Don't know how much time I'll have to do this, but I'll try to get bronze at least.
Pokemon Showdown! Username: Temp X2
Dark Horse Pokemon: Landorus-T
Screenshot of Top 100 Ladder Ranking: 89
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: 2007
How did you choose your Dark Horse Pokemon for this project? What lead you to choose the Pokemon you did? Did you have regrets or were you happy with your selection?
Well a little while before I stopped playing I was intrigued by the idea of a new core for a balance/bulky offense team; Defensive Landorus-T and Specially Defensive Rotom-W, so I figured I might as well try to test out this core and the project gave me a chance to do just that. I was very happy with Landorus-T's performance throughout my laddering, and I'll probably write an RMT once my exams are over to provide a little more insight into this.
How did you go about building a team for your Dark Horse Pokemon? Which kinds of teammates did you consider? What factors contributed to the team you created?
I usually pride myself on building quality teams, although this one was a little less thought through. I'm still not entirely happy with the entire team, but that just indicates how far I could take this team. Basically I just started building around Rotom and Landorus covering weaknesses and adding checks to anything I needed, team took less than 5 minutes to make, so its quite clear why theres room for improvement. Still, it was enough to get bronze in a bit under two hours, about the same time as last DHP.
Do you think it is more difficult or less difficult to ladder with a Dark Horse Pokemon? Why? Does the element of surprise play a factor in your battles? Is it easier to fight with a "highly used"" team or with Pokemon that are less common?
It was quite easy in this case, because although the team wasn't incredibly thoughtful, it really was very easy to use, and it made outplaying my opponents very easy. I won't post the full team until a bit later today probably, but just for reference its a weatherless balance team. Because of this laddering was once again quite easy, its never something I have trouble with, so I can't really ever say its difficult, getting to the top 10 on the other hand, that would be a bit more fun ;) Using Landorus-T doesn't really bring all that much surprise factor, however 3 other members of my team had many-a-people going 'dafuck', so while it wasn't my horse that caused surprise, my team created plenty.
(For Hall of Fame members only)
How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Was it easy or difficult? Did having a Dark Horse Pokemon on your team benefit you? What advice would you give to those laddering with Dark Horse Pokemon?
Well once again, it was very easy, I think possibly in future the reqs should be a little higher, I know I only achieved bronze, but I did it a little too easily in my mind, still if its judged to be at an adequate level I'm happy with that :) As already stated, having Landorus-T was incredibly useful, because he played his role as well, and so much better, than I could have hoped, creating a truly threatening mon. This guy may be a Dark Horse this month, but I sort of doubt he will be in the future, and if he is, I'll be going for Plat next time ;)
Set I used:
Landorus-Therian @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 200 HP / 244 Def / 64 Atk
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Sleep Talk