XY RU RU Trick Room Team- Help for a newbie, please?

[Shiny Fairymon]

Hi. I'm really new to this site- I only registered and started playing on pokemon showdown yesterday- and after seeing this thread, I was wondering if I could get some advice from more experienced players about my team. I had been reading about competitive battling for a while before I joined, and I managed to win a few battles with it (after some modifications), to the point where I did a small bit of climbing on the ladder. Since this is my first time team building, I'm sure I've made some mistakes, and I would be grateful if they could be pointed out.

First off, my trick room team has two pokemon knowing trick room:

Bronzong
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Quiet
Move 1: Trick Room
Move 2: Shadow Ball
Move 3: Earthquake
Move 4: Psychic
EVs: 252 HP/128 Atk/128 SpA

Bronzong tends to be my lead. It has good physical and special defense, so it can usually take a hit and set up trick room without too much of a problem. I think that the other three moves offer decent coverage- with psychic, of course, being the obligatory STAB. Leftovers helps Bronzong to survive- after all, I don't want my trick room setters to be fainted early on.

Exeggutor
Item: Sitrus Berry
Ability: Harvest
Nature: Quiet
Move 1: Trick Room
Move 2: Giga Drain
Move 3: Sludge Bomb
Move 4: Ancient Power
EVs: 244 HP/12 Def/252 SpA

This isn't what Exeggutor's original move set had been before I tested the team. When I first tested the team, Sludge Bomb's slot had been occupied by Psyshock. However, there were two battles in a row in which I was walled by Tangrowth and beaten by the enemy team, and I quickly realized that the only pokemon on my team with a move super effective against grass was Carracosta. I looked up Tangrowth's stats and realized it was a physical wall, so I decided to give the move to fix my problem to a special attacker which resisted grass. I had originally planned on giving Exeggutor hidden power bug, but when I played actual battles the hidden power type kept on coming out different, so I then gave it Sludge Bomb instead.
The combination of Sitrus Berry with Harvest and the move Giga Drain seem to make Exeggutor an effective tank. Not only can I use it to set up trick room, but it can hold its own as a special attacker as well.

As for the other four members of my team:
Gigalith
Item: life orb
Ability: Sturdy
Nature:Brave
Move 1: Stone Edge
Move 2: Earthquake
Move 3: Explosion
Move 4: Heavy Slam
Evs: 252 HP/252 Atk/4 SpD

Gigalith is my physical sweeper on the trick room team. My main question about this move set is whether more experienced players think stone edge should be replaced with rock blast. When testing out my team, there was a time when Gigalith was my last pokemon standing against an opponent with only a fire type pokemon left, and the other pokemon kept on using a combination of substitute, protect, and leftovers to beat me. I know that rock blast can break through substitutes such as that one- however, stone edge offers more dependable power, and there were multiple times when I could OHKO Abomasnows with it before the opponent could do any sort of mega-evolved damage.

Carracosta
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Solid Rock
Nature: Brave
Move 1: Stealth Rock
Move 2: Waterfall
Move 3: Earthquake
Move 4: Ice Beam
EVs: 252 HP/128 Atk/128 SpA

Carracosta offers bulky mixed sweeping for a trick room team. Also, it can lay stealth rocks- there have even been some times when, in team preview, I noticed my opponent had multiple super-slow pokemon (such as Escavalier), and decided to lead with Carracosta setting stealth rocks, so as not to give my opponent help with that.

Throh
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Guts
Nature: Sassy
Move 1: Superpower
Move 2: Circle Throw
Move 3: Stone Edge
Move 4: Rest
Evs: 252 HP/4 Def/252 SpD

Throh offers some strong fighting-type coverage for a trick room team, and also acts as a pseudo-hazer through Circle Throw if the opponent has been stat boosting their pokemon. The move slot occupied by Superpower had previously been held by Bulk up, but Throh kept on fainting before it could sweep, and I needed a better fighting move than Circle Throw, so I chose Superpower. Since this is a trick room team, there was going to be plenty of switching, anyway. The only reason I dared to put Rest on this set was because Granbull has Heal Bell.

Granbull
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Relaxed
Move 1: Roar
Move 2: Toxic
Move 3: Heal Bell
Move 4: Play Rough
Evs: 252 HP/4 Atk/252 Def

Granbull offers my team support. Initially, I had been nervous about only having a single attacking move, and the move slot occupied by Roar had been held by Fire Punch. However, there were multiple psychic-type pokemon that boosted their stats which Throh couldn't use Circle Throw to pseudo-haze, and so I switched the move to Roar. Granbull's Toxic and Heal Bell support help the team, and Play Rough is strong STAB for a physical attacker.




