New to Smogon, would like team help

Roane

Roane

Hi, I'm Roane, and even though I won't be able to battle for a little while, I'd like to know the condition of one of my teams. Though it really isn't one of the... best teams out there, I like it, and I hope you will too.

Magneton @ eviolite/Sturdy
Bold Nature/ 252 HP/160 Def/ 96 Spec Att
Magnet Rise
Thunderbolt
Thunder Wave
Volt Switch

I'm using him as a defensive style for magneton; with eviolite, magnet rise, and thunder wave, I'm hoping for him to be able to take multiple hits with this set. With him, I'm really only worried about fire types, but I have other pokemon to help take care of that. I'm using him over magnezone because I like the speed bonus better and his eviolite bonus is just too much to pass up.

Tentacruel @Black Sludge/Liquid Ooze
Careful Nature/ 252HP/180 Spec Def/ 76 Speed
Giga Drain
Rapid Spin
Ice Beam
Scald

Though he's not as good as Starmie or Hitmontop, I think tentacruel is a great rapid spinner. Rather than the rain dish ability, I like his liquid ooze because I've seen many people hit a leech seed on me and I just sit there and see them loose life faster than I am due to leech seed, giga drain, and black sludge. I also am not using leftovers for tentacruel because I want to save it for someone who can use it. And the rapid spin is vital-- I can't work without it.

Parasect @Leftovers/ Dry Skin
Careful Nature/ 252 HP/ 72 Att/ 130 Def/ 52 Spec Def
Spore
Leech Seed
X-scissor
Aromatherapy

I don't like Breloom. Whatsoever. I think it is the cheapest son of a gun pokemon ever created. Him and gliscor. I hate that ability poison heal. Though, I can't disregard Spore. That move is amazing. And Parasect's support can really help my team with status-- namely paralyze.

Swampert@ Rocky Helmet/ Torrent
Adamant Nature/ 252 HP/ 252 Att/ 4 Def
Stealth Rock
Waterfall
Earthquake
Ice Punch

Swampert is one of the core members to my team (and also the only one not of Gen 1). I use him because he is a freaking rock that I've really only seen him 0HKOed once, while he's 0HKOed multiple times. Stealth rock is vital; who doesn't like that extra damage it brings, and his other moves are for coverage. Besides, he's the only one truly weak to grass type on my team-- Parasect, Magneton, and Charizard resist, with the last 0KHOing most grass types, and Machamp and Tentacruel being neutral. Also, if I predict a grass type or grass not user switch correctly, I shouldn't have a problem with my favorite tank.

Machamp@ Lum Berry/No Guard
Jolly Nature/ 180HP/ 252 Att/ 76 Speed/
DynamicPunch
Payback
Bullet Punch
Stone Edge

Machamp is mainly there for his first move-- Dynamic punch. I think it is one of the best fighting moves out there, like Hi Jump Kick and Focus Blast when it hits. The other moves are mainly for Revenge killing and coverage when needed. Otherwise, ghosts types would probably bite me in the... neck.

Charizard@ Flame Plate/ Solar Power
Timid Nature/ 252 SpA/ 252 Speed/ 4 HP
Substitute
Fire Blast
Dragon Pulse
Roost

I use Charizard as my main sweeper because he's a freaking charizard. Why not use someone as amazing as the original fire type in the game? Yes, he's weaker than moltres... yes, he has that 4x rock... yes, stealth rock ruins him... Yes, flame plate is not that great of an item... but why not? I've used him before, and with the moveset he has, he should sweep pretty well. Like jynx. But better. Plus, I hate life orb recoil. Even though he has roost, I just prefer not to use it so often.

Now, some problems I can see-

parasect-Charizard has two different abilities that hurt each other in different weathers. I planned that this way, kind of, so I can keep it relatively balanced.

Breloom better spore user-- I DON'T GIVE A CRAP!!

Charizard weaker than moltres-- Eh. I can replace that if I get around to it.

A bit weak to psychic-- Tentacruel and Machamp-- Payback for Machamp should help, though doesn't outspeed, but parasect should help a bit as well.

If you have anything else, please let me know!!
 
