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OK so I decided to play some Pokemon battles since I'm bored. The last time I played was pre-Platinum so I had to retinker my whole team. However, I kept something in mind: I am going to use favorite pokemon Infernape and build around him. With that in mind, here goes.

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP/252 Sp Atk/252 Spd
Naive (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Psychic
- Explosion
- Stealth Rock
- Fire Blast

A fun lead. Explode in the when I see a pokemon that could prove dangerous. Explode is the only "real" answer to the threats I can't regularly counter which is why I chose this version. Stealth Rock is useful and it makes it easier for Infernape to sweep, so I figured why not use a pokemon that can both Explode and Stealth Rock while not be completely helpless against other pokes. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is a good lead for my team though, but he has served his purpose well for now.

Edit: Changed Trick to Psychic and Scarf to Specs
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Infernape (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 172 Atk/192 Spd/144 SAtk
Hasty nature (+Spd, -Def)
- Close Combat
- Grass Knot
- Fire Blast
- Stonedge

The centerpiece. Bring him in for revenge kills in the mid-game or just hide him till late game to sweep. Wall-breaker to cover anything that could be left. The Ev's let me outspeed Timid Base 100 pokemon. I have Stone Edge over Thunderpunch to cover Flying types because they see. This team is built around him. Get rid of his counters and clear the field of spikes so he can come in injury free.

Edit:Changed Thunderpunch to Stone Edge for coverage.
Changed Overheat to Fire Blast for added damage
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Empoleon (M) @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 12 HP/232 Spd/252 SAtk/12 SDef
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Surf
- Agility
- Substitute
- Ice Beam

Edit:
After testing my team around, I found out I had some major dragon weaknesses. That's when Empoleon was suggested to me. He hasn't failed me yet. I usually use him in late-game situations unless I need to switch him in.
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Rotom-h @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Hp/252 Sp Atk/252 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Trick

Steel counter. Discharge because I prefer paralysis over burn with WoW. Trick is fun, but Choice Specs will hurt many things as well. My team doesn't have many walls, so I need a Pokemon with resistances as well as counter some major threats. That's where Rotom comes in.

Edit: Changed Overheat to HP and Reflect to Trick.
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Scizor (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 32 HP/252 Atk/224 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Brick Break
- X-Scissor

Resistances and physical sweeper which I needed. I needed someone with a priority move just in case. He's been good but my goodness, that speed is killing me. You know, I'm not sure how he came to be on this team. I just knew I needed a pokemon who could take physical hits and dish them back out. For now, that will be Scizor until/if I can think of a better pokemon that will fit with the synergy of the team.
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Porygon2 @ Leftovers
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP/216 Def/40 SAtk
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Recover
- Discharge
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Ground]
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Dragon counter. I just love P2, he's very underrated. Hidden Power is for against those who aren't covered by BoltBeam *coughManezonecough* or the Heatrans of the world. I knew from the get-go P2 will be on this team. P2 is here both because I like him and because he covers what Infernape can't.

Generally, I send Azelf out and see who the opposite lead is. If it's a set up or someone who will try to take me out early, I'll Stealth Rock because I know I can survive (Outside of Sandstorm). If I see a pokemon then switch in I deem "a threat to the team," I'll immediately explode. Usually, if a threat to Tenta isn't out, I'll sent it out next to either Spin away rocks or set up more spikes. From there, it's just prediction. I know for sure I want to have Infernape be the last pokemon known to my opponent so I make sure all threats are gone and the field conditions are ideal (i.e. No Stealth Rocks).

This is still a new team that I'm testing, however right now it has proven to be very good. I mixed in offense with defense. There are spikes, spinners, and a ghost so utility seems to be covered. You can never replace a good physical wall, but Reflect is very good support as well. What I've noticed is that this team relies heavily on Rotom's type resistances. No Rotom, boom here comes Scizor and Metagross. Also, I don't seem to have a reliable Lucario counter, so I would like some comments on that, too, thanks. Getting set up on is a weakness that I haven't thought of how to get around besides not letting it happen in the first place.

