DPPt/HGSS Hmm, time to refine the team.

[Xanthier]

Hello all. I've not battled in a while, and though I have a fully EV'd team, pretty much all their attack sets are geared for pure damage. Nothing else really. At any rate, here's the team as it stands currently -

Metagross - Adamant - Salac Berry
252 EV Atk, 252 EV Speed, rest HP
- Agility
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Meteor Mash

Weavile - Adamant - Scope Lens
252 EV Atk, 252 EV Speed, rest HP
- Ice Punch
- Night Slash
- Brick Break
- Slash

Togekiss - Timid - Shell Bell
252 EV Sp.Atk, 252 EV Speed, rest HP
- Thunder Wave
- Flamethrower
- Air Slash
- Extremespeed

Gengar - Modest - Black Sludge
252 EV Sp.Atk, 252 EV Speed, rest HP
- Sludge Bomb
- Thunderbolt
- Energy Ball
- Shadow Ball

Gallade - Adamant - Twisted Spoon
252 EV Atk, 252 EV Speed, rest HP
- Psycho Cut
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch
- Leaf Blade

Milotic - Bold - Leftovers
252 EV Def?, 252 EV Sp.Def, rest HP (Can't fully remember EVs on this)
- Surf
- Recover
- Ice Beam
- Hypnosis

It's fairly obvious the entire team, aside from the Milotic, is essentially made of glass cannons. I'm tempted to switch the Milotic out for this -

Tentacruel - Timid - ?
252 EV Sp.Atk, 252 EV Speed, rest HP/Def
- Substitute
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Surf

Any thoughts on how the team could be improved in general, as well as EVs, move sets, critter choices? All help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[Plapti]

Any reason for Slash on Weavile, besides the high Crit rate? I can think of some better moves, but I'm curious to hear why it's there. Lack of moves to use, or is a high Critical hit rate hard to pass of for a move like Ice Shard or Pursuit.

Extremespeed is an awesome move, but Togekiss has a really bad move. But Hustle makes that all change. Priority is nice too, even if it is weakened by the Timid nature. Consider Aura Sphere to pair up with Air Slash for some awesome coverage (If I remember, Zapdos is the only Pokémon that resists it). Wise Glasses could work decently.

Focus Blast on Gengar, but it's really a meh option, considering Gengar can't take a hit, for Steels. They're hit hard enough by Thunderbolt anyways.

Gallade has Close Combat as an option. Night Slash as well. Night Slash and Close Combat offers great coverage as well. Though Using Leaf Blade gives Gallade come staying power against Swampert and other annoying Pokémon. Maybe Thunder Wave over Swords Dance tover come the low Speed problem and try to heal HP back with Drain Punch maybe. It might work. Muscle Band as an option for an item.


Seems intersting, but maybe this might work:

Tentacruel@ Life Orb
Lonely / Adamant
252 Atk / 176 (+4 for every point away from 31) Spd / Rest S. Atk

-Swords Dnace
-Poison Jab
-Waterfall
-Surf / Hydro Pump

Swords Dance fakes that you have only Physical moves, then use either Surf or Hyrdo Pump to pound the opposing physical wall hard.
Poison Jab and Waterfall both get STAB. The type combination hits most for neutral damage. Pokémon that standout to give trouble are other Tentacruel, Empoleon, and Toxicroak.

Either way, the majority of the moves are quite balanced. No glaring holes or weaknesses that I can see.

 

[Ruko]

Think I could try fixing the glass cannon situation? Try some odd EVs on some of your pokemon.
Your metagross has agility, for instance: You could fill it in with HP, DEF or S. DEF EVs and allow it to take more hits.. so long as you give enough speed to reach 198, Agility will allow it to outspeed anything shy of Electrode. If you were to dump all the extra EVs into Defense, you can safely bring it out on any physical attacker you want.. It's got the same base defense as my Relicanth, and without any training in Defense or HP, Reli' can take a Close combat off of an Infernape and live.

If you don't want to rebreed the Weavile, consider a focus sash with Swagger, or even Taunt.. but I agree with Jet on slash.

Substitute can save Gengar, if not that, Hypnosis or some other non-attack move on the set is nice. Some pokemon do good with four attacks, but just a single defensive move can save the pokemon.. in Gengar's case, Sucker Punch is really gaining popularity. Sludge bomb doesn't offer any coverage, and if Gengar doesn't kill, it's likely getting killed, so the poison effect doesn't seem worth it. Energy ball works fine, and I'd choose it over Focus Blast myself, but consider Focus Blast for the fact it has perfect coverage with Shadow ball, and a bit more power than Energy Ball.. just not the best accuracy.

I think I've got something that might work better than T-wave on Gallade... move that Metagross' Salac berry over to Gallade, and just make sure you send it out on a special attacker and use swords dance [since the special defense should allow it to take a hit] If you're somewhat lucky, you'll get knocked perfectly into Salac range, and have a Swords Danced killer. A bit risky, but it'll to a lot better than SD with twisted spoon.

