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Battle Tower Team

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Wiilio

Neighborhood fatman
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I have a pretty successful Battle Tower team here. Not only do I want to hear your opinions on it, but it's a nice model for how newer members should make a RMT.

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Starmie
Ability: Natural Cure
Nature: Timid
EVs: 6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Item: Life Orb
~ Surf
~ Psychic
~ Thunderbolt
~ Ice Beam

My special sweeper, and a damn good one. I was so surprised at how much better it did than Latios. Excellent coverage on this one. I lead with it.

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Metagross
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 32 Def / 190 Spe
Item: Metal Coat
~ Meteor Mash
~ Bullet Punch
~ Earthquake
~ Ice Punch

My physical sweeper. Pretty straightforward. I needed a Steel-type to take care of my Weavile and Froslass weakness. Bullet Punch handles them nicely. Metal Coat is to boost the power of 2/4 of its moves.
I had to make the EV spread myself. Basically, the 190 Speed EVs ensures that I outrun standard Swords Dance Scizor (Just to get the first lick in anyway). I know I won't really be seeing that, but this could double for competitive play as well. The HP hits 159, so if I ever switch to Life Orb, recoil will round down. Max Attack, and dump the rest in Defense.

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Zapdos
Nature: Bold
EVs: 248 HP / 228 Def / 32 Spe
Item: Leftovers
~ Thunderbolt
~ Heat Wave
~ Toxic
~ Roost

My bit o' bulk. Excellent at stalling (I've beaten many special walls without having to resort to sending out Scizor) and a good all-around bulky Pokemon. No move switches on this one.

Usually I can just keep it to Starmie and Zapdos in my battles because Starmie can hit hard as hell and Zapdos can come in and clean up. However, Metagross is a nice heavy hitter, and is valuable to the team for its ability to take care of Weavile and Froslass.

I'm currently testing this team.

EDIT: Changed Scizor to Metagross.
 
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a pretty nice rounded team

personally i like the idea of a phys + a spec sweep in there
but the zapdos choice is meh ... i would call for a bit of a roar + SR + toxic + t wave or yawn kind of support for the 3rd one
 
For Battle Tower, I actually prefer for them to keep their Pokemon in. Bring them in, beat them up, move on. Plus, that Zapdos has no recovery or attacking moves. This one works fine.
 
I like your team, but having Starmie lead is unusual, although since it has really good coverage and it's fast, I like it. But you could try putting Recover on it because of the Life Orb.
 
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Recover could be a good option. Whatever I've needed to use Psychic on can usually be taken care of by a Surf or two. I'll consider it.
 
starmie's all fine, however when i do the battle tower, i like to lead with a guy with stat-uping move, such as agility metagross, or swords dance scizor, which works for me well, but perhaps it wouldnt be as good in the much later stages.

as for garchomp, the one thing thats always stopped me liking garchomp is his speed, but i'd imagine if you have it ev'd and maybe iv'd it would still outspeed most things, as for stone edge/fire fang, i'd say fire fang, the additional chances are good because of the ammount of times you'll be using it, the chances of burning and flinching will be very helpful. also, without it, you'd be stopped dead by skarmory with roost, and outrage only has 20 less base power than a super effective stone edge, and i'd chose a 100% accuracy 180 power attack over a 80% accuracy 200 power attack.

zapdos, have to be honest, i dont like much, i've always found that full out offensive teams are better in the battle tower, my last pokemon is a banded infernape, to revenge kill well, just about anything, but i've never actually tried using a wall in the battle tower, so maybe it works, but personally i'll be staying with my big monkey thats in fire :)
 
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Zapdos is the strong bulky Pokemon. It usually works quite well, as it can stall and hit pretty hard. Starmie works well as a lead (to an extent; will be explained later) because of its Speed, and Garchomp is good for cleanup.

However, this team does have one major weakness... wait for it... wait... for... it...

...Froslass.

That's right, Froslass. Ice Beam 2HKOs Zapdos and OHKOs Garchomp (even with Yache Berry), and Shadow Ball OHKOs Starmie. Starmie could, at least, put a big dent in it, but it's usually dead when Froslass comes around (it's happened twice). Even then, I doubt Surf would be a OHKO. I need another bulky hard-hitter... any suggestions? I want it to take care of Weavile and Froslass.
 
Wiil said:
I want it to take care of Weavile and Froslass.
Click to expand...
Infernape? OHKO's Weavile and Froslass and they can't OHKO back unless Weavile is Focus Sash+Counter and Froslass isn't Destiny Bond.
 
you could sash garchomp and give it fire fang? and also, i'm guesssing zapdos will survive a ice shard, or an ice punch from weavile, and can then go in for the KO with heatwave, so you could just put enough spD ev's on there for it to survive an ice beam?
 
It won't OHKO Weavile with Heat Wave. It gets close, but not close enough. Zapdos does survive an Ice Shard and Ice Punch, but it will have to survive two of each to KO Weavile. I could give it more SpD, but that would take away from the power it has. I would assume that a Heat Wave from Zapdos would OHKO Froslass, but taking away from its SpA EVs would mean that OHKO turns into a 2HKO, and no amount of EVs is going to turn Ice Beam into a 3HKO. It's either get a Calm Zapdos and die to Weavile, or keep this one and die to Froslass.

insomniac: That's a good idea, but it's not bulky.

...how about a Heatran? I doubt a Brick Break from Weavile would take it down...
 
a bulky heatran could work :O it would totally absorb ice attacks sent for garchomp, a sleep talker set could be good :)
 
I can't believe I didn't think of it before.

Replacing Garchomp with Scizor.