Threat List (From the Sticky):

Tyranitar - Depends on which one it is. Scizor should be able to counter all physical variants. As for the likes of Tyraniboah... not sure to be honest =/
Gyarados - P2 can Trace Intimidate and threaten with Discharge.
Infernape - Tentacruel will take anything besides Thunderpunch then can Surf, Spike, or Spin.
Azelf - Not sure about this one. Different pokemon counter different moves. I think Scizor is my best counter. Resist anything besides Flamethrower, then set up.
Electivire - P2 can trace Motor Drive and use HP Ground. Rotom can take Thunderpunch, Earthquake, and Cross Chop. Trick the move or fire off boosted Shadow Balls.
Heracross - Rotom can cover most attacks besides a Pursuit or Night Slash. Strike back with boosted Shadow Balls.
Salamence - P2 can trace Intimdate on physical versions. P2 should be able to survive a Draco Meteor too. Empoleon can counter Specs versions
Togekiss - Rotom can take Aurasphere and Tri-Attack and strike back with STAB Discharges.
Gengar - Depending on which variant. Scizor is my most reliable counter. Most attacks won't OHKO it, set or just use Bullet Punch.
Lucario - Rotom again. HP Fighting will take it out.
Starmie - Again, Rotom will work with Shadow Ball. Scizor can take a beating and then use X-scissor. Heck, P2 can come in on non-boosted Surfs and use Discharge.
Weavile - Scizor can take any physical hit and threaten with all three supereffective attacks.
Dugtrio - P2 is bulky enough to come in, trap, and kill with Ice Beam. If not, Scizor and Rotom both work, resistant to the main attack of Earthquake.
Porygon-Z - Rotom can come in on Tri-Attack and strike back with HP Fighting.
Machamp - No sure fire counter imo. Rotom is the best considering it's typing.
Snorlax - Rotom would negate most of its attacks, but HP Fighting won't do much. So, again, no sure fire counter.
Zapdos - I don't know about this one.
Suicune - This one too.
Breloom - Scizor will take any physical hits and hit back with Bullet Punch to beat out Subs or Spore.
Metagross - Rotom will counter most variants. Am having hard time with versions like Agility or Rock-Polished ones.
Heatran - P2 can trace Flash Fire and use HP Ground.
Celebi - Save for the rare HP Fire, Scizor can use X-Scissor.
Jirachi - Empoleon should take most of the damage.
Dragonite - Empoleon or P2 should counter most versions depending on which side of the spectrum it tries to hit with.
Mamoswine - Scizor can take the hits and use Bullet Punch. Also, Rotom can dodge Earthquake and use HP Fight, don't know about Ice Shard though.
Kingdra - Empoleon will wall it and set up.
Scizor - Rotom can take the hits, but he can't do much back. HP Fight won't do much damage.

Edit: Added Threat List

Retired:

Tentacruel (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP/120 Def/136 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Surf
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes
- Ice Beam
 
i'm kinda tired so i can't say much, or be bothered to, but i think porygon2 should have hidden power ground, as magnezone and heatran are both 4x weak to ground and 2x weak to fight, so i think you'd benefit more fron HP ground. I am really tired it's like 10 here thanks to the damned time zones. I'd write more normally, and besides, i'm not a pro team rater anyways.
 
i suggest you use toxic or thunder wave on porygon 2
as you really don't need hp fighting
with flash fire p2 is gonna win from heatran any day
and magnezone is covert by rotom
you could also use tri attack for stab
 
On Infernape, Thunder Punch doesn't seem to cover as much besides non-DD'ed Gyarados and a few fighting-resist bulky water type like Tentacruel. What I kind of suggest is Stone Edge for the chance of hitting hard on the swith-in Salamence/Gyarados, and perhaps scoring a critical for 2HKO. The alternative isn't as mandatory though, but just something you might taken into consideration.
 
sakae said:
On Infernape, Thunder Punch doesn't seem to cover as much besides non-DD'ed Gyarados and a few fighting-resist bulky water type like Tentacruel. What I kind of suggest is Stone Edge for the chance of hitting hard on the swith-in Salamence/Gyarados, and perhaps scoring a critical for 2HKO. The alternative isn't as mandatory though, but just something you might taken into consideration.
Click to expand...

I'll consider it. Salamence and Gyarados are threats to the team.
 
Ok I'll start from the top and work down.

