With the new SCMS up, badge holders are able to easily modify strategy analysis pages, and there are many that need to be cleaned up or rewritten. chaos has asked me to outline the proper way to make these changes.
Use <p> and </p> paragraph tags
Just a simple formatting technique, but it's important. Here is an example of a strategy page that uses paragraph tags properly:
[SET]
name: Tyraniboah
move 1: Crunch
move 2: Thunderbolt
move 3: Focus Punch
move 4: Substitute
item: Leftovers
trait:
personality:
evs:
dvs:
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Crunch 2hkos Celebi and Claydol, OHKOs Starmie and Gengar and nearly 2hkos Donphan (spikes and/or special down means it loses). With paralysis support, it's easy to thunderbolt waters into oblivion as it will do in the ~43% range. Any sort of special wall will be met with a swift Focus Punch and death. You've probably either used this by now or had it wreak utter havoc on your team, and only now are people starting to adopt things like extremely defensive Swamperts and lol Triple Kicking Hitmonchans/Arm Thrusting Hariyamas to counter it.</p>
[SET]
name: DDTar
move 1: Dragon Dance
move 2: Hidden Power Rock / Rock Slide
move 3: Earthquake
move 4: Taunt
item: Leftovers
trait:
personality:
evs:
dvs:
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>The Quintessential Tyranitar, as I like to call it. This sweeper set isn't as popular as the newer, special attacking version, but will still pokémon your ass hard if you don't have the appropriate counter. You need to predict well to know when to switch this in, preferably on a Skarmory that's trying to spike (you should probably have a rapid spinner as well), or a low health Blissey that you know is going to heal and not status you. Then, if it's early in the battle, you should probably Taunt, since if you straight-up Dragon Dance, Claydol or Swampert can come out and be all "lol if you say so." You should only DD when you're sure your opponent doesn't have one of these counters, but when you find this out, you're ready to do some serious sweeping, by Taunting away attempts to Haze, Leech Seed, or status you in general.</p>
<p>Lastly, as many of you know, I hate Rock Slide, since if you're banking on that 30% flinch chance to actually keep your Tyranitar alive against something like a Milotic, you have no business whining when it doesn't flinch, or, you know, misses. The Quintessential Tyranitar is what I like to call a "checkmate" pokemon, one that will 100% guarantee you the battle even when they have pokemon like Starmie, Aerodactyl, and Blisskarm left — there is 100% no way you are going to lose. Tyranitar wins battles on the strength of its attack, not by the luck with which an attack like Rock Slide is associated.</p>
[SET]
name: CBTar
move 1: Rock Slide / Hidden Power Rock
move 2: Earthquake
move 3: Focus Punch
move 4: Body Slam / Hidden Power Bug
item: Choice Band
trait:
personality:
evs:
dvs:
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Like with CB-Salamence and CB-Medicham, nothing can safely switch in without taking a huge chunk of damage. Tyranitar has the advantage of outspeeding most of it's counters: Water Pokémon like Milotic and Vaporeon, and some slow Heracross. It's moves compliment each other really well - Skarmory does not like boosted Rock Slides or Focus Punches, Claydol is owned by Hidden Power Bug, which also OHKOs Celebi. I could go on, telling you what it does to certain things, but you should just try it out. Just be wary that without Leftovers, Tyranitar might fall to Normal or Flying hits sooner or later.</p>
[SET]
name: Set 4
move 1: Hidden Power Bug
move 2: Rock Slide
move 3: Focus Punch
move 4: Substitute
item: Leftovers
trait:
personality:
evs:
dvs:
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>No pokemon resists the moveset. Not as powerful as the other sets but if used right will take at least one poke down with it. Works wonders with some Swords Dance boosts Baton Passed to it.</p>
[Other Options]
<p>Aerial Ace, Hidden Power Flying, Curse, Pursuit, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunder Wave, Torment, Roar</p>
