Popular Post OrangeManiac Posted September 9, 2015 Popular Post Share Posted September 9, 2015 Alright, I decided I should make a somewhat how2comp guide but I didn't know exactly how to approach it. So I decided the best way to approach is by listing some mistakes I have seen inexperienced players doing and telling why those things they are doing are either not beneficial or straight out preventing them from winning. This is 100% opinionated guide but you're more than free to comment if you think my logic at times is flawed or just have anything to add relating anything. If there's a certain mistake or misconception you have been seeing then feel free to add it in the comments. I've been ending up in multiple conversation with some newer players and especially these misconceptions are something that I feel like majority if not all newer competitive players have, for one reason or another. Meanwhile the biggest mistakes people do in competitive battle are just points I have discovered while battling in Vermillion or just spectating some duels while as experiencing them myself: when I have got rid of some of these mistakes I have been doing, my winning rate has been increasing by a lot. Without further ado, let's get this started.The biggest misconceptions relating to competitive play There is an universal formula to build a good competitive team - By far, the biggest and most common misconception relating to competitive play. I've ended up in discussions relating to this way too often and have got even called a bad player for "not having a physical wall" in my team, for example. The common conception is that you need a Pokemon of "every role" to have a good balanced team and being able to win. The most usual conceptions of this could be something like "You need to have 1 Special sweeper, 1 physical sweeper, 1 mixed sweeper, 1 physical wall, 1 special wall, 1 cleric/utility" and when your team is lacking one of these things, it's not a well built team. Although it is true that variety definitely will help and oftentimes good team builds have this kind of a formula more or less. It is nice to have bulky switch ins to sweepers that can scare them away as well as it is good to have fast sweepers to clean the table and cause pressure to opponent. However, the biggest meter to reflect your team build is the metagame. Back in the old OU where Blissey and Lax, the well build defensive team protected all each other with the correct switch ins making some of the defensive cores unbreakable by the most used offensive Pokemon. An example for this is running Weezing with Blissey and Snorlax that counters Heracross which is a major threat to these Pokemon. People didn't run Weezing because "it's a physical wall, you need one", it's because it helped their team. A 6 wall team could have easily been victorious in the old OU, while bringing 6 walls to current NU would just ask you to be getting 6-0d. The real diversity that you need in battles to live: Typings. Having as diverse typings and especially making sure are not weak to a certain type too bad defensively is much more important than having those certain roles for a Pokemon. Much more important. However, another smaller misconception is that you absolutely can't run two same types in one team, not to mention three. You can do both, but make sure your rest of the team resists their weaknesses. IVs are a significant factor determining a winner of a competitive battle - Also a really common one. A lot of players do not want to join tournaments with IVd Pokemon that are not in the standards of all people, which is completely respectable - I do understand you want to maximize your winning with having good IV Pokemon and not go too early to tournaments with trash. It's completely respectable. However, it is still important to acknowledge those things don't determinate the winner of a match. The difference between a 20 IV and a 31 IV Pokemon is so minimal that your teambuilding, selection of moves in the battle and RNG has dozens if not hundreds of times more effect on the duel than the Pokemon you have. The reason why experienced players are winning is because of their experience they have, not comps. Anyone of them can confirm this. So I'm not saying you should join tournaments with IVd Pokemon you're not comfortable with but you should at least acknowledge the difference they give is usually just some couple of percentages. However, the only time the 31 IV is oftentimes really helpful or even required is Speed Stat. Especially with fast sweepers the 31 IV can be a matter of having your Pokemon attack first and KO the opponent or getting KOd yourself. You can try yourself: http://pokemonshowdown.com/damagecalc/ A Pokemon that is not used can not be good (or more so: a threat to your team) - This is more intermediate level of misconception. I've seen even good players doing the mistake of thinking of this. Usually there are reasons why a Pokemon isn't used, good reasons for it. However, especially if the metagame changes it is especially a good time to use a not that used Pokemon. A Pokemon that we considered possibly "bad" such as Umbreon and Porygon2 don't have that same image anymore now that the fatsos are banned and they're used instead. But this applies to other things. Finding niches to support your team even from how low of a tier can oftentimes be working well and even be fun. The biggest mistakes done in competitive battling Thinking just switching the right type advantages will give you the win - Let me start out with the most beginner one. This is basically the very basic Vermillion-ism (no offense to Vermillion players, some of you are good) which is basically just making the safe type advantage switches every turn and expecting to win. When you're facing even slightly more experienced player they already find this out and use strategies such as double switches to gain the momentum from the inexperienced player. ... but also thinking playing straight-forward is always nubbish - A mistake I used to a lot of times before when playing against known good players. I expected them constantly do all kinds of experienced prediction plays, I often just overpredicted myself with often even terrible plays when the experienced opponent decided to go for the simple play. Always keep the risks and rewards in mind. Doing too much stuff on paper - The way I got my best working teams was battling, battling, battling