Pokemon Games DP Teambuilding Competition

[6Roggenrolas]

Welcome to the first Pokemon Games Room Teambuilding Competition!

The idea is essentially the same as any other teambuilding competition, but the focus here is on in-game viability rather than viability in a specific tier or format. The teams are submitted as model sets, with extensive knowledge of the games being important in this case to understand how/why the sets are useful. As with other teambuilding competitions, some sort of restriction (usually requiring participants to build around a specific Pokemon, but potentially others) is put in place for entrants to follow. In-game viability is not as straightforward as it may seem- there are many things to consider besides just effectiveness in battle.

What's the competition?

Considering the fairly recent completion of the PG Room's DPPt Community Playthrough, it felt fitting to use Diamond and Pearl (not Platinum!) as the first set of games. This particular competition is focused on going through the main-game- as a result, things such as HMs and Pokemon that can be obtained early are of extra significance (though still not entirely necessary to build a winning team). The Pokemon that participants are being challenged to build around is...

Torterra!

Torterra is occasionally overlooked, and this is not entirely without reason. It has some issues that its pals Infernape and Empoleon don't have to deal with- a 4x weakness, a common opposing type that resists both stabs and is super effective against it, and more limited mixed potential. It is also stuck as a pure Grass type with somewhat underwhelming coverage until level 32, which can cause problems. However, this Pokemon has plenty of perks: It has the bulkiest and hardest-hitting stats of the Sinnoh starters, the notoriously useful STAB Earthquake, and a great, accessible movepool to work with. We look forward to seeing how participants will build around this Pokemon's strengths and weaknesses to create a team that can thoroughly conquer Diamond/Pearl's main game!

How do I enter?

To enter, as with any teambuilding competition, you must post a team of 6 Pokemon onto this thread, with moves, items, and abilities selected. However, Natures, EVs, and IVs are not to be given, as properly obtaining/accruing them slows down a playthrough exponentially and is not common practice. If using version exclusive Pokemon or items, be sure to specify which version your team is for. Finally, you should give a description of your team: feel free to be lengthy- your team's moves/Pokemon (and especially when/where you obtain them) will be the biggest factor in the team's success. While your earlier movesets for the whole team don't need be discussed, it would improve your chances to to explain how something specifically challenging to Turtwig or Grotle is defeated, such as Jupiter's Skuntank. Entries can be formatted out in a post, or if you would prefer, typed into a Pokepaste.

What are the rules/guidelines?

-The team, of course, must have Torterra on it, and all Pokemon must be obtainable within either Diamond or Pearl before beating the game (Cynthia).
-You must use six Pokemon, and operate under the assumption that they will be leveled up somewhat evenly: while smaller teams can certainly perform well, this is because they will gain levels more easily and won't require as much thoughtful teambuilding.
-The assumption is that you will be training only these six Pokemon and without grinding (abusing wild encounters or Vs. Seeker to level well above the average)- you can't claim to have overcome an earlier opponent with something that won't be on the final team.
-No Pokemon obtained from trades, including in-game ones, may be used. This also means that you cannot have version exclusives from opposite versions in your team. You may however build with trade evolutions that would have been originally caught in your game. Dialga/Palkia and the lake spirits are obtainable and thus allowed!
-If your submitted team is extremely similar to another one (not only same Pokemon, but also mostly similar moves and items), keep in mind that priority will likely be given to the earlier entrant.

If you have any questions on any other matters relating to this competition's rules or what to include in a submission post, please send me a PM! (Smogon: Le-Hydra | PS!: 6Roggenrolas)

Who will be judging, and how?

The judges of the competition's winner will be the staff of the Pokemon Games room on PS!: The following criteria will be used to determine the best team, and are meant to encourage more diversity/creativity in teambuilding:

1) Matchups: Having Pokemon that are clearly capable of defeating strong/common in-game opponents through moves/items/abilities is highly important.
2) Synergy: Having a variety of options to cover Torterra's (and the rest of the team's) shortcomings and improve overall performance.
3) Navigation Skills: this includes the potential to learn HMs, or even better, having them on your Pokemon's set- as anyone who remembers their DP experience well can testify, some HMs are more useful than others in battle and/or in the overworld, and this will all be taken into account.
4) Efficient Progress: Pokemon, moves, and items that can be obtained earlier, easier, or (for wild Pokemon) at higher levels will gain some points here. Essentially, a team that minimizes the need to spend too much time on grinding's many incarnations.
5) Power: While their weaker or more easily obtained counterparts still get the job done, some powerful Pokemon (or moves/items) are so good in battle that they can do it much better- allowing for quicker victories and reducing the need for trainer-used items in and out of battles.
6) Miscellaneous: This could be anything that theoretically makes accomplishing certain non-battling tasks in the game easier. False Swipe, Amulet Coin, Pickup, and Suction Cups are just a few examples of such perks.

When teambuilding, attempt to satisfy as many of these categories to the greatest extent you can with your six Pokemon- some may have to be prioritized over others, and figuring out where to cut corners will make up a good chunk of the teambuilding process (along with the expected task of making battle-ready sets that work well together).

What do I win?

The creator of the winning team will be awarded:

-The satisfaction of knowing you've crafted one of the best darn Diamond/Pearl teams around, and also actual prizes such as
-$10 Nintendo Eshop Gift Code
- A shout-out in the Pokemon Games room on PS!

What is the schedule?

-The contest is currently open for entries!
-The deadline for submissions is May 5th. After this date, no more teams can be submitted.
-Deliberations will be made by the judges over the next few days, and the winning team will be announced May 10th!

Good luck and happy building!

 

[TheSunIsADedlyLazr]

The Sun Is A Deadly Teambuilder (For Diamond, at least)

Let's start off with Him. The Boy.

The Westlands King Regnant: Yggdrasil

Torterra

Ability: Overgrow
Held Item: Soft Sand/Miracle Seed (Amulet Coin/Iron Ball)
-Wood Hammer
-Earthquake
-Synthesis
-Crunch (Rock Climb)

Just going by Torterra's moves that are available to get before Cynthia specifically in Diamond and Pearl (Platinum adds some options by virtue of the National Pokedex no longer requiring a League clear, but that's not for this thread), this is the best you've got. While it's true that you can have Giga Drain for recovery or Leaf Storm for the Grass nuke, Torterra's base Special Attack of 75 means that those are Lazr-certified Bad Ideas, through and through. As much as Torterra suffers from being less capable in mixed attacking compared to its starter brethren, the to this date unique Grass/Ground typing and natural access to Earthquake in a game where the EQ TM is both single use and one of a kind within normal means (because raising a Pickup Pachirisu to the Level 90s to try for another one speaks for itself) is an enormous boon. Depending on how one plays their team, it's either a trip to Wayward Cave saved entirely or a chance for a TM only Pokemon to learn the move as a second user. That said, Torterra will notably struggle to make clean sweeps in some Gyms meant to confer a type advantage to it due to Ice coverage existing in the gym teams, most notable examples being Wake's Ice Fang Floatzel, Byron's Ice Fang Steelix, or Volkner's Aurora Beam Octillery, not to mention Pokémon that stave off its advantages in other ways (Intimidate Gyarados, every Pokémon whose name starts in "Bronz" owned by a Trainer having Levitate, so on). Besides the STABs and Recovery in Wood Hammer and Synthesis, Crunch makes for decent coverage against Ghost and Psychic types, making it able to be a solid contender for at least a KO or two against Lucian, though you will still have just plain Bite for Fantina, so don't walk into that fight without support.

