Pokémon Pokémon VGC/General Battling Help Thread

[Dumbness]

There seems to be a bit of competitive interest in this subforum but not enough to start up tournaments. I also haven't been able to go out recently to battle people in person at events and whatnot to practice for VGC next year and I'm getting rusty competitively. So to make a win-win situation, I'll explain the fundamentals of competitive Pok?mon to those interested, as well as battle and analyze your teams/ strategies.

To start off, I'll link a general guide I wrote describing what makes each Pok?mon unique and how to breed for them: http://blackiceguild.com/main/2015/05/21/obtaining-your-perfect-pokemon/

Now, if you have any questions at all, I'll most likely be able to answer them. I'm pretty bad at singles/ Smogon, but I do understand the basics of it.

Besides that, feel free to ask anything!

 

[SeraphicOrder]

thanks for this nice guide. I have battled in online battles in Pokemon XY but never in events since I am from another country and will never get into VGC. I battle alright.

i just started pokemon omega ruby and hope to catch up real soon in battling. I have a complete team already but ahvent started online battles

 

[pokedude729]

How would you go about building a competitive team?

 

[Dumbness]

Personally, and what most others do, is look at one of their favorite pokemon and build a team around it. I love Thundurus, aesthetically and competitively, so most of my teams include it.

Then you have the option to look at its (or their if you chose more than one pokemon) weaknesses or strong suits and build accordingly. Thundurus has Prankster, which allows status moves to have +1 priority, Taunt, and Thunder Wave. Thundurus allows a lot of control on turn 1 because of this, and can allow a lot of interesting things to happen. The best thing to do in this situation is to start analyzing the meta (which can easily be done now by looking at National Finals on YouTube for VGC) and look at what threats you're going to face. Common synergies to look for when building a team are attack type coverage, utility (status moves such as Thunder-Wave or attacks such as Fake Out that disrupt the flow of the opponents), and combos (such as Follow Me Pachirisu and DDance Gyara, which won me a tournament once lol). Common Weaknesses that you're going to have to cover are speed tiers (which isn't the case for Thundurus as he has high base speed and the ability Prankster), poor typing (you're going to want to be resistant to as many attacks as possible, but the biggest attacks you should have answers to in singles and doubles are steel, ground, and ice), and overall weak defenses (even in VGC, you want a pokemon that can last throughout the entire match to keep a constant pressure on the opponent through things such as Intimidate, Thunder Wave control, Taunting, Follow Me/Rage Powder, etc.)

Alright, so after you've assessed your pokemon's weak points and vantage points, you take your team into Showdown or Battle Spot for testing. You see what you use often, what works often, what you use little, and what works little, and rework your team accordingly. Chances are, your team will never be good (or even decent) without this step, and it's usually moreso because you don't have a flow for the team yet; you don't know how to use it best against multiple matchups. The more you use the team, the more you'll understand where its strength comes from, and you'll be able to rebuild the team focusing on that strength to maximize its effectiveness.

So yeah, 3/4 steps to make a good team:

Pick a Pokemon
Build Effectively Around It
Test and Rebuild