Wow, really well thought! My first observation would be about how many threats can be taken care by at least 2 pokemon from this team, as you said with the Magmar/Ampharos ambiguity as both have Electric and Fire coverage with good especial attack.
The most flaring problem for me would be that you are relying on Evee learning Bite before Morty and before evolving him to Espeon, however, Evee does not learn Bite until level 30, so that may pose a problem as he comes at level 20 and getting 10 levels between Whitney and Morty just so Evee can counter that gym does not seem optimal.
Additionally, correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't whirlpool barely gets used in-game? If I recall those are only in the Whirl Islands and this being Gold you do not get the benefit of a pre-E4 Lugia, so you should be fine replacing that moveslot on Feraligatr with something more useful.
What I propose is you to ditch Espeon and give Dig to Feraligatr so he can take on Morty, this way our star Fera can also take on the Rocket's Poison pokemon so you will not need Psychic coverage. Another neat thing I did was use Fearow with Mud-Shot against Gengar so he can never hit with Hypnosis, it is so funny because he can not touch Fearow!
So the set would be:
Feraligatr
-Surf->Waterfall (I will explain later)
-Ice Punch
-Dynamic Punch
-Dig or Bite (both take care of Morty, both have same BP, but Dig should hit harder from his higher Attack)
We are also forgetting one of the hardest Gyms which is Clair's and how to deal with her Kingra. This guy should be the best chance we have as Kingra is only weak to Dragon and there are no good such moves this generation. However, this gen does gives us a broken X-Acc that bypasses accuracy, so we can set up on a Dragonair that hopefully carries Ice Beam or Surf and no Thunderbolt and then Ice Punch the Dragonairs and Dynamic Punch confuse Kingra to death.
Now you are also planning to use Espeon against Chuck Poliwrath which I think is well-planned but redundant if you are carrying a pokemon with ThunderPunch, which is the plan. I agree that for the purpose of this team Magmar does not "mesh" well with Fera so this time Ampharos could be the elected special sweeper:
Ampharos @ Quick Claw
-ThunderPunch
-Fire Punch
-Thunderwave
-Flash
Unfortunately Iron Tail ,albeit powerful, is physical and thus will come off Ampharos lower attack, so we could slap Fire Punch there so Ampharos can deal with many E4 pokemon and thus Magmar won't be as necessary. Also, To help Ampharos speed tier but we can give it Quick Claw to remedy to some extent. Also, he does not learns Thunderbolt :(
So Overall the route could be like this:
Early routes Bugs and Normals: Totodile, Spearow
Bellsprout Tower and Falkner: Spearow
Union Cave and Slowpoke Well: Totodile
Bugsy, Rival 1 Ilex Forest: Spearow
Whitney: Machoke/Nidorino
Morty:Croconaw, Fearow
Path to Olivine and Lighthouse: Croconaw, Mareep
Sea routes and Chuck: Mareep
Jasmine: Flaaffy or Machamp/Nidoking
Pryce: Flaffy or Machamp or even Croconaw
Rival Flaaffy, Fearow, Croconaw
Rocket Executives: Ampharos and Feraligatr
Clair:Feraligatr
Here you can finally Forget HMs and put useful TMs so I would forget Surf on Feraligatr and teach him Waterfall. As I elected Nidoking he would be my Surfer (Cool Nidoking rocks)
Rival: Ampharos, Fearow, Feraligatr, Nidoking
Indigo Plateu: Can probably get Ho-Oh by this point
Will: Ampharos or Fearow/Ho-Oh and even Nidoking
Note: Nidoking can hit the Psychic types with Shadow Ball
Koga: Ampharos/Ho-Oh and Feraligatr/Nidoking
Note: Either Fera Dig or Nidoking Earthquake for the Poison types
Bruno Fearow/Ho-Oh, Feraligatr
Karen Feraligatr, Ampharos or Ho-Oh and Nidoking can help
Note:You can do the X-Acc trick on Umbreon to hit super effectively with Dynamic Punch
Lance Ampharos and Feraligatr
Final set for my Nidoking would be:
Nidoking:
-Earthquake
-Shadow Ball
-Strenght
-Surf
Of course you can keep Machamp as your Strenght HM slave and have Feraligatr carry Surf and Waterfall (which is necessary to cross to Kanto) and with that you should be set for the useful HMs. Let me know what you think!
Wonderful! Just a little mention: Feraligatr cannot learn Waterfall. It's strange but true. I find your strategy perfect and i like it very much, but the fact is.. I was banning Nidoking. I know it's a great purpose but i have not to use it, and i don't think Nidoqueen can be good enough.
Anyway i took some changes to my strategy according to your advice:
#1: why take out poor Spearow? It does his job in a grat way and can do all what can do Espeon in fact of Gyms! Of course as mentioned it can't be damaged by Morty's Pokemon. It seems to me that at least, a Flyng type OR a Psychic type is required for every studied run. So pick up Fearow, which will face chuck and goes on killing Bugs and Grass typez.
