Rating Basics

Hey, I did my first ever Team Rate today! I think I may have went a bit overboard with team changes however.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/my-first-team-vgc16-help-me-please.3567267/

I don't think giving Cresselia Gravity was really necessary, as it kind of changed the feel of the whole team. That said, I think my other points were decent enough. Try not to tear me apart too bad. :p

All in all I think I tried to do more then I should've with the Cresselia. Sometimes when you get an idea though its hard not to slap it in there.
 

DaAwesomeDude1

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Hey, I did my first ever Team Rate today! I think I may have went a bit overboard with team changes however.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/my-first-team-vgc16-help-me-please.3567267/

I don't think giving Cresselia Gravity was really necessary, as it kind of changed the feel of the whole team. That said, I think my other points were decent enough. Try not to tear me apart too bad. :p

All in all I think I tried to do more then I should've with the Cresselia. Sometimes when you get an idea though its hard not to slap it in there.
Hey there, I'm the VGC Team Rater. For starters, it looks really great for someone who just started rating! You didn't really go a bit overboard about the changes so don't worry about that. A general rule of thumb, if you have to change more than 3 Pokemon (not movesets but actually change the Pokemon for a different Pokemon), then you shouldn't even bother rating the team, cause at that point it's not even their team anymore. In my opinion, optimizing movesets (even if you have to change all 6) is totally fine and isn't really considered overhauling haha. (Also FYI, if a rate doesn't have enough lines, it's going to be locked so you shouldn't bother rating those either. It was your first one so it's all good but that's something to keep in mind next time you rate) Now on to the actual rate. You were able to identify the biggest weakness to that team, which is that he relies way too much on Cresselia as a setter; however, the best way to fix that is to add another Trick Room setter (considering his team is fullroom not semi-room), not to add another Pokemon to facilitate setting up Trick Room. Crobat doesn't really benefit the team too well considering that it's way too fast for Trick Room, and after Trick Room is set up, you're left with a Cresselia and Crobat, both of which can't do anything at all since both Pokemon is full on support, thus wasting Trick Room turns. Additionally, Crobat is only helpful if your opponent decides to lead with Smeargle, if they don't, then that Crobat is dead weight since it can't function at all under Trick Room. What I would've done to help with the Smeargle problem is replace Scrafty with Kangaskhan. Dual megas are pretty common place and Kangaskhan, with Inner Focus, helps facilitate Trick Room setting a lot better, as it has a pretty much guaranteed Fake Out thanks to Inner Focus, which you can use to target down Smeargle while also functioning pretty well under Trick Room. Other minor things I would change about his team is for all of his Pokemon to switch to -Speed natures, (Mawile's Adamant to Brave). Cresselia switching to Gravity is an interesting option and can definitely work though I think Helping Hand is a lot better for his team since Gravity really only helps with Precipice and Play Rough. Mental Herb was a good switch though, and that's what I would've suggested too. Finally, I would add in Palkia over Kyogre. Palkia takes some of the pressure off of Cresselia by acting as a secondary Trick Room setter. Kyogre, in my opinion, doesn't really benefit his team too much outside of removing Mawile's Fire weakness (and the only Pokemon that even runs a Fire attack regularly right now is like Groudon, Rayquaza, which loses to Mawile under TR, and Ho-Oh, which loses to Rock Slide Groudon and Palkia). Palkia still checks Fire-types like Ho-Oh and Groudon while also not being a dead weight setter (sorry Cress).
Again though, that's a really good rate for someone who just started! Keep up the good work and feel free to ask for more help! :)
 
I thought about adding a defensive meowstic, as he also gets access to a prankster safe guard+Trick Room for smeargle. Also, if you get safe guard up you can swagger your own pokemon for suprise KOs (I think someone in Top Cut at a regionals recently used something like that). Its a bit gimmicky though, and that would require the Mental Herb since he's taunt bait. And he doesn't add a lot of offensive Pressure.

Maybe removing Cress altogether and having Meowstic? I'm not really a big fan of Cress this year anyways, because in my opinion there are pokemon that do his job better and can add more utility/offensive pressure to a team. But then I suppose that would open the team up to Weather War losses without skill swap support...

