NUBLU

[pubby]

NUBLU

While I didn't plan it to be, this is an entirely blue team, and a pretty decent one at that!

The team involves lots of stall focusing around Metang, Altaria, and Misdreavus, using hazards set up by Seismitoad and Glalie to rack of damage, allowing Sawk to come in at the end and clean things up.

Spiny Frog (Seismitoad) @ Life Orb
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 SAtk / 72 HP / 184 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def / 30 SDef
- Stealth Rock
- Surf
- Earth Power
- Hidden Power [Bug]

While initially chosen for his typing and stealth rock support, I quickly found out that Seismitoad is a fantastic offensive presence and can kill a great deal of Pokemon with his dual stab. He makes a good lead as he can threaten other stealth rockers, but otherwise I'll send him in when he has type advantage and do his thing.

Unfortunately, Seismitoad dies quickly. While he's tanky enough to take a hit or two, with the addition of life orb recoil his health is gone after a few turns.

A few notes on his stats and moves:
- 184 speed EVs guarantees he can outspeed base 55 speed Pokemon such as Golurk and Exeggutor, among others.
- Surf was chosen over scald as it I've had scald not KO Golurk, and in general he doesn't stay in long enough for the burn to be effective. Besides, I have Misdreavus to spread burn.
- Hidden power bug hits Grass types a bit harder, especially Exeggutor who is KO'd. Occasionally it will kill a Tangela or Leafeon who switched in.

Iron Troll (Metang) @ Eviolite
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Atk / 40 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Zen Headbutt
- Meteor Mash
- Rest
- Hone Claws

Metang is a half-decent wall and a half-decent killer. His typing allows him to switch in on many Pokemon, and usually I can get a hone claws off to make his attacks much more usable. While I sacrifice bulk for Atk EVs, he's still bulky enough to take a non-STAB earthquake or flamethrower on occasion.

Despite not using sleep talk or a chesto berry, rest is a surprisingly effective move. Defeating Metang once can be tricky, but doing it twice is even trickier! Even better, if Metang can stay in for the 2 turns of sleep then there's a good chance you've won!

Storm Dragon (Altaria) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SDef / 248 HP / 8 Def
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Roost
- Perish Song
- Heal Bell

Altaria is a wonderful wall and supporter, often taking dozens of hits throughout the match due to roost and leftovers. I'll go over the moves.

Heal bell is not useful for Altaria herself, as she has natural cure, but very helpful for curing my other walls as they get status'd quite often. In addition, heal bell is crucial if my Sawk gets burned or paralyzed.

Toxic is an obvious choice on a wall, and practically guarantees kills due to the stalling nature of my team.

Perish song is a really underrated move. While not as good of a phaser as roar or haze, I can often switch in a Pokemon early for a free turn of setup. Metang is often my choice for this, as he'll resist most attacks aimed at Altaria and becomes dangerous with a hone claws.

Executioner (Sawk) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake

There's not much to say about Sawk, as everything about him has already been said before, especially on such a mundane set as this. Well, I might as well try.

Sawk is perhaps the most crucial member of my team. Most of the time he's used for revenge killing, but when he's not revenge killing then he's killing for no reason at all. By the end of the game he in particular shines, as the hazards will have worn the enemy's HP down into close-combat range, and with his high speed he's surely the first to hit.

I chose earthquake for the 4th slot as I found I missed it when it wasn't there.

Antaeus (Glalie) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 SDef / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Ice Beam
- Hail

Glalie's primary goal is to set spikes, and he does it quite competently. When he's not spiking, he's taunting, which is a nice way to shut-down certain Pokemon, but unfortunately the only thing Glalie can do afterwords is lay down more spikes.

Originally I tried out an explosion variant, but was never able to get the explosion off. Instead, I went with ice beam, which occasionally hits hard enough to swing the battle.

The final slot, hail, is mostly wasted, but has a few uses. The first use is that it guarantees that Glalie can take out Shedinja. The second is that Glalie can remove a weather team's precious weather, although it's incredibly rare for Glalie to pull it off.

Timid allows Glalie to outrun Butterfree, which is pretty helpful.

Shadow Wraith (Misdreavus) (F) @ Eviolite
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 34 Spd / 222 Def
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split
- Taunt

Like Sawk, Misdreavus is running a fairly standard set, but a good one at that. Her primary goal is spreading burn and being the ultimate annoyance, but can spin-block too.

Of course, she makes a good wall in general, and compliments Altaria and Metang quite nicely.

Shadow Ball is a bit iffy for me. While it's Misdreavus's strongest move, it often invites the opponent to switch into a normal-type Pokemon.

Threats:

Ludicolo.
While I can wall subseed variants with Altaria, offensive variants absolutely wreck my shit, especially if it carries ice beam. The only thing I can do is try to weaken it with Misdreavus or Metang, then kill it with Sawk.

Roselia.
This Pokemon is such a better spiker than Glalie, and is really hard to take down. What's especially threatening is when Roselia is paired with a fire-type, such as Torkoal, as it can kill Glalie and Metang, two checks to Roselia.

Golurk.
The problem with Golurk is that he's one of the few NU Pokemon capable of 1-hit-KOing all of my walls. While Seismitoad and Sawk can take him on, a smart opponent will simply switch him out.

