Tips on my new Trick room/Sandstorm Team?

[DigitalPikachu]

Hello Der Smogon, Today I am going to need help on my trick room team.
I am currently 5-5 with this team and thought something was wrong.
Please help me! BTW, This is Doubles Battles



Cresselia@ Mental Herb
Nature:Sassy
Ability:Levitate
Evs:252Hp/196SpD/60Def

Moveset:
-Trick Room
-Ice Beam
-Lunar Dance
-Moonlight

This set has helped my Cresselia live for a pretty long time, and whenever I'm gonna die for sure, I use Lunar Dance heal another pokemon. Ice beam is my only attacking move though. Moonlight is used when I need it.


Amoonguss@ Sitrus Berry
Nature:Calm
Ability:Effect Spore
Evs:252Hp/252SpD/4Def

Moveset:
-Spore
-Rage Powder
-Giga Drain
-Protect

Here is my annoyer. Having this pokemon is useful against latios on the first turn. Why? You may ask, Most people who use latios use draco meteor on the first turn, wearing out my cress. With Rage Powder, those attacks on the first turn go directly to amoonguss. Giga Drain is for incase a pokemon taunts him and spore is, well... We all know what spore does and why everybody hates it.


Conkeldurr@ Flame Orb
Nature:Adamant
Ability:Guts
Evs:120Hp/252Atk/136Spe

Moveset:
-Hammer Arm
-Mach Punch
-Ice Punch
-Facade

This pokemon is my physical attacker. With an amazing 140 base attack stat, he's worth it. Guts with Flame Orb pays off with OHKO's, Hammer Arm is a great STAB move that lowers your speed... Making Conkeldurr Even BETTER under Trick Room. Ice punch is for grass types like amoonguss and Breloom, as well as dragons. It also makes sense to have facade. Flame orb burns you and facade become 140 base power and add that with guts. Make Sense?


Tyranitar@ Focus Sash
Nature:Naive
Ability:Sand Stream
Evs:252Atk/252SpA/4SpD

Moveset:
-Crunch
-Fire Blast
-Low Kick
-Ice Beam

Here is my Sand inducer. Tyranitar is a great pokemon under Sandstorm with high attack. Focus Sash helps him survive Drain Puch, Low Kicks etc... What I Plan to do is, if I ever get OHKO but remain with 1Hp I will switch out and let my Cresselia do the work. After Cresselia wears out, I use Lunar Dance and bring him back. Crunch is for opposing Cresselia, Fire Blast is for Scizors and Ferrothorns as well as Bronzong, Low Kick for opposing Tyranitars and Ice Beam for Dragons.


Gastrodon@Life Orb
Nature:Modest
Ability:Storm Drain
Evs:124Hp/252SpA/132SpD

Moveset:
-Muddy Water
-Earth Power
-Ice Beam
-Recover

Gastrodon is my Special Attacker. He is mainly my Anti-Rainner Since he's got Storm Drain. Muddy water is nice when both opposing pokemon are worn out. Earth power is good against Heatran and Metagross.
Ice Beam is good coverage against opposing grass types because Gastrodon has a 4x weakness to grass. Recover is to regain health and maybe Stall with him and Cress by healing.


Metagross@Choice Band
Nature:Adamant
Ability:Clear Body
Evs:164Hp/252Atk/92Def

Moveset:
-Meteor Mash
-Bullet Punch
-Hammer Arm
-ThunderPunch

Here is my last Poke. He's got Phenomenol attack with Choice Band. Meteor Mash has Amazing Power with Choice Band and STAB. Bullet Punch has priority, Just incase it's a "Final Move is the winner" match. Hammer Arm is great since it lowers your speed even more to allow you to go faster under Trick Room and Finaly, Thunder Punch. I use ThunderPunch for flying types like Tornadus and to Water Types such as Politoed and Suicune.

Thank you for reading. I would like to have as much responses as I can get.

Thank you
-DigitalPikachu

 

[Hax>Skill]

You need more lines of description on each pokemon. The staff might lock this thread. So do that and ill rate your team. Also you need Pokemon Sprites or Pictures.

 

[DigitalPikachu]

You need more lines of description on each pokemon. The staff might lock this thread. So do that and ill rate your team. Also you need Pokemon Sprites or Pictures.

