Pokemon

PD813. Mah pokemans. Let me show you them.

(Also you should totally post yours.)

Hail team:
Abomasnow: with Protect, Leech Seed, Wood Hammer, and Blizzard
For the hail. Also: stalling!

Lapras: with Hail, Blizzard, Thunderbolt, and Surf
Special attacker that can Super Effective seven different types, and can do neutral damage to all eleven other types.

Mamoswine: with Earthquake, Ice Shard, Ice Fang, and Stone Edge
Physical attacker with a combination of bulk and power, as well as a handy ground subtype!

Breloom (wonderful, wonderful Breloom!): with Spore, Leech Seed, Bulk Up, and Mach Punch
A complete package. With Toxic Heal and carrying a Toxic Orb, I simply drop Cappy out there, fire away with 100% accurate Spore, then Leech Seed and Bulk Up while they're sleeping. Mach Punch becomes a priority-striking, one-hit KO move of death after just a few Bulks. Just awesome.

Donphan: with Rapid Spin, Fire Fang, Ice Fang, and Ice Shard
There are some out there who like to use the move Stealth Rock, which can potentially devastate Ice teams like mine. Hence, the need for a Rapid Spinner, and there are few as good as this li'l guy. He's only got one purpose on the team, but he can be useful as well for resisting Rock, which can be a serious problem against my Ice-heavy team.

Venomoth: with Bug Buzz, Sludge Bomb, Sleep Powder, and Psychic
One of my favorite Pokemon of all time, Toxra here has Tinted Lens and a maxed Special Attack, which means no worries about enemy resistances. She's frail, and not quick enough to be a priority threat, but she can make some pain. Nevertheless, her position on my primary team is temporary, sadly, as her typing fails to help cover my Ice-types defensively (she is also weak to fire and rock, as they are), and my team already has sufficient power in the Special category. She's always got a home on one of my teams, though, rest assured!

Interesting line-up! I can't say I fully appreciate what I'm sure must be a brilliant strategy, since I haven't played extensively since red and blue. I know it's become a lot more complex since then, which is part of the reason why I haven't gotten in to it. I think if I would have stuck with it from version to version I wouldn't have to worry about a learning curve, but I feel like trying to master 500+ new pokemon would take weeks, and I'm not sure it would be worth it. What would you suggest for a behind the times pokemaster like myself?

That said, as far as strategy, I was always a big fan of leach seed/absorb type attacks in combination with accuracy and attack debuffs and sleep. I tended to go the endurance route over heavy attacks. Restore was my best friend, I taught it to whoever could learn it. Didn't always work out, but then what does?

There are more Pokemon, and more viable strategies, perhaps, but it still ultimately boils down to "this attack does super-effective damage to that type." One of the most impressive things about the games to me is how they are simultaneously strategically deep (for weirdo people like me) and accessible (for everyone else). I could have an EV trained OU power team, and still lose to a five year old using his favorites. And that's great.

My recommendation is to use what you like! Always has been! And you'd be surprised how awesome some of the newer additions to the roster can be (a lot of people still prefer the original 151, which I totally get, but then you miss out on awesome choices like Volcarona, Yanmega, Ninjask, and wow do I like Bugs, huh).

But if you do feel like doing some homework, I usually split my time between Bulbapedia and Smogon, with Gamefaqs thrown in for the Pokedex, Breeding Guides, and Item locations, and so on. I find this type of thing to be rewarding, personally. Seeing that team above, that I raised from level 1 to 100 (well, most of them are 100, anyway), in action is awesome.


And let's see... for you, my friend:
If you like bulky absorbers, you'll probably love Serperior, the Grass-type starter from Black/White/Black2/White2, although he may be a bit faster than you're used to.

Like restoring health? Like birds? Roost exists now. And it is so, so great, especially on legendary birds (like the old-school Articuno, Moltres, or Zapdos), or on Skarmory.

Remember how Snorlax knew Rest? He could put himself to sleep and fully heal? It's a TM now, and just about EVERY Pokemon can learn it. Furthermore, there are two new moves that actually make that useful: Snore and Sleep Talk. Snore is an attack that has a chance to flinch that can only be used while sleeping, and Sleep Talk is a move that is automatically used while sleeping that randomly uses one of the Pokemon's other moves.

