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Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.
Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.
Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?
If you had enough questions for a "super long thread" like you said maybe you could still post it? I'm not sure how many people are around to help answer but probably a lot of other people have the same questions.
I guess I should, I don't want to derail the other thread any more. The other thread was mainly long because I was listing things that I thought might be important. There wasn't much actual substance to it. And it wasn't that long.
I'm a lazy bastard and my idea of "long" is a couple of paragraphs. I really look up to you because pretty much every time I see one of your posts it's long and really insightful. And then I feel guilty when I reply because my post isn't anywhere near as long.
(Also you seem to be good at everything which I'm completely jealous of)
If you're thinking about just any kind of team that could be possible, you're playing on hard-mode. Instead of that, a good way to come up with a team is to get a theme! (especially if you're new) Rain teams, for instance, are considered really great for beginners. You have an obvious goal: rain. You have some obvious Pokemon choices: Water-types. You have obvious enemies: Grass and Electric. Plus, Water is a really versatile type with tons of dual-types and lots of obviously strong and bulky things. And you get to feel really clever thinking about things like Swift Swim and Volt Absorb. A lot of good abilities and moves come with Water types!
It's much easier to replace team members if you have a theme, too, because whatever else happens they've got to fit the theme, so you don't ever really add anything that would clash too horribly. I mean, you're not going to put a Fire-type on a rain team. So you start out with a huge boost to balance.
Other themes include: mono-type, Trick Room, Baton Pass, and other weathers (sun, hail, sand). Weathers are pretty fun. If you're not too interested in any themes you can think of, I think planning a themed team still really helps to learn about competitive battling so that you can work toward teams you'd be more interested in.
I really thought that having a theme would be harder than not having a theme, because you have to make it good and fit the theme, instead of just good. But I suppose it does make sense.
I was thinking of making a team based around status conditions, actually. I'm not sure if that's a good theme, though.
Venusaur with black sludge and poisonpowder (I would have it know leech seed and substitute but that only leaves room for one attacking move)
A Pokémon with synchronize - I was thinking Umbreon since it has good defense so that gives me better chances to land a status move, or people might want to use a status move on it to get its HP down faster.
Chandelure with flame body and hex
And that's as far as I got with that idea.
It also helps to think about your favourite playstyles, though you might not know what those would be yet since I think most people play the same way through the main game. I really enjoy stalling, so I make sure to get lots of status moves. I recommend stalling, by the way. It's weirdly a lot easier than a regular offense. You have a lot of great choices all the time, and I think it makes more sense when you die on stall teams because you get more time to figure out what's happening and don't just suddenly die as much. Also lots of people just give up if you stall a little. And you get useful moves like Protect that help you figure out what the enemy can do without constantly looking up all the possibilities, which is great as a beginner.
I'm not entirely sure what my preferred playstyle is. In games I often give priority to defense, but in Pokémon you need to be at least a bit offensive otherwise you don't get anywhere. I do suppose stalling is a good way of using defense. A couple of months ago I did actually have a team with a Walrein that I used as a staller and I do agree it was a good addition to the team - I almost won the battle I did with it pretty much because of that Walrein.
Also! I think it's helpful to try out the random battle feature on Pokemon Showdown. You get all these random Pokemon with vaguely competitive movesets, so you don't have to make any team choices at all. You can get some interesting ideas for teams by trying out all the different things, though.
... Also one final thing to think about is that on Pokemon Showdown, your battles are rated by the AI. This means that if you're new and losing, you're fighting other people who are also new and losing! This gives you a lot more room to work on improving without getting constantly crushed all the time.
I haven't actually been on showdown before. Is everyone you play against a human or are some AIs?
I'll try it out, though it might take some getting used to.
In general it really is a good idea to just choose any old Pokemon and then start, though. You're right, there are too many things to think about. There's no way you could think about them all when just starting! It's perfectly fine to just think about a few and end up with a bad team for a while.
