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Hey there, it's Rayven again. This time, I need a bit of help. I would like help creating a competitive team. I've been thinking about a rain team, because I have some pokemon ideas (Goodra, because with sap sipper, it can absorb grass types without fire, which is weakened in rain). Does anyone have any good ideas, Rain or otherwise? Thanks!
Have you looked at Smogon much? There are a whole bunch of suggestions for rain teams and for each Pokemon.
I'm sort of new to competitive battling, too; I'm just getting to a point where I win pretty frequently (though that's with Showdown's get-opponents-at-your-skill-level system, of course), so these are just some ideas to think about. Definitely feel free to play around and double-check things.
Also note that all of these thoughts are about the OU tier (which is probably where you'll want to play).
Your Pokemon
All the Goodra I've seen on Pokemon Showdown use Sludge Wave, and it seems like Sludge Bomb is also a good option (5 less power for 20% higher poisoning chance). Goodra seems to have pretty good coverage, and it seems pretty helpful against Fairies despite being a pure Dragon type.
Togekiss is supposed to be an annoyer, so it does things like paralyze the opponent and then use Air Slash to make them flinch over and over.
Klefki's ability is Prankster, which means it goes first if it uses a non-damaging move. This makes it really terrifying using things like Thunder Wave, Toxic, and Swagger, and they can also set up Spikes. A bunch of people think Klefki is overpowered.
Amoongus seems pretty common in gen 6 Pokemon Showdown so far, and it does statuses, too. I can't remember really having trouble with one, but if they get in a couple of statuses it can definitely be annoying later on.
If you look up the others on Smogon, you'll get a bunch of strategy tips for each one.
Rain
For a rain team specifically, here is a B/W Rain Team guide. It'll be somewhat outdated, but you can still take a lot of the suggestions. First, you'll need rain. Most rain teams have Politoed because it has Drizzle, and Politoed is decent offense or a decent staller anyway. You can use a Damp Rock to make Drizzle last longer. If not, Leftovers is a good idea.
You're also supposed to have a Thunder-user. This helps a lot so your Water types don't get crushed, plus, the Thunder-user might have Volt Absorb and so it can switch into Electric attacks. Jolteon seems to be a common suggestion, and Starmie can also be a good Thunder-user (and has tons of other coverage moves plus can learn the extremely important Rapid Spin to destroy hazards). I also do really well with Mega-Ampharos with Thunder Wave and Confuse Ray as long as I don't turn it Mega until I'm sure Fairies won't eat it.
Vaporeon's pretty amazing as a staller and it has Wish. Mine doesn't even have any attack moves and it probably beats the most Pokemon out of my whole rain-ish team.
Azumarill is really really really strong in XY because it can now get Belly Drum (maxes attack) and Aqua Jet (physical priority Water), on top of having Huge Power (x2 attack). If you get in a Belly Drum and live (it cuts HP in half) you've practically won already. Superpower is a good coverage move; it lowers attack, but it can be worth it because otherwise Azumarill dies to stuff like Ferrothorn.
Dragonite is pretty good with Hurricane and Roost, although I haven't figured out how to keep one alive around Fairies and Ice-using things yet.
Here's my semi-rainy team if you're interested. It's not the best ever and it's not that rainy but it might help you think about your team. Also, note that it's really stall-based.
(You should look up more rain team examples, too.)
Politoed @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Encore
- Protect
- Toxic
- Scald
Azumarill @ Leftovers
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Belly Drum
- Superpower
- Play Rough
Ampharos @ Ampharosite
Ability: Static
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Thunder
- Confuse Ray
- Thunder Wave
- Volt Switch
Vaporeon @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 Def
Calm Nature
- Wish
- Toxic
- Protect
- Aqua Ring
Really, though, look at some guides and then just go for it on Pokemon Showdown. If a specific Pokemon keeps being useless, toss it or revamp it, and pay attention to what moves you're using, what you die to, etc. Note that even if you have the best team ever, it takes a while to get used to playing competitively, so sometimes you might want to stick with a Pokemon or moveset for a bit to see if you can get any better at it or if it really is just bad. But even if part of your team is good, throwing out things that aren't working still helps to figure out your playstyle. For instance even with a good offensive team I don't really know what to do, so I lose and end up taking off my super-offensive team members, but then I end up with more stalling and annoying which I'm much better at handling.
It also helps to have people fight you and talk to you about what you're doing. There are a couple of channels on the main Pokemon Showdown server specifically for helping beginners learn to battle competitively, and they'll battle you and give you advice for your team.
