Got a streak of 87 on Super Doubles. Here's the team:
Kristoff (Hawlucha) [M] @ King's Rock
Unburden
Hasty Nature
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
- High Jump Kick
- Acrobatics
- Fling
- Protect
Hawlucha is a really interesting Pokemon. Unique typing, base 118 speed, nifty abilities, and access to moves such as Endeavor, Encore, and Ally Switch. Unburden is a neat ability and pairs well with STAB Acrobatics, so I came up with a few different sets to take advantage of this combination. Hawlucha's mediocre defenses and 5 fairly common weaknesses screamed Focus Sash. I originally bred this Hawlucha for a set using Focus Sash over King's Rock and Endeavor over Fling, hence the Hasty nature (also has imperfect Def and SpD IVs). Basically, I thought this Hawlucha could be used similar to Aron, except it could actually do something besides Endeavor. Furthermore, unlike Aron, Hawlucha's speed, which doubles after losing it's sash, does not necessitate team support in the form of Trick Room. After being knocked down to it's sash, Hawlucha could use Endeavor on any bulky threats, allowing its partner Garchomp to easily finish them off with a spread move.
When it worked, it worked really well. A 1 HP Hawlucha also makes a prime target, so Protect helped create free turns for Garchomp. The downside was that it didn't work all that often - status, random weak spread attacks, HJK misses, and even some neutral STAB hits prevented the activation of Focus Sash. Although these moves made Endeavor less effective, Acrobatics suffered the most - with no recovery, burn, poison, and non-OHKO moves doomed Hawlucha to a pathetic 55 BP Acrobatics. This meant relying on a 90 accuracy HJK for damage, which is never a good thing.
It's important to note that this Hawlucha has a 31 IV in HP and non-0 IVs in Def and SpD; breeding one with 0 IVs in HP/Def/SpD would increase that likelihood of attacks being OHKOs. Regardless though, the prevalence of Will-O-Wisp, Toxic, and weak Rock Slides would still make activating Hawlucha's sash not as reliable as I would like.
Despite Endeavor not panning out as I had hoped, Hawlucha remained a useful Pokemon that carried its weight on the team. I decided to try a different set.
My next idea was Fling. Flinging a King's Rock is a 30 BP Dark-type attack that always causes the opponent to flinch. Though it lacks the priority of Fake Out, it has the advantage of being useable past turn 1. Hawlucha's incredible speed made the priority loss fairly inconsequential, and faster Pokemon such as Crobat, Jolteon, Aerodactyl, and fast scarfers were never much of an issue. Besides, after Flinging away it's King's Rock, Hawlucha's Unburden boost allowed it to outspeed all of these threats. The freedom to save my King's Rock for a later opponent, on the other hand, added a lot of versatility to the team.
This set was incredibly useful and paired really well with Garchomp. Up against a significant threat that Garchomp can't OHKO? Chuck a King's Rock at it, add on some residual damage from a spread EQ/RS, and finish it off next turn with a boosted Acrobatics/HJK. Even with only a modest base attack stat and a lack of a damage boosting item, the high BP of Hawlucha's moves combined with its blistering speed allowed it to pick off defensively weak or damaged opponents. Hawlucha and Garchomp would often 4-0 the other team, they worked very well together. If I keep these two as leads I may re-breed a new Hawlucha with a Jolly nature and flawless defenses.
My last idea for an Unburden Hawlucha set involves Power Herb+Sky Attack. I haven't tried this out personally yet, as I hesitate to give up the invaluable flinch of Fling+King's Rock. I'm not sure this set would be quite as effective though - I imagine that Sky Attack's imperfect accuracy and Hawlucha's mediocre base attack may hold it back, but it's worth a try I suppose.
Whew, well that's a lot on Hawlucha. It's a great, versatile Pokemon that provides support that is useful to a wide variety of teams. I encourage everyone to try it out! And don't worry, the rest of my team is fairly standard, so I won't have nearly as much to say about them...
Gilly (Garchomp) [F] @ Yache Berry
Sand Veil
Jolly Nature
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Protect
Standard Garchomp we all know and love. Very effective. Partnering with Hawlucha or Talonflame allows her to spam Earthquake. Yache Berry lets her survive most non-STAB, non-crit Ice-type attacks.
Gail (Talonflame) [F] @ Sharp Beak
Gale Wings
Adamant Nature
164 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 84 Spe
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Tailwind
- Protect
Again, pretty standard Talonflame. Speed EVs allow it to outspeed 252 Spe+ base 90s, rest dumped into bulk. Mainly just spammed powerful priority Brave Birds. Great at cleaning up damaged foes and dealing with frail and fast opponents. I used Tailwind maybe twice.
Kanga (Kangaskhan) [F] @ Kangaskhanite
Scrappy -> Parental Bond
Jolly Nature
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
- Fake Out
- Return
- Power-Up Punch
- Sucker Punch
Again, nothing terribly new here. Fake Out is one of my favorite moves for doubles, and having a second guaranteed flinch user in the back is a huge help. Having Scrappy in her normal form is nifty if I need to flinch Gengar or another ghost. Powerful priority in STAB Parental Bond Fake Out and Parental Bond Sucker Punch. Mostly used to clean up, so PuP didn't see as much use as when I used her as a lead on other teams.
Perhaps the teams most glaring weakness is lack of type synergy. No ice, water, psychic, flying, dragon, dark, or normal resists. Yikes. That's just asking for Blizzard- and Surf-spam, Trick Room, and Lati@s to come in and streamroll me. Also very susceptible to electric-types if Garchomp goes down early. Though the team has what appears to be crippling weaknesses to certain types defensively, this is somewhat made up for offensively. That is, ice-types aren't as threatening as they may first appear because I have High Jump Kick/Rock Slide/Flare Blitz/Power-Up Punch to handle them.
Another obvious flaw is that this team is comprised entirely of physical attackers. Will-O-Wisp sucks (though Talonflame is immune). Intimidate sucks. Physically defense threats that I can't hit super-effectively suck (Spiritomb, Weezing). Acid Armor/Iron Defense/Cotton Guard suck. Usually I muscled through these annoyances, but I could see them eventually causing a loss (this isn't how I lost the streak, however).
Despite these two flaws, the team does have some great advantages. I already expressed my love of guaranteed flinch moves, and this team sports two of them. It also runs on the speedy side, without sacrificing too much bulk. Garchomp and M-Kanga have an excellent balance of power, bulk, and speed that makes them so effective in the Maison. Talonflame and M-Kanga have incredibly powerful priority. Three of the four members can afford to run Protect, which can give a lot of free turns with the right prediction (I've done a lot of Battle Subway in BW, so I've had lots of practice with predicting the AI).
87 isn't a terribly impressive streak, so I may give this team another go as it stands now to see if I can get farther. I'm really liking the Hawlucha-Garchomp combo, so I may switch out the back two to try and alleviate some the weaknesses I've outlined above. Anyways, fun team to play with and I encourage people to try out Hawlucha!
My 3DS cannot access the internet where I am right now, so I'll have to go old school and use a boring picture as proof:
http://imgur.com/IT8NZ4r