In b4 "don't use Charizard"

But seriously, don't. His weakness to the extremely common Stealth Rock means that he loses half his HP when he switches in, in addition to losing HP form solar power. I know you have Rapid Spin, but there are better, more reliable choices for a sweeper. You have to be prepared for if Tentacruel dies and there are still rocks on the field, or if it is just not a solid option to use Rapid Spin on a certain turn. If you like fire-types, your options are: Infernape, Volcarona, Darmanitan, Heatran, and even Victini.

Also, a sweeper should not use a plate unless it's Arceus. Generally, Life Orb is better.

I don't have the time for a full rate, but that's my two cents, hope it helped.

EDIT: here's some light reading that may help you: http://www.smogon.com/bw/tiers/ou
 
Hi. The best I can do to help you in this case is to redirect you towards the RMT Rules, since this thread appears to violate a few of them (in particular, I think you should read Rule #15, #16, and #17). I'd also recommend going through Battling 101, seeing that this team has absolutely NO chance of surviving in OU. I'm sorry if this sounded a bit harsh, but that's the truth. Have a nice day.
 
Hey now, you two, no need to be so harsh to a new guy.

All right, I'll admit, this team doesn't look too good. Thankfully, you're new and the team roles are pretty simple, meaning that this team is pretty malleable. Remember through this post that Smogon does not use Item Clause. You can have two Pokemon with Leftovers, three Pokemon with Life Orb, or six Pokemon with Pamtre Berry (don't do this).

Since not all new people are aware, I'll say this - Smogon uses a wonderful Pokemon simulator called Pokemon Showdown! where you can fine-tune everything about your Pokemon. If you already know, this'll be much easier for you.

Okay, I'll go in order - that's no way to be using Magneton. If I were you, I'd use a Skarmory instead. Skarmory is incredibly bulky, and has all of the moves it would ever need to be successful. Spikes is a great asset to any team, and Skarmory provides that. It also has Whirlwind to stop sweepers in their tracks.

Tentacruel is an excellent Pokemon, but it could use a slight change. A Careful nature lowers Special Attack... Anyway, changing its EVs and nature to 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Speed with a Bold nature is your best bet. This gives you enough Speed to outspeed max Speed neutral-natured Politoed, Breloom, and other base 70 Pokemon. In addition, remove one of its coverage moves and give it Toxic Spikes. It poisons Pokemon that switch in on it, and is one of Tentacruel's greatest assets.

Parasect needs to go as well. Even though it has Spore, that's all it does. My suggestion is to replace it with a Celebi. Celebi is stronger and bulkier, and doesn't have as bad of a typing. Celebi is also quite fast, sitting at a solid base 100 Speed.

You seem to like Swampert, so I won't make you replace it. However, I would change a few things about it. Replace Stealth Rock with Superpower, as it gives you a solid way to hit Ferrothorn. Don't worry, I'll fit Stealth Rock onto something else! Change Swampert's item to a Choice Band. While this locks you into a single move until you switch out, it gives you a huge Attack boost. Lastly, change your EV spread to 172 HP / 252 Atk / 84 Spe. This gives you the jump on minimum Speed base 70 Pokemon like Skarmory.

Machamp looks great, no changes here.

Charizard... ummm... sucks. There are so many better Fire-types. But hey, remember where I said I'd fit Stealth Rock in somewhere? Well, here it is! Replace Charizard with Heatran. Heatran not only fills the void left by a lack of a Fire-type but provides a nice answer to the incredibly powerful Sun teams roaming the metagame. It also gives you another resistance to Psychic, bringing you to a total of three! Heatran can run either Air Balloon (makes you immune to Ground until you are hit once) or Leftovers.

For your convenience, here's your team in an importable format for Pokemon Showdown!
Skarmory @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 232 Def / 252 HP / 24 Spd
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Spikes
- Whirlwind

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Trait: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 240 Def / 252 HP / 16 Spd
Bold Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes
- Scald
- Ice Beam

Celebi @ Life Orb
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 232 HP / 240 SAtk / 36 Spd
Modest Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Recover

Swampert @ Choice Band
Trait: Torrent
EVs: 252 Atk / 172 HP / 84 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
- Superpower
- Ice Punch

Machamp @ Lum Berry
Trait: No Guard
EVs: 180 HP / 252 Atk / 76 Spd
Jolly Nature
- DynamicPunch
- Payback
- Bullet Punch
- Stone Edge

Heatran @ Leftovers
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Lava Plume
- Toxic
- Roar

I hope I helped. Note that this is a bit of a precursory rate, so things might not be perfect. If that happens, feel free to send me a private message here or on Pokemon Showdown. Good luck with the team, and welcome to Smogon!
 
