Rating Basics

Yonko7

Guns make you stupid. Duct tape makes you smart.
is a Contributor Alumnus
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/awkward-balance.3486499/#post-4778809
Opinions please =)
P.S i lost the links to the previous rates :<
Mylo, this was a great rate! You mentioned what troubled him and gave clear and concise advice, and persuaded him too! The content of the rate is fine but I think one part of the team was overlooked. Its end-goal. The OP did mention that it usually ended with Sceptile or Feraligatr ending a match by sweeping. And with their current sets, they are heavily walled by bulky Grass-types: Amoonguss, Roselia, and Tangrowth, especially when they have HP Fire for Escavalier. Hitmonlee looked like the most replaceable member because it wasn't contributing too much other than strong HJKs and a boosted Speed--after Mach Punch. The Moltres problem was still prevalent too, as Rhydon was 2HKOed by HP Grass, but you did mention that so no worries! Aerodactyl would've been a good suggestion over Hitmonlee. It's a good offensive answer to Moltres and can 2HKO the bulky Grass-types with Stone Edge / Fire Blast. Although, if you did include Aerodactyl then it would've been three add-ins and that is sometimes going from a rate to building their team.

tl;dr try to find the focus of the team and hone in on it. Your doing great!

Keep up the good work!
 
Mylo, this was a great rate! You mentioned what troubled him and gave clear and concise advice, and persuaded him too! The content of the rate is fine but I think one part of the team was overlooked. Its end-goal. The OP did mention that it usually ended with Sceptile or Feraligatr ending a match by sweeping. And with their current sets, they are heavily walled by bulky Grass-types: Amoonguss, Roselia, and Tangrowth, especially when they have HP Fire for Escavalier. Hitmonlee looked like the most replaceable member because it wasn't contributing too much other than strong HJKs and a boosted Speed--after Mach Punch. The Moltres problem was still prevalent too, as Rhydon was 2HKOed by HP Grass, but you did mention that so no worries! Aerodactyl would've been a good suggestion over Hitmonlee. It's a good offensive answer to Moltres and can 2HKO the bulky Grass-types with Stone Edge / Fire Blast. Although, if you did include Aerodactyl then it would've been three add-ins and that is sometimes going from a rate to building their team.

tl;dr try to find the focus of the team and hone in on it. Your doing great!

Keep up the good work!
Thanks a lot Yonko! I'll take that advice and apply it to my next. Again thanks for helping me improve my rating skills =)
 

Yonko7

Guns make you stupid. Duct tape makes you smart.
is a Contributor Alumnus
Got your PM ^^

You are relatively new to rating so I'll try to point out the overarching details and the minor ones can be tweaked later on. The rate of Sleep Talk on Drapion seems like a rushed rate and one that probably won't work well. Sure it does--sorta--handle Lilligant, but it can 2HKO Drapion with +0 HP Rock. Try to find the goal of the team, Gallade in this case, and make sure the rate you give it helps toward that goal. Ideally, all of the OP's teammates have a role but that might not be the case all the time. The team used hazards and was a bulky team so a spinblocker is needed, and as per my rate later on Spiritomb is a good replacement to Drapion. Your bit on Moltres is helpful to the OP, but you didn't give any advice. The most readily available would have been changing Drapion to Jolly and add Aqua Tail over Poison Jab. Also, resist the urge to replace too many Pokemon; adding 2-3 should be the max depending on who you ask, but any more it's not rating.

Your on the right track! Just get to know the metagame a bit more and read the rates by the official TRs, and dropping by #rarelyused is a good place to come! =]

Hey.
Quick problem with your team, it hates thundurus-t. It can force a pokemon out, agility, and proceed to wreck your team. Even ferrothorn isn't safe with focus miss. I'd recommend gastrodon, but not sure where I would replace it.
EDIT-Also yeah, replace thunderbolt with thunder. If you can accomodate latias, that too counters thundurus-t. Revenge killing with mamoswine is also great.
I don't know much about OU but rate-wise recommending Gastrodon was a step in the right direction. Be confident in your advice and don't be wishy-washy. I'm sure you could have replaced something. It's much more convincing to the OP if the rater has confidence in their rate.
 