and more battling. When I discovered there's a Pokemon that causes a problem to my team, I replace one with something that counters or at least checks it. A lot of times you don't know how good is your team until you really have played with it. Not looking at the match as a whole - The most common and the most destructive mistake to make as a competitive player, which is usually common for new players. An example of this is that let's say you're facing a Jolteon and you realize it tears down 3 out of 6 Pokemon easily and can sweep 5 out of 6 Pokemon in a right situation and you have a one hard counter to it. If you're not saving your counter to that dangerous Pokemon until it's down, you will be in a lot of trouble. A lot of times new players just think for the next turn and think "hey, I can make a Pokemon faint so I'm leading 5-4" and they possibly give up their main counter to something just for a momentary good feeling and later they realize they're doomed. Player should not just think about the next 3-4 moves but the whole match how it will come down to and not just think about this moment and the next move. Not maximizing your chance to win - This is the most experienced level stuff. Pokemon is a RNG filled game. RNG happens, like it or not. An example of maximizing your chances of winning is for example seeing a situation where you could set up against a 3 turn sleep, paralyzed, confused Pokemon with good RNG. Even though by chances it could be unlucky, sometimes the best way to win a hopeless match is try to achieve RNG help with something like this. An example would be a Dragon Dance sweeper like Gyarados and you might think: "Hmm, if I paralyze this Pokemon I have 25% chance of not getting hit by paralyze or 20% chance with Waterfall to flinch in order to beat this counter and to proceed to sweep a team". Even though in a situation you might seem unfavorite to win, in a hopeless match trying to get the RNG help to win is something that will increase your long rate win ratio by a lot. Another side of the coin is realizing your opponent can beat you with certain RNG happening and making sure this unlikely event won't completely make you lose the match. Not caring about the metagame when movesetting Pokemon - I felt I needed to add one more common mistake to the guide which is quite common. Even though I did say underestimating Pokemon that are not used it is generally a not good thing to do but when you're building movesets for Pokemon it is really important to acknowledge the metagame and the powerful threats in the tier. An example of this could be running Air Cutter instead of Flamethrower with an utility Wall-taria (dem puns) when a Pokemon like Scizor is being #1 used Pokemon in UU tier. When these two moves have similar power and coverage, it would be stupid to not consider a top threat like this with a 4x effective move. There are multiple other cases like this as well but every move should always be thought out and have a reason why it is there other than "it's just an overall good move.. I guess.". "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the best way to lose battles is to be too attached to a pokemon that underperforms in battle." - Robofiend - If you want to win, this. So much this. Competitive is competitive. I'm not saying you shouldn't run Pokemon you just like as a Pokemon but if you want to win you should always look at Pokemon objectively of how they perform. So yeah, here's some of the main points I have discovered to be the biggest reasons what separates the best from the good. I might add some later but here's the main ones I could think in this while as I got bored and started to think of this. Hope this helps someone, etc. etc. and feel free to comment regarding about anything. Still I will emphasize this guide is 100% opinionated and do not reflect universally all competitive players. Peace. RysPicz, Blythe, GoldenSunIsaac and 40 others 43 Link to comment
Inarin Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 I really enjoy this. It's basically a guide on "what not to do" in competitve, and gives a lot of helpful hints and information to help elevate your play. Players really hurt themselves by geting into a mindset that if it's not top usage, it's trash, which limits their growth. I used to do too much paperwork and think it was all statistics. Boy was I wrecked when I first brought my "perfect paper" team to a competition... I had never really gotten into MMO competitive much, since then (besides PSL), but I love to team craft and play against people on things like Showdown, it's a good way to kill time and get in some practice. This has helped influence me to tweak a few things to my usual style. Thanks, Orango. <3 [spoiler] I hope my comment is very... commenting. :P It's actually a helpful guide to help people notice where their flaws are as players, and how to make some changes, and improve themselves. [/spoiler] EDIT: On a side, there are others who pray too hard on RNG to save them in a bad situation. They tend to get demoralized when they get let down, opening them up to more mistakes. screamfields and OrangeManiac 2 Link to comment
screamfields Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 6. not pray enough to RNG god GoldenSunIsaac, Bilburt, Robofiend and 8 others 11 Link to comment
Spaintakula Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 And then you're calling ME a nerd, tsch. Great guide though, pretty sure everyone can just read this and find themselves, whether they're experienced or not on comp play. And anyway, pros tend to make mistakes like most new players do at times too, so yeah. screamfields 1 Link to comment
ShadowGary Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 Tsk,tsk,tsk,tsk,tsk,tsk, If you want RNG you obviously have to pray to Benjaminvoz! SirYurop 1 Link to comment
Kiliminati Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 6. not pray enough to RNG godThe 6 RNG God is always watching, you just best be prepared to face him GoldenSunIsaac and screamfields 2 Link to comment
