Team that got me to #1 on the shoddy ladder

lockon

This is the team that I've used for the majority of my matches to get me to the #1 spot on the Shoddy ladder, and I still feel it can be vastly improved with the help of you guys. Keep in mind that I've put a lot of thought in this team, so if you have anything specific to comment, then please read through the thread first, or don't comment at all.

This team is about scouting the opponent with my team's boatload of resistances, while spreading around Hypnosis and Thunder Wave. Dugtrio is very useful, as it takes out the things that threaten Jirachi (which the team is build around) and is a useful revengekiller in general.

So, without further ado, here's the team;

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@ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 244 HP/204 Def/60 SDef
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Hypnosis
- Gyro Ball
- Grass Knot
- Stealth Rock

Bronzong is here to provide Stealth Rocks, which are generally nice to have on the battle field. Hypnosis is a very useful move, disabling at least one pokémon, except for Sleep Talkers. Gyro Ball is an awesome move to stop Tyranitar and Mamoswine, and Grass Knot gives me the option to 2HKO Swampert.
The 244 HP EVs gives Bronzong his highest leftovers number. I've put the majority of the other EVs into defense, as this is my main Mamoswine counter. Leftovers have been put into special defense.

dpmfa485.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 180 HP/128 Spd/74 SAtk/128 SDef
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Lava Plume
- Earth Power
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Heatran is amazing, and provides awesome type coverage. I've opted for a RestTalking Heatran, so I have at least one Sleep Absorber. Lava Plume and it's 30% Burn chance is amazing, especially if Gyarados or Garchomp switch in x). Earth Power gets my opponent's Heatran on the switch, or will at least let it think twice about coming in on me.
180 HP EVs give him 368 HP, a leftovers number. 128 Speed EVs let him outspeed Adamant 252 Speed Tyranitar and slam it with Earth Power. I've dumped the rest in SAtk and SDef.

Point of concern is the EV spread. Should I be using more HP EVs or SAtk EVs, or should I put some in defense?

dpmfa145.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/220 Def/36 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Thunder Wave
- Roost

Zapdos is an amazing wall. He proves Thunder Wave support for the team, and can dish out some damage with Thunderbolt & Hidden Power Ice. It's an amazing Metagross counter, and also counters Gyarados, Lucario and Heracross.

Issue here is the standard EV spread. Should I be running a leftovers number, or just dump it all into HP?

dpmfa051.png

@ Choice Scarf
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 78 HP/252 Atk/180 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Aerial Ace
- Night Slash

Choice Scarf Dugtrio isn't as bad as people think, it's actually pretty good. It disables any heatran with Earthquake, Heracross falls to Aerial Ace. Stone Edge allows me to finish of Gyarados, if it by any chance gets passed Zapdos, and Night Slash allows me to hurt Gengar.

Point of concern is the EV spread. This outruns Modest ScarfGengar, but since most run Timid these days, this isn't going to work. Those HP EVs let it survive a Life Orb Extremespeed from Adamant Lucario, but obviously I have to predict it coming in. So, if anyone has anything to add about this, please do.

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@ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 20 HP/252 Def/236 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Seismic Toss
- Ice Beam
- Wish
- Protect

Blissey walls any special attack, and provides Wish Support for the team. I've opted for Seimic Toss and Ice Beam, so I can break Gengar's substitute (how rare it might be) and it hurts Dragons.
The EV spread give Blissey the lowest leftovers number. I've maxed defense, and put the rest in special defense.

dpmfa385.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP/216 Spd/40 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
- Substitute

This is the pokémon my team is build around, and it is amazing. Almost everyone expects Wishing Jirachi, but what do they freak out when they see I just substituted. Psychic and Thunderbolt provide nice coverage, not to mention Psychic's special defense drop and Thunderbolt's paralysis chance is raised by Serene Grace.
EVs give it 404 HP, so Blissey needs 2 seismic tosses to break it's substitute. Timid + 216 speed EVs beat houndoom and electivire's maximum, and leftovers have been put in SAtk.

