(Hopefully) Simple Wi-fi team

[ChaosSyn]

So basically i'm a casual (at this point) pokemon player. I used to play A LOT in 3rd and early fourth gen but all the people i knew got out of pokemon and life had things for me that was more important. BUT i am trying to get back into at least casual pokemon battling (mainly wi-fi with a few friends) so i want to make a team that's reasonably easy to obtain in-game (i have black version if that makes a huge difference). At this point i'm not trying to be a top contender in any kind of tournament but i would like to have a competitive team amongst my friends. I'm don't know NEARLY enough about the 5th gen metagame to make a strong team and feel confident with it. This is especially the case since i'm going to be power leveling these pokes and spending time breeding for at the very least the right nature and 29-31 IVs (so please don't suggest any Hidden Power moves on any pokes). So without anymore rambling on let's get down to the team shall we?

P.S. keep in mind that this team was basically originally for a friend of mine but i figured it would be a really good place to start and since it was posted last year things have probably changed since so it would be nice to have an update.


This is the most updated version of the team, but i'm still having problems with water types (Cloyster was WRECKING this team when i was testing it originally). I also notice i have too many weaknesses to water, ice and grass at this point. Still see a lot of work to be done here so if you have any advice at all please post it! Thanks for your help :)

Tyranitar (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 176 SAtk / 80 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Fire Blast
- Superpower
- Stealth Rock
- Crunch

This set is working somewhat good but i'm noticing a lack of Earthquake is hurting this guy badly. I might be getting rid of Crunch for Earthquake. He's a good lead although doesn't seem to be all that useful against most other leads.

BEFORE POSTING THIS TEAM I WAS NOT AWARE OF EXCADRILL BEING AN UBER, SO I'M LEAVING THIS HERE UNTIL IT'S DECIDED IS THE BEST REPLACEMENT SO EVERYONE RATING CAN SEE WHAT ROLE NEEDS TO BE FILLED
Excadrill (M) @ Air Ballon
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- X-Scissor

This guy is a very good sweeper when he has a chance to actually set up a SD. I do find him getting outsped quite a bit tho. Swords Dance is a good move and it's helped me pull off a 4 poke sweep with just this guy left but between LO damage and him being out sped by pokes that can hit him with a SE attack (Heatran especially) it seems like SD would be better suited to be replaced by something like Shadow Claw for a bit more coverage (although it does seem silly considering X-Scissor basically covers the same, so maybe Protect for a little bit of scouting?).

Gengar (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 100 HP / 252 SAtk / 56 SDef / 100 Speed
Timid Modest
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power (Fire)
- Thunderbolt

This Gengar set is a lot different from the scarfgar i used to run in gen 4 and i must admit he's really hard for me to get used to while i'm testing this team out. I'm finding the subs broken immediately and almost being a wasted turn. The life orb almost seems to be hurting this guy more than he's helping as well. I'm thinking of changing to a different set or maybe a different poke altogether.

Considered Changes:
Item: From Life Orb to either Choice Specs or Choice Scarf
Nature: Modest (if i go with Choice Scarf otherwise stay as timid)
Moves: Focus Blast / Shadow Ball / HP Fire / Thunderbolt adding more coverage.

Metagross @ Life Orb
Trait: Clear Body
EVs: 60 HP / 252 Atk / 196 Speed
Adamant Nature
-Agility
-Meteor Mash
-Earthquake
-Thunderpunch

This guy here was a nice replacement for Bronzong. He hits like a truck against most pokes and when he sets up Agility (which is 9/10 times) he sweeps teams of at least 2 (if they're tough, 3 if i can OHKO most) pokes. Meteor Mash and EQ for nice type coverage (Meteor mash gets some nice STAB damage too) while Thunderpunch is in the last slot to help deal with waters and some dragons.

Salamence (M) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Dragon Dance
- Fire Blast
- Outrage
- Earthquake

This guy seems to be the only poke so far that i have no problem with keeping on the team. He's pulling his weight and then some actually. When i predict correctly and can set up a DD he easily takes out 3 pokes on the other team. Sometimes he even can put a dent in a 4th. Not too sure about the expert belt item since Leftovers might help him survive a little more or even a LO for even more damage. I'm also wondering about the 8 SAtk Evs. I do use Fire Blast quite a bit but 9 times out of 10 it's against pokes that have a double weakness or they're Excadril.

Gliscor (F) @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 176 Def / 80 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Ice Fang
- Earthquake
- Facade

Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you in advance for any help you can offer :) please keep in mind that i'm trying to set up a team that is easy for my friend to attain the pokes needed (mostly story maybe a little transfer from a friend) so please no pokes like infernape or scizor.

 

[tikidude]

You could get a Gastrodon or a Cradily to patch up your water weakness.

 

[ChaosSyn]

You could get a Gastrodon or a Cradily to patch up your water weakness.

