Hey all, very long time reader and first time poster here. From what I have read I should be posting here for questions.
I have been playing pokemon video games on and off since the old nintendo hand held days, I got back into it with my daughter with pokemon x/y and now moved onto or/as with my daughter.
We have decided to have a go with the '2015 International Challenge February Online Competition', registered in the competition, but between us we are having problems understanding pretty much everything.
We are still playing x/y as well as or/as and I have no idea what I'm doing, but we hope to enter some online competitions to lose very badly.... but have some damn fun doing so
I never played the original Ruby, so it made sense just to grab this one.
I found serebii a while ago and the pokemon wiki, so I'm reading up as much as I can
Does anyone know how to tell where on earth we get our pokemon from in x/y or/as?
(ie wonder trade, trading etc....)
As it's not allowed to use some in online competitions, and I do a lot of 'wonder trading' to pass time, I find it quite nice to have a gamble and see if I get something I like the look of etc....
What if I wanted to use one that I hatched from an egg, but one of the pokemon I bred with was a from wonder trade?
Have been reading here:
(can't post links) It's the 2015 International Challange rules and regulations.
1. Can we use pokemon from wonder trade in both games?
2. Can we use pokemon we traded with each other in both games?
3. Are we able to transfer pokemon from x/y with poke bank to or/as and use those?
4. Is there a way to find out where the pokemon came from with regards to trading with each other, friends, wonder trade, breeding and what games they were caught in etc.... ?
We are finding it all so confusing and would really appreciate some help and advice for our first online competition
I'm 35, my daughter 13, so if you can point us in the right direction that I 13 year old can understand.... I might even understand it
Cheers
Hey pokebiscuit! Welcome to the forums! You've chosen the right thread to ask competitive questions
I play competitively myself online, but not in real-life tournaments that are held in actual cities. I have a collection of competitive Pokemon and I breed them for other people on this forum. I'm in my 20s and have been playing since Gen I, so I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.
Competitive Pokemon has changed a lot since you've played last. Now that Pokemon is online and connected to Wifi, there is an entire metagame and subculture centered around it. It will take a long time and a lot of practice to completely understand how competitive play works. It's something that you learn by doing, and by watching other people do it. I have found that watching "PokeTubers" on YouTube has helped me out a lot in understanding how certain Pokemon and strategies work together. They will battle online and explain why they chose to do what they did. I personally recommend Haydunn, shofu, and DuncanKneeDeep. However, all of these players are in their 20s, and you will want to be prepared for them to use some curse words every now and then. Just warning you since you have a 13-year-old daughter.
Pokemon now have Natures and Abilities. Natures will boost one stat by 10% and lower another by 10%. There are some neutral natures, but these are never recommended for competitive play. You choose the right nature for your Pokemon based on what it does. For example, Garchomp is a Physical attacker and does not use any Special moves at all. You will want it to have an Adamant nature, which boosts Attack and lowers Special Attack. This is a good choice because you don't use the Special Attack on Garchomp.
Abilities are a key part of competitive play. For example, Espeon has Magic Bounce as its Ability. This makes Espeon a good choice as the first Pokemon to send out in a battle, because at the beginning of battles, most people like to "set up hazards", such as Spikes, Stealth Rock, and Sticky Web. If you have Espeon out, Magic Bounce will bounce all of the hazards back to the opponent. This prevents people from setting up hazards on you.
A Pokemon's base stats (i.e., how powerful it is in HP, Atk, Def, SpAtk, SpDef, and Speed), the moves it has access to, and the abilities it has access to, allow Pokemon to be ranked against each other in usefulness. Pokemon like Dunsparce are completely useless competitively because they are weak in terms of stats, have poor abilities, and few moves that make them useful. Pokemon such as Salamence are very powerful, and so they are used by a lot of players. A website called "Smogon" ranks all of the Pokemon and puts them into tiers based on how many people use them competitively. You will find a list of which Pokemon are in which tiers
here. Most people use Uber, OU, and UU Pokemon competitively online. This list will help you narrow down the species of Pokemon that you will want to focus on using, and will help you figure out which Pokemon you are most likely to face in competitions.