Also, make lots of different teams if you can. Just making lots at first can help a lot more with learning about balance and everything than trying to fix just one team can. I still have no clue how to work on some of the other teams I've made, but I finally managed to make a pretty good one that I did understand how to work on fixing! (the rain team I showed in the last post) Since it ended up decent, it was easier to tell that my Lanturn was doing a lot worse than everyone else and so I got rid of it.
I haven't actually been on showdown before. Is everyone you play against a human or are some AIs?
I'll try it out, though it might take some getting used to.
Huh. There used to be one? What did it do, exactly?
I guess I should, I don't want to derail the other thread any more. The other thread was mainly long because I was listing things that I thought might be important. There wasn't much actual substance to it. And it wasn't that long.
I'm a lazy bastard and my idea of "long" is a couple of paragraphs. I really look up to you because pretty much every time I see one of your posts it's long and really insightful. And then I feel guilty when I reply because my post isn't anywhere near as long.
(Also you seem to be good at everything which I'm completely jealous of)
I've probably mentioned a bunch of times, but for me, writing long posts is lazy. I have a really really hard time squashing all my thoughts down into little bits, like... crushing coal into diamonds. My thoughts are super-rambly and full of "oh look something else cool that's vaguely related!" so I just write down what I'm thinking and that's how my posts end up long. I already deleted a bunch of paragraphs of reply here.
I'm interested in everything! I'm bad at a bunch of things but I don't really write thousands-of-words advice posts about those things. So I keep my secret identity as a regular person secure.
I really thought that having a theme would be harder than not having a theme, because you have to make it good and fit the theme, instead of just good. But I suppose it does make sense.
I was thinking of making a team based around status conditions, actually. I'm not sure if that's a good theme, though.
Venusaur with black sludge and poisonpowder (I would have it know leech seed and substitute but that only leaves room for one attacking move)
A Pokémon with synchronize - I was thinking Umbreon since it has good defense so that gives me better chances to land a status move, or people might want to use a status move on it to get its HP down faster.
I thought that about themes originally, too, but it turns out there are like 289048372057234 Pokemon and it's really difficult to choose out of all of them!
Status conditions are a good start! Though you might run into the problem of that still being too broad. Like, my team could be a status conditions team, but it's also a rain team and a staller team. Also, make sure you have stuff to do besides statuses! Statuses can conflict with each other. Like, if you Burn something and then later want to use your paralyze/flinch Togekiss, then there's a problem. I run into that sometimes if my Ampharos's Static activates at an inconvenient time, since I normally need poison a lot more. And if you rely too heavily on statuses, people who are good at not getting statused (Magic Bounce, wrong types, other Synchronizers) will eat you.
Venusaur is apparently perfectly viable even in ubers with statusy moves, and Umbreon is also pretty good at that. They both use sleep moves well (Sleep Powder and Yawn), so keep in mind that sleep clause (only one Pokemon can sleep per team) is usually a thing.
Venusaur's also a really strong attacker and has some good options, so leaving a couple of slots would be useful. Poison Powder really isn't worth it anyway, at 75% accuracy and with a great alternative; go with Sludge Bomb for poisoning. Sleep Powder seems to be perfectly good, though, since sleep is harder to come by and pretty much always forces switches.
Umbreon is also a support Pokemon and does Wish and Heal Bell. Also, it's probably pretty useful to switch Umbreon in when something is going to status one of your other Pokemon. You can learn to predict this sometimes based on what moves the opposing Pokemon likes using! Also, if you end up Protecting against a status move, it's a pretty good bet that that Pokemon will use the status move again. (Actually, Pokemon who couldn't move due to Protect often repeat their move.) It could also be fun to switch Umbreon onto Toxic Spikes.
If you do go with Wish and Leech Seed both, then I think you'd be totally set for healing.
You also might like Magic Bounce for the same reasons you like the idea of Synchronize! "Reflects most non-damaging moves back at their user." Espeon, Xatu, and Mega Absol can use this to great effect. Espeon might be the best in general because it seems to have a bunch of support moves. They're pretty common on Showdown and they can be painful to deal with.
