Well there is a catch... in this scenario, sure if you "predict the opponent's prediction" Electivire will have boosted speed, but Elec's still a bad switch-in for Weezing anyway since the blob of poison is a physical wall. The risk of switching Electivire in to absorb a predicted Thunderbolt is not worth the reward of boosted speed. And more often than not, Electivire will eat a flamethrower or will-o-wisp when it comes in, drastically reducing its effectiveness. Or even if Electivire has absorbed the T-Bolt, it will probably take a Will-O-Wisp on the next turn since Weezing is probably not going to switch out.
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So how exactly does one get good at competitive battling?
- Thread starter StarmanXL
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Well there is a catch... in this scenario, sure if you "predict the opponent's prediction" Electivire will have boosted speed, but Elec's still a bad switch-in for Weezing anyway since the blob of poison is a physical wall. The risk of switching Electivire in to absorb a predicted Thunderbolt is not worth the reward of boosted speed. And more often than not, Electivire will eat a flamethrower or will-o-wisp when it comes in, drastically reducing its effectiveness. Or even if Electivire has absorbed the T-Bolt, it will probably take a Will-O-Wisp on the next turn since Weezing is probably not going to switch out.
Knowing pokemons strength weaknesses etc. is one important key.
Know what their best stat and weakest stat is, doesn't have to be exact. As long you know that say Heracross is weaker on its physical side than its special side.
Know at least what its main attacks and role is. As in the case of Electrics you can almost always expect them to be packing a Hidden Power making alot of Ground types non-definite switches.
Another is you have to think like your opponent would but only abit more ahead, if you were in his scenario what would you do. Predicting is difficult but find ways to ease prediction if your bad at it. Use scouting moves like Protect, Substitute if unsure.
Or always predict a worst case scenario and use safe switches. By 'safe switching' I mean two things.
Sure if you switch a ground into a electric attack you'll ignore damage altogether. But if they decide to Hidden Power Ice/Grass you might regret it, instead you could switch in another electric who still takes minimal damage and at best only takes neutral from HP.
Safe switching can also be predicting a attack and switching in a resistance than switching again to something strong to to what your first switch is weak to in order to bait out any counters so you don't lose a pokemon unnecessary. If your bad at first turn safe switching than you can try a two step version.
The final thing would be just play more people, I cannot stress how important this is. It doesn't even freakin matter if you know you stand no chance of victory and will be trounced 6-0 by a pro. Once you been destroyed you see how they did it and figure out where you messed up and don't do it next time.
I don't know how many times I've seen new players left stranded because they expect the same 6-9 standards stressed in Analysis/Guides and once they see something new, don't even have a remote clue how to deal with it.
This leads onto getting to know your own team. Sounds like an odd thing to say considering you've spent hours on it, training, raising, teaching moves. More specifically what I mean is take that team into battle, let them take and dish out hits.
Work out roughly how much damage your doing doesn't have to be exact, how effective some of your strategies are and how often can you actually execute/startup some and how easily you are stopped. This is really important as sometimes you may lack options in certain scenarios.
In these cases you maybe force to switch in something you know will die or isn't effective based on the knowledge you'll at least be able to attack to change the flow of battle even slightly.
All that is simply summed up as three points.
-Know the pokemon
-Know your opponent/the strategies
-Know what you can and can't do.
That 3 can be further narrowed down to simply experience..it should come instinctively really.
Yeah, you shouldn't compare to SSBM. Some of those lv9 CPU's are honestly beyond retarded.
eg. CPU Fox can't escape the low levels of Hyrule Temple as his first jump is too short and it doesn't occur to him he can jump twice. Or how Ganondorf NEVER runs.
The biggest problem I see with prediction is that if you're going up agains't a noob that doesn't know squat about prediction, his completely random and unexpected moves can ruin it for you. Prediction only seems to help you when you're fighting a good opponent, and it takes awhile to distinguish a noob from a pro in battle.
I was in your place a couple weeks ago....and still kinda am. Anyways, what I do is when I make a move and I see the result, I see whether I benifited.
Ex:
My Dragonite is out against Blissey, and their other pokemon is an Electvire. I can outspeed it if I DD, but I don't want Blissey to Twave and make my efforts useless, so I Outrage instead. Just after, when Blissey survives with less than 5% HP, I realise I should have DD'd since I have a Lum to take the Twave and confusion won't be happening since in two turns the battle will be over, and I realise I lost because I was locked into the Outrage, Evire was faster, and Ice Punched for the KO.
So, I see the mistake I made, and make sure I don't make it again. That was also a battle that I didn't use Taunt on Blissey, and realised that's what I shoulda done. So, if you see that the outcome of your move did more harm than good, see what you should have done so that you don't make that mistake in the future. I can tell I'm getting better now, since I've battled the same guy three times over a course of three weeks(different team every time), first time I lost 5-0, next time I lost 3-0, and finally I lost 1-0 and he had just one HP left.