Competitive battling is ALL about prediction. In order to win, you need to get lots of practice so that you know how most Pokemon function within a battle and you know if they are attackers, defenders, hazard-setters, etc. For example, if I see that someone has a Smeargle on their team, I know immediately that it will likely carry Spore, Stealth Rocks, Sticky Web, and an attacking move. Smeargle almost ALWAYS is sent out first, so I will send out my Sableye who has Prankster. Prankster allows all of my non-attacking moves on Sableye to go first, so I move before the opponent. I will use Taunt because I know that Smeargle will probably go for Spore and try to put me to sleep on the first turn. This is also an opportunity to send out either Espeon or Mega-Absol on the first turn if you don't have Sableye, because they have Magic Bounce and Smeargle's hazards and Spore will be bounced back to them. Sending out Espeon or Mega Absol will likely force a switch from the opponent, so you can then predict what they'll switch into and use an attack or a switch yourself to give yourself an advantage.
Lastly, items are important. Items can boost a Pokemon's power or make it really annoying to deal with and hard to defeat. Common items to use in battle are the Choice Scarf, Choice Specs, Choice Band, Air Balloon, Eviolite, Leftovers, Rocky Helmet, Assault Vest, and Life Orb. Of course, there are plenty more that are used, but these are common ones. Items being carried can be predicted as well. If you see an unevolved Pokemon in battle, such as Chansey or Porygon2, it is likely carrying an Eviolite. If a Pokemon uses the same move over and over and it's doing more damage than normal, it's likely carrying a Choice Band or Specs. If the opponent moves before you and he is supposed to be slower even with a +Spe nature and 252 Speed EVs, he's Scarfed.
If you have questions about competitive battling, feel free to ask me here, or PM or VM me. I'm happy to help you out, because competitive battling is really fun!
Now, to answer your questions:
Does anyone know how to tell where on earth we get our pokemon from in x/y or/as?
(ie wonder trade, trading etc....)
As it's not allowed to use some in online competitions, and I do a lot of 'wonder trading' to pass time, I find it quite nice to have a gamble and see if I get something I like the look of etc....
-- Competitively, you can only use Gen VI-born Pokemon in ORAS competitions. The vast majority of people breed their competitive Pokemon, because most Pokemon have really good moves that are ONLY available via breeding. For example, Sableye NEEDS Recover to be useful, and it's only available via breeding. Getting Pokemon from Wonder Trade, the GTS, or even catching them in the wild will not give you the best Pokemon, because in addition to breeding for the right moves, you need to breed for IVs (which are like Pokemon genes) and train your Pokemon to have the right EV spread.
Here is how IVs work: Each Pokemon has 6 stats: HP, Atk, Def, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. Each one of these stats has an invisible number associated with it that is between 0 and 31. This number is called an "Individual Value", or "IV". You CANNOT see this number anywhere. 0 is the worst number and 31 is the best. At level 100, the IV translates to an increase in that stat that the IV is equal to. So for example, if you have a Pokemon with 0 IVs at level 100, it might have an Attack stat of 250, while a Pokemon with 31 IVs in Attack would have an Attack stat of 281 (because 250 + 31 = 281). Obviously, this makes a HUGE difference in battles. The only way to find out what IVs your Pokemon has is to visit the IV judge in Kiloude in XY and the Battle Resort Pokemon Center in ORAS. The IV judge will tell you if your Pokemon's IV is either 0 or 31. If it's 0, he'll say "how can you manage with that kind of [x] stat" and if it's 31 he'll say "The Pokemon's [x] stat can't be beat!" If you want to know what the IVs are outside of 0 or 31, you'll have to use an
IV Calculator. IVs can be bred for. If you want to know how to breed for them, I can write you up a guide.
In order to calculate your IVs, though, you'll need to know your Pokemon's EVs. EVs are earned through battles. You control which EVs your Pokemon gets. Every battle that you fight in-game, whether from a wild Pokemon or NPC, gives you EVs. So, for example, if you fight a Rattata and defeat or catch it, every Pokemon that earns experience from that battle will gain 1 Speed EV. 4 EVs in a stat = an increase in that stat by 1 at level 100. A Pokemon can earn 510 EVs total, with a maximum of 252 in one stat. So you can "max out" 2 stats, and give 6 EVs to another stat (252 + 252 + 6 = 510). 252/4 = 63. So you can increase a Pokemon's stat by 63 points at level 100 if you EV train it the right way. EV training does not take long if you do it the right way (with Pokerus, Power Items, and Hordes). If you want a guide, I'll write one up for you.
