SPOILERS! Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon In-Game Team Thread

[MatthewPlaysPokeX]

https://richi3f.github.io/pokemon-team-planner/#primarina+magnezone+noivern+lurantis+komala+torkoal

My team I'm currently using for Ultra Sun. I've had to change my teams so many times, which is probably because I didn't know what I was going to use apart from Poppilo as not only do I adore Fairy-type Pokemon but I enjoyed it in my original Sun playthrough.

Primarina - The only Pokemon I knew I was using from the get go. It's Special Attack can help it do some great damage. Icy Wind was such a big surprise when Poppilo evolved as I am playing through blind. I looked at no spoilers at the Elite Four/Champ etc.

Magnezone - The last time I used a Magnezone was in Pokemon Black 2/White 2 so I just had to bring him back. Having many resistances is so helpful.

Noivern - I found this little guy as a Noibat in Illma's trial on the way out so I just had to catch it when I could. I did drop it for a while as it evolved a little too late for my liking and it seemed to frail for the wait to Level 48. So I boxed it...until the third island when I brought it back as my team had a big weakness to Ground so having an immunity helped a lot.

Lurantis - I've used many Grass-types in the original S/M like Shiitonic, Leafeon, Tsereena etc. But never Lurantis so to make up for loss time, I gave it a whirl for Ultra Sun and I love it. Leaf Blade with a high Attack was always fun and when it was Sunny, Growth + Leaf Blade + Synthesis was so fun.

Komala - To be honest, I've never used Komala in the original games, as I've never saw the use of a slow and good physical attacker and I needed a Normal type for the last member if I didn't want a team where half of it is weak to one type. But the more I used this koala, the more I liked it. Payback was fun with the slow speed and great coverage for Ghosts and Comatose was quite fun when other status can't touch you.

Torkoal - Another nice defensive Pokemon and I needed a Fire type for another way to deal with Grass types. But the main reason for using it was with it's ability 'Drought' which can work nicely with Lurantis. Because if the Totem Pokemon can have synergy with the Pokemon they call, then why can't I?

At the time of writing of this, I just started the Po Town Team Skull event and I'm loving the game so far, I'm going to get Ultra Moon for Christmas so I can use Ultra Sun for competitive battling and breeding and if I would like to play through the main story for fun and to try a new team then I can use Ultra Moon without deleting my save on Ultra Sun.

What do you guys think of my team? Any potentials ideas for good movesets for these Pokemon which TMs I can get in the main story.

 

[Kanburi]

View attachment 91097
Here's my team for UM (which I'm playing first). I'll be trading all their basic forms from my Sun game, so they'll all receive the EXP boost, but I had no choice since some of these are only available late game and I really want to use them throughout the game.

Primarina: I used Incineroar and Decidueye for Moon and Sun respectively last year, so this one needs no explanation.

Lurantis: For some reason I really like three of the new grass types this generation in Lurantis, Tsareena, and Shiinotic. I used the latter two last year and to be honest was really close to choosing Tsareena again, but then I saw that it got a certain move that goes with Contrary so I might as well give it a go.

Kommo-o: Didn't use one in SM because it was so late in the game, gonna be running a special one.

Scizor: Despite being my favourite Pokemon, I've never used one in-game. I didn't play generations 2 through 5, and only picked up Pokemon again in XY. Similar to Kommo-o, it's only available late-game, by which point my teams are usually fixed.

Alolan Marowak: Love the design on this Pokemon and really enjoyed using it in last year's Battle Tree.

Salazzle: I was swinging between Salazzle and Alolan Muk for the last slot, but ultimately decided to go with Salazzle because my team could use some extra speed.

So yeah not a whole lot of reasoning behind my choices, mainly just I like them and never had a chance to use them before. Alolan Muk and Vikavolt are almost definitely going to be on my Ultra Sun team, but I'll worry about that two months later.

Swapped out Kommo-o for Vikavolt. I evolved a Grubbin into Vikavolt on my Sun and traded it over at level 21. Jangmo-o's moveset just isn't very good to make it run special moves, even though Clanging Scales is one. Might swap back when I get to the 40s though.

 

[Level 51]

probably contains spoilers for main plot AND postgame arc

Finished the game a couple days ago and the RR arc yesterday, with Incineroar / Magnezone / Zoroark / Espeon / Wishiwashi / Gengar (in the order that I received / caught the mons). For once the game wasn't dominated by my starter—Incineroar has a surprising number of bad matchups in the game, from early (Water trial) to mid (Olivia) to late (Hapu) which left its main role as an Amulet Coin holder to beat up regular trainers. Gotta say though, the addition of Double Kick to its moveset was a very welcome addition, especially early game where I didn't pick up a Fighting-type and was wondering how I would beat Totem Gumshoos.