Now that I have shown the team I'm using, I'm hoping that some veteran Smogon players will be able to give me some advice about what I need to change.

 

[Lemonade]

Hi, nice to seem some Trick Room teams. I have some suggestions.

Because Trick Room only lasts 5 turns, it's pretty important for at least one setter to hit hard so you don't have to waste a turn switching. In this case Exeggutor is that setter (IMO Reuniclus is generally better because of Magic Guard, which also means LO doesn't give you recoil, but Exeggutor is fine). Your other setters should provide utility, mainly Stealth Rock. In particular, I think Bronzong should switch from an offensive set to such a utility set. For example,

Bronzong @ Mental Herb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion
- Iron Head

This lets you get Trick Room and Stealth Rock up against the common Taunt Cobalion lead (Trick Room first so you outspeed for Stealth Rock) as well as other Taunt users. If those aren't a problem you can run Leftovers or whatnot. Explosion lets you bring in a TR sweeper safely if you need to, though you can hard switch if you want to keep Bronzong for later. Iron Head is a bit weak but it's STAB and does some damage. Gyro Ball (doesn't hit Aroma tho) and Earthquake and stuff are ok too. Also you want the Defense EVs so you don't get completely destroyed by Knock Off, but other spreads can work too. Generally you don't want to split EVs 128 Atk / 128 SpA because it's often inefficient. Instead you want to use a calculator and EV so you get specific OHKOes or 2HKOes. Bronzong is not a strong Attacker anyway and you would waste TR turns getting walled.

For attackers, they should hit hard and have good coverage so they don't have to switch, because that uses a turn. Because of that, you don't really want Leftovers on your Attackers; Life Orb is generally much better.

Next, I think Gigalith is outclassed by Rhyperior. You do gain two 4x weaknesses to Water and Grass, but Rhyperior is overall bulkier (due to Solid Rock), has higher attack, and a good dual STAB.

Rhyperior @ Earth Plate / Life Orb
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Brave Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast / Stone Edge
- Ice Punch
- Megahorn / Swords Dance

The EV spread probably isn't optimal, but because of Rhyperior's high HP stat you don't gain a lot of Special bulk investing in HP. Earthquake is obvious, Rock Blast's main allure is its higher accuracy. Ice Punch is for Gligar and Megahorn for Psychics.

Carracosta is also a bit weak, as it has relatively low Attack and Special Attack. Because you have Stealth Rock on Bronzong now, I recommend Clawitzer.

Clawitzer @ Life Orb
Ability: Mega Launcher
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Scald / Water Pulse
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Aura Sphere

Clawitzer hits a lot harder (Rhyperior has Rock coverage). Generally, Scald is preferred because of the burn chance, but Water Pulse is stronger and could be needed. The rest is coverage, and Clawitzer's main issue on standard teams is its Speed anyway. You always want power, so you want Life Orb instead of Leftovers or whatnot.

I don't recommend Superpower in general on TR teams, since you get weaker every turn and you don't really want to switch because it uses up a turn. Unfortunately, this means changing another mon. Sawk would probably be the closest mon to Throh. While Close Combat lowers stats too, it doesn't lower Attack, which is the important part.

Lastly, a dedicated support mon is also inefficient. Status isn't a big issue because you won't have prolonged turns, so Heal Bell isn't really necessary. Toxic is also not that good for this reason: you won't have that many turns to stall out. Phazing is also not a big deal because few mons can safely set up and survive a couple of strong attacks. Granbull could be changed to a third setter, in particular Cresselia. Cress is bulky, has regeneration in Moonlight so it can set up multiple times, and has Lunar Dance later in the game to bring in a TR sweeper back to full health to do more damage.

Anyway I know there's a lot of changes, but Trick Room is a pretty tough playstyle and your current team has issues breaking through some of RU's walls. Hope this was helpful!

