VGC VG We'll C: My attempt at VGC2014

[garmil116]

I started playing Pokemon a year ago and picked up the competitive side just this year. I would like to attend a live tournament but since I only really played OU Singles I would need to play some VGC to fulfill that dream. Here is my first team that I have had mild success with.

Aerodactyl @ Focus Sash
Ability: Unnerve
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Taunt
- Rock Slide
- Tailwind

I started my team off with the then Mega Aerodactyl for support with its helpful moves. After reading around the web I became aware that it was mostly inferior to its non-mega counterpart. I originally had tailwind to support the middling speed on my team but replaced it for protect to help survive. The EVs are pretty straightforward because the sash is Aerodactyl's only possible 'bulk' as it is very frail even with investment.

Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide

This Garchomp is here to provide more of an offensive presense with solid stabs and a nice spread move with a sweet flinch chance in rock slide. Max speed is crucial with the trollish base speed of 102 and 252 attack gives the most power because garchomp isn't taking many hits to begin with.

Chandelure @ Life Orb
Ability: Infiltrator
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Flamethrower
- Shadow Ball
- Energy Ball

I knew this thing was a force in this metagame from past experiences so I chose it and sky-high SpAtk to be some offense for the team. Protect is staple for VGC and the next 2 moves are for STAB. Energy ball is there to hit the ever popular Rotom-W. Max SpAtk and Flamethrower backed by Life Orb boost helps net more KOs (Aegislash and Amoonguss both OHKOed). 220 Spe outpaces scarfmence (and chomp) with tailwind up. 28 hp gives me optimal life orb number and the others are in defenses so that they don't go to waste.

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy
Level: 50
EVs: 52 HP / 252 Atk / 204 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Double-Edge
- Power-Up Punch
- Sucker Punch

This slot was Diggersby because wynaut and it provided an important electric immunity as well as a stab eq but after Aerodactyl put down the mega stone I realized Mega Kangaskhan was 100% superior. I picked this set that focuses on hitting as hard as possible and maxamized the attack. 204 speed EVs allow me to outspeed all base 80s (other than scarfs) and the remainder is placed in hp to survive longer.

Rotom-Wash @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 140 Def / 116 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Thunderbolt
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hydro Pump

This is one of the defining Pokemon of today's metagame and for a good reason. Great typing backed by solid bulk is important. The moves and item are pretty standard from my understanding. The EVs maximize bulk and the special EVs take a high powered attack that I honestly don't remember right now. The rest is in physical defense for max tankiness.

Goodra @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sap Sipper
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Def / 156 SpA / 4 SpD / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
- Dragon Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Flamethrower
- Thunderbolt

Goodra was picked up because I was having trouble with Amoonguss and needed another special attacker because I never actually used Gothitelle (never saw trick room). The moves have great coverage to back Goodra's excellent bulk which with this spread can take a return from mega kangaskhan and practically nothing from special attacks thanks to the vest.

Please improve this as best you can and thank you in advance for all your help.

 

[thundershock1234]

At first glance your team is pretty weak to rock. This means half of your team is weak to rock slide, one of the most common moves in VGC. You also have no pokemon who resist the type either, and this is a really big problem. So what I'm going to do is suggest a few pokemon who will perform the roles you want and fit better in your team.
1. Use Garchomp > Dragonite. Garchomp has a lot of the same weaknesses as Dragonite but it also has a resistance to rock moves, making your team less vulnerable to rock slide.
Garchomp set:

