Simple Q&A Thread

Vrai said:

Use Timid. Choice Scarf doesn't let it outspeed anything relevant really and it makes for a fairly poor choice user - one of its best qualities is coverage and you're screwing with that by giving it a scarf. At any rate, Specs would be much better if you -had- to choice it; it's already fast enough. Use Thunder and Hydro Pump to abuse the rain the best. Psyshock and/or Recover are probably the best options for the last slot.

Remember to run something to beat Ferrothorn!

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Doesn't Starmie get Trick to screw walls over by giving them Starmie's held Choice item?

Anyway, my own question: How viable is a mixed Emboar and if so, is there a good moveset for that?

what is the best set for a latios on a rain team?

EDIT: i was thinking along the lines of:

latios @ expert belt
4 HP 252 Sp. attack 252 speed
timid

surf
draco meteor
thunder/thunderbolt
psychic/recover/grass knot

Life Orb or Choice item >> Expert Belt if you ask me, seeing as how Dragon, his most powerful move, will only be getting that Expert Belt boost against other dragons. EVs and Nature are fine, and I would suggest a moveset of:

- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- HP Fighting
- Psychic / Psyshock

Without HP Fighting, you are completely walled by Ferrothorn, usually you'd run HP Fire, but since it's weakened, HP Fighting does the same damage, and can hit other things harder (such as Excadrill if needed).

.Aero said:

Life Orb or Choice item >> Expert Belt if you ask me, seeing as how Dragon, his most powerful move, will only be getting that Expert Belt boost against other dragons. EVs and Nature are fine, and I would suggest a moveset of:

- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- HP Fighting
- Psychic / Psyshock

Without HP Fighting, you are completely walled by Ferrothorn, usually you'd run HP Fire, but since it's weakened, HP Fighting does the same damage, and can hit other things harder (such as Excadrill if needed).

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Just saying, but Expert Belt allows you to fake choice and possibly end up beating things that THINK they wall you if you were in fact, locked into choice. It's a bit gimmicky, but quite effective.

Sigilyph's only viable set is his ability to abuse Cosmic Power. Along with the new move Stored Power, the Cosmic Power boosts will allow for him to do both great damage, and tanks hits very well, while simultaneously screwing with the opponent:


Sigilyph@Flame Orb
Timid Nature [+Spe; -Atk]
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 52 Spe
- Cosmic Power
- Stored Power
- Roost
- Psycho Shift

Alllrighty - a Few Battling questions!

Alrighty Guys - I got a few questions that im sure with a few moments i could find answers through searching, but what one forum says, another forum could say otherwise - so I prefer fresh answers. However - please feel free to leave linkage to forum pages leading me to my answers.

Im a pretty hardcore battler, I love training my pokemon, breeding my pokemon, befriending my pokemon, and sometimes I wonder why I never enter a tournament. Anyway - enough of the whole life story thing.

1. I just gave in an bought my first ever Pokedex and Strategy guide, for Black and white, and it doesnt give much detail into certain things, it just skims over it - andleaves you to figure out the rest. So my first question -

When it comes to raising SPECIFIC stats, there is mentioned a large number of ways. 1 - through item holding, 2 - through battling specific wild pokemon 3 - leveling up. 4 - Nutrition drinks.

So - my main issue is faulty. I see a lot of people not taking the time to specificly raise certain stats based on a move set.

So - my example;
Emboar - Level 54
Nature - Impish/Quick to Flee (Defense/Speed)
Moves;
-Defense Curl
- Yawn
- Rollout
- Heat Crash

(dont bash my move set, its my playstyle. )

STATS
.HP 189/189
.ATTACK 152
.DEFENSE 84
.SP ATTACK 107
.SP DEF 86
.SPEED 91

Okay - So my main stats I Want to raise, are his Attack, and Defense. How would I go about focusing a stat boost on those stats ONLY? I dont understand how to control which stats boost indicidually.

Now - when raising a Pokemon, when I battle the elite Four with a EXP share, making him from lvl 1 - up to like level 20 in one go, does that mean the controlled Base stats I could of earned leveling the pokemon manually, are gone forever? or am I able to max a pokemons stat contribution, even at level 100 - by simply battling certain wild pokemon?

can pokemon reach there max potential in stats, BEFORE level 100?

Sorry for the long going message, but theres just somethings a book wont tell me, I need personal experience!

Also - to increase the benefit of Heat Crash - I will be holding an item to increase weight (if there is one, I dont have my book to look :P )

(Thanks for the thread move - sorry for that as well!)

All of the questions individually confuse me a bit, but it seems like the general idea is that you want to EV train (if you don't know what that means, look here.

First of all, it's definitely too late to EV train Emboar. You have to start right away. To pick up on your example, if you hatch a level 1 egg and then run it through the Elite four with the Exp. Share, it will pick up those EVs as if they were wild Pokémon and they're there for good...well, there are berries that can get rid of EVs, but really, it's best to just start over.

To EV in Attack and Defense, you'll want to check out EV training spots. It's best to use ten Proteins and ten Irons first though, as that really saves time. If you don't have the money for them, you can skip it.

