u/Salt-Produce-8129

https://pokepast.es/ba2de7e9e4401b39

Wanted to build a team not around Trick room or focused too heavily on weather, so I came up with this team, because I wanted to try to give Salazzle a way to shine. The main idea for the team is Sableye enabling big Single turn setups for his partners. The big one is using flatter on Salazzle, boosting its special attack by a stage, but confusing it afterwards, causing it to eat it's Lum berry, at which point the +1 Special attack Salazzle can start firing off STAB boosted belches OR doing the same thing with Kommo-o but instead it eats its Persim berry and can fire off boosted Boombursts that won't hurt sableye in the process due to its ghost typing. Sableye runs sunny day as a "surprise" sun setter to enable choice scarf Tsareena to fire off single turn STAB Solar Blades. Hoping to get some feedback and ways to tweak things. Here's the team breakdown:

Salazzle- the Star of the show. Salazzle's main goal in the team is to be flattered by Sableye, boost its special attack, eat it's berry, and fire off really strong Belch attacks. It also runs heat wave which also gets a strong boost from flatter and sun when it's set by Sableye. Salazzle is also able to use fakeout and is extremely fast, with only a small number of key fakeout users being faster, Sneasler and Weavile being the big two. But given she'll come out with with Sableye who cannot be faked out by these mons, it allows Sable to set up Salazzle or another partner while they'd use the fakeout on her. I like to run either nasty plot or taunt in the final spot, one to give her another way to bolster heat wave if Sableye can't be used, but taunt provides more utility. As far as stats go, Maximum speed and a timid Nature to get her speed as high as it can go and max special attack to squeeze out every point of damage possible. Focus sash is given to prevent one shots taking it out

Sableye- Chief team enabler. Sableye is the main support line pokemon for the group. Flatter enables the berry setups for Salazzle and Kommo-o as previously mentioned, but also runs sunny day as a way to increase fire damage for Salazzle and Sylveon as well as let Choice scarf Tsareena do single turn Solar Blades. Helping hand is run to help further boost his partners and foul play is his singular non status STAB move. A careful nature with Max HP and an even split of the remaining points into both defenses for maximum bulk

Tsareena- speedy physical damage dealer. Tsareena uses the sun provided by Sableye to shoot off single turn Solar Blades and with helping hand or additional damage from her partners, can clear out a lot of key threats. Triple axel can break through focus sashes and can down threats like Garchomp, Dragonite,and Aerodactyl. Low kick can hit steel types her movepool would otherwise have trouble with and can down Tyranitar without needing the sun, and Zen Headbutt gets the drop on unsuspecting Poison or fighting types that wouldn't normally worry about a pure grass type. 30 Speed and choice scarf is just enough to outspeed jolly max speed base form Aerodactyl, while adamant nature and Max attack investment maximizes damage output, with the remaining 4 points going into her HP for bulk.

Sylveon- special attacker. Sylveon just provides good all around damage and coverage against a lot of the metagame and fills in some gaps in typing on the team with its movepool. It also appreciates the support from Sableye to enable knockouts that would be just out of reach. Hyper voice is her go to Pixilate boosted Spread STAB move and main weapon with her running the fairy feather to boost it further, just be wary of Soundproof Kommo-o's and potential wide guard users. Mystical fire is a coverage move that can help Sylveon hit the steel types that might cause her issues that's boosted in Sableye's sun, and Psychic does the same for Poison types, with Detect being run for keeping her safe. Maximum HP and her naturally high special defense make her reasonably bulky (more so on the special side of things), and modest nature and maximum Special attack are ran to get the most out of her attacks

Kommo-o- Second flatter abuser. Kommo-o is an awesome pokemon when set up properly, and is given Clangorous Soul to do, but it comes with some inherent risks. You lose a third of your health and have to take a turn off from applying pressure, and you run the risk of being taunted before you can set up, or getting locked with encore. Instead, I built the Kommo-o with flatter in mind from Sableye. By using flatter, Kommo-o gets his special attack boosted, then can eat the Persim berry to cure it immediately and go right into an offensive attack. No losing health, no turn of setting up, no taunt or encore bait. A +1 Boosted Boomburst from Kommo-o deals a lot of damage into anything that doesn't resist it or is a ghost type, and it has the upside of not hitting Sableye. Clanging scales is another powerful spread STAB that appreciates the flattery boost. And Aura sphere is ran as Kommo's second type STAB coverage move ideal for taking down Archaludons and other pokemon that resist his other two moves. Timid Nature and max speed investment and maximum Special attack investment are run to capitalize on Kommo's attacking stats without running clangorous soul.