HM note: Since all the moves provided here are learned by leveling up, you can use whichever HMs you need on Torterra (it will have to carry Rock Smash until a later teammate can as Turtwig) and still have this moveset for endgame via Heart Scales and the Move Deleter, so be sure to stock up on Heart Scales-they're among the easier finds in the Underground by far in addition to several being hidden for the Dowsing Machine. Rock Climb is the most notable inclusion here (hence it's the only one actually written), as it is among the tougher HMs to nail down in a team.

The held item should be changed out as needed once you have them both-Miracle Seed for Bertha, but Soft Sand for Flint, for instance. Since both come well after Amulet Coin, I recommend having Grotle/Torterra hold it first, hence the parenthetical mention. As for Iron Ball, I'll save that explanation for later-it's a real treat.

Next up, it's a bird! No, really!

The Flying Ranger: Wendy

Staraptor

Ability: Intimidate
Held Item: Sky Plate (Amulet Coin)

-Brave Bird
-Return
-Fly
-Roost

Staraptor is your standard earlygame Normal Flying Type given a huge boost in the way of Intimidate being a possible Ability. Your Grass starter will obviously not be able to do much against Gardenia's Gym, but a well-raised Staravia will mow the lawn with scary efficiency, and the easy slotting of Return onto a Mon you obtain early on is just icing on the cake later in the game for making Staravia/raptor both an excellent Intimidate support (a prime idea for handling both Purugly and Skuntank in their first fights, as well as helping to tame any Gyarados you run into, especially Wake's, and his Floatzel too) and a fast damage dealer. The ability to learn Fly is great, serving as both a powerful non-recoil STAB and fast travel around the region. You CAN choose to learn Defog and later delete it in time for learning Brave Bird, but sure shot moves like Aerial Ace being in your possession for the game's fog areas are far more worth the moveslot for that period of time, and you should have Aerial Ace for the few times that fog and Trainers appear together. Return's Game Corner availability cements this idea, firmly removing the need to Defog for the Lost Tower women for that TM. Roost and U-Turn is a choice that boils down to your personal preferences. Recovery (and a removal of Flying's weaknesses) is nice when you have a recoil nuke. One could argue for U-Turn, but in all honestly, story mode AI generally does not play at the level where it becomes overly necessary or especially useful, especially considering it is a Game Corner expense, which many like to minimize.

The Sky Plate comes supremely late (as in at the League), so Staraptor is a prime candidate to hold the Amulet Coin-all the way to the League, where it is no longer needed per se.

Next in line, a Water Type I Feel goes often overlooked.

Twin Jewels Of The Sea: Sting

Tentacruel

Ability: Liquid Ooze/Clear Body (any works)
Held Item: Mystic Water/Poison Barb

-Surf
-Barrier (Waterfall)
-Toxic Spikes
-Sludge Bomb

Probably the sole fault to find in Tentacruel as a Pokémon is it's difficulty of using its Poison Stab before the Veilstone Warehouse Basement, where Sludge Bomb is obtained. Other than that, it has competent offense, a special defense stat that some Pokémon would kill for, the incredibly rare Liquid Ooze Ability as an alternative for the equally useful Clear Body, access to Toxic Spikes, and Barrier to quickly shore up its lower physical Defense in a pinch. Not to mention that wild Tentacool and Tentacruel can hold Poison Barb, so it may come holding its own type booster, if the less useful one for a while. Both Toxic Spikes and Barrier are Level-up moves that can be restored by Heart Scale and Move Deleter when an HM is no longer needed, so you can also teach it Cut if you're really in that bad a pinch (Turtwig/Groton can cover for it in the meantime). A solid Water type that goes overlooked a lot for solely how common its family is in the oceans, give Tentacruel a shot-it absolutely won't let you down, especially in later games (and it's a far better cry than Lumineon). Again, change out hold items as needed as you come by them.

Completing the Fire/Water/Grass core, you already know who it is...

The Blazing Steed: Helios

Rapidash

Ability: Flash Fire
Held Item: Expert Belt (Insect Plate if you just want to boost Megahorn and be done with it)

-Flare Blitz
-Megahorn
-Bounce
-Strength

Rapidash is honestly the hardest sell in this team, but it has to be made due to pre-Platinum Sinnoh's enormous mistake of not providing a Fire Type worth your time outside of the Chimchar line during the main story. Note that the held Item recommendation here is Expert Belt, despite the extreme tedium and luck required to get that item from Route 221's house man. That is because, perhaps due to the fact that you find more Fires in the postgame than the main story, both outright Fire Type boosting items are locked behind the postgame unless you want to spend the actual hours mining for a Flame Plate in the Underground. The fact that someone who deliberately hunted a female Panpour in White 2 for a playthrough is telling you that's not worth your time should say all that needs to be said. As mentioned parenthetically, Insect Plate is an option for the less patient. Since by the time Staraptor lets go of the Amulet Coin, you'll have basically no further need of it, I can't recommend that at all for the horse. You might also be wondering where the hell is Poison Jab in the moveset as opposed to keeping Strength. Without Fairy existing yet, Poison coverage serves only as another way to hit Grass when Rapidash's STAB already hits Grass, and Poison Jab carries a chance to inflict an effect that Tentacruel can inflict better on potentially an entire enemy team via Toxic Spikes. There is precisely zero reason to burn the Heart Scale for it in this team, so just don't.

That all being said, STAB Fire defeats Candice's Gym (though take care handling Medicham, our next members may be best for it), Byron's Ice Fang Steelix, and all of the Trainer-owned Bronzor and 'zong in the region, and 80 special attack is passable enough as you carry on towards Flare Blitz. Evolving just once at Level 40 is late, yes, but you literally have no other option for STAB Fire without outside help right now, and things such as a store-purchasable Fire Blast TM can help you keep up for that home stretch. Megahorn and Bounce do prevent it from becoming a true one-trick pony by offering a few more types to hit supereffectively with that Expert Belt (Bounce especially helps against Aaron, where Rapidash should be kept alive as long as possible in defiance of Flare Blitz recoil), and the worthlessness of Poison Jab on it leaves you a space to put Strength that you realistically don't need to delete for the League, in other words, a Heart Scale saved.

And now for the reason this is a Diamond team...

The Self-Sacrificial Hero: Kicks

Skuntank

Ability: Stench/Aftermath
Held Item: BlackGlasses

-Poison Jab
-Night Slash
-Explosion
-Rock Smash

I generally despise repeating types, and I doubly did not want to resort to version exclusives, but the game forces me to. Why? Without the use of the rather difficult void glitch, there is only one Dark Type available in both Diamond and Pearl that does not require the tedium and expense of the Safari Game: Sneasel. I cannot recommend the Sneasel line in good faith in a game without competitive move tutors, because a physical Ice with Ice Shard at best is a waste of the Ice Type. Resorting to Diamond specifically gives us Murkrow and Skuntank as options, and if I have to repeat a type either way, I'm doing it with the much more defensively viable Poison/Dark Type because both those options turn out kinda slow so the better one is the one better at taking hits, especially since Candice doesn't have Snow Cloak Froslass creating a need for Faint Attack.

Skuntank being able to get Explosion naturally is legitimately huge, because obtaining TM Explosion is a feat of pure luck (10 bonus rounds at the slots), and it is single use and limited STRICTLY to ONE PER SAVE FILE. Doing another streak of 10 bonus rounds does NOT get you another. Any way to save getting or using that TM is a way you should take in earnest if you do want to use the move. Explosion's incredible power serves as an answer to Cynthia's Milotic, whose Ice Beam otherwise gives Torterra ample trouble, and who strongly discourages special nuking with high special bulk and Mirror Coat. Just make sure it has no status when you blow it up, because Marvel Scale's a right pain in the rear. Unfortunately, Stunky arrives just a hair too late to assist against the sole Single Battle encounter with Jupiter's Skuntank, but having it is a great way to reduce the pressure it can put on you for the Doubles encounter atop Spear Pillar. The want to have Rock Smash to prevent being walled by Steels makes it an appealing choice to be the carrier of the move for the late game areas where it is needed or wanted, and it serves as a runaway option for when Tentacruel has to flee Psychic moves.

