SM RU First RU team

[AndiRh]

Hey, I'm rather new to RU and this is my first Team. I tried to find a good balance between bulk and offence.
I'm grateful for any advice how to improve the team, even nicknames.

The Team

Nia (Milotic) (F) @ Flame Orb
Ability: Marvel Scale
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Recover

Fabulous (Ampharos) @ Ampharosite
Ability: Static
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Spe / 252 SpA / 252 HP
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Dragon Pulse
- Focus Blast
- Thunderbolt

Fidget Spinner (Forretress) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin

Gannondorf (Emboar) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Reckless
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Wild Charge
- Superpower
- Head Smash

Juan (Roserade) (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 1 Atk
- Leaf Storm
- Sludge Bomb
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Synthesis

Dogmeat (Zygarde-10%) @ Choice Band
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Outrage
- Extreme Speed
- Crunch

How I play

Milotic carries the Flame Orb to gain the defence boost from Marvel Scale and to avoid Toxic.
Scald and Ice Beam are a decent coverage, Toxic and Recover is for stalling against annoying threats.

Originally I tried to use Ampharos as a "fast" special attacker.
Being outsped by most of the Pokemon with a decent speed tier I decided to make him into a bulky pivot with Volt Switch.
It is rather simple: Take a hit and switch out.

Zydog with the Choice Band is meant as a lategame cleaner or a revenge killer.
Crunch is surprisingly useful against Pokemon like Cresslia or Necrozma.

Roserade is basically the same as Zydog but special.
Leafstorm to nuke Pokemon like Blastoise, Sludge Bomb against Grass Pokemon, HP Fire against Forretress.

With a Choice Scarf on Emboar you outspeed Pokemon like Galvantula, Shaymin, Entei, Roserade...
You can hit pretty much everything really hard with this moveset and it's ability.

Forretress is there for rocks and spikes/ toxic spikes and for the hazard removal.
It is completely physical defensive to take strong hits by everything exept of fire moves.


You can play Toxic Spikes or Spikes on Roserade but Forretress is more reliable in my opinion, but that depends on your personal preferences.

I'm not completely sure about Mega Ampharos, I thought about replacing it with another Pokemon, maybe you have some advice.

P.S.: Sorry for typos or grammatical errors, english is not my native language.
​

 

[esche]

Hey pal, welcome to Smogon!

I had a look at your team and would like to share some suggestions with you. Keep in mind, however, that tier shifts just happened, so the metagame is still volatile and likely to change. Therefore, you will certainly have to adapt this team as the RU metagame develops further.

The first advice I have for you is best illustrated by some questions that you can ask yourself when teambuilding and when revising teams:

• What does your team aim to do? How does it win?
• How do the team's members accomplish that aim? How do they function together?
• What stands in the way of your team's members accomplishing that goal?

It's one thing to build a team that can respond to a variety of threats and another to build a team that actually functions as a unit of 6 Pokémon.

Now, when I analysed your team it was hard for me to pinpoint down a strategy other than "tank hits and dish out damage" and "use Pokémon A to beat Pokémon type B". Since you didn't go into detail on this matter in your description, I'm left with little input on how to edit the team and still keep the purpose that you had in mind when building intact.

Anyway, I played a couple of games and noticed that counterplay versus some threats is severely limited. Here are the most prominent examples:

SubSeed Shaymin:

This little bastard is a pain for many teams, but especially tough to deal with for your team. The combination of Leech Seed chip damage and taking advantage of switches by setting up Substitutes can prove fatal not only to the defensive but also the offensive section of your squad. For example, Flying coverage in the form of Air Slash limits Choice Scarf Emboar to a single opportunity of revenge killing it if it manages to set up a Substitute, and invalidates Roserade a check.

