Trick Room team help?

[Lickitricky]

Hey to all ^^ I made myself a Trick Room/Explosion team. It's been enough to get through the entire Stargazer Challenge on PBR, but I still lose against some people on Wi-Fi battles, so I was wondering if I could get advice on this team:

Bronzong @ Macho Brace - Impish (+Def,-Sp.Atk) - 252 HP, 126 Def, 126 Sp.Def, 4 Atk
-Trick Room
-Explosion
-Protect
-Rain Dance

Lickilicky @ Power Anklet - Brave (+Atk,-Speed) - 252 HP, 252 Atk, 4 Sp.Def
-Explosion
-Protect
-Power Whip
-Blizzard

Octillery @ Mystic Water - Modest (+Sp.Atk,-Atk) - 252 Sp.Atk, 252 HP, 4 Def
-Water Spout
-Protect
-Charge Beam
-Ice Beam

Abomasnow @ Life Orb - Quiet (+Sp.Atk,-Speed) - 252 Atk, 252 Sp.Atk, 4 HP
-Blizzard
-Ice Shard
-Wood Hammer
-Protect

Snorlax @ Silk Scarf - Brave (+Atk,-Speed) - 252 Atk, 252 HP, 4 Def
-Protect
-Giga Impact
-Crunch
-Body Slam

Dunsparce @ Quick Claw - Brave (+Atk,-Speed) - 252 Atk, 126 HP, 126 Def, 4 Sp.Def
-Blizzard
-Protect
-Rock Slide
-Glare

The strategy here is to always send out Bronzong first with either Octillery or Lickilicky, whichever one being more appropriate against the opponent's types. I'll refer to Bronzong as the lead, Octillery/Lickilicky as the sub-lead, the third Poke as the follow-up and the last Poke as the final one.
The first turn, the sub-lead uses Protect, while Bronzong uses Trick Room last. Almost always, no one is killed because the lead has great defenses and only takes super-effective hits from fire moves.
The second turn, either Octillery uses Water Spout right after Bronzong uses Rain Dance, or if Lickilicky is used, the sub-lead explodes while Bronzong protects itself. My team's Pokemon are almost always guaranteed to go first, especially Bronzong and Lickilicky since they hold Power Items.
The third turn, Bronzong explodes while the sub-lead (or follow-up if the sub-lead was Lickilicky) uses Protect. After that, any of the remaining Pokes on my team are sent out depending on the circumstances.

The problem is, my entire team relies on Bronzong, so I need advice on what to do with it (move or item-wise) to give as close a guarantee as possible that it'll be able to use Trick Room on the first turn.
Anyone have some advice? Greatly appreciated ^^

 

[Caxno]

Well, that is good, Trick room wise. But what if on my first turn, I sent out a Fighting or Fire type on you. Ex. My Blaziken. Your only pokemon to swich to is your Octillery, but you wouldn't have trick room. You need more than your Bronzong to know the move, or you can easilly be countered.

In a double battle, this opinion changes.

It is pretty good, except you have nothing good against fighting. Instead of Rain dance on bronzong, you might want to have a Psychic move. Teach Octillery rain dance. Otherwise, you may die easy.

Thanks!


Something to add for you.

You have 2 main Ice-types, or at least act as Ice types. Abomasnow and Octillery. You should keep Abomasnow, he is great that way. A slow Psychic Fighting, slow Water Fighting, a slow Flying dual type may help with that fighting hole. A ghost type may also come in handy. Does Bronzong have levatate or heatproof? If he has levitate, that is good. You may want to add a Poliwrath. If he has heatproof, a Rotom would make a good teamate. The only bad thing about Rotom, is that he is fast, and ruins the team in some ways. A Medicham would make some good Pressure to fighters, but he can also be pretty fast. A slow Flying dual type is hard to find, but a Tropius might work. He is the slowest Flying type, good for counters.

Thanks again!

