Hello friends, I am here to ask you to help me out with whatever information you can. Actually I am preparing a document which serves a beginning guide for competitive Pokemon battling, and I am seeking help.
If you can contribute, it will be of extreme value and will help a tonne of people! To formulate a document filled with all the essentials, we need to be to-the-point, precise, and not boring. If we go technical, beginners would find it extremely complicated, if we go easy, we will leave much important things. Therefore, in all, it is a tough task to compile such a thing. Please help. I am attaching the .docx file and also writing it below. You can ONLY contribute by commenting.
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If you can contribute, it will be of extreme value and will help a tonne of people! To formulate a document filled with all the essentials, we need to be to-the-point, precise, and not boring. If we go technical, beginners would find it extremely complicated, if we go easy, we will leave much important things. Therefore, in all, it is a tough task to compile such a thing. Please help. I am attaching the .docx file and also writing it below. You can ONLY contribute by commenting.
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The Best Competitive Battlefield
I suggest you save this article somehow and study it throughout a long period if you are completely unfamiliar with this subject.
Even if this article does not interest you, please try it once. Build your team and battle. Learn about tiers first, pick Pokémon according to their powers, invest EVs in stats they deserve investment (for example, most people invest all 252 EVs in attack and speed if it is a physical attack – and never try to put “balanced” EVs – as a special attacker would not be benefitted by EVs in attack stat). Also, pick moves, which suit the user: like Salamence can go with Outrage (a physical move) and not Dragon Pulse (Latios or Hydreigon is better off with this one). Finally, check your team for counters if you want, otherwise you will learn them later anyway.
Online battle simulators of Pokémon are not something you will feel like arguing upon after the recent release of X and Y, but guess what, the thing I am talking today has guts to even surpass the generation VIII of Pokémon, practically. Though the gameplay gives you the story, and many more things, which we all have already experienced, either by X and Y or by our already grown brain which has beaten masterfully and splendidly a lot of Pokémon games already, the competitive field is where things get really tough.
It will be a guide on the online Pokémon battling community: tens of thousands already are there and sharpening their skills. Moreover, newcomers do not stand a 5% chance of winning (yeah, you become Akito on the battlefield!) no matter how hard they make their teams or read strategy guides; it is all a matter of learning and the learning rate is very fast indeed.
Most basic things first: to play Pokémon online, you need software called Pokémon Online (you can download it from www.pokemon-online.eu/download.php). You can also play it on browser, as to engage in battles over Internet without any extra download (Smogon’s Pokémon Showdown is based on flash and javascript which browsers can run though it can also be downloaded). Pokémon Online is a better choice, but as we will learn, it is disputed and Smogon is much better and flexible. For the latter, you can play on the online simulator titled “Pokémon Showdown!” which has been developed by the competitive battling giant Smogon University (www.smogon.com).
Anyway, let us begin. You can create your own team. Your own Pokémon (plural); preferred EVs, preferred moves and everything. You can go as deep as deciding the IVs, giving the Pokémon items to hold, deciding on abilities (if multiple options are available) or making it a shiny!
After customisation (or giving all of them a nickname too), we have a few other things to consider too. There are tiers according to whose rules you must form your team. It, and other rules, are there to maintain some order and not just slap three Darkrai and three Arceus in your team while a passionate trainer whom you are battling against has six different non-legendary Pokémon.
There are several tiers, but they will not be concerned here. The most used tier is the OverUsed tier, OU for short. You can use any Pokémon for this tier, except the ones that are universally banned due to their overwhelming powers (and are placed on the supreme tier: Uber tier). One thing should be noted here: legendary Pokémon are NOT meaningful here. They are completely different from Ubers. Legendaries like Latios, Heatran, Jirachi, Cresselia, etc. are not in Uber on both servers (Smogon has its own tier system which makes more sense while PO’s tiers are flawed). Surprisingly, many non-legendaries are in Uber, like Blaziken and Excadrill.
After choosing a team, you need some more things: equip them with items and provide them necessary stats and moves. I swear that for my first battle, I made such an awful, absurd, funny, and shitty team that I do not even feel like remembering it anymore, so feel okay if you do something like that and recognise it later. Now say you want a Dragonite on your team, and we know that Dragonite is a physical attacker, so you should invest EVs in its attack stat, and completely forget the special attack stat.
Dragonite, Salamence, Hydreigon, Gyarados, Heatran, Latias, Latios, Tyranitar, Scizor, etc. are a few Pokémon most teams have at least one of – they have their own strategies and decent power combined. Dragonite has a base attack of 304 and base special attack of 236, so clearly it prefers the physical attack, hence put all the EVs in attack, and be sure to give it only physical-category moves like Earthquake and not Dragon Pulse. As the icing, you can also customise the “nature” to Adamant, which will boost the attack stat further on cost of lowering the sp. attack stat: which we do not want anyway (as we are not using any special category move that derives power from the special attack stat).
Just like this, pick any six powerful Pokémon, which are not in the Uber tier. Mostly, as a beginner, you may want to give your three Pokémon Life Orb and three others Leftovers. However, as you learn more, many others will become useful.
Now, a set of other important things:
I suggest you save this article somehow and study it throughout a long period if you are completely unfamiliar with this subject.
Even if this article does not interest you, please try it once. Build your team and battle. Learn about tiers first, pick Pokémon according to their powers, invest EVs in stats they deserve investment (for example, most people invest all 252 EVs in attack and speed if it is a physical attack – and never try to put “balanced” EVs – as a special attacker would not be benefitted by EVs in attack stat). Also, pick moves, which suit the user: like Salamence can go with Outrage (a physical move) and not Dragon Pulse (Latios or Hydreigon is better off with this one). Finally, check your team for counters if you want, otherwise you will learn them later anyway.
