Pokeaimmd: Yo wassup guys you got Pokeaim
here and today i have guide to teambuilding
in pokemon sword and shield. and with me I
have, my buddy my good friend, and very very
good competitive battler, BKC.
BKC: Hey guys whats goin on? I played my first
sword and shield games earlier today so i
totally know what i'm talkin about.
Yea Ok that’s how u sell uhh your channel
and all that, anyway so guys uhh for this
purpose of this video we will be on Pokemon
showdown for this teambuilder just cuz it's
a really useful tool for building and also
testing out teams however i do have a guide
down below for basically for sword and shield
for getting your Pokemon to level 100 for
getting them battle ready and also a guide
to competitive Pokemon a guide to Pokemon
showdown and also do moveset guides on my
channel for pokemon. So this is gonna be a
very basic team building guide for pokemon
sword and shield but as the meta game develops,
which we’ll be discussing in a second, actually
you’ll take the first point. But as the
meta game develops we’ll have a more advanced
guide in a few months or even a month or two.
So Kevin why don't you start taking away the
first process of team building
Yea so the reason we’re gonna have to come
back to this is because, what we referred
to as the metagame is a week old so it's hardly
much of a meta game so but you’re maybe
you’re thinking well what is a meta game?
So… it's basically the collection of Pokemon
in a given rule set or tier or generation
that are known to be good, So let's just use
the most recent generation as an example.
So for generation seven the standard format,
meaning no ubers no mewtwos no arceus’ then
the standard meta game revolves around the
strongest available pokemon. So for gen 7
OU that would be ur greninja, ur toxapex,
yea exactly stuff like that. So a big part
of making good teams isn't just some ideas
like type synergy like im sure if you’ve
ever read a pokemon guide book you remember
that they tell you don't use six Pokemon weak
to earthquake use a fire type and a water
type and so on. Uhhhh its important to know
the threats of the metagame, one hundred percent,
and so uhhh yea that will come to you just
by playing the game and seeing what's common.
Like uh for early gen eight then anyone who’s
played at all will tell you darmanitan is
absolutely everywhere and it's really scary.
So that is something you would need to cover
in your team you would not use a team that
gets completely obliterated by darmanitan
otherwise it’s not a good team.
Correct and I think one of the things to also
keep in mind just going off that because this
is something we’re probably gonna see, as
we build our teams there's no such thing as
a perfect team as well. There absolutely isn't
there's only the attempt to make the perfect
team and uhh i mean nothing is perfect but
you can come close sometimes and that's what
uhh teambuilders strive for. But nothing is
ever perfect, you can take the most successful
team you can imagine and I guarantee it has
a huge weak point. it's not about having a
team with no weaknesses it's about having
a team that can play around its weaknesses.
Correct, that has outs and that's a big thing
too cuz if you look at a team for example
that has maybe five out of the six Pokemon
are steel types and maybe someone from an
outside perspective might be like, hey your
team loses to me clicking earthquake with
my excadrill, sure but did u take into account
that my steel types have sucker punch that
i have sturdy on this one that this one has
levitate so like it's also not taking a team
at face value as well. But also uhh figuring
out how u can use the tools at hand to deal
with the giant threats. Yea its kind of a
more advanced idea but the basic idea is that
it's not about checking things on paper as
much as being able to play around them, like
for example, an offensive team by virtue of
having offensive Pokemon is not gonna have
perfect counters to defensive stuff. So you
can look at a team filled with cinderace and
darmanitan and a bunch of other frail stuff
and you would say well this can't take any
hits and then you look at how the team plays
in an actual game and you’re like well it
doesn't matter that they can't take any hits
because they’re too busy outspeeding. Exactly,
exactly and that's that also goes into a whole
new part of team building called uh you know
the team composition what type of teams it
is there are offensive builds there a defense
there are offensive builds that strive on
like he just said, outspeeding you opponent
and doing damage. There are defensive builds
that are basically designed to tank hits and
not die while wearing down your opponent and
of course there's a mixture of things in between
which we call balance ummmm that is you know
it has offensive threats but it has defensive
pivots as well and to explain what a pivot
is it's a Pokemon that can switch into a hit
and tank it like comfortably and let something
else happen.
Yea and that can be anything from pivoting
into an attack like let's say toxapex is a
great pivot because of regenerator. so let's
say you’re tryna hit it with a choice band
earthquake it can still take that choice band
earthquake and then pivot out to something
else and it won't really have taken that much
damage in the long run. But its main purpose
was to make sure that one of your other pokemon
got in safely. So as long as lets say your
corvenknight does not switch into a darmanitan
with flare blitz its fine but you can't risk
it so you go to toxapex and you risk taking
the earthquake but you can take one hit and
you can see what it does and you can pivot
out. Exactly, and again we’re gonna be goin
over maybe one to three builds on certain
different types of teams so we’ll build
an offensive team we’ll build uhh a defensive
build and we’ll also build one in the middle
and you guys just to explain how Pokemon showdown
works on your screen you do see a toxapex
i'm just gonna explain it. It's pretty self
explanatory but there is a guide to Pokemon
showdown right here but right here you see
base stats right here there will be EV’s
and you know they go up to two hundred fifty
two i just gave it max defense max HP and
then you have the IV’s which are basically
like the genetics of Pokemon and uhh 31 is
the one you’re gonna want for the most part.
We have the item right here and again this
is just a quick run through if you want the
full guide that we made there's one down below.
You have your item you have ability they tell
you what they all do and then you have your
move choices and it even tells you usually
the good moves and then usually the useless
moves. So that's a quick little guide on how
we’re gonna do it.
It is really handy like if you’re making
more advanced stuff then you’ll hit up the
damage calculator so you'll know exactly how
much damage you’re gonna be a taking from
certain attacks but that’s really once you’re
more familiar with the game to the point where
you know exactly what you want. For the most
part you can just plug in your 4 moves and
showdown suggestions will generally be ok.
Exactly exactly, uhhm like you can put in,
just for reference sake uhh i’ll put in
recover, im actually gonna get rid of my Ev’s
just so i can show exactly what he’s talking
about. But i put in recover scald toxic and
haze this might be a standard toxapex it might
not be and it just gives me a quess spread
physically defensive and there u go as he
just said uhhhmm and this is something, go
ahead.
BKC: It's just that like when you’re playing
and you find you might want toxapex to take
special attacks a little better maybe you
just move the slider down from physical defense
and you give it some more special defense.
So once you play the game enough then everything
else will make sense more than trying to cram
all the info in at once
Pokeaim: Exactly and like we said this’ll
be a more beginner’s guide and there will
be a more advanced guide later and those that
are playing on the nintendo switch and everything
you might not need to know all this information
but i think it is very important to get it
out there anyway just so you have... you know,
so you understand the gist of team building.
BKC: Mmmhmm...
Pokeaim: In my opinion I just wanna put this
out there - there’s no 100% way to build
a team, right, uh Kevin and I might have completely
different approaches for it. Kevin might say,
“OK, I want to build around this Pokemon
because it seems to be the flavor of the month,
or you will, um and I want to see what makes
it best.” I might be like, “Ok, I’ma
roll a dice, hmm… I really like that Picachu
that I saw the other day, let me try it out,
right?” So in terms of where you start,
um, what I like to do, and I dunno if Kevin
is the same, but I love to pick a Pokemon
that I want to build around ___?? Like I was
like, “Aw man Baraskita looks really cool,”
and that’s actually what we’re going to
be using in our first team. Like, “Aw man
Baraskita looks really cool this generation
because of its’ ability swift swim,” or
“Aw man, my favorite Pokemon is,” let’s
say your favorite Pokemon is Morpico so why
not build around your favorite. That’s it.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that,
in my opinion.
