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Playing With Your Favorites

Do you play with your favorites?


  • Total voters
    215

Rhys29

Encore
In this thread I would like to spark discussion of players who use only their favorite Pokemon (I refer to them as prioritized players). To clarify, these are not players who like a large variety of Pokemon, nor players who use their favorites and are equally open-minded, or even players who like Pokemon that are already incredibly good, but players who only use outclassed Pokemon like Flareon or Raichu solely based on looks or other random reasons. This is NOT a hate thread and in no way am I attempting to bash prioritized players. I would like those posting in this thread to post if they play with their favorites or not and explain why. Because quite frankly, I'm curious about each and every one of you and knowing why you make your decisions is intriguing.

First, I would like to explain some a thing or two to those who DO play with their favorites. Though this may be insulting at first, I do have reasons to back what I say and I still want to hear more explanations of how you choose your Pokemon. What I state does not apply to all prioritized battlers.


There is a reason a lot of competitive players will tell you to forget about using your favorites when it comes to competitive battling. I am one of them. While the entire premise of the game is designed to let the player succeed with their favorites, that is not how competitive works. Furthermore, I note that, on average, players who use only their favorites are less-effective battlers than those who don't. Why?

- From the very start, you are limiting your options. I feel the best thing about the Pokemon games is that there is so much variety. When you say you are only going to use your favorites, you are immediately secluding yourself to a handful of Pokemon and focusing only on those. Though individually, the sets you use for teams can be creative, the general strategies are bland or ineffective as you have to cater to your limitations.

- Players who use only their favorites generally ignore better options. Even though Heracross is exponentionally better than Pinsir, these players would still use Pinsir, the sole reason being they prefer Pinsir aesthetically. This is like saying you'd rather walk three hours to work/school instead of driving 20 minutes because you like to walk, or declining an upgraded plane ticket because you prefer 3rd class, or declining an inflated basketball at a game because you like the feel of a deflated ball in your hands, or even saying no to free money because you like how much cash you have in your wallet/bank account at the moment. Quite frankly, every reason I've heard defending prioritized players when I've touched upon this subject were only excuses.

- Through forums and live engagement with prioritized players, I have noticed a pattern of difficulty with adaptivity and/or improvement. If you use certain Pokemon exclusively, you will have issues when you run into specific threats or metagame shifts. At the same time, since players are only using their favorites, lack of exploration tends to leave their growth stunted since the players only know how to use specific Pokemon. Usually when I run into someone who plays in a closed circut (only plays with a group of friends), they believe certain Pokemon/sets are an arm and head above everything else. When a suggestion is made contradicting this, nearly none will respond with open minds or logical discussion. Instead, I tend to hear stories about poorly designed teams being crushed by a threat that they have no answer to. Since they don't move outside their comfort zone, their issues are rarely resolved and are usually done so by banning things which have no reason to be banned in a general competitive standpoint.
Some argue competitive battlers go down a similar road by banning things from tiers, such as Garchomp. However, they fail to realize general competitive battlers will use any and every mean to find an answer to a problem and when there is none, that is when a decision is made. Prioritized battlers simply don't want to face the problem because losing with your favorites a horrendous number of times makes the game no longer fun.

There is a complete flipside to all of this logic. While prioritized players do have downsides, there are upsides to them as well.

- I believe the tier system would not be what it is today without prioritized players. Beyond Ubers and OU (disregarding BL), the tiers are filled with Pokemon that would see very little use if it wasn't for the fact players wanted to use them. UU and LC are prime examples of this: you will never see things like Croagunk or Blastoise making metagame shifts or threatening one of the higher tiered Pokemon's place on the usage ladder, yet in their respective tiers they are viable candidates. Not to mention these tiers have plenty of candidates to choose from, which from a general standpoint makes them more dynamic. Even though I am a strict OU battler whenever I do battle, playing the lower tiers was a fun and exciting experience. Within the competitive battling game, there are more than 4 actual games to train, explore, and enjoy. For this, you can thank those who are dedicated to finding a place for their favorites. They are not necessarily the #1 reason these tiers exist, but they most certainly help them thrive.

