In-game teambuilding tactics

Magnus0

Magnus0

How do you come up with a good in-game team? Do you just pick some pokemon to use as you play, or do you plan out everything in advance? Let's discuss the different ways to create a good team.

The way I start is usually with some kind of theme. This can be a similar aesthetic, like a colour pallet. For example, Staraptor and Weavile look very nice together, because they share the same color pallet and they both have a similar badass look, as apposed to one being cute and fragile or something. This kind of theming gives a lot of credibility to you as a trainer, and it makes your team look like an actual team.

Then I usually look at the list of pokemon that can learn fly and surf. Let's face it, you need a pokemon with these moves, and since fly and surf are actually pretty strong you might as well use them on a pokemon you want to actually use in battle to safe slots on your HM slave.

At this point I have two pokemon decided, usually a flying type and a water type. This gives me a basis to work with. I then just fit the remaining slots in with pokemon that cover the weaknesses of the two pokemon I have decided on. This part of teambuilding is quite difficult for me since I need to not only stay within my theme, I also have to consider accessibility, typing, synergy and so on. Obviously I make it difficult for myself by sticking to a theme in the first place, but it's very satisfying to me when I create a team that just works well in the end.

So yeah, I personally plan everything before I even start the playthrough. I probably take a lot more into consideration when teambuilding than most people do. That's why I'm curious to know how other people create their team in-game.
 
Aside from obvious necessities like needing TMs, I usually go with whatever I end up liking at the moment.

Except for USUM where I actually had to tailor a team that also didn't suck (and wasnt made of 4 psychic types, rip), I know story is generally pretty simple and I can basically bruteforce anything either with overleveled starter or with coverage / TMs and outspeeding, so fashion/design is all that matters for me :D
 
For first playthroughs, I just pick whatever Pokemon I see that I like. On subsequent playthroughs, I always plan out my teams. I try not to overlap types, and space out my captures so my team size is generally in line with the boss teams. These aren't too important so I'm not that strict about adhering to them, but it's nice when it works out just right. What is very important to me when planning, though, is to try out Pokemon I've never used before, and I actually have a text file to keep track of this. I aim to use 3-4 unused Pokemon each playthrough. On that note, I particularly like using more gimmicky Pokemon that I never would have even considered when I was younger. Sometimes they're fun, sometimes they're Ledian.
 
I play a lot of Gens 2-4 and usually, I plan (and overplan) my teams ahead of playthroughs. I typically take a look at having a way to have an advantageous matchup against all major trainers (rival, gyms, E4), so I'll look at having a fighting-type to take on Norman in RSE for example; though most pokemon games are easy enough that these aren't hard rules, especially for early gyms where there aren't many options of a type (like ground-types to combat Surge in FRLG). I also make sure to fully incorporate movesets before starting my journey, so I know exactly what TMs to use on whom and who gets the useful battle HMs (Surf, Fly, Strength usually). Much like sb879, I also try to use pokemon I haven't used before in runs (tho that's becoming more difficult in RSE and FRLG - my two most commonly played games)

So yes, I usually overly plan out teams, but I have also played a pokemon game blind before and want to share my team building process of that experience and because I can't remember my first time playing any other pokemon game. My first time playing Pokemon Black after a couple years away from pokemon (I had stopped after playing HGSS thinking I was too old to keep playing Pokemon lol) I purposefully stayed away from the Unova pokedex, so I had no knowledge of any of the pokemon aside from some vague idea of the starters. I basically just chose pokemon that looked cool or cute (and with me not being a fan of many of the Unova pokemon, I ended up being pretty picky) and the only pokemon I ever looked up was Cottonee because I loved its overworld sprite and had to find out what pokemon it was and how to obtain it. Well long story short, I fell in love with the 5 pokemon I chose to join Emboar (Whimsicott from trade, Krookodile, Musharna, Jellicent and Vanilluxe) and those are really the only pokemon from Unova I like to this day (in addition to Reuniclus, Chandelure and Sawsbuck)
 
I also tend to (over)plan things beforehand. My play style has always been leaning towards fast sweepers: hit first and hit hard. It's pretty much been the same thing in all my playthroughs. I pick things with good speed and attack, complementary types and various enough moves to be able to play a role in the team. I try to KO things in one turn, and I avoid taking hits. Was never interested in bulkier Pokemon.

