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This is the first revision of my sandstorm team. please critique it and let me know things I'm missing/what I can do to improve it. [sprite]376[/sprite] Metagross @ Occa Berry Ability: Clear Body EVs: 252 HP/236 Atk/12 Def/8 Spd Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Stealth Rock - Earthquake - Bullet Punch - Explosion --- This is standard lead metagross. It can get rocks in reliably, and take out other suicide leads with priority bullet punch. Earthquake is there for things like heatran or infernape that can serve as leads but resist bullet punch, and explosion is there as a last-resort move that can severely weaken anything not ghost. Occa berry was chosen to help survive special fire-type attacks, because even a hippowdon's Earthquake won't be OHing Metagross unboosted. [sprite]212[/sprite] Scizor (F) @ Choice Band Ability: Technician EVs: 248 HP/252 Atk/8 Spd Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - U-turn - Bullet Punch - Superpower - Pursuit --- Scizor replaces the Clefable I used to have on the team; I had decided that support clefable might not be the best idea for my team, which was very offensive-minded. I'm considering trying to bring back said clefable, however, because wish-passing is amazing. On the vein of Scizor himself, I chose him to support Empoleon, having the ability to hurt things like blissey or bulky waters with pursuit, should they show their face. Bullet Punch is there for reliable damage as well as a priority move. U-turn is there for scouting and utility, and superpower is really only there for filler in this set. [sprite]395[/sprite] Empoleon (M) @ Petaya Berry Ability: Torrent EVs: 12 HP/12 Def/232 Spd/252 SAtk Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Agility - Substitute - Surf - Ice Beam --- Your basic SubAgilityPetaya Empoleon. Once the other team's special wall(s) are taken out, Torrent/Petaya boosted surf will eat most things alive, and ice beam provides good neutral coverage. The idea I have here is to switch him in on something he resists, and then sub on the switch, getting in a free agility should the opponent not carry a priority move. If a priority move such as vacuum wave or mach punch shows itself, I will then move to gengar or scizor to deal with the threat, provided they are still alive. [sprite]450[/sprite] Hippowdon (M) @ Leftovers Ability: Sand Stream EVs: 252 HP/52 Atk/32 Def/172 SDef Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk) - Curse - Slack Off - Earthquake - Rock Slide --- Hippowdon is on this team to provide some physical bulk as well as starting up the sandstorm that my team (for the most part) is immune to. I chose Hippo over T-tar because of weaknesses: Fighting and ground weaknesses shared between half my team is not the best choice if I want to survive. [sprite]476[/sprite] Probopass (F) @ Leftovers Ability: Magnet Pull EVs: 252 HP/88 Spd/168 SDef Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk) - Thunderbolt - Earth Power - Flash Cannon - Thunder Wave --- In sandstorm, this probopass breaks past 600 special defense, giving him the ability to absorb all but 4x weak special attacks fairly easily. The set also works well to reliably eliminate magnezone, who could otherwise pose a problem for my steely team. A base defense of 140 is nothing to sneeze at either and provides relative safety from anything it's not weak to. However, due to the prevalence of both ground and fighting moves, I often have to switch him out in favor of either gengar or hippowdon, depending on the counter that comes back at me. Should I run into a lead bronzong, probopass can quite easily deal with the threat: it takes roughly 25% from a bronzong's explosion and nearly nothing from its gyro ball due to sharing a low speed stat. [sprite]094[/sprite] Gengar (F) @ Black Sludge Ability: Levitate EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Shadow Ball - Thunderbolt - Trick - Energy Ball --- Gengar was almost tossed on as an afterthought to fill in the last gaps my team hadn't answered yet. With a bit of prediction, I can switch in on the fighting or ground-type move users that would otherwise slaughter my team and do a bit of my own damage back to them. The way I've played this gengar so far has been to attack until it looked like I might be done in the next turn or two, then trick the black sludge onto an opponent's pokemon, usually taking leftovers with me and crippling said pokemon. Energy ball is there to deal with swampert, who otherwise has a lot of fun with my team. thunderbolt hits a lot of things, including other bulky waters and flying types, for super-effective damage, and shadow ball is a reliable STAB move that deals with anything not dark or steel type reasonably well (especially if you can damage them on the switch with stealth rock) --- All in all, the team has served me well for the short time I've used it. I think it could use a bit of tweaking though because I do end up relying on specific pokemon to handle the huge holes in my team too much. I'm considering going to a scarf on gengar because it will help me deal with lucario better (force lucario into one move, and either hurt it hard with gengar, or, if it's using crunch, switch probopass in to hold luke still until it can finish it with earth power, seeing as crunch doesn't pose a huge threat to the bulky probopass). If I have time before it gets RMTed, I may get the comprehensive list of threats from smogon and go through them one-by-one.