- Prioritized players may not know this, but from what I have seen on average, they enjoy the game more than the average non-prioritized player. When I play against people at Nintendo and use my favorites, I enjoy it the most simply because it's fun too watch Nidoking work as a powerhouse sweeper. Without the pressure to use the strongest and best Pokemon, it's refreshing to use what you want to use. It's luxury over efficiency. Though currently I have a single tutee, I do suggest to everyone I give advice to play with your favorites every once in a while. It keeps most players playing the game longer and opens their mind to more creative ideas, as some players work very hard to use their favorites efficiently. And to those who only play one or two of their favorites that sit in OU: try it. You may enjoy yourself.

- If players only focused on the Pokemon that excell, we may not know as much about competitive as we do now. Whenever Smogon opens up the floodgates for analyses, almost everyone goes for their favorites while the common Pokemon are generally left for top players to mop up. If only metagame important Pokemon received attention like this, odds are we wouldn't know much about Pokemon like Leafeon. Players have made effective and plausible strategies for Traunt Durant, and that's saying something. Though prioritized players may not necessarily be the cause for research like this, their support for their favorite Pokemon goes a long way to promote this.

~ ~ ~​

Hopefully this sparks a bit of discussion. Once again, this is not a bash thread. Everyone is entitled to their own style of gameplay and no one can say otherwise.
 
When I'm playing a serious game, such as a gym battle or if I'm trying to ladder I'll use the most powerful things I can regardless of how much I like them. If I can I use things like Sigylph, Skarmory and Tentacruel because I love them, but that doesn't take priority over actually playing well if the time calls for it.

But most of the time I play casually with gimmicks and weird stuff (**** off xtra, you will never beat team FIGHT). In the end Pokemon is just a game and it isn't really meant to be played competitively to the extent it is.
 
what i tend to do for any battle is mix my favorites in with pokes that complement them. I prefer using my favorites just because theyre what im most comfortable with, and i know what they can take and how to use them best. Pokes that are "better" for competitive battles, but i dont really like....i tend to not use them. Since i dont use them much, i dont know what they can take and so i kinda mess up with them.
 

windsong

WEST SIDE
lol bh you like the weirdest mons. Seriously if you're listing your favorites there should be at least ten cutemons....


Anyways, I play with gimmicky stuff when I can afford to, like my favorite stall team back in gen four (lanturn stall **** YEAH), but in general when playing important matches I usually use solid teams. When laddering, I'm just one of those players who loads a stall team then basically plays autopilot.

Honestly, in my view, playing with favorites really has no place in competitive. For example, there's a couple players I know (iirc that guy who uses milotic on all his teams has an account here) that use a specific pokemon on every team, and imo that's ridiculously limiting, especially if it's something that doesn't fit well onto every type of team, and thus doesn't allow players to adapt at all.
 
I tend to use my favorite, But I build my team around it, plus, my favorite is beast anyway, it works on my Scrafty team perfectly
My favorties are
1 Reuniclus
2 Lucario
3 Haxorus
4 dunno

If you look at my teams, Only one of them is on there
 

GOLDENCRS

I'm a f***** Ponyta
Most of my favorites are in the OU tier, so I don't have to worry much. Although some are not synergetic or whatever that is, some of the teams do ok, or that might just due to me not being the best battler.
 

kaiser soze

Reading ADWD
Of course I play with my favorites! Tyranitar, Garchomp, Thundurus, Excadril, Ferrothorn, Lati@s, and Scizor FTW!!!

I try to fit in some pokemon I like into competitive teams every so often. Or I just use it in-game.
 

ShadowSplash

Spring is Coming!
For getting through the game, I make do with what I have.

For competitive battling, I use my favorites. And I still win.
 

cdawg3574

I DO THIS SH*T!!!!!
My all time favorite? scizor. and I'm talking back during GSC gen, before liking scizor was cool. I've also always been partial to the fire starters, (charizard too) and starmie. I have a preference for power though. I mean, who watches National geographic to see the antelope?
 

irock245

She wants it
Mostly the pokemon i use tend to turn out as my favorites, but some i liked off the back from just their sprite before i went competitive. Mostly lucario and infernape.
 

