Banette?

[Tenco]

I happen to have a fondness for banette, but his defences really suck and the one i raised(full speed and attack ev's ) has hp~bug. so what uses do i have for him?, and he doesnt have any egg moves. I think his moveset now is

(Jolly)@shellbell
Knockoff
Shadowball
hp~Bug
Return

any ideas would be great

thankx ^_^

[GirlRepellant]

Well, the best Banette movesets I've seen all include Will-O-Wisp to account for his terrible defense. But if you're not willing to rebreed (with a Koffing), well... I dunno. HP Bug and Shadowball seem a bit superfluous. I'd personally say that a non-WOWing Banette isn't really worth having. Get a second opinion though.

[Poryhedron]

Well, Banette may not have staying power, but it has decent Attack...Shadow Ball is helpful in that regard, since it's a STAB physical attack, and HP Bug might also be worth keeping. Why? Because Ghost attacks like Shadow Ball are weak against Dark-types, but Bug attacks are strong against Dark-types. Besides, HP Bug may not get STAB, but it's still a physical attack, and that's what Banette's good at. (Mind you, HP Fighting would have been better, because Fighting is strong against all three of the types Ghost performs poorly on, but there are several worse options you could have ended up with.)

[rinku]

You don't need to breed Wiil-o-Wisp onto Banette - it learns it at L32. Geez - heven't you ever trained in the Sky Tower?? Perhaps you were thinking Destiny Bond? ;)

Shadow Ball
Wiil-o-Wisp
HP Bug/Return
Something tricky (Knock off is fine, but how about Spite, Taunt or Torment?)

Only keep HP Bug if the power level is decent - if it's low power you'll find Return doing more damage vs more targets anyway. If it's below power 50 just forget it - Return will do more vs the x2 vulnerables. Shadow Ball is its main attack anyway - your other attack is there to cover Normal types in most cases. Banette is not well suited to fight any Dark Type, even with a SE HP, as it can't take much in the way of SE punishment.

Grudge is an option for those fights it's going to lose anyway.

[Rabid_Cow]

Banette is an interesting poke to say the least. I personally have been tryin out the anti tank set:

WoW<>Toxic<>Imprison<>Rest

Pretty much disables all tanks that use an annoyer move + Rest to stay in for a while. It really isn't that great IMO. I really prefer this one:

Shadow Ball<>Return<>WoW<>Imprison

This is the standard, or at least the one I have been playing with for at least a year with. SB and Return are good physical attacks, WoW to half their Attack and give em some constant pain. Imprison stays cause any time you see a poke like Absol or Ninjask (Something that can learn Shadow Ball + high attack) you can just disable them from usin the other 3 moves. I have found that most Absols (Mine included) have Shadow Ball and Return, so they're pretty much forced to switch out, or if they still manage to kill him, are out 2 good attack moves.

Hope this helped!

[Tenco]

Thanks dudes