I'm questioning the use of those EVs, as Houndoom isn't really that common, and Electivire almost always uses a +Attack nature. Maybe I should drop it to 300 and put the rest in SAtk?

Big thanks to Iggybot / SNX7 for helping me construct this team!

EDIT: Decided not to put in a threat list, as most of the threats have been discussed in this thread x).
 
Leftover numbers are pretty much worthless. Pokemon is more about percentages than getting that 1 extra HP recovered by Leftovers, and shifting from HP to Def/SpDef or vice versa does not change Leftovers recovering 6.25%. Unless you're trying to survive something specific, don't pay mind to /16. If you must, use /16 +1 (i.e. 337, 353, etc). Those will only come handy in 0.01% of your battles too, but at least they make more sense in that you at least have 1 HP left even if you Sub four times or switch into Stealth Rock 8 times or something.

That said, max HP on Bronzong, and unless going for something specific with that SpDef, the same for Heatran as well. The same would go for Zapdos and Jirachi, but their HPs are already maxed (as it should be). Blissey is the complete opposite. I am all for dumping Special Defense onto Blissey, but perhaps not that much...either way, the HP EVs should go to Special Attack if anywhere. Run some damage calcs for killing Dugtrio, Salamence, Garchomp, etc, perhaps taking Life Orb into equation for some of them, to see what's optimal.

Not sure what the 40 SpA EVs on Jirachi are for, I know they give you 40 extra Special Attack in the end provided you Calm Mind up all the way, but I think situations in which you want to have the full 328 Spd are more common than ones where you want these few extra points of Special Attack.

Run X-Act's defense applet to figure out where to put these HP EVs on Dugtrio, focusing 100% on SpDef, and try and see how close you can get to guaranteeing survival from things like Blissey Ice Beam and Jolteon Hidden Power Ice, if you care. Or just max Spd to get other Scarf Dugtrio's.
 
Hey Anubis, congratulations on holding the #1 and #3 spots on Shoddy. I'm still waiting for you to boost Wyvern up to #2 though.

Anyways, I've been debating about changing Heatran's EV's, and what would benefeit more, outspeeding Adamant Tyranitar, or more HP / SpDef / SpAtk. Those 128 EV's can go a long ways. You can easily hit 300 SpDef, 384 HP, and have a few left over to spare for SpAtk. Boosting your SpDef and HP to those respective amounts will turn a Surf from standard 266 SpAtk, Rapid Spin Starmie from a 2HKO into a 3HKO. Timid Gengar still barely nudges by, doing a minimum of 53% with Focus Blast. Modest Yanmega (with a Life Orb) will no longer have any chance of OHKOing with HP Ground. So it depends if you want to outspeed Tyranitar, or make Heatran quite a bit bulkier. In case you decide to change it, I'm talking about 244 HP / 56 SpAtk / 208 SpDef, with a Modest nature.

I would also suggest just running max speed on Jirachi. 328 will come in handy for other +speed base 100's, and from the sounds of it, you're getting quite a few Calm Minds in against most teams.

I havn't gotten a chance to test this team out yet, considering I've been testing a couple of my own, but considering how far you've come with it, I don't think I really need to.
 
You'd think this would get more responses. Keep duggy's EVs the same and you can drop to 308 speed or go up to max speed on jirachi. Has problems against gay Wobbs but thats about it.
 
dpffa242.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 20 HP/252 Def/236 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Seismic Toss
- Ice Beam
- Wish
- Protect

Blissey walls any special attack, and provides Wish Support for the team. I've opted for Seimic Toss and Ice Beam, so I can break Gengar's substitute (how rare it might be) and it hurts Dragons.
The EV spread give Blissey the lowest leftovers number. I've maxed defense, and put the rest in special defense.


I know this is only on Shoddy but I don't think you can get a Bold WishBliss w/o hacking. I know Jimbo422 has a Modest one, but I'm not that sure about Bold.

PS: This is only a comment. I know this is for Shoddy. You can do almost anything with a Pokemon on Shoddy.
 