Haha yeah I know this team sucks. I really just put some of my favorite pokemon in there to see if it would survive anything... and how good it would be. I have used a charizard before, and it dies most of the time, so I don't really enjoy to rely on it too much. I have another team; it's more mainstream, but much better. And crap I get careful and calm mixed up way too easily... And I've been on the pokemon showdown before, and it's fun just to make gimmicky teams on there and try them out.

Quick Look: Ferrothorn, Latios, Terrakion, Volcarona, Starmie, and Blissey. I figure that using standard movesets it should work pretty well; I just wanted to know if this team could be viable in battle.

Haha... the first time I battled-- Serperior, Charizard, and whatnot. You can tell I'm still kind of new to this.............. ^^^^
 
If you do go with Arctic Blast's ideas, please switch out Liquid Ooze to Rain Dish. Rain Dish is very helpful in today's metagame, and the Pokémon that use draining moves Tentacruel shouldn't be facing in the first place.
 
Actually, Liquid Ooze is a wonderful ability on Tentacruel, letting it switch in on a predicted Leech Seed and laugh at the opponent as it loses health every turn. Or switch in against anything with a draining move at all. It helps against Ferrothorn (watch out for Thunder Wave!), Conkeldurr, Celebi (Earth Power and Psychic exist, but aren't too common), Amoonguss, etc. Rain Dish is only worth it if you can guarantee the extra recovery by running your own Rain team.
 
don't usually post in RMT, but gonna say rain dish > liquid ooze here because weatherless tentacruel is often one of the team's primary answers to rain, and cruel with an active rain dish is nearly unbreakable (barring stab electric/ground but these should be easy to predict around). without a doubt it is infamous as one of the most durable spinners in the game. having rain dish makes you an incredibly solid check to rain. you can switch in on crazy shit like modest specs toed hydro pumps and protect-stall back most of your HP. in fact protectcruel in rain is just retardedly durable, and rain will probably never be able to kill it unless you switch it in on thundurus-T like an idiot. protect also lets you beat gengar (scout tbolt from choiced/sub+3 and gtfo if it has it, and let it get disabled so that you can keep breaking subs with scald, gengar loses eventually since it can't break you - especially under rain) so i would recommend dropping giga drain for protect. you end up with a relatively standard cruel, packing rapid spin / scald / protect / tspikes or attack.

in comparison, most of the things using draining moves won't do much to you, except ferrothorn (because FUCK LEECH SEED - yeah i hate ferrothorn too and tentacruel lures it in like the plague, so this is one situation where ooze would be nice). conk isn't gonna waste its time drain punching cruel anyway (type disadvantage) unless it's boosted up, in which case you kind of already missed your opportunity to take it out and cruel is just gonna be setup fodder as conk waits for you to hand it a free scald burn. the liquid ooze damage won't do much to conk because drain punch is not very strong against tentacruel. most offensive celebi should be running earth power anyway so they beat you easily; defensive variants can't touch you (giga drain neutral, you can beat it if you have ice beam otherwise use it as setup bait). amoong will do nothing to you as well since it has no punch whatsoever, and if you've already wasted its spore you're just gonna be slapping at each other.

all of these mons are mons that won't hit you especially hard but that you won't hit especially hard either... if you aren't setting up on them or they aren't setting up on you, you have no business staying in on each other so the benefit of liquid ooze is minimal. and in all those matchups, rain dish gives you enough recovery to sneer at whatever weak attacks they think they can throw at you. on the off chance you should encounter them under rain you'll be indestructible. again the one situation i will submit is ferrothorn, because if thorn has leech seed it's gonna drop it on you asap and you can give it a nasty little surprise with ooze. if the ferro is in rain you'll recover back the leech seed damage where as ferro will be screaming "WHY ME". still, you're not likely to beat ferrothorn with cruel - the ooze will take a while to add up since most ferro carry lefties, so you'll need a stallish team to appreciate its effects in the long run, and cruel will be forced out eventually.
 
If you really prefer a spore user, you might want to try Ammonguss > Parasect, as Parasect only really works in rain.