 

[Shiny Fairymon]

THANK YOU!
This was extremely helpful. All of the things you said made a lot of sense, and I will try to use this as a lesson for how to construct future teams (especially trick room teams). I'll start creating and trying out a version of the team you suggested right away- although after putting it through a team builder to test type weaknesses (Bronzong, Rhyperior, Clawitzer, Sawk, Cresselia, Exeggutor), it turned out that half the team was weak to ghost, and half the team was weak to dark. Only one 'mon resisted dark, and none of the 'mons resisted dark- creating bad type synergy (or at least, given what a newbie I am, I think it was bad type synergy).
I think I'll try to fix this by changing Exeggutor to a different offensive trick room 'mon. Reuniclus is also psychic type, so it wouldn't fix this problem (even though I'm sure you're perfectly right about it being a good choice on most trick room teams). After looking through the list of trick room setters available in RU, I figured that type-wise, Aromatisse would be good to replace Exeggutor. It's not weak to either ghost or dark, (it actually counters dark), and it has somewhat good special attack (at least, better than the other choices). Its special attack isn't quite as high as Exeggutor's, but it could still work okay as an offensive TR setter, right? I'm at least sure that it would have better type synergy with this new team.

 

[Shiny Fairymon]

Okay- after practicing with the new members of the team, I managed to get much higher in laddering. Let me explain the movesets I decided on, and see if anybody has any advice.

In your recommendation for Bronzong, you said Earthquake was okay, and after plugging it in the calculator, I determined that in most cases Earthquake was stronger than Iron Head, so I went with that.

For Rhyperior, I went for life orb over stone plate, rock blast over stone edge, and megahorn over swords dance.

For Clawitzer, I changed the item to Iron Ball. Simply put, Clawitzer was speedy enough that I was getting outsped by a lot of my opponent's 'mons in a trick room environment. With iron ball, however, that never happened, and Clawitzer Special Attack was still high enough that I was still getting loads of OHKOs with it, even without the boost from life orb. Also, I chose Water Pulse over Scald, because of how water pulse was so much stronger with mega launcher.

Sawk
Item: Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/4 SpD
Nature: Brave
Move 1: Close Combat
Move 2: Earthquake
Move 3: Thunder Punch
Move 4: Stone Edge

Sawk's speed is much higher than Throh's, and so there have been points at which I've considered replacing him. If there was a 'mon on this team I'd replace, it would probably be Sawk at this point. However, Sawk has excellent attack stats, and with proper IVs and nature, outspeeds plenty of 'mons in a trick room environment. Before i gave it focus sash, Sawk was getting OHKO'd by speedier opponents quite often, but afterwards, that stopped happening, and Sawk became more worthwhile. I think that the moves chosen offer decent coverage for various different types, and mold breaker has allowed me to switch into intimidate users.

Cresselia
Item: leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/252 SpA/4 SpD
Nature: Quiet
Move 1: Future Sight
Move 2: Moonblast
Move 3: Trick Room
Move 4: Moonlight

I know I chose future sight when you recommended lunar dance, but I was having a lot of trouble with walls that would use a combination of protect, leftovers, and a recovery move (namely wish). I needed a 'mon that could attack through protect, and Cresselia using Future Sight turned out to be the answer. You were definitely right about a third TR setter being useful- there have been plenty of times when my other two were incapacitated and I really needed Cresselia to win.

Aromatisse
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 HP/252 SpA/4 SpD
Nature: Quiet
Move 1: Trick Room
Move 2: Moonblast
Move 3: Energy Ball
Move 4: Echoed Voice

And here is the 'mon I said I'd replace Exeggutor with to get better type synergy within my team. I know that Echoed Voice is unorthodox, but I realized I had no answer for bulky substitute users that would not have their substitutes broken by rock blast. There was one time I encountered a Cresselia that got a Calm Mind up, and it kept on using Substitute, Moonlight, and Calm Mind with leftovers, until its defense was insanely high and rock blasts that hit five times would not break a substitute. I realized I needed a 'mon that could bypass substitute, and Aromatisse worked- Echoed Voice would have definitely countered that specific Cresselia which I had encountered.




So there is the new team I've developed from these recommendations- I wonder what veteran players think about it?

 

[Shiny Fairymon]

Please- I've been trying all sorts of different movesets and combinations, but I can't ever seem to progress very far. I keep on getting knocked back down to where I'm going up against 1000-ranked players, and the highest I've ever gotten is a bit above 1200. With the different pokemon I've tried, I've at least figured out that Hariyama does better on a trick room team than Sawk (better bulk and lower speed, and with Guts gets higher attack). I've already figured out that some of the above choices I made in some of the earlier movesets don't work well- for example, the reason echoed voice is unorthodox is because it's bad. My problem wasn't that the opponent got in a substitute and multiple calm minds that one time so much as I allowed them to set up on me. I've been figuring out a few other minor things like that on my own, but I would really appreciate some advice from veteran players.