Garchomp @ Lum Berry
naive- Rough Skin - 252 Atk / 252 spd / 6 sp. Atk
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake
- Protect
This may look like a weird set but trust me, it works, hopefully. As you probably know, there are a lot of intimidate and will-o-wisp users in VGC. As most of your attackers are physical, burns probably hurt a lot. Well this Garchomp set doesn't care. Lum Berry Garchomp is pretty common and it works. I mean, who wouldn't want to waste a rotom's time trying to burn a Garchomp? Lum berry heals Garchomps burns and allows you to get an extra turn to attack a more threatening pokemon. Dragon Claw and Earthquake are for stab. Now to the interesting bit. Fire Blast is for taking out Scizor and Ferrothorn, both common in VGC. You may be questioning Fire Blast over Rock Slide but your other pokemon already have access to that move. People don't expect a Garchomp to be carrying Fire Blast so they will keep in their pokemon, for example Ferrothorn, in on it. You can use that opportunity to Fire Blast that spot and take out a huge threats to your team (not like Ferrothorn is a threat, this is just an example). I'm not the best at explaining but hopefully you get the idea

I will fully rate tomorrow. Enjoy this set! Hope it works for you!

 

[garmil116]

At first glance your team is pretty weak to rock. This means half of your team is weak to rock slide, one of the most common moves in VGC. You also have no pokemon who resist the type either, and this is a really big problem. So what I'm going to do is suggest a few pokemon who will perform the roles you want and fit better in your team.
1. Use Garchomp > Dragonite. Garchomp has a lot of the same weaknesses as Dragonite but it also has a resistance to rock moves, making your team less vulnerable to rock slide.
Garchomp set:

I will fully rate tomorrow. Enjoy this set! Hope it works for you!

I am fine with Garchomp I just am questioning the EV spread you gave me. It seems slapped down with no investment in bulk and no significant OHKOs with Fire Blast. Also is Skarmory ever used in VGC?

 

[thundershock1234]

The thing is you have a lot of bulky pokemon. Goodra, Rotom-W and sometimes even Kangaskhan can take a lot of hits from things that would significantly damage even aha bulky Garchomp. If you want to use a Garchomp VGC set from smogon that's bulky go ahead. I'm just saying that I think your team needed a fast Fire Blast user and that Garchomp isn't the bulkiest of pokemon anyways.
If you want bulky Garchomp, I'd run the EV spread: 252 Atk/ 252 spd/ 6 def. Just be aware that:
0- SpA Garchomp Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Abomasnow: 272-320 (70.8 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 4 HP / 0- SpD Garchomp: 420-496 (228.2 - 269.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0- SpA Life Orb Garchomp Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 146-177 (80.6 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
If you do want to use Bulky Chomp then I'd just scrap the Fire Blast idea. It was just a thought I came up with last night and thought it would be a good idea.

Another idea I had last night was to replace Gothitelle with Competitive Wigglytuff. It does exactly the same thing but it resists dragon (with Goodra as replacement to Gothitelle, that leaves you with two pokemon weak to dragon).

Wigglytuff @ Leftovers
252 HP / 252 def / 6 sp. Atk
Bold - Competitive
- Hyper Voice
- Dazzling Gleam
- Wish
- Protect

Hope this has fixed a few things! I didn't have much time to write a review yesterday but hope this helps

 

[garmil116]

The thing is you have a lot of bulky pokemon. Goodra, Rotom-W and sometimes even Kangaskhan can take a lot of hits from things that would significantly damage even aha bulky Garchomp. If you want to use a Garchomp VGC set from smogon that's bulky go ahead. I'm just saying that I think your team needed a fast Fire Blast user and that Garchomp isn't the bulkiest of pokemon anyways.
If you want bulky Garchomp, I'd run the EV spread: 252 Atk/ 252 spd/ 6 def. Just be aware that:
0- SpA Garchomp Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Abomasnow: 272-320 (70.8 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 4 HP / 0- SpD Garchomp: 420-496 (228.2 - 269.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0- SpA Life Orb Garchomp Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ferrothorn: 146-177 (80.6 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
If you do want to use Bulky Chomp then I'd just scrap the Fire Blast idea. It was just a thought I came up with last night and thought it would be a good idea.

Another idea I had last night was to replace Gothitelle with Competitive Wigglytuff. It does exactly the same thing but it resists dragon (with Goodra as replacement to Gothitelle, that leaves you with two pokemon weak to dragon).