<p>A Flying move can surprise Heracross, Breloom and other Fighters. Curse is novelty at best, but it's a decent move and Tyranitar learns it. Pursuit can put the pain on Alakazam and other Psychic retards. Flamethrower is nice for Forretress and Steelix, but I prefer Thunderbolt to hit waters as well as Skarmory. Ice Beam is a better idea than you'd think — go ahead and stay out, Salamence, also it can make Donphan less of a counter, as well as hit pokemon like Breloom and Flygon if they feel like switching in too. Thunder Wave is cool because PAR rules, but you won't see much action out of this since the usual switch is to a Ground type. Torment is novelty, but a fun move. :] Roar is only if you need some kind of normal resisting Roarer. Tyranitar can take a hit really well.</p>
[EVs]
<p>Tyraniboah should be Quiet, with EVs as such: 252 HP, 68 Spd, 188 SpA. This is what I use, giving it just enough speed to outpace Weezing, which is extremely important to do, unlike Claydol, who is going to break your sub anyway since you can't OHKO it with Crunch even if you are faster with Rash. In my opinion, Boah should be be neither Mild nor Rash. You want it to be somewhat able to take a Surf from like a Suicune that's at 44% or lower, cause if it decides to stay in and Surf you, you will have killed it with the help of sandstorm. From a 300 SpA Tyraniboah, T-bolt does a minimum of 38% damage to a 266 SpD Suicune — hardly anyone gives Suicune initial special defense so it's going to die to T-bolt...unless you're Rash, in which case, after your sub is broken, you stand a good chance of getting OHKOed by Surf depending on how much SpA Suicune has, since you're not at full HP after the sub.</p>
<p>Further, if you're Mild, then crap like Aero's DE can break your sub if it does max damage, and a 300 attack Snorlax will break your sub every single time with return/frustration. Not to mention Metagross has a great chance to OHKO, whereas with Quiet he needs absolute maximum damage.</p>
<p>The Quintessential Tyranitar can be either Jolly or Adamant, with 252 in both attack and speed regardless. While Adamant is the preferred nature, Jolly should be given honest thought, as you are two points faster than a Timid Starmie (242×1.5=363 vs. 361) and can (quint)essentialy (lol) risk keeping it in to deal Starmie some major damage. Here's why: you know that it is very likely that they are not also packing a Claydol, since both pokemon are used the majority of the time as Rapid Spinners (Claydol always, Starmie much of the time) and your opponent probably won't have both. Further, your opponent would have gone straight out to Claydol or another Tyra counter anyway — if they're going out to Starmie you know that's their only Tyranitar "counter", so with a Jolly Moveset you're encouraged to take it out. Also, if you're Jolly you're faster than Celebi (242 vs. 236-240), and it can't hazard an attempt at Leech Seeding you, even if it is stupid enough to stay in.</p>
[Opinion]
<p>
Tyranitar is *the* most feared pokemon in pokémon today, as well it should be. Both sets are capable of sweeping your opponent, in completely different styles as well. If you haven't created your team with Tyranitar in mind, you are asking to get beaten down severely. It can beat you with either physical or special moves easier than any other non-uber pokemon, and that alone should open your eyes to its destructive power.</p>
[Counters]
<p>Donphan, Swampert, Flygon, Claydol, Suicune, Machamp, Hariyama, Breloom, Light Screen Zapdos, Hitmontop lol</p>
While we encourage expressing a certain degree of personality, exercise sound judgment and maturity when using the first person point-of-view
There is a fine line between writing with personality and writing with bias, and it takes a decent or otherwise attentive writer to discern the difference between the two. Basically, you'll want to present true information without making it boring. Saying "I really like this set" is a little over the border. If something is your very own personal preference, you should note it as such, nothing more, nothing less. Saying "I owned a lot of people with this" is just unnecessary - it's not like personal experience means an awful lot anyway, and we all face different people. When in doubt, leave it out (or get a second opinion somewhere).
Keep the information objective
This is the point you should strive to keep in mind in spite of the above guideline. Outline pros and cons, give tips and tricks of how things can be used, but don't dictate that a pokemon can only be used in certain ways. The guides are meant to guide, not to place rigid restrictions on what is useful. Players can experiment and determine what they find useful for themselves, but it's okay to slip in your opinions in such forms as "Usually pokemon Y is used for this task instead, due to reason Z."
