The whole approach to competitive battling is to build a team,test it,then work out the flaws.It may be hard at first,but you'll master it and then it won't be so hard,as the case with me. You will win sometimes and you will lose sometimes.But you will learn from your mistakes as to what you should change on your battle team to make it better.
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Explain something to me.
- Thread starter xTyrantx
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There is a combination of research and gameplay that you have to go through to truely master... anything. While I am not sure of the ratio, I know this for certain:
You can learn more about damage from a damage calculator (Or *ahem* the attack/defense tier lists :-p) than you can from playing the game. You can learn a lot more about speed from looking at the speed tier list than playing the game. Etc. etc.
But then of course, you learn more about prediction, surprises and actually playing the more you play. So it is give and take.
It took me only 3 years to ascend biatch! Thank you spoilers! I never would have done it without ya :-p And I got to Medusa in under a year. And hell, I used a Ranger instead of Barbarian/Valk. So yarr...
Nethack is on a tangent because as you said, there are billions of obscure ways to kill yourself. But in all honesty, you learn more from reading the instant-death spoiler than actually doing the instant-death over and over and over. Unlike Pokemon, Nethack deletes your savefile every time you lose. So unless you are a save scummer (which is essentially cheating IMO even worse than spoiler reading), I'd say reading a guide or two really really helps in Nethack. Even moreso than in Pokemon. Granted, there is an argument that the fun of Nethack doesn't come from winning... because in many ways you are not expected to win but to simply play (or should I say... have the game play with you)
I'd like to publicly state that I disagree on this point. I feel it has more to do with this place's elevated knowledge of Pokemon and less about elitism. That said, the mods run the show in the end so perhaps my comments don't matter... but I'd like to simply disagree :-)
If he thinks that OU is boring, then he can go ahead and play BL. >.> I hate to raise this into a meta-argument... but he can play the game the way he wants to play it... I mean I agree with your specific points but I don't think we should be arguing about this topic.
You can learn more about damage from a damage calculator (Or *ahem* the attack/defense tier lists :-p) than you can from playing the game. You can learn a lot more about speed from looking at the speed tier list than playing the game. Etc. etc.
But then of course, you learn more about prediction, surprises and actually playing the more you play. So it is give and take.
It took me only 3 years to ascend biatch! Thank you spoilers! I never would have done it without ya :-p And I got to Medusa in under a year. And hell, I used a Ranger instead of Barbarian/Valk. So yarr...
Nethack is on a tangent because as you said, there are billions of obscure ways to kill yourself. But in all honesty, you learn more from reading the instant-death spoiler than actually doing the instant-death over and over and over. Unlike Pokemon, Nethack deletes your savefile every time you lose. So unless you are a save scummer (which is essentially cheating IMO even worse than spoiler reading), I'd say reading a guide or two really really helps in Nethack. Even moreso than in Pokemon. Granted, there is an argument that the fun of Nethack doesn't come from winning... because in many ways you are not expected to win but to simply play (or should I say... have the game play with you)
I'd like to publicly state that I disagree on this point. I feel it has more to do with this place's elevated knowledge of Pokemon and less about elitism. That said, the mods run the show in the end so perhaps my comments don't matter... but I'd like to simply disagree :-)
If he thinks that OU is boring, then he can go ahead and play BL. >.> I hate to raise this into a meta-argument... but he can play the game the way he wants to play it... I mean I agree with your specific points but I don't think we should be arguing about this topic.
Well, I agree on the fact that making a team that has to have counters for all the pokemon in standard, which forces your team to be standard itself, is lame, but how can it really be any other way?
Compare pokemon that are the tanks in BL/UU compared to in OU in advance for example. They simply just aren't on the same level. Blissey is much, much better at taking special hits than Hypno, although Hypno can take a physical hit or two better than Blissey. Hypno doesn't even get a 50% healing move unless you get it from XD, Blissey learns one by level up. Blissey has 5 usable moves she is weak to on the special side (HP Fighting, Pulse Bomb, Focus Blast, Judgement w/Fighting Plate, and Natural Gift w/Fighting berry), while Hypno is weak to all special type Dark, Ghost, and Bug moves. If you are depending on a special tank to take a hit for a pokmeon on your team, are you going to risk it all on a pokemon with the best, or something just decent, when the type of attack is going to be the same?