Mega Aerodactyl- Team Mega. Mega Aero provides great offensive pressure, with the requisite Rock slide and STAB dual wingbeat being able to break through focus sashes and take down key threats like Sneasler and annoyances like Whimiscott. He also provides solid team support in Tailwind 's speed control and Wide guard for spread move protection. Maximum HP investment and 10 points to its defense make it reasonably bulky, with 10 points into attack to secure more damage along with its tough claws ability. And finally, a jolly nature and 14 EVs makes sure it outspeeds anything not boosted, scarfed, or a swift swim Basculegion in rain.

I obtained a shiny Pink Cofagrigus and it was one of my first trick room pokemon back in the day, and I'd like to try running it in a TR team. I was thinking about running it with the moveset: Trick room, shadow Ball, Iron defense, Body press. For points I was thinking enough in HP to get it to its highest optimized level for leftovers, with enough in Special attack to get it to a workable 120, with a speed slowing defense boosting nature getting it to 180's, with the rest going into special defense to get it to 150?

So this team has been doing pretty good so far so I think I want to stick with it going forward but just want some advice on maybe optimizing it a little more. The main idea is using pokemon that can function in either form of hard speed control, be it tailwind or trick room, and having a wide coverage of types. This team actually has 12 different types across the 6 pokemon (Psychic, Fairy, Ghost, Grass, Flying, Fire, Water, bug, dragon, fighting, dark, and steel). Gardevoir is the main offensive force and also can set trick room herself. Starting off with her and Talonflame can put opponents in a bit of a mixup position as Talonflame can priority set Tailwind up and Gardevoir can immediately attack afterwards if they don't fakeout Talonflame to prevent it, but at the same time Talonflame can use quick guard to blank priority attacks for the turn to help ensure Gardevoir sets up Trick room and while potentially retaining Talonflame's full health for a potential priority attack under trick room the following turn. Kingambit has just enough speed investment that he can outspeed things up to 170 speed under tailwind but still slow enough to function under trick room, the rest invested into attack and bulk. Kommo-o is in a nice middle of the road speed that can be usable under trick room but can also become very fast and scary under tailwind when paired with clangorous soul, and benefits from quick guard and wide guard being ran among partners, along with redirection and healing. Sinistcha is the redirector and healing utility piece who also doubles as a backup trickroom setter. Araquanid is an oddball choice, but has a reason to be here. In addition to being a solid wide guard user, is really good into enemy trick room teams and sun teams. Because of his really low speed, he benefits from trick room more than tailwind, but against trick room teams, he threatens quite a few of their setters with a huge Liquidation attack or leech life as a lot of the key trick room setters are psychic and grass types. In addition, water bubble let's Araquanid overcome suns weakening effect on water attack damage and neutralize the boost to fire damage from the sun, so enemy Torkoals and Charizard Y's can be taken by surprise

Hey everyone I'm trying to make a solid Rain team and this was the build I came up with, it's pretty standard I think, with the fun flair being swift swim Beartic as another fast physical attacker. In addition to ice STABs being really good to have, his access to moves like close combat, Rockslide, earthquake, and high horsepower give him some really great coverage moves that appreciate his doubled speed in the rain, without having the rock or ground types that make him susceptible to those types common weaknesses. Run chople berry on him as Sneasler is a very real threat that could outspeed him in rain after unburden without me having tailwind up and running. He still has to worry about Rockslides from Garchomp or Ttar or Aerodactyl, but the doubled speed and his own Ice and ground/fighting moves help take them out first Edit: I am definitely swapping Beartic to adamant Nature and giving it choice scarf. Absolutely outspeeds EVERYTHING outside of a TW boosted Scarfchomp

https://pokepast.es/515311fc30ac21a4

So I came up with this team build, initially as just kind of a meme, but as I built it and starting labbing it, it performed surprisingly well and was pretty dang fun to pilot. The first version I posted here leaned a bit too much into gimmick territory and lacked real synergy. I've refined it a bit and wanted to show it here, and maybe get some advice, feedback and recommendations on refining the concept. I'm not expecting tier 1 status, just a good experience on ladder.

