Team building, strategies, and more!

What makes a good team? Friendship. First each pokemon should have a purpose such as dealing physical damage, special damage, tanking said damages, or support.

Sweepers Sweeper is a common term for a pokemon that is good at dealing damage quickly. Physical sweepers include Aegislash, Scizor and Mega Lucario. Some special sweeper are Alakazam, Gengar and Jolteon. You can use a mixed attacker but I don't recommend using one.

Tanks Or walls, whatever you want to call them. In my opinion these aren't just used to take hits; they are used to disrupt the flow of battle. A simple stall can easily catch someone off guard they will do whatever it takes to get rid of that pokemon, and they will become reckless. They will switch into many different pokemon in attempt to stop you which is good because you will see their team and plan accordingly. A slight momentum shift can cause you to sweep the rest of their team and they will cry. Physical tanks: Aegislash, Avalugg, Cloyster, Forretress, Shuckle. Special tanks: Aegislash, Shuckle, Chansey.

Support Support can come in the form of status ailments, Screen set ups, recovery, baton passing and a few others. These are used to push your opponent back and pull you up. Again with the flow of battle thing. Sableye, Forretress, Tentacruel, Espeon.

You can base your team around weather effects. Sun does all this

Sun:

Rain:

Hail:

Sandstorm:

I don't really know where to go from here so I'll just make my champion team in here and show you my process

First Pokemon:

Second pokemon:

Third Pokemon:

Fourth Pokemon:

Fifth Pokemon:

Sixth Pokemon:

That's my team for now. go ahead and post your teams, tell us how you make your team and help others build their teams.

Alright, so you want to build a team, but you're still not sure where to start. Maybe you're afraid you're going to be bad at Pokemon. Maybe you're just stupid. Don't worry, I'm here to help you not suck anymore.

The first step in teambuilding is choosing a win condition. This is achieved in three ways: sweeping, stalling, and chip damage. Sweeping is the most common. To sweep, you choose a Pokemon that's really strong and relatively fast, and then you clear out the opponent's team of Pokemon that can stop you. Stall is relatively rare. A stall strategy involves using moves like Seismic Toss and Night Shade, in combination with Toxic and Will-O-Wisp, to wear the opponent down. Bulky Pokemon make up the majority of a Stall team, with one or two powerful Pokemon to take out common threats. Entry hazard is pretty common with new players, but as you advance in the rankings you don't find many people whose strategy is KOing you with them. The strategy, though, is to lay down Stealth Rocks, Spikes, and Toxic Spikes, and then use Roar and Whirlwhind to deal residual damage to the opposing team.

For this guide I'm going to focus on the conventional win condition: sweeping.

First, you start off by choosing a Pokemon you want to sweep with. The most important thing is that it's a Pokemon that you like, because creativity is dead in competitive battling so you ought to at least have a little fun. However, there are some Pokemon that will never sweep. Beedrill, Luvdisc, and Farfetch'd are all Pokemon that are more or less useless, with piddling stats and common weaknesses that make them impossible to play with. If you insist on using on of these Pokemon, you can build a Baton Pass team, but I won't help you with that.

So I'm going to start my team with Persian. Persian has great Speed, at base 115, but all its other stats are terrible. Fortunately, it gets Nasty Plot, so it can boost its mediocre Special Attack stat to damaging levels.



Because I'm going to use Persian as a Special Sweeper, I'm going to invest in Speed and Special Attack. Most sweepers have full investment in their attack stat of choice, and either Speed or HP, depending on how fast they are. I'm also going to use its ability Technician. While Limber is a great way to counter Pokemon with Prankster Thunder Wave, Persian is so weak that the common ones (Meowstic, Thundurus, and Klefki) can still OHKO or 2HKO it. Technician will boost Persian's attacks by 1.5 times if they have a base power of 60 or lower. I'll place the last 4 EVs into HP, since they're useless every where else. Remember, you have a total of 510 EVs to spread around your Pokemon, with 255 being the max in a stat. 4 EVs=1 Stat Point, so realistically 252 is the max.



Now that I've invested in EVs and IVs, the next step is creating its Movepool. I've already stated that I'm going to run Nasty Plot, so I'm going to use that as my first move. The next move I'm going to choose is a STAB move; that is, a move that's the same type as my Persian. Persian is a Normal type, so Normal type moves will get a 1.5 times bonus. Persian gets four good damaging Normal-type moves that are Special based (pay attention to if it's Special or Physical). Hyper Beam, Round, Hyper Voice, and Swift. Hyper Beam packs a punch but leaves Persian open for a turn while I recharge. This is a bad thing; Persian will die that turn unless my opponent is a moron. So Hyper Beam is a no-go. Next is Swift. Swift and Round both get a boost from technician, putting them at base 90, with Hyper Voice. Swift will never miss but Evasion moves are rare so. Round and Hyper Voice both do nothing extra but they do go through Substitute, which is very important. So now I have to choose between Round and Hyper Voice. While they're both equal in terms of damage, each has an upside and a downside. Round has more PP than Hyper Voice, so I can use it more. Hyper Voice, however, will still hit for base 90 damage even if the opponent has Mold Breaker (an ability that negates other combat-related abilities). Mold Breaker isn't the most common ability so I will choose Round as my STAB move of choice.

