What I like to call an "anti-knockoff" Team

[TheGambler]

Arcanine @ Choice Band
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- ExtremeSpeed
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Morning Sun


Banded Arcanine deals a LOT of damage, and has an effective moveset. I often use and abuse its extremespeed.
He usually comes when I expect a knock-off - with Justified, I punish Knock-offers by having the same damage as banded Arcanine without the choice aspect. :)
As I found extra coverage moves to be unneeded, Morning Sun increases the punishability of knock off and extends Arcanine's lifespan.

Krookodile @ Assault Vest
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Pursuit


Ah, Krookodile. Moxie allows for some HEAVY damage, as one would expect, and a dangerous moveset allows him to capitalize on Moxie boosts. Assault Vest, while limiting me from using Stealth Rocks, provides an unexpected boost of survivability against the very common special attackers present in UU, being able to wreck the likes of Houndoom, Nidoking, Chandelure, and many more.


Blastoise-Mega @ Blastoisinite
Ability: Mega Launcher
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Modest Nature
- Aura Sphere
- Rapid Spin
- Water Pulse
- Dark Pulse


As my rapid-spinner and bulky special sweeper, Blastoise is probably my most important piece in the team. His coverage and damage make him a threat to be reckoned with, and is capable of dealing with many walls in the metagame.
His spinning capabilities allow Arcanine to keep being relevant throughout the match.


Aromatisse @ Leftovers
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Aromatherapy
- Wish
- Protect
- Moonblast

It was a tough call between Aromatisse and Florges, but I chose to go with Aromatisse due to Aroma Veil, which renders moves like Taunt and Encore - a wall's bane - pointless. She has a pretty standard role as a Special Wall and Cleric.



Trevenant @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Harvest
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Horn Leech
- Poison Jab
- Rock Slide


A not-so-good physical wall that excells in surviving through harvest Sitrus and will-o-wisp, with unexpected moves in poison jab and rock slide to deal with fairy, flying and fire types that may try to kill it. Has an excellent resistance to ground - he's my go-to ground-type crippler. Draws knock-offs like nobody's business. :P


Mienshao @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Drain Punch
- High Jump Kick
- Knock Off
- Poison Jab


Late-game sweeper, deal tremendous amounts of damage regardless of his target. Knock-off is used to cripple Slowbro mostly, while Poison Jab is used against fairy-type walls.

 

[KM]

first and foremost, you have to lengthen your descriptions if you don't want this thread to be locked.


Mienshao should have HJK/Knock Off/U-turn/aerial ace OR poison jab OR stone edge. drain punch is basically useless.

trevenant doesn't really work well with three attacks, just make it the standard subseeder, or swap it out for an actually physical defensive wall (try forretress, mega-aggron, slowbro)

banded arcanine should have wild charge, not morning sun

don't use outrage on Krook, it isn't nearly strong enough. Use Knock Off/Pursuit/earthquake/stone edge

I can't really say much about team composition or anything like that because your descriptions aren't enough for me to understand each poke's role and strengths.

 

[TheGambler]

I see.

I'll change up Mienshao's moves ASAP. U-turn is really an excellent move. :)

As I've explained, Arcanine's Morning Sun is there to punish Knock-off - hence his ability. :)

I tried picking a move powerful for Krookodile, but I missed Stone miss on my latest match, so I'll change it as well.

Far as Trevenant goes, that was pretty much a gamble. Subset does work better than what I have. :P

Anyway, thanks for the tips.


PS: I have a hard time describing things. Always feel like I'm wasting your time or something. :x
What would you look for in a team description?

 

[KM]

I see.

I'll change up Mienshao's moves ASAP. U-turn is really an excellent move. :)

As I've explained, Arcanine's Morning Sun is there to punish Knock-off - hence his ability. :)

I tried picking a move powerful for Krookodile, but I missed Stone miss on my latest match, so I'll change it as well.