To give you an example of how important all of this is when working together, let's compare two Garchomps. One has a beneficial nature (Adamant: + Atk, - SpAtk), 252 EVs in Attack, and 31 IVs in Attack. Another has a poor nature (Modest: +SpAtk, - Atk), 0 EVs, and 0 IVs in Attack.
At level 100, the Adamant Garchomp would have an Attack stat of 394. The Modest Garchomp would have an Attack stat of 238. The properly bred and trained Garchomp has an Attack stat of OVER 100 MORE than the poor one. So, IVs, EVs, and Nature can win or lose you a battle.
What if I wanted to use one that I hatched from an egg, but one of the pokemon I bred with was a from wonder trade?
This does not matter. As long as the Egg is hatched in your XY or ORAS game, it will be Gen VI-born and legal to use in competitions. You will know if a Pokemon is Gen VI-Born and legal to be used in competitions if it has the blue pentagon.
1. Can we use pokemon from wonder trade in both games?
2. Can we use pokemon we traded with each other in both games?
3. Are we able to transfer pokemon from x/y with poke bank to or/as and use those?
4. Is there a way to find out where the pokemon came from with regards to trading with each other, friends, wonder trade, breeding and what games they were caught in etc.... ?
1. Yes, you can use Pokemon from Wonder Trade in both games. XY and ORAS are compatible in every way except for ORAS-only Mega Stones. I recommend that you pay the $5/year for PokeBank - it makes transferring en masse between games very quick and easy.
2. Yes, you can use Pokemon you've traded with each other in both games.
3. Yes
4. Yes. If the Pokemon has a blue pentagon underneath its image when you look at its info, it was born in either XY or ORAS. If it does not have the blue pentagon, it came from Gen V or before. If you bring up the info page on the Pokemon, it will have a tag that says "this Pokemon traveled through space and time to reach you from the [x] region" or something to that effect. That's how you know where it's from.
Let me know if this was helpful and if you need any more advice! Remember, the best way to get good at competitive battling is to just do it, learn what other players do to win, and learn to combat those strategies.
You can find recommended uses for certain Pokemon and recommended natures, EV spreads, and movesets at
Smogon Strategy Pokedex. Start off by looking up some Pokemon recommended by the
Tier List. Smogon is the go-to website for moveset recommendations. Sometimes they will have team recommendations, but if you want advice on which Pokemon work well together, you can visit
PokeBattle Strategy Pokedex. Type in a Pokemon and it will give you recommended teammates.
As a final bit of advice, I cannot stress how important it is to be familiar with what different Pokemon do and what their abilities are. For example, if you have a weakened Mega Manectric out and your opponent sends out a Talonflame, you need to know that while Electric is strong against Flying and Mega Manectric is faster than Talonflame, Talonflame has the Ability Gale Wings and the move Brave Bird. This means that Talonflame's Flying moves have priority, and it will go first and hit you with a 120-base-power Brave Bird before you can attack it. Now your Manectric is dead. What you should have done is predict this and switch into a Pokemon like Ferrothorn. Ferrothorn will not only take the Brave Bird easily because of its high defense and resistance to Flying, but its ability, Iron Barbs, and its item, Rocky Helmet (which is the best item for a Ferrothorn to have) will do massive damage to the Talonflame when it hits you. Plus, the Talonflame takes recoil damage from Brave Bird. Now Talonflame is almost fainted, Manectric is saved, and you haven't even moved yet. However, Talonflame is also a fire-type, and Ferrothorn is 4x weak to fire. You shouldn't stay in and attack Talonflame because it's faster than you now and will just use a Fire move and kill you. The flip-side to this is when you have Manectric out, if your opponent knows you have Ferrothorn, they might predict that switch and take a risky move and use the Fire-move, expecting Ferrothorn to come out. But if you predict that they will do this, you can be risky and leave Manectric in, because you will be faster than Talonflame if it chooses the non-flying move. It's like a complicated session of chess and mind games.
Another example is Clefable. If someone sends out a Clefable, you should know that there is no point in trying to Toxic it because it probably has Magic Guard, which means it only takes damage from attacks and nothing else. And if you have a Clefable, you can use it for prediction - if you know the opponent is about to Burn or Toxic you, then you switch into Clefable on purpose because you won't take damage from the status move.
I hope that helped you get started with competitive battling. Let us know if you have any more questions!