Fire: Terrible Type or Worst Type? (Mixed Tier Fire Team)

Yerah

Fire. Let's face it. What with its weakness to Stealth Rock and common attacking moves such as Stone Edge and Earthquake, it's really only one step above, say, Bug or Ice. However, on the roleplay site I frequent and moderate, I find myself being the premiere Fire user. And with that title comes the responsibility of having four Fire Types on my team. Augh. My attempt to branch out and try new things has me firmly lodged in a niche I don't wish to fill.

So, here I am, stuck using four Fire Types on a team, and I'm having a hell of a time balancing it. Due to the restrictions on the roleplay, as a Fire user, I am limited to backing up my team with just Psychic, Electric, Ice, and Dragon Pokemon. As I'm sure you can see right away, that does not really help my case. And so, I'm having difficulties creating a team that can even stand up to the myriad all-Ice teams that the site boasts. At least with the Charizard I have sitting around, I've been able to reliably destroy the Bug team...

So this is what I currently have going on, in order:

Magcargo (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 HP/176 Def/80 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Yawn
- Recover

Naomi (Ninetales) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 255 Spd/255 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Energy Ball
- Flamethrower
- Hypnosis
- Nasty Plot

Seera (Houndoom) (M) @ Brightpowder
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 255 Spd/255 SAtk
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Nasty Plot
- Will-o-wisp

Rogus (Charizard) (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 255 Spd/255 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- Air Slash
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Dragon Pulse

Eru (Gallade) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 255 Atk/255 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch
- Thunderpunch
- Psycho Cut

Starmie @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 136 HP/156 Def/216 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Recover
- Surf
- Rapid Spin
- Grass Knot

I apologize for the lack of pretty.

Our site pretty much has our own custom metagame, where Breloom is an unbeatable terror, and Scizor is twice as evil when many teams are half or more NU. Not only that, but many of the teams are based on roleplay purposes, meaning more than one person has a Delibird on their team. And still, this team finds difficulty beating ANYONE. Even Steel users. Even Grass users. The only place it shines is in roleplayed battles, but that's only because I can write... marginally.

So, I sought to possibly help myself out and maybe even build a better team. My attempt... was legendarily unsuccessful. With my character's recent acquisition of Moltres, I thought maybe I could solve all of my team's problems! How frighteningly wrong I was.

My attempt to solve the issue was thus:

Siona (Froslass) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Snow Cloak
EVs: 82 HP/176 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Trick
- Spikes
- Ice Beam
- Destiny Bond

Seera (Houndoom) (F) @ Brightpowder
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 255 Spd/255 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Nasty Plot
- Will-o-wisp

Timothy (Torkoal) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: White Smoke
EVs: 255 HP/255 Def
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
- Explosion

Naomi (Ninetales) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 255 Spd/255 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hypnosis
- Nasty Plot
- Flamethrower
- Energy Ball

Moltres @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 250 HP/84 Def/176 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Roost
- Substitute
- Flamethrower
- Toxic

Eru (Gallade) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 255 Atk/255 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Close Combat
- Night Slash
- Icy Wind
- Psycho Cut

Really not too great an improvement. But these are the tools I had to work with. My inherent dislike for the Fire Type has clouded my reasoning and judgment. So please, would you lend a little time or effort to help? We're working within rather tight constraints, I realize. I suppose you could consider this a bit of a challenge. I certainly have for the past year. Feel free to suggest any Fire Type (except Heatran and Entei, and I would prefer not Infernape), and anything within the realms of the Psychic, Electric, Ice, and Dregen Pokemon.

Any input is greatly appreciated. If you require more insight into our custom metagame/common threats, please let me know.
 
Hmm.

Well, for the most part, my team is special sweepers. The Ninetales also doubles as a sleeper, but the unpredictability of Hypnosis (more like its ridiculously high chance of failure) often does not help nor lend itself to letting the Ninetales set up a Nasty Plot or otherwise survive. Of course it has the Fire/Grass coverage that most Fire Types I've seen carry, and the NP for boosting.

The Houndoom is what really pulls through on both sets, when she doesn't die to a hit. I've found that the Will-o-Wisp on her really aids much in her survivability, but despite how frequently I've used it, I've never been able to burn a Mence. Getting up one Nasty Plot usually means that she can take down most of what's thrown in her way, barring the extremely frequent Salamence. But the fact that nearly everything in our metagame carries Earthquake or Stone Edge means she rarely survives to get off more than a hit.

Magcargo was a filler to the extreme. I decided I wanted something with status and Stealth Rocks, but the poor thing has never really done much for me. His low speed and double weakness to Earthquake has gotten him killed more times than he's even been able to fire off a SR. Yawn is nice, but no one ever seems to switch out, always opting to just destroy him and move on. Thus, in team 2.0, I replaced him with a Torkoal, just to try it out.