Wishiwashi was a little disappointing too. Despite the high praise I heard it received in SM ("S+++ tier mon") I didn't enjoy using it—I didn't really feel there was enough time to viably level it to 20 between the Water trial and the Fire trial, so I never got to see it prove its worth there, and throughout the rest of the game I kind of felt it basically traded itself 1-for-1 for most opposing Pokemon, since hits generally left it at 40% health and unable to take a second hit from anything.

On the other hand, there were a bunch of standouts. Magnezone was ridiculous throughout the whole game, from helping me to beat the Teacher at the Trainers' School (the one with the starter which beats yours) and then throughout the game it provided some very key resistances thanks to its wonderful part-Steel-typing (it can easily take out like 4 mons on each E4 member's team, for example). Early game especially it was a huge help in the Water trial—apparently, Route 4 holds not only the Magnet but also the TM for Charge Beam, allowing Magnemite to zap its way through the Water trial (though in the end I used Adaptability Z-Quick Attack from Eevee to beat Araquanid). Its naturally high defensive stats are also really good mid-game, since it beats pretty much every Pokemon a Team Skull Grunt could potentially throw out at you without taking damage (bar potentially Houndour), and as such is a very convenient lead. It evolves into Magnezone comparatively early (Blush Mountain) and as such basically out-BSTs most of that section of the game. Ended up as the highest-level Pokemon on my team at the end, and for good reason, too. S+++ mon would use again forever and ever

Zoroark was another standout Pokemon—although it's really weak, with its offensive capacities pretty much capping at Night Slash and maybe Foul Play, it's probably the only Pokemon which can autowin against Ultra Necrozma, simply because of its ability to disguise itself as something Necrozma would target with Photon Geyser. From there, it just sits around getting hit on its immunity and wins fairly easily. It also comes in handy during the RR arc, since it does the same thing to Giovanni's Mewtwo (it chooses Zen Headbutt over Drain Punch on neutral hits). Zoroark + Gengar was a particularly potent combination for me.

also I only picked up Gengar because I didn't think about abusing Illusion at the time to beat Ultra Necrozma, so I reset 7 times until I procced a Quick Claw Destiny Bond. no bully pls

Overall a super fun game, I really like how it forces you to actually put some thought into your team choices due to the significant increase in difficulty from regular SM. The Totem Pokemon actually felt threatening this time, and I think their partners were often very well thought-out, as compared to SM where they didn't leave much of an impression on me at all.

 

[Geta92]

This was my team in the order I obtained them and for the most part, they all did really well.
I can't wait for the new ingame tier thread, this game gave us a lot of strong top tier contenders.

Primarina pretty much plays just like in Sun and Moon. It misses the early Scald TM, but gets early Icy Wind and Tutor Water Pulse. So in comparison, it's just as good as before, slightly better if you use your choice specs wisely from time to time. I'd say it's a 8/10.

Zoroark is harder to explain. From Island 1-2 it's pretty much useless. I started playing without the Exp. Share and only turned it on very late and I gotta say, if you play without it, don't catch one. After it evolved and got night slash, it was really useful with Salazzle in last place since Illusion allows you to pretty much win against any psychic type, especially THE ONE. 6/10.

Magnezone is a monster. It resists almost anything thrown at you, especially early on and deals great damage, too. Try to get one with sturdy, its really worth it. It gets tutor Shock Wave and Signal Beam and evolves earlier than before. Give him specs and he oneshots almost anything. 9/10.

Hawlucha is pretty much the Pokemon they'll likely abuse in speedruns. Solid stats without evolution, the best stab combination you could ask for early game and boosted experience. Not to mention it's epic natural movepool and the elemental tutor punches. 10/10.

Mudsdale is slow but soooo bulky, you pretty much can't die if you use healing items. Getting a 95 power stab attack at level 24 is pretty epic, too. It comes right before the fire trial as well and gets a natural movepool that's perfectly fine for the entire story. If only it was fast. 8/10

Totem Salazzle is pretty much free and can be resetted quite nicely. It requires no training to match your teams current level average and helps where it can with strong and fast attacks, not to mention it loves holding the free choice specs you get. 8/10

 

[TPP]

Fighting Rainbow Rocket atm and here's what I ended up with

Decidueye: I went with Litten last time and wanted to go with this. It was pretty good, especially after evolving into Dartrix and then into Decidueye. Only issue is that opposing Dark types are pretty common and at times, Decidueye fails to 1HKO or Sucker Punch crits you, etc. Wish there was a faster starter, but this was pretty fun to use.

Zoroark: Struggled a bit early game but after evolving it was a beast, especially for the Fire trial, which I had to evolve Zorua in order to beat. Main issue was the move pool, with Feint Attack being the only good move as a Zorua and then Night Slash from there on out. Taught it U-turn to deal with other Dark types, so it was kinda good but also really limited at the same time. Late game it's nice against Psychic types, but outside of super effective hits, it's pretty weak.

