Nasty Kiss [OU RMT]

[Accent]

Hi,

Since this is my first post here and also my first team, I'll provide a bit of background before explaining the team.

I've discovered the competitive battling side of Pokémon when DP came out. Since then, I've been slowly drifting away from the initial "it's cool but I prefer to make fun teams" point of view to finally end up posting here, making numerous teams in the process. I've been lurking for quite a long time, and I think I have grasped the basics of team building but what I'm seriously lacking is, of course, knowledge of the metagame (I'll try to become an apprentice in the next round of the program), and, as ridiculous as this may seem, knowledge of the pokémons themselves (types, weaknesses, movepools...). Which is why I perform better when I have a pokédex in front of me. But anyway, let's go on. What I'll present here is my first team made for competitive battling, and then explain the flaws I've found and the solutions I've thought about.

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At a glance:

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In-depth:​

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP/122 Def/136 SDef
IVs: 0 Spd
Sassy nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Surf
- Knock Off
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin

This is the classic Support set. Not much to say here since it's quite obvious : lay Toxic Spikes, switch. Surf is a STAB attack just in case, though I fortunately don't have to rely much on it since Tentacruel wouldn't survive for long against any hard-hitting pokémon. The speed is reduced to the max so that I can Rapid Spin whatever the opposing lead sets up.

Latias @ Light Clay
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/6 Def/252 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Wish
- Roar
- Reflect
- Sandstorm

Here's what I was trying to do with Latias: set up a second hazard with Sandstorm and then Roar everything to inflict Poison to the entire enemy team. Wish and Reflect are support options for the middle-game. From my experience, I've seen that Latias was quick enough to use Reflect/Wish and switch without taking too much damage.

Togekiss @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP/66 Def/192 Spd
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Encore
- Nasty Plot
- Baton Pass
- Roost

This Togekiss has been very useful for me. Encore is a fantastic moves which allows me to Nasty Plot one or two times and then Baton Pass to a sweeper. Roost allows me to stay alive longer and evade some super-effective attacks.

Maybe I should change its Nature to +Spd?

Magnezone @ Life Orb
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 74 HP/88 Atk/100 Spd/248 SAtk
Mild nature (+SAtk, -Def)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Flash Cannon
- Magnet Rise

This is my special sweeper. After a Nasty Plot and with Life Orb, Thunderbolt and Flash Cannon hit pretty hard. Hidden Power Fire and Magnet Rise allow me to kill Metagross quite easily (Hidden Power Fire is preferred against Grass or Ice because it covers more efficiently the type weaknesses of my team).

Salamence @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk/176 Spd/82 SAtk
Naughty nature (+Atk, -SDef)
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Hydro Pump
- Draco Meteor

The second sweeper, to cover more types and provide physical damage. Earthquake and Hydro Pump are purely type coverage (notably Hydro Pump which kills most Pokémons threatening Magnezone) while the other two are STABs. Choice Scarf allows me to attack faster which is necessary since I switch Salamence when I encounter a pokémon that I can't hit with Magnezone, and I don't want two take two free attacks.

Cresselia @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/114 Def/144 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Thunder Wave
- Ice Beam
- Sleep Talk
- Rest

Cresselia's the wall of the team. Ice Beam is to do some damage while stalling, which is helped by Thunder Wave. Against a paralized Pokémon, I can use Rest to recover at the last time, knowing that I'll attack first in most cases. Lum Berry provides a free recovery at any time or can prevent any problematic status infliction.

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Synergy:​

Here are my main type weaknesses: Ice, Rock, Dragon, Dark. However, none of them isn't covered by Magnezone or Salamence.

The two sweepers can be super effective against: Ice, Rock (Flash Cannon); Water, Flying (Thunderbolt); Bug, Grass, Steel (HP Fire); Dragon (Draco Meteor); Electric, Poison (Hydro pump); Ground, Fire (Hydro Pump).

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Perceived weaknesses and solutions:​

As you can see from the list above, these are the types that I can't hit very hard: Normal, Fight, Psychic, Ghost, Dark.

What I can do first is give Cresselia something other than Ice Beam. Shadow Ball would allow me to counter Psychic and Ghost pokémons; Signal Beam would kill Psychic and Dark ones.

