CTH Guidelines

Welcome to the Competitive Team Help sub-forum! These guidelines are here to give you a quick understanding of how the forum works, what the rules are, how to make certain threads, and where other threads belong. In this forum you can receive competitive team help. There is also the In-Game Team Help forum for in-game or casual team help. Read below for more information on the differences between the two. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact any of BC's moderators: Wolflare.

[a id]competitiveandcasual[/a id]— There is a fine line between competitive teams and in-game or casual teams.
Teams made for the purpose of winning against another player are considered competitive teams. Some people dislike the competition and complexity of competitive Pokémon and prefer casual battling, which generally ignores the more complicated mechanics of Pokémon (see: EVs, IVs, etc.) and the use of better Pokémon to win. It is common for someone to use their in-game team for casual battling. In-game teams are simply teams that are used for battling AI (aka Artificial Intelligence), which means that battle facility teams are considered in-game teams regardless of how competitive they might be. In-Game Team Help was made for these types of teams, while Competitive Team Help is strictly for competitive play.

— Do not disobey the PokéCommunity Rules.

— Do not make threads solely to ask questions.
Please use the Competitive Team Questions thread instead.

[a id]posting[/a id]— Do not post threads with incomplete teams.
You must list the item, ability, nature, EV spread, and four moves for each of your Pokémon. You may leave a couple of details empty (i.e. two empty Pokémon slots in a six Pokémon team) if you plan on asking for help on them, but please remember that you should be posting mostly complete teams. If you are having trouble deciding whether your team is finalized enough, please ask one of BC's moderators before making a thread.

— Always be willing to take constructive criticism.
Always consider trying out a rater's suggestions, and do not immediately turn them down. Please remember that although you are entitled to keep certain parts of the team unchanged, you must be willing to alter your team for purpose of improving it. Otherwise, there is not much of a reason to post your team here if you do not want help.

— Try to use an appealing, easy-to-read format with useful descriptions.
Making descriptions for each your Pokémon's roles and how the team works in general is very useful for team raters, provided that the descriptions do not include obvious information. If you cannot think of anything to explain about your team, do not bother adding comments. A good layout to use for each of your Pokémon would be:


[a id]rating[/a id]— Do not post rates that are unhelpful to the team owner.
Your rates must include constructive criticism and should be based on fact. Simply pointing out that the team is weak to something does not help the team owner, as they probably know of that weakness already. A team rater's primary job is to suggest changes to fix problems.

— Always explain your suggestions.
Put yourself in the team owner's shoes. Ask yourself questions like "Why should the team owner change this?," "How do my changes help them?," "What are the downfalls to using my suggestions?," etc. This is especially needed for new users; some of which may not know things like why "Pokémon x" outclasses "Pokémon y."

— Do not disregard the team owner's preferences.
If the team owner would rather use only certain Pokémon, rules, etc., try to keep your rate within their criteria. If the team owner expresses that they would rather use certain Pokémon instead of another or that they simply do not want a Pokémon replaced at all, let them. People may use whatever they want. However, team owners must be willing to try suggestions for the purpose of improving their team. It is one thing for team owners to prefer to use certain things in a team, it is another to completely deny every suggestion given.

— Do not rate other people's rates.
You are allowed to respectfully disagree with any rate posted, but remember that this forum is for rating teams, not rating rates. If you think someone else's suggestion is not helpful, rate the team yourself to stay on topic.