Can offense be combined with defence?

Greekinfernape

Can offense be combined with defence?
​


Here is my team. It is one of the best teams I have ever made. Although I believe it still can be improved. With that team I achieved to make almost 1300 points on both pokemon online and smogon server and stay near in that rank. One of the black holes of the team is that I don’t have a standart lead. I usually lead with skarmory, it depends on the situation.

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 248 Def / 12 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Whirlwind

I am usually careful with skarmory cause it’s my main counter against scizor, which my team suffers from. If I loose it early, I have troubles with scizor. I am also careful about magnezone’s magnet pull. I’m seriously thinking to put shed shell over leftovers. Also my main stealth rocker which breaks sashes, multiscales and sturdy.

Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Pursuit
- Crunch
- Superpower
- Stone Edge

Ttar is my sand streamer and also my revenge killer. It does an excellent job as not many people expect it as revenge killer. Sometimes I lead with that. The sand also improves the sp def of ttar, terrakion and improves the power of landorus.

Latias @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Substitute
- Dragon Pulse

Latias is my winner pokemon. I use to lead with that in rain and sunny teams. In rain teams I switch it with vaporeon to see what kind of set that politoed is. The only one I scare is the choice specs one which can 2hko my latias. Sub+calm mind gives amazing defensive and offensive power to latias. Is one off my key members cause I find hard time to face a rain team without it.

Landorus @ Expert Belt
Trait: Sand Force
EVs: 248 Atk / 8 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Stone Edge
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Earthquake
- U-turn

I.M.O. landorus is the best mixed sweeper in the game, especially expert belted one. Firstly I try to bluff around so the opponent believes I have the usually scarf set that works very well for me as it helps me to wipe out some powerhouse pokemons. Also landorus stone edge and eq are very powerfull moves. It also immunes electric and ground moves.


Vaporeon @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Def / 156 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Wish
- Roar
- Heal Bell

Vaporeon exist for water absorb, phasing and helping (healing) it’s teammates. Heal bell heals all fuckin status problems and scald burns strong sweepers. Water absorb is very crucial for my team as I general have problems facing rain teams.


Terrakion @ Leftovers
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Stone Edge
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat

Terrakion is my powerhouse. With adamant nature it hits like a beast. It also helps sub up to avoid some problems and set up. When I take the chance I sweep, a lot with that guy…






Team weak spots:
Azumarill: that bastard can destroy my whole team. My only valid counters can be latias, vaporeon and maybe skarmory.

Sableye: that noob can burn and taunt my team to no end. My only hope against it is to come up against set up latias or sub up pokemons, otherwise, I hope to a burn from scald.

Scizor: if I lost my skarmory, my team has huge problem in that one (latias can thankfully sub ub and avoid the huge pain of a banded u-turn). Also the u-turn combined with a magnezone can destroy my skarm (if it doesn’t have shed shell
) and then scizor destroy my team.

-In general I also face troubles with well set ups stall teams and maybe with rain teams. Also the lack of a pokemon with priority move may cost me some serious troubles.

-I am also in thoughts to change my terrakion with a heatran with hp grass. In that way I will face my 2 troubles, scizor and sabley but I will get into other troubles…

Please make your comments and if you like suggest me some improvements that can really make the difference. Be sure that your opinion counts for me ;-)
 
Hey :)

This is a pretty well built Sandstorm team. There are a few things that could be done to improve the weaknesses you pointed out, though. I think Terrakion is a bit of a weak link on the team; it may be an excellent late game sweeper yes but in the overall picture of things, it exacerbates many of the weaknesses already present in your team. For this reason, I'm going to suggest you replace it with Specially Defensive Heatran.

Heatran @ Leftovers
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 100 SDef / 160 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Protect
- Toxic

It's a solid counter to Sableye and will also give you another means of countering Scizor, minding of course you avoid CB Superpower. It gives you decent check to sun teams if Tyranitar dies prematurely, too. In general, your team would really benefit with the resistances this Heatran would provide. Toxic will allow you to deal with Pokemon such as Politoed and Gastrodon who will try to switch in to this moveset.

