Hello everyone. This is a team I’ve been planning, designing, and testing for some time now, though perhaps not as long as some of the more notable teams on this site. As a player new to the competitive battling scene with the advent of generation six, adjusting my pokemon playstyle to account for a developed metagame filled with actual players rather than predictable NPC’s has been a bit of a shock, although I’ve enjoyed making the transition immensely. I messed around with the random battles on pokemon showdown for a bit, just to get a feel for the system, before deciding that it was about time I get out there and design my own team.
The Team:
Now bear in mind, that as a player who’s very new to the competetive scene, I was unfamilliar with many of the pokemon that are so strong in the online metagame, preferring to use whatever “cool” and “awesome” pokemon I could find in the story portion of the games. So when it came to building a team, I looked to use two of my favourites.
The Land Shark has been one of my favourite pokemon since Cynthia 6-0’d me with it in my first run through platinum, and I knew right off the bat I wanted to use it. When I did some research and found out that Garchomp was no longer uber tier, but resting comfortably in OU, and I could even run Sand Veil without being that guy, I was ecstatic.
I briefly experimented with Mega Garchomp, but I just couldn’t get myself to feel comfortable with how slow mega evolving made Garchomp run. I wanted it to be fast. Really fast. I felt like I didn’t need it to be a set up sweeper, so I opted for a choice scarf to provide ultimate revenge killing capabilities and just outrun everything. The EV spread is ideal for brute forcing my way through most things, and allows me to outrace pretty much everything, while the naive nature ensures Fire Blast remains a viable move option, though it gives me little survivability against Special Sweepers. I’m only comfortable with this because my moveset can OHKO most fire based special sweepers, while the rest of my team can handle the dangerous water types (Starmie, Greninja) quite well. The moveset gives it good coverage against almost everything.
Dragon Claw is a powerful STAB attack that’ll take out almost any dragon, and I think is almost a guranteed OHKO with stealthrock support. It’s resisted by very few things (steel and fairy) and is almost always a safe way to get a lot of damage out on a predicted switch.
Stone Edge means Togekiss can’t wall it, and makes Garchomp a perfect counter to MegaZard-Y and Volcarona, both of which are special sweepers which my team might otherwise find hard to handle.
Earthquake is an even more powerful STAB attack, although you need to be careful they aren’t switching into anything it won’t hit.
Fire Blast is a surprise special attack which helps deal with Scizor, Ferrothorn, and Forretress quite nicely.
Of course, I couldn’t run my favourite Land Shark without the support of Godzilla.
Tyranitar is another pokemon that’s just always held a place in my heart. I mean, just look at it. It just screams cool and powerful. In this case, I utilize Tyranitar’s incredible base stats and outstanding physical damage output to perform the role of an anti-lead against most hazard setters.
This Tyranitar set is all about kicking up a sandstorm, and then bruteforcing my way through the opponents lead. Galvantual and Ariados? Sure, they’ll set up their sticky web. And immediately after they’ll take a stone edge to the face, and not even focus sash can save them when there’s a vicious sandstorm tearing at their skin/flesh/exoskeleton. Deoxys variants are destroyed by crunch, sash again doing nothing for them. Taunt leads expecting specially defensive utility Ttar receive a nasty surprise in the form of a brutal crunch or a Falcon Punch (read: fire punch) that’ll bring them from 100-0 instantly. Choice Band ensures that almost nothing survives a hit from this monster, and that most battles are starting 6-5 in my favour.
Tyranitar also acts as another strong counter to Volcarona and MegaZard-Y, and while you don’t want to switch into a bug buzz, switching into a solar beam will wreck MegaZard’s day completely. Fighting types, and anything with mach or bullet punch make Tyranitar nervous, but he’s typically not coming out or staying in against those anyway, and we have answers in the rest of the team. The sandstorm kicked up by Sand Stream also buffs Tyranitar’s special defense, allowing it to take hits it might not otherwise have been able to take.
Crunch deals with any pesky psychic types, and I really do mean any. The raw attack power provided by the stats, base damage, choice band, and STAB bonus means almost nothing with psychic typing save for walls like Bronzong is likely to survive a hit from this, and honestly, who uses Bronzong?
