The team is basically the same as that discussed
here, but with some changes to Eelektross. First, I've switched Eelektross's item from Life Orb to Assault Vest. The Eel's first purpose is tanking hits, while dealing respectable damage is (though important) secondary. Life Orb gets this backwards, and notably weakens my play against bulky (or healing) foes, which can require several attacks to bring down, resulting in excessive recoil.
I've also replaced Discharge with Thunderbolt. Discharge sounds great, being a STAB spread attack that Camerupt is immune to, but sadly, it hasn't pulled its weight. First, it's weak. With the spread attack penalty, Discharge deals only 2/3 as much damage as does Thunderbolt, which is really problematic when it's particularly important to KO one of the foes. Too often I was falling just short of KOs with Discharge that Thunderbolt would have achieved. Second is that Discharge doesn't play well with Dusknoir. When I first imagined the team, my thought was that Camerupt would be my first Pokemon in after Aron fainted in almost every battle, and that Eelektross would usually enter battle only when Camerupt was already in play. But in practice, this wasn't the case. I bring in Eelektross as a conservative switch a lot more often now, especially when I'll need to reset Trick Room the following turn or when I risk switching into a powerful spread move like Earthquake. In such a situation, its really awkward to have your STAB move also hurt Dusclops. The final issue was the high paralysis chance. Paralyzing foes can occasionally let them move first under Trick Room, and in the event Dusknoir is still in, getting paralyzed by Discharge means a chance of it not moving. Over a long streak, this sort of thing could and would bite me, so I made the switch to Thunderbolt
The basic idea of the team is simple. Using Eppie's rather fantastic Aron-abuse combo of Dusclops and Aron, it's usually quite easy to set up Trick Room while the foes attack into a Protecting Aron. From there, Aron can critically wound foes with Endeavor, and Dusclops can pick them off with either Night Shade or Brick Break. When Aron dies, Camerupt can replace it, and usually finish of the battle with an absurdly powerful Eruption or one of its coverage moves.
Lots of things can interfere with this basic plan, however. First turn freezes, confuses, or spread attack flinches can prevent Dusclops from setting up Trick Room. So can OHKO users that decide to attack Dusclops rather than Aron. Endeavor is useless against Ghost-types. Priority attacks can shorten the number of turns Aron can survive to lure and Endeavor things. Protect can cost me a turn of Trick Room time while letting one of the opponents freely beat on Aron. Powerful spread attacks can sometimes wear down Dusclops, even with its tremendous bulk, while also dispatching Aron. Mold Breaker and multi hit attacks break through Sturdy. Hail breaks Sturdy and Berry Juice. Evasion boosters can cause untimely misses. Flame Body and Static can break Sturdy and cause me to miss turns to full paralysis. A Sitrus berry allows certain foes to survive a post-Endeavor Night Shade or Brick Break. And so on, and so on... Thankfully, even with all the things that can go wrong, the team is durable enough to handle most of them. So long as Trick Room is up, even if Aron is defeated, Camerupt can muscle through a ton of foes. Eelektross is a nice bulky catch all, and is very hard to take down, particularly with special attacks. Even without Trick Room support, Eelketross can trade attacks with many foes and come out on top.
There aren't too many fancy tricks with the team, as the basic synergies are pretty self-explanatory, but on a battle-by-battle basis, I'm almost sure that much of the time, I'm playing the team suboptimally. The reason is that unlike in singles, or in my previous long streak with a spread-attack focused triples team, after the initial Trick Room turn, there's a lot of different ways to play things. Let me explain.
As I noted earlier, my usual default is to get Trick Room up and then take foes out one at a time with turn after turn of Endeavor + Night Shade / Brick Break. Assuming no priority or other oddness, this means I kill one foe a turn, and Aron will be KOed after the third foe is removed. Since I can typically choose my targets based upon what will cause the fewest problems for the remainder of my team, the remaining Pokemon is usually something that can be easily handled by Camerupt or Eelektross, especially because I'll still have one turn of Trick Room left as well as support from Dusclops.