My first game ever was Yellow, and my parents got me the guide to go with it. I was able to learn about each Pokemon, figure out their stats, and pick my favourites (even though in Gen1, Psychic kinda ruled all). I think I ended up with Charizard, Jolteon, Jynx, Kadabra, Tauros and Starmie. Couldn't take a hit, but could certainly dish it out.

Same with all the subsequent generations. I'd pick the "sweepiest" starter and 5 fast battlers (or 3-4 and keep the last slots for a HM Slaves (looking at you, Gen 4...))

And, like a lot of other players, it all changed in USUM. My first playthrough with sweepers was so difficult! It's the first game where you were required to use actual strategy, and a more wholesome team. So for my second game, I decided to revise my team. I went for things that packed a punch and could take hits without being the fastest. So I used things like Snorlax, Magnezone and Mudsdale. It was different, for sure, but it made that game a lot more enjoyable. (Magnezone solo'd Ultra Necrozma, without any medecine, it was so surprising).

I'll probably plan my Gen 8 game with sweepers again.
 
My style is hyperoffensive, and my teams tend to follow a type pattern. Fire, Water, Electric or Grass, Psychic or Ghost, Fighting, and Flying make up my six, with secondary typings being less important. I usually come into the game with a good idea of what pokemon of those types would work well on the team, but sometimes I find something that surprises me. For example, I had never considered running Malamar until it became a reliable member of my UM team.
 
I don't tend to plan teams at all. If it's a new game (I tried second playthroughs of Diamond and Y and gave up halfway through from loss of interest) I'll catch what I think looks cool, and if it stands up in battle I'll keep it on.

My favourite type is Rock so if there are any new interesting Rock-types I've seen/heard of through pre-release I might go out of my way to catch them. Actually, I guess this applies to any new Pokemon I think looks cool or interesting enough. I caught Rockruff and Mimikyu in SM, for example.
 
I have a very simple teambuilding restriction: only Pokemon based on animals with scales and/or feathers. Preferably those I've never used before. Don't really care much about stats, moves or typing. I know I'm probably ending with a subpar team, after all.

If it's the first game in a generation, I add a second restriction: must be from the latest generation.
 
I tended to look for new mon in my way, but USM actually had me playing with preset team with mons bred and sent at Lv1. I also think of a theme or something. In particular, my USM Team (I call Ultra Sun run: Twilight Rune) are made to foil Lusamine's SM team.
AloRaichuu, Primarina, Froslass, Roserade, Loppunny. And extra Dusk Lycanroc. And all female.
Seems like I will like building team that becomes foil to one important character's team I like. I just had new Umbreon and this can as well foil Hau's team.

There seems to also be pattern for starter Pokémon. Shifting type chosen. From Gen 1-7, it was Water, Grass, Fire, Water, and so on..., so I'll probably pick grass in Gen 8 after in X and Moon I picked Fennekin and Popplio. Although that depends on how I'll like the starter too....

In SM I used Milotic and Primarina, but now I think I have more fun when I have as many varied type, preferably dual types, as possible. You see now none of them share a type, making 11 different types in a team. Could be 12 if I had looked for Flygon, but Dusk roc....
Although admittedly this is preventing me from using favourites like Vaporeon or Milotic....


Oh, and aesthetics. I prefer pretty ones. (*´ω`)
 
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OrangeGuru said:
I basically just chose pokemon that looked cool or cute (and with me not being a fan of many of the Unova pokemon, I ended up being pretty picky) and the only pokemon I ever looked up was Cottonee because I loved its overworld sprite and had to find out what pokemon it was and how to obtain it.
Click to expand...
I love you! <3

Strikingly, my Unova experience was almost the same as yours. I lost a bit of interest in the games; too much weirdness going on with ice creams and trash bags, so I played it half-heartedly on a ROM. However, I never really noticed Cottonee by then because I chose to play White and wasn't aware of the in-game trade. :( I was super picky as well, but almost perplexed I could get a full team with some nice Pokémon in the end.