 

[Lickitricky]

That's a good point about the Blaziken: you're right about having more than one guy know Trick Room.
In terms of type, I actually think that type-trumping doesn't matter, because I use this team to harness the absolute most powerful moves (Water Spout = 300 power with STAB and Rain Dance, Explosion = 375 power with STAB). These moves OHKO anything that doesn't resist them, but you're definitely right, I should try to squeeze in some more type advantages. The problem is, there isn't a 2-target Psychic-type move to sweep with D=
Since I really need to prevent myself from needing to switch out Bronzong, do you suggest an Occa berry for no weaknesses? It would prevent your Blaziken from KOing me on the first turn, but it may leave another Pokemon - Gengar for example - use Hypnosis on me, since I wouldn't be holding a Lum Berry.

 

[Caxno]

Well that is all true, there is no Psychic type move that hits 2 pokemon. However, people will go for a super-effective match, not for both. Poliwrath is a huge stop to you, because of damp. Prevents you from exploding with the damp ability, which some people use over Water absorb. Your octillery would be not very effective against this, making a huge advantage for Poliwrath to sweep. Plus, it is normal against bronzong.

Thanks!

Basic moveset for a Poliwrath:

Damp over water absorb ability.

Dynamicpunch

Surf

Hypnosis

Dream Eater.

That would really effect your team, so be careful.

 

[Lickitricky]

You're right =o anything with Damp will force me to have to use my follow-up and final Poke, unless I could strike it with Power Whip on my Lickilicky, which would probably only OHKO a Quagsire, or if I had an Abomasnow as a follow-up or final.
I might consider replacing Camerupt with a Trick Room Slowking, but it has a much higher chance of being 1HKO'd due to its weaknesses, and doesn't know any decent 2-target moves except Surf, which would also affect my ally poke. But it could be pretty devastating with Psychic...

What do you think?

 

[Caxno]

Well, damp would really effect your team. Luckily, most Poliwrath's don't have damp, even though I perfer it over Water absorb. I was watching a tournement video, and the other guys leads were in fact a Poliwrath and Blaziken. That sucked fro the Crobat Metagross team. The crobat took advantage of the weakness and used air cutter, which is rare to find on a crobat, but it does effect both pokemon. They got to about 1/2 hp. The Blaziken knew Psychic, which is pretty common, and killed Crobat. This Poliwrath did have damp, so Metagross couldn't explode, and used EQ. Nearly killed Blaziken, due to high defence. This Poliwrath used hydro pump, it knew it instead or DE, and killed Metagross. In your case, your 2 first pokemon are nearly immune to fighting. Lickilicky can die easily, but power whip might OHKO the Poliwrath, which would be great for you. There is however, Blaziken, who may destroy the rest of your team. A ghost type will remove this problem, So if we can find a slow Ghost, which may be hard, you can replace a pokemon with it, maybe bronzong, because most ghosts can learn trick room.

Thanks!

Dusknoir may be a good solution.

A good moveset would be

Sucker Punch (Egg move)

Trick Room (TM)

Will-o-wisp (Lv. 33)

Shadow Sneak (Lv. 22)

 

[Lickitricky]

Maybe Dusknoir? I considered him at first, but Bronzong's higher HP and lesser weaknesses seemed more appealing.
But you might be right, because there aren't many high-powered dark or ghost-type moves at all, and most Pokes that use them aren't those types themselves.
And there are a bunch of common high-power fire-type moves like Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, Blast Burn, Flamethrower, and Eruption.
Have you used a Dusknoir ever? Do its high defenses compensate for its low HP?

 

[Caxno]

I have used a Dusknoir once, And If you raise it well in Defence and Sp. Def, it will help. However, you will still need to whittle down HP, his attack isn't the best. Dusknoir instead of Bronzong may help alot, or it may not. You need a first - hand pokemon to remove fighting weaknesses.

You can also keep Bronzong, but you need Psychic badly. Otherwise, you may get destroyed by fire types.

 

[Lickitricky]

Definitely true. Also, Dusknoir can't learn Explosion, so that's a tough problem...
Even if my Bronzong knew Psychic, a fire-type would definitely go before it and OHKO it, so there's that issue to solve...

If I went with Dusknoir, should I make him a Trick Roomer/Annoyer? I could give him moves like Will-o-Wisp and Confuse Ray to stall any Pokemon that might resist the ally's attacks.
Also, it would perfect for resisting Lickilicky's Explosion without having to use Protect.
The more I think about it, the more I picture it working perfectly.... Thanks! =D

Okay, so let's say Dusknoir and Lickilicky are in play, Trick Room is in session, and when Lickilicky explodes, both opponents die (which is very probable, since the only resistances are ghosts and Steel/Rock types). Since there is no target left when it's Dusknoir's turn, what could it do to itself? It can't learn very useful stat-boosting moves.

