a sandstorm team without garchomp..... what!

[ozg82889]

this is the team i am using in the smogon suspect ladder. some of these are basic smogon builds but with the evs changed to meet my needs. im enjoying playing without garchomp. i just started playing shoddy battle.

forretress
sassy with occa berry
252 hp/ 252 SP. def/ def 4

earthquake
explosion
gyro ball
toxic spikes

my starter. i use it to set up toxic spikes and then self destruct. if possible it will throw out a EQ or gyro ball. it is given sp def and hp evs to make it survive longer as it is only weak to fire the occa berry and its defensive typing make sure it is able to survive a fire attack.

Hippowdon
impish with life orb
100 HP/ 98 atk/ 60 def/ 252 sp def

earthquake
ice fang
slack off
stealth rock

main purpose is to set up sand storm and stealth rock. it is also given a defensive typing to enable it to survive longer. it is given low attack evs but the life orb evens things out and slack off can heal lost damage.

lucario
naive with expert belt.
252 sp. atk/ 252 spd/ 6 hp

aura sphere
vacuum wave
dark pulse
dragon pulse

my main sp. attacker. it is a basic lucario set. instead of choice specs or scarf i gave it expert belt so if someone thinks i'm stuck on a move and switch i can then use the move that would be super effective or do the most damage to them.

flygon
jolly with leftovers
252 atk/ 252 spd/ 6 hp

u-turn
earthquake
draco meteor
roost

flygon is one of my favorite pokemon and its a quite good one too. earthquake and draco meteor are the its basic damaging moves. u-turn to escape unfavorable battles and roost to heal any damage.

blissy with leftovers
relaxed with serene grace
158 hp/ 100 sp. def/ 252 def

sing
softboiled
protect
seismic toss

my special wall. sing to sleep the enemy seismic toss to damage them. i heal away any damage with softboild. as my other pokemon will set up toxic spikes and sandstorm i can protect once in a while so during that turn i lose no hp and the lose hp due to sandstorm and poison.

metagross
adamant with leftovers
152 hp/ 104spd/ 252 sp def

bullet punch
earthquake
protect
pursuit

metagross has acted as my main sweeper. in a battle i was down to 2 pokemon with the opponent having 4+ left. i used protect then bullet punch to give them the most damage. the turn i protect i regain hp with leftovers then the next turn the bullet punch would damage them then repeat. with sandstorm+ poison they would lose 6/8 of the hp during those two turns. if i predict a switch i use pursuit. i use earthquake if i need more damage and i think i can out speed my opponent.



any suggestions?

 

[EarthBoundPokemonMaster]

What's Blissey's item?

 

[ozg82889]

i forgot to mention it its leftovers i'll fix that right now

 

[0RLY]

You're lacking Fighting, Fire, and Water resistances/immunities.

Flygon is the fastest Pokemon on your team, this means you'll get outrun by many, many threats. You'll only have Metagross' Bullet Punch for priority, and even then, Steel is a pretty bad attack type.

Forretress is EV'd for defenses, but it has more attacking moves than support. Use a Relaxed nature to get more out of your defenses, believe me on this. Maybe you can use Rapid Spin over Explosion so you can get rid of the inevitable Stealth Rocks your foe may try to set-up. To make up for lack of offenses, you can use Counter. Note that if you use more support moves, you become more susceptible to Taunt. Leads almost always use either SR, Taunt, or a sleep move. Make sure you have a strategy around each of these.

Interesting Hippowdon set. Personally, I would move SR to another Pokemon, like Forretress, and use Curse in it's place. I don't feel like running calcs, but your HP should be arranged so you lose the least amount of HP from Life Orb while keeping your HP maximized. Some people don't get what that means, but a little studying on Smogon will help.

Personally, I like Shadow Ball more than Dark Pulse on Lucario. It's just me though. Run a Modest or Timid nature. I have no idea why you're Naive.