Wow thanks! I didn't know that Smogon had pages on team devolpment. I know how most of these pokemon work, it was more the filling the gaps I needed help with. I was thinking that I could have Goodra, Heliolisk, and maybe Politoed, but beyond that, I'm still stuck. I'll probably use Togekiss or Blissey as cleric.
You make so many helpful posts :o
Too bad it says "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Hiikaru again." :(
How would you go about thinking up a team in the first place? Testing a team on showdown is all well and good, but I don't really have any idea how to get the team in the first place.
There are too many things to think about. I can go for coverage but then I might notice all of my Pokémon have a common weakness and when I sort that out, they might not complement each other well and form a bad team overall.
I wouldn't even know how to begin thinking of overall strategies when I can't build a balanced team to begin with.
(I actually wrote a super long thread asking questions like this yesterday but I didn't post it because I was worried people would laugh at the noob)
How would you go about thinking up a team in the first place? Testing a team on showdown is all well and good, but I don't really have any idea how to get the team in the first place.
There are too many things to think about. I can go for coverage but then I might notice all of my Pokémon have a common weakness and when I sort that out, they might not complement each other well and form a bad team overall.
I wouldn't even know how to begin thinking of overall strategies when I can't build a balanced team to begin with.
Wow thanks! I didn't know that Smogon had pages on team devolpment. I know how most of these pokemon work, it was more the filling the gaps I needed help with. I was thinking that I could have Goodra, Heliolisk, and maybe Politoed, but beyond that, I'm still stuck. I'll probably use Togekiss or Blissey as cleric.
That sounds like a good start! Depending on what you want, Chansey might actually be a better choice than Blissey. It can use an Eviolite, which pushes its defenses above Blissey's, and Blissey's HP is apparently only 5 points higher. I think Blissey's a bit better if you want something that uses special attacks like Flamethrower, Ice Beam, etc. Another good cleric introduced in gen 6 is Florges, which has been really annoying to fight.
Heliolisk is apparently pretty great in rain with Dry Skin. Here is a good discussion on Heliolisk, too.
You need some things that can Rain Dance! I think rain teams are supposed to have 2-3 rain starters, and two seems better so you're not using up so many move slots. Politoed doesn't use up any slots on rain, of course. Here's a note from Smogon on what you can do without Politoed, if it helps:
Under Aldaron's proposal, Drizzle and Swift Swim cannot be used on the same team. This has the unfortunate result of limiting the effectiveness of powerful Swift Swim users such as Kabutops, Ludicolo, Omastar, and Kingdra. To get around this, it is possible to build a rain team without Politoed. Instead, you can run Rain Dance and Damp Rock on many of your Pokemon in order to keep your rain up for as long as possible. This has the benefit of being able to use some extremely powerful sweepers that become tough to revenge kill at the cost of struggling with teams with weather inducers of their own. More amusingly, teams of this nature have an advantage against other rain teams with Politoed as they can benefit from the Speed boost which the other team lacks.
It looks like Ludicolo and Kingdra are still good Rain Dancers in gen 6, and Vaporeon and Zapdos also seem to be okay at this. If you use Rain Dancers at all (you might be able to get away with just a Politoed who's really good at living plus a cleric if you're alright with not using rain as much on teams that hate Politoed), remember that they'll need to be able to stay alive. The less good they are at that, the more rain options you'll need.
You also really need some kind of Water sweeper. Gyarados is a really common and tough sweeper. It's obviously pretty vulnerable to electricity, but you already have Goodra, Heliolisk, and potentially Blissey who can switch into Electric attacks with no problem. Kabutops might also still be good. Cloyster is really, really mean, and you could put Hydro Pump on it to take advantage of the rain. Clawitzer is pretty awesome with Water Pulse and a bunch of coverage moves plus its ability (Mega Launcher) that makes pulse moves stronger.
Besides those and Azumarill, Water Pulse and Scald are really nice for status effects, and you also want to look into Rain Dish, Swift Swim, Hydration, and Dry Skin. Swift Swim + Drizzle was banned in gen 5, but it's not anymore because you can't get permanent rain in gen 6.
