Please evaluate my hypothetical team

Weavile
Item: Focus Sash
Ability: Pickpocket
Nature: Jolly
EV spread: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 HP
Moves:
~ Fake Out
~ Night Slash
~ Ice Punch
~ Protect

The main reason this Pokemon is on my team is because this is my favorite Pokemon. It is cute looking and kind of looks like an elf. I just had to build my team around it. I can use Weavile to fake out opponents either as a lead or brought in later in the match. I opted for night slash because it is more powerful than beat up since just about everyone uses Cresselia now. I have Ice Punch to deal with dragon and ground types. It looks like Low Kick is no longer needed since those threats are covered in my team.

Abomasnow
Item: Choice Scarf
Ability: Snow Warning
Nature: Hasty
EV spread: 16 Atk / 252 SpA / 240 Spe
Moves:
~ Blizzard
~ Grass Knot
~ Hidden Power Fire
~ Earthquake

I had to change Tyranitar out because if he was with Weavile, it would break his Focus Sash from the weather change. I went with Hasty Abomasnow for mixed attacking options. I picked the Choice Scarf because he is too slow without it, otherwise. Blizzard is good for taking out dragons and grass types. Grass Knot is for the water types and I felt was a better option than being damaged from Wood Hammer. Hidden Power Fire is for the steel and grass types. Earthquake is good since I have two levitating Pokemon on my team.

Rotom-W
Item: Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Modest
EV spread: 164 HP / 212 Def / 132 SpA
Moves:
~ Hydro Pump
~ Thunderbolt
~ Hidden Power Grass
~ Thunder

Rotom-W will give a stronger help against rain compared to other water Pokemon. It has fantastic synergy with Scizor and Latios too! Since I’m in need of Thunder Wave I will no longer have Hidden Power Grass to counter Gastrodon. This Pokemon is for my protection against other weather teams, but it doesn’t fare too well against dragons or wall Pokemon. Thunder is there in case I should encounter a Rain team. Rotom-W is very limited in its moves and I could use something with more versatility. As far as the team goes, Weavile is my favorite Pokemon so if anything I just want to use a successful VGC team with Weavile in it.

Latios
Item: Dragon Gem
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Timid
EV spread: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Moves:
~ Draco Meteor
~ Psyshock
~ Tailwind
~ Protect

I just want to have a dragon on my team. I love dragons, especially Latios and Hydreigon. I’m thinking of replacing this Latios with Ray Rizzo’s Timid Hydreigon variant. I’ll have a stronger firepower and even more coverage against ghost and psychic types. Only thing is I won’t have Psyshock anymore to deal with fighting types plus Hydreigon is not as fast or tankish as Latios. I’ve always has problems dealing with Pokemon that are faster than Hydreigon because I don’t judge the speed as well so all the more reason I definitely need more speed control like Thunder Wave and Icy Wind on my team. I wouldn’t mind giving Cresselia a try, though she looks like a tricky Pokemon to use and I don’t do tricky very well.

Heatran
Item: Chople Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
Nature: Modest
EV spread: 244 HP / 52 Def / 76 SpA / 4 SpD / 132 Spe
Moves:
~ Heat Wave
~ Earth Power
~ Protect
~ Substitute

Since I have a dragon on the team, Heatran is helpful is dealing with other dragon Pokemon and grass types. I didn’t know this, but apparently Heatran is immune to Sandstorm damage. I have Substitute to block status effects and Protect since Heatran is an easy target. I have 3 Earth attacks on my team. Seems like you can never have enough Earth damage. Heat Wave is a move I’ve never liked because of its chance to miss, but I understand there may be times where I need to hit both Pokemon especially if they both have low health. I realize in adding this Pokemon, now half my team is vunerable to Fighting attacks, but with Heatran and Latios being tanks and my Landorus-T with its Intimidate I should be more than enough covered to deal with that.

Landorus-Therian
Item: Yache Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Adamant
EV spread: 76 HP / 252 Atk / 180 Spe
Moves:
~ Earthquake
~ Rock Slide
~ U-turn
~ Protect

It was suggested for my team that I have a Pokemon that uses Intimidate so I decided to keep it. Since I have two levitating Pokemon on my team, it would be a waste not to have Earthquake. This is my 2nd Pokemon in my lineup that can use Rock Slide, though it is not my favorite move to use because it has a chance to miss. It was between this or a Garchomp or a Excadrill. I know how to use a Garchomp, but I don’t know how to use an Excadrill. I think Garchomp or Excadrill have more options than this choice so I would love some more advice on Garchomp and Excradrill EV spreads and move sets.

