My first team

[91sayhola91]

well, I joined Smogon community less than a month ago and decided that my team is ready to be rated by pros.

Here is my evil team that I came up with:

Crobat (lead) with lum berry

Nature: hasty

Ability: Inner focus

EV:
HP 4
Attack 252
Speed 252

Moves:
U-Turn
Brave Bird
Confuse Ray
Roost

He is my beast. He easily rapes machamp with STAB Brave Bird. Only once did Machamp escaped from Crobat's wrath.
u-turn is to deal dmg and switch at the same time. If I get lucky, I can land crit hit on Azelf with U-Turn, turning annoying beast into useless piece of floating meat with spent focus sash, or ohko if he doesn't have it. Either way, focus sash isn't much problem for crobat. XD
Roost is there to allow Crobat to hurt more things. Sometimes roost can be used to get rid of fly typing momentarily, in order to save him from otherwise inevitable ohkos.
Now, Confuse Ray might make people go outraged, sreaming, "WHERE IS THE IMBA TAUNT?" Well here is my problem with taunt. Lets say I used taunt to Azelf cause I thought that beast was going to use stealth rock. But instead, Azelf decided to ohko Crobat with Psychic. Now, if I used Confuse Ray, I now have a way to cover both damaging and non-damaging moves. Obviously, I would use U-Turn on Azelf, but my point is that Confuse Ray can cover more range of moves.



Bronzong with Macho brace

Nature: Sassy

Ability: Levitate

EV:
HP 252
Attack 86 (only 84 counts)
Defense 80
SpD 92
Speed IV: 0

Moves:
Stealth Rock
Trick
Trick Room
Gyro Ball

Role of Bronzong's main job is to tank puny attacks that barely scratch him, set up Stealth Rock, damage fast pokemon with Gyro Ball, and steal Leftover in exchange for Macho Brace. Of course, I can't always choose the item that I will steal, but I can cripple enemy's speed. Trick Room is the icing on the cake, allowing Bronzong to strike first and destroy dragon dancers and other fast pokemons.
There are times Trick Room backfires on me though, so I should be careful of how I use it.

Stat was distributed to give general cover against any kind of attack, but leans toward SpD more. Speed IV is 0 so Bronzong can own harder with Gyro Ball.


Swampert with Leftovers

Nature: Careful

Ability: Torrent

EV:
HP 252
Attack 216
Defense 40

Moves:
Curse
Waterfall
Rest
Sleep talk

Traditional resttalker without any change. Quite good at what he does, stalling and then proceeding to destroying everything at sight.
But Swampert plays more role than cursing. Many occasions, I send Swampert out to absorb electric attacks.


Blissey with Leftover

Nature: Impish

Ability: Natural Cure

EV:
HP 248
Defense 252
Speed 8

Moves:
thunder Wave
Toxic
Seismic Toss
Softboiled

Double disable blissey. Only Steelix walls it. And you don't see Steelix often. Everything else, with enough prediction, will be begging for Heal Bell or Armoratherapy.
Seismic Toss is always a pain to every types of enemy but ghost type. Softboiled keeps Blissey pull off its walling ability.
If you paid particular attention to Speed, you will notice 8 Ev instead of 4. What I realized is that if I were to put 1 more EV into the pokemon, it will outrun same pokemon with I-Got-It-Off-Of-Smogon-Website EV.


Jirachi with Leftover

Nature: Timid

Ability: Serence Grace

EV:
HP 76
Speed 180
SpA 252

Moves:
Cosmic Power
Charge Beam
Psychic
Wish

My set up destroyer. Cosmic Power to beef up this babe, and then charge beam to raise its special attack. Wish one turn before I will be in pinch, and psychic away whenever I can ohko.
Once its set up, it will destroy anything.I haven't seen anything that can wall both electric and psychic typing attacks.


Arcanine with Choice Band

Nature: Adamant

Ability: Intimate

EV:
HP 4
Attack 252
Speed 252

Moves:
Extreme Speed
Flare Blitz
Reversal
Crunch

My choice bander. Extremespeed to outspeed many pokemons, Crunch, and Flare Blitz for coverage, and Reversal for when Flare Blitz's recoil kicks in enough. Problem is, I haven't been able to test Reversal well enough, which means reversal isn't really working well.

I can easily say Arcanine can be switched with another pokemon if he can't prove himself.

I am open to any criticism, so feel free to launch at them, as long as they aren't too mean... because I will cry if you are mean.....