Noivern: Honestly, I had a level 40 Noibat by the time I realized IT DOESN'T LEARN DRAGON PULSE UNTIL 70. I still kept it and taught it Draco Meteor, which was helpful whenever it hit. Acrobatics helped it a lot and makes it way better, but overall it's not bad but not really worth using. Late game is where it'll be worth using, so if you don't mind waiting until then, then you're better off using something else.

Magmar: I did get a Magmarizer and could've traded it at any time but I was going through the game while my brother was asleep so it sorta ended up staying a Magmar. I did give it an Eviolite which helped a tiny but, for some reason, it was still pretty slow and a bit weak. I was hoping to find Thunderbolt and teach it to this or Magmortar if I had to evolve it to teach it, but I still haven't found it. This one was kinda helpful but also disappointing.

Milotic: Took me an hour or 2 to find a Feebas and I was lucky enough to find a Female one when I did, and bred it to get a Modest one. It was a little hard to use early because Water Pulse was the only good move and it's not all that strong (not to mention everything was level 35 and the rest of my team at 40 and Milotic was 25), but eventually once it hit 35, this thing was an absolute beast. It levels up really quickly (first one to hit level 70 and it's 6 levels above the rest of the team now) and late game it's extremely reliable. If you can get a Feebas without much difficulty, then I'd recommend trying out Milotic.

Metagross: At first I wanted this because Mega Metagross is fun, but then learned the mega stones aren't until the Battle Tree and hesitated on getting it, but decided to go for it. I taught it Ice Punch through move tutors and aside from it being unable to fight ground types because of the low speed stat, it's solid against Fairy, Rock, Ice, Poison and Flying types, and I ended up liking it. Late game it's pretty nice, though I would've been way happier if I could mega evolve it.

My thoughts on the game

This game was definetely harder than the last one and personally, I felt the hax was cranked up to a new level. Normally it doesn't bother me that much but

- The first 3 attacks that hit my Rowlett at the start of the game were all Critical Hits
- Hau's Pichu paralyzed me with the first Thunder Shock and Rowlett only got to hit Popplio twice in the span of 5 turns
- A fire type early game kept on burning my Zorua with Ember, would get a high roll to 2HKO my Rowlett (went from 14-24 and I had 44 max HP) and it kept on dodging Razor Leaf.
- Totem Pokemon especially the fire one kept burning with fire moves and it was honestly hard since I didn't have Milotic at the time
- Dragon Trial was actually dumb because I clicked Draco, I miss and then I revive Noivern and miss another Draco and then I go for Air Slash after reviving a 3rd time and missed that too.
- Never clicking a move with less than 100% accuracy again
- Getting a team of 6 Shell Armor mons next time because the number of crits was too damn high (especially from Totem mons)


As for how I felt about the game, plot wise it was too similar to Sun and Moon and at I'm getting bored of fighting 1000 grunts, so more plot without grunts would've been really cool. Despite being overleveled, the Totem Pokemon and the Rainbow Rocket bosses still keep the game difficult and I actually enjoy having to struggle since that forces you to plan out your team more carefully. Double battles were fun in Gen 3 and 4, but they're just absolutely horrible due to the lag and I legit just spent 20 minutes on a single double battle because the opponent kept spamming Snarl and Hypnosis, and each turn took 3 minutes because after clicking the move, the camera would move around for 10 seconds and then the turn would go through really slowly. If I knew how Island Scan worked from the get go, I probably would've picked up Infernape and Empoleon or other mons from there, but aside from that, the available pokemon list still feels a bit limiting at times without overlapping types.

I enjoyed the game, but as of now, I feel like it was overhyped a bit and what wasn't shown in the trailers was a bit of a letdown. Post game rainbow rocket stuff is cool so far (aside from the thousands of grunts I keep finding with one pokemon) and hopefully it'll stay interesting when I'm done with it.

 

[Worldie]

Eventually finished storyline and most of RR with this cemented comp, in order of acquisition.

Personal thoughts:
I ended up with a comp that has a lot of troubles dealing with strong dark or ghost types and on boss/totem fights I basically needed to generally sac one poke to get Malamar in for free.
The team was mostly those pokes, it carried around a Butterfree, a Crobat, an Alakazam (caught random abra for dex, timid sync, oh yeah) and a Toucannon for a while that eventually got replaced.
Crobat probably would have still been solid but the lack of proper stabs to use + bad nature (Bold) made me rethink of keeping it

Decidueye: I am adamant in the Grass Master Race starting, so I didn't even think twice. After a couple SR i decided to stick with +speed nature, because... why not. Quite satisfied with it, not *terribly* slow, solid coverage... the most painful part was getting to Leaf Blade since it's been sitting on Razor Leaf as the grass stab for... far too long.
Sucker Punch was a welcome addition expecially to deal with opposer faster ghost types and pick up KOs on things that were *almost dead but not quite*.