Draco Meteor will be ridiculously weak coming from a -nature and no EVs. Just use Dragon Claw, so you don't have to waste EVs. Flygon would be spreading itself too thin if you did. If you insist on using Leftovers, put Substitute and another attacking move over U-Turn and Roost. Otherwise, you're better off with Life Orb. A good Life Orb set would be: 32 HP/252 Atk/8 Def/216 Spe. The speed is set so that you outspeed the next slowest Pokemon than one you would normally tie with. The HP is set for minimal recoil from Life Orb. Your team is mostly defensive, so your Flygon won't have much problems running a defensive set either. That way, you can still Poison levitating and flying Pokemon. Flygon can use Fire Blast and Earthquake to hurt those who resist Poison, and Roost when necessary.

Blissey may prefer Wish instead of Softboiled to better support your defensive team. Sing is gimmicky but effective for shutting down Blissey's counters. I don't like the 55% accuracy as 2 misses just turns you into a sitting duck. Relaxed nature isn't necessary, just use Calm. 148 HP EVs allows for maximum leftovers recovery, just put the extra EVs into SpDef.

Metagross already gets a SpDef boost from being in Sandstorm, so you could move those SpDef EVs into Atk and Def.

You lack many common attack types, but I'm sure you could find a way to work around that. Fire attacks will be essential to take out Steels that resist poison. You already have EQ to take out Heatran. Electric and Ice attacks will be helpful for handling the Flying types that are immune to Toxic Spikes as well. A defensive Flygon can handle that without the attack types. Lastly, find a way around those 3 type weaknesses I mentioned earlier.

 

[ozg82889]

im thinking of replacing blissy with spritomb or criselia<- spelled wrong.

for Spritomb its
modest with leftovers
252 hp/ 128 def/ 128 sp. def
rest
sleep talk
ominus wind
dark pulse

dark pulse and ominus wind for stab. rest talk for getting hp back. leftovers to balance out the sandstorm damage. with that i get around 280 sp./def with 300ish hp.

if i get calm mind then i would prabably go

spritomb
leftovers with bold or modest
252 hp/ 200 def/ 56 sp. def

calm mind
ominus wind
dark pulse
pain split/hypnosis/will-o-wisp/toxic
evs focus on defense and HP as with calm mind sp.atk and sp.def get a boost. ominus wind/dark pulse to damage with stab. painsplit to heal. hypnosis to sleep, will-o-wisp to burn, or toxic to poison.

i haven't tought of an ev spread/ move set for criselia.

 

[0RLY]

It's Cresselia. Spiritomb doesn't need two stab moves because they give redundant coverage. HP (Fight)+Shadow Ball is a much better combo for the first set. The second set can do well with just one offensive attack in the form of either Shadow Ball or Dark Pulse. Your secondary attacks should be Will-O-Wisp to give better defense against physical attackers and Pain Split so you won't have to switch out of your stat boosts and add longevity.

 

[boo836]

Or, if you want, you can run a taunt+sucker punch set. Stop wish passers, switches, ect and you get stab sucker punch to hit the forced moves.

 

[whiterob]

Metagross already gets a SpDef boost from being in Sandstorm, so you could move those SpDef EVs into Atk and Def.

Not to nitpick, but Metagross doesn't get a boost from Sandstorm. Of course, your pretty competent ORLy ,so I'll just assume you had a brainfart right there.

 

[Keblerelf]

Maybe you should use spritomb instead of cresselia so that you have a way of blocking rapid spin. That way when you explode forry you won't need to keep on switching in hippowdon to set up SR everytime.

 

[0RLY]

Ah crap, I forgot ss only raises a Rock type's sp.def. I always thought it was ground, rock, AND steel.

 

[Pika25]

Serene grace with nothing to take advantage of it? if you are using Blissey, Natural Cure is the better option.

perhaps wise glasses on lucario. expert belt only ups supereffective attacks; and they have the same bonus. speaking of which, psychic over dragon pulse to hit fighting types harder? And Meta's Bullet punch isn't your only priority attack. Keep vacuum wave on lucario.