Regarding my teambuilding, I mostly pick the Pokémon I like on my first playthrough. This always results in some glaring weaknesses in my team as I like too much Grass/Bug/Flying types. However, with the newer games I did look in advance what kind Pokémon I could catch. Because I also have a weak for unevolved Pokémon, I tend to (or must) look for at least one bulky Pokémon to cover all sort of things, or almost everything. Milotic has always been my favourite for that spot, but Corsola turned out to be surprisingly awesome in Moon. ^^

For older games, especially Emerald/Ruby, I did tons of themed teams. Teams with Pokémon that all know a certain move, all have the same colour(s), have one particular high base stat, share the same type; sometimes crippling me by not having HMs. Later on, I got more into egg moves and tutor moves to get to play with Thunderpunch Cacnea and Spark Whiscash, for example.

In terms of movesets, I prefer a set with 3 offensive moves and one status move. That could be a Swords Dance or Calm Mind sweeper or a defensive Pokémon with Will-o-wisp or Thunder Wave. Self-sustain is not incredibly important in-game in my view, because a Hyper Potion would act the same as a recovery move. That's why I never used Rest+Sleep Talk, for example. On the other hand, Leech Seed is one of my favourite moves, it's so darn strong especially with held items like Big Root and Eviolite.
 
I tend to be basic and go for type and stat balance whenever I play the games and try to build around my starter (always fire when I play for the first time). I do have a tendency to use pokemon I never/rarely use to try to keep things fresh every time I play and will try to have a team full of new pokemon the first time I play a new generation game. I don't put too much emphasis on looks so my teams usually end up with a combination of cool/cute/tough pokemon. I also favor pokemon found in the early to mid game as I don't like to add late game pokemon to my team and grind levels to catch them up with the rest of the team.

S/M/US/UM were strangely liberating because I normally have a fire type (starter), a water type (surf user), and a flying type (fly user) with the remaining three there to patch up holes in the team (ground, grass, and electric end up being picked a lot). But with Ride Pokemon taking the place of HMs, I no longer have to factor those in when teambuilding which open up team slots. I still end up getting a water type because it is a useful type to have and there is no shortage of water types that I haven't tried, but I start using fire and flying types less in favor of trying out types I use less frequently. To be honest, it is equal parts exciting and overwhelming.
 
Usually I choose my team members based off of a few things:

-Do I have more than 1 Pokemon that shares that type?
-Does it learn useful HMs?
-Does it have an offensive stat that is 85 or over? If it's below 95, how high are it's other stats?
-How late does it evolve? Can it even evolve? **cough cough** pkmn silver/gold elemental stones **cough cough**
 
My teams usually have these traits. I'll use the team I ultimately cleared ORAS with (Swampert/Gardevoir/Breloom/Magnezone/Pelipper/Armaldo) as an example.

