B/W Drought Singles Team

[CapnWiggles]

I'm trying out a drought team this time around. I've revised this team a few times and I'd like to know your thoughts.

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Ninetales (F) @ Rose Incense
Trait: Drought
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Psycho Shock?
- SolarBeam
- Flamethrower
- Roar

Tangrowth (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Brick Break?
- Power Whip
- Sleep Powder
- Synthesis

Exeggutor (F) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 48 HP / 252 SAtk / 208 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Psychic
- SolarBeam
- Sludge Bomb

Rhyperior (M) @ Wide Lens?
Trait: Solid Rock
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Megahorn
- Stone Edge

Burungeru (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Boil Over
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam
- Recover

Kojondo (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Regeneration
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Hi Jump Kick
- U-turn
- Fake Out
- Rock Slide

EDIT Jan 12, 2011: Been awhile. Tested some more, did more theorycraft, took more advice from this thread and a friend. This is where the team stands currently. For those following the thread, I replaced Desukan (who was acting as my Sp. Tank) with Burungeru (Who tanks both types). Burungeru has similar coverage but is a MUCH better choice to switch into. SB Blaziken? No problem. Kojondo has been very helpful, Im glad I didn't remove him from the team. He makes a great revenge killer and a great scout. Exeggutor 1HKO'd a Sp.Def Milotic with Solarbeam. Rhyperior ate a 2x SD Scizor's Bullet Punch like a champ. Sleep powder on chlorophyll'd Tangrowth is epic. Ninetails dishes out quite a bit of damage before having to switch.

Things that are still up in the air are marked by ( ?) question marks. I've moved EVs and natures around as well.

Cheers~

 

[Noctourniquet]

First of all, its really stupid how every thread is named "b/w team" or something generic.. it makes searching the forum difficult at best.

ok that's nice


Gyarados and Doryuuzu don't fit into your team very well. The former is having its STAB moves weakened, the latter its weaknesses intensified.

In fact, I'll just look at those two for now. Dragon Tail is in awful conflict with Dragon Dance because of its negative priority so use Earthquake to cover your Electric weakness instead. It's not like you'll really need Dragon Tail all that much when you're sweeping with Dragon Dance boosted attacks. And with Dragon Dance, your Atk will be high enough for you to drop the Life Orb for Leftovers and reclaim some natural bulk.


As for Doryuuzu, it wants Rock Slide imo. Earthquake + Rock Slide give you brilliant coverage, and X-Scissor rounds it all off pretty neatly. Rapid Spin and having a 'Blissey counter' in-game at all is pointless, far too situational. Hence, replace Rapid Spin with Swords Dance or Rock Polish (iirc Doryuuzu gets it anyway). Once again, the Life Orb is unnecessary.


If there's much left, I'll take a look at it later. It's a decent team, but I think you should take note of all the issues I just mentioned. Hope it helps.

 

[CapnWiggles]

Found two replacements as per suggestions.. I was nervous about Gyarados being so flimsy and I hadn't even thought about steel types weakness being exploited by powered up fire moves. *thumbs up*

These two have similar movesets and roles, but look as if the typings will fit better. I had to avoid Metagross for the same reason as Doryuuzu, otherwise he'd replace Rhyperior. I'll come back and add EVs once I figure out Hidden Power and decide on the pokemon.

 

[Ravenous14]

Rhyperior with Mold Breaker? wtf?

 

[Aurath8]

Return > Poison Jab on Kojondo. Return gets some powerful netutral coverage and more grass types are handled by U-turn anyway.

You lacking rest on Desukan as well as a berry. Curse doesn't boost your attack and defence either(ghost type) so:
Desukan@Leftovers
Mummy
-Shadow Ball/Evil Eye
-Rest
-Calm mind/Energy Ball/Psychic/Will-oWisp
-Sleep Talk

Yay for Resttalk! Shadow Ball makes a stronger STAB normally but with your opponent burned Evil Eye is better. Rest and Sleep Talk worship obviousness here. The last slot is filler. Calm mind equals oput the bulk. Energy Ball and Psychic are other Spatks it learns. Will-oWisp works with the aformetioned EvilEye.

@Ravenous14: Rhyperior's Dream World ability is Mold Breaker. If I didn't make sense you have a lot of catching up to do.

 

[camel]

Nice team but did you know venusaur got a new ability, chlorophyl? I suggest you change it with tangrowth! 252spatt 252 speed 6hp sleeppowder leafstorm hpground sludgebomb

its a great team tho

 

[Shuckle]

Ninetails @ Leftovers
Drought
Protect
Will-o-wisp
Solarbeam
Flamethrower

Ninetails has decent Sp. Att, stab 115 flamethrower and possible burn. 1 turn solarbeam for water, potential setup as Sp.Def tank with leftovers/protect, and simply a harasser with wisp/protect. Good options and sets up drought.