Online battle simulators of Pokémon are not something you will feel like arguing upon after the recent release of X and Y, but guess what, the thing I am talking today has guts to even surpass the generation VIII of Pokémon, practically. Though the gameplay gives you the story, and many more things, which we all have already experienced, either by X and Y or by our already grown brain which has beaten masterfully and splendidly a lot of Pokémon games already, the competitive field is where things get really tough.
It will be a guide on the online Pokémon battling community: tens of thousands already are there and sharpening their skills. Moreover, newcomers do not stand a 5% chance of winning (yeah, you become Akito on the battlefield!) no matter how hard they make their teams or read strategy guides; it is all a matter of learning and the learning rate is very fast indeed.
Most basic things first: to play Pokémon online, you need software called Pokémon Online (you can download it from www.pokemon-online.eu/download.php). You can also play it on browser, as to engage in battles over Internet without any extra download (Smogon’s Pokémon Showdown is based on flash and javascript which browsers can run though it can also be downloaded). Pokémon Online is a better choice, but as we will learn, it is disputed and Smogon is much better and flexible. For the latter, you can play on the online simulator titled “Pokémon Showdown!” which has been developed by the competitive battling giant Smogon University (www.smogon.com).
Anyway, let us begin. You can create your own team. Your own Pokémon (plural); preferred EVs, preferred moves and everything. You can go as deep as deciding the IVs, giving the Pokémon items to hold, deciding on abilities (if multiple options are available) or making it a shiny!
After customisation (or giving all of them a nickname too), we have a few other things to consider too. There are tiers according to whose rules you must form your team. It, and other rules, are there to maintain some order and not just slap three Darkrai and three Arceus in your team while a passionate trainer whom you are battling against has six different non-legendary Pokémon.
There are several tiers, but they will not be concerned here. The most used tier is the OverUsed tier, OU for short. You can use any Pokémon for this tier, except the ones that are universally banned due to their overwhelming powers (and are placed on the supreme tier: Uber tier). One thing should be noted here: legendary Pokémon are NOT meaningful here. They are completely different from Ubers. Legendaries like Latios, Heatran, Jirachi, Cresselia, etc. are not in Uber on both servers (Smogon has its own tier system which makes more sense while PO’s tiers are flawed). Surprisingly, many non-legendaries are in Uber, like Blaziken and Excadrill.
After choosing a team, you need some more things: equip them with items and provide them necessary stats and moves. I swear that for my first battle, I made such an awful, absurd, funny, and shitty team that I do not even feel like remembering it anymore, so feel okay if you do something like that and recognise it later. Now say you want a Dragonite on your team, and we know that Dragonite is a physical attacker, so you should invest EVs in its attack stat, and completely forget the special attack stat.
Dragonite, Salamence, Hydreigon, Gyarados, Heatran, Latias, Latios, Tyranitar, Scizor, etc. are a few Pokémon most teams have at least one of – they have their own strategies and decent power combined. Dragonite has a base attack of 304 and base special attack of 236, so clearly it prefers the physical attack, hence put all the EVs in attack, and be sure to give it only physical-category moves like Earthquake and not Dragon Pulse. As the icing, you can also customise the “nature” to Adamant, which will boost the attack stat further on cost of lowering the sp. attack stat: which we do not want anyway (as we are not using any special category move that derives power from the special attack stat).
Just like this, pick any six powerful Pokémon, which are not in the Uber tier. Mostly, as a beginner, you may want to give your three Pokémon Life Orb and three others Leftovers. However, as you learn more, many others will become useful.
Now, a set of other important things:
- STAB: similar-type attack bonus is called STAB. To understand STAB, let us negate the different attacking powers of two Pokémon Hippowdon and Salamence (they have attack stats of 112 and 135 respectively) and suppose they both have equal attach stat value. If the Hippowdon (Ground-type) uses Earthquake, it will be stronger than the Salamence’s (Dragon-Flying-type) Earthquake. Any guesses why? If the Pokémon uses a move of the same type as its type, it will get a bonus, the STA bonus, which is equivalent to a 50% boost! So the Earthquake from our hippo will be 50% stronger, i.e., of the power of 150 while our Salamence will launch it with the base power value of 100 only. STAB works on both categories of moves: special or physical.
- Ubers: What you cannot use. Arceus has seventeen forms (will become eighteen on XY transition), all of which are Ubers. Moreover, Giratina and Deoxys and all their forms are Uber. Tornadus-T, Shaymin-S, and Kyurem-W are also Uber. Other Ubers are: Blaziken, Darkrai, Dialga, Excadrill, Genesect, Groudon, Ho-Oh, Kyogre, Landorus, Lugia, Manaphy, Mewtwo, Palkia, Rayquaza, Reshiram, Thundurus, and Zekrom.
- Types and moves: keep type advantages and disadvantages in mind. Don’t slap more than one move of the same type (like Thunderbolt and Thunder both on Jolteon). Try to cover as many types as you can (like slap a Dragon Pulse, Surf, Flamethrower, and Dark Pulse on Hydreigon). Also, try to avoid using moves that have very less coverage. Steel type, Ghost type, and Poison type moves are useless.
- Strategies: play with strategies. Keep on switching out and changing Pokémon for your benefit. Read guides on strategy making. Use crippling moves that induce status problems.
- Clauses: keep battle clauses in mind. These would not concern you right here. Anyway, keep in mind a few things: you cannot make more than one Pokémon of the opponent sleep in a battle, when the previous one wakes up, only then you can induce sleep once more, and you cannot include more than one Pokémon of the same species in your team. No two Dragonite or Gyarados!