Lastly, a Pokémon that allows me to gush about a strategy that I take a strong liking to for a certain Gym Leader...

The Ever-Watchful Sentinel: Silence

Bronzong

Ability: Levitate
Held Item: Mind Plate

-Calm Mind
-Psychic
-Flash Cannon
-Stealth Rock

A Pokemon perfected by TMs, Bronzong's superior defenses and ability to minimize weaknesses between Levitate and D/P's severe lack of Fire Types make Bronzong a world class tanky CM sweeper that is definitely worth consideration if you can handle the slow raise (especially that of getting Flash Cannon). Getting Psychic early on is also a very steep Game Corner cost (it took me two hours to go from a bought 500 to affording it and having 2 beneath my starting count, take that as you will), but if you're minimizing those, Extrasensory is not a bad alternative to hold you over until you find the TM in the wild post-Candice. Bronzor can defend excellently against Night Slash from Eterna Jupiter's Skuntank and lay Confuse Ray at that level to occasionally make Skuntank chip itself (though being left with only Tackle to deal direct damage in the meantime is less than ideal, I'm not allowed to say "just whip up a Graveler and box it after" and Bronzong's later uses make it more valuable than Golem in the long run).

It's here that I should mention that Bronzong allows you to completely and thoroughly obliterate Volkner with just Torterra if you're willing to hold off on the TM of one of the 4 moves above for a while. How so?

Remember the Iron Ball? I did say it would be a treat! It's not easy to find, but it's worth it to make Volkner and his octopus (especially the octopus) a non-issue. When you find it, let Torterra hold it before the Gym battle. Second, give Bronzong TM Trick Room. Fun fact: Volkner cannot so much as dream of outspeeding Iron Ball Torterra in Trick Room, not even with Luxray. Lead with Trick Room, switch to Torterra, and use EQ or Wood Hammer as needed, and enjoy wiping the smug attitude off Sunyshore's Gym Leader in a hilariously one-sided match. If Octillery only emerges once Trick Room wears off, simply reapply it: Bronzong will certainly be able to take the hits to do so. This strategy is not necessary per se, but it is highly effective, so I've mentioned it as an option for those willing to put in the work for the Iron Ball.

Besides this, Bronzong also serves as a fantastic wall against Cynthia's Garchomp, resisting or carrying Levitate immunity to its 3 strongest moves, leaving only Brick Break, making setting up CM and brute forcing it down a viable option. Lucario's moveset also similarly struggles against Bronzong, but it does get STAB on neutral Aura Sphere, so I would only recommend that Bronzong face it with CM boosts already on it unless you have trained to match Cynthia's levels (which, in any iteration of Sinnoh, will take quite some grinding, so don't necessarily assume everyone will do this).

Overall notes: There are a couple issues that this team has: For one, it WILL need to catch a spare Buneary/Psyduck/Pachirisu to access Amity Square for the Amulet Coin, because starters are only permitted in Platinum. However, these Pokémon do not in any way fit into the synergy and some of the specific uses I aimed for in this team, and those other than the three I listed just now are hard or impossible to have by the time you can first access Amity Square (and similarly just do not fit in this team, period). However, one simple earlygame throwaway catch that needs no actual battle time, in my mind, does not detract much from the value of this team plan, especially since Amulet Coin is not strictly necessary in runs that use minimal Poke Balls to train strictly six Pokémon as the assumptions laid out for the rules here imply would happen: Found Poke Balls can be expected to cover for this.

I also wasn't able to address Gyarados quite as thoroughly as I wanted. The big one to worry about is Wake's. While Tentacruel can get Giga Drain, which would work well, Surf is both required and after Wake. Bronzong, unlike many Sinnoh Psychics, cannot get Shock Wave via TM to help either. In fact, it gets its move, Charge Beam, at the point where no major enemy Gyarados remain, and few Gyarados overall remain. Hence, Staraptor's Intimidate Support is absolutely vital to this team in terms of dealing with the sea snake over the story's course (again, Wake's especially), though once Tentacruel can better use its Poison typing with Sludge Bomb, it can more easily help out with later ones due to its Water resist.

Technically, I could use Golduck instead of Tentacruel-avoid the repeating type and not need an extra catch for Amity Square. However, Golduck just doesn't have the same strengths that I admire Tentacruel for. I can't recommend it in good faith in Tentacruel's place.

Altogether, the main challenge of this exercise is this not being Platinum. Basically every Pokémon could have either better moves or just be a better species if this were Platinum, even Torterra: If you really wanted to work for it, you could breed a Seed Bomb Turtwig by virtue of national dex no longer being postgame only, for those desperate enough to want better than Razor Leaf without Wood Hammer's recoil. With shard Tutors in the mix, I can more easily recommend Pokémon like Weavile and Lopunny who are just sorely missing an elemental punch.

In any case, this was an incredibly fun exercise, and I hope to be able to do it again sometime soon!

 

[Zman10010]

The Team! (Diamond Only)

Torterra @ Amulet Coin
Ability: Overgrow
- Earthquake
- Wood Hammer
- Crunch
- Stone Edge

Luxray @ Magnet (This is getting ridiculous - Jolteon and Rotom are both postgame in DP)
Ability: Intimidate
- Crunch
- Spark
- Thunder Wave
- Thief

Crobat @ Poison Barb
Ability: Inner Focus
- Fly
- Cross Poison
- U-turn
- Return

Golduck @ Mystic Water/NeverMeltIce (Lets you into Amity Square for the Amulet Coin as a Psyduck)
Ability: Damp
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Focus Blast

Medicham @ Wide Lens
Ability: Pure Power
- High Jump Kick
- Fire Punch
- Rock Slide
- Ice Punch

Rampardos @ Hard Stone (Reason for Diamond only)
Ability: Mold Breaker
- Head Smash
- Earthquake
- Avalanche
- Zen Headbutt

Explanations

Nothing super strange for movesets here, just whatever coverage they get. All of the pokemon are found reasonably early. Hardest early game fight is Jupiter’s Skuntank in Eterna, since you won’t have EQ yet. However, since you have a team of four at that point you can switch to negate screech, and you can give Crobat pluck to remove the sitrus berry. Also, Intimidate lowers its attack on non-crits. Maylene is also difficult because of the coverage, but Crobat should handle it pretty well and Torterra can defeat Lucario. After that, no real problems until the Elite 4. Aaron is countered by Rampardos and Crobat, with Torterra for Drapion. Bertha is countered by Torterra and Golduck. Flint is countered by Golduck, Luxray for Drifblim, and Medicham for Lopunny, and Lucian is beaten with Torterra’s and Luxray’s crunches, and Medicham’s fire punch on Bronzong. Cynthia’s Spiritomb has no weaknesses, so a strong STAB attack will be your best bet. Rampardos's Head Smash will do a lot of damage to it. Gastrodon and Lucario are beaten by Torterra, but Milotic carries Ice Beam. Luxray’s Magnet-boosted Spark is a better choice for it. Roserade can be defeated by Crobat or Medicham, and even Torterra in a pinch. Garchomp can be handled by Golduck’s Ice Beam or Medicham’s Ice Punch, but if necessary it has no coverage for Torterra, making it a safe switch-in. Also, Crobat can outspeed and finish it off if necessary.

