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Resource ADV Beginner's Lounge - Rules/FAQ, Question & Answer

Hi, new player here. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but feel free to let me know if it isn't.
Do you think it's better to pick a team and stick with it for a while? After you get a grasp on the basics, you can start exploring different options, but doing so right off the bat could have a detrimental effect and be too overwhelming for a beginner. Thoughts?
 
The Flying Dutchman said:
Hi, new player here. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but feel free to let me know if it isn't.
Do you think it's better to pick a team and stick with it for a while? After you get a grasp on the basics, you can start exploring different options, but doing so right off the bat could have a detrimental effect and be too overwhelming for a beginner. Thoughts?
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People have a lot of different opinions on this. I've seen many people take many different paths and eventually become great players; I don't think there's a truly correct answer. I think most people will generally recommend taking a team or a few teams that were made by established experienced players and play with them until you reach a nebulous, undefined level of experience. Again though, I've seen people fly in the face of this and come out the other side as good or better for it, so honestly just do what feels right or fun to you.
 
The Flying Dutchman said:
Hi, new player here. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but feel free to let me know if it isn't.
Do you think it's better to pick a team and stick with it for a while? After you get a grasp on the basics, you can start exploring different options, but doing so right off the bat could have a detrimental effect and be too overwhelming for a beginner. Thoughts?
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I'm far from the best player even when I played ou, but I feel like as long as you're as a new player learning interactions and lines through play with a team or handful of teams or running literally everything in the book, then the answer you like is the correct answer. What matters when you're new is learning theory and understanding how the game works to a clockwork like level. Just don't get stuck as guy who grinds to 1650 only using dugtrio special offense or something.
 
The Flying Dutchman said:
Hi, new player here. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but feel free to let me know if it isn't.
Do you think it's better to pick a team and stick with it for a while? After you get a grasp on the basics, you can start exploring different options, but doing so right off the bat could have a detrimental effect and be too overwhelming for a beginner. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
In addition to practice, taking in knowledge is also important. Don't forget to watch replays of high level ladder games. They can give a pretty good idea of how to pilot a standard team, possibly similar to the ones you're practicing with. High level tour games are a bit strange to watch for a beginner because there's a lot of hidden assumptions and some intention to be counter-meta. High level ladder games are pretty good.
 
vapicuno said:
In addition to practice, taking in knowledge is also important. Don't forget to watch replays of high level ladder games. They can give a pretty good idea of how to pilot a standard team, possibly similar to the ones you're practicing with. High level tour games are a bit strange to watch for a beginner because there's a lot of hidden assumptions and some intention to be counter-meta. High level ladder games are pretty good.
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That's interesting. I've spent quite some time reading all the great stuff I've found on this website, but watching replays is something I haven't done yet, mainly because I wasn't aware of this possibility. Where should I look for them?
 
The Flying Dutchman said:
That's interesting. I've spent quite some time reading all the great stuff I've found on this website, but watching replays is something I haven't done yet, mainly because I wasn't aware of this possibility. Where should I look for them?
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replays.pokemonshowdown.com

search as follows
(just don't click the first one by pesce)

1775387160005.png


I actually would not recommend starting with SPL replays because of what I said above.
 
Gyarados Steelix:

Ive heard that this is a good combo with steelix catching anything electric for gyara, but it feels like both kinda get run over by good neutral special hits. Can someone explain their dynamics :p
 
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polyswagger said:
Gyarados Steelix:

Ive heard that this is a good combo with steelix catching anything electric for gyara, but it feels like both kinda get run over by good neutral special hits. Can someone explain their dynamics :p
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Steelix helps switch into zapdos because its typing is good into the common coverage moves zap runs :bolt + ice/grass. This helps gyara of course but also helps teammates like Snorlax not get overwhelmed by zapdos. Steelix also adds an additional explosion which can be good for trading down into a good situation for your set up sweeper such as gyara, Mence, etc
 
polyswagger said:
Gyarados Steelix:

Ive heard that this is a good combo with steelix catching anything electric for gyara, but it feels like both kinda get run over by good neutral special hits. Can someone explain their dynamics :p
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What Zpanther said. Also, you might want to consider what the special types are:
  • Electric: Steelix is immune
  • Fire: Gyara resists
  • Water: Gyara resists
  • Psychic: Steelix resists. Many psychic types run fire coverage though, but the core at least provides opportunities to pivot around that
  • Grass: Neutral, but all grass moves have low bp, and Celebi is the only special attacking ou mon with stab
  • Dark: irrelevant, and resisted by Steelix
  • Dragon: Steelix resists

The only type that this core can't safely pivot around imo is ice. This means that the core has a poor matchup into niche mons like Regice and Jynx. Other than that, it's mostly water types like Starmie and Suicune that might be able to threaten the core, but those mons don't have stab on ice beam, so it's really fine. You also have to consider that the core will very likely run a special check alongside, which also takes pressure off.

