Rate/Fix my NU team

[Shadow Zangoose]

I decided to make an NU team, but I'm not too sure how good/Bad it is. Here's the construction of said team:
Team construction
I start out with Golurk, taking advantage of its Life orb + Drain punch ability.

Afterwards, I decided to add zangoose, one of the biggest threats in NU, also my favorite pokemon of all time.

Let's just HM01 to the first full team. I brought NU's troll pokemon Liepard in, then I mixed Regigigas and Ninjask together. Ninjask Baton passes speed and attack onto gigas to negate the slow start effect. And finally, NU's other biggest threat, Gorebyss.

This looked like a solid team. But then I realized: I needed a spinner. So I kicked out Gorebyss and put in Torkoal instead.

After that, I noticed a huge Water type weakness. So I put in Cacturne instead of Torkoal.

And now this gives me a NEW weakness. 4 of my pokemon are weak to fighting. so I decided to get Cacturne out and get a pokemon that resists both: Altaria.

I won a lot of battles, then I realized a... Wait for it... weakness. None of my pokemon resist Ice. so final switch out, I removed Golurk, since he did nearly nothing, and brought back Gorebyss.

With that, here is our team:
The Result:

Facade (Zangoose) @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Toxic Boost
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Facade
- Protect
- Feint
- Close Combat
This zangoose is pretty much the best of the team. Zangoose is well known for the Facade+Toxic boost combo, so here we have that ability. Facade causes massive damage to the opponent. Protect makes sure Zangoose is scar-free before the Toxic orb is active. Close Combat deals with Rock and Steel types. Now here's the biggest question you guys may have in your head. "Feint? Why?". Well, when Zangoose is intoxicated, it's set on a timer.Every turn, Toxins get harsher, and harsher, and harsher. Protect can really f*** everything up, so feint is there to deal with that problem. It doesen't deal the most massive damage ever, but it does at least some while protect is used. Zangoose can handle anything aside from Ghost types.

IMGONNAWRECKIT! (Regigigas) @ Leftovers
Trait: Slow Start
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SDef
Careful Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Return
Slow start is a pain. However, I have a way to negate it. We'll get to that later. Thunder wave slows the opponent down by a lot, allowing Slow start to end more easily. Earthquake is for SE damage. Substitute to prevent damage and Return causes heavy STAB damage. That's basically about it.

Nyan (Liepard) @ Leftovers
Trait: Prankster
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Swagger
- Encore
- Foul Play
- Substitute
Prankster is cruel. Substitute prevents damage, Foul play so Liepard has an attacking move, Encore to laugh at those that set up SR, and Swagger to power up Foul play. Liepard has 0 IVs in Attack because Foul Play uses the opponent's attack stat, not the user's.

GOTTAGOFAST (Ninjask) @ Leftovers
Trait: Speed Boost
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
Ninjask's whole point is to baton pass onto Regigigas. Protect activates Speed Boost safely, Substitute is to use Speed boost when Protect was already used, Swords dance to add attack if an attack misses, and baton pass does the magic.

Altaria @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 180 SDef / 80 Spd
Careful Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
- Dragon Claw
- Heal Bell
Altaria is one of, if not, the bulkiest dragon out there. Dragon dance increases attack and speed, Roost recovers health for more stalling, Dragon claw is there to add an attacking move, and Heal Bell heals all status problems.

The Eel Deal (Gorebyss) (F) @ White Herb
Trait: Swift Swim
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Shell Smash
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Ice Beam
One of the top tier threats. Shell Smash is for sweeping purposes, Surf is for STAB, HP Fire stops the Grass weakness, and Ice beam is for an ice type attack.

So what can I do to improve the team? Leave a reply to suggest ideas ;)​

 

[Windex Drinker]

Hidden Power Fire to stop a Grass weakness seems a bit redundant when you have Ice Beam. I'm not saying to change it but there are other moves you could use like Psychic, Signal Beam, Shadow Ball, etc.
Good luck with your team I guess.

