Any critcism/suggestions? I mostly want to make sure my team is both strong and has good coverage. I might use it for competitive at some point…
I just got to Helios City, and am going to train up my team a lot more before I challenge the gym.
Thank you!
I like overexplaining things so I’m going to start with a very general idea that I found useful when putting a team together for the story.
A good way of ensuring you have decent coverage and defensive options is to adopt a three type core as part of your team. This consists of three pokemon whose typings cover each other’s weaknesses. Two common defensive cores are fire-water-grass and dragon-fairy-steel.
This concept can really help with some of the broad strokes of teambuilding since you can have a plan for what half of your team will look like and then build the rest around more specific weaknesses that the three type core has that it doesn’t cover adequately.
For some specific suggestions:
While I don’t think its a problem quite yet you’re going to what to have some plan for dealing with teams that want to set up entry hazards on you, even if the plan is essentialy to blast the other team away before the hazards start to really matter. Otherwise you’re going to want something with defog or rapid spin.
You’re 2/3 of the way to finishing the FWG core and the SFD core. As such I’d reccomend either getting your hands on a grass type or steel type.
Looking at what you’d have access to right now, for a grass type you could get a foongus though friend safari or the helios sewers and evolve to Amoongus, which is a strong defensive grass type with access to the move spore, and the ability regenerator. If you end up liking having a grass type around I would highly reccomend getting your hands on a thick fat delta snorlax when you eventually get to route 8, since the thing is a beast.
If you’d rather a steel type I think that at the point in the game you’re at forretress or steelix are what you’d be looking at (you get a way to evolve trade pokemon soon after getting to helios). Forretress can set up spikes, toxic spikes and rapid spin so it can set up hazards and remove them, but it can be a bit passive. Steelix is much more proactive with access to a bunch of coverage moves, and stealth rock if you’re into that. Also technically you could get a scizor since scyther is available at the game corner, but I don’t know how much grinding that would take. If you’re willing to grind, scizor would be my pick.
There are two pokemon I personally would change, I’m not a fan of scolipede personally, I find that it doesn’t really do enough without some serious invenstment, such as breeding some kind of spikes onto it, or getting a speed boost one to baton pass buffs. Even then there are better pokemon for those roles.
I also am not a big fan of rapidash, I just find that its lackluster compared to many other fire types, though at this point in the game it doesn’t have much overwhelming competition. The same notes for rapidash go also for raichu, though I see myself using a raichu before I use a rapidash. I also think raichu definitely should know nuzzle if you’re got access to it (I’m like, 80% sure that move is in insurgence).
Ultimately the points about what pokemon could be replaced are somewhat subjective.
I think having a fairy type for dragon coverage is very useful in this game since many powerful characters are running around with dragons so I like gardevoir. However, there may come a time where you will need to EV train it for speed/sp.attack and give it a scarf for it to truely be effective I’ve found. Otherwise it ends up being slower than threats you’d want it to take care of, which is bad because gardevior is not known for being bulky.
My last point is a tip about delta charizard’s moveset: don’t bother teaching it lunar cannon when it eventually learns it. The move has the same coverage as shadowball, and is less powerful than STAB shadowball.
@Arrok wow! This is super in-depth, I really appreciate it! I’ll definitely take this advice, the type matchup core trio sounds like a really good idea. I was beginning to think of replacing Rapidash anyway, since I figure some three-stage evolution would have better stats or something (Don’t know how logically sound that is, but I know there’s better out there). I think I could train up a Cyndaquil I have or look in the Friend safari for a Combusken to train. Will definitely take up the defensive Grass type, too–it’s nice having a Pokemon that can take a hit.
Thanks again for the detailed response! I very much appreciate the help :))
You’re welcome. I’m glad you found my response helpful. Something I want to mention so you don’t accedently waste a bunch of time is that the pokemon you can find in the firend safaris increase based on the number of gym badges you have. You only have access to the first ‘slot’ until you get six gym badges so I don’t think you’ll be able to get your hands on combuskin short of trading for one from another player. With that in mind I think training up a typhlosion sounds like a fine idea.
One other thing I forgot to mention that’s good to keep in mind is that its more important at hard difficulty to make sure that you have a mix of physical and special attackers since some opponents may have teams/pokemon that are strong against physical damange, but weak to special or vise versa.