- Espeon: Out -> Fearow: In
With Fearow we get acess to Flyng type-Stab, which, combined to the Fighting type Machamp, means we won't need any Fire or Psychic type. Bye bye Espeon :(
NOTE: i still think a Fire type could be an option over Machamp* because gives the same opportunities in facing Gyms; so i considered that the first and most notable Fire types are Magmar (as mentioned) and even Growlithe that learns Bite and can be evolved in Arcanine (according to trading in Red to get Firestone) to get massive SpAtk and scary out Morty.
*: in this case you will use Machy only for the 3rd Gym.
#2: I confirm Ampharos as the Electric type which is absolutely necessary because by coming to Olivine City you will start facing a massive ammount of Water types (in which a great part consists on Tencool/Cruel, so only common weakness ELECTRIC) and is by far the greatest choice as learns Fire punch (GREAT at Indigo Plateu!) and is the most durable (other options are Magnemite and Voltorb).
#3: i would like to add the next part, which consist by reaching Blackthorn City to the Indigo plateu. Now we have:
Feraligatr
- Surf
- Ice punch
- Dynamic punch
- Dig
Fearow
- Drill peck
- Return
- Mud slap/Steel wing
- Fly
Machamp
- Cross chop
- Fire/Ice punch (or Energy Conc.)
- Strenght
- Rock smash
Ampharos
- Thunder (fixed)
- Fire punch
- Thunder wave
- Flash
I wish we could get the Super Rod and get the Rhydon given by the girl in Blackthorn city. In particular i have to note one thing: we will need an Earth type as soon as possible. Feraligatr must stop using Dig after the Rocket's! We have to find a Psychic type, or at least an Earth type, to STAB-out REAL Poison threats. In prticular Earth is the only aviable option to face Lt.Surge in Kanto, and we MUST use Tm26 in the Victory road!
I think that, in my run, i'm gonna trading a Dragonair lv.40 like if i had the Super Rod, and taking my massive Rhyno. But this is not in our discussion, because Super Rod is aviable only once in Kanto.
You know even if Rhydon is BEAST... It would not help that much against 8th Gym. So i consider... Why not.... A Pyloswine!!
Piloswine
- Blizzard (Goldenrod city)
- Earthquake (Victory road)
- Rest
- Sleep talk
The only problem is that Swinub comes at low level and requires grinding. The fact is we need Ice type to face the 8th Gym, and we need an Earth type to face the other part of the game. So this seems to me cool.
It cold be trained by Share Exp... Well i know this is a very strange pokemon, but i'm just asking you what do you think about it.
NOTE I think that even Jynx would be a great choice because it is Psychic so it solves the Poison problem too. The fact is that the 6th pokemon, anyway, should be Earth type because of Lt.Surge's match. Posing an Earth type means that the psychic component is now useless so i prefer Pyloswine even if Jynx is easier to train.
A always reccomand, anyway, my very pleased Espeon, but with Fearow it doesn't have a place in the team... And even magmar, whose place is occupied by Machamp but it does not get along well with Amphy.
By the way with Rhydon you will get a great team that has nothing to threat about, and you still are not using Fire os Psychic type! The fact is... It cannot be a wild Rhydon because it does not learn any other rock moves than Rollut which s*cks. You would have to take the one given by the girl in Blackthorn city and you will first need to reach the Silence Bridge (Lavandonia, Kanto). Then it will be used against Lt.Surge. It sounds like that Rhydon costs too efforts... (So why don't we consider Piloswine seriously?)
NOTE I also consider that an Earth type is now recommended but i don't assume considering wild Ryhorn because they only learn Rollout. Maybe, instead, why not a Golem? A Steelix would be also a good option but... I banned Steelix too. By the way i wanna purpose Pyloswine. This seems to me cool.
NOTE The sixt pokemon must be chosen in Kanto i think, it would be anyone. The 4-5 pokemon are these, and even the most considered ones:
CORE:
- Feraligatr
- Fearow
- Machamp
- Ampharos
Last part Addictions:
- Piloswine/Rhydon
- Jynx
- Anyone (Grinding/Share exp.)
Considerations:
- Espeon/Umbreon (by far better Espeon)
- Magmar
- Arcanine
- Gengar (WHY NOT?!?)
Banned pokemons (sorry)
- Abra (ANY form)
- NidoS
- Dratini (..)
- Cindaquil/Chikorita
- On/SteelIX
- Zub/Gol/CroBAT
- Lapras
Others:
- Golem
- Sandslash
- Arbok
- Victreebell
- (..) anything that is not samy type of something..
Tell me how to get this job very very very well done!!!
