First "real" battle tower team!

DragonBreath

Before recently, I usually just threw together any old team for the battle tower, and usually did ok. But now I've decided to create a "proper" team, with a strategy which will (hopefully!) give me a decent reward. So without further ado, here's the team:

Changes will appear in red.

wobbufett.jpg


The Lead:

Wobbufett@Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
Nature: Calm (+Sp. Def, -Atk.)
EVs: 28 HP/228 Def./252 Sp. Def
IVs: 25/4/31/3/31/9

Encore
Mirror Coat
Counter
Safeguard

Originally a Shuckle, Wobbufett outclasses it in just about every way. A slightly higher Speed (and I mean slightly), I can outrun some of the earlier rounds' leads, getting Safeguard up instantly, or can always go the safe route and Encore what will hopefully be a set-up move. Counter and Mirror Coat make Wobbufett so much more useful than Shuckle, as it can actually get the kill fairly quickly, especially with encore, whereas Toxic Stall took much longer. Shadow Tag is also more useful for the rare times that Battle Tower trainers actually switch.

Garchomp.jpg


Sweeper #1

Garchomp@Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Veil
Nature: Jolly (+Spd, -Sp. Atk.)
EVs: 4 HP, 252 Atk, 252 Spd.
IVs: 22/31/8/2/11/31

Substitute
Swords Dance
Outrage
Earthquake

Once again, Empoleon was outclassed. Garchomp is an excellent Sweeper, especially benefitting from Wobbufett's disruption of the opposing lead. I can stick up a Sub, then proceed to Swords Dance. Garchomp, being the epic Uber that it is, can OHKO almost anything after two or three SD's. Outrage and Earthquake are simple but powerful double STABS, whereas the Lum Berry furthers Garchomp's sweep by getting rid of confusion after Outrage.

tyranitar.png


Sweeper #2

Tyranitar@Life Orb
Ability: Sand Stream
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -Sp.Atk)
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Atk, 4 Def
IVs: 25/31/25/10/7/7

Payback
Stone Edge
Earthquake
Dragon Dance

Another pokemon that can take advantage of Encore, Tyranitar can either set up using Dragon Dance or hit hard with STAB Payback on the occasions where the move Encored is a Speed-boosting one, Dragon Dance being the more common option. Stone Edge is also good STAB and hits the Flying-types that Earthquake can't. Earthquake finishes the moveset with an excellent hit.

So that's the team, I'm completely open to change so please tell me if anything's wrong :)
 
Well it's nice to see that you've given the tower some serious thought, it's a very fun facility.

For your lead, first of all stealth rocks isn't quite so useful. Breaking sashes is nice and stuff, but there really aren't too many sashers, and sandstorm kills most of them anyways.

Unfortunately, encore is quite a bit outclassed by trick leads. Assuming that you don't wish to use a trick team (originality is nice!), I would seriously recommend changing shuckle to a wobbufett.

Wobbuffet is not only a great encorer as well, but it doesn't die so easily to seismic toss and, most importantly, can quite often get a kill himself! Also, encore + mirror coat/counter takes a lot less time than toxic + rest, leaving you less open (althought still vulnerable) to critical hits.

Secondly, Empoleon as a battle tower sweeper is a bit... well... unimpressive. Walled by most water types, Tyranitar's weakness to water doesn't help empoleon's cause either. I would switch empoleon to a swords dance garchomp, because in the tower having only 2 attackers who are both physical isn't a bad thing. Try jolly, with sub / SD / EQ / outrage and maybe a lum berry to deal with status hax.

Meanwhile, for tyranitar, replace payback with crunch because after a few dragon dances he should be faster than the opponent. Also, rock slide will probably be more useful than stone edge because of its increase accuracy and PP. Finally, consider putting a little bit into speed so that after 1-2 DD you can reach some desirable numbers, such as 202 speed (after 2 dragon dances) to beat out max speed base 130's.

Hope this helps!
 
I'll be certain to try out the Wobbufett, it does seem to outclass Shuckle in almost every way.

However, I'm not sure about Garchomp, mostly because he's a bit too mainstream for my tastes (of course, TTar is too, but he's too good to pass up), although I'll certainly test him.

I think though that Porygon-Z may be the answer, with Nasty Plot/Dark Pulse/Thunderbolt/Ice beam, which does seem to be a good foil for TTar, dealing with those Water types. Your thoughts?
 
Replace Stone Edge with Rock Slide. In BT hax is your demise. You should be as safe as possible.

Also Crunch>Payback. 80 base power is better than 50 once you get some dragon dances up.

Consider replace something for sub on your t-tar with all the crits a sub can save your streak.

Another option is to use Curse T-tar. It's more defensive and can actually take hits while retaliating in powerful attacks.

Use something like
HP 252/252 S Def/4 Atk
Curse
Substitute
Payback/Stone Edge
Earthquake
 
This is the same question I ask about every Battle Tower team: what is your plan to deal with OHKO moves? Wobbuffet is slow and will easily be crushed by any OHKO, and the rest of your team has no way to stop it. Remember that OHKO has a 10% chance of working twice and a 3% chance of sweeping your team.
 
twc said:
This is the same question I ask about every Battle Tower team: what is your plan to deal with OHKO moves? Wobbuffet is slow and will easily be crushed by any OHKO, and the rest of your team has no way to stop it. Remember that OHKO has a 10% chance of working twice and a 3% chance of sweeping your team.
Click to expand...

What do you propose then? Won't Substitute take the damage from an OHKO move anyway?
 
The problem is that they can take out your Wobbuffet right away, putting you at a disadvantage. For example, if you switched to a Trick+Scarf lead, you would be able to at least lock the AI into OHKO moves, allowing your next Pokemon to stall their PP out and set up to +6.
 
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