BKC: Yeah, it’s really as simple as knowing
what you want your team to do then making
your team do that. I know that kinda sounds
abstract and cryptic so in more concrete terms
then you would say, “Look, Darmanatan has
no counters, I’m going to use Darmanatan,”
and you go from there or if you think wow
nothing can break the combination of ferrothorn
and toxapex and ??? then there’s your starting
point. It doesn’t have to be one pokemon
it can just be one idea that you have for
a team.
Pokeaim: Exactly.
BKC: Like let’s say you have, this is somewhat
advanced but, if you notice that a certain
type of attack is often used to KO a Pokemon,
then you can take advantage of that with a
teammate. Like let’s say the earlier example
of toxapex and korganite, if the only way
Darmanatan is ever KOing Toxipex is with Earthquake,
then after that you could have used that with
substitute bulk up Koorganite.
Pokeaim: Correct. Yeah, and that is a more
advanced strategy and that also comes into
play of battling which I believe we can make
a video guide on battling as well. But yeah,
that’s basically, you know, you’re giving
up a piece that way you can, uh, you know,
that way it’s checkmate. Right?
BKC: Take advantage of it with something else.
Pokeaim: Exactly, exactly.
BKC: The basic idea is simple: find what you
want your team to do and do it. If you want
your team to have six dragon dancers, that
might be viable. Who are we to tell you it’s
not?
P: Exactly. And, and...
B: You can just rely on your own experience
to see if it works or not.
P: Exactly, and just to give a quick little
mention to that, if you do want your team
to have six dragon dancers, you probably have
the best option of using Light screen and
reflect because it makes those Pokemon more
bulky, just giving you that, if you put that
in your head, and you had any question about
it. So I just wanted to put that -
B: Exactly.
P: And there are teams that are exactly like
that. There are teams that are fully physical
and then one Pokemon’s setting up Liteskin
and reflect that way these Pokemon can work.
So there is no --
B: Yeah, like when, when Joey and I, sorry
but -
P: Go head -
B: When Joey and I were coming up then a common
move set, er moveset, mindset was “OK, this
is my physical attacker, this is my special
attacker, this is my wall and--”
P: That was years ago man!
B: Yeah, that was a long time ago, but the
basic idea is, you don’t need to build a
team according to that kind of checklist.
You can do anything you want, and I mean,
there are some players out there who will
say, “Oh wow, your team sucks,” but don’t
be too discouraged by that because first of
all, you don’t have to churn out great teams
instantly or overnight, and second of all,
the best players don’t even agree on what
the best teams are.
P: One hundred percent, and he actually -
B: So..
P: Yeah…
B: Don’t worry about it.
P: Exactly, and Kevin actually just said a
really really cool point that I think you
should take into account. Again, we are gonna
team build really soon guys, I know people
are probably like, “Aw man, can you team
build already?” This information is important
and we feel like it’s necessary to share
it especially ‘cause it’s a new generation,
but as Kevin said - You’re not gonna build
a team immediately and uh immediately great.
That’s the purpose of testing your teams
and figuring out what you’re weak to. If
I’m using Baraskudda and I use the moveset
close combat, uh liquidation, psychic fangs,
and I use poison jab instead of crunch and
i find myself struggling with Dragapult, maybe
I’ll change it to crunch and see how the
team does there. And I actually have a moveset
guide for uh Baraskudda tomorrow as well.
This is assuming this comes out Friday and
not Sunday. But yeah.
B: Yeah that’s really just a whole experience
thing. You say, “Wow, it would be really
cool if I wasn’t walled by dragapult ‘cause
that seems like a waste to get walled by,
and poison jab isn’t doing anything, let
me see how crunch does.”
P: And there ya go and then you deal with
it so I think without further ado, we can
actually get into the team.
B: Yessir.
P: Alright, so, as we mentioned, uh, we want
to build around Barraskewda so obviously we
know Barraskewda is a water type and if we
look at abilities, it has two, Swift Swim.
If rain is active, this Pokemon’s speed
is doubled and Propeller Tail ignores the
effects of imposing Pokemon’s abilities
and moves that draw in moves. Now we’re
playing in singles with this Pokemon for one,
and also if we look at Barraskewda’s stats,
we notice that it is basically a glass cannon.
Incredible attack, incredible speed, so how
can we make use of this? I think, you can
go -
B: Oh yeah, it’s just the simple thing would
be, uh physical attacker.
P: Exactly.
B: Generally with Pokemon this is not a hard
and fast rule as you will see very soon but
generally what most Pokemon do is take advantage
of their best stat. So, like a Pokemon that
has a naturally high speed stat like Cinderace
is probably going to have a lot of investment
most of the time. That’s the kind of Pokemon
it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a fast offensive
Pokemon.
P: Exactly.
B: So with Barreskewda, it’s the same idea.
This Pokemon is going to best with lots of
attack and lots of speed, so it abuses its’
best traits because I mean sure you could
use defense Evees on Barreskewda but it’s
not the best use of it.
P: Exactly.
B: It doesn’t have a naturally high defense
stat, it’s not going to do anything. It
is best as a threat.
P: Exactly, and that’s something that people
sometimes ask me, “How do you figure out
what type of Evee spread? How do you figure
out the nature?” Basically what Kevin just
said. For the most part, genuinely, you’ll
figure out what a Pokemon can do best and
if it has the move set to support it. Because
there are instances where Pokemon with higher
based defenses might run more special defense
just because they have maybe a move like Coil
or Bulk Up which boosts their defense alongside
it. So there definitely exceptions to the
rule but for the most part with this Pokemon,
you’re gonna wanna use a physical attacking
mod??? Yeah.
B: Yeah.
P: So…
B: So…
P: Go head.
B: Sorry go head.
P: No you go first bro. I don’t mind us
interrupting because I love, this is competitive
talk, man. Go head.
B: Oh, well, uh with Barreskewda, then the
decision with the nature is going to depend
on whether you want it to be… This is uh,
a meta game thing so the decision for more
attacker speed depends on the metagame around
it. So for example if you give it a jolly
nature, then you go up to a speed somewhere
in the 400’s so what you want it to know
is… Is there something between 371 & 408
in the meta game that i need to be outspeeding?
Like, how fast is Cinderace? Like 377?
P: Cinderace is 370..uh, 1, if I’m not mistaken?
Or it might be 377 if you actually look at
it right now. And this is also why losing
a team race is cool. But it’s 370.
B: So what’s perfect is that even if you
use Adamant you’re still going to outrun
Cinderace and you get back… And some people,
might say, depending on the metagame, well,
the Pokemon that are faster are not important
to cover like if there’s some hypothetical
Pokemon that sits at 375 speed in the meta
game, uh then you, or let’s, here’s a
better example. Weavile is currently pretty
bad, from what I understand.
P: Yeah.
B: So, you wouldn’t bother going Jolly just
to outspeed Weavile because Weavile is bad
and not used by anyone decent and that gets
you more power, and you would also decide
if you need more power or not based on how
much damage you’re doing to your common
walls. Like for example, if you’re using
Jolly Barraskewda and you just keep coming
up short on Barethorn and Toxapex, with your
close combat and psychic fangs, you might
say, “You know what, I need to give Atomin
a try. That extra 10% is going to be big because
I just keep every game.” This is experience
again, in addition to knowing the metagame
and the two go hand in hand, but you just
say, “Look, I need more damage in this thing.
I need to run Adamant and I feel I’m still
going to outrun most of the meta game because
Barreskewda is so natural at that.”
P: Of course, and another thing to keep into
account is Barreskewda’s ability, Swift/Swim,
and the fact that it can Dynamax as well to
give itself self-reign. So for the most part,
an Adamant or a Barreskewda, you could run
Jolly to also outspeed maybe modest Dragapult
but that’s also assuming Dragapult’s doing
the same thing as Barreskewda, outside of
reign.
B: Exactly.
