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Project Mono-Type: Water

Ice Shard doesn't have much value when every one of your team can carry an Ice attack. The only Dragon with priority is Dragonite, and ES has +2 priority anyway.

If you really wanted to do revenge-killing, just run Choice Scarf Sharpedo/Starmie/Floatzel. You can even run CB Sharpedo/Floatzel and Aqua Jet.
 
Not to mention that Ice Shards only real purpose is to get that last bit of hp off of DDers or QDers.

Oh wait, Quagsire doesn't care about either of those.
 
Ive been playtesting a defensive team this afternoon. But Lapras does seem to be either completely unutilized (i win first) or not game changing... you are probably right.

Are we decided on a team type?
 
Balanced is imo the only viable Drizzle team. Stall can't take hits well with a single typing and offense gets demolished by stall or faster pokemon like Lati@s or Starmie.

I have no opinion on Rain Dance or Drizzle Dance teams but i am convinced that Drizzle balance is the way to go.
 
For the most part I'm seeing Drizzle stall and balanced... any die hard fans for drizzle offense? I will be updating the second post before I leave this evening and I'd like to have narrowed down our direction so that the community can get some focused testing in over the weekend. We can start voting on a line on Monday.
 
CB Sharpedo? What?

People don't understand that there isn't much room for speculation when making mono teams. There's a set lineup that's optimal, then you just have to tweak the sets. For water, it's pretty much Politoed/Empoleon/Gyarados/Rotom-W/Quagsire/Tentacruel. Rarely will you see a great mono water team that's much different. Things that are also possible are Kingdra or Ludicolo, but that's about it.
 
Im actually having a ton of success with LO Starmie.

-Surf
-Psyshock
-Thunderbolt
-Recover

admittedly haven't used recover yet... might be worth putting ice beam or grass knot there.
 
The major issue mono-water has in my testing is dealing with dragon type pokemon. If they have a SubCM Latias and you dont have Quag in good health its pretty much gg. If they have multiple dragons its pretty much gg too.
 
Texas Cloverleaf said:
The major issue mono-water has in my testing is dealing with dragon type pokemon. If they have a SubCM Latias and you dont have Quag in good health its pretty much gg. If they have multiple dragons its pretty much gg too.
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That's what happens to basically any type besides ice or steel.
 
Texas Cloverleaf said:
The major issue mono-water has in my testing is dealing with dragon type pokemon. If they have a SubCM Latias and you dont have Quag in good health its pretty much gg. If they have multiple dragons its pretty much gg too.
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Water does have several Ice types available. Half the reason I use Lapras is its ability to counter said Dragons. Choice Band Haxorus fails to OHKO with outrage. Yeah Lapras is that bulky.
 
Shokwav said:
Kyurem?
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Indeed, Kyurem as well. Abomasnow, Froslass, and Kyurem are MUST haves. Jynx probably for it's ability to kill fighting types, and Cryogonal for spinning. The other one probably goes to Rotom-F cause it's a boss and is immune to ground and stuff.
 
Xephyr said:
Indeed, Kyurem as well. Abomasnow, Froslass, and Kyurem are MUST haves. Jynx probably for it's ability to kill fighting types, and Cryogonal for spinning. The other one probably goes to Rotom-F cause it's a boss and is immune to ground and stuff.
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And then you realize that a CB Scizor can sweep you with just Bullet Punch...
 
Getting back to Water...

How dedicated are we to using Politoed? I realize he seems like the most obvious choice ever for a Mono-Water team, but wouldn't it be more interesting - and wouldn't we learn more - if we went a less obvious route?

My suggestion (if we can take Politoed off the table) is to try and make something similar to a Gen4 Rain Dance team. This gives us a couple of benefits: firstly, we'll have two or three 'mons packing Rain Dance to clear unfriendly weather. Secondly, it will allow us to use the triad of powerful Swift Swim sweepers - Kabutops, Ludicolo, and of course Kingdra.

I feel like if we make a team carrying Politoed it'll just wind up looking fairly similar to a lot of teams that are already running around on the ladder. Trying to make a Mono-Water team minus the frog sounds like a much more interesting and educational prospect to me.
 