Since this moveset carries Stealth Rock, you can afford to change Stealth Rock on Skarmory to Spikes. Having both of these entry hazards would really help Latias and Landorus cause offensive pressure since they naturally force switches. I also support your idea of giving Skarmory Shed Shell because DD Haxorus can potentially sweep your team when combined with Magnezone support.

You will have difficulties using Vaporeon to counter Rain teams with the current set because Wish on its own is not reliable healing. Replace either Roar or Heal Bell with Protect. If it were me I'd keep Roar since it means Vaporeon isn't set up bait for certain Pokemon, and can cause hazard damage to wrack up, but that's entirely up to you since Heal Bell has its merits for this team as well.

Now for some minor suggestions.

As rare Azumarill is (though increasing in popularity thanks to BKC's latest RMT), a potential solution to it would be to replace Substitute on Latias with Reflect. If you decide to keep Heal Bell on Vaporeon you could still keep it free of status, and Reflect will greatly help Latias take on certain physical threats.

Consider replacing Stone Edge on Landorus with Smack Down. It will allow you to deal a powerful EQ to Skarmory and Bronzong afterwards; both of whom could be potentially troublesome for this team, especially Bronzong.

Good luck!
 
i tried the changed you told and theuy were good, but i needed some more force to go forward, so the things i changed was the smack down on landorus and instead of the cobalion set i had, i changed it with a banded jolly one and it works really well.
 
well, i also tried to change vaporeon with jellicent after a reccomadation of my friend christos21 :Jellicent (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 152 Def / 100 SDef / 8 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Taunt
- Shadow Ball
- Recover

and with the other replacements you told me darkblazer, i tried to cover most of my weak spots, but still, i cant catch more than 1300 points on po. is there any idea for any relliable switch?
 
Hey, this seems like a pretty good team. My old sandstorm team was really close to this one, but I feel like there are a few small changes to be made that could be a big help.

First of all, I'd recommend changing Tyranitar to the mixed variant with stealth rock. Choice Scarf on him does take out some threats, but I feel that stealth rock is better.
This leads to my next suggestion. Replace Vaporeon (or Jellicent. I'm not sure which one you're using right now) with a choice scarf Rotom-W. This keeps some offensive momentum on your team with a choice scarf as well as keeps the resistances that Vaporeon had. Then, like Darkblazer said, put spikes on Skarmory as opposed to stealth rock.
I hope this helped
List of changes
-T-tar -> mixed w/ sr
-Vaporeon-> Scarf Rotom-W
-Stealth Rock -> Spikes (on Skarm)
 
I agree with Terrakion being the most weak link on your team and I would suggest to run an Air Balloon Heatran. Sand teams with both of these pokemons require to base a team around them which is something you haven´t done and I dont want to make a lot of changes. Heatran is also another counter to Sun teams allowing you to spoil their fun while setting up Stealth Rock. HP Ice will allow Heatran to check DD Dragonite, since it fails to OHKO with Outrage and kill him after SR damage considering your team lacks a Scarfer that outspeeds him at +1.

With that said, I agree with DarkBlazeR´s suggestions of running Spikes & Shed Shell on Skarmory to deal with Drag-Mag teams. Smack Down is also worthy of consideration as it will allow Landorus to hit Bronzong & Skarmory with Earthquake.

Protect is a must on Vaporeon as it will allow her to scout pokemon like Latios & Rotom-W, so replace it for Heal Bell. I would like to suggest an EV spread of 248 HP / 220 Def / 40 Spd as Vaporeon will outrun Scizor and might get a chance to burn him first, while allowing her to tank powerful hits like Dragonite´s Outrage or Mamoswine´s Earthquake.

My final suggestion is to run HP Fire on Latias. A SubCM set requires to be built around in order to function properly. With HP Fire, Scizor becomes even less of a problem and she is able to deal with the common Turn/Switch cores. Good team and I hope my rate helps you out. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top