Don't use abbreviations like HP Rock and T-Wave
The site needs to automatically link to the move pages based on the names you give, and newer players might not understand your abbreviations anyway. Also, the site will convert Hidden Power Rock to HP Rock automatically, but it needs to be typed as Hidden Power Rock in the source page so that the site can format correctly, knowing you meant Hidden Power and not Hit Points.
Don't have excessive alternative options for a move
For example: Mewtwo
* ~ Bulk Up
* ~ Shadow Ball
* ~ Recover /
* Brick Break
* ~ Recover /
* Thunderbolt /
* Substitute /
* Earthquake /
* Brick Break /
* Taunt
@ Leftovers
This isn't very helpful, it's about as useless as just listing Bulk Up and Shadow Ball with no other moves. It's also confusing having Recover and Brick Break listed twice, especially with Recover being the first option for two slots. When you can, break something like this up into two sets, or make a note somewhere in your set description. For example, you can say "The last slot can be used for many different secondary attacks, depending on what your team has trouble with" without actually listing them all. Also, a good use of an alternate move choice would be for things like Fire Blast/Flamethrower, where the choice doesn't affect the usage of the set too much. Or for something like Rock Slide/Shadow Ball on Metagross, where all the choice does is slightly change what Metagross is effective against; it's still used pretty much the same way. If you provide wildly different choices for a slot, like Yawn/Selfdestruct, you might as well split it up into two sets because the usage descriptions should be pretty different.
Keep set specific information in the set description
You don't want to clutter the "Other Options" and "EVs" sections with information that should be localized to individual sets. Pretty self explanatory, these sections are used for information that is general to all or most sets.
Try to sound professional
"Tyranitar pwns fire types with Rock Slide ;)" is the kind of thing we don't want here.
Provide thorough set descriptions
Don't assume the player knows how a set should be used. Details such as how to switch it in, what stage of the battle should it be used (early, middle, late), etc. Provide as much solid, useful battle advice as you can.
Use common sense when assuming the metagame
For a Zapdos analysis, you can assume OU when discussing counters and usage strategies (not that you can't list a quality UU counter if one exists). For something like Dodrio or Electabuzz, focus on both OU and UU opponents. For something like Sunkern or Masquerain, don't bother listing OU counters since there will be a lot of them. For those lower metagames such as NU, the sets should be designed to beat other things in that metagame, unless that pokemon has a set which can beat things many tiers above it (for example, Yanma can kill OU pokemon with a Reversal set).
Don't list things without explanation
This is very common in the Other Options and counter sections and should be avoided as much as possible. It is ok to list things, but be sure to give an explanation about each before going on to the next. Here's two examples:
Other Options
Psych Up, Dynamicpunch, Iron Defense, Pursuit, Rest, Sleep Talk. Metagross can come into Snorlax anytime and beat it with Psych Up. Dynamicpunch puts a dent into Skarmory and can confuse it, if you are lucky.
As you can see, the writer began to explain himself, but the listing of all the moves before the explanation is very redundant. List the options, but do it in the format of move explanation, move explanation, move explanation instead of move, move, move, move. move explanation, move explanation, move explanation.
Another example is this:
Counters
Swampert, Milotic, Suicune, Skarmory, Donphan, Ludicolo, Zapdos, Forretress, Moltres
Of course they weren't redundant like above... but they didn't explain themselves at all! It should be: "Swampert, how to get swampert in, Milotic, how to get milotic in, Suicune, how to get suicune in" etc. If there is a huge list of water types that get in the same way try: "Swampert, Milotic, and Suicune can easily get in on a Meteor Mash." Stuff like Forretress could say "Forretress does not take much damage from Meteor Mash switchins and can Spike the field or Earthquake Metagross."
Thanks for reading this!
If anyone has any additional advice, suggestions, or questions, post them here. Hopefully if we stick to the guidelines we can really make some professional analyses and continue to be the best source of information for competitive battling.