I've gotten no replies on this. Some help on this would be much appreciated. :)

I would suggest getting a Pokemon to check rain, you're running 252Def 252Speed on Suicune so Kingdra/Politoed are free to rip apart your entire team, so I would suggest changing the EV spread to make it more specially bulky, or alternatively change it for a Tyranitar/Abomasnow.

P.S. You have 7 IV's listed for your Metagross and Hydreigon

Aside from the 7 IVs on the Hydreigon and Metagross, I just noticed I meant to put max special attack and speed on my Suicune, not max defense, but that in itself is broken. What IV spread would you suggest for the Suicune? Even so, I think I will definitely put an Abomasnow in, but what kind of spread and moves would you recommend for that? Also, I just tested this team out today and found it is really weak against trick room teams since I went max speed for every single Pokemon. I'm not sure how to balance that out other than switching out the timid Hydreigon for a modest one and changing my Metagross to max hp instead of speed.

As per request, here's my rate. On Weavile, change Pickopcket to Pressure since Pickpocket only works if you have no item. whereas Weavile REALLY enjoys Sash. I might go with Rock Gem, Fighting Gem, Chople Berry or even Life Orb on Terrakion. Wide Lens only helps Rock Slide. (and only a small margin at that...) I might replace Suicune with Rotom-W. It'll give a stronger help against Rain. Also consider HP Grass to counter Gastrodon. It has fantastic synergy with Metagross and Latios too! Metagross looks good, although I might go with Dragon Gem with Draco Meteor on Latios. An optimal spread on Hydreigon would be 60 HP / 252 SpAtk / 196 Speed to speed creep base 100s & 102s. Look here for details and more VGC advice! :D nuggetbridge.com

tlyee61 said:

On Weavile, change Pickopcket to Pressure since Pickpocket only works if you have no item. whereas Weavile REALLY enjoys Sash.

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I use sash+pickpocket on my Weavile the idea is when you're brought down to your sash by a contact move your sash is removed before the ability activates, it is quite situational but it is a better than pressure on Weavile. Beat-up Terrakion isn't fooling anybody and it probably hasn't since vgc'11 when TerraCott was every where. Really this teams EV spreads and move choices baffle me, and doesn't look like it would stand up to well after Terrakion is taken down.

You asked me to rate it, I didn't because to make this a half decent team it would involve changing your strategy.

A few suggestions on my part: 1. In my experience, Metagross with Lum Berry seems to work best in general because he has clear body, preventing intimidate from working on him so he's often the target of will-o-wisp, or even spore sometimes. Also, I know ice punch provides coverage on him, but I'd say that you already have good coverage with weavile ad 2 dragons as people generally use ice moves for other dragons. Replace it with Zen Headbutt maybe? I guess that's up to you though. 2. Having Hydreigon and Latios on the same team seems redundant; I would replace Hydreigon with Salamence almost purely because he gets intimidate to support his team and can act as a viable attacker OR special attacker. 3. I feel like a good trick room team could tear you apart. Cresselia in particular can easily take a night slash from weavile (if you end up switching that for beat up) and then paralyze other key members of your team if she doesn't set up trick room. In any case, adding a little more bulk to Metagross would be great. 4. If you're looking to replace terrakion, maybe try Scizor. I personally have never had a Scizor on my team, but he's always a troublesome one to deal with and he can cover the psychic angle if you end up replacing hydreigon wih salamence

actually, I think Scizor > Metagross would work wonderfully on this team. It has amazing synergy with Terrakion, Rotom and Latios. I would also replace Hydreigon, but for Landorus-T instead. He gives intimidate and provides some nice ground coverage. plus, he can abuse EQ with many of your teammates.

