SPOILERS! Pokemon Sun and Moon In-Game Team Thread

[PSDuckie]

This is my current in-game team.

Incineroar: My starter, my current MVP, the first mon in what I call the Fearsome Four, and my biggest Z-move user. Not much else to say.

Toucannon: The second mon in the Fearsome Four, another mon that really proved itself, taking down a bunch of mons that Incineroar couldn't.

Ledian: Quite useless, and my LVP, but I don't want to level another mon to take its place. That said, I'm almost at Lunala...

Hariyama: The third mon in the Fearsome Four. Beware its Wake-up Slap.

Golduck: Did you really think I would do a playthrough where I can get Psyduck and not use Psyduck? The fourth mon in the Fearsome Four, Golduck brings some much-needed coverage.

Persian-A: Utterly redundant at this point, and this is a Pokemon team, not a RAID. I caught Meowth-A well before my Torracat evolved, and just like with Ledian, haven't bothered to replace Persian-A.

I'm going to be replacing either Ledian or Persian-A (I haven't decided which, as Ledian is useless and Persian-A is redundant) with Lunala as soon as I get it.

 

[R_N]

Just beat the game. My team was all in the mid to late 40s by the end.

Decidueye
-never NOT useful, but as time went on I felt like there were few times i could really put it in. Also a terrible ghost counter because of its speed and the strength of all the opposing ghosts.
Muk (Alolan)
-surprisingly useful! There was a bit of a dead period, but its surprising bulk, good tpying and pretty decent move pool always pulled through. Fishing for poison with Poison Touch was useful. My dedicated fairy killer.
Mudsdale
-By far & away the MVP of my team. SO MANY times did I rely on its bulk and its Stamina ability (& item use) to get through the hard times. I even made use of Heavy Slam and kept Bulldoze through the entire game which was immensely helpful. High Horsepower is fantastic in a game where earthquake is really late and where poison is plentiful.Could have been faster
Araquanid
-So damn slow making it a little hard to use and going so long off its weaker offensive stat for water stab, but always useful. Could be surprisingly bulky at times, had a good move pool to shore up certain fights and for a while Scald was pretty useful. I think its really held up by its ability at times.
Passimian
-My favorite. Really wish it was faster. I left it without an item so it could easily replace Trumbeak as my flying type coverage with that sweet sweet 110 acrobatics. Lowest leveld of the team just due to opponent match ups, but always had something to contribute if it wasnt getting kills. adorable!
Ribombee
-A monster at the start, kind of had a dull period, then a monster again. Fast! Oh my god, actual speed. It hit well, it was fast, it had surprisingly good typing to sort of help make up for its defense situation. The only thing on my team that could induce paralysis which was a god send.

I don't regret this team but you can kind of tell that I was struggling for certain type advantages. Flying types, for example, were awful to handle. I had to make do with Smack Down for a while and then only at the end of the game did I seek out Rock Slide and god any skarmory was an awful awful experience. Sure as hell wasn't pleasant killing golbats or crobats either, for that matter.

 

[apricity]

Halfway through my run, I wiped on my nuzlocke and as punishment had to monotype the rest of the game.

I genuinely cannot believe how I managed to beat the game with this team, but I did it!!!!!!!! Must've reset 15x on league, even with my team 5~6 levels above NPC mons.

 

[jagged_angel]

So I realized that Vikavolt basically needs Move Relearner and TMs to get a good Special moveset, since it evolves so late in the game that you'll miss out on all the levelup moves. Then someone posted in the TM Location thread that Thunderbolt is only obtainable in the postgame, and I realized that if the Move Relearner or Heart Scales are difficult to access, it could be really difficult to make Vikavolt usable in-game.

I searched through Reddit's questions thread, and found someone else asking where the Move Relearner and Heart Scales are. The response was that the Move Relearner is located at the League, and Heart Scales can't be obtained en masse until the postgame. The first person was shocked and asked if that meant the Starters' signature moves are blocked until the postgame. They were told that apparently the Starters learn those moves as soon as they evolve, regardless of what level they are at; this is indicated by the move being displayed twice on their moveset at both Level 1 and Level 0.

