VGC My first team: Mega Lucario, Gyarados, Landorus and friends

[Awful_Person]

A little intro:
I've been playing in some capacity for around a year now, but most of what I do is singles. I've built an extensive collection of in-game Pokemon, so I figured I might as well do the official format. I watched a couple of videos on it and played random doubles on Showdown in order to get a feel for doubles, and I made two teams to try it out. This is the one that has worked better, but it doesn't function exactly the way I had hoped it would.

The only perfect legendary I have in-game is Landorus, so I started with that, and I then added mixed Mega Lucario because I like it and Gyarados to complement the others defensively, forming a core. Unfortunately, Mega Lucario, while excellent, has no business being part of any defensive core, despite his helpful typing, which is my first problem with this team.

I chose Tyranitar to help beat weather and Ferrothorn to help beat Trick Room, but both are also excellent tanks even without those situations. I initially had Clefable to draw Will-o-Wisp in the last slot, but it proved underwhelming and I was having trouble with Intimidate, so I added Contrary Milotic instead.

I'm reasonably happy with this team, but it feels sort of shaky to play with it because my coverage is really mediocre and I'm heavily reliant on physical attacks which leaves me vulnerable to burn.

Gyarados:

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Gyarados (F) @ Wacan Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge
- Dragon Dance
- Protect

I'm not too happy with Stone Edge, but Earthquake hits my own team too hard. Any suggestions here?

Ferrothorn:

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Ferrothorn (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Iron Barbs
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Atk / 52 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Protect

This works wonderfully, although Leech Seed may be the weakest link.

Lucario:

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Lucario (F) @ Lucarionite
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Vacuum Wave
- Flash Cannon
- Protect
- Close Combat

Sometimes I wish Lucario had more coverage, but I wouldn't want to remove any of these moves.

Milotic:

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Milotic (M) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Competitive
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 236 HP / 140 Def / 132 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Icy Wind
- Ice Beam
- Protect

Ice Beam sometimes feels redundant, but not always. It's nice to have against Amoonguss.

Tyranitar:

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Tyranitar (F) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Sand Stream
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Rock Slide
- Dragon Dance
- Protect

This looks like it could use another damaging move, but I haven't felt like I needed another one.

Landorus:

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Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- U-turn
- Knock Off

I usually end up using Rock Slide. Locking into one move with Choice Scarf is annoying, but the speed is necessary.

Please tell me what you think, and what you think might work better!

 

[Simperheve]

Welcome to Smogon and the VGC subforum!

First things first, Smogon Doubles functions differently to Battle Spot Doubles (VGC). The main difference is that you bring 6, choose 4.

Secondly, there is a "Rate My Team" subsection in the forums for this kinda stuff. You can find the Section of the RMT subsection you need to post in here.

Lots of your pokemon have protect, which is good. That's your bread and butter for VGC and it often makes the difference in games.

At first sight, I'm not sure why you need Gyarados and Milotic. Both are water types and would have difficulty taking on the likes of Rotom-Wash. You could possibly switch either for a Zapdos to give you the coverage of Heat Wave and Thunderbolt. Dependant on which one you switch, you can use Tailwind on Zapdos for speed boosting. This would also help mitigate your very Physical-Based problem, as Zapdos doesn't suffer from the attack reductions because it's special based. Out of the two i'd personally get rid of Gyarados since Milotic gives you counter-measures against Intimidate.

Have you got any descriptions for your EV spreads? I know the 252/252 spreads will be to maximise damage output/ speed but what about Milotic/ Ferrothorn?

I usually go for a 4 special, 2 physical team. Physical Damage is great and all, but there are a lot of countermeasures for it. If you take Close Combat off Lucario and put on Aura Sphere instead, you won't have to worry about intimidate/burns on it anymore, and that along with swapping out Gyarados would bring your Physical/Special balance to 3/3.

Hope this helps!

 

[Awful_Person]

Thanks for the reply! I thought there was some sort of RMT section, but for some reason I thought it was part of the VGC subforums, and I gave up looking for it. I'll go put this there now.

I stole most of the EV spreads from the Smogon Pokedex, and I've chosen most of my moves from among the suggested ones as well. I've been pretty happy with the EVs, although I'm not always sure about all the moves.

I'll certainly have to try Timid Lucario. I would love to use Zapdos over Gyarados, but I'm not looking forward to obtaining one. I'm also a bit worried about leaving my original "core" vulnerable to Ice, although it isn't much of a core to begin with, to be honest.

 

[KantoCastRed]

A general issue to address moving forward with this team is the EV spreads. 252/252 works in singles but is far less common in VGC because the format merits a need for more bulk. For instance, Milotic's EVs are designed to survive a Double-Edge from Adamant Mega Khan. If it can survive that, it can survive weaker and the longer it stays around, the more problems it causes. An extra turn of Icy Wind could mean the win. When constructing your team, you'll need to run test calculations to make sure you're not wasting points in stats you don't need.

I also agree with the suggestion for Zapdos over Gyarados. I personally like Safety Goggles Zapdos for your team not only to avoid residual sand damage but to deal with Amoonguss, who will cause problems for this team even with Ice Beam on Milotic, who only 3HKOs w/o a boost, and 2HKOs w/ it.