SD Toxicroak:

Toxicroak has risen in usage lately, indicated by the shift from NU to RU this month. Milotic is likely the culprit (next to Blastoise-M) behind this rise. While you do have two checks in the form of Choice Scarf Emboar and Choice Band Zygarde-10% (Extreme Speed), neither of them can afford to switch in on a Life Orb boosted Poison or Fighting attack, and if it gets a SD boost under its belt - which it can easily do versus Milotic, especially because the Flame Orb variant has to use Recover much more often - it threatens to clean your entire team.

Mega-Sceptile:

This one just dropped from UU, so you might not have considered Sceptile's impact on the team yet, but it indubitably looks like a major threat. Choice Scarf Emboar comes nowhere close to outspeeding Sceptile-M and it threatens every member of your team with the combination of its STAB + HP Fire.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another thing I'd like to point out real quick is that Trick Room has become quite potent again with Slowbro-M and Marowak-A dropping from UU. This might only be a temporary trend but it won't hurt to grapple a bit with strategies and playing style against TR, possibly incorporating some countermeasures for the duration of that trend.

Some minor things:

I haven't had many experience with Flame Orb Milotic because the constant need to recover health makes it way too passive for my liking. If you feel the same way at some point I recommend giving the usual Leftovers variant a shot and maybe opting for Refresh over Toxic. Funnily enough, the special defense investment actually allows Milotic to survive Leaf Storm from Sceptile-M at full HP and reverse kill it with Ice Beam. This should never be the only countermeasure against a threat as prominent and impactful as Sceptile-M, of course, and the scenario unrealistic with chip damage received from Flame Orb and hazards anyway.

Agility seems out of place on an Ampharos-M with 0 speed investment and Volt Switch. I recommend you opt for Focus Blast instead since Agility really is a rather subpar set choice, seldomly finding opportunities to set up and being outsped by many Choice Scarf users still. You'll find that some speed investment to outpace Umbreon and Chesnaught will be of value to apply pressure more effectively with an all-out-attacking set.

While Forretress offers role compression as hazard setter and hazard removal, it has trouble living up to that task under the pressure for a longer duration - especially without Wish support. Be sure to experiment with options such as Volt Switch, Protect, Counter, Pain Split, or maybe splitting and shifting roles for more consistency.

Make sure to opt for 29 HP IVs on Roserade to grant it one more Life Orb hit.

Toxic over Crunch on CB Zygarde-10% may be the better option to catch a Cresselia or Slowbro on the switch-in.

I have some ideas where to take the team, but I don't want to force my personal preferences regarding choice of roles, team structure, and so forth on you by presenting extensive changes to your team without damaging its integrity, which is why I didn't do so. Let me know what you think of what I pointed out above and maybe respond to the questions I outlined - if you like - so that I can help you adjust the team in a way that is compliant with the direction that you want the team to take.

Cheers!

 

[AndiRh]

Hey pal, welcome to Smogon!

I had a look at your team and would like to share some suggestions with you. Keep in mind, however, that tier shifts just happened, so the metagame is still volatile and likely to change. Therefore, you will certainly have to adapt this team as the RU metagame develops further.

The first advice I have for you is best illustrated by some questions that you can ask yourself when teambuilding and when revising teams:

• What does your team aim to do? How does it win?
• How do the team's members accomplish that aim? How do they function together?
• What stands in the way of your team's members accomplishing that goal?

It's one thing to build a team that can respond to a variety of threats and another to build a team that actually functions as a unit of 6 Pokémon.

Now, when I analysed your team it was hard for me to pinpoint down a strategy other than "tank hits and dish out damage" and "use Pokémon A to beat Pokémon type B". Since you didn't go into detail on this matter in your description, I'm left with little input on how to edit the team and still keep the purpose that you had in mind when building intact.

Anyway, I played a couple of games and noticed that counterplay versus some threats is severely limited. Here are the most prominent examples:

SubSeed Shaymin:

This little bastard is a pain for many teams, but especially tough to deal with for your team. The combination of Leech Seed chip damage and taking advantage of switches by setting up Substitutes can prove fatal not only to the defensive but also the offensive section of your squad. For example, Flying coverage in the form of Air Slash limits Choice Scarf Emboar to a single opportunity of revenge killing it if it manages to set up a Substitute, and invalidates Roserade a check.

