New User's Tips to Succeed at PS!

Every veteran user of Pokémon Showdown! had to start somewhere, and if you're reading this article, you're likely in the same spot that they were in at one point. Never fear—if you're uncertain about where to start and how exactly to use PS!, give this guide a once-over and you'll be set in just a few minutes. In essence, Pokémon Showdown! isn't very difficult to use at all, but finding things can be a bit of a task at first so don't fret if you can't locate something right away just refer to this article and you'll find it in no time flat!

One of the most important tools one should grow accustomed to when using PS! is the teambuilder. The button to access the teambuilder is located on the left hand side of the screen above the "Ladder" and "Credits" buttons. Once you click the teambuilder button, it'll open a new tab and you'll have a couple of tools at your disposal: "New team" and "Backup/Restore all teams." For now you'll just want to stick to the "New team" button.

Under the new team menu, there is a "Format" dropdown, as well as "Import from text" and "Add Pokémon" options. If you've copied a team export from Pokémon Online or formatted it to text, you should click "Import from text," paste your export there and click "Save" on the top right. If you lack an export, then you'll be creating a team from scratch! This is the best part, in my opinion, but a lot goes into teambuilding and a basic understanding of how the system works is necessary if you hope to pursue your dream of becoming a Pokémon master.

If you click the "Add Pokémon" button, you'll be taken to a text box and a list of Pokémon. The Pokémon are ordered by tier. Remember the "Format" dropdown? If you're teambuilding for a particular tier, you'll need to choose that tier from the list before going into the "Add Pokémon" screen. Once that's done, you should notice that the list of Pokémon has changed depending on the tier you've selected. For instance, if you're building for Ubers or OU, the list remains the same and shows OU Pokémon in descending order alphabetically, while if you chose UU, it'll list only Pokémon legal in the UU tier. This is respective for any tier that you choose.

Once you choose a Pokémon, the next screen will show all of the things that you can change about the Pokémon: their details, item, ability, moves, and stats. Most are rather straightforward. Simply click inside the text box available and scroll through the choices until you find something that you think will work, or just type the name of the item/move/ability you want and hit enter once it appears. When you're ready to enter EVs and IVs, click on the stats box. Every stat is listed here with a box for you to enter the appropriate values.

After that, rinse and repeat; once all is said and done, you've got yourself a team! Now hop on the ladder and get to work. After you've done some laddering and maybe some tweaking to your team to make it perfect, you're gonna want to make sure that you don't lose it, right? Pokémon Showdown! stores teams through cookies in browsers, and it's easy to forget this and delete your cookies without saving your teams externally. It's easy to backup your teams, so let's do that real quick.

If you go back to the main Teambuilder menu, you can find the "Backup/Restore all teams" button at the bottom. If you click it, it'll bring up a text box with all of your team information. Simply copy and paste this information into a Pastebin, Notepad, or some other text organization channel and save it. If you clear your cookies and want your team back, simply paste all of that into the same text box and click the "Save" button at the top and voila: all of your teams are safe and sound!

Every now and again, you might see a Voiced user or staff member use a command with an exclamation point preceding it (see: !data) in the chat. While you can't do what is called "broadcasting" commands, which makes it so everyone sees the command you're using, you can indeed use a wide range of built-in commands. Some of these make your teambuilding experience easier and some are convenient for using PS! in general. These are just a sample of the useful commands you can use in a room on PS!:

The moment you open up Pokémon Showdown! you'll be greeted with a list of what are classified as "chat rooms." There are official chat rooms and regular chat rooms, each with a different purpose. The official rooms, of which there are currently two—Lobby and Tournaments—are purposed with housing the primary interaction between members of PS! Though typically competitively oriented, Lobby is where most users come to relax and talk about anything. Tournaments, as the name suggests, is tournament-centric, allowing members to participate in frequent scripted tournaments as well as host their own Challonge-based tournaments.

Apart from the official chat rooms, there are other rooms that players can use to chat with others of similar interests. The rooms vary, offering a wide range of topics, from tier discussion — including all standard tiers such as Ubers, OU, and UU — to regular, everyday topics such as music or anime and manga. Some rooms even aim to aid people on a personal level, such as The Happy Place, which offers a solace to those seeking either advice for their problems or just to vent.

So if you're new to Pokémon Showdown!, I hope that these small tips help to get you started and I encourage you to give The Beginner's Guide to Pokémon Showdown a read for anything not covered here. Once you've been guided in the proper direction, you'll be on the fast track to success within PS!, and maybe you can look back on this article some day and smile, or even offer it to another brand new member looking for a place to start.