Pursuit is to deal with anything that finds Tyranitar scary and tries to run away. I haven’t been able to make great use of this move though, and I feel like it might not very effective on a choice set like this. I may switch it out for possibly earthquake to opt for more coverage, but I’m not sure.
Fire Punch wrecks a lot of things. It makes the life of a steel type pokemon very unpleasant, doing work against Scizor, Ferrothorn, and Forretress who other would find themselves in a very comfortable position against Tyranitar. It’s not a conventional move on him, but my team was lacking fire coverage, and a Falcon Punch from a Tyranitar is nothing to be laughed at. If a normal punch has the power to move mountains (according to the pokedex) how much power does a flaming punch of fiery destruction pack?
Stone Edge is pretty standard. It’s a very powerful rock STAB move that does a lot of damage to a lot of things. More coverage against Volcarona and MegaZard is never a bad thing I find, and honestly, if this hits anything super effective, that pokemon is going to be in a bad way. Plus, crithax.
Between Chomp and Godzilla, I had plenty of damage to smash things with, but I lacked hazard setting and hazard removal (stealth rocks aren’t a big deal for chomp or Ttar, but Talonflame and Gardevoir certainly didn’t like them, and spikes and toxic spikes are a big pain for the sandstorm pair), and didn’t have a defensive wall to bring in when I needed to take a hit. So I found Forretress.
I’ll be honest. This Forretress is every bit as badass as that picture makes him out to be. Forretress does work, that’s all there is to it.
With over 400 defensive at level 100, this thing is a defensive monster, crushing souls as it gyro balls physical attackers in the face and sprays stealth rocks all over their side of the field. Rapid spin ensures that whatever hazards the opponent set up before Tyranitar started ending lives don’t stay up to harm anything I want to sweep with, and volt switch is an amazing move on the predicted switch in to a spin blocker. Left overs means Forretress can stay in forever against physical attacker that isn’t well set up, and gyroball means they can’t safely set up without taking a good chunk of damage for it. It’s also worth noting that the sandstorm from Tyranitar only makes this things life easier, as the opponents pokemon take residual damage while forretress does not.
Rapid spin is obviously a necessity with the likes of Talonflame on my team. I can’t afford to leave rocks up without losing quite a bit of momentum with my sweepers.
Stealthrocks makes the jobs of Garchomp, Talonflame, and Gardevoir much easier, and is simply a necessity with the way the game is currently played.
Volt switch might seem odd, but it’s a great move to surprise spin blockers with, allowing me to toss a Tyranitar in the face of any ghost type they bring in, and have the guaranteed OHKO on any spinblocker by way of crunch, especially after stealth rock and volt switch damage.
Lastly, Gyroball gives a reliable method for Forretress to put out damage, making it potentially unsafe for sweepers to set up on, and making it a very good counter to the some of the scary fairy types out there. Obviously, we have 0 IV’s in speed to boost the moves effectiveness.
It’s very weak to fire, particularly the popular special attackers Volcarona and MegaZard-Y, who’ll take it out in one hit, but volt switch means decent prediction will allow you to do a bit of damage and counter them with a Garchomp the moment they switch in. Considering you should have rocks up on the field, they can only make that switch in once.
For other special attackers that threaten Forretress’s weak special bulk, we have this guy:
Don’t let the cute picture fool you, for this thing is a soul crushing monster. Gastrodon makes many of the dangerous special attackers that would otherwise threaten our team cry. Its stats might be subpar, but it’s defensive typing and ability makes it an outstanding counter/check to the pokemon I’m looking to deal with.
Gastrodon is a beast. Its ground typing makes it a perfectly safe switch in to thunder moves, despite the water typing, and its storm drain ability allows you to switch in AND set up with the storm drain special attack boost against water moves. I’ve affectionately given the beast a very accurate nickname, in honour of it fulfilling the one job I needed it to to an exquisite degree. Against this monster, Rotom-Wash is basically useless. Not only do you get to be that guy who switches a ground type into the volt switch, but once you’re in, the only thing hydro pump will be doing is making you into an even bigger monster. This thing drinks the tears of Rotom users as an energy drink. Will-O-Wisp is annoying, but it doesn’t do a lot to you with leftovers and recover, and toxic is more annoying. This Gastrodon is built specially defensive, as Forretress already exists to provide physical bulks, and all the things I want him to check/counter are built in special damage.
