Team Roles

Pokemon Battles aren't quite as straight forward as some people may believe. It is not a simple case of choosing your six strongest Pokemon, you require a balance of Pokemon and a well thought out strategy.


In order to create a winning team, you must balance your Pokemon correctly, giving each Pokemon its own role towards winning the battle.


There are three main roles that will be needed to make a successful team.
These are:

Sweepers
Walls
Support


Below is some information about these roles.

Sweepers

These are your offensive Pokemon, the ones that you will rely on to take out the opposing Pokemon as quickly as possible.

There are three main forms of sweepers:

Physical
Special
Mixed

As you hopefully know there are two main forms of stats, Physical and Special and these vary from Pokemon to Pokemon. Therefore when choosing a Pokemon for specific role, you must pay attention to its stats. As clearly, a Pokemon with say 50 base points in attack will not make a very good physical sweeper. Keeping this in mind you must also take consideration of moves, even if a Pokemon has a high attacking stat if it does not have a good movepool it will still be useless. The main types of moves a sweeper should use are attacking moves with high base power such as earthquake and physic as well as stat increasing moves such as sword dance and nasty plot.

Here are some examples of some common Pokemon used for these roles:

Physical Sweepers - Attack with only physical attacks
Scizor, Heracross, Gyarados, Dragonite/Salamence, Tyranitar.
Special Sweepers - Attack with only special attacks
Heatran, Gengar, Alakazam, Togekiss, Houndoom.
Mixed - Attack with a mix of both physical and special attacks
Salamence, Lucario, Infernape.

Walls

These are your defensive Pokemon who will defend against opposing sweepers with their high defence(s).

Again you must pay attention to the Pokemon's stats, the higher the defensive stat, the better. A wall also must have good typing. Sweepers ideally should also have a good type but their main purpose is to kill Pokemon quickly and aren't expected to take many hits. However a wall relies a lot on its typing as even with a good defensive stat they will still die quickly if they are hit with a super effective attack.
A wall does not need to worry too much on attacking so its moveset should be used to help slow down and weaken strong opposing sweepers, as well as the all important hp recovery move. Thunder wave, will o wisp, toxic are used to hurt sweepers and other strong walls, whereas moves like recover, rest and moonlight are used to keep your wall from fainting.

Here are some examples of some common Pokemon used for the three main roles:

Physical Walls - Defend against physical attackers
Skarmory, Steelix, Weezing, Tangrowth, Forretress.
Special Walls - Defend against special attackers
Blissey, Milotic, Tentacruel.
Mixed Walls - Defend against both physical and special attackers
Cresselia

Support

Support Pokemon can do a variety of things, but as it suggests they are there to support your other Pokemon. Most are generally walls with specific move sets.

Below are some of the forms of support pokemon:


Stealth Rocks / Spikes / Toxic Spikes

These are Pokemon that's main purpose is to set up one or more of these moves. Known as 'entry hazards' these moves can be very useful throughout battle. They all differ slightly but do the same basic thing, that is to cause damage whenever your opponent switches their pokemon. Stealth rocks being the most widely used, it is only used once (ideally at the start of the battle) and will cause a set amount of damage whenever a opposing Pokemon switches in depending on their type (Their weakness to rock type). Spikes works the same way, but can have up to three layers, each layer adding extra damage. Whereas Toxic spikes will simply poison each opposing Pokemon when switched in, and with two layers will toxic them.

Example of 'Spikers / Stealth Rockers:
Skarmory, Forretress, Cloyster, Mesprit, Bronzong.


Rapid Spinners

These are simply pokemon that can use the move rapid spin, as by using this move, all entry hazards can be removed. Most are again Walls with specific move sets.

Examples of Rapid Spinners
Starmie, Donphan, Forretress.


Healers

These are Pokemon who are used to heal their team mates who are unable to heal themselves.
This can either be to heal their HP by using wish and then switching, or to heal status problems with heal bell or aromatherapy. These are also mainly Walls with specific move sets.

Example of wish healers:
Vaporeon, Umbreon, Clefable.
Examples of status healers:
Blissey, Miltank, Celebi.


Baton Passers

Baton Passers are used to pass on stat increase and other battle effects onto another pokemon. Baton pass is a move that is basically the same as switching Pokemon manually but things such as stat increases from sword dance/nasty plot and moves such as substitute and mean look. When passed on to the right Pokemon they can become a deadly force.
The type of Pokemon that can use baton pass is vast and will depend on what you want to pass on.

Examples of Baton Passers
Vaporeon, Umbreon, Smeargle, Jolteon, Ninjask.


Hazers

Hazers simply are used to counter stat increases. Using the move haze, all stat changes are instantly removed.
Alternatively you can use a Pokemon with roar or whirlwind, as by switching the Pokemon out all the their stats changers are removed. These again are also usually Walls with specific move sets, but can also be offensive Pokemon/sweepers with these moves in addition.

Examples of Hazers
Weezing, Vaporeon, Donphan, Suicune, Swampert.


Weather Support

These are usually used in team based around the use of a weather move such as sunny day or rain dance. They are used for Pokemon that have abilities like Swift Swim to make them out speed the opponent in rain, fire Pokemon who are powered up in sun and Pokemon with solar beam which hits first turn in the sun. The Pokemon that sets up the weather condition can have a variety of roles, and depends on the way the team is set up.

Examples of Weather Makers
Cherrim, Ludicolo, Castform.

Other Roles

Leads

Leads are simply the Pokemon you send out first in the battle. So you want to make it get the battle going in your favour.

Leads can serve many different purposes, whether it is a Stealth Rocker in order to get them up first turn, a counter Sweeper to take out the opposing Lead, or a Supporter to set up moves like rain dance first turn.

How to create these Pokemon

There are many other important things to consider when you train these Pokemon.
Such as EV training and IV breeding to give your Pokemon the best stats. As well as getting your Pokemon the best stat increasing natures and breeding/move tutoring for the best move sets.

These are all fairly advanced things to learn when it comes to Pokemon Battling, and I myself am not an expert, so here are some links to other guides to assist you with these things.

Serebii
Smogan

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