Discussion on any aspect of competitive Pixelmon.
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By CritsAreFair
#165655 THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. I'm still writing it as we speak, but I got the first couple chapters done so I figured I'd put it out there.

It's going to be LONG. I intend to cover all facets of advanced competitive play, so be prepared for big walls of text. I'll try to format it as best as I can but my time is limited and I have a lot to say.



This is an advanced competitive guide for anyone who wants to be a serious player in the metagame. This is for people who want to win. This is to discuss the fundamental basics of competitive play, as well as loftier mechanics and metas that newer competitive players may not grasp.

I am not affiliated with Smogon, although I do often use Smogon as a reference and usually abide by their tiering system. However, Smogon tiers are generally invalid in Pixelmon being as not all Pokemon are available.

I have been a Pokemon player since I was around 4 way back in 1998-99, and I started competitive play when Diamond and Pearl were released in 2007, and have been an active member in the competitive community ever since. I have experience with all tiers and all generations, and I've used all playstyles.

I'm currently returning from a 6 month hiatus from Pokemon in general and sharpening my skills on Showdown, but playing Pixelmon used to be a hobby of mine and now that I see there is a flourishing competitive community I intend to help it develop as much as I can.

Alright, now let's get right to it.


Part 1

What is a competitive player? | Show
In the most literal (but also the most abstract) sense, a competitive player is someone who aims to win. However, the term "competitive" has adopted a more colloquial definition, and this is the definition I will be using. I define competitive as follows;

A player is competitive if they have a decent grasp of advanced game mechanics (Stats, EVs, IVs, Natures, move power, etc.) and use these game mechanics to give themselves an advantage in battle.

I will not be going into EVs, IVs, and Natures in much depth in this guide. I will post a separate guide for that later, should I feel the need. This guide is aimed towards people who already know about those mechanics and wish to advance their gameplay even further. In this guide, I will focus more heavily on concepts like synergy, prediction, teambuilding, and metagame evolution, as well as the general attitude one must adopt to be truly successful in competitive play.

If you are unfamiliar with these mechanics, I would strongly recommend you acquaint yourself with them before reading this guide. Smogon has some excellent resources on the subject, and I'd strongly recommend using them until I can whip up a quick guide myself.

So lets say you know all bout EVs, IVs, natures, base stats, and what they do. Are you now a competitive battler?

I would say yes, you are. But don't expect to launch yourself straight into the fray and start winning battles against other, more experienced competitive players right away. Those core concepts are important, but alone they will not win you battles.

There's an expression that goes something along the lines of "A novice armed with the latest technological marvel is nothing compared to an expert armed with only his wits", and that applies to competitive Pokemon as well as anything. Having good Pokemon with good IVs and natures is only part of the battle, now you must learn how to use them.



Part 2
Building a Team | Show
Perhaps the most important part of the battle is done before the battle even starts; creating the team you will use in it.

An effective team must cover all its weaknesses effectively. This means that not only must type weaknesses be checked, but weaknesses to specific Pokemon, playstyles, and archetypes must also be covered. For instance, if your team is full of special attackers, how will you fare when your opponent breaks out a Blissey? Will you be able to break your opponent's Calm Mind Slowbro before it sets up on you? Will Rain shut down your most powerful sweepers, and if so, how will you prevent your opponent from keeping it up?

I find that, when building a new team, the best thing to do is start with a single Pokemon, or a pair of Pokemon that complement each other well (often called a "core"). Usually I choose a Pokemon I've seen my opponents use effectively, or one whose playstyle I find intriguing and different from what I'm used to.

The other common teambuilding method is to take a team archetype (like Hyper Offense, Rain Offense, Sand Stall, Trick Room, etc.) and build your team around that, but I'm going to assume this is your first real competitive team, and for your first team it's best to choose a good Pokemon and build your team around that, letting it go wherever it ends up going. The objective isn't to make the best team ever right off the bat, it's to learn about teambuilding so you eventually can build the best team ever.

Let's take a Tyranitar as an example.
Image

This will be my starting Pokemon for this example team. Now I should examine Tyranitar in depth, and list everything that stands out about him.