Anyways, if I left out some stuff that you guys want to know, just ask and I will provide with my best knowledge.

As I was typing RMT, I was able to see few changes, but didn't apply here because I haven't tried change yet.

Thank you and don't be mean to me~~




threat list:

Leads:

Green is okay, orange is bit problematic, red is hard to counter.

Machamp: usually gets ohkoed by Crobat. If not, Crobat dies unless Stone Edge misses, but Arcanine can take care of him with Extremespeed.

Azelf: I can rarely ohko Azelf because Focus Sash is usually the main item on Azelf. But I have Arcanine who can burn off rest of Azelf's HP with Extremespeed.

Weavile: I have to manually switch Crobat if I don't want ohko from him. Luckily, Bronzong can shoo him away with Gyro Ball, as many Weavile user uses Taunt because they expect Stealth Rock. Free hit there XD
But I can't kill him with that. It simply means that Weavile is still there to bother me later on.

Skarmory: I hate him. There is no other way to put it. I send Arcanine, Skarmory uses free turn to throw stealth rock or spikes. And then it suddenly becomes Heatran and takes Flare Blitz with delight and flash fire goes into effect. I go fml, and I know I got no other option but to send out Blissey and wish for some luck. I may be exaggerating, but Skarmory is a huge annoyance to me. I hate him with passion, and if I were ever to return Crobat's Confuse Ray back to Taunt, Skarmory is the sole reason behind it. Hard to counter and really hard to kill.

Ninjask: Surprised that he is orange? He can protect and substitute. If He chooses to substitute, I still have recoil damage done to myself. When he baton passes, the only thing I can do is pray for non-metal pokemon. But if Brave bird were to hit, Ninjask is out of picture, even if focus sash goes into effect since I will U-Turn Bronzong Stealth Rock combo on him. Once baton passed, there is no turning back for Ninjask.

Aerodactyl: If my lead was Skarmory, no problem. Since its Crobat, very big problem. Moveset wise, Aerodactyl is bound to rape Crobat. Same speed stat means my Crobat has no lead against him. Luckily, manual switch Bronzong is there to save the day.

Metagross: He is hard to counter, but not impossible. Arcanine should be reserved because of Heatran threat, so obvious choice would be either Swampert or Bronzong. Even then, he won't get killed and has the possibility of Explosion. If he isn't suicide lead, it means he can come back and haunt me later if my Arcanine is gone.

Infernape: If bulkier Machamp can't handle Crobat, what makes you think that Infernape can?

Swampert: I need grass knot. Maybe I should change Arcanine and get a pokemon that learns grass knot.

Hippowdon: Same problem as Swampert. I keep Crobat only because he has proved to be really useful even if switched out and played later on.

Roserade: she can't win against Crobat no matter what because of Lum Berry and Brave Bird.



Offensive:
Gyarados: Reasonably annoying, but I can set up Jirachi while Gyarados sets itself up. With charge beam at disposal, I usually triumph XD. Swampert does tricks too, but with less effectiveness. No matter what, Gyarados remains problematic if something were to go wrong.

More will be updated soon

 

[scarloc]

tbh, i don't know what your team is trying to do... It looks like trick room at first with bronzong but looking closer it seems to be balanced with aracanine and Jirachi. but never mind. the team synergy is good and there is nothing i can really comment on there, except for the fact Choice Scarf users are a threat out pacing your pokes, and killing them one by one.
You really need to get your team fixed. Is it trick room, or stall or balanced

 

[91sayhola91]

You really need to get your team fixed. Is it trick room, or stall or balanced

I tried to create balance team, and Trick Room is usually for the sake of Bronzong going before other pokemons or outspeeding faster pokemons. For example, on Bronzong, Gyarados tries to set up on him. If I Trick Room before Gyarados comes in, I will change to Jirachi and spam Charge Beams. Jirachi will usually go first since Gyarados usually DD with the free turn it receives.

And you are somewhat right about choice scarf users X<

With correct prediction, there is no problem, but they tend to be problematic for me on many occasions.
Any suggestion on how to counter Choice Scarf?

 

[Insularity]

Really, Bronzong is the one "what's he doing" on your team. Generally, Trick Room needs a whole team to be useful, and if not it will end up backfiring. And, remember, Macho Brace is useful on Zong because of Gyro Ball, so Trick is just redundant. I recommend switching to Skarmory, as the both share the ground immunity, can still set up Stealth Rock for you, and can also Phaze and do noticeable damage.