I checked Vikavolt's moveset again. No good Special Moves learned after level 31. Only one good STAB TM, and it's found in the postgame.

I started panicking. Hell, am I going to have to find a replacement for Vikavolt? I couldn't believe it. Why would Gamefreak go to such lengths to make this Pokemon unusable? The Speed was already bad enough, but now its moves are locked until the postgame?!

Then I saw it.



I literally jumped out of my chair and raised both fists into the air. Salvation! My team survives! Looks like I get to use Vikavolt after all.

This was super helpful to me, I was going to be gutted if I couldn't justify using Vika!

Ok one day to UK release and I have to think about my in-game team. I really don't like slow mons, they all need to be Gen 7 pokes, and since I am committed to Vikavolt, the rest of the team needs to be fairly fast.

So far I have 4:

Decidueye - Grass/Ghost (Flying)
Salazzle (F) - Fire/Poison
Vikavolt - Bug/Electric
Ninetales - Ice/Fairy

Going to have to pick a Water type I guess but there almost no fast Water types this gen :((

 

[Darvin]

Nicknames (in order): Breeze, Zapper, Burst, Shimmer, Breaker, and Sunshine
My Challenge Rules: set battle style only, no item usage in trainer or totem battles, no XP share, no Z-moves, nothing over 400 BST, no single base stat above 100, no pokemon refresh and no back-tracking to pokemon centers or healer NPC's until I've completely finished an area (use consumables).

I've been going through the game slowly due to my rather onerous challenge rules. Today I hit the difficulty spike at the end of Ula'ula island, which forced me to add a Mold Breaker Pancham to my team to counter-team the Kahuna. I got suspicious when his pokemon seemed a bit fast, so I narrowed down their speed stats then reverse-engineered their IV's and EV's... and determined they had 31's and 252's. Nice. I was actually forced to look over the wild pokemon I'd encountered, find one with the right properties to beat this guy's team, then trained it up. The grinding did feel a bit onerous, but looking back on it this was an experience I've always wanted to have in pokemon: being forced to search out new pokemon to overcome challenges that my current team simply lacks the ability to overcome.

So anyways, what brings me here even though I'm still far from completing the game is that I've I just fought that boss. I just finished battling with

spoiler

Lusamine

I walked in with a level 43 Growlithe, level 42 Butterfree, level 40 Pikachu, level 40 Clefairy, level 37 Pancham, and level 37 Staryu. Needless to say, I got destroyed. Status and stat-lowering antics can take you pretty far, but this was a level of power I was entirely unprepared for. If Butterfree had Quiver Dance I could have put up a real fight, but as it was... there was just no way I was winning that one.

Despite the horrific beat-down, I'm not discouraged. If anything, I'm hyped that more battles like these may be coming. The Ula'ula Kahuna, the third Guzma battle, the aforementioned boss battle... heck even the impressive grunts (dragon-types on grunt teams!?) fought in the lead-up to these showdowns are setting expectations for greater challenges to come. I'm excited by the prospect of being forced to juggle my moveset and party composition to turn impossible fights into winnable battles. Not knowing what's coming is a big part of the appeal here, and I'm really glad I decided to do my underdog playthrough first. I expect to be frustrated out of my mind by this, but I'm really looking forward to taking this all the way.

 

[Tazonite]

This is my team.

Right now, it's just Dartrix, Pikachu, Grimer, and Shiinotic. Exeggutor's guaranteed a spot on my team because I love the thing and Silvally is undetermined. I want Silvally but with the time you obtain it; it's like using Volcarona in Black and White One.

Decidueye, right now a Dartrix, is named Long Shot. It's so slow and can't run away from wild Pokemon for its life.

