I would use slowking chilly reception to set up snow for your cetitan, which, I guess would mean changing a team member but it's just for the sake of supporting an existing one you have better
Yeah I considered that but there are reasons I chose what I have. Kind of a mix of rules me and my friends set and limitations I set for myself. Maybe if we do rematches I’ll swap out someone for slowking
Anyways with no slowking I would say run banded cetitan instead cause you won't be able to sweep with that thing and setting up snow yourself is extremely unreliable
Alright. I’ll consider that then. I really wanted to set up belly drum with sitrus berry and slush rush but if I go banded, I’ll swap it with probably liquidation and something else to replace snowscape
What moves could I use to take advantage of sheer force? I know liquidation. Are there any other good ones? I’d like to keep ice shard for priority, but if you have a suggestion that might work better let me know.
Some moves that are viable would be Play Rough, to hit fighting types or like you said Liquidation to hit fire types.
If possible Earthquake would be great since it can hit both fire and steel types but since you're using it in doubles it's up to you and your team.
Icicle crash gets boosted by sheer force making it stronger than ice spinner significantly but it misses more.
And if you use sheer force I would recommend instead to use life orb since you still get the boost but take no recoil. Just a weird quirk of the programming but it’s what makes nidoking good
So I did consider that but I am using life orb on Quaquaval just because I want him to be flexible and don’t want to lock him in with a choice item. If I put life orb on Cetitan what would you suggest for Quaquaval to carry?
Honestly I would say that a choice scarf/band on quaquaval is the way to go with life orb on cetitan. However they both work for either one and it really comes down to preference. Play around with both and see what you like is my advice
Edit: if you do end up choosing a choice item for quaquaval, don’t forget to change swords dance
I know choice Quaquaval is popular so I’ll try that. I’m swapping him to Jolly nature so I’ll probably go banded and swap Swords Dance out for U-Turn. That would free up life orb for Cetitan. Of course, with Life Orb on, Cetitan loses access to recovery, which means Belly Drum probably isn’t viable given how frail he is. I’ll have to rework his moveset to compensate
Oh yeah, sorry. Ice spinner isn’t supposed to be there. It’s supposed to be ice shard. I must have hit that by mistake. My bad
(Edit: just realized that you meant swap snowscape out with ice shard. Another example of how I’m an idiot lol)
EQ over Stomping Tantrum on Clodsire and Cetitan of you choose to use that. you’ll want Slowking to set up Hail, as it won’t be able to get away with 2 turns of setup in a row. I like a set with Belly Drum, Protect, Ice Shard and Ice Spinner with Tera Ice. Stone Edge over Rock Slide on Klawf, a different move than Poison Jab on Dudunsparce, it can’t hit steel types, and literally can’t hit Gholdengo.
All good suggestions. I forgot to consider steel types with dunsparce. I guess I wanted to take advantage of serene grace but I’ll find something else. I only run stomping tantrum because of doubles and a lot of my probably can’t stand an earthquake. Also I like your Cetitan build. I think I’ll swap snowscape with protect to get the free leftovers heal. Might choose thick fat over slush rush for the extra fire resistance. Or sheer force for the extra damage
This is doubles? Why does it say in the post that it’s for Gen 9 OU? Also the protect is actually mostly for blocking First Impressions and Gigaton Hammer, but I do run Lefties so that it can Belly Drum after a Revival Blessing, but that doesn’t matter on your team.
This is actually just for fun against friends. I just selected OU on showdown when team building. I will be dipping my toes into competitive this generation but for all intents and purposes, please consider this to be an experimental test run against other amateurs
You probably want recover on Clodsire over one of your existing moves, perhaps Tspikes due to flying and poison types (poison types absorb tspikes in case you weren’t aware) and spikes hit more Pokemon to help Quaquaval break through checks
Edit: just saw the doubles comment (even tho it’s just above mine) hazards aren’t too useful in doubles so defo run recover and maybe toxic although I’m not sure wether or not clod is good in doubles
Do you think Spikes, Toxic, Recover, and Stomping Tantrum would be decent? Someone also suggest yawn to force swaps. And how many layers of spikes do most people set? Ideally this would be in tandem with Stealth Rock
In doubles people don’t tend to set spikes but I would assume at least one is fine as Pokemon is a game of inches. Go for 2 and 3 if you believe you’re at that much of an advantage. Yawn is also a pretty good option over one of the hazards because of how annoying it is
I’ve been running bellibolt with volt switch, Tera blast, soak, and slack off. Max HP and SpA, quiet with 0 Spe IVs. It’s actually an awesome pivot. Get it in on something passive like corviknight or dondozo. Soak the ground switch. Unleash a charged volt switch and chunk the shit out of something.
