PokeCommunity's Competitive Battling Community

- Username: Billup (Wolflare, what else would it be???)
- Experience in competitive battling: I'm 1337 and actually beat Elf before! Such experience, wow.
- Favourite Pokemon(s): Suicune, Aggron, and Aromatisse
- Preferred playstyle/core: bulky offense or balance
- Extra: MMMmmMmMMMmMMMm

What's your inspiration and motivation to battle competitively?
I find it more interesting to battle actual people than AI, especially since Pokemon's AI has always been pretty lackluster (see: the wonderful DPP Battle Tower where the only way to lose was to get haxed). More importantly, I've grown attached to PC's battling community, and battling others here has always made it a lot more enjoyable for me. Also, I've always liked the sheer quantity and diversity that Pokemon offers, and how it can be incorporated into team building.

Oh, and I hope you don't mind me changing to font color to black; not everyone uses lighter forum styles, y'know!

- Username: Ooka
- Experience in competitive battling: 5-6 years, somewhere in there. Won the official PC Tournament a couple times also, back when they used to have that. xD
- Favourite Pokemon(s): Tyranitar
- Preferred playstyle/core: Semistall w/ Mandibuzz/Rotom-W/MegaSaur

What's your inspiration and motivation to battle competitively?
Well, aside from too much time being invested already? xD Finding good matches really. Nothing better than the rush from being 2-2 in the endgame with no clear winner in sight.

username- DonnyV
experience-none
favorite pokemon- charizard
preferred style-offensive
Motivation- its fun

-Username: dreyko
-Experience Competitively: 3-4 years. I really started getting into it with the release of Pokemon Black and White.
-Favorites: Rotom-W, Espeon, Mega Mawile, Murkrow, Scrafty
-Preferred Playstyle: I play a lot of doubles, 4v4. I like to say i use a medium of stall(Trick Room) to aggressive.

What is your motivation to become better competitively?
Learning and simply having fun are my two biggest motivators in competitive pokemon. Whenever i lose i feel like i learn more about the game and about my style/strategy in a match. I feel that it helps me with team construction(which i love doing). While winning is a nice confidence booster, i do not play to only win, but to have fun, After all if you're not enjoying what your doing, why do it?

- Username: Opposite Day
- Experience in competitive battling: Quite a bit - Been playing since DP/Plat (:>), but has been gone for most of BW/BW2 (Gen 4 UU any day!)
- Favourite Pokemon(s): Jirachi.
- Preferred playstyle/core: Overpredicting and anything gimmicky.
- Extra: I absolutely love damage calcs and tweaking EV spreads to make them more suitable to my needs. 252/252 is boring man.

What's your inspiration and motivation to battle competitively?
What got me into competetive battling was the battle logs and the amount of skill showcased in them, pokemon seemed to be some form of complicated chess, but with a ton of different, highly customizable pieces instead. I wanted to become like those players, and be good enough that I could showcase my own battles. Over the last few years, surprisingly little has changed in that regard (and so you'll likely find me asking everyone for battles on the server)!

Username: Zaroas
- Experience in competitive battling: Around 4 years, been playing since around the release of Platinum. I used to frequent the Shoddy Battle/PO servers for PC and suspect tested Generation V.
- Favourite Pokemon(s): Heatran, Landorus-T, Mega Tyranitar
- Preferred playstyle/core: Balanced teams, sometimes more offensively oriented.
- Extra: I enjoy tweaking my teams until they're perfectly suited to my needs, as well as testing out new playstyles and sets.

-What's your inspiration and motivation to battle competitively?
My main motivation is honestly to just have fun. I enjoy creating new strategies, playstyles, etc. because it's a great hobby that I don't plan on giving up any time soon.

Username: Slayr231
- What's your inspiration and motivation to battle competitively?: I just got bored battling my friends in class. We kept trying to outdo each other and when I could beat anyone at my high school I figured this could be something I could get in to. I love the strategy behind it and hardly anything feels better than being able to stomp out teams with my grass team when I have the disadvantage.
- Experience in competitive battling: 2-3 years (ish)
- Favourite Pokemon(s): Competitively speaking, Breloom, Tangrowth, Volcarona, and now Rotom-W.
- Preferred playstyle/core: My favorite tier is monotype with my grass team. My favorite playing style is hyper-offensive.
- Extra: I'm pretty busy with college, so I don't know if I'll be able to do any tournaments, but I'm almost always up for a battle or two if I'm on. Just shoot me a VM and I'll reply back with whether or not I'm open. Oh, and I only do simulator battles, no wifi at my house.

So hey guys, welcome to the club! I really enjoyed reading about the experiences you guys had. Also, I feel like hosting a tourney to kick things off soon, so maybe you guys could discuss on something new? perhaps some xy nerfs or so?

I would be up for a tourney! =)

In terms of nerfs in X/Y there are two major nerfs that i think of.
1. Weather (obviously)
2. Steel "resistances" or lack there of.

Most of us are probably familiar with the weather nerf, as all weather affects from an ability only last five turns in battle, as opposed to the whole match. I feel that this hampers weather teams a little. Now teams that rely on the sunny side, or the sandy side =p all the time actually have a clock which the player needs to be aware of in order to take advantage of the current weather.

Steel no longer resists ghost type moves (i believe) and dark type moves. A first glance this seems small, but i believe that this makes huge difference in some cases. A pokemon i can think of that this kinda nerfs is Metagross. While having decent defenses, it losing its resistance to dark type moves is definitely something to take into account. Also being able to hit a Scizor for nuetral damage on the switch in with Crunch or Dark Pulse is worth noting.