I use to use Gastrodon on this team, but at the time it was hitting WAY too weak and was allowing for the other team to get setup for sweeps WAY too easily. Not sure if i was using it wrong or getting outplayed, but in the end it just didn't suit my play style. Is Cradily obtained ingame? or do i have to trade for it? Thank you for your response :)

 

[tikidude]

No problem! :) If you want Cradily to destroy water types, then you either need dream world access, or you will have to trade for it.

 

[ChaosSyn]

I'm at the very least curious about the Cradily suggestion. Do you have a set that you think would flow well with this team, and a poke to take out for the replacement?

 

[Mupa97]

Hey, isn't Excadrill banned?

And I'm curious to know what the EVs do for Gengar.

 

[ChaosSyn]

Hey, isn't Excadrill banned?

And I'm curious to know what the EVs do for Gengar.

I wasn't aware that Excadrill had been moved to Uber so i guess i'll have to take him out. Before it had been suggested that i replace Gengar with Virizion, so maybe i'll take out Excadrill and put in Virizion? That would help with my Water/Ice/Grass issues and make this team OU. Thoughts?

 

[tikidude]

Use this:
Cradily
Ability: Storm Drain
Nature: Relaxed
Item: Leftovers
EVs: 252 hp/ 252 defense/ 6 special defense
Moves: toxic/stealth rock/recover/energy ball
This set destroys water type pokemon. I recomend getting rid of gengar. Also, you might want to try this Salamence if you want to go mixed:
Salamence
Nature: Naive
Ability: intimidate
Item: Life orb
EVs: 116 attack/ 216 Special attack/ 176 speed
Moves: Draco Meteor/fire blast/brick break/roost
No set up required. Roost is also mandatory, because sandstorm+life orb recoil is going to wear him down fast. The recovery helps A LOT. Hope this helps bro! :P

 

[ChaosSyn]

Use this:
Cradily
Ability: Storm Drain
Nature: Relaxed
Item: Leftovers
EVs: 252 hp/ 252 defense/ 6 special defense
Moves: toxic/stealth rock/recover/energy ball
This set destroys water type pokemon. I recomend getting rid of gengar. Also, you might want to try this Salamence if you want to go mixed:
Salamence
Nature: Naive
Ability: intimidate
Item: Life orb
EVs: 116 attack/ 216 Special attack/ 176 speed
Moves: Draco Meteor/fire blast/brick break/roost
No set up required. Roost is also mandatory, because sandstorm+life orb recoil is going to wear him down fast. The recovery helps A LOT. Hope this helps bro! :P

I've never been a fan of mixmence. Seems like a waste of a good Attack stat plus putting so much work into S.Atk seems like he'd be too easily dealt with by walls/stalls/status/etc. Fire Blast is really just there for a tad more coverage. So you're saying take out Excadrill for this Cradily set? What about Virizion? I really liked running him before (although it was just a test to see how it worked, it worked REALLY well).

 

[tikidude]

Nah man. I said take out gengar.

 

[ChaosSyn]

Nah man. I said take out gengar.

Ok, so take out Gengar for the above suggested Cradily set? What about Excadrill's replacement? And if Excadril is out couldn't i also get rid of T-Tar and run Cradily as my lead? T-Tar and Excadrill complimented each other so well. So without the main guy (Excadrill) i'm considering taking out T-Tar as well.

 

[tikidude]

You need tyranitar (or hippowdon) for cradily to function at all. He gets his Special Defense multiplied by 1.5 in sandstorm due to being a rock type. You could possibly swap Excadrill for sword dance Terrakion. They basically do the same thing. If you opt for Terrakion, then I would switch tyranitar for hippowdon to lessen your weakness to fighting.

 

[ChaosSyn]

You need tyranitar (or hippowdon) for cradily to function at all. He gets his Special Defense multiplied by 1.5 in sandstorm due to being a rock type. You could possibly swap Excadrill for sword dance Terrakion. They basically do the same thing. If you opt for Terrakion, then I would switch tyranitar for hippowdon to lessen your weakness to fighting.

If i swap T-tar for Hippowdon, then which set would you suggest? I'm not a fan of Terrakion (mostly due to his typing, which doesn't help my water/grass issues at all) which is why i originally liked the idea of Virizion. It seems that SS would hurt my pokes more than help them (other than Cradily's defense stat boost).

 

[NatGeo]

Excadrill is banned from standard play. That said, Landorus or Terrakion are decent replacements!

 

[ChaosSyn]

Excadrill is banned from standard play. That said, Landorus or Terrakion are decent replacements!