Gastro is also a great switch in to any water type moves that might come from the likes of Greninja, Azumaril, or Mega-Gyrados. You don’t want to stay in against the other physical attacks of Azumaril and Gyrados, as you’re not building physically bulky, but it’s a good way to absorb the first hit and then switch into something that can take the next and will have a better matchup against the threat. Tyranitars sandstorm from Sand Stream only helps Gastro too, as it forces the opponent to take residual damage while Gastro does not.
Scald is a great offensive water move for any defensive pokemon, as the high burn chance leads to so many lovely hax. It makes Gastro a great counter to heatran as well, as you can hit it with scald even if it still had a balloon.
Earth power is another good offensive move to run on gastro, as it does a lot of work to the electric and fire type special sweepers you want to switch into, particularly heatran if it doesn’t have a balloon up.
Toxic is great for stalling out threats you otherwise can’t deal with, particularly if they can’t deal with you. Between Gastro and Forretress, this team can go semi-stall against one threat if it needs to. It’s also great for forcing out sweepers as they try to set up on you, as the toxic damage combined with the damage from your own attacks will quickly become too much for them to handle.
Recover is just a great recovery move that helps makeup for Gastro’s rather lackluster actual bulk in stats, and allows it to stay in for a long time against things it’s walling, and stall out threats with toxic.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s definitely a bird.
You could understand why someone might be confused though. With Gale Wings, Talonflame might as well be a supersonic jet fighter. Your chances of outspeeding it are, afterall, basically nil. Talonflame obviously has its weakness. It doesn’t want to switch into stealth rocks ever, and so it needs rapid spin support courtesy of Forretress (Assuming Tyranitar doesn’t take out their hazard setter before it gets them out, if their lead is their hazard setter). It’s base stats aren’t the most incredible thing either. But that doesn’t matter to me, because priority on everything flying is absurd.
I actually run a bulky Talonflame set, with leftovers, roost, and bulk up. My EV spread looks to maximize special bulk with points in SDef and HP, while looking to outspeed the things it needs to with flare blitz and bulk up by way of the 60 extra points in speed. I realized right away, that while Talonflame answered quite a few of the problems I wanted to answer (dealing with Grass Types, particularly MegaSaur and Trevenant as well as posing as a second answer to dangerous fighting types and steel types) I didn’t need it to be a maxed our offensive physical suicide sweeper. I already had Garchomp and Tyranitar doing a LOT of physical damage for the team. So I went for the bulky, sustainy, set up sweeper Talonflame. Is it gimmicky? Maybe a little, but by god does it work.
Provided Tflame can be brought in safely (read: no stealth rocks, and not into a rock or water type move), it can set up on almost anything. Opponents who don’t expect the special bulk will waste a turn trying to hit Tflame with an ability that doesn’t do near as much as it should, and give you a free turn to bulk up, and once you get a few of those off, Talonflame becomes quite beefy. From this stage, priority brave birds and standard flare blitz’s are usually enough to end the game, while leftovers and the occasional priority roost allows you to shrug off the recoil.
Keep in mind, Talonflame still functions very well as a revenge killer without the set up, and you shouldn’t try to set up I find unless you’ve eliminated the checks/counters for it, or the set up will allow you to deal with your checks on your own. Priority brave bird does a lot of damage regardless, so don’t feel like you need to bulk up two or three times before you can use it.
Bulk Up makes Talonflame beefy and sets it up for sweeps.
Brave Bird receives priority from Gale Wings and can revenge kill almost anything, while being a very powerful move in its own right.
Roost also receives priority, and allows you to sustain yourself for a long time against special threats, as well as physical threats if you’ve gotten your bulk up’s off.
Flare blitz adds more fire coverage to my team, and allows talonflame to really threaten Ferrothorn and Forretress who would otherwise wall it well. Alternatively, will-o-wisp could be run to really negate incoming damage.
