Competitive Pokemon Battling Guide

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Introduction

If you have been playing Pokemon since your childhood, you might find Pokemon game gets easier and not as challenging as it is used to be (or like me, I simply can’t afford NDS and 3DS). But there is a competitive side of Pokemon, where people use their perfect level 100 specially trained team againts opponent’s perfect team, and the result is a great battle that involves a lot of strategy. If you are tired of battling weak Elite 4 over and over again, I suggest you try competitive battling too. In this guide I mainly use Pokemon Showdown. A place where you can built your dream team and then immediately fight opponents, you don’t need to EV train or breeds 1000 Pokemon to get the perfect IV. Just build your team, and enjoy :)

Tier

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Probably this is a new concept if you previously only played the game. Basically, legend or not doesn’t matter. There is a balanced separation made by Smogon. If you met someone who use Zapdos and you use Blaziken, your team is stronger than him even though Zapdos is a legendary Pokemon. Zapdos is OU meanwhile Blaziken is Uber, what is the meaning of those terms? There are several classification of Tier, but here is some of them:

  1. Uber
    Basically Uber means outstanding, strong, or supreme. Some Pokemon are wayyy too strong for usual battle, so those overpowered Pokemons get placed here, A lot of Pokemon here is legendary Pokemon such as Arceus, Giratina, Dialga, Palkia, etc. But that doesn’t make other Pokemon fall into that list. If a Pokemon stomp everyone then they might be placed here. Some notable Pokemon Naganadel, Aegislash, Mega Lucario, and Landorus.

  2. OU
    OU means “Over Used”. This is the most common tier played, A lot of Pokemon placed here and a lot of people play this tier. A lot of kinda strong Pokemon is here, Say.. Jirachi, Mega Latias, Mega Charizard, Excadrill, Ferrothorn, etc. If a Pokemon perform too well on OU, they might be thrown to Uber, but if they are not strong enough to play in OU, they might be thrown to UU.

  3. UU
    “Under Used”. Not as common as OU but they are pretty good, however they are outclassed by OU Pokemon. Some Pokemon here are: Houndoom, Mega Aerodactyl, Chandelure, Celebi, etc. Just because a Pokemon is in UU doesn’t mean they can’t be played in OU. You can use them, but you can’t use OU Pokemon in UU team. Your team can consist of many Pokemon from different tier but your team will be using the highest tier. So if you have 5 UU Pokemon and 1 Uber Pokemon, your team will be Uber tier.

  4. NU
    This one means “Never Used”. There are so little people who used Pokemon from this tier, probably because they are outclassed by other Pokemon. For example Charizard is better than Rapidash and Magnezone is better than Voltorb. But this tier can be refreshing since you can use Pokemon that you probably like but don’t perform too well in higher tier.

There are a lot of other tier as well such as RU and PU. And there are also fun tier such as Metronome, Battle Factory, Random Battle, etc.

IV, EV, and Nature

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If you only play in-game casually probably you don’t know about this. Because level 80 Charizard with Flamethrower, Blast Burn, Ember and Fly can defeat anyone. But there is a thing that can make your Pokemon stronger. Ever wondered why when you catch the same Pokemon with same level can have different stat? Here is the explanation

IV

Means Individual Values. When you catch a Pokemon it has hidden stat ranging from 0 to 31. This can increase the stat a little bit but sometimes it plays a huge factor in battle. If your Pokemon has just 1 less speed, then opponent can attack you first. If you use Pokemon Showdown you can set all of your Pokemon to 31 anyways. But if not, you have to breed soooo much Pokemon to get the perfect one. I tried to breed Eevee once, Out of 3 box filled of Eevee only 1 has good IV.

EV

Effort Values. When your Pokemon defeat certain Pokemon it will raise its stat upon leveling up depending on the Pokemon defeated. So if you defeat a lot of Machamp, your Pokemon’s Attack will raised significantly upon leveling up. EV range from 0 to 252. You can have maximum of 510 EV combined from all of your stat. So if you have Landorus and you want to hit hard, set the Atk to 252, Speed to 252, and Special Defense to 4. You technically have 6 point to spare after max 2 stat but only 4 points of those 6 will affect the stat.

Nature

Nature increase a stat by 10% and decreasing other stat by 10%. Using Landorus from example above, we want our Landorus to have stat that increase its Speed to outspeed other Pokemon but decrease its Special Attack because he is a physical attacker.

Stat Modifiers

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One of the huge things I learnt is about stat modifier. You should understand them well especially if your team require some setup like Sword Dance, or Calm Mind. For me, this is very important because the game doesn’t tell you how much stat it raised.

Take a look at the description of Sword Dance from the game: A frenetic dance to uplift the fighting spirit. This sharply raises the user’s Attack stat. And Belly Drum: The user maximizes its Attack stat at the cost of half its full HP.