 

[sumwun]

Not sure whether I should reply here or on a profile post, but...

Jolteon @ Magnet
Ability: Volt Absorb
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
- Shadow Ball
- Double Team

How do people get Eevee or Jolteon without the national Pokedex? Last time I checked Bulbapedia, that's not possible without trading.

 

[Zman10010]

Yeah uh I never played DP so i didn't know. I'm gonna edit it to something else. Thanks for pointing that out!

 

[sumwun]

Yeah uh I never played DP so i didn't know. I'm gonna edit it to something else. Thanks for pointing that out!

Playing a Pokemon game just once will improve your teambuilding skill a lot. I definitely think you should do that before trying to make an actually good team. (especially because Rotom is also post-national Pokedex)

 

[Zman10010]

Yeah so I’ve played Platinum and Rotom and Eevee are both available early there. I don’t see a point in getting Diamond or Pearl when Platinum exists except maybe for void glitch.

 

[Lucas2543]

https://pokepast.es/038b7c36b8ed317a


Alright. I’m a big dumb and delete 6 pages of this :/ so here's a rushed version.

mon #1

Torterra: Curse is for setting up seeing as torterra is pretty slow already speed drop don’t matter as much. Boosting atk and def can be helpful to hit harder and tank more physical hits. Earthquake is amazing with 100 bp, 100 acc, and 10 pp. Easily most spammable move. Paired with curse nothing is taking a +1 eq from a torterra well… that is if its not off the ground. Wood hammer another amazing move with 120 bp, 100 acc but sadly has recoil. Recoil shouldn’t be that much to worry about since torterra has decent bulk can probably tank a hit and recoil nicely. Crunch is more of a filler move but comes in helpful against lucian mainly. Also being able to hit mons like gengar and drifblim compared to having to wood hammer them. Quick claw is for having that 20% to go first which pairs nicely with curse.

mon #2

Staraptor: big hitting bird with intimidate to help tank physical hits better. Early game starly really helps against the early bugs and grass typed mons such as wurmple, kricketot and budew. As a staravia can easily sweep through Gardenia’s team which grotle will struggle with. For maylene staravia/staraptor can sweep through apart from lucario which torterra can handle. If you got staraptor then close combat will wreck lucario. Close combat also helps with ice, rock and other steel types if they happen to be in range for staraptor to easily revenge kill. Fly is useful to fly around the region instead of having to run/bike there and having a 2 turn move can work in double battles if partner is using surf. Brave bird will be most spammed move in this set. With having 120 bp and 100 acc this is hurting anything that doesn’t resists. Only thinks that resists are rocks, steel types and electric types, all 3 of them get destroyed by torterra. Uturn is for pivoting while also getting a bit of damage off as we will see later on can be very helpful. Sky plate is for giving fly and brave bird that extra damage.

mon #3

Luxray: just ignore ability for now :x I’ll explain later. Thunderbolt and Thunder can be both obtained from veilstone if ya got enough money which is really suggested as Luxray wont get these moves from level up. Thunderbolt is a great move to spam having 90 bp, 100acc and 15pp with also that 10% chance to paralyze. Thunder is way more risky but can be worth it having 120 bp, 30% chance to paralyze but only 70% accuracy. For those times when thunderbolt is just off being a 2hko thunder is usually the play as if it connects. Charge is a fun move to play with as it boosts spd and gives next turn an extra boost for electric power. That mixed with thunder is one deadly combo. Crunch, once again is more of a filler move that gives luxray some decent coverage. It should come just in time for Fantina which will be really helpful. Now to talk about the ability, rivalry. I have chosen rivalry for specifically a female luxray because I believe that this with torterra works much nicer than intimidate actually does. By going in gym leader order. Roark turtwig can easily handle. Gardenia grotle struggles with, because we got a rivalry female luxio and all the pokes gardenia should have are female since she is female luxio will get extra damage output. Intimidate in this case is not going to help against the cherubi or roserade what so ever. Maylene again being a female trainer luxray will get that extra damage output. This is the only case where i see intimidate being just as helpful since most fighting types run physical moves but with torterra, staravia/staraptor and luxray I don’t see luxray having intimidate actually saving the player from losing or not. Crasher Wake Torterra can handle most of it apart from Gyarados, Luxray can still easily ohko gyarados even with rivalry by using thunderbolt. Fantina again torterra can hardly do anything with her having gengar and drifblim, Luxray on the other hand having rivalry will get an extra boost of power and with having crunch + thunderbolt luxray will do serious damage. Again intimidate in this case is no help whatsoever seeing as all her mons are special attackers. Bryon gets absolutely wrecked by torterra apart from bronzor but again, intimidate won’t help against bronzor. Candice, another female gym leader that Torterra struggles with. If only we had a female with rivalry to deal extra damage… and lastly volkner, yea i rest my case. Having rivalry over intimidate can be surprisingly helpful but this only works if the luxray is female. If it’s male you are better off with intimidate. Zap plate is to put an extra zap into luxrays damage using his stab moves.

mon #4

Gyarados, an absolute monster. Sad thing is as a magikarp you will need to switch train or give it the exp share until level 20 but once there this thing is a monster. Aqua tail will be your best bet until you can get the HM for waterfall. With 80 bp and 100 acc i prefer this over aqua tail despite being weaker. Having that 20% chance to flinch can be really nice especially paired with the move dragon dance. Dragon dance makes gyarados get +1 atk and +1 spe which basically means if you manage to get 1-2 of these up you win the battle. Strength can be obtained from iron island and can be used outside battles once you have beaten Byron. Strength can be quite strong paired with dragon dance to hit those grass types hard since they resists both of the other attacking moves. Strength can also be used outside battles to help the trainer get across victory road and other places such as where this next move is from. That move being Earthquake. Earthquake like said before is an absolutely great move that can be taught to gyarados from TM. Once gyarados has dragon dance, earthquake, strength and aqua tail/waterfall this thing is actually unstoppable. Getting up 1-2 dragon dances there is very few, if some at all that can take either a waterfall, earthquake or strength well at all. Splash plate, like the other plates, is for powering up his stab water move.

mon #5

Now this is where things get fun, and bulky. Up next is bronzong. Bronzong is a stupidly bulky mon which thanks to gen 4 not nerfing steel types bronzong is actually only weak to 1 type depending on the ability. Levitate stops ground type moves all together and heat proof gets rid of the weakness to fire. As for these moves 1st up is stealth rock which can be obtained as soon as you defeat Roark. With having stealth rock fights against your rival, gym leaders, galactic leaders, e4 and champion become quite easier. The biggest fight that becomes easier is Candice and her ice types taking 25% each every time they get sent out. With Flash cannon which is obtained from Byron (how about that. Got a move from father and son :^) candice will be a piece of cake with bronzong which if we didn’t have may of been more trouble since we have 2 weaknesses and 0 resistances before bronzong. Flash cannon also hits those annoying rock types hard as well that threaten staraptor/gyarados and if they are part ground got nothing to worry about since we got levitate. Extrasensory is a move bronzong actually gets as a bronzor at level 19 which is really early but really good. With 80 bp and 100 acc this move is gonna be hitting things hard such at maylene’s team and all of galactic’s poison types besides stunky/skuntank but even that we can 1v1 it with flash cannon. The final move is trick room, yes trick room. This I like because we have a really slow mon being bronzong, quite a slow mon being torterra and a slowish mon i guess being luxray. By the time we get to elite 4 / champion chances are the team will be under level which means they have a better chance to be outspeed. But not with trick room. Thanks to this for 5 turns all the slower mons will be able to outspeed. I’m not going to talk about this for much longer but when you see the next mon everything will come together… i hope.

