New Team for Serious Competition

[Faye Scarlet]

My past team, however hard I tried to train them, just aren't right for "competitive" play. After seeing them get slaughtered again and again in the Battle Frontier, I realized it's time to let my "in-game" team retire peacefully, and try a new style of fighting.

I've looked through the Pokedex list carefully, and finally decided on 6 Pokemon that will be trained the right competitive way. That means hatching over and over for the right nature and keeping track of EVs. IVs, I don't have any real control over, so I'll quietly ignore those for now, and ask that you do the same. 8D;

Now then...Here is a rundown. I included what their future nickname will be because it helps me out quite a lot. I'm also still confused about the max-EV thing, so if I mess up, do correct me! OTL

-EDIT-
I'll make edits to my team now based on your advice. The edits are in white italics.

Name: Sun Wukong the Infernape
Ability: Blaze
Nature: Naive or Hasty
EVs: 252 Sp. Attack, 252 Speed, 6 Attack
Held Item: Focus Sash
Move 1: Overheat
Move 2: Close Combat
Move 3: Stealth Rock
Move 4: Grass Knot (or Taunt)
All right, I took some of Troggy's advice. D: Grass Knot might be useful, I'll keep the Taunt in mind as well. I read the whole article about Stealth Rock, and wow, it does seem very useful! I'll have to give it a try.

Name: Dovey the Togekiss
Ability:Serene Grace
Nature:Calm or Modest
EVs:252 HP, 252 Sp. Defense, 6 Sp. Attack
Held Item: Custap Berry or Leftovers
Move 1:Air Slash
Move 2: Thunder Wave
Move 3: Roost
Move 4: Reflect
Would Thunder Wave and Roost work in one moveset? It sounded as though Air Slash will be the only attack I'll need, so it would be useful to have both TW and Roost around...

Name: Escargon the Omastar
Ability:Shell Armor
Nature:Bold
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Def, 6 Sp. Attack
Held Item: Mystic Water or Wide Lens
Move 1:Surf
Move 2: Toxic
Move 3: Hidden Power Grass
Move 4: Ice Beam
I'm willing to give him a try. HP is important for tanks, not just defense! I gotta be sure to remember this. Plus Ice Beam will be useful for rock, flying, and dragon types, which seem common! Not to mention keeping HP Grass in mind, another good thing to have in a pinch.

Name: Bai Ze the Absol
Ability: Super Luck
Nature: Jolly or Adamant
EVs:252 Attack, 252 Speed, 6 HP
Held Item: Life Orb or Choice Scarf
Move 1:Night Slash
Move 2: Psycho Cut
Move 3: Sucker Punch
Move 4: Pursuit (or Superpower)
Thanks for catching the Ability thing, Troggy! D8; I don't know what I was thinking... I think Pursuit might be more useful, but I'll hold on to the Superpower ideas as well!

Name: 1 0 8 the Spiritomb
Ability:Pressure
Nature:Sassy
EVs:252 HP, 252 Defense, 6 Sp. Def
Held Item: Lum Berry or Leftovers
Move 1:Dark Pulse
Move 2: Rest
Move 3: Sleep Talk (or Shadow Ball if I decide to use Leftovers)
Move 4: Shadow Sneak (or Will O' Wisp)
All right...Probably not much better, but I'll keep the "tank needs HP" in mind as well. Rest-Talk is very useful, though. My own sister used it against me once. It would be nice to let her see how it feels...

Name: Tangles the Tangrowth
Ability: Lead Guard or Chlorophyll (I don't have Sunny Day at my disposal here, but there's always the small chance someone else will...
Nature: Impish
EVs: 252 HP, 228 Defense, 28 Speed
Held Item: Leftovers
Move 1: Leech Seed
Move 2: Knock Off
Move 3: Power Whip (or Grass Knot)
Move 4: Earthquake
Earthquake is a nice surprise to have indeed. I'll keep that in mind!

END EDIT.

That's about it so far... Any and all advice and critique is encouraged. D8 I'd like to try a new type of competitive team...so let's see how this battle plan will fare out.

 

[SharKing]

Where do I begin tearing this team apart...?

I'm sorry, but the movesets are just plain horrible.