Also thought about adding a min speed Smeargle since it can disrupt under TR and it can also carry tailwind if someone double protect stalls. Would that just open up more weaknesses?

Edit: Also, is that Groudon spread a thing? I didn't really do Damage Calcs for it, but I can't imagine it picks up any important KOs.
 
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DaAwesomeDude1

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I thought about adding a defensive meowstic, as he also gets access to a prankster safe guard+Trick Room for smeargle. Also, if you get safe guard up you can swagger your own pokemon for suprise KOs (I think someone in Top Cut at a regionals recently used something like that). Its a bit gimmicky though, and that would require the Mental Herb since he's taunt bait. And he doesn't add a lot of offensive Pressure.

Maybe removing Cress altogether and having Meowstic? I'm not really a big fan of Cress this year anyways, because in my opinion there are pokemon that do his job better and can add more utility/offensive pressure to a team. But then I suppose that would open the team up to Weather War losses without skill swap support...

Also thought about adding a min speed Smeargle since it can disrupt under TR and it can also carry tailwind if someone double protect stalls. Would that just open up more weaknesses?

Edit: Also, is that Groudon spread a thing? I didn't really do Damage Calcs for it, but I can't imagine it picks up any important KOs.
Trick room has -7 priority, so even with prankster it'll be -6, so it's not worth it. Cress is definitely the best setter this year cause it has amazing support and the point of Trick Room is to beat your enemy in those 5 turns, not to disrupt, so smeargle wouldn't be that great (plus Amoonguss under TR is a lot better at disrupting). His team also isn't built around semi-room so adding Tailwind is unnecessary. Not sure about the Groudon spread cause I just looked over your rate and glanced over his but if I had time I would look over it.
 
Trick room has -7 priority, so even with prankster it'll be -6, so it's not worth it. Cress is definitely the best setter this year cause it has amazing support and the point of Trick Room is to beat your enemy in those 5 turns, not to disrupt, so smeargle wouldn't be that great (plus Amoonguss under TR is a lot better at disrupting). His team also isn't built around semi-room so adding Tailwind is unnecessary. Not sure about the Groudon spread cause I just looked over your rate and glanced over his but if I had time I would look over it.
Yeah I think I'm doing exactly what you're not supposed to do when rating a team and building it myself. But yeah I know Prankster doesn't help TR I was just thinking he had a wider support movepool, but I suppose that also falls under the disruptor category.

Anyways thanks a lot for the help. I'll probably be coming back here pretty often. I think this would be a great place to learn about checks/counters and and Team Building. I definitely have a ways to go though.
 
Trick room has -7 priority, so even with prankster it'll be -6, so it's not worth it. Cress is definitely the best setter this year cause it has amazing support and the point of Trick Room is to beat your enemy in those 5 turns, not to disrupt, so smeargle wouldn't be that great (plus Amoonguss under TR is a lot better at disrupting). His team also isn't built around semi-room so adding Tailwind is unnecessary. Not sure about the Groudon spread cause I just looked over your rate and glanced over his but if I had time I would look over it.
Hey could I PM you with some questions?
 

Celticpride

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SUP! im trying to get better at rating. Im open to any cool suggestions

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/fairy-dragon-steel-core-rmt.3567281/#post-6711030
Hey man, I thought this was a pretty solid rate.

The first change was rather simple but also quite important. I agree that Scarf Raptor isn't a great set, and that Scarf Keldeo is an upgrade when it comes to checking Darks while still providing a fast speed tier.

I think the Landorus > Garchomp change was a little more iffy, however, as that opens up quite a large Scizor weakness. I get that Mag is there to cover Scizor, but where the first two are really Scizor weak to such a large degree, if Mag gets picked off in some way, say a predicted Scizor Superpower, that a secondary check is nice. However, the Ground immunity is a much needed one and the team was fairly weak to Excadrill and EQ Char-X so that is a decent change. I think following that up by suggesting HP Fire on either Diancie or Kyu-B would have been a good move to compliment the Chomp to Landorus change, allowing either to lure Scizor and Ferro for the other. That's the only thing I noticed wrong with your rate, is that when you make changes to a team's structure you open up or weaken certain holes that didn't exist before, and sometimes those require subsequent adjustments. In this case, the team did become more weak to Scizor as a result of that change. However, those subsequent adjustments can be as simple as changing a coverage move here or there to account for different threats.

