D/P/Pt Please rate my team!

[wyoming789]

Ok, so my team for Platinum is as follows:

EDIT: Changed some moves and items around for a better set-up.

Metagross@ Choice Band
Exlposion
Agility/Meteor Mash
Bullet Punch
Thunder Punch

Latias@ Life Orb
Dragon Pulse
Surf
Calm Mind
Recover

Cresselia@ Light Clay
Moonlight
Light Screen
Reflect
Thunder Wave/Safeguard/Ice Beam

Electivire@ Expert Belt
Thunder Punch
Ice Punch
Earthquake
Brick Break

Mamoswine@ Choice Band
Earthquake
Ice Shard
Stone Edge
Superpower

Togekiss@ Choice Specs
Air Slash
Flamethrower
Grass Knot
Aura Sphere

P.S. Just so you all know, I don't EV train (most of) my pokemon, so take that into consideration, please.

 

[J.T.]

Give Metagross Lefties and replace Zen Headbutt with Explosion and Ice Punch with Thunderpunch (it hits for neutrals against other Steel-types, like enemy Metagross). Also consider replacing Agility with Bullet Punch and giving it a Choice Band for massive power.

Dragon Fang is an awful item, take it off. Replace it with Life Orb; it boosts your attack power by more, boosts both of your attacking moves, and Recover heals off the damage easily. I'm assuming this is for WiFi, considering you posted this on the competitive team rate forum, so. Aside from that, it's good.

Lunar Dance is utterly wasted on Cress; her entire purpose in life is to survive as long as possible, and she does it brilliantly. Lunar Dance puts it all to waste. Dual-Screen's a nice strategy, though. Screw Psychic; it's overall a bad attack type, it's resisted by too much, even if it gets STAB. Ice Beam is a nice thing to replace Lunar Dance with. Also Cress needs Moonlight to work well; replace one of the screens with it, or, failing that, Thunder Wave.
(EDIT: All right, looking at it again, Lunar Dance could come in handy with a Dual-Screen setup; however, I still see it as a waste to kill off Cresselia, when she can single-handedly wall unprepared teams with ease.)

No complaints on Electivire. Consider a mixed set; it's great at breaking walls. Cross Chop snaps Blissey, and Thunderbolt breaks Skarmory, two walls that will give most teams trouble.

Nothing wrong with Mamoswine.

I haven't considered a Choice Specs set on Togekiss; I've always seen it as a Paraflincher of epic proportions. What set you should use depends on its ability; if it's Serene Grace, keep Aura Sphere, give it Lefties, and replace Flamethrower and Grass Knot with Thunder Wave and Roost/Substitute. Thunder Wave the opponent, absorb their hit, use Substitute (if you have it) to protect yourself and scout for full paralysis, and spam Air Slash. They can't move a lot when they're paralyzed and are being hit by a 60% flinch chance attack, and when you do get low on health, use Roost. Alternatively, with Sub, you won't be taking hits anyway, so.
If it has Hustle, give it Extremespeed. Hustle combined with STAB makes it the strongest base power unboosted priority move in existence. Keep Aura Sphere again to break Rock- and Steel-types, as well as to overcome the problem with Hustle's accuracy reduction. Flamethrower provides nice coverage against Ice-types that threaten you otherwise. Also pull up Roost to recover health.

 

[wyoming789]

Thanks for the ideas. Explosion and the punches are something to think about. You're right. No dragon fang. I am now thinking maybe a good set for Cresselia would be Reflect, Light Screen, Thunder Wave, and Psyco Shift.
Also, My Electivire, I don't plan on changing that. Same w/ Togekiss, mostly because it attack is 148 at 100, and its spec. attack is in the high 200's at 100.

 

[J.T.]

I am now thinking maybe a good set for Cresselia would be Reflect, Light Screen, Thunder Wave, and Psyco Shift.

You need some sort of attack for Cress to use. Otherwise you'll lose against anything that doesn't have a Life Orb, and even worse to anything with Taunt, unless you manage to shift a burn or poison to an opponent (which is insanely unreliable). There's no point in walling a foe unless you have some way to hurt them as well.

Also, My Electivire, I don't plan on changing that.

It was more a suggestion than anything else; pure physical is stronger, but mixed sweeper lets you kill more walls more easily.

Same w/ Togekiss, mostly because it attack is 148 at 100, and its spec. attack is in the high 200's at 100.

Well, then I hope it doesn't have Hustle, because if it does, it actually makes Togekiss worse. By a lot. All moves except Aura Sphere lose some serious accuracy, and there's no power boost to make up for it. At least with an Extremespeed set it has the benefit of an attack boost.

If it has Serene Grace, cool. It'll only really be useful on Air Slash (and maybe a little with Flamethrower's burn chance), but it doesn't hurt anything.

 

[wyoming789]

Well, then I hope it doesn't have Hustle, because if it does, it actually makes Togekiss worse. By a lot. All moves except Aura Sphere lose some serious accuracy, and there's no power boost to make up for it. At least with an Extremespeed set it has the benefit of an attack boost.

Hustle only lowers accuracy for physical moves. But sadly, yes, it does have hustle. Oh, yeah. I was also thinking of replacing Latias w/ Azelf. What do you think of that?

 

[J.T.]

Ohh, I thought it was for all moves. Okay then.

And it depends. Latias with Calm Mind can absorb special hits and deal out huge damage, while Azelf does huge damage immediately but acts as a glass cannon of sorts. It's also faster than Latias, and it can learn Explosion for huge damage when it's about to die.
So if you want something more defensive and dealing more damage after a few setup turns, stick with Latias; if you want pure power immediately at the cost of low defense, use Azelf.

 

[wyoming789]

Yeah. Think I'll stick w/ Latias. The only reason I said that was because I didn't want to look for it in Emerald, but I found one now. Actually decided to EV train it, so It'll be good. It's quiet, so plus special attack! Awesome!

 

[wyoming789]

Hey, one last question for anyone still reading. What should the fourth move on Cresselia be? Having a lot of trouble deciding. I'm thinking of using Ice Beam. Any help would be great.

 

[J.T.]

Ice Beam is the way to go. I would still drop one of your screens and run Thunder Wave as well, since it makes it much easier to deal with sweepers, but that's just me. If you do drop one of your screens, replace Light Clay with Lefties.