Not really a fan of switching Excadrill for Landorus since it continues my weakness to water and ice. Terrakion has a similar issue, which is why i was/am considering Virizion. Thank you for your advice tho :)

 

[tikidude]

I must be retarded. Dude, Ferrothorn could fix all of your problems! Resists water and grass. Gives rain teams Hell. Not damaged by sandstorm, benefits from the residual damage it gives to opponents, and sets up hazards! Also gets leech seed, which pisses a lot of people off. I suggest using him over Excadrill and Swapping Gengar for Golurk. Golurk is immune to sandstorm damage and doubles as a spinblocker with his ghost typing.

 

[ChaosSyn]

I must be retarded. Dude, Ferrothorn could fix all of your problems! Resists water and grass. Gives rain teams Hell. Not damaged by sandstorm, benefits from the residual damage it gives to opponents, and sets up hazards! Also gets leech seed, which pisses a lot of people off. I suggest using him over Excadrill and Swapping Gengar for Golurk. Golurk is immune to sandstorm damage and doubles as a spinblocker with his ghost typing.

If it's not too much trouble could you give me a quick run through what the team would look like after your suggestion? I haven't EVER used Golurk lol. Ferrothorn i've used before and he seems really easy to set up on (at least the set i was using). Thanks for your advice!

 

[Shineygengar]

are you running bulk EVs on gengar? i would go one way or the other, you could run some sort of max speed and hp with hypnosis or will o whisp with substitute and attack moves, or just go with full offensive, i would never mix them though.
still, bulky gengar is kind of a bad idea in general.

2 more things, 1 is i would put protect over facade on gliscor to give it more survivability, and you can scout. and facade, even though its powerful with poison, still doesn't give you much coverage.

2, is that if you find salamence not taking the first hit well enough, you could give it focus sash and lead with it so sandstorm doesn't kill it off. i use f-sash mence lead with the same set (and i think by spd you ment speed right? but on gengar you had both spd and speed, so i'm a bit confused) so anyway, with max attack and speed, 4 spa, a focus sash and a hasty nature i would get a instant 6-4 or more. but i would run flamethrower over fire blast because you can't afford the miss with your at 1 hp from f-sash, and it would still be just as powerful as i needed it. because the only thing that resists dragon fire and ground is heatran with an air balloon.

also, even though i'm used to the 5th gen metagame, i haven't even beaten my black, so i am going to look for more candidates that are easy to get.

good luck.

EDIT: yeah, i would Definitely go with ferrothorn, its beast for sandstorm. and you could still keep gengar if you run sub+pain split, but that means you would have to tutor it pain split in gen 4.

 

[tikidude]

Ferrothorn:
Nature: sassy
Item: rocky helmet
EVs: 252 hp/ 88 defense/ 168 special defense
Moves: spikes/leech seed/protect/power whip
resists water and grass, sets up hazards, and absorbs outrages+draco meteors. if something comes in and decides to attempt to spin away your hazards, then they lose 29% of their health every time they try it.

 

[Dragoon Master]

Suggestion:
Ferrothorn would benefit your team the most. Having the great typing and putting a tank in your team for defenses.
Ferrothorn (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 132 Def / 124 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk) or Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Toxic
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Power Whip
Seriously, once I was losing a battle 3-1. I had Ferrothorn left and the opponent had Latios, Thundurus, and Dragonite left on his team. I ended up winning the battle. The way you use Ferrothorn is always protect on the first turn he or she comes out or a new opponent's pokemon is played. Next, always leech seed them first and the next turn protect again or if you are safe, use toxic on the opponent's pokemon. After you set up toxic and leech seed, you switch between power whip and protect. Ferrothorn will gain almost all of its health back and the opponent's pokemon keeps getting burned out until death. Hope this helps. :)

I have been using this Ferrothorn since August of last year. Trust me when I say it is good!

 

[ChaosSyn]

Alright it's looking like i'll be replacing Excadrill with Ferrothorn. A LOT of people have suggested it and it looks like everyone is suggesting the same basic setup. I only have a few questions left (as of right now at least):

1) Should i keep T-Tar, or switch him out for Hippowdon? What's the pros/cons of each?

2) After seeing all of the negative comments about Gengar (and i really don't want to run that sub-split set, especially since it sounds like it could be an extra pain in the ass to get the pain split move). Golurk has been suggested (which i'm ok with after reading his sets), Terrakion has been suggested (not really sure about this guy since he still leaves big holes for water and grass pokes to tear through this team), Cradily has been suggested (i'm really liking this idea since my BIGGEST problem is water types and he counters them nicely with his ability alone although i'm not sure on how to get him in game), and before Virizion was suggested (also a nice resist to water/grass and, i believe, neutral to ice).