 

[Zeb]

your tangrowth need some work tbh. personally i'd make it physically based, but that's just me. i'd also invest more EV's in HP - give it 252. and have it have an impish nature (+def, - sp.atk)
now for it's attacks, i'd get rid of double team in exchange for sleep powder, which might help it last longer. bring in power whip as your main grass STAB and get rid of shock wave/sludge bomb aswell, in exchange for earthquake, which could hit any fire + steel that power whip won't hurt. as for the final move i'm not sure about that tbh.


BUT if you do want to keep it a special-attacking tangrowth change the nature from lax to bold if you're wanting a defence increasing nature, as bold is better cos it takes away attack, instead of special defence - which looking at it's attacks you aren't intending on using.

 

[Troggy]

You are obviously brand new at this, so I will try to offer some helpful explanations about why the things you have selected are not good. Sharking is right, the whole team needs to be dismanted and rebuilt, but hopefully I can offer some insight to make this process easier.

It should be noted that when you battle competitively you play in a 'tier'. Your first two Pokemon are in the Standard Overused (OU) tier, while your other choices are all Underused Pokemon. The significance here is that your team will always be the tier of the highest tiered Pokemon on it, so if you are interested in playing in the Standard tier you should find if OU options outclass some of your UU Pokemon and use those instead.

One example of this is Omastar, who is only viable on a Rain Dance team in OU. There are more effective bulky water types available in the Standard tier such as Vaporeon, Gyarados, Swampert, Suicune, and Empoleon. I'd suggest you take a glance at the tier list to get a feel for what you will be up against in each arena. Keep in mind that you can always use Pokemon from a lower tier, so the standard battle tier is anything except the 'Uber' Pokemon. If you need any more explanation about the tier system (it is a bit confusing at first), please ask or do some research.

Alright, onto the team...

Name: Sun Wukong the Infernape
Ability: Blaze
Nature: Mild or Rash
EVs: 252 Sp. Attack, 252 Speed, 6 Attack
Held Item: Charcoal or Power Herb
Move 1: Flamethrower
Move 2: Overheat
Move 3: Focus Blast (or Solarbeam)
Move 4: Fire Blast (or Sunny Day)
The sweeper, obviously. If someone gets the first hit, I'm doomed, but other than that, with good speed and special attack, Sun Wukong should be enough to take down a majority of the team with them. If I can get a good supply of Power Herbs, I might try that and the Sunnybeam strategy. But for now, brute Special force is the way to go.

In all honesty, Infernape is a pretty good lead almost regardless of the set it is running. Its STAB moves get pretty decent coverage and it is fast and powerful. However, you are really selling Infernape short with such a redundant moveset.

If you want to use Overheat on a non-choice set, you need to have the other attacks be physical. If you were to use Overheat, it would also make Fire Blast and Flamethrower pointless. Each of those three attacks have their pros and cons (Accuracy, effects, base power), but you only need one.

While Focus Blast from Infernape is very powerful, it is usually inferior to Close Combat. For one, it has terrible accuracy, and without a boosting move like Nasty Plot, you'll never get past Blissey. Infernape is so dangerous because he can hit from both the Physical and Special sides effectively. So basically we have reduced this set to Fire Attack / Close Combat / ? / ?.

What you do with those two other slots is your call. Typical Infernape leads would use Fake Out and Stealth Rock in those last two slots, but if you added more coverage moves you would be able to beat most common leads 1 on 1 in battle (For example, you could add Grass Knot to beat Swampert leads). I should emphasize how important Stealth Rock is, though. It needs to be on your team somewhere. Infernape is a fine place to put it, although it is not mandatory that your lead have Stealth Rock.

As far as the EVs go, they make a little more sense now that Infernape has a Physical attack. If you are using a purely Special based Pokemon, never use Rash or Mild when you could use Modest. Unfortunately we are still having a problem since Infernape really relies on his speed to be effective. He is in his own speed tier, so you can fine tune him to be at the exact speed you want him to be. I would recommend you use a +Speed nature like Naive or Hasty instead of Rash or Mild. Infernape likes to be at least 330 Speed because there are a lot of Pokemon that end up at 328-329 that Infernape would like to outrun. This is where IVs come into play in addition to EVs, but I can return to that later.