Use <p> and </p> paragraph tags
Just a simple formatting technique, but it's important. Here is an example of a strategy page that uses paragraph tags properly:
[SET]
name: Tyraniboah
move 1: Crunch
move 2: Thunderbolt
move 3: Focus Punch
move 4: Substitute
item: Leftovers
trait:
personality:
evs:
dvs:
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Crunch 2hkos Celebi and Claydol, OHKOs Starmie and Gengar and nearly 2hkos Donphan (spikes and/or special down means it loses). With paralysis support, it's easy to thunderbolt waters into oblivion as it will do in the ~43% range. Any sort of special wall will be met with a swift Focus Punch and death. You've probably either used this by now or had it wreak utter havoc on your team, and only now are people starting to adopt things like extremely defensive Swamperts and lol Triple Kicking Hitmonchans/Arm Thrusting Hariyamas to counter it.</p>
[SET]
name: DDTar
move 1: Dragon Dance
move 2: Hidden Power Rock / Rock Slide
move 3: Earthquake
move 4: Taunt
item: Leftovers
trait:
personality:
evs:
dvs:
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>The Quintessential Tyranitar, as I like to call it. This sweeper set isn't as popular as the newer, special attacking version, but will still pokémon your ass hard if you don't have the appropriate counter. You need to predict well to know when to switch this in, preferably on a Skarmory that's trying to spike (you should probably have a rapid spinner as well), or a low health Blissey that you know is going to heal and not status you. Then, if it's early in the battle, you should probably Taunt, since if you straight-up Dragon Dance, Claydol or Swampert can come out and be all "lol if you say so." You should only DD when you're sure your opponent doesn't have one of these counters, but when you find this out, you're ready to do some serious sweeping, by Taunting away attempts to Haze, Leech Seed, or status you in general.</p>
<p>Lastly, as many of you know, I hate Rock Slide, since if you're banking on that 30% flinch chance to actually keep your Tyranitar alive against something like a Milotic, you have no business whining when it doesn't flinch, or, you know, misses. The Quintessential Tyranitar is what I like to call a "checkmate" pokemon, one that will 100% guarantee you the battle even when they have pokemon like Starmie, Aerodactyl, and Blisskarm left — there is 100% no way you are going to lose. Tyranitar wins battles on the strength of its attack, not by the luck with which an attack like Rock Slide is associated.</p>
[SET]
name: CBTar
move 1: Rock Slide / Hidden Power Rock
move 2: Earthquake
move 3: Focus Punch
move 4: Body Slam / Hidden Power Bug
item: Choice Band
trait:
personality:
evs:
dvs:
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Like with CB-Salamence and CB-Medicham, nothing can safely switch in without taking a huge chunk of damage. Tyranitar has the advantage of outspeeding most of it's counters: Water Pokémon like Milotic and Vaporeon, and some slow Heracross. It's moves compliment each other really well - Skarmory does not like boosted Rock Slides or Focus Punches, Claydol is owned by Hidden Power Bug, which also OHKOs Celebi. I could go on, telling you what it does to certain things, but you should just try it out. Just be wary that without Leftovers, Tyranitar might fall to Normal or Flying hits sooner or later.</p>
[SET]
name: Set 4
move 1: Hidden Power Bug
move 2: Rock Slide
move 3: Focus Punch
move 4: Substitute
item: Leftovers
trait:
personality:
evs:
dvs:
[SET COMMENTS]
<p>No pokemon resists the moveset. Not as powerful as the other sets but if used right will take at least one poke down with it. Works wonders with some Swords Dance boosts Baton Passed to it.</p>
[Other Options]
<p>Aerial Ace, Hidden Power Flying, Curse, Pursuit, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunder Wave, Torment, Roar</p>
<p>A Flying move can surprise Heracross, Breloom and other Fighters. Curse is novelty at best, but it's a decent move and Tyranitar learns it. Pursuit can put the pain on Alakazam and other Psychic retards. Flamethrower is nice for Forretress and Steelix, but I prefer Thunderbolt to hit waters as well as Skarmory. Ice Beam is a better idea than you'd think — go ahead and stay out, Salamence, also it can make Donphan less of a counter, as well as hit pokemon like Breloom and Flygon if they feel like switching in too. Thunder Wave is cool because PAR rules, but you won't see much action out of this since the usual switch is to a Ground type. Torment is novelty, but a fun move. :] Roar is only if you need some kind of normal resisting Roarer. Tyranitar can take a hit really well.</p>
