Pokémon Legends: Z-A Team Discussion

[SadisticMystic]

Since Skarmory isn't available until late, that slot was used for rotating ad-hoc filler beforehand, often making up for things like Kirlia's thorough fragility or Litleo's having to stay unevolved all the way until 35.

Once everyone got going, Meganium and Gardevoir did most of the rogue mega fights, with their self-contained healing.

 

[SwampySwampert]

Just finished the game. I rotated out some team members, but my final team ended up being: (naming theme was just random people names)
I let myself use items for the Rogue Mega boss fights but not against trainers. Even with having six Pokemon that could all Mega Evolve, this still ended up being one of the hardest main-series games I've ever played.

Final Team

Bailey the Meganium w/ Meganiumite
- Energy Ball
- Rock Smash
- Leaf Blade
- Synthesis

The team tank. I never ended up making use of the secondary Fairy typing, but it was used for a lot of the Rogue Mega fights for having Synthesis for self-healing and being really bulky.

Charlie the Charizard w/ Charizardite Y
- Fire Blast
- Air Slash
- Dragon Rush
- Will-o-Wisp

Charizard was my main bludgeon for dealing with the Z-A Royale trainers, as it hit very hard and could churn through a lot of the challenge cards. It also ended up being a pretty solid Dragon-type counter with Dragon Rush.

Mary the Ampharos w/ Ampharosite
- Thunder
- Flash Cannon
- Power Gem
- Thunder Wave

I boxed Ampharos for a chunk of the run after the early game and then brought it back underleveled so it didn't get as much use as it should have, but it did come in clutch by paralyzing Grisham's terrifying Charizard to allow Tyranitar to finish it with Stone Edge.

Annabeth the Gengar w/ Gengarite
- Shadow Ball
- Dark Pulse
- Icy Wind
- Sludge Wave

Caught in that one Rust Syndicate sidequest, Gengar put in work throughout the last half of the run. It was nice to be able to use one since I normally don't have access to trading.

Gwendolyn the Tyranitar w/ Tyranitarite
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Ice Fang
- Crunch

The last member to join the team, it took Tyranitar a while to catch up with the rest of the squad in terms of levels but Gwendolyn proved herself in the final gauntlet.

Bois the Heracross w/ Heracronite
- Megahorn
- Aerial Ace
- Close Combat
- Swords Dance

The in-game trade Heracross can singlehandedly lay waste to a good chunk of the early game and ended up being my "ace" so to speak. This thing is absolutely incredible.

I also had a Krookodile for a chunk of the game and a Dragalge for a little bit.

 

[Count Bleck]

Searo the (Hero!) Emboar
Spooki-Onna the Froslass (play Cassette Beasts)
Jericho the Camerupt
Pudica the Victreebel
Ecclesia the Gardevoir
Senju the Barbaracle (wait i just realized I have 3 yugioh references...)

So my final team wasnt quite what I aimed for, but had similar types in the end. I was using Electric types like Ampharos and Manectric earlier on, but I ended up switching towards Froslass to handle the huge ground type weakness my team ended up having. Barbaracle came from an Alpha I encountered along the way, as did Camerupt. And honestly? Ground/Fire coverage carried me HARD in the game. Like no joke, Camerupt is very powerful, has pretty equal attacking stats, and its mega is found very early. Victreebel came around because it was taking too long to evolve my Budew, and turned out I couldnt find venusaurite till much later, so Pudica became my grass poison answer. Barbaracle has a very early Rock Blast and a good assortment of moves to help plug other holes in my team. Overall, happy how it turned out, though by time I got Froslass it turns out the game is very hostile to her. be wary of dragons with steel coverage in the late game!

 

[Mex]

For me, I played through this game functionally blind and picked out whatever felt appealing. Which ended with me using primarily old megas because I hadn't really used most of those before and why not

The Team

(Mega) Feraligatr
Couldn't just abandon the starter, figured they'd all get Megas considering the whole thing of the game we're playing, though XY proves that theory wrong I suppose. Pretty good all around mon with Liquidation, Earthquake, Ice Beam and Breaking Swipe as my final moveset for the story, switching Ice Beam for Aqua Jet for easier grinding postgame.