This is better than the original idea! Let me see what I can do. Weavile looks a lot better. For Terrakion you should switch to a standard sweeper ev's which would be 252 Atk/Spd 4 HP. I competely understand your reasoning for Quick Guard and I respect that. The thing is though, it is a waste of Terrakion's sheer power and I think you should keep Quick Guard but switch Protect to Earthquake. Rotom and Latios look fine. For Metagross I have been using a set with Earthquake, Ice Punch, Bullet Punch, and Meteor Mash. The item was then Steel Gem. This is just what I had success with and just wanted to share it. In VGC, the games are very fast paced and you want to be able to deal damage and deal it fast. Steel Gem boosted Bullet Punch from Metagross is insanely strong and will likely ohko whatever it hits. Ice Punch is there because there are a ton of pokemon that are weak to it. Other than that, everything else looks fine! I hope this helped somewhat.

Pokemasta77 said:

For Terrakion you should switch to a standard sweeper ev's which would be 252 Atk/Spd 4 HP.

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actually, those EVs allow it to survive max atk tornadus' flight gem acrobatics. this was commonly used in VGC 2011 and now might be useful because of the rise of defiant tornadus. however, I would make it 252 atk / 252 speed on this team because you have intimidate from landorus-t. either way works.


actually, change weavile back to pickpocket, sorry I was misinformed about how pickpocket works. Sorry! :) I might try something over either Protect or Quick Guard because they both run on the same timer. for example, if you protect on 1 turn, quick guard will only have a 50% chance of working on the next turn. I think both are equally good on Terrakion for this team, but I would replace either one with earthquake. latios looks fine. you're wasting evs on metagross. 108 atk give the same stat. 8 speed also give the same stat. i would go with 116 Attack and 4 Speed. you could also go 4 defense to always be 3HKOed by 252 metagross' double target earthquakes or never be OHKOed by +2 (swagger boosted) metagross earthquakes. also, on landorus-t you're wasting evs. by putting 228 speed evs in with a scarf, he outspeeds max speed timid jolteon! move 4 out of HP because you're wasting EVs anyway. I also like your innovative use of HP Ice :)

Chenkovsky said:

tlyee61 said:

On Weavile, change Pickopcket to Pressure since Pickpocket only works if you have no item. whereas Weavile REALLY enjoys Sash

Click to expand...

I use sash+pickpocket on my Weavile the idea is when you're brought down to your sash by a contact move your sash is removed before the ability activates, it is quite situational but it is a better than pressure on Weavile.

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Completely ignored my comment.

Chenkovsky said:

Completely ignored my comment.

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if this was directly towards me, sorry about that. I was unsure about how Pickpocket's mechanics worked since it's not widely seen. I think I might've mentioned about it in the NuggetBridge version of this thread. If this was directly at the OP, they could've just liked Pressure better or something, idk.

You caught me at a good time, I was just about to write up an RMT here.

Your team is kinda sorta predictable, but you can't worry about that when you start out. As far as I'm concerned, you're off to a good start. I'll go over each Pokemon one-by-one and then give some comments on the overall team:

Weavile: Pickpocket only works if you don't have a held item, and anyway Pressure is better for PP stalling (well, for the few turns that he'll be around). The EVs are fine, it's really all he can do. The decision on whether to have Low Kick or protect depends on what you can cover: Low Kick is so that he has a move to hit Tyranitar, Heatran, and Metagross. You have solid answers to all those Pokemon, so I'd stick with Protect.

Terrakion: An excellent offensive Pokemon, but you say that you don't want too many speedy Pokemon on your team (presumably for fear of Trick Room)? And you still need something to occupy that spot that can counter Fire? There really is no substitute for the coverage provided by Terrakion's unique STABs, but I have three suggestions:
i. Tyranitar. He's slow, comes with Rock Slide, and can change the weather. You seem rather vulnerable to weather teams, so Ttar can help you take away the source of their power just by switching in. I'd use the first set listed here (http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/tyranitar/vgc2012) with the held item as Chople Berry.
ii. Gastrodon. While he's more of a defensive choice, Volcarona and most other Fire-types fail to do much damage to him. Additionally, he adds a lone weakness of Grass to your team, is slow enough to counter TR, has an ability in Storm Drain that allows you to have a better chance against rain, and has Icy Wind to support your team.
I'd lean more towards Tyranitar, but it's your choice. Your current team is able to support either one, and either one can lend a hand to the rest of the team.
iii. Politoed. This one sounds a bit weird, but it could actually work. He's kinda slow(ish), he brings rain that will weaken all Fire-type attacks, and he turns Rotom-W into a complete monster. You can choose to get rid of the Specs due to the power increase...or not, the choice is yours. I'd try a defensive variant with Icy Wind/Helping Hand/Scald/Protect or a Hidden Power of choice. Item I guess could be Sitrus Berry or Wacan Berry. I don't have a lot of experience with Politoed, so if you do settle on him, do a bit of research and/or ask someone with experience.