Malamar: Caught at Kukui's place (after quite a lot of complaining of not getting a Contrary one), and honestly, no regrets. It demolishes the first island, sadly is a near deadweight against anything that resists dark and/or doesn't have high attack until 39 when it gets Psycho Cut. Once it had the full moveset (Night Slash, Psycho Cut, Superpower, Topsy Turvy) it basically carried me through a lot of things. And well Sash Topsy Turvy...
Besides, the amount of times the AI boss/totem fights are built around spamming debuffs... into Contrary was a huge boon.

Lycanroc Dusk: Finding out that it learned Thrash instead of Accelrock on leveling was a huge hit in my morale :( but either ways, a solid rock type (durr), fast, high attack, Though Claws gives sudo-stab to its coverage options, and once Accelrock was available it really helped tearing through those fast lvl 60+ things.

Metagross: Picked it up just before electric trial, I didn't even remind Beldums being there, but I caught one with a passable +defensive nature so thought that a steel type would have been good. Replaced the Alakazam which sadly kept getting 1shot anyway so wasn't of much use. Eviolite Metang was also stupidly bulky and useful to facetank some of the totems.
Having only inaccurate moves, I eventually tutored it Iron Head, but mostly regret not having spent a bit more time getting BPs to get it an accurate moveset.

Gardevoir: As soon as I saw Ralts on the Island Scan, I *had* to. Having a timid sync, it was also quite easy to get a Timid one as well. Picking up a level 17 Ralts when my team was already in level 30+ was painful, took a while before it was anywhere useful, but eventually it pulled its weight. I invested the last BPs I had in getting Gardevoirite as soon as Tree was reached, before the Rocket episode. I might EV train it and Hypertrain it just for the sake of using it later on tree because she deserves it.

Naganadel: Final addition, added to the party to replace the last filler. Sadly, being underleveled for a lot of the time, without Ev training, even with specs it didn't *really* impress as much as I hoped, but that'll come later.


Really happy with the storyline and differences in characters developement with SM.
Difficulty was on point, I never actually had issues running storylines since.... many years. This time, oh it was painful, *EXPECIALLY* since I was going mostly blind. I dread for the poor novices who will get demolished by the new Totem and boss fights.

Well done.

 

[Blitz]

- This post discusses story spoilers assuming the reader has finished or at least seen the entire game (up to RR). You've been warned. -

I finished a bit ago but this was the team that carried me through Ultra Moon, on Set Mode, no items in battle, and no Rotom / Refresh. My general rules for this run was to have 1) Pokemon introduced in Gen 7 only and 2) Pokemon I have not used. With 11 types, the team synergy was pretty decent.

Decidueye: Alright well, I'll be blunt. I don't like this starter that much. The design is so meh to me. I had already used Primarina and Incineroar in my SM runs so I decided to give Decidueye a chance. Its early game was pretty mediocre, having to rely on Work Up or Grassium Z / Flynium Z to ditch damage. Poor matchups vs honestly most of the totems (Araquanid and Marowak stand out as a sore thumb). Once it became Decidueye, to my horror I discovered SD was post-game far too late in my run.

Final moveset: Spirit Shackle / Leaf Blade / Sucker Punch / Roost @ Decidium Z

I really wanted it to be self-sufficient. It was weak, missed a ton of KOes without the Z Move, and I knew I should have gone with a Nasty Plot variant now that it got Giga Drain early, but it was too late. Clutch moments with this included surviving Photon Geyser from Ultra Necrozma with 1 HP for the KO and killing Archie's Kyogre, so it at least earned my respect there.

Sorry Grassbros :(

Alolan Muk: This was the last member of the team I decided on, after going over what types to not overlap with my currently existing squad - I was attracted to its sole Ground weakness and Psychic immunity / resist which I lacked. Initially Grimer was great, even with tutoring Fire Punch. But as the midgame approached it slogged. Badly, cause that evo level is late. Thankfully, evolving into Muk kick started it into the game again as the best glue Pokemon there is. It was very important in beating Ultra Necrozma (clutching a Def drop), stopping Yveltal and Mega Mewtwo Y from ripping me to pieces, as well as having a phenomenal matchup vs the myriad of RR grunts.

Final moveset: Crunch / Gunk Shot / Fire Punch / Poison Jab @ Quick Claw

Poison Touch was a bonus to this set but it rounded Alolan Muk pretty well. Aside from the evolution slog in midgame, it was a great team member.

Araquanid: Hello buggy. We know what this thing does, and it is to fire off powerful Water-type moves. There is one problem to this however:

Scald was moved to Poni Island instead of being on Brooklet Hill. As a result, Araquanid was stuck with Bubble Beam until Level 50 (where I found Scald) and Level 57 (Liquidation).

