Beat my second playthrough for Y. I didn't quite dominate the E4 like last time, but it wasn't too hard. The steel guy gave me more trouble than anticipated because I forgot how badass Aegislash is because Charizard ran roughshod through him last time. My team was:
Night Knight the Chesnaught @ lvl 62 Bulk Up/Spiky Shield/Hammer Arm/Seed Bomb
Bleau the Azumarill @ lvl 63 Strength/Power Up Punch/Play Rough/Waterfall
Shana the Pyroar @ lvl 61 Dark Pulse/Flamethrower/Hyper Beam/Work Up
p!nbs the Malamar @ lvl 62 Night Slash/Psycho Cut/Superpower/Cut
Dragalge @ lvl 60 Sludge Bomb/Dragon Pulse/Thunder Bolt/Surf
Pierce the Bisharp @ lvl 63 Swords Dance/Iron Head/Power Up Punch/Payback
In case you're wondering what the hell p!nbs means, it's squid turned upside down and backwards or...
topsy-turvy. *badoom tsh*
Overall I wasn't very pleased with this team. Chesnaught and Azumarill were awesome and Pyroar was pretty good, but Malamar was disappointing once I got into late game and Dragalge wasn't worth having to put up with Skrelp's pathetic ass. They weren't necessarily bad, but they couldn't bring the wood like my other three and they felt like pansies compared to my
X team. My sixth slot was a rotation between Vivillion and Aerodactyl for a while, but I ended up being fed up with both. Aero couldn't hit nearly as hard as I wanted him to even when he went Mega; he couldn't get a OHKO with Fly against any Pokemon that had even a little bit of bulk. I then switched back to Vivillion, who I had grown attached to since he was my first capture, because he was doing pretty good for the first third of the game, and I learned he wasn't too far off from learning Quiver Dance. But again, late game he couldn't cut it. As hard as Vivillion hits, it has the defenses of a paper towel and just couldn't stay on the field.
As I'm running around Anister City buying ALL THE CLOTHES I remembered there's a girl in Snowbelle that wants to give me a Bisharp (a trade I didn't make in X). I hesitated at first because a Bisharp would only add to my glaring ground vulnerability, but I just said fuck it. I didn't want Aero and I didn't want Vivi and I didn't know what I did want, so I decided to try it out. I've never used a Bisharp before despite wanting to (they were always late game), but I know they have a neat typing, look awesome, and hit like a mack truck. As it turns out, Pierce the Bisharp was my team MVP. Hit like a mack truck indeed. I honestly feel like I could've swept the entire E4 with just him and Azumarill. Once I learned how to use him, I felt unstoppable.
But yeah, outside of Chesnaught, Azumarill and Bisharp, nothing felt good. On paper it has a decent synergy, but in practice it felt wonky, mostly because of Malamar and Dragalge. I kept them because of freaking Cut and Surf, which really aren't great reasons to keep poor team members. But until Gamefreak gets it through their heads that HMs are stupid and make the game less fun, they'll continue to be the bane of my existence. I think on a simulator with perfect IVs, ideal natures, access to every learnable move, and more in-depth team building strategies they'd be better, but in-game, for me, they don't work.
So now that I've done a play through on both games it's time to start some post game stuff until Pokebank comes out. Once that's out I plan on transferring all of my good X Pokemon there so I can do a third run with Fennekin. I do wish I had access to all of my Pokemon on Black 2 so I could use them for the Battle Mansion, but whatever. I think I can string together a good enough team or breed some new ones with the new ultra easy breeding methods.