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Beginner tips for Competitive Battling


Notus

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Hello everybody!

So, this topic is pretty much what the name says, I've decided to give a try to competitive battle and would like to know what I should look at before I start being totally destroyed triyng it. This could be usefull for other newbies too.

Soo hope to be seeing you in the server soon!

Edited by Notus
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Smogon.com is seriously the best resource for a beginner to learn about competitive battling. Everyone here hates on it but I don't know why; you can look through really detailed analyses of every pokemon to get an idea of what they can do and they give you sample movesets, pros and cons, etc. Also on the forums you can look at teams that other people have built, in particular they have a hall of fame where people post the teams that they got to #1 on the ladder with.

Other than that my biggest piece of advice is to pay very careful attention to teambuilding. I would say that winning a battle is 90% teambuilding and 10% actual battling skill. The most important part of teambuilding is to -have a plan-. You need to figure out exactly how you're going to win and then work backwards from there to build your team. For instance my most recent team was built around Talonflame and Staraptor; Staraptor is a great wallbreaker and lures in the pokemon that can stop a Talonflame sweep and weakens them, leaving Talonflame free to sweep after that. Then I formed my team of the remaining 4 pokemon to support this strategy.

Don't just throw together 6 pokemon that cover each other's weaknesses because that team is doomed to failure. If you don't have a plan you are just farting around in battle, but if you have a solid team with a plan, then in battle all you have to do is execute; you should know exactly what you need to do at every moment in a match.

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What slant said, I do like smogon in that reguard. But when I build a team, i base it around the idea of one or two Pokemon working together. And the other Pokemon I choose are there to cover any weaknesses or road blocks they may stumble upon.

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Slant smogon is outdated till they add 6th gym and everyone uses there strats so everyone one will know the set and fighting the set over and over will get very boring its once in a blue moon you actual find someone that didn't take a team from a smogon thread and change it

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I did make some research on smogon (man, that site is huge!), and the Research Center here in the forums seems really nice to get ideas and sets different from theirs.

Now that about teambuilding around one or two pokémon is something i haven't heard of yet and is exactly the type of info I'm looking for! It's easy to get lost when you come from the games used to have a small team and suddenly you can pick from every single pokémon in existance. Thank's a lot!

Edit: Ah, another thing, where can I find the rules for the Reborn Server? I mean, things like allowing or not drizzle+Swift Swim etc...

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Here's a link to the smogon OU viability thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-ou-viability-ranking-thread.3495992/

If you are having trouble figuring out which pokemon to add to your team that should help, it is basically a ranking of all the pokemon in the tier from best to worst. Obviously people may disagree with some of these but for the most part I find it pretty accurate. Now instead of picking your team from like 500+ pokemon you can whittle it down to around 50 pokemon.

I'm not sure if we have a tier list for reborn up yet but here's smogon's tier list: http://www.smogon.com/xyhub/tiers

Basically our tiers are the same as theirs but Manaphy, Kyurem-B and Zygrade are banned, and Blaziken, Mega-Blaziken, Mega-Lucario, Mega Kangaskhan, and Mega Gengar are not banned.

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We are still working on our tiers. Probably need to get that moved along.

On another note, I see, skimming that viability topic, that Arcanine and Florges are 'blacklisted'? What exactly does that mean in this context?

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To my understanding it means that they have been mentioned but are not good enough to be included in the list.

@the post

keep practicing! Slant is also right about the teambuilding aspect of it. When making a team always formulate a plan for what each pokemon job is and how it contributes to the overall team.

If your really new i suggest watching other people's battle to maybe get some inspiration.

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Florges was swept under the rug because of it's surperior Fairy sister Sylveon. Sylveon boosts both a better STAB in Hyper Voice and more HP; resulting in bigger wishes.

Also Blacklisted pokemon means that it's been mentioned but they are banning discussions on aforementioned pokemon. Same goes for Quagsire.

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Well, that viability thread really is a big help. Thanks Slant! By the way, just found your Hiper Ofense team on the RmT forum, and I like the idea behind it pretty much... I think I'll start of with one of these. ^_^

And yeah Berserker, I'll make sure to watch some battles between the pros! Thanks!

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That's pretty much what I said

I know, but I made mine sound like I don't give a shit...and I still do.

That being said, Teambuilding is not really the only thing. I mean, it IS important, but you also have to take in consideration what the other guy built. I mean, you don't want to be that guy who uses FB on a T-Tar, only to live by a margin by Assault Vest, only for him to kill you after (Trust me, it is the worst feeling)

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My biggest tip at the moment: Don't challenge Slant ;D

Haha but yeah, Smogon is a great resource, and I don't think its true that most people here hate it, but it does restrict creativity a bit, so its fine to loosely follow builds, which is what I tend to do (it makes winning more satisfactory). Another tip is to just keep testing your teams. See what works and what doesn't. Its also good for building up your battle smarts.

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Smogon.com is seriously the best resource for a beginner to learn about competitive battling. Everyone here hates on it but I don't know why; you can look through really detailed analyses of every pokemon to get an idea of what they can do and they give you sample movesets, pros and cons, etc.

In my experience the ones with the negative opinions are always the most vocal about it; personally I use it all the time and couldn't reasonably deny your first statement there if I tried. The rest of the post is sound advice too because I'm bad and my general method to team building is exactly what you said not to, so that explains a lot :D

In any case a good post.

Slant smogon is outdated till they add 6th gym and everyone uses there strats so everyone one will know the set and fighting the set over and over will get very boring its once in a blue moon you actual find someone that didn't take a team from a smogon thread and change it

There are topics for all of gen 6 around the forums if you look for them (at least, last I looked around for sets), and at higher levels of play people don't play to be different or original, they play to win.

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Smogon is good for beginners yes, but once you get better, I'd recommend against using them for advice. Smogonites tend to be pretty low in skill level, and the community as a whole tends to have a similar mindset when it comes to set/teambuilding.

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^ ah, the nice an powerful user we have up here ;]

But seriously, Smogon is a great source to start from. If you go into the smogon premier league sub-forum and go to the logs and replays thread (http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spl-5-logs-replays.3497301/), you can watch matches and learn how high skilled players go through a match, and also look at the team structure. Another thing you can do is just to lurk around smogon a lot. Go to the overused sub forum and read a lot there. Also, as Slant said, the viability ranking thread is a good place to see what Pokemon are viable.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/forums/ou-analyses.255/

^ Click on any of the Pokemon that you see on that page and it gives you the best sets for that Pokemon, how to use them, and what partners are effective with them. It's really a good place for first time team builders and even some people looking to build a team around something they haven't used.

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Well, I guess the more information one can get, the better (even if it's just to know what other people are using). Thanks guys! Now just a technical question: How does the ladder work? Is it Win/Loss rate, overall victories or what?

Just started trying my team and man, that's much fun! Guess I'll get adicted very soon hehe.

@ Tenshine: Totally igored your advice .

My biggest tip at the moment: Don't challenge Slant ;D

He was my third battle and I didn't even know kkk.

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