Bear in mind, before offering me any advice, I never have considered myself "competitive", but have looked into the forums and pages on this site before to help me with ideas for teams. I used to do battles on my YouTube account, I would end up fighting people who had no idea what they were doing about 4/5 of the time, but in that 1/5 of the time, I would fight someone really tough, those were the battles I lived for. But due to them being few and far between, I lost interest in battling and chose to leave for about 3 months.
I finally returned this weekend and found that Garchomp has been changed to an Uber tier, he was one of my team members just as many others used him. Before anyone starts to think anything, I'm not here to put up a Garchomp fanboy argument as my first post on these forums. I am willing to accept the ban since I figured it would happen within the next year, although I wasn't happy about it at first. I am wondering if my alternative idea is a working one.
Now, I'm a bit curious here... All builds of him are banned now as I assume. My team used to revolve pretty heavily on a hard-hitting Ground Type. My usual opening strategy back months ago would be as follows (Very simplified) : Open with Yanmega and get sped up to attack away. Should Yanmega run into trouble against an Electric, Fire, or Rock Type being sent out, I'd immediately go to Garchomp, scare them into switching, Substitute on that turn, Swords Dance, and sweep away. Yanmega was pretty much my bait, if they took it, they now had a Jolly Garchomp with a Swords Dance to deal with. If they didn't, they had a very fast, decently strong Special Attacker to worry about now.
Now that it's no longer an option to me, I am curious what kind if a reliable replacement I could go with. Of course, Type-wise, Flygon jumps out at me. My only worry is how different Flygon is. Because of this, I've thought that I should go for something fast and hard-hitting of the same Type so I can jump into using him easier, but this time I have thought of using a mixed attacker, a build I thought of on my own inspired by various posts around here. Now, my brain may be in the wrong place here, but I'd like to hear what you all might think about it. My thoughts were to do this:
Flygon@Life Orb
Hasty Nature (+Speed, -Defense)
Draco Meteor
Earthquake
Outrage
Roost
The Hasty nature mainly as just a means of security of out-speeding since the attacks are powerful enough. Not to mention, it's what I'm used to with Garchomp since mine had a Jolly Nature (+Speed, -Special Attack). That and should I ever be pitted against a Garchomp in any arena, having Base 100 Speed on Flygon and base 102 Speed on Garchomp, I should be able to out-speed Adamant Choice Band Garchomps.
Draco Meteor on Flygon as a lone Special move since most counters to Dragons don't have much Special Defense and I can get in at least one powerful Special hit with STAB and Flygon's decent Special Attack into account. Earthquake and Outrage are self-explanitory, but offer alternatives if two Dragon attacks seems a bit much even if I am mixing them between Physical and Special. Roost is mainly there not only as recovery from having the Life Orb, but also because it's frequently used to switch in on Yanmega's weaknesses which generally won't have Ground moves.
But on the flip side, I have considered other Ground Types. I think my Flygon build idea is unique in a few senses, but I'm curious if any of you had any good experiences with non-Garchomp/Flygon Ground Types in similar situations. I also would like to know if anyone has any suggested EV builds for this since I'm still fairly early in planning this and like getting opinions.
Anyway, as I've said, I never did consider myself "competitive", but I think I do have a pretty good idea going here. If I don't, prove me wrong and tell me how I could better go about this idea.
EDIT: I also would like to ask about U-Turn on Flygon or if it would be better to choose that than one of my moves above.
I finally returned this weekend and found that Garchomp has been changed to an Uber tier, he was one of my team members just as many others used him. Before anyone starts to think anything, I'm not here to put up a Garchomp fanboy argument as my first post on these forums. I am willing to accept the ban since I figured it would happen within the next year, although I wasn't happy about it at first. I am wondering if my alternative idea is a working one.
Now, I'm a bit curious here... All builds of him are banned now as I assume. My team used to revolve pretty heavily on a hard-hitting Ground Type. My usual opening strategy back months ago would be as follows (Very simplified) : Open with Yanmega and get sped up to attack away. Should Yanmega run into trouble against an Electric, Fire, or Rock Type being sent out, I'd immediately go to Garchomp, scare them into switching, Substitute on that turn, Swords Dance, and sweep away. Yanmega was pretty much my bait, if they took it, they now had a Jolly Garchomp with a Swords Dance to deal with. If they didn't, they had a very fast, decently strong Special Attacker to worry about now.
Now that it's no longer an option to me, I am curious what kind if a reliable replacement I could go with. Of course, Type-wise, Flygon jumps out at me. My only worry is how different Flygon is. Because of this, I've thought that I should go for something fast and hard-hitting of the same Type so I can jump into using him easier, but this time I have thought of using a mixed attacker, a build I thought of on my own inspired by various posts around here. Now, my brain may be in the wrong place here, but I'd like to hear what you all might think about it. My thoughts were to do this:
Flygon@Life Orb
Hasty Nature (+Speed, -Defense)
Draco Meteor
Earthquake
Outrage
Roost
The Hasty nature mainly as just a means of security of out-speeding since the attacks are powerful enough. Not to mention, it's what I'm used to with Garchomp since mine had a Jolly Nature (+Speed, -Special Attack). That and should I ever be pitted against a Garchomp in any arena, having Base 100 Speed on Flygon and base 102 Speed on Garchomp, I should be able to out-speed Adamant Choice Band Garchomps.
Draco Meteor on Flygon as a lone Special move since most counters to Dragons don't have much Special Defense and I can get in at least one powerful Special hit with STAB and Flygon's decent Special Attack into account. Earthquake and Outrage are self-explanitory, but offer alternatives if two Dragon attacks seems a bit much even if I am mixing them between Physical and Special. Roost is mainly there not only as recovery from having the Life Orb, but also because it's frequently used to switch in on Yanmega's weaknesses which generally won't have Ground moves.
But on the flip side, I have considered other Ground Types. I think my Flygon build idea is unique in a few senses, but I'm curious if any of you had any good experiences with non-Garchomp/Flygon Ground Types in similar situations. I also would like to know if anyone has any suggested EV builds for this since I'm still fairly early in planning this and like getting opinions.
Anyway, as I've said, I never did consider myself "competitive", but I think I do have a pretty good idea going here. If I don't, prove me wrong and tell me how I could better go about this idea.
EDIT: I also would like to ask about U-Turn on Flygon or if it would be better to choose that than one of my moves above.
