General Skills
1. Experience:
Lots of firsthand battle experience will allow you to recall information, such as damage calculations, and make good decisions automatically.
2. Learn damage calculations:
Try to memorise important damage calculations for as many pokemon moves versus other Pokemon.
3. Learn to counter:
Learn how to counter not only each Pokemon, but also all viable movesets for Pokemon.
4. Learn from others:
Watch how other battles, especially skilled ones, deal with certain situations and put those good approaches into practice. Also, take advice from and read from/listen to skilled battlers.
5. Analyse your battles:
After you've played a battle, analyse what you could have done better using logs and replays, especially if you lost by a close margin.
6. Preparation Time:
Give yourself time to prepare for a tournament battle, to ensure you'll put in a good performance and hopefully be in a good mood. Also, try to schedule so you won't be too tired for it.
7. Know your opponents:
Research (or recall) your opponent's tactics, prediction patterns, likely Pokémon and movesets, how they will think, anything to give you an edge over them.
8. Stay Active:
Make sure you don't miss out on an opportunity to play a tournament match, by actively trying to arrange a date with your opponent and posting if they aren't responding. If you win by activity, you can progress in the tournament, which gives you more recognition.
9. Analyse openings:
If you have a strong hint that an opponent will use a certain lead and play a predictable way in the early stages, think of what lead you can use and what initial switches you can do to gain a good advantage before you play the battle.
10. Create your own tactics to use:
If you spot that that players will behave predictably against certain Pokémon, take advantage by coming up with a switch or set of switches that will lead to an advantage, or by using certain moves.
Battling Skills
1. Maintain focus:
No relaxing when the outcome seems for or against you. Being afraid to lose every battle is a common way to motivate yourself.
2. Have passion and confidence:
Sometimes when you are low on confidence, or fed up, you may doubt yourself incorrectly or be weaker at masterminding what you need to do next to have the best chances at winning. Enjoy the game and believe you can win. Trust yourself.
3. Secure victory:
When winning only counts, don't go after 4-0s, 5-0s, 6-0s, make the correct moves that will give you the highest chance of winning the game, which may even be certain (or all most surely) in some battles, even if this is RBY.
4. Strategise:
Actively think and try to will a desirable endgame, not just rely on automatic thinking always. Look at what gives you the best chances to end the way you want.
5. Use a damage calculator:
If you are unsure of the damage range of an attack in a battle, use a damage calculator. The Showdown calculator set to RBY is recommended.
6. Weighing danger with behaviour:
Assign approximate chance to how the opponent will think, not assume equal likelihood. The opponent might not think you are prepared to lose or be heavily disadvantage if you get something wrong, especially if you are so sensible most of the time. Also, think about how the opponent can gain an advantage that seems 'safe' to them based on your previous behaviour and counter it appropriately.
7. Work with their misfortune:
If your opponent mistakenly overpredicts or misses an attack and lands themselves in a bad position, try to take the advantage, usually by making a good switch-in which they might have expected in the previous turn.
8. Take advantage of delays in the opponent's moves:
If the opponent suddenly takes slightly longer in a battle where they otherwise move instantly, this can be a sign that they are looking to switch something in. Likewise, if you detect your opponent is calculating (taking a long time in an important battle), you can change your decision to counter what they'll think the optimal move is. Be aware, the opponent can purposely use a delay, just like you can, to try to trick you.
9. Learn your opponent's movesets:
Most Pokemon in RBY have quite predictable movesets, or the variation in their movesets don't require you to plan differently. However, there are exceptions, such as countering Snorlax and Exeggutor. Snorlax might not have Hyper Beam, Selfdestruct. Exeggutor might not have Mega Drain or even Explosion in rarer cases.
10. Count PP:
Sometimes PP stalling an opponent is the safest option for you to counter a Pokemon. It's important you can count their PP accurately so you know when one of their moves is no longer a threat or a limited threat.
Team Skills
1. Read usage statistics and analyses:
Get an idea of the best sets and team mates to use with usage statistics, public teams, individual pokemon analyses, viability rankings.
2. Balance out teams:
Generally, teams need to be able to have some way of dealing with the popular threats, those Pokémon and moves at the top of the viability rankings / usage stats.
3. Statuses:
Freeze and Sleep conflict with paralysis, so the choices you make in teambuilding, such as your lead, need to bear that in mind.
4. Test your teams out:
The best place to test the effectiveness of your teams are the PO or PS ladders, or against highly skilled friends/team mates.
5. Build many effective teams:
Having many effective teams as opposed to just one makes you more versatile, which should in theory give you an extra advantage over a number of battles or matches.
6. Build complementing teams:
If one team is vulnerable to freeze, make sure another has an Ice-type to come in on Ice attacks and not get frozen.
7. Switch between teams:
If you have multiples teams, you can do team countering mindgames in a best of 3 or 5 situation, and successfully counter them if they only stick with one team.
8. Tweak effective teams:
Surprise your opponent by changing to movesets that are more effective against the opponent and their team.
9. Build counter teams:
If you feel your opponent is almost surely going to use a team against you, build and use a team that has the best possible chances against theirs, even if it's otherwise unreliable.
10. Surprise with your teams:
Using standard sets is not always the most effective, because experienced players will generally anticipate them. Use moves like Hyper Beam on Pokémon that don't use it on their standard set, to surprise the opponent and hopefully gain an advantage with a useful KO.