According to the Smogon article on Chandelure, it's actually not a good status-thing/staller because it has bad defenses! It can use Will-O-Wisp or Substitute well, though, and it's supposed to be an awesome special sweeper. With Flash Fire, it'd also help you protect Venusaur, so that's pretty nice.
Chandelure and Venusaur are also excellent in Sunny Day, so that's something to think about.
Oh, and Black Sludge is great if you have an excuse to use it. Sometimes you'll run into things that want to steal your item, and if you notice that, then you can switch on them and give them a Black Sludge instead of whatever useful item they were hoping to get. (Mega Stones also help here, since they can't be stolen. This one person kept using Knock Off on me earlier and was probably really annoyed at me switching to Ampharos each time.)
Hex is pretty situational and you won't always be able to use statuses on things in time, so probably go with something else since Chandelure has plenty of other options.
For status things, Scald, Water Pulse, Confuse Ray, Toxic Spikes, Thunder Wave, and Protect are all super-useful moves. Protect+poisoning+Leftovers is basically the best thing ever, and if you're really lucky you might be able to get some Leech Seed in there, too. Substitute can be... substituted for Protect. Breloom is really good at this with Substitute, and it gets Poison Heal which is great. Confuse Ray is temporary, but it's really helpful when some things are immune to your statuses, and it also often forces switches. Scald is a really good burning choice because the only Pokemon immune to being burned are going to be weak to Scald.
Also, since you liked Hex+status, you could consider Poison Tail+poison. Dragalge is good at this because it also does Toxic Spikes, and Dragon Tail (switches out the opponent), so it can poison a lot of things quickly, and then Protect lets it stall, besides it being pretty bulky anyway. So even though Poison Tail is also situational, Dragalge gets a lot more out of it than I think Chandelure would out of Hex. Also, people constantly forget Dragalge's typing and use the wrong moves, so, free turns. Switching things out into entry hazards is a good idea in general. Skarmory loves to do this.
I'm not sure if you'd want Dragalge or Breloom since you have Grass/Poison Venusaur already, but Dragon and Fighting are also major types, so maybe, and anyway they're good examples of those strategies.
Oh, also Venusaur is good for eating Toxic Spikes.
You current three actually seem good for each other in a lot of ways, so that looks pretty good so far.
I'm not entirely sure what my preferred playstyle is. In games I often give priority to defense, but in Pokémon you need to be at least a bit offensive otherwise you don't get anywhere. I do suppose stalling is a good way of using defense. A couple of months ago I did actually have a team with a Walrein that I used as a staller and I do agree it was a good addition to the team - I almost won the battle I did with it pretty much because of that Walrein.
If you think you might like defense, then besides statuses you could also think about bulky/defensive Pokemon, increasing defense, and maybe Baton Passing. You seem interested in healing moves, Substitute, and defensivey Umbreon, so maybe you would like being defensive after all.
Calm Mind is a really good move for increasing Special Defense (also, Special Attack) and gets used all the time competitively. Espeon and Gardevoir like to use it, and Espeon's also a good Baton Passer if you have any interest in Baton Passing. Espeon also loves Substitute.
Oh, and you mentioned with Venusaur being concerned about how many offensive moves it has, so note that Pokemon don't have to have any damaging moves if you're playing one really defensively. Cleric Pokemon might not have any (too busy with moves like Wish and Heal Bell), and a bunch of lead Pokemon that do entry hazards also don't. For instance Smeargle (who's also a good Baton Passer, by the way) doesn't really attack things, and Ferrothorn is also commonly used without Power Whip (preferring Thunder Wave, Rapid Spin, and hazards). For Venusaur specifically, more attacks would probably be a good idea, but you don't need so many attacks on everything in case you were worried about that in general.
I haven't actually been on showdown before. Is everyone you play against a human or are some AIs?
I'll try it out, though it might take some getting used to.
I'll try out some teams then. I'm sure showdown will help with it, since I don't want to be training teams properly only to find out they're rubbish.
All humans! It'd be nice if there were some AIs, but I'm sure it would be really difficult to program ones that were any good. The main Showdown server has plenty of players anyway, and they only rarely talk to you. You basically click the "Look for a Battle" button and it sets you up with someone random who has a similar amount of points to you.
