(VGC) My First Try in VGC !

[Chenkovsky]

That wasn't a good hail team...

[tlyee61]

Originally Posted by Fat Chenkovsky

That wasn't a good hail team...

so, it was still a hail team (albeit uncommon) that he beat. I don't really think he's weak to hail teams since most have Abomasnow + 1 or 2 other blizzard spammers that can easily be taken out by volcarona and a faster drong types using a fire move (or terrakion)

[cagt3000]

Well, good hail team or not, it still was one. And was pretty easy to beat.

As for Protect on CB Terrakion... I don't know why. I'll change it to something like Zen Headbutt or X-Scizzor. I already got Rock Slide, so I don't need Stone Edge :P

[Chenkovsky]

Definitely x-scizzor. You didn't find that battle too hard because, the person thought it was a good idea to run air balloon on a regice and even using regice and sealo in the first place. Anyway be careful of hail-trick room or a well made hail team.

[cagt3000]

HUGE badplay from my part... Should have went for the Draco Meteor instead of Dragon Pulse... (it's on Turn 8, when Hydreigon comes in)

http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/repla...2013dev9687802

[Chenkovsky]

why didn't you bullet seed the jellicent?

[cagt3000]

I took out Bronzong with Mach Punch, thinking that my Hydreigon could take care of Jellicent with a Dragon Pulse. I should have went for a Draco Meteor though... Or a bullet seed on Jelli and Dragon Pulse on Bronzong.

Again, bad play on my part...

[Chenkovsky]

but predicting that he was clearly going to use trickroom with jellicent.

[cagt3000]

Well either way, I misplayed.

EDIT: Also, for now, I'm winning EVERY battle I play. Even when I switch out Ambipom for Weavile, I still win all my battles. The only one I've lost is the one you guys saw. And for info, I'm in the early 1500's in the VGC 2013 ladder :)

[Chenkovsky]

Well done anyway. Remember prediction never works the same way twice.

[cagt3000]

Alright, so I was trying out Mienshao, since I saw she had Inner Focus, which could actually block me from any other Fake Outers. I tried a game and came across this guy.

I got off to a really bad start, seeing as I thought Breloom was gonna be faster than his Excadrill, but to my surprise, he was faster (he had 252 EV's w/ Atk Boosting Nature on him).

I ended up tearing apart his team with ONLY Garchomp, but unfortunately, failed to finish off Togekiss with Dragon Claws, which cost me the game. And to that experience, I'm thinking of putting more ATK EVs on Garchomp... Thoughts ?

Here's the replay: http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/repla...2013dev9810057

[M. Rock]

I don't have time for a full-on rate, but one thing jumped out at me right away: you have three dragon types, and nothing on your team that can safely switch in to dragon attacks. Heck, nothing on your team would like to take a Dragon Gem-boosted Draco Meteor from Latios.
Without any form of speed control (like you have no Icy Wind or Thunder Wave), scarfed Hydreigon and Latios can outspeed and take out half your team. Granted, other players will have to be careful not to lose their dragon early one, but I still feel like you should have a steel-type for safety. Pick which dragon you think is the least useful and replace it with either Metagross or Scizor; either one will help you deal with Abomasnow, which is good since I also see a huge Ice weakness. The former is bulkier and slightly less reliable (Meteor Mash misses), while the other trades his bulk for one less weakness, better type coverage, and a perfectly accurate and powerful STAB-priority (which is Technician-boosted to boot!).
Hope that helped.

[Chenkovsky]

Okay so your problem is in the fact you can't touch flying types properly so I'd recommend running rockslide over fire fang on garchomp because rock/grounds coverage is perfect bar flygon for which you have other dragon types or dragon claw. It's good your experimenting but I'd stick ambipom rather than mienshao, as you already have a fighting type and it's no good compounding your weaknesses by making them recur across the team.

[cagt3000]

@Chenkovsky -> Alright, I'll put Rock Slide on Garchomp.

@M. Rock -> I'll test out both and see how it is ;)

And this coming week, I'm on school February vacation, so I'll be able to practice all week !

EDIT: Lots of changes made ! See original post + changelog for details :)

[M. Rock]

Wow it looks like you're putting a lot of effort into this. Good job! The first steps are always the most time consuming.

Just real quick, if you ever test out Metagross he's better off with an Occa Berry or even a Steel Gem. Meteor Mash's 85% accuracy is just something you'll have to deal with; more often than not, it's rather reliable (this is coming from the guy who extensively uses Choiced Rotom, and Hydro Pump is only 80% accurate). Besides, it will only bump the accuracy up to 93.5%....that may sound good but you are better off with extra defense or extra power.
Also, for both Steel mons, Adamant is a better nature than Jolly (Meta is slow and Scizor has priority to compensate for his speed). A good starting EV spread for either one is 252 HP/252 Atk/4 SpD, maximizing bulk and attack. As you play more, you will calculate and come up with more specialized spreads to make a speed creep or take certain hits or whatever.

[cagt3000]

Alright, thanks for the tips on the Steel PKMNS !

And as for the effort, I've always hated whenever people just post on forums stuff like "k guyz herez ma team they do this this this now fix it for meea k thx bai" (basically people who put no effort). Also, it's my first year in VGC, and Pokemon is a passion for me, so I really put effort into it :)

And I also really appreciate all you guys' help ! This is really a great forum, and I'm glad all of you are helping me with this ! I'm really thankful :)

[cagt3000]

Alright, here's a report before I go to bed :)

Metagross... Is VERY UNRELIABLE. Out of all the Meteor Mashs I've done, 90% of the time it MISSED. And when it did hit... it didn't always kill. Plus, its either taken out pretty quickly, or just useless. So Metagross isn't really looking too good for me...