Actually the only concern that I have is if you considered Discharge over Thunderbolt and Thunder Wave? Since it is still an attack that has a good chance of paralysis, why haven't you considered it? Though one answer could be because it's more reliable I guess. It gives you an option to have Metal Sound or even Roar if you need so.

It's hard to really nitpick a weakness here. I'd just drop some Speed EVs for more Special Attack or somewhere that is more necessary. Well built, to be honest. Must... figure... out... a... T E A M... >_>;
 
I really like this. Tbh, it doesn't really seem like your benefiting more from Scarf on Duggy than you would Band. You have Scarf Gengar and Gengar in general covered fine with Heatran to take status and Blissey/Bronzong to wall it nicely. Scarf Heracross shouldn't really be a problem as long as you make sure Zapdos stays around for awhile. If not, Bronzong does quite a bit to it with Gyro or can disable it with Hypnosis. I don't see it doing much to Jirachi either as long as you don't switch it in. The only thing I really see you needing Scarf over Band is for if Gyarados gets past Zapdos or it dies some other way and you need a way to kill Gyarados so it doesn't sweep you.

Also, I reccomend cutting the Spatk and some speed for defense on Jirachi, so it can handle Heracross better and so it can just plain take hits better.
 
scarftrio takes out infernape, scarftran, and he wont always get to predict perfect against scarfhera

sd luke w/ srocks down could give this team problems
 
Sorry...doesn't impress me much.

The lack of a Rapid Spinner really means you're suceptible to Spikes/SR, seeing that 5/6ths of your team are weak to it. For a defensive/stall team, that's a bad situation.

Mixape will take out at least one member of your team. It may be revengekilled by Trio, but on a defensive team like this, you simply cannot afford to have one of your pokemon go down like that.

Yache Garchomp gives you problems too; if Zapdos is less than 75% health (which it will be because of your lack of Rapid Spin support), you're going to have serious problems dealing with boosted Dragon Claws.

Weavile gives you issues too; it won't sweep, but boosted Ice Shards + Night Slashes + Brick Breaks will hurt.

I can see this falling to a concentrated offensive attack, but this is just what I see from looking at the team - your record speaks for itself.
 
lockon said:
dpmfa437.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 244 HP/204 Def/60 SDef
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Hypnosis
- Gyro Ball
- Grass Knot
- Stealth Rock

Grass knot will 2HKO mamoswine and tyranitar anyway, so I don't really see the need to have gyro ball. I think you should put in HP fire, to deal with breloom, abomasnow, and some other common leads that could be fairly hazardous.

Agreeing with mekkah, just put some defence EVs into HP or special attack, you could counter gyarados pretty well. 3HKO IIRC.

dpmfa485.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 180 HP/128 Spd/74 SAtk/128 SDef
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Lava Plume
- Earth Power
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Unless tyranitar switches in on heatran, I don't think earth power will 2HKO because of sandstorm, while a CB earthquake will. Your EV spread is foul, you can pretty much drop all your special defense EVs to go into special attack and HP respectively.

dpmfa145.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/220 Def/36 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Thunder Wave
- Roost

Thunderwave is meh, I personally think that you should run toxic, so that you have more of a chance against CM cresselia, who should rip this team apart once bronzong is taken care of.

dpmfa051.png

@ Choice Scarf
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 78 HP/252 Atk/180 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Aerial Ace
- Night Slash

Choice.. Scarf?

ಠ-ಠ

Anyway, I doubt any gengar (period) is going to stay in and take a possibly CB'd sucker punch (assuming your opponent is assuming the worst), which you should pack anyway. Just in case.

dpffa242.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 20 HP/252 Def/236 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Seismic Toss
- Ice Beam
- Wish
- Protect

Blissey walls any special attack

There is no way you were first place on the shoddy ladder. No way in hell.

Anyway, a good standard blissey.

dpmfa385.png

@ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP/216 Spd/40 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
- Substitute

Almost everyone expects Wishing Jirachi, but what do they freak out when they see I just substituted.

No way in hell.