You might think that it is descriptive enough. But they don’t explain how much stat it raised, or maybe how many Sword Dance you should use until it you get the same effect from Belly Drum.

You can raise your stat until +6. Some move increase it by +1, +2, or even +6. This is how we can know how much stat it raised. Sword Dance is +2 stat modifier meanwhile Belly Drum is +6, from that information we know that 3x Sword Dance equals 1x Belly drum.

Alright, still with me? Each +1 multiply your stat by 1.5x and it added cumulatively. That means +1 is 1.5x, +2 is 2x, +3 is 2.5x, all the way untill +6 is 4x. Phew, that’s a lot of numbers.

Team Building

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This is what we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? Team Building is essentially the most important aspect of playing competitive Pokemon battle, I might be not the best Showdown out there but here is the basics of team building.

Core

Every team starts with a Core, or Cores. It is basically what the team built around for, some examples are:

Rotom-W + Scizor - Rotom-W could take fire moves for Scizor and Scizor could take grass moves for Rotom-W. One is physical attacker and the other one is special attacker. This is a great core and they compliment each other.

Azumarill + Charizard X - Ferrothorn - These Pokemon is 3 basic types and they can protect each other. Charizard X could clean everything after dragon dance, Azumarill will destroy anything after Belly Drum, Ferrothorn is super bulk and can tank everything (Well, of course not fire moves but we got Zard X and Azumarill for it)

Anything You Like - You could start with one Pokemon, probably anything you like then you can patch up their weakness by another Pokemon until you got a fully working team. For example maybe you love Landorus-T because it is a super strong physical attacker, now you need a Pokemon that has water and ice resistant. And you go on and on until you finished your team.

Hazard Setter

A lot of team has a Pokemon that has access to hazard (such as Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes, Spikes). These Pokemon usually lead the battle because it is good to set up hazard earl to discourage enemy from switching also to discourage enemy to use their Charizard or Volcarona. Some excellent hazard setter is Landorus-T, Clefable, Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Greninja, Tentacruel, Tyranitar, and Heatran.

Hazard Control

Almost every team has hazard setter so if you don’t have a Pokemon to clean them, your team in a massive disadvantages. Especially if enemy use Toxic Spikes then stall, or Stealth Rock when you got Charizard/Talonflame, or Sticky Web when you have a lot of Pokemon with high speed.

This is why Pokemon with one of these moves is needed. A good Defogger is the one that doesn’t affected it by too much. For example, Talonflame is a bad Defogger because Talonflame’s health is decreased by 50% when hit by Stealth Rock so it can’t switch in and out to remove hazard reliably. On the other hamd, Latias is a good Defogger because it doesn’t weak to Stealth Rock, also it has Levitate as her ability so she is immune to Spikes or Toxic Spikes.

Some excellent Defogger are: Mandibuzz, Scizor, Crobat, Dragonite, Empoleon, Gliscor, Latias, Latios, Mew, Salamence, Skarmory, Togekiss, Zapdos, Flygon.

And some excellent Rapid Spinner are: Starmie, Excadrill, Mega Blastoise, Donphan, Forretress, Tentacruel.

Revenge-Killer, Late-Game Sweeper, Wallbreaker

Sweeper is a term for a Pokemon that can clean enemy’s weakened team. Usually it has either priority moves or high speed to attack enemy first and hard and clean every single Pokemon on enemy’s team. An example is Scizor, after it Sword Dancing several times, it could sweep enemy with Bullet Punch. Another example is Volcarona, after it use Quiver Dance several times, it could sweep everything.

Revenge killer is the Pokemon used to stop sweeper. They came in after their teammate’s dead to revenge-kill opponent’s Pokemon, hence the name, For example, enemy has Mega Charizard X and it’s already Dragon Dancing 3 times. Now you got a mad Charizard that has +3 attack and +3 speed, how do you kill it? You can use Ditto with Choice Scarf. After Ditto copy Charizard, now you got yourself a Mega Charizard X with +3 attack and +4 speed! You can just Dragon Claw opponent’s Charizard to defeat it, and you move first because you have more speed. A lot of Revenge killer is a Pokemon with Choice Scarf so it has very high speed to kill opponent’s Pokemon, like Scarfed Kartana, or Scarfed Nidoking.

Wallbreaker is a Pokemon that has high Attack or Special attack so it is used to defeat opponent’s Pokemon in 1 hit. For example Mega Medicham, it has superb Attack and mostly can defeat any Pokemon in 1 hit, it could broke enemy’s Pokemon that even has high defense. Also Specs Latios, it can use Draco Meteor to defeat enemy into oblivion.