-Impressive base Attack stat, plenty of physical moves to use with it.
-Decent HP and defenses.
-Sand Stream summons a Sandstorm, boosts his Sp. Def and hurting non Rock/Steel/Ground types.
-Rock/Dark type, pretty good offensively but leaves him weak to a number of things defensively, most notably Fighting, Ground, and Steel, but Water, Grass, and Bug as well.
-Rather slow, but could potentially use Dragon Dance or Rock Polish to mitigate this.

So let's look at some key points. First of all, his Sand Stream will automatically summon a Sandstorm. I need to keep this in mind when I'm choosing the rest of my Pokemon, as Pokemon who aren't Rock, Steel, or Ground typed will lose health every turn that Sandstorm is up. This doesn't mean I need to run solely those 3 times, but I do need to consider how the HP loss will affect any Pokemon I might run who take Sandstorm damage.

Secondly, he's very weak to Fighting, and fears taking any fighting move at all. On the other hand, he resists Ghost and Dark, meaning a Ghost type would make a very effective partner for him.

Thirdly, his large Attack stat lets him deal good amounts of damage to nearly anything he hits, but makes him especially good at wall breaking.

Now I must choose the set I'll be running. Since this is the first Pokemon on my team, I have a lot of freedom, but I do need to consider how my choices will mold the rest of the team.

I think I'll capitalize on his great Attack by running a Choice Band set. The ideal nature for a bulky Choice Band user like Tyranitar is Adamant, with 252 Attack, 252 HP, and 4 Special Defence EVs.

Now I need to choose some moves. Obviously, wielding a Choice Band, status moves are not going to be an option. Being locked into Stealth Rock or Thunder Wave just lets your opponent set up on you.

In general, you want to run at least 1 damaging move that matches one of your Pokemon's types, but Tyranitar, being an offensive Pokemon, has 2 great attacking types, so I'll run 2 matching moves.

-Stone Edge
-Crunch

Stone Edge packs a lot of raw power and that Rock STAB is invaluable to dispatch opponents like Volcarona and various Flying types. Crunch is more accurate and hits more targets neutrally, only missing out on opposing Dark types, Fighting types, and Steel types.

You'll notice, however, that both moves are resisted by Steel types. Well, luckily for us, Tyranitar gets the move Earthquake, which hits Steel-types hard (with the exception of Skarmory who takes neutral damage from Stone Edge), as well as hitting opposing Rock, Electric, and Fire types for super-effective damage.

Now we've got 1 free moveslot and most of the major threats covered at least neutrally. There's a number of things we could do with this slot. If we're playing on a server that allows move tutoring, we could consider packing Fire Punch to hurt Scizor on the switch, as well as deal more damage to Forretress. In the same vein, Ice Punch does significantly more damage to Dragonite, Salamence, and Gliscor, but a Choice Band Stone Edge already gives those Pokemon something to think about. Pursuit has the interesting ability to damage opposing Pokemon even if they try to switch out, making it great for trapping things like Alakazam and Gengar, but if I do that I need to be wary of Focus Blast.

I think I'll pack Fire Punch, because the ability to surprise Scizor switch-ins with a solid 4x damage hit is very nice and could potentially turn the tide of a pitched battle.

So now we have our first Pokemon.

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Adamant - Sand Stream
252 Attack, 252 HP, 4 Sp. Def
-Stone Edge
-Crunch
-Earthquake
-Fire Punch

So now what? Well, let's revisit Tyranitar's shortcomings. For one, he's slow. Two, he's very weak to Fighting moves, and a weakness to Earthquake isn't all that savory either. And lastly, he's going to have some trouble with tough defensive Pokemon like Skarmory.

Hmm, well I know a great solution to that!

Image

Gengar!

Gengar, being a Ghost type, is innately immune to Fighting moves. He also has the ability Levitate, letting him dodge Ground type attacks, and has a very good base Speed and Special Attack, letting him outspeed things that Tyranitar can't, and harass the physical walls like Skarmory on their weaker Special defense. He also resists Bug, but due to his rather low Defense he needs to be careful about what he switches in on.