Sometimes, I'm forced to deviate from this strategy. A classic example is against two Ghost type foes, where I'm unable to use Endeavor. If the battle starts with one Ghost and one non-Ghost, I'll Trick Room and Protect on the first turn, and then attempt to KO the non-Ghost as usual on the second. If a Ghost is sent out to replace it, Endeavor becomes worthless to me. Accordingly, I'll usually then Protect with Aron and switch Dusclops out for Camerupt, with Aron drawing attacks from both Ghosts. I can then use Aron to set up Sunny Day while Camerupt uses Eruption, which can usually KO or at least badly weaken both foes. Since Aron typically will draw both attacks that turn, too, even if both Ghosts aren't defeated, Camerupt will be well positioned to Erupt again. If one of the Ghosts is a Chandelure, the big Eruption plan is unwise, because of the danger of Flash Fire, so there, it's usually best for Camerupt to first take out Chandelure with Earth Power. If one of the Ghosts is Golurk, switching in Camerupt is very dangerous, since I risk switching into a powerful Earthquake. Accordingly, in that situation, the correct switch-in is Eelktross, who can avoid the Earthquake and KO back with Grass Knot. Eelektross's ability to switch into potential Ground-type attacks lets it handle things that Camerupt can't, and its excellent bulk also means it's great for soaking up attacks on turns where I need to reset Trick Room.
This strategy of taking a "free" switch against double Ghosts raises a simple question, however. Why don't I do this more often? After all, so long as the foes are both going to attack Aron, a quick swap of Dusclops for Camerupt makes a lot of sense, as under Trick Room, Camerupt + Aron sweep a lot more efficiently than Dusclops + Aron, often KOing two foes a turn instead of just one. The answer is straightforward. A lot of the time, such a switch is absolutely correct. But it requires one to be completely sure that the AI isn't going to fire off a spread Surf or Earthquake, an OHKO move, or even sometimes an unusual targeted attack (usually, but not always, super effective) aimed at Dusclops even though it has no chance to OHKO. When I have doubts, or don't want to go through the set lists confirming that the switch is safe, its often easier to just stick with the default Endeavor + Night Shade plan. This works well enough, but means I'm surely not playing optimally in some battles.
There's also the issue of Trick Room turns. If I KO one foe per turn after setting Trick Room on the first turn, I complete the battle within the five turn duration of Trick Room. But misses, Protects, switches, etc. can all result in a battle requiring more turns to complete. The question then becomes whether I should play to make the most productive use of the first Trick Room, or put myself in the best position for the second. My default strategy focuses on maximizing my attacks during the first Trick Room. But some battles, it absolutely makes sense to take a stallier approach. Set Trick Room on the first turn, KO something on the second, Protect stall on the third, KO something on the fourth, Protect stall on the fifth, and reset Trick Room on the sixth, with Aron probably dying this turn, but its luring ability serving to make the second Trick Room much more reliable, and ensuring I have a full four additional turns of Trick Room remaining for the rest of my team to work. Whether it's best to take this stallish approach depends in part on whether or not I'm facing spread attacks, but it also depends heavily on what Pokemon the opponent is using, particularly which Pokemon are in the back row, since Camerupt and Eelktross will be expected to handle at least one of them should I take this approach. The difficulty of course is that up front, it's hard to know what to expect. Accordingly, there's a certain amount of educated guess work involved in whether or not to play a battle in this style. I can pretty much guarantee I've made lots of mistakes in choosing to (or more often not to) take this stallish approach.
There's plenty of other situations where risk assessment becomes complicated. For example, that Latios might be a bit difficult for my teammates to handle, but if I focus on Latios this turn, I risk getting burned by Heatran's attack. I have to weigh the importance of eliminating a known threat to my teammates against the risk of giving a less threatening Pokemon the chance to shut down Aron. That Mold Breaker Excadrill will KO Aron this turn if I don't attack it, but I really want to KO that Garchomp since it's much worse for my teammates, etc. It's easy to make incorrect choices in situations like this, especially since its very hard to properly weigh what sort of threats the foe might have in reserve unless you take a ton of time thinking at every move. Where things get particularly problematic is when there are two such Pokemon out at once. E.g. if I attack Garchomp, I risk getting Sturdy broken by Rough Skin, but if I attack Meganium, I might be met with Protect. The golden rule is to take the line that puts you in the best position in the bad state of the world, but since there's hidden information concerning what other Pokemon the opponent has, and I usually try to play pretty quickly, it's easy to make misjudgments and mistakes.
