How good are you?

[Sheep]

Be honest. How good would you say you are at competitive battling?

 

[gimmepie]

I'm pretty average, I think. I'm not bad by any means but I'm definitely far from being among the best. I have a tendency to make some dumb mistakes in the moment.

 

[colours]

i haven't actively competitively battled since gen 5, so that probably says enough by itself lol....

 

[RadEmpoleon]

I fell out of competitive battling (I lost all my teams sadly), but even when I played it a lot, I wasn't very good. Because I got into competitive from Youtubers who used primarily gimmicks (primarily WeedleTwineedle), I tried coming up with my own gimmicks for my teams. The difference between me and them is that they have a strong understanding of competitive battling to make the gimmicks viable. I have an average (at best) understanding of competitive battling, so my gimmicks end up being not very viable.

 

[Pokedream.su]

For all my effort, I reach a skill ceiling in competitive battling. During Black and White I played competitive battling on smogon's servers for easily 4-8 hours a day, getting pretty damn good at the game. However, even then, I would BARELY make the cut to be in Smogon's top 100 players in that specific tier at the time. The highest I get got was voting reg to suspect Landorus-I, and I literally just spent all day playing Pokemon to get there.

In contrast, I watch smogon veterans, and they just casually knock out regs in a few hours, they are geniuses at the game.

 

[Nah]

I'm mediocre at best, and my inability to move past that point was why I stopped engaging in competitive Pokemon battles.

 

[Megan]

During gen 6 I spend a lot of time trying to learn as much as possible by looking up all the resources I could find on Smogon as well as by watching good players on Youtube. I could mess around with team ideas and strategies. Never enjoyed battling, though, which was one of the reasons why I stopped.

 

[Sheep]

I'm not even mediocre but outright bad. I get the general idea of what's good and what isn't, and am not absolutely awful at IV/EV distribution, but there are still so many possibilities with competitive battling and I'm really bad at making predictions. Do love me some randbats though! Feel like I'm a bit better at that!

 

[Zeostar]

Insanely inconsistent. I could be playing brilliantly, then the next three turns I play like someone who doesn't know what pokemon is. In Gen 7 OU I peaked around 1600.

 

[gimmepie]

I'm not even mediocre but outright bad. I get the general idea of what's good and what isn't, and am not absolutely awful at IV/EV distribution, but there are still so many possibilities with competitive battling and I'm really bad at making predictions. Do love me some randbats though! Feel like I'm a bit better at that!

Have you tried sample teams to get a feel for things more?

 

[Sonata]

Very middle of the road. I sometimes get up to the leaderboard on the main ladder and other times I can't get out of the 1800 range to save my life. My attention span being so small doesn't really help in that regard either.

 

[LordWayback]

I'm a bit above average in gen6 I have no idea about gen 7 or 8

 

[Dark Azelf]

In gen 4 i got to #1 on every ladder bar ubers (NU, UU, OU) multiple times, RU didnt exist back then. Couple of the smogon guys said i was one of the most underrated battlers back in DPPTHGSS. Never really did tour battles so yeah lol. I innovated several sets in various tiers (Spikes, Rest and Natural Cure Defensive Roserade, Spikes Defensive Pain Split Qwilfish, Wish Defensive Exeggutor etc to name but a few). I also went like 108-5 on OU wifi back then for what its worth. :P https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/team-sucky-tier-stall-final-gen-4-team-peaked-at-1-on-uu-ladder.82993/ https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/nu-rmt-team-i-am-the-walrus-peaked-at-1-on-cap-nu-ladder.67469/

Got to #1 in GSC and RBY back in the day too on pokemon online ladders (this is how old i am lol)

Got to #1 in BW OU, UU also and top 5 in NU. I was also the person who pioneered volt turn (blame me for those annoying af teams) https://www.smogon.com/rmt/archive/volt_turning_my_way_to_the_top
"This team defines Excadrill/Thundurus-era bulky sand offense and made the Volt-Turn strategy popular in BW OU. This team was so influential on the metagame that nowadays when a player uses this team with an Excadrill replacement, which is pretty common, they is said to be using "standard Volt-Turn". Besides popularizing an entire playstyle that was so dominant it even inspired teams in other tiers, Sir Azelf also reached the first spot on the ladder and held it for three weeks. While Volt-turn teams tend to have trouble dealing wit multiple Entry Hazards, Sir Azelf smartly paired his pokemon with the best offensive spinner the OU tier has ever seen, Excadrill. This team was notorious for putting immense offensive pressure on opposing teams due to how powerful Volt-turn was while paired with Sir Azelf's Sand sweepers."

Didnt care about gen 6 or 7 but got to like 5th in gen 6 OU with a mantine, wish delphox, spikes chesnaught and Msableye stall lmao.