Pokémon cannot reach their maximum stats before level 100. You can finish EV training before level 100 though...I'm not sure which you meant, but yeah.

What would you recomend as a Moveset than?

IM a tad confused on how this all works, when i obtain a pokemon, I go through its move list, egg moves, and TM's. and come up with a Visual.

I see Emboar, a Giant pig, throwing its weight around for a main point of attack, thus why I chose Heat crash. the fatter EMboar is, the more power. and I chose Yawn, because I coudl See Emboar being Bored, and a gluttonist similar to snorlax. But idk...If pokemon is all about Mix sets, having each pokemon know moves to counter act differnt effectivness, then thats like trying to make one pokemon, defeat all pokemon. When I look at it like, one pokemon is good vs one or two things, and when something comes out as a weakness, u switch out with somethign that backs its weakness. Feel free to link me again lol.

Haowakeorden said:

Okay, it's not that hard to get the berries if you have access to the Dream World. Just need a little patience in finding them (on other people's Share Shelves) and waiting a few days for them to grow.

For me, the EV reduction berries are an essential part of EV training. In my opinion, simply gaining some unwanted points is not a reason to "just start over".

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Im going to anyway, I want to be precise. I got a lot to learn, and i DONT have access to dream world very often, I play alone with a friend or two, till i feel comfortable with going online, which bugs me even more cause hax :(

I'm just Lost..

Okay okay, I get it. I've played pokemon since i was 8 years old, and on. but NEVER competitively, and the moment i stepped foot into the idea of it - I know im gonna be swamped. So please - explain to me the danged terminology!

Sweepers? Walls? - all these terms popping up, and I dont knwo what they meat, and abbreviations - wheres a danged pokitionary when you need one!

Please link me to something to help me understand better. Because competitive pokemon play is making me feel..useless. I keep seeing htings like "Starter Pokemon are basicly unused at all -" blah blah blah, and if you ask me, every single pokemon has a use competitivley. and every single person who appears with "Well heres why that pokemon fails:" - they fail, because they cease to see that the one single pokemons weaknesses, are backed up by the rest of the team. So if I want a Emboar, with a Punch packing Yawn/Curse/Rollout/__ - telling me all the things wrong with it is pointless, because it's weaknesses are backed up by the pokemon behind him, isnt THAT how its supposed to work? :( Idk..all this is confusing :'(

pockets08 said:

Okay okay, I get it. I've played pokemon since i was 8 years old, and on. but NEVER competitively, and the moment i stepped foot into the idea of it - I know im gonna be swamped. So please - explain to me the danged terminology!

Sweepers? Walls? - all these terms popping up, and I dont knwo what they meat, and abbreviations - wheres a danged pokitionary when you need one!

Please link me to something to help me understand better. Because competitive pokemon play is making me feel..useless. I keep seeing htings like "Starter Pokemon are basicly unused at all -" blah blah blah, and if you ask me, every single pokemon has a use competitivley. and every single person who appears with "Well heres why that pokemon fails:" - they fail, because they cease to see that the one single pokemons weaknesses, are backed up by the rest of the team. So if I want a Emboar, with a Punch packing Yawn/Curse/Rollout/__ - telling me all the things wrong with it is pointless, because it's weaknesses are backed up by the pokemon behind him, isnt THAT how its supposed to work? :( Idk..all this is confusing :'(

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It IS a bit (actually really) confusing once you start competitive battling... I'll start you out with few terms.

Sweeper - Pokemon that try to kill as many opposing pokemon as fast as possible. Physical sweepers use physical attacks, and Special sweepers use special attacks. Mixed sweepers use both physical and special attacks, but you need more careful distribution in EVs (Effort Values).

Entry Hazards - Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and Stealth Rock. They damage pokemon that has just entered a battle.

Wall - Pokemon that try to end opponent's sweep (counter sweepers). They usually have very high defense & Special defense (example: Bronzong).

Tank - Pokemon that can take couple hits and have high attack. They usually have below average to average speed, good defenses, and high attack/Sp. attack stats.

Even though it seems unfair that some pokemon are neglected, they usually have abysmal base stats and/or have useless or hindering ability (ex. Truant).

If you want to know more about competitive battling, go on youtube videos and search competitive battling, or battle in battle tower more often if you want (though sometimes they're gimmicky because of use of OHKO moves, breaking "evasion clause," (Search google if you don't know what this is) etc.)

its alright to be confuse/imitmidated by the competitive battling field,s imply because there is just a lot to learn. so don't worry we've all been there =)

as far as sweepers and wall a go i can try to give a definition for them

a wall is a pokemon who usually has high defense or special defense or both. its main goal is not to attack but to help support your team and give the opponent a little trouble while doing so. a good example of a wall is jirachi especially the special defense variant. this is a wall because it has good typing with not very many weaknesses and it gets access to wish, not to mention its high base stats.

there a 3 main types or sweepers out there.

first there are physical sweepers who are pokeom that specialize in physical moves and have high base attack stats. a pokemon such has haxorus is a good example as one because it is a monster =)

then there are special sweepers, or pokemon that specialize in special attacks. so pokemon such as rotom w and latios qualify because they havea high base sp. attack.