Also besides breeding and training time, you fight other people who actually care about competitive play, so it's much easier to tell when your team has problems. If you just battled in X/Y with strangers or friends, you'd get a lot less variety and a lot fewer tough and well-thought out Pokemon.
I won 2/2 matches including one against ubers before remembering EVs existed, and then won the third match with EVs against some annoying Pokemon. Here's a replay of match three:
It needs a lot of work like: Umbreon shouldn't have Yawn and Toxic, Ninetales's Roar is worthless, I can't do much to entry hazards (though Espeon helps), Venusaur's Substitute isn't working out that well with the moves I chose, and Chandelure doesn't know a Fire attack. But it's pretty fun and all the Pokemon are actually pretty equally useful so far which is a nice change of pace.
I just wanted to try out your Pokemon choices and sun/Breloom/Espeon, so since I did that anyway maybe it'll help you with ideas.
It just let you quote someone and start a new thread instead of posting it in the old thread. Maybe it was only there before the forum crash, I remember on one of the styles back then the button was a picture of a Kadabra with a fork instead of a spoon.
I'm really glad you find my posts insightful!
I've probably mentioned a bunch of times, but for me, writing long posts is lazy. I have a really really hard time squashing all my thoughts down into little bits, like... crushing coal into diamonds. My thoughts are super-rambly and full of "oh look something else cool that's vaguely related!" so I just write down what I'm thinking and that's how my posts end up long. I already deleted a bunch of paragraphs of reply here.
I'm interested in everything! I'm bad at a bunch of things but I don't really write thousands-of-words advice posts about those things. So I keep my secret identity as a regular person secure.
That does all make sense, but even so I'm sure your laziness is a better kind to have than my laziness. I mean, just look at this post and how short each of my paragraphs is!
Status conditions are a good start! Though you might run into the problem of that still being too broad. Like, my team could be a status conditions team, but it's also a rain team and a staller team. Also, make sure you have stuff to do besides statuses! Statuses can conflict with each other. Like, if you Burn something and then later want to use your paralyze/flinch Togekiss, then there's a problem. I run into that sometimes if my Ampharos's Static activates at an inconvenient time, since I normally need poison a lot more. And if you rely too heavily on statuses, people who are good at not getting statused (Magic Bounce, wrong types, other Synchronizers) will eat you.
I was going to go for statuses and healing moves. So leech seed, drain punch, wish, etc. That'd go well with black sludge and leftovers, too.
Umbreon is also a support Pokemon and does Wish and Heal Bell. Also, it's probably pretty useful to switch Umbreon in when something is going to status one of your other Pokemon. You can learn to predict this sometimes based on what moves the opposing Pokemon likes using! Also, if you end up Protecting against a status move, it's a pretty good bet that that Pokemon will use the status move again. (Actually, Pokemon who couldn't move due to Protect often repeat their move.) It could also be fun to switch Umbreon onto Toxic Spikes.
If you do go with Wish and Leech Seed both, then I think you'd be totally set for healing.
Yeah, I ended up doing this :P
It was fun when I didn't even know the current Pokémon had status moves but I used heal bell to cure my other Pokémon's previous statuses, only for Umbreon to heal itself of a status just put on it. It was almost like a free move.
You also might like Magic Bounce for the same reasons you like the idea of Synchronize! "Reflects most non-damaging moves back at their user." Espeon, Xatu, and Mega Absol can use this to great effect. Espeon might be the best in general because it seems to have a bunch of support moves. They're pretty common on Showdown and they can be painful to deal with.
I discovered this the other day when I used my Mega Absol in X. Seems pretty good, and I might want to use a good physical attacker, though I don't think it'd fit well in my current team (posted further down)
I had a team similar to that. I had enough time to play a couple of battles and realised that the Ampharos on my team wasn't contributing much so I replaced it with a Breloom, but then I realised with a Venusaur and a Dragonite (I wanted a good physical attacker, and I thought its dragon tail would go well with entry hazards) my team would then have a bad time against ice types, so I replaces that with a Mienshao.