And finally we have slot number six. Filling out this spot was rather interesting, and quite a few pokemon have cycled through. Initially, there was a Starmie, back when Forretress was a Skarmory to function as an offensive rapid spinner. I didn’t like how lackluster Starmie felt on my team, and dropped it. From there, I experimented with support Florges and Sylveon. These worked better, but still didn’t seem to quite click with either what my team wanted to accomplish, or my own personal play style. Finally, I discovered this goddess.
I’m not quite sure why I didn’t think of her earlier, to be honest. I’ve always loved Gardevoir (it’s one of my all time favourites) and I can’t believe it never even crossed my mind. Regardless, a friend of mine asked if he could borrow my Gardevoirite to beat the elite four, and I was like, “Wow. Mega Gardevoir would be totally awesome here.” So I tried Mega-Gardevoir and I’ve loved it on the team ever since.
Gardevoir does a lot of awesome things, including answering a number of threats that I didn’t really have an answer to. It walks all over Terrakion and Keldeo, and while Gastro and Forretress could wall them pretty well before, Gardevoir can just sweep them. It also gives me a very powerful Fairy move that allows me to take advantage of the changes to the type chart and and grab some more good coverage for my team. It’s also very safe to switch into most fighting types, due to 4x resist against fighting and the fact that it’s usually faster than them, despite the lack of physical bulk. If it can set up, the coverage offered by fairy type hyper voice, psyshock, and focus blast is often enough to allow Gardevoir to sweep a match on its own with its immense special damage output, which helps compensate for the physical orientation of the rest of my team. The steel type weakness is dissapointing, meaning I can’t check physical lucario like I wish I could, and scizor can basically have its way with her, but Talonflame and Garchomp can handle anything Gardevoir can’t.
The EV spread and nature is focused on making Gardevoir outrun as many things as possible, while continuing to output a tremendous amount of damage. It’s also worth noting that Gardevoir doesn’t NEED to set up, as the unboosted damage from all her abilities is quite substantial. But if you get the opportunity, setting up a calm mind or two can basically give you the game.
Calm Mind: Our set up move. You only want to use it when it’s safe to get off. Fortunately, Gardevoir can be fairly safe against quite a few special attacking threats, and the special defense buff will make her even safer, meaning you can often sneak one in against them if you’re faster.
Hyper Voice: Pixillate boosts the damage and makes it fairy type, so Hyper Voice will be doing a LOT of damage.
Psyshock: Psyshock is a great way to get by special walls that they may send out to stop Gardevoir’s rampage. The damage isn’t as high as psychic, but hitting a special wall against its subpar physical defense means Gardevoir can potentially be very difficult to wall.
Focus Blast: Gardevoir’s answer to all the steel types looking to make her day miserable. That it also deals a ton of damage to rock types, normal types, and dark types is simply a bonus.
Also, aside from any actual team rating, if you guys could let me no how the formatting and content of the thread itself held up in comparison to other "Rate My Team" posts and whether or not I've met all the expected standards of such a thread, that would be amazing!
Thank you to everybody who helps me out.
Also, I would like to send out a special thanks to a buddy of mine, who played a bunch of test battles against this team (The record is 7-6 now in my favour. Whatcha gonna do about it?) and all the artists who's work I borrowed (read: copypasta'd off the internet) to make this look prettier. Oh, and obligatory thanks to gamefreak for making the actual game, and Smogon for making this site.
The Team:
Zyran: Garchomp
BaneOfTokyo: Tyranitar
What Even?: Forretress
FU Rotom: Gastrodon
420Blaze: Talonflame
Minerva: Gardevoir-Mega
BaneOfTokyo: Tyranitar
What Even?: Forretress
FU Rotom: Gastrodon
420Blaze: Talonflame
Minerva: Gardevoir-Mega
Now bear in mind, that as a player who’s very new to the competetive scene, I was unfamilliar with many of the pokemon that are so strong in the online metagame, preferring to use whatever “cool” and “awesome” pokemon I could find in the story portion of the games. So when it came to building a team, I looked to use two of my favourites.
The Land Shark has been one of my favourite pokemon since Cynthia 6-0’d me with it in my first run through platinum, and I knew right off the bat I wanted to use it. When I did some research and found out that Garchomp was no longer uber tier, but resting comfortably in OU, and I could even run Sand Veil without being that guy, I was ecstatic.
