VGC Sun Team! Because Sun>Rain. (4v4 Doubles)

[The Lost One]

As you might know, Nintendo's VGC is a popular format, so there is a renewed interest in the Pokemon Showdown format. I find this format to be very fun and interesting, so I've been testing this team for a while. I've had moderate success with it, but my win rate is only about 70%, so I'd like to make some improvements.

On to the team and my analysis! (all pictures belong to arkeis.com)

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Crobat
Timid - Inner Focus - Focus Sash
6 HP/252 SpA/252 Speed
-Heat Wave
-Sunny Day
-Taunt
-Air Slash/HP Ground/Protect

Typhlosion
Modest - Blaze - Lum Berry
52 HP/4 Defense/200 spA/252 spe
-Heatwave
-Eruption
-Solarbeam
-Protect

My two leads, Crobat and Typhlosion. My general strategy is to SD with Crobat and either attack or protect with Typhlosion - if the situation calls, Crobat can taunt as well.

On subsequent turns, Typhlosion and Crobat take advantage of the sun with Heat Wave, Eruption, and Solarbeam.

Typhlosion's set takes full advantage of the sun. At full health, Eruption's damage is massive, even to 2x resisters. Solarbeam takes care of annoying water types who try to take the hits, and Heat Wave acts as backup in case Eruption's power becomes too low. His lum berry prevents him from being stopped by paralysis or sleep, and his EVs let him do severe damage with his attacks.

Crobat's final move is up in the air. Air Slash helps against Infernape who benefit from Sun, while HP Ground covers Heatran. Protect is an all-around good move as well, so its difficult choosing this last slot.

Exeggutor
Modest - Chlorophyll - Life Orb
6 HP/252 spA/252 speed
-Protect
-Solarbeam
-Psychic
-HP Ice

This Exeggutor acts as the second major damage dealer on the team. With STAB Solarbeam in the sun and STAB Psychic, he hits most opposing Pokemon for massive damage. He also outspeeds most things with his ability.

Protect lets him scout and bring some opponents into KO range without the risk of being KO'd by life orb or priority moves. HP Ice covers Garchomp, Mence and the Lati twins if needed.

EVs: I'm considering removing the defensive EVs for better power at th e risk of not surviving a hit. I'm not sure, however.

Rhyperior

Brave - Leftovers - Solid Rock
252 Attack/6 HP/252 special defense
31 speed IV.
-Sunny Day
-Rock Slide
-Earthquake
-Megahorn

Rhyperior is the sole Physical Pokemon on my team, my second sunny day user, and the Pokemon who covers my weaknesses. Earthquake takes care of Heatran and Fire Types who would take nothing from a Solarbeam or Eruption, and is complimented by the other Pokemons' protects; he can Megahorn Uxie and the Lati Twins; and he takes care of bulky flying types, such as Gyarados and Zapdos, quite well. He also helps out in Trick Room with a low 54 speed (31 speed IV). I'm on the fence whether I should go for lower speed or not - he ties with minimum speed base 55's, so if he goes lower he will be slower out of Trick Room and Faster inside it. I'm not sure which I'd prefer.

Overall, his main purpose is covering the weaknesses that naturally occur with a Sunny Day team.
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This team is a Sunny Day team, so it is a little bit different from most Showdown teams that rely on trick room or rain. I built it from scratch (no model to start from), so there are a few problems that I've noticed from my own play testing that I have a hard time with

• Heatran, Zapdos, and Lati Twins: With the addition of Rhyperior, these are much easier to take care of - however, HP Grass Zapdos and too many strong hits from the others could make it difficult to beat them.
• Trick Room: If the TR team is played properly, my team of fast sweepers is ruined. I can stall it out with Protect, and Rhyperior helps, but 54 speed is still relatively high.
• Rain teams: I've got these covered for the most part, but if I fail to clear the rain in the same or next turn after it is set up, I'm basically done for.

There are most definitely more problems, I just notice these the most. Therefore, I kindly ask for your rates and criticisms. Any supported arguments for or against parts of this team and changes to be made will be considered. Thanks for reading this post, and I thank anyone who can help.

 

[The Lost One]

This is pretty far back, so I'm bumping it.

