Defensive semi-Trick Room team

[rodtheworm]

Hi everyone,

I'm pretty new to the competitive scene in general, but I literally started NU yesterday so this team may be really bad. I decided to make it after watching one of Flaming Spade's videos, in which he uses a core of Regenerator Pokemon to stay healthy. I've probably played 20-30ish games while developing this team and am slowly starting to get an idea of its strengths and weaknesses, but I'd love to get some feedback!

The Core

Florence (Audino) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 Def
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd (Trick Room set only)
- Wish
- Toxic
- Heal Bell
- Trick Room/Protect

Through Nuzlocking BW and BW2, these were invaluable as experience farms but, since they seemed to heal my Pokemon more than they damaged them, I never really saw their potential. On moving to competitive battles though, with the lack of items Florence has become one of my most important team members.

Her main role is keeping my team healthy and status-free. Her wishes help keep the non-Regenerator 'mons at full health, and are mainly used to give my Gurdurr another run or let me switch something in when I fear they'll take damage doing so. Heal Bell has been invaluable in getting Toxic off Alomomola or Musharna. Finally, I'm considering switching out Trick Room for Protect, as I I find I'm using it less and less, and the team functions fairly well outside of it. On the other hand, it's currently one of the only ways I can bring a Shell Smash Gorebyss to a halt.

Sunny (Alomomola) @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Impish Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Waterfall
- Toxic

I knew I was going to use this Pokemon before even starting the team. Much of what little I know about competitive battles has come from watching TheFlamingSpade's videos, and the way he manages to make the NU "biiiiig Luvdisc!" work even in OU teams always impressed me.
Sunny does a great job of sponging physical hits, poisoning enemies and passing huge Wishes - pretty much how anyone uses an Alomomola. She can still dish out a little bit of damage against those weak to water/who don't have an effective move, too - my favourite moment was going Waterfall vs Waterfall with a Shell Smash Carracosta who tried to set up on her and winning.

Vinnie (Tangela) @ Eviolite
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Def / 248 HP / 8 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Leech Seed
- Giga Drain
- Sleep Powder
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Vinnie is my second physical wall, taking the Electric/Grass hits she can't (and vice versa). He plays a little more offensively than Sunny, usually aiming to put the biggest threat to sleep and wear down physical tanks with Leech Seed and Giga Drain. HP Ice is useful for dealing with physically-based Dragons.


All together, these three tend to keep switching around to minimise excessive harm to any one of them, regaining health as they do so and trying to wear down the opposition with Toxic and other minor damage.


The Power

Punch (Gurdurr) @ Eviolite
Trait: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature (Brave in Trick Room)
IVs: 0 Spd (Trick Room only)
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
- Mach Punch

Gurdurr with Eviolite makes a nice, bulky physical attacker who can set up a few boosts and potentially sweep. Even without the boosts, though, he hits pretty hard and I can usually heal him up again for another go.
Guts currently makes him even more dangerous if he gets a status placed on him, but I'm considering switching to Iron Fist. Considering I have Heal Bell on Audino, I suspect the additional damage on all his attacks might be more useful. Of course, this does mean a burn would force him out, but so far that hasn't been much of a problem for me - people rarely seem to burn Pokemon who potentially carry Guts for fear of giving their opponent a sweep.

Judy (Musharna) @ Leftovers
Trait: Synchronize
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Relaxed Nature (Bold outside Trick Room)
IVs: 0 Spd (Trick Room only)
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Moonlight
- Trick Room/Signal Beam

Originally a self-supporting bulky Trick Room sweeper, Judy makes an admirable defensive wall and after a few Calm Minds is very difficult to drop from the special side too.
I've recently been running Signal Beam instead of Trick Room, though, as the team tends to perform pretty well even outside Trick Room and I don't like Dark/Psychic types stopping/holding up her sweep before it begins. It also catches some people by surprise if they expect it to carry Heal Bell instead. Occasionally I'll see a Cacturne switch in, expecting a free turn to set up Spikes or a Swords Dance, only to get unceremoniously put in its place. I've not yet used it vs a Skuntank, but I suspect it wouldn't do the job. ;)


The Support

Triloblaster (Armaldo) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Def
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
- X-Scissor
- Rock Blast

Originally the last spot was filled by a Swords Dance Marowak, which switched in after a Trick Room. However, I found that entry hazards really hurt me if more than a single layer went down, and he was adding the least value to the team. The choice of Rapid Spinner was fairly obvious to me - Armaldo has impressive bulk and lays rocks as well, which benefits my team's strategy of outlasting the enemy. X-Scissor has helped once or twice against the Grass and Psychic types my other team members can struggle with, but Rock Blast has been invaluable. Substitue->Speed Boost Combusken and Substitute->Tail GlowVolbeat both get swiftly shut down or KOed before they can do anything dangerous.

Note that my Armaldo has special defence EVs. Its base stats may support a more physical role, but a base stat of 80 is nothing to sniff at, I already have two good physical walls, and the extra special defence helps against the Grass/Psychic types X-Scissor targets.