The final piece here is the item. Since you are using lead Infernape, you are probably going to want to use a Focus Sash as an item. This allows Infernape to take an extra hit before dying. Another choice is a Life Orb if you don't think you will be sacrificing your Infernape early and want him to have good Sweeping power later in the match. If you were to do that it would be a case where your true 'lead' type Pokemon with Stealth Rock waits in the wings while one of your Sweepers tries to counter other leads first. It's hard to say at this point which type of strategy suits this team, as it is going to get a massive facelift. Just some things to keep in mind.

Name: Dovey the Togekiss
Ability:Serene Grace
Nature:Calm or Modest
EVs:252 Sp. Attack, 252 Sp. Defense, 6 Speed
Held Item: Custap Berry or Lum Berry
Move 1:Air Slash
Move 2: Aura Sphere
Move 3: Psychic
Move 4: Reflect
Another sweeper-type, huh? Only this one is the flyer, with (hopefully) decent Sp. Defense, as well as a sometimes-useful Reflect, so it seems better prepared than Sun Wukong will be. As for the berries, I'm currently growing berries EVERYWHERE in Shinnoh, seriously, including Custaps, so I'm sure to have plenty on hand soon enough.

Well, Togekiss does cover Infernape somewhat with its immunity to Ground, so it may well find some good opportunities to come in early on in the battle. With this construct Togekiss is not a 'Sweeper' type, but it can provide great support to a team.

The move situation here isn't quite as bad as Infernape, but there is still some work to be done. The elephant in the room here is Psychic. Psychic has poor coverage in OU (look through the tier list and notice how many Pokemon resist compared to how many are hit super effectively), and you aren't even getting STAB.

Reflect is a fine choice if you are in need of physical buffering, so you could stick with that strategy and replace Psychic with Roost to give Togekiss some survivability. Alternatively, you could use Thunder Wave to attempt to cripple your opponent's Sweepers. Togekiss has a wide movepool, so pick the support option that works best for you. I believe the Paper Plane also gets Encore.

If you are trying to use a bulky Togekiss, your first stop should be HP EVs. I would max those out and then split the rest between Special Attack and Special Defense. You could do a simple spread like 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD which would give you great walling potential, or you could move some of those SpD EVs over to attack to add some more power.

The usual item of choice here would be Leftovers. Lum Berry is great for offensive Togekiss, but here I think you may get more out of the recovery, especially if you are switching in many times to set up a screen or otherwise screw with the opponent's Pokemon.

Name: Escargon the Omastar
Ability:Shell Armor
Nature:Bold
EVs:252 Defense, 252 Sp. Attack, 6 HP
Held Item: Mystic Water or Wide Lens
Move 1:Surf
Move 2: Toxic
Move 3: Ancient Power
Move 4: Hydro Pump
Slightly more defense-minded, and with the guard against critical hits, I'm hoping Escargon can be a mini-tank that can dish out damage while withstanding attack. I'd certainly take him to the Battle Hall, for sure, with the Shell Armor ability...but I digress. This one should last the rest of the battle should Sun Wukong and Dovey get shot down early.

This one is pretty straightforward. Omastar without Swift Swim and Rain does not cut it in OU. It will not last long as it is slow and has many exploitable weaknesses. He is fairly powerful with max SpA investment, but it will be tough to switch him into battle unless you are sure a Fire or Flying attack is coming.

First the moves. Surf and Toxic make sense, so I would keep those. Ancientpower does get STAB, but it has low Base Power and PP. Omastar gets better use out of it than most, but I would consider Ice Beam instead. Hydro Pump is redundant here so look into another support move (Entry hazards are good here, such as Stealth Rock, Spikes or Toxic Spikes), or I guess you could leave Ancientpower and simply replace Hydro Pump with Ice Beam.

If you want a tank, you will need to again invest in max HP first. Omastar has much better Defense than HP, so you will get more benefit maxing out the HP first. After that you need to decide whether you want a somewhat Bulky attacker (Modest 252 HP / 6 Def / 252 SpA) or attempt to wall things (Bold 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 SpA or 252 HP / 176 Def / 80 SpD). Of the two choices the last is probably the most practical, as Omastar really only sweeps with Swift Swim in the rain.

All of this discussion is just for your edification, I would recommend replacing Omastar.