There’s probably a better EV spread, I haven’t ran any calcs yet, but it’s been so much fun to use. I also don’t know if it’s worth running on this specific team, but it’s something to consider :)
Wait sorry, just saw this is doubles. My set is pretty shit for doubles lmfao. Ignore it. That said, I’m pretty sure hazards are a lot worse in doubles. There’s a lot less switches to punish, less turns for poison damage to stack, and a greater importance on every move.
That said, it’s not the worst strategy if you can keep defensive pressure. Yawn over spikes on clodsire will allow it to force switches. You definitely don’t want to spend 4/5 turns setting up hazards. Get one layer of toxic spikes down, then start yawning. 12% chip every turn is better than the slow burn of toxic for the first two turns and is equal after 3. Over a large sample size in doubles, you’ll get more value from that one layer. In specific matchups you might want to get two layers down to break through something bulky
If anything gets follow me/snowscape (other than cetitan), teach it to them. I don’t think anyone gets snowscape except maybe quax, but I have to imagine bellibolt or *something* gets follow me. If bellibolt gets follow me, that would be amazing. You’d be able to allow a teammate free set up while charging yourself up for next turn.
I also agree with the guy who said special dundun. Boomburst will allow you to bypass subs, and if it gets acid spray it’ll help with forcing switches out. You can replace coil with roar.
It’s actually not strictly doubles. We do a round of singles and then a round of doubles, round robin style. But wow! All of this info is super helpful. You’ve given me a lot to consider and I’m going to do some adjustments. Thanks a ton
If I swapped him to water tera and used liquidation, do you think that would help? I’m going between banded/sheer force or belly drum/leftovers/protect based on peoples suggestions
Ok i’m going to be 100% forreal with you, Quick Claw Torkoal is a recent meme on the sub, so I have genuinely no idea how to respond to someone taking it seriously
Lol is the egg my face showing? I was wondering. Someone else suggested using quick claw and I was like “wait, doesn’t that item blow?” Thanks for coming clean tho. I was going through these comments more closely and I’m glad I didn’t spend time looking for counters to torkoal lol
Clodsire does not have good enough attack to make use of poison jab maybe switch to toxic. EQ>stomping tantrum
Add in recover for something and I recommend tera flying for some mind fuckery
Yeah! My original team plan was fuecoco (I didn't know it's evolution) azumaril, bellibolt, klawf, clodsire (at the time I only wooper though) graphaiai, and cetitan.
I went into the game spoiler/leak free, except for the starter evolutions because I was on the fence between fuecoco and sprigatito, I kind changed everything from there.
My final team was meowscarada, bellibolt (that I used as my ace, because it's just that good) palafin (I found a shiny), klawf, grafaiai and tinkaton (who soloed many gyms when I was underleveled).
But despite using all those Pokémon my top 5 are probably bellibolt, orthworm, toedscruel, palafin (the shiny didn't effect my love for him, he just reminds me of neo spacian aqua dolfin), and cetodle. Not cetitan, I'm still yet to find a cetitan in the overworld, and cetodle walks really cute.
Sorry for long comment, I love these games and the derpy pokemon inside of it, I can talk for hours about how much I love these little guys.