mon #6

And that final pokemon is Quagsire. You may be wonder why 2 ground and 2 water types. Well the truth is I needed a surf mon :/. But now that I think about it quagsire actually works really well with this team. Quagsire’s only weakness is grass and the other ground and water type both aren’t weak to grass. As well as that we have 2 mons that resists grass. Alright so now for moveset. 1st up is Surf. This is nice because we need it to progress the game! Oh but also it has base 90 damage, 100 accuracy and 15 pp. This move is easily spammable along with this next move Earthquake. Earthquake and surf together have very few switching apart from grass types but like i’ve said there are 2 mons in the back who would love to switch into a grass type move. Rain dance I’ve decided to put on here because a) this team doesn’t have a fire type move. b) if the opponent decides to try and use the rain against this team it now has a water absorb mon which can completely shut down those water type attacks and heal up quagsire at the same time. c) this now gives more of a resistance to fire types such as barry’s infernape and flint’s team which Torterra and Bronzong will both really appreciate and finally. Luxray now has 100% accurate thunders. That’s right that risk about not being able to land thunder is now gone whenever the rain is up. So now the only problem is how to safely set up this rain. Well that will be done with this final move, Yawn. Yawn I LOVE in this team for 6 reasons. That’s right 6. These all start by clicking yawn, then clicking rain dance which then opponent will fall asleep. We can either stay in and go for powered up surfs or earthquakes, we can safely switch into torterra and start clicking curse, we can switch into staraptor to get a free intimidate then proceed by hitting hard or uturing out into something hard, we can go into gyarados, get an intimidate off, start clicking dragon dance and sweet with waterfalls in the rain, we can go into luxray (assuming its a female) , start clicking charge then fire off 100% accurate thunders, or we can go into bronzong, get up some stealth rocks and either get up trick room for some of our slower mons or switch back out into an intimidate mon or something that can tank hits. Quagsire really is the glue that sticks this team together and thanks to it there is several ways for this team to hit extreme hard while the opponent is sleeping in the rain. Quagsire is holding the Damp rock which will boost the turns of rain from 5 to 8 making it even longer for the rain to stay up.

 

[Wigglytuff]

Yeah so I’ve played Platinum and Rotom and Eevee are both available early there. I don’t see a point in getting Diamond or Pearl when Platinum exists except maybe for void glitch.

The contest is only taking into account the viability of your team in Diamond and Pearl, because Platinum is different enough to warrant a competition of its own. As such, your team will lose a lot of points on viability because some of your mons aren't obtainable until much later compared to Platinum.

 

[Zman10010]

I’ve changed it to Luxray, who is available early in DP and helps support the team with Intimidate

 

[Tempoleon]

I hope you guys like it (:

Pokepaste of the Team

So here's my team. I ended up using a lot of popular early game mons, but I was aiming for performance. not originality.

Pokemon #1 Explanation

First up is Torterra. Pretty standard moveset with earthquake and *wood hammer. I gave it and a couple of my other mons crunch to cover up my lack of stab against psychic and ghost types. It can be swapped out for leech seed or rock slide but its debatable whether Torterra should be in against the types rock hits super effectively against. Last move I slapped on there was rock climb since it helps you grab some nice items and is required for victory road, pretty useless in battle though. The item I went for was the quick claw. Torterra is pretty slow at base 56 speed, but the quick claw allows it to move first in situations it normally wouldn't. It can definitely be clutch at times but it's not something you want to rely on. Feel free to switch it out for miracle seed or another item if you think it would suit it better.

Pokemon #2 and Pokemon #3 Explanations

I knew from the start I wanted to use double intimidate with staraptor and luxray. Both of them are great offensively and evolve early on in your adventure. By pivoting between them, you can lower physical attacking mons' attacking stats down to trivial levels. This will come in handy for stronger early game mons like cranidos or skuntank. I gave Luxray the magnet as with it lack of coverage I wanted to focus on increasing its damage output, at least before you can get thunderbolt. I gave staraptor the kings rock in hopes to land some flinces on top of its offensive prowess. It will be outspeeding most pokemon in the game so its nice to have that small flinch chance on every one of your moves.

Pokemon #4 Explanation

The fourth mon on the team is floatzel! Floatzel is great because it can use waterfall and surf effectively as hms and in battle! In terms of coverage I gave it crunch and ice beam. Floatzel's attack stat is significantly higher than its special attack and will have ice fang for the majority of the game, however, I opted to teach it ice beam via tm for 100% accuracy. Floatzel is also a good candidate for the kings rock but I decided to give it the expert belt. The expert belt will help floatzel pick up kos with its STAB and coverage moves when hitting super effectively.

Pokemon #5 Explanation

Bronzong time! Bronzong is a very nice pokemon to have on your team in the sinnoh region. With 116 in both defense stats, your team will be able to lean on it during tough times and it will pair great with torterra and double intimidate! Its pre-evolution bronzor has base 86s in both of its defense stats so it will act as a defensive pokemon as soon as you catch it. I taught rock smash to poor bronzong as its a required hm for victory road and there weren't any other moves that I felt bronzong needed. Once you find the tm for earthquake I would recommend teaching it to zonbrong to give him a coverage move. For his stab moves it has gyro ball and a mind plate boosted extrasensory. You're welcome to get the psychic tm and swap up extrasensory, but its up to you whether its worth the additional 10 base power.

Pokemon #6 Explanation

Last but certainly not the worst we have the mascot legendary of pearl, palkia! This slot can easily be tweaked for diamond as a lot of the stuff I'll be mentioning will also apply to dialga. Many people don't fancy using legendary pokemon in playthroughs, but palkia really helps out your team in the elite four. It has high defense stats and will eat fire moves that torterra or bronzong may not be able to handle. His special defense clocks in at 120 so it will be able to take some special hits that double intimidate doesn't help out with. Palkia gets a wide variety of tms but I decided to teach it water pulse, flamethrower, and thunder in addition to its signature move spaciel rend. Flamethrower is nice fire coverage that the team that doesn't have until this point. Thunder is not as consistent or helpful but most of the more powerful overworld pokeball tms such as earthquake or thunderbolt were used up by other team members. Let Palkia hold the lustrous orb to patch up water pulse and make spacial rend even stronger.

So that was the team! It was pretty fun researching the harder battles of diamond and pearl and trying to craft the most efficient team! I looked up a lot of item and tm locations lol. My one regret is I wish I didn't use so many standard/popular sinnoh mons, but what can I say, they get the job done! This team covers all of the required HMs (besides cut which is forgotten off of torterra as it is not required for victory road) and shouldn't have an issue with any of the eight gyms. Let me know if something I said doesn't add up or you need me to clarify something I said. Excited to see everyones teams!

 

[sumwun]

First up is Torterra. Pretty standard moveset with earthquake and razor leaf.

Why razor leaf when you could be using wood hammer?

 

[sumwun]

Wood Hammer is better but getting a heart scale to relearn it is fairly luck based. I decided to go with razor leaf as one of the judging factors is efficient progression, learning razor leaf by level up is about as easy as it gets.

You should get 2 free heart scales on routes 212 and 214. Picking up and using one of them shouldn't take more than 2 minutes, which I think is worth wood hammer's extra power.

 

[Byds]

This is my entry for the competition, it puts an emphasis on not having to catch an HM slave. It's also technically two teams(one per version) since I use the mascot legendaries but I find that it doesn't make much of a difference, their movesets are similar and only one move changes on the other team members.

