New Pokemon player, First Team

Hey guys, this is my first pokemon game and I recently got really into it. So I looked up some good sites to learn found this place. That pokemon strategies section...Holy Crap, that must have taken forever but it's been an amazing help. I have a friend at school who plays too but I dominate him every time, thanks to this site and Serebii.

But beating my noob friend does not make me even remotely good, so I was looking for help on building a team. I know not all pokemon were made equal but I have a soft spot for a couple and don't want to replace them, (namely Poliwrath and Cradily). But any advice on ev's or items or attacks you think would help would be great :) and any help on who I should lead with, I really have no idea. If it's absolutely necessary tell me, but i don't do iv's. I like pokemon but not that much, so hp is out.

So here they are in no particular order:

Dragonite
Item: Life Orb/Choice Band/Choice Scarf
60HP/250ATK/190SPD Adamant/Jolly
Outrage
Earthquake
Fire Punch
Thunder Punch

I'm not really very good at predicting a lot of switches so that kind of turned me off to Choice Band, but I have Outrage, so since I'm locked in to that might as well have that extra boost. Or possibly even a Choice Scarf, since Dragonite's speed isn't all that high, I would change the evs if I did choose Choice Scarf, though I don't have any idea how exactly I would change them. Outrage and Earthquake isn't resisted by anything except Skarmory so thats why I have Thunderpunch. I don't know why I have Fire Punch, I guess it's just a cool attack.

Lucario
Item: Life Orb/Choice Specs/Choice Scarf
250SPA/250SPD Modest/Timid
Aura Sphere
Dark Pulse
Vacuum Wave
Dragon Pulse

Aura Sphere is my STAB and Dark Pulse hits the psychic and ghost types. Vacuum Wave is cool to have for pokemon that it kills in one hit, which is really only Weavile, but that's a pretty nice pokemon to have a one hit priority move for. Once again, I really don't know why I have dragon pulse, I guess it hits a lot of pokemon for neutral damage, so that's cool, but Aura Sphere and Dark Pulse probably hit the same on most pokemon. Also I'm not sure for item either. I have vacuum wave, so I wasn't sure if I needed a Choice Scarf, even though his speed is only 90. And I like to be able to switch attacks, so I that's why I like Life Orb.

Hippowdon
Item: Leftovers
252HP/252DEF Impish
Earthquake
Ice Fang
Roar
Slack Off

This guy is straight from the smogon guides thing. I wanted to have Cradily and it said have sandstorm going. I don't like Tyranitar so I picked this guy, he seems to be a pretty good physical wall so he complements Cradily too. I gave him Roar because I gave Cradily Stealth Rock. Ice Fang is for fliers who dodge the Earthquake. I took the evs and stuff from the guide so I think those are good, unless any of you guys have a suggestion.

Cradily
Item: Leftovers
250HP/100DEF/150SDEF Careful
Toxic
Recover
Earthquake
Stealth Rock

This is one of my favorite pokemon. I have toxic because Cradily isn't really a very good attacker. Recover is nice to have since Cradily has suction cups and nice defenses so health recovery good. Earthquake is there since steels and poisons are immune to toxic. I think I would just switch if skarmory or weezing came in anyways so even though I can't hurt them it's not a big deal. And stealth rock supports this nice synergy I have with Hippowdon. Unfortunately for Cradily, he has an Ice weakness, and that's not good for a special tank, so that's why I got this next guy.

Empoleon
Item: Leftovers
250HP/250SDEF Calm
Surf
Ice Beam/Grass Knot
Rest
Sleep Talk

Empoleon has a 4x ice resistance so he and Cradily block special attackers pretty well. Empoleon is weak to electric, but that's okay because Cradily resists electric, all is well haha. Rest and Sleep Talk is a cool little combo, that I'm surprised I never thought of, thanks again to the smogon guide for giving me the idea. Surf and Ice Beam are 2 nice attacks together. Water types stop me, which is kind of annoying since I'm using Empleon to block Ice Beam on Cradily, and pretty much all water pokemon have Ice Beam, so maybe Grass Knot is my best bet.

Poliwrath
Item: Leftovers/Muscle Band/ ???
250HP/250ATK Adamant
Focus Punch
Substitute
Hypnosis
Waterfall/Rock Slide/Ice Punch

I have always loved Poliwrath and was wondering how best to use him for a while. Luckily I stumbled upon a youtube video of a guy named mtgxerxes, maybe some of you guys have heard of him, he does nice little commentary on his battle videos, so you can learn from his battles whcih is nice. He has a Breloom that is really cool, it knows Focus Punch, Sub, Hypnosis, and Seed Bomb, and I loved how he sets up with it and sweeps, looks like a fun set. I looked in Poliwrath's moveset and found Hypnosis and I almost peed my pants in excitement (dramatization). So here's my set. The ev's are something random I made, I don't know what gave me the idea he didn't need any speed...it's pretty low. Waterfall gets STAB, but Rock Slide and Ice Punch help since flying types resist focus punch, now that I think about it, mabye xerxes' breloom could use one of those attacks haha.

