![]() |
Welcome to Rating Basics!
With the introduction of Rating 102, we feel that the original concept of Rating Basics isn't as effective now. At the same time, however, it isn't fair to our beginning Team Raters to have no place to turn to for advice. Rating Basics 2.0 solves all of these problems, giving Rating Basics a much more direct approach to answer your questions and help you out. The idea of this thread is to encourage you guys to post rates that you want critiqued (whether they be your own, or someone else's). We will post our thoughts on the rate, giving you ideas on what to improve, as well as giving our own potential rates for the team. However, don't feel like you aren't allowed to post your own thoughts! We encourage all users to post their critiques to the rate so that as a community, we can work together and fix our mistakes. We RMT Mods will be sure to moderate this thread if anything gets too harsh, but other than that, disagreeing and working together to fix mistakes is how we become better raters, and better people. :D |
Echoing what kd24 said, the point of a rate is to fix problems with the team. While Scarf Terrakion is a good "fix it" solution, it doesn't solve the OP's inability to switch into Rotom-W and Toxicroak after a Substitute is still problematic. These are the kinds of things you need to address as a rater.
When I rated teams, I would try to minimize large changes to keep the identity of the team the same. I would recommend that aspiring raters do the same; anyone can mold teams that they rate into the same bog standard cookie-cutter crap. The successful raters IMO are the ones that identify the problems upfront and suggest solutions to those problems without changing the basic core of the team. In this case, the idea is to achieve either a Terrakion or Dragonite sweep; I personally wouldn't have touched either, but rather would have replaced Starmie for something that handles Toxicroak and Rotom-W better (the OP stated that Psychic on Starmie is for Toxicroak, yet he probably forgot Sucker Punch KO's). These are things you need to pick up on and address next time :) |
hey RMT! as you may remember, i was a really active (and pretty good) rater about a year and a half ago. with the new "reboot" of the forum, i think i wanna give rating another go. however, i want to make sure that my rating skills havent gotten too rusty in the time that ive been inactive. would you mind looking at one of my rates to identify areas where i could improve? i really want to become a better team rater; posting advice in RMT has always been something ive enjoyed, and though i havent done it in a long time, i want to get back to posting quality advice. one thing i really want to work on is being concise in rates, as this is something ive struggled with in my past career as a team rater. this is a rate i recently made on this (rather unorthodox) team. i wanna see how you guys think i could improve. :)
Quote:
|
should anyone come across this post, i just want to mention another solid rule i go by when rating a team: fixing any excess mess after fixing something. simply put, after you suggest a pokemon to change, you have to step outside the box again and look at new problems that may trouble the team after fixing it. the last thing you want to do is open up another problem after fixing another one. although i'm not too fond with pokemon changes, i only do it when its absolutely necessary. minimal changes are probably the best way to fix a team. this includes a simple tweak in the ev spread or moveset. the problem with changing one pokemon is that it tends to shift the team, which more than often opens up more holes than patched ones, therefore causing you to change another pokemon to alleviate the problem you just created. if anything! my advice is to stay away from large changes unless its absolutely necessary. get out of the mindset of perfecting the person's team, instead, look at the team as a way to improve it - not necessarily build his entire team to your tastes.
|
First off, this is an excellent step forward for the RMT forum. Thanks kd, Haunter and Bloo for having the initiative to set up this new program, this should definitely make "fitting in" a lot easier for new and upcoming raters. I'd just like to emphasise what franky has said, in particular dont do anything more than what needs to be done. Just stick to the basics, a small and simple change help a team out a lot more than you might think. Another, albeit less important point, is to present your rates well. Your rate might be a lot of help, but if its lumped into one paragraph it could put off the reader a bit. There's no harm in separating your rates into different parts, for example: the problem, the solution, and additional comments. Theres no harm in putting some extra time in making your rates look clear and concise.
|
Quote:
|
I'm really excited about this project! I've been rating teams on and off throughout the course of a few months and am thrilled that there's now a place to help me and others improve. Anyways, here's my latest rate that I recently posted Dragons's Rising From the Ashes team. I hope you guys can look over it and make suggestions on how to improve in the future. Thanks in advance.
Quote:
|
While you did a good job at identifying the Volcarona weakness, the way you fix it doesn't seem to be the best option imo. I always wonder how people beat Volcarona with their Jellicent. Best-case scenario:
A better fix would be as easy as Roar > Will-O-Wisp on Heatran. With Roar, he can take an attack from Volcarona (being immune and 4x resisting its STABs), and Roar him out forcing him to take Stealth Rock damage. Also, this is a smaller change, which is usually preferred. Trying to stick as much to the original team is important. |
one thing i notice if that even when you suggest jellicent > gengar, volcarona can still get up to two quiver dances and won't be affected "too badly" by jellicent...at the same time, something like life orb latios would worry me too... a simple change would just be adding toxic to either jellicent or heatran over will o wisp, because doubling up on will o wisp seems kind of silly, especially when toxic on one of them can really shut down that stuff
edit: like tomahawk said, you could also go roar on tran (altho id be more worried about 3 atk volcarona). the jellicent change is optional all the way through, you need to decide if it helps the team succeed. |
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpos...5&postcount=15
Is one of my most recent rates. Is there anything I can improve upon? |
HP ice on Rotom is a good suggestion imo, but it's not really necessary as baloon Heatran already revenge kills most DD dragons. Trick helps him to deal with stall teams that seem quite problematic for this team.
