Pokemon Colosseum/XD

Hi everyone this is my first thread so I hope I did it right. Recently I've had the urge to replay the GC titles Colosseum and XD, but my problem is that I'm not sure what team I should go with. When I first played Colosseum back when I was maybe 10 years old, the child brain within me skipped the entire dialogue, and I never realised you could actually catch Shadow Pokemon until very late in the game -so yes, I went the majority of the game with ONLY Espeon, Umbreon and Plusle. Which is the main reason I want to replay it because I really screwed myself over first time around. Looking at the Pokemon you can get in the game, I'm not too sure what I should go with.

For Colosseum, I would like to use Quliava, Croconaw, Gligar, Sneasel, Misdreavus, Granbull, Piloswine, and Skarmory, but I'm not sure if they're any good or what movesets they should have.

For XD I'm a lot less certain, I know I would like to evolve Eevee into Jolteon as it's fastish and can utilise Thunder Wave to help catching Pokemon (but maybe another Eeveelution is more beneficial), and I would also like to use Tyranitar and Snorlax and Marowak (though I think Snorlax and Marowak are very late game)

Any Pokemon suggestions, along with move sets, doubles tips (because I really suck at double battles), or just general game tips would be really appreciated :D

My first (and honestly, favorite spinoff pokemon games) where colosseum and XD! (I'm going to pretend Pokemon TV doesn't exist :)

Its been awhile since i played XD very far (my laptop can't run it at ALL with an emulator--but Colosseum is fine???), but I still remember a GREAT deal of it.

I'm going to talk about Colosseum first :)

Your team--Unfortunately (and irritatingly -_-) you can only catch one of Bayleef/Quilava/Croconaw until the post game. I'd go with Croconaw because hes a water type and none of your other pokemon listed are water types (unless you want to catch one of the legendary dogs, or Mantine(which i recommend if you take Quilava, Mantine can take special hits very well in this game, surviving any electric attack), Misdreavus has Shadow Ball very early which is a super strong move considering stab/base power, I'm personally not a big fan of how easily Sneasel runs out of HP, and Gligar has no damage output at all, so I'd avoid them, the other three are fine (you get a steel wing TM, give it to Skarmory ASAP, Granbull should use physical attacks, Piloswine will wreck some endgame story pokemon :D).

As for XD, there are many battles where the opponent will use two shadow pokemon in the same team (mid-way through someone uses butterfree+beedrill, and almost every end-game trainer (particularly the last few boss battles) will have two.) Jolteon is fine, as he is super fast and gets access to thundershock relatively easy. I'd consider using one of Gulpin/Houndour/Spheal/Seedot/Baltoy, as they all offer great type coverage, are relatively strong, are caught at high levels, AND are all (literally) next to each other (you'll see what i mean when you meet them :P). Snorlax and Marowak are indeed VERY late game. Like, 2 battles before the end-game boss battle for Snorlax and sometime before that for Marowak (i think, im not 100% sure when you get him ^ _ ^ ") ((i went through the entire game one playthrough with Walrein and Aggron being my main two pokemon. They will always have a special place in my heart for being bulky as heck <3))

Move-sets are always a bit difficult to determine for me cause i dont often remember what level moves are learned ect. However, i can provide you some good double battles tips.

1. If theres a particularly threatening enemy pokemon, focus BOTH of your turns (two pokemon, two actions) on defeating it. Do this in general, as it will reduce the damage you take per turn (try to have fast-ish pokemon on your team. Speed is amazing in this game).

2. If someone needs healing, heal with whichever pokemons turn is least useful (for instance: Jolteon and Teddiursa versus a geodude and ryhorn. Jolteons stab does nothing, and teddiursa could have bite. Now lets say jolteon is at like 4 health. Use jolteons turn to heal jolteon, and have teddiursa bite whoever is closest to death.

3. multi-target moves with low base power aren't that good because they seem to deal divided damage (a swift deals like 30 basepower damage to two targets instead of 60 to one ((or what it should be; 60 to two))) this is especially true for Colosseum, however I'm not sure if it is in XD. Don't teach Espeon swift, it does like no damage, ever. (even crits barely do 40% of the targets HP, often closer to 30%) Surf isnt even that good imo, cause again, divided damage (although it doesnt hit your partner in Colosseum :D)

Thats all the tips i can think of :)

The good thing about XD is you get to choose which eeveelution you want which can help you form a team around your decision. I'd check out the list of available Shadow Pokémon and try and plan it around that. You get access to a bunch of cool Pokémon fairly early on such as Numel, Mareep, Spheal etc all covering different types that would be good to use in your team.

Colosseum is more limited in terms of types and Pokémon available, but I'd definitely recommend keeping both Umbreon and Espeon on your team for the duration of your playthrough along with one of the Johto starters.