Name: Bai Ze the Absol
Ability:Pressure
Nature:Naughty or Lonely
EVs:252 Attack, 252 Speed, 6 HP
Held Item: Expert Belt or
Move 1:Night Slash
Move 2: Psycho Cut
Move 3: Shadow Claw
Move 4: Swords Dance
Another Sweeper type it seems. If I double battle with someone, I'm like the Mira and/or Marley to my parter...beh, anyway... As you can see, Bai Ze is about brute Physical force. Not as fast as Sun Wukong will be, but if it can survive long enough to Swords Dance three times, it could be unstoppable!

While your flavor text is entertaining, Absol will never be able to Swords Dance three times against a decent player, and certainly not in OU. Absol is a very good Pokemon, but its slow speed will let you down unless you play it correctly.

This moveset has extreme redundancy, Dark/Psychic/Ghost are all walled by Steel and hit very few types for super effective Damage. You are also neglecting Swords Dance Absol's greatest weapon, the priority move Sucker Punch.

Absol does have several other moves such as Superpower (Which gets very good coverage in conjunction with Sucker Punch / Night Slash), Pursuit (To trap frail Psychic types), Quick Attack (A weak Priority move, but at least it is a priority move). I'm not saying any of the moves you have now are bad on Absol, as they either have STAB or a high Critical Hit ratio (Why are you using Pressure instead of Super Luck??), but I would at the very least replace one of those moves with Superpower to hit Steel types for noticeable damage.

This Absol has trouble getting past Scizor, the most common Pokemon in the standard tier. It can easily dispatch Absol with its Choice Banded Bullet Punch. Keep that in mind if you are going to use Absol as you will be forced to flee a lot if you can't break through Scizor.

Like Infernape, this nature makes no sense as all your attacks are Physical. Absol has a pretty pathetic Special Attack stat, so unless you think you can predict a Scizor switch in and hit it with Fire Blast, you should change the nature to Adamant or Jolly.

As for the item, Expert Belt isn't a terrible choice, but Life Orb would add more power to your attacks. Another option is to forgo the Swords Dance and use a Choice Scarf to turn Absol into a revenge killer. That set is easier to utilize in OU as it does a nice job of trapping and killing anything weak to Pursuit, and can also get the jump on many Pokemon that normally outrun it. It takes some skill to use effectively, as Absol is very frail, but the option is there.

Name: 1 0 8 the Spiritomb
Ability:Pressure
Nature:Sassy
EVs:252 Sp. Defense, 252 Defense, 6 Sp. Attack
Held Item: Custap Berry or Lum Berry
Move 1:Dark Pulse
Move 2: Shadow Ball
Move 3: Psychic
Move 4: Silver Wind (or Rest)
Do Spiritombs make a good tank? Don't worry, I can't hack him to have Wonder Guard! D: 1 0 8 will be another possible tank, who throws special attacks here and there. If I decide to go with a Lum Berry route, I'll have 1 0 8 learn Rest instead of Silver Wind. Whichever strategy will work best in the end...

Spiritomb is an UU Pokemon that does just fine in OU because it has very useable stats and a great defensive typing. However, you are again selling a Pokemon short by using a terribly redundant set. You are again hitting very few Pokemon for super effective damage, and this Spiritomb has almost no utility at all beyond attack.

I would start this set off by selecting Dark Pulse or Shadow Ball as your STAB of choice. The choices beyond that are many, but don't look at random attacks Spiritomb gets, look at his support options. You can utilize a Rest/Talk set to be a durable spin blocker, you can annoy or status with things like Confuse Ray or Will-o-Wisp, you can even do Absol's job of trapping and killing other Ghosts and Psychic types with Sucker Punch, Pursuit, or Shadow Sneak.

Spiritomb is a very versatile defender, and with some investment can even strike back with some force. I can't make a decision for you here on what kind of Spiritomb would fit, as this team has not formed an identity yet.

As far as the EVs go, same comment I made before applies again. Spiritomb's HP is lower than its Def or SpD, so you will get the most bang for your buck by maxing the HP first and then applying EVs to other stats. Spiritomb is equally good at being a Physical or Special wall, and is also equally good from both sides offensively. This allows a lot of flexibility to counter specific threats it needs to counter.

As far as item, I would again use Leftovers to help keep Spiritomb alive. Lum Berry is much less useful here as Spiritomb can use Rest and Sleep Talk to stop status from becoming an issue.