Rotom-W: YES SOMEONE ELSE KNOWS THE GREATNESS OF MAX HP ROTOM!

Latios: Looks okay, just remember that carrying HP Fire means that you lose the speed tie with opposing Latios. HP Fire is much less common on him these days, so if you see Latios in your opponent's team preview, you might not want to bring yours into battle. I elaborate more on this below.

Metagross: He doesn't seem to serve much of a role on your team other than absorbing Dragon- and Ice-type attacks. And why use Lum Berry if you're not going for a Swagger?
Honestly, you are better off with Scizor. Why? Well you don't really have a surefire way to handle Cresselia. Sure STAB Night Slash is great, but then Cress heals with Sitrus Berry, and one of its partners destroys Weavile. Cress is also commonly paired with IntimiTop, so NS won't be as powerful as you'd like.
Scizor's big selling point is Bug Bite: it removes any berry that Cress has (effectively removing its recovery), and is a clean 2HKO. With both Weavile and Scizor, you have great insurance against one of the most prominent (and dangerous) Pokemon in the current meta, and can put a lot of pressure on an opposing Cress. I would use this set with Acrobatics over Superpower and Flying Gem over Occa Berry (http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/scizor/vgc2012).
Another option for a move set is Bullet Punch/Bug Bite/Swords Dance/Protect @ Steel Gem. Which one you want boils down to preference, just don't go around thinking that you can easily set up a Swords Dance whenever you want.

Landorus-T: Looks fine, just NEVER use Stone Edge. Moving on.



Overall, it's an okay team. The two biggest problems I can see is that a prepared weather team will walk all over you, and that you have no form of speed control. The first problem can be solved by either using Tyranitar or Politoed (one is better prepared to counter Sandstorm, the other can cancel rain). If you do run Ttar, get rid of LandorusT; the Therian forme's main role is a weapon that non-Sandstorm teams can use to combat sandstorm teams (Incarnate forme is stronger in SS but weaker outside of SS). So that last slot could be one of these fine choices: Landorus-I, Garchomp, or Excadrill.
Now let's talk real quick about Speed control. Basically, the whole point of a VGC match is to manipulate the field conditions in order to try to get your guys to move first. This can be done through weather, Tailwind/Trick Room, Icy Wind or Thunder Wave. Because your Latios chooses to lose one Speed IV for HP Fire, you NEED to have at least Icy Wind or Thunder Wave to make that less of a problem. With one of those moves, you can safely have your Latios out against the opponent's and go first. This article goes more in-depth about the issue: http://nuggetbridge.com/beginners/speed-kills-controlling-and-eving-speed-in-vgc/
Since your team is already pretty tightly made, the only way I can see to fit this in is to change Rotom-W into a slightly bulkier variant with a Calm nature and Thunder Wave. Maybe even replace Landorus-T if you feel like he isn't contributing much.


That's about it. Sorry if some of it wasn't terribly specific or if some of it sounded like rambling, I've been running around all day and I'm kind of tired. Good luck in your Pokemon-related endeavors =)

hi, still a good team. any reason why you made landorus non-therian? it really helped you team out. on rotom-w, you might want to try a specs set with the bulk. hydro pump, thunderbolt, hp grass and volt switch / discharge should work. another set of EVs you might want to try are 164 HP / 212 Def / 132 SpAtk. This allows Rotom-W to be 2HKOed by fight gem close combat from hitmontop and 4hkoed by garchomp's dragon claw.

I'm going by what the guy above you said. Since I have switched in Tyranitar, he said non-Therian Landorus works better in Sand Stream and the Therian one is for the absence of weather conditions. I need Thunder Wave on the Rotom-W because my Latios has Hidden Power Fire which makes it slower than normal ones. I do want a more offensive Rotom-W so I will try your EV and move set, but Thunder Wave needs to be in there somewhere.

Nice team, but why protect and substitute? Sure it protects you, it's too stalky and vgc has a time limit. May I recommend durant or just use an eviolite pokemon for your bulky pokemon your pokemon aren't very bulky besides rotor which has bad hp and no investment in special defence.