Your other smaller changes were ok, although I think Rock Polish wasn't a great fit for that team. Regardless of CM Pass or NP Pass, Diancie much prefers to Mega Evolve safely if it has a boost. Losing that luxury by choosing RP > Protect makes the team a bit weaker in its actual functioning.
 
Ehy :)
I am relatively new to Smogon , but for two months I started rating because they are very interested at the badge of Official team Rater and because I love rating. Could I get a compressive feedback from some recent rate ?
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/flawless-peak-1-90-gxe.3568419/

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/balanced-ou-team-please-rate.3568882/

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/mega-garchomp-sand-team.3568504/

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/hyper-offense-team.3568645/

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/megacross-raikou-team-my-first-rmt.3568293/
Thanks a lot
 
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TPP

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Head TD
Ehy :)
I am relatively new to Smogon , but for two months I started rating because they are very interested at the badge of Official team Rater and because I love rating. Could I get a compressive feedback from some recent rate ?
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/flawless-peak-1-90-gxe.3568419/

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/balanced-ou-team-please-rate.3568882/

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/mega-garchomp-sand-team.3568504/

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/hyper-offense-team.3568645/

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/megacross-raikou-team-my-first-rmt.3568293/
Thanks a lot
Hi, so I just looked at that 1st rate, and one thing I really think what could help you, would be to consider the downsides of your suggestions, or in other words, new weaknesses opened up in the team by switching out the mons from your suggestions. Like with the Talonflame > Clefable suggestion, while Talonflame does help with the grass types you mentioned, the team loses a lot of utility by losing Clefable, as it could handle numerous threats including electric types, and other stuff like Mega Lop that Clef can tank a hit from if necessary. One way to help with that is, when taking off a team member, make sure to keep in mind what that mon was used for in the first place, and what threats it was able to handle. By removing Tyranitar (the team's primary revenge killer and the fastest mon on the team), you made it a bit harder for the team to deal with the threats that Tyranitar was chosen for like Mega Pinsir, which Latios can't handle to degree that Tyranitar would. Your idea of Latios was a good one, as you were correct in your statements regarding the weaknesses to Zard-Y, Manaphy and Keldeo, but by getting rid of Tyranitar, it also made dealing with Hoopa-Unbound a whole lot harder. Relying on Pursuit was the main method for defeating it, so without that, Hoopa has nothing to really fear when switching in.

I also noticed you have a tendency to make a lot of changes to the teams you rate, so it's easier to accidentally make the team weaker to another threat, so you just gotta watch out for that and be able to recognize any new threats you've created. You don't have to have a great switch in for everything, but as long as the team has a reliable way to counterplay against it without getting swept, it'll be fine.

You could also add a bit more reasoning/explanation to some of your suggestions, so that you can really convince the OP that your suggestions can really help his team out. So that also includes saying what threats your new mon can handle in addition to the ones that lead to you suggesting it, but only if it looked a bit troublesome before. So something like after suggesting Keldeo on a team over Azumarill (just an example), you could point out how Keldeo can potentially revenge kill (and/or give the team another way to revenge kill) Manaphy if the team looks like it has issues with it. So going back to that 1st rate, you could've said Talonflame can also help defeat Clefable 1v1 (if it had Taunt) since the team looked like it struggled with it a fair bit. Clefable wasn't a mentioned threat, but when you look at the team, you'll think it has a hard time defeating it. So by first adding the mon from another change and simultaneously helping out with another threat with the same change, you'll be able to improve the team without making too many changes, which is more ideal than making too many changes that may ultimately change the identity of team.