Name: Tangles the Tangrowth
Ability:Chlorophyll or Leaf Guard (I'll take either one, since neither seem that useful to begin with anyway...)
Nature:Lax
EVs:252 Sp. Attack, 252 Defense, 6 HP
Held Item: Leftovers or White Herb
Move 1:Giga Drain
Move 2: Shock Wave (or Leaf Storm, provided I or my sister can breed it)
Move 3: Sludge Bomb (or Energy Ball)
Move 4: Double Team
A tank...that probably needs some work. D8; So far all I has is "Tangles will sit there like a tank, like 1 0 8". The White Herb strategy is same as Sun Wukong's, provided I can get a good stock of them. If I can get a Tangrowth with Leaf Storm, I'll go with the White Herb. Ehehe...If anyone can give good advice on what else to do with Tangles, let me know.

Tangrowth happens to be one of my favorite DPPt additions. I would love to find a good use for it outside of the Sunny Day sweeping Tangrowth. This seems to attempt that, but it has many problems.

Starting with the moveset, Double Team is an illegal move in competitive play. Any move that increases your Evasion is not allowed in Standard Format. There are several other clauses as well, it would probably do you well to read the sticky with the rules in it to familiarize yourself with them.

This set is also pretty redundant, and isn't adding much to your team offensively. Shock Wave is a very weak attack that may have minimal use against Gyarados, but overall won't be doing much. A STAB move is helpful, but Tangrowth's best STAB (Power Whip) is physical. Some of those other moves are viable, but I would not use Leaf Storm unless you are sweeping, and Giga Drain has low base power. For a Special Attack based set your most stable options would be Grass Knot or Energy ball. Those moves have their tradeoffs as Grass Knot is great against heavy foes such as Suicune, Tyranitar, and Gyarados, but Energy Ball can actually hurt Vaporeon.

Honestly, I don't know where this set is trying to go, as you are using a nature that should never be used and EVs that again are confusing as to whether you want to have attacking power or defensive strength. A word of caution, you don't want Pokemon that do mediocre jobs at two things, you want to play to their strengths and have them be really good at one thing.

Before you worry about restructuring Tangrowth to have a role that makes sense, you should probably take a look at the team as a whole.

That's about it so far... Any and all advice and critique is encouraged. D8 I'd like to try a new type of competitive team...so let's see how this battle plan will fare out.

The first piece of advice I usually give to new players is that you need to do some reading. Where I suggested you look things up, go ahead and take some time to familiarize yourself with the rules of competitive battling, the tiering system, and what Pokemon fit where on the grand scale from Neverused to Uber.

Once you have done that, you need to give your team some sort of vision. You need to either make it a certain theme (Rain Dance, Stall, Hyper Offense, Trick Room, etc), or build it around 1-2 Pokemon that will attempt to sweep the opponent's team.

What happens with new player's teams is that they are entirely unfocused and that leads to redundancy and gaps. Even if you have reasonably good type coverage between all of your Pokemon, you may not resist the combinations of attacks that your opponent's Pokemon will use.

For example, Infernape and Omastar are weak to Ground and resist Ice, Togekiss and Tangrowth are weak to Ice and resist Ground. This seems like a good defensive setup, but Ice/Ground is a very common combination of attacks, so you are likely to get hit super effectively by the other type even when you switch in a Pokemon that resists the first.

Being able to realize this and 'plug up the hole' so to speak takes practice and understanding of what Pokemon you are likely to face. You still should build a team so that you resist as many types of attacks as possible, but you should also build it to counter specific Pokemon that will threaten you. It would be more appropriate to address which Pokemon threaten you most once you have a solid idea of your team.

As promised, here is a little information about why IVs are so important. The Speed of your Pokemon is crucial in countering specific threats and outrunning Pokemon you are trying to sweep. If you don't have a good or perfect Speed IV, you may lose to things you should be beating. For example, what if your Infernape is less than 328 speed? You now get outrun by Salamence, Flygon, Offensive Zapdos, all Starmie, and others.

A similar case goes for Offensive and Defensive IVs. If you have poor defensive IVs, you may not survive an attack you could have survived with 10-15 more Defense points. You may miss out on a kill because you are missing 10 Attack points. The standard metagame is very offensive and often fast paced, you don't want to lose turns because your Pokemon were unable to get the KO due to poor IVs.