Ex:
My Dragonite is out against Blissey, and their other pokemon is an Electvire. I can outspeed it if I DD, but I don't want Blissey to Twave and make my efforts useless, so I Outrage instead. Just after, when Blissey survives with less than 5% HP, I realise I should have DD'd since I have a Lum to take the Twave and confusion won't be happening since in two turns the battle will be over, and I realise I lost because I was locked into the Outrage, Evire was faster, and Ice Punched for the KO.
So, I see the mistake I made, and make sure I don't make it again. That was also a battle that I didn't use Taunt on Blissey, and realised that's what I shoulda done. So, if you see that the outcome of your move did more harm than good, see what you should have done so that you don't make that mistake in the future. I can tell I'm getting better now, since I've battled the same guy three times over a course of three weeks(different team every time), first time I lost 5-0, next time I lost 3-0, and finally I lost 1-0 and he had just one HP left.
you can read all of the articles in the world about prediction/battling and still be a shitty battler. quite simply put, you have to practice. start employing different strategies and predicting more/less to see what works for you. eventually you'll find what you're good at and start winning more often.
it's all about practice and experience.
it's all about practice and experience.
Gaming is all about experience and practice.
I play Smash competitively and to get better, you have to practice your technical skills, then whip them out and practice in tournaments. You can't fight computers all day, you actually have to fight REAL humans to get better (preferably ones that are better than you)
Pokemon is the same way. You make a random team, read articles, play with it, feel it, tweak it and get better. The more you play, the more you get used to the environment, same with predictions and stuff. Eventually, predictions will feel very natural.
But IMO, Pokemon is soo much harder to get better at than things like Super Smash Brothers Melee. It's hard to explain. Pokemon sometimes, is a lot more luck-based than other competitive games. You predict this, predict right and you win predict wrong and you lose. Sometimes you feel like you're making the right decision but your opponent can just decide to throw a curve ball.
With Smash it's different, MOST of the time, things can only go one way or another. A noob will never beat a pro, but with Pokemon, that's possible. Just need to use weird movesets, weird thought patterns and a hella lot of luck.
EDIT: I didn't mean to quote Cloud's last sentence as my intro. What a crazy coinkidinkykinky
I play Smash competitively and to get better, you have to practice your technical skills, then whip them out and practice in tournaments. You can't fight computers all day, you actually have to fight REAL humans to get better (preferably ones that are better than you)
Pokemon is the same way. You make a random team, read articles, play with it, feel it, tweak it and get better. The more you play, the more you get used to the environment, same with predictions and stuff. Eventually, predictions will feel very natural.
But IMO, Pokemon is soo much harder to get better at than things like Super Smash Brothers Melee. It's hard to explain. Pokemon sometimes, is a lot more luck-based than other competitive games. You predict this, predict right and you win predict wrong and you lose. Sometimes you feel like you're making the right decision but your opponent can just decide to throw a curve ball.
With Smash it's different, MOST of the time, things can only go one way or another. A noob will never beat a pro, but with Pokemon, that's possible. Just need to use weird movesets, weird thought patterns and a hella lot of luck.
EDIT: I didn't mean to quote Cloud's last sentence as my intro. What a crazy coinkidinkykinky
Milotic has base 125 Sp. Def BTW, but I guess that only strengthens the point you are making.
This s why i say new players should work on knowledge and the basics first like in any competitive game. ake the safe choice if your just beggining....
Imo predictions arent worth unless your physic or you really have scoped out your opponents team and have seen how he is playing his team.
Work on playing sasfe first ad your predictions skils will follow..even though its a risk reward situation....
Imo predictions arent worth unless your physic or you really have scoped out your opponents team and have seen how he is playing his team.
Work on playing sasfe first ad your predictions skils will follow..even though its a risk reward situation....
I find that the biggest factor in out predicting your opposition, comes to who can gauge who first. You will only rarely find two players that play very similar, but if you can get a feel for your opponent in the first 5-6 turns, then you will have a good shot at causing some damage.
Another factor is to look at what you have seen of your enemies team, and try and see what fills those holes, and expect certain switches.
In all, everything comes from practice.
Another factor is to look at what you have seen of your enemies team, and try and see what fills those holes, and expect certain switches.
In all, everything comes from practice.
Taking mental notes of your opponent's pokemon or writing down your opponent's pokemon as they send them out helps. This way, in case you're not sure what pokemon he has, you can check the pokemon he's already sent out and decide what to do next. Here's an example. Say you have Heracross out against your opponent's Blissey and your moveset is CC, SE, Night Slash, and Megahorn. You've forgoten most of his pokemon and aren't sure if you should use CC to OHKO Blissey or not. But you remember you wrote down your opponent's pokemon. You check the list and find out he has a Gyarados. So, you decide to use Stone Edge instead of CC since it would do more damage to Gyarados and still do alot to Blissey even if she stays in for some reason.
well, sometimes in predicting, you have to have some serious guts.
I just recently had a battle where I faced off against Blissey with my Ursaring. I had a feeling that blissey was going to t.wave me, so I used protect. Afterwards, I recieved a burn from flame orb. Now I know that my opponent is not going to sacrifice his precious blissey and just be facaded to death, so I decided to use shadow claw, in hopes that he would switch to a ghost. Turns out, that is exactly what he did. So, I took a semi-risk (although, im not sure what blissey would have done had she stayed in there) by using a ghost move against a normal pokemon. One simply and gutsy move like that may turn the tide of the match, you never know.
