Jul 18, 2015, 08:34 AM
(Jul 18, 2015, 07:28 AM)Marcusube Wrote: The Discharge + Lightning Rod strategy is a very good idea for a Mega Sceptile team; I'm digging the gimmick. I do believe, however, that you need to have more Pokemon immune to Discharge, either by typing or ability.
On Sceptile, other than to stop Talonflame from Brave Birding you or Mamoswine/Donphan/Abomasnow from Ice Sharding you to pick up a KO, you really don't need the move. Not to mention that Quick Guard reduces the chances of Protect working the consecutive turn. It'd be more practical to run either Substitute + Giga Drain, Focus Blast, Hidden Power Ice/Fire/Ground, Rock Slide or Earthquake for more coverage.
It's also worth mentioning that neutral nature Choice Scarfed Mamoswine outspeeds Mega Sceptile by 1 point when Modest, positive nature Mega-Gengar outspeeds by 3 points, neutral nature Choice Scarfed Landorus-T by 17 points and neutral nature Blaziken outspeeds 1 point as well after one speed boost. All of these are common threats in VGC and threats to your team. I would recommend going for a Timid/Naive nature.
Since this Rotom's niche is to fire off Discharges, I think it'd be better to run it as a Choice Scarfer with Discharge, Hydro Pump, Volt Switch and Hidden Power Ice with a more offensive EV spread. Other suitable item choices are Life Orb and Choice Specs.
I understand the reason for using Gengar but in my opinion Aegislash would do a better job on this team. The speed control method you're using may be inefficient since the opponent can easily just swat Gengar, switch out to reset the stats then come back in and clean up, not to mention the threats from Pokemon like Bisharp and Milotic who not only wall out Gengar completely but take pleasure from getting hit by Icy Wind. Taunt Gengar is good but if the opponent realizes the set you're running, it's not hard to play around. Aegislash would be a better option for if in the case Sceptile gets fainted and you still have your Rotom-W, you can use Wide Guard to prevent Aegislash from getting hit by Discharge, paralyze the opponent and have Aegislash clean up. Also Wide Guard checks Sylveon, Gardevoir and Landorus-T who are major threats to this team. Flash Cannon and Shadow Ball are essential STABs in dealing with the Fairies, the Psychics (especially Cresselia), other Ghosts, and...well you know your type chart. I recommend running this with Life Orb if you consider it.
Conkeldurr is a really slow user of Rock Slide which makes him ineffective seeing as how the main reason to use the move is to damage flying types and other Pokemon weak to it as well as to flinch the opponent. Your team would still appreciate the priority from Mach Punch since it allows you to break sashes on Terrakion, Breloom etc., one shot Bisharp who is a threat to your team if you don't bring Heatran and any kills you missed out on with your other attacks, you can compensate by getting in a hit before the opponent can retaliate.
Not a bad start for a team but the synergy isn't fully developed and the choice of Pokemon for this team is still questionable as some of them don't support Mega Sceptile enough to give it much of a fighting chance.
By the way, can you post the three battle videos on the thread?
Thanks for the detailed response! All of your suggestions make sense. The team went 6-4 so there's definitely room for improvement. I like the idea of using Aegislash instead of Gengar. I was also thinking of taking Conkeldurr out and replacing him with Terrakion so I'd have a faster Rock Slide user that can still deal with M-Kangaskhan while providing Quick Guard support since I'll be replacing that move on Sceptile. I'm also digging the Rotom-W build.
I can post the videos if I find a way to get the links back!
