First, I'll start off by saying that I'm a noob to battling. Second, I really like this team. It is through mimicking this team on Shoddy battle that I was able to learn how to battle and eventually create a team of my own. But after looking at some stats, I noticed something odd. Magnezone's base speed of 60 is less than Heatran's base speed of 77. This lead me to do some thinking. If Heatran has max speed EV's with a +speed nature, he will always be able to land a earth power on Magnezone before it gets a chance to attack. I am not yet very good at calculating damage, but I'm fairly certain that will kill it. And if it somehow survives and manages to land a hit, none of it's moves other than explosion seem like much of a threat to Heatran. So with that in mind, is shed shell really necessary against Magnezone? After all, the only way I see Magnezone as a threat to Heatran is if it was scarfed, with enough EV's in Sp. Defense or HP to survive a hit from Earth Power, or a STABed + Flashfired fire attack of your choice. If that is the case, wouldn't it be better to just give Heatran an item that will raise the damage he deals instead of shed shell which is essentially to guard against the 1 poke that can trap Heatran but is just slow enough to not be able to do much else?
I Have also been considering trading explosion for substitute, considering how most opponents switch out when Heatran switches in. Dragon Pulse generally does a little over 50% damage to most dragon types I encounter. So with substitute, I'm able to land 1 more hit than I would normally (at least, in theory, I haven't actually tried this out yet).
Is Magnezone really so much of a threat to Heatran that you need shed shell on it? If so, why? What exactly am I missing?
I Have also been considering trading explosion for substitute, considering how most opponents switch out when Heatran switches in. Dragon Pulse generally does a little over 50% damage to most dragon types I encounter. So with substitute, I'm able to land 1 more hit than I would normally (at least, in theory, I haven't actually tried this out yet).
Is Magnezone really so much of a threat to Heatran that you need shed shell on it? If so, why? What exactly am I missing?