My first team =O

Hey. I'm pretty new to battling, and this is my first attempt at a team. I've read lots of guides, looked at other people's teams, and viewed many movesets over the past month or so.

Here's what I have so far:



Lead –

Salamence @ Life Orb
Nature: Rash
120 Atk / 252 SpA / 136 Spe

~ Brick Break
~ Draco Meteor
~ Fire Blast / Flamethrower
~ Roost / Crunch


Or


Metagross @ Occa Berry / Leftovers / Lum Berry
Nature: Adamant
208 HP / 76 Atk / 224 SpD

~ Stealth Rock
~ Bullet Punch / Reflect
~ Meteor Mash / Ice Punch
~ Earthquake / ThunderPunch (for gyarados)


Picking a lead pokemon was probably the hardest choice. In the end, I picked these two (although with my non-existent battling experience, they could be terrible choices xD)





Spinner-

Starmie @ Leftovers/Choice Scarf
Nature: Timid
84 HP, 172 Sp.Atk, 252 Speed

~Surf
~Thunderbolt
~Ice Beam
~Rapid Spin

Not much to explain. Get rid of SR or Spikes, and maybe use a super effective move every once in a while.





Wish Support –

Vaporeon @ Leftovers
Nature: Bold
188 HP / 252 Def / 68 SpA

~ Wish
~ Surf
~ Ice Beam / Toxic
~ Protect

I could use the support from wish/Protect and wish blissey is banned apparently =(. I’d like to use jirachi but its too hard to get one with correct Nature & IVs





Mixed Attacker –

Infernape @ Life Orb
Nature: Naïve
24 Atk / 252 SpA / 232 Spe

~ Flamethrower / Fire Blast
~ Close Combat
~ Stone edge
~ Grass Knot

Powerful with good type coverage. Stealth rock over Nasty Plot because with such low defenses he won’t be taking many hits anyway.




Awesome type coverage

Electivire @ Expert Belt
Nature: Adamant
6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe

~ ThunderPunch
~ Ice Punch
~ Cross Chop
~ Earthquake

Great type coverage + a good switch in to electric attacks aimed at starmie & vaporeon



Wall / Para Support?


Blissey, Togekiss, or Skarmory. Unsure of what moveset would benefit the team the most.




Any ideas or comments to help me improve what I have so far?

Thanks =)

hmmm
i never saw salamence
as a pokemon who could actually use roost effectively....
its not very bulky....
and most pokemon, go for the 4x weakness on dragons
so youll only be weakening the attack by half....

I rate your team 7.9/10.

Choose Salamence and replace Draco Meteor with Dragon Claw (salamence should be an attack pokemon not a sp.attack pokemon). If you can, don't teach him Roost/Crunch, but Earthquake instead. Also, teach him Stone Edge if possible.

Your Starmie is fine.

Vaporeon doesn't need a change, but maybe you should reconsider having two water types, but it doesn't make your team a lot weaker.

Excellent moveset for Infernape, except that Infernape is also an attack pokemon not a sp.attack one.

Try switching Cross Chop with Giga Impact on Electivire. Other than that he's cool.

I think you should take a grass type like Torterra or if I had to choose out of your options I would say Blissey.

If you're going to make a team, make the team. Don't make those stupid "Roost / Crunch" options, because you're basically not telling us what your team is. Put a definitive move, and list options for other moves in the description underneath to influence the rater into making a "better decision" for the team.

Both leads are very good. I would use Crunch over Roost on Salamence and Fire Blast over Flamethrower. If you opt to use Metagross, the rapid spinning Starmie is less useful and I would go on replacing it with something else. Vaporeon does better in taking fire attacks anyway, and you would need to include a wall that is immune to Ground (but try not to use flyers, since they DO get hit by the Stealth Rock pretty hard). Bronzong is an excellent choice, since you don't have any Pokémon on the team that resist Dragon either. Letting a Salamence Dragon Dance would prove considerably devastating to your team, on a large scale, without Bronzong present to wall (and it still gets hit hard with Fire Blast/Fire Fang).

If you opt to use the Salamence lead, you'll be missing the Stealth Rock Support which is very beneficial in battles. The main problem with your team is the fact that it comprises too many frail sweepers, which means letting Lucario Swords Dance, Azelf Nasty Plot, or Gyarados Dragon Dance could mean you could lose easily. The team does well with wall breaking, taking bolt beams, and has Vaporeon very well fit in, but definitely needs a very sturdy wall.