Next, I need to choose moves to either help me set up or sweep further. Persian is very weak so running things like Substitute and Taunt won't work very well for a Sweeper set, so I'm not going to choose those. There are, however, two Pokemon that resist Normal. Rock and Steel types will both take half damage from Normal-type moves, so I need a move that counters that. Both Rock and Steel are weak to Ground, so I'm going to choose a Ground move to hit them with. Unfortunately, the only Ground moves Persian learns are Dig and Hidden Power. Dig is physical and Hidden Power is very weak. But wait! Because Hidden Power is weak, that makes it eligible for the Technician boost, making it a base 90 attack! That's as powerful as the very exclusive Earth Power. So Hidden Power Ground it is.

The last move is all up in the air. Dark Pulse will cover Ghost types, which are immune to Normal. Most Ghost types are also either immune to or resist Ground-type moves. I'm choosing Dark Pulse over Shadow Ball because Dark Pulse has a chance to flinch, so a slower Pokemon may not be able to retaliate if you don't OHKO it. Icy Wind can help take care of Gliscor and big scary Dragons, and will also hit most Ghosts for neutral Damage. Icy Wind also gets a Technician Boost, moving it into base 82.5, just a little stronger than Dark Pulse. Icy Wind has an accuracy of 95, though, so it won't always hit. That can be kind of scary, so I'm going to choose Dark Pulse.



Next is Item and Nature. While Persian isn't very strong, it's also not the fastest. Since I'm boosting its Special Attack with Nasty Plot, I'm going to use a Nature to boost its Speed. The nature I'm going to choose is called Timid, which raises speed but lowers Attack. I don't need Attack so that's totally fine. The item I'm going to pick is a tough choice. I could choose Leftovers, to give Persian more time to sweep. However, Persian is so frail any damage it takes will be its end anyways. I could also give it Life Orb, which will make it more powerful but will decrease its life by 10% every time it uses a damaging move. I'm going to choose Expert Belt, which raises the power of Super Effective moves by 1.2x. This will help Dark Pulse and Hidden Power Ground OHKO their targets, and will keep Persian alive to keep its sweep going.



Now, you need team support. Persian, while fast, isn't very fast. It's also not very strong. A Pokemon that can weaken the opponent and also dish out some Thunder Waves would be pretty handy. Klefki, which I mentioned earlier, can not only do both, but can do them with priority. Klefki has an ability called Prankster, which makes all moves that are status moves get an extra priority slot. This means they move before moves with priority 1. Klefki can learn Spikes, Thunder Wave, and can also set up Reflect and Light Screen to make your opponent weaker. Klefki also gets Foul Play, which can wreck opposing Pokemon trying to stop you.

Persian also doesn't want to get hit by status. A Pokemon that can absorb a status move or can even bounce it back would be awesome. Xatu gets Magic Bounce and also has good Defensive stats and typing. It will be able to resist most priority moves and can bounce back Will-O-Wisp, Toxic, and Thunder Wave.

Persian gets ruined by Fighting types and other priority moves. Being able to trap one of those Pokemon and kill it would be pretty awesome. Mega Gengar has the defenses and typing to make that happen, and has Shadow Tag, which will keep the opponent from escaping. Since we're trying to kill priority mons, we're going to give Gengar a special movepool of Psychic, Icy Wind, Hidden Power Fire, and Thunderbolt, to destroy Pokemon with ExtremeSpeed, Vacuum Wave, Bullet Punch, Mach Punch,Water Shuriken, and Aqua Jet.

Persian also won't be able to make it past Special walls. Show those special walls who's boss with a physically powerful Pokemon. Scizor can take out Chansey, Blissey, Reunicleus, and Aegislash. Haxorus can do this too, but it also has Mold Breaker, letting it hit Rotom hard. It can also take out Goodra. Haxorus also has Speed and Attack to utilize Swords Dance, so I'll use a Swords Dance Haxorus to deal with Special Walls.

Finally, because you're going to be switching around a lot, you're not going to want Spikes on your field. You also don't have a Special Wall, just in case you need to slow down a Special Attacker. This is where Tentacruel comes in. Tentacruel has great typing, can take out Toxic Spikes without Rapid Spin, learns Rapid spin, and is specially defensive. It also has good support, with Scald, Toxic Spikes, and Knock Off. Hell, it basically writes itself. So the last slot will be a Specially Defensive Tentacruel.

