DISCLAIMER
The first two parts explain how I got the team I want rated, so you might just want to skip to Part III.
Part I,
Chapter 1. Early History and Background
Ok, so I heard about competitive Pokémon battles like 3 days after I bought my Platinum copy. Then, I heard about Smogon and the community for competitive playing, EV training, IV breeding and everything. I've been lurking a lot since, trying to make up my own team. And so I did. My idea was to make something that would go around Infernape and Dragonite, my two favorite Pokémon. Long story short, I came up with this team:
Donphan was a Phazer with Rapid Spin, Roar, Assurance and Stealth Rock. He worked with Umbreon, who was meant to be a Toxic Mixed Wall with Toxic, Curse, Moonlight and Dark Pulse. Donphan came with Stealth Rock, Roar'd the enemy lead, Umbreon came in, Toxic'd whatever came into play, then switch to Donphan, Roar, and repeat. This allowed the rest of the team to lay a midgame Sweep with Scyther and Dragonite, and a late game Sweep with Infernape and Mismagius. Scyther worked with Infernape, as he had Swords Dance, X-Scissor, Aerial Ace and Batton Pass. Infernape had Blaze Kick, Close Combat, Earthquake and Shadow Claw. I meant Scyther to pass on his Swords Dance to Infernape. Then, my Special Sweeper Dragonite came with his Dragon Pulse, Surf, Rain Dance and Flamethrower. He used his Rain Dance so Mismagius could use his Thunder with no problems. He also had Nasty Plot, Psychic and Shadow Ball.
Now, I thought this was a great team. I loved all this Pokémon and I thought I had everything covered. But, as most of you have already noticed, I got pummelled in Shoddy Battle. I mean, I think I managed to faint one enemy Pokémon in the 10 battles I endured before my ego hit the floor. Back to the drawing board, I posted this team in the RTM and... well, my thread got shut. So, I started from scratch, looking at other Pokémon options. I realized both Infernape and Dragonite were OU, so I searched other Pokémon I liked in that tier to make a good, balanced team.
Chapter 2. The Concept
The first time I read an article about competitive Pokémon said that the best thing to make was a balanced team: 2 main sweepers, 1 wall, 1 staller, 1 annoyer and an extra sweeper, so I tryed to go along with this concept. In the end, and after my first incursions into Shoddy Battle, I scratched that and went for a full sweeper team, starting again from Infernape and Dragonite.
Chapter 3. The Team Building
Infernape and Dragonite. That was all that I had against an hostile world.
So, what counters Infernape and what counters Dragonite? I was not very used to the OU enviroment, so I went and checked by type. Fire and Fighting... that means water, ground, psychic, flying... Infernape has a lot of weaknesses. So I needed... grass could take water and ground, while electric could take flying types. So I thought Gengar. But then I saw this interesting sweeper called Weaville. Ice can take ground and flying, while dark has nothing to fear against Psychic. I made my choice.
The next thing I thought about was how to keep Weavile allive. She's weak to fire, fighting and bug. Fire and fighting worried me most, ad they are more common than bug types, or bug type attacks. Someone who can resiste fire and fighting. The answer came right into my face, as I was reviewing other RTM threads and saw Tentacruel. His poison and water combination was what I needed to switch in to Weavile's most common counters. But. And a big but it was: Tentacruel's weakness to ground moves was going to be a problem. Anyway... this is what I had so far.
And how to counter Tentacruel's weakness to ground? Well, Dragonite came in and the circle was complete. He's part flying, thus inmune to ground attacks, and resistant against many common types, being part dragon. Looking at this, I needed a dedicated special sweeper, as Tentacruel was too bulky to pose a threat against faster enemies, and I was looking to a support Dragonite. I hated to lose Mismagius to the UU tier, and wanted to have a ghost type in my team. Dusknoir or Gengar? I wanted a sweeper, so, again, the choice was made.
