Hello lovely people of Smogon! My name is Patrick, I'm 15 and I am interested in getting into Pokemon competitive battling! This post is long (maybe too long) so if you have time please give this post a look!
I got into Pokemon through Platinum back in 2009. The pokemon I can remember being on my team were Infernape, Garchomp, Bronzong and Crobat. The rest is kind of a blur. It was around this time that I started watching the competitive wifi battles. I only really watched them for fun though. Then I got a copy of Soul Silver the following year or so later. This one really piqued my interest. After I beat Red, however, I just dropped the idea of playing Pokemon continuously. Forgot why. But around two months ago I thought about getting back in the habit and picked up my Heart Gold and Platinum copies. I was so excited to play, I planned my teams for both games! Once I got to the Battle Frontier in Platinum I felt I would do so well with just my ingame, non-EV trained and all that team of Electivire, Magmortar, Rhyperior, Togekiss, Empoleon and Dusknoir. Wishful thinking, right? I love my Electivire but I couldn't even get past the 2nd batch of seven matches with him (and my Magmortar and Togekiss I think) That's when I thought about going to the Battle Factory to train and heading on over there. I'm still playing there too! But the thing is I suck SO BAD. NO KIDDING. ITS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO EVEN GET PAST THE FIRST MATCH AGAINST FACTORY HEAD THORTON. Even with fuckin rental Salamence and Garchomp I get stomped into the ground constantly. My strategies are shit, even if I have type coverage. Every time there is always an obvious counter to my team I can never predict. Why get into competitive battling in the first place I ask myself. Well, honestly, the competitive scene looks like one hell of a good time to me. I recognize that it will take a long time for me to build up my skills, possibly even with assistance, and become a legitimate competitive battler but I'm just really interested about diving into the competitive scene. The ingame part of Pokemon gets boring after a while anyway. You may have noticed that I am only talking about 4th gen games. Before I get XYORAS, I hope to be able to conquer all parts of the 4th gen battle frontier first and what better way to try to achieve that is with help from experts! Now I must warn you that I have never Ev-trained or bred pokemon for perfect stats and natures and all that so I literally am new to competitive battling. But enough about me. Any offers to help me get started or give any suggestions are welcome and greatly appreciated! Thanks!
I totally know how you feel. Another way to try to learn would be for example to watch some high level play videos, such as those produced by people like chimpact and pokeaim on Youtube. Personally that is how I'm learning to ease myself into competitive battling. I wouldn't say I'm good, but I've definitely gotten a lot better just from listening to their commentary and battle analyses.