First team made (4th Gen)

[Shame That]

After a long time of taking other teams and making minor changes, me and my friend [Watswrong] really got into the swing of battling other people (really new!). So we decided to try and piece together the best Pokemon we have seen, and create our own team. After battling and winning a good amount of times, I decided to come join Smogon and hear some constructive criticism. This is my first post on smogon, so If I'm posting something wrong or stupid, please tell me straight away!

Team building process:

~Jirachi~
Originally, I opted for Uxie, but Rachi has given me a powerful amount of diversity and some, simple power.

~Magnezone~
The only things super duper against Uxie are dark and ghost, and after a while of looking around for a decent steel switch-in, I had decided on Heatran. However, 2sly4u gave great reason as to why Magnezone is better; so I made the switch. :)

~Vaporeon~
With Uxie eagerly waiting to soak up thunderbolts, I originally thought a Gyarados would be a good choice. But vaporeon is alot bulkier and can still deal some solid damage.

~Skarmory~
A phazer, a spiker, a taunter and an independant healer. He was basically required.

~Rotom H~
With three handy moves, Rotom simply added some more diversity to my team, as well as an immunity to Close Combats aimed at blissey.

~Dragonite~
With my team pretty much done, I added the Pokemon I have wanted to use for so long: Dragonite. Plus, he made me able to laugh at Blissey.


A CLOSER LOOK:

Jirachi @ Leftovers, Adamant nature
164 HP / 168 Atk / 176 Speed
-Body Slam
-Iron Head
-Stealth Rock
-Fire Punch

Thanks to bubbly for this suggestion! He sets up SR, and then has the power to spread paralysis with Serene Grace hax, or cause solid damage with STAB Iron Head or Fire Punch.


-Magnezone- @Choice Scarf
Timid
4Def/252Sp.A/252SpA
-Thunderbolt
-Flash Cannon
-HP Ground
-Signal Beam

Can switch in on anything Uxie fears, bar T-tar, but he's mainly here to destroy Steel types to give Dragonite a clear shot at sweeping. Since I know I would simply explode if I had it as a move, Signal Beam is here for Celebi and Shaymin.

Vaporeon @ Leftovers, Bold nature
248 HP / 224 Def / 36 SpDef
-Surf
-Wish
-Protect
-Hidden Power (Electric)

A spot on my team is always open for anyone with the potential to keep itself and others healthy, and Vaporeon fits the bill solidly. A counter to Gyara and other bulky waters, with a good strong Surf and the ability to heal itself, and its teammates. Im finding it less useful than Blissey at the moment, but Im sure I'll get into the hang of it.

Skarmory @ Leftovers, Impish nature
252 HP / 164 Def / 92 Spe
-Spikes
-Roost
-Whirlwind
-Taunt

With the ability to heal itself, get up spikes, phaze, and mess around with stall teams, Skarmory gave my team a good wall, but more importantly, a good phazer.


-Rotom H- @Choice Scarf
Timid
40 SpA / 216 Spe / 252 HP
-Overheat
-Discharge
-Shadow Ball
-Trick

With two STABS, a Suicune crippler and a scizor / foretress OH-KOer, as well as covering Blisseys AND Magnezones weaknesses, Rotom was a choice I don't regret.


-Dragonite- @Leftovers
Careful
216 SpDef / 40 Spe / 252 HP
-Dragon Dance
-Dragon Claw
-Roost
-Heal Bell

There is NOTHING Blissey can do to scare Dragonite. Able to cleanse my whole team of statuses, while.easily able to set up on Blissey or some other Pokemon, Dragonite makes for a great cleric and a super bulky DDer.


So yeah, that's the team, don't have a weakness list as such.. Can anyone let me know what moves, or even Pokemon to replace? Thanks guys!

 

[Shame That]

Weakness list

Offensive Threats

Breloom - Rotom can usually take care of this guy.

Infernape - Uxie psychic or Gyarados can kill him.

Tyranitar - If Gyarados is down, this guy does a number on my whole team.

Defensive Threats

Suicune - This really turns into a combination of all of my pokemon to kill it.

Vaporeon - Not as big a threat now that I have Magnezone.

