5th Gen Newb Team

Simples

Hello, Smogon. I'm Simples, and this is my first 5th Gen Pokemon Team. I've done competitive battling before, just not for any 5th Gen arenas. Please bear with me. As one final note, these movesets, Pokemon choices, and items choices are made by me.

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Deoxys-S
@ Light Clay
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Spd, 252 HP (?)
Nature: Jolly
- Taunt
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Stealth Rock

Deoxys-S is my Screener Lead. He sets up the screens so my other Pokemon can bolster their attack power, then sweep. Taunt is to pervent Stealth Rock, Spore, and other things. Stealth Rock is explanatory. The EV's are to hopefully outspeed other leads while still being able to take a hit or two.

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Zoroark (Need better Pokemon suggestions please.)
@ Expert Belt
Ability: Illusion
EVs: 252 Sp Atk, 252 Spd, 4 HP
Nature: Timid
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Focus Blast

Zoroark is one of my 4 sweepers. It uses Nasty Plot behind the relative safety of the screens, and gets in a Nasty Plot or two. It then begins a sweep with the type coverage available in it's moveset. Wide Lens is to increase the accuracy of the admittedly unreliable Focus Blast, although i'm not sure about it.

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Arcanine
@ Choice Band
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spd, 6 HP
Nature: Adament
- Extremespeed
- Close Combat
- Flare Blitz
- Wild Charge

Arcanine is my Choice Bander. Extremespeed can KO quite a few weakened Pokemon, and his other three moves are highly powerful and provide good type coverage The EV's are self-explanatory.

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Zapdos
@ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Sp Atk, 252 Spd
Nature: Modest
- Thunderbolt
- Heat Wave
- HP Ice
- Thunder Wave

Zapdos is somewhat of a revenge killer, coming in with it's power and killing the many Pokemon weak to it's moveset. The Life Orb serves to power up Zapdos's moves without having to use a Choice item. The EV's are there to make Zapdos as fast and strong as possible.

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Feraligatr
@ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spd
Nature: Jolly
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Dragon Dance

It's simple: enter Feraligatr under the cover of the screens, Dragon Dance, and sweep. Thanks to the Speed boost provided by DD, it don't have to invest as heavily in Speed as normal, so I threw in some HP EVs to give him some bulk.

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Garchomp
@ Yache Berry
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spd
Nature: Jolly
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Swords Dance
- Fire Fang

Garchomp is the pride of the team. If I can get Garchomp in and Swords Dance, I can usually defeat a large portion of the enemy's team. Dragon Claw is in place of Dragon Rush because I don't like the accuracy or Dragon Rush. I originally had a Life Orb on Garchomp, but that was a little overkill, and I was often getting killed by Ice moves, so I recently switched to a Yache Berry. Fire Fang is often unexpected and provides so new opportunities.



That's my team. Please suggest a replacement item for Zoroark if Zoom Lens is not a adequate item, and thanks.
 
Replace Wide Lens on Zoroark with Life Orb. Or, if you don't like the recoil, Expert Belt is sufficient too. Hope this helps :D

Also I really like DualScreens Serperior. Definitely don't see that enough.
 
Serperior just doesn't have the bulk to be a double screener, or isn't that outrageously fast that it would be justified (as in Deoxys-S' case), so there are far better choices. Besides, if you are using Contrary, at least use the obvious choice in Leafstorm. You also lack a steel type, so I suggest Bronzong. It's a great bulky 'mon, and it's Gyroball can actually hit really hard. You can find a set you like in it's analysis, but it pretty much always gets it's screens up, and if you want it to it can even give you rocks.
 
You're right Teandal, Bronzong probably would be a better choice. As cool as it is to see a less generic set on Serperior, Bronzong is simply a support monster. I ran a dual screens set on Bronzy a while back that looked something like this to much avail:

Bronzong @ Light Clay
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 SDef (0 Spd IV's)
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Hypnosis
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Gyro Ball

This thing take hits gloriously and provides amazing team support, as well as a huge amount of resistances and two great immunities to Poison and Ground.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. Actually, I am usually able to get my Screens up with Serperior, and do a few Dragon Tails, but i'll look into Bronzong. The problem with Bronzong is it's low speed; if it gets taunted, i'm in trouble.

I'll try giving Zoroark the Expert Belt, because three Life Orb users is a bit repetitive.
 
Im not much of a rater and im kind of new so you dont have to take my advice if you want to, but I think that you should probably swap around some natures on your guys especially on your Garchomp. Give it a Jolly nature so it can outspeed positive nature base 100's, out speed positive nature Landorus and draw with other Jolly Garchomps.

I really like Feraligatr, infact it's my favourite pokemon, and im glad it got Sheer Force this Gen. But that means that with Life Orb it doesnt really need an Adamant nature. With your investments after 1 DD it gains 371 Speed which WILL be outspeed by Jolteon, Crobat, +1 DD Gyara/Mence and more so I would give it a Jolly nature aswell. You wont lose much power due to the LO, Sheer Force and DD Attack boost.

With Zapdos the nature is your choice, Speed or Power. But I dont get the moves. HP Water and T-Wave? I think you should change HP Water to HP Ice so you get better coverage with BoltBeam and Heat Wave. Plus Ice will take out Grounds and your team has Fire covered (Feraligatr, Garchomp). HP Grass is another option but thats only good for Swampert, Lanturn and Quagsire but look how uncommon they are so I would go for HP Ice. Thunder Wave I guesss could be useful if your running a Modest nature to outspeed somethings but personally I would run Roost or even Substitue considering you are using LO and SR is so common plus you dont have a Spinner so you might get wore down pretty quickly. So I hope I helped and good luck.
 