If, at this point, you're saying "hey! Where are the pictures of the other Pokemon!" Well, I'm not going to show you how to do everything you fucking baby.

The last thing to remember is that every person's team is shit. Even if they're using a perfect OU team with perfect support, their team is still shit. There are two things you need to have for a good team, and if you're missing one of those teams you're going to lose. One, which I covered, is support. Your team needs to be able to support the win condition. The second is prediction. I'm not going to teach you how to predict because it's not something you get taught, it's something you learn. But spend some time learning about the metagame and how other people play, or you'll never be good at Pokemon and you'll cry and try to kill yourself and then eventually quit Pokemon forever because you suck.

I hope this helps.

The end.

Is your second Pokemon Aegislash, or Breloom? You say both.

There is a picture of Breloom so it's obviously Aegislash

I'll post my guide on team building some time today or super-early tomorrow morning, I need to write it in a word processor and then copy-paste it.

Edit your first post. Make that your guide so it is at the top also

Also any suggestions for my team?

ToonStink wrote:Also any suggestions for my team?

For your Champion team? You're looking for a Special wall, right?

I chose Goodra though Chansey is also a good option

Your team members looked way different on my phone I guess. The strike out wasn't there and I couldn't see the pictures.

Alright, my post is right below ToonStink's. I think it would actually make a viable team.

Kenstar, you should make a thread about breeding and EV training.

EV training is covered in my first topic, but he has dine more breeding than me all I did is link to the topic that Kenstar learned from.

We should just have one sticky that covers the three basic elements of Pokemon: Teambuilding, Breeding, and Training. You, Kenstar, and I can write it and we'll sticky it, then we'll have another sticky where people can drop in and ask questions about things they don't understand.
EDIT: JK we don't need that.

I think we should have a rate my team thread but not super gay and we will actually help each other. That is this threads secondary purpose

Oh and Stink, you may want a nature to boost Special Attack instead of Special Defense. Assault Vest is basically like having 252 EVs+a boosting nature already, so since you're using Goodra to dish out some justice you should boost your Special Attack.

But... Super wall I haven't actually tested this team yet. I will probably end up changing that.

Trollestia wrote:Kenstar, you should make a thread about breeding and EV training.

Should I? I think Andre's covered it. If you think I should I will. It'd be cool to have something to add to the forum.


Edit: Actually, I think I will. The link Andre posted only covers the improvements to breeding since gen VI.

Trollestia wrote:second is prediction.

I am the god of prediction

Hey /v/, how's my team?

Ampharos (F) @ Ampharosite
Trait: Static
EVs: 184 HP / 252 SAtk / 72 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Dragon Pulse
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Greninja (M) @ Assault Vest
Trait: Protean
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Extrasensory
- Dark Pulse
- Surf
- Ice Beam

Avalugg (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Gyro Ball
- Curse
- Recover
- Avalanche

Ferrothorn (M) @ Rocky Helmet
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 SDef
Hardy Nature
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Power Whip
- Thunder Wave

Haxorus (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Mold Breaker
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Aqua Tail

Dragalge (M) @ Poison Barb
Trait: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Toxic
- Smoke Screen
- Dragon Pulse
- Venoshock

The only thing I'm not liking is that you have three dragons. And four things weak to Fairy with no real counter.

Dragalge can counter Fairies. Also, I notice you're missing some IVs. Do you want suggestions on where to put them?
I agree with Stink though, three Dragons leaves you Fairy-weak. Are you confident that you can counter Azumarill and Mega Mawile with three Dragons? Also, Assault Vest on Greninja is a bad idea. Run it if you want but you're very likely to get it killed without doing significant damage to something else.
Be wary of priority attacks. Your Avalugg has no Defense EVs so even though it's a defensive titan it can be brought down by three our four Bullet Punches from a Life Orb Scizor.

Also, I just fought a guy who proved that prediction is the most important thing. He had a good team, and I was actually afraid I was going to get destroyed early on, but because he wasn't able to predict my moves I ran him out of PP of his important moves and swept with Aegislash. Unfortunately Showdown won't let me show you guys because they seem to have permanently removed their replays as of this time, but ah well, what can ya do?

I forgot Mega-Ampharos was a dragon as well. I might change that then.
As for IVs, I'm thinking 15/15/15/15/15/15 on everything but Avalugg. I'm thinking 0/0/0/0/0/31 for him.
And for the Assault Vest I had never used it before and thought it was cool so I just threw it on something with all attacking moves.

He meant youbare missing EVs on a few Pokemon. Also why 15s for IVs On all your Pokemon you should shoot for 31/31/31/0/31/31 for Attackers and 31/0/31/31/31/31 for Special attackers and 31/31/31/0/31/0 for your Avalugg since you are using Gyro Ball