(Mega) Ampharos
I, surprisingly enough, haven't actually used an Ampharos since a random playthrough of HGSS many years ago, so I figured with it being available so early and having a Mega i've never gotten to use despite it being one of about 7 megas you can actually get during XY's story. The combination of Charge + Electric Move went hard the entire game, to my surprise, with me never dropping the move even after getting myself a stronger electric move than Thunder Shock. Final moveset for the story was Charge, Thunderbolt, Breaking Swipe and Power Gem, replacing Power Gem and Breaking Swipe for Focus Blast and Flash Cannon postgame

(Mega) Gardevoir
I knew this thing was probably gonna be a powerhouse. I was right. Normally when I use the Ralts line in games, it's because Gallade is among my favorite Pokemon and I want to use it, but I figured the Mystery Gift Ralts with the Gardevoirite was a good idea. The mon did not feel good until it evolved into Gardevoir, but once it did holy shit, it wrecked things. Final moveset was Moonblast, Psychic, Psyshock and Mystical Fire

Arbok
Seeing prerelease trailers was basically my sole source of info on this game prior to playing it, and I remembered Corbeau being shown alongside Arbok quite a bit in prerelease material, leading to me coming to the assumption that Mega Arbok would be a thing he used. I was wrong, but despite that, I quite enjoyed using it anyway. While not having a Mega, it held up surprisingly well. Final story moveset was Gunk Shot, Glare, Leech Life and Crunch, with Ice Fang replacing Crunch postgame after i got rid of Ice Beam on Feraligatr.

(Mega) Venusaur
Venusaur is the Kanto Starter I've probably used the least, with me using a Blastoise in the VC run of Red when it was released there, and Mega Charizard Y being a mainstay on my extremely fire heavy original playthrough team of Y. So I figured now was the perfect opportunity to utilise the one I'd ignored for the longest, especially since surely it's Mega Stone would be reasonably available during the main story and not locked behind the second to last set of Rogue Megas you could fight while both Charizards and Blastoise are just in the stone shop, right?

Right?

Man.
Despite this setback, Venusaur was key to a lot of boss battle wins due to the power of the Giga Drain TM the game gives you comically early in the reward structure, with it being the key to both the story final boss and the final final boss wins, though not alone in that second case. Final Moveset was Growth, Giga Drain, Power Whip and Sludge Wave, and while I feel like I could probably have used a coverage move on it, the raw power of Power Whip proves very nice at points, while Giga Drain is a must include realistically

(Mega) Absol
The Mega Lucario of this game, the tutorial mega given to teach you how the mechanic works properly, though you do get to use a Mega Lucario to fight it in the first place before it just never appears again. I wonder what happened to it...

Anyway, Absol was kinda a last second addition to the team in a slot i'd mostly been using for a Bunnelby that knew Rock Smash, with the XY Rival using one, I felt a little conflicted on it, but the mega never actually showed up until the infinite rematches you got in Kiloude City, and you don't often get a great opportunity to use an Absol in a game, with most of them showing up pretty late into the story. Anyway, I don't regret the choice, Absol is cool and it helped quite a bit in a few fights. Final moveset ended up being Night Slash, Rock Slide, Aerial Ace and Swords Dance

Planning a second team to actually utilise some of the new additions the game made, as well as just because I really enjoyed the story of the game and I want to go through it a second time honestly

Planned Second Team

Except for the starter, "I've never used this" is a theme among the mons i'm using here.

(Mega) Meganium
After Venusaur's success, I figure giving the other Grass Starter you get from someone a chance is probably a decent idea. I actually used this in my most recent HGSS playthrough due to getting a shiny, and it performed a lot better than i'd expected, so I wanna give it another chance

(Mega) Scolipede
This is my favorite new Mega. I love the lil guy.

(Mega) Aggron
I've wanted to use this in a playthrough for a long time, but have been repeatedly procrastinating playthroughs of ORAS to try to actually use it. It's available reasonably enough in this game and Mega Aggron is a mon i have some nostalgia for thanks to the TCG

(Mega) Chandelure
The Litwick phase being pretty miserable has put me off trying out Chandelure in the past. Hopefully that isn't as much of a turn off this time around

(Mega) Scrafty
Not having a fighting type proved something of an issue in my first playthrough, and while I love Falinks, I've used it in SV very recently so I'm gonna go with this guy.

(Mega) Dragalge
Honestly it just seems neat. Don't really have to say more than that.

 

[Noah3475]

I beat the game this past weekend.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A Campaign Team

Sylveon (F) LV.65
Ability: - Item: Leftovers
Moves: Light Screen, Reflect, Taunt, Moonblast

Falinks (-) LV.66
Ability: - Item: Falinksite
Moves: Swords Dance, Close Combat, Poison Jab, No Retreat

Chandelure (F) LV.69
Ability: - Item: Chandelurite
Moves: Fire Spin, Shadow Ball, Heat Wave, Will-O-Wisp

Meowstic (F) LV.69
Ability: - Item: Life Orb
Moves: Thunderbolt, Psychic, Calm Mind, Dark Pulse

Gogoat (M) LV.70
Ability: - Item: Big Root
Moves: Leech Seed, Earthquake, Bulk Up, Horn Leech

Feraligatr (M) LV.73
Ability: - Item: Feraligite
Moves: Screech, Outrage, Ice Fang, Liquidation

 

[RocketSurgery]

View attachment 779012

I've beaten the main story now, and went with my planned team, though I didn't end up trying to shiny hunt anything because there are no outbreaks, and by the time bench spamming was known my Banette was already pretty high level. The actual order went Emboar, Sylveon, Banette, Clawitzer, Falinks, and Drampa.

