Ain't no party like a PreBank party because a PreBank party stops in about a month

[hemtae]

So after an absence from pokemon in which I'm sure I was missed, I've decided to come back when the release of the generation because new pokemon are always fun. Unfortunately, I have less of a clue of what I was doing than before with all the new pokemon plus the bunches of mega evolutions that I needed to know about. But at least before the Pokemon Bank opens the flood gates of old gen tutors and pokemon, there's less to worry about and it kind of reminds me of the old 200. Back when I actually knew what I was doing. Good times.

Talonflame
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Acrobatics
- Swords Dance
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn

Acrobatics because Brave Bird + Flare Blitz + Life Orb scares me too much in the recoil department especially when boosted with Sword Dance. Basically instead of keeping it tucked away for the late game, I use it whenever I really need to scare something away or kill it. I'm terrible about keeping rocks off my end of the field late in the game anyways which ruins Talonflame's and my day. U-Turn is primarily to evade pursuit Tyranitar but it also allows me to escape other threats but do some damage at the same time. Adamant nature to boost Talonflame's lacking attack and max speed because honestly I'm not sure what I should be trying to outspeed.

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 84 Def / 172 Spd
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Protect

Rotom-W was chosen because it checks a whole bunch of stuff that I need checked, not least of all Talonflame up there. Hydro Pump and Volt Switch are for STAB. Will-O-Wisp is for the physical attackers that really scared me during team creation like Mega-Kanga and Mega-Scizor. Protect is there because my already shoddy prediction skills are shot with all the new stuff that's going on this gen so its nice to be able to know if I'm about to be murdered because I didn't know something. I'm not entirely sure what's going on the EVs. I did mention that physical attackers scared me more so I think I was trying to survive something to burn it. I think Speed was to outspeed Scizor and burn it before its mega evo could start murdering everything.

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 Spd
Impish Nature
- Protect
- Substitute
- Toxic
- Earthquake

Interestingly enough, if I had to pick the guy who's shouldered the most weight, it would be this guy. I call on him to do everything. Is there a physical attacker making trouble? You got it Gliscor. Special attacker on the loose? Get a toxic on it and we'll be fine. Everybody else dead? Get ready for a 70 turn stall battle Gliscor. Is it the team preview and I already don't know what I'm doing? You're leading just to be safe Gliscor. Generally, I just get a Toxic in somewhere the thirty-two rounds Protect/Sub afford me and occasionally Earthquake the things that need earthquaking and see how things go from there. The speed is to outspeed some things most notably non-scarfed Tyranitar at least for one turn. Then maxed HP and the rest in defense.

Espeon @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Reflect
- Light Screen

By far my least certain member. Ideally, it would bounce hazards back onto the opponent compensating for my own lack of hazard users then raise whatever defensive stat that needed raising and win a few Calm Mind wars here and there. In practice however things don't go so well. Most hazard users (Ferrothorn, Forretress, Skarmory) are resistant to Psychic and have really good defense to boot. I did try HP Fire over Psyshock but that wasn't such a great idea. The screens don't provide near the utility I thought they would but at least it does reliably beat other Calm Mind pokemon.

Noivern @ Life Orb
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Hurricane
- Dragon Pulse
- Focus Blast
- Roost

My revenge killer and a surprisingly effective one at that. Well at least when Hurricane and Focus Blast aren't missing. I attribute it to people not knowing how fast it is or underestimating its special attacking power. But with Life Orb and decent coverage, it's done well and I've even managed to kill stuff hiding behind subs. Originally this was a scarfed Garchomp and while it worked well enough, prediction scares me and I thought I needed some more help on the special side. EVs are so it can outspeed as much stuff as possible, which I figure is kinda important for a revenge killer and hit as hard as possible which also seems important.

Scizor @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Roost

My mega evolution guy and if it has to be on anybody's team at least its on mine. Basically I use its super bulk and resistances to try and Sword Dance up and Bullet Punch my way to victory. Then when not even Roost will save me, I u-turn out of there and lose my SDs forever. Sometimes tears come out. Max HP/Defense because I was kind of hoping I'd be able to set up on an outraging dragon where the damage taken is easily roosted away. I think its attack is decent enough and I could always find use for some extra bulk.