 

[Timepiece]

Dusknoir with Pain Split and no HP EVs can perform some seriously impressive tanking. I would also suggest Will-o-Wisp and Earthquake, the former of which dismantles physical threats and the latter of which punishes fire types which would resist the former. He is an excellent switch in to protect your leading Bronzong. As a Ghost, he would also provide spin protection if you set up spikes with Forretress (whose abominable speed benefits greatly from Trick Room).

 

[Lickitricky]

He is an excellent switch in for your leading Bronzong.

When you say switch in, do you mean replacement?

 

[Timepiece]

I mean that in order to protect your leading Bronzong, you could switch Dusknoir into most threats safely.

 

[Lickitricky]

That's definitely true ^^
I think I'm going to replace Bronzong with Dusknoir, due to better annoyer moves and less counters. It would also nicely finish off Pokemon that moves like Water Spout or Explosion would not OHKO.

I'm thinking Trick Room, Will-o-Wisp, Rain Dance and Earthquake -what do you guys think?

 

[Timepiece]

I think that you should have Dusknoir and Bronzong both.

For Dusknoir's moveset, I strongly suggest replacing Rain Dance with Pain Split.

 

[Caxno]

EQ eh? That's a great move for Dusknoir. But here is your Octillery's set:

Octillery @ Mystic Water - Modest (+Sp.Atk,-Atk) - 252 Sp.Atk, 252 HP, 4 Def
-Water Spout
-Protect
-Charge Beam
-Ice Beam

What's with the charge beam? It may raise Sp. atk and all, but it also barely has any power, and barely any move super effective against Octillery would be devastated by charge beam, except a Ludiocolo, maybe. But those are rare. Maybe: It can be rain dance there, so there is no need to swich, where spikes / toxic spikes would... owch. Sthealth rock would not do that much though, luckily.

Anyway, The Dusknoir doesn't need to waste one of his moves with rain dance, when you only have one water type in your party. It would be much easier to teach that water type that move, other than a lead. Moves like block and Shadow tag ability, though only with Wobbuffet, who is an uber, would get the best out of a wasted move. The Dusknoir should know Shadow ball, it may lower foe's Sp. def, and has 120 power (including type advantage)

It's only beak weakness would be a Normal / flying type, which there are not many used competitively. The most common might be a Staraptor. Pokemon that are steel and have levitate are also pretty safe from dusknoir, which again, is pretty rare to see.

That seems like you made a huge improvement, the Dunsparce doesn't seem like a GREAT pokemon to add, but it is pretty good in this case, considering another ghost type, like gengar, pretty common to see, is super against dusknoir. It tries to kill it, but you swich to Dunsparce. It does nothing, and you PWN the Gengar.

I also however, agree with TImepiece, now that Dusk knows EQ, Bronzong should come back. You DO have 2 normal types, but Dunsparce seems to do a better job than the Snorlax. Remove one for Bronzong, swich the party around so Dusknoir and Bronzong are in front, AND KEEP BRONZONG'S MOVES, YOU NEED TWO TRICK ROOMERS!!! And BOOM, BANG! There's a great improvement.
Thanks!

 

[.Gamer]

So I didn't read any of the posts above because that would take too long and I can't be arsed with it.

You need two things on this team:

A second pokemon would be nice, as suggested, Sucknior, I mean Dusknior would do nicely.

You also need a pokemon that can sweep outside of Trick Room. DD Salamence, Swords Dance Lucario, and a handful of others would do nicely.

Lickilicky wants Swords Dance >>> Protect, since Protect just wastes a turn of Trick Room, Swords Dance actually does something; while your at it, give it a good moveset:

Lickilicky @ Life Orb/Leftovers
252 HP/252 Atk/4 Def
Adamant/Brave Nature
-Swords Dance
-Return
-Earthquake
-Aqua Tail

Gives good coverage and makes use of its ability to boost its Attack stat.