Torterra

Torterra
Ability: Overgrow
Item: Earth Plate
Moves:
-Wood Hammer
-Earthquake
-Crunch
- Stone Edge

Torterra has quite good coverage, it's STABs allow it to take on Roark, Volkner and Bertha on its own. It can also be useful against Wake and Byron.
It synergises well with the rest of the team acting as a switch-in for Electric and Rock types for Crobat and Gyarados.
I've given Torterra the Earth Plate because it boosts its best move and is relatively easy to get.

Wood Hammer is Torterras best Grass STAB and can be gotten right after evolution at the move reminder with a heart scale.
Earthquake is Torterras Ground STAB and is learned right after evolution at level 32.
Bite provides good coverage against Psychic types since we don't have Drapion yet and the team has 2 Pokémon weak to Psychic. It's replaced with Crunch at level 45 which fulfills the same purpose and makes it so we're not too reliant on Drapion to deal with Lucian.
Rock Slide and Stone Edge give Torterra coverage against Flying, Fire and Bug Types, coupled with its bulk it makes it so Torterra can usually take out one Flying, Fire or Bug type before going down, which can be very useful against Aaron, Flint and some Flying types in Victory Road where it would usually be useless.
If you don't want to catch an HM Slave early on you can give Grotle Cut, I wouldn't recommend it but it won't hurt it too much since it doesn't make that much use out of its fourth move slot until you can get the Rock Slide TM which requires Strength which you get in Canalave where the Move Deleter is.

Crobat

Crobat
Ability: Inner Focus
Item: Amulet Coin
Moves:
-Fly
-U-Turn
-Toxic
-Roost

Crobat makes a good teammate for its ability to destroy Grass types which turns Gardenia from a fight the team would struggle with to an absolute cakewalk.

Zubats usual problem of a very weak early game moveset doesn't apply here since it can be thought the Pluck TM which you get in Floaroma Town giving it a good Flying STAB at a low level. Zubat will be underleveled when you get it but it can catch up rather easily since it's not too far behind and the rest of the team doesn't really need the experience at this point.
I've given Crobat the Amulet Coin money is nice and Crobat makes the least use of a power boosting item in my opinion. Early on it should be given the Soothe Bell to get it to evolve quicker.

Fly is very useful for overworld navigation and is also Crobats best STAB move it should replace Pluck as soon as you get it.
U-Turn allows Crobat to deal a bit of damage whilst switching out which can be useful, the TM is also very easy to get.
Toxic can be useful in putting certain Pokémon on a timer which can be very useful against strong threats like Wake's Gyarados, Cyrus' Gyarados and Weavile and Cynthia's Garchomp just to name a few. Stalling turns is easy due to Crobat being able to stall with Fly and Roost and being able to pivot to a bulky Pokémon with U-Turn. Again the TM is very easy to get.
Roost makes it easier to stall turns and it's TM is also very easy to get.
If you want you could easily give Crobat Defog early on to avoid having to get a HM slave for Defog, you really only need it for getting to Celestic Town anyway which only a bit before Canalave meaning you could use Bite or Confuse Ray before getting the SecretPotion and be able to replace almost immediately with U-Turn in Canalave.
I should note that I did not give Crobat Cross Poison to avoid having to get an extra heart scale and because Poison gives pretty bad offensive coverage.

Machamp

Machamp
Ability: No Guard
Item: Fist Plate
Moves:
-DynamicPunch
-Rock Tomb
-Strength
-Rock Climb

Machamp really doesn't do much besides hit things hard with Fighting type STAB moves and thus it can easily fit a couple of HMs in its movepool and not suffer for it. It covers Torterra's and Crobats weakness to Ice and takes care of a couple of big threats like Mars' Purugly and Maylene's Lucario.
I gave Machamp the Fist Plate to boost its STAB moves.
Machamp should have the ability No Guard to neglect the low accuracy of a lot its STAB moves and Rock Tomb.

Machamp doesn't need more than one Fighting type STAB move so you should always use the strongest one avaible to you, near the end this is DynamicPunch which also has the added effect of confusing the opponent which can come in handy.
Rock Tomb is nice coverage early on and it allows Machamp to deal with Pokémon like Barry's Staravie and Aarons Dustox which like to spam Double Team. It also allows Machamp to support the team by slowing down fast threats particularly Cynthia's Garchomp.
Machop should be given Rock Smash early on but you should get rid of it for Strength in Canalave City.

Gyarados

Gyarados
Ability: Intimidate
Item: Sea Incense
Moves:
-Waterfall
-Ice Fang
-Dragon Dance
-Surf(Diamond)/Thunderbolt(Pearl)

Whilst it may need to hold the Exp. Share for a while to get to Gyarados the end result is more than worth it. It has excellent stats especially for early game gets access to Dragon Rage at a point where it still 2 or 3 HKOS everything and an amazing ability in Intimidate. It basically destroys everything in its path until Wake and even after that it's still fantastic.

I've given it the Sea Incense to strengthen its Water STAB and because it's easier to get than the Wave Incense and Splash Plate.
Waterfall is Gyarados' best STAB and it's an HM further diminishing the need for an HM slave.
Ice Fang gives Gyarados coverage against Dragon, Flying and Grass types.
Dragon Dance is an excellent boosting move and makes Gyarados very usefull in the Elite Four and Victory Road.
Gyarados doesn't really need more coverage so it can be given another HM move. It should get Surf on both versions until you get Dialga/Palkia, after that you can get rid of it in Pearl for Thunderbolt which is useful in a few situations.

Drapion

Drapion
Ability: Battle Armor
Item: Dread Plate
Moves:
-Crunch
-Poison Jab
-Earthquake
-Rock Smash

Drapion provides the team with a definitive answer to Psychic types which the team was quite weak against up to this point. It comes in at Pastoria which is great since early on Zubat and Magikarp need the Exp. It struggles somewhat until it evolves but that made up for by its synergy with the team covering Psychic types whilst its sole weakness is covered by Gyarados. It really shines against Lucian which would otherwise be a pretty hard fight.
Drapions Ability doesn't matter too much but I prefer Battle Armor to make it critproof.
I've given Drapion the Dread Plate to boost it's Dark type moves power.

Crunch is Drapions Dark type STAB, it's obtained rather late so I recommend giving it the Payback TM before that. The TM can be obtained easily.
Poison Jab serves as Drapions Poison STAB, the TM for it is quite easy to get so it's far better than waiting for Cross Poison.
Earthquake gives Drapion coverage against a lot of Pokémon which would otherwise wall it.
Rock Smash could be useful in lowering the opponents defence but it's mostly here to avoid having to bring an HM slave to Victory Road.

Dialga/Palkia

Dialga(Diamond)
Ability: Pressure
Item: Adamant Orb
Moves:
-Draco Meteor
-Flash Cannon
-Ice Beam
-Fire Blast

Palkia(Pearl)
Ability: Pressure
Item: Lustrous Orb
Moves:
-Spacial Rend
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Fire Blast

Despite being a late addition I find that the mascot legendaries are the best way to round off the team. Their high stats and great movepool make them great against the Elite Four and the trainers in Victory Road which are some of the hardest parts of the game. The rest of the team covers almost everything up to Spear Pillar anyway so not having a sixth Pokémon isn't that big of a deal.
They also give the team a special attacker which isn't that big of a deal since the few Pokémon with good defence can be dealt with through supereffective moves like Byron's Bastiodon for example, but hitting Sp.Def can be nice sometimes.