Stat wise, higher tier pokemon tend to have the advantage over those in lower tiers. Garchomp > Flygon 90% of the time, so it will be used while Flygon is sent to a lower tier, or at least lower usage bracket.
It's just the way of life in competition. If people could use Arceus, Choice Scarf Kyogre and Mewtwo, they would because they are simply better than most other pokemon. If the brackets bother you, I would find pokemon in each you can deal with using and just use them. No shame in using a pokemon, because we all caught or traded fairly for them ^_^.
Compare pokemon that are the tanks in BL/UU compared to in OU in advance for example. They simply just aren't on the same level. Blissey is much, much better at taking special hits than Hypno, although Hypno can take a physical hit or two better than Blissey. Hypno doesn't even get a 50% healing move unless you get it from XD, Blissey learns one by level up. Blissey has 5 usable moves she is weak to on the special side (HP Fighting, Pulse Bomb, Focus Blast, Judgement w/Fighting Plate, and Natural Gift w/Fighting berry), while Hypno is weak to all special type Dark, Ghost, and Bug moves. If you are depending on a special tank to take a hit for a pokmeon on your team, are you going to risk it all on a pokemon with the best, or something just decent, when the type of attack is going to be the same?
Stat wise, higher tier pokemon tend to have the advantage over those in lower tiers. Garchomp > Flygon 90% of the time, so it will be used while Flygon is sent to a lower tier, or at least lower usage bracket.
It's just the way of life in competition. If people could use Arceus, Choice Scarf Kyogre and Mewtwo, they would because they are simply better than most other pokemon. If the brackets bother you, I would find pokemon in each you can deal with using and just use them. No shame in using a pokemon, because we all caught or traded fairly for them ^_^.
I've decided I'll give OU a shot again, but it's solely because I believe that as most of the members of the forum here understand the game on a further level than me, their advice needs to be noted and used, so I'm going to try it out, but if I end up still not enjoying OU, I'm going to continue using BL. Everyone has their own set of eyes so everyone has a unique perception of how they think things should be done, some people may enjoy BL more, at the current moment I know I do, but thats why I'm trying out OU, I'm at least going to give it another chance.
Also, somehow this topic strayed from it's original question, so lets get it back on topic.
Yeah I know exactly what you mean. I'm starting to get a better idea but I'm still mainly use the d/p analyses for building my team. IMO its not as complicated as some people make it out to be. On shoddy battle I've won 5/9 matches and that was my first competitive battle experience. All the anylysing of how much damage heracross choice band brick break does to skarmory is pretty pointless IMO.
^^ Something that new battlers should consider. Because it doesn't matter if you know exactly how much damage a Choice Scarf Heracross can do to a Bold 252 HP/252 Def Milotic if your opponent has a +6 Speed/Attack Marowak out and is sweeping your team!
It's all in the team building and prediction and not so much research if you ask me.
I'm not sure of this OU-staleness claims myself. I'm very inexperienced, probably more so than the TC, but I've seen some positive changes in this metagame vs ADV mode. From my experience, sure, there are scrub battlers who run the "Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer" (I think it was Blissey, Salamence, Ttar and Garchomp, then Gyarados), who do not use much creativity in their teams or in their battling, and rely on power and tried/true tactics. (Btw, it does help to know the analysis on some calculations, contrary to absol's statement. It's that useful, especially since you need every edge possible to take on some "cookie-cutter" teams).
However, there are many innovative Smogonites, Shoddybattlers, Wifi'ers and trainers in general who compete with other pokemon, perhaps even their favourites, and use their ingenuity and prediction to win the day. I think that many theme-based teams, and just "novelty-but-effective" teams have surfaced, and are a blast to take on, even in OU settings. Try reading Firestorm's warstories with Butterfree/Charizard, or Surgo's 2vs2 team of hilariosity. They're extreme and epic teams, but other trainers also do these sorts of things. Personally, I think that team cohesion would often overcome team power in this generation, and many battlers have a tinge of ingenuity.
'Sides, it's always fun to suppress a F4+SS team with a Jumpluff...anyway, that's just my 2 bits.