I'll stop for now, so I hoped this helped, and if you need anything else, feel free to PM me or any other OU TR :)
 

Sobi

Banned deucer.
Hey there [:

I'd like some advice on my rates, please. Team Pokepals kindly went through two of them, and we discussed structure and presentation, but I'd like to know what other people think about my rates and how they could be improved. I'll link this, this, this short one, and this one, so any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!
 
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Hi Sobi, considering that your rates aren't bad, I'll even talk about small things. The format from what I see is not a problem, pretty clean with bolds and colours, also divided in paragraphs is a good thing as well. Reading the whole rate I just see a point that you missed, you changed the playstyle of the team, at the beginning the team was more like a balanced, but you changed it to a bulkoff, which is not that bad tho, but you made the team pretty Tornadus weak, both sets are really threatening to this team, relying only on the poinson from Sludge Bomb Mega-Venusaur. That's why I'd kept Zapdos. A pretty better rate was more like Oml's one, changing Ferro to Heatran, gaining a Mega Sab + Mega Venu switch, and still not weak to Tornadus, which with ur Bisharp or Weavile, is a huge problem imo, considering that you do not have Pursuit on Weavile and Tornadus is not staying in. After the rate you can avoid tldr's because you have changes in bold, and it's not that long rate to read imo. In hides put just the changes you made, not the whole team after the changes; I think there is not much to say about this one.

The second rate is one that I dont really like, why? You talked way too much about Bisharp imo, he has Low Kick Weavile to revenge kill it, also Rotom-W can "easily" take Knock Off, considering that you didn't talk about the Life Orb set, as well as that you talked about Rotom-W as set up fodder, but it's not right, considering that your chance to KO with the Adamant after Rocks and +2 boost is really low. Changing Landorus-T to Tank Chomp makes the team weaker to Fairies, and removing another Excadrill check + Ground immunity (which isn't a huge miss in this case), but Intimidate might help in this case. He has many answers to Bisharp tho, so I'd focused on other things. This guy made a threat list, which is a thing that team raters should use and try to cover as much as we can tho. Changing one of Tang's move to Rock Slide might helped a lot the team against Charizard Y and Talonflame, which players usually think they can easily switch in that mon. Fixing some Sets like Landorus' one making it able to 2hko all variant of Mega Scizor, making Lando a Rocks SD variant, etc etc.

The last rate, actually I think you put yourself in a "weird" situation, because you rated a pretty confused team imo, you made many changes, 3 mons and 1 set as well as changing that team to a harder and not clear playstyle. Talon needs Rocks removed, Latios is getting Destroyed by Bisharp, which if it gets the boost it's almost gg. Electric with the new version are a huge problem, which with the old version wasn't ( I am not saying that you should have kept Thundurus-T). Imo you chose a hard team to rate.

In conclusion then, I'd say you have to keep following the way you rated the first team, pretty nice and clean one, with a little of mistakes that can easily improve, the second was meh imo, you focused so much on Lum Sharp forgetting many other threats, the third is confused, maybe because of the team which isn't a nice one. My suggestions are these, just do not focus too much on some threats when you rate (Lum sharp in the first and second team) and also consider op's threat list. Thanks for asking advice, we are here to let you all improve, hoping to see you around. Feel free to ask any rater about tips, here, in pm, etc
 

Sobi

Banned deucer.
Hi Sobi, considering that your rates aren't bad, I'll even talk about small things. The format from what I see is not a problem, pretty clean with bolds and colours, also divided in paragraphs is a good thing as well. Reading the whole rate I just see a point that you missed, you changed the playstyle of the team, at the beginning the team was more like a balanced, but you changed it to a bulkoff, which is not that bad tho, but you made the team pretty Tornadus weak, both sets are really threatening to this team, relying only on the poinson from Sludge Bomb Mega-Venusaur. That's why I'd kept Zapdos. A pretty better rate was more like Oml's one, changing Ferro to Heatran, gaining a Mega Sab + Mega Venu switch, and still not weak to Tornadus, which with ur Bisharp or Weavile, is a huge problem imo, considering that you do not have Pursuit on Weavile and Tornadus is not staying in. After the rate you can avoid tldr's because you have changes in bold, and it's not that long rate to read imo. In hides put just the changes you made, not the whole team after the changes; I think there is not much to say about this one.

