Please help me balance my team

[jameslfc]

Hello

I am Currently on my first playthrough and i've spent 70 hours to reach the end of episode 14. I decided to fix my team before I go further. Terra rekted my team and took me 10 attempts to win from her.

I use 8 mons (greninja, gardevoir, arcanine, claydol, mismagius, eelektross, drapion, scrafty) to reach this point. However, i think i want to axe it into 6 regular members with a good balance, a team that can sustain itself with just 6 members until the end. Please give me suggestion on a balanced team centered around greninja. (PS : I do not mind if i have to axe greninja)

Oh by the way, i have access to episode 12 so i can breed TMs, as explained in Etesian's Breeding Guide. Have access to synchronizers to get desired nature such as adamant/modest/impish/bold/jolly/timid

This is the "masterplan" for the future team that i have in mind.

1. Greninja

Ability : Protean

Nature : Modest

- Surf

- Ice Beam (from running back and forth between episode 12 and 15)

- Dark Pulse

- Extrasensory.

Standard set here, but i think i want to swap DP for Toxic Spikes lead (from omanyte)

2. Arcanine (from the police)

Ability : Intimidate

Nature : Adamant

- Flare Blitz

- Close Combat

- Crunch

- Outrage

Should I remove crunch/outrage with moonlight? I am willing to breed it once again and start from scratch.

3. Gardevoir

Ability : Trace

Nature : Modest

- Psychic

- Moon Blast

- Calm Mind

- Grass Knot (for grass coverage, as my team does not have grass types)

Should i remove Grass Knot with Energy Ball? Or use Thunderbolt?

4. Drapion (with crit lens for 50% crit chance)

Ability : Sniper
Nature : Adamant
- Swords Dance (bred from ninjask)
- X-Scissor

- Cross Poison

- Night Slash

5. Eelektross (Support + Bulky Sweeper)

Ability : Levitate
Nature : Adamant

- Coil

- Brick-B for screens

- Thunder Wave

- Wild Charge

6. Archeops

Nature : Adamant

- Acrobatics

- Rock Slide

- Earthquake

- Dragon Claw

However, in my opinion, my team is not balanced enough. I think my team lack these aspects.

1. A pokemon that resists rock, to cover arcanine +archeops. for archeops, one rock slide = game over as the defeatist kicks in.

2. A team player pokemon to dish out damages (i think steel types can be useful here,as steel types also resist rock attacks).
I thought about lucario however if i add lucario, half of my team would be greatly checked by ground types.

3. I am willing to rebreed and change any of these pokemon.

Here are some alternatives that i have in mind

1. Scrafty

Ability : Moxie

Nature : Impish

- High Jump Kick

- Ice Punch

- Dragon Dance

- Crunch/Rock Slide/Poison Jab(from nidorino)

The downside is, it has 4x fairy weakness, and i don't have any steel types to dish out fairy attacks (neutral damage to drapion though)

2. Claydol/Metagross/Bronzong.

Claydol can dish out rock damages, metagross can learn magnet rise, bronzong has levitate, if so, what do i need to replace with?
Also, I already have gardevoir as the psychic type. And i need fairy type for coverage/immunity against dragon.

3. Bulky Fighting types such as machamp/conkeldurr maybe?

Please give me suggestion on what should i remove/add from the team to meet these aspects stated above. Thank you very much. If not possible, suggestion for rotation is also welcomed.

[AnimeFg]

As we already had the ground type gym, you don't really ahve to worry about ground types nearly as much. Personally I think lucario would do you wonders as it eat rock type moves for breakfast, and dishes out great damage, without overlapping types. On top of that, since it's a steel type, it will be able to do tons in the next gym vs the fairy type leader, in the next episode(probably). I think that grass knot is just fine on gardevoir, because with the rock type gym coming up in the future, and rock types being very heavy, it should put in work. Normally, if you wanted only a team of six, I would replace Elektross with Lucario, but with the water type gym coming up, and the water gym definitely having checks to normal electric types, I think that Elektross might be able to sweep it almost highhandedly.

