New to competitive battling... Suggestion?

[Kopa]

Okay, I'm new to this whole thing and I've read a couple of guides and stuff and have made myself a team, but I'm not sure if I've done it right and just need a little feedback.

Team:

Ninetales - Shuffler

Jolly Nature

Charcoal

252 Speed/252 Defence/4 HP

Will-O-Wisp

Roar

Flamethrower

Toxic

Salamence - Physical Sweeper

Jolly Nature

Life Orb

232 Attack/24 Spec. Attack/252 Speed

Dragon Dance

Outrage

Earthquake

Dragon Claw

Alakazam - Special Sweeper

Timid Nature

Synchronize Ability

Choice Specs

252 Spec. Attack/4 Spec. Defence/252 Speed

Psychic

Focus Blast

Signal Beam

Hidden Power - Fire

Vileplume - Sunny Solar

Timid Nature

Heat Rock

4 HP/252 Spec. Attack/252 Speed

Sunny Day

Solarbeam

Grass Knot

Sludge Bomb

Magnezone - Shock Dancer

Timid Nature

Sturdy Ability

Damp Rock

4 HP/252 Spec. Attack/252 Speed

Rain Dance

Thunder

Zap Cannon

Gyro Ball

Slaking - Physical Sweeper 2

Adamant Nature

Choice Scarf

252 Attack/120 Defence/136 Speed

Earthquake

Ice Punch

Shadow Claw

Thunder Punch

[nidodude]

would you be able to also, aswell as the stats you have correctly posted, be able to write a short description on what the pokemons main roll etc is, just to fill us in etc, eg your strategie etc,

thanks pal

[Enkidu]

would you be able to also, aswell as the stats you have correctly posted, be able to write a short description on what the pokemons main roll etc is, just to fill us in etc, eg your strategie etc,

thanks pal

Yea we need descriptions in order to do much, off the top of my head though.

Nine tails does not make a good lead. He isn't setting anything up, isn't fast/sturdy enough to use roar/whirlwind to it's fullest et cetera.

[Kopa]

Hm. I don't really -have- a strategy other than let Ninetales poison/burn as many as she can, and then attack with a type that can resist the opponent, if there's none, I use my Salamence or Slaking because they're the strongest.

I suppose that's where I'm going wrong, but that's why I need suggestions. I'm not much of a strategy person, rarely play strategic games.

[randomspot555]

I suppose that's where I'm going wrong, but that's why I need suggestions. I'm not much of a strategy person, rarely play strategic games.

If you're not a "strategy person", then you aren't ready to build a team.

I suggest reading these:

http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/intro_comp_pokemon

http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/pokemon_dictionary

[Illithian]

Well, firstly you need to consider tiers

In case you don't know, a tier is a ranking of a pokemon's strength (essentially). These tiers are Uber, Overused (Standard), Borderline (sometimes merged with UU), Underused, and Never used. You can't use any Uber pokemon in a OU team, no OU pokemon in a UU team, etc.

You have quite a mix.

Ninetales: UU

Salamence: OU

Alakazam: OU

Vileplume: NU

Magnezone: OU

Slaking: NU

This is not a good mix, since you can't really win in any category. The only category you can play in is standard, and with that team you won't succeed.

As Enkidu said, Ninetales is not a good opener. Whilst I am a fan of the pokemon, a shuffler can't really serve you as an opener. It can't really set up anything. The held item won't really do anything for you, it won't deal any real damage, and whilst as a pseudo-hazer it could serve you, I wouldn't use one as an opener anyway.

I can tell you got your Salamence from smogon, but using a Jolly nature really doesn't serve you. In fact, Jolly is -Sp. Attack and you have Evs in that very stat; why would you use a - nature on it? Either use Naughty (+Atk, -SDef) or Naive (+Spd, -SDef).

Alakazam looks great.

Vileplume & Slaking, get rid of them. Its not the movesets, its the pokemon themselves; they suck. And I mean they REALLY suck. Get rid of them asap.

Magnezone... well, I haven't used a Magnezone, so I wouldn't know.

[Enkidu]

Tiers aren't exactly important, If a pokemon from X tier serves a purpose better than some OU pokemon, by all means use it. But without a description of what a pokemon is supposed to do, we can't help you fix anything up.

[if you're not a "strategy person", then you aren't ready to build a team.

I suggest reading these:

http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/intro_comp_pokemon

http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/pokemon_dictionary

Please do read them. They are extremely useful.

[pokemonfan]

Yea we need descriptions in order to do much, off the top of my head though.

Nine tails does not make a good lead. He isn't setting anything up, isn't fast/sturdy enough to use roar/whirlwind to it's fullest et cetera.