The team at the moment is
Cloyster @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Lax Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Water Pulse
- Icicle Spear
- Rapid Spin
Dragonite @ Shell Bell
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Steel Wing
- Dragon Tail
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
Venusaur @ Black Sludge
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Sludge Bomb
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Energy Ball
Chandelure @ Life Orb
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Hex
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- Energy Ball
Mienshao (M) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Fake Out
- Poison Jab
- U-turn
There's probably a better item I could give Cloyster than a sitrus berry, but I threw it together quite quickly. I like Mienshao's ability too, I didn't even know it was a thing until I looked it up to see what fighting moves it could learn.
Same for Cloyster's ability too, actually.
If you think you might like defense, then besides statuses you could also think about bulky/defensive Pokemon, increasing defense, and maybe Baton Passing. You seem interested in healing moves, Substitute, and defensivey Umbreon, so maybe you would like being defensive after all.
Calm Mind is a really good move for increasing Special Defense (also, Special Attack) and gets used all the time competitively. Espeon and Gardevoir like to use it, and Espeon's also a good Baton Passer if you have any interest in Baton Passing. Espeon also loves Substitute.
...
It needs a lot of work like: Umbreon shouldn't have Yawn and Toxic, Ninetales's Roar is worthless, I can't do much to entry hazards (though Espeon helps), Venusaur's Substitute isn't working out that well with the moves I chose, and Chandelure doesn't know a Fire attack. But it's pretty fun and all the Pokemon are actually pretty equally useful so far which is a nice change of pace.
I just wanted to try out your Pokemon choices and sun/Breloom/Espeon, so since I did that anyway maybe it'll help you with ideas.
Espeon might be a good idea. Baton passing a calm mind and substitute to Chandelure could be useful. Roar wouldn't be as useless if there were entry hazards, would it? That's why I gave my Dragonite dragon tail.
Also
And if people laughed, that'd be really silly of them.
...
All humans! ... and they only rarely talk to you.
It just let you quote someone and start a new thread instead of posting it in the old thread. Maybe it was only there before the forum crash, I remember on one of the styles back then the button was a picture of a Kadabra with a fork instead of a spoon.
That does all make sense, but even so I'm sure your laziness is a better kind to have than my laziness. I mean, just look at this post and how short each of my paragraphs is!
It can be helpful! There's nothing inherently wrong with short posts, and anyway all the rambling gets cut out. Also, long posts tend to intimidate people, and also longness isn't always appropriate. For instance a situation where it can be bad is trying to write instructions! If instructions end up long, people are like "woah you have to do so much yikes." It's situational! It'd be nice to learn to do both really well.
I was going to go for statuses and healing moves. So leech seed, drain punch, wish, etc. That'd go well with black sludge and leftovers, too.
Yeah, I ended up doing this :P
It was fun when I didn't even know the current Pokémon had status moves but I used heal bell to cure my other Pokémon's previous statuses, only for Umbreon to heal itself of a status just put on it. It was almost like a free move.
Healing moves are the best with statuses. I might swap Mach Punch for Drain Punch on my Breloom for that reason, I'm not sure yet. Drain Punch is stronger and heals, and that's also great with Swords Dance, but being able to guarantee going first has already been really helpful. I'd also like Baton Pass on Breloom but I'm not sure what I'd give up. Well, actually I guess Swords Dance because no one else on my team cares about physical attacks.
Oh, also I don't think I mentioned that Aqua Ring is a pretty nice healing move. Though I have no clue where that would fit on your team. It doesn't seem to be recommended for too many Pokemon, but it's really super with Leftovers and it surprises people. My Vaporeon loves it.
That's super-useful when that happens, about Umbreon's Heal Bell! Also yay Heal Bell! I don't use it, but it's a really good move. My main strategy is to switch Vaporeon into statusy things because of Hydration. Plus Vaporeon always beats other people's stallers.