Now I'm missing something. 1 Main physical sweeper, 1 main special sweeper, and 3 things with nothing close to a thought-throw movesets. So I checked Tentacruel's and Gengar's base stas, noticing that, for the idea I had, I needed one more physical sweeper (this might look like an obvious thing, having in count I had Dragonite on my team, but remember I planned him to be a support unit). Anyway. I thought about Aerodactyl, as he was fast enough to always get the first hit, and he also had access to Stealth Rock, something I lost with Donphan. In the end, I completed my first OU team:
Chapter 4. The Test
I thought about the movesets every Pokémon should have to cover every threat in the OU metagame, and gave another shot at the Shoddy Battle server. To my surprise, the team did relatively good. I had good wins and a lot of loses, but overal I had great battles. I made some adjustments here and there to patch some stuff I hadn't thought of while makign the team on paper, and I did a bit better.
Chapter 5. The cold, hard truth
Then, I came to face this player. We battled 5 times, and he beated me all of them. I asked for some help and so he did. He sugested changing Dragonite to a physical sweeper or definetly taking him out. To my own surprise, I decided to kiss Dragonite good bye and switched in a Latias. Also, I noticed a move calle Toxic Spikes for Tentacruel, so... I thought to try changing Aerodactyl too. In the end I finished changing the whole strategy to a more agressive one. And I liked it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part II,
Chapter 1. Again, back to the Drawing Board
Scratch Aerodactyl, scratch Dragonite, hello Latias. I had 5 Pokémon now, and I was missing a Physical Sweeper. Looking for a strong hitter, I came across this Breloom gal. I remember playing my Emerald game and putting her aside because I didn't like grass type Pokémon. Now I looked at it's movepool and the SubPuncher set. I liked it, and decided to give it a try. So far, things was looking like this:
This team actually worked for a while. I decided to keep Breloom. She kicked ass and more than once was able to achieve victory as my last Pokémon, facing 2 or 3 foes. The wrong thing was Latias. I couldn't manage her to survive long enough: if I gave her Recover, she was nto a good enough sweep, but if I used another attack, she couldn't survive enough. Then, I faced a lead Azelf (which my Weavile had no trouble killing) and looked at his stats. Good speed and good both attacks. I gave him a try, he kinda worked, but I wanted to have this team IRL and that couldn't be done with a legendary Pokémon.
Chapter 2. The Anxiousness
I had an empty space in an almost complete team. I had already scratched 3 Pokémon and was running short on ideas. I tried Blissey, Bronzong, Magnezone, Togekiss... Hell, I even tried to bring back Dragonite. But nothing worked the way I wanted, and that last slot was always a void that, either died quickly or couldn't do his job in the propper way. So I quitted Shoddy Battle for a while and started training the Pokémon in my Platinum game. I needed a Power Anklet, so I went to the battle zone, using my Lucario. Lucario. Then it hit me. And it hit me hard.
Chapter 3. The Final Team
Lucario came to solve all the problems of that last slot. His type and a few EV points into HP allowed him to survive long enough in the late game, giving Breloom a roost when it came to a late game sweep. I was done with the team! I was so happy. And it actually worked! Of course, I lost some matches and I think it still has some flaws, but I'm working on it. So...
Part III,
Chapter 1. The Details
LEAD BREAKER AND MID GAME SWEEPER
Weavile @ Focus Sash
PRESSURE - Jolly Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 252 Attack, 4 HP
Moves
-Fake Out
-Taunt
-Ice Punch
-Night Slash
Explanation: Weavile's main role is to break the lead of other teams. She first breaks the chance of a Focus Sash with Fake Out, plus giving her a little advantage over more bulky leads. Then she Taunts batton passers, stealth rockers, spikers, dragon and sword dancers, while still surviving everything thanks to her focus sash. The only exceptions to this are, in the OU metagame, Tyranitar and Hippowdown with their Sandstream ability. Annyway... leads like Azelf, Roserade, Hippowdown and Aerodactyl are almost always OHKOed after the Fake Out attack, either by Night Slash or Ice Punch. Now... there are some Aerodactyl sets that overspeed my Jolly Weavile, so it just goes to guessing if either they'll use Earthquake or Stealth Rock. Most people never expect to see a Night Slash or an Ice Punch in a Weavile lead, and this sets has proven itself to be devastating against almost every lead out there, due to its surprise factor.