P: So, yup, I do agree adamant H-er and as
we already mentioned, the moves up here are
typically the moves that are decent. Whereas,
down here, it’s usually useless moves. Of
course, there are some exceptions because
new moves are being added every single day
to Pokemon, but generally because you’ll
be using Barreskewda and it’s a water type,
you probably want to use the best water type
it has available. As we see right here…
B: And also, uh sorry, don’t just be fooled
by the good moves, like most of the time,
Double Edge is pretty bad.
P: Yes. Yes.
B: So it’s not a hard and fast but generally
here is where you’ll see the moves that
you’ll actually see other people using on
Barreskewda so like Liquidation and close
combat and psychic fangs.
P: Exactly, so as we already mentioned, LIquidation,
close combat, and psychic fangs and this has
a lot to do with the meta game as well. Close
Combat hits what Barreskewda is weak to Pharathorne.
Psychic fangs hits Toxapex, which liquidation
and Close combat don't hit, and again, I did
mention Dragapult being a Pokemon that is
resistant slash immune to Barreskewda’s
moves so this is kinda like the moves that
we do. And again, if you have trouble with
movesets, I am doing movesets on my channel.
Kevin’s also doing a whole lot of stuff
on his channel so feel free to subscribe.
Check out those movesets and what not. And
uh we basically have a Barreskewda, all we
have to think about is the --
B: I just wanted to mention for offensive
coverage, in general, then for anyone who’s
played end game, then you know, the golden
rule of, you know, the more the same type
of attack bonus you have, the better.
P: Yeah.
B: How can you go wrong with the best Flamethrower,
?????, but in competitive, generally that
won’t fly. So what you want to do is run
coverage, so the best example is a lot of
water types, in addition to running a water
move, will also run ice beam because that
lets the grass types that normally cover waters
and that’s another reason why type synergy,
which we’ll get to in just a second, is
not the only measure of a successful team
(Correct) because you can say, “Oh I have
a grass type. I’m ok against water types
and then water beam and then…”
P: Exactly, exactly, like if your grass type,
for example, is Appletin and that’s your
switch into water type, and like you said,
they ice beam, you know, you can die.
B: Yeah, it’s… Basically, it’s picking
good coverage. Another great example is the
age old coverage of electric and ice.
P: Yes.
B: ...because the only, the most common, uh,
resist to, uh, electric is ground and grass,
and ice hits both of those.
P: Correct.
B: And so then thunderbolt and ice beam is
a very famous combination known as Boltbeam
because they have such great coverage together,
so…
P: Exactly, uh, you have to have specific,
very specific dual typing in order to be even,
you know, yeah.
B: And it also depends on the POkemon’s
move pull of course. Like with Barraskudda,
you’re not going to see an ice move because
it doesn’t have access to good ice move
so instead it makes due with the coverage
it has. Like close combat for ferrothorn is
amazing because ferrothorn is not weak to
ice even though it’s grass because it’s
half steel so close combat lets it get the
leg up on it and so on and so forth.
P: Exactly, now in terms of item, we can actually
keep this slot blank and I actually tend to
do this a lot when I’m building because
it depends on the rest of the team, uh, but
items that come to mind on a very offensive
Pokemon, especially with the mechanics of
how Dynamaxing work are choice band and life
orb. I think those are the best items. You’re
not typically in leftovers on a non-Poke(??)
Pokemon like this because it doesn’t need
to recover, uh, and rocky helmet is used for
pivoting. I don’t need a focus sash necessarily
because I don’t want to have to worry about
getting rid of hazards so, and I don’t need
a choice band because I’m not running special
moves. We can put a choice band for not just
because it’s one of it’s best sets and
with the idea of dynamaxing is you can switch
up moves and get their secondary effects.
B: Yeah, with item choice, it can be pretty
simple most of the time. You don’t have
to overthink it. Like, if it’s an offensive
POkemon, boosting item will do fine. If it’s
a defensive Pokemon, it’s pretty hard to
go wrong with leftovers. (Exactly.) And another
thing that Joey mentioned about leaving things
blank, I know a lot of great players do this,
sometimes they have an idea for a team but
they don’t know how to fill it out, so they
put the POkemon in first and figure out the
movesets and items in later.
P: Exactly, and that’s something you definitely
do.
B: It’s not like… Don’t feel like you
have to come up with the moveset for each
Pokemon before you move on to the next one
because you don’t. The moveset for that
Pokemon could be completely dependent on a
teammate, like if you have Stealthrocker,
if you have a Taranatard, there’s no reason
you need stealth rocker on it if you’re
also going to be running stealth rock duranadon,
for example.
P: Correct. Exactly, and even in some cases,
if you find yourself, if you find one Pokemon
always having their stealth rock being gone
and you have a free moveset, you could run
double stealth rock. That is something that’s
right. (Yeah.) So, Barreskeda is a Pokemon
that functions under rain because of it’s
swift swim ability. Rain not only doubles
it speeds but uh strengthens its’ liquidation
so one Pokemon that’s in the meta game that
is very good at getting up rain because of
its ability is Pelipper. So this is typically
a combination that you’ll see very very
often. Drizzle basically gets up the rain
once the Pokemon comes in, meaning you can
start the game with Pelipper out doing things
so you can get Barreskewda in and it already
has its’ speed doubled and its’ attack.
B: Exactly, exactly and the nice thing about
Pelipper is that it has u-turn. (exactly.)
SO this is more about the non typing synergy
because, look, it terms of type synergy, Barreskewda
and pelipper are not going to do anything
whatsoever, right, because, I mean look, they’re
both weak to electric attacks and they don't
really resist anything for each other, but
the fact is Pelliper gets up rain and the
U-turns on the switch (Exactly.) and Barraskewda
is pretty frail but when Pelipper u-turns
then barreskewda comes in for free without
having the problem of its’ bulk.
P: Exactly, 100%. And again, because this
Pokemon benefits with rain, uh, there are
specific items for things like that and there
are specific items for sand, it’s called
smooth rock, for sun, it's called heat rock,
and for this, it’s called damp rock and
damp rock basically extends the turn of rain
and this will give our barreskewda the maximum
amount of turns possible to do damage and
B: There’s also icy rock for hail but don’t
use that ‘cause it’s bad.
P: Yeah I mean typically if you’re using
hail you’re using arodale(?) if anything
but um yeah. So pelipper is basically designed
to, it’s like a pivot, what we talked about
before with toxapex. It’s designed to come
in, take a hit, set up rain, and get in barreskewda
or
B: Exactly. tHis is not what it’s going
to be what you refer to as a wall so something
like corviknight which is just supposed to
switch into other Pokemon all day long and
never die or toxapex being another example,
but Pelipper is just bulky enough to take
some hits but you don’t wanna depend on
it too much. Yo uwanna get it in, get up the
rain, get out of there, and abuse the rain
because you are on the clock with it.
P: Exactly, and he already said a few great
options, but, um, uh, u-turn is really good
and that’s gonna be the main thing. Uh,
scald is a cool little offensive option because
pelipper doesn’t have the best special attack
but being boosted by rain and also being able
to potentially burn something is really nice,
um, and that’s a secondary effect that you
might think… How do I explain that to them
in terms of why I use scald?
B: Secondary effect? Well, so, think about
it like this, Pelipper needs a stab move right?
Because it’s not like it has much better
options
P: You don’t want to lose your pelipper
to a fire type because you can’t touch them.
B: Exactly, exactly, and that would be unbelievable
bad. It’s like, oh in theory, I should be
beating this pokemon but I don’t because
I don’t have a stab move. THis is not to
say every Pokemon needs a stab move but generally
Pelipper doesn’t have great options so you
may as well try and maximize the use you get
out of it. So scald is one way to do that
because look, surf or hydro pump are not going
to do anything to the walls that come in on
pelipper so with scald, then you can potentially
due something to them by burning them. (Yes.)