Might I suggest replacing Leftovers with Miracle Seed? While you lose out on bulk, you do give Solarbeam an added edge.
In that vein, I would replace Protect with Confuse Ray. It has about the same chance of working, but does well even when you're hit with Toxic or otherwise Poisoned, or more rarely Burned. I hate Protecting when afflicted. I really do. You can Confuse and Burn at the same time as well. Call me inexperienced, but Confuse/Burn seems far more logical.

Tangrowth @ Leftovers
Chlorophyll
Power Whip
Brick Break
Sleep Powder
Synthesis

Solid phys tank with great damage potential and decent type-coverage. Synthesis+leftovers lets it last.

Why Brick Break? This confounds me. It seems as though a nice Ancientpower would cover Ice, Fire, and Flying, all potentially dangerous to Tangrowth.

Exeggutor @ Choice Specs
Chlorophyll
Solarbeam
Psychic
Sludge Bomb
Hidden Power: Ice

Very fast special sweeper.. pretty self explainatory. Swapped explosion for HP: Ice because, well, I needed ice.. and noone will see this coming.

Desukan @ Leftovers
Mummy
Payback
Brick Break This is not actually part of Desukan's moveset!
Protect
Curse

Sp. Tank, curses, rest+berry, proceed to payback/punch/protect. Stops sweeps that Tangrowth can't.

Excellent. Fix the Leftovers first, please. I don't like the idea of Leftovers on everything, because if there's Toxic about, Leftovers might help you survive a grand total of three extra turns before the accumulated poison gets to you.

You may want to consider replacing Brick Break with Evil Eye. I believe Curse is a status condition, so Evil Eye would work particularly well. Either way, you must replace Brick Break -- Desukan can't learn it!

A few suggestions below seemed good. You should try those.

Kojondo @ Life Orb
Regeneration
U-Turn
Poison Stab Jab? Sting? Powder?
Hi Jump Kick
Swords Dance

Type-covering phys sweeper with dance. Can also tail out annoying pokemon. In sunny day, thunder has a 50% miss chance, which helps his survivability.

What?

Thunder aside, you're putting far too much credit on Regeneration. Swords Dance will not work if you're switching out half the time to heal it from self-inflicted damage. I admire your spirit, but perhaps you should go over this with a red pen. Especially Poison Stab, as there is no such move.

Rhyperior @ ???
Solid Rock
Earthquake
Megahorn
Hammer Arm
Stone Edge

Its only 4x weakness being grass/water are halved by solid rock. Water moves are downpowered by Drought, leaving the only real threat to be Solarbeam. Grass types will eat a megahorn.. other moves are coverage.

Sound. I have nothing to say here. Rhyperior is a good attacker overall, and this is a good way to use him.

I hope I did well. It's hard when you're doing your first rate, because you're never sure how it's going to be taken.

~Starstruck

 

[Sweep Freak]

The team I am looking at seems almost perfect. A sun team would be very difficult to beat in-game.

An item for Rhyperior could be another leftovers to improve it's survivabilty and tanking ability.

 

[CapnWiggles]

Rhyperior with Mold Breaker? wtf?

Due to large amounts of copypasta and deleting (My team info is in a wordpad document), I keep making mistakes with bad info. This is fixed, thanks!

Return > Poison Jab on Kojondo. Return gets some powerful netutral coverage and more grass types are handled by U-turn anyway.

Good point. After double-checking type charts, poison isn't great coverage... and I have sludge bomb anyways.

You lacking rest on Desukan as well as a berry. Curse doesn't boost your attack and defence either(ghost type) so:
Desukan@Leftovers
Mummy
-Shadow Ball/Evil Eye
-Rest
-Calm mind/Energy Ball/Psychic/Will-oWisp
-Sleep Talk

Yay for Resttalk! Shadow Ball makes a stronger STAB normally but with your opponent burned Evil Eye is better. Rest and Sleep Talk worship obviousness here. The last slot is filler. Calm mind equals oput the bulk. Energy Ball and Psychic are other Spatks it learns. Will-oWisp works with the aformetioned EvilEye.

Also good advice, with the exception of sleep talk.. which does not appear to be in his movelist. Swapped it for haze and gave him Salac berry. Think this will work out better for defense.

Nice team but did you know venusaur got a new ability, chlorophyl? I suggest you change it with tangrowth! 252spatt 252 speed 6hp sleeppowder leafstorm hpground sludgebomb

its a great team tho

Thanks much for the compliment. I highly considered venasaur as my Sp. Sweeper because of chlorophyll, however I believe 100% that exeggutor hits harder and covers types better. As for tangrowth, I have a shiny tangela with good IVs.. so that swap is a personal decision.

Might I suggest replacing Leftovers with Miracle Seed? While you lose out on bulk, you do give Solarbeam an added edge.
In that vein, I would replace Protect with Confuse Ray. It has about the same chance of working, but does well even when you're hit with Toxic or otherwise Poisoned, or more rarely Burned. I hate Protecting when afflicted. I really do. You can Confuse and Burn at the same time as well. Call me inexperienced, but Confuse/Burn seems far more logical.


