Introduction
I am extrememly new to competitve pokemon. However this smogon community has helped me get a feel for what its all about. This is the first team that I have spent some measureable time on. After reading many RMTs it seems that the fire/water/grass core of the team is a very important aspect to include in your team. With that core in mind and the knowledge that entry hazards are very important I tried my hand at making what to me seems as a balanced and resilient team.
I am extrememly new to competitve pokemon. However this smogon community has helped me get a feel for what its all about. This is the first team that I have spent some measureable time on. After reading many RMTs it seems that the fire/water/grass core of the team is a very important aspect to include in your team. With that core in mind and the knowledge that entry hazards are very important I tried my hand at making what to me seems as a balanced and resilient team.
The number one thing I set out to do was to make sure that all my pokemon weaknesses were covered by someone else on the team respectively. Flygon and Skarmory seem to cover each others weaknesses and so do Rotom and Heatran. These pokemon gave my team a spin blocker, a spkies/stealth rock layer, a revenge killer, and a fire pokemon for the fwg core. I however was sill missing the other two pieces of that core.
In order to complete my core and the team i decided to add another physical sweeper as to this point Flygon was my only source of Physical damage. Gyarados seemed to fit perfectly for the physical sweeper position. The last slot called for a grass type. Roserade or Shaymin is what it came down to. In the end Roserade gave my team the special bulk it needed.
In-Depth *Changes are bolded*
Skarmory@Lum Berry
Ability: Sturdy
Evs: 252 HP /252 Spd/4 Def
Nature: Impish(+Def,-SpA)
-Stealth Rock
-Spikes
-Roost
-Whirlwind
Summary
First of all credit goes out to Faladran for this set. I have tried many leads and yet this Skarmory seems to do the best for me. He has the ability to set up entry hazards with reletive easy early in the match and return later as a physical wall later in the match. These two charateristics make skarmory extremely versitile as a lead and is often the anchor of my team.
The problem i find with him is when he is tricked a choice item. Then this movset becomes extremely difficult to use proporely and the rest of my team has to pay a huge price to get entry hazards set up. As a result I have become extremely weary of leads that could trick me a choice item. Often i find myself switching to rotom or flygon based on which of them could better counter their lead.
I tested the set suggested by Aerrow extensivelyover the past few days and found that although taunt was helpful in some situations but often skarmory was lasting late into the battle. The set suggested has no way to deal damage. From there I tried brave bird as Alpha jolt suggested but found it extremely risky without leftovers to cover the recoil damage. I settled on Faladran's original moveset with an item and ev changes.
I have not yet tried a jirachi as Heist suggested. I think that the change could come eventually and that i would try the suggested set and a physical set that I fell could fit my team.
Rotom-W@Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
Evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe,-Atk)
-Hydropump
-Shadow Ball
-Thunderbolt
-Trick
Summary
There is not much to say about this pokemon. Rotom has proven to be very popular and potenitally the best spin blocker in gen 4. It should then be no suprise that i choose him as my spin blocker for this team. However he also fills another role as one of my special attackers and the w form gives him a great moveset to do so. I am more a fan of accuracy moves that power moves but i guess hydropump can work in a pinch.
Heatran@Leftovers
Ability: Flashfire
Evs: 252 HP / 252 Spd / 4 Spe
Nature: Calm (+Spd, -Atk)
-Lava Plume
-Earthpower
-Hidden Power(Ice)
-Roar
Summary
I had major trouble determining which heatran set to use. I am a huge fan of scarf-tran but have found flygon to be more reliable as a revenge killer. There was also the lack of a second phazer on my team and heatran could fill that slot. As a result my heatran has the move roar to futher abuse entry hazards and punish my opponent for switching upon heatran's appearance. Hidden power ice is here for the switch into outrage on dragons such as flygon and dragonite who can be quite troublesome late in the match if skarmory is already down.
The main notes here are that my team was really lacking special bulk before. This Heatran suggested by Faldaran adds extra survivability to my team that I over looked before. I chose to keep the hidden power around over protect though as i feel that removing it would leave my team with no access to ice moves.
I can say that I have never tried heatran as a lead so i reall do not know how good he could be in that slot. When I try out the jirachi I will also switch this heatrans position in this team.
Flygon@Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
Evs:4 Spd / 252 Atk /252 Spe
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, - SpA)
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Thunderpunch
-U-Turn
Summary
I had a difficult choosing the moveset for this scarfed flygon. My original problem was outrage. Although outrage is outstanding in the late game i was in need of it in earlies stages to clean up pokemon weakened by entry hazards. Therefore i made the difficult choice to change outrage to dragon claw. The new move does less damage but prevents me from being as set up on and loosing my revenge killer to early in the game. Also the Thunderpunch slot could be a multitude of things. On this team there are already fire/ice/and electric moves so settling on thunder punch was mostly out of fear of bulky water pokemon which can give me trouble if they get set up.
Changing to outrage based soley on its popularity and its ability to finish battles if I am smart about when I choose to use it.
Roserade@Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
Evs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 SpD
Nature: Calm (+SpD, -Atk)
-Hidden power(Fire
-Grass Knot
-Leech Seed
-Sleep Powder
Summary
Roserades moveset was also a difficult one to come to a conclusion on. I used an ev and nautre spread that gave me some considerable special bulk which was somewhat lacking on the team this far. Roserade also has enough defensive evs so it can switch into physical attacks as well that it resist and take them a little bit more repectably. Protect is inculded as somewhat of a scout move as roserade has alot of weaknesses and i want to make the correct switch out once a leech seed is set up. Lastly toxic spikes were proving to not be extrememly helpful and i found that many common switch ins to roserade would take considerable damage from hidden power fire.
Faladran's simply request to switch portect to sleep powder actually saved me a battle against a defensive suicune. Low accuarcy is not something I am a fan of but i believe this risk is worth the reward.
Gyarados@Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Evs: 156 HP / 72 Atk / 96 Def / 184 Spe
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, - SpA)
-Dragon Dance
-Waterfall
-Earthquake
-Taunt
Summary
Gyarados gives me a couple extra resisitances and good switch ins to aid in setting up a dragon dance. His biggest weakness on this team is that he takes a ton of damage from stealth rocks and his switch ins are limited. I included taunt here for help against set up and stall. I am still debating is this slot should be a vaporeon or suicune but making that switch would extremely limit my physical moves leaving flygon as the only source.
In order to deal with a few of the threats that i did not have covered before i switched bounce to Earthquake. Suprisingly the change to heatran has for some reason caused my gyarados to last much longer in battles. I do not know the cause of this but thanks goes to Aerrow for pointing out an easy change for my team to answer some of my team previous threats.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading my post. I greatly appreciate any rates that i get and will take them all in consideration to improve my team and my skills as a battler.