Butterscotch is a Pikachu and can technically evolve, but I want to wait until it has a special Electric move (Discharge). Then I can teach it Psychic, and that'll be Raichu. Until then, it uses Volt Tackle and Catastropika.

Muk is just a Grimer right now and his named Dr. Opaque for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. I just had to use it; Muk appealed to me during my time playing Pokemon Go. It's pretty fun. Like an inferior Drapion.

Shiinotic is awesome. Her name is Madame Mushy and she Sleep Powders things and just casually Giga Drains them. It's so stupid. I was gonna use Kommo-o, but I changed my mind when I reconsidered Shiinotic's move pool and the charm that a glowing mushroom had to me.

Exeggutor comes way too late in the game for my tastes, but when I get it, I'll make sure it has Sleep Powder first. Nothing appeals to me more than the concept of an Exeggutor breathing fire, so it's getting Flamethrower, for sure. I'm thinking of naming it "Tall Tale" or "Tall Tail." You decide for me (inb4 nobody reads this)

Silvally will probably have some name that has to do with amounting to something; contrast to its original name of Null. Either that or it will get replaced. Either that or that, OR I just stop at five Pokemon.

I recommend Shiinotic; its move pool is waaaayyyy too good.

 

[Lyseth]

So I was putting together a team based around my favorites, but I need help knowing which ones work best while keeping the type coverage,

Team right now,

Decidueye,
Dhelmise,
Lycanrok - Midnight,
Brionne,


Now I'm trying to pick from these guys,

Passimian, Oranguru, Alolan Ninetails, Comfey, Alolan Marowak, Magnezone, and Alakazam

 

[jagged_angel]

So I was putting together a team based around my favorites, but I need help knowing which ones work best while keeping the type coverage,

Team right now,

Decidueye,
Dhelmise,
Lycanrok - Midnight,
Brionne,


Now I'm trying to pick from these guys,

Passimian, Oranguru, Alolan Ninetails, Comfey, Alolan Marowak, Magnezone, and Alakazam

You have two Grass types, and a Water type, so you could really do with Alolan Marowak as a Fire type - but then you have 3 Ghosts! Would you consider ditching Dhelmise? Passimian would also be a good idea to add a Dark resist, and Magnezone has excellent resists plus you don't have electric coverage which is good for all the Alola Water types.

I recommend Shiinotic; its move pool is waaaayyyy too good.

Sleep powder AND Spore?! OMG the Alola Pokedex was sent to try me. That is an amazing movepool, but I was so set on Decidueye. Then there's Tsareena and Dhelmise who both stack Grass weaknesses, but are awesome pokemon. Sorry Lurantis.

 

[Leica]

Any suggestions on how to make Oranguru work ingame?

I love his design but goddamn he learns no moves and I don't have access to the good special TMs yet.

 

[Windgrace]

Here's the team I had planned out and used in-game. My goal was to use completely new Pokemon for the playthrough (Alolan variations counted as new).

Overall, it was OK.

The good:
Decidueye was surprisingly bulky and had very solid coverage with Dark, Ghost, Grass and Flying moves (and access to False Swipe, which was nice).

Salazzle's STAB typing ended up being very useful for the last third of the game or so. Unfortunately it's a little TM reliant, but once you get Sludge Bomb/Wave TMs and Flamethrower at 44 it gets all it needs to pack a serious punch. Nasty Plot also proved very useful.

Rimbombee was very handy as a Dark resis, and also has access to some great STAB moves in Dazzling Gleam and Bug Buzz. It also hits very hard and has access to quiver dance pretty early, so it put in a lot of work.

The Bad:
Wishiwashi was pretty potent for the first third of the game, but once everyone else's Pokemon started evolving and outspeeding it keeping up it's gimmicky ability just kind of turned into a hassle. It hits incredibly hard, but I found that even with it's base Sp A it stopped OHKOing things in the game and just ended up eating up multiple hits. I think I would have preferred either of the Water/Bug types for the squad despite having a few Flying weaknesses already.