(Brave Nature lowers Speed, not Lonely)

Replace Rain Dance on Bronzong with Stealth Rock, its more useful and benefits your team.

Give Octillery Energy Ball >>>> Protect for the same reason you replace Protect on Lickilicky, and give it a Life Orb.

Replace Abamasnow with something that doesn't hurt your team. Nothing on your team benefits from Hail so why have it? I suggest replacing him with a pokemon to sweep outside of Trick Room.

Snorlax wants Leftovers >> Silk Scarf, take advantage of its bulk.

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, use Giga Impact on any pokemon unless its name is Slaking.

Seriously, its a terrible move and gives your opponent a chance to set up.

Snorlax @ Leftovers
252 HP / 252 SpDef / 4 Def
Careful Nature
-Curse
-Return
-Rest
-Crunch

Curse works great with Trick Room an makes it durable even outside of Trick Room's effects and boosts its Atk and Def stat.

Um........................Why do you have Dunsparce? lol. I mean, its fun but its horrible. Togekiss, it works pretty well in Trick Room and outside:

Togekiss @ Leftovers
Calm Nature
Ability: Serene Grace
252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpDef
-Body Slam
-Air Slash
-Aura Sphere
-Roost

Works like a charm.

Hope all my suggestions helped, to be honest, I have no idea why you had such ranom items on your Pokemon (I get Macho Brace on Zong). The rest of the items are pretty bad though.

 

[Porygon-Z]

You need Slowbro, he is awesome on trick room teams!

Calm Mind
Trick Room
Slack off
Surf/Psychic

 

[Lickitricky]

Um........................Why do you have Dunsparce? lol. I mean, its fun but its horrible.

Lol believe it or not, Dunsparce has really, really saved me in battles. 60% chance of flinching each opponent is a risk I'm willing to take, and when all else fails, use Blizzard for a 20% freeze chance and 100% accuracy from Abomasnow's Hail. Sorry, I don't mean to shut down your idea xD

You guys are probably right about Snorlax; it's actually not that great in general, so I might considering replacing it with Dusknoir. I like the idea of having them both on a team, but I think that sending them both out first would miss out on some immediate carnage, to even prevent the opponent from stat-boosting or anything of the matter. Unless of course, Bronzong just explodes on the second turn =)

And Caxno, you're definitely right: Charge Beam is actually a move that I only needed for EV training: I didn't feel like i needed other spots since the goal of Octillery is to destroy everything with Water Spout xD I like the idea of saving a spot on Dusknoir to put Rain Dance on Octillery, but doesn't that leave a turn for the opponent to destroy it, considering its terrible defenses?

 

[Caxno]

Wait a sec, I agree with most of these people above me, but not the Gamer. Togekiss would suck in this case. Not meant for a trick room team. I only agree with that Snorlax idea.

Slowbro wouldn't make that good of a pokemon unless he took out Octillery... which actually may be smart.

But the 2 first pokemon in his team, Dusknoir and Bronzong, can be used easily. Let's say that the 2 pokemon sent out are Gengar and Metagross, which is common in double battles, ususally. Dusknoir knowing sucker punch, which is an egg move, harder to obtain, may be smart instead of Shadow ball. Gengar would use a ghost move on Dusk, obviously, but sucker punch may kill it before he gets the chance. The meta would either stwich or go for some spikes, maybe a meteor mash on dusk. The Bronzong can use Trick room, and you are all set up. There are many other cases this can work too!

Thanks!

 

[Lickitricky]

I honestly think that my Octillery should stay, because of Rain Dance'd Water Spout, which in total does even more than Explosion itself. Slowbro is really cool, and has
better overall stats, but I think it lacks high-powered or 2-target moves.

As for the Snorlax, I'm pretty much considering just getting rid of it in general, to make room for Dusknoir.

Oh right, and there is NO way I'm putting a Life Orb on Octillery xD high-powered Water Spout ftw.

How does this sound for a battle?
Send out Dusknoir and Bronzong.
1st turn: Bronzong protects, Dusknoir uses TR.
2nd turn: Bronzong explodes, Dusknoir takes out any resisting Pokemon.
3rd turn: Octillery is sent out, Dusknoir uses Rain Dance, and Octillery uses Water Spout right after.
After that: Do whatever I need to depending on opponent's types.