Zyran (Garchomp) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Naive Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Naive Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
I briefly experimented with Mega Garchomp, but I just couldn’t get myself to feel comfortable with how slow mega evolving made Garchomp run. I wanted it to be fast. Really fast. I felt like I didn’t need it to be a set up sweeper, so I opted for a choice scarf to provide ultimate revenge killing capabilities and just outrun everything. The EV spread is ideal for brute forcing my way through most things, and allows me to outrace pretty much everything, while the naive nature ensures Fire Blast remains a viable move option, though it gives me little survivability against Special Sweepers. I’m only comfortable with this because my moveset can OHKO most fire based special sweepers, while the rest of my team can handle the dangerous water types (Starmie, Greninja) quite well. The moveset gives it good coverage against almost everything.
Dragon Claw is a powerful STAB attack that’ll take out almost any dragon, and I think is almost a guranteed OHKO with stealthrock support. It’s resisted by very few things (steel and fairy) and is almost always a safe way to get a lot of damage out on a predicted switch.
Stone Edge means Togekiss can’t wall it, and makes Garchomp a perfect counter to MegaZard-Y and Volcarona, both of which are special sweepers which my team might otherwise find hard to handle.
Earthquake is an even more powerful STAB attack, although you need to be careful they aren’t switching into anything it won’t hit.
Fire Blast is a surprise special attack which helps deal with Scizor, Ferrothorn, and Forretress quite nicely.
Of course, I couldn’t run my favourite Land Shark without the support of Godzilla.
Tyranitar is another pokemon that’s just always held a place in my heart. I mean, just look at it. It just screams cool and powerful. In this case, I utilize Tyranitar’s incredible base stats and outstanding physical damage output to perform the role of an anti-lead against most hazard setters.
BaneOfTokyo (Tyranitar) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 180 HP / 76 Spd / 252 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Fire Punch
- Stone Edge
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 180 HP / 76 Spd / 252 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Fire Punch
- Stone Edge
This Tyranitar set is all about kicking up a sandstorm, and then bruteforcing my way through the opponents lead. Galvantual and Ariados? Sure, they’ll set up their sticky web. And immediately after they’ll take a stone edge to the face, and not even focus sash can save them when there’s a vicious sandstorm tearing at their skin/flesh/exoskeleton. Deoxys variants are destroyed by crunch, sash again doing nothing for them. Taunt leads expecting specially defensive utility Ttar receive a nasty surprise in the form of a brutal crunch or a Falcon Punch (read: fire punch) that’ll bring them from 100-0 instantly. Choice Band ensures that almost nothing survives a hit from this monster, and that most battles are starting 6-5 in my favour.
Tyranitar also acts as another strong counter to Volcarona and MegaZard-Y, and while you don’t want to switch into a bug buzz, switching into a solar beam will wreck MegaZard’s day completely. Fighting types, and anything with mach or bullet punch make Tyranitar nervous, but he’s typically not coming out or staying in against those anyway, and we have answers in the rest of the team. The sandstorm kicked up by Sand Stream also buffs Tyranitar’s special defense, allowing it to take hits it might not otherwise have been able to take.
Crunch deals with any pesky psychic types, and I really do mean any. The raw attack power provided by the stats, base damage, choice band, and STAB bonus means almost nothing with psychic typing save for walls like Bronzong is likely to survive a hit from this, and honestly, who uses Bronzong?
Pursuit is to deal with anything that finds Tyranitar scary and tries to run away. I haven’t been able to make great use of this move though, and I feel like it might not very effective on a choice set like this. I may switch it out for possibly earthquake to opt for more coverage, but I’m not sure.
Fire Punch wrecks a lot of things. It makes the life of a steel type pokemon very unpleasant, doing work against Scizor, Ferrothorn, and Forretress who other would find themselves in a very comfortable position against Tyranitar. It’s not a conventional move on him, but my team was lacking fire coverage, and a Falcon Punch from a Tyranitar is nothing to be laughed at. If a normal punch has the power to move mountains (according to the pokedex) how much power does a flaming punch of fiery destruction pack?