However, there are many innovative Smogonites, Shoddybattlers, Wifi'ers and trainers in general who compete with other pokemon, perhaps even their favourites, and use their ingenuity and prediction to win the day. I think that many theme-based teams, and just "novelty-but-effective" teams have surfaced, and are a blast to take on, even in OU settings. Try reading Firestorm's warstories with Butterfree/Charizard, or Surgo's 2vs2 team of hilariosity. They're extreme and epic teams, but other trainers also do these sorts of things. Personally, I think that team cohesion would often overcome team power in this generation, and many battlers have a tinge of ingenuity.
'Sides, it's always fun to suppress a F4+SS team with a Jumpluff...anyway, that's just my 2 bits.
Ever since I started to play, uh, "profissionaly" [GSC times, ah], I never used a team made of OUs and all, because I like to use underated and/or unexpected stuff. [Well, since the D/P tiers aren't exactly formed right now, I'm using Weavile and Breloom for the heck of it, lol]
Needless to say, I lost much more than I won in my battles. But everytime I lost, I would try to fix my team's flaws, even when Dunsparce wasn't fast enough. [If only we had that damned Choice Scarf back then... oh well...]
Even though, I play Pokémon for the fun of it. And I think it's fun to think of movesets, calculate damages, etc. I even like EV training sometimes. But the point is, part of the fun is winning. But it's more fun when you win and your opponents stary dumbly at you thinking why and how they got swept by a Drifblim.
So what I have to say to you is: Play against OUs using what you like, but don't expect to win that much. Try to win with all your means, though. That's what I did and that's what I'll keep doing until Game Freak changes the mechanics completely and all my favourites become OU.
Since it's kinda long and very auto-biographical, tl;dr: Use UUs and BLs against OUs, have your laugh, loose your battles, but always try to win.
Needless to say, I lost much more than I won in my battles. But everytime I lost, I would try to fix my team's flaws, even when Dunsparce wasn't fast enough. [If only we had that damned Choice Scarf back then... oh well...]
Even though, I play Pokémon for the fun of it. And I think it's fun to think of movesets, calculate damages, etc. I even like EV training sometimes. But the point is, part of the fun is winning. But it's more fun when you win and your opponents stary dumbly at you thinking why and how they got swept by a Drifblim.
So what I have to say to you is: Play against OUs using what you like, but don't expect to win that much. Try to win with all your means, though. That's what I did and that's what I'll keep doing until Game Freak changes the mechanics completely and all my favourites become OU.
Since it's kinda long and very auto-biographical, tl;dr: Use UUs and BLs against OUs, have your laugh, loose your battles, but always try to win.
While I feel focusing on X damage against Y can get out of hand, often taking presedence of spreading EVs for general utility, knowing you can 2HKO Skarm with CBcross Close Combat is a very useful piece of information. I mean if you are using Tangrowth as a Gyarados counter, its not just nice to know how many hits of Ice Fang it can take, but pretty much essential.
Knowing some basic damage calcs about your poke can really easy the process of choosing what to do each move and can avoid painful situations like leaving a 2DD Salamance on 10% HP.
Look You don't need to take that seriously lol. I'm just trying to say to the topic creator that don't worry about how much damage X does to Y yet. Worry about what pokemon to use and stuff first. And your right, I have never played in a competitive battling before, but its not like the topic creator is about to is he? He's just starting off.
I meant tournaments sorry I've never played in a tournament
Look Absol is Cool you're missing the point. You don't have to know how much damage X does to Y, you don't have to know the base power of every move along with its possible added effects, hell you don't even need to know the type effectiveness table to click buttons and fight "pogeymans" but the more of this that you do know the more likely you are to play well and win. The sooner you familiarize yourself with the nuances of the pokemon world, the faster you will grow as a competitive battler.
It is a mixture of both. Just like any other game, you need to first understand fully its mechanics in order to be at the top of your game. You need to know by how much the attack increases after a Swords Dance, by how much it decreases after being Intimidated, by how much your Speed decreases when you're paralysed, and other stuff. Answering these three questions by "by a lot", "somewhat" and "by an awful lot" respectively is not good enough if you want to be a good, competitive player.
Then there's experience, which means that you play and learn from your mistakes and your opponent's mistakes, so that you improve. This is also important. Some things can only be learned by experience alone, while others can be better learned by experience. Sometimes, you get into an argument with another player over "which move is best, X or Y on this Pokemon?" which is probably best answered by experience.
As a last line of thought, remember, human beings make mistakes, but only fools repeat them.