WeatherEffectRain

Arm Wrestle?
I myself find that if I use a good competitive team for a while, those Pokemon grow on me. I absolutely despised Reuniclus when it came out, but I've used it on two teams knowing how good it is, and thus it falls into the "These Pokemon are cool" bin. Conkeldurr, Tyranitar, Haxorus, the list goes on.

Of course I like to use my absurd favorites too. I recently uploaded a RMT. It had Slaking. Guess what? I was winning battles, especially after the couple fixes. Just because someone rejects something doesn't mean it's not usable; I used Slaking as a Revenge Killer, and to great success, especially seeing as people forget that Base 160 Atk and 150 HP I work off of. The only problem I saw was Protect. Obvious, yes, but that's what the other team's for. I'm using it as my current team. Oh yeah, and to great success.

Although not everything is good; I quite like Flygon, Aerodactyl, Tentacruel, Nidoking, Gardevoir, Octillery, Ninetales etc., but I'd never make a team using them. Okay, I've use them before, but not to much use. Favorites I feel are better used in little, as a team consisting of Rhyperior/Tyranitar/Crustle/Golurk/Houndoom/Torterra isn't going to get very far.(Newer favorites of mine by the way, quite the list) It's perfectly exceptable if you find a spot that your favorites can fit into for use, but don't over-do it is my thoughts on it.
 
There's nothing wrong with using your favorites. You cannot force me to use a Pokemon I do not like. Most of the Pokemon I use are either weak, mediocre or NU. Buttt most of the overrated ones I dislike.

Garchomp... I've never used one but it's popular. That doesn't mean I'm going to chose it over say... Dugtrio which is a favorite of mine. And she gets the job done just like the other overrated Pokemon.

Here's one that comes to mind when talking about battling with your favorites. People will tell me NOT to use Gothitelle when battling. Buuuut she's my absolute favorite Pokemon. I mean she's in my avatar. I know that Reuniclus and Beheeyem are better when it comes to offense, but I don't like them and Musharna never really appealed to me and neither did Siglypth. Plus I would never use a flying Pokemon against fighting types. Swoobat kinda appealed but... I don't like the flying combo.

Anyways, I'm using a Reuniclus and Beheeyem on my Dialga team and while they have good spattks, they are slow and I always get KO'd BEFORE using my monstrous attack because of their low defense. I wont use em in Random Match up. I just wont, no matter how much you shove in my face that they will always be better than my favorite.

In short, I use favorites over popularity contests. I can do as good as anyone with a OU Pokemon. I have even beaten OU Pokemon with my NU Pokemon.
 

Fracktail

Active Member
I tend to hate the popular pokes to explore other options before I have to use them. My theory behind it is since pokemon x is popular every team with be made to kill that pokemon which is why I use different pokes than popular OU ones like Jellicent. And usually if you use your favorites you know how to use them very well. Someone that has played with their favorites for months might have the upper hand against someone that changes his or her team every hour because that person taht plays favorites knows the bounds of his or her. Where as the competitive battler is always experimenting and does not know what is dangerous to his team.
 

emboarrocks

#1 emboar fan
My favourite pokemon is Emboar so I'm considering playing in RU.
 

ParaChomp

be your own guru
Shuckle, mine doesn't have Defence Curl nor Rollout so it's not that great. Mewtwo is uber so I can't use it. I have to EV train a new Lucario.
 

homestarhydon

Battle Fanatic
It's interesting that you brought this up, because I've thought about this a lot. Once I started battling competitively, I find myself liking certain pokemon simply because I've used them well. I find enjoyment in using solid OU pokemon, but I also enjoy using UU pokemon if they have a competitive niche in OU. There are very few pokemon that I dislike aesthetically or as "individuals", so their competitive value is mostly what I base my favorites on (With a few exceptions. I LOATHE ferrothorn.)
 

spuds4ever

Well-Known Member
I think the important thing about pokemon is keeping it a game it's supposed to be fun and many players try to get the most out of it by using their favourites. Personally, I use my favourites when I can but when it comes to competitive battling I won't be stubborn to remove them.

I think players should be allowed to choose how they play but if they want to keep favourites which aren't the best, then they shouldn't ask for help.
 
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