MAIN PHYSICAL SWEEPER
Infernape @ Life Orb
BLAZE - Jolly Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 252 Attack, 4 HP
Moves
-Flare Blitz
-Close Combat
-Stone Edge
-Mach Punch
Explanation: This is a mean ape. Don't mess with him. His main role is to deliver massive amounts of damage to everything weak to it's 3 main attacks (about 9 types), plus it's fast and powerfull enough to OHKO or 2HKO the sweepers and supporters of the type it owns. The last move slot was debated for a while. Should I put Earthquake? Slack Off to heal the Life Orb damage? Thunder Punch was not needed, neither was another fire move. Swords Dance, Solar Beam and Shadow Claw (just for the lulz), U-Turn... so many options. I tried all of them, but then I learned about Scizor's Bullet Punch (the hard way) and decided to factor in a Mach Punch. It worked wonders. With it, Infernape could become a revenge killer, plus giving him the speed advantage he needed against dragon dancers Gyarados and Tyranitar, taking in count they got hit while setting up the dragon dance, or to finish off those annoying Ninjasks.
SUBPUNCHER (THE LAST HOPE)
Breloom @ Toxic Orb
POISON HEAL - Jolly Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 208 Attack, 48 HP
Moves
-Spore
-Substitute
-Focus Punch
-Seed Bomb
Explanation: Breloom came late into this team, mostly because of my hate to grass types (I'm looking at you, Chikorita). But I had to swallow my words. This moveset has saved me from a lot of battles. The Spore-Sub-Punch combo works wonders in the late game, plus it heals twice the amount it would heal with Leftovers (12.5% vs the standard 6%) with the Poison Heal ability. This means it will also never fall asleep or become paralized or burned. So far, the hard thing about this Pokémon is to decide whether using Seed Bomb or Leech Seed. I think Seed Bomb will do better, but I want to hear your opinions on it.
EDIT#1: I decided to keep Breloom's nature and max speed EVs as I think she needs it to make sure a Spore hits before anyone can think about moving. I will use the new HP EV spread to give the Substitute a bit more health and durability. Also, I decided to keep Seed Bomb instead of leech seed. It has done well so far.
THE TOXIC-WALL-SWEEP (I'm thinking about changing this title and role. Just a wee bit)
Tentacruel @ Leftovers
CLEAR BODY - Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP, 180 Defense, 76 Special Defense
Moves
-Toxic
-Rapid Spin
-Surf
-Sludge Bomb
Explanation: Tentacruel is my choice switch when things get harsh on Weavile. If he succeded to Taunt the opposite lead with it's health intact, I switch in Tentacruel to deal with the common counters to Weavile. This Bold 252HP/180 Defense can take up to 2 Earthquakes from a non STAB'd enemy. And those who get STAB with Earthquake are usually weak to water and grass. This Tentacruel is bulky enough to take some hits and Toxic his enemy, while still being able to spin away spikes or stealth rocks, plus he simply absorbs the toxic spikes, being a poison type itself. I scratched Toxic Spikes because it meant that, late in the game, Breloom would not be able to put a foe to sleep because they would already be poisoned. The rest of the moveset gives Tentacruel an advantage against 4 types, more than enough for a wall.
EDIT#1: Ok, so I've been working a bit on my surviving plan for Weavile and I've come to think that both Tentacruel and Gengar are very good counters for whatever comes in against her. Also, I've been battling a lot and I think I've used Toxic like 2 or 3 times, fearing the block of spore over longer battles. That's why I want to keep this bulky Tentacruel, but changing his moveset a bit (or a lot) to cover more diverse types. I'm considering Surf, Ice Beam and Sludge Bomb, plus Rapid Spin, that I'm certain to keep. What do you guys think?
SNEAKY SPECIAL SWEEPER
Gengar @ Choice Scarf
LEVITATE - Modest Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 252 Special Attack, 4 HP
Moves
-Shadow Ball
-Thunderbolt
-Focus Blast
-Energy Ball
Explanation: This Gengar is a hit-and-run abuser. He outspeeds almost everything in the OU metagame, being left behind only by a scarfed Jolteon and Aeordactyl. The other 4 Pokémon with a higher Speed Base Stat are almost never seen scarfed. The Modest nature and the heavy investment in Special Attack allow Gengar to deal a massive amount of damage, and I've seen he OHKO a lot of other Pokemon. However, he's rather fragile, so he can have problems surviving more bulky Pokémon, and Tyranitar always OHKOes him with a Pursuit when I tried to switch out.