Well that's it. With the minor exception of Espeon, I think it works well together and well, she tries. Dragons packing Fire Blast do cause problems as do electrics packing HP Ice. Right now, my solution is to outspeed and kill with Noivern which is less than ideal. I also have no rock resist which does kind of suck sometimes.

 

[Seiterman]

Welcome back to competitive Pokemon!

With the few RMT's I've looked at I usually start off breaking down each Pokemon, but with this one I think I wanna begin with it as a cohesive unit. I have a couple of questions regarding it as a whole, and I'd like to point out a few weaknesses (some of which you've noted.)

In terms of typing synergy, you've noticed that Dragons with Fire coverage are problematic for your team, as are Electrics with Ice coverage. To start, Dragon+Fire is only resisted by a very few Pokemon; the list is Azumarill, Carbink and Heatran. Azumarill could be something nice for your team, but we're gonna have to keep looking at what could be moved around before we just slap Azumarill on there. As for the other two options, Carbink hasn't proven to be what you'd call "an actually usable Pokemon," and Heatran isn't available pre-bank. More realistically we could tackle your ice weakness. You're packing two 4x ice weak Pokemon, and while you do also have resists that is a tough weakness to ignore. A rock resist would also be ideal, but I'll get into that in a bit.

Next, I want to ask what the main focus of this team is. It seems like a somewhat balanced team as a result of having such different Pokemon on it. Your Rotom-W and Mega Scizor are reminiscent of Bulky Offense, your Talonflame and Noivern are closer to all-out offense and your Gliscor is basically a stall Pokemon. It looks like your end goal is to sweep with Talonflame or Scizor, but neither is really totally set for that. Did you base the group primarily around Talonflame? All-in-all, the team could really benefit from synergizing with each other better. I don't think changes in that department are by any means unrealistic, though.

Finally, despite having an answer for entry hazards, your team isn't particularly made to deal with them once they're on the field. Admittedly grounded hazards aren't too worrisome; Toxic Spikes only affects your Espeon, while Spikes and Sticky Web also affect Scizor (who probably isn't too worried about that speed drop,) but your team has a major Stealth Rock weakness. Even pre-bank, where less Pokemon have access to the move, this is a huge problem simply because they're easy to get up and the Pokemon that do get the move are pretty good regardless. Your teammates take 12% damage per switch-in minimum, which is only compounded by your use of U-Turn and Volt Switch. Your team would likely also appreciate some hazard support, even if just in the form of a single Stealth Rock setter. It doesn't have to go up every match, it's just a great general move.

Now, we'll look more closely at each individual member of your team.

Talonflame: I know lots of recoil is undesirable, but running Acrobatics without a Flying Gem isn't a particularly good idea. It's important to remember that before setting up Talonflame is pretty lacking in terms of raw power. Base 81 attack just isn't going to cut it without some boosts. Since Flying Gem isn't available to you, your best bet is to go with Brave Bird. On the plus side, Talonflame doesn't have the bulk to take a hit regardless of how much recoil he's taken, so I really wouldn't worry about it. If Life Orb seems like too much though, you have other options in Expert Belt and Sky Plate. Neither is quite a Life Orb boost and they're less useful overall, but neither is to be discounted completely.

His set and EV's look fine otherwise. With 252 EV's in speed, you're hitting a stat of 351, effectively outspeeding all Pokemon with Base 110 Speed, maximum investment and a Speed-increasing nature. Without those EV's you drop to a stat of 288, which outspeeds similarly invested Pokemon of Base 81 Speed. Feel free to adjust those EV's as you like to outspeed relevant threats (ie. stuff you're not using priority Brave Bird on,) and if you so desire you can dump some of those EV's into HP to reduce the recoil problem (just keep your HP from being divisible by 2 so you can switch into Stealth Rock twice instead of once.)

Rotom-W: This guy is a wonderful addition to basically any team. The only thing I could really recommend is forgoing Protect for another move. However, you mentioned using it to ease prediction, which is fine as long as you aren't in yourself predictable about using it. Once you're more comfortable predicting your opponent's moves I'd definitely switch it out for another attacking option (Discharge, Thunderbolt or Shadow Ball,) or a different support move (Substitute or Pain Split.) You could also run Trick with a Choice item if that floats your boat.

Gliscor: Another great Pokemon, though I think your set could use a change or two. Mainly I'm not sold on the idea of running Protect+Substitute. Substitute's main niche over Protect is status protection, which is redundant with your Toxic Orb. Roost is more useful as a whole, and I highly recommend it. You have other options over Protect as well, but that move works better with the idea of Toxic stall and scouting (which is more important on a Pokemon with a 4x weakness.)