However, this did not stop Araquanid from being a phenomenal team member. Waterium Z is obtained immediately after getting Dewpider, and Hydro Vortex coming from even the measly Bubble Beam is enough to drop anything. Nihilego took 90% from it, and we know how bulky that thing is. Bug/Water is a great typing and its defensive utility always allowed it to survive a hit and retaliate with Mirror Coat or a STAB of choice.

Final moveset: Liquidation / Scald / Leech Life / Mirror Coat @ Waterium Z

I don't remember any specific situations but this mon genuinely saved me a ton of times. Its power did not feel lacking even without a good stab move and its a testament to how broken Water Bubble is as an ability.

Salazzle: So getting this thing was a pain in the ass. Adrenaline Orb + wait for a female Salandit + waiting for no allies to be called was hilarious. Anyways, Salandit was pretty meh. Dragon Rage was basically its only attacking move until it got Flame Burst, but it clutched out Totem Lurantis despite its unevolved state p well. When Salazzle was obtained, it turned from ho hum to HUZZAH. The typing is excellent to handle what she has to handle and her access to Nasty Plot made her very self sufficient unlike Decidueye. Destroyed Totem Togedemaru too - I swept a lot of teams with her.

Final moveset: Flamethrower / Sludge Wave / Dragon Pulse / Nasty Plot @ Firium Z

I had Toxic on the Dragon Pulse slot but it wasn't rly doing anything for me. This thing basically just set up, (maybe) click the Z Move, and swept the opponent's team p handily. I could even just save the Z Move since it was that good at setting up and proceeding to maul. Great Pokemon.

Bewear: Man this thing. Bewear was incidentally the only male member on the team out of pure luck, which I thought was fitting. This thing acted as the team's physical tank w/ Fluffy and pulled through in many situations. Starting as a Stufful, the Brick Break TM was very early and it evolved very quickly too.

Final moveset: Hammer Arm / Double Edge / Payback / Ice Punch @ Fightinium Z

No specific situations I can recall other than stonewalling most of Team Skull p well as well as stopping certain type specialists like Molayne (Steel) and Olivia (Rock) cold. Access to Drain Punch would have made this the best member of the team, but beggars can't be choosers.

Oricorio Pom-Pom: The final write-up. Oricorio was without a doubt the best Pokemon on the team as well as what I consider a dark horse - I did not expect this to perform nearly as well as it did. You catch it, it learns Air Cutter at Level 13, access to Flynium Z, and Roost before you leave the first island. Against the myriad of unevolved Pokemon? Absolutely amazing. Get to the tutors, and Oricorio's horrendous movepool shows me the light when I see Icy Wind is also compatible with it. What this did half the game was click Flynium Z and then clean with Air Cutter / Icy Wind and Roost stalling if need be. Destroyed Totem Araquanid, Lurantis, Kommo-o, and even completely clutched Ribombee thanks to Dancer (OHKO at +1). Cleaned most RR grunts as well on its own.

Final moveset: Revelation Dance / Hurricane / Icy Wind / Roost @ Flynium Z

Granted, if I were to look at a negative, it is that Oricorio spends a lot of levels without access to Air Slash and Revelation Dance (36-40), then gets the ultimate nuke at level 50 in Hurricane. However, I honestly felt that Air Cutter and Flynium Z carried me so much, and getting access to its later, more powerful STABs made it keep up quite nicely. This thing was constantly overleveled due to my reliance on it. Newfound respect for what I considered a mediocre mon - I absolutely love this thing.

 

[kuladiamond]

Hi guys, just started the game myself. Was wondering which starter should I choose if my goal is to get to the end as fast as possible? Also which mons are recommended (S-tier) in terms of in-game walkthrough that are obtainable early? I read some posts here, and it seems there are a few choices like Hawlucha, Primarina, Zoroark, etc.

 

[deuxhero]

I've got Vaporeon, Charmeleon and Dartrix at the end of island 2. Any suggestions for the other slots?