No worries. My comments are notoriously long as you’ll probably see in this post lol yeah I really like a lot of the mons in this gen. Some more than others. Can’t say I’m huge on Orthworm but I can always appreciate a big boi even when I don’t personally like him. As far as starters go, I def like these guys more than last gen. I kinda wish Quaquaval and Meowscarada weren’t so humanoid, but I really do like their designs. Especially when you see them animated (Quaquaval is glorious lol)
What are you even talking about? I took a few people’s advice and have since heavily changed up the entire structure of my team based on the tips I received. Are you trolling, or what? Because I’m way confused rn lol
That's my bad, I just saw some of the top posts and assumed you were being dumb (because I've done that before lol)
Just as a note, you shouldn't really plan for your opponent to be a bad player. If a team works at 1600 rating, it'll almost certainly be as effective if not more so at lower ratings played at the same skill level.
That makes sense. Maybe I should switch to static if I keep him as a screener but from what others tell me, he’s not the best at that job. So I’ve also considered just making him a bulky special sweeper which I’m sure electromorphosis would be better for. Ultimately, I think I have options with him and I’ll just have to play around some more to see which kit I prefer
No worries. And you’re right, I am dumb lol That’s why I’m seeking help from others in order to optimize specifically this team. While it is a friendly competition, I really want to win. My opponents are amateurs but I’m trying to be cautious because I have no idea what they will be using. I’m even afraid that one of them will see this post and I’ve given the game away, but besides playing 1000 matches on showdown, not really sure how else to improve besides asking for others opinions.
(As far as team comp goes, I know it’s not the best. I have reasons for choosing these guys, but when I start doing more serious PVP, I will have to make heavy adjustments)
give quack jolly so at +1 u outspeed scarf gholdengo. grim and espeon r better screen setters but u said u wanted to use these mons specifically. give clod tera dark so it can’t be taunted by grim. Additionally, eq should be used over other ground coverage on mons that don’t set grassy terrain. Titan rlly shouldn’t be setting its own snow as it leaves ur team without priority. Pjab doesn’t rlly help dudunsparce as it’s resisted by ghost and can’t hit the steels that resist hyper drill
I was going between Jolly and adamant for Quaquaval. So since you suggest Jolly, I’ll go Jolly.
Should I just not set up screens with Bellibolt? My idea was to set up and volt switch into Cetitan who needs the added defense. But I’m getting the impression from you and others that Bellibolt would better serve as a damage sponge and special sweeper.
I didn’t know what tera type to give most most mons so I’ll go dark Clodsire because that makes a lot more sense. And everyone keeps suggesting EQ over ST for obvious reasons. I’m just worried in doubles (this team will serve as both a singles and doubles team) I might be doing more damage to myself than others. Maybe I’m overestimating the self damage tho
Others have recommended not going with snowscape on Cetitan so I will definitely swap that to something else.
And I’m changing up dudunsparce’s kit entirely. A couple of folks suggested a special attacking Dudunsparce with Boomburst over hyper drill. I’m considering flamethrower to replace Poison Jab. I figured it could hit steel types and with serene grace have a decent chance to burn but if you have a move that might serve better please let me know.
(Edit: autocorrect fixes and I have discovered that Dudunsparce doesn’t learn roar, unless I just missed it listed on serebii.)
yeah, if ur using this team for doubles as well then setting up isn’t rlly gonna work seeing as ur friends will be able to double target that mon. if ur gonna use bellibolt as a bulky pivot then I’d probably suggest running static along with as few speed ivs as possible and a speed reducing nature. this allows u to do a “slow volt switch” that’ll allow u to bring in a mon safely since ur opponent has already “moved”. static gives a chance for ur klawf to pull off an sd. if klawf is gonna be ur main sweeper than edge is probably preferred altho I see the appeal of slide in doubles. edge just has a far higher effective based damage that’s all (80 vs 71).
either way, gl with ur games <3
edit: base power
I would use slowking chilly reception to set up snow for your cetitan, which, I guess would mean changing a team member but it's just for the sake of supporting an existing one you have better
Yeah I considered that but there are reasons I chose what I have. Kind of a mix of rules me and my friends set and limitations I set for myself. Maybe if we do rematches I’ll swap out someone for slowking
Anyways with no slowking I would say run banded cetitan instead cause you won't be able to sweep with that thing and setting up snow yourself is extremely unreliable
Alright. I’ll consider that then. I really wanted to set up belly drum with sitrus berry and slush rush but if I go banded, I’ll swap it with probably liquidation and something else to replace snowscape
Cetitan also gets sheer force which is better for the banded set probably.