Hope this has fixed a few things! I didn't have much time to write a review yesterday but hope this helps

I'm on board with the offensive Garchomp but I don't see the need for Fire Blast. The things it mainly hits are already slower than Chandelure and Goodra for that matter and their flamethrowers hit harder than fire blast from Garchomp not to mention the accuracy that could be so crucial in such short battles as VGC tend to be. I will go Garchomp>Dragonite but with rock slide>fire blast (jolly>naive obviously too).

 

[thundershock1234]

Do you mind if I copy that sentence everytime someone recommends Fire Blast on a Garchomp, that was perfect! But seriously though, I get comments all the time saying it is good. Ahem. Anyways, I'm glad you have decided to run Garchomp over Dragonite. I think it really will benefit your team, seriously. Also please do try out Wigglytuff if Goodra doesn't work out. I absolutely love it, and use it all the time in game. Good luck!

 

[Martin]

If you are planning on using Garchomp, I suggest using Rock Slide instead of Fire Blast as the flinches and spread damage are so helpful in this fast-pased metagame. Furthermore, the coverage provided by SlideQuake is just so much better, and there is nothing important that it misses neutral coverage on with Dragon Claw when I give 10 seconds of thought. Also, Lum Berry is a good item for it, but looking at your team it really struggles with Mega Kangaskhan. Because of this, I suggest that you at least consider running Rocky Helmet as you have a variety of special attackers that you can use to absorb burns for it as it is and it is immune to T-Wave, meaning that only the rare Stun Spore from Amoonguss will paralyze it.

 

[garmil116]

If you are planning on using Garchomp, I suggest using Rock Slide instead of Fire Blast as the flinches and spread damage are so helpful in this fast-pased metagame. Furthermore, the coverage provided by SlideQuake is just so much better, and there is nothing important that it misses neutral coverage on with Dragon Claw when I give 10 seconds of thought. Also, Lum Berry is a good item for it, but looking at your team it really struggles with Mega Kangaskhan. Because of this, I suggest that you at least consider running Rocky Helmet as you have a variety of special attackers that you can use to absorb burns for it as it is and it is immune to T-Wave, meaning that only the rare Stun Spore from Amoonguss will paralyze it.

I will try out both and see which one I prefer. I like the idea of the rocky helmet to get extra damage on anything that wants to touch me while the popularity of lum will make Rotom think twice before finding out my item.

 

[WideTomato]

Hey there bud, cool vgc team.

When I used to play vgc a lot, I found trick room to be a very influencing strategy, and your team basically dies to a trick room team. I used to use taunt on my aero, instead of sky drop, and while sky drop is nice, removing a opposing pokemon for a turn, taunt will help your team a lot.
-stopping wide guard, troublesome for chomp
-stopping perish song/sub/protect mgengar from doing its job
-stopping sub aegislash (seems troublesome outside of goodra)
-stopping sleep spam, from amoonguss and smeargle.
-stopping double trouble smeargle (tailwind, dark void, transform, ks/protect)
-stopping trick room obvi
Generally it is just great support for a rather offensive team, specially with no lum berry users.

 

[garmil116]

Hey there bud, cool vgc team.

When I used to play vgc a lot, I found trick room to be a very influencing strategy, and your team basically dies to a trick room team. I used to use taunt on my aero, instead of sky drop, and while sky drop is nice, removing a opposing pokemon for a turn, taunt will help your team a lot.
-stopping wide guard, troublesome for chomp
-stopping perish song/sub/protect mgengar from doing its job
-stopping sub aegislash (seems troublesome outside of goodra)
-stopping sleep spam, from amoonguss and smeargle.
-stopping double trouble smeargle (tailwind, dark void, transform, ks/protect)
-stopping trick room obvi
Generally it is just great support for a rather offensive team, specially with no lum berry users.

Great thought. I never really considered it but a fast taunt would be really nice. Everything you listed is just annoying stuff I don't want to deal with right now (other than Aegi because infiltrator Chandelure).