Like endurance, eh? How about a scorpion bat (yes, that IS a Ground/Flying type, and no, I don't know how that makes sense) or a sand hippo for physical defense? Or a jellyfish ghost or a... whatever Blissey is for special defense? Or there's always Ferrothorn, for both!

Old school recover users have also never been better! Starmie and Alakazam got so much better in the Black and White generation that it's crazy, and are actually some of the best Pokemon out there right now period. Mewtwo is and always will be one of the most fearsome Pokemon of all, and Pokemon X and Y are giving him Mega Evolutions on top of that!

Anyways! Yeah! There's probably something in there to pique your interest! Perhaps in the new "we want training to be faster and easier" X and Y generation, you could give some of them a shot!

Okay guys, like I mentioned, Toxra, my Venomoth, is going to find a home on a different team. My question to you is, who should replace her?

I have three options in mind:

Chansey:
I've never really loved this Pokemon, per se, but I admit I admire its playstyle. The Chansey/Blissey family are, shall we say, unique. ZILLIONS of HP, and CRAP for all other stats (well, except Special Defense). What does this mean? A fantastic special wall with only one weakness, and a decent physical wall due to its massive HP combined with numerous healing abilities. It is, in short, hard to kill. Additionally, it can heal teammates, cure their statuses, poison enemy walls, and offset its NON-EXISTENT offensive stats with set-damage abilities, like Seismic Toss (which does damage equal to level). This thing could be useful, no question. Despite that, it adds nothing to my team offensively, and brings no actual resistances to the table (apart from immunity to Ghost, which is already not a problem for my team).

Starmie:
Why not replace one of my all-time favorite Pokemon with another of my all-time favorite Pokemon? Starmie is awesome. Fast, powerful, GREAT attack selection (BLIZZARD! THUNDERBOLT! PSYCHIC! HYDRO PUMP! THUNDER! SURF! SCALD!), good move variety (including Recover! Also, Thunder Wave! Light Screen! Reflect!), plus, it resists what are by far my team's two biggest weaknesses: Fighting and Fire. It seems like a natural fit. Also, it could potentially add another dangerous Blizzard user to my Hail team, as well as setting up Hail itself! However, it does lack bulk, which is something my team has stats-wise, but lacks severely when typing is brought into play (apart from Donphan and maybe Mamoswine, the typings of my team are TERRIBLE defensively), so we might need a bulkier Pokemon like Chansey for our final slot?

Or perhaps we could go a different route with:
Feraligatr:
How about instead of another Special Attacker to compliment Lapras, we try a Physical Attacker to compliment Mamoswine and Breloom? Like Starmie, he usefully resists Fire, and he's got decent stats all around. Good setup moves, like Dragon Dance and Swords Dance, and nasty nasty physical attack movepool. And pure water is a good defensive typing. He's a little slow, though. And he doesn't resist Fighting like Starmie does, nor does he have as much raw bulk or support abilities as Chansey, plus I do already have a decent physical attacker with good coverage in Mamoswine, and the two are actually very similar, so perhaps there is too much overlap?

Plz halp!

If it were me, I'd go with starmie. It's hard to pass up a move set like that. As much as I prefer the endurance approach (a la Chansey), it's not worth much unless you're doing at least some degree of relatively constant damage. And with recover (I think I said restore before, but that's an item isn't it?) you can still wall for a bit anyway. And like you said, you've got pretty good meat shielding already, so anything your 6th member brings is really just a bonus. Also it never hurts to have a super effective sucker punch. A water type that does massive electric damage? Win.

If it were me, I'd go with starmie. It's hard to pass up a move set like that. As much as I prefer the endurance approach (a la Chansey), it's not worth much unless you're doing at least some degree of relatively constant damage. And with recover (I think I said restore before, but that's an item isn't it?) you can still wall for a bit anyway. And like you said, you've got pretty good meat shielding already, so anything your 6th member brings is really just a bonus. Also it never hurts to have a super effective sucker punch. A water type that does massive electric damage? Win.

I like the way you think!

Plus... Chansey is weak to Fighting. Just like my entire team. So that doesn't help there. Starmie is a perfect fit, really. You're totally right.

Oh, and the move you're thinking of is called Recover. Restore is an item, yep!

Wow. It's more than two years later, and I still have/use all six of those Pokemon.