Building Thought Process

  1. I will go for Rotom-W + Scizor cores because I love Scizor (Bullet Punch/Bug Bite + Technician + STAB hurts so much). Scizor has a great typing (it only weak to fire, but it resist 8 type and immune to 1 type). Scizor can be countered by Heatran, Charizard, and Volcarona but we got Rotom-W to cover that weakness :)

  2. After we decided what Pokemon we starts with, let’s think about Scizor moveset. There are several Scizor’s Moveset, one of the most popular one is Choice Band Set, and several people use Scizor as a Defogger too. But I want my Scizor to be the centre of this team and also as a wall so I use the Mega set.

  3. Scizor Mega is bulk as hell, so I want to maximize that bulkiness by using a defensive set with EV spread that add some HP and SDef because he is already has a TON of def.

  4. Some people like their Scizor to revenge kill with bullet punch or as a pivot with U-turn because rotom can Volt Switch. That’s pretty good but I want to utilize that bulkiness and his strong STAB + Technician so I went for SD + Roost set because I could SD-ing while getting a lot of hit from the opponent and then Roost until I am ready to sweep the opponent.

Scizor (F) @ Scizorite
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Atk / 216 SpD
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Roost
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite

  1. Then after we got Scizor time to set up Rotom-W. There are several popular set too, like Pain Split or Will-O-Wisp, on this team I want to use the Specs one (or Scarf, if you prefer). This set up could shut down annoying Pokemon so they are locked to one move, or you could just keep the specs to hit enemy hard.

  2. For EV spread, if you go for Specs then I want to maximize SpA because my SpA will be multiplied, and I probably want to go for max HP because more bulkiness is a good thing. But if you want to go for Scarf then probably it is good to dump some EVs to speed. I go for 128 HP, 128 Spe, and 252 SpA on my old Scarfed Rotom-W

  3. For move, you could switch the HP Fire to Thunderbolt for some extra power. But I like HP Fire to take care of some Pokemon that weak to Fire move like Ferrothorn or Scizor

Rotom-Wash @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Fire]

  1. Volt Switch on slow Rotom-W can give us a free switch to a Pokemon, I choose Tyranitar because I just saw an AV Tyranitar set and I am interested in using it because super effective special move will just tickles it. Sandstorm will boost rock type Pokemon Sp. Def and AV will boost it further, this is why AV Tyranitar is a great Special Wall.

  2. Tyranitar could provide this team with coverage to common OU threats such as Lati@s, Talonflame, Garchomp, Heatran, Landorus, and many more. This set is created to cover as much as type possible.

Tyranitar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Ice Punch
- Earthquake
  1. My team can’t deal with fighting type and I don’t have any hazard setter. I think Landorus is a great Pokemon for this. It resist fighting, and has Intimidate. It also has great typing (it is weak to ice and water), it resist fighting and several other type, also immune to ground and electric! Landorus is a great Pokemon for OU overall.
Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Defog
- U-turn

  1. At this point my team have 3 physical attacker and only 1 special attacker. Now I want to add 1 more special attacker to balance it out.

  2. I am always interested in Steel/Fairy typing because fairy is weak to steel and poison but the steel typing makes it resist and immune to it, teh fairy type also makes it immune to dragon. And my team doesn’t have any fairy Pokemon so I think it is good to include one. I choose Magearna because it hits hard and can become late-game sweeper.

Magearna @ Steelium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Flash Cannon
- Aura Sphere
- Thunderbolt
  1. I think my team lacks fire type so I can’t fight steel and grass type and I can’t really touch Venusaur-Mega because it has Thick Fat ability. So I think I need Fire/Flying such as Talonflame.
Talonflame @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Roost

After Team Building

After you created your dream team then you can fight other people. But a team can’t be perfect so you need to know your own team weaknesses. For example after several battle I just realized that I only have Talonflame to fight Venusaur-Mega so if Talonflame fainted, Venusaur-Mega completely walled my team. Or maybe Swampert-Mega completely walled my team because I don’t have Grass move. The list is long so you had to fight a lot of people to know your team’s threats.

Here is the team before and after.

By the way these are some replays:

  • 6-0 Magearna Sweep - http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-741405651
  • Can’t Seem To Win, Then Magearna Open The Way - http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-760346191
  • Tyranitar Ice Punching Everyone - http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-760307482
  • Scizor Cleaning Up Late Game - http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-761866069
  • The Team After Revision - http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-761883330
  • Tyranitar Doing a Lot of Work - http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-767256373
  • Lose - http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-760304664
  • Tyranitor Close the Game - https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-883790303

Reference

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A Beginner’s Guide to Competitive Pokemon Battling Introduction To Competitive Pokemon
A Guide to Entry Hazards
AV Tyranitar Set Belly Drum - Bulbapedia
Competitive Battling Basics
IV, EV & Nature
Magearna
Sweepers vs. Wallbreakers vs. Revenge Killers Sword Dance - Bulbapedia
USM Random Battles Role Compendium