SM OU New player with some noob questions

[Exter98]

Hey guys. It's my first time getting into competitive play and it seems like a whole new world and so many things that I never had to consider before for completing regular pokemon games.

I have some very nooby questions which I need to get myself cleared on before I start making a team. Hopefully you guys can help. (I'm not even sure if this is the right section for this but it seems like it..)

1. Does BST matter? When making a pokemon does it matter if it has total 700 BST or 500 BST. Or is it all about how you contribute your stats? Basically I don't understand how BST really works and what purpose does it serve when making a pokemon.

2. How do you determine whether a pokemon you are making should be a physical sweeper or a special sweeper? Is this where it's Base Stats of Atk and Sp. Atk come into play and give you an idea of your pokemon's strong suits?

3. When people make a special defense tank then they put all 255 in Sp. Def and none in Defense. So when you are in battle then how do you know if your opponent is using Sppecial Sweeper and not a Physcial Sweeper, so that you can counter it with your special tank. How do you determine if your opponent has Special Sweeper or Physical Sweeper? Is this an experienced player thing where you just have it memorised which pokemon are special and which are physical?

I had so many questions popping into my head while I was making a pokemon but at the moment can only think of these main ones.

 

[Altervisi]

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-read-the-op-before-posting-a-thread.3587186/
Here is the best place to ask, this forum is for team rating.

BST is all stats added up (Base Stat Total) so it doesn't affect your Pokémon, just provides information, so obviously BST 700 is better than BST 200, however 600 may be better than 700, as it is how the stats are distributed is more important. Yeah, base stats generally decide what attacks you use, some Pokémon can be mixed however. Damage output is calculated from base stats + evs (in a super complex way), so people use physical or special move base on the highest stat, again usually. This is generally how you can tell what kind of attacks you should use and what your opponent will use.

Searching Pokémon on the smogon dex (http://smogon.com/dex/sm/pokemon) is a great way to learn and it gives you the best sets for Pokémon.

 

[TheTapDancer]

The above answers your first two questions, but the third is more complicated. One of the harder skills to learn is looking at your opponent's team in setup and judging the most likely sets. Most pokemon only have one or two viable sets, but some such as Tapu Koko can run all kinds of things. When you look at an opponents team, things to consider include:

1. The balance of physical to special attackers. Some pokemon can only handle one side, and some can use both. If a team is mostly composed of exclusively physical attackers, it's possible that their more mixed attackers will be special.
2. Most likely scarfers. Scarfers on well built teams are there to counter the offensive threats that can setup on them or break their core. If a team has say a greninja and a tapu lele, the scarfer is most likely to be the one that can handle the biggest threats to their core.
3. It's often very hard to determine whether a pokemon is a physical or special wall. Some pokemon like Chansey can only really handle one side, but mons like Celesteela and Venusaur are harder to work out. A lot of the time the only solution to this is to attack them to find out, as they don't have too much presence. Damage calculators can be very useful for working out your opponent's defensive sets on switches.

 

[Felixx]

Additionally, you'll need a link to the OU viability rankings to get to know the top tier threats and what to prepare for,

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/usum-ou-ultra-viability-ranking-thread.3621329/

now ofc even the most well built teams can't cover every threat, but the point of teambuilding is to try and cover the most common threats in the metagame, which is where the viability rankings come into play,

The type of team also matters, is it Hyper Offense? Balance? Bulky Offense? Stall? Rain? Trick Room? Webs? It's important to figure out what type of team structure your going for before attempting to make even a semi-competent team,

Now if you want to try the tier out straight away, here's the link to the sample teams thread,
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/usm-ou-sample-teams.3626219/

Enjoy and goodluck!

 

[IronBullet]

Welcome to Smogon! I have to lock this thread unfortunately, because it's not the right place for these questions. This forum is specifically for rating teams. Please check out the Smogon simple questions and answers thread for answers to your queries. The posts above mine contain useful information as well.