General Teambuilding for Upcoming Gym Leaders

[yeetius674]

I’m currently having some difficulty with Serra and her mirror field team and wanted some help with building a better team for that and for upcoming leaders. My team currently is…

Charizard - Solar Power

- Flamethrower

- Wing Attack

- Dragon Rage

- Shadow Claw

 

Manectric - Static

- Wild Charge

- Discharge

- Bite

- Flame Burst

 

Ursaring - Guts - Flame Orb

- Strength

- Shadow Claw

- Baby Doll Eyes

- Rock Smash

 

Mawile - Intimidate

- Sucker Punch

- Play Rough 

- Crunch

- Iron Head

 

Drapion - Merciless

- Cross Poison 

- Fell Stinger

- Toxic Spikes

- Crunch

 

Garbodor - Aftermath

- Sludge Wave

- Clear Smog

- Toxic

- Amnesia

 

How could I improve my team for dealing with the Gym Leaders, especially Serra?

 

Thanks

[ammonite]

I see that your Drapion has Merciless, are you using a mod? Just asking in case youre dealing with a non-vanilla Serra here.

 

In general, I think you need more ground resists, since Manectic, Mawile, Drapion, and Garbodor are all weak to it. Its true that Charizard is immune, but it cant help you in Cave field (and similar) where leviating/flying pokemon can be hit. It also helps to have more selection to switch into different moves. I think replacing a Garbodor with a Grass-type in particular would be a good idea -> Charizard cant take Water and Electric moves but Grass types can, and Grass types bait in Bug, Poison, and Flying moves, which you already have resists to. Grass also gives you a super effective answer to those problematic Ground types as well. Im also going to reccomend some other pokemon, so if you need to drop another member, id reccomend ursaring. It is usable later on, especially since Trick Room is really soon.

 

Id personally reccomend Leafeon since Eevee shouldve just become available to you, it learns Swords Dance and Sunny Day for its Chorophyll and Charizard's Solar Power. Even with Serra, it also baits in Ice moves (you can switch Mawile or another ice resistant pokemon into those).

 

For Serra specifically, I usually go for breaking her field, which can be done with boomburst, bulldoze, earthquake, explosion, fissure, hyper voice, magnitude, self-destruct. If you dont want to train up anything special for this, graveler with sturdy can do this (I also think if its low enough level, leading glaceon will try to kill it instead of setting aurora veil). But you can get swinub wild in the railcave, which learns earthquake naturally and gets a field boost from snow cloak - just note that breaking the field kills anything without like, crit-blocking abilities. Also note that breaking the field does lose one relationship point with Serra. Its not a big deal if youre not a jerk to her elsewhere lol. 

 

If you dont want to break the field, Alolan Sandslash gets slush rush and super-effective Iron Head

(you need to catch A.Sandshrew and not evolve until level 47?) By using Snatch (from an Onyx move tutor), you can steal Aurora Veil for yourself (if your pokemon snatches A. Veil while holding light clay, it will extend the duration) and then send in another pokemon to set up how you like. Taunt can also stop it from going up, but be aware of Magic Coat from the field seed.

 

I hope that helps regardless if youre using a mod? Good luck either way!

 

[vampirevulpix]

For Serra specifically, I can only ever recommend Nature Power. You should have the TM already - and on Serra's Mirror Field, it transforms into Mirror Shot, which is boosted on the field to twice its strength. As a Steel attack, Serra's mons are weak to it, AND it has a 100% chance to lower the target's Accuracy , too.

One side effect of Mirror Field is how, when a physical attack doesn't hit, it will deal 1/4 of the max HP as damage + lower Accuracy. So like, in general I'd recommend special attacks and Evasion and/or Accuracy boosts. Synthetic seed is also a good option.

Iirc I solo'ed this one with my Typhlosion: Nature Power and/or Flamethrower go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Worked like a charm, especially as it was rather fast (fast enough, at least).

Also, jsyk: breaking the Mirror Field will cause you to lose 1 relationship point with Serra.