 

[Aasgier]

EV's always need to be divisible by four. This is not the case on Misdreavus. Run 36 Speed and 220 Defence instead, so you have one additional speed point while not losing any defensive value.
Note: Misdreavus defeats Golurk using Will-O-Wisp and Shadow Ball.


On Glalie, Hail plain sucks. You can attempt to run Dark Pulse, Signal Beam or a Hidden Power instead. Dark Pulse hits Golurk (in case you are not sure about the switch-in, as Ice Beam nukes Golurk as well), as well as Shedinja.
Signal Beam hits Ludicolo on the switch and 2HKO's.
Hidden Power Water hits Fire types on the switch, but is useless against Ludicolo as well as other Water-types.
Hidden Power Rock and Ground also have their merits. Note that Hidden Power Ground is useless against Charizard, something that can cut your entire team apart if it runs Dragon Pulse.

These are the things that stood out for me on the Pokémon's movesets after a very quick glance, in case you don't want to replace Pokémon. I lack the time at this moment to write about Pokémon replacements, but I'm sure someone else is going to do that ^^ .

 

[Ashley11]

Nice Team. I have a few suggestions though.

First of all, I reccomend trying leftovers on Seismitoad since you are having problems with survivability. This might keep those extra hp points you need in the game, and since you are max SpA you will still hit hard.

As for Aasgier's suggestion with Glailie, I completely agree. On addition to those moves though here are some other ideas. Disable, Attract, Block, and maybe Icy Wind are some other support options.

Disable could be used for a pokemon that uses a move you dont like thats offensive and you can totally stop it. It can also sometimes result to some pokemon having to use struggle if you have taunt up and they only have one attacking move. This will also help you get some free spikes.

Attract is gimmicky, i dont reccomend it.

Block is a nice move to use when you can because you can keep a pokemon you do good against in and get your spikes up.

Icy wind might be something to try since you can get some nice speed drops on some mons such as Sawk or Braviary who you might be able to KO after a speed drop.

As for your ludicolo problem, maybe try Lickylicky. This set for example.

Lickylicky@Leftovers
Own Tempo
252 HP 252 SpD 4 Def
Careful
Dragon Tail/Toxic
Wish
Protect
Heal Bell

This set will give you a nice wish passer for your team, as well as keeping your Heal Bell, beats Ludicolo, and can still pick phazing or status for your team. You Synergy is also still good since you have other pokemon to patch up weaknesses with fighting types and such things.

Hope I helped ^.^

 

[pubby]

Thanks for the comments.

EV's always need to be divisible by four. This is not the case on Misdreavus. Run 36 Speed and 220 Defence instead, so you have one additional speed point while not losing any defensive value.

Ah, silly me! I've corrected it, thanks!

First of all, I reccomend trying leftovers on Seismitoad since you are having problems with survivability. This might keep those extra hp points you need in the game, and since you are max SpA you will still hit hard.

The problem with leftovers is that I lose the ability to 1-hit-KO Golurk, Armaldo, and Skuntank which is too much to afford.

About Glalie's fourth move:

I'm thinking hidden power rock would be the best attacking move, as it hits fire types pretty hard. Signal beam and Dark pulse seem decent, but mostly outclassed by ice beam.

Disable is a good idea, but unfortunately it's incompatible with spikes. Block and attract would be detrimental in most cases, as Glalie only survives a few turns and I would rather have an extra layer of spikes down. Icy wind is interesting though, and I might try it out.

I've also been trying out toxic, but haven't had much success yet.

About Lickilicky: Unfortunately he's not blue, which would break the theme. It's a good suggestion though, and there's no doubt it would be worth testing if I didn't impose such silly color restrictions!

Thanks again.

 

[WhiteDMist]

Since this is a themed team, I won't give you quite an in-depth rate as I would. However, I see a couple of things you should change to increase efficiency.

First off, your Altaria set is odd for the kind of team I see here. Being so offensive, it completely brings momentum to a halt. Defensive Altaria is also pretty bad in this metagame, so there are a couple of options. The easiest is to simply change the set to a Choice Specs set. It is difficult to wall in general and has decent Speed to prevent Golurk from having an easy time dismantling your team. Outspeeding Ludicolo outside of Rain is also a nice bonus, you basically lessen the threat of all the Pokemon you listed as problems.

For Seismitoad, I highly suggest you change it to max Speed Timid to make use of its excellent Speed tier. Alongside Water Absorb you end up walling SD Samurott and SS Carracosta and you want to be able to outspeed the former so that it can't boost twice and then Megahorn you. I also recommend changing HP Bug to Toxic. In general Seismitoad has trouble with Grass-types even with the stronger Sludge Wave, so instead using Toxic let's you cripple many of your immediate checks and counters.

Metang doesn't really need Zen Headbutt. Sleep Talk is much more effective for this particular set as my friend Don Honchkrorleone can tell you. I see absolutely no benefit to being a sitting duck for 2 turns and basically allowing your opponent to have a very, very, VERY easy time to finish you off. Even if you keep Altaria's current set, relying on it to wake Metang up is a waste of time and momentum.