In turn, Tyranitar covers Gengar's weakness to opposing Ghost and Dark type moves, and is immune to the Psychic types that try to take advantage of Gengar's Poison typing. He also scares off walls like Blissey that Gengar has trouble breaking.

Gengar, generally being a fast Special Attacker, wants to run Timid with max Speed and Special Attack, to hit as hard and as fast as possible. He's only got one ability, Levitate, but it complements his playstyle perfectly by giving him an artificial immunity to Ground-typed moves.

So now let's pick some moves. I'll start with Shadow Ball as an offensive attack that gets STAB. He also gets the move Focus Blast. Fighting and Ghost make a perfect offensive combo as nothing resists it (the only thing that would theoretically resist this combo is a Normal/Ghost type, which currently does not exist), so I'll pack Focus Blast as well. This perfect coverage gives him the freedom to do more or less whatever he wants with the last 2 slots.

-Shadow Ball
-Focus Blast

Now, Gengar will be taking some damage each turn from Sandstorm. This hurts his overall longevity. I could choose to use Black Sludge and negate this damage, but I think I have a better idea. Let's slap on a Life Orb and rack up the passive damage even more!

Hold on, I can explain. Gengar gets a move called Pain Split, which adds up his health with the opponent's health, and then splits it equally among them. Lets say Gengar has 100 health remaining and the opponent has 300 health remaining. I use Pain Split, the two get added together for 400 health remaining, each Pokemon gets 200 Health back. Gengar gained 100 health and the opposing Pokemon lost 100 health.

This is great for dealing with behemoths with high HP stats like Blissey, and bringing Gengar back from the brink of fainting to dish out some more pain.

Now I've still got 1 move left, and quite a few options to fill it with. I could put Thunderbolt in there, but Skarmory is already hit hard by Focus Blast. Will-O-Wisp is nice as it burns opposing Pokemon, and Scizors and Tyranitars who often switch into Gengar hate being burned. Taunt completely shuts down things like Blissey and stops status users from inflicting status on my team. But there's another move I like to run better, Substitute. Substitute sacrifices 25% of my health to create a dummy that blocks status and takes attacks for me. It's great for predicting switches and works very well with Pain Split.

So now we've got this.

Gengar @ Life Orb
Timid - Levitate
252 Speed, 252 Sp. Atk, 4 Sp. Def
-Shadow Ball
-Focus Blast
-Pain Split
-Substitute

And our team looks like this...

ImageImage

Now, I've noticed a rather significant problem with this duo... Scizor. Tyranitar doesn't want to be hit by either of Scizor's STABs, and Scizor has a powerful Bullet Punch to bypass Gengar's Speed advantage, and Pursuit to dissuade him from switching out. Predicting the switch and hitting it with Fire Punch or setting up Substitute can mitigate its threat, but I'd still like a solid check to the red beetle.

So let's take a look at Scizor.

-High Attack.
-Strong priority in Technician boosted Bullet Punch
-Also gets U-Turn, Pursuit.
-Good physical defense, pretty lackluster Special defense.
-Only weakness is Fire, but is 4x weak to Fire.

So, naturally, the thing to use would be a Fire type. Fire resists both his STAB attacks and hits him for 4x damage, and has the added bonus of giving Skarmory even more trouble.

What fire type to use, though? Infernape is versatile but also very frail, and Gengar already has trouble taking hits from a slightly angry bunny. Tyranitar's Sandstorm boost makes him bulky on the special side, and he's got pretty decent natural physical bulk, but his weakness to common physical attacking types like Fighting and Ground limits his ability to stay in on those attackers.

Well, what about this?

Image

Arcanine has good all-around stats and a nice selection of abilities. I could run Flash Fire and try to switch into Fire-typed moves to get a boost to his Fire STAB, I could run Justified and use Gengar to bait in Dark moves, or I could use Intimidate to lower the opponent's Attack. I think I'll do just that.

