NU team

[Vern]

I've been playing in the NU tier on showdown, because some of my more well liked pokemon are in that tier. So without further ado, here's my NU team:

Lilligant @ Life Orb
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Sleep Powder
- Giga Drain/Petal Dance.
- Hidden Power [Rock]

Liligant is a great- or ok, depending on how you look at it- sweeper. It can set up quiver dance easily by coming in and using sleep powder, forcing a switch. Giga drain is good for offsetting life orb recoil but petal dance does more damage and leaves liligant unconfused due to own tempo.

Arbok @ Black Sludge
Ability: Shed Skin
EVs: 252 HP / 192 SpD / 64 Spe
Careful Nature
- Coil
- Rest
- Gunk Shot
- Earthquake

Arbok can get quite scary after a few coils, and shed skin let's it use rest and have a realistic chance of getting free heal.

Ninetales @ Charcoal
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Calm Mind
- Extrasensory
- Flamethrower
- Confuse Ray

Ninetales is just... ninetales. I love the nine tailed fox, but this probably isn't the best set ever.

Luxray @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Wild Charge
- Ice Fang
- Superpower
- Crunch

Choice scarf luxray. I love luxray. Any help? He doesn't seem to hit hard enough. I usually end up using crunch and taking off about 15% of the enemy's health...

Glalie @ Focus Sash
Ability: Ice Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Spikes
- Ice Beam
- Taunt
- Explosion

My lead. Taunt can shut down other leads, and explosion is for desperate times when he's better off taking one of the opponent's pokemon with him. Spikes is just... spikes.

Lanturn @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Def / 216 SpD
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Volt Switch
- Heal Bell
- Thunder Wave

Lanturn can heal status, dish out paralysis, and volt switch to keep momentum. It's defence isn't too good, but it's cute!

Any help appreciated.

 

[casskingdra]

It's a good team. First thing I'd say is to check that all the HP values are odd at whatever level you use them at, to make sure you get another turn's switch-in on Stealth Rocks.

Ninetales and Lilligant work well if you give Ninetales Drought and a Heat Rock and Lilligant Chlorophyll. This boosts your fire moves because of the sun, so you don't need the Charcoal as much, and gives Lilligant enough speed to outspeed pretty much everything in the tier. I'd also suggest using Water Absorb on Lanturn, because you have a Water weakness in Ninetales, but you don't have any Electric weaknesses.

Giga Drain is also nicer with Life Orb, because you can switch out whenever and heal off the Life Orb damage, helping Lilligant to last a bit longer.

Luxray doesn't hit as hard because Crunch isn't STAB, I guess? Other than that I don't know. You can always run a Flame Orb/Guts/Facade set, but Choice Scarf is helpful on every team, so it depends whether you want to hit incredibly hard or whether you want to outspeed and hit a little less hard.

 

[Vern]

Thanks. I wasn't aware of that even/odd health thing. Drought and chlorophyll would work fine, I should try that. I need a hard hitter, so I'll probably try to hit incredibly hard and give a bit more attention to his defensive stats so he can survive.

What item should ninetales hold instead of the charcoal? Water absorb on lanturn is good.

I'm also lacking a spinner/defogger.

 

[roserade the warrior]

I dont knw too much about NU, so, take this with a grain of salt:

Lilligant @ Life Orb
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Sleep Powder
- Giga Drain/Petal Dance.
- Hidden Power [Rock]

Liligant is a great- or ok, depending on how you look at it- sweeper. It can set up quiver dance easily by coming in and using sleep powder, forcing a switch. Giga drain is good for offsetting life orb recoil but petal dance does more damage and leaves liligant unconfused due to own tempo.

Indeed, but you have to take something in account, if you are gonna run giga drain, then chlorophyl or leaf guard are better (especially chlorophyl). Also, if you are gonna run petal dance you can (maybe) use choice scarf or choice specs, because anyway if you use petal dance you will be locked in it but you doesnt need to waste a turn in sleep powder and then quiver dance (though I have to admit that it is quite wonderful of a move, so that depends upon you).

Arbok @ Black Sludge
Ability: Shed Skin
EVs: 252 HP / 192 SpD / 64 Spe
Careful Nature
- Coil
- Rest
- Gunk Shot
- Earthquake

Arbok can get quite scary after a few coils, and shed skin let's it use rest and have a realistic chance of getting free heal.

I think, I dont have much to say, shed skin its quite luck-based, but that doesnt mean its bad (also, when I am gonna catch a pokemon with that ability they wake up in the same freaking turn I put them to sleep D:<).

Ninetales @ Charcoal
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Calm Mind
- Extrasensory
- Flamethrower
- Confuse Ray

Ninetales is just... ninetales. I love the nine tailed fox, but this probably isn't the best set ever.

...Well, as the first commenter said, you can use the ability drought with the item Heat Rock (so, instead of 5 turns, the sunny day lasts 8 turns) and pair it with chlorophyl lilligant so she can outspeed almost everything, also you may like to switch confuse ray for will-o-wisp. Other thing, you have 4 EV left, in what are you gonna spend them?
But, if you want to keep with flash fire (which I doubt, but nonetheless), you can give ninetales an air balloon, making it inmune to one of its weakness (until it gets hits by another attack) and also inmune to fire, but then you will have to run own tempo lilligant with petal dance.

