How do you effectively counter pokes?

StarmanXL

StarmanXL

Despite the many threats of D/P metagame, everything has a counter. See a special attacker? Plop in your Blissey or Cressilia or something. Heracross? Switch in Gliscor. Weavile? Out comes Forretress. Or something like that.

But anyway, it seems like most people just solve team weak problems by using a specific counter, or, at the very least, don't feel too threatened by such pokemon. And all scenarios always seem to assume max health or status-free or something.

But what if conditions aren't perfect? What if your counter is toxiced or is at low health, or is taking residual damage like from Sandstream or Stealth Rock? What if you counter flat-out dies? I mean, wouldn't you try to remove your big sweeper's counters before going for that sweep? Wouldn't you want to take out or at least cripple that Blissey before you went for your Porygon-Z sweep or something? And what about surprise sets, critical hits, moves missing, situations you didn't expect that counter to be in, or just plain-ol' mispredicting? It's not like you always know the person's team and can be sure that you can use a specific counter.

I know D/P metagame has too many threats for a team to reasonably counter them all, at it seems like every has at least one pokemon that it has problems with. But if your counter to a pokemon goes down, it doesn't seem like a good player should just flat-out die from that pokemon should his counter go down, even if he had some sort of weakness.

So how do you cover your threats and use your counters effectively? Is it too situational to effectively explain? I know prediction is a big part of it, but how can one use that effectively when you have limited information, such as not knowing the enemy's set or what pokemon they have in reserve? It seems especially hard in doubles, given that one pokemon your counter can take can be threatened by the other pokemon your enemy has.
 
The most important thing that I use is a revenge killer, whether it be Dugtrio or Weavile (trapping and pseudo trapping) or something with a Choice Scarf such as Heracross or Garchomp. They may not be able to switch in on them directly, but they can either trap and kill a threat after setting up or force them to switch out. Dragon Dancers are an exception to the rule however, which means that I make sure that I have at least two decent counters to them, and that I prevent them from setting up at all costs.
 
What I attempt to do is to have Walls/Sweepers that compliment one another in such a way that specific Pokemon are not a threat, based on typing resistances.

One example would be:

Walls:
Celebi - Fire/Ice/Flying/Poison/Ghost/Dark/Bug
Regirock - Water/Grass/Fighting/Ground

Sweeper:
Heatran - Ground/Fighting/Water

Celebi is a fantastic Physical Wall, despite it's huge array of weaknesses. Regirock is a monster, with it's Special Defense in a sandstorm only falling short of it's ludicrous Physical Defense. Anything that Regirock is weak to, Celebi deals with. And Regirock in turn, also covers most of the weaknesses Celebi carries. For the one's it does not, it is neutral to. Now, this might be great considering they are full health (ignoring the fact that Celebi has recover + natural cure/heal bell and Regirock is a fantastic RestTalker), but what if they are weak? If Regirock can't cover that Ice Beam, or that Shadow Ball, what will I do? That would be Heatrans job. Despite the fact that it's EV investment is usually in it's Special Attacking capabilities, it's big pool of resistances and good stats don't seem to care about that. Add to the fact that it works great as a Scarfer for revenge kills, and you have a nice secondary counter to Celebi's weaknesses. Now, what about Heatran? Surely Celebi can't cover both Regirock and Heatran all the time. If it dies, they both might have a seriously problem. Well, Slowbro would make that circle of Pokemon even stronger.

Sure, those Pokemon can't do everything, but it's an example, and one way I find effective to attempt to start a build. But the first thing you should do is start with the Pokemon you like, and find it's complimentary partner.
 
Well...with my team...I use a lot of pokemon with immunities...rather than resistances...so that it is easier to switch in...

One example of of two pokemon who work together with immunities would be:

Houndoom - Fighting; Ground; Water; Rock
Gengar - Psychic; Ghost; Dark

They work well together. Gengar is immune to Ground and Fighting, while Houndoom is immune to Psychic and resists Dark and Ghost (although I wouldn't switch in with Houndoom against something like T-Tar).

That way...rather than taking small amounts of damage from attacks...I don't take any at all...which certainly helps...
 
well, i just basically send out my walls. my counters usually work, but lately i've been switching in my donphan to jolteons and they know HP ice which messes me up so much.
 
Bronzong is my only Mamoswine counter, and by the time it comes out, mamo can 2hko with stone edge or something since its been beaten down by 5 other pokemon...
 
Simple-- make them be the ones trying to counter you instead. If your team is setting the pace and they're the ones scurrying around trying to make viable switch ins-- guess who's probably going to win.

In other words, a team should know what its doing and aiming for the win from the very start, not sitting around waitng for the opponent to do. Note that a stall team is also abiding by this mentality-- you have a plan (set up rocks, poison things, etc.) and you're looking to achieve your objects from the start of the match.

Of course something is likely to go wrong, and of course a player has to be able flexible and capable of coping with changing situations, but overall the team/play should have synergy that creates opportunities to achieve the objectives that the team is looking for. This is important so that even when you are defending, you're still looking for opportunities and thinking about how to achieve your own agenda even facing the agenda of the opponent (if he has one, which too many opponents don't).
 
First thing is you have to make sure you prevent things that you are able to prevent to stop your counters from dying.

For example, stealth rock + sandstorm + a few special attacks weaken your blissey? Use softboiled to maintain your blissey at near full HP at all times. If I've switched in on a special attack and it's taken me to 60-70% because of rocks spikes and attacks, I would easily be able to take many more hits. But instead of attacking it, I might just softboiled. Why? it's unlikely they will stay in so if I attack and they switch in a physical attacker, I will be forced to switch out. Next time I come in, I will take more rocks spikes damage. Since I didn't softboiled last time, I will be weakened considerably. Possibly even within KO range for a special sweeper so it will stay in and go for the kill this time and I won't have a chance to softboiled on the switch anymore.

A lot of my walls also have instant recovery moves because that just allows them to tank way better. It also helps to maintain that "perfect condition" at all times. Personally I have never found tanks like swampert or bronzong appealing because of the lack of recovery. They get beat on enough and they will die and you lose your counter.

If shit happens though and your counter dies then you need a backup plan. When I say backup plan, I don't mean having a second pokemon that counters the same pokemon. That would be too much not to mention impossible to have a team that has 2 pokemon to counter everything. If my counter dies to hax, then my backup plan is switch from trying to counter that pokemon to going all-out offensive. Having a revenge killer or something thats fast and hits hard to kill the pokemon you are now unable to wall because your counter is dead.
 
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