Ammonguss @ Black Sludge
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP/252 SDef/4 Def
Calm Nature
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Clear Smog
- Hidden Power Ice/Stun Spore
 
I have to second the above recommendation. Parasect's pretty weak, and 6x weak to fire. Amoongus would be a lot easier to use, as it is much bulkier although it doesn't hit quite so hard, Parasect isn't dishing out the OHKOs either.

Amoongus can run some interesting sets. Amoongus doesn't get Aromatherapy, which is the one niche Parasect has over Amoongus.

Amoonguss (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Giga Drain
- Spore
- Synthesis
- Toxic

Magneton is a great pokemon, but I would change it's ability to Magnet Pull. With this you should also include Hidden Power Fire. I'm digging the use of Magnet Rise, but I do not think Magneton is quick enough to pull it off. So replace Magnet Rise with Hidden Power Fire.

I use some slightly strange EVs on mine to prevent Genesect hoping to revenge it with Flamethrower from getting the SpA boost.
Magneton @ Eviolite
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 HP / 134 SAtk / 124 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Substitute

I see no issues with Tentacruel, and Liquid Ooze is a nice ability to catch players off-guard. Just change calm to careful. Also, try getting Toxic Spikes in there, perhaps over Ice Beam or Giga Drain.
Tentacruel (F) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 180 SDef / 76 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Giga Drain

Swampert I would run Choice Band on, with Hammer Arm, although a Life Orb can be used if you want Stealth Rocks on that desperately. You could fit Stealth Rocks in elsewhere though, and that would cut into it's defensive prowess. Superpower has higher power, but forces you to switch after. Swampert isn't really much of a speed demon anyway, so the loss of speed isn't too much of an issue.

Swampert (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Lonely Nature (+Atk, -Def)
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Hammer Arm
- Ice Punch

The only issue with using both Amoongus and Tentacruel is that Psychic attacks will be great against your team. You could instead use Celebi and forfeit Spore, but as you want both it's slightly more tricky. As such, whilst Machamp is a complete asset to the team, it isn't best suited with those 2. Golurk can perform the same no-guard role though has lower stats all-round and is generally outclassed. For a bulky attacker, I'd swap Machamp for Metagross to be slightly less psychic-weak. It has more attack, more bulk, and is faster. As I removed Stealth Rock earlier, and Metagross is a great SR user, he seems like a great place to put Stealth Rpck. It gets Meteor Mash for the same base power as Dynamic Punch, Clear Body to suppress Intimidate and some nice coverage.

Metagross @ Life Orb
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Meteor Mash
- Bullet Punch
- Stealth Rock
- Hammer Arm

Finally, Charizard sucks. There is no other way to describe it. Infernape is a similar type (though better) and can fulfill the same role. I always found it's 104 attacking stats which have to split EVs a bit underwhelming though. As you do not have a scarfer, I'd go with Darmanitan or Chandelure. As both of the main offensive pokemon are physical, Chandelure seems your best bet. A timid nature keeps your speed high, and then the scarf picks up the last of the poor speed.

Whilst Overheat and Flamethrower on the same set may seem redundant, it's a combo I've always loved. You get explosive damage from Overheat, or consistent damage from Flamethrower. As we have Overheat, we don't need the additional power from Fire Blast.
Shadow Ball and Energy Ball round out the set.
Chandelure (F) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- Energy Ball
- Overheat

And finally, the whole team for your convenience:
Swampert (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spd
Lonely Nature (+Atk, -Def)
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Hammer Arm
- Ice Punch

Amoonguss (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef / 4 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Giga Drain
- Spore
- Synthesis
- Toxic

Magneton @ Eviolite
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 248 HP / 132 SAtk / 124 SDef / 4 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Substitute

Tentacruel (F) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 176 SDef / 80 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Giga Drain

Metagross @ Life Orb
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Meteor Mash
- Bullet Punch
- Stealth Rock
- Hammer Arm

Chandelure (F) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- Energy Ball
- Overheat
 
True, Charizard does not suck. I've only ever seen the Belly Dance set on him in battles, and he's not an OU poke.

If you hate Breloom THAT much, I think it would be best to switch Parasect with Amoonguss, as suggested above. Try out Breloom, thought, perhaps you'll learn to like him ;D

As for the rest of your team, I don't have to the time to comment more, but don't worry! If you keep working on it, it'll turn out really nicely. Don't be afraid to take out anything that isn't working for you, though. Creating a team is a trial and error process :D
 
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