How do you build your team / party?

[monandd]

Ahoy! Today I come to you with a question regarding your usual party-building method on Pokémon videogames. Not necessarily competitive teams, I'm curious about how you build your initial team to beat a Pokémon's game main storyline.

For example, I tend to look for balance regarding types, and always have (or try to catch as soon as possible) a fire Pokémon, a water Pokémon and a grass one too, one of them being my starter Pokémon. Usually, I also have an Electric one. However, one of my flatmates recently played Pokémon Sword here at home, and based his team off colors and aesthetic choices, rather than a "competitive" reasoning. And he sent his starter to a Box as soon as he could.

What about you, what do you usually do?

 

[Zed]

I tend to replay every Pokemon game at least a couple of times so in order to keep it interesting for myself I like to follow these two rules in almost every playthrough I do (especially in the last few years):
1) Avoid having two Pokemon that share a type on the team (exception to this rule are Water types in Hoenn since I'll often have two Water type Pokemon on my Hoenn teams because of the huge amount of Water type HMs required to complete the game)
2) Try to use mostly the Pokemon that I've never used before (for some playthroughs I'll allow myself one or two Pokemon that I've used before but not more than that)

Less of the rule but all of my teams have to have a Water type Pokemon on them because Water types are usefull not only in battle but also for surfing around the region and scaling waterfalls. I also avoid using legendary Pokemon on my playthrough teams because using legendaries doesn't seem fun to me, on top of that I was never a huge fan of legendary Pokemon anyways and that means that I don't like a lot of them so not using them on my teams wasn't that hard of a choice for me.

 

[Thundawave]

My general algorithm because I tend to be calculating with this stuff:

- Starter stays on my team unless it’s a scramble
- Usually have a combination of water, fire or flying, grass, electric, psychic or ghost, steel or ground or fighting, fairy
- No more than three Pokémon weak to a single type (but try to keep it to two or below)
- Relatively even physical vs special attackers (3:3, 4:2, or 2:4 ratio)
- An Atk or SpA Stat of 100+ (or near 100 but with another stat like speed or defenses to make up for it)
- Moves that make sense with the Pokémon’s stats
- Learns good STAB moves at a decent point in-game (through level-up or TM/TR)
- Don’t repeat Pokémon from previous teams if possible
- Try not to repeat types
- Try to use only new Pokémon or forms for my first playthrough of a region (e.g. I used only Galarian Pokémon in my first Sword playthrough)
- No legendaries

 

[Deva]

Slot 1: Starter.
Slots 2-4: Judges by appearance. Cannot share types.
Slots 5-6: Covers team weaknesses. Relaxes standards of appearance.

Additional notes:
- New Pokemon only. Allows old Pokemon that evolve into new Pokemon. (May not know that information, however. Prefers to go in fairly blind.) Tends to be hesistant about regional variants.
- No legendaries.
- Might drop Pokemon in the event of bad evolutions, type changes, or very poor performance. Dislikes doing that, though. Affects slots 2-4, generally. Always keeps the starter.
- Paces team size. Picks slots 2-4 probably by the fourth gym. Becomes more or less choosy, depending on current team size and progression. Fills slots 5-6 within a gym or two after that.
- Looks for a non-negative nature. Bases that off their stat spread. Accepts neutral natures.

 

[Typhlosion]

My starter always stays on my team. When I was a new Pokemon fan I was quite strict, basing my team around types. I always had to have Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, and Flying Pokemon. I tried to represent as many types as possible, as well, meaning all of them dual-types if possible and no type overlaps between two Pokemon. I didn't place as much emphasis on good stats or moves, but I also picked Pokemon such that I could have all the HMs of that game present on my team of six. In my last couple of playthroughs, like in Gen VII, I've been more lax about this and mostly used Pokemon simply based on whether or not I liked them. This was made easier by the removal of HMs; neither of my Gen VII teams have a Flying-type, which would have been practically a necessity in any earlier game. My Moon team had several Bug-types and my Ultra Sun team had a large number of Dark-types, for instance.

 

[juiccbox]

Most of the time, I don’t think too hard and just choose Pokémon I come across I take a liking to, whether it be design wise, or move/ability wise. However if I start ending up with a lot of the same type I try to balance it out more. I love fairy and ghost types but too many can make me vulnerable, so I gotta balance that out. Luckily I usually find Pokémon of many different types I love, so it works out. I also choose my starter based on its design and whether I like it’s evolutions or not, I can always build around whatever type it is, which usually is grass, I have an affinity for grass starters.

 

[monandd]

Nice nice! All of your team-building methods sound cool :D

Right now I'm trying to build a "competitive" team (at least a strong team to master the Battle Tower) in Switch, so I'm mixing up my favorite Pokémon and strategies I find online such as in Smogon. It's been complicated because I can't find a middle ground between Pokémon I like and those that would be "best" in a given strategy, but I'm slowly making up my mind!

 

[Siddhar]

As a kid, I always focused on those Pokemon I felt were cool-looking, and had complete disregard for type balance. Anyway, now I choose a simple combo. Fire, Water, Grass-types are mandatory because I feel they provide good coverage. The other three Pokemon can be of a similar combo too (psychic, fighting, dark, for example).
But sometimes I get childish and go for "cool-looking" mons, as I did in Sun.