[Exalted]

alright if you cleared tera you're pretty good to go as she is by far one of the most difficult leaders so far and i would say metagross and lucario as it can do miracles against ciel as about 3 of her pokemon is weak against steel both conkeldor and hawluncha can also be a great additions and dark pulse im kinda biased about that as i woudnt say wasting greninja as a suicide lead but dark isnt all that amazing after radomus.

point to add keeping archops on active team is a deadly gamble once accidental crit or a tough situation can land you in deafeatist and you dont want that i would recomend geting a sturdy golem or gigalith with custap berry(great set againt gym leaders specially heather) set up stealth rock and go boom with explosion so these are the pokemon i mainly say to get also arcanine is fine for now but pyroar is also an option with a great speed and sp attk as a replacement if you want to replace archeops i say drop it after heather as rock slide can do miracles but if you want to replace afterwards ther is aerodactyl staraptor or hawluncha

[jameslfc]

@Animefg thanks for the suggestion, i bred jolly lucario today and i was so lucky it turns out to be shiny! yea i agree that eelektross would be reserve squad for water gyms. i think we can't really use 6 pokemon in this game because of the monotype gymleaders that have lots of coverage moves.

@NovaKnight thank you for the reply. alright. i think i will not make greninja as suicide lead. maybe i will just switch between dark pulse or grass knot depending on the situation. and i decided to keep the gardevoir as it is now too. regarding archeops, i think i will still keep it, because i can use endeavor when my health is low. but i bred tyrantrum too yesterday, both has the role as earthquake + rock attack users. except tyrantrum packs head smash but slower.

i think i will swap eelektross for galvantula. galvantula has sticky web support and i think my team really need it. this is the final 6 in my opinion.

1. Greninja Modest Protean : Surf, Ice Beam, ExtraSensory, DarkPulse/Grass Knot

2. Gardevoir Modest Trace : Psychic, Moon Blast, Calm Mind, Grass Knot

3. Drapion Adamant Sniper : Cross Poison, Night Slash, X-Scissor, Swords Dance

4. Archeops Adamant : Rock Slide, Endeavor, Earthquake, Acrobatics

5. Lucario Jolly Justified : (image above)

6. Galvantula (planned, has yet to breed it) Compound Eyes Modest : Thunder/Energy Ball?, Bug Buzz, Sticky Web, Charge Beam/Discharge (C-Beam if I use Thunder, Discharge if I use E-Ball)

Reserve :

1, Arcanine Adamant Flash Fire (for Galvantula/Lucario's shield against fire) : Crunch, Outrage, Flare Blitz, Close Combat

2, Tyrantrum Jolly Rock Head (he is for archeops substitute) : D-Dance, Head Smash, Earthquake, D-Claw

3. Eelektross Adamant Levitate (For gym battles) : T-Wave, B-Break, Coil, Wild Charge

So, with this main line up, i have every spectrum of attacks except normal, ghost, and dragon attacks. Might give shadow ball to gardevoir in the future.

I decide to drop arcanine because lucario can cover arcanine better, that's why i gave him blaze kick. And Lucario gets swords dance too. Occasionally I die on recoil damage from F-Blitz.

Please give me more suggestion regarding the line up. Should i swap something with the reserve pokemon? Tyrantrum is a bit slow and needs DD first so he can sweep. Meanwhile, it has plethora of weaknesses and hard to survive for even two turns.

Regarding compound eyes galvantula, should i go with thunder or energy ball? TM breeding can only do one of those. no bug pokemon can learn both energy ball and thunder.

thunder galvantula = electabuzz -> volbeat/illumise (only them can learn thunder in bug group) -> joltik

energy ball = lotad -> paras -> joltik
so, i must only choose one.

thank you

Edited October 18, 2015 by jameslfc

[Hiroki Tatsumi]

Tyrantrum doesnt need DDance while it is a rock smash attacker i think o: