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Double Battle Metagame.

Outrage is not a good idea in Doubles, as it chooses a Random target to hit; if you're going to go physical, you're pretty much stuck with Dragon Claw.

As for the Explosion prevention, some Exploders don't worry about being fast, just being bulky; Snorlax takes it a step further by resisting Fire, making him a concern for your two lead pokemon. If you decide on using a Damp pokemon, your best bet would be having Moltres U-Turn out into it.
 
outrage is actually good if you have tinted lens since almost every thing will go down, however IMO that combo could take too long to set up
 
Also you run the risk of a bulky water switch in survivng then ohkoing with ice beam since you cant switch out of an outrage
 
I think the one turn of setup probably kills the Tinted Lens Salamence idea, but I am sure there's another pokemon or two that could take one turn of setup to do some serious damage.

I would say Slaking, but doesn't Truant prevent Skill Swap from working? An (almost) unresisted Return with Choice Band or Life Orb would be seriously dangerous especially since Fighting moves are not very common in doubles.

I think Helping Hand might be a more effective means of getting a boost, though, since it is more reliable, has priority, and can be used on even a Scarfed pokemon because of that.
 
This combo is meant to be used after my first two pokemon are switched out (or KO'd) and Trick Room is up, probably with two turns or so left on it.

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Snorlax @ Sitrus Berry
Brave - Thick Fat
~Belly Drum
~Return
~Self-destruct
~Crunch/Fire Punch(?)

dpmfa442.png

Spiritomb @ Lum Berry
Careful - Pressure
~Psych Up
~Shadow Sneak
~Sucker Punch
~Hypnosis(?)

Snorlax goes first and uses Belly Drum, and on the same turn Spiritomb Psychs Up, so both have +6 atk before the opponent attacks. With Sitrus Berry, Snorlax will be back up to 75% before it gets hit, hopefully surviving. From there it can attack as needed, or just Self-Destruct if it will get KO'd after it attacks. Fire Punch is to hit Steel-types, which otherwise give this combo a lot of trouble. Spiritomb is extremely bulky, which is the main reason I chose it, and of course immune to Self-Destruct. It also has a respectable 92 Attack and two priority moves so it can last beyond Trick Room. I wasn't sure what to put it the last slot. Hypnosis can help it deal with problematic pokes, but it's also unreliable. Pain Split doesn't strike me as particularly useful, and Spiritomb's offensive move pool isn't exactly diverse. Anyway, tell me what you all think. :)
 
Yes, you should probably put Hypnosis in the last spot, since nothing else good goes there anyways. Anything else is special based and doesn't benefit from the hopeful +6 Attack.
 
If you want more options for moves, you could trade Spiritomb out for Dusknoir, but as it stands, Spiritomb has double STAB and no weakness to Ghost, so each one has their strong points. Dusknoir is the only one I'd consider swapping with Spiritomb.
 
I think Dusknoir works better as it is more bulky than Spiritomb, and more importantly, it can use Trick Room again if Trick Room runs out. And of course, as mentioned, Dusknoir can have perfect coverage with ghost move + brick break or better super effective coverage with ghost + ice/fire/thunder punch.
 
Currently Dusknoir is my lead, or I would probably use him in that role. Perhaps I could pack Psych Up on him too. I'll try tweaking things around a little. Any more comments would be appreciated.
 
Right now i use a scarfed alakazam to skill swap onto slaking so it can outrace taunt after that i switch to togekiss and start follow mes the beauty of this is that slaking is bulky enough to survive the hits.
 
I was considering running sunny day for doubles, and keeping Arcanine in my party of six to handle a few things. I am posting my idea of this Arcanine so you can offer your opinion on it because I am having a lot of trouble with the EV spread, it's very double specific.

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Arcanine - Rash - Lum Berry - Intimidate
220 SP.Atk / 176 Speed / 124 Atk
~ExtremeSpeed
~Flare Blitz
~Heat Wave
~Protect

First off, let me justify the obvious. Intimidate is for messing up my opponents damage calcs by softening up the physical blows, it works well in doubles. Lum berry is so I dont get messed up by darkvoid. Extreme Speed helps finish smeargles off who like to hang on with the sash. Heatwave is strong with sunny day, and Flare Blitz hits from the other end of the spectrum incase they are specially bulky. I put protect in the final slot so my teammate can use earthquake, as well as just using it for scouting and dodging explosions.