Also, i feel that the nerf to spore, while having less impact on the competitive scene than a weather nerf is still something to be noted.

Since grass type pokemon can not be put to sleep by spore, it can mess up strategies and allow free switches and set-up by a grass type, MegaSaur and Ferrothorn are good examples.

im surprised none of you didnt mention jirachi. steel pokemon that could effectively switch in to either dark or ghost cant do so anymore e.g. scizor, heatran, etc. but i dont find anything too bad about it, just gotta find the right counter to your threats.

and spore isnt the only nerfed move, any powder move in general can't affect grass types and pokemon which has the safety goggles equipped.

also, what about the nerf to special moves?

-Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Surf and Muddy Water now have 90 BP instead of 95
-Heat Wave now has 95 BP instead of 100
-Fire Blast, Blizzard, Thunder, Hydro Pump and Hurricane now have 110 BP instead of 120
-Aura Sphere now has 80 BP instead of 90
-Dragon Pulse now has 85 BP instead of 90
-Overheat, Leaf Storm and Draco Meteor now have 130 BP instead of 140
-Hidden Power now has 60 BP instead of 70

Click to expand...

they're obvious too, should ohkos now become 2hkos?

hmmm that is an excellent point that i overlooked when posting.

I've noticed that in some cases the drop in base power influences whether or not the target is ohkoed. If the move is 4x super effective then they pokemon will probably be OHKO'ed. Also, STAB or no STAB influences if the pokemon faints off the bat or does not.

Perhaps items that boost power, such as Life Orb, Choice Specs can be used to make up for that drop in base power?

The nerf to stall, while not direct, is pretty huge imo. Steel lost it's Ghost and Dark resistance, of course, which is the first hit it took. Things like Skarmory, Forretress, Bronzong, Jirachi, Heatran, and Metagross really hate losing that, as they can't switch in on some of the things they had no fear of coming in on before. For example, Sp. Def Jirachi can't come in on Gengar and feel safe, same for Metagross with Tyranitar.

In addition to that, some HUGE wallbreakers were added. Aegislash, which imo is the biggest one, can really break stuff with it's mixed set. Then you have Magic Bounce Mega Absol, Mega Garchomp, Mega Charizard Y, all of which have crazy wall breaking capability with their mixed sets.

Then look at what we got in the way of walls this gen. Florges, Sylveon, Carbink, Goodra, Gourgeist, Avalugg.

The only usable ones (OU) being Florges, Goodra and Gourgeist imo. So 3 walls, all easily broken by the Pokemon I mentioned before, so not really any help.

And of course, the big one, Defog was added. This means that even if you run the epic Jellicent, all of your hard earned hazards can still disappear in just 1 turn, without anything to block it.

In my honest opinion, this gen is the death of full stall.

zygardian harbinger said:

You know, I just realised... can't Bisharp switch into the Ghost- and Dark-types, being of a Dark-type itself?

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Why yes it can! :D

Bisharp retains the bragging rights of being the only steel type to still resist ghost and dark. It has found a more noticeable niche, but beware those fighting types! D:

Username: Hikari10
Favorite Pokemon: Oshawott, Froakie, Sylveon (yeah I love cuties lol)
Experience in competitive battling: Around a year, but I'm still learning!

What's your inspiration and motivation to battle competitively?: My main inspiration to get into the competitive metagame was when I joined the PC battle server around last December (where my current identity there is Daikenki. I was previously also known there as OshyHikari, Hikamaru and Zeddawott among my many names I've used) and I participated in random battles where I managed to bring out the potential in Pokemon I've never even used competitively, plus I want to study the metagame so I can help with team assistance here in the future. Competitive play is something you need to plan and learn to get right, it's like a game of Russian Roulette.

On the topic of nerfs in X/Y, I have to say the Steel-type losing the Dark and Ghost resistance is one of the biggest ones because it gives some Steels like Jirachi, Bronzong and Metagross additional weaknesses, which could hamper their usage yet it now makes some Pokemon have a new strength to not have to rely on stuff like Focus Blast just to get past the average Steel-type. I know that Gengar will become popular in OU as a result since it doesn't have to rely on Focus Blast to hit most Steels for a fair amount of damage, plus Bisharp is finally getting a chance to shine for being the only Steel to still resist Dark and Ghost.

The weather nerf will also hurt a few Pokemon that rely on weather, and it means those playing with weather teams will now have to utilize a new way to make it work effectively. Mega Evolutions are also making a huge impact due to some getting usable abilities and some handy niches. Fairy-type even buffed strong attackers such as Gardevoir, Azumarill and Togekiss giving them new uses. Plus there's a really good new Eeveelution in Sylveon. I know that with all those Fairy-types running around, Dragons will have to play with new strategies since they can't just Outrage spam anymore.

Plus, I'm now happy that Defog has an additional thing going for it. Rapid Spin suffered a huge lack of effective users in OU so giving that same entry hazard-clearing effect to Defog makes clearing Stealth Rocks and the like much easier.

MidnightShine said:

and spore isnt the only nerfed move, any powder move in general can't affect grass types and pokemon which has the safety goggles equipped.

Click to expand...

I also want to point out that Pokemon with the Overcoat ability are also immune to powder moves. At least that now makes this ability set apart from Magic Guard in a way.