Last edited:
Got your PM ^^

You are relatively new to rating so I'll try to point out the overarching details and the minor ones can be tweaked later on. The rate of Sleep Talk on Drapion seems like a rushed rate and one that probably won't work well. Sure it does--sorta--handle Lilligant, but it can 2HKO Drapion with +0 HP Rock. Try to find the goal of the team, Gallade in this case, and make sure the rate you give it helps toward that goal. Ideally, all of the OP's teammates have a role but that might not be the case all the time. The team used hazards and was a bulky team so a spinblocker is needed, and as per my rate later on Spiritomb is a good replacement to Drapion. Your bit on Moltres is helpful to the OP, but you didn't give any advice. The most readily available would have been changing Drapion to Jolly and add Aqua Tail over Poison Jab. Also, resist the urge to replace too many Pokemon; adding 2-3 should be the max depending on who you ask, but any more it's not rating.

Your on the right track! Just get to know the metagame a bit more and read the rates by the official TRs, and dropping by #rarelyused is a good place to come! =]



I don't know much about OU but rate-wise recommending Gastrodon was a step in the right direction. Be confident in your advice and don't be wishy-washy. I'm sure you could have replaced something. It's much more convincing to the OP if the rater has confidence in their rate.
Thanks! This was extremely helpful and i'll try to implement that.
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
So I've been trying to work on quality over quantity for my rates recently and I thought I did a pretty decent job with my past rate. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

The Team
The Rate
 

Jirachee

phoenix reborn
is a Forum Moderatoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
hey Subject 18, you asked me to reply so here I am.

First of all I'd like to say that I like the idea of your rate, as the team indeed lacked a Steel type and a Stealth Rock user. One thing that struck me about your rate though is that you give very little detail on smaller changes, or secondary effects of some changes. You don't really mention that Stealth Rock is important while he needed them so you should probably explain to him why sr is important (doesn't have to be long, you can do this in one or two sentences really). Also, in your smaller changes section, you don't really give detail as to why he should make them. Obviously for a seasoned player Payback sucks on Politoed but it might not be obvious to a newer player, and you have to explain your reasoning for making changes anyway. Most of the time one or two sentences is all it takes to make someone understand your changes and it surely makes for a much better, easier to understand rate.

also if your new teammates have other added perks you can talk about them. jirachi's wish is something that dragonite really appreciates to reactivate multiscale if it has been broken before.
 

Halcyon.

@Choice Specs
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
This was a rate I did for a friend. I want to see if I was able to give good advice and explain things succinctly but fully. I'd appreciate any advice on how to improve my rating.

The rate
The team
 

Reymedy

ne craint personne
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
My Rate: DRose The Return (First RMT)

Team: DRose The Return (First RMT)

I'm trying to make some quality rates since 3 weeks because i noticed thats useless to make long rate with useless or minor changes. Thx to tab ;)
I'll try to answer to the rates, I won't do it at once though.
So, you were right about Rotom-W being annoying, but in my opinion there were other bigger threats. For instance many set-up sweepers/dragons crush this team, like opposing DD Nite or SD Chomp. His Gliscor set is pretty awful and if it was me, I'd have started by trying to change this thing first (what the hell SleepTake/FireFang/Taunt/EQ ??).
Noticing the big Thundurus-T weakness was good, but I disagree on how your fixed it. "because Thundurus-T has nasty plot", you said it yourself. Now, a quick look at the calc shows me that :
- +2 252 SpA Thundurus-T Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Blissey: 438-516 (61.34 - 72.26%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Which implies, that all Blissey can do is : switch in as he NP, then Toxic and die. Which is less than ideal because the only pokemon able to attack Thundurus-T is Scizor (around 30%). So, it's safe to assume that Thundurus-T will either finish the game, or trade his life for at least 3 members of this team. Thus, the defensive backbone will be dismantled.