[EVs]
<p>Tyraniboah should be Quiet, with EVs as such: 252 HP, 68 Spd, 188 SpA. This is what I use, giving it just enough speed to outpace Weezing, which is extremely important to do, unlike Claydol, who is going to break your sub anyway since you can't OHKO it with Crunch even if you are faster with Rash. In my opinion, Boah should be be neither Mild nor Rash. You want it to be somewhat able to take a Surf from like a Suicune that's at 44% or lower, cause if it decides to stay in and Surf you, you will have killed it with the help of sandstorm. From a 300 SpA Tyraniboah, T-bolt does a minimum of 38% damage to a 266 SpD Suicune — hardly anyone gives Suicune initial special defense so it's going to die to T-bolt...unless you're Rash, in which case, after your sub is broken, you stand a good chance of getting OHKOed by Surf depending on how much SpA Suicune has, since you're not at full HP after the sub.</p>
<p>Further, if you're Mild, then crap like Aero's DE can break your sub if it does max damage, and a 300 attack Snorlax will break your sub every single time with return/frustration. Not to mention Metagross has a great chance to OHKO, whereas with Quiet he needs absolute maximum damage.</p>
<p>The Quintessential Tyranitar can be either Jolly or Adamant, with 252 in both attack and speed regardless. While Adamant is the preferred nature, Jolly should be given honest thought, as you are two points faster than a Timid Starmie (242×1.5=363 vs. 361) and can (quint)essentialy (lol) risk keeping it in to deal Starmie some major damage. Here's why: you know that it is very likely that they are not also packing a Claydol, since both pokemon are used the majority of the time as Rapid Spinners (Claydol always, Starmie much of the time) and your opponent probably won't have both. Further, your opponent would have gone straight out to Claydol or another Tyra counter anyway — if they're going out to Starmie you know that's their only Tyranitar "counter", so with a Jolly Moveset you're encouraged to take it out. Also, if you're Jolly you're faster than Celebi (242 vs. 236-240), and it can't hazard an attempt at Leech Seeding you, even if it is stupid enough to stay in.</p>
[Opinion]
<p>
Tyranitar is *the* most feared pokemon in pokémon today, as well it should be. Both sets are capable of sweeping your opponent, in completely different styles as well. If you haven't created your team with Tyranitar in mind, you are asking to get beaten down severely. It can beat you with either physical or special moves easier than any other non-uber pokemon, and that alone should open your eyes to its destructive power.</p>
[Counters]
<p>Donphan, Swampert, Flygon, Claydol, Suicune, Machamp, Hariyama, Breloom, Light Screen Zapdos, Hitmontop lol</p>
While we encourage expressing a certain degree of personality, exercise sound judgment and maturity when using the first person point-of-view
There is a fine line between writing with personality and writing with bias, and it takes a decent or otherwise attentive writer to discern the difference between the two. Basically, you'll want to present true information without making it boring. Saying "I really like this set" is a little over the border. If something is your very own personal preference, you should note it as such, nothing more, nothing less. Saying "I owned a lot of people with this" is just unnecessary - it's not like personal experience means an awful lot anyway, and we all face different people. When in doubt, leave it out (or get a second opinion somewhere).
Keep the information objective
This is the point you should strive to keep in mind in spite of the above guideline. Outline pros and cons, give tips and tricks of how things can be used, but don't dictate that a pokemon can only be used in certain ways. The guides are meant to guide, not to place rigid restrictions on what is useful. Players can experiment and determine what they find useful for themselves, but it's okay to slip in your opinions in such forms as "Usually pokemon Y is used for this task instead, due to reason Z."