  • In games with HMs, every needed HM across the six slots, without overloading one team member. I try to have the stronger HMs (Strength, Surf, Waterfall, Fly) in moveslots I'd actually use for STAB or coverage moves, with stuff like Cut and Rock Smash in throwaway slots. In this team for example, Pelipper carries Surf and Fly, Swampert Waterfall and Dive, Breloom Cut and Rock Smash, and Armaldo Strength.
  • Dual-typing if possible, with as few overlapping types as possible. It wasn't exactly feasible here because three Water HMs basically requires you to carry double Water-types, but this team has Water/Ground, Psychic/Fairy, Grass/Fighting, Electric/Steel, Water/Flying, and Bug/Rock.
  • A good mix of physical and special attackers. This team has three of each (Swampert/Breloom/Armaldo and Gardevoir/Magnezone/Pelipper).
  • Accessibility, with regards to both availability and evolution method.
    • Swampert: Starter, evolves by level-up. Don't box your starters if you don't have to, kids.
    • Pelipper: You can bag a Wingull nice and early, in the grass where you first battle Brendan/May. Evolves by level-up.
    • Gardevoir: This was the "project" mon of the team; Ralts is a 4% encounter in one route in the entire game (even with random DexNav encounters and later chaining, getting that first one can be work) and requires a notorious degree of babying to reach a usable state. As anyone who's used one can attest to, however, the result is more than worth it. Evolves by level-up.
    • Breloom: Shroomish can be bagged in Petalburg Woods as a 15% encounter. Evolves by level-up.
    • Magnezone: Magnemite can be tricky to catch on Route 110. You do have a guaranteed Honey to trigger the Horde Encounter, and if that fails, you can catch an Oddish which is guaranteed to have Sweet Scent. Evolves by level-up to Magneton, and Magnezone can be obtained early-ish by Surfing to the entrance of New Mauville (even though you don't get access to the area itself until much later, the entrance area counts). And that, folks, is five out of the six by the time you face Wattson.
    • Armaldo: The fossil and thus latest pick, which fills a very specific niche (third physical attacker than can take on Psychic-types), but I mostly picked because I wanted to use a Bug-type. Evolves by level-up.
  • Ability to cover each Gym, E4, Legendary, and the Champion's ace. Y'all know how those six work, you can probably figure out which mon takes on which member. I was playing Ruby, so Groudon was actually kinda difficult--Pelipper resists everything, but its best offensive option is 50% Hurricanes or hoping for Hidden Power Ground.
  • Usable STABs. Breloom's Sky Uppercut or Brick Break is perfectly fine for single-player, Armaldo has X-Scissor and Rock Slide, the rest are self-explanatory. Coverage isn't necessarily as much of a concern, although I do run some coverage for anything the main slots can't cover (Shadow Ball on Gardevoir to handle Ghosts, for example) and some HMs can serve as coverage (Strength being a notable example).
  • Defensive switch-ins. Obviously exploiting type immunities is great, but Magnemite has excellent defensive typing and stats to serve as a general check to...well, a lot, with Swampert and Pelipper covering its own weaknesses. (I haven't played Gen 7 yet, but early Magnemite looks amazing.)
 
I usually strive for a Fire/Water/Grass core, including the starter(s). Maybe certain Pokemon I haven't tried before in that game, (I used Delphox, Gogoat, and Blastoise in X, so I'm going with Chesnaught, Simipour, and Charizard in Y) and often one Pokemon I really love that's available reasonably early enough. (hello B/W Exacdrill and X/Y Aegislash. Magnezone, too. I guess I have a thing for Steel types)
 
Recently I’ve been avoiding the FWG core. Box the starter and build up from nothing. It makes a lot of matchups more interesting, since I don’t have the reliable answer.
 
I generally choose 6 (or sometimes less) I like and either haven't used before, or used in a long time, or used with certain caveats (a hidden ability, a new form, etc). Often when I go back and replay older games, I make an effort to pick Pokemon I wouldn't have chosen initially from that generation. Planning to run through White soon with Heatmor, Zebstrika, Sawk, possibly Musharna or Galvantula, and a low-levelled Tornadus from Dream Radar.

The only specific theme I remember choosing was the first time I played through Ultra Moon, where I used a "unity team" of Pokemon from all generations (Sudowoodo 2, Masquerain 3, Toxicroak 4, Crustle 5, Vivillon 6, and Alolan Marowak to represent 1 and 7 combined).
 
Since getting Pokémon Emerald a few days ago, I started to build my first ever in-game team.

I chose Pokémon who had decent stats and a fun movepool, and wouldn’t be my third team member with the same type.

So far my team consists of Combusken, Breloom, Swellow, and Carvanha.
Combusken acts as a win-condition with Bulk Up.
Breloom and Swellow cleans battles with Mach Punch and Wing Attack.
Carvanha wallbreaks with black-glasses boosted Crunches.