I agree that crunch>bullet punch is a good change, it's better to cover Jellycent and Reuniclus, though he's forced out by Terrakion. Despite being very offensive this team seems pretty weak to stall. I disagree with your suggestion on Heatran, balloon Heatran does set up SR quite easily and as stated before it's his best bet against dragons, should they set up a DD on Breloom. Also, just a nitpick: when you suggest a set try to not put too many optional moves. In your example, protect and roar can make a huge difference between making Heatran set up fodder for things like DD Haxorus and allowing him to phaze effectively. Hope this helps. |
@harsha2014 it's a solid rate, but one thing you should keep in mind is to include what his team loses from implementing your suggestions. For example, the loss of bullet punch means that his only form of priority comes from Scizor. This would lead me to suggest investing more EVs into Scizors attack. This does affect its ability to take Draco Meteors and such, but these attacks are now easily absorbed by the new Heatran set. And the loss of balloon for revenge killing DD dragons and such doesnt matter too much with the addition of HP Ice on Rotom. Notice how your three suggestions have been linked.
It also isn't necessary to comment on every Pokemon, if a Pokemon is fine as it is then just move on. It helps to be concise. Good luck! |
Hey! I've new to rating teams so don't expect too much ^^. This is my most recent rate on Chillarmy's team. Thanks in advance!
Quote:
|
scarf landorus/terrakion is a good suggestion on that team imo (in fact, as you might have seen, i posted a rate before yours on that exact same team advising him to use scarf terrakion). however, to me it seems that you typed an awful lot of information for just one change. simply having a massive wall of text doesn't improve a rate; in fact, it just makes it messier and more difficult for the OP to make out what you're trying to get at. like i said, it is a good suggestion, but i feel that you could present the same suggestion and give adequate reasons as to why to use scarf terra in just five to seven sentences, as opposed to a massive text wall. just work on making your rates shorter and more concise and you'll be rating better in no time.
im no expert team rater though, so this is just my two cents. feel free to disregard it if you wish. |
Alright thanks a bunch, I'll take that into consideration next time!
|
Ok so recently I've given a few "smaller" rates. By this I mean I've not suggested anything too dramatic, only moveset changes. So I guess I just wanted some feedback on whether or not I had given adequate explanation for each small change. Some examples:
...
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3459900 The RMT
...
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3459730 The RMT So am I giving sufficient evidence for my suggestion? Am I bringing up odd threats as examples? Are these changes "too" small? Also for the second one I gave a second post, replying to the OP saying "that Celebi couldn't be replaced because it checked fighters", where I showed him how ineffective Celebi was at checking said 'mons; that can be linked as well. Thanks! |
Your format is pretty good but if you don't link to the teams that you rated we can't evaluate your rates properly.
|
yeah haha must have been more tired than I thought last night :D
I've edited them in now haha |
I looked at your first rate and it looks pretty solid. Only thing you forgot to suggest is a nature change on Gastro as he won't do much to Jirachi with EQ running bold. He can run either relaxed or sassy. Gastro also needs some Atk EVs to score a guaranteed 3hko on defensive calm mind Rachi.
Another change I would probably suggest is expert belt on Latios. Heatran is his only hope to stop SD Scizor from completely murdering his team so bluffing a choice set and killing it with Latios would be extremely beneficial. Dropping superpower on his own Scizor is a double edged sword as it makes him even more weak to opposing Scizor and allows Magnezone and Heatran to completely wall it. Don't forget to mention, when you make changes, that those changes might expose the team to previously covered threats. Finally, I noticed he's slightly weak to CM Virizion so, probably, running psyshock on either Latios or Reuniclus could be worth testing (preferably the latter). |
I just recently decided to get into rating teams. These are two of my first rates. I would really like feedback so I can become a better team rater.
The team rated: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3460152 The rate: Quote:
The team rated: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthr...=1#post4039109 The rate: Quote:
|
Made a pretty decent rate on this RMT
Is this an ok rate? I mean, the team was poorly made, with moves like Attract, so I sort of just spent the whole rate showing him how to fix up his team, and didn't manage to look over it for threats. That's ok, isn't it? Also, he had a Slaking, but I didn't just tell him to replace it with something better, just for the sake of getting rid of it, because he obviously wanted to use it |
|
Where are the other TRs…
Quote:
|
Quote:
What he really needs is a better grasp of the OU metagame and battling in general, which is more appropriately supplied in Battling 101. |
Quote:
|
| All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:55:58 PM. |