1. Experience:
Lots of firsthand battle experience will allow you to recall information, such as damage calculations, and make good decisions automatically.
2. Learn damage calculations:
Try to memorise important damage calculations for as many pokemon moves versus other Pokemon.
3. Learn to counter:
Learn how to counter not only each Pokemon, but also all viable movesets for Pokemon.
4. Learn from others:
Watch how other battles, especially skilled ones, deal with certain situations and put those good approaches into practice. Also, take advice from and read from/listen to skilled battlers.
5. Analyse your battles:
After you've played a battle, analyse what you could have done better using logs and replays, especially if you lost by a close margin.
6. Preparation Time:
Give yourself time to prepare for a tournament battle, to ensure you'll put in a good performance and hopefully be in a good mood. Also, try to schedule so you won't be too tired for it.
7. Know your opponents:
Research (or recall) your opponent's tactics, prediction patterns, likely Pokémon and movesets, how they will think, anything to give you an edge over them.
8. Stay Active:
Make sure you don't miss out on an opportunity to play a tournament match, by actively trying to arrange a date with your opponent and posting if they aren't responding. If you win by activity, you can progress in the tournament, which gives you more recognition.
9. Analyse openings:
If you have a strong hint that an opponent will use a certain lead and play a predictable way in the early stages, think of what lead you can use and what initial switches you can do to gain a good advantage before you play the battle.
10. Create your own tactics to use:
If you spot that that players will behave predictably against certain Pokémon, take advantage by coming up with a switch or set of switches that will lead to an advantage, or by using certain moves.
Battling Skills
1. Maintain focus:
No relaxing when the outcome seems for or against you. Being afraid to lose every battle is a common way to motivate yourself.
2. Have passion and confidence:
Sometimes when you are low on confidence, or fed up, you may doubt yourself incorrectly or be weaker at masterminding what you need to do next to have the best chances at winning. Enjoy the game and believe you can win. Trust yourself.
3. Secure victory:
When winning only counts, don't go after 4-0s, 5-0s, 6-0s, make the correct moves that will give you the highest chance of winning the game, which may even be certain (or all most surely) in some battles, even if this is RBY.
4. Strategise:
Actively think and try to will a desirable endgame, not just rely on automatic thinking always. Look at what gives you the best chances to end the way you want.
5. Use a damage calculator:
If you are unsure of the damage range of an attack in a battle, use a damage calculator. The Showdown calculator set to RBY is recommended.
6. Weighing danger with behaviour:
Assign approximate chance to how the opponent will think, not assume equal likelihood. The opponent might not think you are prepared to lose or be heavily disadvantage if you get something wrong, especially if you are so sensible most of the time. Also, think about how the opponent can gain an advantage that seems 'safe' to them based on your previous behaviour and counter it appropriately.
7. Work with their misfortune:
If your opponent mistakenly overpredicts or misses an attack and lands themselves in a bad position, try to take the advantage, usually by making a good switch-in which they might have expected in the previous turn.
8. Take advantage of delays in the opponent's moves:
If the opponent suddenly takes slightly longer in a battle where they otherwise move instantly, this can be a sign that they are looking to switch something in. Likewise, if you detect your opponent is calculating (taking a long time in an important battle), you can change your decision to counter what they'll think the optimal move is. Be aware, the opponent can purposely use a delay, just like you can, to try to trick you.
9. Learn your opponent's movesets:
Most Pokemon in RBY have quite predictable movesets, or the variation in their movesets don't require you to plan differently. However, there are exceptions, such as countering Snorlax and Exeggutor. Snorlax might not have Hyper Beam, Selfdestruct. Exeggutor might not have Mega Drain or even Explosion in rarer cases.
10. Count PP:
Sometimes PP stalling an opponent is the safest option for you to counter a Pokemon. It's important you can count their PP accurately so you know when one of their moves is no longer a threat or a limited threat.
Team Skills
1. Read usage statistics and analyses:
Get an idea of the best sets and team mates to use with usage statistics, public teams, individual pokemon analyses, viability rankings.
2. Balance out teams:
Generally, teams need to be able to have some way of dealing with the popular threats, those Pokémon and moves at the top of the viability rankings / usage stats.
3. Statuses:
Freeze and Sleep conflict with paralysis, so the choices you make in teambuilding, such as your lead, need to bear that in mind.
4. Test your teams out:
The best place to test the effectiveness of your teams are the PO or PS ladders, or against highly skilled friends/team mates.
5. Build many effective teams:
Having many effective teams as opposed to just one makes you more versatile, which should in theory give you an extra advantage over a number of battles or matches.
6. Build complementing teams:
If one team is vulnerable to freeze, make sure another has an Ice-type to come in on Ice attacks and not get frozen.
7. Switch between teams:
If you have multiples teams, you can do team countering mindgames in a best of 3 or 5 situation, and successfully counter them if they only stick with one team.
8. Tweak effective teams:
Surprise your opponent by changing to movesets that are more effective against the opponent and their team.
9. Build counter teams:
If you feel your opponent is almost surely going to use a team against you, build and use a team that has the best possible chances against theirs, even if it's otherwise unreliable.
10. Surprise with your teams:
Using standard sets is not always the most effective, because experienced players will generally anticipate them. Use moves like Hyper Beam on Pokémon that don't use it on their standard set, to surprise the opponent and hopefully gain an advantage with a useful KO.