A-Raichu. Sigh. Pichu doesn't learn Thunderbolt, Pikachu learns Thunderbolt pretty late (42 is a long time to go without a strong electric move, especially since this slot was meant to nuke Flying types). Raichu can re-learn Thunderbolt, but the Move Relearner is located very late game. The TM for the move is also late/post game, too. For my playthrough this was really a deadweight. Magnezone would have been superior in every way. Even though it doesn't play into my goal of using all-new Pokemon...

Mudsdale. This thing did one thing well in-game, and that was using Heavy Slam on the Ghost totem. Otherwise it was pretty much deadweight alongside Raichu. Even with Stamina I was disappointed with it's defenses, and because it was so slow (like Wishiwashi) it ended up taking many hits and only could stay in to attack once before being too weakened to remain. For the purposes of the team I think Krookodile or Flygon would have been better options despite (again) not being new Pokemon.

 

[hypno28]

I found Mudsdale very useful. You may have to heal it in certain cases, but it's effectively invulnerable to physical attackers and hits back quite hard.

 

[faint]

Nexus, are there plans for an in-game tier list thread? Or is this the replacement?

 

[Nexus]

this isn't a replacement for that and I'll let the OI mods decide what they want to do about that

 

[Elite_Battle_Master]

 

[Arne De Baets]

My Moon Team:

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

Any suggestions on how to make Oranguru work ingame?

I love his design but goddamn he learns no moves and I don't have access to the good special TMs yet.

Level it up to 25 and get Nasty Plot. Teach it Charge Beam and Hidden Power. From level 20-25 use Work-Up to boost its stats. Then use Stored Power for a solid STAB move. When you finish the island, you get the TM for Psychic shortly after. Mine, currently:

Oranguru "Maurice" @ Normalium Z
-Nasty Plot
-Psychic
-Charge Beam
-Hidden Power (Steel for me)

 

[Gothic Togekiss]

In-game for Sun

Took some time but I finally got a good idea on who I'll use for my in-game run. Decidueye, Lycanroc, Salazzle were a shoe-in for me, especially Salazzle after seeing it's model. I really wanted to use Golispod as my Water, but having it and Vikavolt was leaving problems with rock & type overlaying so I'll settle for the psychic fish.

Currently stuck at the area where you catch the legendary Pokemon, and my current team is drastic different then when I planned it. My team so far.

Click to see

Decidueye "Dilbert": I love Dilbert like he was my own child, but as R_N said before this Pokemon is ass in-game. Too many dark/ghost/grass killers to stomach and being slow sucks.

Slowbro "Shinybro" : I give anyone three guesses about his nickname. Originally planned to use Bruxish as my water type, but just as the area one could fish for it become accessible, this baby appear. Being slow sucks as I said earlier, but at least at the time I got it I already had Psychic & Scald.

Magnezone "2Coil4U": I told myself I wanted to use Vikavolt during my play-through, but learning that it evolve late as hell deterred me from using it. it's pretty funny considering how Zone suffers from the same evolving late thing, but man did Maggy pulled it's weight during the early/mid game.

Mudsdale "Muddie Maddie": This horse is a real trooper. Strong, sturdy (especially after one or two Stamina boost), and those dreadlocks. She and 2Coil4U carries my team on their backs.

Salazzle "Femme Fatale": Getting a female that had Timid nature was a real bitch, but it was worth for me. Granted she's frail and occasionally get 2HKO by things, but I still love her and she did swept that Ultra Beast obsessed lady twice so I say that's good job.

Bewear "Huggy Bear": I didn't liked this Pokemon when it first shown and continued to hate it until I used it in my team. Fluffy is (un)surprisingly great in-game, allowing it to stomach even super effective physical moves.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

I absolutely loved taking my time playing through the game. This generation has so many amazing Pokemon so it was super enjoyable for me. As you can tell, I opted for some of the rarer/ more difficult to catch or train Pokemon.