You may have missed the metagame overhaul. Everyone stopped using the standard, most useful sets and pokemon.. When was the last time you saw a CBMence? Or an Scheming azelf? There is a lot to expect from jirachi, but the wish set is not it.
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who the fuck is that joke of rater? why the fuck are you rating teams please fucking stop.

As for the team, I pretty much mention what I need to on shoddy. Beside, the lame wobba problem your main problem would be SD lucario as Zapdos is the only thing that can survive lol

just for fun...

Grass Knot from bronzong won't 2hko t-tar for sure and its unlikely it would 2hko mamoswine either CB heatran is kinda eh and not realizing its a damn defensive heatran shows your inexperience lets leave it at that
 
Nightsever said:
scarftrio takes out infernape, scarftran, and he wont always get to predict perfect against scarfhera

sd luke w/ srocks down could give this team problems
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jolly bandtrio would do the same for infernape. he doesn't need to outspeed scarftran as he already handles it fine. scarfhera I agree could be some trouble. and loool at xaio.
 
goofball said:
Grass Knot from bronzong won't 2hko t-tar for sure and its unlikely it would 2hko mamoswine either CB heatran is kinda eh and not realizing its a damn defensive heatran shows your inexperience lets leave it at that
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Oh shit screwed up my calcs. Doing them on my school calculator doesn't work too well. :(

Anyway, I don't really care that it's defensive. Heatran, although having great resistances, is undone by its ground weakness, which the special defense EVs shouldn't cover. (ohnoes specs flygon!). Instead of dumping them, I think that you should just pump him full of special defense.

w/e.
 
Xaio said:
Oh shit screwed up my calcs. Doing them on my school calculator doesn't work too well. :(

Anyway, I don't really care that it's defensive. Heatran, although having great resistances, is undone by its ground weakness, which the special defense EVs shouldn't cover. (ohnoes specs flygon!). Instead of dumping them, I think that you should just pump him full of special defense.

w/e.
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ok Ground weakness being only earthquake and rare earth power notice his team? He has zapdos and bronzong to switch into EQs which fits his team nicely. This is where you need to stop rating and stop thinking of 1 pokemon at a time, you need to look at the entire team and see if it fits and work together. If you simply don't care if it is defensive you shouldn't be posting, you need to take into account all possible movesets and defensive resttalk heatran has proven to be a good set and when properly ev'd is one of the best special defenders there is.
 
I have to agree with goofball, that post is fucking terrible Xaio. Get some experience before trying to point out all the flaws in this team.

First of all, Grass Knot will not 2HKO Tyranitar. I think it's more there for Swampert anyways, which nothing else on this team can take on. Second of all, Heatran is defensive. Why would he drop the SpDef EVs? If anything, I suggest changing your spread to 244 HP / 56 SpAtk / 208 SpDef now. After testing it, that much extra SpDef really helps. Turning Starmie's Surf into a 3HKO is a great thing indeed.

Choice Scarf Dugtrio traps and OHKO's all Heatran, including Scarf Heatran. Also OHKO's Magnezone, does 60% min to 404 HP Tyranitar, and 80% min to a 342 HP Tyranitar. Also OHKO's any other Dugtrio, and Weavile not using Ice Shard. In case anyone didn't notice, all of the previously mentioned pokemon give Jirachi, the centerpiece of this team, a hard time. There's a reason I suggested Scarf Dugtrio to him on IRC, and there's a reason why other high level battlers use it as well. It's not like Blissey is a problem, as it's just setup bait for Jirachi.

CM Cresselia doesn't do shit to this team. Want to know why? Cresselia is also set up bait for Jirachi, and ANY OTHER Sub / Calm Minder in the game. Raikou, Jirachi, Celebi, all 3 can easily set up on Cresselia. There's no way CM Cress beats this team. As for CM Jirachi being outdated and no one using it, why not try it out before putting it down so quickly?

Xaio said:
There is no way you were first place on the shoddy ladder. No way in hell.
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Not only is he #1, but he also occupies the current #4 spot, and was #3 until goofball here decided to move back up =)

Sorry, but considering I also put a lot of effort into building this team, posts like Xaio's really piss me off.
 
