Rate My Dragons

[hungrynarwhal]

I'm trying to throw together a dragon team, and although my current team has some hard hitters it lack a certain...synergy.  I'm looking to create a more balanced team, maybe one without 3 setup sweepers haha.  Any suggestions are  welcome!

 

 

 

Tyrantrum hits hard and has a fantastic moveset.  However, it is a little slow and letting it set up properly can take some planning.

 

 

 

Naganadel is a big of a glass cannon, but its access to poison has proven very useful.  I'm not a fan of draco meteor but the z-crystal makes it worth having.

 

 

 

Dragonite has proven to be the star of my team.  Multiscale gives it a (almost) free boost, if weakness policy is triggered it becomes almost unstoppable.  The two problems I have run into have been stealth rock and status moves, neither of which I have a way to counter at the moment.  I've thought about running fly over wing attack, but after a boost it doesn't seem to matter.  Fly seems too predictable to me as well.

 

 

 

I love Flygon.  It is one of my favorite gen III Pokemon, and the coolest gen III dragon come at me I'll fight anyone.  That being said, this one is a little meh.  Dragon tail is her most useful move, as this team definitely benefits from having a phazer.  Spreading status is useful as well since there is no one else on the team that does so reliably.  While being the faster earthquake user, its power is a little lacking.

 

 

 

Goodra deals with most fairies like a boss.  It has the same coverage moves as Naganadel though, which seems too redundant.

 

 

 

Mega Charizard X is usually my lead.  I like having roost in there as it allows me to play mind games with suckerpunch users and Aegislash, both of which seem pretty common.

[SilverAngelus]

............

Why are they all named Magikarp?

[Vinnie]

Way too many setup moves imo. 

 

I'd take dd off Tyrantrum and give it rock polish. 

Naganadel is fine, competitively I want to say fire blast over flame thrower, but the choice is yours.

I'd go complete choice band with Dragonite but if you really want to run dd then I'd at least remove wing attack and give it thunder punch.

For Flygon I'd go full defensive with stealth rocks and add twister(sounds stupid but this is reborn, and twister removes a lot of fields).

Can't really make any minor changes to Goodra honestly, it either stays the same or I'd dump a completely new set on it.

Zard X is fine, if you want to run crunch over eq, then it is what it is. I'd be a bit tempted to run belly drum honestly(it's a full dragon team, people know it's X and therefore weak to eq, so a potential setup opportunity is to just not mega and belly drum).

 

 

[N1Dude]

You're suuuuper weak to ice punch swampert, so I'd definitely put power whip over flamethrower on goodra.

Or switch out char x for mega sceptile

[Lorisaur]

Oooook so

 

Let's begin fixing a couple things

 

First of all, Naganadel is the most solid lead of the game. Any good player must have a precise game plan to face a leading Naganadel or they will lose 2-3 pokemons in very little time and Naganadel will start snowballing, as choice scarf isn't a thing, TM ice beam and earthquake are not here yet, and so on. Naganadel is the absolute best pokemon of the game, seriously

 

His major threats are however AV Tyranitar and Metagross, quite common to check Naganadel, as well as Weavile and MegaMawile. The last one is especially good, but cannot safely switch in as you can (and should) Nasty Plot on his switch-in and Mawile is usually a pokemon you don't want to lead with. So yeah that's the thing: you send in Naganadel, you scout his check, you kill it, ggwp everyone

 

Charizard X is one of the best megas to cover Naganadel's weaknesses and can safely get into the random eqs people will try to shoot in the face of Naga. However, I would really teach him dragon dance instead of crunch to threaten some checks in switch-in. You'll never use crunch so much, seriously. Eq is not in the game so you can't teach it at all

 

Flygon is a very interesting pick but I don't appreciate dragon rush. Claw is just better. However, I would reeeally teach him defog and roost, as you must keep it alive to continuously get rid of hazards that are pretty hurtful for your team

 

Goodra is simply good... ra. Assault vest is the best set for him but you have enough fire moves so you may want to run power whip instead of flamethrower for Swampert Jellycent and Gastrodon (while Swampert will be reeeeally uncommon, Gastrodon is fairly good for this metagame ans Jellycent is not a metagame staple but does its job)

 

As for Dragonite, wing attack is just so sad. Probably, it's just better to use roost as the only good fairies of the metagame are Mimikyu, Mawile, Silvally and Clefable and Dragonite just wants to escape in front of them as the same. However, remember that Fire Blast ohkoes 252hp Mawile while you have +2 satk even with a negative nature and no evs at all

 

Tyrantrum is just a bit... bad imo? Ok if you like it play it. But... many other dragons are a bit better. What about Silvally? Is a very good defogger (so you could give Flygon stealth rock) and is the only freakin dragon pokemon in the game that grants momentum with parting shot as you know we have no u-turn nor volt switch for now

 

 

Hope I've been useful!

[hungrynarwhal]

Thank you all for the suggestions! I sort of forgot Silvally existed, partly because putting it together in this game was so messed up haha.  I plan on putting it in place of Tyrantrum.  I'd like to run a set with water/grass pledge, defog, and parting shot but my current Silvally could use some better IVs.  Time to dig up some old saves.  I put powerwhip and thunderbolt on Goodra, as muddy water doesn't seem to be that useful and every time it missed it made me sad.  I'm still trying to work Flygon in, right now its a specially defensive set with eq, dragon tail, stealth rock and toxic.

 

Small edit: With a few exceptions, from gen III on I've always named all of my pokemon 'Magikarp.'  Not really sure why.