Sorry if this was too long to make a simple point, but I hope you can see how type wise, and depending on the meta, this core functions very synergistically.
 
Chansey usage:

I`ve noticed this thing has been getting a lot of usage recently on the ladder as an opening Mon. Is it to have double Spedef walls or just a goof idea? I cant really see why else it would be used.
 
Hi, how do you deal with RSE Defensive Jirachi? I use a "Big 5" team, and Everything I threw at it barely dented it. Like even with Swampert or Tyranitar, it just ate EQs all day and wish'd off the damage, and it could pivot into Celebi for free as Ice Beam barely does anything to Celebi, either.
 
SmileOmega said:
Hi, how do you deal with RSE Defensive Jirachi? I use a "Big 5" team, and Everything I threw at it barely dented it. Like even with Swampert or Tyranitar, it just ate EQs all day and wish'd off the damage, and it could pivot into Celebi for free as Ice Beam barely does anything to Celebi, either.
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the big one is status, def rachi is much easier to handle once you get a burn or para onto it.

other common tools are setup, sub users, dugtrio, ttar for bodyslam+firepunch variants.
 
SmileOmega said:
Hi, how do you deal with RSE Defensive Jirachi? I use a "Big 5" team, and Everything I threw at it barely dented it. Like even with Swampert or Tyranitar, it just ate EQs all day and wish'd off the damage, and it could pivot into Celebi for free as Ice Beam barely does anything to Celebi, either.
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I think Moltres and Charizard can hit it pretty good and generally have good options to exploit swich-ins, but you definitely don't want to eat toxic or body slam, so you'll have to be careful of when you switch them in.
Dugtrio doesn't really want to switch into anything other than protect, but you can bait in a low health Jirachi and catch it with a double switch to seal the deal.
Blissey doesn't really do anything against Jirachi, but it's not threatened by it either and you can force Jirachi to wish and bring in something that actually does damage.
Sub DD Gyarados can set up all day on Jirachi, especially if they're running toxic over body slam, but you really want to make sure it's defensive and doesn't just KO you with tbolt.
Gengar doesn't love eating fire punches and potentially getting burned, but it's completely immune to toxic and body slam and can threaten burn itself. Perish trap is also an option Gengar can do on its own or in combination with substitute Dugtrio.
Defensive Starmie can help you pivot around Jirachi and potentially 1v1 it if it's running body slam, or if you can afford to switch out inbetween to get rid of toxic, mostly because recover has more pp than wish and rapid spin has more pp than a public pool.
 
I think it's a bit unclear what the right answer is because we don't know what the team you're using is exactly. I'm assuming it's not big 5 molt/zard, otherwise you wouldn't be asking the question. If it's beerlover with defmie, there's your answer. Defmie can sit on the rachi indefinitely and para it, which, as Spreek mentioned, makes it way easier to handle, so that should force it out. If it's offmie with recover, it can still sit on it, but can't make progress either. However, that's totally fine, as you can now just switch between bliss and mie and stall it out. If it's neither of these sets, the matchup does get harder - I'm assuming you're running either zap or recoverless offmie, which do struggle with wish rachi. In that case, you'll need to stall with bliss if it doesn't have toxic, as well as try to wisp it with your gar. If it's wish rachi + pursuit, that just makes it a very hard mu, not much to be done there except outplay or fish for crits with tar eq.
 
Janis105 said:
I think it's a bit unclear what the right answer is because we don't know what the team you're using is exactly. I'm assuming it's not big 5 molt/zard, otherwise you wouldn't be asking the question. If it's beerlover with defmie, there's your answer. Defmie can sit on the rachi indefinitely and para it, which, as Spreek mentioned, makes it way easier to handle, so that should force it out. If it's offmie with recover, it can still sit on it, but can't make progress either. However, that's totally fine, as you can now just switch between bliss and mie and stall it out. If it's neither of these sets, the matchup does get harder - I'm assuming you're running either zap or recoverless offmie, which do struggle with wish rachi. In that case, you'll need to stall with bliss if it doesn't have toxic, as well as try to wisp it with your gar. If it's wish rachi + pursuit, that just makes it a very hard mu, not much to be done there except outplay or fish for crits with tar eq.
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Sorry, I didn't know there was more than 1 "Big5" team. This seems to be the Beerlover one, though I'm not sure what a Defmie is. The starmie on the sample doesn't seem to invest anything into any defense, only 4 into HP.
 
