Gen 2 I could use some help... [RMT]

Well, I've been battling GSC for a while now, but I'm not exactly that great at it. I like how my team looks on paper but I can't help but feel there's a lack of synergy in it.

@ Leftovers
Lovely Kiss
Fire Blast
Earthquake
Thunderbolt

Meh. Standard, but it works so long as I don't waste Lovely Kiss on a sleep talker

@ Leftovers
Cross Chop
Rock Slide
Earthquake
Fire Blast

All out attacker Machamp. Sometimes lures out Skarmory which he hits nicely with Fire Blast

@ Leftovers
Return
Lovely Kiss
Belly Drum
Earthquake

I love this thing. If I can get rid of Skarm and keep it from getting Phased he rips stuff apart. I don't like the idea of using Double-Edge with no recovery but if people see Lovely Kiss on Nidoking they almost never expect Lax to have it too.

@ Leftovers
Counter
Crunch
Flamethrower
Pursuit

He nails things that flee pretty hard with Pursuit. Counter is unexpected from my experience, but most people don't expect him to survive most things that he does anyways.

@ Leftovers
Rest
Sleep Talk
Thunderbolt
Drill Peck

Eh, I needed a sleep talker and a ground immunity/resist, so I thought I'd roll them into one. Plus, he's a good pokemon and is good at his job.

@ Leftovers
Surf
Thunder Wave
Rest/???
Dynamic Punch


My Paralysis support. He makes stuff slow enough for Snorlax to set up. Dynamicpunch for shits and giggles. And Blissey. I'm pretty sure I should use rest but I'm kind of opposed to it with no heal beller.

Well, there's my team. Criticize and rate away. If there's any major problems let me know.

EDIT: It may be off topic, but does smogon still have a netbattle server? Just wondering

Dynamicpunch on Slowbro should never be used due to its terrible accuracy. Instead, run something like Psychic so you can touch other Waters, and to avoid WeezBliss from lol'ing at this team.

Two sleepers is a below average idea, you could just run standard Curselax.

Use Ice Beam or something over Tbolt on Nidoking, the coverage is better.

I used surf/zap cannon/dynamic punch/rest Slowbro with success on GSbot. Zap cannon is a decent compromise between thunder wave and damaging opposing water Pokemon. Slowbro can afford to miss - and the mere presence of its attacks will induce switching. I prefer thunder over bolt on Nidoking. The extra power is handy and it pays off handsomely should you paralyse an in-switching Starmie for example (who would brush off bolt with recover).

Zap Cannon is a great surprise to promote switching, and it opens you to have psychic on your movelist, which is useful against the nastiness of Tentacruel.

On Nidoking, I'd almost be more apt for you to use Ice Beam instead of Thunder/bolt. Ice Beam is awefully nice to have Marowak/ground types on the switch, as well as better handle Zapdos. Earthquake is going to do a considerable amount of damage to Starmie, regardless.

Well, Smogon once had a netbattle server but that was 2 years ago...

Team synergy is one advanced bit of team making you never see mentioned in any guide (probably because only a few really understand and grasp its concepts). One of the easier ways to determining team synergy is to play out the battle scenario in your head, except this time, pretend your opponent has every Pokemon and move in their arsenal. Play out a series of hypothetical switches/attacks and see if you come out on top. Determine what needs to be changed to provide a better offensive or defensive match-up. Ask yourself questions. Is one Pokemon having a hard time switching in to anything? Is one Pokemon taking hits too often, thus limiting his potential? This is equivalent to "testing" that many players do, except far more comprehensive and not limited by how good or bad your opponents are.

On a side note, no decent player would switch Skarm into Machamp. And Slowbro's a bit of an oddball here; do the synergy thing mentioned above and you should see why.