HG/SS 1st Team Help

[TheDoomSpoon]

I am completely new to CB so I dont have a great idea about what works well with what but this is what I have as a team so far:

Alakazam (Calm, Synchronize) @ Odd Incense
Psychic
Energy Ball
Focus Blast
Recover

Dragonite (Modest, Inner Focus) @ Dragon Fang
Extreme Speed
Thunder Wave
Dragon Pulse
Draco Meteor

Donphan (Quiet, Sturdy) @ Bright Powder
Return
Earthquake
Thunder Fang
Scary Face

Blastoise (Docile, Torrent) @ Shell Bell
Flash Cannon
Skull Bash
Water Pulse
Protect

Lanturn (Naive, Illuminate) @ Expert Belt
Thunderbolt
Signal Beam
Surf
Shock Wave

Ninetales (Hardy, Flash Fire) @ None
Fire Blast
Confuse Ray
Dark Pulse
Flamethrower

Its no where near perfect but if anyone could help me with any suggestions it would be appreciated.

 

[Vrai]

Hi there! I'm not the best with Gen IV OU (which is what HGSS is considered) but I do have a few things I'd like to mention - most of these can be taken as competitive notes in general.

When you're battling competitively, it's very important to focus on the strengths of each Pokémon. If you don't, you'll risk not using each Pokémon in the best way it can be used - and obviously you want to use everything very efficiently to win. Now, to focus on strengths, you have to be able to identify exactly what they are - each individual characteristic of a Pokémon can be considered a strength. For example, Tyranitar benefits from having a huge movepool. That is, it has a TON of different options and it can use a lot of variety in its movesets. Jolteon, by contrast, has a very limited movepool. It is mostly restricted to Electric- and Normal-type moves, and it has few 'competitively viable' moves. (That's terminology that means things that can be used competitively for good reason - like, Thunderbolt is competitively viable but Thundershock is not because it's weak and doesn't have anything special about it.)

The other thing you have to look at is base stats. For example, Alakazam has very high base Special Attack and base Speed, so you'll want to focus on a Special Attacking set. It has very poor defenses, so a defensive set isn't very good. Along with base stats, you'll want to choose a nature that helps you out. This is a very helpful site. So, for example, with your Dragonite, it seems like you'll want to focus on a specially-based set because it's a Modest nature (+SpA, -Atk). You can breed for natures if you want, but that's pretty time consuming and I personally am too lazy to do things like that.

Beyond that, the few other competitive things I wanted to mention is that you should try to use the standard attacks because they're efficient, powerful, and they get the job done with no drawbacks. For example, I'll agree that Skull Bash is a cool move, but it has very limited competitive potential because it's a two-turn setup move, giving your opponent time to set up on you. You also generally want to avoid using two or more moves of the same type because it's very ineffective. Very, very few matches will require you to use all of a move's PP, so if you were thinking 'backup' then it's unnecessary. Try to use moves of different types - they give you more coverage (that is, hits more things supereffectively). It's almost always better to use an item than to have none at all - and if you don't know what to use, Leftovers is always a solid item choice.

 

[TheDoomSpoon]

Thanks for your advice ill take it on board and try and work out my team, thanks again.