The second rate is one that I dont really like, why? You talked way too much about Bisharp imo, he has Low Kick Weavile to revenge kill it, also Rotom-W can "easily" take Knock Off, considering that you didn't talk about the Life Orb set, as well as that you talked about Rotom-W as set up fodder, but it's not right, considering that your chance to KO with the Adamant after Rocks and +2 boost is really low. Changing Landorus-T to Tank Chomp makes the team weaker to Fairies, and removing another Excadrill check + Ground immunity (which isn't a huge miss in this case), but Intimidate might help in this case. He has many answers to Bisharp tho, so I'd focused on other things. This guy made a threat list, which is a thing that team raters should use and try to cover as much as we can tho. Changing one of Tang's move to Rock Slide might helped a lot the team against Charizard Y and Talonflame, which players usually think they can easily switch in that mon. Fixing some Sets like Landorus' one making it able to 2hko all variant of Mega Scizor, making Lando a Rocks SD variant, etc etc.

The last rate, actually I think you put yourself in a "weird" situation, because you rated a pretty confused team imo, you made many changes, 3 mons and 1 set as well as changing that team to a harder and not clear playstyle. Talon needs Rocks removed, Latios is getting Destroyed by Bisharp, which if it gets the boost it's almost gg. Electric with the new version are a huge problem, which with the old version wasn't ( I am not saying that you should have kept Thundurus-T). Imo you chose a hard team to rate.

In conclusion then, I'd say you have to keep following the way you rated the first team, pretty nice and clean one, with a little of mistakes that can easily improve, the second was meh imo, you focused so much on Lum Sharp forgetting many other threats, the third is confused, maybe because of the team which isn't a nice one. My suggestions are these, just do not focus too much on some threats when you rate (Lum sharp in the first and second team) and also consider op's threat list. Thanks for asking advice, we are here to let you all improve, hoping to see you around. Feel free to ask any rater about tips, here, in pm, etc
hey, thank you very much for the response! the rates linked were kinda old, and since the time i last posted here, i've been brushing up on my rating skills with advice from DennisEG and Team Pokepals. here are two rates that i did; i think i've improved a tiny bit :o

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/weavile-dream-team.3570714/#post-6777175

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spanish-flea.3570605/#post-6773950
 

Subjugator

Banned deucer.
Hey guys, I'm Subjugator. But you already knew that.

I have surgery soon, so I decided to do as much as possible while I can.

So, how is this rate? Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!
 
Hey guys, I'm Subjugator. But you already knew that.

I have surgery soon, so I decided to do as much as possible while I can.

So, how is this rate? Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!
Hi man. I saw your rate and I think that you did well overall, here are my thoughts:

+ I think your structuring and formatting was pretty to the eyes. You might wanna use smaller sprites though, this site will help you out a lot with them.
+ Even though the OP did not mention it, identifying the core that the team was built around is commendable on your part. This to me shows a sense and mind of a good rater.

- I think that while your rate was on the right track, it lacked a sense of completeness. As in, it felt more like a check-up rate rather than anything. Optimising spreads are an important part of rating, but making changes to achieve the team's aim is what's the most important.
- Which brings me to this point. Identifying Kyurem-B+M-Lopunny as the core was a good effort, since Kyurem-B breaks down Lop's checks and yada yada. However, his core of wallbreakers are weak to Fairy-types in general. This should ideally lead to you to focusing on the defensive backbone(of an offensive team, I know lol)that can cushion the core. Now Scizor is a good Fairy check no doubt, but it's just too meh most of the times. Klefki or ScarfRachi would've been nice options here due to their general prowess of complementing offensive teams. Spikes support is very appreciated by Kyurem-B and Lop.
- Similarly, a good rater would recognize that Azelf can't do shit in the current metagame and is just plain bad. Something like Landorus or Garchomp as a replacement would be a very nice option here.