I discovered this the other day when I used my Mega Absol in X. Seems pretty good, and I might want to use a good physical attacker, though I don't think it'd fit well in my current team (posted further down)
Hm. Yeah, I'm not sure what you'd replace for Absol, either. It seems to not care about statuses or healing or anything at all; all the movesets suggested on the Smogon forums are about Swords Dance plus a ton of attacks. It can do Baton Pass, but that's for Swords Dance, so you'd pretty much just have to happen to want your other physical attacker.
I had a team similar to that. I had enough time to play a couple of battles and realised that the Ampharos on my team wasn't contributing much so I replaced it with a Breloom, but then I realised with a Venusaur and a Dragonite (I wanted a good physical attacker, and I thought its dragon tail would go well with entry hazards) my team would then have a bad time against ice types, so I replaces that with a Mienshao.
The team at the moment is
Cloyster @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Lax Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Water Pulse
- Icicle Spear
- Rapid Spin
Dragonite @ Shell Bell
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Steel Wing
- Dragon Tail
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
Venusaur @ Black Sludge
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Sludge Bomb
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Energy Ball
Chandelure @ Life Orb
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Hex
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- Energy Ball
Mienshao (M) @ Expert Belt
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Fake Out
- Poison Jab
- U-turn
There's probably a better item I could give Cloyster than a sitrus berry, but I threw it together quite quickly. I like Mienshao's ability too, I didn't even know it was a thing until I looked it up to see what fighting moves it could learn.
That looks pretty good so far, good job! I'm not sure exactly where problems would be without fighting them, but let's see.
So, first, I have no clue how to use berries effectively (though I should probably put a healing berry on my Belly Drum Azumarill at some point), but Cloyster's main item choices are King's Rock and NeverMeltIce! King's Rock is because of the multi-hit moves. I'm also not sure about Water Pulse on Cloyster. For a Water move, Smogon puts Hydro Pump on it, otherwise, Rock Blast and Shell Smash are both great. The confusion chance might work out well on a statusy team, though!
You probably don't want Steel Wing on Dragonite. Smogon says this about it:
Description
Deals damage and has a 10% chance to boost the user's Defense by one stage.
Competitive Use
While a Defense boost may seem like a valuable asset, Steel Wing's low accuracy and an only 10% chance to get that boost make it unreliable. Furthermore, Steel Wing is discouraged due to Steel's terrible offensive coverage.
Related Moves
Iron Head is a more powerful alternative with a chance to flinch the target.
Meteor Mash is a much more powerful alternative with a chance to raise the user's Attack.
To replace it, maybe Dragon Dance or Extremespeed? Outrage is on like every Smogon Dragonite set, but it's worse now that Fairy is a thing, and getting confused is tough. Waterfall could give you a Water move if you ever de-Water Cloyster. Roost is always a solid choice on pretty much any Pokemon that can learn it, too.
Smogon also has a Substitute Dragonite that you might want to look at! It learns Substitute, Dragon Dance, Dragon Claw, and Roost. I'm not sure what you'd do with Dragon Tail in that case, but it's possible that Substitute+Dragon Tail would turn out well if you used more entry hazards than Toxic Spikes. Dragon Tail alone is pretty helpful for Toxic Spikes, but you probably don't need an entire Substitute set just to get everything poisoned.
If you get tired of Dragonite, Skarmory does the switch-out thing better with Whirlwind plus learning Spikes and Stealth Rock! (and Taunt and Roost) If you did that, you'd be able to re-introduce Breloom if you wanted (though you seem happy with Mienshao).
Dragon Tail's tricky. Normally you'd do it on the Pokemon with the entry hazards so that you don't have to go anywhere, but this way also gives you a good opportunity to get Toxic Spikes out quickly and then deal with them later with a nice bulky Pokemon. Dragonite also loses out on using another stronger Dragon move, but I've always found that worth it on statusy/healy/stall teams anyway.
Also, put Multiscale on Dragonite instead of Inner Focus. Multiscale is the reason Dragonite doesn't get instantly killed by any and all Ice moves, and Flinch isn't too common. (Multiscale also goes well with Roost!)