IVs mix in with EVs when you go to select a spread for your Pokemon. You will find on Smogon there are suggested spreads and movesets for every Pokemon. However, these assume you have max IVs. If you follow them blindly you may not get the results you think you will. If they suggest you give Infernape 192 Speed EVs to hit 330 speed, and you do the same with an IV of 21, you will only get to 320 speed. In this case you should probably either breed a better Chimchar, or correct by adding more EVs to Speed. When you are planning out your team take suggested spreads with a grain of salt, and if you are making your own always keep in mind your IVs and what stats you really need to hit to be successful. I can probably offer more in depth explanation on this topic, but this is a quick overview.

I hope this was helpful, but it is still the tip of the iceberg. Take some time to do some research, choose what kind of team you would like to build, and then give it another shot. Good luck.

 

[SSJ4Jesus]

[QUOTEFairy Red]Name: Sun Wukong the Infernape
Ability: Blaze
Nature: Mild or Rash
EVs: 252 Sp. Attack, 252 Speed, 6 Attack
Held Item: Charcoal or Power Herb
Move 1: Flamethrower
Move 2: Overheat
Move 3: Focus Blast (or Solarbeam)
Move 4: Fire Blast (or Sunny Day)
The sweeper, obviously. If someone gets the first hit, I'm doomed, but other than that, with good speed and special attack, Sun Wukong should be enough to take down a majority of the team with them. If I can get a good supply of Power Herbs, I might try that and the Sunnybeam strategy. But for now, brute Special force is the way to go.[/QUOTE]

Except for a few special cases, it is a bad idea to run more than one move of the same type. I would get rid of Overheat and either Fire Blast or Flamethrower, depending on whether you prefer (need) power over accuracy.

 

[Zeb]

looks like you had it sorted troggy. ^_^

 

[Troggy]

Took a long time to type all that @__@

 

[Zeb]

Took a long time to type all that @__@

haha, i bet it did! i'm glad i only focused my limited knowledge on one of them.

 

[PlatinumDude]

Let's see what I can do about the EVs and moves:

Infernape: Since it's in the lead spot, how about this?:
-Taunt (I know that Fake Out is an Egg move)
-Stealth Rock
-Fire Blast
-Close Combat
EVs: 64 Atk/192 SAtk/252 Spe
Item: Focus Sash

Togekiss: Replace Psychic and Reflect with Thunder Wave and Roost (Togekiss is known for being one of the best parahaxers around). Also, go for Calm and these EVs: 252 HP/4 SAtk/252 SDef

Omastar: Replace Surf or Hydro Pump (whichever you want) with Earth Power, Ice Beam or Hidden Power (Electric or Grass, whichever it has); it could use the extra coverage. Go for these EVs: 252 HP/176 Def/80 SDef

Absol: Replace Night Slash with Sucker Punch (if you don't want to, that's fine). Since Dark and Ghost have roughly the same coverage, replace Shadow Claw with Superpower (to deal with Steel-types).

Spiritomb: Maybe try a RestTalk set?:
-Rest
-Sleep Talk
-Dark Pulse
-Hidden Power Fighting (if it doesn't have that type, go for Will-o-Wisp)
EVs: 252 HP/140 Def/116 SDef
Item: Leftovers

Tangrowth: Lax is a bad nature, IMO. Try this set, perhaps?:
-Grass Knot/Power Whip
-Sleep Powder
-Stun Spore
-Hidden Power Fire/Earthquake
EVs: 252 HP/228 Def/28 Spe
Item: Leftovers

That's the best I can do.

 

[Faye Scarlet]

Ooh dear, seems I didn't read through Smogon enough then! D8; I'll go over that site more thoroughly this time, eheh...I was hoping to avoid using too many OU Pokemon, but I guess this will make it easier to select a better group...

My idea was to play just to a Pokemon's strengths and aim for STAB damage. Like Infernape is high special attack/speed in base stats, so I was thinking just try to max those out. It's not gonna work out too much, huh? Hm...wow. I'll certainly take all that you said into account, PlatinumDude and Troggy! Must be painful to work with a noob like this, but I'll think carefully now!

Troggy, who would you suggest replacing Omastar with? D: I thought with good defense he'd be a good choice. And Super Luck instead of Pressure, okay...the move-sets suggested here make sense, too!

Ooh, and also what you said about IVs...good thing I'm growing a lot of EV-reducing berries. D8 Blah, guess I'm gonna be worrying about IV and proper breeding after all...ah well, if it will improve this team, it is what I will do!

