Illithian

When posting an RMT, you want to be actively updating it as you get advice (as you see fit). Like said before, you have 3 OU pokemon and three UU pokemon. Most UU pokemon are incapable of standing up to powerful OU titans, so you either want to specialize in UU or OU. Ditto REALLY doesn't work competitively. Switch him out completely. Your three OUs are Weavile, Tyranitar, and Smeargle. I don't have the energy atm to write a full RMT, sorry, I was up late last night. Just be mindful to try to stay in one tier as much as possible.

I'm very impressed with the names. And here I was, worried they would have trouble coming up with a new game. I'm quite pleased; I didn't have the pleasure of playing the original gold and silver games, and I am quite excited to play the new ones. I really wonder how they are going to revamp the pokemon! Its worth mentioning that this will probably be a DSi game.

I was more talking about who to switch out. I might want a Gliscor over those two, or a Flygon, for Spikes immunity. Update: I'm definetly looking into a Gliscor. I like both Dancing Tank and Defensive sets (from smogon) but I'm stumped as who to switch. Metagross: Can't really switch out my lead =\ Scizor: As lategame cleanup, he is invaluable... Jirachi: I can't take her out, she has absolutely destroyed teams with sub calm mind Salamence: Most likely to take out, but STAB DD + Dragon Claw is really useful Porygon2: Also possible, but hes just so useful Latias: Surf is invaluable, I can't take her out

Okay, I'm going to switch Latias to that set. Jirachi is already quite a reliable calm minder so I should be fine without Latias as one. However, I still need a STAB Earthquake somewhere. Assistance please?

Thank you. Superpower on Scizor is quite a powerful fighting attack; unfortunately, STAB earthquake is going to be hard. I need help figuring out who to switch out for someone that can get a STAB on EQ. Interestingly enough, I generally am able to get my own Salamence in before they can get theirs, DD on the switch to their own and OHKO with dragon claw. On Gyarados, I like to throw in my Jirachi and OHKO with thunderbolt, but otherwise I have nothing against one. K. I was thinking of swapping Superpower for Brick Break anyway because of the Atk/Def loss and the nice screenbreaking effect, but the base power on Superpower is hard to resist. I'll move the HP EVs into Speed. I entirely agree; after about an hour testing this team on shoddy smogon, I noticed that in general I don't end up following my own strategy and recklessly throw out Latias or Dusknoir towards any status that comes up, mainly because they are the least useful. (sadly, I throw these two out against basically any attack that I can't take care of) Its worth mentioning that Azelf sweepers are becoming quite rare as most are suicide, but Scizor is my only effective counter for psychics I go up against. Lack of a dark type attack and a water attack outside of Latias is my downfall since Latias is basically late game cleanup or fodder. Interesting. Its quite possible, and I very much like the idea. I'll put him in and see how it goes. The problem with infernape is Stone Edge; I've had many bad experiences with it, and honestly I think Porygon-Z will be more useful. However that doesn't solve my Zapdos problem.