Stone Edge is pretty standard. It’s a very powerful rock STAB move that does a lot of damage to a lot of things. More coverage against Volcarona and MegaZard is never a bad thing I find, and honestly, if this hits anything super effective, that pokemon is going to be in a bad way. Plus, crithax.
Between Chomp and Godzilla, I had plenty of damage to smash things with, but I lacked hazard setting and hazard removal (stealth rocks aren’t a big deal for chomp or Ttar, but Talonflame and Gardevoir certainly didn’t like them, and spikes and toxic spikes are a big pain for the sandstorm pair), and didn’t have a defensive wall to bring in when I needed to take a hit. So I found Forretress.
I’ll be honest. This Forretress is every bit as badass as that picture makes him out to be. Forretress does work, that’s all there is to it.
What Even? (Forretress) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Def / 4 SDef / 252 HP
Relaxed Nature
IVs worth noting: 0 Spd
- Rapid Spin
- Stealth Rock
- Volt Switch
- Gyro Ball
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Def / 4 SDef / 252 HP
Relaxed Nature
IVs worth noting: 0 Spd
- Rapid Spin
- Stealth Rock
- Volt Switch
- Gyro Ball
With over 400 defensive at level 100, this thing is a defensive monster, crushing souls as it gyro balls physical attackers in the face and sprays stealth rocks all over their side of the field. Rapid spin ensures that whatever hazards the opponent set up before Tyranitar started ending lives don’t stay up to harm anything I want to sweep with, and volt switch is an amazing move on the predicted switch in to a spin blocker. Left overs means Forretress can stay in forever against physical attacker that isn’t well set up, and gyroball means they can’t safely set up without taking a good chunk of damage for it. It’s also worth noting that the sandstorm from Tyranitar only makes this things life easier, as the opponents pokemon take residual damage while forretress does not.
Rapid spin is obviously a necessity with the likes of Talonflame on my team. I can’t afford to leave rocks up without losing quite a bit of momentum with my sweepers.
Stealthrocks makes the jobs of Garchomp, Talonflame, and Gardevoir much easier, and is simply a necessity with the way the game is currently played.
Volt switch might seem odd, but it’s a great move to surprise spin blockers with, allowing me to toss a Tyranitar in the face of any ghost type they bring in, and have the guaranteed OHKO on any spinblocker by way of crunch, especially after stealth rock and volt switch damage.
Lastly, Gyroball gives a reliable method for Forretress to put out damage, making it potentially unsafe for sweepers to set up on, and making it a very good counter to the some of the scary fairy types out there. Obviously, we have 0 IV’s in speed to boost the moves effectiveness.
It’s very weak to fire, particularly the popular special attackers Volcarona and MegaZard-Y, who’ll take it out in one hit, but volt switch means decent prediction will allow you to do a bit of damage and counter them with a Garchomp the moment they switch in. Considering you should have rocks up on the field, they can only make that switch in once.
For other special attackers that threaten Forretress’s weak special bulk, we have this guy:
Don’t let the cute picture fool you, for this thing is a soul crushing monster. Gastrodon makes many of the dangerous special attackers that would otherwise threaten our team cry. Its stats might be subpar, but it’s defensive typing and ability makes it an outstanding counter/check to the pokemon I’m looking to deal with.
FU ROTOM-W (Gastrodon) @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Def
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Earth Power
- Toxic
- Recover
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Def
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Earth Power
- Toxic
- Recover
Gastrodon is a beast. Its ground typing makes it a perfectly safe switch in to thunder moves, despite the water typing, and its storm drain ability allows you to switch in AND set up with the storm drain special attack boost against water moves. I’ve affectionately given the beast a very accurate nickname, in honour of it fulfilling the one job I needed it to to an exquisite degree. Against this monster, Rotom-Wash is basically useless. Not only do you get to be that guy who switches a ground type into the volt switch, but once you’re in, the only thing hydro pump will be doing is making you into an even bigger monster. This thing drinks the tears of Rotom users as an energy drink. Will-O-Wisp is annoying, but it doesn’t do a lot to you with leftovers and recover, and toxic is more annoying. This Gastrodon is built specially defensive, as Forretress already exists to provide physical bulks, and all the things I want him to check/counter are built in special damage.