Starmie has Life Orb already, so I'll let Scizor hold an Iron Plate. That'll power up its (arguably) most important attack (Bullet Punch). I just need to find one. That shouldn't be too hard.

Edited Scizor in, and testing will commence very soon.
 
Cool team but since you already have thunderbolt on Starmie, you should replace Grass Knot with Psychic in order to have good coverage against Poison
and Fighting-type Pokemon.
 
Notice: Without Grass Knot, this team has a problem with Swampert. The best thing I could do is ToxicStall Swampert with Zapdos. Also, neither of those types are a problem to this team.

However, I have considered changing Grass Knot to Psychic, but for STAB power, not for coverage. Grass Knot has its uses, but they are few and far between. I will test Psychic.

And by test I mean use and hope I don't fall flat on my face.

EDIT: First Pokemon I run into when I change to Psychic? Hitmonlee.

Good call, salamencecommander.

EDIT 2: No lie, I just lost because of luckhax. This is the SECOND time it's happened, the first being my 91 win streak lost to Stone Edge missing... twice. Manectric got a crit on Zapdos with Thunderbolt, so I couldn't Roost again :/

Psychic is a permanent change.

In the meantime, theoretical rates please. I'm not seeing problems with the team, but I might be overlooking something.
 
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The Starmie you have now is THE set to use, IMO. The team does have some issues with Swampert though (always a problem for me, with my Starmie teams). You can theoretically toxic stall it though as you said (and make sure it's not that weird mirror coat one...) but you don't really want to wait for a critical hit either.

The only thing I would say is that I don't like that you don't have a safe switch-in/counter for when Starmie comes up against an electric. They'll T-bolt you without a doubt, but sometimes they like to T-wave on the first turn, for whatever reason. Have you had issues with Scizor/Zapdos dealing with this? Personally, I think Starmie and Scizor work really well together (and Scizor can come in on ghost/dark), so if it's really an issue, I'd change Zapdos, but I see why you like him. I've just gotten screwed so many times by electric leads/switch-ins.

I also do think that no matter what, if you're going with a "straight-forward" strategy, you're going to lose to "luckhax" eventually in the tower. You'll only get a 100 streak if you're really lucky. I know you may be trying not to copy any of the AI abuse strategies that have become fairly famous for beating the tower because you want to do it your own way, but I'd say without at least one AI abuser, it's gonna suck. Sorry if that's not helpful though...
 
I actually don't see Swampert much at all. If I do, the combined efforts of any two of the team can take it down, which I'm okay with.

Starmie can actually take care of a few Electric-types itself with a strong Surf. If that can't happen, I'm willing to sacrifice it to bring in Scizor (if they're slower/in KO range with Bullet Punch) or Zapdos. Zapdos could have easily beaten that Manectric, but it got a crit with Thunderbolt and put me in the red. But you're right; a decent Electric-type (Lanturn?) would hand it to me, but Zapdos fits in so well... it's bulky but hits hard, and it's even pretty speedy. For now, I can't think of a good substitute, so he'll stay in for now. After I finish my Spanish today I'll give it another run.

I have horrible luck with AI abuse. I've used it... twice. I've been through at least 20 battles with an AI abuser. Did the "abuse" activate? No. But of course as soon as the opponent sends in their Quick Claw Steelix or whatever impossibly slow thing they have, it works. Looks like the gaming gods want me to win it fair and square.
 
Swampert typically gets away with taking out at least ONE of my Pokemon, and it's especially nerve-wracking before you figure out its set. It's not one of the worst things that can happen, but it totally pisses me off whenever it shows up.

Hmm, you know, I have never actually left Starmie in on any Electric types. I should do some damage calcs on that! Anyway, yeah, you might as well leave Zapdos in until you start seeing patterns in common problems (if that even occurs).

What kind of AI abuse were you trying? Granted I haven't tried much AI abuse, myself. Whenever I try to win fairly though, eventually SOME haxing jerky AI comes along - and yeah, between Quick Claw activating repeatedly and 1HKO moves taking out 2 team members, I can't deal with it. Surely, there must be some AI abusing counteraction!

Btw, you're learning Spanish too? I'm terrible for the level I'm at. Mind if I write to you to practice once in a while?
 
Team's up to 56. It seems that this team can handle many things that it looks like it can't. For example, Lanturn and various Electric-types (Zapdos, Raichu).

Quick Claw, OHKO moves, the works. Even Double Team spam. There is AI abuse counteraction:
Critical hits: Shell Armor and Lucky Chant
Quick Claw: Protect (harhar)
Evasion: Always-hit moves (Lucario's Aura Sphere anyone?)

Sure, knock yourself out. Haha.
 
Replace the Zapdos with a Latios calm nature that is EV trained for defense and HP-It alsolearns recover. I'd recommend giving starmie calm Mind and, as mentioned beore me, Recover. You could also just ditch Starmie entirely. Also in the future plz don't close my Team article w/out tips, I haven't figured out how to do EV totals yet so plz help me and you swear A TON.
 
1: I prefer Zapdos. Higher Defense. It can be bulky on both sides.
2: I'd rather Starmie just go ahead and whoop ass rather than waste time setting up... seeing as... well, it can do that.

3: I don't think I closed your thread. I think DCM did. If I did, I closed it because it was breaking the rules, so it wasn't going to get any tips from anyone.
4: You shouldn't even be posting if you don't know about EVs. Those are a basic part of competitive battling.
5: Yes, I "swear" a ton, what of it? It's not against the rules. Did you read the rules? I think not.

In other news...

The team lost... but this time, I can't blame it on luck. It was my fault. Their Gallade had X-Scissor and I didn't expect it.

Oh well.
 
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