SmileOmega said:
Sorry, I didn't know there was more than 1 "Big5" team. This seems to be the Beerlover one, though I'm not sure what a Defmie is. The starmie on the sample doesn't seem to invest anything into any defense, only 4 into HP.
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Correct. Beerlover features an OffMie that wants to go nuts offensively.

DefMie is (usually; not always, however) 252 HP / 40 SpA / 216+ Spe Timid, wanting to use Rapid Spin and Recover to go toe-to-toe with Gengar and other would-be spinblockers. Rapid Spin, Recover, and Surf are the usual three moves; most go Thunder Wave on DefMie to cripple whomever is trying to ruin the ability to spin Spikes, but the last move can also vary depending on what you need.

I usually prefer Offmie for synergies with Shedinja/other underrated mons I like using, but Defmie is definitely loads more consistent; both can still ruin Tyranitar and Gengar's day, though DefMie is more sturdy and can be brought to spin more often, provided proper prediction is accounted for.
 
/B/utterfree said:
Correct. Beerlover features an OffMie that wants to go nuts offensively.

DefMie is (usually; not always, however) 252 HP / 40 SpA / 216+ Spe Timid, wanting to use Rapid Spin and Recover to go toe-to-toe with Gengar and other would-be spinblockers. Rapid Spin, Recover, and Surf are the usual three moves; most go Thunder Wave on DefMie to cripple whomever is trying to ruin the ability to spin Spikes, but the last move can also vary depending on what you need.

I usually prefer Offmie for synergies with Shedinja/other underrated mons I like using, but Defmie is definitely loads more consistent; both can still ruin Tyranitar and Gengar's day, though DefMie is more sturdy and can be brought to spin more often, provided proper prediction is accounted for.
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Just a correction, beerlover *can* slot Defensive Starmie over Offensive Starmie and many think it's the better version of the team

Also I can't lie I'm a little curious what synergies offmie has with shedinja that defmie doesn't
 
SmileOmega said:
Sorry, I didn't know there was more than 1 "Big5" team. This seems to be the Beerlover one, though I'm not sure what a Defmie is. The starmie on the sample doesn't seem to invest anything into any defense, only 4 into HP.
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Ah I see, you're using the beerlover paste from the sample team page? That one really does struggle vs wish rachi. Because bliss doesn't have seismic toss, it can't even stall out the non-toxic variants. Your best bet is going gar on body slam/toxic and trying to wisp it. As noted, if they have pursuit or your gar dies for other reasons (e.g. trading with their dol to keep up spikes), you do just end up losing unless you get a tar eq crit or a bliss fire blast burn. I highly suggest dropping thunderbolt on starmie for recover. This gives the team overall better longevity, and especially helps you against wish rachi and the current rising star registeel.
 
nyatalia said:
why mons not using hidden power not using max iv
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Good question. Default ivs minimize attack when the mon doesn’t use a physical attack to minimize confusion damage, but in adv where struggle wars are more relevant, maxing atk ivs is the way. For hp, you might sub to 25% on Hera which requires 30ivs for example.
 
why is skarm bliss dol so strong. vs stall bliss is weak to dug, and they have spin making skarm useless. vs mag, losing skarm weaken the defense and the team is weak to lax. vs spike off, gengar trade with dol. vs no spike off dol is not very good. but whenever i use the core it just do well idk why
 
nyatalia said:
why is skarm bliss dol so strong. vs stall bliss is weak to dug, and they have spin making skarm useless. vs mag, losing skarm weaken the defense and the team is weak to lax. vs spike off, gengar trade with dol. vs no spike off dol is not very good. but whenever i use the core it just do well idk why
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Your comment about bliss weak to dug:
Yes but dug cannot switch in on stoss under spikes otherwise it gets 2hkoed, and dol without mag always have one spike on the ground because dol has to switch out of skarm. Mie is hard to fit on stall. Usually these teams also have a second switch in vs special attacks like zap or dol vs opposing zap and cune vs opposing cune so you can never tell when blissey is coming in for sure, while bringing dug in is taking spikes.

Maglax definitely gives it trouble but consider what happens vs defensive and offensive curselax. Vs defensive curselax boldcune has a good chance to beat it. Vs offensive curselax once it booms on cune there is still dug dol and bliss and maybe zap to deal with ttar meta and ddmence. Not obvious that this will surely lose.

Vs spike off again consider that spin is not entirely necessary to win (you have spike too). And if gar booms dol it cannot boom bliss. You could also have a second mon to deal with gar (zap or suit tar for example)

Vs no spike dol is actually very good. Boom and ddtar check. No spike builds also lose to dug very easily.
 
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