next are mixed sweepers who have high attack and special attack and both those stats can be utilized equally well..

hopefully this makes some sense lol =)

EDIT: also as far as links go smogon.com and serebii.net can be helpful

Vrai said:

You're right! They all do have a use. However, keep in mind that tons and tons of people have played competitively before you and more or less they've narrowed down some of the best ways to use each Pokemon. You can try to be innovative and come up with new ways, but to be completely fair a lot of the 'standard sets', the ones that lots of people recognize to be good and are used a lot, are really good. Movesets like Defense Curl + Rollout... well, while that may seem cool, there are a number of flaws! Firstly, what happens if they switch to a Pokemon that has a 4x resist to Rock when you start using Rollout? You're trapped, and then they can set up Swords Dance with Lucario while you're stuck doing nothing or very little to them. Secondly, Emboar is better off doing other things than boosting its defense with Defense Curl or similar; its stat build strongly leans towards offense, meaning you should try to smash things off the bat with heavy-hitting moves instead of mess around with things like Defense Curl + Rollout.

Everything does have a use, but keeping in mind what I said up there, there are standard sets for everything too. The biggest problem between some Pokemon being called 'useless' is not that they're useless but rather 'outclassed'. There are other Pokemon that do what they do best, better. For example, a very notable example would be the Blaziken-Infernape situation of last gen. They're both very very similar, being built as mixed attackers with good dual-typing and similar movesets, but because Infernape was just fast enough to outpace a lot of things, it was used way more because its speed was just such a huge advantage over Blaziken. Does that make Blaziken bad? No, but it made Infernape better.

It's hard to just 'back up their weaknesses' with the rest of the team. Don't think type weaknesses - everything has those save Drapion with Air Balloon, Spiritomb, Eelektross and Sableye. You have to think in Pokemon vs Pokemon weaknesses. Consider this: Swords Dance Scizor usually uses Swords Dance/Bullet Punch/Bug Bite with either Superpower (or Brick Break) or Roost. Skarmory takes very little from any of those moves and blows away the boosts with Whirlwind. This means that Skarmory is a counter for Scizor; Scizor can't do anything to it! So if your goal is to have Scizor sweep, you'll need a way to kill Skarmory or else you'll risk losing every time you see one. Do you understand what I'm saying?

You want to use Pokemon to their full effectiveness! Remember, standard sets are standard because tons of people have used them and figured out what their best and most effective sets are. If you have any questions about what I said or anything beyond that, don't be afraid to ask; I'll definitely help you out. :3

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Awesome explanation! and now i DO have questions.

The fact that Scissors weak point would be skarmory, so ud want somethign to defend against, well, skarmory - makes sense.

But the "standards" - if i go by the standards, do u suggest simply..Using the standards, because everyone does? Or just as a Basis of Learning to understand what to look for in creating your own "Standard" - Because i hate the idea of pickign pokemon based on what everone else uses, because the chances of me running into somone with the same pokemon, become a little higher.

Ironiclly my favorite pokemon is Scyther. But i hate Scizzor, thus to use my favorite pokemon, I have no choice but to evolve him to use him competitivley.... This saddens me.. lol. but thats okay - I can cope wiht that end of it.

My real fear in all this is Hacked Pokemon...the chance of running into them because AR codes is pretty high, is it not? - also, by having a Hacked pokemon, does that in term take my entire game data, and harm it? I.E. a Hacked Tepig, mate with a Ditto - will i get a hacked up baby tepig?

and i noticed the tutor classes or whatever ont he forum, arent up. So - any links to help me begin to understand Raising pokemon based on using them competitivley, and a standards list so I can see what I shoudl try first.

I actually have to restart my POkemon Game (on accident) so - Im hoping to use Emboar in there somewhere. or another starter to use permanantley.

I don't play on WiFi, but I'm pretty sure that people who use hacks don't harm YOUR game. Some people use *legal* hacks, which some people approve of while others don't. But yeah, hacks aren't something to really be worried about...at least I don't think so.

Vrai covered most of the important things but I want to add on some stuff. First of all, EV training (and also IV breeding/resetting) take awhile. You can test teams on our Pokemon Online Server (there's info on that in the announcement at the top of the CBC forum page) so that you know the team is good before setting out to make it. I definitely recommend that option.

Also, in terms of the whole standards versus favorites issue, that comes up from time to time. My view on it is that when you're new, you're best off using standards just so that you get used to how competitive works...it really is way different than in-game. Once you get the hang of it, you can be more adventurous with what Pokemon and movesets you use, at least to some degree.

Also, if your favorite Pokemon are bad in standard play, you can always try out the UU tier or even lower ones like NU and whatever that fake one they made up under UU but above NU is. The lower tiers at least give some of the less fortunate Pokemon (see: Dustox) a chance to compete. So there's always that.

Buuuut more than anything, it just takes practice. It's really not as hard as it seems at first. I definitely remember being in your position.

oh and

all of your terminology needs