Hello everyone! I need help with my Pokemon team. I am playing Platinum. My current team is: Empoleon (Water/Steel) Gallade (Psychic/Fighting) Garchomp (Ground/Dragon) Luxray (Electric) Staraptor (Normal/Flying) Now, I need to decide on a good fire type. My options are: Typhlosion (Fire) Infernape (Fire/Fighting) Arcanine (Fire) I am leaning towards Infernape, but I already have a partial fighting type (Gallade) on my team. Is it ok to have two partial fighting types, or should I look for a pure Fire-type who will not be weak to Flying and Psychic? Which one should I choose? If you have any other suggestions for my team in general, or would like to comment, go ahead. P.S. Please, give me meaningful answers backed up by evidence. Please don’t say “Typhlosion because it pwnsâ€, “Your team sucks because you don’t have [Name of Pokemon]â€, “Choose Arcanine because I love dogsâ€.
There's a reason why Infernape is OU and not UU/NU like Arcanine and Typhlosion are. Infernape has access to Nasty Plot, Close Combat, Flamethrower and GRASS KNOT! He is great as a mixed sweeper, and if you are being walled by a special, you can get a Close Combat to do considerable damage. My suggestion is to status the opponent with sleep or something equally debilitating, and send this nasty dude in, Nasty Plot and sweep. Arcanine now has access to Morning Sun in HGSS, which is greatly helpful, has Intimidate, Extremespeed, possibly Thunder Fang and Flare Blitz. It is a great asset, however obtaining one legit is hard to come by if you don't have HGSS...He doesn't have a great boosting move, besides Howl, which is mediocre in comparison to Nasty Plot Infernape. Swords Dance + Extremespeed would have been really, really nice... Typhlosion is the lowest on the list, having only access to Solarbeam (with White Herb) and Hidden Power Grass for a counter against bulky waters. Eruption is good on the first turn, and diminishes as he takes damage. The only advantage he has is that he is a pure fire type. You have Gallade to be neutral to both Psychic and Dark attacks, while having a counter to the latter, which is nice. The fighting type will prove useful there. Don't worry about having two fighting types, since one doesn't show the weakness as much as the other. You have more than two counters to flying types so clear them out before sending in Gallade or Infernape. With either setup, you have three pokes weak to Ground type attacks, but luckily for you, NONE of them carry Earthquake.
I'm going with insanecrazy for the same reasons he mentioned, though they're not really AS important since I assume you won't be battling against other people. Infernape is the more versatile option in terms of offense, and almost anything that is a threat to it will be a threat to Typhlosion or any Arcanine that isn't defense-oriented, so Infernape is probably your best option.
~ Overheat ~ Shadow Ball ~ Hidden Power Grass / Hidden Power Electric ~ Flamethrower / Fire Blast Although Flareon's Special Attack is lower than its Attack, Flareon's STAB moves are stronger on the special side. Choice Specs Overheat packs massive power when coming from 475 Special Attack - enough to 2HKO 252 HP / 152 SpD Bold Clefable. Hypno and Grumpig avoid 2HKOs, which is why Shadow Ball is included to 2HKO both. Hidden Power Electric hits Mantine for super effective damage with a 54% chance of OHKOing 252 HP /252 SpD Calm variants with Stealth Rock damage. Hidden Power Grass deals with Water/Ground-types and the less common Water/Rock-types. The final Fire-type move gives Flareon a chance to attack without losing stats. Flamethrower is more reliable, but Fire Blast packs more power. Other Options Tickle, Charm and Fake Tears can be used to cause switches. Double-Edge and Body Slam can be used in place of Return for the extra power or paralysis chance. Flail is not recommended due to Flareon's sub-par Speed stat. Hidden Power Ground and Rock will hit other Fire-types, and Hidden Power Ice will hit Altaria, but both are usually inferior to Hidden Power Grass as they take away Flareon's ability to combat Water-types.
I would have to say Flareon is at the near bottom of my choice of ALL fire types. Why? Overheat does NOT help if you can't allow switches. With Stealth Rock in play, switches are generally not affordable with Fire types. Not only that, but the one you suggested requires a Choice item to be effective, which, again sucks if you can't allow switches and nowhere does it mention Superpower (this is for one of the other Flareon setups). I would rather use Magmortar with Lava Plume for burn chance, as well as being a mixed attacker with Cross Chop (see Mixed Attacker entry) without losing SpA each time you use it, but really this is still just an inferior Blaziken and Infernape (even though the entry says otherwise, it still is just an inferior setup with 30% burn rate, ooh!). Flareon is a poor choice even to Magmortar who has a usable SpA, where Flareon has a useless base 130 Attack, and has to deal with a base 95 SpA instead...If you do Specs for Specs, Magmortar has better options (boltbeam, Focus Blast) and a more feasible SpA. The Scarf Blaziken setup is better than the Specs Flareon setup that you suggested, having better coverage and purpose, but even then, I don't like either, because it practically requires you to switch, which like I said before, Fire types can't afford. If you have the chance to use Infernape, use it. There's a reason why it's OU and the rest are UU or worse. Fire types are extremely disappointing because there are so few viable Fire types in all of Pokemon. I hope they change this in the 5th gen. You really only have Infernape or Heatran for OU, Moltres, (oh God) Blaziken, Arcanine and Houndoom for UU, and Magmortar and pals for NU. Scizor DOMINATES OU because there are really only two Fire types in OU, one of which can safely switch in and counter it, the other is too damn frail to do anything about a boosted CB or +2 BP. By the time Infernape switches in, it suffers from a little bit of SR, gets hit by a boosted BP on the way in, and another boosted BP before it gets a chance to strike. I don't like the fact that some Fire types pack two Fire moves...or Fire Blast's shaky accuracy and low PP...Blaziken is fun to play with but you usually have Superpower and Vacuum Wave on the same set...bleh. If you like a change of pace, Arcanine is really fun to play with Sunny Day on the field. It works in tandem with a Chlorophyll user and sets up a great opportunity to check Water types with either Arcanine's Thunder Fang or a Chlorophyll user. I tend to use FlashFire in secret, set up Sunny Day with my Grass type to see if the opponent will fall for using a Fire attack due to the boost, switch to Arcanine, get a FlashFire boost, Sunny Day boost, STAB Flare Blitz with a Life Orb, Extremespeed what's left of the guy, and then Morning Sun off the damage.
Magmortar is on my team also, he is such a beast. I have Thunderbolt/Focus Blast/Flamethrower/Hidden Power Ice. You can try to get lucky with Ice or Grass for Hidden Power. His Sp. Atk is insane.