The core concept is built around sableye enabling his team through pure shenanigans using the moves gravity and Swagger, sometimes in tandem, sometimes individually. Gravity forces all levitating pokemon and flying pokemon to the ground and increases the accuracy of all moves. This will become pertinent later on. Swagger is a move that doubles a Pokemons attack, but confuses it. So these two moves are what the team capitalize on

Sableye/Mega Sableye- team's main enabler and certified gremlin. Base form Sableye uses his prankster Ability to give gravity or swagger priority at the jump to enabler his teammate. The nice upside to these two moves is that gravity increasing accuracy improves swagger from 85% accuracy to 100%, so the two moves play well together for this strategy. Because how important Sableye is to this team strategy, the Mega Sableye evolution is run purely to make Sableye as Durable and resistant to interaction as possible and make sure you aren't taunt locked out of your support movepool. You trade the prankster out for beefier defenses and magic bounce to reflect disruptive enemy status moves back at the opponent. Often you will not mega evolve into Mega Sableye until you've used its prankster to activate one of its key moves (most often gravity), then mega afterwards to go "shields up". The other two moves Sableye runs are Disable for disruption protect to keep Sableye safe to ensure he can reactivate necessary moves. In terms of EV spread and nature, I went with a careful nature to up Special defense, Maximum HP and an even split of 17 points into each of his defenses to give him maximum bulkiness. Now let's talk about who he's supporting...

Sneasler- the Metagame menace is back with a twist. You'll notice two things with this Sneasler build that are different. One is it's running throat chop instead of Protect, and two is that it's running a Persim Berry instead of a focus sash or white herb. That's because Sneasler is our first Swagger setup Pokemon. By activating Swagger onto your own Sneasler, you double it's attack and confuse it, causing it to eat it's Persim berry, curing it's confusion and triggering unburden, doubling its speed. You now have an Agility and Sword Dance boosted Sneasler that can still attack. Fake out can help additionally by being able to fake out an enemy pokemon, buying Sableye breathing room turn 1 to activate gravity, then using priority 100% accurate swagger the following turn to power up Sneasler before it launches one of it's attacks. Now the reason why Sneasler isn't running protect is because this is a full offensive opening Gambit that wants to guarantee kills, and throat chop is the best Move Sneasler has available to get the drop on an unsuspecting ghost type or Farigiraf (not going to lie, the idea of using throat chop on a Giraffe is hilarious on a conceptual level). Any non sashed Basculegion is getting one shot, any Perish Song Mega Gengar is getting nuked. The rest of Sneaslers moves are the usual Close Combat and Dire claw, along with the aforementioned fake out. Jolly nature and max Speed investment and max Attack investment are ran to make Sneasler as much of an 0HKO machine as possible.

Garchomp- the garchamp of the current meta. The gravity/swagger switch up here benefits Garchomp greatly. By running a lum berry you have two potential avenues: 1) it can allow you to use sableye's swagger to give Garchomp functionally a free sword dance without having to use a turn to setup or 2) use it to safely run the more powerful STAB move outrage instead of dragon claw, with the lum berry letting you shake off the later confusion. Gravity helps our Garchomp by forcing all pokemon to the ground letting earthquake hit foes usually out of reach, and makes Rockslide 100% accurate, eliminating those obnoxious occasional misses that plague Rockslide users. Another option to run with this build would be scale shot instead of outrage, giving Garchomp a way to boost his speed alongside his attack with swagger, it's up to preference really. Round out the moveset with protect.

Milotic- A personal favorite 'Mon of mine and a welcome addition to any list. Milotic doesn't utilize the swagger side of this list but she uses gravity to great effect. Gravity allows her Hypnosis and Muddy Water spread STAB to reach 100% accuracy without the need to run Coil to do so, letting it become a problem immediately, instead of after a turn or two. In addition to muddy water, Protect and Hypnosis, She also runs life dew as her recovery option alongside her leftovers as it has the upside of being a healing move that can heal Sableye, even through his magic bounce in Mega Form, adding to his survivability and her own. Competitive ability is run to deter intimidate abusers. As far as nature and stats go, I went with a modest nature and 23 additional points to improve special attack and 11 points to shore up Milotic's weaker physical defense to a usable 110. Wrap up with max HP investment for as much bulk as possible