For Jirachi, I'm not thinking that Charge Beam+Psychic is very good coverage- against Tar and most other Darks, Psychic is useless and Charge Beam won't do nearly enough damage, so I'm recommending, though not as strongly as Skarmory, that you replace Cosmic Power and Charge Beam for Calm Mind, and add a move with better coverage.

Oh well, that's all I have. Good luck on your team!

 

[NightShadow]

I tried to create balance team, and Trick Room is usually for the sake of Bronzong going before other pokemons or outspeeding faster pokemons. For example, on Bronzong, Gyarados tries to set up on him. If I Trick Room before Gyarados comes in, I will change to Jirachi and spam Charge Beams. Jirachi will usually go first since Gyarados usually DD with the free turn it receives.

And you are somewhat right about choice scarf users X<

With correct prediction, there is no problem, but they tend to be problematic for me on many occasions.
Any suggestion on how to counter Choice Scarf?

this is wrong.

turn 1 (assuming bronzong is already in field):
xxx player switched in gyarados
bronzong used trick room
dimensions are twisted blah blah blah.

turn 2
xxx2 player switched in jirachi
gyarados used dragon dance
+1 atk +1 spe

turn 3
jirachi used charge beam
(does 56.6% to 66.5% to gyarados. no KO even with SR)
gyarados used earthquake
(does 125.6%-148.3% to jirachi. bye bye)

then it proceeds to destroy most of your team.

tbh, scarloc is right. this team is just random pokes dumped together without any thought about the synergy or even moves. if you're new to battling, just use the smogon sets.

 

[91sayhola91]

Really, Bronzong is the one "what's he doing" on your team. Generally, Trick Room needs a whole team to be useful, and if not it will end up backfiring. And, remember, Macho Brace is useful on Zong because of Gyro Ball, so Trick is just redundant. I recommend switching to Skarmory, as the both share the ground immunity, can still set up Stealth Rock for you, and can also Phaze and do noticeable damage.

For Jirachi, I'm not thinking that Charge Beam+Psychic is very good coverage- against Tar and most other Darks, Psychic is useless and Charge Beam won't do nearly enough damage, so I'm recommending, though not as strongly as Skarmory, that you replace Cosmic Power and Charge Beam for Calm Mind, and add a move with better coverage.

Oh well, that's all I have. Good luck on your team!

I do know Macho Brace benefits me with Gyro Ball damage. Reason why I have Trick is to absorb other people's Trick and to cripple pokemon that will otherwise own me. If I were to cripple a pokemon, it would be done before Bronzong faints.
But you are right about Trick Room. There were few cases where I allowed it to backfire on me.
Should I still change Bronzong to Skarmory? If so, what move set should I use?

this is wrong.

turn 1 (assuming bronzong is already in field):
xxx player switched in gyarados
bronzong used trick room
dimensions are twisted blah blah blah.

turn 2
xxx2 player switched in jirachi
gyarados used dragon dance
+1 atk +1 spe

turn 3
jirachi used charge beam
(does 56.6% to 66.5% to gyarados. no KO even with SR)
gyarados used earthquake
(does 125.6%-148.3% to jirachi. bye bye)

then it proceeds to destroy most of your team.

tbh, scarloc is right. this team is just random pokes dumped together without any thought about the synergy or even moves. if you're new to battling, just use the smogon sets.

About Jirachi, I think I didn't see that scenario because I didn't play long enough. So I tried to think of my way around it then thought of Arcanine. I used damage calculator to see how much damage would Arcanine do to Gyarados with Extremespeed after Gyara was hit with Charge Beam. (I assumed you used Offensive Dragon build)
Damage came out to be 42.6% to 50.2%. So unless I get really unlucky, I can usually revenge kill Gyarados with Arcanine. Is it still bad to lose Jirachi to Gyarados even if I can revenge kill it?

That problem aside, you said my team has no synergy, but you didn't really explain why. can you be more specific so I can fix the problem plz? thank you XD

 

[Insularity]

I think what NightShadow means is that your team has no common goal. Say, in a stall team, the goal will be do resist and take minimum damage from all attacks. For a team based around DDGyara, the team will try to remove Stealth Rock to make Gyara better, and to eliminate Gyara's counters. I'm not sure whether your team attempts to help Rachi or Pert, but both of them have counters that the rest of your team won't support.

Personally, I would suggest a Specially Defensive Skarmory, as I have found them both to be the hardest to defeat and the easiest to use, maximising Special Defense with a Roost/SR/Brave Bird and Whirlwind.