Doubles Team??

[shinyWalrein]

This team was initially an in-game team that I've been using for Pokemon XD for a while now, but of course it's been tweaked a lot and tested quite a few times with both friends and various online simulators. It does pretty well but of course it could be altered further. I could consider using some Gen 4 and 5 Pokemon but I'm not sure who to pick, and who to replace.
--

Vaporeon (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
- Surf
- Helping Hand
- Substitute
- Baton Pass

Surf hits both opponents at once, which is always useful, and some of of my team carries Protect so it won't hit them too (why did Game Freak make it so Surf hits your teammate too? ;A; ). Helping Hand can help boost Vaporeon's teammate, especially if he's behind a sub and doesn't really need to use Surf that turn, Substitute is useful on a bulky Pokemon like Vaporeon and lets him take hits as well as reduce the damage from his teammate's Earthquake or Discharge moves, and Baton Pass lets Vaporeon pass a substitute onto a teammate if he needs to.​

Hariyama (M) @ Flame Orb
Trait: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Earthquake
- Close Combat
- Facade

Fake Out lets Hariyama flinch an opponent on the first turn and ensures that he takes minimal damage that turn to activate his Flame Orb, as well as inflicting a bit of damage (which is good if used on a frail Pokemon and is boosted by Helping Hand), Earthquake hits both opponents and is a powerful move, and a lot of my team have ways of not being damaged by this powerful attack themselves. Close Combat is a powerful STAB move, and Facade is an obvious move choice on a Guts/Flame Orb Pokemon.​

Ampharos (F) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Static
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
- Heal Bell
- Discharge
- Protect
- Toxic

Heal Bell is used on Ampharos as opposed to Blissey because my Blissey can't legally learn Aromatherapy or Heal Bell with the other moves it has, and Ampharos is sufficiently bulky to be able to pull off cleric-ing nicely. Discharge hits both opponents at once (again, my team has ways of not being hit by this too). Protect can scout the opponent to see if anything wants to pop her Air Balloon, and Toxic is there for any Ground types, or anything else that Discharge won't be useful against. Ampharos is bulky enough to stall a specially-defensive Pokemon for a few turns as the Toxic damage starts to add up, too.​

Arcanine (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 96 SAtk / 160 Spd
Serious Nature
- ExtremeSpeed
- Heat Wave
- Sunny Day
- Leer

Priority moves are always nice in Doubles as Pokemon rely on their teammates a lot, so if you can knock something out as quickly as possible then it'll be 2 vs. 1 for the rest of the turn. Extremespeed is good for this as it has +2 priority as opposed to +1 that most other priority moves have, and Arcanine is powerful enough to make good use of it - most opponents with only 25% health left won't survive it. Heat Wave hits both opponents at once and has a chance of burning, which is good if there's a physically offensive Pokemon on the other side. Sunny Day helps Venusaur get the Chlorophyll boost (as well as boosting Heat Wave), and it doesn't affect Vaporeon's Surf too much as it wears off in 5 turns. And...Leer! I'm not crazy, I swear! Leer is very useful in double battles as it affects both Pokemon at once and it means that Arcanine's Extremespeed will hit harder the next turn.​

Venusaur (F) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 Atk
Lonely Nature
- Growth
- Razor Leaf
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder

Growth boosts Venusaur's Attack and Sp. Attack - Razor Leaf and Sludge Bomb respectively. Razor Leaf hits both opponents at once and has a high critical hit ratio, and Sludge Bomb has a chance of poisoning. Sleep Powder puts something to sleep, making it essentially useless. Having a sleeping opponent gives Venusaur chances to boost her attacking stats even higher. If I think an opponent is going to Trick one of my Pokemon, I could switch Venusaur in and the opponent will receive Venusaur's Black Sludge which, while beneficial on Venusaur, would actually harm the opponent (as long as it isn't a Poison-type, of course.)​

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Protect
- Wish
- Icy Wind

Blissey, being as bulky as she is, always has an opportunity to set up Stealth Rock. I see lots of Ninjasks on online simulator Doubles, and while the Doubles metagame hasn't really been defined that much yet, I can predict Ninjask being a staple of a lot of teams from what I've seen so far. Stealth Rock cuts Ninjask's health in half straight off the bat, and pretty much anything else - even Blissey herself - could finish it off. Of course, Stealth Rock is useful against any Pokemon really, it's just that it's helped me out with a lot of Ninjasks. Protect and Wish is a useful combination - Wish on one turn, and switch to a weakened Pokemon or Protect in the next. Protect also stops Blissey from being hurt by Earthquake or anything like that, and lets her get a bit of Leftovers recovery. Icy Wind is pretty useful, considering a lot of my team is pretty slow, as it hits both opponents and lowers their speed by one stage. Because Blissey is incredibly bulky, she can pull off multiple Icy Winds and soon Blissey herself would be able to outspeed the opponents. This would force the opponent to switch - making her Stealth Rock useful, and giving her a turn to Wish.​

--

Thank-you for reading! Any critiques are welcome.