Vivillion- Don't let the pretty wings fool you, this bug is dangerous. Like Milotic, Vivillion doesn't really care about Swagger, but it absolutely LOVES gravity. Normally, Vivillion aiming to be used competitively run compound eyes to increase their sleep powder accuracy to a 90's% accuracy rate. However, gravity makes it 100% accurate (against non grass types I must note). As such, it can run friend guard instead of compound eyes, allowing it to reduce incoming damage to its partners, notably Sableye. In addition to this benefit, it also makes its flying STAB move of choice, Hurricane, 100% accurate without needing rain or compound eyes. In addition to this moves and protect, Vivillion runs Pollen Puff as it's bug type STAB move, not only because it can do good neutral damage to alot of things and big super effective damage into unsuspecting things (a giraffe comes to mind), it can be used on your own Sableye to heal back 50% of its health in a pinch, even through magic bounce which doesn't reflect it as it's not a status move. A focus sash is run to ensure survival to fire off a sleep powder(just look out for dual wingbeat Aerodactyl). A timid Nature and max Speed investment is recommended along with maximum Special attack to get the most damage out of hurricane and pollen puff.

Tinkaton- the Pokemon Banhammer. The exact opposite of Milotic and Vivillion, Tinkaton doesn't really care about gravity, but LOVES swagger. In addition to making it immune to intimidate, own tempo makes tinkaton immune to confusion too, meaning swagger loses its downside and just becomes a free setup that doesn't take up Tinkaton 's move for the turn, and no intimidate spammers can take that away from her. This also means you can KEEP swaggering her to boost her attack, though just one swagger takes her paltry 105 attack to a fat 210. Gigaton hammer easily 0HK0's A LOT of things, and absolutely flattens Mega Floette. Play rough is run to give Tinkaton a solid fairy STAB move to use in between Gigaton down turns, alongside encore which it can use in tandem with Sableye's disable to lock down an opponent and force struggling. On top of all that it's solid defensive typing makes it somewhat hard to deal with. A jolly nature plus 24 additional points in speed gets Tinkaton to 151 speed, fast enough to outspeed most things not specifically trained in it, the 1 extra point to get it JUST past the 150 speed benchmark. Maximum HP investmentment for bulk, and the remaining ten put into attack so that after a single swagger Tinkaton is hitting at Garchomp levels of strength physically

So yeah, that's my team idea. Let me know what you think!

I revised my initial idea of a Sableye led Gravity focused team with a swagger enabling gimmick. Yes, I know it's kind of gambling playing hella risky but can be explosive if piloted smartly. Let me know what you think and what adjustments could be made

Big thing is gravity upping accuracy of moves to enable silly things. Main one is using swagger on Sneasler who's carrying a Persim berry to double it's power and trigger it's unburden to double speed, giving a sword dance and Agility in one turn. If you open with gravity first, with Sneasler using fakeout to buy Sableye breathing room to use gravity first, swagger becomes 100% accurate guaranteeing it goes off. Throat chop is run instead of Protect as a way to hit ghost types who think they're safe. You're playing full aggro here.

A similar strategy can be employeed to give Garchomp essentially a free sword dance using the lum berry it's carrying to cure confusion from swagger. And Gravity improves the accuracy of scale shot on top of increasing Garchomp's speed, as well as making all pokemon susceptible to its earthquake attack and making Rock Slide 100% accurate.

Tinkaton can achieve similar without the need of an item. Own tempo prevents the confusion from Swagger but keeps the attack boost, putting it at 200 Attack and making gigaton hammer really spooky. While Sableye is running disable, Tinkaton runs encore, enabling the disable+encore lock in a single turn instead of two. Fakeout buys Sableye time.

Milotic doesn't really use the swagger portion of this but does employ gravity to great effect, using hypnosis at high accuracy, and making Muddy water a 100% accurate spread move, with ice beam being for consistent coverage.

Espartha also utilizes gravity to make Hypnosis super accurate, while each turn getting a speed boost, becoming faster and faster and harder for your opponent to get an attack in before getting put to sleep. Meanwhile lumina crash does solid STAB damage that compounds with the harshly reducing of special defense each time it hits, with dazzling gleam being run to hit dark types.

Stupid? Yes, but if I lose my matches I at least want to make my opponent chuckle

Am I on the right track here? The idea is hard trick room snow with Mega Abomasnow as the Mega. Farigiraf is the primary trick room setter and Abomasnow is the primary snow setter with Slowking being able to pivot between either one. Abomasnow tends to attack from the special side while conkeldurr goes from the physical side. Maushold is for redirection, damage mitigation, and encore support, with super fang being used to chunk down particularly bulky pokemon like archaludon or iron defense body press users like mega Aggron