I did put description. About every move, the ability and why I chose them. I dont know how to put sprites though

 

[An-94]

Drain Punch > Hammer Arm
Fist plate > Flame orb
Iron Fist > Guts
Bulk Up > Facade

Drain punch for the recovery, Conkle might be strong and i understand your using TR but the hp recover drain punch gives is way more useful than a more powerful attack that'll shit on you once tr is done. Bulk up over facade because its always good to keep an ace up your sleeve to catch em off guard, plus the extra attack and def isn't bad if you can get it and Facade isnt even stab... Iron fist over Guts because all of your attacks will be powered up without the HP loss from flame orb that'll stack up along with sandstorm, Fist plate over flame orb, because well you still get a boost to your mach punch and drain punch while not having an hp drain each team that you don't need

Conkeldurr@ Fist plate
Nature:Adamant
Ability:Iron Fist
Evs:120Hp/252Atk/136SpDef

Moveset:
-Drain Punch
-Mach Punch
-Ice Punch
-Bulk Up

 

[Lampent]

Hey there,

You have only 1 Trick Room User. A random Tyranitar could come along, and completely trap it with Banded Pursuit. I would reccomend trading off Gastrodon with Bronzong, since it can utilize a powerful Earthquake to hit opposing Tyranitars, while it can also set up Dual Screens or stall out with Protect, and of course use Trick Room.

 

[DigitalPikachu]

Hey there,

You have only 1 Trick Room User. A random Tyranitar could come along, and completely trap it with Banded Pursuit. I would reccomend trading off Gastrodon with Bronzong, since it can utilize a powerful Earthquake to hit opposing Tyranitars, while it can also set up Dual Screens or stall out with Protect, and of course use Trick Room.

Thanks a lot! I deffinitely might consider that!

 

[Hax>Skill]

http://www.pokemonelite2000.com/sprites.html here you go Pikachu

 

[Meowstic]

Hey there! I love trick room teams ^^. I use them often, and I know the ins and outs.
I agree with An-94's Conkeldurr set. It has alot more sustain while still not confiscating damage. The problem with your current build is it makes Conkeldurr useless outside of trick room. The key to a great trick room team is to have pokemon that function well even outside of trick room. Trick room is only suppose to compliment the Pokemon that are being used.
Lampent and I had the same mindset when we looked at the team. Bronzong is an excellent trick room user with many different possible movesets and functions. I also want to throw out another potential trick room user to possibly replace Gastrodon: Reuniclus
The reason I am suggesting this is because replacing Gastrodon with Bronzong would lower the overall special attack damage of the team. Replacing Gastrodon with Reuniclus would keep a special attacker while adding a trick room user. Just my outlook on the suggestion.

 

[DigitalPikachu]

Hey there! I love trick room teams ^^. I use them often, and I know the ins and outs.
I agree with An-94's Conkeldurr set. It has alot more sustain while still not confiscating damage. The problem with your current build is it makes Conkeldurr useless outside of trick room. The key to a great trick room team is to have pokemon that function well even outside of trick room. Trick room is only suppose to compliment the Pokemon that are being used.
Lampent and I had the same mindset when we looked at the team. Bronzong is an excellent trick room user with many different possible movesets and functions. I also want to throw out another potential trick room user to possibly replace Gastrodon: Reuniclus
The reason I am suggesting this is because replacing Gastrodon with Bronzong would lower the overall special attack damage of the team. Replacing Gastrodon with Reuniclus would keep a special attacker while adding a trick room user. Just my outlook on the suggestion.

What I am trying to build, is a team with these pokemon:
-Lead
-Pokemon that helps lead by taunting, powder etc
-Physical attacker x2
-Special Attacker x2
This is why I agree with you telling me to replace bronzong with reuniclus but I thought of a great Idea why not Chandelure. I mean I only have 1 special attacker so switching gastrodon to chandelure is nice and I can remove amoonguss for sableye hes got prankster taunt, will o wisp, recover. Tell me what you think

 

[noobcubed]

Okay, first things first, run 0 Sped IVs on everything for obvious reasons.

Team needs more Protect in general, although I can understand why in the case of Trick Room you might very well think that your chosen field effect only lasts five turns and you had better make the most of it.

Cresselia: I wouldn't use Moonlight except on a dedicated Sun team; Chesto Berry + Rest is much better outside of that. Lunar Dance isn't great either, I can see its value in giving you a free switch-in but that is all. If you want a TR setter than can give you a free switch-in, Explosion Bronzong or even Explosion Mew are better. If you are worried about rain, I'd run Sunny Day, because I'm not a fan of Gastrodon, it ruins your momentum.

Amoonguss: Fine, although Regenerator > Effect Spore IMO, at the moment you have a 10% chance to paralyse an opponent, which only helps them in Trick Room.

Conkeldurr: What An-94 said.

Tyranitar: Personal preference, but I think the mixed set, outside of being anti-Intimidate, isn't that great, and you have to sacrifice some bulk in order to get it. I like the idea behind Focus Sash / Lunar Dance but do bear in mind that your sash won't be there second time around. However, rather than Mixed Tyranitar, a much better anit-Initimidate mon which works better outside of Trick Room is Bisharp. Bisharp has Defiant which turns Intimidate on its head, and had access to Sucker Punch which makes it dangerous outside of Trick Room too.