Salazzle - one of the fastest Pokemon in this generation with awesome STAB moves. TMs help this guy and so does having Nasty Plot. Inferno Overdrive always manages to OHKO things and she's my go to Fairy killer.

Oranguru - catching him was a pain because he kept calling for help but it proved to be worth it. After leveling for 5 levels it gets Nasty Plot and you get the TM for Psychic shortly afterwards as well. Other TMs like Hidden Power and Charge Beam help its wide range of attacks.

Golisopod - First Impression hits everything that doesn't resist super hard and this guy is surprisingly bulky. Always a solid Pokemon but training him was a little annoying for a while.

Togedemaru - At first I planned on using the Golem from an in-game trade. It's magnet pull ability allowed me to catch Togedemaru, which has become one of my favorites on my team. You get the TM for Wild Charge around here and it's super easy to train vs Pelipper and other wild Pokemon with STAB Gigavolt Havoc. It's typing helps a lot with the Flying weaknesses and fast Pokemon are hard to come by in the region. Also learns Poison Stab which is a nice bonus and Iron Barbs cleans up when the Z-Move doesn't KO.

Mimikyu - A pain in the ass to catch but one of the coolest Pokemon in this generation. I happened to get an Adamant one so a Swords Dance set seemed obvious. Easy set-up allows for some good sweeps and it gets support moves like Thunder-wave to help. It's typing helps a lot with the normals/fighting/dragons in the game. Some Pokemon can't touch it period.

Exeggutor - When I first saw this guy, I knew I had to get him on my team. I've waited a long time but I finally got one! Great typing, and it learns Dragon Hammer upon evolution for a solid STAB move off the bat. Draco Meteor isn't far off and neither is Leaf Storm. I anticipate Grass Z-Move + Draco Meteor wrecking a lot of things in my way.

 

[IceBeam946]

Just finished the game last night with this team. This team has a crapload of weaknesses (Fire, Poison and Ice to name a few. Oh and fairies kind of crapped on me occasionly), but I still love them.
​

Primarina: Incredibly useful, great typing and all in all tanked loads of hits from things that I knew my team couldn't. While its slow (which half of my team is), it still usually OHKO'd stuff with its Z Move or STAB Moonblast. All in all really solid.

Oricorio: Prob. the one I wasn't expecting to do much at all but easily was my MVP. The Pom-Pom Oricorio came really early, resists a lot of really good stabs and hits hard with 98 Special Attack right out of the gate. It learned Air Cutter really early I remember and helped incredibly on a lot of Totem mons by hitting both the ally and the Totem (especially Lurantis). Oricorio was amazing, it just has a really meh movepool but learned everything it needed too (except not having an electric move until the 40s).

Ribombee: The quickest member of my team and second Fairy, Ribombee was the SuMo mon I was most excited about. It quickly proved its worth by having both Struggle Bug and Draining Kiss right at the word Go to both shut down and have recoverability. She struggled a bit mid game but was a godsend late and cleaned many of the Elite Four members. Just wish she had better defense as to add insult to injury mine had a -Def nature.

Bewear: Right behind Oricorio as my go-to damage dealer, Bewear also took physical hits like nobody's business with Fluffy. While it added to my massive fire weakness, he still would persevere and destroy with it with a Z-Powered Breakneak Blitz. Him and Oricorio surprised me the most.

Lurantis: Def. the weakest of the team unfortunately as Fomantis took a lot of babying to get it to work. Got it a little before the Wishiwashi trial in prep for it and it was still 2HKO'd by Wishiwashi's rain boosted attacks. When it evolved, it def. took a hits a bit better but also seemed to be 2HKO'd by things. This thing however got Poison Jab and was my only real counter to fairies so its uses there were pretty important. Love the design here but it seemed like I was always in yellow or red with this thing.