Eru, the Gallade, is a staple of the team, or has been anyway. Originally I had him as a Double Status lead, but I eventually opted for Choice Scarf revenge killer. By himself, he has swept many a team after everyone else had fallen to OHKOs. He actually ends up being bulkier than the rest of my team, and his wide swath of moves allows him to deal with quite a few situations. But never a DD'd Salamence. That thing will wreck my team 100% of the time without me getting to fire off even a single hit.

The Choice Specs Charizard has had rather mixed results. For the most part, he's just death fodder. I find myself rather inept at using him correctly, at least with the rest of the team. Thus why he was replaced with Moltres for soaking up CB'd and CS'd Earthquakes. Dragon Pulse was a filler move to also help with all of the Dragons that are rampant in our metagame... but it does not really matter. They are all faster than him and kill him in a hit.

Starmie was for coverage as well as spinning away those dreadful Rocks that would decimate my team without the opponent having to lift a finger. And there's not a team on the site that doesn't carry Rocks on it. Surf was nice to have about, as well as Grass Knot for those pesky bulky waters that could eat my team with no effort. It fared fairly well, but it would have been a lot nicer for it to have Levitate than natural cure. Most of the teams I deal with are sweepers, not statusers. And all of them have at least one Earthquake user that wrecks me.

So, I added Moltres and Torkoal for bulk. Does not help. The prevalence of Ground and Rock moves just makes it too difficult for either to really survive. I'd love to toss it up and throw in some mons who actually RESIST Stealth Rock (Spikes and Toxic Spikes are nearly entirely unseen, except on other, more decent teams of my own devise), but the whole "four Fires" thing just isn't help me. It really has me stumped. My Ghost team? It's fine. My Water team? It's not fully formed due to the nature of the roleplay, but it still fares better than this. My Poison team? It's a UU jewel.

As you can see, I'm failing to have any sort of continuity with this team. I CAN build good teams, but I do not know why this one stumps me so.
 
Though I don't gather what kind of battle your using this team in or which team your using I'll try and be as helpful with some suggestions as possible.

First off I'm thinking that Moltres might do better in your lead slot and switched over to the Life Orb or Choice Scarf set mainly because I'll be suggesting a replacement for Torkoal, your current Rapid Spinner. With Moltres at lead you can put quite a dent in almost anything that isn't named Milotic or Chansey. Here's the set:

Moltres
Ability: Pressure
Item: Life Orb/Choice Scarf
Nature: Timid/Modest
IV's: Attack 2
Ev's: 252 SpA 252 Spe 4 Def
Move Set:
-Fire Blast
-HP Grass
-Air Slash
-Roost/Uturn
​

Uturn is my recommendation for the choice set, where as roost should be used on the life orb set.

Now as I said I think Torkoal is dead weight and I think there is a Psychic who can fill his roll much better, as well as give this team some synergy for Fire's weaknesses: Rock, Ground, Water. Here's the set:

Bronzong(N)
Ability: Levitate
Item: Leftovers
Nature: Sassy
IV's: Spe 0
EV's: 252 HP 86 Att 80 Def 92 SpD
Move Set:
-Stealth Rock
-Gyro Ball
-Earthquake
-Explosion
​

You don't have to use the fore mentioned set but Bronzong does wonders in helping relieve this team of its weakness to Rock and Ground(Levitate). And because you carry both Houndoom and Ninetales any fire attacks thrown at Bronzong can be absorbed with their flash fire for a boost. Water is neutral to Bronzong though they will have to hit incredibly hard due to Zongs natural bulk.

My next suggestion is a tweak on Houdoom's set so that it isn't totally demolished by Dugtrio. Here's the set:

Houndoom
Ability: Flash Fire
Item: Life Orb
Nature: Hasty
EV's: 100 Att 252 Spe 156 SpA
Move Set:
-Sucker Punch
-Nasty Plot
-Fire Blast/Flamethrower
-Dark Pulse
​

With this set you can OHKO Dugtrio with Sucker Punch and you still pack quite enough umph on the special side.

My final suggestion is to scrap Froslass all together and put in a Flygon or Kingdra in as a Revenge/Late Game cleaner. Flygon has two weaknesses Ice and Dragon, both are covered by other teammates(Bronzong for Dragon, Ninetales/Houndoom for Ice), and with the Choice Scarf set is a good late game cleaner. Kingdra gets a mention as it gives you a great way to sponge water attacks(1/4x effective) if Bronzong is down.

Kingdra (F)
Ability: Swift Swim
Item: Leftovers/Life Orb
Nature: Hasty
EV's: 252 Att, 252 Spe, 4 SpA
Move Set:
-Dragon Dance
-Outrage
-Waterfall
-Hydro Pump/Draco Meteor
​


Hope I helped and good luck with this team.
 
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