EDIT#1: I followed the moveset recommendations for for Gengar and it has worke very well. I'm not changing anything else on this one.
EXPERT SWEEPER
Lucario @ Expert Belt
INNER FOCUS - Timid Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 252 Special Attack, 4 HP
Moves
-Aura Sphere
-Dragon Pulse
-Vacuum Wave
-¿Shadow Ball?
Explanation: Lucario. I yet haven't had the oppotunity to play a lot with this Pokémon, but the few battles he's been here have been a wonderful playground for him. He can trash a lot of types and his Speed, plus it's Timid Nature, allow him to lay a decent sweep before Breloom or Gengar, or weakening everyone for a Mach Punch late game sweep by Infernape. I look forward to improve his moveset and EV distribution.
EDIT#1: I had the chance to battle more with Lucario and check on his counters and moves. So far, the 3 first moves listed now have been devastating in the early and mid game, with Vacuum Wave being a great addition. I'm only not sure about the last slot. What can you give on this? Oh, for the guy that suggested the Choice set, I appreciate it and I believe it works, but I discovered that this Lucario comes better in the early/midgame, thus needing more versatility. And that's a thing I lose to a Choice set. Also, I changed the EV spread back to full Speed/Special Attack.
Chapter 2. Asking for Help
As I'm sure you've noticed, almost all my Pokémon run a 252/252/4 EV set. That's because I'm not sure how much EVs should I put in one stat to optimize their role and durability. I would like some help here. Also, what moves should I consider changing, and why? What do you think of the overal concept of the final team? Suggestions? Comments? I'm open to everything, and will do my best to upgrade this team to it's maximum.
Also, if you think I should provide any more information on the team, please ask me to and I'll keep this post updated. Thanks to Pokemon Elite 2000 and Arkeis for the Sprites and Images used in this post.
EDIT#1: Added some changes to Breloom, Gengar, Tentacruel and Lucario. Also, I would like some help over Tentacruel to make him more aggressive without losing his bulkyness.
The first two parts explain how I got the team I want rated, so you might just want to skip to Part III.
Part I,
Chapter 1. Early History and Background
Ok, so I heard about competitive Pokémon battles like 3 days after I bought my Platinum copy. Then, I heard about Smogon and the community for competitive playing, EV training, IV breeding and everything. I've been lurking a lot since, trying to make up my own team. And so I did. My idea was to make something that would go around Infernape and Dragonite, my two favorite Pokémon. Long story short, I came up with this team:
Donphan was a Phazer with Rapid Spin, Roar, Assurance and Stealth Rock. He worked with Umbreon, who was meant to be a Toxic Mixed Wall with Toxic, Curse, Moonlight and Dark Pulse. Donphan came with Stealth Rock, Roar'd the enemy lead, Umbreon came in, Toxic'd whatever came into play, then switch to Donphan, Roar, and repeat. This allowed the rest of the team to lay a midgame Sweep with Scyther and Dragonite, and a late game Sweep with Infernape and Mismagius. Scyther worked with Infernape, as he had Swords Dance, X-Scissor, Aerial Ace and Batton Pass. Infernape had Blaze Kick, Close Combat, Earthquake and Shadow Claw. I meant Scyther to pass on his Swords Dance to Infernape. Then, my Special Sweeper Dragonite came with his Dragon Pulse, Surf, Rain Dance and Flamethrower. He used his Rain Dance so Mismagius could use his Thunder with no problems. He also had Nasty Plot, Psychic and Shadow Ball.
Now, I thought this was a great team. I loved all this Pokémon and I thought I had everything covered. But, as most of you have already noticed, I got pummelled in Shoddy Battle. I mean, I think I managed to faint one enemy Pokémon in the 10 battles I endured before my ego hit the floor. Back to the drawing board, I posted this team in the RTM and... well, my thread got shut. So, I started from scratch, looking at other Pokémon options. I realized both Infernape and Dragonite were OU, so I searched other Pokémon I liked in that tier to make a good, balanced team.