You’re new to their leftovers. (Exactly.)
And if you look more through Pelipper’s
move set, it’s not about being great on
its own, but it’s about getting gas much
use out of it as you can. (Exactly.) So common
ones here would be rouse so it stays alive,
(Longevity?) so you can get the rain up over
and over. And the next one is knock off. (Yup.)
Because knock off makes sure, even if they
have a wall, that walls Pelipper all day long,
then they won’t have leftovers so…
P: And, and, exactly, and to explain u-turn
knock off, because you might be thinking,
well Pelipper has 50 base attack, uh, why
are you using two physical moves? As he mentioned
before, it’s not always about doing damage,
it’s not about doing damage at all with
this Pokemon, but it’s about getting the
maximum utility out of ti. (Exactly.) And
that’s what scald does. Scald burns, u-turn
gives us a slow momentum, and knock off gets
rid of your item. Knock off is actually one
of the best moves in the game simply because
items are so important in Pokemon. Defensive
Pokemon and walls love their leftovers. A
lot of them do not have recovery outside of
leftovers so this is just a good way of wearing
down Pokemon. Like, uh, if i got rid of Ferrothorn
leftovers, for example, and i got spikes up,
right? And spikes what they do is they wear
you down upon entry that farathorne is no
longer in recovery, putting it in range of
maybe close combat from Barraskewda.
B: Exactly so utility is an important term
to learn cause on the one hand, you might
think well Pokemon is about doing damage and
this pokemon Pelipper doesn’t do any damage
but there are other ways to deal damage to
your opponent so uh u-turn and knock off are
not about KOing things, per say, but they
force situations that your other Pokemon can
take advantage of the little holes it's’
poked in its’ opponent.
J: Exactly, you get something in the term
or in the late game you get something out
of it.
B: Exactly. Exactly. Utility… There are
other Pokemon out there that use rapid spin,
right? And rapid spin is not used because
it’s really powerful because it’s not.
But what it does in getting rid of things
like stealth rock and spikes is really really
good so even though something like excadrill
has a lot of base attack, it does not use
rapid spin for coverage or the power. It uses
it because of its’ utility.
J: One hundred percent. And even then in rapid
drills case, it does give it a speed boost
but again extradril is not using it for that.
B: Exactly.
J: But yes, and again, when we talked about
like uh the meta game and that has a lot to
do with doing your EVs, as you can see Pelipper
has really high physical defense and Barraskewda
are running around. Funnily enough, Pelipper
is actually a nice little check to barreskewda.
And by check i mean it’s not a counter,
as in it won’t always be able to come in
and beat it but if it’s in, versus barraskewda
1v1 and you get a burn or you can roost off
damage, it’s something that can do it, so...In
previous generations…
B: You’re not immediately threatened by
it (Exactly.) and you might even be able to
switch into it.
J: Exactly. Exactly. And in previous generations
Pelipper might have ran especially defensive
because of a Pokemon like ash greninja but
that no longer exists. And again EV spreads
are typically dependent on the meta game itself.
So like if we scroll through what’s common
- Physical gyarados, you know Barraskewda,
uh Pokemon-
B: Darmanatan too.
J: Darmanatan. I think it’s best we do a
physically defensive one and we don’t always
need a very intricate, you know, EV spread.
B: Yeah, there are some players who never
go anything other than max max.
J: And there are some players like Kevin who
will give you EV spreads every single stat.
B: Look I’m, I mean sometimes I just do
it just because.
J: I know.
B: But look, the idea here is not just to
play to Pelipper’s strengths, but look at
its’ natural strengths with it’s stat
spread but look at the kind of set it’s
running. It’s not going to be using, it’s
not going to be doing that much damage with
those moves even with a ton of investment,
right? (Exactly.) So you may as well use bulk
on it. (Exactly.) Now a Pokemon like this,
uh, you should probably make that bold by
the way cause I don’t think…
J: I guess the extra boost doesn’t really
matter, yeah.
B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the speed is more
important because (Clefable.) it’s doing
pretty miserable damage anyway. Yeah, yeah.
That’s a big one actually. So this is an
example of knowing the metagame and knowing
the speed tiers you need to hit (Exactly.)
and knowing you’re not doing damage with
u-turn and knock off. THey’re really just
there to use as utility, but yeah the idea
here is get the most out of the pelipper,
you’re not going to be doing damage anyway
even if you made it absolute max special attack,
you wouldn’t. So you may as well get use
out of it and you invest in its’ physical
bulk because it’s naturally good and like
we said we’re looking as a meta game, it’s
going to cover some majorly important targets.
J: Yup. Now there’s multiple ways we can
do this but one thing that I think rain teams
have as a staple is Ferrothorn. And the reason
I'm matching ferrothorn is because it’s
basically the electric and grass resist that
rain teams can depend on. Because rain teams
turns a rainer finite, uh, there’s usually,
while it says eight turns, that’s usually,
that’s not, that’s not true at all. You
have to get in the Pokemon and then after
that your opponent will switch and they’ll
take advantage of it. Typically a rain team
will have a pivot besides Pelipper and that’s
usually Ferrothorn. And ferrothorn is actually
pretty key for this too because it’s nice
to deal with the electric types, the grass
types running around, and also provides hazard
support as well. So that’s kind of why a
lot of Pokemon, and a lot of rain teams in
itself, in this one in particular, will have
staples, whereas…
B: Yeah, I’ll be right back. I just want
to say before I go for a minute, is that Ferrothorn,
you might think well this is supposed to be
an offensive team that, with Barreskewda,
right, now you have a defensive Pelipper,
and a defensive ferrothorn, and the fact of
the matter is yeah sometimes you do want to
go fast offense but you’re not always going
to blitz through everything and sometimes
you are going to be… you are going to need
to fall back defensively against something
you can’t muscle through or that you can't
out run. Ferrothorn covers a lot. (Exactly.)
I mean, I know, in an ideal world, all offense
teams are 6 pack pokemon but Ferrothorn does
some really necessary stuff and you’ll notice
if you take off your rain team, you’ll start
struggling with things that you normally don’t
do with Ferrothorn. Ok I’ll be back in a
minute.
J: Ok no problem. But yeah guys, we’ll continue
in one sec. Ok, we’re back guys. So as we
mentioned, Ferrothorn is the next Pokemon.
Now um the thing that makes rain as I mentioned
before, different than other offensive teams
that might just depend on six Pokemon setting
up is that rain functions under rain, for
the most part, right? Now barraskewda is obviously
strong and fast, and that’s why Kevin was
mentioning why sometimes you are going to
have to depend on that defensive Pokemon to,
to, to make your team function well. And that’s
Ferrothorn for rain. Now, uh, what Ferrothorn
also provides for the team is, if we just
look at the moveset, is Stealth Rock and Stealth
Rock is one of the most important moves, if
not the most important move in the game. They
are guaranteed damage upon an opponent whenever
they switch in and especially in singles where
in singles switching is very very prevalent.
This is important. They also help you -
B: This is, sorry.
J: Go head.
B: Um, yeah so, what separates competitive
from in game is that in game trainer you’re
facing even if it was a member of the elite
four, they would just keep Garados in as you
thunderbolted it and that’s why eventually
you’re like well this isn’t so fun anymore
I just keep beating everyone cause they don’t
switch out and then when you play competitive
then you play someone else and they actually
start switching, and you might fear to think,
“Well duh” and, it’s… that’s the
reason why you should understand that stealth
rock is so key because some people might say
well switching is cheap, well why wouldn’t
anyone switch forever and the reason is obviously
because you can’t take damage forever from
teams that are actually dishing it out but
stealth rock even means you don’t even have
to take damage from an attack to take damage
and it shapes viability a lot. Like imagine
darmanitan didn’t take 25% of its health
every time it switches in. It would just come
in over and over and spam its’ attacks so
entry hazards are important because they give
you… Just by one turn of investment, they
give you a lot of protection against really
dangerous Pokemon, and I mean sometimes you
might think, “Oh 12% that’s not a lot”
and let me tell you, I have seem Pokemon games
won on infitesmial- I said that word wrong,
unbelievably small percentages and if 12.5%
that that stealth rock does to its’ initial
target is huge. It is absolutely enormous.