So let's pick some moves. I want to kill Scizor, and the ideal move for that would be Flare Blitz, working off of Arcanine's slightly higher Attack. He also gets the move Close Combat, a strong Fighting-typed move, and I think I'll pack that to give certain walls a solid hit and to cover Rock types. Wild Charge does some decent damage to opposing Water types. Finally, Morning Sun heals him for part of his health. Do note that Morning Sun is supposed to only heal about 33.3% of his health in Sandstorm, making it relatively ineffective, but in Pixelmon it seems to always heal 75% health, what it's supposed to heal underneath strong sunlight. When this glitch is patched it may not be a bad idea to find a different move, or a different Pokemon altogether. With the damage from Sandstorm racking up with recoil from Flare Blitz and Wild Charge, some sort of recovery is generally necessary to keep him in the game for extended periods of time.

So now we've got...

Arcanine @ Leftovers
Jolly - Intimidate
252 Attack, 252 Speed, 4 Defence
-Flare Blitz
-Close Combat
-Wild Charge
-Morning Sun

And our team looks like this...

ImageImageImage

This is starting to look like a Hyper Offense team, or a team that aims to reduce prediction by running powerful offensive threats in favour of a real defensive backbone. I also notice I have 2 Pokemon weak to Water and no resists. Well, let's fix that. Water types are hit super-effectively by Grass and Electric types, but Electric doesn't resist water in and of itself. Water-types also tend to be very bulky.

Here's a very interesting Grass type that's perfect for breaking walls. He also adds another layer of protection against Ground-typed moves.

Image

Serperior, the royal snake, was once a very lackluster Pokemon. He's fast, but he lacks the stats to do anything with it. He's not frail, but he's certainly not bulky. He's not weak, but his base Attack and Special Attack certainly aren't that high.

Then he was blessed with his hidden ability, Contrary. Contrary turns stat drops into boosts and boosts into drops. Almost sounds like a bad thing, until you consider one move that turns this snake into a monster.

Leaf Storm is a very powerful Grass type move that usually lowers the users Special Attack by 2 levels. Contrary turns this stat loss into a boost, meaning he now has a very strong STAB move that increases his special attack. Pretty brutal huh?

Unfortunately he lacks many other options to complement it with. I'll put on Dragon Pulse and a Fire-typed Hidden Power. While they're rather weak they will hit the things that Leaf Storm won't do much damage. In the last moveslot, I have a few options. Glare paralyzes my opponent, but Serperior already outspeeds most things anyways. Synthesis lets me recover 75% of my health, but like Morning Sun that's only because of a glitch. It's supposed to recover 50% in normal conditions, 75% in strong sunlight, and 33.3% in Rain, Sand, or Hail. Giga Drain does damage and restores half the health to me, but gets redundant coverage with Leaf Storm. Substitute is an option but I'm already running it on Gengar, and I really don't need it.

I think I'll run Taunt. Why? Because it lets me stop opponents from setting up on me (although his crazy Nasty Plot Leaf Storm spam already does a good job of that), lets me muscle past Blissey without it spamming Softboiled, and shuts down attempts to inflict status on me.

So now we look like this.

Serperior @ Life Orb
Timid - Contrary
252 Speed, 252 Sp. Atk, 4 Sp. Def
IVs: 31 HP, 30 Attack, 31 Defense, 30 Sp. Atk, 31 Sp. Def, 30 Speed (Hidden Power Fire)
-Leaf Storm
-Hidden Power (Fire)
-Dragon Pulse
-Taunt

and our team looks like this:

ImageImageImageImage

Uhhuh. Well, we've got 2 team slots left and I still see a couple of gaps in the team, so lets flesh those out. For one, I have no Rock or Dragon type resists. The only type that resists Dragon is Steel, which also conveniently resists Rock, so why not pack a good Steel type? I could go with Skarmory as Arcanine can take on many of the things that beat him, but Skarmory really ruins the offensive momentum I've got going so far. I considered Steelix for his Dragon Tail phasing but I don't really want another Water-weak Pokemon, as I'm already packing a lot of Ground-weak Pokemon. Then I remembered this guy.

