Dischage / Thunderbolt
Surf
Rest
Sleep Talk

Here you have a nice special sponge who resist BoltBeam combo and take little damage from Grass Knot as I stated before. Discharge for paralysis support or Tbolt for more power; Surf for STAB. If you think you can go on without RestTalk you can use this to absorb the electric attacks:

Lanturn@Leftovers
Calm
Volt Absorb
40 HP / 136 SpA / 252 SpD / 80 Spe
Surf
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
T-Wave / Toxic

Here's another set with more moves but you need a little of prediction here, switch this in on electric attacks and gain health.

For a rapid spinner I think the best for hail teams is tentacruel, with this set:

Tentacruel@Leftovers
Calm
Liquid Ooze
204 HP / 96 SpA / 172 SpD / 36 Spe
Surf
Toxic Spykes
Sludge Bomb / Ice Beam / Surf
Rapid Spin

Absorbs TS when switch, spins away rocks and spykes while resist the boltbeam combo. You gain two utilities with him: Rapid Spinner and spyker.

For a counter to Tyranitar and Hippowdown's Sand Stream use this one:

Swampert@Leftovers
Relaxed
Torrent
240 HP / 216 Def / 52 SpA
EQ
Ice Beam
Surf
Stealth Rock / Roar / Protect

You can rely to counter Tyranitar and Hippo's sand with him, while giving your team an electric inmunity.

 

[Flashstorm1]

I find Wish support to be unnecessary on a Hail team as most of your pokemon will be defensive and therefore will have a much easier time staying alive than standard walls. As already mentioned, the biggest threats to a Hail-based team are MixApe and Tyranitar, so I highly recommend running a Tentacruel (Rapid Spinner / Toxic Spiker / MixApe Counter) and a Machamp/Swampert (good Tyranitar counters). I also recommend a ghost type such as Spiritomb or Rotom-A so your opponent cannot spin away spikes; you'll also need a good Lucario and Scizor counter, so Rotom-H is probably the preferred option in this case.

 

[skiznod]

all good ideas... now the first priority should be to try the team without the wish supporter. if it doesn't work for me, i'll try to rework the team a little more...

 

[skiznod]

bump...

not only that, but i've changed the team around quite a bit (inner thoughts: hell, it ain't the same team anymore). and there's still the problem of setup... it takes too long. i need some more suggestions...
tell me what you think.

Abomasnow
item: leftovers
ability: snow warning
nature: sassy
ev's: 252 hp, 216 sp.def, 40 sp.att
moveset:
blizzard
substitute
leech seed
focus punch

same idea, different spread. he takes special hits a lot better, hinted by the fact that he beat a starmie (after all the passive pain...) but i feel that focus punch is pushing it. im not really liking recoil damage much (you'll see why later), so this is making me iffy on wood hammer... any other move suggestions will help... but i digress. he kind stopped becoming a lead, but became more of a setup option.


Walrein
item: leftovers
ability: ice body
nature: bold
ev's: 220 hp, 244 def, 46 sp.def
moveset:
protect
substitute
roar
blizzard

the Stallrein does work wonders... something i didn't realize was that a sub can be roared away, which eventually led to our downfall, (hmm...) and paralysis kills this set, but the stall was impressive nonetheless. i just have to make a mental note of these two... roar can be usefull, but blizzard can run out, which gives me more concerns...


Skarmory
item: shed shell
ability: keen eye
nature: impish
ev's: 252 hp, 200 def, 40 sp.def, 16 speed
moveset:
stealth rock
spikes
roost
brave bird

sorry to have put the lead so far down. anyway, this is where most of the setup pressure resides. i realy need a spikes and stealth rock person, but i keep getting this feeling that im putting too much pressure on skarmory, and this last minute pick was for the final spot. i probably can go without one or the other, but i dont know what to pick, or if i should drop one at all... all in all, he has very good physical defense.


spiritomb
item: leftovers
ability: pressure
nature: calm
ev's: 252 hp, 100 def, 156 sp.def
moveset:
rest
sleep talk
shadow ball
hidden power (fighting)

the no weaknesses thing called to me. and he takes opposing statuses like a pro. i didn't know that pokemon with the ability scrappy and a fighting move could score super effective hits... but she (yes, she) out lasted the opponent, and on more than one occasion, but she is extremely slow (101 speed), however this helps with blocking normal attacks (flame orb + facade + guts swellow) and the occacional rapid spin.


Tentacruel
item: leftovers
ability: liqid ooze
nature: calm
ev's: 204 hp, 176 sp.def, 96 sp.att, 36 speed
moveset:
toxic spikes
sludge bomb
surf
rapid spin

this is another setup guy, but not so much as skarmory. his special defense is good in my opinion since he survived an earth power from a heatran, and the opponent switched, allowing me to use toxic spikes...
sluge bomb instead of ice beam because of the possibility of running into another water type, so my options dont run thin ( except in the case of running into empoleon...).


Arcanine
item: expert belt
ability: intimidate
nature: naive
ev's: 228 att, 188 speed, 98 sp.att
moveset:
fire blast
extremespeed
hidden power (ground)
flare blitz

this is the fighting force of my team, and one of the main reasons why i hate recoil at the moment (flare blitz on focus sash froslass at 80 hp... he died.). but i was able to trick a person to let me kill a heatran with hp ground. he still retains his position (sort of) as the clean up guy, but with all of the team threats, he started comming out earlier... i wanted him to stay as a secret wepon, not reveal him until the right time... i guess it can't be helped.

now im still missing a piece of wish support, something that can switch in on electric attacks, and a plan b. i still dont know what to take out or replace. and now the ink well has run dry... im out of ideas.

 

[Yuko]

change arcanine for Mamoswine with this set

MixMamo @ Life Orb
Naughty
Snow Cloak
252 Atk / 20 SpA / 236 Spe
EQ
Ice Shard
Blizzard
Stone Edge

In my opinion change Skarm for Frosslas

Frosslas @ Leftovers / BrightPowder
Timid
Snow Cloak
4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Spykes
Substitute
Thunder Wave
Blizzard / Ice Beam / Confuse Ray

Blizzard vs. Ice Beam is matter of power, Blizzard is 100% accurate during hail but has a paltry of 8 PP.

Replace Spiritomb with Sawmopert as your plan b, I stated that before:

Swampert@Leftovers
Relaxed
Torrent
240 HP / 216 Def / 52 SpA
EQ
Ice Beam
Surf
Stealth Rock / Roar / Protect

Inmunity to electric attacks and sandstream can help you soo much, specially if Tyranitar face your team.

 

[skiznod]

huh... ok. i'll be sure to try that. i guess because i didn't see "PLAN B" in bold, underlined, and italicized print, it went... [quick blow] over my head. sorry.

 

[Yuko]

lol no problem
try both: Mamo and Swampy, both are inmune to sandstream and also inmune to electric attacks. Just keep SR out of your field.