Milotic, I would consider Dragon Pulse over Ice Beam on. You lose out on some better Dragon coverage, but most have Yache berries [anti-ice] on them anyway now. Dragon Pulse + Surf covers everything but Empoleon, which you're currently walled by anyway.

For Tentacruel, especially if you repalce your only wall with it, may I suggest Defense and speed EVs? Throw a Petaya Berry on, since you've got Substitute, and that'll make up for your attack. Between Petaya and Giga Drain, you should be good on health and attack too. Has good coverage and both STABs, and you need Sludge bomb on this one for Grass.

 

[KoL]

Another move that is viable for your Weavile in place of Slash is Swords Dance - if you come in at the right time in the game, you could easily get off a Swords Dance and then proceed to annihilate the opposing team.

One thing worthy of mention - if you have a team of glass cannons, why would you want to remove the one Pokemon that actually plays defensively for another Pokemon with an offense-oriented moveset? I know Ruko touched on this a bit with his post, but the way your team is at the moment, one wrong move could easily doom your entire team. If anything, consider using more defense oriented Pokemon - even on the most offense-oriented teams, one defender isn't going to work. Granted, Togekiss, Metagross and Gallade have reasonable defensive capability to some extent, but with your EVs they won't stand a chance against anything that has boosted its stats. If anything, try and find some place to put in some more defensive Pokemon, so that you have a greater element of control in a battle, as well as more ways to potentially set up a sweep.

In any case, here's my Gengar:

Gengar @ Petaya Berry
Modest
Levitate
252 SP.ATK/252 SPEED/6 HP

- Shadow Ball
- Thunderbolt
- Substitute
- Hypnosis

Sweeping Gengar with a twist. Sub is essentially a scouting move since Gengar outspeeds quite a lot of threats, and if your Sub doesn't get destroyed, Hypnosis is available for use to disable one of the opponent's Pokemon. After that, you can start killing stuff - Shadow Ball is for STAB, and Thunderbolt is for a bit of extra coverage. Keep in mind that I have tried Focus Blast on this set, but its poor accuracy has a tendency to screw you over more frequently than it's worth. 3-4 Subs = Petaya boost too, and your attacks are really going to pack a punch after that against anything without a considerably high Sp.Defense stat.

For Metagross, I'd drop either Earthquake or Explosion for Rock Slide or preferably ThunderPunch, otherwise Skarmory and Bronzong will wall you. Also, Agility + Salac Berry is pretty much overkill - consider using either a Muscle Band or Liechi Berry instead.

 

[Plapti]

Assuming Perfect IVs, Metagross only needs 132 Speed EVs to hit 209 Speed. After a single agility, it'll be able to outspeed +1 Speed boost, 252 Speed EVs, Pro Speed Heatran and Speed tie with +1 Speed boost, 252 Speed EVs, Neutral Nature Base 90 Group.

If you run only 198 Spd, Random choice Scarfers will get a head of you but meh, it's really personal preference on what speed value you hit.

If you use the Life Orb, Metagross needs 112 HP Evs (Assuming Perfect IVs) to have the Life Orb recoil go down to 32 per attack, instead of 33. (329 HP as opposed to 330 HP). It allows a grand total of 11 uses of the Life Orb, instead of 10.

Though Skar resists Meteor Mash, Agility with Meteor Mash, Earthqake and Explosion is still a deadly set. Especially if all of Metagross's counters are dealt with or can't survive a single Meteor Mash. Exploding on low health is always favorable as well. Especially if you know you can't kill it with Meteor Mash or Earthquake.



As of right now, Explosion seems to be one of my favourite options on Gengar. Explosion can easily decimate Special walls and has quite a surprise value when your opponent's Special Wall is crippled or down and out.

If Blissey's do still exist, a stat of 200 Attack is needed to OHKO Max HP, Max Def, Bold Blissey.

 

[Xanthier]

Cheers for the help guys, it's very much appreciated. Weavile currently has slash just for the high crit chance.

Thus far it seems the changes I'll most likely go along with are -
Replace Sludge Bomb with Substitute on Gengar.
Move salac berry from Metagross to Gallade.
Replace Slash with Swords Dance on Weavile (though I can't help but feel any misjudge on this and Weavile is a goner.)
Replace Ice Beam with Dragon Pulse on Milotic.

I could always replace Thunder Wave with Aura Sphere on Togekiss - I've never really used Thunder Wave, so it doesn't seem like much of a loss. I had been tempted by Night Slash for Gallade, and decided against it because I had a Weavile for stab, which is faster. As for potentially dropping the wall for another glass cannon, that's mostly because my battling tactics tend to revolve around purely doing damage, and so though a wall is very useful, it's just quite odd using one.