[GUIDE] Basics to Competitive Battling

[Sabeta]

"and not how the game was supposed to be played like in the first place. "

I have a small qualm with this line. Typically, opinion should be avoided in any sort of guide, and your little Smogon bit was deep-fried in your abhorrition for the standardization of Smogon. Perhaps nit-picky, I would prefer if it was purely factual, like "A "movedex" for various pokemon sets and Ev spreads" yadda yadda.

Otherwise stuffs be cool.

[wraith89]

Yeah I get it. I suppose I should change the tone of that line.

I won't give like sets because I guess that's what Smogon's for, but I'll give the general idea of how a Pokemon plays and what moves are available for grabs. You are welcome to contribute if you want Sabeta... I've left out some standard Pokemon out so people can try to cover it or something.

Re-reading what I wrote... I just want to make it clear that IVs stand for Individual Values, not Ideal Values. I don't believe every Pokemon was made to be played in that standards or anything.

Added Tbird's Reuniclus analysis. All these new guys are incredibly broken -_-

[Sabeta]

Contribute the what now?

[wraith89]

That little section where you can see Tbird and I are analysing Pokemon and stuff (it's in a spoilers "Know Your Pokemon"). Well, I was waiting for Gin to do some and all, but the kid went AFK...

[Skevengal]

Oho, you have made what took me 2 Spartan training weeks to learn in 2 min. I knew all of this already and was thinking of doing something like this but I am too lazy to write something as detailed as this. I respect you for taking the time in doing this and wish to contribute something small/ some tips from a fellow competitive battler. I'm just gonna say some stuff from the top of my head here...um I guess I'll start with some example leads such as the ever popular Spiker, which basically sets up so that the opponent will face difficulty when switching in taking either damage or being poisoned however an easy way to get rid of spikes/toxic spikes/ stealth rock is rapid spin, so I like to keep a ghost type such as frosslass or jellicent which is also an amazing tank. (Forretress can learn all of these moves) and this is great when partnered with pokes that induce status effects or other effects that may want the opponent to switch but they will have to face the spikes or continue handicapped. Many counters to spikes include Magic Coat which will bounce the spikes back, it also works with status inducing effects and the new DW ability which in a nutshell is magic coat as an ability. This ability is known as Magic Bounce (creative huh?) there are also the lead sweepers who like to dragon dance right away which my friend has a habit of doing with his metagross. so yea...theres also the leadape(infernape) and all that as well as subseeder, brellomurderers, weather pokes, flinchaxes(which rather than jirachi I'm seeing more togekisses now) and yea but I have hw to do, might add more later so yea...thats all from me!

[Sabeta]

Leads don't exist in the 5th gen metagame thanks to Blind-Pick.
You just now have various forms of Set-uppers and various forms of stopping it.

[Skevengal]

Ah, when I meant lead I meant lead pokes as in first poke to start in the battle which are spikers and such idk, i just use the term lead like that... lol

[Tbird]

Aye, he knows what you mean But spiking leads and such are quite hard to use now, as the opponent will just switch in a counter to your lead (due to team preview) so your lead won't be able to do its job. It's best now to just run a scouting lead or some form of disruptive lead. Things like Thundurus and Machamp are prime examples of such.

700th post like a boss.

[Skevengal]

I agree, lots of people have HP fire or something with fire to switch into with the popular forretress and scizor but its definitaly died down.

[CharlemagneXVI]

I must confess that up until about a year ago, I was very guilty of the "STAB spamming" you've covered here.

This guide really helped me weed out the remaining problems I had with my team, thank you for writing it.

[wraith89]

Oh thank you. I'm glad it was of some help.

I feel though, that I may need to update this guide for Gen V and make it more legible, as it looks a bit crowded. Except some form of update to come whenever.

[CharlemagneXVI]

Oh thank you. I'm glad it was of some help.

I feel though, that I may need to update this guide for Gen V and make it more legible, as it looks a bit crowded. Except some form of update to come whenever.

I myself found no problems with its legibility.