I could also trade Salamence's Draco Meteor with Aerial Ace, a STAB attack that'll kill any Fight pokémon. Speaking of the Fight type, there's also Brick Break, to counter Dark and Normal pokémons. Or Crunch, for Psychic and Ghost ones.

Aerial Ace and Signal Beam seems to be a good combination, but I still lack Ghost coverage.

I can put Sucker Punch on Latias instead of Sandstorm (which clearly isn't a good idea since it usually does more damage to my team than to my opponent's). Latias is a bait for Ghost attacks anyway, so Sucker Punch should work.

Some of my Pokémons could, or maybe should, be replaced by other ones. The most obvious I think is Latias. While the Roar/Wish job is done, I think Vaporeon could do it better.

I'm not sure whether Magnezone is a good choice for a special sweeper in this team. I think it's a good pokémon on paper, but in most of the battles I did it didn't was as useful as I hoped, so I'm considering a replacement but I don't know what to take instead.

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Conclusion:​

Well, that's it. I'm posting this now because :
- I'm not able to estimate my team yet, since I'm a crappy player and I could lose with a team of Ubers in the NU metagame;
- I want to become an apprentice in the next round if possible, but I'd like to become more familiar with the forums prior to that.

Now I think I could write two other posts explaining why such and such pokémon are dangerous threats, and how I built this team, but I'm not skilled enough yet and it would end up being boring and sometimes false. So I'll stop here and learn from the upcoming answers. Thanks for reading :)

 

[-Terywj-]

You have a glaring weakness to Electivire and Weavile, but your Salamence should be able to EQ an Electivire providing the Electivire isn't scarfed.
Magnezone should be able to wall Weavile as long you can Flash Cannon it.

-Terywj

 

[tab]

Hi, welcome to Smogon!

To be honest, this is a pretty weak team, theres a lot of pretty big weaknesses in it, and it's not really realistic to fit all the necesarry changes into a rate, so I'll just point out the main problems for you. I'd definately suggest applying to be tutored once applications open again.

I'll start off with the most important changes. First of all, your Latias set is really quite bad. There's only a handful of pokemon that should ever use sets without a single attack, and Latias isn't one of them. Sandstorm is a skill that should really never be used - if you want sandstorm on the team for residual damage, then you should try to incorporate Hippowdon or Tyranitar onto it. With Sandstorm, you're going to be doing at most ~30% damage to your opponents team over 5 turns, which can be outdone easily by Dragon Pulse, so Sandstorm is more or less a completely inferior option to an attack.
If you want to keep Latias, you should try out the defensive Calm Mind set in the analysis, while if you want a Wish user, you'd be better off with a Vaporeon. Again, the standard set can be found in its analysis.

Togekiss doesn't really look like a very useful pokemon here. All that set can really do is Baton Pass boosts, but you don't have a good reciever (Magnezone is a terrible Baton Pass reciever, it's too slow, and the other possible recievers are either bad offensively or choiced). A better choice would be a pokemon that can take physical hits for you, especially against the likes of Lucario. A Gliscor would be a pretty good choice, covering Lucario and giving you some useful resistences, as well as giving you a Stealth Rock user.

Magnezone really seems quite out of place here, it's not a great sweeper, and your team isn't really able to take advantage of having opposing steel types removed. Seeing as you're going to be wanting a steel-type as a replacement, a Choice Band Scizor would be a good idea, as it covers several weaknesses for you, serves as a revenge killer, and keeps the offensive pokemon in Magnezone's place.

A Classic Mixmence (again, see the analysis) would be a better choice than ScarfMence, seeing as your team is going to more or less automatically lose to any decent stall team at the moment, while adding a good wallbreaker means you atleast stand a chance. ScarfMence doesn't really fit into the team all that well anyway.

Your team is still going to be fairly weak after these changes, but at least it's an improvement. There's not really much I can suggest to make it into a good team without completely revamping it. Seeing as it looks like you're trying to build a stall team, this would be worth a look, as it was one of the most successful stall teams of DPP, so it would give you a good start to build upon, and the sets are well explained, so you should be able to get a better understanding of building a stall team from it. Good luck!

 

[wavedash]

You might want to give Tentacruel more Def so it can take Metagross's Earthquake.