Chapter 2. The Concept
The first time I read an article about competitive Pokémon said that the best thing to make was a balanced team: 2 main sweepers, 1 wall, 1 staller, 1 annoyer and an extra sweeper, so I tryed to go along with this concept. In the end, and after my first incursions into Shoddy Battle, I scratched that and went for a full sweeper team, starting again from Infernape and Dragonite.
Chapter 3. The Team Building
Infernape and Dragonite. That was all that I had against an hostile world.
So, what counters Infernape and what counters Dragonite? I was not very used to the OU enviroment, so I went and checked by type. Fire and Fighting... that means water, ground, psychic, flying... Infernape has a lot of weaknesses. So I needed... grass could take water and ground, while electric could take flying types. So I thought Gengar. But then I saw this interesting sweeper called Weaville. Ice can take ground and flying, while dark has nothing to fear against Psychic. I made my choice.
The next thing I thought about was how to keep Weavile allive. She's weak to fire, fighting and bug. Fire and fighting worried me most, ad they are more common than bug types, or bug type attacks. Someone who can resiste fire and fighting. The answer came right into my face, as I was reviewing other RTM threads and saw Tentacruel. His poison and water combination was what I needed to switch in to Weavile's most common counters. But. And a big but it was: Tentacruel's weakness to ground moves was going to be a problem. Anyway... this is what I had so far.
And how to counter Tentacruel's weakness to ground? Well, Dragonite came in and the circle was complete. He's part flying, thus inmune to ground attacks, and resistant against many common types, being part dragon. Looking at this, I needed a dedicated special sweeper, as Tentacruel was too bulky to pose a threat against faster enemies, and I was looking to a support Dragonite. I hated to lose Mismagius to the UU tier, and wanted to have a ghost type in my team. Dusknoir or Gengar? I wanted a sweeper, so, again, the choice was made.
Now I'm missing something. 1 Main physical sweeper, 1 main special sweeper, and 3 things with nothing close to a thought-throw movesets. So I checked Tentacruel's and Gengar's base stas, noticing that, for the idea I had, I needed one more physical sweeper (this might look like an obvious thing, having in count I had Dragonite on my team, but remember I planned him to be a support unit). Anyway. I thought about Aerodactyl, as he was fast enough to always get the first hit, and he also had access to Stealth Rock, something I lost with Donphan. In the end, I completed my first OU team:
Chapter 4. The Test
I thought about the movesets every Pokémon should have to cover every threat in the OU metagame, and gave another shot at the Shoddy Battle server. To my surprise, the team did relatively good. I had good wins and a lot of loses, but overal I had great battles. I made some adjustments here and there to patch some stuff I hadn't thought of while makign the team on paper, and I did a bit better.
Chapter 5. The cold, hard truth
Then, I came to face this player. We battled 5 times, and he beated me all of them. I asked for some help and so he did. He sugested changing Dragonite to a physical sweeper or definetly taking him out. To my own surprise, I decided to kiss Dragonite good bye and switched in a Latias. Also, I noticed a move calle Toxic Spikes for Tentacruel, so... I thought to try changing Aerodactyl too. In the end I finished changing the whole strategy to a more agressive one. And I liked it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part II,
Chapter 1. Again, back to the Drawing Board
Scratch Aerodactyl, scratch Dragonite, hello Latias. I had 5 Pokémon now, and I was missing a Physical Sweeper. Looking for a strong hitter, I came across this Breloom gal. I remember playing my Emerald game and putting her aside because I didn't like grass type Pokémon. Now I looked at it's movepool and the SubPuncher set. I liked it, and decided to give it a try. So far, things was looking like this:
This team actually worked for a while. I decided to keep Breloom. She kicked ass and more than once was able to achieve victory as my last Pokémon, facing 2 or 3 foes. The wrong thing was Latias. I couldn't manage her to survive long enough: if I gave her Recover, she was nto a good enough sweep, but if I used another attack, she couldn't survive enough. Then, I faced a lead Azelf (which my Weavile had no trouble killing) and looked at his stats. Good speed and good both attacks. I gave him a try, he kinda worked, but I wanted to have this team IRL and that couldn't be done with a legendary Pokémon.