That's all from me, if you have any questions or need help, feel free to contact me or any other OU TR. Keep up the rating :)
 

bludz

a waffle is like a pancake with a syrup trap
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Hey man I feel kind of awkward talking about this first rate since the guys team didn't give you much to work with and it just ends up being an overhaul.

I'll touch on the other two rates, and will admit I make some of the same mistakes you have here.

First off what I think you do well is setting up the rate by trying to identify weaknesses. This is an important first step and really gives you a plan going forward.

I think it's very crucial to keep in mind that the order you change things in has a very strong influence on the other changes to follow. I think there is no "right" path to take but generally you're either editing a mon that fits with the team or changing one out if it doesn't.

In the third rate you choose to change the Lando-T set before making any other changes. I think with a team like this it makes more sense to swap out a member first since clearly something has to go. You can then adjust the other sets on the team more accordingly to the new change rather. Obviously you can also make multiple changes at once, but the order of presentation should help players understand what route to take if possible.

Celes' rate in this thread is quite strong IMO so you could potentially take a look at what was done differently in that rate compared to your own as well. In this case choosing to swap out a suboptimal set for a stronger choice opens up the build nicely and influences the more subtle edits like offensive Lando since Azu helps with Excadrill.

I think your second rate starts off on the right foot in this regard: you swap out the least viable set for something that makes more sense. However I think you sorta lose track of formatting your rate and it becomes a bit hard to read since it's all one paragraph.

Also I think the Lando-T change seems weird right after the Talon one - it makes a lot more sense to transition to your Heatran swap here. The removal of Heatran makes the team weaker to electrics and subsequently the Lando change makes more sense after this. This ordering makes it seem to me that your thought process wasn't totally organized and that's why this rate has a couple of issues

While you did improve the team by improving the matchup with electrics and bulky waters, the Diancie problem wasn't really helped and a door for other Fairies was opened. I think one of the bigger issues is that by removing Bisharp and going Yache on Lando, Excadrill becomes a massive problem if Lando is whittled.

In short I think one of the main things these rates struggled with is synergizing the changes with one another. It seems a bit like you keep making changes with improvements to the old team in mind but aren't adjusting your changes enough based on each other. My suggestion to you would be to try and analyze the new team you make to see how much your changes actually helped and how well they work together.

Not gonna lie I make some of these same mistakes sometimes but other times I catch myself. Hope this was helpful for you.
 
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Hey man I feel kind of awkward talking about this first rate since the guys team didn't give you much to work with and it just ends up being an overhaul.

I'll touch on the other two rates, and will admit I make some of the same mistakes you have here.

First off what I think you do well is setting up the rate by trying to identify weaknesses. This is an important first step and really gives you a plan going forward.

I think it's very crucial to keep in mind that the order you change things in has a very strong influence on the other changes to follow. I think there is no "right" path to take but generally you're either editing a mon that fits with the team or changing one out if it doesn't.

In the third rate you choose to change the Lando-T set before making any other changes. I think with a team like this it makes more sense to swap out a member first since clearly something has to go. You can then adjust the other sets on the team more accordingly to the new change rather. Obviously you can also make multiple changes at once, but the order of presentation should help players understand what route to take if possible.

Celes' rate in this thread is quite strong IMO so you could potentially take a look at what was done differently in that rate compared to your own as well. In this case choosing to swap out a suboptimal set for a stronger choice opens up the build nicely and influences the more subtle edits like offensive Lando since Azu helps with Excadrill.

I think your second rate starts off on the right foot in this regard: you swap out the least viable set for something that makes more sense. However I think you sorta lose track of formatting your rate and it becomes a bit hard to read since it's all one paragraph.

Also I think the Lando-T change seems weird right after the Talon one - it makes a lot more sense to transition to your Heatran swap here. The removal of Heatran makes the team weaker to electrics and subsequently the Lando change makes more sense after this. This ordering makes it seem to me that your thought process wasn't totally organized and that's why this rate has a couple of issues

While you did improve the team by improving the matchup with electrics and bulky waters, the Diancie problem wasn't really helped and a door for other Fairies was opened. I think one of the bigger issues is that by removing Bisharp and going Yache on Lando, Excadrill becomes a massive problem if Lando is whittled.

