Battle Spot Kanto classic almost sun team

[yuppieflu]

Hi guys! Currently I'm preparing to Kanto Classic competition and need some help with building my team. I wanted to make a team focused around Ninetales and sunny weather. I realize that may be not the best competetive idea, but I just want to have fun with it and be able to win some battles. Although only mons that take advantage of sun are Ninetales and Victreebel so I guess that team really needs to be optimized.

The team I've made on Showdown and played some games:

Ninetales (M)
Ability: Drought
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hypnosis
- Will-O-Wisp
- Solar Beam
- Flamethrower

The main Pokemon of this team, sun setter and a deffensive wall. I run it rather deffensive, because it's main task is to set up sun and use status moves. Solarbeam is for coverage and works perfectly with sun. Flamethrower is a stab move.


Victreebel (M)
Ability: Chlorophyll
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Leaf Blade
- Protect
- Sludge Bomb

Victreebel is the one that takes benefits from sun due to it's ability. Max speed and attack to be sure that it will hit as hard as possible before it will be taken down. Sucker punch s a counter for Gengar and Alakazam which are quite popular in this meta. Alakazam can be OHKOed at full HP, Gengar for sure after rocks damage, not sure if at full HP. Leaf blade is its strongest grass physical move for ground and water types. I run Protect just in case of Disable Alakazam. Despite being special, Sludge bomb is for extra coverage and stab damage.


Clefable (F)
Ability: Unaware
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Moonblast
- Calm Mind
- Moonlight

Hazard setter and deffensive wall. Pokemon which I lead in most cases to setup rocks. Calm mind boost increases it's spdef and spatk so allows to hit harded with Moonblast since it have defensive investments. Moonlight helps Clefable to live longer and sun increases the amount of recovered hp. Unaware helps to take DD Dragonite and other Pokemon that needs to set up before. I was also thinking about replacing Moonblast and Calm mind with Stored Power and Cosmic Power.


Jolteon (M)
Ability: Volt Absorb
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Volt Switch

Pretty standard set on Jolteon. Timid nature to boost it's speed and be sure that only few things can outspeed it. Thunderbolt is it's strongest move thanks to stab and can hit pretty hard even when it's neutral. Shadow Ball for some Psychic and Ghost coverage (and other Jolteon). HP Ice to cover ground types but it also can 2HKO Dragonite. I didn't had any idea for the last slot so I decided to run Volt Switch just in case.

Starmie
Ability: Analytic
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Scald
- Psyshock
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam

Starmie was put here mainly due to Rapid Spin. Scald it for Fire and Ground types and Psyshock helps to get rid of Fighting and Poison types. For the last slot I couldn't decide between Ice Beam and Thunderbolt but after playing some matches with both those moves I found Ice Beam more usefull in most cases. Altough I'm not really sure if this is the best spinner for this team.

Venomoth
Ability: Tinted Lens
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Sleep Powder
- Bug Buzz
- Sludge Bomb

To be honest I had no idea what Pokemon choose for last slot so I decided to run offensive Venomoth. After 2 Quiver Dances it can hit pretty hard lots of Pokemon, but using 2 QD can be quite hard especially because Venomoth is quite frail. Sleep powder helps to setup and gives at least 1 free turn. Bug Buzz and Sludge Bomb are it's strongest stab moves to maximize damage.

As you can see most of my team Pokemon has got attack and speed investments because I like to hit as hard and as fast as possible. After played few games I'm pretty sure that Venomoth doesn't fit here. I was also thinking about replacing Starmie with Tentacruel and find a Pokemon with strong Fightning attack for Snorlax or Magneton. As I mentioned in the beggining - it's only a fun team and I don't expect from it to win all matchups. I just want not to lose each of them.

Thank you for your help in advance and regards!

 

[cant say]

I'm not sure sun can be very effective at all here. Weather this generation has taken a beating now that it's turn limited rather than infinite, and here in the Kanto Classic where you can't even use a Heat Rock to extend the turns is even worse. If you do want to keep using it, I would recommend you use Venusaur over Victreebel. Venusaur also gets Chlorohyll so it can abuse sun just like Victreebel, but its great bulk allows it to function quite well outside of sun as well. it also has Sleep Powder and Growth which if you manage to use under sun can turn Venu into a powerhouse.

Ninetales itself is hard to use as well, as it doesn't really do much apart from setting sun for a teammate, but of its various roles I don't think dual-status is the best. As a Fire-type (couple with its solid special defense stat), Ninetales is a great check to Moonblast Clefable and able to Roar it out without taking too much damage in the process. It can also use its decent speed and special bulk to mess up special attackers with Swagger and Foul Play although that wastes precious sun turns. You can also make use of Nasty Plot to actually do meaningful damage. I think simply changing Will-O-Wisp to Nasty Plot or Roar would be beneficial for you.