Your Latias confuses me. Sandstorm, really? At least go with Hail for unresisted passive damage, even then you're better off with something like Protect.

I haven't done any calculations, but are you sure your Magnezone can outspeed Metagross's EQ?

 

[.//enigma]

I'm gonna jump right into my first rating:

First thing, I've never really encountered Tenta as a lead, so I cannot say too much about that, but you might want to add some extra DEF EVs so you can stand up to powerful Earthquakes from those Metagross that plague our metagame. Other than Earthquake, you are very susceptible to Taunt from leads like Aero, but they have downed in usage as it is.

Latias has a pretty weird moveset. If you wanted residual damage from Sandstorm, you could have used Hippo as a lead with SR, or TTar somewhere else in your team. And use Tentacruel as a TSpiker and hit-soaker. And because you are using no attacking moves, you are completley destroyed by Taunt. I would suggest changing the moveset to: Wish / Recover, Reflect, Dragon Pulse and Calm Mind. You can take hits from both sides of the spectrum, and you have an attacking move unresisted, bar Steels.

I would put Sub over Roost on your Togekiss, as it gives you a way of protection (and Leftovers can restore HP for a Sub), and you might get lucky enough to pass an intact Sub to your recipiant. Since you are using no attacks, there is really no point using Roost, since you are probably going to be passing your NP boosts away, and Encore causes switches which lets you use Subs in the first place.

Make sure your Zone can outspeed all the Steel-types you want it to so it can Magnet Rise safely. Also, watch out for Fighting-type moves. I have nothing else to say about that. I personally love HP Fire over Ice.

I am going to blatantly assume that Magnezone and Mence are your primary NP boost receivers. The problem with that is, Zone is too slow to effectively use those boosts, and your Salamence is Scarfed, so while it could potentially have x1.5 Speed and x2 SpA, it only has one move to sweep your team with. I would suggest MixMence over ScarfMence, or if you feel daring, SpecsMence without the Specs.

I feel that Lum Berry on Cress is a waste. The only possible status that is actually dangerous to you is Toxic Poisoning, and you can still Rest that off. I would change it to Leftovers for free healing and weather combating, since you have a Toxic absorber (Tenta), have Rest if your Tenta is dead, and Freeze has a small chance of happening anyway.

I feel like you are completley MixMence weak, but that's just me. ;D

 

[ARandomDude]

Where to begin...first off, Tentacruel is not a very good lead. His role is best served alive, which is problematic when Earthquake and Explosion are two of the most common moves on leads. Metagross, Swampert, Aerodactyl, Azelf, etc. kill you pretty easily then set us. Toxic spikes as your only entry hazard is also quite weak.

Latias...this moveset does not belong on a Latias. As people above have stated, if you want sandstorm, use Tyrannitar or Hippowdown. Suppose you wanted Hippowdown, you would use:
Hippowdon@Leftovers
-Impish
-252 HP, 168 Def, 88 Spd
-Slack Off
-Earthquake
-Roar
-Stealth Rock
which gives you entry hazards that make Roar actually useful, an attack, sandstorm summon, good defenses, and healing.

For Tokegiss, use
-Togekiss@Leftovers
252 Spa 4 Def 252 Spe
-Nasty Plot
-Air Slash
-Aura Sphere
-Roost
With only 1 dedicated special sweeper, passing nasty plots sucks, especially since Magnezone is so easy to revenge kill.

Leftovers should go on Cresselia.

 

[Accent]

Thanks a lot for the answers!

First, let me answer myself.

@Tab: Yep, I saw that thread. The thing is, as I'll explain later, I wasn't really trying to build a stall team...

@.//enigma: thanks about the HP Fire comment (yay, something positive!)

Ok, now, a more general thought.

I think I've found the real problem in my team: it has no point. It's not a stall team, it's not an offensive team, it's not a weather team... I basically put in as many roles as I could, tried to find a way to make everything work together and cover as many types as possible. The consequence is that it excels at nothing.

I'll start a new team from scratch, with a clear focus in mind. Thanks again for your advice, it wasn't useless at all! If later on I become a skilled player, I'll take a look at this first team, laugh a bit, then maybe make some changes to it with a better knowledge of the game.