| Writer CuteBun at 2019-07-17 at 1:18 AM | 1 |
A word of wisdom: Having a good attitude: getting better isn’t just about gathering strong pokemons. If you keep losing, maybe you’re making wrong decisions during the battle or in your team building process. This guide covers very important basics about PvP that will help you improve or simply remind you of a few things. Experiment and keep it up!  Mechanics IVs and EVs Individual value (IV) and Effort value (EV) are extremely important. The IVs goes from 0 to 31 and is a flat bonus to the attribute at level 100. Accordingly, at level 50, the IV adds half its value. Your goal is to get at least 25+ in your relevant attributes not to influence too much your pokemon’s potential. The only exception is for pokemons that rely on speed. Don’t lock any attribute until you have 31 speed even if it’s tempting. Speed ties are common enough and impact the game way more than having any other slightly lower attribute. The EVs cap at 510 but 2 of them are useless. Why? Every 4 EV will increase your attribute by 1 at level 100 which means you end up with 508 of it being used. The maximum in one attribute is 252 but maxing them isn’t always the option (even if it often is). For example, Crobat needs 124 attack EVs in order to OHKO Alakazam. With a more aggressive spread, you can max it out to 252 but if you want to use it for its utility, you can also invest 252 in speed and 132 in health. That way you can adapt a pokemon to your needs. Many slow wallbreakers will invest fully into their offensive stat but also the minimum in speed to outspeed key walls that they want to remove and the rest in health to be able to take a hit more easily. Priority Moves: Those are moves that change the order of the pokemon that moves first regardless of their speed (unless both are using a priority move of the same tier, then the fastest pokemon moves first). Here is a list of the moves by tier: +7 : Pursuit (against a switching pokemon) +6 : Switching a pokemon +5 : Helping hand +4 : Detect, Magic Coat, Protect (and similar moves), Snatch +3 : Endure, Fake Out, Follow Me, Quick Guard, Rage Powder, Wide Guard +2 : Extreme Speed, Feint +1 : Aqua Jet, Bullet Punch, Mach Punch, Sucker Punch, Ice Shard, Shadow Sneak, Vacuum Wave, Quick Attack, Bide, Ally Switch 0 : All the other moves -1 : Vital Throw -2 : None -3 : Focus Punch -4 : Avalanche, Revenge -5 : Counter, Mirror Coat -6 : Circle Throw, Dragon Tail, Roar, Whirlwind (phazing moves) -7 : Trick Room, Wonder Room, Magic Room Status Condition: The status can be induced either with a move specifically used to do so (Thunder Wave) or with an additional effect with a percentage to apply (Scald with 30% to burn). Each status has its own effects and utility that can be abused. Burn: It reduces the damage outcome of physical moves by 50% while doing 6.5% damage at the end of every turn. Fire pokemons and a few exceptions are immune to the status fully or partially. Freeze: There are no specific inducing moves like the other status but can be applied with additional effects. Once frozen, the pokemon has 20% chance at the beginning of its attack phase to thaw out. Ice pokemons are immune to it. Paralysis: It reduces the speed to 25% of its original amount and gives a 25% chance to skip a turn as the pokemon will be simply paralyzed. Electric pokemons and a few exceptions are immune to it. Poison: There are two kind of poisons. The normal one that does 12.5% damage every turn and badly poisoned that starts at 6.5% then increases every turn by an additional 6.5%. Toxic spikes inflict poisoned with one layer, badly poisoned with two layers. Poison and steel pokemons are immune to it alongside a few exceptions. Sleep: The pokemon affected by sleep skips its attack phase for one to three turns (⅓ chance for each) unless it is self induced by rest, then it is two turns. Some typing immunities can be applied such as grass types resisting spore/sleep powder. Some other exceptions are also immune or reduce the amount of turns sleeping. Support Moves to clear conditions: Aromatherapy, Heal Bell, Healing Wish, Lunar Dance, Psycho Shift, Refresh, Rest. Entry Hazards: Those mean beans will affect a pokemon switching into the side of the field where hazards are applied. Pokemon PvP is very technical and often requires many switching which means hazards can be extremely harmful. They are both useful for offensive teams trying to get a OHKO and more defensive teams aiming to win with residual damage. Stealth Rock: Usually the most common, it does 12.5% damage to a pokemon switching into the field. The damage is rock based which means anything that resists it takes less damage and those that are weak to it will take more damage. Dragonite will take 25% damage (because of its flying typing) and Charizard will take up to 50% damage because of its double weakness to rock (fire+flying). Using pokemons weak to rock, especially as your win condition, requires a good control over hazards. Spikes: It can be stacked up to three times (12.5%/16.67%/25%) and will cause a lot of pressure. The damage is typeless but raised pokemons (flying type or levitate ability) won’t be affected by it. While Stealth Rock is more versatile and doesn’t require as much investment, Spikes can do a tremendous amount of work in a semi-stall or stall team. Toxic Spikes: It can be stacked up to two times (poisoned/badly poisoned) and won’t hit raised pokemons. Although this hazard is less common, it can put in a lot of work. A grounded poison pokemon can remove them simply by switching in. Sticky Webs: For all you shuckle lovers out there. Sticky Webs reduce by one stage (by 33%) the speed of grounded pokemons which can be a very effective strategy for offensive teams. Ways to remove hazards: Rapid Spin: It removes the hazards on your side of the field. It’s a normal move which means a ghost type can prevent the move from being successful, therefore keeping the hazards active. Defog: It removes hazards from both sides of the field. It’s the safest way but also means that you must reapply your own hazards. It also has beneficial effects such as removing screens. Phazing und Hazing: In order to prevent your opponent from setting up or to make good use of your own hazards, those moves find themselves extremely useful. Hazing: The use of Haze or Clear Smog allows you to reset the buffs a pokemon can hold. Mantine using haze against Suicune would remove all the calm mind stacks by example. It’s a good strategy to prevent someone from creating a massive powerhouse to take out your team. A negative aspect from it is that you don’t force out the opponent who can apply the buffs once again. It would still cut short an attempt to baton pass. Phazing: More common, phazing consists in forcing a switch which resets the stat changes from buffs. It is also used to maximise hazards damage and, for the current P1 meta, scouting the opponent’s team until team-preview comes out. Those moves are Dragon Tail, Circle Throw, Roar and Whirlwind. They also always move last because of their priority (-6). Relevant resources: PokemonDB: click here A very wide pokedex that allows you to look up the attributes of a pokemon, his abilities and his potential moves. You can also verify what you will need to learn a move (Egg, Tutor, Relearner, TMs). Damage Calculator: click here Very useful tool from Showdown that will allow you to see the damage potential of things. It becomes very crucial in the team building process by understanding the outcomes of certain matchups or how much damage would X pokemon take if it hard switch into Y. It’s also quite useful to prepare your EVs. Smogon: click here Very good website to get an idea of what a pokemon can do. P1 has its own meta because of the difference in the availability of both pokemons and items so do not always copy paste and try to figure out what does your team need in the current meta. |
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