My Fire Red team

[Cammy White]

OK, I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section, but the Team Rating section said it was only for completed teams, so I thought I should post this here.

Anyhoo, I've had Fire Red for a few days now and I'm kind of stumped as to what to have as my team. I had planned for it all to progress nice and evenly, but it just didn't work out that way at all!

Currently I have Nidoking and Charizard, both at level 50, and I'm in the process of training a Meowth/Persian, because I've never used one before so thought it'd be a little bit different. I was going to go with Snorlax, but that seems quite widely used and I fancied something a little bit different!

I had planned to have an Electabuzz and Lapras by now, but I didn't realise I had to beat the Elite 4 before I can get these! (So I can breed my Electabuzz for an elemental punch attack.)

So, I currently have;

Charizard
Nidoking
Persian (in training)
Lapras (planned)
Electabuzz (planned)

I'm a bit stumped as to which Pokémon to fill in the 6th slot!

My question would be which do you guys think would be an asset to my team? I don't think my choices so far have been too bad, so I think I'm ok up to this point. Unless I'm mistaken and you'd advise against any of these choices!

I hope this made sense!

[rinku]

Team seems fine so far. Something Grass would be a good add to this mix, but probably not from the available ones in FR without a restart for Venusaur.

If you don't mind a second Poison type (albeit one immune to Ground), Gengar might be a good choice if you have the ability to trade. Otherwise, perhaps a fighting type such as Hitmonlee or Primeape?

[Cammy White]

Thanks rinku!

I quite like the idea of training up a Gengar, but as yet my only way of trading would be with Colosseum, is it possible to evolve Haunter that way? I was going to get a DS, but figured I'd wait for the Lite version ;)

I was thinking of a moveset (albeit very quickly) and thought something likethe following might work;

Toxic
Mean Look
Giga Drain
Confuse Ray/Shadow Ball

or

Shadow Ball
Sludge Bomb
Confuse Ray
???

Any suggestions?

[mr_pikachu]

Hehe... Gengar makes for great old school fun. :yes:

Well, I'm no expert, but I'm not sure I'd recommend Shadow Ball. Ghost moves are considered Physical, and Gengar's Attack is pitiful. You'll get STAB with that move, but I don't think it's really worth it. Otherwise, I think your first moveset's pretty good for disruption and tanking.

The second moveset seems a little weak to me, even with the possibility of another move. Shadow Ball and Sludge Ball are okay with STAB, but Gengar just isn't a good Physical Sweeper. Confuse Ray's decent again, but the other two moves just don't feel solid.

Anyway, on to some more possibilities...

With that high Sp. Attack, I really like Gengar for its Special Sweeper potential. Psychic's always fun (the move with TM29, not just the general attack type), and T-Bolt can be useful as well. With a tad more attack power, Sludge Bomb's a possibility despite its Physical attribute, or you could go with Giga Drain to really make a full Special Sweeper. Toxic's not bad, although it's not the best move for a Pokemon that's supposed to take down foes as fast as it can. You might want to save that for the longer clashes. Night Shade, on the other hand, is almost always superb.

You could also make a Tank out of Gengar, I suppose, although it doesn't have the best movepool for that. In that case, Toxic would be good, as you're looking for a long struggle anyway. Rest and Protect might be good to stall for time while your poison does its work, and Night Shade is still good for assured damage. T-Bolt's also still an option, I think. Giga Drain's fine as well for a touch of healing, although you don't want to rely on that too much. Torment, Taunt, and even Attract can be okay for disruption, as far as I can tell.

Other AG regulars will probably have more advice, and knowing them, they'll probably be able to rule out a bunch of what I just mentioned. (They're good at this.) But I hope this at least helps to give you some ideas.

[Cammy White]

Thanks very much! I was under the impression that Ghost and Poison were special attacks, which is why I suggested those moves. I checked the serebii.net pokédex and saw Gengar had a pretty high Special Attack stat, so thought I was making use of it there. Oops, I guess.

[mr_pikachu]

Yeah, those are a little confusing. I still forget that they're not Special moves on occasion. I also make the mistake of thinking that Dark attacks are Physical every once in a while. (They're actually Special, which boggles my mind.) That sort of thing can be tricky, so it's always good to double-check exactly which stats affect your moves.

[Cammy White]

Posting this before I forget, but does anyone know about the trading with Colosseum to evolve? Or will I have to wait until I've got a DS?

[Poryhedron]

Trading with Colloseum does evolve trade-evolvers. It counts because, unlike with Box or the Stadium games, this is an actual trade between two different trainers: Ash/Red in your Fire Red game, and Wes in your Colloseum game. (By the way, I trust you know that you can't trade with Colloseum until you've defeated Evice, the final boss.)

[mr_pikachu]

A quick point to mention... do not trade any of the purified Pokemon on Colosseum until you've purified every last one of them. (If you don't know what this means, it'll become clear when you actually play the game.) If you trade any one of those before that point, even if you trade it back, you won't be able to capture Ho-oh. Once you snag and purify all 48, go after Ho-oh, and then you can feel free to trade whichever Pokemon you please.

Don't worry too much about that, though, because you can snag plenty of Pokemon that aren't Shadow Pokemon to trade with those on the GBA. That is, if you're fond of mugging innocent trainers. ^_^;

[Cammy White]

Ah, thanks for that! I'm nowhere near that stage yet, mainly due to a lack of time to do it. Will make sure to get a regular, non-shadow one for trading then. Thanks!