Rhyperior (M) @ Quick Claw
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Megahorn
- Protect
Im really unsure about including Rhyperior here but for coverage I wanted him in. I’d have to obviously take out any opposing water Pokémon first.
The point is for Politoed to bring out rain, and Pidgeot, Tapukoko, Kingdra and Toxicroak all have advantage from that and covering varying things. Pidgeot so far has worked extremely well with Hurricane for me. I really like Pidgeot so I was hoping to include him in here.
Another option was Swampert over Rhyperior. Really looking for feedback on this team. I bred them 100% legit in game and even got a Tapukoko and leveled him to 100 and hyper trained him.
Hyper Beam and Draco Meteor are last ditch suicide move meant to take something down with me.
Its important to note that this is for VGC format specifically, at the very least Doubles Link Battles in-game
I would suggest another form of speed control outside of rain, such as tailwind. There are a good amount of teams that are prepared to deal with rain and immediately change the weather, so having another way to outspeed/underspeed your opponent will be very useful. I am also wondering about dragonium z over waterium z since fairies exist in the meta and are immune to devastating drake. instead of draco meteor, you could go ice beam and possibly icium z since they cover the same types and you have a solid attack for any form of landorus (scarf, AV, etc.). One threat that easily comes to mind is Tapu Lele since there aren't many pokemon on your team that are purely invested in defense/special defense and it can easily spam psychic or a coverage move and take down several members of your team.
Overall it seems really solid, you just need to test the team out and see how it handles the meta yourself and adjust the team according to your playstyle.
I would also suggest adding in the remaining 4 EVs to all of your pokemon as it can make a difference with rolls, or you can mess around and create a custom set that still gets KOs or lives hits from certain threats.
Anyways, it looks like a really good team! Good luck on the ladder.
Resident pun-lover and VGC teambuilding enthusiast
- Let me introduce you Scald: 100% accuracy, burning chance, no AoE nerf. The perfect Water type STAB.
- Blizzard without Snow Warning/Icium Z/Gravity shouldn't be preferred to a safer Ice Beam or a more useful Icy Wind.
- MPidgeot is often seen as a bad version of MSalamence: worse coverage moves, worse typing, worse pre-MEvolution ability, less setup options. Just get rid of it.
- Lefties+Dry Skin+Drain Punch seem a devastating combo, but Toxicroak has a poor Atk and need a stronger STAB and/or an offensive item to play the Fighting type pokèmon's role in a Rain team: to take care of Ferrothorn.
- Electric Seed can work for Tapu Koko with a more appropiate set, (with a defensive spread, maybe with CMind) but Electrium Z is easier to use for a beginner and solves the problem of Thunder's accuracy without Rain.
- Rhyperior is outclassed by Landorus-T as Ground type, by Terrakion as Rock type and by some electric mice and AMarowak as Lighting Road user. Wanting to infer I would also appoint Marowak as rival TR sweeper, but it doesn't matter for your team.
- Quick Claw is one of the most unreliable item. Basically a wasted slot.
The main problems of your team are the weakness to TR and other Rain teams, which can be solved adding Amoonguss in place of Rhyperior. MPidgeot can be replaced by MSalamence, MMetagross or MSwampert; consider Pelipper as option for Politoed if you want to spam EQ freely and setup Tailwind. Nobody will blame you if you'll choose Hitmonlee or Hitmontop instead of Toxicroak as Fighting type Fake Out user.
(Jan 8, 2018, 07:19 AM)Arctero Wrote: I would suggest another form of speed control outside of rain, such as tailwind. There are a good amount of teams that are prepared to deal with rain and immediately change the weather, so having another way to outspeed/underspeed your opponent will be very useful. I am also wondering about dragonium z over waterium z since fairies exist in the meta and are immune to devastating drake. instead of draco meteor, you could go ice beam and possibly icium z since they cover the same types and you have a solid attack for any form of landorus (scarf, AV, etc.). One threat that easily comes to mind is Tapu Lele since there aren't many pokemon on your team that are purely invested in defense/special defense and it can easily spam psychic or a coverage move and take down several members of your team.
Overall it seems really solid, you just need to test the team out and see how it handles the meta yourself and adjust the team according to your playstyle.
I would also suggest adding in the remaining 4 EVs to all of your pokemon as it can make a difference with rolls, or you can mess around and create a custom set that still gets KOs or lives hits from certain threats.
Anyways, it looks like a really good team! Good luck on the ladder.
Thank you! I’ll try and find a way to get Tailwind in my team. I had it on Pidgeot but have since thrown on Quick Attack and its saved me twice now. I’ll find some way though because I agree I need Tailwind on there somewhere. Maybe just Icy Wind on Politied would be enough?
I can definitely see what you mean about Tapu Lele. I also noticed I have a huge weakness to Rotom, but he doesn’t seem as prevalent for Doubles. I may add Amoongus instead of Rhyperior, I haven’t found a lot of use for Rhyperior yet and Amoongus would solve both problems
(Jan 8, 2018, 07:47 AM)Spyro190 Wrote: - Let me introduce you Scald: 100% accuracy, burning chance, no AoE nerf. The perfect Water type STAB.
- Blizzard without Snow Warning/Icium Z/Gravity shouldn't be preferred to a safer Ice Beam or a more useful Icy Wind.
- MPidgeot is often seen as a bad version of MSalamence: worse coverage moves, worse typing, worse pre-MEvolution ability, less setup options. Just get rid of it.
- Lefties+Dry Skin+Drain Punch seem a devastating combo, but Toxicroak has a poor Atk and need a stronger STAB and/or an offensive item to play the Fighting type pokèmon's role in a Rain team: to take care of Ferrothorn.
- Electric Seed can work for Tapu Koko with a more appropiate set, (with a defensive spread, maybe with CMind) but Electrium Z is easier to use for a beginner and solves the problem of Thunder's accuracy without Rain.
- Rhyperior is outclassed by Landorus-T as Ground type, by Terrakion as Rock type and by some electric mice and AMarowak as Lighting Road user. Wanting to infer I would also appoint Marowak as rival TR sweeper, but it doesn't matter for your team.
- Quick Claw is one of the most unreliable item. Basically a wasted slot.
The main problems of your team are the weakness to TR and other Rain teams, which can be solved adding Amoonguss in place of Rhyperior. MPidgeot can be replaced by MSalamence, MMetagross or MSwampert; consider Pelipper as option for Politoed if you want to spam EQ freely and setup Tailwind. Nobody will blame you if you'll choose Hitmonlee or Hitmontop instead of Toxicroak as Fighting type Fake Out user.
Thank you very much!
I’m probably going to drop Rhyperior for Amoongus like you suggested, and Hitmontop in place of Croagunk possibly. I’ll wait and see if that’s enough for me or if I need to make the other changes too
my first Doubles Team so I really appreciate the feedback a lot