Usually, Stealth Rock-setting Clefable don't want to bother setting up, as they're usually a utility mon and boosting Clefable's really need to be dedicated to it. I definitely think you should change Calm Mind to Thunder Wave, this allows you to sit in front of Dragonite and not worry about Iron Head flinches doing you in, plus it's a really helpful move in general.

Since you only have Starmie for spinning, I would recommend swapping it for Tentacruel but that would make your team even worse against Alakazam (which you already struggle against), so instead I think you should give Starmie the following build:

Starmie
Ability: Natural Cure
EVS: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Recover
- Thunder Wave

This will make Starmie a more reliable spinner as it will actually be able to take a hit or two, and can recover back health to keep spinning if needed. Thunder Wave is such a valuable move in this metagame, and cripples Alakazam badly. Zam is still pretty dangerous, as they either try to Encore/Disable slower stuff, or have Shadow Ball for coverage, so make sure you keep your Jolteon around so it can hit it with Shadow Ball!

Venomoth isn't really providing anything to the team and is only making your Zam weakness worse. You also currently have nothing for Snorlax, so I'm gonna suggest you use Golem to combat both. He can also set rocks for you if you want, which means you can then use Calm Mind on Clefable!

Golem
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast / Rock Slide / Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock / Explosion
- Sucker Punch / Explosion

Choice of rock move is up to you. If you want to keep using Clef as a rocks setter then you can use 4 attacks, but if you can't get a Sucker Punch Golem (only obtainable from gen 4) then definitely use Stealth Rock.

This is a pretty good team, but:

- If you do want to keep Starmie, I suggest making it Natural Cure, as Analytic is a rather... strange ability. It works if Starmie moves last, and Starmie only moves last if you give it an item that slows it down (which is unviable), or if the opponent is switching out, so I'd keep Natural Cure.
- If you want to take Starmie out, replace it with Tentacruel (like you said), and give it this set:

Tentacruel
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 248 HP / 244 Def / 16 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic
- Scald
- Protect

- You can replace Venomoth for Machamp, who has access to Low Kick, which can deal a lot of damage to Snorlax, and other Fighting-type moves.

Machamp
Ability: No Guard
Level: 50
EVs: 212 HP / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Dynamic Punch
- Stone Edge
- Thunder Punch

These are just some thoughts of mine - try them out, and see what happens! Good Luck n_n

I have some issues with this advice so I thought I'd point them out. Firstly, adding both of these - as I explained above - makes this team extremely weak to Alakazam. And if you are going to use Tentacruel, it's for countering Clefable with Haze and Acid Spray. I also don't understand why you have a Timid nature listed for it.

Machamp shouldn't bother boosting, and if it does, it wants Bullet Punch to hit fast frail things before it dies. Poison Jab / Heavy Slam / Toxic is also really good for the popular Minimize Clefable.

 

[Omastar68]

Kinda surprised no one mentioned this, but max SpD and Spe on Ninetails doesn't make any sense. Pokemon without giant HP stats like Chansey benefit more from HP investment than just investment in a Defensive stat, though you may want to split EVs between HP and SpD. I I agree with the aforementioned Roar, and I like Hyonosis as well. Since Ninetails falls to lots of faster physical attackers like Aerodactyl, Dugtrio, and boosted DNite and Gyara, would Baby-Doll-Eyes make sense? Granted I'm not sure so don't go and change it right away, see how Hypnosis does first. I think Overheat would make sense over Flamethrower since you really aren't doing much attacking, so the SpA drop doesn't really matter, and the extra damage is nice.

I agree with Venusaur over Victreebel. Venusaur is really good(though her movepool is maybe a little lacking, no Sucker Punch or Weather Ball,) being extremely fast for a Chlorophyll user(I'd bet Modest still outspeeds everything,) and somewhat bulky in general. Sleep Powder means it isn't as much of a loss to give up Venomoth since you'll still have a sleep abuser, and Venu herself is a sleep absorber. You definitely want Sludge Bomb and a grass STAB(I'd say Giga Drain. Leaf Storm has an awful side effect, Grass Knot is situational, Energy Ball is only 5 more BP at the cost of no healing, and sun won't last long to abuse Solarbeam with,) but idk that last slot.

I agree with changing Venomoth, though I also want to mention that if you were to keep Venomoth you'd want Baton Pass(or maybe Substitute,) over Sludge Bomb because Tinted Lens makes Bug Buzz good mono coverage.

Lastly, the above posts had a Clear Body Tentacruel and a Golem with 212 Spe EVs. Is Clear Body better than Liquid Ooze on Tenta? I kinda thought it might be since there aren't many Pokes that use Leech Seed, Giga Drain, or Drain Punch, and CB prevents drops such as those from Crunch and Shadow Ball, and may help vs opposing Tenta if they try to soften you up with Acid Spray.

What are the EVs for on Golem? Someone on PS suggested to run 140 Spe for Clef, but what does 212 get? From the looks of it I'd guess uninvested base 70s, so mostly just Magneton? That's really rare, but Golem can smack it for good damage with EQ so I guess it is worthwhile.