Things for this team to work on:
1. Perhaps the biggest threats to this team are situations where I'm unable to use Trick Room. Blizzard freezes and Rock Slide flinches are the biggest culprits, but lead OHKO Pokemon sometimes decide to attack Dusclops as well. Flinches are often low-power enough that I can just set Trick Room on the second turn, but Freezes and KOs can shut me out of Trick Room for good. I'm accordingly somewhat tempted to use a back up Trick Room Pokemon in place of Eelektross, but am wary, since Eelektross synergizes so well with Camerupt, has a ton of bulk, and hits reasonably hard.
2. Eruption, Earth Power, and Solar Beam are all pretty obvious choices for Camerupt. The fourth moveslot, however, is a tougher fill. Flamethrower is a powerful STAB move that still hits hard even after Camerupt has taken damage, receives a Sheer Force boost, and plays around Wide Guard. But Camerupt rarely finds itself in the situation where it has taken a bunch of damage but still needs a powerful Fire-type attack, and there are very few set 4 Wide Guard users (Bastiodon, Mienshao, and Regigigas), all of which are handled at least as well by Earth Power. Protect would enable Camerupt to delay while Trick Room gets reset, and then merrily resume smashing things once Trick Room is back in effect. I'm probably going to make this change next time I try the team.
3. Dusclops's EV spread was taken directly from Eppie's team, and has served well enough, but can surely be improved upon. At some point, I should take the time to figure out exactly how I want to bias it.
4. Once Aron is KOed, the team is rather soft to Dragon-types. Superpower has been okay but not amazing on Eelektross, and there's a strong argument for replacing it with HP Ice. Thankfully, IVs of 31 / 31 / 31 / 31 / 31 / 0 yield HP Ice, so this wouldn't require rebreeding.
A few random pieces of advice:
As much as possible, try not to have Camerupt in play on a turn where you need to reset Trick Room. The camel is bulky, but Water- and Ground- type attacks are really common, and even when Camerupt survives, Eruption is heavily weakened. When I expect myself to have to reset Trick Room, I try to bring in Eelektross first, as it is much better at tanking attacks on turns without Trick Room. Sometimes I'll instead switch Camerupt out for Eelektross while I reset Trick Room. Naturally, this issue can be avoided by using Protect in place of Flamethrower in the fourth slot.
The safest time to attack a Protect user is the turn after it used Protect.
Even though Fake Out Pokemon often chose to attack Aron with another move, to be safe, it's best to use Protect the first turn a Fake Out user is in battle.
Sunny Day is not only amazing for boosting Camerupt's attacks; it is also a wonderful defense against hail. A lead Abomasnow is going to cause problems, since if you want to set Trick Room, Aron is going to have to either switch out, get hailed on, or forgo Protect to use Sunny Day. But against a switched-in Abomasnow, just have Aron Protect and Dusclops use Sunny Day, and you've solved the entire hail issue, at the cost of one turn of Trick Room.
On the subject of Sunny Day, remember that the turn Camerupt Mega Evolves, it will still have its higher non-Mega Speed, meaning Dusclops will outspeed it under Trick Room. This lets Dusclops use Sunny Day that turn while still giving Camerupt the weather benefit for its attack.
I mentioned it offhand earlier, but this deserves being noted directly. Occaisonally, foes will attack Dusclops with attacks that will NOT KO it, even when such attacks would KO Aron. This typically happens with super effective Ghost-type moves, but happened at least once with a non-Super Effective attack. I'm not sure what the exact AI trigger for this is (it seemed a bit random) but the AI preference for KOs is not absolute.