The knowledge comes from active experience and research from what I've seen. There's excellent resources like the Speed tiers list, the great analyses, the EV spreads that come from knowing how the game works from playing it so long.
The more you play and test things, the more knowledgeable you become. For example, half a year ago Gamefaqs was running threads like "Which starter are you going to be getting when DP comes out?" while Smogon was creating research threads based on their Japanese Imports experience.
My personal experiences are more limited, but through battling I've learnt things like "Rindo berry isn't going to save your Swampert from a Gengar Energy Ball if you haven't invested any spdef EVs". It's little things like this.
Just as an aside, I don't understand why so few people seem to have favourite pokes that are OU. Surely badass pokes like Metagross and Dusknoir would impress more than the Wormadams and Pelippers of the game? It's not even like it's first poke syndrome; I don't see any teams with Ledian on them...
The more you play and test things, the more knowledgeable you become. For example, half a year ago Gamefaqs was running threads like "Which starter are you going to be getting when DP comes out?" while Smogon was creating research threads based on their Japanese Imports experience.
My personal experiences are more limited, but through battling I've learnt things like "Rindo berry isn't going to save your Swampert from a Gengar Energy Ball if you haven't invested any spdef EVs". It's little things like this.
Just as an aside, I don't understand why so few people seem to have favourite pokes that are OU. Surely badass pokes like Metagross and Dusknoir would impress more than the Wormadams and Pelippers of the game? It's not even like it's first poke syndrome; I don't see any teams with Ledian on them...
Reading, battling, researching, planning, revising, reading, battling, researching, planning, revising, rinse and repeat.
If you stick to what is available in game, you'll get nowhere in terms of higher level knowledge. The game itself offers a poor amount of information, I didn't even know about EVs/IVs until the begining of the Advanced days when I started to get competitive. Research is probably the best thing to do at first, then start getting some practice.
That is actually the only real reason I can justify buying Battle Revolution, it makes a good testing ground for new ideas/sets while providing battle experience through random WiFi.
One thing I highly suggest is to try building teams without the help of the Analysis Index and RMTs. Come up with ideas you think do well, run some damage calculations and make sure you have your bases covered. Then look for outside opinion. It'll help you more in the end if you get practice coming up with your own strategies.
Just don't let "being yourself" ruin any chance of being a competitor, too much of that "you can be nonconforming too if you dress just like me" crap going on with tiers. Use what works best for the job you need, end of story.
If you stick to what is available in game, you'll get nowhere in terms of higher level knowledge. The game itself offers a poor amount of information, I didn't even know about EVs/IVs until the begining of the Advanced days when I started to get competitive. Research is probably the best thing to do at first, then start getting some practice.
That is actually the only real reason I can justify buying Battle Revolution, it makes a good testing ground for new ideas/sets while providing battle experience through random WiFi.
One thing I highly suggest is to try building teams without the help of the Analysis Index and RMTs. Come up with ideas you think do well, run some damage calculations and make sure you have your bases covered. Then look for outside opinion. It'll help you more in the end if you get practice coming up with your own strategies.
Just don't let "being yourself" ruin any chance of being a competitor, too much of that "you can be nonconforming too if you dress just like me" crap going on with tiers. Use what works best for the job you need, end of story.
To be honest, Pokemon is the hardest competitive video game I've ever played.
It's so hard to get better. It's not like Smash where you can just overwhelm your opponent with technical skills. With Pokemon, you would have to think of all the scenarios, pick the best one, then gun it and hope your opponent does what you hope he did. Most of the time, this is easy, but sometimes, it's just so hard, intense and nerve-wracking.
And sometimes, Pokemon comes down to luck, which is really lame IMO. Critical hits, Freezing, para-flinch hax. That stuff is just out of control.
But to echo everyone else, PRACTICE!
It's so hard to get better. It's not like Smash where you can just overwhelm your opponent with technical skills. With Pokemon, you would have to think of all the scenarios, pick the best one, then gun it and hope your opponent does what you hope he did. Most of the time, this is easy, but sometimes, it's just so hard, intense and nerve-wracking.
And sometimes, Pokemon comes down to luck, which is really lame IMO. Critical hits, Freezing, para-flinch hax. That stuff is just out of control.
But to echo everyone else, PRACTICE!