The EV's are designed to give him the right balance of power in the doubles meta. First off, he won't be finishing off many things alone without sunlight that arent weak to it. With the sun flareblitz does a lot of damage however and is often underestimated. 120BP + STAB + 50% Sun is a good amount of hurt. Heatwave is another solid option as it hits both and thus won't get owned by protect. The sunny day team I use runs cherrim who can helping hand + flowergift boost arcanine's extremespeed to basicaly gimp someone and take them out if needed. It is for this reason why I value power a little more than speed on this Arcanine at the moment.

So that's what I've got so far. I really could use some input. Pointing out any problems in my EV spread or Moves would be really helpful.
 
Diesel said:
This combo is meant to be used after my first two pokemon are switched out (or KO'd) and Trick Room is up, probably with two turns or so left on it.

dpmfa143.png

Snorlax @ Sitrus Berry
Brave - Thick Fat
~Belly Drum
~Return
~Self-destruct
~Crunch/Fire Punch(?)

dpmfa442.png

Spiritomb @ Lum Berry
Careful - Pressure
~Psych Up
~Shadow Sneak
~Sucker Punch
~Hypnosis(?)

Snorlax goes first and uses Belly Drum, and on the same turn Spiritomb Psychs Up, so both have +6 atk before the opponent attacks. With Sitrus Berry, Snorlax will be back up to 75% before it gets hit, hopefully surviving. From there it can attack as needed, or just Self-Destruct if it will get KO'd after it attacks. Fire Punch is to hit Steel-types, which otherwise give this combo a lot of trouble. Spiritomb is extremely bulky, which is the main reason I chose it, and of course immune to Self-Destruct. It also has a respectable 92 Attack and two priority moves so it can last beyond Trick Room. I wasn't sure what to put it the last slot. Hypnosis can help it deal with problematic pokes, but it's also unreliable. Pain Split doesn't strike me as particularly useful, and Spiritomb's offensive move pool isn't exactly diverse. Anyway, tell me what you all think. :)
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I am a big fan of the Snorlax Belly drum Psych up tactic and was thinking about using it myself. The only thing is I do not know a good EV spread for the Snorlax. What EV spread were you planning on using, does anyone else have any EV spread ideas/suggestions for that snorlax set?
 
Definitely focus on making sure Snorlax can take a hit. After a Belly Drum, he'll be one-shotting most things regardless. It's a shame he doesn't learn any physical spread attacks besides Selfdestruct and Earthquake, because once he Belly Drums, he's going to be a big target for Physical attackers.
 
He can learn Rockslide also.

My drum lax is Relaxed with max Def EVs, a lot of HP EV and a small amount of attack, holding leftovers (though Sitrus seems like a better option probably, now to think of it) and it did decently well. Mine doesn't even run self-destruct though, because after drumming, you can KO most things without self-destruct anyway, so you might as well use another attack instead, since well timed protects from your opponent can ruin self-destructs. Well, that's my opinion.
 
I'm trying to figure out good secondaries for my Trick Room team. Everyone on the main team uses Physical attacks exclusively, and I want the other two to be Special just in case (although they'll probably still have Explosion if they can learn it, like Exeggutor).

Magnezone might be an interesting choice, since I have Rhyperior on the team as well. The main issue with using him is that Discharge still causes Paralysis, and if that happens, the opponent will go first if they aren't paralyzed.

Glaceon is JUST slow enough to be useful in Trick Room, but she would probably work better on some kind of crazy Trick Room/Hail team. Having the strongest STAB Blizzard in the game is worth looking into.

For my current team Exeggutor seems to be the best choice; he can deal damage with Leaf Storm, and then bow out with Explosion. If he's not one of the pokemon that sets up Trick Room, he can have another attack to use if it's not wise to Explode, like Psychic.

Tangrowth is kind of the same as Exeggutor, except a little less strong with Special Attack, a little slower, and he doesn't get Explosion.
 
I love double battles and figure this would be a good place to post a team I've been working on.

Hopefully no one's posted this before.

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Bronzong @ Lum Berry
Levitate
Nature: +Special D -Speed
252 HP / 152 Atk / 8 Def / 96 SpD
0 Speed IVs
Hypnosis
Trick Room
Gyro Ball
Explosion


Wait for it...