Even just the 6% that gets cancelled out by
leftovers… Cancelling out something’s
leftovers on the switch can be the difference
between it surviving that second attack or
not. (Exactly.) So, the basic rule of thumb,
ever since gen four, at least use stealth
rock. THe other hazards, spikes, T spikes,
uh, toxic spikes, and sticky web, those are
more specific because they don’t hit everything.
THey only hit grounded Pokemon, but unless
the opposing Pokemon has the magicard ability,
or the item heavy duty boost, then it will
get hit by stealth rock even a little and
that is really important so use stealth rock.
J: Yup.
B: You will be happy to.
J: One hundred percent. Now ferrothorn typically
functions in one sort of way, no matter what
you're using, whether it be an offensive ferrothorn
or defensive ferrothorn, you’re typically
gonna maximize your HP that way you maximize
your bulk overall. Like regardless of where
you put your investment in defense and special
defense, Ferothorn is going to maximize its’
HP because its’ designed to take a hit.
And that’s it. That’s literally what Ferrothorn
is designed to do. Now in terms of what we
want to do, we want to go back to what we
were talking about with the metagame. Ferothorn
is a good check to a POkemon like Barreskewda.
Where Barreskewda has good close combat, if
you threaten it, Ferothorn can still naturally
take a hit and also potentially threaten it
back with something like power whip. Um, other
options that you look at with Ferothorn that
you’ll commonly see run, and again this
is what is commonly run, and you’ll realize
this while you’re playing, is gyro ball
because of Ferrothorn’s low speed and gyro
ball being um based on its’ damage done,
based on Ferrothorn’s speed and even Ferrothorn
having really nice attack so it can actually
get away with running these options. And in
a dynamax metagame Pokemon like Ferrothorn
becomes incredibly bulky as well. So it can
take hits for the team.
B: Yeah, like earlier today, I was playing
a Hacksaurus, and I also had a rain team,
and Hacksaurus runs over everything else because
it has dragon dance and so I can’t even
outspeed it or KO it and I’m really thankful
I had Ferrothorn in that scenario because
it stands in its way and it stops it from
completely sweeping me. (Exactly.) And that
kind of stuff is really important and a Pokemon
like Hacksaurus and Barraskewda being able
to take close combat in a pinch. That might
affect our decision on which EV spread to
invest in because traditionally when Ferrothorn
invests in bulk, then it goes with special
defense because most of the time, most grass,
water, and electric attacks, and dragon attacks,
and draco meteor, those are usually special
(Yes.) so Ferrothorn uses its’ special defense
but in this meta game where Berroskewda is
such a big threat and it’s using its’
attack stat, maybe you say hey i need physical
defense on this Ferrothorn (Exactly.) especially
since, let’s say something special like
Dragapult, that, its’ special attack is
not so enormous that if you don’t have max
special defense, suddenly you can’t take
its’ draco meteor and you’re going to
die in a fire blast and it hits you with it
regardless. So, that kind of thing.
J: Exactly. So when we’re going with that,
we’re gonna go with that defensive nature.
Now our uh defensive type is Ferrothorn. I
completely agree, especially because this
Pokemon is already running around, yes we
have Pelipper to maybe take a hit in a pinch
but the big thing is Ferrothorn is our answer
to water type attacks. Ferothorn is our answer
to ice type attacks, uh, electric type attacks
coming out, and for the most part, in the
meta game, the most common water type attacks
are coming from a physically offensive barreskewda.
SO again, we will be running a physically
defensive Ferothorn and again these Evs are
pretty, you can, in a more advanced team building
guide, and when you figure out what you want
to check you might use a damage calculator.
Now I’ll show you real quick what a damage
calculator is. Um ,just to show. But basically,
you go to the damage calculator and I put
in Ferrothorn real quick and maybe I’ll
put in UU showdown usage really quick and
this is a standard old school Ferrothorn and
let’s say I wanna see how much abomasnow
blizzard does if it has max special attack,
again, I'm Doing this really quickly because
this isn’t what we’re focusing on right
now, so I wanna see how much blizzard does
if it has max special attack. It does 30 to
33, 36%. I don’t like that it has a 56%
chance to 3HKO me, I wanna make that under
50% so I put max and not it has a 0% chance
to 3HKO. This is also a Ferroseed by the way
not a Ferrothorn,
B: Yeah so a common thing you might mention
we just said how important Stealth Rock was
and that’s why in the damage calc you might
see the option 6.3% chance to 1 hit KO after
stealth rock so you can do things like give
yourself that chance or you might say no I
wanna always survive this hit after stealth
rock. (Exactly.) You can play around with
your EVs that way.
J: Exactly and this site is linked down below.
It’s called pokemonshowdown.com. I have
a guide to it linked down below as well if
this does sound a little bit confusing. But
as mentioned, we do want to be able to deal
with Barraskewda so options like Power Whip
come to mind, it’s incredibly strong btu
it does have the drawback of missing, but
typically it is seen because it also deals
with other very big threat in the metagame
and that’s gyarados.
B: Mmhmm. I just want to mention again uh
how being aware of the metagame can change
this EV spread like for all we know, next
week, Ferrothorn will be running max special
defense (Yup.) because of whatever might rise
up and an example is generation six and omega
ruby and alpha sapphire, then for a long time
clefable was running a calm nature and barely
enough uh defense to not be 2 hit KOed by
Mega lopunny return and eventually people
were using more and more, using it to take
more and more physical attacks from things
like Gliscor and people eventually used more
and more defense on clefable until eventually
it was running no special defense at all (Yup.)
and it was running max defense. And then of
course it shifted back to running more special
defense on Mega Alakazam. The point is that
it can really change depending on what’s
popular in the meta game. For example, when
Glisgore is really popular then Clefable might
run a lot of defense, but when Mega Alakazam
start popping up, alongside other things,
then you might start running some more special
defense.
J: Exactly.Exactly. And even your moves might
change as well.
B: Exactly. That’s another one.
J: Clefable might run IceBeam.
B: Yeah, yeah, like for Gliscor, then you’re
not really Gliscor counter if you don’t
have ice beam, and when you’re running Calm,
then you’re not really countering Gliscor.
So the need for Ice Beam goes down and you
can run things like Thunderwave and Flame
Thrower and what not.
J: Exactly. So, again we talked about Ferrothorn
and he actually mentioned Hacksaurus, which
is actually a pretty… Dragon types are very
scary as well, for rain teams too. Especially
because we’re not really running any coverage
for it so gyro Ball especially with Ferrothorn’s
low speed is something we’ll be running
and the last move is really interesting. You
might, in previous generations, you might
have seen Leechseed a lot on Ferrothorn but
a lot of times you’re going to see Knock
Off right now just because of what’s prevailing
in the meta game and that’s age slash. And
getting rid of aegislash (??) is leftovers
or um getting rid of anything’s items, getting
rid of something's heavy duty boots for example,
heavy duty boots is an item that prevents
hazard damage. So getting rid of that could
be really good too but we can really run anything
on this last move on Ferrothorn, and honestly
KEvin, it’s really up to you.
B: Yeah, the team I had earlier has body press
and I don’t know what it’s for -
J: IT’s basically to hit opposing Ferrothorn
for the most part.
B: I think knocking off other Ferrothorn isn’t
necessary.
J: The body press is based on defense so it
makes sense why you didn’t want to have
it.
B: Oh, it’s based on your own defense stat
and base power?