Zygarde 10% Form: This thing cannot take hits at all but def. hit hard. I needed something to counter fire types and when this thing suddenly came into the party I figured why not. Its movepool is pretty barren and it gets a lot of special attacks with a pretty meh special base but all in all Zygarde puppy was a solid addition. Prob. just above Lurantis.

All in all I'd rate from worst to best on this team: Lurantis, Zygarde 10%, Primarina, Ribombee, Bewear, Oricorio​

 

[Ze Diglett]

Just finished off the postgame campaign with the team I posted earlier. I, unfortunately, found myself more disappointed than I thought I'd be by some of them, although they still all pulled their weight in the end.

Decidueye (nicknamed "hanzo main") was one of my team's carriers since, well, it's a starter. No matter the time, I could always count on Decidueye to slap whatever was in front of it hard. Regrettably, its partial Ghost typing, which didn't bother me much initially, did hold it back quite a bit starting mid-game considering the abundance of Ghost-killers. Despite this, I really liked Decidueye through all stages of its life and I'll probably find myself coming back to it in a later playthrough.

Vikavolt (nicknamed "Road Roach") was a mon that I kind of expected to disappoint me for the obvious reasons that it doesn't evolve until the end, it switches attacking stats when it does, and its movepool is pretty shallow. However, it remained surprisingly useful as an Eviolite Charjabug and even came packaged with a Special Attack boosting nature, which made it a godlike Special nuke when the time finally came. Even if raising it gave me my fair share of grief, I'm still glad I chose to pick up a Grubbin on Route 1.

Wishiwashi (nicknamed "GET SCHOOLED") served as my team's main carrier, one-shotting even some mons that resisted its STAB with ease. RestTalk Washi turned out to be a bit more overpowered than I'd bargained for, and its godlike experience group coupled with the power of the Exp. Share meant that it was always 1-2 levels above all my other mons at any given time. This quickly made it my least favorite party member, which sucks because I really like Wishiwashi. Although it's one of my favorite new mons, I don't really see myself using Wishiwashi in a future run (except maybe for a SoloWashi run, which I've considered).

Dugtrio (nicknamed "Wiglett") was a mon that I picked up solely for its godly design, and it managed to carve out a solid niche on the team for its ability to outspeed everything (bar Hau's Alolan Raichu, that bastard...). Its typing, however, didn't do it as many favors as I hoped it would since it can't switch into anything running EQ (which is a lot of things) and still can't take hits worth a hill of Pokebeans, but STAB Iron Head was pretty nice for dealing with Fairies. I was kind of hoping to get one with Tangled Hair, but considering it's just a reskin of Gooey, I didn't bother SRing for it. All in all, this mon didn't really wow me, but I would consider using it again.

Muk (nicknamed "Da Huuuuudge"; shoutouts to anyone who gets the reference), on the other hand, wholeheartedly surprised me. Even if I couldn't find one with Poison Touch for the life of me, Muk's ability to eat damage from any source just astonished me. Since I found one with Black Sludge, I actually ran a pretty unique wall set with Infestation and Disable, whittling the opponents health down with chip damage and disabling their most powerful move before healing up and going for the killing blow. For a last minute addition, Muk most certainly allowed me to play the game in a new, less hyper-offensive way and was one of my team's most valuable assets.

Minior (nicknamed "smolrock"), much like Muk, caught me off guard with just how effective it was. I ended up running an offensive Shell Smash set, which pretty much let it one-shot anything--yes, even the Totem Pokemon--that was put it front of it. Most often, though, unboosted STAB Acrobatics would be good enough to get the job done on its own. Rock/Flying/Fairy provided surprisingly good coverage on one mon and also made Minior into my resident Dragon slayer. Overall, I absolutely love Minior, although Shell Smash did make the game a bit easy.

