Q&A for How to Create a Balanced Pokémon Team

Half of your team is weak to rock, bug, and ice, so you might consider swapping your Pokémon out. But that does not mean it's bad. Look up your team in a Pokémon Planner to see all your team's strengths and weaknesses.

Chesnaught is weak to Flareon, Primal Groudon, Reshiram and their Mega Blaziken so get a Pokémon that can take these threats out. Set up a Trick Room with another Pokémon so Chesnaught can outspeed the Jolteon and the Vaporeon to take them out. A good water type for your team would be a Primal Kyogre and a good Fire type would be a Mega Camerupt. Camerupt's ground typing would allow you to take out their Jolteon. Use a Cresselia as your support Pokémon that can set up a trick room. The rest is up to you!

Have more Pokemon with type disadvantage to overpower it. When you do, it's most likely you will have the type advantage then, and win the battle.

It depends on the Pokémon and its moveset. For example, if you and your friend both have Landorus and yours knows Hidden Power (Ice type), you shouldn't switch out because Landorus is weak to ice.

Either use Mega Charizard or put something on the team to ensure that Charizard will be useful. Stealth rock will cut Charizard's health to half upon switching in, so having a Pokémon with rapin spin or defog is essential for getting rid of entry hazards. Dragonite, Starmie, Charizard and Pidgeot all take a lot of damage from electric type moves, so Pokémon like Heliolisk, Jolteon, Raikou or Zekrom could be useful for the team.

Yes, because you won’t know what Nintendo will change about that Pokémon.

Steel types work well (like Aggron). Ice types work as well (at least for dragons), like Alolan Ninetales.

Use a dark-type Pokemon like Zoroark; its ability will be useful to confuse. Use a dark z-crystal and a dark-type move if necessary to beat Neocrozma.

You battle with them of course! You can battle friends, or in game trainers, or even do battle challenges (battles with special rules).

Try using it in battles to look for weaknesses. If one Pokemon gets taken out a lot or isn't pulling it's weight, consider replacing it. You can also just check for common weaknesses.

It depends on whether they complement each other and the team. Without knowing that information it's impossible to say.

Try to predict their switches.

That seems to be an excellent team. I don't even know if I could beat that with any of my seven teams.

No, because they both have dragon typing and really leave you open to the fairy type. I’d just choose one. (I’d choose Reshiram because of the fact that the fire typing reduces weaknesses against ice and steel.)

It should cover various types. This can either be, and usually wraps around both, the concepts of type advantage and super-effective damage, usually with moves of another type. The latter is a concept all its own, called coverage. This will create a good competitive team.

Think about the Elite Four and gym leader types. If you chose the fire starter, then you'll be able to beat the Johto gym leaders and the Elite Four easily. You'll need an electric type for Misty, but Lugia will take care of Brock. Or if you really want to, just use your starter. I beat the game easily with my Lugia and Typhlosion, along with some terribly underleveled Pokémon for surf and stuff.

Find other half-electric Pokemon and use abilities, such as Lighting Rod. Train it so the super-effective move won't one-hit KO them. Try using Sturdy if you can.

See if your team is balanced or not. If half of your team are weak to one or more type, switch to others and keep one. The rest is up to you.

Testing them out in battles is the best way to know whether you're happy with how your team performs. If you can't do that, simply analyze your team's strength and weaknesses and look at the steps above. Smogon is a great website that divides Pokémon into tiers depending on how strong or strategic that Pokémon can be. While it's mainly used for competitive players, it's good for picking out strong Pokémon and finding out what moves you should give them.

Yes, sometimes even with a double resistance. Though, be careful to work out 4X weaknesses if needed.

It's good statistically but half of them have a weakness to water types(and some with ground type weakness) and Pikachu is worse than it seems to be. Tyranitar, Salamence and Snorlax can make an impact but the others will crumble easily.

Cinderace can sweep bug, grass or ground type, Garchomp can sweep ice and dragon types, Breeloom is weak to fire so if you are battling a fire type expert, be sure to switch it out to a strong water (Swampert or Inteleon) or ground (Camerupt or Groundon) type, for Gyarados is not that powerful, so try switching out. And Aggron is decent.

Maybe find a flying type. They are immune to ground type moves. Pokémon with the levitate ability also have this immunity.

Three of your Pokémon are vulnerable to fairies, but you have some Pokémon that are good against them. Your team is great. Garchomp is weak on dragon.

This is a decent team. Although, Altaria is weak on fairy. Maybe you could try and find a female Salandit to counter that.

Try to get some Pokémon with multiple typed moves, but at least one ghost, one dark and one bug.

Don't always rely on starters as they don't always learn good moves and are only the start of your adventure.