 

[noobcubed]

Hi, I apologise in advance of my rate but I anticipate this being a rather difficult one.

Can I start by asking you how much you have actually played the Smogon Doubles ladder? Sentences like "Ninjask is a staple of a lot of teams" - what? Ninjask has no niche at all in doubles - its only niche in higher tiers of singles is Baton Passing speed boosts, and in doubles that can be achieved far better by using the move Tailwind, which is widely distributed and affects both of you team members on the field.

Clerics like Ampharos and Blissey have little place in the competitive doubles environment, the metagame is simply too fast-paced for a cleric to be able to do its job. Prevention is better than cure, so moves like Safeguard, Protect and Light Screen are actually pretty useful. The same fast-paced nature that makes Cleric pretty poor actually makes these moves pretty good, since they protect the entire team, and the eight turns that dual screens last with Light Clay can be the duration of the entire battle. Note that, while dual screens are primarily an attacking weapon in singles (ie, they are used to give a sweeper an opportunity to set up and destroy the opponent) in doubles they are just used to increase the team's bulk. The best screener is probably Latias with her high speed and bulk allowing her to get them up reliably.

Baton Pass is another move almost never seen in doubles. Especially sub-pass, it is generally better just to have Substitute on the Pokemon that you want to have a substitute, since everything has access to it. Vaporeon in general is pretty outclassed in doubles - Manaphy has equally good bulk and also has access to Hydration/Rest which makes it difficult to kill in rain, but Tail Glow makes it a terrifying sweeper, whereas Vaporeon is only going to be firing off weak-ish Surfs and not do much else.

Blissey can just about be used in doubles but it is a highly niche thing. Stealth Rock can be used but you won't see many teams doing so because the damage it racks up just isn't very much, so it's probably only if you have a filler slot somewhere and a bit of a Volcarona weakness. Some people will tell you it's totally useless but I have lost because of Stealth Rock before. Otherwise, Blissey needs a hell of a lot of support because every physical attacker scares her off, so Intimidate spam is advised (and then you leave yourself open to be ripped to shreds by Bisharp). And even if you give Blissey this support, she just really sits there not doing all that much, if you want a bulky Icy wind user then Cresselia and Suicune are far more versatile and aren't going to be destroyed by physical attackers. Heal Pulse > Wish, probably, but then you can't heal yourself.

Hariyama, Arcanine and Venusaur are at least decent in doubles, although none of them are anything like the best Pokemon in the metagame. Hariyama is pretty sad outside of Trick Room, however, as, with no speed investment, it is so slow that even Blissey's Icy Wind will not help it, and between Toxic damage and always moving last it will fall pretty quickly. Earthquake is not a brilliant idea when your teammates, between them, have two weaknesses and no immunities to Ground. (Not counting Air Balloon Ampharos, as if you ever want Ampharaos to do something it is probably going to lose its balloon in the process).

Incidentally, I am drafting Arcanine's doubles analysis at the moment, and I had considered a support set, as Arcanine's support movepool is not that bad, with the likes of Will-o-Wisp, Helping Hand and Snarl available (in fact, Intimidate + Snarl is great), but it seems that the community disagrees with us on this one and that Arcanine is better off going down an offensive route, because Arcanine isn't really very bulky. This seems reasonable as Arcanine's Physical movepool is awesome, with moves like Flare Blitz, Wild Charge, Close Combat, Crunch and Extremespeed, you can pretty much adapt it to whatever your team needs to get a big hit on. Also, can you explain the EVs here? That might help other raters.

Venusaur - Growth can be good but set-up is really difficult to make work in this metagame, and you will never achieve a clean 6-0 sweep as you might in singles except with a small handful of set-up mons who function really well (basically just Volcarona and Manaphy). Giga Drain is a much better STAB than Leaf Blade that allows you to spread your EVs more efficiently. Hidden Power Fire > Sludge Bomb, probably, but either way Heatran laughs at you, so Earthquake is also usable. Also Earthquake is Venusaur's only spread move (another reason why taking the time to set up a Growth often isn't worth it). Oh, and you need Life Orb. And even if you keep Black Sludge, Leftovers is STILL better, even if a Trick user picks it up it will just use Trick again on one of Venusaur's teammate, with the result that both are crippled instead of just Venusaur.

I think that's enough criticism, doubles tutoring will be around next generation I think but for the moment, read the doubles forum, pick up an RMT team maybe and play around with it to get a feeling for the metagame. Feel free to use one of mine: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/my-little-keldeo-a-smogon-doubles-rmt.3488410/