Long story short, you didn't really fix that weakness and you probably opened his team to new threats (like, I don't know... Mamoswine, AcroZor..) since Blissey covers less stuff than Rotom-W (and her presence is simply shit).
However, changing Rotom-W reinforced the Skarmory weakness. Now, the dude has just no chance to ever break through Skarmory (before, he could try to worn it down with the Volt-Switch until Skarm gets in the Nite KO range). On top of that, this team to me lacks a real purpose : the Nite sweep is not prepared at all, basically, the win condition is really shaky.
So in my opinion, you should have tried to improve the team by improving his win condition. I don't know, but simply changing Scizor to a SD+Superpower set could have been a good start to open holes for Nite. Or you could have changed the Nite set to a Sub/DD/Roost/DClaw set, since it's a pretty self sufficient win condition (and made other changes along to make his team more solid).

To sum-up :
- try to really fix the weaknesses you notice
- for some teams, covering threats isn't the most important : you should always make sure their win condition is decent first (hence the analysis of the team in a short paragraphe)
 

ShootingStarmie

Bulletproof
is a Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
So I've decided that I'm going to become more active in the RMT section (mainly OU), so I figure I may as well get my rates to the best standard. So I'm going to link my most recent rates, and hopefully you guys can give me some feed back for the future, thanks!

Here's my rate for The Yellow Grovyle's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ou-rmt-the-goat-and-the-moth.3487489/#post-4812459

Here's my rate for GSCChris' team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/why-cant-i-hold-all-these-hazards.3487622/#post-4812445

Here's my rate for Brap's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/que-sera-sera-peaked-2000.3487652/#post-4812431

Here's my rate for Morpheus' team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gg-no-re.3487494/#post-4807788

Here's my rate for Hooptie's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/a-physical-balance-ou.3487679/#post-4812415

Here's my rate for Chespin The Knight's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-sands-that-cant-be-tamed.3487638/#post-4812399

And finally, here's my rate for da gold sun's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/nasty-pass-full-of-momentum-peaked-2k.3487647/#post-4812386

Any feedback on these rates would be really appreciated. Thanks.
 
There's no RMT SQSA forum so I guess I'll ask here:

I can't find any advice for how to deal with teams that are just awful, and obviously made by someone with no competitive experience, but strangely conform to the guidelines in terms of having descriptions and being well formatted. I found such an RMT just now, and gave an enormous rate, but it was more full of questions than answers ("why are you using this?" etc). I couldn't really give it a proper rate (you can't polish a turd and all that).
 

Trinitrotoluene

young ☆nd foolish
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
There's no RMT SQSA forum so I guess I'll ask here:

I can't find any advice for how to deal with teams that are just awful, and obviously made by someone with no competitive experience, but strangely conform to the guidelines in terms of having descriptions and being well formatted. I found such an RMT just now, and gave an enormous rate, but it was more full of questions than answers ("why are you using this?" etc). I couldn't really give it a proper rate (you can't polish a turd and all that).
If you find a team that's bad to the point where you cannot improve it without revamping the whole team, just leave it alone. These threads naturally will not get attention and will slide to the back pages, clearing room for the teams that can be improved with only a few changes. However, if you feel the need to post in the thread, then I'd recommend redirecting them to Battling 101 (if they post a team for a tier that B101 teaches) or the appropriate threads (for other metagames and Doubles, since the latter isn't taught in B101 yet).
 

Reymedy

ne craint personne
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
So I've decided that I'm going to become more active in the RMT section (mainly OU), so I figure I may as well get my rates to the best standard. So I'm going to link my most recent rates, and hopefully you guys can give me some feed back for the future, thanks!

Here's my rate for The Yellow Grovyle's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ou-rmt-the-goat-and-the-moth.3487489/#post-4812459

Here's my rate for GSCChris' team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/why-cant-i-hold-all-these-hazards.3487622/#post-4812445

Here's my rate for Brap's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/que-sera-sera-peaked-2000.3487652/#post-4812431

Here's my rate for Morpheus' team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gg-no-re.3487494/#post-4807788

Here's my rate for Hooptie's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/a-physical-balance-ou.3487679/#post-4812415

Here's my rate for Chespin The Knight's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-sands-that-cant-be-tamed.3487638/#post-4812399

And finally, here's my rate for da gold sun's team
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/nasty-pass-full-of-momentum-peaked-2k.3487647/#post-4812386

Any feedback on these rates would be really appreciated. Thanks.
Okay, so I did read all those rates and I'll do a global feedback because something struck me while reading :

- You tend to limit your rates to generic improvements. Improvements that you could apply to any team regardless of the team's obvious/hidden pattern.
I'll try to explain it with simple examples => You saw a SRer in a HO, and you told the OP to play Skarm Custap instead
=> You saw a Gengar Sub/Split in a HO, and you told the OP to play FocusSash Gengar instead
=> You saw a Gliscor, and you told the OP to play Landorus-T instead
=> You saw a Haxorus, and told the OP to play Kyurem-B

And so on (I'm taking obvious examples, in maybe an unfair way, so it can be easier for me to make you understand my point).

Okay, so first, there is nothing wrong in doing it most of the time. It works pretty well when you're rating a bad/mid level team. Every single rater does that from time to time. However those "easy changes" must not because your only "rating tool". Because when you're rating good teams, you can't do that anymore (in 99% of the time), since there is probably a really good reason behind the fact that the dude is playing Gliscor (and not Landorus-T).


If you want to keep improving your rates, try to rate more often "good teams" (they are rarer though), because they will force you to give up your "rate shortcuts".

A good proof of that fact, is that you NEVER name threats, you simply skip that part of the rating. Maybe you do it, I don't know, some good raters find threats but don't name all these threats (however, that's because they're good that they don't need to show that underlying work). The explanation is that you look at improving the team pokemon by pokemon/core by core, you don't try to find threats to delete them.

So yea, don't try to always change a pokemon by another pokemon who "outclasses" the previous one. Because well built teams have a solid explanation lying behind every single member (for instance your change on Morpheus' team was not so good in my opinion, you couldn't just toss Skarm Custap in here).
If you can do that, and improve the "Find threats, Fix threats" part of the rating, your rates will be flawless.

I hope I've been clear enough (that was a bit messy though), and good luck in your future endeavors !
 

Reymedy

ne craint personne
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
This was a rate I did for a friend. I want to see if I was able to give good advice and explain things succinctly but fully. I'd appreciate any advice on how to improve my rating.

The rate
The team
Okay, here's the last one left ;D

I hope you're still looking to improve your rates !

So, I like the rate in itself. The rate isn't very "complicated", you focused your change around a threat and fixed it decently in my opinion. I don't really have much to say, changing Nite for Gyara could have weaken his team to Breloom, or Sun team, but since he has Celebi and Heatran... he should be fine.
However, beside this change, I really think that the team is not that well built. While Celebi + Heatran + Lando-T (+Gyara) is ok, the Tentacruel + Kyurem part could be REALLY improved.
Kyurem doesn't have any real purpose in the team, it looks like the builder threw it there "because" and it worked for some reason. Tentacruel is here "because I need a spinner" and for Tspikes (I have to admit that Tspikes + Kyurem-B is pretty neat, BUT it is useful for pink/blue blobs... and those blobs DON'T wall Gyarados at all -quite the contrary with the Sub etc-).
So to me, the team looks really "bipolar" and could be improved by focusing on the Gyarados sweep (read : find a way to kill Ferrothorn, Rotom-W...) or on the Kyurem sweep. You might realise that Kyurem is "good" because he set-up on Rotom-W, but.. in a game, it won't really be that easy to pull off. For instance, it's far easier to just play Superpower Mamoswine, and cripple that Rotom-W/Ferro while attracting sweepers like Zor, Keldeo, giving a sweep opportunity to Gyara.
That was just an example, but to me it was possible to make this team a bit less "crazy", and refocus its purpose.