Far as Trevenant goes, that was pretty much a gamble. Subset does work better than what I have. :P

Anyway, thanks for the tips.


PS: I have a hard time describing things. Always feel like I'm wasting your time or something. :x
What would you look for in a team description?

I'm not convinced of the efficacy of the whole knock off lure strategy, but hey, if it works for you, that's fine. either way, not running bolt strike makes you wayy too vulnerable to slowbro and suicune.

descriptions should consist of a description of the pokemon's role in your team, what synergy it might have with other members, why you chose the moves you did, why you chose the ev spread you did, what you put in that place previously and how it compares, matchups against specific pokes/what it helps counter, etc.

 

[TheGambler]

Oh boy that's a LOT to put in a description.

I'm somewhat of a newbie, so usually my EV spread is "max respective attack, max HP or Speed". This applies to pretty much anything.

Knock-off baiting has worked, and I usually have Krookodile handle slowbro, but I haven't faced a Suicune as of yet to test. Maybe I'll remove morning sun in favor of Wild Charge (you said bolt strike, I don't think arcanine gets it :P ).

The team's also quite fresh. I started off with Arcanine, and built around him, looking to fill the FGW core, and with one wall of each type. Krookodile and Mienshao came later, as a means to get rid of specific pokémon (krookodile for Nidoking, Slowbro, Metagross and the likes, Mienshao for, well, pretty much everything else).


I'm not the best at theorycrafting, and I haven't played enough to feel hopelessly walled by any 'mon. I believe Noivern could give me a run for my money considering I lack ice-type coverage, but between Arcanine's priority and Krookodiles AV bulk + SE Stone miss, but beyong that I honestly do not know what could give me trouble.

 

[Shimomeikato]

Okay looks like a good team but it needs tweaking

Arcanine: As said it needs Wild Charge to hit Water-types and with a Choice item you shouldnt pick recovery times because you lock yourself into that making the Pokémon's attacks useless. You say that you use Arcanine for baiting out Knock Off but i do believe you get more value out of Intimidate but if you want to use Arcanine like that its fine.

Krookodile: This set is pretty strong as a hard hitting wall but the moveset is a bit meh. You can use Crunch for the consistant damage over something like Pursuit. Because of the lack of flying type coverage Stone Edge is a must and is way better than Outrage.

Blastoise: Since you already have a Dark-type and a Fighting-type Pokémon i suggest switching either Dark Pulse or Aura Sphere for Ice Beam to deal with Dragon-types as well as Grass-types.

Aromatisse: I suggest a different EV spread as its SpDef is already high and it cant take any physical attacks so:

Aromatisse @ Leftovers
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 SpD
Relaxed Nature (+Def, -Spe), 0 Spe IV
- Wish
- Protect
- Moonblast
- Aromatherapy / Toxic

The lower speed makes sure that you are last with either Wish or Aromatherapy and for ofcourse the Gyro Ball threat on Aromatisse.

Trevenant: You use him for offense? But you lack a defensive wall and if you want to keep the Ghost for Spin blocking and the Grass type to deal with Water/Ground Pokémon i suggest Gourgeist-Super over Trevenant.

Gourgeist-H @ Leftovers
Size: Super Size
Ability: Frisk
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
- Will-O-Wisp
- Leech Seed / Pain Split
- Shadow Sneak
- Seed Bomb

This gives you coverage for Grass and Ghost types, and the priority Shadow Sneak. Will-o-Wisp to cripple physical attackers even more and Leech Seed/Pain Split for recovery. Its function as a defensive wall is good but watch out for fire/dark types.

Mienshao: The Life Orb on Mienshao boosts its attacks but i think the Scarfed set is better for Mienshao, able to outspeed most Pokémon and still deal heavy damage. Mega Houndoom and other Dark types are outsped and OHKO'd by High Jump Kick.