For a while, this was my team... until I found a Shiny Beldum, which I nicknamed Grossberg after all my other Metagross. Metagross is my favorite Pokemon and also has my favorite shiny by far, so I knew that as soon as I hit the postgame, I had to break my teambuilding tenants just this once and use it on my team. So I finished the game, swapped Wishiwashi out for it, and took it along for the postgame. Now, as a Metagross, it's a part of my team that I take into the Battle Tree with Muk and Minior, and I couldn't be happier with it as my first non-event shiny.

 

[leggomyeggos]

https://richi3f.github.io/pokemon-team-planner/#ribombee+whimsicott+sylveon+togekiss

Hello everyone! I have never tried competitive play but i figured why not try now? Have slowly become in love with fairy type pokemon so i was considering this team or atleast these few pokemon just not sure how to round out the rest of the team or what strat would work

 

[Banryu]

https://richi3f.github.io/pokemon-t...lycanroc+salamence+marowak-alola+greninja-ash

My first team I beat the game with. Had a bad time with Olivia and anyone else needed rock switchins for lol.
And that Mence? She came as is. Bwahahahaha. Yes I caught the level 10 route 3 Mence. Yes I'm insane. shrug.

Think I'm gonna try again with a slightly more balanced team though...

https://richi3f.github.io/pokemon-t...k-alola+cloyster+marowak-alola+zygarde+minior

Debating Dewpider > Shellder, Aero/Rampardos > Minior, and some steel type (IDK which shrug) over Zygarde though.

 

[Aris88]

First of all, as this is my first post here, hello!
Been enjoying pokemon for years, though never competitively. Really liking the new game so far, I am at the second island at the moment.

I have 3 pokemon so far, but I have planned out my team as follows:

So far I have Dartrix, Magnemite and Bagon, all of which are proving useful.

I've wanted to use Alolan Ninetales since the moment I laid eyes on it! I know it's a little later in game, though I am not sure exactly how much later...
As soon as I can catch a Ditto, I am breeding a Rowlet and trading it for a Litten.
Staryu is on the second island if I'm not mistaken, so I hope to get it soon. Can't say I like the new water pokemon (weird abilities or too slow) and I don't to use Gyarados again, so Starmie feels like the best option.

The team has 3 weaknesses to Fire and Ground, but I like all of these pokemon and I don't know if I can switch anyone out... I guess we'll see how it goes :)

PS: If Ninetales is very very late, I could use a good suggestion in its place, thanks!

 

[dwarfstar]

https://richi3f.github.io/pokemon-team-planner/#decidueye muk-alola cloyster marowak-alola zygarde minior

Debating Dewpider > Shellder, Aero/Rampardos > Minior, and some steel type (IDK which shrug) over Zygarde though.

Definitely go with Dewpider. Araquanid's Scald and Liquidation hit like a truck, it has solid bulk, and it's the most stylish Pokemon in the entire game. Aerodactyl comes super late (4th island), so unless you're down with waiting I'd stick with Minior. I haven't played around with any of the steels available in this game, but I hear the Magnemite line is super useful

 

[Banryu]

Definitely go with Dewpider. Araquanid's Scald and Liquidation hit like a truck, it has solid bulk, and it's the most stylish Pokemon in the entire game. Aerodactyl comes super late (4th island), so unless you're down with waiting I'd stick with Minior. I haven't played around with any of the steels available in this game, but I hear the Magnemite line is super useful

Oh yeah TBH it's more a matter of Pokemon I haven't used yet haha. Dewpider def gets some preference in that regard since, well, he's new and I know relatively little about him, though Shellder/Cloyster are special to me too haha. Might just do whoever comes first/easier, though they're both pretty early IIRC. (In that vein, I'll probably also go with Minior but we'll see I guess...?)

Yeah, Magnemite is definitely good and would help... esp since pretty much everyone I picked is physical or mixed ;;;; (again... blegh... what is with me and that this gen) So I guess I'll consider it...?? But I've used Magnemite a few times before and am kinda bored with him by now TBH. Unfortunately it seems like Steel-types are pretty sparse in the main game of this gen, so I might just have to live without.

Anyway, thanks for the input, much appreciated!