Don't use abbreviations like HP Rock and T-Wave
The site needs to automatically link to the move pages based on the names you give, and newer players might not understand your abbreviations anyway. Also, the site will convert Hidden Power Rock to HP Rock automatically, but it needs to be typed as Hidden Power Rock in the source page so that the site can format correctly, knowing you meant Hidden Power and not Hit Points.
Don't have excessive alternative options for a move
For example: Mewtwo
* ~ Bulk Up
* ~ Shadow Ball
* ~ Recover /
* Brick Break
* ~ Recover /
* Thunderbolt /
* Substitute /
* Earthquake /
* Brick Break /
* Taunt
@ Leftovers
This isn't very helpful, it's about as useless as just listing Bulk Up and Shadow Ball with no other moves. It's also confusing having Recover and Brick Break listed twice, especially with Recover being the first option for two slots. When you can, break something like this up into two sets, or make a note somewhere in your set description. For example, you can say "The last slot can be used for many different secondary attacks, depending on what your team has trouble with" without actually listing them all. Also, a good use of an alternate move choice would be for things like Fire Blast/Flamethrower, where the choice doesn't affect the usage of the set too much. Or for something like Rock Slide/Shadow Ball on Metagross, where all the choice does is slightly change what Metagross is effective against; it's still used pretty much the same way. If you provide wildly different choices for a slot, like Yawn/Selfdestruct, you might as well split it up into two sets because the usage descriptions should be pretty different.
Keep set specific information in the set description
You don't want to clutter the "Other Options" and "EVs" sections with information that should be localized to individual sets. Pretty self explanatory, these sections are used for information that is general to all or most sets.
Try to sound professional
"Tyranitar pwns fire types with Rock Slide ;)" is the kind of thing we don't want here.
Provide thorough set descriptions
Don't assume the player knows how a set should be used. Details such as how to switch it in, what stage of the battle should it be used (early, middle, late), etc. Provide as much solid, useful battle advice as you can.
Use common sense when assuming the metagame
For a Zapdos analysis, you can assume OU when discussing counters and usage strategies (not that you can't list a quality UU counter if one exists). For something like Dodrio or Electabuzz, focus on both OU and UU opponents. For something like Sunkern or Masquerain, don't bother listing OU counters since there will be a lot of them. For those lower metagames such as NU, the sets should be designed to beat other things in that metagame, unless that pokemon has a set which can beat things many tiers above it (for example, Yanma can kill OU pokemon with a Reversal set).
Don't list things without explanation
This is very common in the Other Options and counter sections and should be avoided as much as possible. It is ok to list things, but be sure to give an explanation about each before going on to the next. Here's two examples:
Other Options
Psych Up, Dynamicpunch, Iron Defense, Pursuit, Rest, Sleep Talk. Metagross can come into Snorlax anytime and beat it with Psych Up. Dynamicpunch puts a dent into Skarmory and can confuse it, if you are lucky.
As you can see, the writer began to explain himself, but the listing of all the moves before the explanation is very redundant. List the options, but do it in the format of move explanation, move explanation, move explanation instead of move, move, move, move. move explanation, move explanation, move explanation.
Another example is this:
Counters
Swampert, Milotic, Suicune, Skarmory, Donphan, Ludicolo, Zapdos, Forretress, Moltres
Of course they weren't redundant like above... but they didn't explain themselves at all! It should be: "Swampert, how to get swampert in, Milotic, how to get milotic in, Suicune, how to get suicune in" etc. If there is a huge list of water types that get in the same way try: "Swampert, Milotic, and Suicune can easily get in on a Meteor Mash." Stuff like Forretress could say "Forretress does not take much damage from Meteor Mash switchins and can Spike the field or Earthquake Metagross."
Thanks for reading this!
If anyone has any additional advice, suggestions, or questions, post them here. Hopefully if we stick to the guidelines we can really make some professional analyses and continue to be the best source of information for competitive battling.