Of course, to get through the game I need HM moves, but I’ve taught most of those to HM slaves and not members of my squad.​
 
I switch it up every time I play a game to keep things fresh, but there are usually some rules I stick to.
No trade evolutions unless I can actually trade with people. Hate feeling incomplete with Haunters and Gravelers.
A Pokemon for Fly is necessary.
I never use HM slaves. I spread HMs between the party as much as I can, meaning in gen 2 and 3 I always pick up two Water types for the three Water HMs (or a Water and a non-Water that can learn Surf).
I try not to overlap roles as much as I can.
In games I've played so often, I plan my team out. But in games I haven't touched in a while, I freestyle it while sticking to those rules.
 
As Karen said, "Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."

Honestly, the most strategy you'll ever need in the first 3 gens of this game in my experience is: pick a water starter, make sure (s)he's adequately leveled, don't overthink things. If you didn't pick a water starter (god forbid grass, lol) then you might find some room to pick some "smart" catches which it can help to start focusing your team around instead of the starter if you're looking to maximize efficiency of a run. But honestly, it usually just doesn't matter.
 
I try to grab an even mix between special and physical attackers, with consideration towards (usable) HMs in the team. By usable I mean moves like Waterfall, Fly and Surf with very occasional Strength on Normal types. I also like to have mons that I feel can work both ways or have a cool coverage move-like one time I had a Drain Punching Vileplume in HGSS.
 
Here's what I do when doing an in-game team:
-I plan out a team in advance - for later gens I'm often influenced by Pokemon revealed before release. I often try to research what the stats are like for each Pokemon I'm wanting to put on my team.
-I try to have a balanced team that covers each other's weaknesses, and I allow myself one 3x weakness for my team. Needless to say, I don't overlap types unless the two Pokemon do not share any weaknesses, at least based on their shared typing (for example, Houndoom and Drapion would be good for me as while they do share a weakness, it is not a weakness of their shared Dark typing)
-I try to have an even balance of physical and special attackers on my team
-Once I've used a Pokemon in one game, I can't use it again in any more games. The sole exception is the starter if I've already used each of the available starters in a game already.
-I want to have my team filled up by the fifth gym (trial in Alola), so anything available only after that is no-go.
 
I usually have a few picks in mind before I start the game, and just fill out the rest of the team based on what I need to cover my weaknesses or beat important trainers. If I plan too much, I find that the game gets boring, but teams that I completely improvise tend to suck ass. Other than that, I have no hard and fast rules.
 
Just putting this here since I can: I'm about to do a giftmon run of UltraSun. Totems, in-game trades, gifts, and eggs only, pokeballs can only be used for tradebait. I'll probably keep the ExpShare on and try to cycle through and use a lot of them, so it's not just Hawlucha sweeping everything, but it should result in something far more random than my normal planned team, but not as rough as just catching whatever I feel like.
 
Similar to what The Mind Electric said, I tend to have a few picks in mind before starting the game and as I play, I tend to fill out the team with whatever I think could fill any offensive/defensive holes or could just be really fun to use. I used to try and plan out my teams fully before playing but after it failed in Pokemon Black (I ended up using none of what I'd planned to use), Pokemon X (Almost every team member was a gift mon except for Meowstic-M and it was just boring), and Pokemon Sun (The team I planned turned out to suck) I decided go with this "loose" approach and for the most part it's resulted in generally well balanced, interesting teams.

I will note that I at least try to have one Water, Flying, Poison, and/or Ground type on my team in each game, but recently I've been finding myself going without the latter two, though never without the former two (I prefer Water starters and Flying types partner well with them).

I also have a couple of rules in place that make teambuilding simultaneously more interesting and a bit more constricting than it would be otherwise, mainly that I can't use the same Pokemon across multiple games (So since I used something like Feraligatr in Crystal, I couldn't use it HG), I can't have any type overlap, and in certain situations, I can only use Pokemon native to that region (usually when I'm playing a region for the first time)

I find that while they can make teambuilding, especially on the fly, rather constricting, they also force me to use interesting Pokemon that I wouldn't consider otherwise, or at the very least put more thought into the actual teambuilding process rather than just gathering the same handful of laughably strong Pokemon each game.

I do have a bad tendency of having too many physical attackers though, like in my Heartgold, Black, and Sun playthroughs
 
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