 

[Shadow Zangoose]

Hidden Power Fire to stop a Grass weakness seems a bit redundant when you have Ice Beam. I'm not saying to change it but there are other moves you could use like Psychic, Signal Beam, Shadow Ball, etc.
Good luck with your team I guess.

You do have a good point. Maybe I should replace it for HP ground instead.

 

[Moose V]

Couple suggestions:
1) Your zangoose has no moves to touch ghosts and feint is so situational that it's not worth running. I bet you can figure out what I'm gonna suggest here. (hint: rhymes with might mash)
2) I'm not gonna say you should outright never use liepard, but don't use it. It's 100% reliant on hax and takes no skill to use. At a higher level of play it's almost never used and seeing one on an opponent's team screams that they probably aren't too experienced. This is not to say you aren't experienced cuz I have no idea how you play but as your win/loss record goes up, you'll find liepard does less for you.
3) The problem with regigigas is that it rarely has time to set up in NU's fast paced metagame. On top of this, your gigas set can't do anything at all to sub haunter. The mono-normal redundancy isn't helping you out either.
4) For replacing the two I mentioned, I'd go back to tank leftovers golurk since you have no hazards and banded sawk OHKOs pretty much everything on your team and having golurk forces it to go for ice punch, giving you a free chance to set up w/ gore. You also have o rock resists which golurk helps with. For the second substitution, I'd use pursuit trapping skuntank. In NU you pretty much need a poison type to absorb toxic spikes and pursuit trapping is invaluable.
5) Gorebyss should be timid to outspeed some scarfers like braviary after a boost. Plus before a boost you can outspeed a lot more things. I agree hp fire doesn't do much for you and it should be replaced w/ signal beam for jynx. HP ground doesn't help much either cuz surf already does more damage to the likes of Bastiodon and Probopass.
6) You might wanna add just like one more sentence or two of description per poke cuz you're supposed to have 3 lines and your post might get locked otherwise.
7) Don't make everything shiny unless you're planning on hustling somebody. This may not seem important but less experienced players tend to spam the shiny button while making team and (much like liepard) will give away their skill level. Since you're new to smogon I'm guessing you are pretty new to competitive battling so keeping your opponent guessing as to your skill level may actually win you a match. This may seem silly, but trust me it isn't.

 

[Shadow Zangoose]

Couple suggestions:
1) Your zangoose has no moves to touch ghosts and feint is so situational that it's not worth running. I bet you can figure out what I'm gonna suggest here. (hint: rhymes with might mash)
With that idea, I replaced feint in honor of Night Slash. Protect spammers are still going to be a problem though.
2) I'm not gonna say you should outright never use liepard, but don't use it. It's 100% reliant on hax and takes no skill to use. At a higher level of play it's almost never used and seeing one on an opponent's team screams that they probably aren't too experienced. This is not to say you aren't experienced cuz I have no idea how you play but as your win/loss record goes up, you'll find liepard does less for you.
Good point. I decided to remove Liepard in honor of another Ice type counter. I chose Lapras for this.
Full restore (Lapras) @ Damp Rock
Trait: Hydration
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Rain Dance
- Rest
- Surf
- Ice Beam
Rain dance + Rest basically acts like a full restore in the main series, and I know how many of you hate that. I was originally run the set with Thunder, but that would make Grass types an amazing counter for it. Therefore, I removed Thunder and went for ice beam. It can take out pretty much anything, aside from other water types.
3) The problem with regigigas is that it rarely has time to set up in NU's fast paced metagame. On top of this, your gigas set can't do anything at all to sub haunter. The mono-normal redundancy isn't helping you out either.
Removing Regigigas means removing Ninjask as well. So I replaced both. The first is the golurk you mentioned earlier. The set I'm running is:
Golurk @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Shadow Punch
The second one I'm going for is Torkoal, as I need a rapid spinner.
Torkoal @ Leftovers
Trait: Shell Armor
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Lava Plume
- Yawn
- Will-O-Wisp
4) For replacing the two I mentioned, I'd go back to tank leftovers golurk since you have no hazards and banded sawk OHKOs pretty much everything on your team and having golurk forces it to go for ice punch, giving you a free chance to set up w/ gore. You also have o rock resists which golurk helps with. For the second substitution, I'd use pursuit trapping skuntank. In NU you pretty much need a poison type to absorb toxic spikes and pursuit trapping is invaluable.
I personally really don't want to use a poison type. The golurk is a good idea though. I used it to replace Regigigas.
5) Gorebyss should be timid to outspeed some scarfers like braviary after a boost. Plus before a boost you can outspeed a lot more things. I agree hp fire doesn't do much for you and it should be replaced w/ signal beam for jynx. HP ground doesn't help much either cuz surf already does more damage to the likes of Bastiodon and Probopass.
Changed to timid.
6) You might wanna add just like one more sentence or two of description per poke cuz you're supposed to have 3 lines and your post might get locked otherwise.
I don't know how to edit posts...
7) Don't make everything shiny unless you're planning on hustling somebody. This may not seem important but less experienced players tend to spam the shiny button while making team and (much like liepard) will give away their skill level. Since you're new to smogon I'm guessing you are pretty new to competitive battling so keeping your opponent guessing as to your skill level may actually win you a match. This may seem silly, but trust me it isn't.
Really? that seems strange. But I'll keep the advice. I made Zangoose and Lapras the only ones to shine.