Espeon: Poor Espeon. She just doesn't fit with what your team needs. She's best used on straight-up Hyper Offense teams, which your team is not. If you want a more support-oriented Magic Bounce user you'd want Xatu, but that just compounds a lot of weakness issues (YEAH 4 FLYING TYPES WOO,) and still doesn't reliably keep hazards off the field.

Herein lies a new question: how are you going to keep Stealth Rock off of your side of the field? You'll need either a Rapid Spinner or a Defogger. Since users of Defog are rare pre-bank and are also more Flying-types, I'd recommend a spinner. You have a few options there, but I see problems with a few. Forretress has completely redundant typing with Scizor and you're using a mega-evolution which bars Mega-Blastoise from consideration.

I'm super tired right now and I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but the best options to me look to be Excadrill or Tentacruel. Both have advantages and disadvantages, so I'll leave it to you to look into them and decide who works best for you.

Noivern: That's about as good as a Noivern set can get, I think. It's a solid revenge-killer. His only issue is the ice-weakness redundancy with Gliscor, but he's fast enough where he shouldn't realistically eat an Ice Beam unless you're not being careful. If you go with Tentacruel as a Spinner you'll have 3 ice resists, which can help out too.

Scizor: Bug Bite can be considered over U-Turn since it's better for sweeping, but U-Turn remains a valid option. Scizor's set is spot-on.



I'm running on no sleep right now so I'm gonna fix that, but I hope that helped!

 

[hemtae]

Thanks for the rate. Pain Split on Rotom-W and Bug Bite on Scizor are both illegal until the Bank is available. Regarding the focus of my team, it use to be kind of bulky offensive focused on trying to get a Talonflame sweep where Noivern and Espeon were Garchomp and Ferrothorn and Gliscor had a more offense oriented set but after going through threats and what I needed, the team eventually morphed into this. Also with replacing Espeon with a spinner: I think Excadrill would be the best choice. It can take on Dragons and most any electric. So new guy:

Excadrill @ Leftovers
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 48 Atk / 252 HP / 208 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Rock Slide

Enough speed to outspeed most Rotom-W then as much HP as I can get to survive stuff then the remaining stuff into Attack.

 

[Seiterman]

Thanks for the rate. Pain Split on Rotom-W and Bug Bite on Scizor are both illegal until the Bank is available. Regarding the focus of my team, it use to be kind of bulky offensive focused on trying to get a Talonflame sweep where Noivern and Espeon were Garchomp and Ferrothorn and Gliscor had a more offense oriented set but after going through threats and what I needed, the team eventually morphed into this. Also with replacing Espeon with a spinner: I think Excadrill would be the best choice. It can take on Dragons and most any electric. So new guy:

Excadrill @ Leftovers
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 48 Atk / 252 HP / 208 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Rock Slide

Enough speed to outspeed most Rotom-W then as much HP as I can get to survive stuff then the remaining stuff into Attack.

Bleh, I keep checking Showdown for movesets, but it shows me stuff that's illegal. My apologies. =P

As for your Excadrill set, that should work fine. Outspeeding Rotom-W is important, but are a lot of them running speed right now? My Rotom-W doesn't run any speed just because I wanted it to be as bulky as possible. It is my understanding that Rotom-W runs the following EV's for speed:

A) 252+ Speed on Choice sets, which you shouldn't worry about outspeeding since it'd necessitate a Jolly nature and 240 speed EV's (even then it's assuming they're not scarved, which they probably are.)

B) No speed, which is more common among people who aren't worried about speed or not using Smogon's analysis.

C) 220 speed, according to the analysis page's bulky attacker set, to outspeed a bunch of threats that honestly don't show up very often these days. This is what you're set to outspeed, but I question if people are still going to run this when Mamoswine isn't really common, Politoed is rare (at least pre-bank,) due to the weather nerf and Breloom got a few nerfs of his own. You could always run enough speed to beat this variant and switch it up if you think it's not worth it though.

D) 88 speed to outspeed Adamant Scizor with max speed. This is still pretty important, so I understand this one.

I'm not the best when it comes to deciding what to outspeed, so it's totally possible that your spread is exactly what you should be running. Food for thought nonetheless.