As for the current team

Vaporeon: Low starting level hits it a bit, but it quickly gains 3 different types of move (Water, Ice and whatever HP it gets. I got ground) it can throw around with lots of special attack. A bit slow though. Comes right about the time you get Lapras, so revisting island 1 gives it time to catch up.
Charmeleon: You can pretty much copy-paste its performance in X/Y minus mega evolution. Even all the way back to FR/LG, it's a solid mixed attacker with good speed and decent bulk plus lots of attack moves.
Dartrix: Flying stab has been useful at some points (Grass trial, but if I restarted and didn't Z-Move Ember right away I wouldn't have needed it anyways), but overall I feel Ghost would have been more useful so far as there haven't been a lot of ground or fighting types.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Eh, why not? Here goes nothing:

In my Moon playthrough last year, I decided to stick to solely using new mons to Gen 7. So this time around, given the more diverse selection of old mons, I decided to branch out and use some guys I hadn't the first time. Decidueye, Dunsparce (lul), Metagross, and Volcarona were all set-in-stone picks, with the former being a loyalty pick and the latter three being some of my all-time favorite mons that I just had to include once I learned of their availability in USUM. This left me two flex slots to throw whatever into, and I eventually decided on Salamence and Mamoswine for my last two mons. I rarely ever got to use a Dragon or an Ice-type on my past IGTs, and I was already using one of Gen 3's pseudo-legends and Mamoswine is my favorite Ice-type easily for its delicious Ice/Ground STAB, so they were ultimately easy choices. Of course, the main problem with this team is that most of these mons aren't exactly easy to get (really not looking forward to picking up a Volcarona...) but I've managed so far now that I have a team of 5 currently.

 

[Tastypie]

Hi guys, just started the game myself. Was wondering which starter should I choose if my goal is to get to the end as fast as possible? Also which mons are recommended (S-tier) in terms of in-game walkthrough that are obtainable early? I read some posts here, and it seems there are a few choices like Hawlucha, Primarina, Zoroark, etc.

If USUM is even remotely comparable to S&M (and I think it is), Popplio is the most potent starter. I also see no reason why Gyarados and Magnezone should have lost their S-tier status. I heard you can evolve Magneton even earlier this time, so it might have gotten even better. As for newcomers, Hawlucha seems to be a great Pokemon due to great typing, good matchups and increased experience gains. Zoroark is worth mentioning, not because it's super S tier or anything, but because it's the only autowin against the big one. Gengar should still be A tier due to great versatility, and it's arguable the best partner for Zoroark.

If I had to make an easy-mode team, it would probably look like this:

 

[Worldie]

There's one big catch in teaming in USUM compared to SM, and it's that enemy boss fights / totems are 6x30 and EV trained, often with proper nature and always with solid AI / cheeses built in, and unless you are purposely grinding, even with exp share you are generally even/underleveled in mid-late of the main story, not even mentioning TRR episode.

And *EVERYONE AND THEIR MOM* has Pursuit or Bug coverage. srsly, my poor Alakazam died so much all the way to level 30 i just gave up and swapped it out.

It really felt to me that Dark and Psychic times have a disastrous time in the storyline if you aren't purposely using traded pokes, and even then.

 

[Tastypie]

There's one big catch in teaming in USUM compared to SM, and it's that enemy boss fights / totems are 6x30 and EV trained, often with proper nature and always with solid AI / cheeses built in, and unless you are purposely grinding, even with exp share you are generally even/underleveled in mid-late of the main story, not even mentioning TRR episode.

And *EVERYONE AND THEIR MOM* has Pursuit or Bug coverage. srsly, my poor Alakazam died so much all the way to level 30 i just gave up and swapped it out.

It really felt to me that Dark and Psychic times have a disastrous time in the storyline if you aren't purposely using traded pokes, and even then.

Would you say that this applies to all Dark and Psychic types? I remember another person in this thread mentioning that Alakazam is a bit too frail this time, but most people seem to have much success with Zoroark and Metagross for example. I'm going to use Tyranitar in my playthrough, will report how good/bad it was later.

 

[Worldie]

zoroark has the perk of being able to play with the AI due to illusion, and bait psychic moves into it if you disguise it as, say, Hawlucka, so by the time the AI realizes you already netted the kill often enough.

I ran Malamar till the end as i mentioned, it was very clutch, counters a lot of the "debuff spamming" AI tactics, and overally good due to no dark/ghost weakness, but hell everything has Megahorn or Uturn or Bug Buzz. Guzma pls :(

Metagross, which i also ran, has on its hands the fact that it's quite bulky, with pretty good resistances and not weak to fighting, on top of Metang with Eviolite being even more stupidly bulky, but the inaccurate stabs do eventually hurt you. It's also quite slow so in late game it often does take a beating costing you healing items.
It's pretty solid for the Necrozma fight though since it is not weak to any of the moves Necrozma runs (in fact, resists all 4) which gives you more options rather than sash shenenigans.


Basically, the main issue is that very often you will need to swap Pokemon during fights, even if you are already using Switch setting. If the Pokemon you swap in is not bulky enough, good chances it gets destroyed anyway.
On top of as I said, pursuit being very common, meaning when you try to swap out, you in fact end up killing your own poke.

 

[Tastypie]

zoroark has the perk of being able to play with the AI due to illusion, and bait psychic moves into it if you disguise it as, say, Hawlucka, so by the time the AI realizes you already netted the kill often enough.