 

[Shiny Fairymon]

Okay! I finally managed to figure a lot of things out on my own, and have improved my team to the point where I have 1300 points on the ladder exactly. However, i have developed a major question- how would Regigigas work on a Trick Room team? One of the major problems trick room teams have is that once trick room is down, the team is mostly helpless. Regigigas could work as a late-game sweeper, first sweeping within Trick Room, and then once Slow Start wears off, sweeping outside of it. However, there aren't many resources for how to make that sort of Regigas set- considering I'd want it to later sweep outside of Trick Room, would I still give it 0 speed IVs and a negative speed nature, for example? One of the main reasons I hesitate to try it on my team is questions such as this.

My team as a whole is Bronzong, Rhyperior, Clawitzer, Hariyama, Cresselia and Aromatisse. My two physical attackers who aren't Trick Room setters are Rhyperior and Hariyama. Which one of the two do you think could be replaced by Regigigas? Do you think that Regigigas would work well on a Trick Room team, or is this just another one of my nooby, scrubby ideas that I've had as a new player?

 

[Lemonade]

Regigigas is not a good choice because it's just wasting Trick Room turns. Your team is supposed to have trouble out of Trick Room and there isn't much you can do to reliably function out of it.

Just wondering what are you running on Cress? Cress is so bulky it's pretty impossible to OHKO and with Moonlight it should be fairly healthy to set up a lot.

 

[Shiny Fairymon]

On Cresselia, I'm running:

Cresselia
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/252 SpA/4 SpD
Nature: Quiet
Move 1: Lunar Dance
Move 2: Psyshock
Move 3: Trick Room
Move 4: Moonlight

At first when switching to a Psychic type move, I switched to Psychic, but then I realized that Aromatisse already served as a good special attacker, and it would be useful if one of my Trick Room setters could dish out some physically based offense. Therefore, I changed Psychic to Psyshock.

Let me show you Aromatisse's moveset now, as it's my specially offensive Trick Room setter:

Aromatisse
Item: Leftovers
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 HP/252 SpA/4 SpD
Nature: Quiet
Move 1: Trick Room
Move 2: Moonblast
Move 3: Energy Ball
Move 4: Thunderbolt

One of the best things about Aromatisse when it comes to setting up Trick Room is Aroma Veil. Not having to worry about Encore/Taunt/etc. is really useful for a TR setter.

Also, thanks for the advice about Regigigas. I won't add it to my team, and I'll remember the advice about Trick Room teams not being expected to function well outside Trick Room.

 

[Lemonade]

Cresselia is rather weak so you would benefit more from a fully defensive spread that lets it take hits imo. You only have one attack anyway so there's little reason. Tbh Aromatisse is rather weak too, what you could do is change Cress to an OTR Reuniclus and Aromatisse to a support role. Low SpA and weak BP moves don't make for a good Offensive TR setter.

 

[WarJar]

I would consider replacing Sludge Bomb with Psychic on Exec. Grass/Poison doesn't offer much in terms of coverage, and if you really don't want to run Psyshock because of Tangrowth, Psychic still hits its much weaker Special Defense, as well as providing STAB, and threatening Fighting types that you 4x Resist and switch in on.

252+ SpA Exeggutor Psychic vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Tangrowth: 268-316 (66.5 - 78.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

You outspeed it under TR for the 2HKO, but it also cant switch in on you twice, even with Regenerator.

EDIT: My bad, you already replaced Exec. Sorry about that.

 

[Shiny Fairymon]

Okay- thanks for the advice! I'll go straight to changing Cresselia to Reuniclus, and then changing Aromatisse's moveset to a support role. After a while of testing it out, I'll post the sets I've decided on.


Thanks for your help WarJar, but I sort of already replaced Exxegutor with Cresselia and Aromatisse. However, when running my NU trick room team (which I started after realizing that most of my above 'mons were allowed in NU), I'll be sure to take your advice in consideration. Also, when making teams in the future, I'll keep in mind that grass/poison doesn't offer much in terms of coverage together. That sort of advice is extremely helpful just for general teambuilding knowledge.