 

[sandshrewz]

Oh hi! First thing when I saw your rmt, I thought: didn't I just fight that team? Lols! Oh yea nice team. Will go look through our battle log before I rate your team :) will consider making a rmt too next time. Not bad since it's the first team you ever built! xD mix ttar or DD ttar practically hits everything in your team. And intimidate from gyara wont stop a +0 stone edge from koing it. Heatran's earthpower probably won't KO ttar in sandstorm. Only blissey is affected by toxic spikes. Wow. But blissey wont be healing much if there is toxic spikes around. Consider using heal bell over protect so blissey can pp stall when needed and pass wish if you have to. Well since you run LO on gyara, use jolly to outspeed jolteon. Rotom h has to spam WoW everytime it comes in so that pursuit users can get crippled when trying to switch in. However if WoW misses, then rotom is going to get pursuited. Reflect is safer and supports blissey and makes uxie impossible to KO with physical moves. But reflect makes you lose out the ability to cripple physical attackers. Mind explaining the EVs of rotom? Heatran seems ok but there isn't a fire lure on your team to abuse flash fire... And again, no phazer on your team; meaning set uppers set up freely. If you run heal bell on blissey, try superpower or fire punch on dragonite since there isn't a need for 2 clerics. Well about phazing, uxie's yawn can be a pseudo phazing move and you have the momentum since its your opponent that wastes a turn switching, only to be yawned again. Your only SD lucario counter is heatran so dont explode early. Another DD gyara may cause some problems on your team especially DD taunt. And you can only hope your own gyara kos it with stone edge. Scarf rotom takes care of all gyaras though it makes it more pursuit weak. For dragonite without heal bell, try a more offensive set on smogon. Well edit this post again next time. :)

 

[Harlot]

There is NOTHING Blissey can do to scare Dragonite.

Even Ice Beam which is common on Blisseys nowadays?

Anyways, Machamp with Stone Edge/Dynamic Punch/Payback hits all of your pokes super effectivelty. Try this EV spread: 156 HP / 72 Atk / 96 Def / 184 Spe on Gyara so it can take a -1 Stone Edge better.

 

[Vitalise]

First; On your heatran use Hp Grass over Explosion so you can hit Water pokemon that come in on it and Use Bounce over StoneEdge on your gyarados,

 

[2sly4u]

Even Ice Beam which is common on Blisseys nowadays?

I don't know what Blisseys you've been facing, but I've only seen that once.

Hi Shamethat. Nice team. I especially like the use of the underrated Heal Bell Dragonite.

However, I have one big suggestion: switch out Heatran for a Magnezone. HB Dragonite has issues getting by basically every Steel-type in the game. While Heatran is capable of beating Steels in a one-on-one situation, he can't reliably remove them early in the game since they'll just switch, hampering D-Nite's sweeping potential. Magnezone doesn't have this problem thanks to Magnet Pull. There are two common Magnezone sets: Choice Scarf and Substitute. Personally, I prefer Choice Scarf for its ability to revenge kill Heatran.

Magnezone@Choice Scarf
Naive/Timid Nature, 4Def/252Sp.A/252SpA
Thunderbolt
Flash Cannon
HP Ground
Explosion/Signal Beam

While the item is a Choice Scarf, don't be fooled into thinking that you're blazing fast. Magnezone's miserable Base Speed means that positive base 115s still outspeed him. However, the boost CS provides lets him reliably revenge some of the games top Steel threats, such as Heatran and Jirachi, before they can attack. The first two moves are STAB, while HP ground is mostly for Heatran. For the last slot, Explosion and Signal Beam are both fine options. Explosion costs you 'Zone but usually removes a big threat. Signal Beam, on the other hand, lets you deftly handle Celebii and is your best option against Shaymin.

To make up for the loss in speed, I'd try out a Choice Scarf set for your Rotom

Rotom-H@Choice Scarf
Timid Nature, 252HP/40SpA/216 Spe
Thunderbolt
Shadow Ball
Overheat
Trick

Credit to Bubbly for showing me this EV spread. This is a bulkier Choice Scarf Rotom, but it still has enough speed to outspeed +1 Gyarados. Thunderbolt and Shadow Ball are your dual STABs, while Overheat is basically the only reason to use Rotom-H over a different forme. Trick occupies the last slot, and allows you to cripple setup pokemon such as CM Suicune, Walls, or the rare Baton Pass teams. It also rids you of your Scarf, which can help your versatility late-game.

Running 80 Sp.A EVs on Uxie would guarantee a 2HKO on Lead Machamp. I would never normally recommend that, but you have Machamp issues. In this case it may not actually be a bad idea, since it would allow you to dispose of him as quickly as possible.

I hope that helps. Good luck!