And that's my team, please do criticize it, call me a noob, etc... That's why I'm here. But please be constructive as you comment on my inexperience :)
 
hmm my first suggestion is barrier > stealth rock/EQ on cradily, since you have hippowdon (SS raises cradilys Sdef) cradily will be pretty invincible unless they have haze/taunt. hmm a good lead for the team might be poliwrath, it can sleep things pretty accurately if you give it wide lens. then you can sub or focus punch on the switch.

idk i lack too much experience in Pokemon however i do know that your EVs are screwy...for everything you have 250 in it should be 252 because 4 EVs=1 xtra lvl. therefore all numbers should be divisible by four, ex: empoleon should be 252 Sdef/252 HP/4 Satk since the max # of Evs you can get is 510 and theres no use adding more than 508 since 510 isnt divisible by four.

yeah im kinda nooby as well but i try to help out, we can be noob pals :nerd:
 
Thank you for the reply, especially the ev's thing, I thought it was 500 max for some reason and was wondering why sets I saw had people with 252/252.

I like that idea to lead with Poliwrath. I completely forgot about wide lens so that will certainly help is lead position. Especially since my friend always starts with an Empoleon, so first he'll switch to his luxray, which will get hypnotized, and then have to switch again as I wind up focus punch or sub. Thanks for the idea!

And on Cradily, I definitely think I want stealth rock, so I guess I could replace EQ with barrier, that would no doubt make cradily pretty tough to kill in a sandstorm. But I wouldn't to have to switch on a steel pokemon, though maybe it's worth it, since I really shouldn't worry about Cradily being able to counter steel pokemon. The only special attacking steel type I can think of is lucario, and...I really don't know how I would beat him with this team even with EQ so whatever, thanks for the idea to use barrier. And that way i could probably max out his SDEF too. Because barrier would cover physical defense
 
Download shoddybattle. www.shoddybattle.com and the program is under downloads. This is how all veteran players are made, as no breeding is required and you find instant matches. You will see...just check it out ;)

Anyway..the team.


I will edit this post with edits later.
 
uhm, am i right in assuming that hippowdon is your lead?

anyways, this is a relatively slow team, so you might want to scarf your lucario, which would incidentally solve your Specsluke
weakness as well, because so far, cradily is the only one who stands a chance.
also, i see a mixape weakness, as the only one who can shrug off his attacks is dragonite. scarfing lucario can solve this problem as well.
 
Unfortunately, I really have no idea who my lead is, and rotate who my starter is, I often begin with Poliwrath, but that is just because my friend starts with his crappy empoleon and i get to set up right there. So is there a reason you thought my lead was hippowdon? Is he a good lead?

And thanks for the scarf idea, I noticed too that i was weak to specs lucario so that helps a lot. Is scarf enough to outrun the mixape?
 
all i have to say about shoddy is wow...that's pretty much the coolest thing ive seen in a while, takes all the crappy parts of pokemon and gets rid of them
 
i would probobly change dragonite to something like
Dragonite
Item: Focus Sash
252speed/180attack/78def OR spe.def
Adamant
Dragon Dance
Dragon Claw
Earthquake/stone edge
Fire punch/T-punch

this is a DD'er set which i greatly prefer although requiring some breeding, breed w/ male gyarados. T-punch>fire punch cuz it covers more but its still out there, sash garuntees a dance, but if you know your not fast enough switch out. EQ/stone edge for pesky ice types which you would be fast with a couple dances. Also dragon claw for STAB.
Also, you might want to consider on cradily a moveset like
-rock slide
-barrier/toxic
-stealth rock
-recover
Reason being for taking out EQ is you already have a couple pokemon with Eq and it would be nice for a little more type coverage on the team.
 
thx for the idea, yes I replaced earthquake with barrier, so now I use toxic, barrier, stealth rock, recover. But even if i were to take out stealth rock for rock slide, I would still have to switch on steels

And on the dragonite strat, I might give that a try see how it goes, although I gotta admit that having both fire punch and thunder punch has helped me win a lot of matches just because it's unexpected haha. But I suppose if I wanted to choice band i might as well use like garchomp or something

thx for the advise
 
i just suggested hippowdon as a lead because he helps cradily, and will screw up focus sash, and only hurts two of your guys.
also, i too believe that you should use the DD set for dragonite, but if you do lead with hippowdon, try giving him a yache berry since sash will be ruined by SS.
 
Yeah I figured out the Hippowdon thing and I lead with him every time. I didn't count my battles but I did really good I thought for first try, even though I was undoubtedly playing other beginners, I was near 90% wins until I started facing people with OU teams haha, then it went down to like 60% and when I stopped playing I was losing a little over half of them.

I will try that dd dragonite, should I switch outrage with dragon claw?

Lucario Saves my butt every fight, especially against weaviles and anything fast not expecting the scarf, so thx to kusaninja for that help. It is so satisfying to see a garchomp switch in on lucario only to be dragon pulsed to death haha
 
i prefer dragon claw> outrage just becuase outrage locks you in and if your opponent switches in bronzong your screwed. Yache berry deffinantly over sash if hippo is your lead, or maybe life orb if ya want.
 
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