NikhilR Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 (edited) Not looking at the match as a whole - The most common and the most destructive mistake to make as a competitive player, which is usually common for new players. An example of this is that let's say you're facing a Jolteon and you realize it tears down 3 out of 6 Pokemon easily and can sweep 5 out of 6 Pokemon in a right situation and you have a one hard counter to it. If you're not saving your counter to that dangerous Pokemon until it's down, you will be in a lot of trouble. A lot of times new players just think for the next turn and think "hey, I can make a Pokemon faint so I'm leading 5-4" and they possibly give up their main counter to something just for a momentary good feeling and later they realize they're doomed. Player should not just think about the next 3-4 moves but the whole match how it will come down to and not just think about this moment and the next move. This is something I overlook as well most of the time because at times you just want to gain an advantage in the scoreboard and then you lose that one pokemon which completely changes the outcome.. Nice guide. Edited September 9, 2015 by NikhilR Link to comment
OrangeManiac Posted September 9, 2015 Author Share Posted September 9, 2015 And then you're calling ME a nerd, tsch. Great guide though, pretty sure everyone can just read this and find themselves, whether they're experienced or not on comp play. And anyway, pros tend to make mistakes like most new players do at times too, so yeah. Yes, I'm calling you a nerd. [spoiler]Nerd.[/spoiler] This is something I overlook as well most of the time because at times you just want to gain an advantage in the scoreboard and then you lose that one pokemon which completely changes the outcome.. Nice guide. We've all been there. We've all been.. Thanks man. TheRealPhatiman, GoldenSunIsaac, Arimanius and 1 other 4 Link to comment
Liberalisme Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 Probably the worst competitive player talking here. I don't know why but I always lose matches. Today I saw a Charizard with the sunnybeam shit coming and I thought let's go with the Houndoom and Crunch it. Then I got EQ'd.... Played with like 3 different teams (2 UU's and OU) but always having troubles winning matches. Oh and RNG is always against me. Nice guide though 5/5 :) Link to comment
OrangeManiac Posted September 9, 2015 Author Share Posted September 9, 2015 added one more that I thought was reasonable to add Link to comment
KaynineXL Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 Great guide. I don't know if these add to what you say, but I think always playing few steps ahead, instead of playing by each turn is better. Predicting is all well and good, but it can backfire(happens to me occasionally). I think the best way to predict is when you know you can't get punished too hard if it does backfire(this doesn't mean don't make risky predicts, because sometimes it necessary). OrangeManiac 1 Link to comment
GBush Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Nice guide and I moved it into appropriate area. Link to comment
Bestfriends Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Nice guide, I added it to my guide index. Link to comment
bigbangattack Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 I'll add one I guess...instead of always going for the kill its sometimes worth just to stall out a few turns so that you can reveal their team and find a way to beat it Cool guide though it was a fun read Link to comment
OrangeManiac Posted September 17, 2015 Author Share Posted September 17, 2015 I'll add one I guess...instead of always going for the kill its sometimes worth just to stall out a few turns so that you can reveal their team and find a way to beat it Cool guide though it was a fun read I'm sorry but I have to disagree with this. Getting opponent to reveal their team is helpful and all but shouldn't come with a too much a cost. I appreciate it though. This one, however.. is definitely worth a mention. I think Robo said somewhere "The best way to lose is to be too attached to a Pokemon that underperforms in a battle." which is well, really true. I wish I could find the thread. Link to comment
BenGorgon Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) This one, however.. is definitely worth a mention. I think Robo said somewhere "The best way to lose is to be too attached to a Pokemon that underperforms in a battle." which is well, really true. I wish I could find the thread. Here Edited September 17, 2015 by BenGorgon Link to comment
OrangeManiac Posted September 17, 2015 Author Share Posted September 17, 2015 Added. Hope Robo doesn't mind. Link to comment
DarkDragonborn Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 This really helped, thanks! :) Btw, another misconception is that happiness raises power. Noobs in channel chat btw. xD Link to comment
Batman Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 This really helped, thanks! :) Btw, another misconception is that happiness raises power. Noobs in channel chat btw. xD It does increase power[spoiler]of return [/spoiler] Great guide BTW. Link to comment
Furtifman Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 The 7) is my huge problem, I love some pokemon too much to put them away and I'm trying so hard to perform with Masquerain even if overally he's only usefull when facing a physical lead (intimidation) ... Link to comment
Vaeldras Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 This is something I overlook as well most of the time because at times you just want to gain an advantage in the scoreboard and then you lose that one pokemon which completely changes the outcome.. Nice guide. I was thinking, maybe this could happen more easily to defensive players who tend to just stall till the end of the match (not calling anyone out, i only remember one of your battles, and that was when you swept a guy with linoone during a semi-final). Since i started doing experiments with belly drum i realized how important it actually is to follow your own strategy rather than trying to just keep the momentum at any cost. Letting one of your pokes die against something with little offensive power in order to setup, for example, will often trick your opponent unless he know you have your setup sweeper ready. To me, more often than not, losing a sweeper is generally better than losing a wall, with my defensive cores being composed by at most 3 pokes. Ofc when your opponent is trying to win by spamming roar and spikes and you don't have a spinner, your metagross/blaziken/ursaring etc is that one poke you can't afford to let die, or else gg. Link to comment
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