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Shuckle @ Life Orb
Gluttony (ability unimportant, I tried a stat berry but it wouldn't work with this set up)
Nature: +D - Speed
252 HP / 252 Def /4 SpD
0 Speed IVs
Power Trick
Bug Bite
Earthquake
Rock Slide
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Spiritomb @ Leftovers
Nature: + SpA - Speed
0 Speed IVs
252 HP/ 252 Special Attack / 4Defense
Nasty Plot
Pain Split
HP Fight
Shadow Ball

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Heatran @ Choice Specs
Nature: + SpA - Speed
0 Speed IVs
252 Special Attack, 204 D, 52 HP (Might be off, I just want him to survive a priority fighting attack from a CB user)
Heat Wave
HP Grass
Dragon Pulse/Earth Power
Explosion

Ok so the idea is to first turn use Trick Room and Power Trick. The two leads are so defensive that unless they have two good fire attacks Bronzong will live, and they'll usually want to status him because Shuckle isn't intimidating so Lum Berry is great. Shuckle will Power Trick as the last move since he's so slow allowing him to eat attacks while he has good defenses. RockSlide and Earthquake work well to do massive damage to both of their team, RockSlide's stab negates the multi-attack penalty. Bug Bite is nice because it can OHKO many that won't be taken out by EQ or RS. Bronzong then provides support using Hypnosis or GBall to finish off the sweep.

If Bronzong has to explode for some reason I'll switch in Spiritomb, if Bronzong is likely to eat a fire attack again I'll switch in Heatran and then use it against them for a massive Heat Wave.

I'm not too confident about Pain Split, but it can be fun in doubles with Trick Room to provide some recovery or lay the hurt with the double attack move, otherwise Spirit Omb just cleans up.

A Shuckle sweep is just awesome to behold.
 
Unfortunately that Shuckle gets destroyed by priority attacks and the first turn setup gets ruined by Taunt also.
 
supermarth64 said:
Unfortunately that Shuckle gets destroyed by priority attacks and the first turn setup gets ruined by Taunt also.
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Yeah I figured it was too cool to work, what if I used follow me? It was working in battle tower, but I figured there was something easy I was forgetting.

Generally if I detect something with a priority I just switch in Omb and use Trick Room.

If they had both priority and taunt I'm hosed. I don't know how I could protect my trick room user from taunt.
 
This is just my own opinion, but Shuckle is Fine but you may want to run Protect and Sub over Bug Bite and EQ since stab make it just as strong as EQ, hits flying + levitators, and may flinch. Since Shuckle is one of your leads you could run Chesto on it or give it Sitrus because gluttony might allow it to activate after one Sub. Alternatively you could switch shuckle out for a Rhyperior but then you are just swiching from a Physical Weak Sweeper to a Special Weak Sweeper that is going to give you very similar results. Specs on Heatran might backfire on you if you run into a Pokemon that resists the attacks that you have chosen, running life orb or maybe the Plate that boosts Fire Attacks would prove to be a better option.
 
Thanks Dav, that sounds like a solid idea, I'll try out Sub and/or Protect, I figured Bug Bite could go. I'll try Expert Belt or Life Orb on Heatran and give Shuckle the Berry, with Substitute he would have more staying power.

I still have no idea how to deal with Taunt though, I suppose the best bet would be to attempt a swap into something that doesn't mind being taunted but that leaves them open to kill something.
 
Is this pair any good? I had to make it on the rules for the vgc tournament, and i am english, so no platinum moves. I have never actually played doubles before, but i need a team, and this is what i thought up. the only problem i can see is fake out. And i am a bit worried about very offensive teams, as the move they use first may be the move they want to use again and again. At least it potentially screws up more strategic teams though. My apoligies if a similar combination has ben thought up.

Alakazam:
Timid
252Spd 252Hp
Choice specs
Trick
Psychic
Shadow Ball
Torment/Sunny Day/Rain Dance/Trick Room/Whatever

Basically trick choice specs onto the less special oriented pokemon. Then torment if they stay in. Shadow ball for ghosts. Psychic for general STAB. Torment if the enemy pokemon doesn't switch, choose the one least likely to switch out.

Smeargle
252Spd 252Hp
Timid/Jolly
Choice Scarf
Trick
Dark void
Tweeter Dance
Torment/Rain Dance/Trick Room/whatever the rest of the team needs

Trick choice scarf onto other oppenent. Then dark void on the next move, hopefully as the oppenent switches away. Tweeter dance, as i think sleep and confuse stacks. Torment oppenents that stay in. Or a move to support the rest of my team
 
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