I ran Malamar till the end as i mentioned, it was very clutch, counters a lot of the "debuff spamming" AI tactics, and overally good due to no dark/ghost weakness, but hell everything has Megahorn or Uturn or Bug Buzz. Guzma pls :(

Metagross, which i also ran, has on its hands the fact that it's quite bulky, with pretty good resistances and not weak to fighting, on top of Metang with Eviolite being even more stupidly bulky, but the inaccurate stabs do eventually hurt you. It's also quite slow so in late game it often does take a beating costing you healing items.
It's pretty solid for the Necrozma fight though since it is not weak to any of the moves Necrozma runs (in fact, resists all 4) which gives you more options rather than sash shenenigans.


Basically, the main issue is that very often you will need to swap Pokemon during fights, even if you are already using Switch setting. If the Pokemon you swap in is not bulky enough, good chances it gets destroyed anyway.
On top of as I said, pursuit being very common, meaning when you try to swap out, you in fact end up killing your own poke.

Sounds like Malamar makes each totem fight a piece of cake? Basically Topsy Turvy all of their aura boosts?

 

[Worldie]

it's a solid way to cheese them, yes, EXPECIALLY totem Ribombee.
And obviously one of your safest bet into necrozma, either sash TT or simply if its stats enough to survive 1 hit. However you have to consider Malamar doesn't have a high speed tier, and lot of totems are either fast, have +2 speed, or simply have 252 speed EVs on top of their 30 IV, which do make a huge difference and often just makes them go first.
It doesn't really have a great typing, basically no resistances, but only has 2 weaknesses so that kind of helps.

However, it has the huge issue that it's deadweight midgame. It stomps the first island due to 95 BP Stab at level 8, (except Totem Raticate if on Moon), falls off in second island and third very very hard until you pick up Psycho Cut, Night Slash, and starts pulling its weight again when you hit Superpower. But as you can see, you are in for sitting of almost 40 levels where it really can't do much more than soak intimidates and kill opposer psychic/ghost types, sadly. Psybeam/Pluck do... something, but not much

 

[Arne De Baets]

Basically a mixed team of alola and kanto pokemon since the character is from kanto. And it's still a solid team.

 

[Miku]

Why exactly does Game Freak hate soft reseting so much? Sun and Moon had a terrible and dragging cutscene when choosing the starter and USUM has a very similar one as well. Would it be so terrible to allow players to save in front of the starter, pick it up, check its nature and stats and then let the game continue. Instead I'm forced to watch a shitty cutscene that, again, drags on forever.

 

[Worldie]

They don't consider it healthy to softreset for starters, hence the cutscenes. Pretty simple.
They want you to play the game, not to reset 2000 times on average for a shiny starter.

...expecially considering that you can just, go further and rebreed your starter for an actual shiny rather than praying for that 1 in 4k chance.

 

[Miku]

They don't consider it healthy to softreset for starters, hence the cutscenes. Pretty simple.
They want you to play the game, not to reset 2000 times on average for a shiny starter.

...expecially considering that you can just, go further and rebreed your starter for an actual shiny rather than praying for that 1 in 4k chance.

Yeah, just looking for one with good nature. Putting those mandatory, long cutscenes is just BS and makes softreseting unnecessarily frustrating and time-consuming.

 

[Worldie]

I can understand, I eventually set up for simply + speed -def on rowlet after 4 or so resets.

Honestly even neutral nature isn't that terrible overally for USUM playthroughts.

 

[Its_A_Random]

Finished my playthrough of Ultra Moon for the main story. 23:52 IGT. These also assume Pokérus because I got it before the first Pokémon Centre in the first hour of the game.

Team: Primarina (Lv60) / Malamar (Lv58) / Noivern (Lv59) / Arbok (Lv59) / Tsareena (Lv59) / Palossand (Lv59)

Thoughts on what I used (Has some spoilers thought I whited out the main spoiler fight):

Primarina

Just as solid as it was in Sun & Moon. No early Scald in this game is a little downer which then meant I had a rough time for Totem Alolan Marowak because I was underleveled and didn't have Bubble Beam. But yeah. Really solid early game, okay middle game, and shines very well lategame to endgame. Something I could really rely on, especially when you have a Totem Ribombee with a few Quiver Dances down to be able to tank hits with X-Item assistance and then pull through for a win when the going got tough. Not much else to say here.

Malamar

I don't know. Pretty good early game with Contrary and early Foul Play but it never seemed to be amazing. Might be because Bug coverage was everywhere. Might be because Inkay/Malamar have middling bulk and no resistances. IDK, but it didn't click much. It's best usage as an Inkay was Foul Play on some Akala totems but those needed assistances to get off successfully. Lategame it came out alright but it wasn't anything amazing and Contrary Superpower wasn't that great. Topsy Turvy is great on buffed opponents if you can get it off. Shame Focus Sash isn't reusable though as I would have loved to use Focus Sash + Topsy Turvy on both (Spoilers) Ultra Necrozma and Totem Ribombee. Used it on the former though because I didn't have anything strong enough to reliably take it on save maybe Primarina? But yeah Malamar wasn't anything special.

