Team designing, which works best for you?

My best teams are probably Balanced Teams, although I'm a primarily defensive player and I have quite a bit of formidable stall teams as well. I've always aspired to be a defensive player after seeing Elf dominate with Stall and all the great stall team RMTs of the 4th Generation. In regards to weather, my Rain Stall Teams [I actually made a Rain Stall Team before Undi/M Dragon released theirs] would be the only case of me specifically building a team that abuses weather to a great extent, although I usually carry a Tyranitar or Hippowdon on my other teams just to make sure that I can maintain control of the weather during the match.

I had strong Sand team in 4th Gen. But that's just one. Overall I like an offensive approach. Aside from the sand team, all my teams have been offensively-based, high octane ones.

As we all know(do we?), I "specialize" in Hail Stall.(I put "" because I'm not exactly good at competitive battling xD) I think the playstyle difficulty depends on my opponent. Sometimes its easy to get into the battle rather quickly(which is why all the battles I've had end so fast xD).

I can't say whether it's safe for designing a team based on weather. If the opponent has another different weather team, they might disrupt your weather team. Like Hail versus Sandstorm. On another note, I love Trick Room teams too. I have one, but haven't battled much with it. It takes a while for me to get accustomed to playing it correctly, same for the Hail Stall team.

Even though I'm an offensive minded player, I specialize in a balanced team to have a good blend of attack and defense.

I specialize in all forms of stall. Some forms of offense i specialize in too, Heavy Offense being one of them and the others being sand offense and also Volt Turning. :)

Generally a balanced team. I'm toying with a sand team right now. I love stall pokemon so I may try a stall team here soon.

I mainly do offensive with a solid defensive core i can do stall fairly well and can do rain stall pretty good but don't use it cause its over done

I almost always opt for a balanced team, which is what I'd say I "specialize" in. Though stall has always been something I also enjoy doing, especially hail stall. They just doesn't see the hail coming. xD

I've tried a Gravity based team before, back during the 4th Gen. era. It was quite a success, if I do say so myself. Not many people expected that.

I probably play strongest when I'm using a stall or sun team, but just don't cope with using offensive-orientated teams at all for some reason. I find stall a lot more enjoyable than other kinds of teams, too - although I do get annoyed with myself when it turns into a stupidly long battle, and I make a huge mistake somewhere.

Team building-wise, it does seem like weather teams would be the way to go, but I have used a couple of Trick Room teams to great success this generation. I usually just choose one Pokémon and build a team around that, which, most of the time, involves a weather-starter of some kind.

The way I do things

I play the way most of us play....I pick on your weaknesses and use speed and power to overwhelm you...It's worked for me.

What I want in terms of massive damage is to try to deal as much as I can without having any risks involved (Or having as little risk as possible.)

The way I usually design moveset involve mainly STAB...Let's take a Pokemon that what most people consider "Meh." but I love it because it was my favorite during the good ol' Red/blue days.

Enter:Arbok..Now Arbok isn't exactly fast or tough, But it boasts pretty good attack and speed for a snake (It ain't no Garchomp when it comes to Speed and attack but it's good enough that I can work with it!)

What ability would I give an Arbok? Well it has access to Shed skin so in case of Paralysis or Burn..It has a chance to cast it off (This can help you offensively and defensively..Depending on what you wish.) It also has access to a great physical decimator to any attack based Pokemon..Intimidate.

For me...Since I want to make this guy hit as hard as his little fangs can chomp..I'll use intimidate to increase "his" defense so to speak. Now comes the other important..Since I want him to hit first most of the time. I will be using Jolly because all of his attacks will be physical. Jolly will increase his speed and decrease his special attack, I could also go with the Adamant Nature..Both seem great possibilities. Since I want him in this case to be fast, I'll use Jolly.

The next thing I want to put on it is the item of choice. Now most people will be good power increasing moves such as Choice items and Life orbs and what not. Remember when I said I want as much power as I can without risks? Yeah! In the case of good ol' Arbok here, He doesn't have a way to prevent choice locked moves (As far as I know nothing can.). But Poison type Pokemon like Arbok have a special item that recovers HP a little more than leftovers. It's called the Black sludge. This is good item I would slap onto Arbok...And I would also consider the Expert belt to try to get an extra damage from Super effective moves (As I love to pick off what Arbok is strong against...Which unfortunately is only Grass.). Since Grass is the only thing it's strong against (and some grass types are mostly Poison as well, Thus barring it from using it's moves effectively.). I want Arbok to live so I will stick on the black sludge


Next item on the list (and this is the most important and final piece). The four moves I want it to learn. Most of you have a basic format (or none) of how you choose your move. The way I do it is

1.Support/Recovery/Stat boosting/Big PP Move
2.Ultimate move (A STAB move with a power of 100 or higher)
3.A power fallback move (A move with 80 - 95 base power and good PP)
4.Move that counters its weaknesses.

I prefer STAB moves when it comes to my Pokemon but for the sake of power. I'm limiting my choices. First move I want to put for Arbok is a boosting move since it doesn't have any way to recover HP(It does recover life with the Black sludge). Now Arbok and it's other serpent companion have the physical equivalent of the best stat boosting moves in the game. Quiver Dance: Meet Coil. Coil not only raises Attack and Defense by one stage, It also raises accuracy to make missing moves a thing of the past. So moves like Gunk Shot, The elemental fangs. Rock Slide and moves equal or less them 90 benefit from this wonderful boosting move.

The next move will it a powerful or ultimate moves. Arbok has access to some good power moves with 100 base power or more...But the one that stands out most to me is the very powerful and very unique move in the Poison move list...Gunk Shot. It suffers the same fate as Focus Blast but with Coil, It's ability to hit it's target will increase tenfold.

The next move will have to be a good power move with good PP. Now this is a bit of a toughy. It can use Rock Slide to take out Flying and bug Pokemon as well as Earthquake to deal with Steel and rock types, but remember I need to be able to use a powerful move a lot. If I was using a timid nature Arbok my options would be more open with Sludge wave and Sludge bomb. However I'm not so I can't....T_T. A good thing about Poison types..They are also weak aganist Psychic..Since I need a way to Get rid of them, In comes the Greatest physical dark move since Cru- oh wait, It is crunch..with 24 PP after one PP max and 80 Base power. It's a great way to deal with one of it's weaknesses.

Last but not least the move that needs to counter it's immunity/another weakness. Now what's the one thing Poison attack cannot affect..Steel, Because you can't envenom that which has no flesh. And two weakness that Arbok can take advantage of for this? Fire and Ground..That's right! Now remember when I said Earthquake's PP was a bit low..Well it won't matter this time as this will provide for the perfect to deal neutral damage to all other types and get rid of the weakness of steel Pokemon once and for all.

So let's look at how we've made our Arbok

Arbok w/ Black sludge

Jolly (+Spd - S.atk)

Move 1.Coil -- Power -- Acc. (Boosts Atk/Def.Acc. by one stage.)
Move 2.Gunk Shot 120 power - 70 Acc. (Poisons Target dealing physical damage)
Move 3.Crunch 80 Power - 100 Acc. (Lowers defense)
Move 4.Earthquake 100 power - 100 Acc. (Hits all targets in the field except the user.)

This is the model of my ideal Poison physically powerful Pokemon made to do one thing...Kick ass...and look cool doing it! It's fits the way I play and does exactly what I want it to do.

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