I don't come across many lead Azelf that run Trick, as most of them are Sashed to ensure that their Stealth Rock setup goes as planned. As such, I recommend you switching out that Scarf in exchange for Focus Sash. You're going to want to run a moveset more along the lines of Psychic/Fire Blast/Stealth Rock, which is pretty standard, although it's recommended. Explosion or Taunt goes in the last slot depending if you want to cause insane last damage or stop common leading SR'ers from setting up. I'd personally run Taunt. 4 Atk/252 SpA/252 Spe is the EV spread that you should be using with this. Switch from a Jolly nature to Naive, so your Special Attacks will be at their potential. Going along with Infernape, I actually like that EV spread you're using, because you have just enough Speed to outspeed positive natured 100 base Speed Pokemon, like Timid Zapdos, for example. Like sakae suggested, run Stone Edge over Thunderpunch so that you won't have problems with Flying types. I actually ran a quick calculation: This is completely based off the exact EV spread you're currently using on Infernape:

Stone Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Timid Zapdos: 81.68% - 95.96%

So as you can see, Flying Pokemon will quickly be KO'd. Just throwing out a random calculation so can have a general idea of what to expect.

As for Tentacruel, it's pretty basic. Swampert seems like a problem to this team, so I got something you could try out and see how it works. This set focuses on offensive coverage: Surf/Giga Drain/Ice Beam/Toxic Spikes. Abandoning Rapid Spin, you won't be threatened by Swampert as well as other Dragons anymore with Giga Drain/Ice Beam. It's a pretty big sacrifice for Rapid Spin if you're willing to make it. If not, just run Rapid Spin > Giga Drain. Gyarados will be a problem without HP Electric, but Rotom should handle him nicely. Speaking of Rotom, how about running a Specs version:

Rotom-H @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
~ Discharge/Thunderbolt
~ Shadow Ball
~ Hidden Power Fighting
~ Trick

Even though you lost screen support from the original, more threats will be taken care of. If you want to paralyze more often, go for Discharge, although Thunderbolt hits harder. Any kind of Ghost Pokemon that comes in is asking for a OHKO from a STAB Shadow Ball. You'll normally come up against a lot of Pursuiter's such as Tyranitar and Weavile, so running HP Fighting is the primary option to counter them. Similarly to the Azelf set you were running, Trick is better left to Rotom. Skipping to Scizor, since you said you're having problems with it's Speed, replace it with Lucario for a decent speeded offensive threat:

Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spe/4 Def
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SAtk)
~ Swords Dance
~ Bullet Punch
~ Close Combat
~ Stone Edge/Ice Punch

The lack of a Technician boosted Bullet Punch may throw you off some, but you got Speed to work with here. Swords Dance + Life Orb for a destructive combination that will prove to be useful even against Bronzong and Skarmory, two of whom are physical walls that are sometimes hard to take down. The last slot depends on whether you want to damage Gliscor effectively, or just all Flying Pokemon in general. Gliscor will OHKO Lucario with Earthquake, but with the right prediction, Ice Punch will OHKO Gliscor on the switch in, assuming you managed to do at least one Swords Dance and SR is in play. Finishing off, Porygon2 can possibly be replaced with a physical attacker/wall such as Snorlax, as a wall for your team will be helpful. It's not really required, but try it out and see if it works for you.

Well that's all the advice I have to offer. I hope this helps, and I'll gladly answer any questions you may have. Good luck with your team! =)
 
OK thanks man. I've made the changes although I'm keeping Scizor for defense purposes.

I've just noticed I have a huge Kingdra weakness and sometimes a Sandstorm team weaknesss. Any suggestions?
 
It really just depends on the moveset Kingdra is running. Against most sets, Empoleon is a good counter, as it walls his physical sets pretty good and only fears a Specs Hidden Power Electric, which isn't that common.

Empoleon is also a good candidate over Tentacruel if you're having problems with Sandstorm teams. If you actually choose Empoleon over Tentacruel, I'm suggesting you to revamp your team a little to suit that change.

Another thing I recommend is posting a threat list to your team here so I can help you out more.
 
Cool, I'll see how I can help you out with this. Sorry I couldn't get to this quicker. My internet connection has been acting up like crazy since yesterday. >_>

Empoleon, as I previously said, will counter most of Kingdra's sets, and only the occasional Hidden Power Electric should be your worry. Another Pokemon that comes to mind is Snorlax, who can outlast Kingdra's physical sets and can take a Draco Meteor decently, although DD boosted Outrages will cause quite a bit of damage to him. Suicune is great too, since it can take his attacks well and is able Roar it out when it starts Dragon Dancing. Running Toxic on Cune is another option if you want to stall it out, and if you accumulate a lot of damage just use Rest. Probably the best option would be to use Empoleon > Tentacruel, but you'll lose a Spinner if you decide to do that. From a team rating point of view, I don't highly recommend it, actually.

Zapdos can be countered easily by a durable wall such as Snorlax or Blissey. Porygon2 is outclassed by a lot of Pokemon, which is why I don't see it performing greatly on your team. I see Snorlax playing a good Zapdos counter as well as just being a sturdy wall. Defensive versions of Zapdos will be caught using Roost a lot, so a well predicted Earthquake will cause great damage to him. Really anything with Stone Edge should take down Zapdos quickly as long as it can handle its usual movepool of Thunderbolt/Heat Wave/Hidden Power Grass(or Ice) at least decently. As I stated with the calculation, Infernape can do this role nicely.

Since there are a lot of possible movesets on Salamence, you have to be vigilant on the moveset it's running. Usually, paralysis cripples Mence to the point where it can't perform too greatly, especially on those DD sets. Anything with a decent Ice attack shuts Mence down. Snorlax could do both of those; causing paralysis with Body Slam and hitting hard with Ice Punch. So a defensive Snorlax running Body Slam/Ice Punch/Earthquake/Rest would do a good job at that.

Basically any Ghost Pokemon with Will-O-Wisp counters Machamp, since only Payback hits them and that will be weakened by said WOW. If you're willing to replace Rotom with a bulkier Ghost such as Dusknoir or a quicker one like Gengar, then Champ shouldn't be too much of a problem. I see Gengar doing this job greatly, as it can be a potent Special Attacker and can quickly use WOW, so yeah, it's helpful. How about running Will-O-Wisp/Shadow Ball/Focus Blast/Thunderbolt? Try it out and see how it performs.

Summing it all up, using Empoleon > Tentacruel and Snorlax > Porygon2 is what I honestly believe would cover those big threats you stated. I can see your team having extra weaknesses due to abrupt changes such as those, along with encountering tight situations often. It's hard to give out suggestions without making big changes in your team. I'm preferring you to try those out and post a new team soon so I can look at it and see how you're performing.

Hope this helps you out, and if you need any extra help don't hesitate to PM me. =)
 
Taunt over Fire Blast on Azelf. So that you can stop other leads from getting up SR. Personally I'm not a big fan of suicide leads but that's your choice.

As good as Overheat is on Infernape I'd definitely recommend Fire Blast/Flamethrower over it just because the drop isn't something that you'd want. At the cost of a little power and a sp.attk drop you get fire blast which has the same accuracy (i think)

With Life Orb on Scizor you might want to consider Roost over either X-Scissor or Brick Break. With no way of healing Scizor otherwise and as useful scizor is you really wouldn't want to lose him. From what I've seen, scizor takes a lot of neutral hits which with life orb will add up pretty fast and KO him. but this ones up to you.

I hope my fixes were of some help to you ;)
 
If you really want to kill dragons, Cressy is like mrs.Anti-Dragon. Packed with Reflect, Icebeam, Moonlight, and some random crippling move and it kills dragons with ease.
 
Thanks for the suggestion, but I found my dragon killer in P2 and Empoleon for extra support.

You know I just realized SD Lucario rapes my team after getting swept twice by him. Anyone have a suggestion without changing the team dynamically?
 
Infernape is resistant to Bullet Punch, and will OHKO Lucario with Fire Blast or Close Combat, but Infernape WILL take severe damage from Lucario's other attacks if he manages to do at least one SD. Rotom can be stripped of Specs and run Will-O-Wisp > Trick to burn Luke if Ape is KO'd and resists his STAB moves, although Crunch will cause great damage to Rotom especially if he's holding LO. I don't highly recommend you taking Specs off Rotom unless Lucario is a really big threat, otherwise leave it as it is.
 
It was only one player (Tangerine >.>) but he ran SD/ExtremeSpeed/Crunch/CloseCombat and dang that just ripped through the team.

I guess it is situational since most Lukes aren't using that particular set, but it bugs me is all. I guess I'll have to figure out a way to play around it.
 
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