For Dialga specifically Draco Meteor is better than Roar of Time due to not needing to recharge. It should also be given the Flash Cannon TM so it has a Steel type STAB move.
For Palkia specifically you should keep Spacial Rend because it has no negative effects whatsoever. You should also give it Surf so it has a Water type STAB move.
Ice Beam and Fire Blast give good coverage against the Elite Four and aren't that hard to get.

 

[TheSunIsADedlyLazr]

You should get 2 free heart scales on routes 212 and 214. Picking up and using one of them shouldn't take more than 2 minutes, which I think is worth wood hammer's extra power.

Let's not forget that, like I mentioned, Heart Scales are among the easiest finds in the Sinnoh Underground. Almost any mining trip to the Underground should come back with at least one or two.

 

[Zman10010]

Yeah, heart scales aren’t really a problem unless for some reason you absolutely despise the underground

 

[MegaSunstrike]

This team, tailored to Pokemon Pearl, is built to minimize the time spend searching for and capturing pokemon and the time spent backtracking. You only have to catch the 6 pokemon on the team, all of whom can be caught within minutes, and all backtracking will be to go to very specific buildings and will only be necessary once you have Fly.

Pokemon #1

Torterra
Ability: Overgrow
Item: Miracle Seed
Moves:
- Wood Hammer
- Earthquake
- Crunch
- Rock Smash -> Rock Climb

The first Pokemon on this team is Torterra! It’s spectacular physical bulk and destructive Earthquakes will destroy most opponents once it reaches its final form. It’s also very easy to reach that form, since, like almost all grass-type starters, Grotle evolves into Torterra at level 32.

Our moveset will include Razor Leaf for most of our journey as a low-power, sustainable STAB attack, although it can be replaced by Wood Hammer for extra power when you are preparing to handle the elite four. Both of these will be boosted in power by the Miracle Seed you can find in the Floaroma Meadow relatively early in the game. Earthquake is one of the best moves in the game, and we’ll want to take advantage of our secondary STAB on that. Crunch handles psychics and ghosts in a pinch, although since they tend to hit Torterra’s weaker special defense you won’t want to rely on this as your only psychic counter. Finally, Rock Climb is useful outside of battle and can be used to confuse your opponents in a battle of attrition if necessary. It’ll replace Rock Smash, which we’ll be using until our last team member takes on the role of dedicated Rock Smasher.

Pokemon #2 & #3

Staraptor
Ability: Intimidate
Item: Shell Bell
Moves:
- Fly
- Aerial Ace -> Brave Bird
- Close Combat
- U-Turn

Luxray
Ability: Intimidate
Item: Various Berries
Moves:
- Spark
- Crunch
- Charge
- Strength -> Natural Gift

The next pair of Pokemon are the first pair of early-route pokemon that remain powerful throughout the game, and we intend to take advantage of that. Luxray and Staraptor form a powerful dual-intimidate core that completely gimp the early-game physical threats like Mars’ Purugly and Jupiter’s Skuntank, both of which are comparatively powerful in that stage of the game otherwise.

Both remain viable and helpful team members even when the opponents are closer to your power level. Staraptor is a powerful flying type that handles the grass types Grotle and Torterra struggle with. It learns Aerial Ace to handle battles against trainers in foggy areas and against your rival when he’s spamming Double Team and can upgrade to Brave Bird for power later in the game, and can use the less risky Fly to deal consistent damage as well as minimize your travel time. It gets Close Combat to help fight ice types and can pivot easily once you pick up U-Turn in Canalave City. It holds the shell bell from the woman in Hearthome’s pokemon hotel to minimize the recoil damage from Brave Bird.

Luxray’s electric typing handles the flying types that Torterra cannot, and is crucial in battles against the terrifying Gyarados in particular. It uses Spark instead of Thunder Fang because Thunder Fang’s miss chance is not worth the added flinch chance. Charge boosts the power of Luxray’s STAB attacks while increasing its bulk, and Crunch is good coverage for ghosts and psychics. Finally, Natural Gift can be used with a variety of berry to grant coverage of any type to handle the scariest pokemon on any given opponent’s team. You can find the TM for this move in the Veilstone department store, and we’ll use it to replace Strength as soon as our last team member can learn it.

Pokemon #4

Octillery
Ability: Sniper
Item: Razor Claw
Moves:
- Ice Beam
- Flamethrower
- Surf -> Waterfall
- Focus Energy

Our fourth team member is Octillery. It’s the first pokemon we’re finding outside of the first couple of routes, but it’s no more difficult to obtain. If you pick up the good rod from the fisherman east of Hearthome and fish on Route 213 just south of lake Valor, you can find it at levels as high as 25, when it will evolve immediately upon level-up. It’s also trivial to capture it, as it has a wonderfully high catch rate of 190.

Octillery has a respectable 105 in each of its base attacking stats. This, when combined with its natural access to Ice Beam and ability to learn Flamethrower from the TM at the Fuego Ironworks, allows you the best fire and ice coverage you can get before Azelf in what is essentially the post-game. While it usually has competition from actual fire and ice type pokemon, in DP its only fire-type competition is Ponyta (which doesn’t evolve until a painfully late level 40) and the only ice types are Weavile (which has no good ice STABs) and Abomasnow (Whose other attacks are the same as Torterra, who does its job better).

Octillery’s bulk is also nothing to be sneezed at. While 75 in every defensive stat isn’t fantastic, it’s enough to survive Cynthia’s Garchomp’s Earthquake and KO back with Ice Beam. It can fairly easily handle the fire types Torterra struggles with and the ground types that Luxray suffers against.

Octillery will use surf for most of the game, but we’ll replace it with Waterfall right before victory road to get through the dungeon conveniently.

While most any type of move can be used to round out Octillery’s moveset, it can be fun to use a crit-sniper set with Focus Energy and the Razor Claw found in victory road to demolish opponents who might have survived an attack otherwise. Other acceptable moves for Octillery include Gunk Shot, Rock Blast, and Energy Ball.

Pokemon #5

Lucario
Ability: Steadfast
Item: Choice Specs
Moves:
- Aura Sphere
- Psychic
- Flash Cannon
- Rock Climb -> Shadow Ball

Our fifth team member is practically the mascot of generation 4 – Lucario! While hatching the egg and raising its happiness may be perhaps the slowest part of building this team, it can be done with minimal effort on the cycling road. If you are align yourself properly and switch often between the up and down buttons, you can do this part while eating or doing homework without even looking at the screen! Don’t forget to pick up the Soothe Bell from a maid at the pokemon mansion, and check the friendship checker poketch app you got in the eterna city pokemon center often to know when you can continue with your journey. If you really want to multitask you can put a pokemon in the daycare for this part, but that’s not recommended if you want the full experience of the game.

So long as you remember to level it up in the day, you’ll have a Lucario almost immediately. Raising it will be easy, as you can slap on the Experience Share you got right outside the cycling road and take on Byron’s gym to get lots of experience. While it’ll still be fairly low-leveled, the next part of the game just involves taking out low-level galactic grunts, who aren’t smart enough or strong enough to take out a steel type, even an underleveled one. Don’t forget to learn Flash Cannon for a high power move to take out Zubats!

Once it’s a high enough level, Lucario completely destroys the ice types that plagued Torterra and Staraptor, as well as the steel types (mostly steelix) that the rest of your team were slowed down by due to their high physical defenses.

Our core moveset will be Flash Cannon (which we got from Byron), Aura Sphere, and Psychic (from a TM on route 211). Psychic is especially handy to take on Saturn’s Toxicroak. The last moveslot will be Rock Climb for a while, but we can replace it with a better move like Shadow Ball once (again) we get our last team member and can shift Rock Climb to Torterra.