Dude simple,smogon has been working on how pokemon battles work therefore building new strategies and trying to get use of whatever you can while maintaining balance in game. You might have played pokemon as I did but smogon is the part where pokebattles really shine. Also why are they good at battling? Simple as they are the ones who search for new styles thus learnin everything about battling and what they need to know about,prediction and lots of stuff etc..
I don't blame anyone for being sick of seeing Garchomp and Specsmence 10 times in a row. Or last gen seeing Skarm/Bliss EVERY battle and never seeing more than the same 20 pokes in competitive play. I agree that two very good OU players with well thought out teams will typically have good games and the better player will usually win, BUT if you're more interested in variety (a lot of people are) than in balance, yeah OU really sucks.
Personally, I experiment with ridiculous things that will never work competitively just because it can be a lot of fun. I have a friend who's swept OU teams with Gastrodon and Wormadam. It's a lot of fun to do that. It is DEFINITELY the metagames fault that it's repetitive, predictable, and not much fun for a lot of people. And in response to the "anti-metagame" theory, in Pokemon most of the best teams are very well balanced, and don't have an Achilles heel. You can't set out to make an anti team, because it doesn't exist. To beat a good OU team you need to either
A. Use an OU team
B. Get luckier than your opponent
C. Outplay your opponent
Only one of those things can be considered constant, and that's using an OU team. Assuming a good opponent and not praying for luck, you have to use the Pokemon with the best move pools and base stats to consistently do well AGAINST the Pokemon with the best move pools and base stats. There isn't much room for diversity.
And for the record, I enjoy OU more than any other format, I just think it's very easy to understand the opposite point of view for less competitive players.
As for the topic in general, experience and others' experiences are almost entirely how I've learned. Reading people ideas and war-stories, reading about the mechanics, reading about strategies, READ READ READ!
Personally, I experiment with ridiculous things that will never work competitively just because it can be a lot of fun. I have a friend who's swept OU teams with Gastrodon and Wormadam. It's a lot of fun to do that. It is DEFINITELY the metagames fault that it's repetitive, predictable, and not much fun for a lot of people. And in response to the "anti-metagame" theory, in Pokemon most of the best teams are very well balanced, and don't have an Achilles heel. You can't set out to make an anti team, because it doesn't exist. To beat a good OU team you need to either
A. Use an OU team
B. Get luckier than your opponent
C. Outplay your opponent
Only one of those things can be considered constant, and that's using an OU team. Assuming a good opponent and not praying for luck, you have to use the Pokemon with the best move pools and base stats to consistently do well AGAINST the Pokemon with the best move pools and base stats. There isn't much room for diversity.
And for the record, I enjoy OU more than any other format, I just think it's very easy to understand the opposite point of view for less competitive players.
As for the topic in general, experience and others' experiences are almost entirely how I've learned. Reading people ideas and war-stories, reading about the mechanics, reading about strategies, READ READ READ!
I guess your right. I still think that when your first starting and don't even know how to build a team properly you want to know how to structure a team rather than know how much x does to y. But I guess like you said the more you do know the better
How I obtained the knowledge? Joining Serebii before it became a home for n00bs. I had my n00bness cured there, and started playing competitively on NetBattle a year later. I just learned how to use certain UU favorites, and never really bothered with the damage calculating stuff, basic experience should provide that sort of knowledge. I mostly learned cause I lost most of my battles. Learning by losing is how I learn everything.
As for tiers, I stick with BL/UU, and occasionally throw in one or two OUs. I do find OU to be a little repetitive, and it does get a bit annoying having to beat Snorlax, Blissey, Tyranitar, Metagross, Milotic, and Skarmory over and over again. Simply use a team of favorites, and the game flows better, as well as giving more of an understanding as how most pokemon work (e.g, once you learn how to boltbeam well with one pokemon, it pretty much carries over to other pokes.)
As for tiers, I stick with BL/UU, and occasionally throw in one or two OUs. I do find OU to be a little repetitive, and it does get a bit annoying having to beat Snorlax, Blissey, Tyranitar, Metagross, Milotic, and Skarmory over and over again. Simply use a team of favorites, and the game flows better, as well as giving more of an understanding as how most pokemon work (e.g, once you learn how to boltbeam well with one pokemon, it pretty much carries over to other pokes.)
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