J: Exactly. Yes.
B: Oh, I thought it was, uh, cause it’s
base 80, but I thought it was used, uh, your
own defense stat as the opponent’s, kind
of like Side Shock? So I thought why does
Ferrothorn want to use it? Don’t you want
something with awful defense?
J: I just think it uses it, it says using
it in the calculations so I know even if you
boosted its’ defense, it gets even stronger.
B: That’s awesome. Well another thing you
can run on Ferrothorn is Spikes for even more
Hazard. SO i mean that makes Barreskewda even
scarier because think about the fact that
a lot of Pokemon that take Barreskewda already
doing so by the skin of your teeth. You add
spikes on to it and suddenly that KO threshold
is pushed over the edge.
J: Yup, so I mean we can go with this. I don’t
see, I don’t think we lose anything with
this. Again on defensive Pokemon, leftovers
Rocky Helmet are very common, maybe a Chople
Berry because we want Ferrothorn to be able
to take a fighting type of attack from Berraskewda
or --
B: Yeah, that would be a game changer. Resist
berries are very useful so earlier we talked
about how some teams aren’t going to have
great counter support Pokemon and with rain
then you’re not going to be too defensively
sound given Barreskewda doesn really counter
anything. Pelipper’s not much better. So
in that case you might use something like
a resist berry to take away a Pokemons ability
to KO you uh so there are a million examples
you can think of here but Chople Berry Ferrothorn
to make sure you can always survive barraskewda
and safely check it is a great example.
J: Yep and we could ran that on this. We don’t
have… Meh, might as well. I don’t see
a --
B: This is the kind of thing that you’re
kind of like, “Well I’m not sure so I”m
going to start with this and I’ll see how
it does and if I find myself wishing, aw man
I wish I had leftovers or something, then
you can switch it.”
J: Exactly. Now -
B: Experience is really the best teacher.
J: MmmHmm. Now because we’re running stealth
rock and spike, one thing we might wanna go
from here is what else can we use to support
Beraskewda? Support doesn’t always mean
a defensive POkemon. Like, if Beraskewda is
breaking through Ferrothorn, there are other
Swift Swim Pokemon that appreciate that. Uh,
some that come to mind is ludicolo ?, eh,
not so much ludicolo, maybe Dreadknot, which
is a new Pokemon in the game, that has uh
Sword Dance, Stone age, Earthquake, Liquidation
as well which also appreciates the Swift Swim
um and it’s just like something you can
do to keep going through -
B: Generally with rain then it’s kinda self
explanatory in so far as you want to use fast
throwing water moves so Swift Swim is the
most obvious example of that but even last
generation then nearly every good rain team
used Ashgraninja (?) which is just a really
naturally fast strong water type that abused
rain so uh looking at the Swift Swim options
here then you’ve got Qwilfish, Mantine,
Ludicolo, and kind of some unimpressive guys
but other than Barraskewda, Drednaw would
be the main one, so…
J: Yup and I think -
B: And Drednaw’s also nice because it has
Swords Dance so you can really muscle past
defensive --
J: Exactly. Exactly. And I think Drednaw’s
a cool one in general so we’re actually
are going to put a Drednaw on. Um, Swords
Dance, Stone Edge, I don’t really --
B: Waterfall is a super power I think.
J: Yeah, well it gets uh Liquidation.
B: Uh, yeah.
J: We could put Super Power. We can also put
Earthquake for Toxapex which is something
that Barreskewda --
B: Well uh here’s my reasoning for preferring
Stone Edge is because with uh STone Edge you're
already hitting Toxapex with --
J: Really hard.
B: And without superpower, you’re not getting
past Ferrothorn. I mean Berraskewda’s pretty
strong, uh Berraskewda, uh Drednaw is pretty
strong but I would not rely on it to beat
Ferrothorn with an unstable or earthquake.
J: And that’s completely fine and honestly
if we dynamax it we don’t even have to lower
our stats in -
B: Yeah. Exactly. And can’t Drednaw G max
too?
J: It can but it’s gigantamax move sets
up stealth rock whereas this Drednaw’s liquidation
sets up rain which might be a little bit better.
B: Ok. Ok.
J: However, we could go Spikes Ferrathorn
and Giganta Max Drednaw.
B: Hmm. That sounds kinda dope. I”m not
sure how reliable that would be. We would
have to test it, but now we could probably
just say you know put it both on Ferrothorn
so your support Pokemon does your support
and your offensive Pokemon does, do as much
offense as can -
J: Yeah exactly and if you find yourself,
and again this is why you test, if you find
yourself figuring, “Hmm, Ferrathorn gets
Spikes easier but Stealth Rock isn’t as
easy for me as well to keep up and Spikes
has been picking up more KOs on grounded Pokemon,
maybe,” er and saying, “Hey, I'm tired
of age slash coming in and getting a kill,”
or “Its’ leftovers is really annoying
with King Shield,” maybe you’ll take off
Stealth Rock and put Knock Off and maybe you’ll
use Giganta max Drednaw for those Stealth
Rock on its’ offensive move, but…
B: Yeah like i used a lot of rain in Gen 7
cause it was a lot of fun and a constant point
of debate was should my mega swampert have
stealth rock or not (Yes.) and there really
isn't a definitive answer. I personally thought
it was awesome but there was some players
who swore they never waste Stealth Rock on
offense- on Mega Swampert
J: Correct, correct, because it’s a Pokemon
that thrives off getting off KOs and you have
limited turns to do so. It’s similar to
running Stealth Rock on Mamaslam.
B: But neither of us were correct or incorrect
because the way I like to use it was, look
there are sometimes you’re going to have
that Tengrove and what Swamper does it’s
going to be walled by it and I don't want
to have everything on Ferrothorn and Swamper
gets plenty of opportunity so when I”m going
to be walled by something, let me set up Stealth
Rock and I’m still able to use my Swamper
so … Buut that was the way I liked to do
it. (Exactly.) So… and it depends on the
team. You know, you can change the movesets
depending on how you want to play it. (Exactly.)
So this Drednaw, Ferrathorne synergy would
be an example so uh this is not a hard and
fast rule. Generally once you get to the fourth
or so member, then you wanna check what you’re
weak to but you don’t want to always defensively
react to something. For example, when you’re
making an offensive team you don’t suddenly
say, “Aw man, I’m weak to insert pokemon”
and just slap on a random counter to that
Pokemon, so that’s how you get like a clunky
disjointed team because for a good team to
function it needs to be a team, it needs to
function as a unit, otherwise, people would
just slap on the strongest Pokemon and call
it a day and see what happens so the best
teams that are meant to work together. (Correct.)
So uh here you would say, I’m not sure what
this team would be weak to at this point,
but you would find one of these Pokemon, you
would find how to deal with it while still
being offensive (Correct) Because that’s
the point of a team.
J: One thing that we’re actually decently
weak to is electric type attacks but the thing
is electric type of Pokemon in the meta game
are pokemon we outspeed with our Swift Swim
users and it’s something that we can actually
deal with, uh…
B: Can Ferrathorne beat the electrics in the
metagame?
J: Uh, Ferrathorne if it’s not, presently
not running leftovers, it expects Boom Burst
from Toxitricity does 40%.
B: Toxitricity is the coolest Pokemon. Oh,
ok! So yeah you might want some back up, not
let’s say 5 Pokemon killed by electric and
then a Ferrathorne.
J: Correct. Basically and even then, something
we also kind of struggle with, you know Hydregones
for instance. Now we do deal with it offensively
but in this position, we don’t.
B: We don’t have a good switch into it.
