Testing In game team for an online pokemon league

tehlon

tehlon

Hey all. I am testing sets for Reddit.com/r/pokemonfrontier ' s pokemon league. I think this is the best I have so far. Rating, tweaks, comments, and analysis welcome. The team hits hard and fast with decent walls in between. If you have a suggestion of switching a mon, make sure it is something obtainable in gen 6. Ie) no way I can replace talonflame with infernape b/c you cant get infernape on a Y cartridge without pokebank. Thanks in advance!

Talonflame @ Muscle Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 124 HP / 252 Atk / 132 Spd
Adamant Nature
  • Brave Bird
  • Flare Blitz
  • Roost
  • U-turn
Talonflame is physical sweeper 1. He bleeds hard, but can dish it out fast. Muscle band bc I'm pretty sure you can't get a flying gem in game. Switched some EVs from speed to HP because the highest speed isn't really needed with gale wings, and the boosted HP helps with recoil. Roost if I forsee a switch is nice and U-turn if he switches into something terrible.

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpA
Bold Nature
  • Thunderbolt
  • Extrasensory
  • Roost
  • Defog
Zapdos's role is to be a semi-wall, semi-attacker. He can dish out pretty decent damage while being able to survive a lot of hits. He has won me several matches so far. Extrasensory might seem odd on him, but it is there to fend off fighting types as my coverage was weak elsewhere. Venusaur was tearing me up until this was added. It also frees up a slot on Greninja. Defog frees up rapid spin on excadrill.

Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
  • Hydro Pump
  • Ice Beam
  • Dark Pulse
  • Hidden Power [Fighting]
Basic Greninja set here. Special sweeper 1. Used to run HP fire until talonflame hopped on board and it didn't seem needed anymore. Shadow sneak was tried to mess with fighting types, but Zapdos is more equiped to handle them anyway with his ability to take a hit. So eventually HP fire was replaced with HP fighting for more coverage against normals/darks, and it is a nice surpise as I dont think I've seen anyone else run that. Although, I may need a new move because I am not sure HP fighting will be easy to get in game. He's essentially a revenge killer. Tough for him to stick around unless he is dropping mons.

Excadrill @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
  • Iron Head
  • Stealth Rock
  • Earthquake
  • Rock Slide
Physical sweep 2 and clean up crew. Choice scarf lets him outspeed almost anything that isnt priority. Choice scarf w Stealth rock might seem kind of weird, but it actually gives the team some flexability. If the enemy is running charizard/talonflame/other's weak to SR, I can lead with him. If not he's just there for damage. Iron head for fairies, and earthquake for electric coverage. He is another solid revenge killer/sweeper.

Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
  • Scald
  • Toxic
  • Recover
  • Protect
Zomg Quagsire. So many people have no idea what unaware does. I literally just had a guy dragon dance charizard x to max while i whittled him down with waterfall. It was awesome. Quagsire dont give a damn about your sword dance sucka! Basically he is my physical wall. He toxic stalls really well with this set. So many rage quits. I replaced waterfall with scald as I found the option to burn important on things with poison immunity.

Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
  • Sludge Bomb
  • Giga Drain
  • Synthesis
  • Leech Seed
Using him as my mega. He does special wall pretty well and the grass moves are welcome. Leech seed is incredible at keeping other walls in check. He went toe-to-toe with a rest suckle yesterday and came out ahead. He rounds out the set as now we have Grass, Fire, Water, and electric.
 
Hello! I have a few questions concerning your team, I hope all my suggestions are workable on a cartridge.

Why Muscle Band on Talonflame? I believe that Choice Band is the best item, whereas Life Orb is the second best if you want the flexibility. If you dislike the recoil, you can use Sharp Beak, which increases Brave Bird's damage by 20%, and I think that's better than Muscle Band, since you will be spamming Brave Bird most of the time. Another question, why 132 Speed? What do you outspeed with it? I'd suggest running max. Speed, as Speed is Talonflame's main selling points, you can speed tie opposing Talonflame and maybe even use Flare Blitz safely if the need arises. However, with Adamant nature, I suggest running atleast 208 Speed, as that lets you outspeed M-Pinsir's Quick Attack. If there's a specific benchmark in 132 Speed, I'd very much like to hear it. Jolly nature would bring some more flexibility when it comes to Speed EVs, but I guess you want to keep yor Adamant Talonflame on your cartridge.

About your Zapdos, why did you decide to use Extrasensory on Zapdos rather than Greninja? I can see how Zapdos can be a good answer to Fighting-types and M-Venusaur, but with Talonflame in your roster, I hardly think those two spell you any real trouble. In addition, Extrasensory Greninja checks M-Venusaur just fine in my experience. Ofc it has some trouble with Fighting-types courtesy of Mach Punch, but Zapdos can really take any Fighting-type Pokemon without Rock-coverage, and Fighting-type Pokemon usually don't wield Stone Edge + Mach Punch. I would maybe put Extrasensory back to Greninja, and use Toxic on Zapdos, as Zapdos toxic stalls very well. Also, I would suggest a spread of 252 HP / 168 Def / 88 SpA / on your Zapdos. Physical investment is important so you can effectively take physical hits, while the SpA investment makes sure you always kill M-Pinsir with Thunderbolt. If you decide not to use Extrasensory on Greninja, I believe HP Grass or Fire are the most optimal choices. Grass hits Rotom-W and the myriad of Water/Ground Pokemon, whereas Fire hits Ferrothorn, Scizor and Forretress.