SD Toxicroak:

Toxicroak has risen in usage lately, indicated by the shift from NU to RU this month. Milotic is likely the culprit (next to Blastoise-M) behind this rise. While you do have two checks in the form of Choice Scarf Emboar and Choice Band Zygarde-10% (Extreme Speed), neither of them can afford to switch in on a Life Orb boosted Poison or Fighting attack, and if it gets a SD boost under its belt - which it can easily do versus Milotic, especially because the Flame Orb variant has to use Recover much more often - it threatens to clean your entire team.

Mega-Sceptile:

This one just dropped from UU, so you might not have considered Sceptile's impact on the team yet, but it indubitably looks like a major threat. Choice Scarf Emboar comes nowhere close to outspeeding Sceptile-M and it threatens every member of your team with the combination of its STAB + HP Fire.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another thing I'd like to point out real quick is that Trick Room has become quite potent again with Slowbro-M and Marowak-A dropping from UU. This might only be a temporary trend but it won't hurt to grapple a bit with strategies and playing style against TR, possibly incorporating some countermeasures for the duration of that trend.

Some minor things:

I haven't had many experience with Flame Orb Milotic because the constant need to recover health makes it way too passive for my liking. If you feel the same way at some point I recommend giving the usual Leftovers variant a shot and maybe opting for Refresh over Toxic. Funnily enough, the special defense investment actually allows Milotic to survive Leaf Storm from Sceptile-M at full HP and reverse kill it with Ice Beam. This should never be the only countermeasure against a threat as prominent and impactful as Sceptile-M, of course, and the scenario unrealistic with chip damage received from Flame Orb and hazards anyway.

Agility seems out of place on an Ampharos-M with 0 speed investment and Volt Switch. I recommend you opt for Focus Blast instead since Agility really is a rather subpar set choice, seldomly finding opportunities to set up and being outsped by many Choice Scarf users still. You'll find that some speed investment to outpace Umbreon and Chesnaught will be of value to apply pressure more effectively with an all-out-attacking set.

While Forretress offers role compression as hazard setter and hazard removal, it has trouble living up to that task under the pressure for a longer duration - especially without Wish support. Be sure to experiment with options such as Volt Switch, Protect, Counter, Pain Split, or maybe splitting and shifting roles for more consistency.

Make sure to opt for 29 HP IVs on Roserade to grant it one more Life Orb hit.

Toxic over Crunch on CB Zygarde-10% may be the better option to catch a Cresselia or Slowbro on the switch-in.

I have some ideas where to take the team, but I don't want to force my personal preferences regarding choice of roles, team structure, and so forth on you by presenting extensive changes to your team without damaging its integrity, which is why I didn't do so. Let me know what you think of what I pointed out above and maybe respond to the questions I outlined - if you like - so that I can help you adjust the team in a way that is compliant with the direction that you want the team to take.

Cheers!

Thank you for your advice, it seems like you really took some time to test around with the team.

I haven't played against Toxicroak or Shaymin very often (maybe because of my rather low ranking), but I noticed how threatening Mega Sceptile is against my team.

I changed the Ampharos set just before I made this threat and I forgot to change it's moveset, but that's my fault.

Usually I try to have Toxic on at least one Pokmeon, but I never thought about Toxic on a Pokemon with a Choice item, this might be a beginner's mistake as well as th HP IVs on Roserade. If I don't have Toxic on Milotic, then I have one slot for Refresh, and it can carry the Leftovers, that's true.

I'll have to experiment what to do with Forretress, maybe I find a better set or even another Pokmeon, doing a similar job.

These three questions are a great guideline to build a team, I try to consider them for the next teams or for the next improvements.

Anyways, thank you for your suggestions. I'll try to improve the team with your ideas!