 

[Moose V]

All you need to do to change your post is to hit the edit button found at the very bottom of the post.

 

[skylight]

Your team seems to be all over the place sorta. Lapras can support Gorebyss with rain however Lapras just increases your weaknesses and doesn't really do much for your team which Gorebyss could otherwise do. You could also run Substitute > HP Fire (or Signal Beam which you hopefully added) on Gorebyss because Substitute allows you to set up against mons that use slow twaves, toxic, w-o-w etc. Altaria doesn't really support your team much because as it is you don't need Heal Bell due to Zangoose enjoying the Toxic Boost. Just go fully offensive and run EQ > Dragon Claw otherwise Steel types destroy you if you really wanna run it. Also, Altaria isn't the best fighting-type check in the tier (which is why you added it - and given that Sawk/Primeape have Ice Punch and Stone Edge it's not the most reliable for that purpose) and something like Alomomola would provide Gorebyss with Wish support so it could sweep later, and also can help Zangoose sweep, or even Musharna could be good there. You don't really need a spinner since nothing is overly Stealth Rock weak. You also have no priority in your team which isn't great in a fast metagame like this. Add Quick Attack > Protect because it isn't hard to get Zangoose a free switch-in most of the time and it can easily take a Toxic.

Nothing can really handle Jynx and it can set up all over you (if you remove Torkoal which really is p much dead weight). If you added something like Kangaskhan (to give you priority for handling Jynx and other fast things in the tier) and if you choose to run Toxic Spikes on Scolipede then you can build up damage with Kanga) and even Scolipede that issue could be handled (those two instead of like Lapras / Altaria / Torkoal - and add in Alomomola or Musharna to take Fighting hits since you really want it, and Musharna can support or sweep at the same time with either a Pivot or Calm Mind set). The latter would provide you with Spikes support to help Gorebyss and Zangoose sweep easier and Scolipede combined with Golurk can handle Musharna. Samurott can be an issue but it can be played around as long as you set up spikes or SR early and make use of Kangaskhan. Scolipede can also take hits from Grass-types for you, so you're probs better off with Mushy as Alomomola just increases your weaknesses there. Those are the main things to quickly come to mind here. Good luck!