IggyBot said:
Not only is he #1, but he also occupies the current #4 spot, and was #3 until goofball here decided to move back up =)

Sorry, but considering I also put a lot of effort into building this team, posts like Xaio's really piss me off.
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man, it's a fucking joke.
 
Xiao, if you're going to rate teams, try not to be such a jerk about it. You should be happy that a battler with such obvious ability has shared his team with us.

Try as I might, I can't think of any gaping weak. I'm usually not keen on Scarf Dugtrio but he compliments this team well, and does a great job of revenge killing the Pokemon that do bother you. Good solid team.
 
Melodius Trueheart said:
Sorry...doesn't impress me much.

The lack of a Rapid Spinner really means you're suceptible to Spikes/SR, seeing that 5/6ths of your team are weak to it. For a defensive/stall team, that's a bad situation.

Mixape will take out at least one member of your team. It may be revengekilled by Trio, but on a defensive team like this, you simply cannot afford to have one of your pokemon go down like that.

Yache Garchomp gives you problems too; if Zapdos is less than 75% health (which it will be because of your lack of Rapid Spin support), you're going to have serious problems dealing with boosted Dragon Claws.

Weavile gives you issues too; it won't sweep, but boosted Ice Shards + Night Slashes + Brick Breaks will hurt.

I can see this falling to a concentrated offensive attack, but this is just what I see from looking at the team - your record speaks for itself.
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ok, first of all, who said this was a defensive team? it's a balanced team. jiraichi's a sweeper, dugtrio's a revenge killer, heatran and zapdos are bulky sweepers. theres also no residual damage on this team, so i really can't see how this is a defensive team.

how is this team stealth rock weak? 3 steels my friend, 3 steels.

jiraichi also takes hits from weavile quite well. it'll be forced to switch out, esp if it has a CB. then it's sub up and set up, killing many threats that way.
 
I am interested to see how you deal with Garchomp and Togekiss in your threat list, especially with Stealth Rock up.

Magnezone and Dugtrio (MagTrio) take out 4/6ths of your team (Jirachi/Bronzong and Blissey/Heatran [and Jirachi again..]). Unless you trap them with your own Dugtrio your team will suffer quite a bit.

To be honest this team looks and plays similarly to the old team I used to get to #1 on the Shoddy ladder except I had an additional wall breaker and my Sleep Talker was Zapdos. I also had a Sleep Inducer.

For Jirachi's EVs I suggest running 285 speed as that outspeeds most of the threats Jirachi would like to be able to outrun (Jolly Mamoswine, Adamant/Modest Lucario, Timid Heatran) and running more defense instead.

Nice rating! I might try challenging you for #1.
 
No matter what Heatran EV spread you use, you should run at least 152 speed EV's to beat 4-EV Gliscor. You may not retain the defenses to survive HP Ground Yanmega or three Starmie Surfs, but Zapdos and Blissey all but guarantee you won't see much trouble from them anyway. By contrast, taunt Gliscor causes problems for Jirachi, and Knock Off Gliscor Causes problems for the entire team in a stall battle. A further increase to 160 speed EV's would outrun 252-neutral speed Scizor, to which your only counter is the SR-weak Zapdos if it carries Brick Break (and Zapdos can really only T-Wave as it SD's up).

With 232 Speed EV's on Dugtrio, you will outspeed Jolly Scarfchomp, and placing the remaining 24 EV's in SpDef will allow you to always survive Blissey's Ice Beam and Jolteon's HP Ice (with 1 HP =P). I know that this team doesn't have much trouble with ScarfChomp between Bronzong, Zapdos, and Heatran, but the extra speed could be incredibly helpful late game.

Finally, Bold Wish Blissey is definitely illegal. Calm provides extra protection against LO Heatrans and Nasty Plot anything; Quiet is another option if you want the extra defense and are not worried about no-speed machamp.

Good Luck; Hope this Helps!
 
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