In short I think one of the main things these rates struggled with is synergizing the changes with one another. It seems a bit like you keep making changes with improvements to the old team in mind but aren't adjusting your changes enough based on each other. My suggestion to you would be to try and analyze the new team you make to see how much your changes actually helped and how well they work together.

Not gonna lie I make some of these same mistakes sometimes but other times I catch myself. Hope this was helpful for you.
Hi ^-^ Thanks a lot for your suggest! With regard to "Also I think the Lando-T change seems weird right after the Talon one - it makes a lot more sense to transition to your Heatran swap here. The removal of Heatran makes the team weaker to electrics and subsequently the Lando change makes more sense after this." Is because when I write the things that i've think I forget the real reason why I made the change
and then it happens to write the first things that are " therefore " and then I change from which they are derived :/
Thanks again! ^-^
 

Celticpride

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Just got back to rating, wanna know how i am doing. Holler some advice fam http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/slowthorn.3572964/#post-6817944
Very solid rate man. Chople Berry > Leftovers was a very nice change to fix the Mega Zam and Mega Gard weakness while not altering the core of the team much at all.

Thought your other changes were nice as well. However I think the Tran set ended up being a bit odd and tried to accomplish too many things. I think you would have been better off going for a Power Herb - Solarbeam set, and shifting Gengar to a different rocker (probably a Ground), possibly to open up Ferro as a Spiker. Or, suggest Tran over Clefable but go for Taunt / Plume / EP / SR. But I think between Taunt-Toxic Tran, Gengar, and Mega Heracross, there's a bit of an overkill on stallbreaking and core breaking power. Mega Hera can break a ton of stuff by itself without much support and one of Gar or Tran should be able to help break those teams and cover loose ends when it comes to stallbreaking and such. Probably would get rid of Gar in place of Solarbeam - Power Herb Tran because OU is pretty Pursuit heavy right now (Clef / Ferro / Bro / ScarfTar / MegaHera / Tran is a decent final product as well, for minimum changes). So yeah I think Tran as a mon was a nice choice but I think the actual set could have used some work, and you should try not to do too much in one set. That's all I've got for now nice work man :)
 

p2

Banned deucer.
After you finish that one, was wondering if you guys could do this as well.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/m-sableye-balance-peak-1600s.3575162/#post-6858582


thanks m8s in advance.
I think one of the other TRs were going to take a look at your other rates, so I've got this one.

First thing that I noticed is that you didn't change Sableye from CM > Utility. Overall CM Sab is really ineffective compared to its utility sets, which can remove items or deter stuff like Talonflame and Mega Zard X setting up with Foul Play. Calm Mind is also fairly weak and pretty much baits in its common checks very easily with no way to punish them.

Changing Bisharp here was a good choice, but I don't think Rotom-W was the best option here. If you remove Bisharp and change Sableye's set to utility, you remove the main wincon of the team and so you kinda want to aim for something that can fulfill that role here. The team is annoyed by opposing Mega Sab and Thundurus, 2 threats that come to mind pretty quickly. Clef is a great counter to the former and is a decent soft check to the latter, and it can fill the role of a wincon w/ CM, can also run something like Ice Beam to help with Gliscor.

Moving on, I like the Skarmory > Klefki team, on a balanced team, you're going to want the longevity and ability to phaze stuff given this team is balance. It also helps deal with sand if you go along the route of a different mon instead of Rotom over Bisharp. Not much to say about this change, it's pretty solid.

Obviously because there were quite a few changes here, I can understand why you didn't want to change Volcanion to something like Scarf Keldeo, but I actually like Scarf Volcanion here, as it functions as a somewhat reliable revenge killer against Serperior. But Scarf Keldeo is also good here because it gives an additional check to Dark types, which is pretty important against Weavile since Klefki was changed. Keldeo's better speed tier usually lets it function as a better revenge killer than Volcanion.

The other TRs might have something to say, but this is what came to mind for me. Hope this advice is helpful and keep it up with rating!
 

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