For the item, you can get both the Wise Glasses and Choice Specs from a man in a shop in Celestic Town. You can decide which is better based on the teams you’ll be facing, although most of the time you won’t need to switch moves without also wanting to switch pokemon.

Pokemon #6

Palkia
Ability: Pressure
Item: Haban Berry/Leftovers
Moves:
- Surf
- Strength
- Rock Smash
- Spacial Rend

Palkia makes HM slavery look good! While most pokemon would be dead weight with Strength and Rock Smash, Palkia can make do with just Surf and Spacial Rend to annihilate most opponents it’ll face, including Flint and Aaron in the Elite Four. It helps that using Surf opens up a moveslot for Octillery to use while still allowing us to travel easily without an HM slave, which is why we chose Palkia over Dialga.

While Palkia would usually break your team’s streak of being ridiculously easy to capture, you’ll have a Master Ball by this point in the game, so there’s no reason not to capture it on the first turn.

Palkia’s item slot can be used for a Haban berry if you’re lucky enough to get it from the aroma lady in Pastoria’s southwesternmost house. This allows you a backup to take on Cynthia’s Garchomp, which is the only remotely threatening pokemon at that stage of the game. Failing that, you can give Palkia the leftovers found in victory road so you don’t have to spend time healing it manually.

Good luck, and enjoy your extremely efficient run!

 

[TheSunIsADedlyLazr]

Protip re: Lucario evolution - Wherever you're going to grind the levels out for it, make sure you hatch the egg there for a slight friendship boost (+1 to gain amount) on all those levels that stacks with Soothe Bell (effect is applied after the +1), since it's hatch location counts as the area met. However, I recommend it being a relatively earlygame area. You won't level as fast, but you'll mix a lot of walking gains with your level gains from generating encounters, making you evolve a lot sooner level wise, after which point you can focus entirely on leveling up normally.

 

[6Roggenrolas]

The results are in! All teams submitted were fantastic, but only one can be declared the best, as decided by the established criteria, arguments made in descriptions, and discernment of the judges. And the winner is... Byds !

___

Byds' Team

Byds' sufficient consideration of in-game matchups, simple but reliable sets, and overall emphasis on practicality with minimal detraction from late-game effectiveness really showed through in their team. Perhaps the most distinct thing about their teambuilding style is prioritization of what will smoothly work in practice over what works best on paper- while they went an unexpected route in not capturing an Ice resist, Machamp is an early, powerful, and thus very easy to train Pokemon that will prove a capable answer to the frosty segment of the game that most pesters our mossy tortoise. In addition, Torterra gains the rest its partners exactly when it starts to really need them, so the team has a very nice flow.

(note: Palkia was chosen over Dialga due to freeing Gyarados from running Surf, and making Bertha and Flint even safer wins- listing both Palkia and Dialga as possible options were not what gave Byds the edge, and in the future it will be specified that a locked team of 6 Pokemon species must be chosen.)

___

A great thanks to everyone who participated and contributed their knowledge! Diamond and Pearl have a mixed legacy for many fans when compared to their more popular counterpart, but we were delighted to see such enthusiasm and deep consideration of this pair's specifics in the teambuilding process of entrants. Stay tuned for more teambuilding competitions from the Pokemon Games community in the future! (And maybe help influence what games/pokemon will be used next by frequenting the room!)​

 

[TheSunIsADedlyLazr]

GG to Byds. Honestly, were it not for my extreme reluctance to reuse types and the express forbiddance of using holdovers, I would more readily recommend Palkia in this competition. In general, I recommend it anyway despite the need for a holdover Surf user if you don't want to repeat types. As a story mon, its stats, typing (the ONLY Dragon/Water to not require an extremely obscure trade item evolution!!!), and moves make it the best box cover legend to use in story to date, bar none (though Ultra Necrozma and mega rayquaza not appearing on a box does play into that distinction because lol those two, I am not kidding in the least here-Dragon/Water on an Ubers class Pokémon is killer, especially with Spacial Rend). The issue for me was finding a Surf user outside the Water type to hold over until Palkia's arrival-were it not for that, I would ignore how awful the Safari game is to use Drapion so that Skuntank wouldn't be necessary, and we could drop Tentacruel (as great as it is). Unfortunately, Sinnoh isn't Hoenn: we don't have a lot of earlygame mons outside the water type that can learn Surf because it simply doesn't play as big a part in the region. Honestly, I feel like what with Levitate, Game Freak could have gotten away with putting Surf on the Bronzor line. With just that, what I actually recommend in this Ruleset shifts radically. Hopefully this little tirade gives you some insight as to not only how poor HMs are as a design choice, but also how the inclusion or exclusion of just a few moves on Pokémon can radically affect how you play the game overall.

 

[sumwun]

As a story mon, its stats, typing (the ONLY Dragon/Water to not require an extremely obscure trade item evolution!!!), and moves make it the best box cover legend to use in story to date, bar none (though Ultra Necrozma and mega rayquaza not appearing on a box does play into that distinction because lol those two, I am not kidding in the least here-Dragon/Water on an Ubers class Pokémon is killer, especially with Spacial Rend).

Not-mega Rayquaza is on Emerald's box art, and you can catch it at level 70 before the last gym. (and it can also learn surf, as well as fly and waterfall) Are you sure Palkia is better than that? Also,

they went an unexpected route in not capturing an Ice resist

Isn't Gyarados technically an ice resist before it evolves? I realize that there are absolutely zero ice attacks (yes pun intended) in that part of the game, but still...

 

[Byds]

GG, honestly pretty suprised I won this since I created the team pretty late and I haven't played DP since like 2012 despite it being my first pokemon game and gen 4 being my favourite gen.

(note: Palkia was chosen over Dialga due to freeing Gyarados from running Surf, and making Bertha and Flint even safer wins- listing both Palkia and Dialga as possible options were not what gave Byds the edge, and in the future it will be specified that a locked team of 6 Pokemon species must be chosen.)

About that, I wasn't sure whether this was allowed or not and you weren't on when I was making this so I couldn't really ask about it. I decided to do it anyway since I didn't it was a big deal(Tbolt on Gyarados is primarly useful on route 223 and you have Torterra and Palkia for that anyway), but I will definitly keep this in mind in the future.

they went an unexpected route in not capturing an Ice resist

I actually planned on putting Weavile on the team instead of Drapion although it's purpose would still mostly be to check Psychic types. I replaced it when I found that the Razor Claw in Galactic HQ is only there in platinum and you don't get another one until Victory Road. I don't think Torterra's 4x Ice weakness is all that big of a deal in DP though since there's barely any Ice pokemon in the game anyway.

Isn't Gyarados technically an ice resist before it evolves? I realize that there are absolutely zero ice attacks (yes pun intended) in that part of the game, but still...

Beyond there not being any ice moves it's very much intended that Magikarp doesn't see any combat until it evolves.

 

[TheSunIsADedlyLazr]

Not-mega Rayquaza is on Emerald's box art, and you can catch it at level 70 before the last gym. (and it can also learn surf, as well as fly and waterfall) Are you sure Palkia is better than that?

Palkia isn't in a position to be bodied by an Ice E4, and dragon dance was still meh in Gen 3. I stand by my position.

 

[sumwun]

Palkia isn't in a position to be bodied by an Ice E4, and dragon dance was still meh in Gen 3. I stand by my position.

0 SpA [level 72] Rayquaza Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD [level 53] Walrein: 197-232 (100.5 - 118.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 0 Atk [level 72] Rayquaza Fly vs. 0 HP / 0 Def [level 53] Walrein: 216-255 (110.2 - 130.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO