Gen 2 I need help with my competitive team

[Purewildman]

There are some extremely, knowledgeable GSC players here at Smogon, so what better place to ask for team advice? Here's my team right now.

Jolteon @ Leftovers


Agility

Baton Pass

Hidden Power Water

Thunderbolt


Marowak @ Thick Club

Earthquake

Rest

Rock Slide

Swords Dance


Blissey @ Leftovers

Heal Bell

Ice Beam

Softboiled

Toxic


Heracross @ Leftovers

Earthquake

Endure

Megahorn

Reversal


Tyranitar @ Leftovers

Curse

Earthquake

Roar (Maybe swap for Rest?)

Rock Slide

Arcanine @ Leftovers

Flamethrower

Hidden Power Fighting

Rest

Sleep Talk


I have used this team on Shoddy Battle and have surprisingly won quite a few battles even though its a second generation team. I'm sure luck was involved.

One question I had was about how many male and female pokemon I should have in my team. My whole team is male besides Blissey and I don't want to be destroyed by attract. However I have heard that attack power is lower for female pokemon?

Please provide constructive criticism, no "This team sucks!" Thank-you!

 

[MaxMilen]

Fair warning: I'm not exactly great at GSC.

First off, what you heard about being female lowering Attack in GSC is more-or-less true; the gender for any species that can be both genders is determined directly by the Attack DV, with the higher Attack DV's being male. However, Attract isn't too commonly seen, so don't worry too much about that.

That said, here are my thoughts.

The Jolteon looks pretty standard, and should be a decent leadoff. Careful, though, as Jolteon can be a little fragile, and you don't have any Flying-types.

Marowak, well, it's ClubWak, and you have Jolteon. What's to say? Rest is an interesting touch, and Marowak does have pretty good defenses (plus, you have a Heal Beller). Make sure that you set the DV's for Hidden Power Bug even if you're not using Hidden Power, otherwise you'll fall prey to the "rollover glitch". Incidentally, the only disadvantage I can see to having Rest over Hidden Power Bug is that you may be more vulnerable to Grass-types, but you have coverage for them.

Blissey is, well, Blissey. I personally use Attract over Ice Beam, but both work. Then again, I also prefer Miltank over Blissey for Heal Bell support. Again, though, both work.

Heracross feels like an odd choice here, for some reason. It's a decent set, but other than being your only Pokemon to resist Earthquake, it doesn't really seem to synergize with the rest of the team. You've already got Marowak and Tyranitar as physical attackers, and it's not as if Heracross needs the extra speed it can get from Jolteon passing Agility to it. Still, could come in handy, and with Marowak not having Hidden Power, this is a pretty good alternative when it comes to dealing with Grass-types.

Tyranitar is, well, Cursetar. Seems a little redundant with Marowak, actually, though T-Tar does have useful type resistances. Maybe switch over to Mixtar (Rock Slide, Crunch, Earthquake, and either Roar or a Special move of choice)?

Arcanine doesn't feel like it fits either. It's got some weaknesses that you really don't want more of (mainly Ground and Water; the weakness to Rock doesn't exactly help, but it's not as bad). Besides that, it doesn't really seem like it does much that you don't already do better with another team member.


Overall, it looks like this team has potential, but it does have a few glaring weaknesses that could perhaps be improved by changing out one or two members. In particular, I'd suggest changing out Arcanine for something that's part-Flying. The obvious choices would be Skarmory or Zapdos, though I can also see Aerodactyl, Articuno, or Charizard (I'd personally recommend a SD-zard over a DrumZard, but that's me) in that slot. Switching out Heracross might not be a bad idea, but it does seem to fit better than Arcanine does. Also, as I said on Tyranitar, you might want to change movesets on him, to provide better type coverage.

Hope I helped!

 

[Purewildman]

Thanks! This helps a lot.

 

[Borat]

Depends of if you want creativity or just to be successful. Either way, read on.

Always abuse Drumlax on any agi-passing team. Always. Return, EQ, LK, Drum. Shits stupidly broken.

You need a second passer [Scizor] for this to work with any real regularity. Agi, BP, SD, <attack move> (HP Bug/Steel Wing, but the only thing you'll hit harder with Steel Wing is Rhydon, who Jolteon handles just fine.).

Marowak needs to be nickwak (HP Bug/SD/EQ/RS), don't try to get cute.

For Jolteon, I like Thunder over Thunderbolt. That para on Raikou could go a long way.

Finish the team with either more sweepers, or a role player. Vil used Charizard/Celebi. Celebi is "banned" by smogon rules, but smogon rules are pretty bogus and lack any real consistency in their arguments. Charizard works, since you now have the upperhand against Raikou, Zapdos, and Starmie (still shit outta luck vs Suicune, Marowak, and the plethora of other things Charizard doesn't really OHKO). I've been partial to Clefable myself (for any team it remotely works on). Quagsire isn't a bad option, nor is Poliwrath, who learns LK. Tentacruel is another option, albeit the setup is slower, I personally wouldn't go near it. Heck, Slowbro is better than Tenta. And recently, I've found Smeargle to be a promising third passer, one that "scares" away Raikou with Spore (more on this in edit).

This is the basis for all agi-pass teams. You don't want to deviate from this very formula if you want any success. There also a couple subtle strategies and playstyles you can go with this team, but I'll leave that to you to figure out.

Anyway, you should win all your battles with ease. No skill required really. Drumlax is your preferred target here, a pass to him generally seals the game. Sleep whatever you can't OHKO then go wild. Smogon needs to ban that thing.

EDIT: @havoc: Since I know you're following this stuff again: Smeargle (Sub, Agi, Spore, BP) + Quagsire/Poliwrath/Slowbro (maybe) is unstoppable in UU bar double phazers. Maybe it's time for Smeargle to go back up to BL.

That and... again, LK lax. Or at the very least, LK drumlax. The other sets at least give you time to recover.

 

[Purewildman]

Thank-you Borat this has given me a lot to think about.