After my old team, which was half disaster, I decided to post a new one. I'm about to go test it on shoddy. Its a variation on another team I saw with quite a few changes. Intro: The goal here is to set up rocks, then put as much offensive pressure as possible on the opponent. I use Scizor, Jirachi, and Salamence for most of the actual fighting. Porygon2 is my reliable counter to Salamence, Gyarados, Jolteon, and Heatran. Latias allows for a powerful midgame fighter to deal with things I can't effectively counter with a STAB LO Draco Meteor and provides excellent coverage with Surf & Thunderbolt. - Metagross @Lum Berry Adamant | Clear Body 252 HP / 170 Atk / 80 Def / 8 Spe Stealth Rock / Meteor Mash / Bullet Punch / Explosion Standard Metagross lead. Bulky enough to set up rocks then explode in someone's face, usually good for atleast 1 KO. Against a Taunt user such as Aero or Azelf, Meteor Mash them on the Taunt and Bullet Punch for an easy KO, then Explode next turn for 2 easy KOs. Lum Berry helps against the occasional sleep lead. Scizor @Life Orb Adamant | Technician 252 HP / 252 Atk / 6 Def Swords Dance / X-Scissor / Brick Break / Bullet Punch Standard Scizor. Switch into something thats useless against it, Swords Dance, then sweep. Bullet Punch is the main attacking move on this set, as STAB Technician is pretty impressive. On the D/P metagame of our Shoddy, I'll probably switch Bullet Punch for U-Turn. X-Scissor for STAB and Brick Break for a powerful fighting attack + wallbreaking. Jirachi @Leftovers Timid | Serene Grace 252 HP / 80 SpA / 178 Spe Calm Mind / Substitute / Flash Cannon / Thunderbolt Standard Sub Calm Mind set. Flash Cannon is an unusual choice but has amazing coverage with Thunderbolt. 252 HP gives it 101 Subs. With a single Calm Mind she can OHKO most anything thats a SE, and with two or three she can sweep. Excellent against baton passers because while one pokemon sets up, she can spam Calm Mind safely behind a Sub then OHKO the switch-in and sweep the entire team. Salamence @Life Orb Naive | Intimidate 252 Atk / 36 SpA / 220 Spe Dragon Dance / Dragon Claw / Earthquake / Fire Blast Not standard. 220 Spe allows him out outspeed Gengar, his main high speed threat. I don't like getting locked into one attack, it makes prediction to easy, so I use Dragon Claw > Outrage. It lets Salamence sweep with more impunity and stay in longer. Porygon2 @Leftovers Bold | Trace 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SpA Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / Recover / Thunder Wave Defensive Duck is my new Gyarados, Salamence, Jolteon, Vaporeon, and Heatran counter, all in one. BoltBeam allows for excellent coverage along with 4x damage against Gyarados & Salamence. Recover is standard, and Twave is too threatening for many sweepers to say in. Trace allows for near infinite versatility and abusage of the abilities of others. Latias @Life Orb Modest | Levitate 6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe Draco Meteor / Surf / Thunderbolt / Recover New Latias set suggested by Enkidu. Surf is my only water attack on the whole team which is definitely needed. Thunderbolt helps with the occasional Gyarados that I'll face and Draco Meteor is a reliable, powerful STAB that'l OHKO or at the very least seriously damage most everything. Surf is a 2HKO on Scizor and Tyranitar after SR damage, which is a guaranteed setup with Metagross unless I'm against an anti-lead. She can survive CB Bullet Punch from scizor for a 2HKO if I get Surf on a switch in. Essentially, a very useful set that I can pull out midgame.

Enkidu, is there anything you CAN'T do? Anyway, yeah, thats pretty much what he did. Still, I think partly the lack of depth was intentional. In your picture (which, by the way, is excellent), the intention of depth is obvious and well done. In his picture (I'm mainly referring to the one I uploaded for him, which IMO is his best work), I'm fairly certain there wasn't supposed to be depth; there isnt a distinct enough background. The render blends with the background quite literally.

Do Smogon's rules allow BL pokemon to be in the UU metagame? It seems very unclear and a matter of opinion for most people I've asked.

After seeing the renders and downloading the brushes you used, I can see the work you put into these. On some of them, I feel like there is just SO MUCH in the picture that its hard to take in. Restraint is something thats hard to learn. You're a great artist, but I think you should try to learn it; simplicity is beauty within itself. That said, C&C's coming your way: #1: I REALLY like the style. You used the rune brushes in a perfect, creative way to give good focus on an important part of the picture. Also, the lower half of the render looks flawless and the effect that the runes make on it is very cool. However, the top half is... not as good. Its too blurred and almost smudged in places and it distracts from the coolest parts of the picture. I think if you had kept with a style of very sharp and in focus, you would have better results. #2: Fantastic. I love the lines in the background and I think the blending between the render and the background is executed flawlessly with a perfect combination between blur and definite border on the edge. However, I think the middle parts of the render are too blurred and it almost hurts your eyes to look at it, which is a major downside on this otherwise fantastic piece. #3: I like the render and I like the background, but it doesnt excite me and it isnt subtly beautiful either. Its... well, I'm not sure how to describe it, but I don't really like it. Sorry. =\ #4: Hell I think its amazing, especially looking at what you did to it in the PSD. Making that from the original render is deserving of an award within itself. I love the background and ESPECIALLY the black smudgyish spectre-like stuff thats around the angel. I think you did a perfect job blending it. Nothing to complain about except image quality. And you didn't upload my favorite one! I'm sad, I thought it was amazing. I'll upload it for the benefit of everyone else here. =)

Sorry about the bad formatting. This thread was made before the section + format rules came out, so... Anyway, although theres an interesting discussion going on, can this be locked? I don't even use this team anymore because it has so many weaknesses, and its the first team I've made in over 6 months. I'm working on a (hopefully) better team, so please lock. Thank you for the support.