 

[Shame That]

Thanks for the help guys. I'll apply the changes when I'm not on my phone internet. :)

 

[bubbly]

Hey shame that :) This team looks pretty sturdy, and kudos for using HP Ground Magnezone and Heal Bell Dragonite. However, you have some major problems with Dragon Dance users in particular as well as relying heavily on Stealth Rock weak pokemon when you lack any way to stop Rocks going up or to get rid of them. In particular, these pokemon are all serious weaknesses:

-Dragon Dance Tyranitar (really beats everything on the team)
-DD Kingdra (only way to beat this is to either try to Trick it with Rotom, or some extremely smart switching with Gyarados - but you'll still likely lose 1 or 2 pokemon)
-DD Dragonite / MixNite (same deal really. Having only 1 fairly fragile steel type hurts quite a bit)

To fix these problems try using a physically defensive Skarmory over Blissey, and standard Wish Vaporeon over Gyarados. The things Gyarados checks for your team are all pretty well covered already with the exception of Breloom, which you can still beat reliably using Dragonite, Rotom, Uxie, and Skarmory. If you followed these changes, your team would look like:

-Uxie (since you like it so much =P )
-Vaporeon
-Magnezone
-Skarmory
-Rotom-W (I have a preference for Rotom-W because in the current metagame Hydro Pump is vastly better than Overheat).
-Dragonite

Sets:

Vaporeon @ Leftovers, Bold nature
248 HP / 224 Def / 36 SpDef
-Surf
-Wish
-Protect
-Hidden Power (Electric)

Skarmory @ Leftovers, Impish nature
252 HP / 164 Def / 92 Spe
-Spikes
-Roost
-Whirlwind
-Taunt

Taunt > Brave Bird on Skarmory, since you would otherwise have an issue against stall teams with Shed Shell on their own Skarmory / Forretress. The speed EV's just outpace RestTalk Gyarados and everything below it.

I hope these suggestions help out. Good luck :)

 

[sandshrewz]

Great jon bubbly! Well, he uses rotom-h to counter SD luc but i'm going to say that he should switch to rotom-w not because hydropump>overheat. It will be that overheat lost its utility to counter SD luc since scarf magnezon with HP ground already counters SD luc. Hp ground is useful agaisnt heatran and magenzone v magnezone match ups (seen that happening to him before). Well sorry but I cant agree that taunt>bravebird either. The recoil is really irritating but it helps to some extent agaisnt grass and fighting types if they don't switch out. And er.... Stall teams don't usually use shed shell on forretress or skarmory for added survivability as shown in the renowned KGstall. Not just because magnezone is somewhat rare but also because those that use them should have a way to prevent them from getting trapped by magnezone other than through shed shell. Well you can also consider the more mundane toxic over HP electric on vappy since HP electric doesnt have much use beyond hitting gyara which is already countered by rotom scarfed tbolt. But hp electric does give the added insurance to counter gyara since rotom doesn't survive long time through the mtach most of the times. Awesome sets you have there bubbly to fill the row of wish passer and adding a more reliable phazer while exchanging that for a sweeper. Well for me DD + LO is one of the weakest sweeper since almost all teams have counters for it. A restTalk set for gyara can be used for phazing but is best used when paired to a ground type which you don't have. So skarm is better for the phazing role and stack spikes as welll. :)

 

[Shame That]

Thanks for the help guys! I'll try it out a few times and update with how it works for me. :)

 

[Shame That]

Im happy to replace Gyara with Skarm; the spikes and Phazing benefits my team a huge amount more. Vaporeon is doing Blisseys job well, but it means Im having bigger trouble with pokemon like LO Jolteon, or just electrics in general.

However, I would prefer Rotom H > Rotom W, simply because otherwise Scizor shreds through my team, and Forretress can set up on me easily. Plus, I already have Vaporeon for water. Also, is HP Electric really needed when I have Rotom and Magnazone?

 

[bubbly]

Yeah you need HP Electric. Otherwise Vaporeon can't beat bulky Gyarados with Taunt, which is the most common set nowadays. Gyarados usually gets used alongside Tyranitar so your Rotom could get Pursuited, while Magnezone gets outsped after 1 Dragon Dance.

About the electric weakness, that is a slight problem. Dragonite + Magnezone + Rotom can beat most of them to an extent but something like an offensive Raikou or Zapdos could hurt a lot. If you really want better coverage against these guys (and keep in mind they're pretty rare) you can use a specially defensive Hippowdon or Tyranitar with Stealth Rock instead of Uxie, but to be honest I wouldn't recommend it because you open up a problem with Fighting types.

Alternatively, you could use a specialised Jirachi over Uxie which would give you better coverage against Electrics while still somewhat helping to beat Fighting types; something like:

Jirachi @ Leftovers, Adamant nature
164 HP / 168 Atk / 176 Speed
-Body Slam
-Iron Head
-Stealth Rock
-Fire Punch

 

[Shame That]

That has really helped my team, Bubbly! :D

Although I love Uxie, Rachi has given me great coverage as well as awesome match saves due to hax ;)

And yeah, I think he's probably a better choice than Ttar so I dont get screwed around with by Fighting types. :p