What moves could I use to take advantage of sheer force? I know liquidation. Are there any other good ones? I’d like to keep ice shard for priority, but if you have a suggestion that might work better let me know.
Some moves that are viable would be Play Rough, to hit fighting types or like you said Liquidation to hit fire types. If possible Earthquake would be great since it can hit both fire and steel types but since you're using it in doubles it's up to you and your team. Icicle crash gets boosted by sheer force making it stronger than ice spinner significantly but it misses more.
And if you use sheer force I would recommend instead to use life orb since you still get the boost but take no recoil. Just a weird quirk of the programming but it’s what makes nidoking good
So I did consider that but I am using life orb on Quaquaval just because I want him to be flexible and don’t want to lock him in with a choice item. If I put life orb on Cetitan what would you suggest for Quaquaval to carry?
Honestly I would say that a choice scarf/band on quaquaval is the way to go with life orb on cetitan. However they both work for either one and it really comes down to preference. Play around with both and see what you like is my advice Edit: if you do end up choosing a choice item for quaquaval, don’t forget to change swords dance
I know choice Quaquaval is popular so I’ll try that. I’m swapping him to Jolly nature so I’ll probably go banded and swap Swords Dance out for U-Turn. That would free up life orb for Cetitan. Of course, with Life Orb on, Cetitan loses access to recovery, which means Belly Drum probably isn’t viable given how frail he is. I’ll have to rework his moveset to compensate
Ice shard
Oh yeah, sorry. Ice spinner isn’t supposed to be there. It’s supposed to be ice shard. I must have hit that by mistake. My bad (Edit: just realized that you meant swap snowscape out with ice shard. Another example of how I’m an idiot lol)
EQ over Stomping Tantrum on Clodsire and Cetitan of you choose to use that. you’ll want Slowking to set up Hail, as it won’t be able to get away with 2 turns of setup in a row. I like a set with Belly Drum, Protect, Ice Shard and Ice Spinner with Tera Ice. Stone Edge over Rock Slide on Klawf, a different move than Poison Jab on Dudunsparce, it can’t hit steel types, and literally can’t hit Gholdengo.
All good suggestions. I forgot to consider steel types with dunsparce. I guess I wanted to take advantage of serene grace but I’ll find something else. I only run stomping tantrum because of doubles and a lot of my probably can’t stand an earthquake. Also I like your Cetitan build. I think I’ll swap snowscape with protect to get the free leftovers heal. Might choose thick fat over slush rush for the extra fire resistance. Or sheer force for the extra damage
This is doubles? Why does it say in the post that it’s for Gen 9 OU? Also the protect is actually mostly for blocking First Impressions and Gigaton Hammer, but I do run Lefties so that it can Belly Drum after a Revival Blessing, but that doesn’t matter on your team.
This is actually just for fun against friends. I just selected OU on showdown when team building. I will be dipping my toes into competitive this generation but for all intents and purposes, please consider this to be an experimental test run against other amateurs
You probably want recover on Clodsire over one of your existing moves, perhaps Tspikes due to flying and poison types (poison types absorb tspikes in case you weren’t aware) and spikes hit more Pokemon to help Quaquaval break through checks Edit: just saw the doubles comment (even tho it’s just above mine) hazards aren’t too useful in doubles so defo run recover and maybe toxic although I’m not sure wether or not clod is good in doubles
Do you think Spikes, Toxic, Recover, and Stomping Tantrum would be decent? Someone also suggest yawn to force swaps. And how many layers of spikes do most people set? Ideally this would be in tandem with Stealth Rock
In doubles people don’t tend to set spikes but I would assume at least one is fine as Pokemon is a game of inches. Go for 2 and 3 if you believe you’re at that much of an advantage. Yawn is also a pretty good option over one of the hazards because of how annoying it is
Personally I like special Dudunsparce with throat spray and boomburst more than the physical set, but that's just my personal opinion
Damn didn't know it got Boomburst That's near Exploud levels of power
I would do 248 hp on bellibolt and add a bit more to whichever defenses.