Noivern

Got a Noibat with Modest + 31 SpA IV's and HP Electric. Unfortunately it was Frisk but it's not so bad for a blind playthrough. The Noibat stage was what I was expecting tbh. Okay earlygame before starting to be bad because it couldn't outspeed much and routinely getting OHKOed or 2HKOed without many good moves to use. Flyinium Z helped give some offensive presence but after Tapu Village, I switched it to Choice Specs full time. It made it a little better, but it was still having problems of not doing much. Eventually I got to Poni Island and it started to come good. Access to Draco Meteor and then evolution and things started to look up for Noivern. Choice Specs Draco Meteor was insanely fun and Specs Air Slash was alright. It's nice to just show up to an opponent and just click Draco Meteor and deal tons of damage to an opponent or one shotting it before switching it out. Just a shame it didn't get enough SpA EV's because of Noibat dying often and often the things Noibat killed tended to drop Atk EV's, because Specs Meteor wasn't strong enough to one shot some things I wanted to one shot like Totem Kommo-o from like Lv52 or smth. Still, it was really fun to use in the endgame and it also one shot (Spoilers) Ultra Necrozma with Specs DM after Malamar did its TT shenanigans. Would not put in a high tier because Noibat is bad esp if you never put on Exp. Share.

Arbok

Picked up the traded Arbok from Route 8 Pokémon Centre. If I were to sum up what traded Arbok is good for in USUM, it would be this: Debuffs. Traded Arbok is a very solid debuffer. Intimidate + Impish w/ 31 Def IV's made for great Physical bulk which helped with Totems being mostly physical-based. It also had a good moveset for debuffing in Glare, Screech, and eventually Acid Spray. Really great support Pokémon for crippling Totems for teammates and some trainer Pokémon. Unfortunately it didn't have much in its movepool to crow about with most of its attacking moves being specially-based so I kept it in a team-playing role. Gastro Acid could have been interesting to use but stuck with Bite as a fourth move for the need of a Physical option to use off its own Screech if needed. Amazing for Totem Lurantis and Totem Mimikyu. To put it simply: If you want a Poison-type that can deal tons of damage and help get quick KO's, Arbok is not for you. If you want a Pokémon that can debuff and cripple Pokémon (especially midgame totems) to make things much easier on your other Pokémon, Arbok is actually a rather solid choice.

Tsareena

Oblivious -> Queenly Majesty. Steenee wasn't anything amazing. Bad offences and not very good attacking moves meant that it needed a little babying since it couldn't one shot even most SE targets. When it evolved however, it became good. Very good. Insane physical capabilities, decent bulk, but middling speed. Tsareena was just really solid. Great at dealing lots of damage to things. Queenly Majesty is a great ability for it as it meant it didn't care about Fake Out spammers and didn't care much about Guzma's Golisopod at all. Trop Kick was also good on the debuff front since it lowered opponent's attack stats. Went for the itemless Acrobatics route with High Jump Kick late game and yeah, it was really good. Only times it really fainted for me was because HJK missed. Solid B/A-Rank Pokémon for USUM.

Palossand

Caught the interactive Sandygast you can fight on Route 15 (The "sandcastle" the boy made to clear up confusion). This one felt a little underwhelming for me. Might be because of bad nature (Lonely). It also did not get much SpA EV's. It was quite good at dealing damage and has good matchups but it felt like it couldn't do much because it either couldn't get OHKO's when I needed it to and it was also slow. Pre-evolution it was much better than Noibat at least. I don't know really. I just feel underwhelmed.

---

Now to see what the post-game unveils.

 

[Worldie]

Caught the interactive Sandygast you can fight on Route 15.

Hold on . Does that mean you can catch the pokes that are interactable °_° How °_°

Now to see what the post-game unveils.

I can tell you there's a fight where Malamar really gets a huge spotlight. Sadly... bug coverage everywhere after that, again. Ugh.

I suspect that the bug coverage everywhere was intentionally put for discourating relying on Malamar, due to the fact that such an early access to Contrary + TT basically cheese most totem fights including the final story boss basically demolishing the entire difficulty of said fights.
*that's a nice +2 to stats you got there, It'd be a shame IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO THAT +*

 

[Br0keBlegm]

I’m trying to decide between Golurk or Drifblim for my in game run. Which would y’all consider to be the better ghost type ingame?


Or should I just choose gastly (even tho it’s frail af)

 

[Worldie]

I don't recommend using frail ghosts. Pursuit and Sucker Punch are everywhere.