Gastrodon: I always think Gastrodon is a bit useless when not against rain. A better alternative might be Jellicent, due to its access to Water Spout and Trick Room. Jellicent is also immune to Water-type moves because of Water Absorb.

Metagross: Fine. Earthquake can be good but with no Flying-types on your team it is unadvisable. Trick can be a nice option to cripple Cresselia, Rotom-W etc, that you can't really hurt otherwise.

Hope this was helpful :).

 

[An-94]

I understand what meowstic said and while hes right about conkle not working outside of tr you have 2 Tr users and they last 5 turns each use, Im just saying that set will punch holes in a lot of things if you have something to kill cress fast or put it to sleep like breloom and bug gem scizor

 

[Laga]

Drain Punch > Hammer Arm
Fist plate > Flame orb
Iron Fist > Guts
Bulk Up > Facade

Drain punch for the recovery, Conkle might be strong and i understand your using TR but the hp recover drain punch gives is way more useful than a more powerful attack that'll shit on you once tr is done. Bulk up over facade because its always good to keep an ace up your sleeve to catch em off guard, plus the extra attack and def isn't bad if you can get it and Facade isnt even stab... Iron fist over Guts because all of your attacks will be powered up without the HP loss from flame orb that'll stack up along with sandstorm, Fist plate over flame orb, because well you still get a boost to your mach punch and drain punch while not having an hp drain each team that you don't need

Conkeldurr@ Fist plate
Nature:Adamant
Ability:Iron Fist
Evs:120Hp/252Atk/136SpDef

Moveset:
-Drain Punch
-Mach Punch
-Ice Punch
-Bulk Up

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. NO! Bulk Up is a terrible idea for Conkeldurr in Doubles. Keep your set with Protect over Facade, or use Iron Fist + Life Orb.

· Cresselia needs some changes: Trash Moonlight and use Helping Hand instead. I mean seriously? Moonlight on a Sandstorm team... Lunar Dance seems weird, so I'd use some other support move such as idk Swagger.
· I would suggest standard ErupTran over Metagross. Standard on-site Heatran set.
· Run Protect on all Pokemon except for Cresselia and Metagross, the latter if you decide not to change it.
· I would suggest Chople Berry on TTar; the standard on-site set, as it fits the bulky nature of Trick Room teams better.
· Life Orb Gastrodon? Try Rindo Berry or Sitrus Berry, those will almost certainly be more helpful.

Hope these few nitpicks will help you reach more success :)

 

[Nollan]

Now, I think the biggest issue this team faces is the lack of Protect (as stated by noobcubed earlier). Protect is such an essential move in Doubles. This is because of the fast-paced nature of it all. You will often be in situations where one of your Pokemon is in danger. With Protect, you can guard yourself against that dangerous attack, while your teammate KOs the Pokemon who is using the attack. Imo, Protect (or Detect if they have it) should be put on Conkeldurr, Metagross (assuming you drop the Choice item), Tyranitar and Gastrodon. Now onto specifics:

~Conkeldurr~

Use Detect over Facade with the proposed Iron Fist + Life Orb set. Detect is good because it avoids Imprison, which is used every-so-often to lock the opponents off of Protect. The lower PP never really becomes an issue since Doubles is so fast paced, making Detect a better choice than Protect. Imo, the Conkeldurr set ought to look more like this:

Conkeldurr

Conkeldurr @ Life Orb
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 96 HP / 252 Atk / 80 Def / 80 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Brave Nature
- Drain Punch / Hammer Arm (choice between lasting longer or hitting harder)
- Ice Punch
- Mach Punch
- Detect

I really don't follow the logic of the speed on Conkeldurr. You are going to be using it in Trick Room conditions, where outspeeding something means it will outspeed you (not to mention it has priority anyway and doesn't get the jump on much with investment). This set has minimal speed for this reason. The spread allows you to always survive an unboosted Zen Headbutt from Metagross after taking Life Orb recoil, which is useful. This also includes one turn of sandstorm damage. The remaining EVs are used to maximize attack power and increase special bulk .