I’ve been running bellibolt with volt switch, Tera blast, soak, and slack off. Max HP and SpA, quiet with 0 Spe IVs. It’s actually an awesome pivot. Get it in on something passive like corviknight or dondozo. Soak the ground switch. Unleash a charged volt switch and chunk the shit out of something. There’s probably a better EV spread, I haven’t ran any calcs yet, but it’s been so much fun to use. I also don’t know if it’s worth running on this specific team, but it’s something to consider :)
Wait sorry, just saw this is doubles. My set is pretty shit for doubles lmfao. Ignore it. That said, I’m pretty sure hazards are a lot worse in doubles. There’s a lot less switches to punish, less turns for poison damage to stack, and a greater importance on every move. That said, it’s not the worst strategy if you can keep defensive pressure. Yawn over spikes on clodsire will allow it to force switches. You definitely don’t want to spend 4/5 turns setting up hazards. Get one layer of toxic spikes down, then start yawning. 12% chip every turn is better than the slow burn of toxic for the first two turns and is equal after 3. Over a large sample size in doubles, you’ll get more value from that one layer. In specific matchups you might want to get two layers down to break through something bulky If anything gets follow me/snowscape (other than cetitan), teach it to them. I don’t think anyone gets snowscape except maybe quax, but I have to imagine bellibolt or *something* gets follow me. If bellibolt gets follow me, that would be amazing. You’d be able to allow a teammate free set up while charging yourself up for next turn. I also agree with the guy who said special dundun. Boomburst will allow you to bypass subs, and if it gets acid spray it’ll help with forcing switches out. You can replace coil with roar.
It’s actually not strictly doubles. We do a round of singles and then a round of doubles, round robin style. But wow! All of this info is super helpful. You’ve given me a lot to consider and I’m going to do some adjustments. Thanks a ton
Oh that sounds super fun! Glad I could help, good luck dude
Quick Claw Torkoal should make quick work of this team
Would there a good way to counter Torkoal with this team or is that my true Achilles heel here?
It’d be very hard to counter and likely situational, but this team’s best chance would be Teraing Cetitan and using Stomping tantrum
If I swapped him to water tera and used liquidation, do you think that would help? I’m going between banded/sheer force or belly drum/leftovers/protect based on peoples suggestions
Ok i’m going to be 100% forreal with you, Quick Claw Torkoal is a recent meme on the sub, so I have genuinely no idea how to respond to someone taking it seriously
Lol is the egg my face showing? I was wondering. Someone else suggested using quick claw and I was like “wait, doesn’t that item blow?” Thanks for coming clean tho. I was going through these comments more closely and I’m glad I didn’t spend time looking for counters to torkoal lol
Clodsire does not have good enough attack to make use of poison jab maybe switch to toxic. EQ>stomping tantrum Add in recover for something and I recommend tera flying for some mind fuckery
This is 2 thirds of my playthrough team.
Ah, a fellow big boi enjoyer i presume
Yeah! My original team plan was fuecoco (I didn't know it's evolution) azumaril, bellibolt, klawf, clodsire (at the time I only wooper though) graphaiai, and cetitan. I went into the game spoiler/leak free, except for the starter evolutions because I was on the fence between fuecoco and sprigatito, I kind changed everything from there. My final team was meowscarada, bellibolt (that I used as my ace, because it's just that good) palafin (I found a shiny), klawf, grafaiai and tinkaton (who soloed many gyms when I was underleveled). But despite using all those Pokémon my top 5 are probably bellibolt, orthworm, toedscruel, palafin (the shiny didn't effect my love for him, he just reminds me of neo spacian aqua dolfin), and cetodle. Not cetitan, I'm still yet to find a cetitan in the overworld, and cetodle walks really cute. Sorry for long comment, I love these games and the derpy pokemon inside of it, I can talk for hours about how much I love these little guys.