Indeed, if you dont have a good starter then it can mess up your whole game. Mine is a drifloon. It knows moves that enable it to last long and cripple the foe. I recently battled against my brother, although his pokemon are not strong, my drifloon lasted long and destroyed his first two pokemon. My drifloon isn't even fully trained but I know we can totally own. You see by having moves that effect the foes status, like thunder wave, hypnosis, sing, ect. you are able to cripple your foe. Plus, by giving your pokemon a move like stock pile it gives it the ability to boosts its defense so high that when your foe does get to attack it hardly does anything.

Then you need a way to take advantage of your foes status ailment. My drifloon puts its foe to sleep using the egg move hypnosis. It also knows dream eater which gives it the ability to heal itself and take advantage of the foes status ailment. I make sure though to boost my defense before I do the attacking so that I'm harder to kill. Also, I've trained my drifloon in special attack therefore it has a week defense. So since I can heal myself, foe is asleep, my defense is increased, I'm doing significant damage, and with high HP (drifloons are HP naturals) and speed (speed is boosted thanks to nature) I am really hard to bring down that to me is a good starter. Someone that can easily bring down lots of your foe's pokemon giving you more room for air throughout your battle.

I hoped this helped!

I think if your ninetales can take advantage of status ailments easily and can cover up its normal weaknesses then it makes an effective starter.

[Illithian]

Indeed, if you dont have a good starter then it can mess up your whole game. Mine is a drifloon. It knows moves that enable it to last long and cripple the foe. I recently battled against my brother, although his pokemon are not strong, my drifloon lasted long and destroyed his first two pokemon. My drifloon isn't even fully trained but I know we can totally own. You see by having moves that effect the foes status, like thunder wave, hypnosis, sing, ect. you are able to cripple your foe. Plus, by giving your pokemon a move like stock pile it gives it the ability to boosts its defense so high that when your foe does get to attack it hardly does anything.

Then you need a way to take advantage of your foes status ailment. My drifloon puts its foe to sleep using the egg move hypnosis. It also knows dream eater which gives it the ability to heal itself and take advantage of the foes status ailment. I make sure though to boost my defense before I do the attacking so that I'm harder to kill. Also, I've trained my drifloon in special attack therefore it has a week defense. So since I can heal myself, foe is asleep, my defense is increased, I'm doing significant damage, and with high HP (drifloons are HP naturals) and speed (speed is boosted thanks to nature) I am really hard to bring down that to me is a good starter. Someone that can easily bring down lots of your foe's pokemon giving you more room for air throughout your battle.

I hoped this helped!

I think if your ninetales can take advantage of status ailments easily and can cover up its normal weaknesses then it makes an effective starter.

Well, unfortunately Ninetales can't really ever make an effective starter. Drifloon is an interesting starter choice, and I suppose it could work, but you'd need to train it for competitive battling.

[Varna]

This is not a good mix, since you can't really win in any category. The only category you can play in is standard, and with that team you won't succeed.

...

Vileplume & Slaking, get rid of them. Its not the movesets, its the pokemon themselves; they suck. And I mean they REALLY suck. Get rid of them asap.

Praise be the day that this line of thinking is obliterated.

I can dream...

[DMA]

Ninetales - Shuffler

Jolly Nature

Charcoal

252 Speed/252 Defence/4 HP

Will-O-Wisp

Roar

Flamethrower

Toxic

One thing you need to know about roar and whirlwind is that they have negative priority. The only time a Pokemon roaring or whirlwinding will ever outspeed another Pokemon is if the opposing Pokemon is using trick room or if the Pokemon roaring used it through sleep talk, metronome, assist, or some other such random move. This is why Pokemon using roar/whirlwind rarely run high speed sets, and only then if they have other moves they need to use on the foe first. (Here's more on move priority in general: http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/move_priority)

If you're going to use Ninetales, switching the nature to calm (+spde, -atk) and using 252 HP, 240 Defense, and 16 Special Defense EVs will maximize defense on both sides of the spectrum. This way, it may last longer, given that its job requires staying in to take hits. I'd also switch the items to leftovers, to improve durability.

However, there are other Pokemon that can do a similar job that you want Ninetales to do, but more effectively. Swampert, Skarmory, Hippowdown, and Donphan all come to mind fairly quickly.

Salamence - Physical Sweeper

Jolly Nature

Life Orb

232 Attack/24 Spec. Attack/252 Speed

Dragon Dance

Outrage

Earthquake

Dragon Claw

My main complaint here is with the 24 spec. attack points. That's good for when it runs fire blast, but it should be switched to 4 HP / 252 attack / 252 speed for a pure physical set.

I may write more later, but for now, I'm tired and I'm gonna go to bed.