Scizor and Infernape on the other hand... Are doing AWSEOME. They get nice kills, and actually last in battle. Plus, they actually HIT the enemy.

So right now, it seems as either Scizor or Infernape's gonna make it into the team. For reference, I've replaced Hydreigon during testing, as it seems like this was the suggestion overall, and since it's moves were basically the same as other PKMNs in my team (Dragon Pulse was on Latios, along with Dragon Claw for Garchomp. Dark Pulse was the equivalent of Bug Buzz for Volcarona, and Flamethrower was "outburned" by Volcarona's Heat Wave), it was a little useless to have him. Plus, he has a weakness to Fight AND Ice AND Dragon... Not that great.

Well, now I'm off to bed, and I'll be back tomorrow. G'd night everyone ! :D

[tlyee61]

I like a combo of Scizor and Terrakion. I wouldn't have Volc and Ape on the same team just because they're both fire. I think you should keep Volcarona because it has great synergy with Breloom. Unfortunately, it shares a psychic weakness with terrakion. I would replace at least 1 dragon because you already have 3 on your team.
something like scizor/breloom/terrakion/volcarona/hydreigon/ambipom/latios could work
although ambipom doesn't really seem to fit the rest of your team... it does assist breloom and volcarona with fake out though...

[Chenkovsky]

I would recommend replacing garchomp with terrakion, the moves would be identical except with close combat rather than dragon claw. This is because you already have two dragon types so this way you're keeping the coverage but changing the weaknesses. If you need speed control latios does get tailwind, just putting that out there.

[cagt3000]

@tlyee61 -> I've been really thinking about putting Scizor into the mix, but I'm still not sure yet about Terrakion. I'm still testing everything. And I tried Infernape because of the variety of moves, and the Iron Fist + Thunder/Mach/Fire Punch combo... And as for Ambipom, he's one of my key PKMNS, so I really don't want to replace him...

@Chenkovsky -> Hm, never noticed they could have the same moves. I'll test, see how it is ! And for speed control, I'm not too found on Latios having Tailwind, but it could be interesting...

[cagt3000]

LOL this guy just left after I Double KO'd him XD

http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/repla...2013dev9918180

[cagt3000]

Nice little sweep with ONLY Ambi + Breloom !

http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/repla...2013dev9955870

ALSO, I'm adding a section in the original post titled "Team Performance", where I'll be putting my best wins and worst loses, and "interesting" battles. All the ones I've shared will be in the section, and everytime I post a new battle, I'll just tell you to check the original post (don't worry I'll put the dates so it's organized) !

[Chenkovsky]

How your team been working out?

[cagt3000]

Hey, sorry for not having responded yesterday :(

My team is doing great ! I'm winning my battles, learning more and more about the meta game, and having a ton of fun ! I'll do a bit more battles tonight and I'll report everything tomorrow :)

As for some replays, I've got one right here that I just finished :D It was a close fight, but I ended up winning by luck. Check the OP under "Team Performance" for the link :)

EDIT: Actually, I'll just put it right here :) http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/repla...013dev10094884

[cagt3000]

SO, time to report any problems :)

OVERALL PROBLEMS

Overall, there isn't really any major problems I was having. Whenever I lost a battle, it was a fair loss, meaning the other person was actually better than me. I did not have any EXTREME losses, so I know my team isn't fully broken.

BUT, there is one thing I found my team to be weak to: Ghost types. ESPECIALLY Chandelure.

IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS

You see, Ghost types don't get it by both Normal and Fighting types. So that already makes my Ambipom useless, Breloom looses his Mach Punch, and Terrakion loses his main move (Close Combat). Plus, only Dark and Ghost attacks are super-effective against them, and only Weavile and Hydreigon have a move like that.

But the worst of them all... is Chandelure. Since he's a Fire-Ghost, it makes my Breloom COMPLETELY useless, and resists Volcarona. The usual Chandelure (in my experience) would have:

- Heat Wave
- Shadow Ball
- Will-o-Wisp/Trick Room
- Protect/Substitute

Now the thing is, not all Chandelure have TR, so I never know if it's going to use it or not. Plus, he can take out 4 of my PKMNS easily with his good speed and Sp Atk !

What counter do I have to it ? Well, like I said, only Weavile and Hydreigon do. I don't have any water PKMN, but most of my team resists Fire.

TEAM STRUCTURE

For the team structure, I don't know yet if I'm gonna put Scizor in my team, as it seems to be a 50/50 situation most of the time (half-good, half-bad). Weavile is going to replace Ambipom, just because it's faster, more powerful, and actually helps A TON when fighting Ghost types. Terrakion is sure to replace Garchomp, since it'll take off one weakness for Dragon and Ice.

As for Breloom and Volcarona, they are good as they are, so they aren't changing.

ITEMS

I'm also slightly changing the items. Terrakion is going to have a Life Orb instead of Choice Band, so I'm not locked into one move, but still have some extra power. And Latios is going to have the Dragon Gem, while Hydreigon goes with a White Herb for his Draco Meteor.

CHANGES

TEAM STRUCTURE: - Replaced Ambipom with Weavile
- Replaced Garchomp with Terrakion

Terrakion: - Replaced Choice Band with Life Orb
Hydreigon: - Replaced Dragon Gem with White Herb
Latios: - Replaced Life Orb with Dragon Gem

That's all folks ! Tell me your thoughts now ;)