Why Brick Break? This confounds me. It seems as though a nice Ancientpower would cover Ice, Fire, and Flying, all potentially dangerous to Tangrowth.



Excellent. Fix the Leftovers first, please. I don't like the idea of Leftovers on everything, because if there's Toxic about, Leftovers might help you survive a grand total of three extra turns before the accumulated poison gets to you.

You may want to consider replacing Brick Break with Evil Eye. I believe Curse is a status condition, so Evil Eye would work particularly well. Either way, you must replace Brick Break -- Desukan can't learn it!

A few suggestions below seemed good. You should try those.

What?

Thunder aside, you're putting far too much credit on Regeneration. Swords Dance will not work if you're switching out half the time to heal it from self-inflicted damage. I admire your spirit, but perhaps you should go over this with a red pen. Especially Poison Stab, as there is no such move.


Sound. I have nothing to say here. Rhyperior is a good attacker overall, and this is a good way to use him.

I hope I did well. It's hard when you're doing your first rate, because you're never sure how it's going to be taken.

~Starstruck

Quoting your quotations makes my head hurt so Ill just respond to all of it.

1. Confuse Ray doesn't have the survivability that protect does.. and Ninetails, being first out, needs to survive. This is why I gave her leftovers. If she isn't immediately threatened, she can do some damage and switch to a sweeper.

2. Brick break is coverage and anti-TTar. Keeping both of tangrowth's attacks as physical will help via EVs and non hindering nature. In honesty, tangrowth isnt meant to be an instakiller. He just heals everything off and sleepkills things.

3. Fix'd leftovers.

4. Changed desukan's moveset again.

5. Thunder does miss 50% in sunny day - however, that info was meant to be on gyarados and not Kojondo.

6. Kojondo dances to sweep.. he only uturns as a switch-regen FREE HIT gimmick, or to escape doom. He can eat an attack to swords dance just fine, and a danced hi jump kick will kill almost anything. (gimmick: Predict attack, switch into Kojondo to eat it. Predict, Immediately Uturn for free damage.)

Thanks for all the support, guys. EVs are now up, updated movesets according to good advice, fixed items, etc.

 

[Aurath8]

Damn you Gamefreak and trolling us with your TM changes!
Desukan@Leftovers
252 HP/252 Spdef/4 Satk
Bold/Mummy
-Calm Mind
-Will-oWisp
-Evil Eye
-Energy Ball

I don't think I'll ever get used to Sleep Talk no longer being a TM. Calm mind evens out your defences and boosts your special attack too.
Will-o-Wisp supports your team and gives double power to Evil Eye while Enegy Ball is just a filler move that can hit normal types.
Curse will end up with Desukan's health and bulk being wasted to KO one pokemon, an unworthy sacrifice. Protect won't do anything except stall the Curse and the Curse will usually be from full health. This Desukan works towards his biggest stregth, his ridiculous defences.

 

[CapnWiggles]

Sorry for the very late update to OP, went on a two hour car ride. New movesets updated.

 

[Noctourniquet]

Really, there's no point in trying to use Ninetales as a special defender, it's simply not suited to the job. Use 4 Def / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spe instead, and if you can find a good replacement for Protect then change that around too.

Exeggutor and Tangrowth are too slow to be hoping to outspeed anything without a Spe investment, Sun in play or not. Run 48 HP / 252 SpAtk / 208 Spe on Exeggutor to outspeed a Base 130, which is just about the fastest thing you'll be seeing, and run enough on Tangrowth to get past something of some kind of threat, probably Max Spe Starmie. This will take 76 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe.


Really, I don't get the use for Desukan at all. It's completely reliant on Ninetales' burn and the Salac Berry just doesn't quite fit into that set, especially with Haze cancelling out its effects. You are lacking on the bulky special attacking side (since Exeggutor cannot pick its own moves) so try out a SubCM Desukan.

• Desukan @ Leftovers
• Modest Nature
• 252 HP / 252 SpAtk / 4 Spe
- Shadow Ball
- Calm Mind
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Substitute


Kojondo doesn't need Swords Dance + Life Orb. As it will be doing a lot of switching, I suggest Fake Out > Swords Dance and Rock Slide > Return for better use as a hit-and-run attacker and superior coverage respectively.

 

[CapnWiggles]

Been awhile so I updated OP again. Thanks once more for all the advice. Looking forward to this team bigtime.

 

[gyaradosuseddragonrage!]

Venusaur is the best Chlorophyll'er in the game because it gets good stats and it gets Growth, which in the sun, boost both attack and Special Attack by two stages. I'm not sure of a good set though.

 

[CapnWiggles]

After more testing I've decided to abandon this team. To be blunt, drought < drizzle/sandstorm. 1/4 teams runs weather (that isn't drought). Ninetails is faster, weaker and less useful as a whole.

Been fun.