[Doc]

im not brilliant at competitve battling yet but your team seems ok to me, i like it when people use UU's, but id ditch slaking, hes ability makes him pretty useless, to me anyway, i know some people do use him. a bit of nature swapping or better ev training will help but ive certainly seen worse teams.

use the info you read on competitive battling as a guide, take that knowledge and build a team that works for you

[Destati]

Doc, all you really need to ponder is if a team can counter Latias, Heatran, Scizor, Zapdos and T-tar successfully. You're halfway done at that point.

[Torte de Lini]

No.

No to Slaking

Ever.

He's just not worst his pathetic ability.

Never. Trash him. In the garbage. Gone.

Vileplume is a no too, a lot of other pokemon do what she/he can do and better.

And Ninetales is a no too. You built it wrong considering a cleric pokemon (Blissey) can wall Ninetales and clean up any messes it tries to do.

Magnezone is a bit risky, but you see with Vileplume and another weather-changing ability is just silly. You're trying to shoot for all directions which hardly succeeds.

Get some wallers: Curselax, Blissey are a good place to start.

[Enkidu]

Why does he need walls? His entire team is offensive-ish suggesting walls would ruin any strategy he may have had. IF ANYTHING you would want to suggest better offensive pokemon than what he has.

Start with this thought: Only Salamence ISNT hot by earthquake, one of the most common attacks in the game. Only Salamence isn't hit by Spikes/Toxic spikes.

While Alakazam is strong, his lack of priority and terrible defense and Hp, mean he's easy to pick off with Bullet punch/Ice shard/extreme speed and sometimes even Choice band quick attack. He also can't afford to switch into any move that will hurt him. et cetera, Sorry just not in the mood for a full rate.

[Torte de Lini]

Yes, let's give him an all-out team of attacking pokemon to be squashed by a Curselax.

/applaud

Stallers and Wallers will just gradually kill them off. High attack, in most cases, will give him a team of easily crippled pokemon.

Sorry, but his entire team has no particular order or team-like strategy.

[wraith89]

Offensive Ninetales would go Nasty Plot, Hypnosis, Energy Ball and Flamethrower. I think you breed with Stantler if you want both Hypnosis and Energy Ball and Nasty Plot is from Heart Scale. Unfortunately, the Energy Ball TM does NOT work on Ninetales, you have to breed it to get her Energy Ball. With this combination, she can put someone to sleep, then proceed to Nasty Plot, then attack with STAB Flamethrowers or Energy Ball to cover ALL HER WEAKNESSES (Rock, Ground and Water). However, she's walled by Fire types such as Houndoom and random Tentacruels. To deal with Infernape and Tentacruel, you can use Extrasensory in place of Hypnosis if you have another sleeper (people usually tell you to play with sleep clause meaning only one Pokemon can be put to sleep at a time) or you can opt for Dark Pulse to hit Ghosts. Your team is offensive so your lead Ninetales needs to use that aforementioned moveset to be effective (but Hypnosis has 60% accuracy). That's my Ninetale's moveset, btw... because I don't know how else she could play. As for the EVs, max out Speed, Special Attack, and put the rest somewhere else. Try to get Timid nature to hit a max of 328 speed (or 297 minimum).

Yes, let's give him an all-out team of attacking pokemon to be squashed by a Curselax.

/applaud

Stallers and Wallers will just gradually kill them off. High attack, in most cases, will give him a team of easily crippled pokemon.

Sorry, but his entire team has no particular order or team-like strategy.

I haven't seen his whole team yet but was concentrating on his Ninetales too much :-/

If it does get crushed by Curselax, recommend him a physical attacker or something like a Resttalk No Guard Machamp.

Stalling doesn't work too well in DPP as I've noticed. Too many Choice items flying everywhere for stallers to be of any effect :-/

[Torte de Lini]

Stallers still work wonders if you give it a good switch.

Rapid-spinner Starmie, Snorlax and Blissey still do their job quite well, even with choice-scarfed Togekisses, etc.

[randomspot555]

Rapid-spinner Starmie, Snorlax and Blissey still do their job quite well, even with choice-scarfed Togekisses, etc.

Snorlax and Blissey would work well against any Togekiss. Both can stay in while being paralyzed and can take at least a couple hits of Aura Sphere. Starmie however enjoys paralysis a lot less, but can at least absorb it.

Better counters would be any number of RestTalk users to absorb paralysis (though the fighting types won't enjoy SE Air Slash), physical Vire, or Swamper. But Vire and Swampert could still get paralyzed by Body Slam.

As for Scarf togekiss, it's a lot less effective than it seems. I used one for a while and it looses out on a lot of bulk when you want it to be speedy. Togekiss really likes Paralysis+Flinch rate to be the ultimate annoyer.

(Though Togekiss does get Trick now, so it could be a bit more effective nowadays)