Gastro is also a great switch in to any water type moves that might come from the likes of Greninja, Azumaril, or Mega-Gyrados. You don’t want to stay in against the other physical attacks of Azumaril and Gyrados, as you’re not building physically bulky, but it’s a good way to absorb the first hit and then switch into something that can take the next and will have a better matchup against the threat. Tyranitars sandstorm from Sand Stream only helps Gastro too, as it forces the opponent to take residual damage while Gastro does not.
Scald is a great offensive water move for any defensive pokemon, as the high burn chance leads to so many lovely hax. It makes Gastro a great counter to heatran as well, as you can hit it with scald even if it still had a balloon.
Earth power is another good offensive move to run on gastro, as it does a lot of work to the electric and fire type special sweepers you want to switch into, particularly heatran if it doesn’t have a balloon up.
Toxic is great for stalling out threats you otherwise can’t deal with, particularly if they can’t deal with you. Between Gastro and Forretress, this team can go semi-stall against one threat if it needs to. It’s also great for forcing out sweepers as they try to set up on you, as the toxic damage combined with the damage from your own attacks will quickly become too much for them to handle.
Recover is just a great recovery move that helps makeup for Gastro’s rather lackluster actual bulk in stats, and allows it to stay in for a long time against things it’s walling, and stall out threats with toxic.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s definitely a bird.
You could understand why someone might be confused though. With Gale Wings, Talonflame might as well be a supersonic jet fighter. Your chances of outspeeding it are, afterall, basically nil. Talonflame obviously has its weakness. It doesn’t want to switch into stealth rocks ever, and so it needs rapid spin support courtesy of Forretress (Assuming Tyranitar doesn’t take out their hazard setter before it gets them out, if their lead is their hazard setter). It’s base stats aren’t the most incredible thing either. But that doesn’t matter to me, because priority on everything flying is absurd.
420Blaze (Talonflame) @ Leftovers
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 176 HP / 252 SDef / 80 Spd
Careful Nature
- Bulk Up
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Flare Blitz
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 176 HP / 252 SDef / 80 Spd
Careful Nature
- Bulk Up
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Flare Blitz
I actually run a bulky Talonflame set, with leftovers, roost, and bulk up. My EV spread looks to maximize special bulk with points in SDef and HP, while looking to outspeed the things it needs to with flare blitz and bulk up by way of the 60 extra points in speed. I realized right away, that while Talonflame answered quite a few of the problems I wanted to answer (dealing with Grass Types, particularly MegaSaur and Trevenant as well as posing as a second answer to dangerous fighting types and steel types) I didn’t need it to be a maxed our offensive physical suicide sweeper. I already had Garchomp and Tyranitar doing a LOT of physical damage for the team. So I went for the bulky, sustainy, set up sweeper Talonflame. Is it gimmicky? Maybe a little, but by god does it work.
Provided Tflame can be brought in safely (read: no stealth rocks, and not into a rock or water type move), it can set up on almost anything. Opponents who don’t expect the special bulk will waste a turn trying to hit Tflame with an ability that doesn’t do near as much as it should, and give you a free turn to bulk up, and once you get a few of those off, Talonflame becomes quite beefy. From this stage, priority brave birds and standard flare blitz’s are usually enough to end the game, while leftovers and the occasional priority roost allows you to shrug off the recoil.
Keep in mind, Talonflame still functions very well as a revenge killer without the set up, and you shouldn’t try to set up I find unless you’ve eliminated the checks/counters for it, or the set up will allow you to deal with your checks on your own. Priority brave bird does a lot of damage regardless, so don’t feel like you need to bulk up two or three times before you can use it.
Bulk Up makes Talonflame beefy and sets it up for sweeps.
Brave Bird receives priority from Gale Wings and can revenge kill almost anything, while being a very powerful move in its own right.
Roost also receives priority, and allows you to sustain yourself for a long time against special threats, as well as physical threats if you’ve gotten your bulk up’s off.
Flare blitz adds more fire coverage to my team, and allows talonflame to really threaten Ferrothorn and Forretress who would otherwise wall it well. Alternatively, will-o-wisp could be run to really negate incoming damage.