This gen been top 5 in NU and PU multiple times when i cba lol. :P

Basically im old af but will go medieval on yo ass and cut you. :D

 

[faf]

I'd say I'm good at comp Pokémon but also am rusty at it too and also on the same boat with being inconsistent with my playstyle. Maybe I might get back into it if there's that spark back.

 

[Arcaneum]

I'm not DA levels of nuts and haven't been for years, but Gen 4 everything but OU was my jam. Placed top 50 consistently in ladders and managed a few top 20s, even managed to actually do well in OU which is a shocker in itself.

The main arrow in my quiver though was Monotype - being in a server dedicated to it, we pioneered its recognition as a Tier on Smogon and lived and breathed it for a very long time.

I think I don't care as much so don't necessarily look at things like speed creeping, min/max damage and the such, but I think I can still hold my ground fairly well. Once I use an actual team and not stupid sets for lols (even though most of the time I seem to do better with them).

 

[Corveone]

I'm basically not :) I only played some casual matches with friends and Showdown battles, but never actually got into the serious competitive scene. I did consider it a couple of times but the amount of time that needs to be spend on breeding and training "perfect" Pokémon and dealing with the absurd RNG ended up boring me and putting me off.

Guess that's probably the reason why I usually look for rom hacks and fan games where I can sort of emulate the feeling of competitive battles but without spending a ridiculous amount of time building a perfect Pokémon team.

 

[Nah]

I did consider it a couple of times but the amount of time that needs to be spend on breeding and training "perfect" Pokémon and dealing with the absurd RNG ended up boring me and putting me off.

Guess that's probably the reason why I usually look for rom hacks and fan games where I can sort of emulate the feeling of competitive battles but without spending a ridiculous amount of time building a perfect Pokémon team.

The grind of in-game breeding and all that isn't really necessary in order to engage in competitive battling, Showdown cuts that all out.

 

[Corveone]

The grind of in-game breeding and all that isn't really necessary in order to engage in competitive battling, Showdown cuts that all out.

Played some Showdown years ago, and it's awesome for those who just want to get straight into the fun part of competitive. But don't get me wrong, I do like training and raising Pokémon, it's part of the fun of building a team and the idea of creating a bond with your Pokémon as you progress through the game, so it's not like I'm expecting to simply have a competitive team created out of thin air. I just wish they made the IV/EV/Breeding part less tedious, archaic, RNG-driven, time consuming, and somehow properly integrate it into the game. Because of course cheats exists and that's how many competitive teams are created, but I'd hate doing it that way.

In the official games you basically have to accept that your in-game team, the one that probably carried you through the whole game, is actually garbage, so once you finished the game and got a few tools to make the process a bit less annoying, you can, finally, start working from scratch on a competitive team.

 

[Syndrome]

In gen 4 i got to #1 on every ladder bar ubers (NU, UU, OU) multiple times, RU didnt exist back then. Couple of the smogon guys said i was one of the most underrated battlers back in DPPTHGSS. Never really did tour battles so yeah lol. I innovated several sets in various tiers (Spikes, Rest and Natural Cure Defensive Roserade, Spikes Defensive Pain Split Qwilfish, Wish Defensive Exeggutor etc to name but a few). I also went like 108-5 on OU wifi back then for what its worth. :P https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/team-sucky-tier-stall-final-gen-4-team-peaked-at-1-on-uu-ladder.82993/ https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/nu-rmt-team-i-am-the-walrus-peaked-at-1-on-cap-nu-ladder.67469/

Got to #1 in GSC and RBY back in the day too on pokemon online ladders (this is how old i am lol)

Got to #1 in BW OU, UU also and top 5 in NU. I was also the person who pioneered volt turn (blame me for those annoying af teams) https://www.smogon.com/rmt/archive/volt_turning_my_way_to_the_top
"This team defines Excadrill/Thundurus-era bulky sand offense and made the Volt-Turn strategy popular in BW OU. This team was so influential on the metagame that nowadays when a player uses this team with an Excadrill replacement, which is pretty common, they is said to be using "standard Volt-Turn". Besides popularizing an entire playstyle that was so dominant it even inspired teams in other tiers, Sir Azelf also reached the first spot on the ladder and held it for three weeks. While Volt-turn teams tend to have trouble dealing wit multiple Entry Hazards, Sir Azelf smartly paired his pokemon with the best offensive spinner the OU tier has ever seen, Excadrill. This team was notorious for putting immense offensive pressure on opposing teams due to how powerful Volt-turn was while paired with Sir Azelf's Sand sweepers."

Didnt care about gen 6 or 7 but got to like 5th in gen 6 OU with a mantine, wish delphox, spikes chesnaught and Msableye stall lmao.

This gen been top 5 in NU and PU multiple times when i cba lol. :P

Basically im old af but will go medieval on yo ass and cut you. :D

I've beaten him at least once so I'm basically the god of battling

 

[Dark Azelf]

I've beaten him at least once so I'm basically the god of battling

Are you smogon user Sprinkles now? :')