Generally, when you have a weakness to a Pokemon,
what you’re looking for is a way to switch
into it and then be able to respond on your
own way, because, look, you’re never going
to be able to fully counter everything, like
the a sense that Chancy permanently counters
Ash Greninja you will not have that luxury
for every pokemon. They’re just too strong,
but what you do want is a way to swish, swish,
switch into that hypothetical Ash Greninja
and respond somehow. SO in this case we would
want to find a way to switch into Toxicitrity,
and, or be able to respond in someway without
having to sacrifice Pelabrew, let’s say,
cause that’s not ideal.
J: You’re right. Correct. It’s actually
a little bit hard, considering that Mon has
Boom Burst, Sludge Raven, and Overdrive so
Ferrathorne would probably be your number
one answer, but also maybe potentially stopping
it from running, from clicking THunderBolt,
versus us, is all.
B: Could we give Dragapult a try?
J: Yeah, exactly. I was actually thinking
about that too. Now the reason I like Dragapult
as well is because not only is it immune to
the, uh, not only is it immune to the BoomBUrst,
it resists the electric type attack and the
Sludge WAve but it also benefits from Pokemon
like Berraskewda and Drednaw breaking through
walls, like literally wall breaking them.
A dragapult is something that can make use
of the rain and the spikes and stealth rock
that Ferrathorne does and I like that because
basically Kevin hit the nail on the head,
it’s an offensive option that doesn’t
disrupt the flow of the team but also abuses
with the team.
B: You got… With the addition of Dragapult,
you have a ton of offensive pressure from
the two Swift Swimmers and now what I assume
is a gonna be a choice specs pokemon, um and
it’s naturally fast, not dependent on rain
which gives you some breathing room. (Correct.)
Your team isn’t totally gimped if Pelabird
can’t do something so I don’t.. Oh it
has Hydropump! Itcan use the rain. (Correct.)
You can even threaten Ferrathorne with Fire
Blast outside of rain which as far as I know
its’ last move isn’t that important. I
mean I guess-
J: Do you remember the last time, this is
a little memory, do you remember the last
time a dragon in the rain used Fire Blast
on a four times v Pokemon?
B: Um, was it when Chimpex’s Fire blast
used um…
J: No, it was when I played…
B: Oh you’re referring to your Garchomp
against my Porachurzzz
J: When I did the tyber trick
B: Yeah, technically that happened, that was
not the last time…
J: Ok you’re right, you’re right. That
was decades ago. But yeah, going forward…
B: It will have actually been a decade ago.
J: Almost.
B: Yeah well the idea with Dragapult is that
it gives you nice resistant to electric and
grass and it keeps up offensive pressure.
I mean look, it’s not a wall at all but
sometimes just being able to respond with
a faster Pokemon can be huge. So for example
sometimes in Sun and Moon, which will hopefully
be in most players’ heads, but let’s just
say I cannot counter the opposing Grinininja
but what I can do is after I sacrifice something
to the opposing Greninja is send in my Tapu
koko and suddenly im responding to offense
myself so I have to give something up. I had
to sacrifice something, no way around that,
but then I was able to respond to my own offense.
(Exactly.) So Dragapult is going to be able
to take, let’s be honest, one hit max if
you really need him to, but what Dragapult
is notably going to do is after you sacrifice
something, you're forced to, respond with
serious offense.
J; exactly and one thing I also want to note
is in terms of what Is aid I was worried about
which was Hydragone especially if I substitute
Hydragone is because I doubt Pelipper breaks
the substitute with u-turn is Dragapult synergizes
really well with Pelipper going for U-turn
becauses it has the infiltrator ability. The
infiltrator lets it go through screens as
well as substitutes. So if a Hydragone goes
for substitute --
B: Oh that is so cool.
J: Exactly.
B: That, that is some beautiful synergy, sorry
I’m geeking out a little bit.
J: No, I was realizing it as we were doing
it. I was like yeah this is so cool because
if Pelipper goes for U-turn as hydragone goes
for sub, I bring out Dragapult I drop a draco
and uh or I go for Draco Meteor excuse me,
and uh heh heh heh We’re trying to be as
-
B: How unprofessional.
J: Heh heh heh.
B: But yeah, that’s the idea. I mean you
aren’t ever going to switch Dragapult directly
into any Hydreigon move, besides Flash Can
I guess, but if you get it in, even if it’s
got a sub, you are threatening it with offense.
J: Exactly. And I like as well that Pelipper
vibes908 rain which has a stronger move like
thunder is 100% accurate over thunderbolt.
So look -
B: Dragapult gets thunder?
J: Yeah.
B: Oh. Cool.
J: Exactly, I mean this is something we could
run. And of course we could run Fire Blast
because we are going to be running specs as
well or we could be cool and run hydro pump
but if we look at the meta game itself and
we actually have two strong water moves I
don’t think we necessarily need Hydro Pump.
B: Yeah I guess the question Iw ould ask is
what checks Dragapult generally>
J: Um and from that I would prefer Corganight
which is why I like thunder a lot, um Ferrothorn
with Gyroball uh Dynamax physically offensive
Pokemon as well. SO like a spec’s dragalpult
is actually really really good because Shadowbolt
is really tough for most of those Pokemon
to switch into.
B: Yeah, I like that a lot. Plus this, this
might be a little advanced, I dunno, maybe
I’m just not giving our listeners enough
credit but basically uh if you’re running
a rain team and the trainer has a Tyranitar
then that gets in the way cause they can instantly
remove your rain with sand and what dragapult
does is it attracts the tyranitar a lot and
it damages it really hard so what you could
do is abuse that and that means your raid
is easier to get up.
J: Exactly. And also…
B: Hard to beat around the battle, rather.??
J: Exactly and also because Pursuit sounds
not exist in this generation Tyranitar I mean
Dragapult could actually repeatedly do the
same thing (Exactly.) people come and weaken
it so what are we thinking about the last
move then? Hydro Pump in that case or Fire
Blast? Which is outside of rain.
B: Uh, I think… I think Fire Blast might
not be too bad. And I know this seems uh contradictory
because we’re a rain team we’re using
fire moves but you’re not always going to
have the option of that fire move (exactly).
I just think, I don’t see Hydropump being
too useful, I mean look maybe we get into
a game and then we start thinking Wow I really
wish I had that but fireblast is going to
scare Ferrothorn in the rain so it’s not
a bad tool to have.
J: Especially because they’re all running
physically defensive for Berraskewda.
B: Exactly, exactly, so I mean look, if we
test this team out or if someone tests this
team out and says Hey I really liked Hydropump
you should consider it then yeah but for nw
yeah fireblast. Hydro Pump I think the only
real reason to use it to get a better hit
on ttump,...? (Exactly.) Fireblast is fine.
J: And draco meteor can do a lot. Now and
we’ve already mentioned we want to use choice
specs, we mentioned why we want to use infiltrator,
why we picked that ability, we mentioned why
we want the speed because we want something
that immediately threatened Pokemon that are
faster than pelipper and ferrathorne which
is a lot of metagame um but now the last set
is really interesting because this is same
thing, how do we want to cover this, obviously
an electric type of Pokemon is still annoying
because it can click on an electric type of
attack, free versus us so a ground type could
come to mind.
B: The biggest one is Volt Switch because
it gets very -
J: Exactly and Rotom is very common and we
don't actually like switching to rodom .
B: Yeah so i think, does Rotom still have
J: It does. It doesn't have pain split.
B: So the options are really a ground type
that hydro pump which is not common, which
is one reason why Rotom is so good. The other
option is something with volt absorb.
J: Yes.
B: So.
J: So, it’s a little bit tough again here
because like for example a sizeton might come
to mind because it blocks the volt absorb
but if we're using swift swim then obviously
-
B: It gets crushed by Hydro.
J: exactly.