Image

Metagross is a pure powerhouse. His stats are great, with a massive Attack, a sturdy Defense, decent Special Defense, and even a usable Speed for a Steel type. He packs a colourful movepool full of offensive and support moves, and his typing is great defensively (at least in the 5th generation. When the Steel nerf is implemented in Pixelmon it will really hurt his defensive standing). I'm thinking I'll run a bulky offensive set, being as my team already has some decent Speed and I would appreciate some Stealth Rocks.

I'm going to run the same EVs and Nature as Tyranitar as they'll play in a similar way, but Metagross has the additional job of setting up Stealth Rock, forcing my opponents to take damage every time they switch and severely hurting certain enemies like Volcarona, Charizard, and various Fire, Flying, and Ice types.

I'll stick Meteor Mash on him as a good STAB attack. While it's not common, the occasional Attack boost makes him even more of a threat. The ubiquitous Earthquake hits opposing Steel, Electric, and Fire types, and Zen Headbutt gives me a solid STAB to use on Fighting types, and does some decent damage to most Water types. Finally, Stealth Rock sets up the Stealth Rock trap, which does damage to enemies when they switch in based on their type relation to Rock, stripping up to 50% health away from Pokemon 4x weak to Rock.

So we've got this.

Metagross @ Leftovers
Adamant - Clear Body
252 Attack, 252 HP, 4 Defence
-Meteor Mash
-Earthquake
-Zen Headbutt
-Stealth Rock

This is really looking like a tried-and-true heavy offensive team. While I do have a good amount of natural bulk between Tyranitar, Arcanine, and Metagross, I don't have any dedicated defensive Pokemon. I also notice that Fire/Fighting types like Infernape and Blaziken (and even enemy Arcanine with Close Combat) cause me a lot of difficulty being nearly guaranteed to kill something before I can bring them down. I'd also like a Rapid Spinner to get rid of opposing Spikes and Stealth Rock, although my team isn't particularly weak to them.

Well, the choice is obvious then, isn't it?

Image

Starmie resists Fighting and Fire, gets Rapid Spin, and also has a nice bonus; it acts as a status absorber with Natural Cure, letting me switch into Toxic, Will-O-Wisp, and Thunder Wave and then switch back out to negate the status conditions.

So Rapid Spin is a given. I'll also be packing Hydro Pump because of its high damage, which works great off of Starmie's respectable Special Attack and excellent Speed, and Ice Beam, which really gives Dragonite and Salamence something to think twice about. Finally, I'll round out his coverage and run Thunderbolt, which hurts opposing Water types and gets great overall coverage with Ice Beam.

So we've got this...

Starmie @ Life Orb
Timid - Natural Cure
252 Speed, 252 Sp. Atk, 4 Sp. Def
-Hydro Pump
-Ice Beam
-Thunderbolt
-Rapid Spin

Our team looks like this:


ImageImageImageImageImageImage


So now we're done! Right?

No. Now we take this team, put it together, and start trying it out in a real competitive environment. This team was hastily put together, so there's undoubtedly some flaws in it, some improvements to be made, and some work to be done. It's a good start, but it's far from finished. Maybe we'll find Infernape works better than Arcanine for us, or we don't really need Metagross's Stealth Rock and would prefer Agility, or Dragonite and Salamence are troubling us so we can put a Scarf on Starmie. No matter what, a good competitive team is always evolving.


Part 3
Terminology and Archetypes | Show
So what's the difference between a check and a counter? What exactly is Heavy Offense, and what purpose does a sweeper serve? What makes a tank different from a wall, and what does STAB refer to?

At this point in the guide, I think it would be helpful if I include a list of common terms you'll hear in the competitive environment and what they mean.

- Team Roles -
Generally these terms refer to the roles individual Pokemon play on your team. Overall, roles can be broken down into three categories; offense, defense, and support (sound familiar, TF2 players?). Offensive Pokemon's jobs are generally to break your opponent's team, defensive Pokemon stop your opponent's team from breaking you, and support Pokemon aid the other two types in doing what they're supposed to do.