Chapter 2. The Anxiousness
I had an empty space in an almost complete team. I had already scratched 3 Pokémon and was running short on ideas. I tried Blissey, Bronzong, Magnezone, Togekiss... Hell, I even tried to bring back Dragonite. But nothing worked the way I wanted, and that last slot was always a void that, either died quickly or couldn't do his job in the propper way. So I quitted Shoddy Battle for a while and started training the Pokémon in my Platinum game. I needed a Power Anklet, so I went to the battle zone, using my Lucario. Lucario. Then it hit me. And it hit me hard.
Chapter 3. The Final Team
Lucario came to solve all the problems of that last slot. His type and a few EV points into HP allowed him to survive long enough in the late game, giving Breloom a roost when it came to a late game sweep. I was done with the team! I was so happy. And it actually worked! Of course, I lost some matches and I think it still has some flaws, but I'm working on it. So...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part III,
Chapter 1. The Details
LEAD BREAKER AND MID GAME SWEEPER
Weavile @ Focus Sash
PRESSURE - Jolly Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 252 Attack, 4 HP
Moves
-Fake Out
-Taunt
-Ice Punch
-Night Slash
Explanation: Weavile's main role is to break the lead of other teams. She first breaks the chance of a Focus Sash with Fake Out, plus giving her a little advantage over more bulky leads. Then she Taunts batton passers, stealth rockers, spikers, dragon and sword dancers, while still surviving everything thanks to her focus sash. The only exceptions to this are, in the OU metagame, Tyranitar and Hippowdown with their Sandstream ability. Annyway... leads like Azelf, Roserade, Hippowdown and Aerodactyl are almost always OHKOed after the Fake Out attack, either by Night Slash or Ice Punch. Now... there are some Aerodactyl sets that overspeed my Jolly Weavile, so it just goes to guessing if either they'll use Earthquake or Stealth Rock. Most people never expect to see a Night Slash or an Ice Punch in a Weavile lead, and this sets has proven itself to be devastating against almost every lead out there, due to its surprise factor.
MAIN PHYSICAL SWEEPER
Infernape @ Life Orb
BLAZE - Jolly Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 252 Attack, 4 HP
Moves
-Flare Blitz
-Close Combat
-Stone Edge
-Mach Punch
Explanation: This is a mean ape. Don't mess with him. His main role is to deliver massive amounts of damage to everything weak to it's 3 main attacks (about 9 types), plus it's fast and powerfull enough to OHKO or 2HKO the sweepers and supporters of the type it owns. The last move slot was debated for a while. Should I put Earthquake? Slack Off to heal the Life Orb damage? Thunder Punch was not needed, neither was another fire move. Swords Dance, Solar Beam and Shadow Claw (just for the lulz), U-Turn... so many options. I tried all of them, but then I learned about Scizor's Bullet Punch (the hard way) and decided to factor in a Mach Punch. It worked wonders. With it, Infernape could become a revenge killer, plus giving him the speed advantage he needed against dragon dancers Gyarados and Tyranitar, taking in count they got hit while setting up the dragon dance, or to finish off those annoying Ninjasks.
SUBPUNCHER (THE LAST HOPE)
Breloom @ Toxic Orb
POISON HEAL - Jolly Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 208 Attack, 48 HP
Moves
-Spore
-Substitute
-Focus Punch
-Seed Bomb
Explanation: Breloom came late into this team, mostly because of my hate to grass types (I'm looking at you, Chikorita). But I had to swallow my words. This moveset has saved me from a lot of battles. The Spore-Sub-Punch combo works wonders in the late game, plus it heals twice the amount it would heal with Leftovers (12.5% vs the standard 6%) with the Poison Heal ability. This means it will also never fall asleep or become paralized or burned. So far, the hard thing about this Pokémon is to decide whether using Seed Bomb or Leech Seed. I think Seed Bomb will do better, but I want to hear your opinions on it.
EDIT#1: I decided to keep Breloom's nature and max speed EVs as I think she needs it to make sure a Spore hits before anyone can think about moving. I will use the new HP EV spread to give the Substitute a bit more health and durability. Also, I decided to keep Seed Bomb instead of leech seed. It has done well so far.