On a final note, I probably started competitive battles on here about 3 weeks ago, with my previous experience being single player (where you can just level grind) and the odd battle against my brother - who only knows the most obvious type effectivenesses. As such, I have no idea how to do the calculations I see frequently, where to get the necessary figures from, or even really which ones are worth doing. Most of my battles run on a basic understanding of the type chart and gut instinct, which so far has got me to the 1400-1500s on Showdown!'s ranking system.

Please take a look and let me know any improvements you think I could make.

 

[Aasgier]

Your Trick Room abusers should run a nature that lowers speed. Yes, Musharna does, but your Gurdurr does not...

 

[ium]

audino / alomomola / tangela / gurdurr / musharna / armaldo

what i really don't understand here is the structure of your team. every single pokemon here is able to function without the need of trick room. the reason is because you have a really elaborate defensive core that doesn't even need trick room to do their support role; essentially, a defensive core that is more than necessary. you have to think about the purpose of trick room: what are you trying to achieve with it? you should be maximizing the potential of a trick room team by going more on the offensive so that you don't waste trick room turns with one of your defensive pokemon.

in terms of weaknesses, your biggest one would be haunter. a subdisable variant renders your entire team helpless, aside from armaldo, since each member only has one primary way to deal damage to haunter, leaving them susceptible to disable. a standard life orb haunter can be troubling too, because nothing in particular really wants to take hits aside from audino, which cannot do anything back. in addition, it can use destiny bond to break a portion of your defensive core and leave it open for a lot of the offensive threats in NU. toxic spikes would be your next biggest weakness; with such a bulky team that would want to set up or wall certain threats, you would want to stay in for extended periods of time, but toxic spikes really limits the ability to do so. armaldo can use rapid spin, but it's susceptible to hazards and is prone to being worn down and/or blocked by ghost-types like misdreavus. finally, a lot of threats that set up can ruin your team; substitute + bulk up braviary would be one of the biggest problems because it easily sets up on practically two-thirds of your team, and nothing can threaten it back when it's at +1. heal bell musharna is also another problem, because it you cannot hurt it that well, leaving it able to set up calm mind many times.

first, the things that alomomola and tangela check and struggle against are similar to an extent, and they don't really offer anything too different than the other can do. i would say that replacing tangela is the best thing to do here since it's a little redundant. yes it resists electric- and grass-types attacks like you said, but those are mostly from specially offensive pokemon who may very well have coverage moves to hit on tangela's weak special defense stat and KO it. for this resaon, tangela should be replaced by skuntank. skuntank is not only a passable check to subdisable haunter (sadly, it's not as effective against life orb haunter), but it's a decent counter to opposing musharna, a decent check to most grass-types, has the ability to absorb toxic spikes that your entire team dislikes, can taunt to prevent certain pokemon from setting up, and is another user of priority that can prove to be quite useful since your team is very slow-moving.

next off, i'm really wondering if you really need armaldo to rapid spin when the only type of hazard you are susceptible to is toxic spikes, which is remedied through skuntank. spikes can be annoying, but playing intelligently between skuntank or musharna can minimize the layers the opponent can set against your team. i think having a more solid check to the likes of substitute + bulk up braviary is very important, so regirock may be a better option here. it still gets stealth rock up, but what it has is good offensive presence while still maintaining good overall bulk. it can catch braviary with a toxic while it needs to roost, since it'll be spending many turns to set up before it can actually get past regirock.

finally, i still question the use of trick room. very few members of your team benefit from it; your team doesn't seem like it has the characteristics of a dedicated trick room team. unless you're willing to re-structure your entire team so that it's built more offensively to take full advantage of five short turns of trick room, i wouldn't use it at all except on musharna. what i believe you should do is run a different move on audino, such as protect, while musharna can remain as a standalone trick room sweeper if you want or it can just use its standard set options.

summary:
protect trick room audino / alomomola / skuntank tangela / gurdurr / signal beam or heal bell or thunder wave trick room* musharna / regirock armaldo
* optional

sets

Skuntank @ Leftovers
Trait: Aftermath
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Poison Jab
- Taunt
- Pursuit
- Sucker Punch

Regirock @ Leftovers
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 HP
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Rock Slide
- Drain Punch

 

[watashi]

ium's suggestions are on the spot, your team doesn't need trick room to function and is better off played as a balance team. you might want to look into using lickilicky over audino since substitute shell smash gorebyss will sweep this team clean and gets free set-up opportunities against audino and alomomola. lickilicky has enough attack to run body slam, which will discourage gorebyss from setting up on it.

Lickilicky @ Leftovers
Trait: Own Tempo
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Careful Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Body Slam
- Heal Bell

 

[rodtheworm]

Thanks for the feedback!

OK, so to sum up, I should try:

Lickilicky - Special Wall
Alomomola - Physical Wall
Musharna - Special Setup Sweeper
Gurdurr - Physical Setup Sweeper
Regirock - Stealth Rocks, Backup Physcial Wall/Attacker
Skuntank - Ghost/Psychic defence, toxic absorber

I'll give the team a try and see how it plays. It'll be a bit of a shame to lose the triple Regenerators, but I suppose that's a bit of a gimmick really. ;)

Thanks again for the help!