For instance, a Choice Band Tyranitar would be an offensive Pokemon. Its job is to hurt things, nothing more, nothing less. It has little to no defensive potential, but massive damage output. In contrast, Chansey is a true defensive Pokemon. With low attacking stats but high bulk, Chansey's primary role is to take hits. Finally, support Pokemon support the other two types. A good example of this would be a Baton Passer, like Smeargle. Smeargle can't do much damage on its own, and it can't take many hits (or any hits at all, really), but it can use Baton Pass in conjunction with a boosting move like Shell Smash, as well as Spore, to give an offensive Pokemon a boost to its Speed, Special Attack, and Attack that it might have been unable to get itself, as well as a free switch thanks to Spore. In this way it supports its team while being neither an offensive nor a defensive Pokemon in and of itself.

So, now we get to specific roles you'll find on your team. The first role we'll talk about is the ubiquitous sweeper. Sweepers... Well... Sweep. That is to say, a sweeper's purpose is to knock out as many of your opponent's Pokemon as possible. They are almost exclusively offensive Pokemon who can deal a lot of damage per turn.

The next role is the attacker. Some players don't differentiate between sweepers and attackers, but for me there is a key difference. A sweeper tries to stay in as much as possible in order to sweep the opponent's team, while an attacker does damage but doesn't mind switching out. For instance, say we have 2 Tyranitar sets. One uses Dragon Dance to set up and take out opponents, the other is the Choice Band set from earlier. If the Choice Band set is forced to switch out, it really doesn't lose anything other than the turn it uses to switch. If the Rock Polish set is forced to switch out, it loses any Dragon Dance boosts it's accumulated. In this way, the Choice Band set is an attacker while the Dragon Dance set is a sweeper.

Now we have revenge-killers. Revenge-killers are Pokemon whose purpose is to switch in after one of your Pokemon faints and either knock out the opposing Pokemon who fainted it, or at least force it out. Revenge-killers usually run either priority moves or a Choice Scarf, in order to ensure they outspeed the opponent. The move Pursuit is also a good choice, as it does damage to opponents even if they try to switch out. So, for example, if an Alakazam just knocked out your Gengar, you can switch in a Scizor and use Pursuit, essentially guaranteeing that the Alakazam will be unable to escape.

Now we'll start talking about defensive roles. The most common defensive Pokemon is the wall. A wall's job is to soak up hits, pure and simple. They use high defensive stats to shrug off powerful hits, and usually use recovery moves to heal back the damage they take. They often use "chip damage" moves like Toxic or Leech Seed to drain away their opponent's health while they tank their moves. Most usually carry at least 1 attacking move of some sort to deal damage in a pinch and prevent the move Taunt from totally shutting them down. A common example would be Chansey and Blissey, who often carry Seismic Toss.

Next, we've got tanks. Tanks sort of combine an offensive and a defensive role into one. They take hits, although generally not as well as true walls, but they're also usually not as passive, using more attacking moves to put out a higher damage output. Pokemon with high bulk but who lack reliable recovery are often relegated to tanking roles. A good example would be Swampert. Swampert has pretty respectable HP, Defense, and Special Defense stats, but he has no real recovery to fortify them with, so he'll be quickly worn down by repeated hits. However, he also has a great Attack stat he can capitalize on, making him perfect for the tank role. Usually tanks take hits better than attackers or sweepers, but not as well as walls thanks to their general lack of recovery.

A (thankfully) far less common role is the dedicated check/counter. A dedicated check serves one purpose and one purpose only; to check or counter a particular threat that otherwise unbalances the metagame. Fortunately, most such threats are usually banned as they cause unhealthy over-centralization in the metagame, essentially requiring that you give up a team slot to run a dedicated check. A good example would be Mega Kangaskhan, who was so brutally powerful that it could singlehandedly sweep nearly any unprepared team. It got to the point where teams actually needed to run specific checks like Rocky Helmet Skarmory or Ferrothorn, or else risk being simply demolished by Mega Kangaskhan. Dedicated checks usually need to be kept in perfect condition in order to have a chance at checking the threat they're supposed to be covering, so if that specific threat shows up in Team Preview, you often won't even be able to use your dedicated counter on anything else in fear of it getting weakened and then overwhelmed by that threat. For instance, if I use my Ferrothorn to soak up hits from an Excadrill, then my opponent's Mega Kangaskhan could potentially muscle past it, and then I'd have no way to stop it. In most circumstances, Ferrothorn would have little trouble stopping Excadrill, but the risk of putting itself within Kangaskhan's KO range would prevent me from using it in this situation.