I just recently had a battle where I faced off against Blissey with my Ursaring. I had a feeling that blissey was going to t.wave me, so I used protect. Afterwards, I recieved a burn from flame orb. Now I know that my opponent is not going to sacrifice his precious blissey and just be facaded to death, so I decided to use shadow claw, in hopes that he would switch to a ghost. Turns out, that is exactly what he did. So, I took a semi-risk (although, im not sure what blissey would have done had she stayed in there) by using a ghost move against a normal pokemon. One simply and gutsy move like that may turn the tide of the match, you never know.
In a match I once played, the same thing sorta happened. After a Relicanth KO'ed my poor Vaporeon with a Head Smash, my Infernape came in.
So the "usual" thing to do was to use Close Combat on Relicanth for a KO, but I saw the opponent's Dusknoir a while ago, there is a chance the Dusknoir might come in. So I took a big chance with Flare Blitz... even though Relicanth double-resists Fire.
So what do I know, Dusknoir did actually come in. It took more than half damage from Flare Blitz, crippling it for the rest of the match.
Battle a lot. Think over what you did wrong at the end. That's the skill aspect of it.
The team building aspect is hard to master. Basically, you need to learn how EVs work, and how to get optimum evs. Learn what your weakness is, and how to counter this.
It comes down to how long you've been doing this basically.
The team building aspect is hard to master. Basically, you need to learn how EVs work, and how to get optimum evs. Learn what your weakness is, and how to counter this.
It comes down to how long you've been doing this basically.
I've only been playing competitively for a few months since I discovered this whole smogon and netbattle thing, and I love it, but I'm not great yet. In fact I think I'm only just getting decent enough to fully understand the extent to which I am not good.
So, obviously I'm not the most qualified to give advice, but if it's any help, here are my thoughts about the game. It seems to me that, like a lot of people have said, prediction is really important. But like a lot of other people have said, it can hurt you a lot more than help. For a while I was really into the prediction thing, all trying to expect the unexpected and stuff, until I realized that often I was making decisions that I knew would screw me over if I was wrong. Lately I've been thinking you need a much more careful approach. And that made me realize there is a lot more to it than just thinking "what will they switch to to counter the expected attack." It's about always trying to be one step ahead. That means that you have to go beyond just using an attack that will be super effective on the switch. When I've seen really good people play, I've noticed that often their predictions aren't even about what attack they use, but who they switch to—i.e. they don't attack on the switch at all, but switch to something that fully counters what they're expecting, and that can often give you much more of an advantage.
I've also found that one of the most important things for me to understand is the time to use things. I started reading people talking about how a pokemon is good in "the late game" or "the middle game" and I realized just how important it actually is to know that. Dragon Dancing up works so so much better if you save it until the end of the match and your opponent's team is weakened. I've come back from matches that were at 6-2 with a dragon dancer because the opponent's team, even though nothing was KOd, were all at low health and had status.
So yeah, like I said, I don't have a huge amount of experience, and this could all be a bunch of BS for all I know. I think the most important thing is that you have fun while learning. I always have fun when I play people who way better than me. Just make sure you're not taking it too seriously and enjoy the process.
Oh, and when it comes to SSBM, people are right on the money... you need to find good people to play against. I've been playing for years and I'm still only decent simply because I don't know very many people who play, and none who are serious about it.
So, obviously I'm not the most qualified to give advice, but if it's any help, here are my thoughts about the game. It seems to me that, like a lot of people have said, prediction is really important. But like a lot of other people have said, it can hurt you a lot more than help. For a while I was really into the prediction thing, all trying to expect the unexpected and stuff, until I realized that often I was making decisions that I knew would screw me over if I was wrong. Lately I've been thinking you need a much more careful approach. And that made me realize there is a lot more to it than just thinking "what will they switch to to counter the expected attack." It's about always trying to be one step ahead. That means that you have to go beyond just using an attack that will be super effective on the switch. When I've seen really good people play, I've noticed that often their predictions aren't even about what attack they use, but who they switch to—i.e. they don't attack on the switch at all, but switch to something that fully counters what they're expecting, and that can often give you much more of an advantage.
I've also found that one of the most important things for me to understand is the time to use things. I started reading people talking about how a pokemon is good in "the late game" or "the middle game" and I realized just how important it actually is to know that. Dragon Dancing up works so so much better if you save it until the end of the match and your opponent's team is weakened. I've come back from matches that were at 6-2 with a dragon dancer because the opponent's team, even though nothing was KOd, were all at low health and had status.
So yeah, like I said, I don't have a huge amount of experience, and this could all be a bunch of BS for all I know. I think the most important thing is that you have fun while learning. I always have fun when I play people who way better than me. Just make sure you're not taking it too seriously and enjoy the process.
Oh, and when it comes to SSBM, people are right on the money... you need to find good people to play against. I've been playing for years and I'm still only decent simply because I don't know very many people who play, and none who are serious about it.