~Cresselia~

Lunar Dance is certainly an interesting idea, but Doubles has a tendency to be fast paced, making the healing hard to use in most cases. I'm supporting the idea presented by Laga of Helping Hand, but you could also try a more offensive set (I don't think it should be run for this team, though) running Expert Belt w/ Psyshock (or Psychic), Ice Beam and Hidden Power [Fire], which can do some serious damage to a lot of threats. Moonlight is very redundant with sand, if you are heavily bent on healing you could try ChestoRest, but I'm in favor of a moveset of Psyshock / Ice Beam / Helping Hand / Trick Room. One other option Cress could use is Sunny Day. This counters rain (they aren't going to hit hard with the power reduction from sun) and frees up the Gastrodon slot for a more powerful special attacker, such as Chandelure (who could abuse Sunny Day support and is something you were opting for anyways if I read that right). In terms of items, Sitrus Berry is an option since there is no item clause (assuming Smogon Doubles format, which I am assuming for more or less everything here). While Mental Herb helps with Taunts, Amoonguss can draw those in anyway, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue, and the healing helps you last longer, which can be vital for getting Trick Room up again when it times out. A set that I believe might fit nicely here would be:

Cresselia

Cresselia @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 172 SpA / 72 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Psyshock / Ice Beam
- Ice Beam / Helping Hand
- Sunny Day / Helping Hand
- Trick Room

The spread allows you to A) always OHKO non-Yache Lando-T with Ice Beam, B) move as quickly as possible under Trick Room, and C) always live a Dark Gem boosted Crunch off of Tyranitar. The rest is put into special bulk to give rain a lot of trouble and to tank the numerous Dragon Gem Draco Meteors (and other powerful special attacks) flying around in Doubles.

~Amoonguss~

Amoonguss looks pretty nice. All I really have to say are two things. Firstly, Regenerator is probably better, so that in the event that you switch (which doesn't happen as much as in Singles but still happens), you can come back in and sponge more hits. It also prevents Effect Spore from messing with your Spore (i.e. paralyzing something before you can hit it with Spore). Secondly, a better spread for it would be 252 HP / 64 Def / 192 SpD with a Sassy nature and 0 Spe IVs (for max speed in Trick Room). This allows it to survive an unboosted Zen Headbutt from Metagross, which is one of the most powerful attacks Amoonguss will be commonly facing. The rest goes into special bulk for obvious reasons, tanking those Latios Draco Meteors and such.

~Tyranitar~

Even with a Focus Sash, this guy will want Protect, especially since it is weak to common priority attacks like Bullet Punch and Mach Punch which can take it down if Sash is broken. I also think the mixed set isn't very effective overall. Most Focus Sash sets are chosen to abuse the ability to run speed EVs on TTar. Since this is a Trick Room team, I think a standard Chople Berry TTar set should do the trick. It makes the most of TTar's bulk in sand, which this Sash set really underlooks imo.

~Gastrodon~

Not a fan of this set. As mentioned, Sunny Day Cresselia can give Rain teams grief (Along with Amoonguss). I think Chandelure should be the set here, namely:

Chandelure

Chandelure @ Mental Herb
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
IVs: 11 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Heat Wave
- Shadow Ball
- Trick Room
- Protect

This set makes a nice fit. It can abuse Cresselia's Sunny Day support and also walls Sun teams, which would otherwise give you trouble thanks to Amoonguss and Metagross's Fire-type weakness (Gastro wouldn't work because Chlorophyll sweepers would run right through it using Grass-type STABs). It also helps against opposing HailRoom or Hail, though Metagross does that too. Finally, it backs you up with some vital Trick Room support in case Cress goes down. Mental Herb is placed mostly because there aren't very many other items and Amoonguss may not be in (its likely it will be KOd while Cress sets up Trick Room the first time) after Cress gets TR up. You could try a Fire Gem though, if you want. Running 11 IVs allow your Cress set to "outslow" it in Trick Room, so that it can set Sunny Day before you launch Heat Wave. This will not matter too much but its good to have that option just in case you need the extra boost for a KO.

~Metagross~

Metagross really doesn't make a good heavy hitter (CB abuser) to be honest, just because its STAB attacks lack offensive coverage, making it reliant on relatively weak coverage options. Imo, there are two things you should consider. The first is trying out CB Escavalier. It is incredibly powerful, as a CB Megahorn OHKOs even the bulkiest Cresselia and 2HKOs bulky resists such as opposing Escavalier. The set I had in mind is:

CB Escavalier

Escavalier @ Choice Band
Trait: Swarm (Megahorn is insanely powerful if Swarm gets activated)
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Brave Nature
- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Aerial Ace
- X-scissor

Iron Head is secondary STAB for resists, Aerial Ace is for Volcarona and more or less nothing else, and X-scissor is a reliable Bug STAB in case you need to hit and don't want to risk Megahorn missing. Heatran walls this set (Megahorn is a 5HKO assuming Heatran runs 252 HP EVs), so make sure

The other option is to just run a standard Metagross set, which would be an Occa Berry (or Steel Gem if you want some power) with a moveset of Meteor Mash / Zen Headbutt (or EQ/Hammer Arm) / Bullet Punch (or EQ/Hammer Arm) / Protect.

Hope these nitpicks will help you reach more success :)