Now we'll talk about a few support roles. The issue with listing support roles is that there's so damn many of them, from Baton Passers to parashufflers to weather setters, but we'll talk about a few of the most common of them.

The first is the status inflicter (or status annoyer, or what have you). These Pokemon support your team by spreading bad status conditions like paralysis or burns around your opponent's team. A team full of fast offensive sweepers is a lot easier to deal with when they've had their speed cut by paralysis or their attack cut by burns. Prankster users like Sableye fall into this category, along with parashufflers (Pokemon that use moves like Thunder Wave in conjunction with a phazing move like Dragon Tail or Roar to spread paralysis among your opponent's team) and things of that sort.

Another type of support Pokemon could be called the set-up supporter, although there's no one true name for it. This category would include Pokemon like hazard setters, who set up entry hazards like Sticky Web and Stealth Rock, dual screeners, who set up Light Screen and Reflect in order to cut incoming damage in half and make it easier for a frailer Pokemon to set up, weather setters who set up weather conditions like Rain or Sand, or Trick Room setters who set up the move Trick Room. These Pokemon usually set up conditions that make it easier for your other Pokemon to do their jobs, whether it be by weakening opponents with Stealth Rock or helping a frail sweeper set up by setting up Light Screen and Reflect. Often times this role is combined with another, for instance an attacker may choose to carry Stealth Rock so it can set that up if it has a free turn, essentially supporting its team while it puts offensive pressure on the opponent's team.

Another supporting role would be the Baton Passer, a relatively uncommon type of Pokemon who uses the move Baton Pass along with a boosting move to pass stat boosts to a sweeper that might otherwise lack a way to boost its stats. A common example of this would be some Smeargle sets that use the moves Shell Smash and Baton Pass to pass stat boosts to a sweeper like Garchomp, who otherwise lacks a way to boost its Speed. Running these Pokemon is sort of a gamble, because on one hand you're essentially sacrificing a teamslot. Smeargle won't be doing anything on its own, so you're essentially running only 5 Pokemon, but on the other hand a Garchomp at +2/+2/+2 is nothing to shake a stick at. It's like you're sacrificing one of your Pokemon in order to drastically buff another. Some teams even run what is called a Baton Pass chain, in which they use multiple Pokemon with Baton Pass and boosting moves to accumulate boosts in several different stats, and then eventually pass them to a sweeper who can use the boosts to sweep the opposing team.

There's of course many more roles than the ones I've listed here, but these are the most common and most influential ones you're likely to encounter and use. There's also many Pokemon who combine 2 or more roles into one. For instance, Calm Mind Suicune is both very adept at taking hits, making it a tank or a wall, as well as sweeping with Calm Mind, making it a sweeper.

=Work in Progress, will finish either tomorrow or Friday=

User avatar
By CritsAreFair
#171753 Guess I got some explaining to do.

So uh... All I can say is I had some real life stuff going on, and I basically didn't have chance to play Pixelmon at all for a couple months, let alone write a guide for it. I'm back now though, and I intend to finish this. Sorry for leaving this incomplete for so long.

Expect another chapter tonight if I can get it up in time, tomorrow if not. Next chapter will be on that fickle beast, Synergy, so it should be somewhat interesting.

EDIT: Apparently there's 20,000 character limit on posts. I didn't realize this. Oh well, here's the next section of the guide.

At some point in the future I might just put the entire guide on PDF files to make it more convenient. If I had known there was a character limit I probably would have reserved a few posts.

Synergy | Show
Synergy is probably a term you've heard thrown around a lot if you've ever ventured into competitive circles, but very rarely do people actually define it, or talk about it in depth at all. Well, here we go.

Synergy is defined as " the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects", if we're going by the dictionary definition. That's surprisingly accurate, if you ask me. Essentially, synergy is how well the individual components of your team mesh together to form a greater overall team. 6 carefully chosen, synergetic Pokemon are going to do a lot more than 6 Pokemon picked at random.