"salamence should be an attack pokemon not a sp.attack pokemon" <- Salamence's Special attack is actually very high. Maybe not as high as his Physical attack, but his movepool is not too bad on the special side (Hydro Pump, Draco Meteor, and Fire Blast). Overall, Draco Meteor deals more damage than Dragon Claw because of its higher attack base, regardless of Salamence's higher stat. Additionally, there are many walls out in the metagame posed to wall Physical threats, like Umbreon, Cresselia, and Dusknoir. Although they can wall Special attacks, those Pokémon are normally found with sets that can withstand physical attacks.

"i never saw salamence
as a pokemon who could actually use roost effectively....
its not very bulky...." Bulky Salamence does pretty well in battles with Roost, DD, Dragon Claw / Earthquake and with a large amount of EVs invested in defenses. Roosting means Flyers lose their flying type (which is probably why there is no such Pokémon that is only flying other than Flying Arceus) and ice attacks are reduced much better. I personally find Salamence better used offensively because of Stealth Rock and his base 80 defenses, but when Intimidate factors in with being flying type (immunity to Earthquakes and 4x resistant to fighting attacks on switch-ins), Salamence could actually be set bulky.

[edit]Oh yeah, HP Ice over Stone Edge on Infernape. It helps better against Salamence and you invested most of your EVs into Special attack anyway. [/edit]

I'm probably going to use metagross over salamence, and I was going to replace starmie with a bulky gyarados, because it is a little more resilient/powerful and makes an even better electric bait (for electivire switch ins). The problem is that would be adding a flying, which probably wouldn't be smart since I'm ditching Rapid Spin. Also, that wouldn't be adding a strong wall, which you said would be a good option.

Is this bronzongs moveset similar to what you were thinking of?


Bronzong@leftovers
Nature: Sassy
252 HP / 86 Atk / 80 Def / 92 SpD

~ Gyro Ball
~ Explosion
~ Hypnosis
~ Earthquake



If it is, wouldn't Electivire be a lot less useful when my only water is vaporeon?

Also, would my team have enough damage in the event that infernape dies?

Bronzong@leftovers
Nature: Sassy
252 HP / 86 Atk / 80 Def / 92 SpD

~ Gyro Ball
~ Explosion
~ Hypnosis
~ Earthquake

Bronzong is a good physical wall or special wall... This kind of build is a defence one since its ment to switch in when someone does a phyical attack, and you either hypnosis or do an attack... So your Evs are messed up... I would go witht he 252 hp 252 def 6 atk and relaxed nature so gyro ball does a shit load of damage... If you want to cover both weakness, I would replace the skills with clam mind and spatk skills instead since it can take spatk and atk... But this wall can't heal itself, so it isn't met to spread its Ev too much, and explode when you need to...

I suggest focousing on 2 stats ev train . for example ev ur sala in only att and put flamethrower , dragon claw, dd /if u cant stone edge, eq. and choose a adamnat nature or a speed if u dont have the dd (dragon dance). I agree w yol for the wall. Stell walls are the best ( froretress, skarmory , bronzong) the 3rd has the fewer weaknsses :p and can be used s wall or physic wall, if u use a only physical wall use blissey as well for s wall

@lex: you dont need to have a bliss if you have a bronzong, and and adamant cuts sp.att making flamthrower's power lower. its ok to ev in more than 2 stats, but it takes a more complicated build. Zong also ends up being a good special wall too.

Mostly i agree with y0l and Thomas. Salamance ends up being a good lead if used right. it dies to yanmega,aerodactyl, ands ome other popular leads. Metagross is better off without te punches, for a wall set. It usually dosent set up rocks though.

Mence: Roost helps shrug of damage from leads and rocks

Infenape:needs nasty plot if you use grass know+flamethrower(take out stone edge)

Togekiss: ends up being extremely annoying. Thunder Wave, Air Slash, Aura Sphere, and Roost along with serene grace ability = ParaFlinch.

if u use a only physical wall use blissey as well for s wall :s prolly u did see that :s :s :S anw I suggested the adamant because the only pokemon that block the other 2 options is steel w levitate so this would be the only chance using it ( if u want use nature that increase att and lowers defence or s defence) but this is my opinion. That was for an 100 % physical sweaper sala :p if u want an s att sala u can make it w good results