I made a major update for the better: I replaced Dusknoir with Rhyperior. He covers weaknesses of my team better in general, and he seems to be able to take more damage than Dusknoir can.

 

[Wailpedo]

Seeing as that you EV'd your Typhlosion to survive Chomp Earthquakes...yet you can't really kill it off, I suggest replacing one of your Fire STAB with HP Ice (although getting a legit one for the tournament might be annoying). With two Fire STAB, your opponent has two reasons to switch something in that resists them, including the aforementioned Chomp. Ice dispatches him with ease, as well as other Dragons like Flygon and so-on.

For Togekiss, the only thing I'd suggest would be to switch his ability to Hustle, as none of your moves have secondary effects =/ . Hustle will really help out Extremespeed, as Togekiss' Attack stat (especially when you didn't EV it there) really just sucks. I don't know if you'd want to risk the accuracy drop that comes with using Hustle, however.

Exeggutor and Rhyperior seem like a very good combo in my opinion; the only problem being that both of them and Togekiss are all weak to Ice. Giving Rhyperior Sunny Day won't help much, as it's just a waste of a moveslot if Exeggutor dies. I recommend you give Exeggutor Explosion / Sleep Powder over one of his non-Sunny Day moves. The Lati Twins resist both of your STAB anyway (I know about Megahorn; the rest of Rhyperior will be covered soon), so Exploding on them or putting them to sleep will greatly help out. The rest of your team has Protect anyway (with Rhyperior not being scratched by it) to save themselves.

If Exeggutor isn't utilizing Trick Room, you shouldn't really be EV'ing your Rhyperior to benefit from it. Give it Adamant with Max HP and Attack (or you could boost his sp. def...but unless he's in a Sandstorm he'll still get hit hard by special attacks. Replace Sunny Day with Substitute, to scout for the aforementioned Lati Twins, and to attack accordingly.


I'm not the best with Doubles but I hope my advice helps you. I like the fact that some people are still attempting Sunny Day teams with all this annoying Sandstorm and Hail going around. =)

 

[The Lost One]

Seeing as that you EV'd your Typhlosion to survive Chomp Earthquakes...yet you can't really kill it off, I suggest replacing one of your Fire STAB with HP Ice (although getting a legit one for the tournament might be annoying). With two Fire STAB, your opponent has two reasons to switch something in that resists them, including the aforementioned Chomp. Ice dispatches him with ease, as well as other Dragons like Flygon and so-on.

As I (think I) mentioned, Heat Wave is the secondary option because Eruption becomes useless if my power is too low. I considered replacing something for HP Ice on him or Exeggutor, but I'm finding it difficult to replace anything on his or Exeggutor's moveset.

For Togekiss, the only thing I'd suggest would be to switch his ability to Hustle, as none of your moves have secondary effects =/ . Hustle will really help out Extremespeed, as Togekiss' Attack stat (especially when you didn't EV it there) really just sucks. I don't know if you'd want to risk the accuracy drop that comes with using Hustle, however.

I only use Extremespeed to break sashes, as I think I mentioned as well. I don't want that to miss, so Hustle is not an option.

Exeggutor and Rhyperior seem like a very good combo in my opinion; the only problem being that both of them and Togekiss are all weak to Ice. Giving Rhyperior Sunny Day won't help much, as it's just a waste of a moveslot if Exeggutor dies. I recommend you give Exeggutor Explosion / Sleep Powder over one of his non-Sunny Day moves. The Lati Twins resist both of your STAB anyway (I know about Megahorn; the rest of Rhyperior will be covered soon), so Exploding on them or putting them to sleep will greatly help out. The rest of your team has Protect anyway (with Rhyperior not being scratched by it) to save themselves.

Sunny Day helps both Typhlosion and Exeggutor, and without the Sun, both of them have trouble. Therefore, It helps most to have several sunny day users.

As for Sleep Powder and Explosion: I explained that Explosion rarely finds any use because my Exeggutor usually comes in relatively late. If I explode, I lose one of my last major powers. Sleep Powder seems like a good idea, but I had tested it out prior to posting the thread, and it generally wasn't worth it to put the one Pokemon to sleep, or even risk the accuracy.