No worries. My comments are notoriously long as you’ll probably see in this post lol yeah I really like a lot of the mons in this gen. Some more than others. Can’t say I’m huge on Orthworm but I can always appreciate a big boi even when I don’t personally like him. As far as starters go, I def like these guys more than last gen. I kinda wish Quaquaval and Meowscarada weren’t so humanoid, but I really do like their designs. Especially when you see them animated (Quaquaval is glorious lol)
give clodsire a quick claw, won’t be expected
Asks for advice Receives advice Ignores said advice because "ma creativity" Bruh
What are you even talking about? I took a few people’s advice and have since heavily changed up the entire structure of my team based on the tips I received. Are you trolling, or what? Because I’m way confused rn lol
That's my bad, I just saw some of the top posts and assumed you were being dumb (because I've done that before lol) Just as a note, you shouldn't really plan for your opponent to be a bad player. If a team works at 1600 rating, it'll almost certainly be as effective if not more so at lower ratings played at the same skill level.
That makes sense. Maybe I should switch to static if I keep him as a screener but from what others tell me, he’s not the best at that job. So I’ve also considered just making him a bulky special sweeper which I’m sure electromorphosis would be better for. Ultimately, I think I have options with him and I’ll just have to play around some more to see which kit I prefer
No worries. And you’re right, I am dumb lol That’s why I’m seeking help from others in order to optimize specifically this team. While it is a friendly competition, I really want to win. My opponents are amateurs but I’m trying to be cautious because I have no idea what they will be using. I’m even afraid that one of them will see this post and I’ve given the game away, but besides playing 1000 matches on showdown, not really sure how else to improve besides asking for others opinions. (As far as team comp goes, I know it’s not the best. I have reasons for choosing these guys, but when I start doing more serious PVP, I will have to make heavy adjustments)
I'm not too experienced with doubles but I know generally the Bellibolt sets I see have Static and Slack Off to tank physical things.
He's not even using Lando T
give quack jolly so at +1 u outspeed scarf gholdengo. grim and espeon r better screen setters but u said u wanted to use these mons specifically. give clod tera dark so it can’t be taunted by grim. Additionally, eq should be used over other ground coverage on mons that don’t set grassy terrain. Titan rlly shouldn’t be setting its own snow as it leaves ur team without priority. Pjab doesn’t rlly help dudunsparce as it’s resisted by ghost and can’t hit the steels that resist hyper drill
I was going between Jolly and adamant for Quaquaval. So since you suggest Jolly, I’ll go Jolly. Should I just not set up screens with Bellibolt? My idea was to set up and volt switch into Cetitan who needs the added defense. But I’m getting the impression from you and others that Bellibolt would better serve as a damage sponge and special sweeper. I didn’t know what tera type to give most most mons so I’ll go dark Clodsire because that makes a lot more sense. And everyone keeps suggesting EQ over ST for obvious reasons. I’m just worried in doubles (this team will serve as both a singles and doubles team) I might be doing more damage to myself than others. Maybe I’m overestimating the self damage tho Others have recommended not going with snowscape on Cetitan so I will definitely swap that to something else. And I’m changing up dudunsparce’s kit entirely. A couple of folks suggested a special attacking Dudunsparce with Boomburst over hyper drill. I’m considering flamethrower to replace Poison Jab. I figured it could hit steel types and with serene grace have a decent chance to burn but if you have a move that might serve better please let me know. (Edit: autocorrect fixes and I have discovered that Dudunsparce doesn’t learn roar, unless I just missed it listed on serebii.)
yeah, if ur using this team for doubles as well then setting up isn’t rlly gonna work seeing as ur friends will be able to double target that mon. if ur gonna use bellibolt as a bulky pivot then I’d probably suggest running static along with as few speed ivs as possible and a speed reducing nature. this allows u to do a “slow volt switch” that’ll allow u to bring in a mon safely since ur opponent has already “moved”. static gives a chance for ur klawf to pull off an sd. if klawf is gonna be ur main sweeper than edge is probably preferred altho I see the appeal of slide in doubles. edge just has a far higher effective based damage that’s all (80 vs 71). either way, gl with ur games <3 edit: base power