*sorry I started to work on this before the above post was made (please consider the points above too)*

maybe we should get back on topic?

In my eyes, the formation of a mono team isn't inherently different than building a "regular" team. The limitation is only on typing.

Pick the kind of team we want to run. (From the general consensus it seems like balance is best, which I would agree)
So to start we form a balance team and then look for any "common" threats that can run through the team. As many of these threats are identified as possible, and then we try to come up with appropriate checks and counters without changing the overall feel of the team too much. Then comes testing and tweaking.

To summarize what we have thus far...

Politoed (For perma-rain) Bulky set
Swampert or Quagsire (We are leaning towards Quag? with Ice Beam for Dragon DDers?)
Tentacruel (bulky for spinning and t-spikes, maybe strong sp. atk poison move)
Gyarados (offensive DD set with sub and bounce)
Empoleon (sp def bulky, maybe with aqua jet, but otherwise a special set? personal thought - it would be nice to have roar, hp electric or grass knot, ice beam? )

for last slot many things have been thrown around. Starmie, Kingdra, Vaporeon, Ludicolo, even Lapras.

Also personal thought. Shell smash Cloyster (standard set) to attempt the end game sweep after letting Gyarados weaken some stuff.

-let downs of the set above: no reliable healing other than maybe Quagsire, and not using Vaporeon means no wishes (still a very viable option however) Only 1 electric resist, only 2 are neutral to grass. No dedicated status absorber. Poison, Para, and to an extent burn can be played around, but excellent prediction and appropriate switches will make it hard. Sleep is bad news period (can possibly use Poli to take the sleep) And no cleric to clear status.

-good things this set has: Decent amount of offense, perma-rain to counter and probably win weather wars, decent defense with hazards and a spinner, phazer, and respectable dual typing that attempts to cover some weaknesses (going to be hard to get much better than what this has)

Just so we don't lose the progress we've made.
 
Onetwobanana said:
Getting back to Water...

How dedicated are we to using Politoed? I realize he seems like the most obvious choice ever for a Mono-Water team, but wouldn't it be more interesting - and wouldn't we learn more - if we went a less obvious route?

My suggestion (if we can take Politoed off the table) is to try and make something similar to a Gen4 Rain Dance team. This gives us a couple of benefits: firstly, we'll have two or three 'mons packing Rain Dance to clear unfriendly weather. Secondly, it will allow us to use the triad of powerful Swift Swim sweepers - Kabutops, Ludicolo, and of course Kingdra.

I feel like if we make a team carrying Politoed it'll just wind up looking fairly similar to a lot of teams that are already running around on the ladder. Trying to make a Mono-Water team minus the frog sounds like a much more interesting and educational prospect to me.
Click to expand...

It's not about interesting and educational. We're trying to make the best possible mono water team. That includes Politoed.
 
alexwolf said:
Lapras,Walrein and Cloyster.
The first 2 need Sub to live through the first Superpower.
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Alas, poor Dewgong, alone and forgotten.

Is Rotom-W or Starmie better? Starmie has better Speed, Ice Beam, immune to status, while Rotom has a better typing overall, more defensive, Shadow Ball and can scout with Volt Switch.
 
Axa said:
Alas, poor Dewgong, alone and forgotten.

Is Rotom-W or Starmie better? Starmie has better Speed, Ice Beam, immune to status, while Rotom has a better typing overall, more defensive, Shadow Ball and can scout with Volt Switch.
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Oh poor Dewgong i really forgot him...
It has been so many years since i played the only game where it was useful that's why(RBY).

Anyway the choice about Starmie or Rotom-W really depends on your team's needs.
We could even put both but with different roles.
Starmie could run a specs set with Trick to cripple Ferro switch ins and stop last mon pokes from boosting,and Rotom-W could run a more defensive spread,like the one in the smogon dex,with both WoW and Pain Split for further Ferro insurance and improved longevity.
 
Xephyr said:
It's not about interesting and educational. We're trying to make the best possible mono water team. That includes Politoed.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't thread starter say in the beginning that the point was to hone creativty and further team building skills to outside the box standards? Something about breaking rocks down to sand.
 
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