Your Excadrill is quite standard, but I think that a fast SR is a nice touch. Although I do recommend trying to place SR in every battle, even though opponent's team isn't particularly weak to it, as it offers a good deal of chip damage, and you can take advantage of the turns your opponent decides to use Rapid Spin or Defog. I think Earthquake is a better option than Protect on Quagsire, as the second STAB is much appreciated against, for example, Char-X and Heatran, but if Protect works for you then feel free to abuse it. I would also consider using a Relaxed nature on Quagsire, as Impish nature decreases Special Attack, which is counter-intuitive as you are using Scald. I just think that Quagsire can Toxic stall just fine even without Protect. I think your M-Venu is quite standard, I have nothing to say to that.

I do think that your team has a decent defensive synergy, and although some Pokemon are a tad more dangerous than others, most of them can be handled decently. However, there are some Pokemon which will almost always take down atleast one of your Pokemon. Kyurem-B with a Substitute is one of those, as it can get a supereffective hit on everything except Quagsire, while Quag can't break his Substitute. Also Landorus-I with Psychic can take on your M-Venu easily, and you can't bring in safely anything, except for revenge-kill. Opposing Greninja with Extrasensory doesn't fear your M-Venu, and can take on almost all of your Pokes. Gengar with Taunt can take on your M-Venu and slowly wither it away. I think those are the most relevant, I hope my few thoughts have been of help! Good luck teambuilding!
 
This is a very great detailed write up. Thank you so much!

1) Talonflame: Muscle Band vs. (Choice Band/Life Orb/Sharp Beak). I was actually running sharp beak until today. For me it is a toss up between the two of those. I don't like choice band on him because I want the option to threaten another mon after I drop the first one. I am willing to try life orb, but hesitant, because he already bleeds so much to recoil. I will probably end up sticking with sharp beak because I do use brave bird about twice as much as flare blitz. I had him at max speed earlier and found him dying to recoil so fast. I haven't done any hard math, but annecdotally, I'd say the invested points in HP give me at least 1 more brave bird before killing myself. I will probably go with your suggestion of 208 to at least beat out pinsir.

2) Extrasensory, Greninja v Zapdos. I had extrasensory on Gre for a loooong time. Seemed to me (and maybe because i am kinda newb :-P) he'd always launch one at a conkeldur or venusaur, but wouldn't kill it. Then he'd eventually die. Seems like Zapdos gets more kills with it? again this is totally annecdotal. I will probably change the EVs to your suggestion as well. Do you think I need HP fire with talonflame around? I ran that for a while too. Also do you think I need HP grass w venusaur as a member? Then again, this all is probably a moot point and I will probably go with your suggestion because I doubt I can easily get a good Hidden power on Greninja on the cartridge.

3) yeah speedy stealh rock is nice. I will try to lead with it more often. Protect on quag is rocking right now (~1300-~1400 on PS) so I think I will leave that alone. I do need to change his nature. I either have it wrong in the write up, or need to fix it asap.

4) Venusaur is hilarious.

5) Yeah. When I get into a sticky situation, my best bet seems to be a revenge kill. I haven't run into any Kyurems yet, nor Landorus for that matter. So maybe I am lucky there.

Again, I really appreciate your analysis. Looking forward to making your corrections :-)
 
Hey! Just to respond to the few questions you asked. Well, I think Greninja doesn't really need Hidden Power to round out it's coverage, as Hydro Pump / Ice Beam / Dark Pulse / Extrasensory hits pretty much everything you would possibly want to hit. The main reason I suggested HP Grass or Fire was that if you decide to keep running Extrasensory with Zapdos, then it's good to increase your overall coverage with some Hidden Power type. Hidden Power needs to hit 4x supereffective its target so that it becomes notably better than Hydro Pump, because the Base Power of Hidden Power is mere 60. HP Fighting does hit Tyranitar and Bisharp hard, but Tyranitar is covered with Hydro Pump and Bisharp has a 87,5% chance of dying to Hydro Pump with 4 HP Evs. HP Grass could enable you to lure and hit Rotom-W or Gastrodon, or other specially bulky Water-types, whereas HP Fire hits Ferrothorn hard, which typing is a godsend against your coverage moves otherwise. When it comes to Conkeldurr, I agree, taking down AV Conkeldurr with a special attacker can be a bit hard, but I'd suggest always running your M-Venu against him. Ice Punch does a maximum of 26% to your Venusaur, and you can comfortably stall him out with Leech Seed, Synthesis and Giga Drain. If you decide to lead with Excadrill, make sure that you don't reveal your Choice Scarf right at the start, but rather place SR against a naturally slower opponent. When they see you put up SR, they will most likely think your set is the support set, and will later find in horror that your Excadrill is actually scarfed. Good luck in your battles!
 
Yeah. Hidden power on greninja is just not going to happen. I thnk I am going to go with the toxic on zapdos and extrasensory on greninja for ease. I don't want to have to breed like 200 Greninjas. (pokemon showdown spoils us sometimes :-p) Now I just need to figure out the problem of OBTAINING zapdos... Moltres is my legendary bird unfortunatly. If I cant get a trade, who do you think would be a worthwhile replacement? maybe a tanky heliolisk build?

just as an update. I played about 5 matches last night and almost always led with Excadrill Stealth Rock. Even in the cases he died, I still felt like I got enough damage out of The steal rock to make it a worthwhile sacrifice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top