[Nightwalkr]

Originally Posted by Fat Everstone

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.

Originally Posted by Fat El Scorcho

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.

Originally Posted by Fat Ignitrua

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?

Originally Posted by Fat Pocket

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.

[hide=Tornadus]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?