Luxray @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Wild Charge
- Ice Fang
- Superpower
- Crunch

Choice scarf luxray. I love luxray. Any help? He doesn't seem to hit hard enough. I usually end up using crunch and taking off about 15% of the enemy's health...

You could run choice band instead of choice scarf. Also, you can use one with guts and a toxic or flame orb (though the last one is a counter-productive item...) as the first one recommended.

Glalie @ Focus Sash
Ability: Ice Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Spikes
- Ice Beam
- Taunt
- Explosion

My lead. Taunt can shut down other leads, and explosion is for desperate times when he's better off taking one of the opponent's pokemon with him. Spikes is just... spikes.

I... dont like it. The ability only works during hail, and none of your pokemons can summon it. You have ice beam and explosion, two very differen attacks, and then you invest everything in Special Attack and speed, and with an attack hindering nature, leaving explosion doing very little (I calculated it, and you will only make half the damage to non hp or defense invested glalie... you can only weaken the enemy, unless they are very weak).
I would suggest you use a brave nature (+attack, -speed); avalanche (60 base power, 120 if glalie gets hurt in that turn), Explosion, Ice shard (only has 40 base power, but you will always attack first), spike; EVs: 252 or 248 for HP, 4 or 8 to def and 252 to attack; 0 IVs in speed also help; and finally the ability inner focus.

Lanturn @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Def / 216 SpD
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Volt Switch
- Heal Bell
- Thunder Wave

Lanturn can heal status, dish out paralysis, and volt switch to keep momentum. It's defence isn't too good, but it's cute!

As the first one commented, water absorb is better than volt absorb because you have a weakness against water, but none against electric.

I hope this help, though I repeat, I actually dont know much of NU, so maybe what I recommended you is not good (specially with the glalie).

 

[Vern]

Hm. our advice on glailie seems sound, but I'm a little worried about not having taunt as I lack a spinner and stealth rocks can kill off ninetales and glailie itself frighteningly fast. Talking about that, I should get a spinner.

You have a point with ice body, I'll probably use the other ability.

Glailie is also kinda frail, so i'm afraid it's not going to be taking a lot of hits.

 

[The Federation]

Glailie is also kinda frail, so i'm afraid it's not going to be taking a lot of hits.

Putting a sash on a Pokémon usually means you are resigned to it's frailty and intend on using it to do as much as it can before it dies anyway, so a rocks weakness isn't a big deal to Glalie. Get a defogger like Lumineon or, better yet, Mantine, if you want volt absorb to be useful and hazards to be less of a problem. If Glalie isn't a dedicated lead, hazards in general will break your sash.

Xatu gets defog and magic bounce, if hazards turn out to be the bane of your existence and you want them eliminated altogether.

 

[roserade the warrior]

Hm. our advice on glailie seems sound, but I'm a little worried about not having taunt as I lack a spinner and stealth rocks can kill off ninetales and glailie itself frighteningly fast. Talking about that, I should get a spinner.

You have a point with ice body, I'll probably use the other ability.

Glailie is also kinda frail, so i'm afraid it's not going to be taking a lot of hits.

Well, you can change spike for taunt, though with glalie's speed with that set it will be far from efficient. However, if you want to keep taunt, you can use this set:

Glalie @ Focus Sash
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 Def / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spikes / Ice Shard
- Ice Fang
- Taunt
- Explosion

Is the same set you have up there, the differences are the distribution of EVs (more physically oriented), Inner Focus instead of Ice Body, the Jolly nature instead of Timid, the move Ice Fang instead of Ice Beam and the option to choose between Spikes or Ice Shard.

And if you want a rapid spinner / defogger, then I recommend you:

• {Rapid Spin} Armaldo (unfortunately is weak to rock, so 25% with stealth rock up, but after that it takes a lot of hits and also hits very hard, its ability Battle Armor is not so cool, but its not so bad, makes him last a bit longer without those lucky-crits, also it can learn aqua jet, very nice).
• {Rapid Spin} Sandslash (takes many physical hits, you can make it last longer in the special side with assault vest, nice with gyro ball, has very good attack, but its abilities are only useful during sandstorm...)
• {Defog} Lumineon (if you choose sunny day, then you cant use many water type moves, not so bad because you will probably not care at all since it learns defog, tailwind, u-turn, toxic, ...)
• {Defog} Tropius (thanks to grass it only takes normal damage from stealth rock, and also is inmune to spikes; all of its abilities need the sun to work: chlorophyl, harvest [this one doesnt need the sun actually, but takes a lot of advantage from it since the user has, during sunlight, a 100% rate of recovering an used berry] and solar power).

 

[Vern]

Putting a sash on a Pokémon usually means you are resigned to it's frailty and intend on using it to do as much as it can before it dies anyway, so a rocks weakness isn't a big deal to Glalie. Get a defogger like Lumineon or, better yet, Mantine, if you want volt absorb to be useful and hazards to be less of a problem. If Glalie isn't a dedicated lead, hazards in general will break your sash.

Xatu gets defog and magic bounce, if hazards turn out to be the bane of your existence and you want them eliminated altogether.

So you are suggesting I replace glailie with xatu/luminion/mantine?