I totally agree with all of this, and HP Dark is bad type, but it an important move type that I don't have anywhere else. HP Electric is covered by Froslass's Thunderbolt. Ice Beam is Blizzard on Abomasnow & Froslass. I agree that Toxic is the best choice, and I will put it in. Also, big change to Abomasnow: Earthquake wasn't doing enough damage for my taste. I wish it could learn Earth Power, but unfortunately that isnt an option, so I'm settling for HP Ground and moving all the Atk IVs to SpA which should help a lot with damage. If this is a bad change, tell me =). Also, I need a new item for Abomasnow. I don't even notice the extra Leech Seed healing so Big Root is a complete waste. And since its a Battle Tower team, I can't use Leftovers since thats already on Vaporeon.

I posted that, and yes, they are humiliation tools. They don't help people learn more about battling, they help people scout opponents teams and destroy them. I myself used Greencat's warstory to OHKO his Clefable with a first turn Explosion from Metagross and swept his team with Breloom. I designed a team with 3 Clefable counters and a perfect counter to each strategy he had. Not only that, I had a Crobat Hazer and a Phazer ready for use. Yeah, pathetic right? Well Greencat spent like an hour with some "minor tweaks" before he battled me so I had plenty of time to edit my team. =|

Personally, I think the Rep system is a good system. Firstly, it tells a lot about a person (obviously). Yes indeed it gets abused, but its incredibly difficult to abuse it on a large scale. There should obviously be rep 'cooldowns', which might be you can only rep someone once every 24 hours or something. Those tend to dramatically reduce rep abusage. Secondly, you can put many restrictions on rep. For example, make it so only people with 30+ posts can rep. Once the forum gets bigger, increase it to 50+ posts. With these limitations, you can't multi-account to rep yourself and newer people can't derep people who aren't deserving of it for no real reason. Finally it really does give an indicator of how useful a person is. Post count means nothing, some people have a lot of time on their hands and can be on the forums for long periods of time and have mainly useless posts, yet people listen to them because they have abnormal post counts. A rep system would enable people to realize who actually is reliable and useful, and it gives people a way to thank others for pokemon requests, sig requests, or simply to say, "Nice job." Also, the fact is, saying, "Just read their posts," isn't a good argument at all. It takes a while so most people wont bother, and the rep system is still the only good way to thank someone or grats someone. I'm hoping you can come up with a good argument against this.

Very interesting. Creative I would say. I'd like to see the PSDs before I comment, because I want to know what you did to each render before I comment. If you could PM them to me, that would be great.

Well, we only saw 4 of his pokemon; its possible he does have an ice pokemon or an ice attack somewhere within his roster.

You may want to consider studying up on pokemon immunities and resistances before challenging someone...

Garchomp is indeed an uber.

I believe you should focus less on sig making and more on designing. You have an amazing amount of potential for being a fantastic artist. Sig makers are editors; we have little skill other then to edit the work of others. You have a true skill in being an artist. However, put it to better use then putting a hat on a shaymin, okay? On that note, I think your best sigs were: Remember to feather your selections. There are a lot of ugly, coarse lines throughout your work that if they were smooth it would make it a thousand times better. Avoid putting too much into one picture and make sure each element fits into the picture.

Its satisfying to know your artwork is appreciated. No problem to both of you. Oh and Hott, yes, fanboyism is a way of life

In that case; http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2493/phreensig.png

or

Naruto fanboyism much? http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8064/hottsushizsig.png Unfortunately, finding good, usable pictures of shiny pokemon is rare and hard to find. If you find a good picture you like online, please link it here. If its a sprite, thats okay, but it will be small.

You might want to consider a CB Mamo or a Mixmamo as a replacement for Kingdra. A Donphan RSer would be useful too since theres all those SRs around and toxic spikes really hurts this team. It fits the offensive style with 120 attack, but low speed might not make it worthwhile considering. For pure offense, a NP Mixape might do your team well (or just a Mixape). All at your discretion of course.

Yes, apply the .ups to a Platinum .nds file.

Sorry for the horrible RMT, but I didn't really have time to look at the team in depth. =| I don't really know how to respond to that comment other then to apologize.