Synergy exists in multiple different forms. The most obvious is type synergy. Type synergy is how your team utilizes type advantages and disadvantages to cover each other's weaknesses. Let's take a closer look.

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Alright, so here we've got a Slowbro. Slowbro's typing is Water/Psychic, leaving him with a weakness to Grass, Electric, Bug, Ghost, and Dark. He resists Fire, Ice, Fighting, Psychic, Water, and Steel. This means he's going to have problems with strong Grass, Electric, Bug, Ghost, and Dark attacks, while he can easily soak up Fire, Ice, Fighting, Psychic, Water, and Steel-typed attacks for his allies.

So now we need to choose some teammates for our Slowbro. We need to look at his weaknesses and then look for Pokemon that resists those, and we also need consider his resistances when choosing new Pokemon. Let's take a look at our options...

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Well, Steelix resists Electric, Bug, Ghost, and Dark and is neutral to Grass. On the other hand he's weak to Fire, Fighting, Water, and Ground. Slowbro resists 3 out of 4 of these types. Thus we can say Steelix and Slowbro have pretty good type synergy, with each one covering most of the other's weaknesses.

But that's not all we have to consider. Now we need to take a look at stat synergy. This means taking a look at your Pokemon's stats to make sure you've got all your bases covered. For instance, if your team is full of physically bulky Pokemon with squishy special defense, what are you going to do when you run into a strong special attacker like Alakazam or Gengar? If your team is full of special attackers with no physical attackers, will Blissey be able to laugh at you all day long?

Let's take a look at Slowbro and Steelix's stats. The first thing you'll notice is that they both have great physical bulk, with good HP and high Defence stats. The second thing you'll notice is that they have rather low special bulk. It's also worth pointing out that they're both extremely slow.

This unbalance in their defensive stats means powerful Special attackers can easily muscle past them. Slowbro can take physical hits like they're nothing, and so can Steelix, but they take special hits far less kindly. Life Orb Gengar in particular scores an OHKO on both with Shadow Ball and Focus Blast respectively. Luckily, you have a number of options to solve this. You could drop Slowbro for his specialy defensive cousin, Slowking. You could drop Steelix for a different Steel type with more balanced defenses. You can use up a third team slot for a specially defensive Pokemon that covers more of your weaknesses, like a Grass type of my own, or a Chansey to check Gengar, Alakazam, etc.

Offensive Pokemon are much the same. You generally want to have a balanced number of physically-inclined and specially-inclined Pokemon on your team. Stacking too many of one type will mean that it's much easier to wall you.

The last form synergy takes is a little more complex, but I call it "utility synergy". This essentially means how well your Pokemon can help each other out outside of typing and stats. For instance, Fighting and Psychic-typed Pokemon really want Ghost types out of the way, so Pokemon that can learn the move Pursuit to trap and KO Ghost types synergize well with them. Set-up sweepers really appreciate the extra damage on the opponent from entry hazards so Pokemon that can set those up synergize well. On the flip side of the same coin, Pokemon who are weak to entry hazards like Stealth Rock want them removed, so Pokemon with the move Rapid Spin synergize well with them.

One of the more popular examples of this kind of synergy was the "DragMag" archetype. This utulized the Pokemon Magnezone's ability to trap Steel types with Magnet Pull alongside a powerful Dragon-typed Pokemon to sweep teams. Being as in the 5th generation the only thing that resists Dragon is Steel, if the opponent's Steel-typed Pokemon were removed it makes it a lot easier for a Dragon to sweep with Outrage. Magnezone has the ability Magnet Pull, which stops Steel types from switching out of him, so one common strategy was to lure out your opponent's Steel-type Pokemon and then switch Magnezone in to dispose of it, leaving your Dragon free to sweep.

In a nutshell, when you're designing your team, you need to be aware of your Pokemon's typing, stats, abilities, etc. in order to make sure they mesh together as well as possible. If you haphazardly throw together 6 random Pokemon, even if they're 6 random good Pokemon, then you're not going to be able to take that team very far.
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