There is nothing wrong with your rate though, your change was fine.
 

PDC

street spirit fade out
is a Team Rater Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
remembering raikou is very straight forward that team is pretty much hopeless and what you said was correct. scarf jirachi was probably the best decision although personally i would have used a slightly different spread. that rate was probably pretty simple / easy.

the end of an era was a little different, i like the suggestions that you made for the most part, but i would have done some changes a bit differently. lucario was a pretty solid suggestion, and it is pretty cool partnered with cbtar, but the team in my opinion might appreciate a little more speed. i personally would have used terrakion or keldeo as a replacement. that jirachi spread was cool but tbh you should probably used a modest nature, make it a little slower and use Hidden Power fire (maybe ground but in this case i don't think the team needs it) to check lucario, scizor, and some other steels a little better. i also believe you meant to say change energy ball to sleep talk and not the other way around, at least i hope so.

otherwise, pretty good rates. keep rating.
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
Predictions under Pressure (OU Hail, 1980+)
You are my Sunshine (OU Sun, 2100+ on PS)
Rated these two teams after extremely helpful advice from the practice team guys, so wanted some advice.
Ok, so in your first rate you identified the weakness properly (CB Terrakion/ Other Fighting Types) But you did absolutely nothing to help deal with that threat. If anything you actually made the team weaker to CB Terrakion since he can no longer Endeavor+Ice Shard for the KO (not saying that it's a reliable strategy or that he should've kept it but still). Anyway, after making that identification of the fighting type weakness you should try to fit in a Poke that can help deal with that weakness right away. If it was glaring enough to spot and to mention, it should be your first priority to fix that problem during the rate. So, if you look at his team you can see that all Mamoswine is really providing is Stealth Rocks and maybe an Endeavor KO. Plus it is adding to his Fighting Type weakness so it seems like the most expendable member. Now, for picking a replacement you know that you want to keep Stealth Rocks since you just got rid of them and you want to address the fighting type weakness. Landorus-T seems like a great fit by providing SR support and being a great check to Physical attackers like CB Terrakion. All of the other suggestions you made are fine.

In your second rate you kind of do the same thing, except instead of mentioning one threat you mention a ton of them. It's really best to just focus in on one or two glaring issues and deal with those. Otherwise you'll either leave problems un-fixed or you will be changing way too much. Many times you'll see as well that fixing one problem can make it easier for the team to deal with other threats. Anyway, looking at the team, the first thing that should jump out at you is the lack of a water resist. This is really scary on a Sun Team and basically something is guaranteed to be taken out by
Specs Politoed at the beginning of the match. So that is the problem you should be focusing on with this rate. Looking at his team I would say Gengar is the most expendable member. While having a Spinblocker is nice, it really isn't going to be too important when his team is getting blasted away by Specs Hydro Pumps. In Gengar's slot you did make a nice suggestion about abusing Toxic Spikes though so I think it would be a good idea to expand on that suggestion with your replacement. There are a few Water Resist mons that can abuse Toxic Spike well in Sub CM Latias and Sub Roost Kyurem. Latias doesn't add an SR weakness though and I've never used SubRoost Kyurem in Sun before so I'm not too sure how it would work so Latias is probably the better option. Sub CM Latias also does great against Sand Stall, once Hippo is taken care of, which the OP mentioned as a threat so like I said, you can sometimes kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

So basically if you were to take anything from this, just remember that if you have to make a change of a team member to fix a weakness, do it. Make sure to mention the most glaring weakness (ex. in the 2nd rate rain was a much bigger threat than Ttar) and work to address it throughout the rest of the rate.

Anyways hopefully this helped! Let me know if you have any other questions and good luck with your rates!
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top