Mienshao @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SpDef
Jolly Nature
- High Jump Kick
- Stone Edge
- Knock Off/HP Ice/Poison Jab/Aerial Ace
- U-turn

Choice Scarf to outspeed almost everything, Regenerator together with U-turn is amazing for recovery and for momentum. Stone Edge for coverage against Flying types and either Knock Off (though Krookodile already has Knock Off), HP Ice (Coverage), Poison Jab (even though Fairy is super effective against Fighting so make sure you always OHKO Fairy types) or Aerial Ace for other Fighting types, Bug or Grass types. Whatever suits you best.

 

[TheGambler]

Thank you!

I have tested your changes, and I agree with everything bar the Aromatisse change. I miss a proper special wall, and I feel this hampers my playstyle a little too much. :)

 

[ApplepieFTW]

Thank you!

I have tested your changes, and I agree with everything bar the Aromatisse change. I miss a proper special wall, and I feel this hampers my playstyle a little too much. :)

Go with Florges if you are not running Aromatisse phys def. I know its ability can be useful sometimes, but Florges superior bulk is just really, well, superior.

 

[Blast]

The main problem I'm seeing here is the lack of a general focus. I'm not really sure what the actual goal of your team is, as you don't seem to have any particular Pokemon or strategy based around it, which is never a good thing; you should always know what you're trying to accomplish and how you're going to accomplish it, since right now it kind of just looks like a bunch of random Pokemon slapped together. (Other than maybe... luring Knock Off? That's nice and all but I highly doubt that's directly capable of winning you games.) You're also missing several different roles that are required for your particular team archetype (which is balance), such as a wincon (which I already went over), a Stealth Rocker, revenge killer, and so forth.

I'll start off with a fairly simple change: you lack a revenge killer. Arc's ESpeed ~kind of~ fills this but the lack of STAB means its power is much more underwhelming than you'd think, and something to actually outspeed the opposition is much needed. The simplest way to fix this is to use the Choice Scarf set on Mienshao over your current LO set (which of course was already suggested). The extra Speed is necessary for RKing stuff like Mega Houndoom, Mega Aerodactyl, +2 Cloyster, and so forth as well as just giving you a general catch-all to weakened fast stuff. I also really don't see the point in Assault Vest Krookodile when it's directly hurting itself (and your team) with its inability to set up SR. If you want a specially defensive mon that can set up SR while still being able to check Nidos, Chandelure, and Doomer, specially defensive Hippowdon fits that bill well. As a side note, you may actually want to consider Stone Edge on Hippowdon as well, since it gives you the ability to check stuff like Crobat and Mega Aerodactyl which you'd be fairly weak to otherwise.

Lastly, let's move on to arguably the most important part: the focus. Judging from a glance, I'd say the Pokémon you should primarily be trying to facilitate a sweep with is Arcanine, but certain members of your team just don't really help with that (Trevenant in particular). It kind of seems like deadweight since it just kind of sits there and takes hits and doesn't do much else. A Pokémon that would be more beneficial in supporting Arcanine is bulky Swords Dance Celebi. Celebi can set up on many of the things that Arc can't touch, such as Suicune, Slowbro, Swampert, etc, and Baton Pass out into Arcanine to start a sweep of its own with boosted Flare Blitzes and Extreme Speeds. Oh, and speaking of which, if you do decide to go with Celebi it would be much more beneficial to run Life Orb over Choice Band on Arcanine. Being able to switch up moves is great if you're passed an SD boost, as you can alternate between Flare Blitz and ESpeed, sweeping through both offense and walls without being forced out.

Suggested changes

Mienshao @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Jolly Nature
- High Jump Kick
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge

Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Force (> Sand Stream since none of your teammates appreciate sand)
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Def
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Stone Edge

Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 232 SDef / 24 Spd (outspeeds Honchkrow)
Careful Nature
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
- Recover
- Seed Bomb

Arcanine: Choice Band --> Life Orb