And finally we have slot number six. Filling out this spot was rather interesting, and quite a few pokemon have cycled through. Initially, there was a Starmie, back when Forretress was a Skarmory to function as an offensive rapid spinner. I didn’t like how lackluster Starmie felt on my team, and dropped it. From there, I experimented with support Florges and Sylveon. These worked better, but still didn’t seem to quite click with either what my team wanted to accomplish, or my own personal play style. Finally, I discovered this goddess.
I’m not quite sure why I didn’t think of her earlier, to be honest. I’ve always loved Gardevoir (it’s one of my all time favourites) and I can’t believe it never even crossed my mind. Regardless, a friend of mine asked if he could borrow my Gardevoirite to beat the elite four, and I was like, “Wow. Mega Gardevoir would be totally awesome here.” So I tried Mega-Gardevoir and I’ve loved it on the team ever since.
Minerva @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace (turns into Pixillate)
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
Ability: Trace (turns into Pixillate)
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
Gardevoir does a lot of awesome things, including answering a number of threats that I didn’t really have an answer to. It walks all over Terrakion and Keldeo, and while Gastro and Forretress could wall them pretty well before, Gardevoir can just sweep them. It also gives me a very powerful Fairy move that allows me to take advantage of the changes to the type chart and and grab some more good coverage for my team. It’s also very safe to switch into most fighting types, due to 4x resist against fighting and the fact that it’s usually faster than them, despite the lack of physical bulk. If it can set up, the coverage offered by fairy type hyper voice, psyshock, and focus blast is often enough to allow Gardevoir to sweep a match on its own with its immense special damage output, which helps compensate for the physical orientation of the rest of my team. The steel type weakness is dissapointing, meaning I can’t check physical lucario like I wish I could, and scizor can basically have its way with her, but Talonflame and Garchomp can handle anything Gardevoir can’t.
The EV spread and nature is focused on making Gardevoir outrun as many things as possible, while continuing to output a tremendous amount of damage. It’s also worth noting that Gardevoir doesn’t NEED to set up, as the unboosted damage from all her abilities is quite substantial. But if you get the opportunity, setting up a calm mind or two can basically give you the game.
Calm Mind: Our set up move. You only want to use it when it’s safe to get off. Fortunately, Gardevoir can be fairly safe against quite a few special attacking threats, and the special defense buff will make her even safer, meaning you can often sneak one in against them if you’re faster.
Hyper Voice: Pixillate boosts the damage and makes it fairy type, so Hyper Voice will be doing a LOT of damage.
Psyshock: Psyshock is a great way to get by special walls that they may send out to stop Gardevoir’s rampage. The damage isn’t as high as psychic, but hitting a special wall against its subpar physical defense means Gardevoir can potentially be very difficult to wall.
Focus Blast: Gardevoir’s answer to all the steel types looking to make her day miserable. That it also deals a ton of damage to rock types, normal types, and dark types is simply a bonus.
A replay of the team in action. That I’m very new as a player shines through her I think, as you’ll see quite a few misplays on my side of the map, but the team carries me, and I think the strength of Talonflame and Forretress are particularly well displayed here, though Tyranitar underperforms a bit, entirely due to player error. This is taken from before I realized Gardevoir could learn hyper voice, so keep that in mind.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-106111383
Another replay of the team in action. This time it's showcasing the power of Banded Tyranitar as an antilead and the power of specially defensive bulky Talonflame as a set up sweeper.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-106247940
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-106111383
Another replay of the team in action. This time it's showcasing the power of Banded Tyranitar as an antilead and the power of specially defensive bulky Talonflame as a set up sweeper.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-106247940
Also, aside from any actual team rating, if you guys could let me no how the formatting and content of the thread itself held up in comparison to other "Rate My Team" posts and whether or not I've met all the expected standards of such a thread, that would be amazing!
Thank you to everybody who helps me out.
Also, I would like to send out a special thanks to a buddy of mine, who played a bunch of test battles against this team (The record is 7-6 now in my favour. Whatcha gonna do about it?) and all the artists who's work I borrowed (read: copypasta'd off the internet) to make this look prettier. Oh, and obligatory thanks to gamefreak for making the actual game, and Smogon for making this site.
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