Also definitely consider what you'll want to do about entry hazards (Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Stealth Rock). You can live without Rapid Spin if you've got bulkier team members like Blissey who can handle these (and Flying types won't care at all). I don't have Rapid Spin on my team at the moment because stalling makes up for the loss in HP (leftovers, Wish, Aqua Ring, statuses, whatever). You also might want to use entry hazards. Tentacruel is great with Rain Dish plus the power to scoop up Toxic Spikes, and Ferrothorn is also a totally solid choice. It's awesome in general, and then the rain boost guards it from Fire in addition to having Wateryrainy things to deal with Fire types. You can still think about Klefki, too, if you like.
Toxicroak is also great in rain with Dry Skin, and it has Fighting moves which are super-useful.
Ferrothorn and Toxicroak will be horrible to you in rain, too, by the way, for the same reasons that they'd be good on your team. You really can't use Fire, and Ferrothorn is immune to poison, and resists Water and Electric, so you'll have to be careful. You'll really, really need a Fighting move to use on Ferrothorn somewhere in your team. Toxicroak and Azumarill can do that (though Azumarill is super-vulnerable to Power Whip so be careful), otherwise, come up with something else. Ferrothorns are on like 90% of competitive teams. Maybe not that many. But a lot, anyway. If there's some reason I can't use Azumarill, the other thing I do against Ferrothorns is to burn them with Scald and also potentially confuse them. They die slowly that way, though.
If you're still still-stuck, don't worry, it's perfectly fine to put some placeholders on your team while you work things out. With a rain team, you can figure out some major problems pretty quick, like "all the Electric types are completely destroying me so I need to do something." Plus, it's much easier for people to help you think of ideas once you have six Pokemon with moves, because going "by the way, what happens if a Grass-type shows up???" or "Ferrothorn will kill you, maybe you could use Superpower on that Azumarill or throw out Gastrodon for something else (Toxicroak?)." is easier than suggesting "rain team Pokemon".
You make so many helpful posts :o
Too bad it says "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Hiikaru again." :(
How would you go about thinking up a team in the first place? Testing a team on showdown is all well and good, but I don't really have any idea how to get the team in the first place.
There are too many things to think about. I can go for coverage but then I might notice all of my Pokémon have a common weakness and when I sort that out, they might not complement each other well and form a bad team overall.
I wouldn't even know how to begin thinking of overall strategies when I can't build a balanced team to begin with.
(I actually wrote a super long thread asking questions like this yesterday but I didn't post it because I was worried people would laugh at the noob)
Thank you! And if people laughed, that'd be really silly of them. I mean, you're not born knowing about competitive Pokemon battling, and anyway the meta-game changes all the time (like between gens especially) so there's no way you could randomly keep up by sitting around doing unrelated things.
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.
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.
Trying to think about Pokemon as having individual roles helps, too. Does it heal things? Sweep them? Just live a long long time? Switch in to protect some other team members? Make entry hazards? I have an easier time making balanced teams if I pick out some of these roles to include.
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.
As for things like coverage, try not to worry about that too much at first. Coverage is basically an impossible problem before playing enough battles to get a handle on what Pokemon and moves and strategies are common. If you just go for really basic coverage (like, probably don't make your whole team pure Water with all Water-type attacks), you'll start to notice what's missing. You don't actually have to cover every type or strategy well, anyway. Like for some reason my team dies to Hyper Beam teams, but... no one actually does that. Or like you might not cover Steel-types well, but you can still reasonably beat the Steel Pokemon who show up.
Note, too, that "coverage" sounds a lot scarier than it actually is. It's kind of made out to be this huge complex monster thing that means all six of your Pokemon need four moves that perfectly cover every type combination that could ever exist, but you don't do that. It really means "if my Lapras fights a Grass type right now, it will die. What can I do?" And then maybe you use Ice Beam on Lapras or decide to put a Sap Sipper on your team to protect it. Or maybe you decide to do nothing, because no one else on your team is weak to Grass so they could happily fight any Grassy things that show up. Or no one currently uses any Grass-types because there are too many good Fire-types floating around so you never even think of it. Or it's too much trouble because you're new and not sure how to solve it yet, so you just leave Lapras out for now. There's lots of options! You'll definitely have some basic ideas about this even as a beginner, and you'll get even more as you keep playing.
If you're really really lost, you can also just copy someone else's team and use it for a while to see what ideas you can get from that. If you want, it's fun to do this and go "but I hate Azumarill. It looks like it's good at sweeping, so what else probably-watery could sweep..."
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.
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.
So those are some ideas! 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.
haha! that's awesome. I was expecting a "What's That?" but I think it's cool. Anyway, thanks for your help! I've really been getting some good teams built