If Exeggutor isn't utilizing Trick Room, you shouldn't really be EV'ing your Rhyperior to benefit from it. Give it Adamant with Max HP and Attack (or you could boost his sp. def...but unless he's in a Sandstorm he'll still get hit hard by special attacks. Replace Sunny Day with Substitute, to scout for the aforementioned Lati Twins, and to attack accordingly.

I didn't EV Rhyperior for Trick room. Also, according to X-Act's applet, he benefits most from the spread I gave him, unless I want him to be more on the physical side of the spectrum, which I don't with his already high stat there. Substitute makes no sense at all with the rest of the team, which needs Sunny Day support.

I'm not the best with Doubles but I hope my advice helps you. I like the fact that some people are still attempting Sunny Day teams with all this annoying Sandstorm and Hail going around. =)

Thanks =) But Sandstorm is very rare in Showdown and Rain and trick room are as common as Hail, so those are more of an issue than the SS and Hail teams =P

Thanks for trying to help, but I've tried most of what you suggested already or know for a fact that it won't help. As for the rest, I fail to see how it would help my team synergy at all =\ Feel free to explain it in greater detail if you want.

 

[StarmanXL]

Don't really have much time to rate right now, but I will say, yeah, TR works you and you've no way to stop it from being set up with your lead. Have you considered maybe using Shiftry? Benefits from Sunny Day, can run Fake Out, generally pretty cool. Or there's also Infernape; doesn't get Chlorophyll, but can abuse Heat Wave and can run either Fake Out or Taunt.

Second, I think three Sunny Day users are a bit unneccesary--even in 6v6 I find more than 2 field effect inducers to be a bit much. I would suggest removing SD from at least one pokemon, probably on Rhyperior, and run, I dunno, Protect or Hammer Arm or something. You could drop it on Exeggutor to free up room for HP Ice, as well (matter of fact, I would put it in Psychic's place regardless, since Psychic gets crap coverage anyways).

Oh, and on Typhlosion, I really don't like the EVs either, I'd rather go for speed and power, and if you see a Garchomp, go to Exeggutor and murder it with HP Ice.

 

[The Lost One]

Don't really have much time to rate right now, but I will say, yeah, TR works you and you've no way to stop it from being set up with your lead. Have you considered maybe using Shiftry? Benefits from Sunny Day, can run Fake Out, generally pretty cool. Or there's also Infernape; doesn't get Chlorophyll, but can abuse Heat Wave and can run either Fake Out or Taunt.

Yeah, Trick Room can be an issue. I'll try out Infernape (it seems risky to use 2 chlorophyll Pokemon in 4v4) and see how it works. If I use him though, I'll probably have to replace Togekiss as well to alter the strategy.

Second, I think three Sunny Day users are a bit unneccesary--even in 6v6 I find more than 2 field effect inducers to be a bit much. I would suggest removing SD from at least one pokemon, probably on Rhyperior, and run, I dunno, Protect or Hammer Arm or something. You could drop it on Exeggutor to free up room for HP Ice, as well (matter of fact, I would put it in Psychic's place regardless, since Psychic gets crap coverage anyways).

I guess I'll take out SD on Exeggutor in favor of HP Ice. I'll keep it on Rhyperior since he probably has a better chance of setting it up anyway. I wouldn't normally use Psychic on a Pokemon, but Exeggutor gets STAB on it and I personally feel its a good enough option to keep.

Oh, and on Typhlosion, I really don't like the EVs either, I'd rather go for speed and power, and if you see a Garchomp, go to Exeggutor and murder it with HP Ice.

So would you recommend no defensive EVs at all, or keeping some and moving the rest to its special attack? I was under the impression that it was good to invest some defensive EVs into most Pokemon, especially since Typhlosion's defenses aren't paper thin.

I tentatively changed his spread to 52 HP/200 special attack/252 speed/4 defense.

Anyway, updated with the changes above.

 

[The Lost One]

Been inactive for a while, but I've updated by replacing Togekiss with Crobat. I feel from my experience like this team works, but not as well as it could, so any more help is appreciated. I'd like more opinions, so hopefully I read the rules right and its ok to recycle this one instead of creating a seperate thread.