 

[Relictus]

Good bulky waters include Vaporeons, Swamperts, and Suicunes depending on what you want to do.

Also, battle frontier isn't the best place to make a competitive team.

 

[F-22]

I'll help you when you decide on a playing style for your team. For instance, do you want to go heavy offense? Bulky offense/balanced? Stall? Then I can suggest suitable options for you, and we can work from there.

 

[Faye Scarlet]

Reading through Smogon, I think something of a mix of heavy offense and stall might do. If not, just heavy offense. "Get them before they get you", and all.

I've also edited the first post. D: I put new edits in italics and white text. Taking all the advice here into account, could this team see some potential now?

Also, battle frontier isn't the best place to make a competitive team.

Ohh, it's not? D: Yikes, I figured it WOULD be the best place.

 

[Relictus]

I personally don't think leadape is worth it without fakeout. Fakeout breaks focus sash, which is common on a lot of leads (bulkier leads generally use Lum berry or Leftovers). Once focus sash is broken, you can go in for your own stealth rock or KOing attack with your own focus sash intact. Also, a 252spatk/252spe build might not be optimal for a mixape with close combat.

Also, heavy offense generally doesn't have your entire team set up as sweepers. It generally is made to wipe on certain threats so that your major sweepers can come in later in the game to kill everything without a stopper. For example, if you use Salamence for your main physical sweeper, your outrage spam could be walled off by steel types such as scizor. Then, a heavy offensive team would be built around baiting out steel types such as scizor with pokemon such as Gengar, and then trapping them with maybe a predicted HP fire or a Magnezone (Magnet Pull). If you were to use your infernape as a sweeper, you'd probably focus on baiting and killing bulky waters that might stop infernape such as vaporeon or suicune.

Also, I use a Trick Mesprit/Drapion/Garchomp team for Battle Tower, but I wouldn't use them for battling other people (except garchomp, but he is uber tier). Battling AIs and battling actual players is different.

 

[F-22]

Stall doesn't go well with HO since it brings down the momentum (perhaps you meant just the Spike-stacking aspect of it? because it does go great with HO), but if that's what you want Infernape is a great start. As Relictus suggested, you should focus on supporting a late game heavy sweeper. Salamence isn't the only option; stuff like SD Luke and DDTar work as well.

Adding on to what others have said about the Battle Frontier, it's also not representative of the competitive metagame because the opponents have a much greater advantage over you. It's written into the game's code that critical hits, bad move side effects, and the like from the opponent have double the normal chance. So the reason you're being "slaughtered" isn't necessarily due to team choices, it's also because Gamefreak hates you and cursed you with bad luck. I had a few bad runs myself...

 

[Faye Scarlet]

SPIKES! Yes, that move! How could I forget? I'll wait to see where to add it, though...

Hehe, I learned a lot from Smogon! D8 I think I'll teach Omastar Spikes instead. And I'll test one of these strategies for Tangrowth...

 

[PlatinumDude]

SPIKES! Yes, that move! How could I forget? I'll wait to see where to add it, though...

Hehe, I learned a lot from Smogon! D8 I think I'll teach Omastar Spikes instead. And I'll test one of these strategies for Tangrowth...

Actually, you can't teach Omastar Spikes by level-up/move tutor. It can only learn that as an egg move (by breeding a female Omanyte/Omastar with a male Cloyster). You're better off with Stealth Rock for the time being.

 

[F-22]

Spikes users need resistances, and Omastar is lacking in that department. I would suggest a Forretress running Spikes and Explosion, as with Explosion it can keep the offensive momentum going (it doesn't have to lead either). The other two moves are up to personal preference, Payback / Toxic Spikes are standard but you can really use any filler you want. One interesting prospect, if you're daring, is to use Earthquake to surprise enemy Heatran on the switch (which OHKOs variants that run no defense after SR and one layer of Spikes most of the time), and does decent amounts to Lucario, Jirachi, Metagross, and basically anything else weak to it along with the entry hazards. Maybe I'm theorymoning the possibilities too much, but maybe it's one of those useful surprises?

 

[Faye Scarlet]

All righty...how is the team looking now? D: If this is a fine team, I'll get to IV checking and breeding and so on. But like anything else, maybe it could still use some work?