Venusaur's looking pretty good! It can hide behind a Substitute and try to poison things while leeching away their health. You could consider Growth, Giga Drain, or Hidden Power Fire over Energy Ball if any of those sound fun. Energy Ball seems like a good move but I've never heard of it on a Venusaur so maybe there's a reason why not? Probably just because it has a lot of other good choices, though, so feel free to keep going with Energy Ball if it's working out.
You probably want Foul Play rather than Payback on Umbreon. It does 95 damage all the time rather than 100 when lucky, and it uses the target's attack stat which is nice because Umbreon's attack stat is terrible. Otherwise nice moves! Mine has Toxic and I like it that way, but you'd probably be giving up Protect to get it on yours, and you've already got plenty of poison.
Chandelure really doesn't need two Ghost attacks, though I'm not sure what to replace one with. Will-o-Wisp? Trick+Choice item also sounds good from the Smogon page, if you think you might like doing that.
Mienshao looks good, too! Mienshao is supposed to have Hi Jump Kick but yikes, I wouldn't want to play with that. It also apparently learns tons of moves and can have a good Baton Pass set, so you might want to look into that! Possibly replace Poison Jab?
In spite of its horrible coverage and the fact that almost no non-Poison-type Pokemon uses it, Poison Jab is generally a strong and useful STAB move for physical Poison-type Pokemon. Mono-Poison-type Pokemon such as Muk, Arbok, and Seviper all have to resort to using this move for their STAB move. Other Poison-type Pokemon are also able to use this move, though they will generally only do so because of a lacking movepool. Pokemon such as Qwilfish, Skuntank, and in extremely rare cases Toxicroak and Drapion are examples here. Poison Jab is a good STAB move to have overall, but never consider it for any Pokemon that isn't a Poison-type.
Note that that's before Fairy type existed, though.
Also oh cool I forgot Regenerator was a thing, too.
The types and Pokemon seem nice! You've got some really helpful switching out things: Regenerator, Wish, Flash Fire, and Ghost! And Dragonite and Venusaur are helpfully bulky to take hits for other things. And you have good ideas for moves and and everything so far, too. I think it'll go well if you keep working on it!
Lol, focus sash/endevour level 1 smeargle
Espeon might be a good idea. Baton passing a calm mind and substitute to Chandelure could be useful. Roar wouldn't be as useless if there were entry hazards, would it? That's why I gave my Dragonite dragon tail.
It is really useful! I'm fighting my sister's legendaries with Chandelure and it's so much stronger than I thought, and it gets even more deadly with Espeon's help.
Yeah, Roar is great with entry hazards. If I get some entry-hazardy things later then I might put Roar back (once I get around to replacing it in the first place). I think Roar is supposed to be good on its own to get rid of things with annoying moves or boosted stats, but I prefer to do that with things like Confuse Ray and Toxic instead.
Also
Third battle I play, someone tells me to go fuck myself etc :(
Cloyster @ Leftovers
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 156 HP / 100 Atk / 252 Def
Lax Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Rock Blast
- Icicle Spear
- Rapid Spin
Rock Blast utilizes Skill Link and beats dangerous Fire-types such as Volcarona and Talonflame.
Dragonite @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Stone Edge
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
Edgequake is always a nice combo. With the advent of the Fairy type, Outrage has become a risk - go with Dragon Claw. Fire Punch literally torches Skarmory.
Behold: the Great Wall of Kalos. Incredible survivability, neutralized damage from Fire and Ice, three moves that heal... simply a mighty defensive stalwart.
I think you already know how Protect and Toxic work on this one. Moonlight and Confuse Ray serve to make it even tankier.
Chandelure @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower
- Energy Ball
Reckless? Probably. Worth it? Definitely. Off that monstrous 145 base Special Attack, Chandelure can afford to take chances. Although Dark Pulse's coverage is the same as Shadow Ball's, the flinch chance is always nice to have.
Mienshao (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 HP / 252 Spd Jolly Nature
- Drain Punch
- Fake Out
- Stone Edge
- Knock Off
Knock Off's BP is now 65, making it a viable option. Life Orb, Regenerator, and Drain Punch form a nice combination.
