Doubles Team

[Carmen Lopez]

Okay, so I'm trying my hand at the doubles tourney (because Katie ttly convinced me), but I really need some help with a doubles team. It's totally new territory for me. If I an avoid training all new Pokemon, that would be awesome, so I want to see if members of my singles team can function correctly in doubles.

Metagross- Brave

Stealth Rock
Grass Knot
Bullet Punch
Earthquake

Swampert- Adamant

Earthquake
Waterfall
Stone Edge
Avalanche

Lucario- Modest

Aura Sphere
Vacuum Wave
Flash Cannon
Shadow Ball

Starmie- Timid

Hydro Pump
Ice Beam
Thunderbolt
Grass Knot

Meganium- Calm

Giga Drain
Body Slam
Leech Seed
Toxic

Salamence- Hasty

Outrage
Earthquake
Fire Blast
Draco Meteor

With a few exceptions I can change any moveset if I need to. Hopefully I don't totally fail at my first Double tourney XD

 

[Sir Red]

Just taking a quick glance over your team I can see that they really don't fit together well for doubles battling (which sadly happens sometimes when you try and transition a singles team to doubles without changing anything). Half your team has EQ, but only one Pokemon is immune to it/has some way to avoid taking damage from it. Not exactly helpful to be hitting your own Pokemon that much, especially when a few of them take super effective damage from it. Protect can be helpful to get around this, or switching in a levitator or something of that variety can help remedy this problem.

Other than that, I'm not too sure on doubles myself so I'll hold off other advice. :x

 

[KoL]

Three basic rules for doubles are as follows:

1. Use Protect/Detect on everything that can possibly afford to give a moveslot for it - it WILL pay off big-time regardless of whether one of your Pokemon risks being murdered by its partner's attacks.

2. Primarily use attacks that hit both opponents at once - why knock them out one at a time when you can do it two at a time?

3. Back to point 1, make sure you don't risk murdering your team-mate with your own attacks. If you want to use Earthquake a lot, have a Flyer/Levitator on-hand, if you want to use Discharge a lot then have a Ground-type or a Volt Absorb/Motor Drive Pokemon there to take the hits. You don't want to have to box yourself into Protect/Detect to avoid your own attacks really.

That said, the best thing to do here is make some new, doubles-specific Pokemon for your team that fit in well with the ones that can already work. Starmie, Metagross and Salamence are the best three for doubles here, while Swampert's a bit too slow really and Lucario/Meganium just don't bring the right moves to the plate to succeed. You won't need stuff like Stealth Rock since there's very little switching going on in doubles, and you can easily give Metagross Protect over that move. Explosion is MANDATORY - any Metagross in doubles without this move is horribly disarmed of its best and most dangerous weapon, and for that I'd recommend having a Ghost-type around (preferably one with Levitate to avoid Meta's Earthquake too) so you can create a permanent Explosion risk that Metagross's partner is immune to.

Key to doubles is to keep it simple and effective. The more complex the strategy you attempt in doubles, the more likely it is to fail - stuff like Skill Swap Regigigas will NOT work against anyone with half a competitive brain in their head. Instead, stick to stuff more along the lines of Zapdos/Garchomp, a pairing that is extremely simple and devastatingly effective - Garchomp uses Earthquake, Zapdos uses Discharge, each one is immune to the other's attack move - simple, yet devastating if you're not prepared for it, and a damn sight better than bloody Skill Swap nonsense. I'd say work out what you'd want to use from that advice and then go from there - you can always post any team updates here for further advice when you need to.