 

[Shadow Zangoose]

It would be hard to write down all the changes by editing the post, so I might as well post them in here:
-Got rid of Regigigas, Ninjask, Altaria and liepard. there are far better members to add.
-*Sigh* There isn't a choice, is there? Altaria is not the best fighting counter. This means I HAVE to add a poison type. Therefore, I put in one of the only two poison types in NU that I like, which is the better fighting counter. I added in Scolipede. It runs a Bulky (Toxic) Spikes set, and can take fighting type attacks easier than altaria. Plus, Heal bell can really hurt Toxic boost. So no reason to add Altaria over Scolipede.
-Gorebyss is said to run Timid much better than Modest. So I gave her that. She also runs HP Ground instead of HP Fire, as Ice beam gives no reason to have HP fire.
-Added lapras, who has a very annoying Stall strategy. You know about Full restores, right? well, the set I run is basically that.
-Golurk returns! I really need to set up SR, and Golurk is the best for that role.
-Torkoal also returns! I really need a spinner, and Torkoal seems to be the only viable spinner in NU.
-Zangoose runs Night slash instead of feint.
So here's the updated team:

Facade (Zangoose) @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Toxic Boost
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Facade
- Protect
- Close Combat
- Night Slash
Once again, the best of the team. I usually prefer Immunity over Toxic Boost, but T-Boost is the more viable of the two abilities. So of course, it's better to run that. Some of you may wonder why I run Protect over swords dance. Well, when I ran S-Dance, Zangoose usually got OHKOd or pushed out by circle throw/Whirlwind. So protect is the better choice. No T-Boost zangoose should go out without Facade. Facade doubles in power when poisoned/Burned/Paralyzed, and mixing that with Toxic boost OHKOs or 2HKOs nearly everything. Close combat is there when Facade can't handle Rock/Steel types. Night slash is the same, but for Ghosts.

The Eel Deal (Gorebyss) (F) @ White Herb
Trait: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Shell Smash
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Ice Beam
Gorebyss is an infamous SS sweeper, and she is really good at that. Gorebyss is most known for her Shell smash ability. While she can also be good for baton passing Amnesia+Iron Defense, Gorebyss is better for Shell Smash. Surf is for STAB, of course. What's a pokemon without STAB moves anyway? HP ground handles the Electric weakness, and Ice beam gets the Grass weakness.

Full restore (Lapras) @ Damp Rock
Trait: Hydration
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Rain Dance
- Rest
- Surf
- Ice Beam
This Lapras set is basically Competitive play's Full Restore. Hydration is easily Lapras's best ability. Shell armor is cool, but not too useful in competitive. Water absorb is completely useless on water types. Rain dance is here because Drizzle is banned from NU, therefore, I run Rain dance + Damp rock. Rest is where the "Full restore" Comes in. Rest is used, and then Hydration removes the sleep effect. Surf and Ice beam are for STAB hits.

Golurk some more. (Golurk) @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- Shadow Punch
Due to SR being nearly required for NU, I added Golurk to my team. Originally, I removed him because he didn't do much, but now, I brought him back so he can rain rocks onto the opponent's team. He has three other moves because you NEED attacking moves. EQ and Shadow punch are for STAB bonuses, as usual, and Ice punch for another ice move.

Bowser (Torkoal) @ Leftovers
Trait: Shell Armor
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Lava Plume
- Yawn
- Will-O-Wisp
Rapid spinning is required in competitive. Torkoal is easily the best spinner in NU, and it's easy to see why. Torkoal has a whopping 140 defense, making it hard to take out. It also has lava plume because pokemon need attacking moves. Yawn and Will-O-wisp are complete filler.

Scolipede @ Black Sludge
Trait: Quick Feet
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 168 Spd / 36 Atk / 248 HP / 56 Def
Jolly Nature
- Spikes
- Toxic Spikes
- Megahorn
- Aqua Tail
Stealth rocks aren't the only entry hazards. Scolipede is one of the only two poison types in NU that I like (The other being Seviper). Scolipede, being the better of the two, was the best choice. Not only does scolipede have a slick design, double resists fighting and can set up entry hazards, but he's also a great attacker. Megahorn can cause pain when it hits (Which is 99% of the time for me), and aqua tail is MORE FILLER! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!