See you on Saturday. (Sunday for me, but you know...)
So, first, I have no clue how to use berries effectively (though I should probably put a healing berry on my Belly Drum Azumarill at some point), but Cloyster's main item choices are King's Rock and NeverMeltIce! King's Rock is because of the multi-hit moves. I'm also not sure about Water Pulse on Cloyster. For a Water move, Smogon puts Hydro Pump on it, otherwise, Rock Blast and Shell Smash are both great. The confusion chance might work out well on a statusy team, though!
I didn't consider that King's Rock would be good with multi-hit moves! That would be a good idea. Unfortunately I think it's a banned item at the Pokémon club here :(
I might look at something to replace Water Pulse. You and Ether's Bane both seem to recommend Rock Blast.
You probably don't want Steel Wing on Dragonite. Smogon says this about it:
Description
Deals damage and has a 10% chance to boost the user's Defense by one stage.
Competitive Use
While a Defense boost may seem like a valuable asset, Steel Wing's low accuracy and an only 10% chance to get that boost make it unreliable. Furthermore, Steel Wing is discouraged due to Steel's terrible offensive coverage.
Related Moves
Iron Head is a more powerful alternative with a chance to flinch the target.
Meteor Mash is a much more powerful alternative with a chance to raise the user's Attack.
To replace it, maybe Dragon Dance or Extremespeed? Outrage is on like every Smogon Dragonite set, but it's worse now that Fairy is a thing, and getting confused is tough. Waterfall could give you a Water move if you ever de-Water Cloyster. Roost is always a solid choice on pretty much any Pokemon that can learn it, too.
Yeah, I didn't put Outrage on it because of Fairy, I thought a steel move might be good if I needed to go up against one, but I suppose it has enough attacking moves as it is that it'll be able to get a good shot at one.
Also, put Multiscale on Dragonite instead of Inner Focus. Multiscale is the reason Dragonite doesn't get instantly killed by any and all Ice moves, and Flinch isn't too common. (Multiscale also goes well with Roost!)
I'm still not entirely sure how to get hidden abilities. Most of them seem to need access to wi-fi (which I usually do, but not often right now) or people irl who play (which again I do, but since I'm an unsocial smellyface, that's not exactly going to help)
(Given those two things, why am I getting into competitive battling again...?)
You probably want Foul Play rather than Payback on Umbreon. It does 95 damage all the time rather than 100 when lucky, and it uses the target's attack stat which is nice because Umbreon's attack stat is terrible. Otherwise nice moves! Mine has Toxic and I like it that way, but you'd probably be giving up Protect to get it on yours, and you've already got plenty of poison.
Odd, I was pretty sure I had Foul Play anyway. Maybe I clicked on the wrong one.
Mienshao looks good, too! Mienshao is supposed to have Hi Jump Kick but yikes, I wouldn't want to play with that. It also apparently learns tons of moves and can have a good Baton Pass set, so you might want to look into that! Possibly replace Poison Jab?
That's pretty much what I have now. Though I haven't given it a choice scarf yet though (which you forgot to bold >:( ). I'm always a bit worried about using it. What if Dragonite is my last Pokémon and I use a move that one of the opponent's team is immune to?
I know I could use Fire Punch or Stone Edge which nobody is immune to (I don't think?) but you know what I mean!
As I said in our battle, I haven't quite decided on whether I want to Mega it. I to like Black Sludge, I played a battle the other day where I won because I got tricked out of it immediately before a substitute.
I'll probably replace Energy Ball though. Giga Drain is a nice choice.
I changed its IV to Def rather than Atk (maybe I didn't think I had Foul Play after all?)
I think I'll stick with Wish rather than Moonlight for now. I think it's useful to be able to heal other team members. Although that always comes with the risk of having them faint before it works. Plus if I just want to heal Umbreon, I could just Wish then Protect.
I might change it for Moonlight, Wish might go well if I made a Baton Pass team where the Umbreon knows substitute and Curse? idk
I'll probably change Chandelure's ability to Flash Fire too; it might come in useful when I'm switching from Venusaur.