Sylveon was MVP of the team. Its +Moonblast singlehandedly dealt with several dragon rogues and also finished off the mega standing between me and rank A.

Mega Banette also got to shine in taking down the final boss. I used it thinking its gunk shot would be super effective, but I guess probably anything could have worked.

Mega Drampa unfortunately didn't get to do much, being such a late game spawn. Drampa itself got a few KOs, but there wasn't as much opportunity to mega evolve it. Hopefully it gets to do a bit more in the post-game royale grind to get eternal floette, which I plan to use on my DLC team.

 

[bdt2002]

My team is really overleveled but I don’t mind. I’ve been substituting stuff in and out because only having six team slots in a game that incentivizes catching a ton of Pokémon is cringe, but my “core” I’ve been using for the most part so far consists of Feraligatr, a Fletchinder I haven’t evolved yet (ran out of time to play last, a Pichu because… it’s Pichu, that and one of my friends unironically asked me if I’d end up evolving it, and the event Ralts. I’ve also used a Diggersby, just got the Absol last night, I have the Shiny Ampharos, an absolutely overpowered Alakazam, and a Shiny Alpha Beedrill someone traded me for… some reason. To the best of my knowledge, it was his first Shiny Alpha of the game, full odds by the way, and for whatever reason he said he didn’t want it and actively encouraged me to have it over a trade. Still not sure what his rationale or intentions were, but I promised him I’d hunt for a Shiny Skarmory for him later in the game in exchange so we’re all good.



Also, fun fact, did you know the word “ukulele” is actually (Edit: Not) of French origin? I didn’t know that until I got curious about it during that same late night session where I got the Absol and now I’m happy I didn’t evolve my Pichu.

Edit: Google Translate lied. Again. It’s actually Portuguese. This is my fault for trusting Google Translate.

 

[LHF]

So my two cents on my first team:

Team, semi plot spoilers, and gameplay notes

I went into the game knowing without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to use Victreebel and Starmie, which basically left Emboar as my default choice for a starter to round out a FWG core(I didn't mind - I rarely get to play with Tepig). Those three and Dragonite were the only ones I was deadset on, but I was disappointed to realize how late into the game Mega Starmie was. Dnite I didn't mind playing with as base form either, mainly because I actually really like the entire Dragonite line and think Dragonair is very cool. I'm disappointed to say that by the time I actually got the stones, I realized how much I disliked the idea of switching Starmie to physical based on the fact that you have to build up a mega meter in this game and that I would be working off a base 75 attack until I was ready to mega. However, I don't regret using Starmie at all, even if I came close to cutting it for Barbaracle. It's the second time I've used one in a play through and I enjoy it as much as I ever have.

You may be wondering what ended up happening with slots 5 and 6. I had originally intended on using Clefable and Dragalge, mainly because Dragalge was the main reason I picked Y over X in the start. However, I simply couldn't resist the chance to add Charizard to my team when we got pulled over for the sidequest, and since I had a Emboar Zard Y felt like a natural complement. When I wanted to get mega stones and do the quick Greninja megastone grind, I ended up seeing the option to revive an Old Amber and grabbed an Aerodactyl too.

I really didn't expect them both to become mainstays on my team, especially when you look at the crippling electric type weakness I have. I had a moment's doubt where I wanted to add Excadrill over Aero, but I simply couldn't abandon the Aero after it had contributed so much to my team. I really loved him. I think it's funny that two out of my six were the megas that you could obtain pre-credits in XY, but they were two of my most valuable members without a doubt.

I'm using a second team of Froslass, Dragalge, Skarm, Clef, Barbaracle and Scrafty to complete the remainder of the side quests that I didn't do during the main story for fear I'd be over leveled. I ended up finishing the game at 63-66 level wise.

Given how this game rewards mega usage, I might be trying my hand at a no megas play through sometime in the near distant future(I still want to go back to Pokemon Y after 100%ing ZA, see if my opinions change on it after having gotten the Kalos sequel). For that, I'm thinking of Arbok, Machamp, Furfrou, Krookodile, Vanilluxe and one of the elemental monkeys(probably Simipour, looking at my team and knowing I need a real fire answer).