So far that's all the questions i have. Once i get these answered i'll update my original post and test out the team on Pokemon Online and add any additional problems i'm having. Thank you all for the help so far! Hopefully we're almost done :)

 

[Dragoon Master]

I believe a cradily with the following moveset would be perfect:

Cradily (F) @ Chesto Berry or Leftovers
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 136 HP / 172 Def / 200 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Rock Slide/Earthquake/Giga Drain/Stone Edge/Rest/Ingrain
- Double Team/Substitute/Confuse ray/Curse/Toxic/Ingrain
- Giga Drain/Substitute/Stone edge
- Rest/Double team/Toxic/Substitute/Ingrain
First of all, sorry about the wide range of moves that I gave. I don't know exactly how you will use Cradily, so I gave a range of moves for Cradily. Since he is suppost to be a tank, You should start off the first turn you play Cradily with a stat booster move or a status problem move on the opponent, and if you used a stat booster, you then use it again on the second turn if you are safe to do so. After, you sweep your opponent's pokemon with moves like giga drain, Stone edge, and/or Earthquake.

You should replace Gengar with a Cradily. Really though, Sorry about the wide move range :)

If you are looking for another pokemon instead of Cradily, then you should use Golurk. Here's a good moveset for Golurk:

Golurk @ Life Orb
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 124 HP / 252 Atk / 64 Def / 68 SDef
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Hammer Arm/Stone edge
- Earthquake
- Substitute/Rock Polish
- Shadow Punch/Stone edge

If you are looking for another good moveset for a pokemon, here is a good one for Golurk. Golurk could be better than Cradily by the fact that it can block rapid spin. Golurk would be a physical sweeper by sweepping the opponent with powerful attack moves. Golurk also has a more diverse moveset over all.

Those are two suggestions from me to you. I would personally pick Cradily, but if you are looking for offense, Golurk would help alot. Hope all of this helps. Hope to see you battle me in the future! :)

Good luck!!!
P.S. using Hippowdon or Tyranitar is a hard to decide. You'll just have to learn over time which one works better on your team.

However because of the way you are using Tyranitar currently, I would say a defensive Hippowdon would be more effective.

 

[ChaosSyn]

I believe a cradily with the following moveset would be perfect:

Cradily (F) @ Chesto Berry or Leftovers
Trait: Storm Drain
EVs: 136 HP / 172 Def / 200 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Rock Slide/Earthquake/Giga Drain/Stone Edge/Rest/Ingrain
- Double Team/Substitute/Confuse ray/Curse/Toxic/Ingrain
- Giga Drain/Substitute/Stone edge
- Rest/Double team/Toxic/Substitute/Ingrain
First of all, sorry about the wide range of moves that I gave. I don't know exactly how you will use Cradily, so I gave a range of moves for Cradily. Since he is suppost to be a tank, You should start off the first turn you play Cradily with a stat booster move or a status problem move on the opponent, and if you used a stat booster, you then use it again on the second turn if you are safe to do so. After, you sweep your opponent's pokemon with moves like giga drain, Stone edge, and/or Earthquake.

You should replace Gengar with a Cradily. Really though, Sorry about the wide move range :)

The only thing i don't like about Cradily is it seems like it's going to be a real pain to get ahold of then to breed. He seems like a REALLY good counter tho. If i can get ahold of him then i'll more than likely be using him, although it seems that Ferrothorn can do a decent job at what this Cradily is supposed to wall and the way it's supporting my team with status'. Maybe i'm just not understanding tho.

If you are looking for another pokemon instead of Cradily, then you should use Golurk. Here's a good moveset for Golurk:

Golurk @ Life Orb
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 124 HP / 252 Atk / 64 Def / 68 SDef
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Hammer Arm/Stone edge
- Earthquake
- Substitute/Rock Polish
- Shadow Punch/Stone edge

If you are looking for another good moveset for a pokemon, here is a good one for Golurk. Golurk could be better than Cradily by the fact that it can block rapid spin. Golurk would be a physical sweeper by sweepping the opponent with powerful attack moves. Golurk also has a more diverse moveset over all.

I really like this set and it'll be WAY easier to breed this guy since i already have him. The only thing i'm not liking is he seems to just invite the bulky waters to come out...I'm not worried about rapid spin since most of the people i would play with don't even know about the awesomeness that is entry hazards so they don't even think about them when building a team. More than likely i'm going to go with this guy over Cradily for now. If he's not cutting it then i'll probably suck it up and switch him out for Cradily.

P.S. using Hippowdon or Tyranitar is a hard to decide. You'll just have to learn over time which one works better on your team.

However because of the way you are using Tyranitar currently, I would say a defensive Hippowdon would be more effective.

There's only two reasons i'm using T-Tar over Hippowdon and neither of them are very good reasons logically.
1) I've enjoyed using T-Tar since he came out in gen 2.
2) I have no experience with Hippowdon, but i have tons with T-Tar.
So if you think Hippowdon would be WAY better for this team then i'll at the very least look into it, but if you have a better set for T-Tar i would love to see it :)

 

[ChaosSyn]

*Bump* This team is hopefully almost done so can i get a hand on the finishing touches?