-Sparky- said:
Im not much of a rater and im kind of new so you dont have to take my advice if you want to, but I think that you should probably swap around some natures on your guys especially on your Garchomp. Give it a Jolly nature so it can outspeed positive nature base 100's, out speed positive nature Landorus and draw with other Jolly Garchomps.

I really like Feraligatr, infact it's my favourite pokemon, and im glad it got Sheer Force this Gen. But that means that with Life Orb it doesnt really need an Adamant nature. With your investments after 1 DD it gains 371 Speed which WILL be outspeed by Jolteon, Crobat, +1 DD Gyara/Mence and more so I would give it a Jolly nature aswell. You wont lose much power due to the LO, Sheer Force and DD Attack boost.

With Zapdos the nature is your choice, Speed or Power. But I dont get the moves. HP Water and T-Wave? I think you should change HP Water to HP Ice so you get better coverage with BoltBeam and Heat Wave. Plus Ice will take out Grounds and your team has Fire covered (Feraligatr, Garchomp). HP Grass is another option but thats only good for Swampert, Lanturn and Quagsire but look how uncommon they are so I would go for HP Ice. Thunder Wave I guesss could be useful if your running a Modest nature to outspeed somethings but personally I would run Roost or even Substitue considering you are using LO and SR is so common plus you dont have a Spinner so you might get wore down pretty quickly. So I hope I helped and good luck.
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Thanks for your suggestions, I changed T-wave on Zapdos to Air Cutter, changed to your suggested natures, and I'll go test it out now.
 
Don't use Air Cutter. Even with STAB, 55 base power is pathetic. Either stick with T-wave or run Roost, to help deal with LO recoil, SR damage, and opposing attacks.
 
NijaSkills said:
Don't use Air Cutter. Even with STAB, 55 base power is pathetic. Either stick with T-wave or run Roost, to help deal with LO recoil, SR damage, and opposing attacks.
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Actually, Air Cutter is very effective, and the high crit ratio is awesome. I've run Roost before, and I just never found a place to use it.
 
If you want a dual screening lead use Deoxys-S. It does everything Serperior does except for phazing, which isn't really important anyways considering it's going to die pretty quickly. Deoxys-S also provides stealth rock which is essential.

Consider Ice Punch>Superpower on Feraligatr. This allows it to reliably damage dragons after a DD (Latios, Dragonite, Garchomp, Hydreigon, etc.).

On Zoroark, drop wide lens for life orb.

Consider Infernape>Arcanine for the fighting STAB and higher speed, as well as access to swords dance/nasty plot and mach punch/vacuum wave.
 
AerialLight said:
If you want a dual screening lead use Deoxys-S. It does everything Serperior does except for phazing, which isn't really important anyways considering it's going to die pretty quickly. Deoxys-S also provides stealth rock which is essential.

Consider Ice Punch>Superpower on Feraligatr. This allows it to reliably damage dragons after a DD (Latios, Dragonite, Garchomp, Hydreigon, etc.).

On Zoroark, drop wide lens for life orb.

Consider Infernape>Arcanine for the fighting STAB and higher speed, as well as access to swords dance/nasty plot and mach punch/vacuum wave.
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I like to be original as possible, and Deoxys-S is very predictable and unoriginal. Plus, Serperior is rather obscure as a lead, so that works in my favor. I'll try Deoxys-S though, and see if it's worth it.

Ice Punch seems viable, so i'll test it too.

Arcanine has very nice type coverage and I don't really need a fighting type, and Arcanine is my 2nd favorite Pokemon, so I think i'm not switching to Infernape.

A thing I want to change, however, is Zoroark. It's hardly pulling it's own weight, and is far to frail even with screens up. I would like some suggestions on a replacemnt for Zoroark.
 
If you want to make Serperior more effective as a team player, you could try Safeguard.
Try to replace Zoroark with a wall (you have 4 sweepers...)
 
Simples said:
I like to be original as possible, and Deoxys-S is very predictable and unoriginal. Plus, Serperior is rather obscure as a lead, so that works in my favor. I'll try Deoxys-S though, and see if it's worth it.

Ice Punch seems viable, so i'll test it too.

Arcanine has very nice type coverage and I don't really need a fighting type, and Arcanine is my 2nd favorite Pokemon, so I think i'm not switching to Infernape.

A thing I want to change, however, is Zoroark. It's hardly pulling it's own weight, and is far to frail even with screens up. I would like some suggestions on a replacemnt for Zoroark.
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Serperior might be original but it can't set up stealth rock. Offensive teams simply must have stealth rock to net some KOs.

Zoroark tends to be a poorly functioning dark type. You could try Tyranitar in its place to deal with Reuniclus and also remove Cresselia and Latios for Garchomp to sweep.

Definitely replace thunder wave on Zapdos with something more useful like volt switch or U-turn for scouting purposes or roost to heal from stealth rock damage. You aren't playing stall here, so you should focus less on crippling sweepers.
 
AerialLight said:
Serperior might be original but it can't set up stealth rock. Offensive teams simply must have stealth rock to net some KOs.

Zoroark tends to be a poorly functioning dark type. You could try Tyranitar in its place to deal with Reuniclus and also remove Cresselia and Latios for Garchomp to sweep.

Definitely replace thunder wave on Zapdos with something more useful like volt switch or U-turn for scouting purposes or roost to heal from stealth rock damage. You aren't playing stall here, so you should focus less on crippling sweepers.
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If I add Ttar, i'll have 5 Physical Sweepers, which is a bad idea.
 
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