B: And if you’re suing water absorb it's
just a slow wall so
J: This is a really hard turn so we might
have to choose like…
B: Rodom is always going to be annoying for
rain so sometimes you’re just gonna have
to bite the bullet and say you know what it’s
gonna be obnoxious but what rain has done
against Rodom since gen 5 is basically you
know you grin and bear it, you send in Ferrothorn
over and over and wait for it to get worn
down by stealth rock and eventually in the
late game you wear it down. It’s ugly but
it’s one of the few things standing between
you and sweeping with one of your many rain
abusers. So I w9udl say in this last slot,
generally we seem to have most things covered
somewhat decently (Yup) so I would say another
dragapult type POkemon in the sense that it
might have some nice defensive attributes
but it would also want to provide some type
of offense. THat is what we're trying to do
here.
J: Correct. So uh something like that um if
we’re actually thinking bout dragapult type
pokemon specifically is um aegislash lives
on literally every team
BL Aegislash is just your you know kinda catch
all i’m good on offense I’m good on defense
so I’ll do whatever you need me to. YOu
can never really go wrong with aegislash.
J: another little option that could be very
fun too is um, kind of like an out it doesn't
have to necessarily like dragapult in particular
but one mon that comes to mind and also stops
Pokemon from going for uh dragon type attacks
is haterene could be cool and a trick offensive
one because it benefits from spikes as well,
it benefits from this breaking through everything
so that’s also an option. Um and it’s
basically like the reverse dragapult route.
It’s the same thing but uhhhh?ELKJ but of
course that might not synergize well with
the rest of the team, however if you go back
to the meta game we love to PO you bronze
run the trickery room and not necessarily
synergize anything else but…
B: THe reasonI like hattarene here is blocks
toxipex’s toxic spikes (exactly) and right
now we hate…
J: Yeah right now we have no hazard control,
exactly.
B: It sets em up so I think hattarene is a
good choice, cause i mean look defog and rapid
distribution is not great, you can’t put
extradril on every team but hattarene it helps
in that department and it’s a great toxapex
switch so I think it’s a way to go and it
provides some good offense too. (Exactly)
Generally bulking up to take a hit.
J: Yup, and we can run -
B: And it's a good gmax candidate i think
J: uhhh
B: if we wanna go that route?
J: What is it’s gmax move do? And this is
something where it’s ok to look things up.
B: Something weird and doubles I dunno
J: Theres no way it’s something weird and
doubles I'm actually gonna look it up real
quick on something but I do agree with hattarene
I dunno if you wanna look at it’s moveset
real quick? Um but again the magic balance
is pretty cool
B: and it’s offensive so but it still got
tons of utility so generally I think it’s
gonna be fine
J: yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. Let me
look what it’s gmax move actually ends up
doing.
B: uh it inflicts confusion on the target.
J: alright that’s fine (Sure, yeah take
it) that is completely fine so unfortunately
this Pokemon does not learn boom blast
B: oh yeah I know it only does dazzle and
flame but hey it gets healing wind. That might
be uh really nice
J I actually kind of like that uh we don’t
need to run mystical fire necessarily we have
for ferrothorn
B: Hm yeah i think you would run through some
trick room stabs and then healing wish
J exactly so maybe dazzling gleam and as you
mentioned stab because we can breathe through
ferrothorn with the combination of hazards
uh superpower oh by the way just to explain
evs on this thing, because it’s a bald offensive
mon their guest spread is completely fine
whether it be attomin or jolly that’s something
we can test as well and we should probably
use a life orb just as an offensive mon uh
but yeah I kind of actually like this team.
The other option over this is also running
mystical fire too
B: I’m not sure about that, I think that
might be overkill.
J: Yeah I agree, I agree. Yeah so again you’d
go something like this, like a maybe…
B: I think this team would need uh to be a
little aggressive in handling Excadrill (Correct.)
but does Extradrill run rock slide in this
gen?
J: It sometimes can run that but we can definitely
pivot between Pelliper and Ferrothorn if we
-
B: Oh in ferrothorne’s max defense it should
be fine.
J: Exactly.
B: So that would be an example of not having
a counter to a threat but between pivoting
around it and having offense then you can
respond and kind of play your own game.
Correct correct. And uh I actually really
like the team I don't know what, how we wanna
run an item on this. We could run life orb.
We could run something to boost our dazzling
gleam uh you know pixie plate type of thing
and that might be a little bit better in terms
of hitting I dunno something in the tier that’s
hard
T tar probably
Yeah t tar just for a little bit of psychic,
extra psychic a dazzle glean damage. We could
also run mind play and boo psychic, going
for psychic does create psychic terrain so
that is an option as well. Over it, but yeah.
These are some otpinos over…
Yeah that’s the kind of thing where there;s
not really a correct answer
Yeah
Say leftovers just so it doesn’t get worn
down by a scarf or something
And I like that too I actually kinda like
that too because we have nothing that really
can repeatedly like if we wanted to repeatedly
switch into uhhh toxapex as we do this probably
gives it its best chance. And ummm yea we’re
giving it max special attack so we can threaten
Pokemon like toxapex it does have trick room
to be offensive but also providing defensive
synergy for the team in magic bounce bouncing
back the hazards and also healing wish to
bring back our it means we can play maybe
to the point where drednaw is at 1 hp switch
is it back out and then healing wish is something
like that could happen. And it also works
really well too cuz its like you said rain
isn't always gonna be up so drednaw might
actually be slower than a lot of the offensive
threats running around so maybe we can trick
room and then have drednaw sweep under trick
room so there's just a whole lot of options
here.
Yea so this is the kinda team where all your
eggs are not just in one basket cuz you have
your rain options but you also have your draagapult
and your hatterene umm uh multiple spikes
soooo uh since spikes can be used multiple
times sooo uhh you have options on how you
can play on any given game cuz some games
it's just gonna be alright lemme get up rain
and then im gonna ko everything but other
games you’re gonna have to be like alright
well i gotta use my hatterene to win this
one so.
Exactly and guys if you do wanna see this
team in motion i will be using it tomorrow
in a showdown live cuz i am actually doing
featuring barraskewda tomorrow so that's kinda
why i also wanted to do this. We are at actually
at a little bit over an hour kevin so maybe
we can just yea so maybe we can just actually
continue with a different team another time
in the more advanced guide and guys so umm
we uh the a lot of this was spent talking
before we actually did things to give you
you know a general idea of how you can teambuild
well we did build one particular style of
team there are so many out there so i think
what we said is you can take into account
while building those teams. Right mmmhhh i
agree yea.
So thank you everybody for watching uhh check
out kevin bkc obviously you guys can hear
he knows what he’s talking about uhh his
channel will be linked bown below do you have
anything you want to say to them
Ummmmmmmmmmmm really just look at the best
players are using so in this case the highest
rated players on the ladder try to figure
out why it is those teams work if you watch
their battles it shouldn't be hard and try
it out for yourself. I mean a lot of great
players do nothing but copy other people’s
teams and i don't advise doing that but uhhh
it's a great way to get started so you really
know what's popular and whats good so cuz
it can look daunting because there is a lot
of Pokemon that are potentially used but once
you know alright uhhh dragapult is a top threat
aegislash is a top threat and so on. Then
it becomes a lot more simplified.
Exactly oh wow so to give you a short version
uhhhhhmmmm experience one hundred percent
one hundred percent and again things like
i like to do is I leave my teams in the description
so you guys can try them out as well uhh which
is probably what I'll be doing with this as
well after I record with it and yea so i think
that's about it. There's nothing wrong with
taking other peoples teams i almost exclusively
take other peoples teams if im not building
and ive had plenty of success in tournament
but uhhh but then I also will sometimes occasionally
will and that's also based on experience
Thank you everybody for watching feel free
to use subscribe for like if you do have questions
i feel like i’ve raised the community up
with enough you don't really need me to answer
but someone should be able to do it for you
but if not i'll do my best to answer. Subscribe
to kevin one hundred percent though uh he
has a ton of great content coming out and
we’ll see you guys next time goodbye
Later guys.