THE TOXIC-WALL-SWEEP (I'm thinking about changing this title and role. Just a wee bit)
Tentacruel @ Leftovers
CLEAR BODY - Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP, 180 Defense, 76 Special Defense
Moves
-Toxic
-Rapid Spin
-Surf
-Sludge Bomb
Explanation: Tentacruel is my choice switch when things get harsh on Weavile. If he succeded to Taunt the opposite lead with it's health intact, I switch in Tentacruel to deal with the common counters to Weavile. This Bold 252HP/180 Defense can take up to 2 Earthquakes from a non STAB'd enemy. And those who get STAB with Earthquake are usually weak to water and grass. This Tentacruel is bulky enough to take some hits and Toxic his enemy, while still being able to spin away spikes or stealth rocks, plus he simply absorbs the toxic spikes, being a poison type itself. I scratched Toxic Spikes because it meant that, late in the game, Breloom would not be able to put a foe to sleep because they would already be poisoned. The rest of the moveset gives Tentacruel an advantage against 4 types, more than enough for a wall.
EDIT#1: Ok, so I've been working a bit on my surviving plan for Weavile and I've come to think that both Tentacruel and Gengar are very good counters for whatever comes in against her. Also, I've been battling a lot and I think I've used Toxic like 2 or 3 times, fearing the block of spore over longer battles. That's why I want to keep this bulky Tentacruel, but changing his moveset a bit (or a lot) to cover more diverse types. I'm considering Surf, Ice Beam and Sludge Bomb, plus Rapid Spin, that I'm certain to keep. What do you guys think?
SNEAKY SPECIAL SWEEPER
Gengar @ Choice Scarf
LEVITATE - Modest Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 252 Special Attack, 4 HP
Moves
-Shadow Ball
-Thunderbolt
-Focus Blast
-Energy Ball
Explanation: This Gengar is a hit-and-run abuser. He outspeeds almost everything in the OU metagame, being left behind only by a scarfed Jolteon and Aeordactyl. The other 4 Pokémon with a higher Speed Base Stat are almost never seen scarfed. The Modest nature and the heavy investment in Special Attack allow Gengar to deal a massive amount of damage, and I've seen he OHKO a lot of other Pokemon. However, he's rather fragile, so he can have problems surviving more bulky Pokémon, and Tyranitar always OHKOes him with a Pursuit when I tried to switch out.
EDIT#1: I followed the moveset recommendations for for Gengar and it has worke very well. I'm not changing anything else on this one.
EXPERT SWEEPER
Lucario @ Expert Belt
INNER FOCUS - Timid Nature
EVs: 252 Speed, 252 Special Attack, 4 HP
Moves
-Aura Sphere
-Dragon Pulse
-Vacuum Wave
-¿Shadow Ball?
Explanation: Lucario. I yet haven't had the oppotunity to play a lot with this Pokémon, but the few battles he's been here have been a wonderful playground for him. He can trash a lot of types and his Speed, plus it's Timid Nature, allow him to lay a decent sweep before Breloom or Gengar, or weakening everyone for a Mach Punch late game sweep by Infernape. I look forward to improve his moveset and EV distribution.
EDIT#1: I had the chance to battle more with Lucario and check on his counters and moves. So far, the 3 first moves listed now have been devastating in the early and mid game, with Vacuum Wave being a great addition. I'm only not sure about the last slot. What can you give on this? Oh, for the guy that suggested the Choice set, I appreciate it and I believe it works, but I discovered that this Lucario comes better in the early/midgame, thus needing more versatility. And that's a thing I lose to a Choice set. Also, I changed the EV spread back to full Speed/Special Attack.
Chapter 2. Asking for Help
As I'm sure you've noticed, almost all my Pokémon run a 252/252/4 EV set. That's because I'm not sure how much EVs should I put in one stat to optimize their role and durability. I would like some help here. Also, what moves should I consider changing, and why? What do you think of the overal concept of the final team? Suggestions? Comments? I'm open to everything, and will do my best to upgrade this team to it's maximum.
Also, if you think I should provide any more information on the team, please ask me to and I'll keep this post updated. Thanks to Pokemon Elite 2000 and Arkeis for the Sprites and Images used in this post.
EDIT#1: Added some changes to Breloom, Gengar, Tentacruel and Lucario. Also, I would like some help over Tentacruel to make him more aggressive without losing his bulkyness.
