Team building (doubles)

How do you build a team? Do you run two different type of teams within your six? Without giving your pokes names away unless youd like too. It up to you. Any advice is appreciated. Just not sure what I am doing wrong.

-snorts-
There's only like, 3 or 4 competitive doubles people active on PC and out of them all, I'm the only one who regularly posts. -shakes head-

Here's the dealie. For the most part, your team can't absorb hits. The last team you posted lacked crucial information, like EVs and abilities. Only Zapdos can absorb hits, -maybe- Garchomp and Hitmontop. Your team looks like you just cobbled together a bunch of good stuff with singles movesets, which won't work in doubles. Tossing out a move for Protect does NOT make your team a doubles team.

I don't know Tailwind. I've never used it and I rarely fight against it. All I DO know is that it's not an easy team to work with.

I may as well show you my old rain team.



This is my old team from my first venture into competitive doubles. Do you see how the team works together? If I want to scout a team without risking Ludicolo, I send Staraptor out and use whatever move I find necessary against the opponent. The second lead depends on the opponent's team. How Ludi and Politoed work together is obvious, double Surf... or not. Absorb Bulb powers up Ludicolo. Togekiss chosen if I believe that it's more important for me to cripple or stall out hits. Machamp is for Trick Room teams (it worked only half the time). Dragonite is the attacking jack-of-all-trades. This team is highly out of date now, since I was using it before BW2 was released.

It's important to set up your team so that not only can they all support each other and take advantage of each other's abilities, but that if they have to, they can also stand alone.

This team here, Machamp was the most useless because I pretty much had it for one reason only: Trick Room. Eventually, I had to replace him with something else. Staraptor was the second weakest, but not for the reason you'd think. He was weak because many of my opponents kept using Fake Out on it and killing it outright on the first turn. They recognized the threat and took it out as quickly as possible. Third weak was Ludicolo, because literally everyone who battles competitively knows that Ludi in rain is a friggin' monster, so more likely than not, Ludi dies quickly. ALL of them except for Staraptor is able to absorb one or two hits, then dish the amount of pain back.

I've long since updated my team but this team here, won me 30th place at a regional.

Seriously, half the trick is to work out how to make your team mesh well together. Except for Zapdos, your team is literally a singles team, and probably not a very good one.

Have you seen my newest tailwind team? I dk if I posted that

The one you posted yesterday? That's the one I'm talking about.

Griffinbane said:

The one you posted yesterday? That's the one I'm talking about.

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The purpose of it is to obtain and maintain a speed advantage, Obviously that doesnt work well in TR but yes they do have problems taking hits

Weavile has Pressure with 252 atk and Spd evs
Hitmontop has Intimidate with 252 atk and Spd Evs
Starmie has Natural Cure with 252 Sp.Atk and Spd
Garchomp has Rough Skin with 252 atk and Spd Evs
and Alakazam has Magic Guard with 252 Sp.Atk and Spd.

My biggest problems are dealing with TR which with a speed team is a problem but I just have problems with them in general

Am i better off doing a stall team in VCG?

Speed ain't useless in doubles, but you're better off speeding up bulky attackers than you are fast attackers. Like I said earlier, it's more important that you're able to take hits. Besides, what are you gonna do if a Thundurus or Cresselia comes in to T-wave your whole team? It doesn't matter what you do to Cress, Cress will just eat 2 or 3 hits and then recover.

For example, if you were to use a team like say... Zapdos, Metagross, Garchomp, Hitmontop, Eelektross and Chandelure in a Tailwind team and built them to maximize SpA/Attack and HP... All of them (except maybe Chandelure, I need to check this thing whenever Smogon goes up) would be able to absorb at least one hit and then do some major damage in return. Not only that, they would outspeed things that they wouldn't normally be able to. Also, your opponent might not know that it's a Tailwind team and bring in unsuited Pokemon. Glass cannons maxed in speed and Att/SpA is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Don't use this team. I just pulled common 'mons out of a hat and patched them together. It might work but chances are it won't.

I know lots of people use Metagross in there teams. Should it be an option to consider and build around?

I know a lot of people who DON'T use Metagross in their team. Your team needs to be ready to handle as many possible situations as possible. The biggest problem is that your team is built to handle just one situation, and that situation is the one you set up. No good doubles player does that and no good doubles player will let their opponent do that. A good team is built to handle as many situations as possible.

Read these:
http://nuggetbridge.com/beginners/an-introduction-to-team-building/
http://nuggetbridge.com/beginners/p...-it-double-introduction-to-doubles-mechanics/
http://nuggetbridge.com/beginners/speed-kills-controlling-and-eving-speed-in-vgc/

I thought for a while that Smogan blocked me for some reason. glad to know its not me.

How important are Higher IVs or a flawless pokemon depending on the team

If you're using a special attacker, you don't need attack IVs and vice versa. As for speed, if you're trying to use a trick room counter, IV has to be 0. Otherwise, IVs (especially the defensive IVs) should be as close to 31 as possible. That means IV breeding or RNGing. You CAN use random IV stuff, like the 'mon you catch in the game in a normal runthrough but it could mean the difference between a 95% chance of KO vs. a 100% of one. The difference between an IV of say, 28 and 31 isn't that different, but say, 13 and 31 IS.

And no, Smogon got hacked. Again. You can access cached pages but don't ask me how because I just flub through it.

Do you think there is anything redeeming or any one Poke in particular that is redeeming and useable?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Griffinbane said:

I have no idea what you're talking about.

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The team I posted yesterday. Is there anything useable for a team on them?

They're all useable, just not in that particular combination.

Okay, fine. If you're still adamant about using Tailwind, drop Weavile and Alakazam. Starmie is a big iffy. The rest needs their EVs (and in Hitmontop's case, nature AND moves) redone. Go over to Trade Corner if you want your team rebred and can't do it for yourself.

I was trying to keep the posts general, but most of the posts are effectively off-topic and/or belongs in the other one. Hnng.

Griffinbane said:

They're all useable, just not in that particular combination.

Okay, fine. If you're still adamant about using Tailwind, drop Weavile and Alakazam. Starmie is a big iffy. The rest needs their EVs (and in Hitmontop's case, nature AND moves) redone. Go over to Trade Corner if you want your team rebred and can't do it for yourself.

I was trying to keep the posts general, but most of the posts are effectively off-topic and/or belongs in the other one. Hnng.

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Where would this topic belong? I appreciate the help you're giving me you have been the most help out of all of the forums I use and I use like 4 of them

If you want to really learn doubles, you hang out at nuggetbridge. They're THE go-to for doubles, much like how Smogon is for singles.